I know Laura’s friends obsess over “The Dark Knight,” especially the scene where the Lucius Fox quits working for Bruce Wayne over the unethical use of cell phone tech. I know Laura and her friends smoke. I’m pretty sure one of them has a crush on her because he tries to be with her when she goes outside to smoke and stays with her until she’s finished. That’s the birthday boy. He got really wasted but tried really hard all night to be clever.

I know all of this because Laura lives next door. Her patio / porch / balcony is about fifteen feet from my bedroom window. And last night Laura and her friends spent a lot of time on that patio, smoking and drinking and talking fortissimo as only teenagers fresh with independence and in the full bloom of their narcissism can do.

I know all of this because their fun woke me up at three AM last night. At three thirty, my downstairs neighbor opened her window and pleaded with them to keep it down; she had to wake up at six. They went inside for twenty minutes, where the first of many rounds of loud-as-we-can cheers and chants (for the birthday boy? Certainly led by him – his voice was as distinctive and grating as Laura’s laugh) began.

Then Laura had to smoke again, so at least three of them went back on the balcony. That’s when Laura called poor Sexy Steve, who, since it was just six or so where he was, might have been just waking up himself. That’s also when the Batman conversation between birthday boy (“I have Asian eyes.”) and his buddy happened. I waited for a lull in the conversation to say, from my bed, “People trying to sleep!”

Note that I didn’t have to yell to be heard, just project. There’s maybe twenty feet between where they stood and my head on the pillow, and everything’s amplified by the stucco walls of our apartment buildings.

There was a little flurry of talk between them, now sotto voce, or at least what passes for undertones when you’re seven sheets to the wind. “Who said that? What?”

I spoke up again. “It’s four in the morning. How many people have to tell you?”

Laura said she was sorry. Birthday boy mumbled, “One more, I guess.”

They went inside. More cheering. Lots of noise from just inside the patio sliding door. Someone — Laura? — kept shhhing people to no avail.

Have you ever noticed that “shhh” is one of the most knife-like sounds a human can make? The sound we make to request quiet is one of the best ways to wake someone up, or keep them up. It’s like a human cat hiss.

The last time I looked at the clock, it was four thirty. I was supposed to get up at seven so I’d be ready to meet some friends for coffee at nine thirty.

I woke up at nine thirty.

Thanks, Laura.

Dang Kids

I don’t often feel like there’s two decades between myself and “the young people.” There’s one thing that does set us apart for sure, though. One thing that denotes maturity… that’s an awareness and concern for others.

Did I have a similar disregard for the people outside of my immediate circle of celebration when I was that age? Of course I did. You know I did. Eventually, I got it through my head that there were other people in the world with concerns and appointments and lives that required them to get a decent amount of sleep, and that it wasn’t cool to interrupt that sleep and thereby disrupt their lives beyond that initial inconvenience.

There’s going to be a next time with Laura and her laugh and Sexy Steve and all the rest. You know there will.

Next time, I’m just calling the cops. I don’t want to be that guy, because I understand my neighbors and I remember and I know they’re building their history and stuff.

I don’t want to be that guy, but when it comes to Laura building her history and me building my future, guess who wins? Her soap opera can’t compete with mine. In fact, if it comes down to which one gets the ratings, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure her show gets canceled.

The writer, producer and all around creative supernova Nikol Hasler posted an invitation on her Facebook page a few days ago:

Any cool musicians out there want to help me out by composing a minor chord, super depressing version of ‘So Happy Together?’”

That night I learned the song as it was written by the inestimable Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon and recorded by The Turtles. Then I deconstructed it and put it back together with a good helping of the pain and sadness I felt in the first three or four months of this year and a dash of the various unrequited and failed Great Loves I’ve experienced over the last few decades. The result is “Happy Together (So Happy)” — as much a cover as a re-interpretation. It’s the latest Bookcase Session:

My interpretation of “Happy Together (So Happy)” was written on August 3, 2010.

The purpose of the Bookcase Sessions is to figure out which of these twenty five or so songs will make the cut on “Keyhole.” I’m counting on you to help me figure that out by rating, commenting on, favoriting and sharing these videos on YouTube. Please do so for “Happy Together (So Happy.)”

Please don’t forget to check out the first six songs: “Torn Apart,” “The Worried Days,” “Lily Hand Mantra,” “Song for Paul Westerberg,” “Spirit-Poor” and “Steady.” Or watch sequentially as a playlist.

Again, this crowdsourced experiment depends on your participation, so please be so kind as to rate and comment on the video at YouTube, and if you really like it, add it to your favorites and share it around. Thanks!

Available to Read for You

I have a long-time relationship with and special affinity for the Escape Artists, Inc. fiction podcasts (Escape Pod, Pseudopod and Podcastle), so I do gratis readings for them as often as I’m able to (and they ask.) Beyond that, I am available for hire to do voice acting, voice over and dramatic reading. I prefer working with indie and small productions and my rate is far, far below the industry norm. If there’s a union, I don’t belong to it.

I’ve got my own equipment and decades of audio editing experience, so recordings can be done at my location or, if you’re in Southern California, your studio. Can I speak for you? Let me know!

While I was packing for the move from Hesperia to Long Beach earlier this month I realized there was a lot happening right around my 43rd birthday… that for once, this birthday would really serve as a landmark. It occurred to me that I should try to document it.

Took a couple weeks to get settled, but Bachelor43 is what resulted. I’ll be doing these every couple of weeks or so; or when there’s something particular to my new bachelorhood that merits reporting. Expect some improvements in quality as I do more… but not much!

We’re looking for someone with deep expertise and experience with Flash Media Server to help us with a new interactive viral platform. This would be a contract position on a project to project basis… and there will be numerous projects. If the right person proves themselves invaluable and everything works out, it may turn into a regular hire situation.

In addition to being a Flash Media Server wizard, the right candidate has…

• …experience with both client and server-side scalable online video (Flash and other formats)
• …experience with visually intensive interactive applications
• …experience with asynchronous processing and message queues
• ..experience with TCP/IP and socket connectivity

The usual set of interpersonal and work ethic standards apply:

• A sense of urgency
• A sense of ownership
• Client focus
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• A passion for emerging technologies and best practices

Mega-Superstars will also have familiarity with social networking APIs and VoIP as a plus.

Remote work is okay, but we strongly prefer someone based in Southern California who is available for occasional on-site meetings.

If you know anyone who fits the bill… or if, perhaps, you fit the bill… please get in touch with me. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about Jetset Studios and this unique contract position.

Thanks in advance for helping us find our Flash Media Server ninja!

Buy E-Books!

• “The Sovereign Era: Year One” – $4.99 for a multiple format DRM-free bundle! A short story anthology.
• “Brave Men Run – A Novel of the Sovereign Era” – $4.99 for a multiple format DRM-free bundle!
• “The World Revolves Around You” – $0.99 for a multiple format DRM-free bundle! A short story.
• “Cloak” – $0.99 for a multiple format DRM-free bundle! A short story.
• “Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf” – $0.99 for a multiple format DRM-free bundle! A short story.

Buy Chapbooks!

Each title is limited to 100 signed and numbered copies that are hand-made when you place your order, making each individual chapbook a true collector’s item. Quantities are extremely limited on some titles. When 100 are sold, I will never again produce handmade chapbook editions of that title… so don’t dawdle!

Each chapbook also includes an essay written especially for the chapbook edition and not found anywhere else. Chapbooks are $10.00 shipped anywhere in the United States; $15.00 shipped anywhere outside of the United States.

• “The World Revolves Around You”
• “Cloak”
• “Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf”

Other Stuff To Buy

In addition to the items sold directly through this website, you can also find all of the above available in the Amazon Kindle store, and “Brave Men Run – A Novel of the Sovereign Era” and “The Sovereign Era: Year Two” are also available in paperback. Just check out the Matthew Wayne Selznick author page at Amazon for more details!

You can also get the J. C. Hutchins / Matthew Wayne Selznick collaborative music project, “Anyman: The John Smith E.P.” in CD or digital formats from CD Baby.

Finally, I’m happy to accept payments on a “what you think it’s worth” basis for all of the content I make freely available. Look for the PayPal buttons anywhere you find free music or fiction on this site… and thanks!

I’m irritated. You might be irritated, too, if you’ve tried to purchase any of my short stories or books directly from me through this website any time in the… oh, wait, I don’t know how long this has been broken..!

In any event, yeah, it’s broken. You’ll notice all the prices are at zero and the quantities in stock are “sold out.” I’m miffed. I now have to spend a piece of time fixing everything. Not how I wanted to spend my Sunday.

Grumble.

In any event, if you were trying to buy something from me and find that you can’t, please accept my apologies. It’ll be fixed as soon as possible.

Dammit.

The play was… earnest. The actors tried really hard, there were technical issues like a doorbell effect that kept going off, and the writing itself had huge, gaping, story-devouring holes in it… but it was great to see live theater regardless, and I appreciate the effort. Takes a lot of gumption to get up there, and I can dig it.

After, the four of us went to a little place they knew and ate and drank and chatted. It was great fun, really nice to spend some time with one of my oldest friends, get to know her husband a little better, and meet someone new who was both funny, fun and smart to boot. Really nice to hang out with people my age, with similar if not shared experiences.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the reason I’ve been wanting to return to civilization. I’m a social guy; I’m a good primate; I need the company of my kind. Felt really good. More of that, please.

In fact, Saturday afternoon I’ll be hanging out with a couple other friends. So, more of that, indeed.

This kind of thing — being with friends and shooting the shit — is something ordinary humans enjoy all the time. But I’ve lived the last eight years with someone who didn’t really like to socialize. In all the time I shared a house with my ex, we never had a party, never really had guests over unless it was to meet and go somewhere else. I’ve been starved for a social life.

It’s ridiculous, really. Time to make up for some of that lost time!

I unpacked a little more tonight. Watch the last two episodes of “Angel” and I’m a little bummed I’m done with that. I’ve been thinking about my first wife. She lives less than five miles away from where I am tonight, in the house we used to own together. I hope she’s got someone with her in her bed.

On the way home from work tonight, I deposited money into the joint account I hold with my second wife, to help pay the debts and honor the obligations we still share. I know there’s someone in her bed — heck, they bought a new one together — but I can’t quite say I’m happy for her. There are limits.

Put it all together, and I’m feeling a little blue.

I’m certainly still excited by new beginnings, new potential and all that. Don’t doubt it. All the same, truly, there’s no escaping the past, especially when you choose to live in a place that carries so much of it.

But that’s part of why I wanted to be here. That’s part of what makes it feel like home. My metaphorical blood is all over this city. Many of the wounds were self inflicted. There was collateral damage. But that makes this place home. I earned it.

I’m looking forward to making new history here. I’m eager for it. Until that new history begins to accumulate, like silt and sediment over what came before, changing the past to stone and monument, I’m still one foot in the boneyard, and that makes for some melancholy here and there.

• Last night, the cats came out of hiding. I know this because they were on the bed and Felix woke me up with a head butt. He’s the most well-adjusted of the gang so far, but it was nice to see / feel them all roaming and out of hiding.
• I don’t think Keoki has ever used stairs. Saturday night, he handled climbing them (there’re sixteen steps) okay, but Sunday morning when it came time to take him out for walkies… wow, did he balk. Freaked out. Scared. I had to literally pull his front legs down onto the first step, then his rear legs, and repeat, all the way down. Once he’s down, he’s loving the fact that he gets to go walking with pops at least three times a day. The days of relieving himself in a big yard whenever he feels like it are over… but he’s adjusting. Tonight, when I got home from work, he practically pulled me down the stairs. I had to hold him back so he wouldn’t slip and fall.
• Speaking of walks — these are good things for the dog and for me. We get some nice exercise, and we get to explore. It’s really nice, walking through the neighborhood — there are a lot of other dog-owning apartment dwellers and surprisingly little dog poop on the sidewalks. Everyone is very good picking up after their puppies, and I’m doing my part, too. Have to remember to grab extra produce bags every time I’m anywhere near a grocery store, though…
• There are memories everywhere in this town. I confess to a little melancholy last night (What? Me? Really?) After all, in the time I was here I got engaged, got married, played gigs, saw gigs, met two great loves, recorded two albums, ended a band, started a band, broke a heart, had my heart broken… this place has rich, rich history for me. I’m excited to make more.
• It took me exactly one half hour to drive to work this morning, and about the same to get home. That’s about a quarter of the time, or less, than it used to take me to drive to Hesperia and back. I say again: it took me exactly one half hour to drive to work this morning, and about the same to get home. Yes, it’s worth repeating. I got home, fed the dog, we went for a long walk, and got back… and it was still an hour and a half earlier than I’m used to getting home. I have a big chunk of my life back. It’s… wow. All this time… you and I should go do something!
• Due largely to my own confusion and incompetence, I won’t have electricity until I get home on Wednesday, and probably won’t have Internet until the weekend. It’s been kind of neat, frankly. I went to bed at ten thirty last night, and if I hadn’t left for a while to drive around, I might have hit the sack even earlier. No electricity = much needed imposed rest. No Internet = an interesting kind of solitude that, while I wouldn’t want it all the time (after all, here I am in a wonderful little indie coffeehouse writing this to you) is very pleasant.
• I have some really ugly dishes that I haven’t seen in about ten years. I’m not attached to them at all. They’re going away as soon as I can afford to acquire better.
• Money is tight as shit. Kind of worrying, actually. Now would be a great time to order web hosting from me, or buy some ebooks. In the long run, I’m going to be required to make and sell more music and more fiction (not something I’m opposed to by any means) to get ahead of the game again. Moving is expensive, laws yes.
• Moving is a great weight-loss plan, too. I dropped about six pounds in the last few days. I need to lose about twenty more, so I’m going to move three or four more times. Not.
• I cannot wait to get unpacked and situated so that I can have company, visitors, fun.
• Interestingly, the first person in my new place (before I had even actually moved in) was the second person to visit me in the last place I had lived alone in Long Beach. The first person from the last time was almost the second in the new, and the way things are going may still me. It’s amazing and wonderful to me that these folks are still in my life after all this time and all this… life.
• I feel good.

Time to pack it up and head home. There’s sleeping to be done.

Yes, gentle reader, my search for a Casa de Selznick has ended. In fact, I signed the lease on Wednesday and I’ll pick up the keys tonight. I’m relieved to be finally leaving the place where I’ve lived for almost exactly eight years. I’m excited to be putting the house, a place that never felt like a home, behind me at last.

Most of all, I’m positively giddy about returning to Long Beach, California.

Yeah, I know — a couple of posts back I wrote that Long Beach was out of the running because of “traffic and other practicalities.” If you recall (and I know you remember every word, right..?) I also wrote that finding a place I could make my own, “close to work, close to the people I care about, close to the ocean and close to some freakin’ culture…” was what really mattered.

It’s less than thirty miles from the apartment to work. That’s an hour or so in traffic, which is an hour less than I’m driving now. There are many more people I care about in and around Long Beach than some of the other places I was considering. The ocean? A fifteen minute walk from my new front door. Culture? Long Beach has its own aquarium, theaters (the kind with a stage), at least two museums and a great public library, for starters.

More importantly, I lived in Long Beach from around 1992 until 2000, in three different parts of town, and I miss it and loved being there.

I found what would be my new apartment last Sunday. It was one of two places I was scheduled to see, and I was interested enough to pay for a credit check and fill out a rental application. Still, I wanted to make sure I took in a few other options, so I spent hours driving and parking and walking, looking for rental opportunities and just soaking in the town.

Some things have changed since I’d left a decade ago, including, most fortuitously, the marked improvement of parts of town that would have been out of the question back then. They’ve been working the urban renewal / neighborhood pride thing, and it shows.

As I walked around on Sunday, especially in the Bluff Heights neighborhood where I had spent so much time a decade ago and which holds so many strong, bittersweet but mostly happy memories, I really started to feel like I was coming home. I’m talking heart-swelling feeling. I really wanted to return to Long Beach, especially to the Belmont Heights / Bluff Heights / Carroll Park / Alamitos Beach area.

And return, I shall! I got the call on Monday that my application was accepted (my credit is awesome.) Last night I met the landlord, who lives close-but-not-too-close in San Pedro, and tonight I pick up the keys from the on-site manager.

My new Alamitos Beach home is a two-bedroom, front corner upper unit. The front door is street-level, and I’ve got my very own private stairwell, which I’ve been fixating on as a feature because (I dunno why) I think it’s pretty neat. Between the stairwell and the fact that it’s on the corner, shared walls are at a minimum, although of course my floor is someone else’s ceiling. There are hardwood floors that look pretty new. I share a small balcony with the other upstairs unit. Windows are on the south and west, giving me direct access to ocean breezes. The building is almost a century old, I reckon, with all the mouldings and nifty architectural touches I really appreciate. It’s on a one-way street lined with mature trees.

The place has character, and I can’t wait to put my own stamp on my piece of it.

Oh, and did I mention I have two off-street parking spaces? Folks familiar with that part of Long Beach, and city-dwelling in general, will appreciate the value of that.

So there you have it. Thanks to the friends who have been looking out for places for me to live, who have been saving boxes for me at their jobs and who have been so great with the support and suggestions over the last two weeks. You’re all invited to the first shindig at my new pad, where, it’s hoped, we can come up with a better name for the place than Casa de Selznick.

Oh, by the way… who wants to help me move on Saturday, July 10th?

Overall, though, I’ve been… excited. Excited by the realization that I’m attracted to a gal or two… and the associated uplifting rush of potential. Excited at the thought of moving out of a house that is dusty with memory, failure and sadness. On good days — and there have been an increasing number of good days — I’ve felt less angry and more tolerant, less injured and more neutral. My life with my wife is starting to feel like a wound that’s pink and closed, and I’m itching to finally remove the bandage…

I’ve been packing; preparing for the inevitable move. Acting like it’s time to go so that I’ll be ready when the time comes. So far, that’s mostly meant packing my books (fifteen boxes and counting…)

Today’s Tuesday — the day of the week my wife comes to the house and visits the dogs and picks up her mail. She arrives after I’ve left for work and leaves before I return. We haven’t actually seen each other in person for months. I leave her a note, if necessary, Tuesday morning, and, sometimes, there’s a new note on the kitchen table Tuesday night. I’m always vaguely disturbed coming home, knowing she was there just an hour or two before me. She’s a wraith, a sort of spectral spouse, estranged, indeed.

Today, while she was here, and at my request, she divided up the DVD collection, pulling out the ones she wants to keep and leaving them separated for me to review. We’re working hard to be cordial and generous — her, especially, I have to say — so she’s left me a note saying I can go ahead and pull out the ones I really want to keep and maybe she can just borrow them.

Looking at the DVDs, segregated on their two different, otherwise empty bookcases… it broke my heart. Gave me the first Big Cry I’ve had for some time.

This didn’t happen when I pulled my books off the shelves and neatly consolidated and re-shelved the ones that belonged to her. Because, mostly, books were always my thing.

But movies… wow, we watched a lot of movies together over nearly nine years.

It’s hard to look at the titles. There’s one we saw in the theater together. There’s another one we bought because it was supposed to be amazing, and both really didn’t like. In fact, there are a couple like that. There’s the one she used to watch on repeat while she worked from her home office.

There’s one of my all-time-favorites she put in her pile because she “never got to see it,” even though I tried to watch it with her for years.

There’s the one named after our wedding day.

There’s the one she couldn’t watch for years because it was a symbol of my betrayals.

There’s the one I bought as a Christmas present for her, the year she spent Christmas Day somewhere else.

These DVDs hurt. It hurts to look at them. But that pain is sweet. Looking at some of the films in her pile — movies I never thought she particularly liked but we saw together — I guess she felt that same sentimental ache. I’d like to ask her if that’s true. I’m not sure I will.

We don’t have identical taste in movies, but we had a lot of overlap in what we liked. The division of our DVDs demonstrates that the overlap of the last decade of our lives… one quarter of our lives… is pulling apart. No matter what; no matter why… that’s very sad, and, right now, terribly painful.

Movies are, in part, reflections of the viewer; instruments that help us say to others, “Look, this thing, it speaks for me. Know me through it.” I know the painful edge of association attached to so many of our DVDs will be smoothed and buffered in the coming years as we each share mutual favorites — and discover new ones — with other people. “Our” DVDs will come to be like old photographs: Perspective will transform them from painful talismans to warm tokens.

We have a glass jar containing the ticket stubs from every movie we ever saw together.

Even though I’ll likely hide that jar away in a drawer or a box, and might not open it for years…

That jar, full of shared experience, undivided?

I’m keeping that for me, and her, and what we were, and what we had hoped to be.

I spent yesterday driving around looking at places, mostly in Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood. I was hunting specifically for small houses or back houses with a small yard, since I’ll be bringing my dog, Keoki, and four cats with me wherever I finally end up.

Unfortunately, everything I saw was either in a lousy neighborhood, too small, too expensive, or all of the above. I also drove down to Long Beach, a town I love, and that only served to settle for me that I’m not going to include it as a possibility. In terms of traffic and other practicalities, it’s just too far from where I work in West L.A.

It was pretty damn discouraging and, save for a brief break in the middle visiting a friend, made for a thoroughly depressing day.

Driving around for hours, I had a lot of opportunity to mull things over.

I thought I’d been looking for a house so my dog would have a place to do his business, roll in the grass like he likes to do after he eats, and lay in the sun when he wants. I also don’t particularly want to share walls and ceiling and / or floor with anyone.

On the way home, though, I realized I considered it a step backward to be moving out of a house and into an apartment. I’d seen it as a sign of defeat: about to turn forty-three and hey, happy birthday, here’s your second failed marriage and the second time you’re leaving a house for an apartment. Even if it’s a house I don’t particularly like, the principle was getting me down.

So, I started thinking about it.

What’s really important?

What’s really important is that I find a place I can make my own, close to work, close to the people I care about, close to the ocean and close to some freakin’ culture, boy howdy. I know my dog can deal with going out on a leash when he needs to do his thing… and I know I can certainly handle standing on the other end of that leash three or four times a day. We can go for walks, too. We can find a dog park. It’ll be fun; he likes other dogs, I like people. As far as my desire to have quiet and make noise now and then, well, a corner unit might be a good compromise if I can find one.

Bottom line, when everything is plugged into the equation, it turns out I’d be fine living in an apartment. The goal is to have a place where I can live, which, let’s face it, is something I haven’t done much of in the last decade while I’ve had the dubious advantage of a house with a big yard.

This leaves me with many new options. There are dozens of apartment complexes within a half hour driving distance from my work, and most of them will be less expensive and larger than free-standing options. There are also plenty that take pets. I’m encouraged again.

Armed with a new map chock-full of little green pins marking potential living quarters, I’m excited about this again. There’s no point in looking at this time in my life as anything other than full of potential. New chapter, straight ahead. It’s gonna be a page-turner.

You’re starting to happen.

Uh oh.

No… seriously.

Uh oh.

…and damn. It’s not quite the same. They’ve changed the recipe, or your taste buds have been dulled by years of coffee and beer, or worse, it was never that good in the first place.

That’s a sad thing.

What if I told you there was candy for your eyes and ears and childhood soul… candy that captures every great thing you remember about classic Saturday morning cartoons and manages to tickle your grown-up funny bone, too?

Ladies and gentlemen, grab a bowl of cereal, plant yourself down… I give you “The Velvet Mouse Show.”

I’m very proud of “The Velvet Mouse Show,” even though I had very little to directly do with the conception or creation of the work except to clap wildly and jump up and down with glee as I witnessed it come to fruition over the last few months. “The Velvet Mouse Show” is the first original production from Jetset Studios — it’s funny and sweet and evocative and gorgeous to look at, and my friends and co-workers (with the help of some nifty guest stars from the world of genre film and television — can you spot ‘em?) made it! How cool is that? It makes me happy.

If you loved the great Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera rock ‘n’ roll / caper cartoons of the seventies and early eighties, where hip kids solved mysteries and served up at least one bubblegum pop gem each and every episode, you will love love love “The Velvet Mouse Show.”

Check out the brand new Velvet Mouse Show website: watch the pilot episode; dig the music; download the wallpaper, add yourself to the Velvet Mouse Show Facebook page and Twitter stream… and yes, friends, tell everyone you know about “The Velvet Mouse Show.” Because… it’s totally awesome!

Gainfully Employed

Back in October of 2009, I started working as a full-time contractor for Jetset Studios, an original content production house and online marketing agency for entertainment media. As of June first, I’ve been hired on as an associate producer. It’s the first “real job” I’ve had since being laid off from Mahalo.com nineteen months ago.

It promises to be challenging work, with lots to learn. It’s also pretty big incentive to figure out a way to move to Los Angeles and out of Hesperia at last. Working on that, with one solution tantalizingly close but not entirely under my control. If that falls through… wanna buy a house?

New Website

With WordPress 3.0 just around the corner and all jingle-jangly with its bells and whistles, the time has come to re-design this site to add some of the things I’ve wanted to include and better reflect my ever-evolving views on creativity, patronage and the DIY ethic.

Expect, at the very least, a better menu structure, easier access to the things I make that you can buy, and better integration with Facebook (gasp! my precious, illusory sense of privacy! noooo!) and other social networks.

Whatever Comes Before Alpha

The Shaper’s World, my planned shared-world transmedia collaborative project, will show signs of pre-life. If you’ve expressed an interest in it by signing up as an early tester, you’ll be getting some news this month. The potential for collaboration will start well before the doors officially open. In fact, the collaborators will undoubtedly have a pretty big say in what the doors will be like.

Music

Gee, I’m kinda overdue on a new Bookcase Sessions video. I’ll get on that in June — shooting for a new original and a cover song. I’ve been re-arranging my office and rebuilding my desktop computer to create a better environment for writing, performing and recording music. I’ll put those refinements to good use this month.

Words

Speaking of overdue… how about a new installment of “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights?” Okay.

Work will also continue on a short story and possibly a novel…

Vague Entrepreneurial Publishing Thing

Can’t talk much about this one yet, but the idea has been riding my brain for a couple weeks now. I’ll spend some cycles on it this month, and maybe consult with a few trusted confidants. Can’t say for sure just yet if you should stay tuned or not..!

What You Can Do For Me In June

You know what would be awesome? If everyone who purchased any version of “The Sovereign Era: Year One” would write an honest review over at Amazon.com. Thanks!

“Murder at Avedon Hill” is a murder mystery tale in a rich pastoral fantasy setting. The classic elements of a “locked room” (and “locked town,” for that matter) mystery are all there: the stoic scholarly investigator and his brash young ward, the grief-stricken lord of the manor, a community where everyone has secrets… heck, there’s even a shifty butler! P. G. has dropped all these elements into a fantasy backdrop built on a satisfyingly deep theology, cosmology and history that, while familiar, avoids cliche by always keeping the sharpest focus on the interwoven relationships of the finely drawn characters.

“Murder at Avedon Hill” originally appeared as a podcast audiobook featuring a full voice cast… including yours truly in a small role. I’ve known P. G. from the beginning, I remember when Canadian publisher Dragon Moon Press first approached him and now I’m very excited to help spread the word on the day “Murder at Avedon Hill” is officially available. It’s a great story that deserves to be on your bookshelf, written by a great guy who deserves your support and all the success he’s about to enjoy.

So come on and buy “Murder at Avedon Hill” right now — you’ll have a blast!

Thing is, I don’t need either one any more. Yesterday I canceled my DirecTV satellite service and my TiVO DVR subscription.

Earlier this year, I had scaled back my satellite package as far as they would let me — a “family pack” that isn’t advertised but comes as close to “basic cable” as you can get. The only reason I kept the satellite at all was for local news and weather.

Then, I started a Netflix subscription and was lucky enough to be among the first to receive the Wii disk for streaming. I loaded up my queue with a crapload of television series I’d never seen and went to town.

I was watching almost no regular television… turned out I almost never bothered to watch the local news or weather I’d kept my dish to access. I told myself I’d drop the dish as soon as the D-Link Boxee box became available later this year.

Then, one fateful day not long ago… well, last week, actually… I saw the Acer AspireRevo computer at Best Buy. This little baby — about the size of a hardcover book — is a real computer with full HD capabilities and it was around the same price the Boxee box is predicted to be.

I snatched it up, added a wireless keyboard and mouse, hooked it up to my HDTV, and just today upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 4GB. The Revo’s stability and speed was adequate before, but with the added RAM there’s a noticeable performance improvement. I also hooked up a half-terabyte external drive I had on hand for media storage. Full screen full HD, and it looks gorgeous. I’m watching the latest episode of “Fringe” as I write this and it’s stunning!

Not having to pay for DirecTV and TiVO will offset the cost of the Revo, memory and peripherals in less than six months. After that, apart from the Netflix subscription ($10.00 per month), all my multimedia entertainment will be essentially free!

Here’s my software setup:

• Netflix (running as a Google Chrome app) for older movies and TV shows.
• Hulu (running as a Google Chrome app) for current TV shows delivered via subscription.
• Miro (desktop app) for online video via subscription and locally saved video files.
• VLC (desktop app) for Shoutcast streaming video channels (strange, random, fun stuff..!),locally saved files and video conversion.
• Comedy Central (running as a Google Chrome app) for Daily Show, Colbert Report, South Park and so on.
• YouTube (running as a Google Chrome app) for, y’know, Trolololololcats and stuff.
• Antenna (Adobe Air app) for global streaming radio, including several local stations.
• Pandora (running as an Adobe Air app) for personalized streaming music channels
• iTunes for music and audio podcasts.

Ironically, I’m not using the Boxee desktop app — it’s an extra link in the chain that tends to make Hulu and Netflix streams choppy.

The Revo is very quiet and is very energy efficient — it’s Energy Star compliant and uses far less electricity than the satellite and TiVO boxes. With the external drive and the installation of Dropbox for file sync, Carbonite for online offsite backup and LogMeIn Hamachi providing a virtual private network, the Revo is also my primary file server!

I’m pretty excited to eliminate the expense and package-based, bloated content delivery of satellite television in exchange for the control and flexibility of getting my entertainment from the web. What about you? Would you take the plunge and cut the cord? Have you already done so? Let me know your experience and your system set up in the comments!

This collection has its origin in the all-day web-a-thon I produced on the occasion of the Swarm Press release of “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” On that day, I read each of these stories live on streaming video… but they’ve never been seen in print until now.

As of right now, the collection is available on this site in a bundle of eight DRM-free e-book formats and from Amazon.com for the Kindle. Soon enough, it will also be “The Sovereign Era: Year One” is also available in paperback from Amazon.com and every online bookstore you’d care to patronize. To be honest, if you like e-books, I encourage you to purchase it in that format, since the authors involved stand to earn more of a percentage from each e-book sale.

In “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights,” we’re seeing a little of what happened in the months before the Sovereign Era began. The Sovereign Era’s beginnings are depicted in “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” I hope you’ll purchase “The Sovereign Era: Year One” and take in seven different glimpses into how things went in the months that followed. On behalf of the authors and cover artist Jeffrey Himmelman, I thank you very much!

Enjoy the book “The Sovereign Era: Year One” in eight e-book formats, all free of digital rights management restrictions. Read it on whatever electronic device you like!

• Epub
• Sony Reader
• MobiPocket
• Adobe Acrobat
• Palm Document
• Rich Text
• HTML
• Plain Text

Price: $4.99

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