The Moronosphere

The muse of distraction

2010-02-24T01:09:23Z

My head's been in a strange place of late.

While my shoulder heals well ahead of schedule, my sleep still falls victim to it's ache. My normal sleep habits - a mess at the best of times - are now completely fractured.

It's no secret that I've been had hell's own time writing recently, to the point where I had lost all care or interest in it. But over the last couple of weeks, I've begun to feel the return of some faint muse.

Characters are starting to regain their voices. Only, they are doing so in the middle of the night.

Every night this week, when I'm just down far enough into the well of sleep that I can't drag back out without struggle (or caffeine), I start thinking of things I need to write. Characters, stories, themes, settings.

I actually got up one night over the weekend, with this piece of dialog in my head:

"Where'd this come from," she asked me, running a finger over the faintly puckered skin above my right ear.
The scar itself was numb, but the skin around it was oddly sensitive. It tingled when she traced it's jagged outline.

"Walked into a door," I said.

She stroked my scalp, the day and a half of stubble making a faint scraping sound.

"I like it," she said.

It wasn't much, but it was enough. I could visualize the woman - her short, stylishly cut hair in some perfect honey shade, her mellow voice, her skin tan and just beginning to show her fourty years. I knew the narrator; a sort of stock character out of my head - big, road-worn, a bit taciturn, and with dark secrets in his past. I knew how they wound up together, and where they were (her bed, with late afternoon sun through expensive curtains, fading light on sex-tossed covers the color of caramel. I had her entire house in my head, her colors, her expensive, understated taste. I even knew what car was parked (somewhat crookedly, like she'd been in a hurry) in the carport beside her house.

I knew the conversation, up until he opens his mouth, pauses, and then begins to tell her his story. And then it ran out. I didn't know what the story was. Or to be more specific, while I knew what story he'd tell her, I didn't know what THIS story was, that I was telling.

I wrote it down, and saved it. A small victory; the first bit of fiction that's gotten all the way out of my head and onto (virtual) paper in more months than I can remember.

But it's been that way every night. Last night, a pair of characters wandered into my head and tried to talk to me. A female young traveler, and the mate of some craft, making a lonely traverse. I don't know if this was a ship crossing bodies of water, or some spaceship crossing unimaginable gulfs, or an airship in some steampunk past-future. But I could hear her voice, and hear him tell her how everyone else on the ship slept, his low rank leaving him on the bridge.

They never got to the point where it became a story; just a setting, faces, emotions (pride, loneliness) and an physical environment of cold and isolation.

Today, I tried to write a bit of that down, but I had nothing. I couldn't summon the scene, merely it's description. Like all the veins of creativity I've encountered between sleep and wake, it was small, and not found again once lost.

Inspiration, for me, is profoundly elusive. I have never found a way to turn it on, and so often find it slipping. The muse of distraction speaks more loudly, always, than that of creation. But at least I begin to hear those whispers. I've missed the voice of creative inspiration.

time lord victorious

2010-02-23T20:20:49Z

My friend Kyle just started a blog. He gets extra props for an excellent title.

He's short of readers. Go give him some lovin'.

http://timelordvictorious.blogspot.com/

I don't know anything

2010-02-19T19:02:24Z

One of those Gurus songs I've never really payed attention to. Damn, what a great song.

I Don't Know Anything - Hoodoo...

I've got a lot to learn
And bridges that I still have not burned.
UntiI I find a way
I'll only end up back where I am today but
I don't know anything,
Anything at all.

I know that I ain't smart.
I get tangled up in the strings of my heart
So tight I cannot breathe
I'd cut them if I knew what was good for me but
I don't know anything,
Anything at all.

I must be the king of fools,
A court jester making rhymes in nursery school,
Like: "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
You can blow my candle, Jack, if you can
teach me how to light my wick 'cos
I don't know anything.

HNT leg ink

2010-02-18T04:00:01Z

It's been a really long time since I participated in HNT (Half-Nekkid Thursday), but I figured, I might as well.

My legs, oddly, are the least-tattooed part of me. That needs solving. However, I'm having trouble deciding what to do next.

I have several ideas for smaller tattoos (pinup designs mostly - pirate wenches and hula girl, etc). I also just found this image (Thanks to the lovely and talented Merrick), which I'm in love with, but can't quire decide where to put. On the other hand, it's the last major empty area on me, so it's the last chance to plan a big tattoo.

For big tattoos, I'm pondering both a major polynesian idea, and a big, classic japanese piece with classic subject matter (dragons, warriors, etc). Both would start on the though and expand down to consume most of the space on my lower leg (as much as is free).

So the first choice is, once big one from thigh to ankle, or several separate smaller pieces.

(images after the cut, click images to embiggen, if you realy want a close look at my legs)

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(the leg we're discussing its the right one, the one with color tattoos, not the left)

the polynesian tattoo

2010-02-15T17:48:46Z

My friend Tricia Allen has a new web site (finally).

She's the tattooist who did most of my Polynesian work, and is, I think, one of the world's leading experts on Polynesian tattooing.

Go check out the new site at ThePolynesianTattoo.com

(that's not Tricia, but it is some of her work)

Gangster Grandparents

2010-02-09T06:00:25Z

Chuck and Cookie Dillingham, circa 1927.

My grandparents on my mother's side.

(click to embiggen)

He was from southern Oklahoma. She was a daddy's girl from Sherman Texas; her name was Hazel, though I never once heard her called anything but Cookie. They were drinkers, card players. She was a flapper with temper - he was an inveterate ladies man, a baseball fanatic, a guy who liked to dance. He was ten years her senior, a dashing, masculine figure who loved fast cars and what she called 'dirty blonds'.

He worked for the merchant marine in the years after WWI, then later, after they married and had their one daughter, they ran a diner in Long Beach (Chuck 'n Cookie's Diner). Later, they lived in Reno where he made a living playing poker (often as a shill for casinos, one of those guys paid to play on the house's dollar, to dither people to the tables).

Cookie named her daughter Greta, after Greta Garbo. She loved movies and elegance, and felt deep shame over her own working class background. Low-class, she'd say, her favorite adjective for anything she didn't like. There was nothing more loathsome to her.

The list of things I don't know about them is far too long; things I should have asked my mother to write down. I have only a handful of photos, and an old photo-diary of Cookie's. I don't know when or where or how they met - I don't know if it was at some bonfire my lake Texoma, or at some wild jazz dancehall, or if they met in Long Beach where he worked in the ship yards.

When I knew them, they were a retired couple. He smelled like tobacco and smoke, from the pipe he always had in his mouth or his hand. She smelled of gin and butter mints, and always had a jar full of cookies (which as a child I found ironic - gramma Cookie gave us cookies). When I knew them, they lived in an odd, incredibly tidy upstairs apartment in Long Beach. We saw them rarely - we lived in mostly in norther californis, they in southern. A couple if visits a year at most, apart from the one year we spent in east north-east LA when my father worked at at Cal State).

Later, her drinking got away from her. She'd struggled, my mother told me later, for most of her life. She was the vodka-for-lunch type of drinker, the flask in the purse type. She was also, most likely, bi-polar or something similar; the mood swings were worse when she drank. One day she had what people used to call a 'nervous breakdown wandered away, and no one saw or heard from her for a week.

My grandfather faded after that; Cookie was in and out of a home, never really the same. As his health failed, we moved him north. He lived with us for a couple of years, before his heart finally gave out. he was near 85, and still fierce and proud, listening to sports on the radio and smoking his pipe.

Cookie held on longer. Her mind trickled away slowly, and each visit was harder for my mother, as Cookie asked who are you and what have they done with my daughter.

I never knew them, not in any real way. My mother's relationship with her mother was strange, hostile and bitter, and I Cookie only as a plump little story-book gramma who cooked and handed out snacks.

What I have of them, the image that for me most defines them, is the picture above. That picture sat on our mantle from the time Chuck moved into our house; I saw it every day when I lived at home, every time I visited my mother after I moved out.

Who knows what story lives behind that picture; honeymoon? Road trip south, for the wild border-land fun of 1927 mexico? My mother was born in late 1928, so cookie would soon lose her flapper's figure to pregnancy (she never regained it.)

In my head though, they are Bonnie and Clyde. There's a shotgun under the seat in the car, maybe a tommy gun in the rumble seat (hidden in a violin case, of course.) He's got a .45 under that jacket, and a straight razor in his pocket. She's got a little pearl-handle .25 in her bag, and has used it more than once.

The money they've been spending, on a romantic trip to Tijuana, is ill-got and quickly gone.

And whose shadow is it in the foreground? She took that picture? It's ominous, somehow, and all the more when we imagine them wheeling away in a hail of bullets, maybe minutes after this picture is taken.

My grandparents never were gangsters. He was an average guy, who worked average jobs. They didn't own weapons, or have a secret past. But that's how I know them; the wild and dangerous young couple on the back of a model-T ford. She's the very image of a moll, and there's something about his shadowed eyes and the un-easy set of his hands that says potential for violence.

I love these people - these grandparents who never existed. I want to meet them, and hear the stories they'd tell. I want to visit Cookie in jail, bring her cigarettes, and ask her about the day the road ran out for them, and how it ended.

They have a story to tell, those two. I just don't know what it is, yet.

backpiece: tenth session

2010-02-01T05:42:32Z

Session ten.

Three more sessions to go - I have the last three booked.

Cleared to resume

2010-01-22T02:09:15Z

I kind of want to write something erotic and edgy, full of nameless back-alley couplings, violent, passionate encounters, or stolen moments in dark smokey bars.

Unfortunately, I keep getting disrupted by things like severe lack of sleep the last four weeks.

Supposedly, I'm still healing incredibly well; my doctor cleared me today to start working out (slowly), and to resume normal activity. Not that I have any idea what normal means, but I'll assume that means I can ride a motorcycle or put full weight on my knuckles now (both things I've been generally avoiding for a while).

However, I have no patience with weakness or discomfort. The fact that it still aches at night may be 'normal', but it's drivin' me up the wall, and completely interfering with my sleep. I want to attack things, and the lack of sleep is leaving my generally ineffective and groggy (and pretty severely grumpy as well).

Next week I start physical therapy, which should hurt, but in more of a good way. I'm hoping the aches of activity will be far preferable to the aches of inactivity (ie, I'd rather have it hurt for a good reason, if it's gonna hurt).

I keep trying to actually get writing done (with 'done' being relative, since I haven't been able FINISH anything in forever), so possibly, possibly, I'll get traction here soon.

Are you with me Doctor?

2010-01-08T17:51:32Z

There's a Steely Dan song - Doctor Wu. As is typical of Steely Dan songs, it's about drugs, though it could also be about romance, or about something else entirely; The lyrics are elliptical, yet evocative. It makes you wonder what story is being told.

Are you with me Doctor Wu?
Are you really just a shadow of the man that I once knew?
Are you crazy? Are you high? Or just an ordinary guy?
Have you done all you can do?
Are you with me Doctor?

But my brother Ian and I didn't sing it the way Donald Fagan wrote it. Because when we heard it, we heard it as "Are you with me Doctor Who?", Much like John Barrowman's take-off on The Wizard and I, which he sang as The Doctor and I.

Doctor Who has a way of creeping into other cultural areas. Even Shriekback has a reference to Daleks in a song called Hammerheads ("Our time has come, age of the hammerhead - This is our mission, to be the Daleks of God").

The why of this is somewhat difficult to explain, if you didn't grow up with The Doctor. The british, I suspect, understand this, but us yanks don't, for the most part.

In america, Doctor Who is remembered as a bizarre, campy british show that we used to run across late at night on PBS stations. Primarily, we remember the iconic Tom Baker; wild eyes, wild hair, seventeen-foot-long scarf. Baker's portrayal is relentlessly loopy, yet with a dark and gloomy level just below; he had a sort of whimsical grandeur, a mad-scientist air that balanced funny with steely-eyed serious.

It was a show that was easy to laugh at or hate. It was cheaply made, with effects that already looked ridiculous by the time it made a dent in the american consciousness in the late seventies. It was un-even in terms of writing and acting, and most of the dialog was so full of jargon and technobabble that it sometimes felt like it was in a foreign language. It also rarely made any logic sense, outside the universe of the show.

But it was also lovable. There's something so cleverly inventive and goofy about it that it was hard not to be drawn in. And once you were in, if you were lucky enough to start with one of the better story lines, you tended to stick. Because while the writing was uneven, the show was always creative. It was always intelligent; thick with inventive settings, bizarre creatures, and whimsical characters.

One of the most interesting things about it was the depth of it's mythology. By the late seventies, when PBS began showing the Tom Bakar Doctor (the 'fouth doctor' in the show's parlance), it had already been on for some fourteen or fifteen years in Britain. There were recurring villains, long-running partners ('Companions'), and The Doctor had already changed actors several times (using one of the show's cleverest devices, 'regeneration'; a handy plot device when the the first actor left the show, which went on to become a key element of the character and ongoing story).

One of the things that differentiates rich, enduring sci-fi or fantasy is depth of background; the story behind the story. Lord of the Rings benefitted from Tolkien's vast linguistic and historic work that never it page within the novel; Star Wars and Star Trek developed into cults based on universes built within, and then outside the narrative.

Doctor Who worked for the same reason; it's body of myth supports it, even when it's out on a limb in terms of content. Even when the dialog was terrible and the plots didn't make sense, you knew you were in the middle of something that was building to mythic proportion.

All that said, I was never a huge fan of the original show. I loved it's concept; I loved the wackiness and cleverness. But I couldn't ever get past it's carefree attitude towards logical plotting; its complete disregard for the inherent paradox of time travel. I also couldn't get past its uneven scripting (I have, as you may know, and incredibly low tolerance for poor writing). I watched it, primarily, because my brother was absolutely hooked. Often I'd find him in the middle of a multi-episode marathon on a saturday night, and I'd watch while he explained the details I'd missed.

He remained a dedicated fan for years; watching through Bakar's regeneration into Peter Davisdon, and then delving back into the older John Pertwee and Patrick Troughton eras (and this was before video rentals were available; he tracked the show across PBS stations and watched it it the middle of the night, if he had to). I was aware of the show, until I moved out of my parents house; it was a constant on our tv.

And then I lost track. It went on, though, running through three more regenerations and eight more years, before it finally died a quiet death in 1989, a victim of passing time and it's own declining quality. I think it lost it's ability to be relevant in an era of CGI and action blockbusters, and tried to make up for this by getting sillier and sillier.

I was wholly unaware of of a 1996 attempt to bring it back (with Paul McGann as the eighth doctor). My brother died that same year, or I think he would have noticed and told me. And I was equally unaware of the 2005 revival, featuring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor.

It wasn't until April 2007 that I noticed it, and then, only because my mother called me one day to tell me about a new show called Torchwood; a spin-off of the re-born Doctor Who. I think she'd forgotten that it was Ian who was the Doctor Who fan, not me. Still, I set my Tivo to record Torchwood; and loved it, when I saw it.

Only when I looked up Torchwood on Wikipedia did I realize that there was a whole new, re-born Doctor Who; but I ignored it, remembering the classic and not feeling any need to go back. I figured it was the same thing with new faces.

I missed out on something major, which isn't all that unusual for me with great TV shows (I can barely think of one I picked up from the beginning; I always come in later with DVD rentals).

When Russell T Davies decided to bring back Doctor who after a a sixteen year hiatus, it's very clear that he wanted to make a different kind of show.

I think in the years between the show's demise and rebirth, it had become a bit of a joke. It certainly had here in the sates. So the fear was, I think, than a new version would be ignored or dismissed. I reacted that vvery way, and I think the producers who decided to bring it back feared audiences would react that same way. But Doctor Who is a british cultural icon in england, something several generations have grown up with. It's a mythology they all know, fans or not. So what they bought back wasn't doctor who as it had been; it was a child that surpassed the parent.

Whenever you delve back into the past for fodder for films or tv shows, you set yourself in a mine field. Sometimes we get attempts to bring something back just as it was, such as the first Star Trek films, which expanded on the original series without significantly altering it in tone or content. Sometimes film makers approach subjects with camp and satire; scooby doo, brady bunch, starsky and hutch. And sometimes they completely reboot as with the recent Star Trek, or with Mission Impossible. Some of those work incredibly well, some not at all, and most make little impact either way.

What's hard though - and here, I'm trying to come up with another example - is to bring something back in a way that's both true to the original, and better than the original. The only other examples I can think of are comic books; Alan Moore's brilliant re-imagining of Swamp Thing, Frank Miller's Dark Knight, Chris Claremont's 1970s X-Men.

Davies and company did it. They brought The Doctor into the 21st century. They brought it back intact, with all the mythos of forty years, with all it's history, with all it's sense of whimsy and melodrama. But they had tools the original never had; budget, and technology, and perhaps most important, a clear, focused artistic vision. For the first time, the aliens look cool, the TARDIS looks mysterious, ancient, and alien, and the other planets and spaceships look like, well, like other planets and spaceships. Sure, there's still that vague edge of silliness to them, but here, that's because they're supposed to be a bit silly.

But the real difference isn't effects, or a modern look and feel. The real difference is that Russell T Davis is a brilliant writer, and a brilliant show runner.

There are those people out there who can take a concept - no matter hod odd, unlikely, or silly - and make it sing. I can think of no better example than Joss Whedon; on the surface, Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemed one of the dumbest show ideas ever. But Joss wove it into something transcendent; dark, mythic; tragic destiny and romance, an almost operatic storyline, told with cheerleaders and wry humor. What Joss did should be impossible.

Russell T Davis and Joss Whedon seem to be some sort of soul brothers. Because what Joss did with Buffy, Davis has done with that absurd old warhorse, Doctor Who. He took the bits and pieces of something silly and moribund, and fashioned it into true art.

The very first moment Christopher Eccleston walks on screen, you know this Doctor is different. One of the things the old Doctors had in common were a variety of whimsical, archaic (and occasionally absurd) costumes. They were typically older, rather professorial men, with the air of mad scientists or eccentric wizards. Not so Eccleston; he runs on screen in dark, urban clothing, heavy shoes and a U-boat commander's leather deck coat. With his craggy Manchester features, buzz cut hair and rough clothing, he looks more like a thug; like a british gangster from a Guy Ritchie film. This ain't your parents Doctor, his look says. This is something else.

I watched the first episode - Rose - because my daughter's best friend was obsessed. I wanted to know what captured her ten-year-old mind, and if it was more or less than than what I remembered. I was sucked in from the first scene, but that meant little, because the show opens with Billie Piper waking up, bed-headed and groggy. I was in love with her from the very first moment of the show. Billie Piper as Rose Tyler is one of those women who gets directly into my heart; some magical combination of actress and role that make up a person so real, you miss them when they're gone, miss them like an ex-girlfriend or absent lover.

But it's when Eccleston walks in with his thug's appearance and his northern accent and says "I'm the Doctor, by the way - run for your life!" that I decided I wasn't just in love with Billie Piper, but that I really liked this new version of Doctor Who.

I was not, however, instantly converted. I didn't watch episodes in order; I walked in and out, watching bits and pieces of episodes as my kids and their friends showed me favorite scenes and explained in loving (and often incoherent) detail what was going on and who was doing what to whom.

It seemed a bit silly; I loved that they were watching it, but I never quite bought into the idea.

It wasn't until the last couples of months that I went back and watched it all, in order. And I found, first, that one has to watch it in order, and second, that it's incredibly good. Hell, not good, great.

Russell T Davies' Doctor Who isn't just a series. It's a story arc that runs across four years of TV. Two Doctors, a half dozen Companions, a love story, far too many deaths, and the world saved countless times. But it's ONE GODDAMNED STORY. Every episode is full of foreshadow, back-reference, and internal continuity. IT's full of clues you won't recognize until a second or third watching. Every small story along the way builds on what came before, and every relationship is defined by, or defines, other relationships. Some of the episodes are funny, some are deadly serious; but they form one continuous, romantic, tragic tale. And that's the key to all of it, understanding that you're not watching single episodes, you're watching something on operatic scale. The story's told with with humor; but like Whedon's work, it's gallows humor, characters laughing when they know everything is coming down around them sooner or later. This Doctor is has a dark, haunted, injured look to him; not just goofy and bizarre, but tragic. He knows he's alone, knows he's ultimately doomed, you can see it in his eyes.

The casting is uniformly great; not just the major parts (Eccelston for some season, then David Tennant for three) but the smaller ones as well. And like HBO and Showtime shows in the US, Davis and his group of writers and directors get absolutely phenomenal work out of the actors by giving them terrific scripts, and then giving them room to really act. Tennant is a truly gifted performer, with range beyond what anyone could imagine and a shakespearean sense of timing (He gets more out of the word "...Well..." than most actors get out of a whole script). But actors like Catherine Tate, John Barrowman and Freema Agyeman also turn in performances that always seem more than one would ever expect.

To be sure, the show isn't perfect. It's inherently somewhat silly; it requires a vast suspension of disbelief. Any story based on time travel sets itself difficult territory; time travel is a mine-field of paradox and logic flaw. Doctor Who solves this by applying a few in-show 'laws' about interfering with time-streams and and 'fixed points in time' that can't be changed. But primarily, they solve it by simply ignoring the issue (to the point where the almost break the third wall, characters saying "because it's more fun this way!" when asked the hard questions about why they have to solve a problem the way they do).

It's also somewhat uneven. There are many writers and directors involved, some of who stand out in terms of brilliance, and some not. They push boundaries in terms of story telling, and sometimes get out on thin ice in terms of believability or character behavior; but even the weakest episodes feature superior acting, and (usually) clever dialog. Even when they get somewhat absurd, they're still incredibly well written. And every single episode moves the greater story along in significant ways.

I've now seen the entirety of seasons 1 through 4; the key story arc is over, in all it's dark, tragic, romantic glory. Davis era as show runner is over, as is David Tennat's tour as the doctor. The only thing left me are the four 'special' episodes (technically still season four, but really, they're a mini-season, like the 3rd Torchwood series). When I finish those, I'm done with it. And it feels not unlike when I finished Sandman; that same sense of admiration and loss. Sandman, of course, came (to me) with years of popular admiration, so I expected it to be all it is. This, however, caught me entirely by surprise. Because I'd grown up with the old, and seen plenty of the new; I'd watch two seasons of Torchwood. I thought I knew what this show was, what it was all about. I knew Daleks and Cybermen and The Master. What I didn't know, though, was Russell T Davis. Because he's what makes this different.

There's a new series coming; but it's almost entirely new. New show runner (Stephen Moffat, writer of some of the new Dooctor's best episodes, like Empty Child/Doctor Dances, and Blink), a new doctor (Matt Smith), a new Companion (Amy Pond); there's even a new logo. But it's not, in any significant way, the same show. It's a whole new thing, a rebirth not just for the Doctor, but for the story, for the entire show.

One can only hope that, like the character himself, the show can be re-born yet again to be new, and the same.

My Shoulder

2010-01-01T07:13:25Z

I kind of had this plan to blog my way through my surgery this week. I kind of think that was over-optomistic, considering a) I haven't been blogging at all most of the last year and b) I haven't really had much use of my left arm.

I didn't quite get there; best I managed with posting photos f the inside of my shoulder on facebook, and tweeting about how looped I was on percocet in the middle of the night.

To summarize though, for those who aren't following me elsewhere - December 23, I had arthroscopic surgery on my left shoulder

]]> I've had trouble with my shoulder for years; I sort of ignored it generally. It was on'y a problem when I was lifting weights, because it limited my exercises a bit (range and strength), for anything that used the left bicep of the front of the left shoulder.

Recently though, it's started to get worse. My last serious gym rat phase (four or five years back), it started to really interfere; I would hurt myself about every other week. It wound up so discouraging I gave it up after a while, just quit working out because I got tired of the shoulder issues.

The thing with the shoulder is that it just doesn't seem to like being old. You hit a certain age, and it seems to want to fail. The group of muscles and tendons that stabilize the shoulder (the rotator cuff) just isn't that strong, and when you stop using it - or put it under unusual strain - it gives way. I think when I stopped working it, two things happened. One was that I lost strength, and the other is that I lost flexibility. It went from only hurting when I over worked it, to hurting semi-randomly, stiffening whenever it wasn't it motion.

The difficulty with having a high tolerance for pain, sometimes, is that it leads one to just put up with things that could be fixed. I just ignored it as it got worse.

I went to my MD a couple of times; he diagnosed tendonitis. That's usually treated with rest, ice and anti-inflamatories. So we tried that, to little effect (while the NSAIDs helped the pain, it came back as soon as I discontinued use). We moved to cortisone injections, and that helped more, but again, it would come back.

Finally I went to my sports medicine/arthroscopy guy (Dr Grady Jeter in Los Gatos, who's amazing), who said rotator cuff tear, and ordered an MRI.

MRIs are cool. Pictures of the inside of your body are always cool, but ever better when taken with a giant sci-fi magnet that looks like a transporter from some Doctor Who episode. However, the MRI wasn't conclusive; it didn't show a major tear, but it did show a structural problem in the bone that connects the collar bone to the shoulder blade (which, I'm sure, has a name, but I don't have the patience to look it up just now). The bone dips down more than it should, and causes an impingement of the biceps tendon where it enters the shoulder joint. The tendons where rubbing themselves raw, Doctor Jeter felt, against the bone.

The thing with most joint problems is that the only way to know for sure, is the same way you fix; arthroscopy. Basically, you make two or three tiny incisions, fill the joint with saline, stick a miniature fiber optic camera inside the joint, and have a look-see. If there's something to fix, they fix it (there's almost always something to fix; joints wear over time, and wear leaves a mess behind).

It's pretty amazing what surgeons can do with arthroscopy. The instruments are tiny, and they're working entirely by camera. These guys must be great video gamers. They can cut, sew, patch, trim, clean, grind, all through holes so small they don't leave scars. I've had this done twice in the past; both my knees have suffered small meniscus tears. But the shoulder is a bit different (far more complicated).

We planned the surgery for fall of '08, but I wound up having to postpone it. Partly that was because of the work load related to my mother's estate (she died in November of that year). Partly, though, I psyched myself out after seeing a friend go through the same surgery. Instead I got a cortisone injection. That controlled the pain for a good six months, so I began to think I didn't really need the surgery after all.

The pain came back last summer though; so I got another injection. That one lasted me for about six weeks, rather than six months, and at that point, I realized the surgery was going to be inevitable, if I ever wanted to be able to work out again; it was at the point where I couldn't even sleep without nightly doses of strong NSAIDs.

I scheduled the surgery for xmas after we decided we couldn't swing any holiday travel (I get a week off for xmas every year). And then I had time to stew about it, think far too much about pain and discomfort and recovery.

As it turned out, I had nothing to fret over.

I went in for surgery on Wednesday morning; they traded my clothes for a backless gown (and every nurse in the place then had to come look at my back tattoo). They shot me full of versed and fentanyl (and wow, did I like that; versed is one of my favorite drugs), and then the anesthesiologist game me a never block on my left shoulder.

I remember being rolled into the operating room, and the Anesthesiologist saying 'we're going to put a mask on you'. And then I was waking up, feeling sick and thirsty. I found out later the procedure had been only an hour.

My arm, which was wrapped in bandages and an ice therapy pack, and a sling, felt like it wasn't even attached to me. The nerve block worked pretty damn well.

I went home, went to bed with my ice therapy pump running, and marveled at the lack of pain. My arm was completely paralyzed, down to the fingers. I couldn't ever move my fingers; it was like a dead man's arm, completely disconnected.

The anesthesiologist had warned me that nerve blocks are unpredictable; they can last only a few hours, or as long as 24 hours. I was lucky; it lasted for more like 28. I had no pain whatsoever for 24, and when the feeling came back, it came back slowly.

My friend Chris had sever pain after his shoulder surgery; the Anesthesiologist also told me shoulder surgery could be 'extremely painful'. So my expectations were for the worst. When the pain began to return, I swallowed two percocet and went to bed, fearing the worst.

I think I had an hour or so of pain I'd call significant. That was all. By the time I had a second dose of percocet in me, I was able to get up, have dinner, and watch TV. I had only what I'd call strong discomfort and minor pain. Sleeping was a drag (I sleep on my stomach, I can't sleep on my back at all; same reason I can't sleep on airplanes); I didn't sleep at all that first night and very little the second. But by the day following surgery (xmas eve) I was able to make coffee myself, and was up and around enough to post on facebook, and even able to wrap gifts (clumsily).

Xmas day I had no problem getting up and doing family xmas, and then had the usual big in-law xmas morning brunch. I was able to remove the major bandages that night, and found I could move my arm. It was stiff, and it hurt to move; but I didn't need much percocet.

Since then it's gotten better each day. While it's stiff, and reaching still hurts, my range of movement is close to what it was before surgery. More importantly, the pain that caused me to go in is gone; those movements and positions are painless. Last night (the 30th) I was able to sleep all the way through the night with no pain meds of sleep aids, for the first time since surgery. Two days ago I saw my doctor, and he was startled and pleased at my recovery (I think he used the word 'wow' three times). Yesterday I was able to return to driving my car (stick shift and all), and in fact went to a sharks game at the Tank (which was an absolutely great game; all sorts of unexpected delights there).

All in all, this has been best-case-scenario all the way. I was expecting to feel truly lousy for a week, and my unable to drive for two; I figured I wouldn't be able to ride my motorcycle for a couple of months. But I'm pretty sure I could ride by Monday if I feel like it.

I can't wait to start lifting weights, though my doctor wants me to wait three more weeks for that (we'll start physical therapy at that time).

My new year's eve is a casualty of all this; I'm still fighting a sever sleep deficit (I fall asleep halfway through tv shows). So going out was more than I could face tonight, despite several invitations. Instead, I'm headed for an 11pm bedtime, and Doctor Who (season four) on netflix instant play. I may make midnight, but it'll be without champagne or kisses or dropping balls. And Im ok with that, because It won't be with the pain I've been fighting every night for two years.

I'll catch up on the champagne and kisses later though. Rain checks on that, k?

(pictures of the inside of my shoulder are here. And yes, I know how dirty that looks.)

what the hell is wrong with Dexter?

2009-12-14T23:36:01Z

Watch out, there be spoilers ahead .

Ok, caveate: I think Dexter has always been vastly over-rated. It's one of those 'emperors-new-clothes' deals - has a rep for being all sorts of things it isn't, like great, edgy, dark. They've somehow created the aura of these things without ever having to actually deliver.

But Dexter has always shown potential. It has cast going for it, and a strong concept, and a great setting (it's one of the few shows set in Miami that actually look like Miami, at least how I think Miami looks). The problem has always been that it doesn't know what to do with what it has.

The core of the idea is simple; A serial killer who's been trained as a vigilante, channeling his urge to kill. He's Batman meets Son of Sam.

The theme of the show, when it started, was that of an alien, an outsider. Dexter's attempt to fit in by hiding in plain sight, by pretending to normalcy. It's classic werewolf/vampire territory, where the monster may hide in plain site, all the while knowing he's a predator feeding on humanity. It's rich, if somewhat staid, territory; and then angle they've put on it (serial killer as hero) is pretty original (we've seen the opposite many times; the heroic vigilante who's really sort of a criminal; but here it's flipped - it's criminal killer directing his crimes at other worse criminals).

The trouble is, someone (someone at showtime, maybe, or the show runners Cerone and Phillips) decided that they need to make Dexter more likable. And that's where the big pitfall is. Because they're already there, thanks to Michael C Hall's performance (he really just can't be anything BUT likable, no matter how he's presented, like Mickey Mouse in a Darth Vader costume).

In the first season, they managed it all pretty well. Dexter was a wry and funny narrator, and Hall played him brilliantly, completely inhabiting the awkwardness of a man faking 'normal', copying those around him for reactions. The surrounding cast helped (Jennifer Carpenter is fantastic as Dexter's sister, for example, playing the other side of the confused and socially awkward coin). Sure, there were problems; mostly with plot, but we can blame the book for that ( Season 1 is lifted mostly from Darkly Dreaming Dexter), though there's a glaring casting problem with Lauren Vélez as Maria LaGuerta (she can't act her way out of a paper bag).

One of the best devices in season 1 was Rita (Julie Benz), who's introduced as a pathetic, neurotic basket-case; a perfect 'beard' for dexter, because he doesn't care about her at all, and she's so damaged all she needs from him is that he seem to care about her (something Dexter learns to fake well enough to keep his cover). She's sad and deeply dislikable, which is exactly what she needs to be (since Dexter is using her, and doesn't care at all about her).

While season one's the plot devices are weak and improbable, and the writing is uneven, on the whole it works. The effect is sort of light weight and melodramatic, but with enough real high points to make it all work.

This start to go wrong - very badly wrong - in season two.

One of the key points we've learned about Dexter is that he's brilliant; almost super-human. Strong, quick, dangerous, with a monster's mind behind the seemingly mild-mannered disguise. He doesn't make mistakes; he's only threatened when he meets a mind as dangerous as his own. Yet, Season 2 opens with Dexter 'exposed' by his (we see in season 2) really, really stupid way of hiding bodies (wrapped in fucking plastic bags, and dropped into shallow water on a reef - the worst sort of rookie mistake, and not something anyone with a clue would do, let alone a police forensic investigator). It's the worst sort of cheap plotting move, and doesn't follow at all with the character we've seen through season one.

So we have our first big weak plot mistake; the smart guy acting stupid. Weak. We then add in a really stupid sub-plot where a fellow officer (Doakes, hugely over-played by Erik King) stalks Dexter; again, weak. Entertaining in a small dose, but an absolute slog as a season-long arc, because it depends on Dexter acting stupid.

We also see Dexter suddenly working to try to keep Rita, who is suddenly no longer pathetic, weak and damaged, but drably likable and sweet; which doesn't work at all because they've just finshed making her kind of hateful. They try to make a complete character about=-face that makes no sense at all, AND blows out her reason for being there. Dexter tells stupid lies (drug addiction? Are you kidding me? What's this, a 'Friends' episode?). They try to justify this by telling us Dexter actually cares about RIta rather than to be using her as a beard; another nonsensical switch.

Sure, there are some good points; Frank Lundy, wonderfully played by Keith Carradine, and Lila (Jaime Murray) , the most appealing character in the show for the first few episodes (though predictably, as soon as she's revealed to be a sexual wildcat, she then has to also be revealed as a psycho, in standard TV type casting of sexual women as crazy, pathetic, or mean).

The ending features a really bad deus ex machina device, and leaves Dexter resolving to not kill anymore and to be a nice guy, which isn't the least bit in character, and pretty much blows out the reason we're here, to see the hero serial killer. When dexter doesn't kill, he's both out of character, and boring.

Season 3 fairs a bit better; Dexter actually has a decent opponent; Jimmy Smits as ADA Miguel Prado, who chews up scenes wonderfully, if improbably. But we've already gotten used to some improbability; like 24, if the show is well written and well paced (and well cast), we have to ignore little problems like logic. Unfortunately, to balance the far better villain, we get a really, really stupid plot device; Rita is now pregnant, and Dexter decides to marry her. Sure, this arc comes from the book, but they've thrown away most of the rest of the books by now; why keep this one, Particularly when the books are reputed to be terrible. They've already made Rita aan annoying (and inconsistent) character, why drag her along more, and shoe-horn dexter into scenes that don't fit with his serial killer nature? Oh, and wait, he's not not really killing. Why? I can only assume it's the producers trying to make him likable (really, he may be a killer, and crazy, but look, he's not really crazy and doesn't really kill!)

Overall, the season works, but despite it's failings; it's clear the writers don't really know who the characters are anymore, and it's clear Dexter's now a serial killer in name only; he's now just a weird dude who talks to himself, and has a hobby of vigilanteism.

I had hopes that season two was the anomaly; that they'd started to get this show back on track. I was wrong.

Season four had promise; John Lithgow as another serial killer (wow, they're thick on the ground in Dexter's universe). Lithgow can do a lot to salvage bad material; he's really, really good. And to his credit, he's the only thing that works about season 4. He's frightening, and completely convincing.

Unfortunately, that's vastly offset by the fact that the show runners have clearly thrown out any character continuity, and have decided that filler is a crucial plot device.

What seems like two full thirds of each episode is dedicated to a dreadful and stupid plot line with LaGuerta (yes, she still has a job, but god knows why, it's certainly not due to any acting ability whatsoever), and Angel Batista (David Zayas). Now, Zayas is an extremely appealing actor, but he's acting opposite a waxy lump, and he's given truly awful dialog. Worse (or almost as bad, it's hard to decide), the plot between these two characters (an illicit affair between superior and underling) is full of bizarre ideas, like a threat of a perjury charge for a statement that had nothing to do with a court (wow, you'd think someone in the writer's room would know what perjury means, or at least check a wikipedia to see). Everything these characters do is boring, stupid, illogical, and badly acted (because Velez' terrible acting brings down that of everyone around her, she's like a talent black hole).

Added to that, we get a truly pointless side plot about Rita kissing a neighbor (as if Dexter would care at all), and various other Rita nonsense. It seems like each episode it an hour and three quarters long, with only about 20 minutes of that featuring plot movement with Dexter and Lithgow's Trinity character. The show DRAGS.

I'm almost tempted to resort to a bullet list of stupid devices; at one point Miami Metro police put up a city wide checkpoint to screen for DNA so they can find Trinity. Well, sure, nevermnind that it's unconstitutional, AND that any evidence is not admissible in court. To pay for this, they free up several million dollars by "working the books". Wow, I should get them to come work my books, I could spend that money on something that might actually be useful.

Dexter, in another smart-character-doing-idiotic-things device, decides he has to study trinity because trinity is so good at pretending to be a regular guy (never mind that dexter has already been transformed into a regular guy, the 'monster' thing was jettisoned last season). Dexter assumes a fake identity (using a real person's name that's easy to track), presents himself in public all over the place with Trinity, meets Trinty's family, and leaves his DNA everywhere. Nothing here makes a shred of sense.

Once Dexter has gotten all cozy with Trinity, his sense of empathy and moral outrage (wait, what empathy and moral outrage? Wasn't Dexter a complete sociopath with no empathy? Oh, right, he got better) forces him to decide he has to kill Trinity. Of course, he can't just lead the police to Trinity; no, Dexter has to do it himself. What happens when the police start closing in? Well, sure, he does the sensible thing and INTERFERES WIT THE INVESTIGATION, insuring that Trinity won't be caught. Nevermind Dexter's code, which was that he should only kill the ones who got away; Dexter actually insures Trinity gets away. So now Dexter's completely off character track; Code be fucking damned, evidently. Yet Dexter still spends a good half of his screen time with ghost-dad, who seems not to know the code anymore either. Dexter is n o longer a serial killer at all, what he's become is a vigilante, and a not-very-good one.

Typically, one of the most interesting characters in the show, Joey Quinn, is under-used, despite being caught red handed stealing money at a crime scene. This character is as complicated and mysterious as anyone on the show, yet they never explore who the fuck he is and what motivates him. His only real value this season is that he's screwing a reporter (Courtney Ford as Christine Hill), (and THAT is only really rewarding because miss Ford spends quite a number of scenes naked, and has fantastic little titties) before she becomes another lame plot device (There's a spoiler there, but it's neither interesting for useful, plot-wise).

The whole last third of the season is a loop; dexter almost gets trinity, but then for some reason (usually because dexter does something stupid or gets interrupted by having to play hubby/daddy for Rita), does't; on this goes for twenty or thirty episodes (or so it feels). It finally ends up where it should have been several episodes earlier, with Dexter seal-a-mealing Trinity and than killing him, while also being really nice to him for no apparent reason. It's an event that feels weeks overdue, and when it happens, only Lithgow's acting makes it anything other than a letdown.

########## SPOILER BELOW ##########

And then we get the exceedingly obvious (and of course, improbable) twist ending. If you watch the show, you know what this is, and if you didn't, well, tough shit if you ignored the spoiler warnings; Dexter comes home to pack and meet Rita in the Keys, only to find she's just sent him a voice mail saying she's a little late (note that the voice mail comes in RIGHT AS DEXTER IS STANDING THERE, which would be impossible). As dexter tries to call her back, you already know she's dead.

And then we get a lovely scene re-creating DExter's childhood blood-bath (which of course trinty didn't know about, so it's an ironic accident!), with Rita dead in the bath (which is filled with roughly five times the volume of blood a body actually contains), and baby Harrison sitting in a lurid blood puddle on the floor (looking more pissed than afraid).

The scene is supposed to have vast emotional impact; but the problem is, Rita's the worst single character in a show full of train-wreck characters. She's alternately annoying or boring. So her death has only one effect; possible reboot of the show without it's dragging boat anchor of a plot device. This is a good thing, aesthetically (it looks cool), and plot wise.

Alas, this show is consistent only in it's ability to disappoint and underwhelm. So I have absolutely no faith in the show runners ability to do something good here (my bet? We get my-three-sons dexter as the harried single dad; suddenly we have a sit-com setup where dear-old-dad thinks he's a serial killer).

Ok, so I guess what the fans out there (and they are fucking legion) will say is, well just don't watch it. BUt there's the problem; I want to watch it. I just want it to be good. Dexter has one of the best, and most forgiving, ideas for any show out there right now. It's really hard to go wrong with a serial killer-vigilante; it's hard to go wrong with a wolf-amoung-the-sheep plot. You really have to do a pretty terrible job to fail a crop with that fertile soil. And the cast in generally strong; Hall, Carpenter, Carradine, Smits, Lithgow; these people are all really good actors, people who can go tie to tie with anyone on teevee.

It's the richness of the ingredients that makes this so bitter; they have so much, and they turn in into such crap. It's akin to what great chefs say about great ingredients; the chef's job is simply to not ruin what he has, because its starts out so good. Dexter is like that; but the writers and show runners are akin to giving farm-fresh produce and kobe beef to Dennys. Everything comes out tasting like greasy hash.

I want this show to be good, because it could be. And I'm sick of [people acting like it's there; we deserve better, and they're capable of it. Shape the fuck up, Showtime.

backpiece: ninth session

2009-12-10T22:50:54Z

The formatting on this entry is fucked up, I'll fix it a bit later when I have a moment. ]]>

Deadringer Minima - a smaller skull ring

2009-11-26T00:17:21Z

Since I've been back on the skull ring thing lately (thanks to Carlos at Sinners Inc), I realized I never posted about the latest DeadRingers skulls.

People have been asking me for ages about smaller rings; the cool thing is, some of the jewelers I'm friends with have started to listen.

The Deadringers version is called The Minima. It comes in two versions, the Minima Yorrick (jawless), and the Minima Classic (full skull).

Examples below; each side by side with it's big brother. I have the larger versions of both of these.

These are pefect for smaller fingers (pinky rings, ladies rings, or just for someone who wants to go more subtle).

Dimension comparison for the Classic is below.

I've been craving one of these since Mark announced them months ago.

I'm planning to get one as a pinky ring, though I'm still waffling over which one I want. Really, I want them both, but that blows too much of my silver budget all at once.

Gary Rocks on Keith Richards skull ring

2009-11-25T22:00:16Z

Gary at GARY ROCKS has a great writeup on Keith Richards C&H skull ring.

Over the past 30 years Keith Richards silver skull ring has taken on its own mythology and iconic status. The most famous ring in the world has come to signify not only Keith Richards the man - seen wearing it at every gig and in every photograph - but Rock and Roll itself. The ring has inspired both an international cult following and unlimited fake copies. There have been countless claims as to who designed and made the original but this is the true story.

Read the whole entry here.

Courts and Hackett graphics

2009-11-25T00:47:32Z

I just ran across these on the Courts and Hackett blog.

They're fucking fantastic.

I love my Courts and Hackett ring SO much.