If you're expecting "Jingle Bells" or "The Little Drummer Boy", if you're ready to applaud "O Come All Ye Faithful" or "What Child Is This?", or if you're guessing that disturbing song about a grandmother dying or that emotionally manipulative tune about the shoes, then you're about to be disappointed. If I was forced, at gunpoint (which seems very much against the spirit of the season, but there you have it), to choose the best Christmas song ever, I would have to risk the bullet and declare that the following two are equally perfect: Slade - "Merry Christmas Everybody" - what better way to celebrate Christmas than with this epic tune that came out the year I was born. The hair, the polyester, and the crowd dancing right up with the band - it's visual perfection. The lyrics have it all, from fairy-enforced sobriety, rock and roll grannies, and pun-laden death by concussion. And on top of all that, nothing brings in the season like Noddy Holder screaming, "It's Christmaaaaaaaaaaaas!" Meco - "What Can You Get a Wookie for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)?" - What kind of Star Wars geek kid would I have been if I didn't have this record, where the quandary of what to get a Wookie for Christmas is dwelled upon on the opposite side of a record where children sing to R2-D2 how much they love him. I was always more drawn to the Wookie song. Can't imagine why.
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Everyone was sick for Thanksgiving, and now that we're pulling out of that pool of ick and gross it's time to decorate for Christmas. Fast. The damn holiday is almost here already.
This year Hanukkah overlaps with Christmas, and since we celebrate both in my house it will be a tricky venture, but the decorating couldn't be more different. With Christmas it's the tree (lights, meticulously placed, ornaments, etc), garlands, wreaths, stockings, festively dressed figures, and of course the inappropriate dancing Santa. With Hanukkah, it's pulling the menorah out of the box and setting it on the counter. (After last years debacle of no one in my area selling Hanukkah candles, we stocked up, and now can keep the menorah lit for a full year if we want). So today it's the great cleanup, where the big chair gets pulled out of the corner to make room for the tree and gets stored somewhere else for the month (this year it's the Sun Room, because why not?) and everything needs to be dusted and vacuumed, so of course my lungs are now full of dust and I'm coughing like an asthmatic octogenarian as the warren of dust bunnies band together like a weird high school production of Watership Down and attack me at every turn. Vicious little buggers. 'Tis the season. Once it's all done it will be worth it, as long as I live long enough to see it. For now it's dust mask on, vacuum at the ready, an onward to battle. Ho Ho <cough> <hack> <curse> Ho! A few years ago I went to a writing conference, and in one of the classes which was specifically relating to submitting to publications the instructor made an offhand remark that a person should "try for 100 rejections a year," the idea being to not let fear of rejection keep you from trying, but to embrace the possibility as a necessary evil in the effort to get published. I took that as a challenge. I started on April 6, 2017 and as of this very moment I have accumulated 300 rejections, which means I am well ahead of schedule. It's worth noting that along with those 300 rejections I have also been published nine times with a tenth coming up sometime soon. You can take a glance over at my Publications page if you're curious.
Each of those ten Acceptances have been a thrill ride, from the very first on October 2, 2017, nearly six months after I started submitting, to the last one on June 29 of this year, nearly six months ago. And now thanks to NaNoWriMo I have eighteen new shorts to polish up and send out into the world. Who knows, maybe some of those beauties will get snatched up as well. Only time will tell. Okay, here's the scenario: It's twenty years ago, and I wake up at my girlfriend's house and look out the front window to see the street filled with people. Not just any people, though.
Movie people. Somehow we missed the letter they sent out saying that the street would be shut down due to filming. Luckily, she had already gone to work. Even more luckily, I had the day off. Even more luckily than that, my buddy Paul was a PA on the set. The big names starring in this little movie (that went straight to dvd) were Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper!), Tobyn Bell (Jigsaw, but not yet), and my man Billy Dee. Getting a chance to meet any of them was a longshot, especially since I didn't want to overplay my Paul hand and get him in trouble with the powers-that-were. But Pauli came through and before I knew it I was standing in a lot waiting for the chance to meet Lando Freaking Calrissian. He was very kind, and warm, and friendly. He posed for the above shot and signed a press photo for me, and in the short time we were able to talk, the following exchange happened (by the way, this meeting happened just before The Phantom Menace hit theaters): Me: So will Lando be making a comeback in the new Star Wars movie? BD: What do you mean? I'm not making a comeback. I've been working this whole time! Me: No, I mean...what I meant was...Lando...I...<crawls in hole and dies> This has all come back to me because I just watched the trailer for the Episode IX of Star Wars and was happy to see Lando on the screen. Just as I predicted. Only twenty years too early. It's a common enough scenario: a writer wants to make a name for himself so he writes some stories and gets a few published and then at some point he decides there should be a web page.
This is that web page. |
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