Primeval – A Review

During the opening of Primeval, I was left once again asking the question “White people, are you kidding me?” A series of holes open up around the country, in this case England, dinosaurs come pouring out, and you feel compelled to go through? This is the premise o Primeval, the lastest sci-fi show from BBC.

Co-created by Tim Haines (one of the men behind the Discovery Channel series Walking with Dinosaurs) and similar to Stargate (moving through time instead of space) there is a simple equation to figuring out the show:

Primeval = Torchwood – sexy + dinosaurs

The anomalies are doors to the time zones in the world’s history, the past is right beside us, and becomes linked to us. Prof. Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall), an authority on gaps in the evolutionary record, assembles a team who spend most of their time having crushes on one another. He himself is in a bit of a love triangle as his wife, who disappeared eight years earlier, keeps popping up along with the dinosaurs. Throw in some government bureaucrats, scientific mumbo jumbo, and a bit of an on-going mystery, and you have a strange but entertaining gumbo that lands just this side of camp. It’s not quite Jurassic Park but not quite Land of the Lost in terms of the special effects, though sometimes the CGI comes off as rather cartoony.

“It’s the pieces that don’t fit that interest me.” –Prof. Cutter

As always, a show about dinosaurs stirs up many spiritual issues. Too many Christians apply the litmus test of evolution vs. literal six day creation on folks before they will let them in. The hubris of those in possession of this spiritual secret knowledge (latter day Gnostics in many ways) chase off serious spiritual seekers. It’s just as bad, even worse, when science and religion get in bed together, such as the attempt to apply “scientific principles” and scrutiny to the Genesis creation account from the Bible. People, friends of the Bible, make claims then attempt to prop them up with evidence, proofs, and diagrams. This, by the way, despite the fact that the Bible never makes the claim of it being foundational to knowledge (inspired and useful, yes; foundational, no.)

Primeval achieves the right mix of being kid friendly, without the Sarah Jane Adventures level of kid pandering. I’ve really been enjoying the show, but this is partly based on my oldest son’s (age 7) assessment that “dinosaurs are cool.” So, yeah, the show’s kinda cool.


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BIB - Networking

When I talk to some newbie writers about networking, they seem to hear it as butt-kissing or something they shouldn’t have to do in order to get published. They want no part of the politics of writing/publishing. Typically I hear this from the self-published crowd who tend to show little interest in the business aspect of writing. (Ironic since if you are going to go the self-publishing route, you should know the business side of things even better). So this isn’t for them.

One of the reasons we go to conventions is to network. It’s why we spend so much time on message boards, blogs, and social networking sites. While publishing largely boils down to what you write, the business side of things is eased by who you know. Friends make things easier. I know that as my career has slowly blossomed (I figure I’m in year eight on my road to overnight success), friends are there to encourage me, be first readers of my stories, edit me, and blurb me as needed.

This is not a call to be an unrepentant climber. Name-badging people and ignoring them if they “can’t be of use to you” isn’t going to win you any friends (and people know when they have been snubbed). This mercenary way of going through life will be quickly recognized. It's about the relationship first. I know when someone is using me to raid my connections, hanging around with me just because of who I hang out with, or talking with me in order to talk to who I'm talking to. I know it's a part of the game, but if you're going to so transparently use me, at least buy me dinner first. Networking isn't about using or ass-kissing people, it's simply about building relationships, for their own sake.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference, described these people as connectors, people who "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together." Connectors are people in a community who know large numbers of people and who are in the habit of making introductions. A connector is essentially the social equivalent of a computer network hub. Connectors usually know people across an array of social, cultural, professional, and economic circles, and make a habit of introducing people who work or live in different circles.

Some people are natural networkers. Some people have to work at it.

Writers in general aren’t the most socially comfortable people. The bulk of what we do is done in solitude and the business side of art, networking, glad-handing, and nurturing/being with fans doesn’t necessarily come easily. So I offer a few simple tips to proper networking:

-Be genuine. Be true to yourself and your personality. Don’t try to mimic someone else. For example, I can’t do other people’s material. They’re likely funny in ways that I’m not and vice versa. Personality-wise, I can only be me. I’ll never be a Fran Friel, a Kelli Dunlap, a Chesya Burke, a Brian Keene or any of the other budding rock stars of the horror community. Their acts are their own. But that’s the secret: be your own act.

-Be naturally interested in people, for their own sake, without an agenda. You don’t make friends by first asking what they can do for you. You don’t make friends based on who they are or where they are in their careers. If for no other reason that you don’t know what twists fate may have in store for them or you, don’t burn bridges before they’ve formed.

-Be friendly. You are with your peers, people who get what you do and how you do it. You get to cut loose (within reason), and solidify working relationships with fellow writers, editors, agents, and fans. As JA Konrath said, "When we writers go anywhere, we become ambassadors for our writing."

Sometimes it is difficult getting spouse to see networking as something other than goofing off (I don’t understand my own wife’s confusion on the issue). Regardless, networking is an important part of any industry. Honestly, it’s part of the fun for me since basically I get to build a network of connections through conversation. And I love running my mouth.

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Supernatural (Season One) – A Review

"Family Business - Doing their Father’s Work"

There are two types of horror shows that spring up in the wake of The X-Files: those that are pale imitations of The X-Files (the whole spate of shows that sprang up when The X-Files hit big, Fringe) and those do what The X-Files did at its best, like Supernatural.

“I don’t understand the blind faith you have in the man. I mean, it’s like you don’t even question him.” –Sam

Two brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki, Gilmore Girls) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles, Smallville) enter the family business of hunting down supernatural intrusions. Their father has mysteriously disappeared, their mother was killed when they were children (engulfed in flames by a demon), and now Sam’s girlfriend has suffered the same fate. Sam wants to escape the family line of work and pursue a normal life while Dean embraces his father’s wishes trying to be the obedient son. So week after week, they pursue any ghost, ghoul, or urban legend, all while arguing like the brothers they are, sort of Kolchak the Night Stalker in a Chevy.

I expound upon much of the following in my blogs the theology of horror (part I, part II, and part III), but at its core, horror is about fear, an attempt to get a cathartic release from dealing with what scares us - be it the unknown or ultimately, our fear of death. There are four things horror explores especially well:

“It must be rough to believe in something so much and have it disappoint you like that.” –Dean

4. Horror deals with the total depravity of man. Sometimes this comes out as wrestling with the theme of man having a darker nature to resist, restrain, or kill (with such archetype monster tropes such as the werewolf or Mr. Hyde). In fact, the modern day serial killer has become the natural incarnation of man’s capacity for evil.

“But if you know evil’s out there, how can you not believe good’s out there, too?” –Sam

3. Horror deals with the nature of good vs. evil. In horror, the reality of evil cannot be denied. Brian Godawa says that: “Another way in which horror and thriller movies can communicate truth in today’s postmodern climate of relativism is in their simple but believable portrayal of real and undeniable evil. Showing the harmful results of a belief has been traditionally called via negativa, or the "way of the negative." It is making an argument against a certain viewpoint by showing the negative conclusion to which it ultimately leads.”

In horror, evil takes on a life of its own. It rages against God and it rages against man. Once the evil is revealed, once we have been dragged kicking and screaming right into the face of evil, one is forced to react. We can’t just deny it and hope it goes away, that’s a sure route to a quick demise for any character in a horror story that pursues that course. Since horror has traditionally been a brand of morality tale that makes us see evil, one of its most powerful lessons is that evil can win if we fail to do the right thing. As the characters, our proxies, gear up for this fight, they must confront their fears. Evil must be opposed. In fact, not just opposed, but opposed in the right way. When we use evil to stop evil, the evil is never defeated and will resurface again, often strengthened (why do you think we have to suffer through so many Hellraiser movies?).

“How can you be a skeptic with the things we see every day?” –Sam

2. Horror, as a genre, embraces the reality of the supernatural. Horror not only acknowledges a spiritual dimension to life, but that transcendent reality often intrudes into our own. Even as we hunger for ths transcendent realm and can’t help but grapple with the idea of its existence, nothing scares like the unknown. The world of the Bible is a world full of mystery. Mystery defies explanation. We’re uncomfortable with mystery despite our need for it. The mystery of the afterlife, the mystery of unseen forces - the Bible takes seriously the world of the supernatural.

“You know what I’ve got faith in? Reality.” –Dean

1. Horror meditates on our mortality and the reality of Death. The fear of death fuels horror. There is a wisdom that comes from contemplating death. The reality of death forces us to assess what is important about life, what makes it worth living, and wonder what may come after it. Horror is about grappling with what we see in the world around us and dealing with the implications of the eternal philosophical question “why?” Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is there evil? Why do we do the things we do to one another?

“I guess if you’re going to have faith, you can’t just have it when the miracles happen. You have to have it when they don’t.” --Layla (Julie Benz)

And in the course of their spiritual journey, in the face of all they’ve seen, the horror drives them to grapple with faith.

Supernatural hits all the right notes, the inheritor to both The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


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Orgy of Souls: Making Gary Braunbeck’s Brain Melt

Some people have asked about what the thought process behind bringing Orgy of Souls to light. So I thought I would explore that for a bit.

At the World Horror Convention 2007, Wrath James White and I were telling award winning writer, Gary Braunbeck about our collaboration. If I could capture a facial expression of his reaction to just the IDEA of the two of us writing together, and use it as a blurb, I most certainly would have done so.

Wrath James White and I have very little in common beyond being bald, black horror writers. Our writing styles, our lifestyles, our politics, our worldviews, our spiritual perspectives – on paper, we shouldn’t even be friends. He writes for those with “a taste for the violent, the erotic, the blasphemous,” while I write introspective, atmospheric stories. He’s a hedonistic humanist and I’m a Christian, the facilitator (a nebulous title coming from the Greek meaning “we don’t want to keep explaining to the congregation that one of the church leaders is a horror writer”) at a church called The Dwelling Place.

Religion and horror are inextricably tied to one another, probably because both deal with the unknown and try to come to terms with the fear of it. Since spirituality is a fundamental part of the human experience, an examination of faith, especially against the backdrop of the horror genre is something that is near to my heart. Doing so with a voice diametrically opposed to mine, that’s a challenge that I’ve looked forward to.

The a “big idea” to Orgy of Souls is the examination of the idea of faith and in a lot of ways is a continuation of the kind of conversations (read: arguments) Wrath and I typically find ourselves in (in fact, my story recently published in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #12, “Broken Strand” is another story stemming from one of our arguments, that time on free will. Just like “Nurse’s Requiem”, in the Dark Dreams III anthology examined the idea of faith stemming from another argument; and my story “Rite of Passage”, in an upcoming issue of Space & Time Magazine stemmed from an argument we were having over the history of slavery. In other words, we do this a lot).

Seen as a crutch by some, faith is that sometimes tenuous, sometimes stronger-than-we-think thing that keeps our world in order. I believe that we’re all people of faith in our own way, it’s just a matter of what we choose to put that faith in, be it in ourselves, science, humanity, or in God. As such, we each are on our own spiritual journey.

I don’t know much for sure and I'm certainly not afraid of questioning or going through a period of doubt. Faith includes doubt. God is big enough for us to question, doubt, and wrestle with. In fact, I believe He expects us to. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s certainty. Finding faith is like falling in love: there is an element of mystery to both and let’s face it, there are times when we feel like we have been chosen and times when we choose to do it (which is what marriage has taught me).

As for “how can a Christian write horror?” (you can imagine the variations on this question I tend to field … and my sometimes less than helpful responses) or justify any story, much less one about faith, set against a backdrop of plenty of sex and violence and the occasional demon ... the best answer I can offer is that sometimes exploring faith can be messy.

Orgy of Souls is as much about the collaboration as anything else. It’s important to choose wisely in your collaboration partners because it’s a lot like entering into a marriage (and divorce can be just as messy). The idea is to come together without losing the distinction of your individual voices. The way we looked at it was that I do what I do. Wrath does what Wrath does. I get to play in Wrath’s sandbox (though I swear, he wrote all the naughty bits. Absolutely. He’s solely to blame. I definitely had no role in any of that. For sure.) Wrath gets to play in mine. It was every bit as much two friends coming together to do what we love, writing, just to enjoy the give and take and learning from each other. And have a ball doing it.

Then we invite the reader to join in our fun. You can’t ask for much more than that.


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The Political News Cycle (pics only edition)

My take home lesson from the debates.














Colin rocks it out. Then announces his endorsement.

Got it.


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Yes, I’m Still Pro-Life. Are You?

So in light of my black Republican yet pro-Obama stance, the number one question I’ve been asked of late is “I thought you were pro-life?” My stance on the issue isn’t that different from Senator Obama’s. I fear a ban would force women to seek unsafe abortions. I am also not going to be the one to tell a woman she can't have an abortion in the case of rape or her life being in danger. I would rather reduce the number of women who feel the need to have abortions in the first place. But I don’t stop there.

A lot of those babies folks work themselves into a tizzy to see born are put up for adoption, enter our foster system, or otherwise become neglected. It’s like most folks quit caring for them once they are here. If we’re to be true pro-lifers, we need to always be about the “least of these”, the poor, the exploited, the abused, the abandoned. For those focused on their Christian duty to have as many kids as possible, to “have a full quiver” as it were, if you have room in your quiver we need to be the first to be adopting babies.

None of my pro choice friends cheer for more abortions though they are demonized as holding that position. The abortion issue is not my litmus test for politicians because I don't see Roe vs. Wade overturning or necessarily want it to be, if I’m being completely honest. I am very much about letting people have choices, and a bad choice should be folks option (and back alley abortions does no one any good).

However, in this day and age, with contraception being so easy and relatively inexpensive, it's far more safe and humane to prevent pregnancy rather than terminate one. The whole abortion as contraception thing bothers me to the core. Late-term abortions are pretty much indefensible.
Abortion is a moral issue, a battle that needs to be waged on the level of the individual, not legislatively (though if folks want to be done with it as an issue, it should be put to amendment vote).

So yes, I’m still pro-life. I still believe life begins at conception, but being pro-life means that I don’t stop worrying about kids once they’re born. Being pro-life means I don’t get to move away from all “the problems” of the city and build personal compounds in the suburbs. It means that all life is valuable, the unborn, the underserved, the abandoned, the forgotten. Here’s the bottom line, a nuanced position is hard to encapsulating into a bumper sticker.


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Friday Night Date Place: Looking for Communitas?

A friend of mine engaged me in a discussion about the nature of the group of friends that she was currently hanging out with. The group met her companionship needs, a group of people her age in the same life situation. They got together to kill time together, watching television, going out to eat, and in general, enjoying one another’s company. In other words, it was basically a singles group.

Singles groups are singles groups first and part of the church in the secondary. Sometimes VERY secondarily. Your typical church singles group has a few key characteristics: 1) the average stay of the typical member is five years and 2) about every three years, the group has gone through a cycle of turnover. Why? Because it is one of the few ministries where the object is to get out of it. People date, and if they marry, they leave. People date, and if it doesn’t work out, they leave. People hang out, and if there are no prospects, they leave.

Some communities exist for their own sake, but can’t sustain themselves over the long haul. Even in my own experience in singles groups, a few true friendships were forged, but the group on the whole couldn’t sustain itself. I’m not talking about the relationships per se because those interested in true friendship built those relationships. But the group on the whole, if it were just about killing time, got old. Especially since the “mission” of the group was to get out of the group.

Michael Frost in his book Exiles discusses the commendable desire for Christian community, how it has become a buzzword, but how it has gone often unfulfilled. Frost’s contention is that the problem begins when we make community our end goal, how "aiming for community is a bit like aiming for happiness. It's not a goal in itself. We find happiness as an incedental by-product of pursuing love, justice, hospitality, and generosity. When you aim for happiness, you are bound to miss it. Likewise with community. It's not our goal. It emerges as a by-product of pursuing something else."

There comes a point where you want to go deeper with a group, where you want to move from community to communitas. With communitas, you buy into a mission or vision and that mission sustains the group because not only do the activities stem from that sense of mission, but there is a sense of purpose about them. The group becomes united behind the feeling that they have banded together at this time for this reason. Whether to join in with what God is already doing (to put it in spiritual language) or simply to better the world them; either way, they become a part of something greater than themselves and turning outwards, rather than continually focused inward.

This part of a hermeneutic of communitas I can buy into. People will want to go to the next level, deepen the roots of the friendships in any group, moving from a sense of a group of casual acquaintances to real friends, because we are relational beings and long for that sense of connection. If we don’t share a committed pursuit of a greater goal, we often will succumb to being a short term, unsustainable mission of hanging out. Until we leave.


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Don’t Talk to Writers…

…or at least don’t read writers you know. You may be happier that way.

My wife doesn’t read my fiction. The reason why was touched upon in one of the panels I was on at ConText. We were discussing how we incorporate real life into our writing. My position was that everything around me was up for grabs. In particular, I draw on my story and the things that connect to my story. You engaging me, your story bumping up against mine, all stories period … all up for grabs for me to draw on.

When folks ask “where do you get your ideas from?” I don’t want to have to respond, I wait for folks to do or say something interesting, but you rarely do. But it can be a little disconcerting to see bits of a personal argument in print or see a friends’ history informing a character. But it’s what we do. Lord help you if you are friends with a writer/pastor: your story could end up doing double duty in print and a sermon.

It's a fine line to walk, protecting privacy and being true to the demands of the story. Can we go too far? Um, yeah. Show of hands: how many of us have spent the night on the couch after our spouse came across something we’ve shared or written? It’s so bad, the official term in the Broaddus household for retracting/editing a statement or story is the “corrective memo”. My wife does read my blog. I’ve gotten more than a few corrective memos (she was ESPECIALLY not pleased with the original versions of me detailing—emphasis on details—the birth of our first son (in two parts, no less).

This blog is dedicated to the person who wrote me saying “you don’t have to use this e-mail as a blog or story. We’re just having a conversation.” Yes we were. At least I’m not using your name. When all is said and done, we do ultimately respect people’s privacy (if only for fear of a libel suit). Truth be told, only you will know when your story’s been co-opted, unless you or the author run your mouths about it. Ironically, most of the time my friends don’t even recognize themselves in my stories unless I point them out. That’s the point.


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Orion Rising

Long time readers of my blog have walked with me through the trials of my sister. I’m not going to re-hash everything here (if you want a summary, you can click here and here for the dark times, although there was a wedding I officiated in between them).

The last year has brought an end to her doing her best impersonation of Job. I thought that I’d update you all on the latest bit. Actually, a picture is worth a thousand words:


Born at 8:40 a.m., Orion Lee Griffin. 7 lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long.

(She had banned me from the hospital during the C-section and the first six hours of recovery. Something about me being … me. Though, for the record, it was our fellow board member, Doug W. who coined the phrase “nether region living organism launch!”)

Now that she’s a lot less grumpy, I’m sure she’ll be returning to her duties as one of my board moderators. I can only hope she’ll change the theme of my board back to something, I don’t know, more “horror writer appropriate” (though I am thankful she got rid of the My Little Pony/Hello Kitty and 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon themes).


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Black Republicans and Obama

I’m a black Republican. I know what you think that means (<--). Politically I think I lean to the right, though apparently my love for social justice and environmental concerns doesn’t allow me to exist there comfortably. I believe in personal responsibility and the community taking care of its poor. I’m a capitalist who believes that with great wealth comes great responsibility, and spending has to be tempered with compassion. I think that Democrats take the black vote for granted and the Republicans have written off the black vote. And I want my taxes cut. Here’s the thing: apparently the Republicans don’t want my vote. Despite the fact that the country rapidly diversifies, the Republican convention far from reflected that. Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor were black, the lowest numbers since they have been tracked. We saw visual evidence of no black Republican having served as governor, senator, or house member in the last six years. On a personal level, the historical significance of casting a vote for the first legitimate black presidential candidate hasn’t been lost on me. But I’m not going to vote for someone just because of their color. I could only imagine the outrage if a white person, regardless of party, announced they were voting for a white candidate because of a white pride moment. I still find myself comfortable with the idea of voting for Obama since his message of change and hope resonate with me and I’m a big fan of intelligent candidates displaying their intelligence, not condescending to play at being “the average Joe” when clearly anyone running for the Presidency has long been removed from the story of the average American. It’s not like I have abandoned my values. I’m still pro-life, lower taxes, strong defense and strong families. I think the main reason I’m comfortable with the prospect of President Obama is because I’m tired of political labels over-simplifying people’s positions. The label put on me is pro-life, but that simplifies my more nuanced position. I don’t know anyone who advocates America having a weak defense. And I don’t know any candidate that runs on a weak family platform. President Bush captured 8 % of the black vote in 2000 and 11% in 2004. Maybe the Republicans are writing off the black vote moreso than usual this year. Still, if they’re not going to try, they have less room to complain when we don’t show up at the table. I’m a black Republican, but I’m more than my label. Memo to both parties: black votes count. *** If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say “hi”, feel free to stop by my message board. We always welcome new voices to the conversation.

Tucking Dollars for Jesus

During this time of economic hardship and Wall Street downturns, many businesses have taken hits and many jobs are now suddenly in jeopardy. Yet, there is one group who has been particularly hit hard for whom my heart truly goes out: the strippers.

I recently ran across an article which reported that traffic at some super-exclusive Manhattan nightspots is down 40-50%. And it’s not just the high end girlfriends of the traveling businessmen, but also the single mom looking to pay her way through pole gymnastics. Think about it, there are a lot of laps not being danced on.

So once again, I found myself seriously thinking about that “great idea reduced to a marketing slogan” – “what would Jesus do?” I don’t imagine Jesus passing out tracts asking “Hey, do you want to hear about me?” No, he’d go straight to where they were.

Now, I’ve always advocated incarnational ministry, modeled on the belief that God became flesh in the form of Christ and in said flesh, lived among people. He went out seeking and meeting people in the messiness of their lives, first loving them where they were. In other words, we aren’t called to build structures or create spaces separated from the community and attract people to them, but rather go to where the people are and serve them. Since God is already working around them, it’s only a matter of introducing people to that reality and all of us becoming redeemed participants to this sacred activity.

Jesus was a “friend of sinners” and I’m a friendly sort of fellow, so I’m taking it upon myself to start a new ministry. I’m gonna be tucking dollars for Jesus. I’m off to run this idea by my ever supportive spouse to see what she thinks. And yeah, this pretty much was just an excuse to use the phrase “tucking dollars for Jesus” in a sentence.
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Mo*Con IV: Save the Date

The Love and Business of Writing

May 15th – 17th, 2009

Here’s all I’ll say for now (tentatively – as details are still being worked out):

Tom Piccirilli

Gary Braunbeck

Lucy Synder

Linda Addison

Gerard Houarner

There will be a poetry jam. Food. Drinks. And a sermon by Wrath James White. If this doesn’t get me fired, nothing will.

Brought to you by The Dwelling Place, Trinity Church, and the Indiana Horror Writers. Details will come (as will a re-vamping of my web site to feature a Mo*Con page to include footage of previous Mo*Cons). For now, keep the date open.


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Friday Night Date Place - Blind Dates

Okay, I was trying to kill off this feature, but like the most tenacious of zombies, it keeps shambling on. This, however, is actually a guest blog by my assistant, Lauren David, one of the founding members of Team Broaddus. I'd like to officially welcome the traffic from the guys who regularly stalk her on her blog and Twitter (note that I'm not helping you out by linking to her Twitter - and as fair warning, she's earned the right to be picky - although the quickest way to her heart is for you to buy my book).

You know, I get that people mean well. Many of my friends are (for the most part) happily married or dating and they want me to have that same....joy. They don't want me to be alone. They don't want me to be the crazy cat lady. They want don't want my corpse to be rotting by the time someone finds me. I get it. However, I truly am happy being single. Are there moments where I do wish I had someone? Yes. The moments when I realize that I'm not Wonder Woman and that I can't do everything by myself; when I sometimes wish I had someone to pick up the slack. Someone to share stuff with. But those moments do not match the moments that I am grateful for my independence and freedom.

So when a friend of mine wanted to set me up on a blind date, I *very* reluctantly agreed. (Truth be told, my main thought was "Well, at least I'll have blog fodder.")

She sent me a link and I checked him out as best I could online. (Hooray for Facebook: Stalking made easy.) Needless to say, I had more than a few reservations. But I knew I wouldn't hear the end of it until I went out with him. So we set something up. But I kept my expectations extremely low. He didn't seem too bad from online but I have heard horror stories about blind dates. Not to mention the interactions that I have had online that turn out much different in real life. But since he didn't look like an ax murderer or like Boo Radley's cousin, I said okay.

Men, here's a little tip: If you are set up on a blind date with a woman, do not--I repeat, do NOT--go into her work before the date is to take place. Catching her off-guard may make you feel like you have the upper hand or whatever but it certainly is not going to win you any points. Girls like to have time to get ready and look nice before meeting someone, especially for a date. It's not that we're trying to be fake but catching us at work when we may have just done the bare minimum to get ready isn't nice.

Blind dates are useful for at least one thing. It gives you an insight into how your friends/co-workers/family see you. Unfortunately, it can very quickly turn into the blind leading the blind. If they are matching you up with someone who they think is just perfect and your date is the complete opposite of what you're looking for, maybe you need to have a chat with whomever set you up. In my case (and fortunately for the person who set us up), it wasn't that the date went horribly wrong. Outside of catching me off-guard at work, my date was pleasant enough. However, come to find out later, my friend who set us up had only had minimum interactions with him in person. Most of it had been online and when she did finally hang out with him in person, she ended up apologizing to me for setting us up.

I think that sometimes people get so focused on getting single people "with someone" that they throw at them the first available person who isn't insane or wanted in 3 states. I have said this before and I will continue to say it: it is okay to be single. It is not a sin. It is not a disease that needs to be cured. And even if it was a disease, I doubt that blind dates would be the cure. No one knows you better than you know yourself. You know what you want. You know what you're looking for in a spouse. (Or, in my case, you know whether or not you're looking for a spouse.) Yes, some blind dates turn out wonderfully. The ones that don't usually make for great stories. (After you're done living through them.) But as for me, getting to the morgue before I smell isn't real high on my priority list. So unless I'm in need of a blog topic, I don't think I'll be attempting any more blind dates.


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Look on my works, ye Mighty...

The Winter 2008 issue of Space and Time Magazine is out. It features my story "Rite of Passage." Hunt down a copy and let me know what you think.

This is a sweet coup for me because this was a magazine I really wanted to appear in. A rejection from this magazine was one of my "ah hah" moments as a writer. It was the first time an editor took the time to give me a personalized rejection (hand-written, no less). Despite the actual rejection, the note let me know that I was on the right track in my writing. The next time I bumped into Gerard Houarner, I even thanked him for it. (Always what an editor is expecting. Be sure to do that often. It's never too awkward.) Anyway, that was 2003.

Persistence!


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It Ain’t No Lie … Bayh, Bayh, Bayh

Since I live next to my television, it should come as no surprise that I see plenty of parallels between this election and the last season of The West Wing. Wiley Republican veteran, with a leftist streak which get him oft-labeled an independent going up against a younger, less experienced but idealistic Congressman (whose lack of experience makes him seem both naïve or untainted) cut from the cloth of a minority group.

On the show, the young minority candidate was going to lose, except the actor that portrayed his vice presidential choice died in real life. So, the election story essentially turned on the choice of vice-president.

After today's rally, I've really been thinking about what could have been. Barack Obama needed to choose an experienced political hand to be his vice presidential candidate. Joe Biden was an alright choice, prone to the occasional gaffe, but I still wish it could have been Evan Bayh. Bayh once again is a bridesmaid and not the bride: he’s been talked about being a vice presidential nominee since the early 1990s when Bill Clinton first ran. Indiana is a largely Republican state, yet he managed to win the top job, putting a key Republican state in play. More fiscally conservative, still out of the Clinton mold without having the last name Clinton (but was so supportive of the Clintons that his presence could win over their supporters).

On the other side of the aisle, I’d have loved to have seen J.C. Watts be the vice presidential nominee for McCain. He’s conservative and black and would both solidify his lukewarm base as well as signal a more progressive Republican ticket. Instead, though true to the mandate of remaining historically relevant, John McCain went with the Republican version of a rock star in Sarah Palin. Love her or hate her, she’s gotten the base energized.

So the campaign continues to play out in West Wing season 7 fashion. Maybe the economic crisis will prove to be McCain's equivalent of the October/Nuclear Power Plant crisis. So part of me is pretty much rooting for the best storyline.


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The Obama Rally – If I had Tweeted It

8:20 a.m. My brother arrives to pick me up and immediately hates that my Obama shirt is cooler than his.

9:00 a.m. We arrive at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Slight hitch in our plan: we were hoping that black folks would be on C.P. time. But no, everyone was on white people time today.



9:10 a.m. We found the line.









9:20 a.m. The line is still going.

9:25 a.m. I stopped to have my picture taken for the 4th time.

9:30 a.m. The child behind us proclaims “Daddy! The line finally ended!”

9:35 a.m. My brother threatens to kick a kid in the head for not liking his shirt as much as mine.

9:40 a.m. Gates open early. The volunteers are thorough. We were checked every five feet for stickers, tickets, and voting early.

10:15 a.m. Seated. After more pics were taken of me.

10:30 a.m. I’m enjoying George Pelecanos’ Down by the River Where the Dead Men God. Nick Stefanos isn’t as cool as his Derek Strange character, but it’s an all right ride.

10:45 a.m. Random “Yes We Can” outburst. I figure it’s the equivalent of doing the wave at a Colt’s game.

10:50 a.m. Waiting for folks to notice that the crowd on the bleachers behind where Obama will be speaking is too white.

10:51 a.m. Made that observation aloud and got Amen-ed.

11:00 a.m. Come on now. Didn’t we agree on a moratorium on playing “Celebration” at events?

11:10 a.m. Andre Carson waved to the crowd. Crowd goes nuts.

11:25 a.m. I’m really craving deep-fried anything at this point.

11:30 a.m. The handlers took a few soldiers (of color) from the Obama Mosh Pit and put them in the bleachers.

11:45 a.m. The Obama bus pulls in.

11:47 a.m. The Obama Mosh Pit starts changing “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” prior to Col. Jerry leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

11:55 a.m. The Democratic Gubernatorial nominee spoke. A lamb to the Mitch Daniel’s slaughter (my casual straw poll indicated that no one around me was sure of her name). We’ll see just how long Obama’s coat tails are.

12:00.m. Andre Carson continues the legacy of the Carson Family Juggernaut. Young. Handsome. Charismatic. Great speaker. And his wife’s the vice principal at my boys’ school.

12:30 p.m. Evan Bayh is greeted like a rock star.

12:45 p.m. OBAMA!!!

12:50 p.m. Loud anti-Obama guy gets seriously shouted down (and apparently escorted out)

1:03 p.m. We’re having church now.

1:10 p.m. Obama holds back the rain with a wave of his hand.

1:20 p.m. Obama wraps it up.

1:30 p.m. More pics are taken of me.

1:45 p.m. Stuck in the Obama jam.

Take home lessons: Lyndon Johnson was the last Democrat to carry Indiana. Our state is very much in play this year (a bad sign for the Republicans). The economic crisis may be John McCain’s October surprise. And getting folks high on good will and a positive vibe definitely beats playing to folks’ fear and racism. Hope is a powerful aphrodisiac. My brother is still nursing his man-crush on Obama.

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Ambush Bug: Year None – A Review

“Adventures in Idiocy”

Written by: Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming
Art by: Keith Giffen
Published by: DC Comics

I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved Ambush Bug. In my personal comic book collection, I have just about his every appearance. He brought me great joy in my teen years, the 80s, during the good old days of comics. A couple decades later, he comes across like the kid too smart for the room, many of the gags funnier in thought than in execution. Here’s the thing though: it’s fun. Stupid fun, but fun.

Taking aim at the “dark” and “gritty” writing done in the name of relevance, Ambush Bug: Year None mines grins from it’s non-stop parade of odd cameos and its complete irreverence for any of the sacred cows in comics. It serves as a meta commentary on the DC Universe and the state of comics in general from the writing style (-contrived plot devices, omniscient narrators, 22 page limit, thought balloons) to company-wide crossovers (Final Crisis says what?).

“If you want to ‘find your bliss’ and ‘explore your true nature,’ then knock yourself out!” –Rama Kushna … in Groucho nose and glasses.

In issue one, we find the bug investigating the death of Jonni DC, continuity cop. During the course of his “investigation” he checks in on some of the other little known/remembered DC characters (‘Mazing Man, Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew, Space Cabby) and ends up causing one of the events (Identity Crisis) and at the same time points to the elephant in the room: the fair amount of women in jeopardy/abused in the name of event comics and the inherent misogyny that drives the plots.

Ambush Bug is simply an idiot stumbling through life, leaving a trail of inadvertent chaos and destruction in his wake. He doesn’t know any better. He’s a sheep in need of a shepherd, without identity of his own, happily living through others.

“Help me, Rama Kushna, to rediscover my true inner self.” –Ambush Bug

We put on masks, masks that become part of us, ones we wear in order to interact with others and the world. Before too long, we become trapped by these false ideas of ourselves. We must strip away anything that hinders us from being the people we were meant to be. We must always be growing, be “becoming”, in order to get to our true selves. But with Ambush Bug, it’s not even a case of true self vs. false self, but true self vs. no self.

Yes, Ambush Bug: Year None is a non-stop series of comic book in-jokes. Replete with punny named villains like Argh!Yle!! (his abandoned sock) and Don Gayle Apparel (his … I have no idea), either you’re in on the joke or this book will annoy you to no end.


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Been Caught Cheating

What was it Chris Rock said? “Women are like the police: they could have all the evidence in the world, but they want the confession.”

“What’s this?” my wife asked holding out a crumpled piece of paper with a phone number in her hand.

“It’s not what you think,” I said while backing up.

“Oh, it’s looks like it’s exactly what I think it is. I know you did it, just admit it.”

“Honey, I swear …”

“I know you did it, just admit it. You’ve been sneaking behind my back involved in other ministries, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” I couldn’t look her in the eye any more.

“Was it better than ours? Did it give you a greater sense of mission or purpose?”

“No. It was a fleeting thing.”

“How long has it been going on?”

“Only a few Sunday nights.”

“Were there any others?”

“They didn’t mean anything to me, honey. It was only a spiritual thing. A few folks in need.”

“If we’re going to have an open relationship, you need to be honest. These things can only work if we abide by the rules we’ve set out. No more sneaking around.”

“Okay.”

Good thing she hadn’t been checking my cell phone records …


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Interview with Lawrence C. Connolly

Fleeing from what should have been a perfect crime, four crooks in a black Mustang race into the Pennsylvania highlands. On the backseat, a briefcase full of cash. On their tail, a tattooed madman who wants them dead. The driver calls himself Axle. A local boy, he knows the landscape, the coal-hauling roads and steep trails that lead to the perfect hideout: the crater of an abandoned mine. But Axle fears the crater. Terrible things happened there. Things that he has spent years trying to forget. Enter Kwetis, the nightflyer, a specter from Axle's ancestral past. Part memory, part nightmare, Kwetis has planned a heist of his own. And soon Axle, his partners in crime, and their pursuer will learn that their arrival at the mine was foretold long ago . . . and that each of them is a piece of a plan devised by the spirits of the Earth.

Available from Fantasist Enterprises, Veins is Lawrence C. Connolly’s debut novel. I had a chance to sit down with Larry at GenCon and run a few questions by him:

What is your spiritual background/journey?

I’m from western Pennsylvania, where forests fold into valley and rise along mountain crags. Enter those forests, start walking, and sooner or later you’ll come to a place where the earth opens into an unnatural valley of sumac, hemlock, and weedy grass. These are the wounds that never heal, the deep man-made scars left behind after the veins of the earth have been carted away for heat and industry. My spiritual journey begins in such places.

I’m not an environmentalist. That term doesn’t go deep enough. It doesn’t begin to reach the level of spiritual connection that I feel to this part of the world. My spiritual journey is one of discovering how I connect to this place, why I feel at home here, and why I sometimes sense the pain of cleared forests and leveled mountains.

What do you see as the power of myth?

Some truths can’t stand the weight of fact. They can only be grasped through metaphor, allegory, parable. The great prophets knew this. They were storytellers, after all. They understood the transcendent power of a well-told tale.

What is the mythology behind your novel?

The protagonist in Veins is a young man who calls himself Axle. He’s the hub, the center of something he does not understand. His great grandmother tries guiding him with half remembered stories from her childhood, fables about the land. One night she leads him to the brink of a machine-scarred valley, and there he begins to understand … but the understanding frightens him. He dismisses her teachings as lies. And for a while, until the threat of death forces him back to that same valley nine years later, he believes he was right to dismiss them.

Mythology is like that. We hear the stories as children, learn to doubt them as we approach adulthood, and ultimately return to them when we develop the wisdom to see the truth within their fiction.

I like the idea of people seeing the same images yet they are interpreted through their different
spiritual perspectives. What is your spiritual take on your novel?

I intend to play with this premise of multiple interpretations throughout the next two books in the Veins series.

In Veins, the first book, Axle’s great grandmother tries explaining the mysteries of the land by telling young Axle the stories she learned as a child. She believes that her stories are authentic American Indian tales, but her memory is foggy, and the things she knows are actually amalgams of second-hand myth and false memory. She passes these versions of her stories onto Axle, who in turn comes to his own understanding of them.

Eventually, Axle realizes that it doesn’t matter what he chooses to believe. He can rationalize and reinterpret the old stories all he wants, but reinterpretation doesn’t change his growing realization that the earth is alive … and it has plans for him.

You use Native American culture as a backdrop and use the spirits of the Earth. How do they work in the context of your novel?

The reference to Native American culture in the novel is an attempt to acknowledge that there are forces in the land that transcend contemporary culture.

Axle is a rural American kid with dreams of fast cars and open roads. As a child he longs to hit the highway and race off for parts unknown, but as his story progresses he realizes that his own front yard rests in the shadow of the biggest unknown of all.

The book’s allusions to indigenous cultures serve, I hope, as a reminder that our personal beliefs may be short-sighted, that we must look beyond ourselves for the big answers.

Your story hints and wrestles with the idea of something beyond this world. How does this idea work itself out in your writing and in your characters?

We live our lives in a moment of geologic time, and yet we consider ourselves masters of the earth. In Veins, Axle comes to realize the folly of such a conceit. The realization changes him. Indeed, it may very well kill him if he isn’t careful. I dare say no more. This element of the book is best discovered in the reading.

What are you working on? What can we look for next from you?

I’m also a musician. For the past few months I’ve been working on a collection of trance, rock, and ambient compositions designed to enhance the reading of Veins. Fantasist Enterprises plans to release the CD this Fall, but a nice preview is available at the novel’s promotional website: www.VeinsTheNovel.com. Beyond that, Fantasist is talking about bringing out a two-volume set of all of my previously published stories, nearly three decades of fiction bound up in two illustrated editions. Then there’s Vipers, the second novel in the Veins series, which is due to come out sometime next year.

And there are lots and lots of new stories and novelettes in the pipeline, things due out from Cemetery Dance, PS Publishing (where I’m doing music-inspired stories for anthologies based on the songs of Bruce Springsteen and Nick Cave), Ash-Tree Press, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Dark Hart Press, and others.

A lot of the new stuff is set in western Pennsylvania. The more I write, the more convinced I am that I’m getting close to something … a revelation of place … an uncovering of deep truths hidden right underfoot. That truth is out there somewhere, just beyond the point where the ground opens and the forest falls away. When I find it, I’ll let you know.


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An Atheist and a “Pastor” Go Into a Convention Part V

[Bringing you up to speed, here’s Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV]

To say that the conversation went off the rails would be a mild understatement. Something got under B's skin.

Sorry, Maurice. But I think we may need to take a break. I'm not enjoying this. And neither are you, it appears.

["To be compatible with secularism, we would have to remove any sense of mystery, any sense of the transcendent, and to do so would remove the essence of faith."] - Faith is not an end unto itself. Faith is not its own justification. Faith does not justify faith. Faith does not justify ignoring and dismissing relevant information that shows the faith isn't justified.

Yes, "faith" sounds romantic and at times like a "beautiful" thing (ministers are great at making "faith" sound like a wonderful thing), but using "faith" as a justification in promoting a "lie" makes "faith" dishonest. It makes "faith" ugly.

"Good works" don't change that. "Good works" don't make God and Jesus *Christ* realities.

For myself, when I went looking for "answers," I decided that I had to embrace all the relevant information, from both sides. What I wanted, first and foremost, was to know the truth. All those things that you talk about with regard to personal experiences may provide motivation, but they don't determine what is really true. I decided for myself that I was going to put knowing and speaking the truth first. All that other stuff you talk about serves only to blur the lens and it's morally impure to use those things as justifications for promoting a lie.

I didn't dismiss all the historical, cultural, and environmental information that shows Christianity's roots in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian culture and pre-1st century religion. Some of what I'm talking about are the Egyptian gods and religious beliefs as well as Greek/Roman gods and beliefs - where they intersect with Christianity and where they diverge...how these things influenced Christianity. What about the pre- 1st century Essenes and their documents? I'm also talking about the relationships of the non-canonical gospels and their relationship to the 4 gospels of the canonical new testament. I'm talking about making an honest attempt to know the truth - instead of sitting contently with a popular and comforting lie.

The Jesus you think you know didn't exist. Was there a Jesus of some sort, yes. Are the gospels his story? No. You don't do apologetics. Fine, do you want to know what there is to know? To ignore the historical and cultural environment that Christianity grew out of is no honest attempt to learn the truth.

That my "message" rubs you the wrong way isn't a surprise. I consider it a normal consequence of my message. I'm bascially saying "you're wrong." And no, it's not acceptable for me to simply keep this to myself and leave you unchallenged. There are too many negative consequences of Christian "faith" for the non-believer. I know you don't want to "own" any of those consequences. You don't feel you're promoting discrimination and mistreatment of others - but it's the message of Christianity that those that don't believe are inferior. You're promoting "faith" in Christianity. You're promoting the "lie." You don't have the power to cut that message out of the Bible. You don't have the power to cut that message out of popular Christianity. You don't have the power to stop those that discriminate because they feel justified by "faith."

I'll place my "faith" in telling the truth based on the whole of the information, not just looking at the slice of information that appeals to me.

-B

If it sounds like I don't "respect" your beliefs, it's because I don't respect your beliefs. I respect you as a person who wants to be a good person and wants to do what is good and right. But your "beliefs" support the promotion of a lie. Your "beliefs" are unjustified and hurtful to people like me. Your "beliefs" I will NOT tolerate.

Again, I don’t know if B was engaging “me”, per se, or generic Christian/religious guy. I get disrespected from many of my fellow Christians, so getting an e-mail where I’m told how wrong I am, well, it’s like the sun greeting me in the morning. To be honest, all I was interested in was B, the person. What he believed didn’t concern me as much as me wanting to know how he believed intersected with his life. I wanted to know and understand HIS story. I sense a lot of (probably justified) anger at Christianity, but I don’t think that I got to the “why?”s of it.

Still, I think he had some interesting points for me to think about. I’ll hopefully re-visit some of them before too long.


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The Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort hem and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim.


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Some Fools Exhaust Me

Dear Black People,

I’m calling for another family meeting. I hate as much as anyone to give up on a brother, but it’s time for us to let go of R. Kelly. I didn’t want to have to go over to that bastion of black culture, BET, but I had to hear that interview for myself.

So when Toure asks you “Let me ask you something real that millions of Americans are thinking about and wondering about you. Do you like teenage girls?” tell me you didn’t come back with “When you say teenage, how old are we talking?” Seriously … seriously … you are going with your “it depends on your definition of ‘is’ is” defense? Hell to the naw, we are too through.

This wasn’t the judicial system working for us for a change. This is a failure on our part. Unlike O.J. or Michael Jackson who suddenly wrapped themselves in the love of the black community who they had long forgotten, R. Kelly has always been here. But we have standards and we need to hold each other accountable. He’s not a hero to be embraced. He wasn’t Nelson Mandela unjustly imprisoned and on trial. R. Kelly was fool enough to videotape himself as if we don’t live in the YouTube age. Get R. Kelly some help.

Look, I live by a simple credo: we don’t get to pee on children. Is that too much to ask from people we decide to rally around as if they’re role models? I’m not a hater. I don’t care about his money. I don’t care about his songs. I don’t care that he’s the Pied Piper of R&B. I do care that not only did he get away with it, but we made him confident enough, worse, unashamed to go on national television and spout his brand of nonsense. So yeah, I’ll say it: you could put him under the jail … and spare us another episode of “Trapped in the Closet.”


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