***Minor Spoiler Alert***

So, I've been wondering (and I realize that I have waaaay too much time on my hands if these types of thoughts go through my head)...with Jack selling off Ralph the Corvair, did FPW write poor Ralph out of Night World, or will Jack miraculously get Ralph back before the "end of the world as we know it"?

Personally I would mourn the loss of Ralph in Night World. That would lesson the effect of one of my favorite lines in the book (second only to: "Heal this"):

****Night World Spoiler Alert****
****Night World Spoiler Alert****
****Night World Spoiler Alert****
****Night World Spoiler Alert****
****Night World Spoiler Alert****
****Night World Spoiler Alert****
****Night World Spoiler Alert****

"...And why? Because this fellow named Jack - who had about a dozen last names and had an immediate avoidance response to anything labeled Police, who carried two or three pistols and God knew how many other weapons at all times, who called his ancient Corvair Ralph and drove it like a maniac - had said that the Ashe brothers were 'good guys'."

Gotta love Jack. Gotta love Night World.

-Luthie

I was up late the other night -- and doing the old channel surf routine. As usual I stopped when I came to this black and white film and started watching it..

Very interesting and dark film. It actually made me think this was the type of movie RJ would watch. Anyways the film was called "The Pawnbroker" and dealt with the a number of social issues however to watch the main character's life pass and his flashback memories to his days in a Nazi concentration camp was really well done.

I did a quick check to read up on this movie and it came as no surpise that many said it was Rod Steiger best film.

I found a quick outline of the film at
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059575/

One viewer wrote a nice summary as follows
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"Rod Steiger considered this his best performance and he might be right. He is, for him, subdued for most of the film, although towards the end he punctuates his performance with silent screams. He's pretty good as the survivor of Auschwitz, consumed by survivor guilt, and denying himself any pleasures except the money taken in his pawn shop.

Various figures come and go in his life, although he shows no particular interest in any of them, and aversion towards many. The characters are rather sketchily done, as they might be in a play. There is the ambitious assistant, the whore, the gangster, the lonely man who wants to talk about Herbert Spencer, Reni Santoni as a quivering junkie, the pregnant young girl who wants to sell her engagement ring. (Not a wedding ring, mind you, this is an illegitimate pregnancy and in 1964 you were still in trouble if you had no husband and no opportunity for an abortion.) "That diamond is glass," he tells the stricken girl brusquely. Steiger's Sol Nazerman is a pretty cold fish.

His relationship with his Latino assistant is key to Steiger's evolution. Steiger "teaches" him that nothing matters but money, so Ortiz very sensibly decides to help the local gangsters hold up Nazerman's shop. But the assistant, instead, teaches Nazerman something. Killed in the robbery, he teaches Nazerman to feel pain, which Nazerman then reaffirms by impaling his palm on one of those spikey receipt holders, a kind of stigma to go along with his concentration camp tattoos.

The movie was pretty much a shocker on its release. Partly because the audience got to see some naked breasts. Amusing now, isn't it? It was also knocked because of the way Latinos and blacks were treated. I don't know why. It would be surprising if the owner of a pawn shop on 116th street didn't have a lot of customers who were people of color -- good and bad.

The jazz score is loud and at times almost overwhelming. The photography makes 1964 New York grimy, smoggy, and dangerous.

If you haven't seen it, catch it if you have the chance. You're not likely to forget it in a hurry. "
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Gets two thumbs up and I hope you get a chance to watch or rent it.

ShadowLord

As ususal, I've been keeping up with things...quietly. But recent events have raised some questions for me. Though these questions are profound, I fully realize that the fate of the world may not hang in the balance. All the same, I do feel they are pointless. Or something like that...

1. As the original author, you have an opportunity to attend both a book signing and the set of a TV adaptation of one of your stories. The problem is, both occur over the same two days. Which do you attend? Which offers you the greatest opportunities?

2. Which works to develop the more illegible signature: book signing, or prescription signing?

3. Will HWMNBNUPOD bring cream cheese bagels or jelly donuts to Abe?

Like I said...profound...

Just went on Amazon to order more RJ fun. Ordered Legacies and Conspiracies and, of course, Legacies is on back order. Goodness LOL i now have that and The Tomb waiting but at least i will have Conspiracies in a few days and i can't wait. Im itchy and chomping at the bit here.

"Part of the Game" is cool, but way too short. In just 15 pages, a whole world was created by the Grandmaster of Horror that I could have lived in for an entire novel. Bring on the Yellow Peril stuff.

I know who to turn to for advice should I ever be seeking revenge; you're twisted man(not quite the event as Meat telling you you're sick, but I figure what the hey).

Okay, this is how it's gonna work. Answer the questions and p/m me your answers. I will check them nightly and p/m your score back. This trivia will last one week. At the end of the week the one with the most correct answers wins.
The score status goes like this,

All correct- You are a junkie
Missed 1- Avid fan
Missed 2 -3- Not bad but, you need to watch more.
Missed 4- How often do you watch?
Missed 5 or more- Have you ever watched this show? You might want to pick up the DVD collection.

This first round is going to be fairly easy. I will plant one hard one in there just to shake things up a little. If you are ready, here we go.........

Welcome trivia fans. This is your host, Jaybird, the trivia whiz to welcome you to another game of Message Board Trivia. ( cue music )

#1. Who is Jerry's favorite superhero?

#2. What is George's last name?

#3. What is Cramer's first name?

#4. What catalog company did Elaine work for?

#5. What does Newman do for a living?

#6. What religion did Tim Watley convert to, to have joke telling immunity?

#7. Who proclaims himself as "The Lord Of The Idiots"?

#8. What was the guy's name that ran the soup deli?

#9. Which character got deported to Pakistan?

#10. What was the guys name that gave Jerry the space pen?

#11. What made up holiday does Frank Costanza celibrate instead of Christmas?

#12. What does Elaine hate to do for people at the movies?

#13. What was the Broadway musical stars name that George and Jerry supposedely injured while playing softball to allow Jerry's girlfriend to get the lead role in a musical?

#14. What country did J. Peterman run off to?

#15. What is the name of the N.Y.U. intern that is supposed to help Kramer start up KRAMERICA?

Alright. There you go. These are the questions for trivia I. Next week TriviaII starts. Don't forget to P/M me your answers when you have them. You have till Saturday at 5:00. Good luck everyone.

I've put up a gallery of photos I took at NECON X back in 1990 on the Robert McCammon site. There are a couple of shots of F. Paul Wilson there:

Hunter's NECON X photos

For those interested, I've also posted galleries from the 1989 World Fantasy Convention and 1990 HWA Awards banquet. You can find links to these on the front page of the McCammon site.

Hunter

Where can i find this? Is it in a book of short stories?

Peachynat and I are goin' to see Silent Hill tonite. I'll give ya'll a review tomorrow. Let me know if any of ya'll go see it ,what ya'll thought.

Crew call isn't until 4pm so I spend the day writing. I break to go out and buy a new digital camera since my old Fuji had finally crapped out. All of the photos from yesterday are gone -- or never were. I find a Sony Cyber-shot on sale and snag it. The guy tries to sell me something with more features but if I use a camera four times a year it's a lot.

I'm supposed to ride over with Dario at 2:45. I get there at 2:35 and they've already left. Swell. I call the production office and they say I can ride over with Met Loaf. So I do. I want to talk about music but he wants to talk about how the film differs from my story. I give him my fiction imposing symmetry on the chaos of reality theory and why leaving out the homeless woman breaks that symmetry. He says he likes my ending better, but he may simply be polite.

We stop at a convenience store because he likes to drink Diet Coke with ice -- with ice -- and they don't have ice on location. We also have to find a florist so he can buy flowers for a woman he fears he inadvertently insulted yesterday. It's like driving around with an eccentric but lovable uncle.

They drop off Meat at makeup and me at the farm house location. Same as yesterday, they're serving breakfast. I grab some bacon and eggs and head up to the house. Dario is effusively apologetic when I tell him about being left high and dry -- he didn't know I was coming. I reshoot all the photos I took yesterday -- the ruins, the shack, etc., then go to the basement set where all of the day's interiors will be shot.

This is the scene where Larry, the trapper's son, performs a facectomy on himself. Covered with blood after bludgeoning his father to a pulp, he enters, opens a bear trap, and slams his face into it. The bludgeoning is in my story, but the trap is not. It's an AA (Argento addition) -- but I kind of wish I'd thought of it.

The prop is a real bear trap that's had its springs welded so they can't snap the jaws. Opening the trap takes the most takes because the actor's having a tough time making it look like he's struggling against the springs.

With retakes, lighting changes and different setups for master shots and close ups, it takes almost 4 hours to film a sequence that will run 40 seconds tops on the screen. I look around. Everyone's smiling. They're delighted with the progress we're making.

Meat arrives for the scene where Jake discovers Larry's body with it's ruined face (a dummy). He's been on the road doing driving shots for a later sequence. Now, with the interiors, the master shot and closeups are done in half an hour. He's outta there.

So am I. I say my good-byes and get an Italian left-right double embrace from Dario. I promise to send him the first-edition chapbook of "Pelts." (Hope I have an extra.)

On the way out I meet John Saxon who's playing Pa. No time for more than an introduction and moving on. He'll be shooting scenes with Larry down by the ruins. I'd love to watch but frankly I'm bored.

I drive back to the hotel with Meat. We commiserate about conglomeratization -- he about music, I about publishing. I get him talking about touring for his new album coming in the fall and his early experiences as an actor -- Rocky Horror in particular.

I realize how boring acting can be. They picked us up at 3:30 and now they drop us off at 9:30. They've needed him for maybe 90 minutes of those six hours. No wonder some actors get into drugs.

Meat wants to see the original "Pelts" story so I get his email address and promise to send it to him ASAP. He's too tired for a trip to the bar and I don't like to drink alone, so we shake hands and head to our respective rooms.

My Vancouver trip is, for all intents and purposes, over. All that's left is the plane ride home tomorrow morning.

Am I glad I flew 5-6000 miles roundtrip for this? Yeah. Very. I met some great people and saw pieces of my story come to life.

Also, it's a wake-up call. Acting has this aura of glamour, but there's nothing glamorous about the nuts and bolts of shooting a movie. It's repetitious and full of empty down time as you wait for your call. What's fascinating to me is the technical end -- the Director of Photography giving orders for the lighting, all these technicians bustling around, knowing exactly what's got to be done. And in short time a dusty old basement becomes an eerie, creepy chamber of horrors.

See you later.