What idiot gave my cell phone number to credit card telemarketers?

They've been calling twice a day, despite my desire that they stop. For some reason, telemarketers aren't terribly bright.

So I've taken to an unusual tactic. Rather than screaming at them and hanging up, I ask them how they like their job, how's the weather, how happy they are, their religious beliefs, etc.

See, telemarketers do know one thing- their stats. And I'm driving up their talk times. If they're commited to using up my cell minutes, I might as well drive their stats up and get them fired.

Try it, it works.

Poorboy's supposed to call me soon and discuss life on the road, his view of the current America, and what he thinks about the Internet. I promise, it'll make a fascinating read.

And how are you?

As always, more to come.

Drive yourself nuts.

Coming this week- an interview with world-famous stand-up philospher, Poorboy of Poorboy and the Perverts!

What's in my Zinf jukebox:

Kasey Chambers
Al Green
BB King
the soundtrack to I Am Sam- all Beatles covers
The Revillos
The Stereophonics
Bruce Springsteen

I started burning MP3 copies of everything I bought this year. I also got a subscription to eMusic. Every music lover should have a subscription to eMusic. It's a ton of music, all in MP3, all *legal*- download what you want, burn what you want, as much as you want. For about $10/month. What's there? John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Bush, Muddy Waters, George Carlin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and more, more, more...

Go check it out. You won't be disappointed, I promise.

I've also been listening to the remastered Rolling Stone CDs. I've never been a Stones fan. But recently, some of the CDs were remixed and remastered, and I bought the Forty Licks CD on sale, and oh my! Now I understand what the fuss is all about. No more hissypoppyscratchy music- it sounds fresh, clear, vibrant, kickass.

La la la, more to come.

So I found out an old friend ain't with us anymore...

I don't know the details yet (c'mon, Melissa, send me an e-mail!), but apparently a few years back one of the people who had made a guest-star appearance in the bad dreams this week (which have stopped, thank God) commited suicide a few years back. He was younger than me (shudder).

Chris was one of the most creative people I ever met. Not only did he think up creative things, he DID them. We wrote a few plays together in high school, acted, walked around the streets of Blackwood at midnight, talked girls (he ended up in a relationship with the girl who gave me my first kiss). He introduced me to real music, the Beatles, the Who, Led Zeppelin. He reintroduced me to comic books, and always shared his stuff with me. I stayed over his house quite a bit when I was at that age when I didn't understand the world and fighting with my dad sounded like a good solution to a whole bunch of problems.

I hate to think what I would have become had I not had a Chris in my life. I don't think I would have had the guts to pitch a script, or to buy too many CDs, or to do any of the good thing I remember in high school and college. And yet, I can't remember why we stopped talking...

Oh wait, now I remember. Drugs.

Mind you, as far as I knew, the drugs were simply pot and acid. But I didn't do them. Never did. When I was young, I visited someone in rehab and saw foot-thick doors, armed guards, radios with no antennas, people without belt buckles. They all had that too-many-cigarettes smell. They all had that worn-down-by-life look, the look that you know no twelve-step program will erase. I didn't want any of it.

Chris did. I remember a night when he explained to me what an acid trip was like. I knew it sounded like fun. And I knew that, by simply listening to his experience, I had gotten all I would get out of acid and didn't need to take it myself. So I didn't. He did. A fair amount, actually.

During my freshman year of college, I broke up with my high school girlfriend and was fairly despondent. To try to cheer me up, my mom bought me two tickets to see Paul McCartney at the Vet, and told me to invite Chris. I did. I had a ball listening to all those old songs. He looked annoyed and wanted to leave early (we didn't). A few weeks after the show, he apologized. Apparently, he and his girlfriend at the time had saw David Bowie the night before, and had done some stuff during that show, and he was still semi-waster during the Paul show.

So I'm thinking to myself, "You got to see David Bowie and Paul McCartney on back-to-back nights, and that wasn't enough? You had to do some crap that ended up ruining the whole thing anyway?" And thus, I never did that stuff. And he did. I don't know if that ended up having to do with his passing. But I missed the old Chris for a long time, the super-energy creative guy who introduced me to great music, great books, great comics, and great friends.

And now he's gone, and I didn't have a chance to say goodbye, or to give my condolences to his family.

And he's gone. And he missed this new wonderful world of blogs, PDAs, Bush 2 (hey, W makes for great comedy. Lousy president, but great comedy), Grant Morrison comics, the "I Am Sam" soundtrack, remastered Rolling Stones CDs, and everything else right we've done as humans in the last few years. At heart, I'm an optimist, and I always look around to see things to hope for in the future. And the more I look, the more good I see. And I can share that with you, my reader.

But I can't share it with Chris.

So here's to you, Chris. You were a beloved friend. You were a damned idiot. And I still miss you. May you finally have peace, wherever you are.
---
"I see the future and it will be.
I see the future and it works."
--Prince, "The Future"

I see the future, and there will be more to come.

Vomit writing is a technique I really upon far too often- something pops in my head, I break out the pencil, and out it comes.

It works; sometimes I wish I was a bit better, however, at more structured writing. But since this is here today, here's Vomit Poem #1:

I'm screaming the heebie jeebies,
Burning up the candlelight.
Nonsense nulls
Pointy skulls
And it all feels kinda right.

The weird words are flowing, flooding
My brain like a gutterspout;
It all feels fine;
It might even rhyme!
Oh well, I guess that's out.

Thank you, thank you, refreshments to your left.

As always, more to come.

"Always, no, sometimes, think it's me
But, you know, I know when it's a dream
I think, er, no, I mean, er, yes, but it's all wrong
That is, I think I disagree."
--John Lennon, ya twit.

Okay, so maybe it's hokey to quote the Beatles, and it shouldn't have anything to do with writing comics, which is what this blog is supposed to be about. But since this actually started to infect my writing yesterday, well, I might as well sum up what I'm going through and release it into the world.

The last few nights, I've had dreams that leave me feeling horrible for the rest of the day. The pattern in each is the same- I'm at a previous moment in my life, and someone I haven't seen in years (ex-girlfriend one night, good buddy another night) pop up in the dream, and everything's great. Then something fucks up, I'm left stunned and shaken, and I wake up feeling miserable.

It's not just the longing to see friends from the past that nags me. It's the fact that in some of these cases, seeing these people opens up a ton of old scar tissue, stuff that I had thought was resolved years ago, hell, a decade ago. And this sort of thing makes you wonder just how much we can heal as humans. It leaves you feeling ashamed, impotent, incompetent, and it's hard to discuss with others. (But it's easy to type. Strange, eh?)

On other news, while sitting at a writer's conference, I wrote a nice little three page scene I could use in the Sandy's Bar and Grill proposal. (Sandy's Bar and Grill is a concept in my head- two ex-supervillains quit that whole spandex life, and retire to Philly to run a bar. It's a buddy movie with a menu. I had pitched to an editor at Marvel in May, but she was let go, and I've heard nothing since, so I'm revamping the proposal for submission at a later date.) Man walking through a park at fall. Summed up my feelings on autumn quite well.

Autumn sucks. Forget football, candied apples, hayrides, and the colors of the leaves. Fall (it's a season named after a horrific event, a plunging, an involuntary dive) is when we get less sun, see decay all around us, and get ready to scare the kids of the world- if they don't get us first. You can shove your autumn where the sun don't shine. In fact, since the sun fades out during this time, maybe fall is just that- the universe shoving us where it doesn't shine.

On that note, more to come.

Testing, testing...
[annoying blowing into the microphone sounds]

Are we on the air? Is this live?

Oh, really? Well, then...

This is Ray Cornwall aka wishlish coming to you live from the Planet Blog. (Aren't I ever so clever?) You're all in for it now, mates

More to come.