This is Halloween?

Happy Halloween!  Trick or Treat!  Sometimes I can't decide what I'd like more.

So here we sit on All Hallows and I have to admit that my only emotion is confusion.  What?  Halloween?  When the fuck did that happen?  It pounced on me, unprepared, costume-less, and, instead of tearing me to bits and chewing on my soul like it usually does, simply ran past me, and left me bewildered and un-mauled.  I feel a bit like you might after waking up on December 26th and realizing you'd been skipped by Santa the day before and not even noticed.  Shit.  How did this happen?

My blog tells me I've been incommunicado for three and a half months.  Strange because I could swear that my friend Bill was in town just a few weeks ago.  Evidently I'm experiencing some sort of X-files style time loss.  No, wait, maybe I can backtrack and figure this out.

The frame shop, maybe it's the shops fault.  Lets look at the numbers... Hmmm... yep, I think this might have something to do with it.  August, September, and October have all been at least 300% more busy than last year!  That explains something!  Clearly, I'm buried with lots of work framing art for people and keeping the new business alive.  This is a good thing.  Even so, it seems like that wouldn't have been enough to derail me from seeing my favorite holiday coming.

Oh hey, what's this?

Oh yeah!  Princess Thirza!  This little gigglebucket has been taking up a bit of my time and attention.  When Gale's not busy getting tickled by yours truly she spends her time bouncing on my belly and trying to choke me with my own necklace.  It's great fun.  But not enough fun to distract me from Samhain!  Surely there must be something else?

Could it be TaleTown?  Absolutely responsible for some of it.  Taletown is coming along slowly but surely.  I say slowly, but really, considering the scope of the project, and taking into account that it wasn't even conceived of 10 months ago, it's actually moving along ridiculously quickly.  I'd say we're about 35-40% of the way to full playability.  We've got dozens of bits of artwork, the ability to upload it into the game, interior house art is done, database being filled out, and, and, and.... it's all moving along.  Too much to cover. Gimmie six weeks, ask nicely, and you might get to come in, look around, kick the tires, and see how this thing works.  We're hoping for launch in May, realistically July, but who knows.  I'm not much for realistically or else I wouldn't be doing all this stuff simultaneously.  In any case, it's looking awesome.  Here's an interior screenshot if you want to set the inside of your house to fully "creepy" genre for Halloween.

Was is my writing?  No way.  I haven't managed to write any actual prose since July.  I did complete an entire map and world for the TaleTown Multiverse and outline and write the first portion of the comic book I'll be doing with Jiba Molei Anderson; Taletown: The Chrom.  That took up a chunk of my time/creativity in August and September mostly.

Surely all that's enough to keep me from noticing Halloween, right?  Nope.  I'm a Halloween fanatic!  It would have to take a lot more than that!  How about uprooting everything you own and having to move in three weeks?  Would that push it over the top?  *sighs heavily*  Well... I think it just might.

Less than a month ago we discovered that the home we're renting went into foreclosure.  There were several options on the table but the best one involved the bank basically paying us a lump of cash to avoid continuing the lease.  Lumps of cash are good.  But it meant finding a place to live, packing, and moving, in three weeks.  This is, of course, on top of all the other stuff I've already listed. 

We pulled it off.  We found a place, packed it all up, and we've moved.  We're surrounded by boxes.  I opened one and that's when Halloween jumped out and rushed past me.  Damn it.

Next year I'm starting to clear my schedule on October first and painting a great big pumpkin shaped bulls-eye on my chest!

Lord of the Boobs!

Went to see the Lord of the Boobs Burlesque show last week with my buddy Bill at the Gorilla Tango theater.  It's a small place, right down from the bar I hang out at.  It's tiny, but nice.  Lots of brick and, well, as stage, not much else.

The show was more like a comedy play, with interspersed burlesque acts, than your average dancing girl show.  I could tell that whoever wrote it had learned their lessons in "geek-speak" well and had a +1 Girdle of Humor on.  Four heroes set out to kill the evil "DragonBitch".  They meet with werewolves, witches, life stealing dryads, spiders, and malicious pixies along the way.  The whole thing was ripe with D&D jokes (Tit Point for Hit Points, etc), LotR and Harry Potter jokes, and... of course, booty jokes (dwarf underwear reading "Sweet Loot").  The attitude was more silly and fun than sexy, but in a good way.  And there was no lack of sexy too.  It all culminated in a fight between two dragon chicks, a big dance number, and a hell of a lot of applause.  Totally worth seeing!

The four heroines get their quest from the Dungeon Master of Ceremonies

Some fairy girls steal the dwarfs clothing.

The birch dryad's dance.

The big finale!

Top 5 Sounds That Can Never Be Loud Enough

So, any of you who know me are probably aware of my occasional love of excess.  Whole packs of cookies tremble before me, entire TV series absorbed in mere days, entire bodies of works by a particular author read in weeks (chronologically).  Some good things I just can't get enough of.  With that spirit in mind I'd like to give you the Top 5 Sounds That Can Never Be Loud Enough!  In my life, so far, I've never heard any of the following things at a volume that truly satisfies me.  Hopefully, someday I'll be able to fill a canyon with speakers, crank them up, and crack the Earth's crust.

#5.) Swordfights.
There's just something awesome about the clashing of two swords.  Razor sharp steel, swinging at full speed, hammering into another equally deadly instrument of dismemberment is, arguably, the most magnificent sound of collision matter can make.  Hammer to wall, head-on auto collisions, meteors crashing into planets, all pale in comparison to the metallic song two swords can produce.  But they could always hit harder, ring louder!  Although, they do a pretty good job in this clip.  Please note: these are not typical wussy katana swords.  These are some beef-tastic, smasherific, awesome swords.

#4.) Fireworks
I've been to a lot of fireworks shows.  I've also done a fair amount of cutting up fireworks, pouring the powder out, mixing it into one giant firework, sticking a wick in it, and seeing what happens.  But of all the things to like about fireworks (the colors, the patterns, that gunpowder smell), there's nothing I like more than the sound.  My favorite are those tiny white ones that are so loud you feel them in your chest.  Someday, when I'm rich and famous, I'll pay someone to do a fireworks show with ONLY those, all around me, in 360, until I turn into pudding.  Delicious pudding.

#3) Thunder
When I was in Jr High and High School I lived on the first floor while my parents and the rest of my family all lived upstairs.  As a result, I could sneak out of my bedroom window without much trouble at all.  Whenever there was one of those great middle-of-the-night-thunderstorms I'd sneak out, meet up with my friend Gary, and we'd high-tail it off to the forest preserve.  There was a group of trees we called Five Pines.  We'd each pick a tree and climb as high as we could.  Yes, in the pouring rain, thunder, and lightening.  There were times when the trees had an 8-10 foot sway and the thunder sounded like we were right inside it.  Still, I don't think it was loud enough.  I'm going to need a bigger tree or a bigger storm.

#2) Can't Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
There are a lot of songs that I like to listen to loud.  Some songs, in my mind, only work when they're knocking on your rib cage, trying to push the very soul out of your meat.  It's a long list.  Can't Stop by the Chili Peppers is on the top of the list simply because EVERY time I hear it I want it louder.  Cranking up the headphones helps, but I don't get that "full body vibration" feeling that I'm looking for.  I want to be rattled.  Here's the video.  Crank it.

#1) Godzilla's Roar
There is nothing like Godzilla's roar and I can only dream what it would sound like actually emerging from the lungs of the forty story radioactive beast himself.  Puny movie theater and television speakers don't do it justice.  How could they?  Godzilla's roar, that semi-metallic squeal combined with a deep organic rumble, is a sound meant to terrify monsters that gobble up cities.  It's a cry that, most often, is followed by a face melting blast of atomic energy.  It pours out past teeth twice the height of a man with the force of a hurricane.  I sure hope some crazy Godzilla fan with a genetic engineering degree is working hard in some basement in Tokyo right now or else I'll never get to hear the big guy live!

My Interview with Bad Grammar

 

I've had the distinct privilege of being interviewed 

by Brendan Detzner at Bad Grammar!

It's a good half hour of me having my brain picked on all sorts of intriguing topics. 

We discuss Cult Fiction, TaleTown, the state of writing and publishing in general, and then we finish up with me reading my strange magical horror-esque story "The Drunkards Quartet". 

Listen to it here at Bad Grammar #10!

Entraining my Brain

 When I was in my early twenties I used to enjoy the occasional trip downtown to a place, now long gone, called The Float Experience for a dip in a sensory deprivation tank.  A what now?  An isolation tank.  Remember that movie Altered States where the dude takes a buncha weird shrooms, lock himself in a dark tank and reverts to a primordial caveman form?  One of those.  Only there's no drugs or neanderthals.  That movie did for sense-dep tanks what Jaws did for sharks.  Vilified them!  Turned them into something dark, dangerous, and scary.  Well, just like swimming at the beach isn't actually synonymous with being feasted upon by sharks, putting yourself into a tank isn't the road to self-induced madness.

But you might go a little crazy, in a good way.

I could go on and on about the experience in tanks, but really, it's a very personal and subjective experience. It's fairly different for everyone.  It strips away the stimulus and the noise of modern life and leaves you alone with your brain.  How much you enjoy it depends on your brain.  If you dig your brain, get along with it, and understand why it's doing what it does most of the time; you'll likely enjoy the tank.  If you don't like to go poking around in your brain, unless you're planning on changing that habit, I wouldn't recommend it.  It's just you and your mind.  All these testimonies you hear about tanks being relaxing, well, they're assuming you don't have decades of abuse and mental issues just waiting to jump you once your mind is exposed.  And, honestly, this may be a good way to deal with that shit, but don't go in thinking it's a spa day.  Sensory deprivation tanks are mirrors to the things you can't normally reflect.  Gaze carefully.  But enough about tanks.  That's not what I want to talk about.  When we used to go it wasn't for the tanks.  It was for something else...

I want to talk about Brain Waves.

Okay, so here's the thing.  We're all emitting brain waves, all the time.  These can be measured with an electroencephalogram.  There are different types of waves your body gives off in different "States".  Beta when you're awake and active, Alpha when you're drifting to sleep, meditating, super relaxed or daydreaming, Theta when you're asleep, but dreaming, the unconscious active mind, and Delta when you're totally zonked in deep sleep.

The Float Experience used to have this machine that would emit light and sound (it's a LED filled pair of goggles and headphones) in a parallel frequency of the different brain wave states.  The idea was to get your mind to sync with the music/light, like the rhythm people naturally fall into when walking, or tapping your foot to music, or how one tuning fork will pick up the vibrations of another.  The idea of Entrainment is that the machine can play, oh, Theta waves, the ones you emit when you're dreaming, and your mind will auto-tune into that if you relax and let it.  Basically allowing for semi-conscious dream states and enhanced relaxation.  Unlike the tank, there are no demons resting here.

This was the best part of the trip.  I've just discovered a place that has one of these light/sound machines and an hour of brain entrainment is only 20 bucks!  I am soooo going on Tuesday.  Think of it as a brain tune up!

For any of you who are interested in this sort of stuff, below is a chunk of text lifted from LifeStream on how it all works.

Brainwave entrainment uses pulses of lights or sounds or a combination of both to create a rhythmic pulsing of "beats". With each pulsed tone, the brain produces an electrical response.
The brain is a mass of neurons, each taking part in storing, retrieving and transmitting electro-chemical impulses - information, colors, images, sounds, smells and tastes.
With BWE, different areas of the brain are stimulated, allowing for the awakening and subsequent release of various stored material. In a sense quietening the mind for clearer thought and process.
When the brain is provided with a stimulus, through the ears, eyes or other senses, it emits an electrical charge in response. This is called a Cortical Evoked Response.
These electrical responses travel throughout the brain to become what we see and hear. When the brain is given a consistent, repeating stimulus, such as drum beats or flashes of light, the brain responds by synchronizing, or entraining, its electric cycles to the external rhythm.
This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response (or FFR), and it can be used to effectively alter the brainwave pattern.
Deep relaxation is another major benefit resulting from the brains cortical frequency following response. By selecting the desired rate, the brain, via the frequency following response, will tend to mimic the rate it is exposed to and thus enter that brainwave state. This helps to explain why this technology can produce benefits commonly found with meditation.

The Underpass - Part 2

Here's the second half of our mini-comic!  Everyone deserves barbecue once in a while.

The Underpass - Part 1

 

A while back Bill Manning and I decided to collaborate on a little two page comic.  Here's the first page, I'll post the second next week some time.  Click to enlarge it.

This Melting Flesh

So, this weekend was the Cult Fiction: Unholy Sacrifices show.  It marks our fourth show and an entire year of Cult Fiction.  One down, many to go!  With the arrival of Gale I knew I couldn't commit to being one of the show authors, new babies leave no time to write stories.  But this didn't prevent me from being a part of the evening!  I'd had an idea noodling around in my head about a bit of performance art I wanted to try and our one year anniversary seemed like the perfect time to do it.  Gracie was kind enough to record and post it.  Here it is, but blogger minimizes the resolution.  I recommend that you click it and go directly to youtube so you can watch it sloppy HD glory! 

Oh, and as a side note.  I'm aware that I've fallen behind on the blog.  A newborn will do that to you.  But she's a month old now, no more excuses, you should start to see regular posts from me again.  Starting with this one!

Cult Fiction: Unholy Sacrifices

Here it is!  Our FOURTH show!  This time around we offer up four stories guaranteed to appease your appetite for darkness.

• Just A Little Head - By Michael Penkas
• Figure Eight - By Brendan Detzner
• Threads - By Frank Stascik
• "I'm calling it my damn sacrifice story cuz I'm still working on the title" - By Eric Cherry  (obviously Eric will rectify this post-haste!)

A set of fantastic actors will be under our morbid spotlights bringing these chilling tales to some sort of unnatural life. 

Our intermission show are the hysterically eerie, Neally and DJ DigDug performing their nerdcore rap hits Zombie Girlfriend, In Transylvania, and more!  Check out their site and get yourself some serious nerd downloads.

Neally and DJ DigDug

 We're also adding another fun element to the show this time.  An unsettling and inhuman trans-formative piece of performance art by Jude Mire.  We guarantee it's like nothing you've ever seen live!  Just how shallow is your humanity?

The evening will wrap up with indoor S'mores at the bar, drinks, and a party, all behind the backdrop of a musical jam session provided by Art Galt's Widow!  Yes, you heard me, we've got TWO musical acts this time!

DJ 3rik will be around to fill any and all sound gaps with audio awesomeness.  Lauren will be pouring heavy from behind the bar, talking you into that one extra shot you really need.  Trust her, she's a professional!

Writers, actors, musicians, performers, terror, booze, and S'MORES!  

For $5 bucks.  Be there.  The cult commands it!

Lucky Number Grill - Upstairs

1931 N. Milwaukee

Doors open at 8:00

First reading starts at 9:00

Goes until we get kicked out around 2:00

How To Kickstart Taletown Even If You're Poor!

So we've launched our Kickstarter project!  You can find it here

TaleTown: A Facebook game for Readers

I know a lot of people are struggling with money these days.  I know everyone won't be able to pledge.  But do you want to know how you help the project even if you're too poor to donate?  Here's how.

1. Don't just go to the page, search us.  This is the EASIEST thing you can do to help.  Go to Google.com and type in Kickstarter Taletown.  We come up as the #1 project.  Click it.  That's it.  If you want to help more, go to Kickstarter, type Taletown into their search.  Click it.  That's it.  How is this helping?  Kickstarter tracks where people are coming in from.  People searching for the project will cause them to Feature us.  Being featured is a massive boost in exposure.  This is one you can do repeatedly to help!
   
   
2. Up in the top right corner of the TaleTown Kickstarter page is a little "Remind Me" button and a field for putting in your email.  You can put in your email and click it!  It shoots you an email when we update and when it's close to the end of our 90 day run.  The more people we have click it, the higher the project ranks in popularity!  These updates only clutter your email box about once a week till June, not too inconvenient really, plus, you might actually want to see what we're up to and how it's going!
   
   
3. Leave a comment!  Sign up with Kickstarter super quick and drop a line in the comments tab of the Kickstarter page (not here in my blog, I'd like that, but it's not fantastically helpful).  It can be something positive, what you think of the video, even a question about the game.  We'll answer.  More comments helps a LOT.
   
   
4. Share the link.  Of course, this one is pretty self explanatory.  I don't know everyone you know.  They only way they'd ever hear about it is if you share it.  And not just one time.  Maybe once every week or two while the proposal is up.  Don't spam anyone, but once in a while, as we have more updates, would really help.  Everyone loves choose your own adventure stories and you never know what friends of yours are secretly addicted to Facebook games!
    
5. Get revenge on that annoying person who keeps sending you Farmville requests by telling them about us!  Shoot them an individual message with the link and let them know what we're up to.  Our game has lots of the same elements, so they'd probably like it, but also includes real rewards and a much cooler quest system.
   
   
6. Lastly, you could pledge a buck.  It seems insignificant but Kickstarter will prioritize this project over the next 90 days based on several factors.  How many people are pledging weighs more heavily than the amount of money pledged.  At this point, 100 single dollar pledges are more useful than one 100 dollar pledge (obviously, if you can do more that helps too).  So it may seem stupid, but it's not.  It's ridiculously helpful, especially early!  I know you've gotta setup an Amazon to do it, but hey, that's free and useful to have.

That's it for now.  There are other, more invasive and time consuming ways for you to help out if you'd like, but these are the quickest and easiest and will help us make this project a reality.  If you do want to help more, just shoot me a message!