Pay Your Debts on Time

Here is to old ideas new again...   

         The Collectors is something I have been working on with my friend and writing partner, Jorge Sastre. We just got some logo art done and here is a taste.
          Its a tale as old as time. Man borrows money to gamble, loses the money, owes a debt and now must face collection. The Collectors face the collection of their life as a set up on a collection leads to a hit on their lives.
         Originally the story was conceived as a movie and has sat in script format for some time with some interest. Keep your eyes open for the book and a trailer video coming soon...

Sold out...for now

So my rants about work are done. I quit one job and took some time to write and think about what it is I want to do. I have to say that the thought of working for anyone or group of people was never something I cared for, unless it was a small group. I have found that small group of people and guess what, most are artists. I work with a bunch of artists and geeks so I can't complain.

It turns out going to work is not such a bad thing. I've always got along with my co-workers regardless my job. The big thing that is lacking in this job is what makes it so easy to go to, NO CUSTOMERS. Yes, every job has them and in a sense co-workers can be customers, but I don't have any direct dealing with customers.

So I don't like customers and trying to sell books can make that tough. When that day comes that I have to shift to selling more than anything else I'll suck it up, but until that day I will just enjoy going to work and not hearing/dealing with customer.

Call of the Wild

What is it about being in the great out doors that just calms a man? I recently spent a little time on the Appalachian trail, a little stretch in western Virginia. The goal of the hike was to make it to Spy Rock. It was a great view and I made a new friend while in the wild.
     I know why I love to camp. I am a loner. I like to be out doors and not see anyone for a while. The easiest way to ruin a camping trip for me is to show up. Once while out in the Ocala Forest I did my best to avoid human contact. I heard a few voices in the distance and saw a few shoe prints but that was it. Mission accomplished. Another time I came across a man wearing only jean shorts and carrying a jug full of local berries. He said he had been out there three months and asked if I was planning to stay at my camp a week or more. I loved the idea but societal pressure was forcing me back the next day.
      Senses are heightened out in the wilderness; hearing improved, vision crisper. I feel alive. Despite these physical changes and isolation, I still don't know what it is about that call that I hear.
     After a short taste of the Trail, it is all I can think about and I want to go back and spend a lot more time making friends that dont talk so much. (insert picture below of my wild dog)

Year End Sale

   The rush is on to finish all the crap I started or have been working on or promised myself I would finish by the end of 2011. Well the clock waits for no man. I have some time this weekend to finish up a few things which is always my writing. I have a new manuscript to self edit before I attempt to find rejection from publishers and agents. On a positive note, I have a book contract that has been sitting on my coffee table for the last three weeks waiting to be mailed out. I just need a stamp.
   There are a lot of people out there running around trying to get their year end crap finished. Its like the ads on tv just before Christmas telling us how many days left. The reality is we have plenty of days to finish things and to give gifts. Just today I got a Christmas gift. Time is precious and we all die which adds pressure to the things we want to accomplish in our lives but the truth is we either have the time or we don't.

A day's labor

For the past sixty days or more, I have been lining up at 5:30 am to wait and see if I have a job for the day. We sign in and take a seat. The morning news is broadcast via antenna, going out every couple of minutes. Someone dips into a closet and comes out with all the fixings for bland coffee. I take seat and avoid eye contact.

I listen to the morning’s conversations. Spirits are somber at first. Later the conversations are spread between the football game last night and who is hiring for steady work. Any word of open jobs always climbs to the top of subject matter. I sit and listen, but never interested. I have had several jobs over the years and with the exception of a few days, never enjoyed any of them much.

“My cousin got hired on at DuPont.” One person says while three gather around. Questions are asked ‘how’ and ‘when’. I listen but to me it does not matter. It is not in my field.

Someone announces this is their last week at the labor center. Everyone smiles and congratulations are given. The routine work that takes them away is changing linens at a hotel. I was a bellman once and once I changed the linens. I hated it. The steady employed are happy to fold and fit sheets and I am honestly happy for them. It is just not me. I wait in line to haul construction trash.

I get my ticket. Its me and another guy named Leon, Morris, or Glenn. I give them a ride because they arrived by bus. I'm supposed to charge them four dollars but unless they offer I keep quiet. We are headed eight miles west to a mall. A new women’s retailer is remodeling.

We arrive in a cold mist. The 18 wheeler has the trailer open and pallet jack waiting. The mall does not allow construction to go on during operating hours outside the confines of the store itself. So we have to haul all pallets and cabinets before nine AM.  Once inside the store it is warm and dry. The windows are covered over and the doors locked. No one walking past will ever know anyone is inside sweating, straining backs to lift cabinets and shelves into place so when the store opens with a sale you can enter and pick out a third navy blue sweater it is at a convenient height. I haul trash out the back door, down the elevator and across a parking lot past your parked car and into a dumpster.

I have dined with celebrities and royalty. I graduated from a renowned university. Yesterday an old man while taking a complimentary soda because he had special tickets to a college basketball game name dropped. I told him I had no idea who “Frank” was. He told me it was my boss in a tone supposing I should care. In fact “Frank” was my boss for the day. Tomorrow it will be Dave or Jerry.

What entertains me the most about my day labor job is that during that basketball game I was able to walk up near court side and watch the game right along with the old guy who name dropped. While he paid for the entertainment I was being paid. To me it was the equalizer.

Happy Halloween on its way

Here we are five days into October and I’m overly excited. Halloween kicks off a series of holidays that last until February. The month ends with Syfy’s Ghost Hunters conducting a live investigation.  I haven’t missed it in three years.  This year I hope to watch it again. Some of the other cable channels like TCM and AMC kick off the month with horror movies throughout the month. My DVR is on overload. There is no other holiday, not even Christmas, which makes me feel like a kid like Halloween does.

Right now Im watching, It! Terror from beyond Space, courtesy TCM.  I can goes days watching black and white movies. Tuning into color hurts my eyes after awhile. I hope I never grow up, its too much fun otherwise.

Thanks Rod for my time in the Twilight Zone.

The TV projects only in black and white. For the day, hi def, spectra color and 1080 means nothing to me. I sit and watch the Twilight Zone marathon all day. I can’t resist. Cancel the New Years party because TwilightZone is on. People who know me know I won’t go. They are more than welcome to come over, but I’m not leaving unless your TV shows bright in late 1950’s images of another dimension.

2011 has so far produced two marathons. The Fourth of July, the most hallowed of national holidays was spent in front of a black and white television. Sure the commercials are in color, the only thing reminding me it is not 1959 and Rod Serling is not standing off to the left narrating to viewers of my impending doom. In all honesty it did happen one year. After seventeen consecutive hours of the Zone, I finally fell asleep at 2:30 am. Sometime around four I awoke to see Rod standing in my bedroom. He was holding a cigarette and talking to an audience. I sat up and said, “If you’re here, then that means I’m about to enter…” I shook my head and rolled over burying my face in the pillow. I could not finish the statement in case it was accurate. Had I unlocked the key to imagination or fallen into the space between light and shadow? I didn’t want to know.

So here I sit, fourteen hours in and I can’t stop. All the color, hi def 1080p hurts my eyes at this point. With each episode I take in the wisdom of the writer. I could rattle off my favorites like “Obsolete man” or “To Serve Man” and “I shot an Arrow” but I won’t go into why I like them. All I will say is that every year, sometimes twice a year, I get sucked in and can do nothing else but watch and listen. Many people think it is time wasted. I say if I’m not watching, that is time wasted.

Thanks Rod.