MEETING AUTHORS(ish) #9: PETER STRAUB

From Peter Straub's Amazon page

I'm calling this one MEETING AUTHORS(ish) because I technically didn't meet Peter Straub. I was in his presence, though. That's what this is about. And I think I'm on #9 of the series, but I'm too lazy to look back through years of blogs to check.


Once upon a time, I wrote for a website called Napalm Assault. It has long since perished, but I had a lot of fun working for them. It got me into some wonderful situations, but the best benefit was getting press passes to comic book conventions.


I was covering the first C2E2 when I saw Peter Straub. I had no idea he was going to be there. As far as I know, he hadn't even been announced. I've been reading his books since I was a freshman in high school, so imagine my surprise when I saw he was on the Vertigo panel. (He was promoting this.) I felt giddy. I don't go all fanboy very much, but I felt it rising in my throat.


When it came time for questions, you bet I had my hand up. Much to my dismay, I was never chosen. I learned later that Karen Berger (who moderated the panel) ignored me because I was wearing a suit, and she thought I was a convention worker. I never wore a suit at a convention again.


The panel ended, and I went into the bathroom to piss. I sensed someone approaching the urinal next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peter Straub himself. I thought, "Holy shit! I'm pissing next to Peter Straub!" I'd been getting interviews all day, and my next thought was: "Is now a good time to ask him for an interview?" I almost asked him. I came within a hair of blurting it out.


I decided not to ask. I zipped up and washed my hands. Outside the bathroom, I decided I'd wait for him to come out and then introduce myself. My first book hadn't been released yet, so there was no way he'd know me. Hell, even if it had been published, he still wouldn't know me. I felt the giddiness returning.


And then I started feeling like a creep. I never asked for the interview. But looking back, I think I should have. It would at least make this story more interesting.


It's funny. When you go to cons, you never expect to be pissing with the guests. I also ran into Garth Ennis at a urinal, and I almost pissed next to Tom Atkins. You know how Seinfeld has that comedians and cars and coffee show? I think I should have a show about meeting authors at urinals.


Anyway, if you haven't read any of Straub's work (you fucking heathen), you should start with the one that will still be talked about 100 years from now: Ghost Story. But my favorite is Shadowland. Go forth and read.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #166: OF LATE I THINK OF MY CHILDHOOD

I don't know why I've been thinking of my childhood of late, but here are two episodes from my youth. I must have been the same age I was when I first saw The Empire Strikes Back, as described last time.


My grandparents on my step-father's side got me a piggy bank when I was a kid. They said that whenever I find loose change, I should put it in the bank until it's full. I asked them what I should do when the piggy bank (which was transparent) got full of coins. They told me that I should break it open with a hammer and get the coins exchanged for paper money.


The very idea that I had to smash this wonderful gift with a hammer drove me crazy. There was no fucking way that I was going to break this glass pig. It broke my heart, thinking I would have to do this eventually.


I never did break that piggy bank. I held it upside-down and jerked it back and forth until all the coins had slipped out of it. I still have that piggy bank to this day. Whenever I find coins in my basement, I toss 'em in there. And when it looks full, I'll get each coin out the hard way.


Another time: my step-father (in one of his rare moments of giving; usually he was only giving when it came to negative comments and physical abuse) gave me a pinata for my birthday. I loved that pinata. I had no idea that I was supposed to break it open and get the goodies inside. When he told me that was what I was supposed to do, I absolutely refused to do it. As I recall, I got a beating out of it, but I held onto that pinata for a long time. I wonder whatever happened to it.


I'm a fucking weirdo. I obsess over things like that. I really want that pinata, even though I'm 37 fucking years old. I lost a baseball when I was a kid, and I still have horrible dreams about it. I still wonder if maybe it's still in the bushes across the street, and it takes all of my self control to not go and look for it. I lost it 25 years ago. It can't possibly still be there, but I still think about it in my OCD kind of way.


I gotta learn how to let things go.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #165: AN EMOTIONAL MOMENT REVISITED

I'm going to post something about a spoiler for the new Star Wars movie. I know it's still pretty new, and people are still pretty sensitive, so if you're concerned about The Force Awakens spoilers, turn back now.


I don't fully remember this, but I do have some vague recollection. I'm told that the first time I saw The Empire Strikes Back, I did something. I'd watched the original episode back when it was just known as Star Wars many times. I had it on a Beta tape with scenes that were cut from the theatrical movie. I watched it obsessively.


But the first time I saw The Empire Strikes Back? I freaked out. You remember the scene. Luke and Vader have been fighting for a good deal of the climax, and finally, near the end, Vader savagely severs Luke's lightsaber hand.


I'm told that when I saw this scene for the first time, I screamed. I jumped up and ran into my mother's arms, weeping my eyes out and kissing her face, begging her to let it not be true. It horrified me beyond all belief. It's the second piece of fiction to have ever hurt me. (The first being the end of Night of the Living Dead. But that's a story for another day.)


Fast forward a few decades. I'm watching the new Star Wars movie, and there's a scene that makes me feel like I did when I saw Luke's hand get cut off.


You know the scene. But don't get me wrong: it's not the moment when Kylo Ren's lightsaber goes through Han Solo's chest. No.


It's seconds later, when Han Solo caresses his son's face before he falls off the OSHA-disapproved bridge. That one moment, his hand on his son's face, that I felt the very same as when I was a kid watching Luke's hand fly off into oblivion. The young-dumb-full-of-cum Han Solo we met in episode 4 would never have done that. The aged, knowledgeable Han Solo he became? It hurts my heart just thinking about it.


If my mother was still alive, I probably wouldn't have done the same thing. I would have gone to her and told her about it, though. I miss her. We had a lot of problems, but goddammit. I miss her.


Fuck. For the most part, I've healed from my mother's death. Every once in a while, though, it sneaks up on me, and it cripples me. I have tears in my eyes right now. It hurts after all these years. I cry uncontrollably. I can't help it.


I miss you, Mom. Thank you for teaching me that endings don't have to be happy with Night of the Living Dead. And thank you for showing me that heroes struggle. They don't always make it through in one piece. I wouldn't be the writer I am today without you.

HEY, FUCKERS #27: CAUGHT IN THE ACT

Writers, you must always be wary of your readers. If you fuck something up, they will be all over you. Remember details of your work, or you'll be sorry later. The most famous example was pointed out by Stephen King in regards to ROBINSON CRUSOE. In one scene in that book, Crusoe strips naked and swims out to the wreck of his boat. He then proceeds to fill his pockets with items he thinks will help him survive. Except his pockets are on his pants, which are back on the beach, so . . .


Don't make that kind of fuck up. Be vigilant in the facts of your work, or you'll end up like Graham Masterton.


I just read THE MANITOU, and then I started MANITOU BLOOD. I was not aware that there were a few books in the series between these two, and I don't have them. Not to worry, though. It doesn't seem necessary to have read the others to enjoy this one.


Except . . . well, in THE MANITOU Masterton (spoiler alert for a book older than I am) kills off the character of Amelia Crusoe (no relation?). Yet in MANITOU BLOOD, she's alive and well and as helpful as ever. Wait, what? How does that happen? Did I miss something in the other books I didn't read?


I scoured the internet, driving myself crazy trying to figure out this mystery. I read synopses of the other books, looking for any clue. Did Masterton bring her back to life with some kind of occult ritual?


And then I found the answer in an interview he did years ago. The solution is so much more basic than I ever thought it would be. He admits to fucking up pretty badly on this one. When writing the first sequel, he completely forgot that he killed Amelia. (Which I guess is understandable since he killed her "off-screen." I think maybe that's why all the books after the first aren't strictly told from first person POV.) It didn't occur to him until much later. (I wonder if a reader busted him. That's probably what happened.) (I gotta stop it with these parenthetical statements. It looks ugly, and I shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Sorry.) He gave no reason for her resurrection, but according to the interview, he came up with this lame excuse: that her body was so charred it was easy to misidentify her corpse. Huh.


Let that be a lesson to you all. Thus endeth this edition of HEY, FUCKERS.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #164: STATE OF MY HEALTH

It's been a while since I mentioned my health around here. Once again, I'm trying to quit fast food and sugary drinks (except for my morning Tang). How did I do today? I knew I'd have a lemonade in the morning, but after that? I did OK. No fast food. Nothing beyond that lemonade.


Oh! And, uh, I plan on cutting back severely on my booze intake. Don't worry! It's not a permanent change. I just need to lose some weight soon, or my doctor will kill me.


*ahem* I won't be cutting back much on the booze, though. Not while I'm afraid I have broken my tailbone again. Right now, the only thing that makes me feel normal is drinking. My tailbone kills me, otherwise. The aspirin and ibuprofen isn't working. I'm going to see if I can get into the doctor who looked at me the last time I broke my tailbone. I want to skip all the ER visits and the X-rays and stuff and just skip ahead to the painkillers. Not because I love the painkillers (which I do), but because it's all so fucking expensive. I can feel that my tailbone is broken. There is nothing they can do to fix it except give me painkillers to get through the next three months. That's all I ask.


But yeah. If I get the painkillers, I'll scale back on the drinking severely. If not? Well, I expect to be hungover a lot in the next few months. That can't be good for my pancreas. Wish me luck.

ENNIO'S BACK!

While the rest of you were getting nostalgic chills watching a Star Wars intro scroll and listening to John Williams's iconic theme song, I was busy getting the very same feeling as THE H8FUL EIGHT began playing. (Just kidding. During the start of THE FORCE AWAKENS, I got the same nostalgic chills, but it sounded like a good way to start this.)


Seriously. I was absolutely thrilled to hear the first original western score from Ennio Morricone in how many years now? Morricone is my absolute favorite film composer. You've probably heard his music at some point in your life. If not, get some fucking culture, you goddam savages. Go here. And here. And here. And here. And here. That should get you started.


This score isn't as iconic as his earlier work, but goddam, it is fucking awesome. I whistled some of it on the way to my car. You know how much I loved the music? I broke one of my most sacred rules. I don't buy anything on holidays mostly because I think it's unfair those poor saps in retail have to work when they should be home with their families and friends. Well, I went straight from the theater to Best Buy. I suppose I could have gotten it from Amazon, but I wanted the score immediately in my hands. I got the only copy they had and played it in my car on the way home. I'm listening to it as I type these words. That is how much I loved this music. Here's a small sample. It's completely Morricone. You can hear familiar strains from his work on FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. You can hear some of the harmonica from ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. It brought me back to my youth when I first saw the spaghetti westerns. I was lucky enough to have seen THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY on the big screen when the complete version played at the Music Box. THE H8FUL EIGHT made me feel like I did back when I saw tGtBatU.


Morricone's music isn't the only wonderful thing about this movie. No. I loved every fucking minute of it. Everyone does a great job. Tarantino nails the spaghetti western so well that sometimes I felt like we'd uncovered a lost Sergio Leone film. (Although Leone would have probably elongated the beginning, leaving it completely without dialogue, just the sound of the whistling wind and some kind of weird sound effect in the background.)


I loved the new Star Wars, but THE H8FUL EIGHT was the one movie I'd spent most of 2015 looking forward to seeing, especially once I learned about who did the score. I was not let down. I loved each and every scumbag character we met. I loved seeing Bruce Dern--the motherfucker who killed John Wayne that one time, and he tried to kill Marshal Dillon a couple of times--back in a western. I loved the atmosphere (I felt the merciless cold while sitting in the theater). I loved the bloodbath. I even loved the flashback. I usually hate flashbacks, but this one is pretty integral to the story. And holy Christ, I loved the ending.


I want to see it again. Immediately. WHO'S WITH ME?!

HEY FUCKERS #26: ENOUGH TO MAKE A BIBLIOPHILE CRY

I just finished reading FINDING ATLANTIS by David King, which I highly recommend. It's the great true story of a man who thought he'd discovered Atlantis in Sweden. I loved the hell out of it even though I don't think he was right. (I don't think the author believed in this theory, either.) While reading this book, however, I came upon something that ripped my heart out, and I know it would pain any of my fellow bibliophiles.


Ever hear of the Silver Bible? It's a Gothic translation of the gospels of the Bible. It was taken from the Goths in battle, and it was eventually (over the course of centuries) brought to Sweden where it is kept until this very day. It's a very valuable book, as there is only one copy in the world. The keeper of the Silver Bible thought it was so valuable that he figured he'd sell it by the page.


THAT'S RIGHT. HE TORE OUT EVERY PAGE WITH THE INTENTION OF SELLING THEM TO DIFFERENT BUYERS AT HIGH COST.


That's absolutely disgusting behavior. He was a librarian, so he should have known better. But according to King it would seem that a lot of librarians back then were unscrupulous sorts. Still, it hurts just thinking about that. Luckily the chancellor of Sweden (known, incidentally, as "the most beautiful man in the world") at the time managed to buy up most of the pages, so we have a good deal of the book today. But it's not complete, all because of that dickhead librarian.


Fate wasn't done with the Silver Bible, though. A scholar along the way changed the wording of some passages to make it fit his theories. No one knows who did it. Everyone has their suspicions, but whoever it was, he's a dickhead, too.


And then there are the assholes who broke into the university library in the 1990's and stole the whole thing. It was eventually recovered, but still. Come on.


(It should also be noted that the Silver Bible was almost lost to the sea during its transport to Sweden from Prague. Apparently the only thing that saved it was being locked in a sturdy oak chest.)


So yeah. If you happen upon some ancient text, like there's only one of it in the world, try not to tear it to pieces and sell it page by page. That's dickhead behavior, and some guy like me will call you out on it centuries from now.