Six months to think and research, two months to write, late nights and lost sleep. This is my best yet, I believe. I love the story, very much. It feels strange to finish it.

The logline on Inktip.com (now) reads:

A kidnapped orphan grows up to become a combat champion after a sinister promoter sews a special armor to his skin. The young fighter must risk everything to rescue an aging anti-slavery legend, as well as his childhood sweetheart.

That’s an understatement, lemmetellya.

Michele Wallerstein warned me not to post my scripts online, except at services like Inktip, where only industry-registered producers and agents can download them.

However, available only on New-Worlds, for a limited time:

Mechanical Man

Off to Blue Cat and Scriptapalooza on Saturday.

Joe the F*****g Plumber is on the road!

Washington Post

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 26, 2009; Page C01

Joe the Plumber (no longer a plumber; first name actually Samuel) popped into our town yesterday evening to sell his new book and to remind people that he’s still a plain and simple guy. Mission accomplished, on at least one of his missions.

About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border’s bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.

——————————————————-

Joe replied that he believes “our American heritage is being torn apart” by flag burners, critics of the military, and those who mock Christian values. He expressed his admiration for patriotic immigrants, and said he dislikes terms like African American and Asian American (“We’re all Americans,” he said). For some reason, he concluded by saying, “America has always been a kick-butt, take-names kind of country.”

Wurzelbacher was scheduled to speak and sign books for three hours, but the Joe Show was over in 55 minutes. Total copies of “Joe the Plumber” sold: five.

More

Junkdrawer notes that this is his favorite 5-star review on bn.com:

Posted February 21, 2009, 2:55 AM EST: I am so tired of these liberal terrorists who want to take my money and give it to black people. And that is why I am glad that there are people like Joe. Real Americans who don’t need education at fancy schools, who don’t need a license to perform their trade, who don’t even need to be named Joseph to call themselves Joe. America has been taken over by socialists, and it is time to take America back. It would be a very different place if Joe were in charge. A real country with real people who don’t hate America and instead just hate liberals. No one would ever need credentials. The only thing that would matter is how much you hate liberals. You could pontificate about Israel without knowing anything about the middle east, or history or politics, or all the lies that those liberal academics tell you in school, so that you can just be a patsy and blindly swallow all the nonsense that the liberal media feeds you. If you can read beyond a second grade level, you can probably handle this book, and you should. Because you will learn what being a real American is all about.

Just wow.

Paul Jenkins

When Republicans suffered a disastrous beating in November’s election, it would have been fair to assume that things could not get worse for them: the-most-liberal-Senator was to be president, Nancy-Pelosi-from-San-Francisco was going to lead a massive Democratic majority in the House, and assorted socialists were going to run things. That was bad, yes, but this week, just like the stock market (funny how that goes), Republicans hit yet a new low. In recent days, Republican leaders were called cheesy, off-putting, disastrous, untrustworthy, and inconsequential, not by Democrats, but by their party’s own members, from high-profile commentators to Governors.

The highlight of the GOP week was, of course, Governor Bobby Jindal’s response to Barack Obama’s Congressional address. The best that can be said for Jindal’s performance is that it channeled Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock, presumably not the objective, even for someone who willingly changed his name to “Bobby.” But the past seven days have offered so many moments of breathtaking inanity by the GOP that our head spins at trying to organize them cohesively. With the country on the verge of being swallowed up in its entirety by the spiraling economy, Republicans obsessed over Obama’s citizenship, gay people, pregnant women with HIV, helicopters, primary challenges to their own Senators from porn stars and Christian fundamentalists, registration forms, hopeless recounts, and assorted variations on the 1981 theme of “Government Is The Problem.”

More

I’m reading Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew, an incredibly well-written history of the modern conservative. Did you know that the prime architects of Conservative Thought were either complete lunatics or anti-American fascists? Who could have guessed?

This from a Wall Street Journal reporter.

This book makes me angry all over again. The Republican Party is an American cancer. I hope we survive it.

CNN

(CNN) — Author Philip Jose Farmer died in his sleep Wednesday, according to a message on his Web site.

Farmer was known for his science-fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. He was 91.

The Peoria, Indiana, native’s most popular work was his “Riverworld” series, written in the 1970s.

Joe Lansdale, a critic, writer and friend of Famer’s, credited Farmer with changing the face of science-fiction.

“I just can’t begin to tell you how important he is to the field as well as other fields,” Lansdale said.

Critics say Farmer was the first author to address adult sexual themes in science-fiction novels.

Jonathan Strahan, an editor and critic for Locus magazine said he treated sex seriously, not in a juvenile manner or for cheap thrills.

Man, I loved Riverworld. Read it about ten times. 91! What a life!

Mark Twain and Herman Goering owe PJF a great debt. Someday, the movie will rule the box office, mark my words. Great story.

I have to wonder what part of the River is he going to wake up in, and with whom.

The concept of the giant metal food-dispensing mushroom has always fascinated me.

Circuit Girl

Mixing at work last night. Took a break. Blaze was playing this on the Yamaha. I made up some words and tracked it.

Lyrics:

she came from shelton
circular delivery
she was full of pain
solemn as can be
circuit girl
orange light flashes on display
it’s a beautiful day
she comes alive
oh circuit girl
come into my arms tonight
stay all night
it will be right
i’m in trouble
overload
circuit girl

ElectroFun. Best enjoyed by cranking up the 1000 watter and dancing to it naked out in the rain. In the backyard, of course. Unless the front yard feels better.

Max has danced naked in the rain.

Went to see Steve Randall play with this band at the JavaLounge last night. Packed house, not even standing room. Ramboullet ripped, shredded, and delicately danced above this extremely tight four-piece. OMG. Good songwriting and strato-rippin’ by Don Shapireau. Steve sang! Sounded just like a Beatle.

Missy came and sold CD’s. I brought Blaze, whom she hadn’t seen in like fifteen years. The doorman was Murder Merchant’s hyper-metal guitarist friend, Tommy, now playing in Black Leather Daddy. Small World.

Afterward, Steve introduced me as ‘some guy I once played in a faggot sci-fi band with a thousand years ago’.

I was honored.

There is a writer out there, a real writer, a master analyst and researcher to boot, who has written the definitive essay on what has gone wrong with our economy and why. He used to have his own blog, a classic called Whiskey Bar (on top of all he seems to be a Doors fan) unitl the patrons got too unruly. It isn’t a picnic to get through; it’s long and tedious in many respects, but I have confidence in his abilities at striking to the heart of the matter to know that it’s worth reading. I’ll need to read it again (and probably again) just to get even a smidgen of a grasp on things.

Read Billmon’s Chocolate Covered Cotton at Daily Kos.

This is at kirkwood, you can see it if you ride up chair 6… i have a better design, this is just the quick bumper sticker version.

This one has weird stuff in the sky because i was developing her hair and those are hair pieces in the sky, i guess i can make pelicans. and for the scene, yes, i drew it once before but i haven’t found the source files, so i am kinda blocking it in for now. it’s Montara and devil’s slide.