Much has been made of the Chinese fixation with the number eight at these Summer Olympic games; the opening ceremonies officially began, after all, on 08/08/08 at 08:08:08.
Anyone who read my first book, Waking Lazarus, knows I have a particular fondness for patterns of eight myself. So the first thing I thought, after watching Phelps win his last gold medal, was: how fitting.
In an eight-obsessed Olympics, Phelps is taking home eight gold medals.
Cue the creepy woo-woo music. Or, if you prefer, the creepy conspiracy theorists.
Of all the internet-spawned celebrities out there, Matt Harding, of wherethehellismatt.com fame, has to be one of my favorites because...well, because he didn't try to become an internet celebrity. He's just your basic schlumpy guy, with dance moves only a mother could love, and yet, there's something infectious about watching him dance in places all around the globe. The early videos, of course, featured Matt all by his lonesome, but of late, it's nice to see him dancing with other folks from all over. And really, it's impossible to watch the video without smiling. My fave clip has to be the scene in Papua New Guinea.
All this from a self-described deadbeat who acknowledges he "doesn't like working." A man after my own heart. But if he ever does feel like working, I say we make him an international goodwill ambassador for the United States. Once those feet start tapping and elbows start swinging, it's impossible not to like the guy.
This past weekend, "Kaptain" Robbie Knievel reprised his father's famous jump at King's Island Amusement Park in Ohio (although Robbie jumped 24 trucks, in comparison to Evel's 14). Evel's jump at this location played a key part in my second book, The Dead Whisper On, which might be subtitled My Homage to Butte. If you want to read the section of DWO that recounts this jump, head to Amazon's online reader and search for "King's Island" inside the book...which will take you to page 200. No spoilers, if you read that scene only.
Great fun to watch the video, and great fun to take a ride down memory lane...especially so, because I wasn't the one on the bike.
This recent article in NY Times magazine recounts the story of Sanjay Sanghoee, a hedge fund executive who published his first novel in 2005 and is now trying to make a movie version.
Hey, great for Mr. Sangohee; I wish him the best. But maybe he doesn't need my best wishes, since he has something like $5 million committed and Lara Flynn Boyle attached to the project. Well, heck, the book must have sold pretty darned well to generate that kind of interest.
Or so you would think. The reporter recounts this phone conversation between Sangohee and a potential investor:
A typical pitch occurred in a phone call on Nov. 3 with a principal at a private equity firm based in Connecticut. The firm, the principal said at the start of the call, was looking to invest $7 million in movies over the next six weeks.
Mr. Sanghoee began by talking about his book. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of sales, “Merger” sold about 2,000 copies; Mr. Sanghoee puts the number closer to 20,000, explaining that many copies were sold through uncounted wholesalers.
“Movies and books sell each other very effectively in today’s marketplace,” Mr. Sanghoee started out, “which is where I think ‘Merger’ becomes even more sensible a project. We know this book is going to sell the movie.”
“Fantastic,” responded the potential investor, Alex, who agreed to let a reporter listen in on the condition that his last name not be used.
Um, 2,000 books according to BookScan, but he puts the "real" number at about 20,000? I'd guess the "real" number is likely somewhere south of 10k, and maybe even south of 5k, but let's just say he really did sell 20,000 books. What I love about Mr. Sangohee is his ability to channel his inner PT Barnum when he says, "We know this book is going to sell the movie," (which gets a response of "fantastic" from the potential investor).
Well, figure each copy of the book sells two movie tickets, which means, at $10 a ticket, the book generates $400,000 in revenue...for an investment of $1 million or more. (I doubt the investor was looking to sink his whole $7 million into one project.)
That's not to say Merger would fail as a movie at all; as I said before, I hope Mr. Sangohee gets all the money he needs, makes the movie, and goes on to great success.
But the facts behind this whole story had me choking on my Cheerios. If nothing else, it should be a tale comfort and encouragement for aspiring novelists: if the book tanks, maybe you can make a movie.
By now, you've perhaps seen the cover for The Unseen I posted earlier. Maybe here, maybe on Amazon, maybe elsewhere on the web.
I like the cover. It's got a certain creepy factor to it, yet it also says "mainstream suspense" a bit more than my previous two covers. (I loved the covers for my first two books, as well, I must say. But then, I'm the kinda guy who loves horror stories, so my taste probably isn't representative of the reading public's.)
But you see, that's not the end of the cover story. The fine folks at Thomas Nelson decided to push the envelope a bit more on the cover, and I think they hit it out of the park with a fancy-schmancy new design. This cover, to me, is perfect; it accomplishes the three things I think any good cover should do.
1) It gives a hint of the story. The sliver of door opening, with the hand on the edge of it, captures the essence of this story about people who live inside other people's offices and homes, spying on their everyday lives.
2) It matches the tone and mood of the story. The Unseen, more than either of my first two books, is a plot-driven suspense tale. At the same time, it has a dark undercurrent (because, well, everything I write has a dark undercurrent), and this cover captures both the suspense and the subtle feeling of unease quite well.
3) It begs to be picked up and opened. When I'm browsing the bookstore, I always stop and open books when I find covers I find particularly compelling. This design, by breaking the traditional two-dimensional structure and making the cover itself part of the overall design, does just that.
Aside from that, it's pretty hard to miss the title, isn't it? I mean, you can read that at 50 paces.
This past Monday, I attended my first Wilco concert in Missoula (a town filled with many admittedly-hazy college memories), and I was struck by a couple of things.
1) Jeff Tweedy really is lyrically brilliant. Okay, he's been musically brilliant, as well, having mixed several genres since his Uncle Tupelo days and exploring new directions with each Wilco album. But to me, there's probably no better, more challenging lyricist in popular music today; call Tweedy the Bob Dylan of a new generation. Compositions such as "Via Chicago" (my favorite Wilco tune ever), "Muzzle of Bees," "War on War" and others are haunting with their imagery.
2) The musicians in the current Wilco lineup are fairly brilliant themselves. It's rare to listen to a group that sounds this comfortable, this tight, in a live setting. I was impressed by the multi-instrumental wizardry of Pat Sansone, and the hypnotic presence of guitarist Nels Cline. Indeed, Cline was perhaps the highlight of the show, with his mod boots, high-water slacks, and solos (especially on steel guitar) that were an equal mix of epic and epileptic. Wow.
3) This won't be the last time I go see Wilco.
4) Although I wasn't smart enough to bring my own camera, I did find some nice images and a video of the show from Jennifer on flickr, courtesy of my good friend Franny. Thanks to both of them.
Two of the questions I get asked most often--usually in the same conversation--are along the lines of: 1) How did you get published?; and 2) Where do you come up with your ideas?
The short answers are: 1) I was published after a couple hundred rejections; and 2) Ideas come from everywhere. Which is why I was drawn to this video, wrapping both answers together nicely.
The cover for The Unseen has officially been unveiled, and the book has a page up at Amazon and other fine retailers (interestingly enough, I found it first at Target's online store).
The Unseen should be on shelves by the end of September, making it an ideal read for Halloween. Or Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.
A few years ago, I sat down to think about my unique brand--what makes a TL Hines story a TL Hines story--and came up with the term Noir Bizarre™. As I explain elsewhere, I think it's a memorable summation of the kinds of tales I am to write. I promptly registered the "noirbizarre.com" domain name (go ahead; it's safe), and started trademarking the phrase because...well, because you never know what's going to pop up.
A recent google search informed me there's another "Noir Bizarre" out there--an, ahem, "alternative fetish club" (as opposed to, I suppose, a "mainstream fetish club") in Sweden, which opened its doors just a few months ago.
So, I suppose people who might search for "Noir Bizarre," expecting to find stuff about my stories, might stumble across references to latex, riding crops and whipped cream.
Hey, I'm groovy with it; fits the theme.
On the other hand, people in search of latex, riding crops and whipped cream might find their way to my site instead, and the most salacious thing I can offer is an old blog entry about ketchup.
Thanks to Last.fm, I've spent the last few weeks "scrobbling" what I listen to. It's been fun, and rather interesting to look at the play lists of people who share similar music tastes to mine--new artists to be discovered, once I get past the fact that more than a few of my closest matches on the music "taste-o-meter" are 18-year-old girls.
I've already noticed one interesting side effect, though. I'll be the first to admit that I have one of those personalities that has an urge to find the unseen corners of anything, so I've been trawling the recesses of Last.fm, and my own memory banks, trying to come up with obscure bands and songs no one else has ever listened to much.
That means revisiting the music of my youth, and I have to admit I wasn't one of those cool kids who had a bunch of Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies and Sonic Youth albums tucked away at home. Not even The Ramones or the Clash, for that matter. (Well, I did have a couple of singles, but I wasn't a "fan".)
I did purchase music by the Psychedelic Furs and the B-52s, though. And I was an avid fan of all things Pink Floyd and The Doors, so I wasn't a hopeless case.
Still, I listened to a lot of pop and rock--you know, Journey, Styx, Night Ranger, that kind of thing. And, okay, some hair metal. Cinderella, Motley Crue, Poison...um, let's not that list get any longer.
But even then, a part of me tried to find the music that fell between the cracks, so I found myself listening to a lot of pop music that didn't catch on very much with other people. You see where I'm going. I decided to start searching the annals of Last.fm, seeing if I could be the one and only person who was a listener of some particular artist or song. And my rule was: it had to be an artist or song I really did listen to at some point in my past.
First off, I thought I'd go for some of the semi-obscure names that I was sure would have several listeners, but were still a bit under the radar.
Maybe you recognize the name Walter Egan. If not, if you're of a "certain age," you would certainly recognize his signature tune Magnet & Steel. A total of roughly 3,000 listeners, and 10,000 plays in Last.fm's database. Kind of what I expected, but my ace in the hole was Egan's comparatively little-known song Fool Moon Fire from his album Wild Exhibitions, which I listened to thousands of times on vinyl. I fared much better on this: only 15 scrobbles of Fool Moon Fire in Last.fm's archives. At most, that's 15 other people listening to the song. At least, it's one other person who has scrobbled the song 15 times. Someone out there remembers and loves one of only two songs about werewolves (along with Werewolves of London) to ever hit the Billboard charts. (I was also pleasantly surprised to discover Walter Egan has a free download of this very song on his website, and I've since scrobbled it several times. It's now up to 20 plays on Last.fm.)
Next up, I went for Michael Stanley Band, and their song He Can't Love You Like I Love You, another one played several thousand times during my youth. I was surprised to discover it has 545(!) plays on Last.fm, and I found out a new piece of trivia: this song was actually the 45th video ever played on MTV. I need to find some of those other MSB fans.
Okay, howzabout Donnie Iris? Ah, Leah, which dovetailed with my high school crush on a girl named Leah, was literally worn out from repeated plays. Evidently, a few other people had crushes on girls named Leah, because this song has more than 8,000 scrobbles on Last.fm. Okay, I didn't expect this song to be actually obscure, but it's nice to see Donnie Iris is doing all right. One user, owkenobi, even left a comment on the song: "This is the greatest song ever written. Of all time." I don't know that I could say that, but it's nice to find a fellow traveler; owkenobi's getting an instant friend invite from me.
Martin Briley. Let's go with Martin Briley. His first hit, The Salt in My Tears, brought him some considerable fame, but I was always more partial to the work on his album Dangerous Moments. Ha! My favorite track from the album, Underwater, has never been scrobbled on Last.fm. And it's likely to never be, since I don't think this album was ever released on disc or digitally, and my old vinyl version is long gone.
Time to pull out the most obscure pop band I listened to in my youth: The Innocents. They had only one album and no charted singles; I heard of them while watching TV one day, and discovering them in a documentary about the "making of a band." It's a shame they weren't bigger, because their music was rather more interesting than a lot of other stuff in their day; it was definitely pop, but had a bit of a new wave edge (I saw someone say it was "Devo pop," and I think that's a nice description. More on that in a moment.) To this day, I can still hear the songs on their one and only album (creatively titled The Innocents) floating through my head.
I hit it big time with this. Only one of their songs, Directly from the Heart, has been scrobbled on Last.fm; the entire rest of the album, including my faves Stop Shooting Up Stars and Twisted Kiss.
Curious, though, I decide to do google searches for this band, and these songs in particular. And it seems I wasn't the only child watching that TV on a Saturday afternoon long ago. I discovered blog entries, a MySpace fan page (with 99 friends!), copies of the album for sale, and more.
If the Internet is good for nothing else, it's good for finding that shared sense of community tied to the smallest things. "Hey, here are people who listened to The Innocents. My kinda peeps!"
Of course, now you know my next goal. I must find a band from my childhood that's not mentioned anywhere, by anyone, on the entire Internet.
