Purpleism defined...

Purpleism? You don't know what, "Purpleism" is? I've talked about it before on here, but today is to show progression.

But Really? Never heard of it, huh? Never heard of the Church of the Pure Purple?

No memory of "The Religion Purple", Purpleism, huh?

Well, your loss, I suppose.

Basically, if you have generally accepted pet peeves in an area of entertainment or, discipline of endeavor (that we care about), Purpleism may be for you. It is an absurdist (faux) "religion". Religions have abused us for so long, we thought it time, in the same vein perhaps as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster far better than the more ridiculous "religion" of.... Scientology (the most ridiculous religion ever and needs judicial actions as other countries have banned it, and to lose its official standing as religion in America), and others.

The UrbanDictionary.com  as of October 1st, 2011, has a definition of Purpleism. Wikipedia not so much.

Purpleism also has a theme song by the great Gypsey Punk band, Gogol Bordellow, of course, called, "Start Wearing Purple".

Purpleism was started by two disenfranchised individuals in the Pacific NorthWest of the United States of America. Where else could it have started? Home of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix and so much creativity it's unreal. The web page is hosted on JournalED.com which is the "Journal of ExtraOrdinary Diversions, a website that has been online since 1995 and was born of an attempt in the 1980s to create a magazine of the same name for the purpose of displaying some of the NorthWest's writing talents (no poetry was allowed, but experimentation was greatly appreciated). Purpleism is definitely an ExtraOrdinary Diversion.

The High Holy Leader is a Mystery, but it is known he is one of The Two. The "Other" is known as "Nik, the Most High Adjudicator".

Purpleism was born of irritation one night when two guys, a father, and son, were watching a TV show and the commercials were out of hand, the hacking up of the show was ridiculous. Ends of shows have been cut, compressed, the credits are shrunk till you can't read them, ads display across the bottom of he screen while you are watching a show. It's embarrassing.

Channels like the IFC, and the Independent Film Channel tout themselves as independent but aren't much more now than a lame commercial channel, with commercials showing lame shows that aren't any more independent or creative than Channels on Broadcast.

Finally that night, it couldn't be taken anymore and the absurdist pseudo Religion "Purpleism" was born. It was a reaction against Wall Street, banal management by Film, TV, and the Music Industry, who frankly, have gotten what they deserved.

Its purpose to draw attention to the reaction against what has been done on producing and displaying the Art of our culture. To have a platform from which to respond to how we feel about being abused by too many commercials during TV shows. To react against the poor content being shoved down our throats. The bastardization of our films in their being cut up, altered, shortened, compressed, and even cut off, sometimes by the creator themself, the director, the worst of all abuses where a Director abuses us through abusing their own product.

And that leads to other things, from a mutilated movie on a cable channel (Syfy), to other areas. It was then realized that there was a common chord here that ran through all of our culture. There are things that annoy and downright piss people off and they have nowhere to turn, no format wherein their complaints can be treated with concern by those who are doing the abusing. It is still small, but growing. Check it out.

So, what exactly is Purpleism?

The easiest way to explain it is simply to show some of the Manifestos and Tenets of the Religion that is always growing, and always evolving:

Purpleism has Manifestos on:

• Reality
• Romance
• Film
• Tele content (Sound / Visual)
• Consumerism

The Tenets:

• Those who cannot understand will see the following as, a single Truth. Know that the Universe has no single Truth.
• Be careful, for all ye who can actually hear the Truth, become instant converts! Peace.
• Of all the colors in the universe, Purple is the most divine.
• The Color Purple is not just the color of Royalty.
• Ask yourself: Is it Why, or How?
• What makes the color Purple so heavenly?
• "The Religion Purple", or "Purpleism" is constituted of those Believers who accept the reality of The Color
• Communication of the Universal Ethers is also known as The Color Purple.
• The Religion Purple Priests are never taller than 2 universal cubits and 2 palms (or for US Standard, 3'6") because that puts their eyes at precisely the right point to be able to see clearly, The Color Purple, as it is most visible at that height off any horizontally planed surface. Think the Star Wars critters called Jawas, in the robe (above) that is purple without the bandoleers. They must wear robes of heavy dark materials that are breathable (natural fibers being preferred) and have hoods to block light, enabling them to see more clearly, The Color Purple, as ever it portends itself.
• Purpleism is most notable near Universities.
• Purpleism is greatly discussed within the inner cities, the most uselessly notable adherents are from the upper echelon circles of the rather well-off; that subset of the young and hopelessly bored social strata who simply will never, "get it"; and therefore, we will never give it to them.
• As there can be no nothing, something must exist. Therefore, the concept of God is a non-sequitur.
• There is no Inner Circle in Purpleism.
• There is, however, a Coherent Beam of individuals in Purpleism, made up of the most enlightened and bright lights. These are only assimilated into the Beam, through their lights brightly shining which can be seen by any of the Priests and are allowed in only by invitation.

Why all these weird rules and stipulations? Isn't that what makes a religion? Only this one, has some stuff mentioned that we care about. It seems to have some relevance to daily life. Stuff like that.

And that is Purpleism.

Learn it, live it, love it.

Firewalling Sexual Abusers

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” - Mark Twain

My view of sexual harassment, domestic abuse especially against women and children, slander or libel against women especially for merely speaking out against those who are abusive, has always been the same. Stop it from happening, support women in fighting back. Firewall those who are abusers, cut them off, block them.

Stop calling women liars, stop slandering them, stop muckraking them through the media mud. Support our women, support the abused, don't just ignore them, turn away, abuse them even more!

This is not a partisan issue, nor a political issue. It's a human issue. Men need to lock arms with women over this. In a nonsexual, platonic, professioanl fashion, supporting women for their worth, their skills, their equality to us men. And not just a pretend equality, but a real and substantive one.

I suspect most men may be good and decent people, but enough men are not that this has to be addressed and we have to stand for those who are abused and then more especially abused when they are brave enough to speak out about it and who is being abusive toward them.

We have a culture of abuse against women by men in power over them.

We have elected a president in Donald Trump who has admitted he is a predator. We have people declining invitations to the White House because of him and that. Enough obfuscation about peopple like Bill Clinton, or even Al Franken, when we have an actual accused predator in the oval office RIGHT NOW.

And Republican Judge Roy Moore. A man who has been an historical embarrassment and obvious sexual predator of minors. Who been removed from the bench twice for refusing directions from the Supreme court. Who had his own community when he was a district attorney, ban him from their Gadsden Mall, and from the local YWCA for inappropriate behavior of soliciting sex from young girls. And he is still running for Congress and being supported into it.

Women who have a claim against Bill Clinton should be supported to seek their closure, but as a nation we need to pay attention to what is here and now of those in power at this time. As for Franken, it feels less than it's made it out to be and regardless, an investigation is in the works. But I suspect it will end in little being discovered as those who know Al seem to see it as I do, that what was reported was an outlier in being a bad behavior, and not a bad actor as we see in Trump, Moore and others like them.

We are America and we need to start acting like it, and clean up our act!

It's wrong. I can't believe this is happening, still! But then, I first saw this kind of thing when I was in my teens and in a way that really put my life on the line for it. In part that event from 1974 set a tone for me throughout the rest of my life even up to today.

Maybe it's because I had so much of my childhood governed by women, my sister, my mother and especially my mother's mother, I've always been more understanding of their plight. And I've always been easily angered at hearing of their abuse.

I had an awesome grandmother. In so many ways, she has my thanks for who I am today. In finding out I hadn't learned multiplication tables because of how often we had moved, because at one grade school they learned those tables in fourth grade while my next school in third, she wrote out the multiplication tables from one through twelve all over her kitchen wall. At every meal we would go over them whenever I stayed there, until I had learned them all.

I grew up loving women, respecting them, and also in having a solid sense of self respect in that regard, in having a great respect for women. I had trouble learning and K-12 was kind of a nightmare. I had a step father who seemed to hate me and tell me at every turn that I was stupid. It wasn't until the military and later college and a university that I truly began to believe that just perhaps, I wasn't stupid after all.

So men who lay blame for their actions against women are because they had poor self esteem, or couldn't talk to women and so use their power and control to get sex, just doesn't wash with me. It's lazy, it's abuse pure and simple.

There is a theme going all though my fiction of empowered women. Or of bad things happening to the men who abuse them. An example from my own life of my orientation in being pro women, is uniquely available to the public, as I've written a true crime semi biopic screenplay.

This may seem like a shameless plug for a screenplay I'm shopping around to producers and studios, but hey, it's hard getting a screenplay sold. That being said however, it is also a pretty amazing example of my orientation on supporting women in my life and I would also argue, a very good example of how we need to stand up for women. More than once I've put myself physically on the line for women against some guy, usually their guy, and women that I sometimes, many times, did not even know. AND most importantly, I had expected NOTHING from them for my efforts.

I stood up for them merely because... it was the right thing to do!

I currently have two titles for it as I shop it around. Teenage Bodyguard, or Slipping "The Enterprise" (see links for more). "The Enterprise" was what that mafia group called themselves and what we tried to do that week in trying to slip by them until the woman in the screenplay could leave town at the end of that week.

She introduced me to a lifestyle that I'd had no idea about. I'd read The Godfather in high school, I saw the film. But didn't realize just how women truly were treated by some of these guys, if not most.

The screenplay details an actual week in my life at eighteen in 1974 where I protected a woman from the local Tacoma Carbone crime family until she could leave town. Why do I bring this up? It's not to go on about a screenplay I'm currently shopping around, but to point out that even at eighteen, I felt strongly about women's rights and treating them decently, that I put my life on the line for a woman.

I've gone through my younger years and throughout my life being disgusted by what has been put upon women, merely for being female, or attractive, or in a position where a guy having power or control over her, can feel free to be abusive. Not just in sexual but also in issues of power and control. To be fair, these men I'm detailing in this were abusive to human beings. They abused their control and power over men also, and in many cases, murdered them. The ultimate abuse.

In my screenplay and back then in reality, I had been introduced to a woman who was around ten years older than me. I was initially just asked to give her a ride to her new location where she was to stay there for a short time. I found out later it was because my "friend" wanted her out, fearing the mafia who was looking for her and in the process, put me front and center in their crosshairs. To be fair, they didn't know I'd accept helping her. They just asked me to give her a ride.

I was naive about many things in life back then, and in some ways so was she. She was also obviously traumatized. My reason for bringing this up regards why I took on the challenge of protecting her, with a gun, for that entire week.

Once I got her to where she was going to be staying for that week, she sat me down and handed me a newspaper clipping about a recent murder. It was the murder of a bouncer at a local (Tacoma's first) topless club, run by this crime family and called the Tiki restaurant in Lakewood, Washington, just south of Tacoma. It was a murder she said, even though to this day it is labeled an anonymous murder, was done by the crime family, to one of their own.

She outright asked me if I had a gun. I admittedly said, yes. She then took a chance, seeming lost, asking if I would get that gun and stay with her for that week until she could leave town. She feared they would find her and take her, and potentially murder her too for what they believed was being a murder witness against them. They did that kind of thing fairly regularly, all through the 1970s. I didn't know what to say until she explained further.

It was her explanation that convinced me that I had to help this woman.

I bring this up because even at eighteen, I felt I needed to stand up for women. And, as this case clearly exemplifies, I put my money where my mouth is. I put my life on the line for this woman, because I was so horrified at the abuse this woman and others at her job had been put through.

I've had that orientation all my life. I've stood up for women when I saw them being abused but sadly, many times, the women went right back into that abuse, much to my shock and dismay. But we do what we can. And in this case, I did.

I'll just share that scene in my screenplay:


SARA
Do you have a gun? You don’t happen
to have a gun do you?

ME
A gun? A gun. Oddly enough, I do.

SARA
What. A rifle, probably--

ME
Yeah but a handgun, too. .357
magnum actually.

SARA
Can you use it? You know how?

ME
Yes. Yes, I do.

Self-assured but naive and it slightly confuses her.

SARA
I don’t know why, but I trust you.

ME
Again, I have that affect on
people. I’d have to go home, just
to get the gun.

SARA
You live with your parents?

ME
No. I have an apartment.
(light chuckle)
Graduated, got out at seventeen. I
have a job, an apartment, car
obviously. I’ve had a job since
ninth grade. Days. I’ll need to go
to work. Have to pay the bills,
rent and stuff. Could take the week
off but, really can’t afford it.

SARA
No, that’s fine, I understand, you
need to work, pay bills. If I need
to go anywhere I’ll just wait for
you. No one knows where I am or how
to find me. That’s what all that
was about at Erik and Dave’s. It’s
safe here. Really. I never told
anyone about them. I don’t want to
take any chances. Not mentioning
this to anyone goes without saying.
OK? And don’t let anyone here know
you have a gun.
I don’t want to-- freak anyone out.
Especially Mary being PG and all.
You know?

ME
I get it, I’m used to it, really. I
don’t show if I’m carrying. About
these guys--
(Indicates newspaper clipping)
Dangerous I take it?

SARA
Sometimes. I was in the office that
day with Ron. He was all worked up
over something so I let him throw
me up against the wall for a bit.
That always calms him down. I know
they killed Danny. The bouncer. He
was nice. To me, to all the girls,
not like the others.

ME
Sorry? You let him throw you up
against the wall?

SARA
(Confused he doesn’t get
it, uncomfortable)
You know. Sex. Most of the girls
let him do that. Like I said, calms
him down then he’s much easier to
deal with. Danny I think just got
in their way. He stuck up for us.
Maybe they finally had it. I know
they killed him though. I do know
that.

ME
Why not just fire him?. Who kills a
guy for sticking up for women?

She looks away.

SARA
Johnny Carbone does. May have been
something more, I donno. Maybe he
heard something, spoke up at the
wrong time? Who knows?

ME
OK, well, look. I’ll head home.
Back in a few. I won’t be long.

When she asked me if I had a gun, I told her I did, but I wasn't convinced yet. It was when she made it clear what her working environment was, and there was more than I put into the screenplay, in how it was for all the women there. And my research for this screenplay has proved this to be true and even then some. My mind was made up. Screw those guys, she had me 100% on her side.

That's the kind of motivation and support we need to give women today.

This nonsense has to stop. Men need to not just support women, but themselves in not acting like animals just because they have a little (or worse, a lot) of power.

Women, as has been said repeatedly over time, are our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughter and friends. They deserve our respect and support. Even if we have to pick up a gun to support them (obviously not illegally, go to the authorities if need be).

And that is the end of it.

We have now elected a president who has admitted he is a sexual predator. Well, I didn't and wouldn't have voted for someone like him. Women have come out against him for his abuse and what have we done, what has he done?

Abused them in the media. Dragged their reputations through the mud and slime that sexual abuse leads to.

But that is changing. Times have changed and it needs to change. We will ALL be all the better for it! As we will when women more and more have positions of power and control over men and women.

Stand up for them. Support our friends and loved ones who have historically suffered abuse all through history.

#MeToo #SexualHarrassment #StandForWomen #Producer

The Irresponsible Generation?

I don't get this attitude that I see so much of today. Blame laid anywhere but on oneself. Yes, times are hard, but they've been harder.

And sure, there's always some of that involved....

How do you not know you are going to graduate High School when you have been working for twelve years to get to that point? What happened to being responsible for oneself? Thinking for one''s self, thinking outside the box to get to where you need to be?

There seems to be some kind of a virus going around that absolves people from being responsible for themselves. It's a super virus among many conservatives, to be sure. You'd think in twelve years during K-12 years one would figure out they are one day going to be out on their own.

"I am 17, and my parents are going to kick me out on my 18th birthday in August to make me homeless. What do I do? I don’t have a driver’s license or a bank account."

Seriously? I suppose we can blame our parenting? I was a bit of a mess when I left home at seventeen. But I had a driver's licence, I got a job that started the day after HS graduation. I took responsibility and figured it all out on my own. My parents weren't any help, they assumed I'd do what I needed to. And I did.

It was painful. But no one helped me, I helped myself. I had no other choice. My parents weren't highly educated. My mother only got to ninth grade. My step-father graduated high school, but wanted little to do with me and was a blue collar warehouse worker. There were no expectations from them for me which was a good and a bad thing. Good emotionally. Bad career wise. But then, I had to figure things out for myself before I moved out and because of that, I handled my own situations after that.

What helped me more than anything was a friend back then telling me something important. He had said:

"Be responsible for yourself, because no one else will be. Yes, your parents may be to blame for your emotional problems or more. But once you are an adult at eighteen you need to accept responsibly for yourself. Even if your situation is not your fault or responsibility, take that responsibility on yourself. Because by accepting it you will be far ahead of the game."

And so I did that. It took a while but it was worth the pain over that next year or two as I adjusted to stop blaming anyone but myself for everything. In taking that responsibility, it gave me a brand new and more productive perspective.

We're seeing this lack of responsibility even in older generations now in things like the issues about Russian and even Republican disinformation campaigns. For over two decades now we've seen this kind of behavior in the GOP and with conservatives, with the NRA, with the tobacco industry, the car industry, and with many global corporations. Selfishness, greed, "me before others", this simple overall lack of accepting responsibility for our own actions and situations. Win at all costs, even if we are liars or abusers. I may even be in part an explanation for much of the sexual abusers we're now hearing about in the media that led to the "Me Too" campaign which was long overdue.

Once I had accepted responsibility for myself and my actions, my life got better. Eventually. It hurt, and it was painful. It took over a year to accept it, to get used to it. but life got better from that point on. It took a while for my living situation to get better but my mindset, my emotional state, my life orientation, even my friend's attitude toward me (and mine toward them) was instantly enhanced. And the rest of my life was all the better for it, than it would have been.

America needs to start doing that overall. Not just about our children, not just about ourselves. Not just about family, but about community in general and about our nation.

Perhaps in some ways we've confused a generation in our being so oriented to not do to our children what our parents did to us, in our being overly PC, in being too protective of our children. Perhaps our parents, even if misguided, actually (even if inadvertently), knew something we were msising?

I suspect one day this generation will get their act together, raise their kids differently and  (hopefully) do a better job than we did so their next generation will get it together overall and for us all.

Perhaps this is in part what is wrong with our government too. Not about our children obviously but about their parents who are now in power. We can see some of them, their attitudes, selfishness, being focused only on theory and defective agendas, not on humanity, process, or people, and not on our children.

Or perhaps this next generation will be even worse off? Well, hopefully not.

Our hope as it always is, is in our young. We need to invest in them, their education, healthcare, mental health, social health, and our own understanding of parenting them. I can only hope, we all can only hope, that they will be our hope and our future.

A future that will eventually get better than the ridiculous nonsense that is currently saturating our culture and our country,

Hollywood Girl Goes Author!

You may remember my Hollywood Girl blog on a web series created and starred in by the amazing Courtney Zito. Check that blog out for more about her and her show. Or you may remember my blog: Just why is Courtney Zito crashing the SuperBowl?  Both obviously about the same lady.

What this blog here and now is about is that she has just turned her talents to being an author and writing a book. What kind of book would this dynamic, attractive and talented actress, and comedic producer of a very funny show... write?

Well, a supernatural thriller of course! Titled Peripheral Vision, it's available now to pre order on Amazon. Check out her new video book trailer for it. It's pretty sweet! Drop by her Facebook page and let her know you hopefully pre-ordered the book. Coming out as an ebook first, it will later be released in print format. Teaming up with her in writing this book is writer Timothy Hammer.

See the Amazon description below at the end of this blog.

Courtney's an amazing talent (just watch an episode or a season (or three) of Hollywood Girl) who has been lost not only to the single crowd (she's married), she has also entered the role of parent. It seems like only yesterday she was a free and crazy Hollywood Girl and now she is branching out into a multitude of endeavors as only she can.

Far beyond the triple threat many fear as competition, just get out of her way and see where she goes!

Hollywood Girls has broken the bonds of videohood and entered the international realm of the novel.

Cheers, readers!

From the Amazon page:

Sometimes the deepest secrets hide in the the darkest corners.

As a little girl, Sarah suffered a horrific tragedy that would forever change her. She saw it coming before anyone else, but she could only describe it as the feeling. From then on, she always considered herself an “extra sensitive”. It was as if her mind knew something was going to happen, but she wasn’t able to fit all of the pieces together until after the fact. At night, while she dreamed, her visions played out both the past and the future, and sleep was often elusive. But with the help of doctors, and sleeping pills, she was able to silence the feeling for the better part of her life.

Now, as a thirty-something, “living the dream” in Los Angeles, she’s built a solid life for herself and put the tragedy behind her. But when she’s met with unexpected news, it causes a cataclysmic shift in everything she thought she knew about herself, and her family. Sarah’s estranged Aunt has died, and she has inherited her old farmhouse in the small Nebraska town of Homewood. Deep within the house, she discovers some very dark secrets. What she finds, opens up some frightening doors to the small town's past. Doors that were better left closed.

Oh yeah...this should be good!

Author's Reading at Studio 724 - Port Orchard

Saturday I went to another Author's reading at Studio 724 in Port Orchard. I have written about the Studio 724 Gallery and it's dynamic owner, Louis King before. I've been at a lot of events there this year with more coming.

This time I got to meet a couple of interesting authors and hear them read passages from their works. One I already knew previously (Marshall) but hadn't gotten yet to know his writings. The other was new to me and a very interesting guy with an interesting book, an interesting take on the vampire genre, with more to come.

Today's readings were by Mark Allen and Marshall Miller.

Mark Allen is retired military and has written a vampire book titled Nocturnal. I that book he did not want to follow the trend in vamps being glittery or romantic. Not an easy thing to do now a days to come up with a fresh slant on vamps. His vampire is scary, clinical in his actions and not ever quibbling over his situation, the ethics, the pain of being him.

He knows who he is. He lives how he does. And he's unapologetic about it. He is realistic however and he does cull food with a sense of economy and reality. Some are just not targeted as his food sources, children, the weak, the innocent. But he didn't choose this path out of compassion or ethics. Rather he chooses the dregs of humanity out of a sense of efficiency and his own sense of perfection. not unlike perhaps, a wolf in targeting the easy kill or the choice of what is perhaps inadvertently the best for the herd.

Mark gave an impassioned reading and one felt he truly felt his protagonist deeply. His next book he is already working on will venture into the realm of werewolves, but with, as is Mark's nature, a fresh take on them and their greater endeavors in society. Mark also mentioned that he writes screenplays, has an L.A. agent and has directed an indie film.

Marshall Miller has written a series of books about an alien invasion that is certainly worth a look.I've known Mark for a little while now, through the Studio. He hosts a show on public access with another author, Peter Stockwell, for KLAW (Kitsap Literary Authors and Writers), and Kitsap Publishing based in Poulsbo, WA. They usually air on Saturdays at 6PM PT.

From a description on Writer's in Kitsap County on MeetUp.com:

Kitsap County has a monthly television show filmed at Bremerton public television station by the fairgrounds. Want to get involved? Want to be interviewed? Come by the station every last Tuesday of the month, we take over the station at 2 PM. Come learn how you can help.

Someone coined the phrase for Marshall that his three volume TSCHAAA series (from Kitsap Publishing) as the War and Peace of alien squid invasion novels. Marshall read from his first book, The Gathering Storm. It was a fun and intense section he read of his book.

As his own write up says:

 If you like Sci Fi/Speculative Fiction with Adult Themes that make you THINK; If you like books with exciting and well-developed characters; If you like strong heroes and heroines, unusual but interesting Aliens, and slam bam ACTION that harkens back to the Golden and Silver Age of Pulp Fiction, you’ll LOVE this series.

These were both very interesting authors and we look forward to their next efforts. I also personally look forward to the next author event at Studio 724!


Shameless plug for one of my own books, Death of heaven (video book trailer).

America, Who Are You?

Before I get into it and because of that this will be a shorter than normal blog this week, I'd like to share a couple of personal things with you if you don't mind. And thank you beforehand.

First off, the latest addition to a horror anthology I'm going to be in, the Dark Chapter Press A-Z [Horror] Anthology, is out! It is the letter "L" for Love Letters, by Roma Gray. With each letter's release I'm yet another step closer to my own letter, "X"! My story will be X The Unknown about a Seattle FBI agent at day's end that takes a drastically disturbing turn. I had originally written, as some of you may know, Xibalba Unleashed, a story based on Mayan mythology. But I went over the word limit (long story, but if you're curious you can read my blog on this anthology and what happened regarding this and why). And so, it's to your benefit (if you'd like to see it that way) as you can read it long before my letter actually comes up (these stories come out every two weeks or so).

"Love letters is a fond token of remembrance, a treasured means of communication between loved ones, a primitive form of sentiment that has outlived the intrusion of modern technology. Love letters are cherished; they contain intimate secrets and private thoughts, but they can also reveal a darker side to the human emotion, a very real evil that is more than just words on a page." #ebooks #horror

Secondly, I have released a new non-fiction ebook. For now it's only on Smashwords. I call it SpiritQuest Weekend 1991.I recently found a few pages of a journal that I had kept over a weekend in 1991 as I was headed into a divorce. In reading it recently I found it interesting, as I had forgotten some of what I wrote about. As did my brother who also read it and suggested I publish it.

He thought people might find it interesting, entertaining, even useful in relation to their own lives as you get a bit of insight into my own thoughts back then. I also added a bit of history before it for context and even more afterward for the curious. It's a bit raw and brutally honest as I was going through a painful time. If you check it out I hope you find it useful and interesting enough to find it a worthy distraction. Some weird stuff happened around that time and I'm kind of glad I lived through it. #journal

Okay, back to today and this week's blog:

It occurred to me... were I a conservative NutCase like, say were I an Alex Jones, say Trump was a Democrat...I'd be screaming voraciously about how Las Vegas was a scam and Trump was just staging that attack because of Russia, to distract, to save myself.

And hey, I don't know, I'd be screaming something else really bad too most likely and at the top of my lungs. And other conservatives would be propping it all up. No matter who stupid what I was saying was.

But I'm not. He's not. It wasn't. Yes, there is more to it we don't know. But it wasn't some stupid conspiracy. It was whatever it was.

Bad people do exist. After all, I've seen, we've all seen, Trump on TV.

Good people who go bad also exist. Maybe that's what happened in Las Vegas.

Then again I've heard reports about some disturbing things. Like the shooter was using professional techniques, as if someone trained him. Then again, he was rather sloppy about some things, as if not a professional. Which he wasn't. He may have simply watched some YouTube videos. The reasons behind his actions are still unknown.

Then again, we have those who we know clearly what their intentions are and yet we suffer them day in and day out to run this country.

We are all organic beings.

Sometimes, we just go wrong and do bad things.

Then again some of us are very consistently bad while people give us way too much leeway in the bad actions we actually and sometimes obviously do.

Las Vegas was sad, very sad.

It's good to see people are waking the hell up and agreeing something can and should be done. Finally. It only took the biggest mass murder in US history. And after some Republicans got shot on a baseball field on their home turf. But will anything happen? It never has in the past. Not yet.

It also only took someone like Harvey Weinstein to be outed, finally for being a really horrible human being who needs psychological help. Someone who needed help for years. In his throwing things at people in board room meetings. In punching his own brother in the nose. In being a consistent bully, a misogynist, a serial sex offender. Not unlike our president.

The "Me Too" movement started maybe ten years ago. Not recently. Bad people, sex offenders, abuse has been around forever. It's high time we do something about it, to at least to stand up against it. To speak out, and keep speaking.

But we also need to stop talking and do something. SOME thing. We need to stop talking about sex offenders in power, and do something. SOME thing. We need to stop talking about mass shooters, about assault rifles, about weapons of war on our streets and do something. SOME thing.

We are after all what we do. Who are we? Who are you?


#POTUS

Blade Runner -1982, 1989 and 2049

We live in a strange new world. Not so much a brave one. We have too many cowards in our world today. Those who view lies and fake realities over that of actual facts and reality, just because it suits someone, allows them to win, or to profit.

I went alone the other Monday to the Bremerton SEEFilm Theater to see Blade Runner 2049 in 3D. It was worth it. It looked and sounded great. I had planned to go on a work day so no one would be there but when I arrived they mentioned it was a holiday (Columbus Day). But still, only about seven people showed up for the 2PM showing I attended.

As I sat before the show began playing with my Kindle Fire and trying not to listen to banal adverts on the screen, I got an odd feeling. We have had so many mass shootings, I couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom.

I hadn't brought a firearm myself even though I legally could. I hadn't even thought about it, On concealed carry, I have a rule. If I think I should take one I do. If I can't make up my mind, I do. If I don't feel it necessary (which is usually), I don't. But sometimes you just don't think about it, until later. This was one of those days. Typically, not a big deal. Let's face it, there is a lot of to do about nothing most of the time. Most people don't ever need to carry a gun. But that's a topic for another time. I only mention it because it calls to my state of mind in the theater.

I was just focused that day on going to see the long awaited, and potentially never going to happen, Blade Runner sequel. So in sitting in the theater, I tried to shrug it off. But with things like the recent Las Vegas mass shooting, our biggest mass murder to date, it was kind of hard to shake. So many nuts around anymore. However, once the show started, thoughts of it evaporated.

I've had an interesting experience with the Blade Runner universe. Same as many, different than most.

It goes back to when Blade Runner came out. I saw it just like everyone else and fell in love with it, just like many other. I started to check out all of Ridley Scott's films. I liked his late brother's films too, like Top Gun when it came out and others. I worked at a few Tower stores in the 80s (Tower Posters, Records and Video stores, in two cities) and watched Ridley's other films on both VHS and Beta as I had both, and came to love especially his first film, The Duelists.

Anyway, the quality of the film in the theater was excellent. The film itself, I couldn't be happier with. At the end, I just sat there... stunned. I planned to watch the titles to the end as I frequently do, and just after the best of the initial title music, I realized we were all still there and I flashed again on the whole mass shooting issue. I had to wonder...what if?

What if someone hated the sequel we had just watched? What if they wanted to watch the film, then just kill us all and go out on a Blade Runner (a violent film) high note? It was then that I remembered the death threats I'd gotten back in the late 1980s when I had said online that I was considering writing a sequel to Blade Runner.

I put those thoughts behind me for the moment. I just wanted to enjoy the last vestiges of this new film, even if it was just the titles. Besides I like to try and see if I know any names I see scroll by. Not to mention, I've had to generate my own title sequences in films before and it's interesting to note how new films are put together.

Finally, I realized I was alone in the theater. Then a theater attendant showed up. We ignored one another for a moment as I contained to read and listen to the end title sequence. He said something to me from the end of my aisle. I couldn't make it out so I reluctantly got up and walked over to him, a little disappointed in my somewhat euphoric mood being broken.

When it first came out, BR was my favorite film for some time (along with Brainstorm which I based my first screenplay, Ahriman, on in various ways). Toward the end of the 1980s I had decided I wanted to write a sequel to Blade Runner. Back then I was on various newsgroups on the Internet, which at the time was all text based. The World Wide Web still had a few years to get started up. My web page back then, JournalED.com (Journal of ExtraOrdinary Diversions, based on a print magazine I never quite got off the ground in the 1980s), which eventually grew to a sizable web site, and is now just online for historical purposes (but still, it's been online since 1995).

One newsgroup in 1989 had been talking about BR and I felt emboldened to mention I was thinking of writing a screenplay sequel to it. Within hours I had two death threats for even considering writing one. I was happy to note however that within a day or so someone offered to help me if I liked, and we both disregarded the death threats. I had thanked him, but I didn't really feel I needed the help.

I was married at the time. We had a young one year old son. I told my wife about all this and she agreed one night to help me come up with the concept. So we sat down at our dining room table in our ratty little apartment above a wine store on 65th and Revenna in Seattle, got a bit drunk, had fun maybe got stoned on some pot, and recorded the session. I still have it. It wasn't great, but in the end there was a concept. In listening back on it I can hear that she really didn't offer much and I did most of the talking, but it was fun and it lent some emotional support in my creating the concept.

I found that cassette, after all those years of it having been lost in my papers. A tiny little cassette tape for a micro-cassette recorder that I'd inherited from my late grandfather. Through the first of the 1990s and after we divorced, I worked some more on from time to time. I have the paperwork from that period on those efforts. I plan now to get them together and write something from it. It just won't (obviously) be a Blade Runner story.

At the end of the show of the sequel it had left me in a kind of fugue state. As if in a trance, almost. All these years since first seeing the original. I'd once had the Criterion Laser Disc version of it. I had magazines on it. I watched documentaries on it. I saw the Director's Cut when it came out and premiered at Seattle's Egyptian Theatre. I read the sequel books (yes, there's sequels and I didn't much like them). And all the other things about it that had left me sitting there in the theater a bit stunned. So I thought I'd come home and write this up to share it.

And here we are.

I have to highly recommend the film as well as Ridley and his chosen director Denis Villeneuve and writers Hampton Fancher, Michael Green, with story by Hampton Fancher. Of course initial credits have to go to the great Philip K. Dick in being based on characters from his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

As I've said, I have a long and personal history with BR as well as Ridley. Many do. There were two choices for me about a BR sequel, the original being somewhat of a near religious consideration for many. A sequel, most sequels really, are either worthy of being a sequel in the first place, or not. Anything over that is gravy. I saw it in 3D.

All I can say and the highest praise I can give it is... I accepted it. And I liked the gravy.