Weather for the day… 59° starting out, 62° when I got home
Almost a bit chilly starting to walk today. Overcast maybe there’s a bit of moisture in the air cool it down water temperature so it feels cooler than it is.
Podcast "The Foundation official podcast" from the show S2E3 "Why the Gods Made Wine", finishing off an episode I started yesterday when I was working in my yard. Then S2E4, "In Seldon's Shadow".
This post is much more on Entertainment and the Arts than usual, on a path I have long wished to take...
We have little control over in our life beyond our epidermis layer of skin. Beyond that it’s just wishes and guesses. The further we get away from that outer layer of skin to apply our desires out into the world and onto others, ever increases the amount and degree of abuse we put out into the world. And here’s the kicker… We don’t really have that much control over the area under our outer layer of skin either, we just think we do. Then we get into determinism and fate...
So it’s been a few days since my last walkabout. Since my last walk, I’ve gotten the previous thoughts before that last walk posted yesterday and I think I’ve gained like three or five new international awards for my films since then. Just today my film "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero" is now a nominee in the Beyond the Curve festival. It’s always a lovely thing to wake up to.
I’m starting to submit my rewritten screenplay with producer Robert Mitis consulting on it, “The Teenage Bodyguard “, to festivals.
A week ago today or this evening anyway, my sister and her husband picked me up and drove us up north to our cousin's and attended, an event where she is a museum docent and they were throwing a wine tasting benefit. They held it outside in their lovely park grounds. I ran into my old neighbor and friend (who I joined Freemason’s with at his behest, over 10 years ago) and his wife. He made it to Senior Warden, and had to quit because of a new job. I worked my way up to Senior Warden, then had to quit because of family matters. I’m only just now making the connection. We both almost made it to the head guy in the lodge and then, had to leave. I have since moved to a different lodge area here in Bremerton, but have yet to pick up that path again. Still, it was a very fun wine tasting event though I only had hard alcohol from the vendor tables from different distilleries and vineyards and breweries available. We also got a tour of the mansion on their grounds and their museum. I mentioned this in part because, that was last Friday and I think on Wednesday our cousin notified us she tested positive for Covid. We all tested ourselves and we all came up negative. Although I did have some digestive problems this week, which I didn’t have through all my previous three years of Covid issues. I also had dizziness one night this week, which seem to be cured with an antihistamine at bed time. I've felt fine for a couple of days now. Covid can kiss my ass. Although I did waste at least a couple of years with it in which I’ve produced three books (2 fiction, 1 non-fiction on long covid), 2 films (a narrative flm noir and documentary) and have won many awards, so…
Also, since I mentioned it in previous walks, I think I had trouble even walking on my left ankle the last few times, definitely the last time. Since then I have iced and applied heat and some CBD salve and it’s feeling pretty good today.
On this podcast on Apple+, “The Foundation”. I loved reading the Foundation trilogy as a kid. I can’t remember when exactly but it was either the late 1960s or early 70s. So much has come from those books, written in the 40s and 50s, I believe. It’s given us so many things and so many things came from so many things. Star Wars being one. But I do like this rendition in this new series. I found after the first season and into the second, if you keep up, really helped to show me the things I’ve missed in the show and the things different from the books I read so many decades ago. I also hadn’t known until this past month that there were two other books Asimov wrote in the series. I may have known that before… but never knew he never finished the series. Which would now be a sextuplet I suppose.
We have little control over in our life beyond our epidermis layer of skin. Beyond that it’s just wishes and guesses. The further we get away from that outer layer of skin to apply our desires out into the world and onto others, ever increases the amount and degree of abuse we put out into the world. And here’s the kicker… We don’t really have that much control over the area under our outer layer of skin either, we just think we do. Then we get into determinism and fate...
So it’s been a few days since my last walkabout. Since my last walk, I’ve gotten the previous thoughts before that last walk posted yesterday and I think I’ve gained like three or five new international awards for my films since then. Just today my film "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero" is now a nominee in the Beyond the Curve festival. It’s always a lovely thing to wake up to.
I’m starting to submit my rewritten screenplay with producer Robert Mitis consulting on it, “The Teenage Bodyguard “, to festivals.
A week ago today or this evening anyway, my sister and her husband picked me up and drove us up north to our cousin's and attended, an event where she is a museum docent and they were throwing a wine tasting benefit. They held it outside in their lovely park grounds. I ran into my old neighbor and friend (who I joined Freemason’s with at his behest, over 10 years ago) and his wife. He made it to Senior Warden, and had to quit because of a new job. I worked my way up to Senior Warden, then had to quit because of family matters. I’m only just now making the connection. We both almost made it to the head guy in the lodge and then, had to leave. I have since moved to a different lodge area here in Bremerton, but have yet to pick up that path again. Still, it was a very fun wine tasting event though I only had hard alcohol from the vendor tables from different distilleries and vineyards and breweries available. We also got a tour of the mansion on their grounds and their museum. I mentioned this in part because, that was last Friday and I think on Wednesday our cousin notified us she tested positive for Covid. We all tested ourselves and we all came up negative. Although I did have some digestive problems this week, which I didn’t have through all my previous three years of Covid issues. I also had dizziness one night this week, which seem to be cured with an antihistamine at bed time. I've felt fine for a couple of days now. Covid can kiss my ass. Although I did waste at least a couple of years with it in which I’ve produced three books (2 fiction, 1 non-fiction on long covid), 2 films (a narrative flm noir and documentary) and have won many awards, so…
Also, since I mentioned it in previous walks, I think I had trouble even walking on my left ankle the last few times, definitely the last time. Since then I have iced and applied heat and some CBD salve and it’s feeling pretty good today.
On this podcast on Apple+, “The Foundation”. I loved reading the Foundation trilogy as a kid. I can’t remember when exactly but it was either the late 1960s or early 70s. So much has come from those books, written in the 40s and 50s, I believe. It’s given us so many things and so many things came from so many things. Star Wars being one. But I do like this rendition in this new series. I found after the first season and into the second, if you keep up, really helped to show me the things I’ve missed in the show and the things different from the books I read so many decades ago. I also hadn’t known until this past month that there were two other books Asimov wrote in the series. I may have known that before… but never knew he never finished the series. Which would now be a sextuplet I suppose.
This may be the only show other than the "Westworld" series, or possibly "Game of Thrones" where I feel I need to re-watch episodes after watching a new episode. Those I was good with, but they were complicated. This series I feel like I really could benefit from re-watching each episode immediately after watching one. Listening to the podcast has really helped and I highly recommend it if you’re into the series, especially if you’ve read the books. Especially, if you’re into film productions.
To give you an idea of the esteem at which I held Isaac Asimov as a child and into my adulthood, my first published horror, sci-fi story as I’ve said before back in 1990 was “In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear“. The title of which was a tribute to Asimov’s first autobiography “In Memory Yet Green“. I didn’t tell them to follow religion then in that story, but I should’ve. I had previously read "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein.
But in hindsight, now I look at my book “Death of heaven“ and I can see the same orientation towards religion from those two authors. As one reviewer on Amazon said of it… "Really great story. Interesting take on the view of our planet and the evolution of religion, without it being only about religion! And if you like gory stories, this one's for you!!!" I do not know that person.
Religion is an organized system of belief. And once you create one, it immediately starts to devolve and dilute as it spreads through time and around the world. As with the Catholic religion that repeatedly splintered. But my book “Death of heaven” takes entirely another tact, and is a most deeply explored fiction book on the misunderstanding or misinterpretation of religious belief, perhaps ever written. And that’s not even braggadocio, but mere fact. Or at least I like to think so.
That book is written as if one were walking by something happening on the street and then the story is told about the path walked next to it, describing actuality as opposed to the delusional reality of that event on the roadside. Which is religion throughout the history of humankind. That’s why I would say my book is so epic in proportion. It does after all go from before the Earth was created until potentially, it’s ending, by the end of the book. And what happens then, I will leave up to the reader to discover.
Any sequels I write to follow it, I’ve been considering for the decade or so since I wrote it. Just this past month I came up with the most viable sequel to this story. One I've long planned to dovetail with my screenplay about two demon hunting women, "Gray and Lover The Heart Tales Incident", with one of the greatest endings I've ever seen. Or written.
I’m not trying to be "more than", in saying this ("Firefly" reference). However, I’m starting to see a lot of structural parallels between The Foundation series in my book "Death of heaven". There are things like the unreliable narrator. Things like, who are these voices speaking around an entire planet and species? Plus the origin of this book comes from a previous book in the final novella in that book. That book being my first ever published collection of my older short stories, ending with a novella, as mentioned, “Anthology of Evil”. That novella is titled, “Andrew“, which begin as a short story. The first one I wrote for my Intro to Fiction class at Western Washington University towards my degree in Psychology and Phenomenology. I think perhaps it shows in that story. But it was my first experience in blowing away an entire room of writers, readers, and a writing professor. That story was on such another level from what we had been reading, as all of us were at the time, beginning writers. Although I would say I was probably a writer long being a reader on my way, when I wrote my first short story that I wrote within hours of finishing Frank Herbert's book, "Dune", in 1970, that I titled,“10 Steps to Shadow-Kandom”.
The story that my 10th grade mind came up with, after having read Asimov's "The Foundation" trilogy, and then "Dune", both regarding one youth’s shattered illusions in the path they were on. I belonged to a science fiction book club as a kid, then later while in the USAF.
It’s funny and ironic that 10 steps story I wrote as a 15-year-old was already exhibiting my questioning authority and the concept of shattered illusions. Which comes out again in my novella "Andrew" (in an odd sort of way), which evolved along with my one page short story “Perception“, into my epic, “Death of heaven".
Changing the subject drastically, sort of… Kelly Hughes and I, and put that “I“ out there rather gently, as I'm trying to stay in the background for these events, especially since long Covid… we are gearing up to our next iteration of the "Gorst Underground Film Festival" we started some years ago and which grew out of the small community of Gorst, Washington. Just on the edge of Bremerton. Kelly has acquired a small venue in Silverdale, the next town over, a hub for the area and the Navy and has grown into a shiny shopping center of sorts. There’s a small production studio on its outskirts in a business Park, all owned by the same family. Oh yeah, I forgot, Kelly asked me to watch a short film by the Laszlo‘s who were one of our supporters and would show up, have drinks, show their films at our monthly, late evening events at the historic Roxy theater here in town. They and their films were always a joy to behold. Those were our monthly “Slash Night“ events. Those were a lot of fun. Alas, Covid killed them. From those monthly events, we also got to see and know of the works of the Darkow brothers, Travis and Tyler. We’re still in touch with Tyler and enjoy his Facebook posts about his working on film productions, mostly as an actor now.
Speaking (yet again) of my book "Death of heaven", it is still in the free little library I just walked by...an orphan. Brand new book, never been read itself, and no one’s picking it up. I think the problem with that book has been its title and cover. It gives the wrong impression. Especially since the title has a lower case “H“ in the title for "heaven". Which started out as a cover artist mistake, since the book got reprinted with version two. So I just went with it. I thought he did it on purpose and he later said he didn’t even realize it but somehow it passed muster until it got onto Amazon. Then they started questioning it because you can’t have improper capitalization in a title. Well, fuck them for that. I’ve long put a lot of weight into my titles saying that a title can be half of the meaning of a story. And you have no right to screw with an artist's conception. Proper title grammatical form is the capitalized "H" in Heaven, as a place, or as a religious conception, or merely out of respect. And I leaned on that latter most in giving the word no respect. Why? Well, you have to read the book, so the title's indicating something and it's not just about the capitalization of the book, It indicates something that not just the book cover, as any kind of cover animative graphic. Not hyper realistic like book covers are today. It gives it a feeling of something it’s not. The cover artist, Marvin Hayes, said he thought it added to the breaking of rules in the book. Right, but I think for most people that’s not how they’re taking it. It’s not just something that draws their attention, but may repulse them somewhat. Say, if it’s sitting on a bookstore shelf. No offense intended to the artist, as I think it’s a pretty cool graphic. And it kind of shows the story in one single image, but it also gives people the wrong impression that it’s a book about angels, or something. It is not. There is one story about an angel in the book and that's a misperception by the protagonist in the story. While there are beings in the book that can be misperceived as gods. And their interactions with humanity, over the course of all of human life, from beginning to end (of the book and timeline), does lead to stories of a perhaps religious deity (deities) interacting with humans. While there is something entirely different going on. And that was the purpose in my mind of a lowercase in the word, "heaven".
I think the prime concept of "Death of heaven" is to be careful what you believe, you may be 100 percent incorrect. And here are examples of that.
There’s some great actors and work done on the Foundation show series. But I would like to mention one of the main characters who plays "Brother Day", Lee Pace. I first noticed him in the series, "Halt and Catch Fire" some years back, about the invention of the home PC. And then I see him in a few other things. I noticed him the other day in "Captain Marvel". He’s a big guy, and a great actor.
On the Foundation series, there’s some parallels between the Donald Trump administration's efforts, and MAGA. Foundation has individuals who have become somewhat unhinged, for a variety of reasons. Good reasons. Donald Trump and his administration are also unhinged. And now they are paying the price through the judicial system as they try to claim political divisiveness against those prosecuting them. Typical with criminals at large. Which is ridiculous in this case, because this entire process has been overtly purposely cut off from the political system and executive branch. It’s interesting how the characters in Foundation are unhinged yet people still follow their orders, just as we see with Donald Trump and his fascist autocratic movement of sheer and utter bullshit.
I need to check if my two version screenplay book on Amazon ever got approved because I never heard anything about it and it’s been plenty of time. My first two scream playbooks I got up there recently, were approved pretty quickly. So what the hell? [Update 8/19/23: OK it's up and online and...I just ordered a few, then I'll unpublish it, for now]
By end of 3rd mile I’m happy to know I can do a fourth, but my left hip's feeling something not... comfortable. Which reminds me of two of my good friends since high school. One I've known since I started college in 1980. Both of them having health problems now in our late 60s. I’m not so much myself, except for Covid. Although my knees and left ankle have been a problem since I was born, I think. First world problems? That is, industrialized nation problems?
OK as much as I want to do a 5th mile today, I’m calling it a day. At least I got four done and at least I got out for a walk at all. I just don’t wanna overtax my left ankle. Although I would like to listen to more of this Foundation podcast, I have only this one and one more and then I’m caught up to the episodes I’m now watching weekly for season two.
It’s nice to know as from the beginning of these walkabout thought blog posts, I’ve been wanting to get more into entertainment, and out of politics. Which is hard because we’re in a politically insane, autocratic nutcase period in American history. And after all Trump's abuses, I look forward to his being abused by way of sentencing and punishment and prison. He's supposed to turn himself in to the police in Georgia next Wednesday, according to himself, then said he's pushing it to the last minute. What a putz. Just get it over with buffoon. According to that police official he will go through, the process every criminal goes through there he will. Seems fair (finally). To which I do so hope we hear what fat boy's actual weight is. Pushing 300lbs? One wonders if his vanity will kill him on that day.
Adding to what I was saying above about my first short story from 10th grade that I wrote, to my book, "Death of heaven" evolved from my novella "Andrew", which started out as a short story and turned into my Intro to Fiction at University, it's prime concept being one of disillusion, and then those I have to add to that, my first screenplay, written my last quarter at Western Washington University, which I titled “Ahriman“, is a sci-fi screenplay about a prince/prophet on a desert planet, unceremoniously and inadvertently transported to earth via a scientific experiment gone wrong.
Funny how I keep impinging upon that concept. My story, “EarVu” is about an experiment gone wrong. My newer story “Quantum History“ is about kind of the same thing. Also, my latest fiction book which began as a novella for that series, but grew into a book unto itself (because I was having so much fun writing it, and THAT is what you want to hear from an author), thus the novella intended for the sequel as, "Anthology of Evil II" evolved into book II with that second book becoming, "The Unwritten". I only refer to this because of the three universes in that book where one has suffered through their "Religious Wars" and then their "Science Wars", where in the end, Science wins out. Yeah, reminds me of earth and our religions there to replace science which was non existent until it was existent so religion could die out to be replaced by more sane considerations and yet, nope, still not happening. Well let's hope it doesn't mimic my book...
Cheers! Sláinte!
Cheers! Sláinte!
