I have been on a documentary kick for the last few months and have been getting tons of them from Netflix.

I watched "Genghis Blues" last, it is a ducumentary about bluesman Paul Pena (played guitar and piano for tons of the old blues masters and Jerry Garcia, but strangely enough is most known for writing the Steve Miller band hit "Jet Airliner")

Pena stumbles upon a Moscow radio station one night and the station is playing Tuvan Throatsingers. He is fascinated by this singing so he teaches himself how to do it and through a bunch of different circumstances he meets a Tuvan Throatsinger and decides to make a journey to Tuva to compete in a throatsinging competition. This documentary was actually very interesting to me, to see this very weird throatsinging (picture somone making the sounds of a Diggereedoo, and adding a harmonic sound over top of it at the same time, all with their voices alone), but was also kind of made me sad in a way. Pena is blind and has been since birth, he is very candid about some of the stuff that blind people have to deal with and how he never really felt like he belonged completely.

FYI, Tuva is northern Mongolia...kind of...depending on who you ask.

This isn't a must-see, but it's an amiable curiosity.

The star, Jon Heder, is either a real geek or one of the best actors of his generation. His geekiness – his face, his gait, his carriage – was so dead on it made me uncomfortable.

Maybe because my heart goes out to geeks. Always has. Not because they don’t get it, but because they can’t get it.

Science is learning more and more about geeks. One of the newer theories is that they have a perceptual defect (genetic or MBD – minimal brain damage) that prevents them from learning how to behave in social situations. They don’t pick up on what’s appropriate within their environment / peer group and what’s not. They’re oblivious to glazing eyes during their pedantic discourse on the germination of saprophytic plants, a subject that they assume fascinates everyone as much as them. The really sad thing is that no matter how much they pretend not to care, many of them want desperately to belong. This separates them from the misanthropic types or the truly unique individuals who have little or no use for other people.

One of the things that fascinates me about geeks is their style of dress. Their inability to pick up on social cues renders them immune to the fashionistas; they dress the way they feel or in what’s comfortable or practical (e.g. the pocket protector) or simply available. This naturally earns them abuse from the mindless trendoids who feel threatened by a true original.

Hi Everyone!

I just found this board and am glad I know about it now! After a search revealed nothing I figured I would make my first post.

I just received a copy of Gateways as a Christmas present. When I opened it I see what appears to be F. Paul Wilson's autograph on the the title page! Is this legit? Are there many out there?

The book was ordered from either BN.com or Amazon.com by the person who gave it to me.

Thanks for any information!

Scott

Bastard Wrote:For me, it's hard to put a finger on just one type of music so let's see what I can remember per book (in no particular order):

The Tomb: Stray Cats, Reverend Horton Heat, an a royal shitload of Type O Negative
Legacies: Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and some Wagner
Conspiracies: Tool and A Perfect Circle
All the Rage: Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Rev. Horton Heat
Hosts: Marilyn Manson the Lest We Forget album
The Haunted Air: A little of everything above
Gateways: Some Jimmy Buffet, and a lot of older Aerosmith, Rev. Horton Heat, and White Zombie

That's all that I can think of at the moment.
--Jake
ps. All of that music and reading is accompanied by a case of Lone Star, a bottle of Vampire Merlot and some kickass greek food from Mina and Dini's. It reminds me of Julio's, only Greek.

Jimmy Buffett for GATEWAYS! Yeah, that would be a good match, all right. I got into a Velvet Underground mood for CRISSCROSS and that worked almost =too=well...

However you record, this weekend is the time to do it. The Sci-Fi network is running a Twilight Zone marathon starting at 8:00 am, EST. And were talking the original Serling series.

I was wondering how many of you used Netflix, and if you've been satisfied with their services?
I've been using walmart. com for a while now and have been pretty disapointed with it thus far. Primarily do to the fact that there has been quite a few times it's taken up to six or seven business days for them to send me new movies after I returned the ones I had.
Netflix advertises that it takes from 1-3 business days, I was wondering if this is true.

is this a book i've missed?

Just a tiny thing. When it comes to firearms, Dr. Wilson is not Stephen Hunter.In Gateways he uses a Casull in .454 with results similar to a sabot tank round. Why not go with the S & W in .500. With 2600 foot lbs of muzzle exit velocity vs. 1800 for the Casull, it would at least be a little more realistic.

Ok, here is your chance to rate all of Paul's RJ books/stories... If you haven't read the book (like most us haven't read Infernal yet), then don't rate it yet!

Just choose a star rating for the book listed in the Topic Title. In this case it is: NightWorld.

-Rip

Ok, here is your chance to rate all of Paul's RJ books/stories... If you haven't read the book (like most us haven't read Infernal yet), then don't rate it yet!

Just choose a star rating for the book listed in the Topic Title. In this case it is: Infernal.

-Rip