And it only took 32 days!

I am finally putting a post on our blog...yes, it is me, the other half of One Path.

This will be very quick. I have finally finished our photo album website. For those of you that would like to see our wedding photos please visit One Path - The Photo Album.

Hope you enjoy them.

The Angry Young Man... he ain't so Young anymore...

I got started in this writing "biz" (... which I'm not really in, yet...) by writing angry, shocking stories.

Honestly.

There was a guy at school, named Roy Johnson, who could write far better than me and, big-mouth that I am, I said, "Ah, that's nothing. I can do that." Before too long, someone called my bluff. (I can't remember who... the jerk...)

This was long before My Side (the original one... the book... any of it!). I wrote several short stories that were dark and angry... the kind of stuff that gets kids put into counseling these days. Fortunately, I wasn't. I was encouraged. (Then, again, look where encouragement got me!)

I was branded (by those few who read my stuff back then) something of an angry, young man.

... which was kind of cool.

But, you know, you get older and try to get wiser and that whole AYM bullshit fades after a while.

... which leads me to this morning.

I hit the 35,000 mark on the new book today. I was writing a portion about a suicidal man who can't communicate with anyone and his dysfunctional father who's trying very hard to communicate with equal results. And it was dark shit. Bitter shit. (Which is dark chocolate shit, for those who are wondering.)

"Shade up ahead," John called to him, still ahead but wearing quickly. "Come on."
Victor cursed him, this dishonest, delusional, suicidal punk... his son.
But there was shade, just up ahead, from some railroad tracks the road went under. Rather than dead end, the road was taking them north-eastwards.
It wouldn't take them anywhere, however, until they had a little rest under the shade. It was still miserably hot down there, but bearable.
Why did I do this again? Victor wondered. What was my logic?
It had been to show John how wrong suicide was by presenting him with someone who was going to do it. But that didn't work; John was more interested in reaching the canyon than Victor. If anything, it had spurred John along! It had been a horrible plan with horrible results.
And Victor's feet were killing him.

And it occurred to me that this, too, was pretty dark in its own way. Pretty angry. (If you don't believe the "angry" shit, just read about the shit his sister does to children!) And that got me thinking.

I've been writing angry characters for years.

Tsurtor, the bad guy from my fantasy trilogy, was pretty twisted.

Abby, the protagonist in Vampire Society, was pretty torn up.

With Eyes to See had a serial rapist whose prime motivation was loneliness.

And No More Blue Roses is an existential comedy about a family on the brink of suicide.

Somewhere, way deep inside, I'm a pretty angry guy. I've got demons. I've got issues.

THANK GOD!

"Isn't It Ironic", a new feature...

To appear... whenever...

Isn't It Ironic?

That advocates of Intelligent Design are so lacking in that quality...

Now doing a great job in the private sector...

If I told you Michael Brown - you know, the boneheaded crony Shrub appointed to FEMA whose only job experience was getting fired and who dry-humped the residents of New Orleans after Katrina - was establishing his own business in DISASTER PREPAREDNESS... you'd probably think I was kidding, wouldn't you?

... Well, I'm not.

It's almost like trusting your children with a Republican*, isn't it?

* Republican/Catholic Priest, same thing in the end.

Pre-holiday Predictions...

It's practically a tradition... which is another way of saying I can't think of anything else to write... I sit down before a long holiday, when I know - I mean I KNOW - I won't be writing, and I predict what will happen during that long holiday. Then, when I return on Monday, we can all have fun watching me act surprised that none of it came to pass.

Let's see...

1) Vicky and I will go to her brother's house for Thanksgiving. The food will be good and all but we'll be out in the middle of the desert... which is where we were last year, in Lancaster... and I'll begin to wonder if there's some grand conspiracy... and if we'll spend next Thanksgiving in Arizona...

2) The day after Thanksgiving, we'll start working on moving all of the furniture out of the guest room so Vicky can scrape the cottage cheese off the ceiling. (It's not really cottage cheese.) Moving all the furniture will be a bitch. (It's Ricotta.) We'll get into a fight over where the furniture should be moved. (Seriously. I use it in lasagna.) Our bedroom will fill with furniture. (What do you mean, that's why people hate my lasagna?!) Our bathroom will fill with furniture. (I bet you can't do any better, bitch!) Our landing will fill with furniture. (I WANT LASAGNA! SEND ME LASAGNA!) We'll learn, to our amazement and befuddlement, that we own the Guest Room of Endless Furniture (+3 for luck, roll 2d20 for ottomans under D&D rules version 3.5)...

3) Tim Clostio is coming by on Friday. I'm hoping everything goes okay but I worry about his drinking problem. (Which he has no matter how much he denies it... after all, that's what "DENIAL" means, right?)

4) Tim, Vicky and I will have to move all that furniture back into the Guest Room... (roll percentile for amount of furniture stuffed back in under D&D rules version 3.5)...

5) Vicky will learn that she unknowingly exists in a D&D v. 3.5 universe and will find a Beyonder in our bathtub.

6) I will protest because, well, I prefer classic D&D, so...

7) Vicky will write a hit song, "There's A Beyonder in My Bathtub"...

8) She'll also write something on this Blog...

9) Dick Cheney's face will come off on national television and look just like Yul Brenner in "WestWorld".

See you on Monday...

Doing a 360...

Actually, there are so many ways you can look at that... but I don't think the ports are big enough to... anyway...

So, the X-Box 360 came out today and it's all over the news... and that kind of amazes me.

This is the first generation of video game systems to launch where there really wasn't any need for it. I mean, if you look at the Atari 2600, well, that was the Granddaddy, right? (Speaking of Granddaddy - LOVE IT!) Intellivision, Colecovision, and the others from the early 80's fall into that generation. Ground breaking? Sure... but sucky. Then, you get the NES and Sega Master System, which could actually look like an arcade game... if a really old arcade game. Then, you get the next generation, with the Super Nintendo and the Genesis, which could challenge arcades as equals. So, each progression had a reason. Then, you had the PlayStation... which could provide 3D graphics. After that, came the Dreamcast/PS2/X-box generation, which could give us 3D at a reasonable frame rate.

Okay, so each one was a reasonable, if maybe not logical, progression.

What's this new generation do that the previous couldn't? ... Well, nothing really. Sure, it looks pretty and it's flashy - and the PS3 will be the same - but it's basically more of the same. (I'm leaving the Nintendo "Revolution" out of this because I'm hopeful that their new controller will provide something truly different.)

Consider this the 1/2 generation. It's Video Games 5.5. It's not the next generation but somewhere in between. What's the next generation? Well, all this time the big wigs at Microsoft and Sony have said it would happen when we achieved photo-realism. I don't see that coming for another 5-7 years at least. Considering that most generations (for video games, at least) last about five years, we have to wait for another generation.

Mind you, I'm not diss'ing the 360 or the PS3. As I said, they're pretty. I may even get one eventually - but I'm certainly not racing out there to get one.

I have my X-Box.

I have World of Warcraft.

I also have Civilization 4, which I still can't get to work on my PC as I wait and wait and wait for a patch... but that's a different story...

(Scary Note: When I ran spellcheck, "Nintendo" came up as a real word! Scaaaaarrry!)

But there's no global warming...

For those of you who still think we humans have no effect on our environment, the temperature in Greenland has risen five degrees in ten years.

And keep in mind that it only take a change of a couple degrees to throw everything down the shitter...

Oooh, I see....

So, this woman calls 911 to report that her onion rings are cold...

No, I'm not kidding. It's not a joke. This really happened!

... suddenly, I'm beginning to understand how Shrub got to be Prez...

Jotting - Juicing - Joking...

Just a few bits from this weekend.

Keith popped into town this weekend and we went out and had a couple of beers. Keith seems to be doing well but I gotta wonder who the hell this Mr. Sensitivity is with all his talk about planning a family dinner and stuff. Who is that guy?! Oh well, I'm glad he's in a more secure place where he can talk like that. I am worried, though, about his money-management... I'm hoping he does manage it. I'm pulling for him to succeed... but I worry.

So, anyway, we're sitting out on the patio, drinking our beers - and I suppose I should admit to having 1.5 smokes - and I finally get to mention my books. (People in my family can talk and Keith's no exception.) I'm going over this one and that one and that one... and Keith gets this glazed look on his face. Deer in headlights time! I guess that's when I began to realize... along with having the same glance come back at me from Billie and Trish's husband, Clay, this weekend... that this whole writing thing, for most people, doesn't have the same immediacy as it does to me. I mean, being 1/4 through this book I guess can blend right into the other three books from this year. They might tend to run together.

So, I have to try not to take that personally.

Vicky and I got a juicer and started playing with it this weekend. We went to Costco and picked up grapefruits, pears, apples, cranberries, oranges, carrots - and on and on. Saturday night, we made a huge pitcher of juice and sat out on the patio drinking it.

... now, it might not have been good... but it was okay. And it was good for us. Right?

... anyway...

Then, on Sunday, we had Trish and Clay and their kids, Jake and the Human Whirlwind known as Cole, over for dinner. I spent the day making home-made bolognese sauce and we all got together. It's always nice having people over - I for one love it. And having kids in the house was... different... Not bad, not good... different. Like the first time you see an Italian film... but with more noise.

Trish and I went to the same high school and one thing we're learning about each other is how many times we crossed each other's paths. I'll give you an example. One of my best friends in high school was Sean Mullin. He wasn't my best friend, that was Tim Murphy - even though Sean introduced us. Now, I've been extremely fortunate, having been surrounded by some of the funniest people: Tim Murphy, Tim Clostio, Rob Sassone, Sean Deyo, etc. etc. But I don't know if I would ever have added Sean Mullin to that list. He worked well as a second banana but I wouldn't have thought of him as funny on his own.

That is, until I spoke with Trish last night. She asked, "Did you ever know a guy named Sean McMullin or Sean Mullin?"

"Sure," I said. "He and I were best friends."

"Wasn't he funny? He used to always crack us up."

Funny? Sean?

Now, after high school, Sean had joined the Navy and moved to the east coast. Shortly after that, he pretty much told the lot of us - all of his friends in OC - to piss off. So, I hadn't been left with the best memories of Sean. But it was nice of Trish - though unknowingly - to remind me of someone to whom I'd once been very close.

Sometimes I wonder if we ever truly leave anyone behind.

Sometimes I'm glad we don't.

We sure have imprisoned a lot of "terrorists"...

More than 80,000 held by US since 9/11 attacks

All terrorists... honestly...


... at least, we know they weren't wealthy or white...

Our family enters Politics... it was bound to happen...

But maybe not the way you were expecting.

Last night, Vicky won a seat on the Board of our Home Owner's Association.

I am extremely proud of her. We went to the Board meeting last night and, when she was asked to give a speech, she stood up and spoke very simply but eloquently about her goals on the Board: preserving the beauty, safety, and tranquility of our neighborhood. The next guy to speak said, "Yeah, I agree with her."

Out of a possible 10,000 votes, Vicky pulled half, leaving the other two candidates to split the difference. She was clearly the community favorite.

I sat in the audience as she spoke and I thought about how proud I was, and am.

The next stop could very well be our local PTA, school board, or city council. Watch out. Vicky is on the move!

I've found what I want for Christmas!!!...

Read it and buy me one: http://www.terrapass.com/index.html

And just so you know, my car would be considered "Efficient". (Actually, I call FOUL because my car can get 44 MPG even though it isn't hybrid.)

Vicky's would, sadly, be considered a "Utility" car, making the same gift for her FAR more expensive!

Questions of the Week...

Another in a continuing series...

I've got TWO questions for you this week: one for me and one for Vicky.

QUESTION ONE. I've been talking a lot about art recently, acting and writing, and I haven't asked you. What would you prefer I do? Act? Write? Or continue my colorful career as a male gigilo?

QUESTION TWO. Vicky hasn't written on One Path very much... nope, not very much at all. So, here's my question. What will be Vicky's next blog entry?

Hope to hear some interesting responses...

Seen the XBOX 360 yet?...

I did!

Vicky and I were at Target last night and I got to play with one of their display models... and then I moved to the XBOX. (Ba-BAM!)

Here's the thing. If you're looking for earth-shattering greatness, well, I don't think you're going to find it, not on this or any of the next-generation consoles. (The new Nintendo console is doing very different things, though, and I can't wait to see that.) The game play was... an XBOX. The controls were... an XBOX. The graphics were simply what you'd expect from a high-end PC. It's not that PCs can't do the stuff you see on the XBOX 360, it's that few companies code that well.

Now, I'm not saying I don't want one. Hell, if someone bought me one, I'd be giggly like a school girl with pom-poms and a Wonderbra... wait... mental image... But I'm not going to rush out and buy one, either.

I'll stick with my World of Warcraft for now...

Time for a decision...

It was sit down and talk time today. And that was just for me! I had to have a long sit-down with myself. I've been stretching myself out too thin, doing everything all wrong. I've been trying to hold on to things and the way I do things.

I had a lot of decisions to make. No matter what I did, there would be people who wouldn't like the decisions, which is the nature of such decisions.

Well, I made them.

Here they are.

Ready?

First, I've decided not to audition tonight. Not only am I not that excited by the play but I'm also working on a book right now. It's going very well. I am 1/4 of the way through, which is 25,000 words! I'm going to keep writing. If a play comes up and I want to do it, I'll audition but I won't audition just for the sake of something to do - I HAVE something to do.

Second... well, the second one is the toughest one.

Last year, I thought I would put together the last monologue CD. It was called "Ken 3.8". But Vicky asked me to create one for this year, about the wedding.

So, I spent about a month writing and rewriting a monologue about the wedding. It was a Ken monologue. It was dark. It was funny.

It was completely unnecessary.

It talked about personal problems and triumphs and was kind of cool... or would have been... had I been single.

Look, here's the thing. I'm married now. Vicky's my family. I have no problem eviscerating myself for an audience but when it comes to dragging Vicky out on stage... well...

So, I've decided that I won't be creating a "Ken 3.9". There will be no wedding monologue. Vicky doesn't know about this. She's finding out like you are - and I don't expect her to be too pleased about it. But there are some things that are kept within the family: the tragic, the ecstatic, the mundane. I don't need to tell you about the wedding. Friends can watch the DVD. Readers know I love Vicky.

And Vicky does, too.

There. Decision made. I feel much better now.

Have I mentioned it's been nearly a month since my last cigarette?

Route 66 and then some…

I did some research on the new book this weekend.

I fought with Vicky.

I really hated myself.

I ended up exhausted.

As for the details… Vicky and I went out to Arizona this weekend to hang out with her friends, Billie and Dan. On the way, we turned onto Route 66 at Topock, Arizona. Quite a bit of the new book takes place along that road and I thought I’d be good to see some of that, get a feel for it. We went though Topock, stopped in Golden Shores for a couple reference shots, and drive all the way up to Oatman, which is really the stinky armpit of America. Yep, I’m a southern California dude.

Driving along Route 66 gives you a great idea why the interstate highway system was built. My god, it takes forever! We got down to Billie and Dan’s place early in the evening – everything should have been fine.

But we did that thing that couples do, where we fought the whole weekend without letting on to anybody else what was happening. Now, I gotta speak for myself here but I felt really shitty about it. Ever have one of those arguments where you just keep saying the wrong thing – and if you were right to begin with you just end up feeling like an ass? Well, that was me. And I didn’t even apologize.

Vicky, I’m sorry.

I carry a lot of baggage around with me and, sometimes, I’m just not the nice guy most people think of me as.

And I don’t even know how much of it had to do with Vicky.

I’ll give you a little insight. In the next two days, I’m supposed to go audition for a show in Long Beach. I’m supposed to audition because I told Vicky I would. I also told some actor friends of mine I would. But I’m not supposed to go because I love acting. It’s like writing these books or the plays before them. They have nothing to do with my happiness, when all is said and done. It’s just more product. Me pumping out more product. And there are times when I just want to be that guy who sits down with a beer and watches some TV, you know?

Sometimes, I get so sick of “actor Ken” and “writer Ken” that I could puke. Trying to be a success in life is sometimes more demanding than the expectations other people put on me to be a success. Does anybody else feel like this or is it just me? I just get so fucking tired of this endless self-promotion – writing my books, pitching my books, auditioning, rehearsing, coming up with new shit…

So, it was an exhausting weekend.

Then, I went to bed last night and woke up a couple of hours later… diffusing a bomb.

It wasn’t a bomb, per se… I was sleepwalking. The parts of the bomb were my alarm clock, a pen, a couple of Vicky’s ear rings… I tried going to sleep again but found myself at the bottom of the stairs… so I was awake.

And I took today off work.

Now, I’ll go to the audition, of course. I’ll continue writing this book. I’ll be “actor Ken” and “writer Ken”, the trained seal life has turned me into – I might even like it from time to time – but I just want you to know that there are times when I’d rather be anyone than that person life’s circumstances has turned me into… And I tell you this because I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels that way. I’m just the only one diffusing bombs in my sleep with hoop ear rings.

The new "Fat"...

Direct quote from Vicky...

"Ken, you're not fat. You're WIDE."

... I was going to write that she said I was "just wide" but she corrected me. Apparently, there was nothing "just" about it!

(Note: When Vicky said this, she was trying to be nice. It just came out really wrong, that's all.)

Straight from the horse's shit...

(burning) Bush tried to defend his illegal war again today...

"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," the president said in his combative Veterans Day speech.

Oh, you mean like the false charges you made about Iraq being behind the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001? Or like the false charges you made about Saddam Hussein having (scary) weapons of mass destruction?

"More than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," Bush said.

That's right. They were all given the same cooked intelligence and voted to remove Saddam from power as a last resort after you promised to allow the weapons inspectors to do their jobs - yes, THAT intelligence?

"We will never back down. We will never give in. We will never accept anything less than complete victory," he said Friday.

Oh, you mean the complete victory you announced over a year ago?!

Someone find out what planet this guy is on and make him president there!

Talking the Smoking Writing Tired Workhouse Blues...

... or something.

Let's just start this with the obvious. It's nearly 8am, I've been up since 4am, and I'm really tired. But I worked out this morning... which means I'm completely deranged, so...

As of this Monday, I'll have gone four weeks without a smoke and we're closing in on a month. People said it gets easier... when is that, exactly? When does it get easier? Cause I would smoke the business end of a pencil if I had a lighter... I'll tell you this, though. Quitting smoking leads to infidelity, loose morals, and prostitution. Cause I'm finding just about anything with a cigarette attractive and if I had to ... you know, to score a Camel, well...

In the meantime, I'm losing my mind.

I'm working a lot, though.

Today, I should have the first rewrites on With Eyes To See completed. After that, Billie's going to have changes for me - for where I got the "cop stuff" wrong. (It's a horror novel; it has "cop stuff".) Then, Vicky's going to have her proofing changes. Ugh! It never ends!

This weekend, we're heading out to Arizona to hang out with Billie and her husband, Dan. On the way, we'll be hitting Route 66 to take some pictures. This will help me with the book I'm presently writing, No More Blue Roses. (What's with these four-word names, anyway?) It's kind of an indie road-movie and I want to get a feel for where they're going. I've hit the 20,000 word mark and the timing of our trip couldn't be better.

People have asked what I do when I'm not writing or acting. Well, that's when my brain is following its own tangents and coming up with, what I can, Pieces. Pieces are just jokes, observations, short bits that can be thrown into some future project. They'd handy. So, I grabbed a bunch of them this morning for this book, including the immortal (as of last Tuesday):

Think of it this way. Look up above at all the stars. More stars than you could ever count. And around those stars, even more planets. Odds are there's more life out in the universe than we could ever imagine. Life that has evolved beyond pettiness and despair and sorrow and pain. And yet, they are far beyond our reach. All we have is each other. And we suck.

So, I take those pieces and, when the mood strikes me, I stick them in.

It's a lot like sex, in a way.

But without another person.

Mental masturbation...

ANYWAY, I'm also making progress on Ken 3.9. This year, I'm working very methodically, which is good, and slowly, which isn't. Here's how that gets done:

1) I spend a long time writing it and it still turns out painfully unfunny.
2) I rehearse it and rehearse it and, finally, record it... but it comes out painfully unfunny.
3) I go through the recording, editing out my coughs, burps, stutters, stammers... and still it's unfunny.
4) I change the vocal effects and add cues and bumpers.
5) Then, I send it out, hoping it's not painfully unfunny...

Now, on top of all those projects, Vicky and I are still sending Vampire Society out into the world. Vicky really believes in this book. Sadly, literary agents lack belief.

You can be a good writer without being a lucky writer. Personally, I'd like to be a lucky writer... but that's just me.

Robertson to Dover: GOD HATES YOU!

Pat Robertson says that God's picking up his toys and going home.


Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them on Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.