Zirealism

It begs the question, "But how?" She choked on a Mentos, maybe?

No, really. Does he play some sort of instrument like the autoharp or flute? I might have to catch one of these concerts if he turns out to be a real harpsichord fiend.

I think that he was in the cowboy movie,
"David Cassidy&the Sundance Kid"

David Cassidy. (Biscuit, I can't believe you didn't post a link to this or to something better!)

If you grew up in the '90s, think "Jason Priestley" of the seventies. Or maybe David Hasselhoff. I don't know -- I've blocked out the majority of the seventies that I do recall in favor of the following decade.

I didn't try to post a link because, considering the situation, I thought a lame attempt at humor to be the righteous course of action.

April 12th: David Cassidy; Lionel Hampton; David Letterman

Allergic to Garlic: David Cassidy, Drew Barrymore, Vlad III Dracula the Impaler.

HB: yeah, but enough time has passed where not everyone is going to know who the central figures of '70s media blitzes were. I had to explain to someone last week about the Bay City Rollers and about keeled over from a sudden realization of passing time and my own mortality.

The comments have been taking a rather pleasant turn recently, since we're discussing the undead. Today it makes even more sense given the ghostly nature of the new Zirealism. I'd like to see someone write about the undead -- preferably me -- in less of a Poppy Z. Brite/Laurell K. Hamilton vein (no pun intended), and something more along the lines of James Ellroy. Except I don't want to write about corrupt vampire cops in 1940's LA or 1960's Vegas.

...but if you find some books about ungay vampires, even if they're corrupt cops, by all means keep me posted.

Vampire movies, on the other hand, are mostly terrible. Except for Richard Elfman's Modern Vampires, starring Udo Kier as the vampire who says, "We really should get together and kill some people. I mean it."

There was a piece in one of the book sections some months back about a resurgence of the "Feminist Pulps." I guess that I hadn't noticed the distaff contemporaries of Dashiell Hammett, et al; but there's some tough-gal pulp writers of a stripe. I can see a book cover, "The Case of the Vampire Zombies" featuring a lot of people in trenchcoats and big fedoras all bumping into eachother. You could write a cover of "Johnny B. Good"--called "Poppy Z. Brite" involving albinos, vampires, and absinthe. Photophobes are phun!

That's something that really makes me see red about the LKH series. She started out with a decent idea about a necromancer/leech executioner who had all kind of brushes with the vampire community that weren't favorable. Three or four books later, you could use Anita Blake as the main draw for a vampire porn site. How did it go from being about blowing undead things all to hell, to being about just blowing undead things^W^W^W^Wbisexual guys with long hair who were into S&M and drinking blood?

Vampires are not sexy. They are walking corpses carrying the fetid stench of the grave around them like a cloak. They mess with humans' minds and then drink their blood. They don't buy war bonds. And, if you use later LKH work as a source of information, they deliver the most stilted, pompous dialogue this side of a C-SPAN broadcast, with straight faces. If the undead are so sexy, then why didn't anyone ever write a George Romero-influenced compilation of erotica? Talk about losing your appetite.

I'd just like to see someone write about the implacable advance of vampire executioners in a city, without having weird pseudo-sexual subplots involving the undead ones. Oh, hell; I'll just write an example and submit it as an article.

Good lord man, that's the gay vampire trinity. It's absolutely impossible to write a non-gay story about vampires who drink absinthe. And albinos? Come on, all that's just asking for the insufferable whiny-ass type of vampire who just complains about how horrible life is when you live for centuries forever trapped in your youth and only wear tight black leather clothing. Anne Rice has killed the suave Bella Lugosi styled vampire dead. We need a new model of vampire who likes to drink whiskey and then punch things, although I'll be willing to take whatever was going to branch off of the Max Schreck "Nosferatu" "Shadow of the Vampire" vampire as a healthy compromise (assuming they don't find some way to gay that all up).

So are you the insane weather manipulator I met at X Day?

I'm afraid not. Unless X Day was a festival taking place in a midwestern state and I suddenly overcame my intense dislike of crowds for a few shining hours.

...do I really seem insane?

I'm bull goose loony!

Roger that!

...thengyew!