8 Ways You Can Be a Nonconformist and Renew Your Love for Vampires

Do you cringe when you see vampires (other than a certain muscle-bound, black Daywalker) strutting around in daylight? Are you tired of seeing airbrushed posters of angsty teenaged vampires who would never dream of killing humans? Does your thirst for blood take you time and again to the movie theatre, where the only terror on the screen is a scene of a vampire wedding?

These are MONSTERS! They aren't supposed to go to high school proms or get their wives pregnant.  They don't love you.  They don't wish you loved them.  They don't invite you over for cake.  They hunt you down and eat you and don't give a passing thought to the fact that you might be cute in a pair of boots.

Are you afraid to even whisper the word vampire for fear that someone will take you for a Twihard? Are you cowering in shame because you knew what that phrase meant when you read it? Are you old enough to remember thinking that Rick Springfield was the worst thing that could happen to the vampire genre?

Fear, no more! Lift up your copies of Bram Stoker and repel the adolescent and adolescent wanna-bes.  Take back your genre and unleash the real meaning of being undead! Below are 8 titles that will renew your faith in the end of humanity as we know it and have you donning your garlic necklaces once more!

Climb under the covers, kiddos, for here there be monsters!

1.  S.P. Somtow's Vampire Junction - Before Justin Beiber.  Before a 10 year old Kirsten Dunst played a 5 year old vampire.  There was Timmy Valentine.  Timmy was a rock idol who would send the Twilight crowd crying for their mommies.  Festering with the power of 2000 years and a Jungian psychiatrist, Timmy is the true monstrosity that we all long for from days of old.  And the book is not lacking in sensuality.  I read this sometime in the early '80s and fortunately still have my original copy (though a bit worse for wear) because it has become very pricey on Amazon at about $14 for a paperback. There is a sequel, Vanitas, that I cannot vouch for, but as it was written prior to the influx of paranormal romance novels, I'd be willing to bet it's worth a shot.

2.  The original I...Vampire - J. M. DeMatteis' comic featured in House of Mystery from 1981 to 1983.  This was a comic that I devoured as a young child.  I could not wait to get  my hands on each issue. It was the story of Lord  Andrew Bennett who, after being made a vampire in the 1500s, turned his lover Mary into a vampire.  Mary, bless her heart, did what any self-respecting monster would do in such a situation.  She promptly titled herself Mary Queen of Blood, left Andrew, and formed an army of vampires called The Blood Red Moon. Lord Andrew chases Mary throughout time, rescuing people from her clutches, trying to destroy The Blood Red Moon, and leaving little tidbits that would later fester into Edward Cullen (though I seriously doubt THAT author has ever heard of Lord Andrew Bennett!) If you are unable to find a copy of these originals, I understand that DC has resurrected the series recently.

3.  Mr. Vampire (Hong Kong, 1985) - The Mr. Vampire series features Chinese hopping vampires.  Lots of humor and horror rolled into one can wipe away the glitter residue from  your evil little heart.  Three men, whose job it is to be keepers of the vampires, are stalked, teased, and tormented by ghosts and all manner of the undead while one of them is slowly changing into a vampire himself.  No scowling emo lip biters here! These vampires are UGLY. We're talking Nosferatu level ugliness. Grab you a pound of rice for protection and pop this in when  your Team Edward friends come over.  They won't know what bit them!




4.  The Passage (2011) - Justin Cronin's epic novel takes a monstrous look at the undead like no one has taken in decades.  Slightly in the future, the government has been doing super secret studies with a virus discovered in the jungle.  Like everything the government does, the studies go bad and hell is unleashed on earth.  Or at least in North America.  Spanning hundreds of years, Justin's creatures will make you double check the locks on the windows before you go to bed at night.  These aren't the kind of vamps you want to be taking home to Mama.  These are grotesque former death row inmates with a hive mind out to devour the living at all costs.  Bill Compton, they ain't. And there is a 2nd installment of this very wordy piece coming out in the fall of this year! Intelligent, well-written, and populated with vivid, realistic characters.

5. The Vampire Tapestry - Suzy McKee Charnas' anthropology professor was not your average vampire. Equipped with a stinger rather than fangs, he cultivated a lifestyle that allowed him to become so complacent that he fell into the hands of humans more monstrous than he. Murderous ladies and psychotic satanists threaten the existence of this biological mutation.  I read this book decades ago and only just recalled it to memory.  That happens when you have several centuries to claw through for tidbits of the past.  Unforgettable little read. It's even available on Kindle now!

6.  The Vampire: the Masquerade Clan Novels - No, I don't mean for you to go off and read the Clan Books with all their statistics and attributes and disciplines.  But some of the 20 or so novels, including the 13 Clan Novels, were very entertaining.  Limited romance, a LOT of war, politics out the wazoo because we all know how scary that can be, and blood blood, gallons of the stuff! The 13 main clans are represented with a novel for each, and there are others as well, telling the story of the World of Darkness for those of you who remember LARPing with fondness and still eagerly pour over your clan books to see how you could have sneaked a Baali into that Camerilla city in your tabletop game back in 1995. Yeah, I know, I lost some readers about now.  Pay no attention to the woman behind the keyboard!

7. Cassidy in the Preacher comics -  Despite the name, Garth Ennis' 75-issue Preacher comic contains not a single redeemable character.  From the irreverently named Arseface (a boy who was the victim of a failed suicidal shotgun blast to the face) to the resident vampire, this comic is guaranteed to make you nauseous, hysterical, and ashamed of the human race in dizzying cycles. Cassidy is a swaggering, whiskey-drinking Irish vampire who pals around with the possessed Jesse and his floozy girlfriend Tulip. There is also another treat buried in the comic series: The Saint of Killers.  Look 'em both up.

8. The Hunger - Whitley Strieber's tale of Miriam Blaylock, immortal, and her aging husband, portrayed titillatingly by David Bowie in the movie version, is full of that stuff we were wanting to avoid: romance. However, it is nonetheless intriguing, well written, and mature.  Do not mix up the sort of pre-pubescent posing and bellyaching with the aching desire to not be alone in a world that changes around you while you remain the same.  Check it out, then go watch the movie for Mr. Bowie and the music video of Bela Lugosi's Dead.




So, there you have it, folks.  8 tried and true methods for you to worship the darkness and all that exist within it without looking like a pathetic old woman trying to be a teenager again.  Love the night.  Drink the blood.  Be proud of who you are, as you were before you ever heard the term paranormal romance!

The Les Miserables Philosophy of Tabletop Gaming

It is an age old tale of the line drawn between right and wrong and the gray areas in between, if they exist at all. I'm talking about the struggle between players and Game Masters, of course.  Although the analogy fits for Les Miserables as well.  There are as many types of Game Masters, Dungeon Masters, and Story Tellers as there are characters in everyone's favorite French Revolution masterpiece.  Perhaps you know someone who fits these descriptions, or even see yourself in them.  If not, then maybe you'll want to go out and watch a Broadway play or read a classic novel after reading this.  Or maybe you'll just want to go steal a loaf of bread.

1.  The Jean Valjean-The Jean Valjean school of GMing is probably the most popular.  This game master has good intentions.  He knows the rules and sets out to follow them staunchly. However, he has a soft heart.  He can't say no to a sultry little elf who doesn't quite have the comeliness to seduce an ancient map from a dungeon sentry.  He will bend the rules here and there and sees no wrong in it.  He is also the story teller who will let the party take a little bit longer to lose all their SAN than the numbers show.  This type of game mastering can be fun and help a blundering party of poor dice rollers play a little bit longer before they're eaten by a giant bugbear.  However, hidden within his group may be the NEXT type of gamer who will toss his pack to the ground and disrupt the fun for everyone.

2.  The Javert-The Javert philosophy of dungeon mastering is the bane of existence for the Jean Valjeans.  Javerts, the 2nd most common game master, is also known as the Rules Lawyer.  He does not bend.  He has every Dungeon Master handbook that has come onto the market since 1982 and he can flip to the page that correspond to any argument you may try to bring up.  He has every Vampire the Masquerade clanbook since 1st Edition and do NOT bring up the new stuff to him.  He is a purist and you will not get him to allow your Assamite to know three dots of Vicissitude no matter how you try to justify it! He follows your cultist through time and space and if you so much as THINK of stealing a loaf of bread, he is on you like a Tzimisce at a Sabbat Ball.

3.  The Fantine-Yes, this is the girl GM, of which I've been, although I've been more of a Javert than a Fantine.  She may be cute, but  mostly she is a GIRL who is GAMING! and we know where that might lead.  You've come down off the high of defeating a cave of giant spiders.  Everyone's laughing, sharing stories, pointing out war wounds.  And then the dreaded words..."I'd like to run the next campaign." Several pairs of male eyes dart together, rolling mental dice to figure out how to get out of this.  The group loses 4 points of SAN. There's a trapdoor in the corner through which they could escape, but who knows where it might lead.  There is the slim chance that Fantine might wear that nearly see-through top to one of the gaming sessions.  And if you say "No" she might whine like she did to Jean Valjean that time when she wanted him to go to the innkeeper and take her little snotty nosed brat and raise it.

4.  The Marius Pontmercy-Marius is perhaps more of a bane to the existence of gamers than Fantine.  Marius is head over heels with Fantine (or the other girl in the group who plays but has no designs on being a GM).  When thieves ransack the campsite in the night, any female in the group miraculously has nothing of her own stolen.  When a superhero group of Champions is fighting a rampaging robot taller than the tallest city skyscraper, the girl always saves the day.  And in the end, there is Marius with his eyes glittering behind his glasses, drool on his bottom lip, hoping that THIS time she'll realize he did this all for HER! Luckily, there is usually a stalwart Javert in the group who can squelch this lovelorn young man faster than you can say 24601.

5.  The M. Thenardier and Grp-Yes.  Them.  Fortunately, this pack usually lurks in larger gaming groups.  Unfortunately, this makes them harder to weed out.  M. Thenardier has a bit of all of the above in him and appears at first to be jolly, goofy, everybody's bosom friend. But, behind every M. Thenardier is his Mme. Thenardier, who may or may not be female.  Mme. Thenardier floats amongst the gamers, laughs and talks and befriends them while M. Thenardier is doing his Game Mastering.  When everyone breaks for the bathroom, M. and Mme. Thenardier go to get more chips from the kitchen, at which time Mme. Thenardier drops all the secret plans and plots of the unsuspecting gamers right into the lap of M. Thenardier who is quick to devise ways to destroy players' hopes of having a favorable outcome.  But he cannot do this alone.  And he won't have to.  For, lurking in the depths of the gaming group, is a sweet little scamp known as Gavroche.  He probably knew the Thenardiers from before, in the last group they were kicked out of.  He is their henchman.  He takes the evil plans of the M. Thenardier and uses them to guide the group into the wicked clutches of the game master.  How? Because Gavroche and Mme. seem to always roll the best dice, always have the best powers, and have lady luck at their sides.  Before long, Fantine is stamping all over the heart of poor little Marius. Javert has Jean Valjean against the wall at the end of his blade.  And the character sheets are trampled like so much ticker tape in the dust of their feet.

So, about now that much hated Javert in your group is looking PR-ETTY good, eh? Turn your rules lawyer loose on occasion.  He'll sniff out those Thenardiers and break the will of the annoying Fantines.  I like to think that he brings balance to the force.

Pulp Heroes EXPLAINED!...John Carter, you're not so naughty now

The pulp magazines discussed previously (click here) were responsible for the sci-fi genre. Horror sci-fi, like H. P. Lovecraft, and planetary travel sci-fi, like Edgar Rice Burroughs, drew fans out of the serie noire (French crime) and the western pulps.  For novices, Edgar Rice Burroughs not only wrote something other than Tarzan,  he wrote something BETTER than Tarzan!

And now Disney is going to kiddify it! Horrified yet? You should be.

Pulp magazines were written to appeal to a more adult crowd than the comics of the same time period.  They were exploitative, bloody, scary, and full of steam! They depicted hard men, damsels in distress, and twisted criminals. Ever wonder what that family in The Thin Man was hiding behind their big fancy house and secret closet doors? Read the book! Same goes for A Princess of Mars. You'll be even more confused after watching Disney's John Carter, I'd wager.

Why?

I'll tell you!

John Carter is mysteriously immortal.  He has no idea how old he is.  One night after a strange ordeal in a cave, he finds himself pulled to the planet Mars where clothes are considered ugly and unnecessary.  Good thing he arrived there naked as the day he was born! The hulking, 15 feet tall green Martians that Burroughs describes? Disney has made into skinny, Avatar-esque creatures that wouldn't frighten the flea off a Thark's behind! And what of the beautiful Dejah Thoris, the red Martian princess that John Carter falls immediately in love with? Burroughs? Naked as a jay bird.  Disney? Wearing some silly costume only Earth girls would find appealing.

(Not to mention the description of one of the green Martian leaders could be describing Jabba the Hut, and the titles of some of the ranking Martians are suspiciously a predecessor to Jedi.)

The John Carter of Mars books, beginning with A Princess of Mars, are chock full of nakedness, gory battles, more distress than a damsel can shake a stick at, and epic adventure that could not possibly translate to Disney PG-13 (assuming it isn't going to be PG, I've been too scared to check).

When John Carter was first seen around 1918, I'm sure the nakedness of not only the bizarre green Martians, but more particularly of the hero and heroine and everyone in between, was rather shocking to a puritan America.  It is also one of the most strikingly different aspects of life on Mars.  Of course, they weren't depicted as such on the covers of the pulp magazines, but once you crack open the cover, there they were, displayed in all Edgar Rice Burroughs' beauteous descriptives.

There you are.  How can you tell that John Carter is a pulp hero? Exploitation. Damsel. Epic battles. Exotic locales. Heroic adventures. Check, check, check, check, and check.

We can expect none of the exploitation from the movie, I am certain. So, hop onto your Kindle and download A Princess of Mars for FREE, and see what all this pulp heroism is about!

Keep your eyes peeled for more PULP HEROES...EXPLAINED!

Filk U! The wonderful world of geek music!

"Hey, Glork! Haven't seen you since ComiCon 1998! Love the new ears.  You make them yourself?"

"Gee, Doff, thanks for noticing! HISlah, I did make them myself. Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!"  

"JIjah....I mean..." Glork begins to back away slowly.

"I'm just teasing you!" Doff claps Glork on the back jovially.  "Where are you off to next? Maybe I'll grab the wife and meet you there!"

Quizzically:  "Nugjatlh?"

"The...wife...spouse..."

"Oh...Well, I am going to see the folk music in Room 222."

"Folk music?" A rather rumpled program is retrieved from the waistband of rather snug uniform pants.  "I wondered if this was a typo.  It says 'Filk music...'"

Superior, snorting laughter.  "Indeed it does.  And yes, it is a typographical error.  But it sounds rather catchy, don't you think?"

***
Yes, those were actual words in the language of Klingon. No, I did not make them up.  Yes, you may now kiss my toes.

And that was a dramatized rendition of how the word "filk" came to mean sci-fi/fantasy-based folk music.  A typo in a convention program that was to define a genre and give meaning to many a wandering folk artist with an affinity for the weird.  Filk songs can be about anything near to the hearts of sci-fi fans: vampires, kitty cats, computer, dragons, Star Trek, Lovecraft, comics, etc.  If you happen to be a seasoned filker (someone who is a filk singer/songwriter) you may win a Pegasus Award at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest!

I invite you to plumb the depths of my favorite filk tunes.  So, grab your snake and your plumb bob and enjoy!

Oh, and Hab SoSlI' Quch! (But don't tell her I said so...)

1.  My ultimate favorite filk song does not have a Youtube entry, but you sometimes can find a version to listen to here.  Scroll to the bottom of the page for the lyrics. And all you New-Who fans can bask in the glory of the original Doctor! Cecilia Eng's Grandfather Clock.
It is a Dr. Who-based song using the tune of the old folk song My Grandfather's Clock.  This song defines filk in my humble opinion (see there, that's a good geek phrasing, eh?).

2.  As I am told by my own filk-sensei, Michael of the great frozen north, this next one is the most well-known filk song ever in the history of filkology.  The song won Leslie Fish (hmmm, suspiciously Lovecraftian name..) one of those much coveted Pegasus Awards in 2003. She, however, has stated that she wrote the song as a filler for an album and has regretted it ever since.  That's gratitude for ya! Here are her lyrics, and mind you, there are around a bizillion different versions, but I bring you the original! And for you visual types, the Star Trek version of the video!


3. You may skip the video on this one and just listen.  It is only a picture of Elrond superimposed against the Matrix code, and if you need that explained to you, you've come to the wrong place. Heather  Alexander: Freaking the Mundanes.  That tune is, of course, Waltzing Mathilda.


4.  And my personal favorite.  Also because no horror, filk, or ocean themed blog should be without it, The HP Lovecraft Historical Society's heartwarming, seasonal favorite, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fishmen."  *Sniffle* May the joy of Dagon be with you this, and every season.



Now that you are armed with the Dr. Scott Refresher Course version of sci-fi music, I bid you to go forth upon the earth and filk!
****
Lyrics: Cecilia Eng-The Grandfather Clock
 Oh, a grandfather clock just appeared in the hall
and it seems very strange to be sure
And a man has come out of the clock in the hall
and is stating some things quite obscure
He seems mildly deranged and a little bit insane
we can make out his words if we try
He says he's the master and we'll obey,
or we all shall die.
So we did as he said after one of us was dead
shrunken down to a tiny toy doll
And we wake up in fright to hear laughter at night
from the man in the clock in the hall
Oh we don't understand all the orders and commands
why he wants to be king in the sky
But he is the master and we'll obey,
or we all shall die
Now a wooden blue box has appeared in the hall
just across from the grandfather clock
And a man has come out of the box in the hall
and his clothes are a bit of a shock
He seems mildly deranged and a little bit insane
and he holds out a featherless hand
He says he's The Doctor and how are we
as he shakes my hand
Now the man in the clock has stepped into the hall
and is holding The Doctor by force
And they talk as we work, like old friends now estranged
as the project continues on course
They seem mildly deranged and a little bit insane
as they talk of strange worlds in the sky
but the master orders and we obey
or we all shall die
Now a darkness and cold has come into our hall
it seems things have gone terribly sour
for the man from the box and the man from the clock
are both trying to cut off the power
as the darkness creeps out they work hard to shut it out
all their differences now laid aside
how we wish they and their darkness would go away
as we try to hide
At the end of the fight day has won over night
and the master has run to his clock
and the man from the box gives a curse as it fades
and his hand passes right through the lock
He seems mildly deranged and a little bit insane
as he screams at the star studded sky
but he is The Doctor and we'll obey
or we all shall die
But he says we are free and returns to his box
and it fades from our now empty hall
And we sigh with relief and a bit of disbelief
as the last weeks events we recall
And we've put the word out sent our messengers about
no more grandfather clock chimes will ring
they've been chopped up never to run again
o'er a time Lord bring

Marble Hornets: Masky and Hoody and Slendy, Oh MY!

You likely have not heard of it.  It doesn't have cute kittens saying funny things with a lisp.  It doesn't have a celebrity throwing a tantrum.  (See what I think of most of the people on the Internet? Like how I slipped that in? Except for you of course.  You're straight up!)

What it does have is an eclectic assemblage of settings, a group of young actors with varying degrees of talent, and some quite surprising pepperings of simple, yet effective visual scares.  You can watch it here.

The premise
Alex, a young college filmmaker, has written a script for a movie called Marble Hornets, which as near as I can figure hovers somewhere in the vicinity of Tommy Wisseau's The Room as far as dialogue and storyline go, with better talent and fewer cameras.  However, Alex's movie Marble Hornets isn't the focus of this Youtube Blair Witchian tale.  Several years ago, Alex gave away his mountains of tapes, dropped the project, and disappeared.

The real story begins when his friend Jay decides three years later to go through the tapes and finds that Alex was having some sort of paranoid break-down and, as Jay is drawn deeper and deeper into the life of his missing friend, seemed indeed to be tailed by a strangely proportioned, faceless man in a business suit.

Now, this would not have seemed odd to me if I had not been regaled for the past 2 years by my daughter with spooky stories of The Slender Man, an urban legend that somehow escaped my radar.  You can read about him here.

The players

Alex- Alex is an insufferable, superior nerd of the first order.  One of those people you run into who walks with his nose in the air and takes pride in his own ostracizing by the rest of the human race because he knows the names of all the red shirts in Star Trek. Although he disappeared three years prior to Jay finding the mystery on the tapes, he re-emerges as a great big geeky thorn in the side of his much cooler, much braver former colleague.

Jay- Jay is this average dude who happens to have a streak of what almost comes across as a good dose of noir detectivism in him.  He goes out into the wide, post-college world in search of Alex, and low and behold!, the other disappearing members of the cast and crew of Marble Hornets.

Masky- Now, this is not the official name of the character who turns up in odd places such as Jay's bedroom bureau in the middle of the night, burned-out husks of deserted houses, and remote forest locations.  He wears a very disturbing mask and has a way of turning his head that sends goosebumps scattering like cockroaches.  Take that as you will.

Jessica-Jessica is something of an enigmatic character.  When we first see Jessica, she is walking down a hallway in a hotel and appears not to know Jay beyond the fact that his name sounds familiar.  However, we realize much later (despite the fact that we were told the tapes were probably out of order) that this is not the first time Jay and Jessica have met.  Both are suffering long lapses in memory, have no idea how they got into this hotel, and are freaked out by the fact that they are the only 2 people there other than the staff who are strangely absent from screen.

Hoody- (or is it Hoodie?) Hoody is another enigma of the Marble Hornets saga.  For motives that are all his own, Hoody appears in the woods where Alex and Jay have apparently been followed by The Slender Man.  Jay drops his camera in fear and hot foots it out of there.  Knowing that the only key to Jay's survival now that he is involved is the footage, and the continuous filming of every noisy step he takes, a mysterious figure in a gray hooded sweatshirt is seen through the camera lens after having rescued the camera and deposited it into Jay's car for safe keeping.  Hoody, as he has been affectionately termed by his fans, turns toward the camera, pauses for effect, and disappears.  He, of course, has no face that is distinguishable beneath the hood from whence he gets his name.

The event

Over the course of several years and around 53 (so far) uploaded "entries", Jay unravels for us a convoluted tale of terror.  After his apartment building is burned down, Jay runs for the hills, only to discover that he is easily located by friend and foe alike.  He promptly wakes up in a hotel room to discover that  7 months of his life is missing and the key to it all is locked in a safe in his hotel room, to which he has forgotten the combination.

What we view on screen is the videotaped events as near in order as Jay can guess since most of them do not have dates or labels.  Jay finds himself on the tapes narrowly escaping situations with his life, finding all the missing people from the Marble Hornets film project, and totally ignoring what must be clues that will be picked up later on when the crew decides to continue the story.

The crazy thing about this whole Marble Hornets thing is that it has inspired spoof movies, fan fiction, Halloween costumes, motivational posters, watch-me-watching-entry-43 Youtube videos, and much much more.  Fans scour the 3- to 14-minute-long uploads for hidden clues, hidden faces, hidden signs of a dark and dismal future. And setting it all off is the strange and foreboding circle with an X through it called, inexplicably and ominously, "operator". There are even anime, crossdressing works of art starring the members of the Marble Hornets cast!

In conclusion, enjoyed alongside the uploads from the Youtube account "totheark" which seem to be official uploads from someone trying to goad Jay along, the Marble Hornets saga can be quite addictive.  I have no idea why I'm writing about it, though.  I can't tell you anymore about it without giving too much away.  But then, is there really much else to give away? A lot happens.  Or does it? I feel oddly compelled to share all this with someone.  Anyone.  And...I think I hear footsteps.

Pulp Fiction Unpacked! Part 1

And I don’t mean the movie Pulp Fiction. If you need someone to explain that to you, then you may be of too sensitive a constitution to get into the deep end of the pulp pool!


I mean the genre that created genres, defined men, and gave evil a face.

Emerging from the frivolous dime novels of the last half of the 18th century, pulp magazines opened the wide world to the average Joe.

History
There assuredly are factors that contribute to the popularity of the pulp magazines in their hay day that go beyond the inexpensive cover price. For one thing, in the years following the civil war, elementary and secondary school enrollment for African Americans increased dramatically. By 1880, around 35% of black youth were registered in school, compared with 10% in 1870. Even into the 1920s the school enrollment rate was at its highest for all races of children in America. Government attention was also focused on education, with the first annual report of the Office of Education in 1869. The report focused on informing congress yearly the condition and progress of American education. During the 1940s, an increase in higher education began to push others to continue at least through high school when the trend had been a completion of education in the 8th grade.

So it’s easy to see that the whole attitude of the country toward literacy and education of all people had taken a swift kick in the pants.

In 1870, 20% of Americans age 14 and over were illiterate. By 1920, the number had dropped to 6%. And with this new voracious appetite for knowledge came what I’d like to think was dissatisfaction with their mundane existence. After all, dissatisfaction is from whence comes the best invention.

The pulp business

The new educated masses had jobs which meant they wanted things. They were tied down to what they now realized were boring existences. Enter the story writer. Of course, no one could afford a $12 paperback in those times, so crafty publishers took the cheapest bits of paper leftovers, paid writers barely enough to keep themselves in typewriter ink, and the pulp magazine was born.

The new bourgeois of literacy, with ten cents to spare, converged on the magazine racks with a vengeance. Big bosomed damsels, square-jawed gangsters, grinning heroes, mammoth-sized tigers, and haberdashered aliens. Inside those colorful covers were three or four tickets to other worlds.

Whatever your taste, the pulp publishers would pay someone peanuts to write to you. There were military adventures, sexy trysts, mysticism from the dark continent. And thanks to the pulp era, the science fiction and hard-boiled detective genres facilitated the births of generations of geeks!

H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and the Weird Tales magazine brought unknowable creatures to life. Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, and L. Ron Hubbard ushered in an era of exploration beyond our Earthly shores. While back in deepest Africa, Tarzan was being adopted by apes.

And if you think that Trekkies invented the fan convention, think again! Long before mere humans were learning proper Klingon, pulp fans in the 1960s were organizing conventions.

The end?

World War II brought not only fear of real world terrors, but rationings of everything, including paper. Thus began the demise of the pulp genre. But was it the end?

From the murky depths of the Internet, a rise in the popularity of pulp has been seen. Despite the encroaching terror of the viral video, the Kryptonite of Tila Tequila, and the staggering atrocities of bulletin boards, real heroes reemerge in the form of Dashiell Hammett on ebook, and reprinting of 1930s magazines so that all may acquire the knowledge that Doc Savage was the first man to have a Fortress of Solitude!

Has pulp fiction seen it’s end?

I think not, Drummond. I believe that we shall meet again!

...end of part one.  Tune in next time for Pulp Heroes...EXPLAINED!

What is on YOUR writing playlist?

Most of the time when I'm writing, I have noise in the background: the kids playing a video games together, all of us watching a movie while I jot something here and there, the filter cycling water through the turtle tank, or the cats playing Neo and Agent Smith in the kitchen floor.  My favorite  noise is the sound of the kids playing, of course. It's relaxing in a way that only a devoted mother could understand.

But on those rare moments when I'm alone in the car, on iPod day at work, or when the kids are gone, I get in moods where I want to have music on that will inspire a certain feeling.  I do this especially when I've got ideas brewing that need a little nudge here and there.  I like to make a CD with ammunition for imagination.  These songs usually tell some sort of story that sparks a dark, sinister, or epic feeling in me when I'm thinking of writing or actively writing.  These songs on my MP3 player also make the workday more exciting, not that the insurance business is boring or anything.

Here is what is currently on that CD:

1.  Don't Go into That Barn-Tom Waits

2.  Cities in Dust-Siouxsie and the Banshees

3.  Lost in the Flood-Bruce Springsteen

4.  Pet-A Perfect Circle

5.  Middleman-Bright Eyes

6.  Red Right Hand-Nick Cave

7.  Hallelujah-Rufus Wainwright

8.  The Black Rider-Tom Waits

9.  Where Good Girls Go to Die-London After Midnight

As you can see, my taste runs a little on the theatrical side.  Those are just a few of the songs that I currently enjoy writing to.  The list gets modified and added to, but rarely subtracted from.  These are my staples.  No matter what my mood is, these are the songs that bring to mind the richest lands, the most mysterious characters, and enticingly intense settings.

Please share your favorite writing music! And if you don't listen to music while writing or looking for inspiration, what do you do?