Houston Shooter Preparedness Video

I read about this on a news site and looked it up. It has some valuable and what seems to me common sense suggestion, but considering how these things keep going, maybe not.


Hope it is enlightening or something. R.

Why, Zombie, Why?

It's a lame thing to end my hiatus over, but I want to know what I'm missing.

1) Zombies are flesh-eating undead, always on the prowl for tasty people, and they especially like the brains.

2) Zombiehood is like the clap and can be acquired through any normal or abnormal exchange of bodily fluids.

So . . .

If a zombie devours my flesh, what is supposed to be left to turn into a zombie? Is there a simple answer to this, or do I need to start reading the massive and growing body of zombie fiction out there?

Give it to me straight.

R.

C. S. Lewis Makes Me Cry

But not in a good way. R.

Bats and Stuff

"Cowboy? You're no more a cowboy than you are a little leather-winged bat." -- Kaylee Felts from "The Mud Below" by Annie Proulx

I'm getting ready for some pretty heavy revision to my novel. I think the changes I'm going to make will be good ones. I'm also getting a feel for teaching, and I'm planning on graduating in April with my MA. That's my writing report for now. One day I'll have time for a real post. Surely.

R.

Revising Aloud, Anyone?

My recent posts reveal my secret identity as one who goes through their days helping others to write coherently. I can't help but get peeved when professionals publish the kind of things that I expect from my ESL and developmental English students. Like this snippet:

"The Giants also were able to shake off Kevin Boss' early fumble and kept the woebegone Seahawks from gaining any life from it." — From an article by Vinny DiTrani in The Record(Bergen County, NJ), November 9, 2010

I know weird things happen when we write. Isn't that why we revise? An out-loud reading of this demands, it seems to me, keep instead of kept. That's how I feel about it.

R.

Why Determiners Matter II

From msn.com:

Pope calls Egypt church attack vile gesture

Do I need to say anything about this one? Is msn.com letting volunteers write and title their articles? Is it really costing them a great deal too much to put the "a" where it belongs?

R.

Why Determiners Matter

I found this headline. It sounded like an interesting story, one that could provide fodder to my insatiable inner-author. It wasn't. A simple "a" could have saved me the trouble of reading the story. And writing this post, for that matter.

"Neighbors Save Elderly Man from Burning [Insert a City Name Here] Home."

The word "burning," in this case an adjective referring to something on fire, is easily mistaken for the verb "burning" that suggests the lighting of a fire. You can see why it almost looked interesting. Maybe they did it on purpose to lure in someone like me. However, I just read an article in the Washington Times that said many news companies are eliminating copy and type editors to cut costs. They justify it by saying that the tech generation doesn't use standard English anyways, so they're not going to care. What awesome logic.

I've digressed. "Neighbors Save Elderly Man from [a] Burning [Insert a City Name Here] Home." That would clear it up.

R.

Old Grudge

I try not to be prejudiced against John Dewey, even if separating kids out into groups of the same age and sticking them in an isolated room with an adult teacher was one of the dumbest ideas of all time with repercussions felt by every clique-loving socialite, outcast, and wannabe educator even to this very day. But when a composition scholar throws the name John Dewey out there and says that according to John we learn by action and reflection, it makes one wonder what the hell else is there?

R.

P.S. I've been awake way too long working on papers to restrain myself. I promise that we can still be friends, even if you are a Deweyite.

My First Novel

Today at exactly 4:10 pm, I finished my first novel. It felt good. It is technically only a novella right now at somewhere between 40-50k words. It is saved in chapters at the moment so I don't have a total word count. I've written over 40k since I started keeping track, and I can't recall how many chapters into it that was. Easy to look up, hard to muster the motivation to do it. I hope both of my readers are having success in their writing endeavors as well.

R.

Happy Thanksgiving

This time of reflection leads me to mention some things I am grateful for. The top of the list includes my wife and children, my family, her family, our home, my job(s), being on the cusp of having a draft of the novel. I'm going to skip farther down the list and hit on some of the things that might not make it into our lists, but should. Even if it's at the bottom.

- Increasing my vocabulary through muzak. Just the other day I heard a new word (slizzered). Listening to pop radio can be so educational.

- The mystical power of four-wheel drive. You would think that if two wheels couldn't budge you on an icy hill that four would make it barely manageable. Yet with magical power, the four-wheel drive dissipates disaster in the most surreal way.

- Beanies. Because you can't go without them when you've got the head of hair that I do.

- Grilled Salmon Tacos.

Happy Thanksgiving.

R.

"Who is Elijah?"

I know that back in the day a person had to own a set of encyclopedias or go to the library to find information, but we live in the misinformation age. When I'm reading and I come across a word, be it a person, place, or thing, that I don't know, I look the damn thing up. Come on people. Learn to use a search engine.

R.

Fly Away Time

It was inevitable that I would fall behind on my blog as I have on everything else. Here's an update.

We held my dad's memorial the first weekend in August. It was beautiful.

I'm too lazy to label all of these pictures, but as long as it doesn't get screwed up when I post it, my descriptions will at least be in order.

Our guides.
A shot of the San Juans.
Dad's view from his cairn.
Artsy pic of the landscape reflected in Riotimus's shades. Before you talk smack consider that it was done from the back of a moving horse.
That line of strata is called Table Mountain.
Bones of the earth.
Dad mounted up for his last ride.
The two amigos and one amiga (amigoas?) that made it possible.
Above the clouds. From where this picture was taken we kept going up and up and up well past the tree line.

Things have been going well in my writing tutor endeavors. I'm improving as a writer and as a teacher.

My fiction writing is going well. I just finished a complete rewrite of the flawed first chapter of the novel. I'm pretty pleased with it at the moment. Of course, I workshop it tomorrow, so Wednesday I might be singing a different song.

That's all I've got for now.

R.

Labor Day

To celebrate Labor Day I thought I would post this quote by Tom Morello. Have a nice holiday. R.

"The problem is wage slavery. America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve." - Tom Morello, Guitar World, February 1997

Stratification

So on a previous post Ing brought up the old classic Stratocaster. I happen to love my strat, even it it is hardly classic. I purchased this back in '99, towards the tail end of my massive music spending days. It was used and I didn't care anything much about it except that it looked cool and had humbuckers. It had a ding in the paint, but other than that it looked and played great. I ended up with an American Special strat with two humbuckers and a Floyd Rose double-locking tremolo.

I paid about a third what the guitar would cost new. It apparently is even more special than I've thought all these years because I tried to find a picture of anything similar anywhere on the net and failed miserably. These pictures are taken by me of the actual strat.



After I'd had it a while, I was telling a friend who'd played bass in a couple of bands with me about it. When I told him about the Floyd Rose he looked skeptical. "How does that sound?" he asked with this look on his face.
"It sounds fine. Why?" Riotimus said.
"Oh . . . I've just heard that those really screw up your tone."
Who ever would have guessed? Whoever threw that out into the universe hasn't ever heard this guitar. This is a really hard rocking guitar. I mostly use the neck pickup and it is so hot that I practically don't use any gain for my distorted sound. Lackhand has seen it first hand. It really is a hot pickup.
My brothers and I have talked on more than one occasion about started little jazz/fusion trio. I have another great guitar, an Ibanez Artstar. (I found this picture online. I actually pulled the pickguard off of mine.)


It is a good guitar and very versatile. As you can probably imagine at a glance it sounds good whether playing "Stranglehold" or "Take 5."

It is my oldest guitar and the scale by which I measure every guitar I meet. But I digress. The Artstar has a lovely jazz sound as might be expected with the semi-hollowbody design.

It was my plan to use the Artstar for our little jam-borie, but one day I was jamming on the strat and someone wanted to hear one of the tunes we'd been messing with. I said, "I don't know what it'll sound like on the strat, but here it goes."
So I switched to the neck pickup and went to my custom jazz setting on my amp . . . and it blew the Artstar away. Some things just aren't fair. The Artstar is a specialized tool, generally misused by rockers like myself, a jazzy sounding beast. Why should the strat be able to rock so hard and still sound so pure, so rich, so magical? It doesn't look the part, but if I recorded both of these guitars playing jazz and then asked just about anyone to identify which sound went with which guitar, they'd want to put the best sound with the Artstar, the obvious jazz implement. Let it be known that, even though I would enjoy having any of the guitars I've talked about here, I love my strat. It rules.

R.

Woo Ee

By the time I go to bed tonight, I'll have been up for for roughly forty hours. School rules.

R.

Reflection

Just call me Jewel.

R.

Got 'er Done

I just submitted my little dark fantasy story. I had a lot of help in revising and bouncing ideas and I'd like to thank them as that took the time to read the story and made the effort to get me some feedback. I'm happy with the story. Hopefully the editor will be too. Write on.

R.

Guitars, Cataphracts, Hills, and Great Music

This country tune came to my mind the other day and I thought to myself, "Self, who knew you and Dwight Yoakam had so many of the same interests. In tribute to that observation I've decided to expand upon all of these great things and how they relate to Riotimus.

Guitars

Guitars are great. Guitars are swell. I love to bang on them and really give them a good rocking. I've had a fetish for "offset waist" guitars for a few years now, which is unfortunate since my guitar buying days are behind me. At least for now. Here are a few axes that aren't in Riotimus's jamming room but should be:

Fender Jazzmaster


Fender Jaguar


Fender Mustang


Fender Tornado


Fender Jagstang


Cataphracts



The cataphract was the precursor to the medieval knight. After being routed again and again by Eastern horsemen, the Roman Empires transitioned from lightly or unarmored cavalry to a system where man and horse were encased in metal. Indeed, the word cataphract means something like "camp stove." The cost of maintaining the horses and acquiring the equipment required a great deal of wealth, setting the stage for the feudal system. In battle the cataphracts would form a wedge and drive through the enemy line, usually straight at their leader, making a hole for lighter armored cavalry and infantry to come through. The Byzantine version of the medieval period was not so heavily armored as in the above picture, but was also a mounted archer who inspired fear throughout the Eurasia.



Hills

I love to run to the hills like in that song by the Iron Maidens. They are incredibly cathartic for me. Next month I'll be going to the San Juans for my dad's memorial service. They are beautiful.






These are the Bookcliff Mountains near where I grew up. I hunted these with my dad when I was a kid, took my Bronco out in them with my wife while we were courting. They are amazing.





Music

Music has always been a big thing for me. Below is a crazy list of songs that are significant to turning me into Riotimus.

"Queen of Hearts" - the first song Riotimus remembers ever singing.
"Hang 'em High" - the gritty first hard rock Riotimus experienced at a neighbors house that changed the way he listened to music forever.
"You're Time is Gonna Come" - one of the only songs ever with cool keyboards, this song convinced Riotimus that music didn't have to be the new thing to be cool.
"Fly to the Angels" - butt rocker anthems moved Riotimus in the days of first loves. Riotimus saw Slaughter twice live. It was awesome.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Riotimus is really sick of this song. But the first time he heard it he was at a party where MTV was playing through the home stereo. Teenagers were snowboarding down the stairs and the host was drunk and breaking his parents bed. Yeah, he paid for that one. After years of listening to butt rock, Nirvana's rawness shined on Riotimus like capital-t-truth. Of course it wasn't, but Riotimus was only 16, so what did he know anyways?
"Eye of the Beholder" - Riotimus was hanging at the gas station with his buddies at lunch when someone pulled up and cranked this tune from the beginning. Riotimus knew then, as he does now, that Metallica is the greatest rock band of all time.

I could keep going on and on, but since I'm out of time I'm just going to go with these. I hope you enjoyed this peek deep into the inner brain of Riotimus. And I hope you didn't get any on you.

R.

Shifting Gears

A friend sent me an email telling me of a dark fantasy anthology that is seeking submissions this month. I've temporarily shifted from my modern cowboy stories to write a piece for the anthology. It will be a unique challenge; it is both darker and more magical than what I usually do when I write fantasy. I'm about a quarter of the way through it now. Hopefully my fingers will be more magical than usual as well.

R.

Spastic

I've never been much of a fan of hip hop. I can't stand a lot of it and I actually like very little of it. It strikes me funny that I should take to watching "dance crews" dancing to it. Some of it is worse than the music. Sometimes something just blows my mind, though, like this performance by the Jabbawockeez:



How does a person get their body to do that kind of stuff? Unbelievable.

R.