The Official Announcement of Pseudo-Quasi-Awesomeness

Well, I’ll be damned, I’m all teary-eyed. Not in that “I-just-stubbed-my-toe” or “Daddy-ran-over-my-cat” sorta way, but rather something more joyful. I’m happy to announce, dear friends and Myspace lackeys, that my writing website is complete.

In late-September I had a bit of a thirtysomething crisis, a mere hiccup in the grand scheme of things. I thought I wasn’t doing enough with my writing, or doing all I could to try to get my name out there. Some years ago, I toyed with the idea of hosting my own website - a place to act as my online portfolio - but I didn’t think I had much to put on it. Two years after that inkling, and plenty o’ blogs and comics later, I have more than enough to act as a starting point.

What to name it was the second challenge.

For awhile I toyed with “Man-Tear Moments”, as in moments that make men cry; like the ending of Terminator 2. I even had a lit blog with that title, but it just didn’t click with me. When I rebooted my Myspace page, I informally retitled myself as “the lazy literatus”. Egotistical and self-deprecating…PERFECT!

So, I had my name. Now I needed help.

Enter my buddy Adam. He knew a bit more about websites than I did, and had time on his hands. He helped with the basic set-up. I also needed a logo.

Enter my cousin Jason, l’artiste. He and I had worked on a comic together, and he’d perfected a me-like cartoon avatar.

Lastly, I needed professional-ish-themed photos for the bio section.

Enter my gal pal Emily.

With all elements in place, all I needed was self-made content and a bit of a map for it.

This was my scheme.

SECTIONS:

Clargh!:

While I was done doing webcomics for the most part, I still had an itch to do something similar. However, my strengths lay in blogging, not drawing or scripting. Then I thought, why not combine the two? Comic blogs - or “clogs” - had been done before. Rant-style blogs - or “blarghs” - were a dime a dozen. But a rant-style comic blog - or Clargh! - was uncharted territory. Still working out the kinks on this one, so it’s labeled as “Coming Soon”.

Reviews by Rhyme:

Review sites exist for just about anything under the sun, including the topics I was already interested in; movies, cartoons, beer and tea. Review sites that were done to the tune of poetry were nonexistent. This was a market I had to corner. Eh, I don’t have any ready yet, but I’ll get to ‘em. Honest. So, this too is labeled “Coming Soon”. (Hey, the title starts with “lazy”, remember?)

Musings:

I had a plethora of Myspace blogs, but a limited audience for them. Let’s face it, Myspace is where bloggers go to die. It’s like an elephant’s graveyard for elocution. They needed a new home without being called “blogs”. Thus, the “Musings” section was born.

Poetry:

This section exists more to appease my mother than it is for anything practical. She likes my poetry, so what son would I be if I didn’t have a poetry section? ‘Nuff said on that topic.

Prose:

While I have very few completed stories in my authorial arsenal, I do have oodles of world-building outlines. Short stories, novel excerpts, brainstorms, and outlines all had to go here.

Vids:

My brother and I are the most diametrically (and ideologically) opposite people on the planet, but we work well together. He’s a fully functional film student and AV guy. Plus, he does it for a living. I…uh…I write lots of words.

With our powers combined…

Nah, too obvious.

Webcomics:

Okay, okay, there was a short time where I jumped on the webcomic bandwagon. I even suckered my cousin into my little pipe dream. The end result was Random Access. After that stint, I thought I could fly solo with my own strip, Fred & Red. The first was definitely better than the second, but I look upon both fondly. The products of our “labor” can be found in their appropriate sections.

Who knows? I may take them up again.

(Cue evil cackle.)

There.

Now that you have a basic rundown, go play!

And be sure to let me know what you think.

Tags: Add new tag, announcement, Grand, official, opening, website, welcome

Fixing Franchises

As a self-disrespecting geek, one thing above all things angers me to no end; that being the slow death of very good franchises. The most prominent example of this would be the Star Wars line. While most of us still have a soft (maybe, wet) spot for the original - and some lurking respect for the third prequel - we can all agree that George Lucas anally raped his own creation with an acid-lubed power drill. Being a writer, and/or someone involved in the filmic arts, some of us wince in even deeper agony.

One thought escapes us as we view the cinematic abortion through tear-stained spectacles, “I could’ve done better.”

While that may not be true in actuality, in our minds we believe a masterpiece could be crafted by our own hand.

I’m no different.

While I can’t think of any particular way to save the plummeting air-whale that is Star Wars, I do have suggestions for the creators of other ailing franchises, even those that have already concluded. I present to you three franchises I believe I could resuscitate given time, money, effort, and my own private harem.

Behold…

The Matrix

It’s pretty clear to most of us that the Brothers Wachowski never intended The Matrix to be a trilogy. Or if they did, they compressed said trilogy into the first movie. The first installment is a testament to Campbellian hero-epic storytelling at its finest. Wrought with action, pathos, and philosophy, it stands as a near-perfect example of what the cyberpunk sub-genre could’ve offered if given room to breathe.

Unfortunately, they spawned two sequels that were pale crack-whores in comparison. Granted, the action scenes were good, there were some surprises, and seeing Agent Smith sneer again was indeed a treat. But they felt like useless appendages on an otherwise perfect form, like a penis on a parrot…or something.

I mean, the main character became a god. How do you follow that up?

Here’s how…

First off, Neo should no longer be the main character. He should be a peripheral one. Okay, that’s near impossible given the Power That Is Keanu, but from a storytelling angle, Neo’s role is finished. The more interesting aspect of the Matrix-verse wasn’t him anyway. It was the background characters. The little guys, the underdogs, the Tanks, the Trinities, the programs! Move the Minor Leaguers to the Majors!

The most fascinating new addition made to the Matrix sequels was the rogue element, the independent programs that escaped reboot; Merovingian, Persephone, the Twins, and all the others that the Oracle stated were the source of modern-day vampire myths et al. I believe as Harry Knowles (of Ain’t It Cool News fame) does, that this plot thread was under-utilized. Thankfully, I have a way it could’ve been.

Get this…

Humans weren’t happy with the machines, but - at the same time - nor were some machines!

Rogue programs, the Oracle, and others of their ilk were proof of this. If the odds seemed stacked against humankind, with Neo along or not, what else could be done? Der! Side with the rogue element! Sew the seeds of dissent from within! Machine Civil War!

Maybe it’s just me, but that would’ve been damn cool. Agents vs. vampires and werewolves. Merovingian lackeys going ape-shit on suits. Don’t tell me that wouldn’t have garnered a “Fuck yeah!” from the audience.

It would’ve put a new meaning to the term Matrix Revolutions.

Star Trek

Oh, what to say about this floundering beast. Nothing has captured the imagination of geeks worldwide more than the adventures of a two-prong-dish-spoon-shaped ship and its alien whore-hound of a captain. Kirk and Co. were the epitome of cool from the 1960s and on; killing off red-shirted underlings, fornicated with really foreign women, and shooting first before making inquiries. Pulp sci-fi at its best. Okay, sure, there were some “morals” and “messages” laced somewhere in the paper-machet planet backdrops, but who wants to hear about those anyway?

Nothing was wrong with it. Sure, it was cheap looking. Sometimes the acting was stilted, but it was fun to watch. The bread and butter of sci-fi - to me, anyway - is Fun.

Fast-forward to the 80s and 90s. Gene Roddenberry decided to give the ol’ bird a second lease on life - new crew, new captain, new cracker-jack adventures. As an audience, it took us three years to buy into the new wave of interstellar travelers, but we grew to like the second child. Something happened mid-stream, though.

Gene Roddenberry died.

The task of helming his original creation fell upon a mildly Satanic looking fellow by the name of Rick Berman. None of us suspected anything at first. It was like being married. We didn’t know our spouse was a raving psychopath in the beginning, but as the years went by they got more and more…contemptible.

There was a spin-off.

Then another.

Then another.

And so on…and so forth.

After awhile, the audience breathed an impatient sigh, followed by a collective, “We don’t love you anymore.”

Rick Berman may be gone from the franchise now, but his stale fart-stench still hangs in the air. The proposed reboot of the series, while in the hands of the mostly-competent J.J. “Lost” Abrams, still has the stink of sucktasticism. Hell, the new series will deal with time travel. Time travel! Like that hasn’t already been done!?! What could possibly alleviate this potential train-wreck?

My answer? Change the emphasis. 

Star Trek has always focused on one thing, humans in space. Humans being peace-mongers in space, more to the point. That doesn’t quite fly in this day and age. Maybe in the 60s, but it’s an outdated (and outmoded) brand of ideology now. The answer lies in the aliens. The other denizens that populate the Trek milieu. 

The answer is Klingons.

Specifically, not Klingons in space. Let’s look at this fictional race for a moment. What are they? Well, the best way to describe them to a Lay person would be…um…

German-spouting Mongols with Scottish dispositions.

Yeah, that about covers it.

The most interesting aspect of these bumpy-headed barbarians wasn’t their prowess with pistols, or their harrowing starship helming, rather their swords! We didn’t care much about their society, or honor-based rules, as much they instilled a reaction of “Dude! They have swords!” Geeks and sword fetishism go way back. If you don’t believe me, go to a Ren Fair. Seriously.

So, we’ve established that Klingons - from a geek perspective - are cool. Bar none. Swords are also, by proxy, cool. Spaceships, yeah, those are cool too, but not entirely necessary. The solution is obvious.

Medieval Klingons!

This is an aspect of the Trek mythos that hasn’t been fully explored. The legends of Klingon lore have been alluded to time and again, but we’ve never seen flashes of a sword-and-sorcery, blood-drenched, Conan-esque landscape. I want that!

Here’s how I would do it, and - yes - for you shoot-em-up sci-fi nuts there’d even be spaceships. One thousand years prior to the current Trek timeline, it was mentioned that the fledgling (and still planet-bound) Klingon Empire was invaded by an alien nemesis called the Hur’q (Klingon word meaning “Outsider”). It was also mentioned that the Klingons “killed their gods over a thousand years ago.” What if the Hur’q were their gods? And what if the Klingons rebelled against this alien occupying force?

There you have it. Instant movie! Happy geeks! Aaand it wouldn’t disrupt the continuity (or lack thereof) of the current installations.

Highlander

This portion of the entry will be short because there really isn’t much to explain about this franchise. The plot is about as deep as used diaphragm. Here’s the basic rundown:

There are a bunch of dudes (and dudettes) that live forever. The only way they can be killed is if their heads are cut off. If an everlasting dude cuts off the head of another everlasting dude, then the cutter-dude has a Giant Electric Orgasm!

I’m…not…joking. That’s the plot.

You basically have a bunch of hack-happy immortal fuckers crossing the globe trying to poke holes in each other. Small confession? If cutting off some dude’s head could give me a Giant Electric Orgasm…I might be tempted to. Alright, alright, that’s not fair. It isn’t really a Giant Electric Orgasm. They call it a “quickening”, and it’s the life essence and experience of the immortal killed. Wait…that sounds exactly like a Giant Electric Orgasm! I take that back.

Wow, I totally digressed.

For the record, the first Highlander was a decent movie. Not earth-shattering but decent. For some ungodly reason, it spawned four sequels, two television series’, a cartoon show, and an anime. The question is…how?!? The story ended with the first movie! The Scottish guy (played by a French guy) killed the last immortal. He was it. He won the Giga-Uber-Giant Electric Orgasm. Wheeee! Go Scotty-Frenchy dude!

So, why did it spawn so many butt-babies?

Blame the French.

For some reason, the French thought it was a dandy concept, then some retarded monkey thought it an even dandier idea to resuscitate the comatose prostitute for another party. However, instead of logically retelling the story, he decided to pick up where the first movie left off. Forgetting the fact that the first movie finitely wrapped up the entire story! The sequel featured aliens! YAY! The McGuffin of all McGuffins!

As you can tell, that didn’t go over so well.

But wait! It gets better! They made a third movie that disregarded the second! All the while airing a television series that didn’t follow the sequels at all! The only aspect of canon that any of these mutants could agree on was that the first movie was their jumping point. Finally, the television series finally put itself to rest…only to be reanimated again as a fourth cinematic installment that - in true fuck-up fashion - disregarded all previous sequels, yet considered the television series as true canon.

Then there was the cartoon, the anime, the fifth (and bloody final) movie…yadda…yadda…yadda.

It’s a mess.

How could one possibly repair this monstrosity?

Honestly, I don’t think there’s much to repair. As mentioned prior, the first movie was “fair” at best. Damn enjoyable, but not a masterpiece by any stretch. The one rule o’ thumb that all the installments shared was that the first movie was The Grail. This would have to change to even consider continuing this bloated beast.

Start fresh.

One thing the installments tried to do at one point or another was draw upon actual historical (or mythical) events and bring them into the story’s fold. They warped it badly, but they were on the right track. The answer lies with mythology. Think on it a second, then hear me out.

All mythical traditions speak of people that live forever. The Chinese had the Taoist Immortals, Sumerians had Utnapishtim, Christianity had the Wandering Jew and the Centurion. How about, instead of inventing new immortals, deal with ones that have already been documented! They are far more fascinating than some blank-eyed Scotsman (played by a French guy) following a Spaniard (played by a Scotsman)!

And get rid of the Giant Electric Orgasm.

Unless you seriously mean to turn it into a porn, just don’t use it.

Hrm…no wonder the Frenchies liked it so much.

Tags: Electric, Giant, Highlander, Immortals, Klingons, Matrix, Orgasm, Star Trek

Painting the Dark Lady

I’m going to say July never happened. Is that allowed? Can I call it a ret-con? I think that’s my right. Moving sucked. Work sucked. Looking for new work (still) sucks.

Of course, this is all redundant. Even with the fecal ferocity of events that made up the midsummer night’s “squeam”, I do have to pay homage to the brighter wing beats from the bat outta Hell. Small and insignificant, though they may seem, they resound with the strength of a butterfly’s flight. Hurricanes form with their very finite flutter. I won’t see the storm soon, but the tide will come - a monsoon of melody. Pandora’s hope, it ain’t, but it panders to my quasi-creative grasp nonetheless.

And it all began by reading a book.

Small confession, I wasn’t a reader until late in my childhood. Illiterate until 7, barely cogent with the written word until the 3rd grade, I skimmed by. Not for lack of smarts, but rather lack of motivation. I admit to my shitty studiousness. Book reports up until then were an exercise in futility. If a shortcut existed, I took it. Then I encountered a nemesis I couldn’t counter, a hard-ass of an English teacher. He expected a detailed synopsis on a novel of our choosing.

I was screwed.

Before the childhood migration to Oregon, my Dad had left me some of his old sci-fi novels. Among them were titles I’d never heard of, though that wasn’t saying much. I knew of very few authors to begin with. These rang even less of a bell than usual. The one I picked up first showed a picture of a bald, mustachioed man in mid-melee with a bipedal bat-type creature. The title was Tales of the Galactic Midway: The Wild Alien Tamer, the second in a series of four by Mike Resnick.

The book blurb stated it was about a circus in space, and the installment revolved around a man and an alien who formed an unlikely partnership by duking it out in the ring. From the looks, it sounded uninteresting. But I was in need of a book and didn’t feel like looking too hard. With a shrug, I removed it from the box and plugged away at the pages. My eyes widened. I saw the word “fuck” in print.

To a chronic potty-mouther, this was a revelation. A word deemed a death sentence of detention was smack-dab in the middle of a novel. Enamored beyond imagining, my glee seeped through my drudging lit level. I turned the page and kept right on turning. Other epithets made themselves known to me, ones I hadn’t heard before as well. A reader was born by way of curse word.

Exploring my Dad’s garage on one of my routine Cali visits, I came across another novel by Resnick entitled Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future. By junior high, I’d polished off a good five or six of his books including the rest of the Midway series. The new space opera before me had escaped my notice. My Dad summarized and called it “excellent”. I gave it a go. The only way I could describe it was equal parts sci-fi, western, myth, and tall tale, all rolled into a tightly-written package.

My love of genre-confused fiction was already prevalent. My favorite movies by this point in my life weren’t easily pegged by one solid label. Buckaroo Banzai, Krull, Big Trouble in Little China, they all possessed a little piece of everything. A wide-eyed geek was born from repeated viewings of these, and to add a novel with the same qualities further solidified it. Upon completion of Wild Alien Tamer, I toyed with the notion of being a writer. By the end of Santiago, I was one.

As the years piled on, I thought I perfected my craft. I used Resnick as my writing template. My command of dialogue was competent - clay-like in its solidity - and my characters were somewhat fleshed out. No one could call me great at the written word, but somewhere along the way I considered “Moi” the cat’s meow. That ego self-fellating didn’t last long. A wake-up call came in 11th grade. Someone called me on my bullshit; a teacher.

Their prognosis of my penmanship was thus: “You have a tendency to overwrite. Your poetry is solid, but your prose is rather weak.”

Heartbroken but stubborn, I chose to discard their assessment of my “gift”. How could they know? They were teachers, not an ink-stained quill-licker such as I! Okay, I wasn’t much of one either, but try telling that to a high schooler with a case of the cockies.

The only opinion that mattered to me - in regards to writing - was my father’s. After all, he introduced me to the writings of Resnick, so he was a better judge of such things. Early on in my attempts at storytelling, he conceded that I may have a talent. His nod of approval fueled my elitism until I was 23.

When I went away to Reno for college, the professorship came to a similar conclusion as teachers past. My writing was glib at best, rushed at worst. I brushed these judgments off with a “pishaw” and “poppycock”, or a well-placed middle finger if the situation called for it. I-if they weren’t looking, that is.

Then my dear ol’ Pa said something that finally cast a kink in the ego-armor, “Some of it’s pretty good, but your dialogue needs work.”

From there, I finally began to doubt my prowess with the pen. What did I have to show for the last decade of self-declared scholarship. Answer? Not much. The longest piece I wrote was seventy pages, unfinished. In my portfolio? Five or so completed, two-thirds of which were crap and/or in dire need of a rewrite. In the writing classes I took, I skated by with substandard papers and last-minute queries. The culmination of my college life, a big-whoppin’ “C” earned by the skin of my teeth. Any new revelations I took away regarding writing never came from a class, but from other better writers; those with a novel or two under their belts.

Yet I still chose to wear the moniker, for what else did I have to show the world? There were signs of a possible gift hidden beneath the dreck produced up until now. I never fully gave up, but I never committed to it either. Writing and I were friends with benefits, a physical manifestation but not an ephemeral one. And the malaise carried through until the present.

Earlier this July, a friend of mine and I bummed around the Powell’s Books in Beaverton. It smelled of scholastic pursuits - a combination of Central Air, dust, leather and paper. And perhaps patchouli from an employee or two. My friend went for the Koontz section, whereas I gravitated to my sci-fi standby. Every once in awhile I perused the shelves of a bookstore for a Resnick I hadn’t read. Most of the time, I came up empty. Not this day. Nestled between his Widowmaker and Kirinyaga (both of which were utter crap) was some old school Resnick, one I hadn’t read. The book was The Dark Lady: A Romance of the Far Future. A used copy for $2.95? Damn right I was getting it!

I started it in the wee hours of that night without sleeping a wink, and finished it around noon the following day. Polishing off an eyeful of the last page, closing the book, I let off a sigh of “Wow.” The story without spoiling anything was thus:

Throughout time, a woman appeared to men, and they were inspired to paint her image. Several paintings and statues, dating back as far as Sumeria, captured her beautiful yet sad likeness. At times she was portrayed as a Goddess or a royal princess, other times a normal maiden. Each time the expression was the same, melancholy and longing. The tradition carried on even after Mankind had reached the stars.

A group of men, and one alien, sought to unravel the mystery of “The Dark Lady”, and her motivation for searching out certain men - risk-takers on the fringe who later met an untimely end. Was she an Angel of Death, an immortal, an alien herself, or something more? What was she after? And what inspired men to capture her timeless expression? They didn’t know.

I shan’t spoil the answer. All that need be said is it struck a chord…and hard. I remembered what I was supposed to do.

I remember saying, long ago, that my goal was to shock and awe a 6th grader in the manner that I was introduced to Resnick. My brother recently told me that the best approach to use when writing is to dive into it head-on. “Balls to the wall,” he put it. Dad reminded me that in order to be a writer, “Writers have to write.” One of my bosses said, “As a writer, you need to leverage your time.”

Tonight, I’m up late putting fingers to keys. Alas, not to write fiction, but at least I’m writing. As to what I plan to put out first to make a name for myself with, I have no bloody clue. Perhaps I’ll dust off the kung fu strippers, the surreal unstuck-in-time town, or the (literally) star-crossed lovers. I haven’t decided. All I know is that I have a portrait to paint, one of a yearning that is bittersweet…and a long time in coming.

Tags: Mike Resnick, Santiago, Science Fiction, The Dark Lady

A Small Lesson in Tact

Several months ago, I wrote a blog on Myspace, which summarized several story ideas I discarded for one reason or another. One of those ideas what about the supposed clone of Jesus Christ (not the Superstar). My reasons for abandoning said story were not because I didn’t find the idea worthy, but rather someone beat me to the punch. I referred to that author as a “dicksmack” for having done so.

I later republished that blog entry on my not-as-of-yet-launched website. Well, I got a comment on the re-blog that I wasn’t quite expecting. At all.

From the very author of that book.

I haven’t even announced my website yet, and already I’m ruffling literary feathers. Certainly not my intent, not this early in the game. Given that I’m a nobody, and that I have no right to slander a book author I’ve never met or read, I decided to rescind that portion of the entry. It wasn’t a fair commentary to make, especially one made in frustration for having been to lazy to act on a story idea.

I shall watch my unfiltered tongue in the future.

Okay, foot, you can leave my mouth now. We have walkin’ to do.

Tags: Apology

Dancing Girls Vs. Rock Band

I’m conflicted.

Two sides of my person are at odds with each other. There’s the “Dweeb” facet of me that needs very little physical outside stimulus. It’s a low maintenance creature, requiring a minimum sustenance of movies, books and - to a lesser extent - video games. This facet is perfectly at home with, well, staying at home or some other enclosure…and basically geeking it out. Tea in hand, of course. Fellow like-minded souls in close proximity are optional.

Then there’s the “Dude” part. You know who he is. Well, if you’re male, you do. The Dude thrives on thrill, thirst, and thighs; babes, beer, and bawdiness. Ribaldry personified, his appetite is sated when all three demands of his Neanderthalic nature are met. He’s a simple creature, hard to tame but easy to trick. The metaphoric leash has a little slack so as to not upset him, but he’s easy to reign in when his energy depletes. And it can deplete rather quickly. Dude goes balls out, but only for short periods of time.

Dweeb, on the other hand, has greater endurance, vast energy stores. Why? He doesn’t use any of it. Given that he’s a sedentary creature to start with, exertion is a rarity. When he is called upon to initiate something in his natural habitat - a gaming table, TV, computer, or other media outlet - very little of his energy is spent. He can go for hours.

Rarely do these two facets come into contact with each other. A wall of moderation divides their mutual territories, keeping them exclusive yet whole. One doesn’t tread on the other’s ground. There’s never a reason to. Both operate on completely different wavelengths. Conflict only arises when both get “hungry” at the same time.

As was the case this weekend…twice.

Several Fridays ago was a Dweeb night. He called dibs. The day was reserved for impromptu geekanalia. First on the docket was an outing to The Incredible Hulk. Upon exiting the theater after, all four of us were in total dweebdom, arguing about the possible future of the Avengers-ish story-arc Marvel Studios appears to be developing. We debated special effects, performances, cameos, future superhero movies-to-be. All quaint stuff.

Until Mr. Beer entered the equation.

We moseyed our way to The Ram for microbrews, nachos, and more bullshitting. The problem was that this…was Dude territory. Dweeb and Dude can coexist in Beerland for a time, but it’s a small duration. Extended attempts at synergy fall apart.

Geek talk transitioned to guy talk. Sex, stupidity, and stuff. You know, boy toys. The realm of cars, electronics, etc. My cell phone chimed with a text message. It was from a female friend, one of the “M” Troika (read: women-folk); M-1, to be precise. She put an invite out to go to Mixers.

I hate the place. I knew I hated the place. I knew I had no reason whatsoever to set foot near there. Or so the Dweeb kept rationalizing.

Then the Dude part said, “But there might be girls there.”

Even Dweeb had to shrug, “He has a point.”

Mr. Beer wasn’t helping either.

My three compatriots had come to similar inner conclusions, and off to the shit-bar we went. The bar was, indeed, shit. But there were women there. The M-Crew succeeded in luring my mousy arse onto the dance floor on more than one occasion.

For the record, I’m not the biggest fan of dancing. I’m no good at it, I feel awkward doing it, and I don’t understand the appeal. Yet once I’m actually on the floor, I can’t get off of it. My inner attention whore, having broken its proverbial chains of prudeness, bursts forth with reckless (one might even say, metro) abandon. I blame the three M-s.

My inner Dweeb gained the upper hand after about an hour, though, when one of my friends made a suggestion. A suggestion that is as deadly as putting a brownie in front of a fat kid. I know, I’m a fat kid…and I like brownies. This was something like that.

“Let’s play some Rock Band.”

Unless you’ve been residing under an obelisk of denial and retardation, Rock Band is a video game. Wait, no. Let me rephrase that. It’s crack in pixel form, pure unadulturated digital freebasing. You play mock instruments with squeaky buttons and mimic like you’re in an actual rock band. One of the four players even has to sing…er…more or less. They have to keep pitch.

Let me introduce you to another lesser facet of my being. You’re already acquainted with the two main schisms, Dude and Dweeb. You were also introduced to the lesser imp, Attention Whore. Permit me to welcome…Karaoke Douche.

Karaoke Douche is the special sibling to Attention Whore and distant cousin of Dweeb. His existence is accepted by Dude because of a loophole called “The Peacock Factor”. Dude allows Attention Whore and Karaoke Douche to subsist because of a verbal agreement made - a promise that their assaholic antics might get “The-Power-That-Is-Me” laid.

Granted, this has yet to work, but they are masters of persuasion. Whereas Writer Dork, a silent little sap in the primordial soup of my brain, scoffs and records their smarmy attempts to garner said female favor with limited - albeit entertaining - results. They exist so stories can be told.

Sorry, I kinda digressed.

Rock Band would not appeal to us - I mean, me - if it weren’t for that karaoke comparison. I. Love. To sing. Am I great at it? Heavens no. But I love to do it anyway, and that’s the allure of the game. The illusion of awesomeness. Even Dude is not immune.

Dancing lasted an hour. Rock Band lasted four. Dweeb won.

Dude was not going down without a fight, however.

When that Saturday rolled around, and I got a call to play more Rock Band with the guys. We decided to put a little twist to it. More to the point, my friends did. Their goal was to create the gayest band possible. The lead singer avatar, which they created for the game, was incidentally named “Lucky Pierre” - a pig-faced, pink-haired, rotund bear of a mic-sucker.

As the game progressed, we were called upon - after successive gigs in-game - to alter the attire and appearance of the band. We feminized them even further. Not in a glam rock sorta way, ooooooh no. We went balls-to-the-teabagging-wall with these boys. Even gay men would wonder what the hell they were. With the exception of the drummer, of course. One of them had to look manly. Although, our definition of “manly” was a slightly-bearded Dr. Who look-alike.

What do you expect? We’re geeks!

After four hours of this politically incorrect band-handling, I got a text from M-1. The troika were going dancing again, this time downtown. I informed the other guys, but they were content to continue playing. I was at an empasse.

Dude scolded Dweeb. Dweeb acquiesced. I bid farewell to the brightly-dressed band and microphone in order to get my groove on. Or what there was of it.

What part of me won overall? That’s just it! I have no friggin’ clue. Dweeb won Friday, Dude won Saturday. The battle is currently a draw. All that remains is a way to end this simile of a stalemate.

Hrm…

Maybe…

Playing Rock Band with dancing girls all around!

Whoah.

I need to patent that.

Tags: Bars, Girls, Nerds, Rock Band, Video Games

Horny Heater Hobbits

A Tuesday night. Location: The hotel. Again.

I hoped it would be better than the night prior. Whether it was a full moon, or if every Red Eye flight douche-licker wanted to descend upon me collectively, I was in no mood for weirdness. To say I was at my wit’s end would be an understatement. I was witless.

Then they came.

She seemed like a normal woman in her mid-forties. Well, as normal as Desperate Housewives had educated me. Strung-out bleach-blond hair, out-of-date prescription glasses, a twitchy brow, and a hunched-over posture indicating a steady diet of antidepressants and Advil. That was my guess anyway…having observed a similar posture in the mirror back in college.

Like many who’ve passed through the lobby doors at “magic hour”, she grumbled at the walking distance between the front desk and her room, wondered when breakfast would be, shrugged, then left. In most cases, that’s the last I hear of such folks. Those are the kind I get; burnt out husks of life living from paycheck to paycheck in constant airline migration. Such a living must take a toll on their nerves. Lord knows it does mine, um, from a third-person standpoint.

Ten minutes later, I got a call.

Husk housewife was on the other end, “My bathroom door is locked!”

I responded nonchalantly, “I do apologize, but maintenance has gone home for the day. I can transfer you to another room if you’d like.”

She rambled on about the possibility of someone jumping out from the locked bathroom and raping her, then asked if she had to come back to the desk to fetch the new keycards. I informed her that I was the only one on duty and could not leave the gatehouse area unless it was an emergency. In a further frantic tone, she indicated it was an emergency to her. To her room, I went.

Once I arrived to her room, I went in to check the bathroom myself. The door was wide open.

“Not that one,” she said and pointed at the closet next to the bathroom. “That one.”

My shoulders slumped, “Ma’am, that’s the water heater.”

“I just have this fear someone might jump out. It happened to a friend of mine, ” she explained.

I tried my best to explain that the door was locked from the outside and only maintenance had access to it. That and no normal sized human being could fit in the closet with a full-sized water heater. Unless the culprit were a Hobbit, she was perfectly safe.

“I’ll still take the other room,” she said.

“Fair enough, “I replied.

Escorting her to her new room, three buildings down, she relayed how she was generally a fearful person. I empathized. As soon as she was situated, she apologized for the trouble and tipped me five bucks. Couldn’t complain there.

However, I returned to the gatehouse to four very impatient people - two Hindi girls in need of curry sauce (no joke), a dumbshit who locked himself out, and another middle-aged woman waiting to be checked in. We’ll call her Housebitch #2.

Dealing with the first three was easy enough, but the new woman was another matter entirely.

“What took you so long?” she asked, lips thin.

“I’m sorry, I had to transfer a guest to a new room personally, ” I said. “She thought someone would jump out of the water heater and attack her.”

I laughed a little…but she wasn’t amused.

“You’re not going to give me that room, are you?”

“Uh…no?” I returned

“Good,” Housebitch #2 said, grabbing her keys.

I thought that was the end of it.

Wrong.

Five minutes later, I got a call from Housebitch #2, “There’s a locked door by the bathroom!”

I took a deep breath.

“That’s your water heater.” I couldn’t even hide my sigh.

“Oh,” she said.

Housebitch #2 hung up.

I sat down, kicked my feet back, nursed my tea…

And honestly hoped there was a teleporting Horny Heater Hobbit out there to prove me wrong.

Tags: heater, hobbits, horny, Hotel

Hell Hath No Fury

Tags: A, Hotel, Scorned, Woman

The Sex Tea Saga

I’ve been asked on multiple occasions what started my unsurpassed obsession with tea. My leanings are neither hippie or New Age-y, and I shy away from most holistic approaches. The reason for my reluctance in relating this story is simple. It’s downright embarrassing. However, even I must acknowledge that it is a tale that must be told, and - so - here it is.

The origin of my fascination with tea.

It all started with a quest, a very manly quest.

It began in the Fall of 2004, my first year back in Oregon. College was a somewhat distant memory, separated by Summer’s lack of whimsy. Already, the four-year sabbatical to the desert state of Nevada had taken refuge in the recesses of my mind. The last six months of which were akin to a purgatorial nightmare. I was now home, back in the bosom of the Northwest. Real life - or so it felt - had just begun. The academic reverie was over. I was 27.

Changes occurred quite rapidly. My parents had moved to California and offered their three-story behemoth as a rental to my sister, her husband, and myself. Within a month, I was saddled with two jobs. In late-October I even landed myself a girlfriend. Quite quick indeed.

About a month into the relationship, it had reached “that stage” - the to-do or not-to-do dilemma. My experience level was infantile at best. College had trained me for many things, but I’d shied away from Hook-Up 101. Or more to the point, I think I fell asleep in class. Maybe it was geek thing, I dunno. Eh, we’ll blame it on that for now.

Our dates up to this point were mostly informal outings, occasional Blockbuster nights, a party or two, nothing grand. It was time for that next step: Inviting her to my place.

I made the necessary preparations:

Booze? Check.

Protection? Check.

Breath mints? Check.

Change out single bed for the guest room’s queen-sized? Check.

(Trying to explain the furniture move to my mother/landlord was a difficult task.)

The night was upon me.

She arrived with a batch of Coupling episodes she received from Netflix. We sat on the couch, popped the DVDs in, cuddled a bit. Cuddling led to kissing, then the notorious “heavy petting” teenagers are condemned for. She whispered the The Question as she straddled me on the couch. I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. She reiterated. I nodded.

Upstairs, we went.

Everything proceeded according to plan; the undressing, the massaging, the exploration of each other’s vitals. Things were moving along like clockwork, textbook even. I caressed where I thought I should caress, kissed (and/or licked) where I thought I should lick. 80s sex comedies had trained me well, or so I thought.

We were go for Phase Two! That whole “unity” thing. But there was a problem. Nothing happened. The knight was suited, but for some ungodly reason…he’d forgotten his bloody horse.

My heart sunk.

The mainsail hadn’t hoisted. The soldier didn’t salute. The batter never left the cage. The car wouldn’t leave the garage. Oh, hell, you get the point.

The night was officially a botch.

I drove her home. She was silent, and I was sullen. She may have put the blame on herself, as women often do in that situation, yet I knew where it lay. Squarely on my shoulders. Something was wrong with me, and I didn’t know what. Everything had been perfect! The timing was right! Lust was in the air! Pheromones had fireworked! I had to learn what went wrong.

To the Internet!

According to various sites, the causes for impotence were innumerable. There was performance anxiety, reactions to medications, high blood pressure, obesity, illness, mental health, physical impairments. The factors were endless. I was stumped. Mr. Happy-Pants worked well enough for me during solo training, why the hell had it caved under pressure during the actual mission? (Maybe it was my terminology? Er…no.)

Eventually, I ruled out the physical causes. I wasn’t that obese, blood pressure was normal, and - for the most part - all my limbs were working. Well, except the bloody key one. That left the mental.

Only methods used to combat sexual anxiety were rigorous therapy, hypnotherapy, or resorting to the infamous “blue pill” I really didn’t want to do that. To admit that I was under 30, moderately healthy and in need of boner-meds made my stomach knot. That left one other viable viable. One I hadn’t ever dreamed I’d explore. It was notoriously out of character for me. I looked to male enhancement products.

Everyone has seen these doohickeys. Big bottle-jars with names like Mega-X-Tone or Testost-X-Treme…or anything that had a bold-faced “X” in the title. They are a ghastly sight. Just looking at them makes one think they’re buying into the biggest scam on the planet. Not to mention even the staunchest atheist would think he made Baby Jesus cry.

I read the ingredients. Some were elements in nature I hadn’t even heard of; herbs such as yohimbe bark, ginkgo biloba, kava kava, and…wait…

Green tea?

What the hell did green tea have to do with male enhancement?!

Each of the products I looked (or winced) at had one ingredient in common. Aside from the weirder African-sounding herbs, they all had a generous helping of green tea extract. I was no stranger to tea. At one time or another I’d partaken of Earl Grey or chamomile. The black teas tasted like smoky burlap, and chamomile knocked my ass clean out. Green tea was unexplored territory, and here I was seeing it on the back of a cheesy “X” label.

This revelation needed some back-up. My cousin’s girlfriend was somewhat well-versed in the ways of green tea. She’d touted it for as long as I’d e-known her. While she couldn’t confirm the virility claim, she could attest to its other health properties. These were not limited to: weight-loss, lowered blood pressure, lowered cholesterol, increased immunity, the elimination of free radicals in the body, and increased blood flow.

The last benefit caught my interest. I won’t go into the inner workings of the male anatomy. If you don’t know by now, then there’s no hope for you. The Cliff’s Notes version being, erections rely on healthy blood flow. Hurray!

I started drinking green tea. To my surprise, I actually liked it. Grassy aftertaste and all. It was quite refreshing. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice any immediate “changes”. What can I say? I’m the impatient sort. As such, I browsed the tea aisle to see what different types of green tea were out there. One stood out above all the others.

Celestial Seasonings’ Honey Lemon Ginseng.

When researching the herbal extract info on the aforementioned “X” varietals, I ran across mentions of ginseng. Panax ginseng, to be precise, was often touted as a sexual tonic in Asian cultures. This was news to me, so I bought a box.

The first test-drive was a train-wreck. It tasted good. Damn good. Lemony-green-ish goodness. I had five cups of the stuff in a two-hour sitting. Moderation? Who needed it! What I should have read more closely was that this blend was caffeinated..

Anyone in the herbal know is aware that Panax ginseng, while beneficial in some areas, is also a stimulant. Not as earth-shattering as caffeine, but rather one that is slow-building. The Celestial Seasonings box even highlighted that the blend was for giving someone an extra kick in the morning. And kick it did.

The first day I tried it, I was jittery and buzzing. I went and saw a movie to calm myself down, can’t recall what. I called my Dad, rambling a mile a minute about feeling weird.

He said, “Maybe you should lay off the ginseng.”

I knew he was right, but I was stubborn. A part of me thought maybe this was its way of working. None of the other green tea blends ever made me want to run through walls while singing a merry tune. I gave it a second chance.

Day two came around. My girlfriend and I were set to have dinner at her parents house. For the first time ever. I was another four-ish cups of Honey Lemon in, all jitter-buzz-a-go-go. Why four? I dunno. I thought we were going to do stuff later and wanted to be aptly prepared.

I had three mini-panic attacks during dinner. No one noticed, thankfully, but my breathing was fast and labored. My eyes darted from corner to corner. Sounds were sharper. Smells irritated my nostrils. I existed in a tunnel version of my own head.

She drove me home after. I went through some sort of Lamaze-style panting to keep from freaking out. Nausea crept up in me. She asked if I wanted to come over. I said I wasn’t feeling well. It was the truth, but try explaining that to a girlfriend convinced you weren’t attracted to her.

In a huff, she dropped me off. I went to the kitchen and threw away the lemony-goodness box, never to touch the stuff again. Back to square one.

December rolled around, and I made another discovery. I entered the world of herbal supplementation. My first foray was multivitamins, but on a whim, I purchased a bottle of ginkgo biloba. In addition to it’s X-pantheon tonic-like qualities, I also read it was good for memory and mental alertness. The extract gave me abdominal cramps almost instantly upon taking it.

I read the label after the fact and discovered that - in some rare cases - ginkgo could cause “gastrointestinal discomfort and irritability”. That was the same month I discovered I was sensitive to a lot of things. Certain health foods made me queasy, I couldn’t hold my liquor, I reacted quickly (and sometimes adversely) to certain herbs, and caffeine booted me in the head and gut at the same time. Reading side-effect information on anything became second nature.

Then I discovered a green tea online that had ginkgo and Panax ginseng in it! Triple Leaf’s Ginkgo & Decaf Green Tea.

I read the label and ingredient information carefully. It was decaffeinated. I gleefully ordered a batch. It came in the mail about a week later. I poured myself a cup, nursed it gingerly, and waited for any adverse ginkgo-like stomach punches to occur. None did. It even helped in…uh…that area from what I observed.

Too bad it tasted like tree bark…and ass.

I tried to mix it with other teas to mask the flavor. Ginkgo has a distinctly tangy and leafy taste followed by a rough aftertaste, reminiscent of eucalyptus. It really is quite offensive to the tongue. The only other tea that would compliment it was a green tea formula put out by Salada, one that contained Siberian ginseng.

The potential horrors of Panax ginseng were firmly established, but I didn’t know much about it’s redheaded stepbrother, eleuthero (Siberian ginseng). I did some reading and learned that it had only mild stimulant effects, no sexual tonic properties, and mainly worked as a mental alertness enhancer, which was fine by me.

By the time I was ready to field-test the stuff, the relationship with my girlfriend had gone south. She was through waiting. This was a clear case of gender reversal. Instead of the girl being hesitant towards sex, it was me. I was the reluctant one. Part of this might have been due to our seven-year age gap, or my continued anxiety, I dunno. We parted ways somewhat amicably.

Aside from a couple of dating stints here and there - one physical, others not-so-much, none long-term - sex had receded to non-issuedom. My tea habit hadn’t regressed, though. In fact, the addiction blossomed.

A love for green tea graduated into a love for white tea. A reverence for generic bagged teas grew into a quest for more esoteric blends. Eventually, I was ready for loose-leaf teas. I grew to love them. All of them. Black teas still hadn’t caught hold, but herbal blends, fruit fusions, and designer teas did. An amateur tea snob was born.

Work shifts without a cup of hotness seemed an irregularity. Tea became synonymous with, well, me. I would go to friends houses with a mug of some herbal concoction in hand. Often times, I would forget to take it with me. Proposed tea dates were my standard meet-and-greets with new women. While not a successful way to prove one’s self as more than a Friend Zone dweller, it did provide for a nice day out.

Knowing the locations of local teashops helped me broaden my leaf-like horizons. Beforehand, my knowledge of Portland and peripheral areas were limited to bars, clubs and tourist traps. The teashop quest allowed me to seek out odd-ended nooks and crannies of the surrounding area.

I also felt considerably better, rarely getting sick. And even if I did, the duration for the ailment was considerably shorter than usual. Colds were a rarity, flues were still commonplace but not as dreadful and bed-ridding, stomach flues were cast aside after about a day thanks to good ol’ Captain Chamomile. I was a proud herb-a-whore.

The ginkgo tea I took was the last vestige of my original purpose. Eventually, after further research, I learned that I was taking the medical equivalent to an Alzheimer’s patient’s dose per day. A normal healthy adult only needed, maybe, 120 mg of the stuff. The tea I drank contained over 600 mg. No wonder I felt surprisingly irritable. Like ginseng, ginkgo was also a stimulant. Sure, it helped in the one area I set out to improve, but in lieu of other health considerations, it had been rendered obsolete. By the end of 2005, I limited my intake to once a week, and eventually substituted it for it’s lesser ginseng-only cousin.

It wouldn’t gain favor again until February of 2006.

I won’t (i.e. can’t) go into detail as to the encounter, for I’m sworn to some amount of discretion regarding the finer points, but I will say that Ol’ Man Ginkgo came to the rescue. For a good three hours. Okay, yes, there were “union breaks”, but it didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things. The stuff really did work!

There was still the taste issue, however, even with the Salada green tea’s citrus-y cover-up. Nothing could get rid of the tree-bark-ness of it, nor contribute to the virility issue. Er…not that anything really needed to top what was already included, but - hey - while your kicking ass, might as well jot a few names. Right?

The final breakthrough wouldn’t appear until February this year. Perusing the Stash Tea store - which is conveniently located in my stomping grounds, huzzah! - a fellow tea-nerd and I noticed a line of herbal blends referred to as Chanakara. The cashier informed us that they were herbal fusions specifically designed to coincide with each of the bodies chakra points, all seven of them.

I bought the sample pack to try each one.

If you don’t know what chakra points are, well, I really don’t have time (or space) to go into the finer nuances of it. Just look up any yoga-related material on Google, or you can be extra nerdy and watch a couple of episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Or, better still, visit the Chanakara website. Those will give you a basic rundown.

I digress.

The one that grabbed my attention was Chakra #2, the dragonfruit blend. The bag and box describe it as vital for “tantra and sexuality. Contained in the blend was an herb known as damiana. Further inquiries revealed that the herb is often used as a sexual tonic for women in Latin America. Studies regarding its potency were still in its infancy, but apparently it also worked on men. Hoo-boy, did it! I found out the hard way at work…pun quite intended.

The taste was also pleasant, light citrus, faintly tangerine-like without the tartness. Very pleasant and very subtle. So, I tried it with the ginkgo tea. The bark-ass taste was gone. No aftertaste either. I no longer felt like I was tasting tree! Victory was achieved.

Which brings us to the present.

I have yet to try my newfound Sex Tea blend in a practical setting. Not quite sure where/how that’ll happen in the near-ish future. But when it does…

And I do mean when…not if…

She won’t know what hit her.

Tags: Chakra, Damiana, Gingko, Ginseng, Green, My Other Work, Sex

Curse of the Wolf and Moon

Tags: anime, Geeks, indian, lesbians, moon, otaku, wolf

Rants and Repeat

Tags: Guests, Leisure, Suck