Monthly Archives: December 2010

The Ballad of Fuck-All (Song of the Week, 12/30/10)

By Malcolm Middleton

Oh will you come home soon
Come home soon and save me
I’m so bored
Life threatening doom
The walls are closing in all around

Oh will you find me now
Find me out and save me
I can’t get up
Life threatening doom
Dragging me darker and down

Take my hand
Dragging me down
Through the ground
Darker and down
Down down down
All the way down

Oh will you come for me
Comfort me in the night
I’m so tired of feeling sick and tired
Dying at life’s door all the time

Oh I’m locked inside
Trapped inside this body
I can’t get out
And there’s not enough room
I’m glued to the back of this bone mask…

Feeling Feisty (Song of the Week, 12/6/10)

My eternal war with the darkness of depression kicks off a new initiative today. To commemorate, here’s Leslie Feist with her own single-handed festival of lights…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

As a bonus, here’s an awesome acoustic take on the song which Feist performed on The Colbert Report. (Plus you get the surreal pleasure of glimpsing Colbert in the blue shiny outfit Feist wore in the “1-2-3-4” video).

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Want To Enjoy A Sacred, Raunchy Holiday Season?

‘Tis the season to remind folks of a holiday staple around the Byrdcave, the Santa books of Robert Devereaux. These incredible works of fantasy are both moving and filthy, sacred and profane, and guaranteed to awaken parts of your brain you might not even be aware of.

The first, Santa Steps Out, has been out of print lo these many years, but Devereaux recently regained the rights and has made it available as a Kindle download at Amazon. The second, Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes, is available in paperback and Kindle format.

I reviewed both here, and you can read the entries at:

Santa Steps Out

Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes

An evil elf also recently told me there’s a third Santa book on the way, and a likely hardcopy set of all three by next Christmas.

Wikileaks FTW!

I love me some Wikileaks.

Julian Assange is a superhero. Or, actually, the hero of the most relevant thriller Robert Ludlum never wrote. I would buy him a beer and toast his health and hide him in my basement while Homeland Security agents menace me with buckets of Freedom Water.

Our government, like all governments, is made up of human beings, full of flaws and foibles. Additionally, like all governments, the sort of people who often fill its halls of power are people who seek not the betterment of the world, but power and money and self-aggrandizement. To trust them wholly, to not question, and to attack those who do, is to be an idiot.

(Which reminds me of my favorite quote of the week, from Keith Olbermann: “Calling an idiot an idiot is not personal – its almost mathematical.”)

People get all bent out of shape when “our side” gets pegged for doing the wrong thing. They think it harms us when “our” misdeeds are swept into the light for all to see. Actually, it harms us when those who represent us mis-do. Pointing it out gives us a chance to look at our mistakes and try to do better. Continue reading →

Kicking Amphibian Butt: One Of My Favorite Doc Wilde Reviews

A Great Christmas Gift! Buy Now!

One of the most thorough and thoughtful reviews of my book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, came from writer/librarian Werner A. Lind, who posted it on Goodreads around the time the Pulp Magazine Authors and Literature Fans group discussed the book.

The review is below, but first a couple of points…

First, you may note there’s a discrepancy between the 4 star rating shown above the review and Werner’s statement grading it with three stars in the initial paragraph. Werner explained in a comment during the group discussion:

I hope you noticed that I later added a comment to say that honestly, on reflection, I’d give it four stars based on my own enjoyment of it, not just that of a hypothetical younger reader. (Sometimes it gets tiring to always have to wear the mantle of a sober academic critic. :-)) And I want you to know that once Doc Wilde and the Mad Skull is published, it’s definitely going on my to-read shelf!

The other thing is that he, like quite a few others I think, found the kids’ ability to use echolocation to navigate darkness a bit too over-the-top and unrealistic. The truth is, human echolocation is real, and it’s fascinating. Look it up on Wikipedia.

And now, take it away, Werner… Continue reading →

Sarah Palin, Mom of the Year?

I don’t watch much TV. I especially don’t watch much reality TV. So I missed out on the exciting antics displayed on this last season of Dancing With The Stars.

I do follow political news, however, so I’m somewhat aware of the controversy about supporters of Sarah Palin gaming the voting to make Bristol Palin win, and the show making some sort of changes in how they handled things to prevent such abuse.

The previous paragraph entirely sums up my knowledge on the matter, and is probably more than I need to know.

Someone did point me to an interesting blog post from Margaret Cho, who apparently also danced on the show.

Everyone was trying to pit me against Bristol, but the truth is, we got along well. She never asked me to babysit Tripp or anything like that, but I consider her a friend…

…Although I don’t agree with the family’s politics at all, I really like Bristol as a person. She’s warm and incredibly supportive, and I think that she looks beautiful out on the dance floor.

She also shares her understanding of exactly why Bristol was on the show in the first place:

I heard from someone who really should know (really should seriously know the dirt really really) that the only reason Bristol was on the show was because Sarah Palin forced her to do it. Sarah supposedly blames Bristol harshly and openly (in the circles that I heard it from) for not winning the election, and so she told Bristol she “owed” it to her to do DWTS so that “America would fall in love with her again” and make it possible for Sarah Palin to run in 2012 with America behind her all the way. Instead of being supposedly “handicapped” by the presence of her teen mom daughter, now Bristol is going to be an “asset” – a celebrity beloved for her dancing.

To be much fairer to Sarah Palin than she ever is to anyone she disagrees with, this is, of course, hearsay. But it rings true. That’s the Sarah Palin we see just about every day. And if this is true, we can only hope that Bristol can break free of her mom’s harpy grip to dance her way to a full life without mommy dearest pulling the strings.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer

As of today, I am one year late on delivery of my second book.

I’ve been writing lately about my depression and its roots, and about the past year being really rough. Like hanging off the edge of a giant razor blade by your fingers rough.

The manuscript I’m so long overdue on is no great massive volume. I’ve not floundered halfway through my War and Peace. It’s just the second Doc Wilde book, which at editorial decree is to be about the same length as the first, #30-40,000 words. I should’ve been able to write it in a couple of months. That was, indeed, the plan that led to the original deadline.

But, depression. And some major health issues related to it. Continue reading →