Bullshit

I am not a morning person.

Someday – possibly during the aforementioned Coffee Apocalypse – I may in fact be forced to start hunting down those of you who are, indeed, Morning People, and destroying you. (I just read a book on Operation Barbarossa and have been infected with the word “destroy”, which is used constantly by German Generals as in We plan to surround the 17th Red Army and destroy it.)

I used to think I wanted to eliminate sleep from my life – like, if they invented a way to safely never sleep again. I was fascinated by the time I’d get back. Hours and hours, every day! I’m a guy who needs 8 hours every night. If I skimp even a little, I feel like a dead man for days afterward, so the idea of getting back 1/3 of my life through modern chemistry or dangerously experimental brain surgery seemed attractive. Nowadays, not so much – I like sleep. I guess this is part of getting older. When I was 20, not sleeping meant more time for boozing and carousing mixed with more work. Now it would mean more time spent flipping cable channels and complaining. The attraction, she is gone. Plus, there are times – like hangovers – when sleeping is a blessing.

I wonder, if the technology was available and safe, how many folks would sign up to never sleep again. And if they did,  would that force the rest of us to do the same just to keep up? Man, that would irritate me. I resent all other humans now. I can’t imagine if you were keeping me up twenty-four hours a day.

J

The kick-ass producer of Seven Second Delay sent me a few photos taken at last Wednesday’s show (taken by Jeff Moore):

Superstar Jeff Trying to Look Pensive While Dori Plays

(more…)

I am starting to realize that my whole life revolves around liquids: Without coffee in the morning, I would be a zombie. Without whiskey in the evening, I would be insufferable (After reading something by absent friend Diamat, I suddenly have a craving for Rittenhouse Rye).

I am also toying with the idea that you can add the word “Apocalypse” to anything and create a cool doomsday scenario. COFFEE APOCALYPSE, people. See? Catchy. I sooooo want an Internet meme.

Of course, coffee wasn’t always with us humans, was it? And it may someday be replaced. You have to think about these things when you write SF – what will future humans (or their Giant Alien Ant Overlords) imbibe in the morning to regain sanity? Surely science will gift us with something more efficient than caffeine-suffused broth. Then again, have you seen some of the new-fangled food technologies? <Shudder> No thanks. Still one has to imagine these things, especially if you consider how much work and effort goes into getting your morning java to you. If your SF imagination tends to run dystopic, like mine does, you have to consider a horrible world without coffee, and the terrors it would hold.

But, not today, folks. Not today.

J

Friends, I have arrived: I have finally made the local All-Things-Hoboken Web Site, Hoboken411.com. I can now begin stepping on all the little people. DAMN YOU, LITTLE PEOPLE, HOLDING ME BACK ALL THESE YEARS!

Although the photo they used of me makes me look like a hobo of some sort. Which means it’s entirely accurate, just unfortunate. This is why my official photos are all blurred. DAMN YOU AGAIN!

Also, Matt Good was kind enough to send me a link to his review of The Electric Church, which he apparently enjoyed, so check it out! Thanks, Matt!

No one asked, but here are two more songs by yours truly. If self-indulgently posting your crapulent music to your blog is wrong, bubba, then I don’t want to be right.

Song40

Song45

Huzzah!

Stepped out with The Duchess to the SFWA Reception (the Mill & Swill, as I hear it’s known) in Manhattan last night. Joined there by the UberAgent, who introduced me around to some folks. I always feel so awkward at these things – it’s like when you’re introduced as a writer, folks want you to be witty and entertaining and possibly pants-wetting drunk. Or at least that’s what I always suspect. A lot of that may be my own issues, I’ll grant you, but I still feel like this happens over and over again:

UberAgent: This is Jeff Somers, author of The Electric Church.

Folks: Ooh, nice to meet you.

Me: Uh. . .yes. . .hi. . .Electric. . .Something. <Jeff’s pants fall down with a comical wilting sound>

Again, maybe my own issues here.

Also met some of my Corporate Masters. As Corporate Masters go, the folks at Orbit are Good People, which, translated, means they like an open bar as much as I do.

We didn’t stay too long, though; aside from my belief that a little Jeff in Public goes a long way, we were also exhausted from a weekend trip. The Mill & Swill is always fun, though, and I think we’ll make an effort to show up every year, if only so I can force the UberAgent to buy me an $11 Glenlivet.

Well, no one asked for this, but lord knows I have never let that stop me: I am posting here 3 MP3s of me playin’ guitar. They’re more or less songs, I guess, written by me. In the sense that they are not, as far as I know, songs you would recognize as anyone else’s, though I am sure I have stolen all the riffs and arrangements from someone else without realizing it. Please do not identify where I stole everything from, damn you.

Song28

Song30

Song35

Anyway, here’s how I made these snogs, in case you’re interested:

1. An Ibanez ArtCore AF75 hollow-body electric guitar, plugged into
2. A Fender Frontman Reverb Amp, used as a pre-amp, plugged into
3. A Kubuntu PC.
4. Using Hammerhead Rhythm Station (run via Wine) for drums
5. Recorded and mixed using Audacity.

DISCLAIMER: Babe, I know these aren’t great music. I know the mixing is terrible and there’s distortion. I know I hit some sour notes and my grasp of Key is, um, fragile. These are posted for fun, and because I’ve been taking guitar lessons for a while now and I like to make things.

That said, these are Copyright (C) 2008, me, bubba. Steal them and I will ineffectually insult you over the Internets.

Years ago in my halcyon childhood, my suffering parents bought my brother Yan and I a set of the Columbia Encyclopedia, which I guess is what people who can’t afford the Britannica buy their kids. It was pretty impressive – a rich, dark blue faux-leather binding, gilt-edged paper, all that. My suffering parents were obviously still hoping their childrens’ ability with trivia and video games would somehow translate into well-paying careers, and thought the encyclopedia would help.

I immediately looked myself up, and was amazed – and dismayed – to discover that I wasn’t in there. And me, a famous Defender Prodigy with the high score in no fewer than three New Jersey arcades.

A few years ago, when Wikipedia (motto: almost!) was the hot new Internet toy, I created my own page there. Ah, those were the days. I played it straight; no claims of royalty, nothing about me inventing the automobile, very little megalomania in general. It was fun while it lasted; a few years ago I was deemed not important enough and my page was deleted. And so far none of you bastards have been moved to re-create it, and I hate you for the lapse, believe me.

I wouldn’t bother re-creating it myself, for a variety of reasons. Number one, I have no desire to get into a humiliating battle with Unseen Millions about whether or not I am a “notable” author (hint: I am probably not). Number two, let’s face it: a Wikipedia page is not exactly an honor. Wikipedia is about as reliable and useful for real data-gathering as interviewing drunks down by the pier. Sure, you might get some decent info, and it’ll certainly be entertaining, but you can’t list any of them as references.

This may sound like sour grapes. Would I burn Wikipedia down if it were a structure, in revenge for my de-listing? Sure. I also flatly refuse to play first-base for the New York Mets, the picky bastards. Since it is an amorphous web-page and not a structure, or a person whose kneecaps I can break and then run away, I must choose to suffer the humiliation and carry on.

Of course, Wikipedia is damned entertaining; I spend hours every week just paging through it, reading fascinating entries and wondering if any of it is actually true.

If anyone is nuts enough to actually want to create a new Wikipedia page for me, I encourage you to be creative. I wouldn’t mind being a former President of Nauru, or a former Bounty Hunter. Give me some magical powers, too, if you don’t mind, and for god’s sake use some free stock photography for my photo – some good-looking, strong-jawed fellow, but with a rakish quality. I mean, go all out.

The Man will likely delete my new entry, so it might be best if you organized a bit and formed a team who would be prepared to post replacement pages as quickly as they come down, using slight alternate spellings to evade automated checks. Naturally I’m not actually endorsing any of this, but in case you’re determined no matter what I say, I’d like my middle name to be Rex.