Everyone who spends any time around me knows I'm an avid reader. Throughout 2008, "The Procedure" was in it's festival run and I was thinking about the next project. Early on, I began reading short story anthologies.
Along the way, I discovered a multitude of new writers that I'd never even heard of. Folks like F. Paul Wilson, Bentley Little, and Koji Suzuki. I also devoured the collected short works of writers I've admired for a long time like Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Cornell Woolrich and yes Stephen King.
Doing a quick count on my bookshelf, I've blasted through 29 short story books. Goddamn, that was a fun year. There's a lonely sadness that comes with finishing the last book you can find of an author's short works, especially if that author is no longer with us. If they are, it's mixed in with generous amounts of anger at the audacity of said author for not continuing to write shortform. I'm looking at you Mr. Ellison. Give me more of your drug, man, I'm jonesing.
By the end of the year, I'd developed a mental top 5 of stories that I would absolutely LOVE to have a crack at adapting for film. They may not be the same top 5 another person would pick having read the same stories, but I was going for something specific. I was looking for stories that followed tonally and stylistically similar to "The Procedure". What were they? I'm not gonna tell, because with a little luck I hope to someday have the good fortune and pleasure of doing all 5.
But in a flash of courage one morning, I did reach out to the writer who held the top spot on my 5, and that I can talk about. His name is Terry Dowling. If you haven't heard of him, seek out his works for they are many and they are great. I was pleased to discover we share many similar opinions on horror films and where the genre should go from here.
So to wrap this up, I'm happy to announce the partnership is official. I've recently picked up the exclusive option for two superb short stories which I intend to adapt into feature scripts. Possibly as a short as well. The first, and this was the #1 story on my top 5, is entitled "One Thing About The Night", which appears in the horror short story anthology book "The Dark". It was also selected for "The Year’s Best Fantasy 4" anthology in 2004. The second is "Maze Man" published in 1984 and appears in his collected short works book "Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear".
Terry's unique short stories are comparable to watching a David Fincher film. You often have no idea where you're being led, but at the same time you're loving the ride. Some stories are fun mind-bending nuggets that would feel quite at home as an episode of "The Twilight Zone", while others present you with a hairline sliver view of an immense world rife with possibilities that leave plenty of questions and talking points to discuss. Something more writers and filmmakers should aspire to impart upon their audience whether they like it or not.
I can only hope to do the stories and Terry proud. Wish me luck.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
"Reality" TV
The alarm goes off in the morning, hit snooze. It goes off again, hit snooze... again. Wash, rinse, repeat until the pressure on your bladder hits the same psi rating as that on the headband preventing Bill O'Reilly's noggin from taking up an entire zip code.
Get to work, grab coffee (or tea, or even the dreaded decaf for those social subnormals in our midst. Honestly, it's either caffeinated or just drink water) and then complain about the fact that the commute sucked, the office printer is out of paper or the new paperclips made of recyclable aluminum aren't strong enough to Clockwork Orange your eyes open throughout the day.
Come home to watch a dance competition of has-beens from every echelon of entertainment attempt to defibrillate their infarcted careers by learning to rhumba at the risk of pelvic fracture or -even worse- becoming famous again.
Flip to the show where "real, actual" Orange County bitches complain about their failed marriages and their super-failed extramarital affairs, which is reminiscent of the other show where fake, imagined (but amazingly less siliconed) suburban housewife bitches complain about their failed marriages and dreadfully failed extramarital affairs.
Next, flip over to the show about plus or minus eight (strangely, also corresponding to IQ) fame-hungry, star-fucking Ed Hardy twats fighting over such deeply profound social dynamics as who splashed beer-addled urine out of the toilet bowl and onto the Williams-Sonoma wallpaper. Manipulated drama unfolds from their out-of-context remarks to each other filmed days apart, coupled with forced outings to some location that deeply contradicts one group member's strong personality trait (e.g., taking the staunch Vegan to the Morton's Steakhouse so she can drink iced water and cry on a bloody, still-pulsating porterhouse when it gets "inexplicably" mixed up with her order of steamed vegetables and crushed thyme powder.)
Quickly move on to the must-see-tv, Rashomon-style rehashing of said traumatic event through the eyes of the remaining jackal pack in their post-outing interviews conducted by some underpaid producer so bored out of his mind he leaves the camera running to find a dark corner in order to gain some pleasure from his workday by vigorously masturbating to the sound of a broadcast test pattern all the while thinking about how many wannabe actresses he'll be able to insert that same member into once he tells them the glamorous version of what he does for a living.
Come to the realization that religion is no longer the opiate of the masses. It has now been replaced by Reality TV, and it is publicly sucked up quicker than tv/film rights to the modern day clown-car vaudeville act is the Octomom's uterus.
Turn to more high-brow fare: The spidery web-like herpes rash of shows that consist of:
1) a sexually ambivalent ex-porn "star" looking for love in the form of men, women, farm animals or high-functioning single-cell invertebrates willing to prove their undying devotion by doing such heinous things as eating the pink thing hanging off the back of a baboon or watching FOX News for fifteen minutes with the sound on.
2) a has-been rock idol on the quarterly search for true love in the form of 18-something bleached-blond kindergarten dropouts who were only 3 years old when said rocker was post-concert hoovering lines of coke & crushed Frankenberry off 18-something bleached-blond kindergarten dropouts. It's the hair band power-ballad equivalent of a Mobius Strip. If he manages to pork these women fast enough inside a large hadron collider, scientists have theorized he may be able to penetrate the space-time continuum. Call it the Fux Capacitor.
3) a former contestant of a former tv series where a former celebrity was looking for love... uh, looks for love... with... must stop aneurysm.
Rest assured no career is ever too dead, no bottom-of-the-barrel too scraped, no B,C or D-list too F'ed. When all other competitions fail, there's the option of a massive narcotics & alcohol bender then waiting until the rehab show calls.
Then it's the fast-track to the final circle of hell... being fired as an apprentice by a man who every day looks more like William Shatner, while conversly every day William Shatner looks more like a billionaire.
Peace.
Get to work, grab coffee (or tea, or even the dreaded decaf for those social subnormals in our midst. Honestly, it's either caffeinated or just drink water) and then complain about the fact that the commute sucked, the office printer is out of paper or the new paperclips made of recyclable aluminum aren't strong enough to Clockwork Orange your eyes open throughout the day.
Come home to watch a dance competition of has-beens from every echelon of entertainment attempt to defibrillate their infarcted careers by learning to rhumba at the risk of pelvic fracture or -even worse- becoming famous again.
Flip to the show where "real, actual" Orange County bitches complain about their failed marriages and their super-failed extramarital affairs, which is reminiscent of the other show where fake, imagined (but amazingly less siliconed) suburban housewife bitches complain about their failed marriages and dreadfully failed extramarital affairs.
Next, flip over to the show about plus or minus eight (strangely, also corresponding to IQ) fame-hungry, star-fucking Ed Hardy twats fighting over such deeply profound social dynamics as who splashed beer-addled urine out of the toilet bowl and onto the Williams-Sonoma wallpaper. Manipulated drama unfolds from their out-of-context remarks to each other filmed days apart, coupled with forced outings to some location that deeply contradicts one group member's strong personality trait (e.g., taking the staunch Vegan to the Morton's Steakhouse so she can drink iced water and cry on a bloody, still-pulsating porterhouse when it gets "inexplicably" mixed up with her order of steamed vegetables and crushed thyme powder.)
Quickly move on to the must-see-tv, Rashomon-style rehashing of said traumatic event through the eyes of the remaining jackal pack in their post-outing interviews conducted by some underpaid producer so bored out of his mind he leaves the camera running to find a dark corner in order to gain some pleasure from his workday by vigorously masturbating to the sound of a broadcast test pattern all the while thinking about how many wannabe actresses he'll be able to insert that same member into once he tells them the glamorous version of what he does for a living.
Come to the realization that religion is no longer the opiate of the masses. It has now been replaced by Reality TV, and it is publicly sucked up quicker than tv/film rights to the modern day clown-car vaudeville act is the Octomom's uterus.
Turn to more high-brow fare: The spidery web-like herpes rash of shows that consist of:
1) a sexually ambivalent ex-porn "star" looking for love in the form of men, women, farm animals or high-functioning single-cell invertebrates willing to prove their undying devotion by doing such heinous things as eating the pink thing hanging off the back of a baboon or watching FOX News for fifteen minutes with the sound on.
2) a has-been rock idol on the quarterly search for true love in the form of 18-something bleached-blond kindergarten dropouts who were only 3 years old when said rocker was post-concert hoovering lines of coke & crushed Frankenberry off 18-something bleached-blond kindergarten dropouts. It's the hair band power-ballad equivalent of a Mobius Strip. If he manages to pork these women fast enough inside a large hadron collider, scientists have theorized he may be able to penetrate the space-time continuum. Call it the Fux Capacitor.
3) a former contestant of a former tv series where a former celebrity was looking for love... uh, looks for love... with... must stop aneurysm.
Rest assured no career is ever too dead, no bottom-of-the-barrel too scraped, no B,C or D-list too F'ed. When all other competitions fail, there's the option of a massive narcotics & alcohol bender then waiting until the rehab show calls.
Then it's the fast-track to the final circle of hell... being fired as an apprentice by a man who every day looks more like William Shatner, while conversly every day William Shatner looks more like a billionaire.
Peace.
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