So on Friday afternoon I got a call from my mom (who’s in Sweden). She asked, “Did you talk to Elizabeth?” (My cousin.) I said, “No.” Mom said, “She said she called you.” I said, “Nope. Haven’t heard from her.” Mom said, “She wanted to know if you’re going to Amanda’s wedding.” (Another cousin.) I said, “Yeah, probably. When is it?” Mom said, “Tomorrow.” Whoops. I guess I should have been paying closer attention to that. It seemed doubtful that I was going to be able to make it. I’m in L.A., and the wedding was going to be in Sonoma (north of San Fransisco). Later that evening my cell phone rang and I listened to a message from my cousins Elizabeth and Lucas, who urged me to come to the wedding. (My cell phone is kind of a piece of crap, and often messages don’t seem to reach it until hours or days after they’ve been left, but I mostly keep in touch with people through email, so I don’t usually care that much.) I thought, Geez, I really should try to make it. I’d had a pretty active day, and was already feeling kind of tired, so I didn’t think I’d be able to pull an all-nighter of driving, but it occurred to me that if I downed a Red Bull or four I could probably stay awake until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., by which point I’d be about halfway there. I could check into a hotel, sleep for a few hours, and then get up and keep driving, and then I could probably make it in time, assuming the wedding didn’t start until late afternoon (I had no idea) and that I didn’t get lost too many times. I also didn’t know exactly where the wedding was going to be. I decided that if I sat around thinking much longer, my window of opportunity would pass, so I tossed a few things in my backpack, walked out to my car, and started driving. I figured that I’d work out the details as I drove, and that if I decided it just wasn’t going to work I could always turn around and go home. All went according to plan, except for an unscheduled trip through the middle of downtown San Fransisco when I’d been trying to avoid the city entirely. Then Elizabeth’s message vanished from my piece of crap cell phone, so I couldn’t call her back to find out exactly where the wedding was going to be. Fortunately, I was able to reach my grandma in Connecticut (hi grandma!) who gave me the lowdown. I made it to the wedding with a solid two hours to spare, and had a great time.

Anyway, I just got back to L.A. and I’m totally exhausted, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Well, so I saw Transformers. I was pretty disappointed. In fact, if you liked it you’ll probably want to stop reading here.

** SPOILERS ** for Transformers

Reviews of the movie seem to be split between the bad reviews of “It was completely idiotic” and the “good” reviews of “It was completely idiotic, but what were you expecting? Just enjoy it for what it is.” Very few people seem to feel that the movie was not, in fact, completely idiotic, which is a shame, because I think that Transformers has a terrific premise, and could easily be made into an interesting, engaging action blockbuster on the level of Aliens, Terminator 2, The Matrix, or X-Men 2. Of course, I knew it wasn’t going to be anything like that when, for reasons only the Gods of Darkness know, Michael Bay was picked to direct. It seemed inevitable that Bay would descend — Unicron like — upon the franchise, gorging on and completely obliterating it in order to feed his own inexplicably relentless career. With him directing, 90% of the potential for the movie went straight out the window, but when I saw the pretty amazing theatrical trailer I was hopeful that Bay would be able to stretch himself to the absolute limits of his “talent” and at least realize the full remaining 10% of what the movie could be — namely, a feature-length demo reel of really amazing CGI. That’s what I went into the theater hoping to see. Instead, I’d rate the movie at more like 4% of its potential. It’s actually a sort of Moreau-esque cross between Armageddon, Godzilla (2001), and Me, Myself, and Irene.

I actually thought that the first third or so of the movie was entertaining in a cheesy way, but as soon as the Autobots revealed what I will charitably refer to as their “characters,” the whole thing just took a high dive into the shitter. I knew I was really going to hate it when one of the Autobots pissed all over Jon Turturro. There might as well have been an arrow on the screen pointing to the Autobot and saying, “This is Michael Bay,” and another one pointing to Jon Turturro and saying, “This is anyone who ever cared about Transformers.” Even the action scenes, the raison d’etre for the film, I found mostly dull and headache-inducing. The special effects shots featured in the trailer are amazing, but in most of the other shots the transformers look shiny and weightless and fake, like most CGI. And the action sequences are so incompetently staged and choppily edited as to make it hard to even follow what’s happening, let alone care. I mean, don’t blink or you’ll miss the tragic death of one of the major characters.

The movie really suffers at the end, when the transformers take center stage, from the near-total lack of character development of the Autobots and the total lack of character development of the Decepticons, which leaves Megatron nothing to say but corny villain cliches that are unworthy of even a half-decent Saturday morning cartoon. And how many characters were there — a dozen? — that I’m not even sure what happened to in the end. The denouement was so perfunctory as to be insulting. I went back and watched the theatrical trailer, and I still can’t believe it’s for the same movie. The trailer conveys a sense of menace, drama, and seriousness. Man, I still want to see that movie.

I also had the misfortune to read some of Bay’s commentary in the new issue of Wired, to wit, “I urge [rabid Transformers fans] to watch the 1986 movie, go watch the cartoon. You’ll want to shoot yourself.” Well, I haven’t watched the cartoon in decades, so I can’t speak to that, but I did watch the 1986 movie last year. It’s certainly not great, but then again, it’s a children’s cartoon from 20 years ago, and I still think it’s an open question whether Bay’s $150 million treatment is a substantial (or any) improvement. After all, people who were kids 20 years ago still vividly and fondly recall the death in that animated movie of Optimus Prime. Are kids today going to look back in 20 years with similar sentiments upon the death of Jazz in Transformers (2007)? I seriously doubt it. At any rate, the animated cartoon didn’t make me want to shoot myself, but Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II certainly did.

My friend Detra Wilson recently put together a website for her TV production company Northern Blue Entertainment, which she started along with her business partner Melodie Calvert. The site’s not coming up in Google, even if you search for their names or the company name. I told Detra Wilson that I’d try creating some links between my blog and her Northern Blue Entertainment website and see if that helps. If anyone has any other ideas, let me know.

So the Beauty and the Geek guy got back to me and told me to send in some pictures of myself. (Couldn’t he just look at my Myspace photos? Weird.) Anyway, I picked the dorkiest-looking pictures I could find and sent them along. (Thanks here to The Slush God, who is something of a virtuoso when it comes to taking unflattering pictures of me.) I never heard back. In the absence of proof to the contrary, I’m forced to conclude that they deemed me just too damn good-looking to make an effective TV geek. Shame really, since otherwise my geek credentials are pretty impeccable. Oh well, I didn’t want to be on your stupid hit TV show anyway.

So here’s a message I just got on Myspace:

—

Currently casting for a new season of a Beauty and The Geek!

I work on the hit reality show Beauty and we are looking for our male “Geeks”. The show revolves around one male Geek paired with one beautiful ( but not too smart) girl. Each week these two individuals will have to work with one another to successful complete their weekly challenge. If they are able to remain the last team standing through all the challenges, they will split $250,000.00!

I am currently seeking the “Geeks” for the show. We are really looking for a unique looking guy, that is also intelligent. We also appreciate people who like unique things and have interesting hobbies.

If this show/opportunity sounds like something you are interested please let me know. You would have to be available for an on camera interview TODAY or tomorrow at the latest! I know this is extreme sudden but we are in the last stages of casting and I just had to reach out to you when I saw you. The dates of availability needed for the show are June 26th- August 10th. You will be moved into a mansion if chosen for the show starting on July 5th. You will also be paid everyday you are on the show as well.

Again, if this sounds like something you would be game for please contact me with your contact information.

Scott Goldstein
Casting Director

—

“Unique looking”? Anyway, I’m up for anything so I emailed the guy back. I’ll let you know if there are any further developments.

I’ll be attending the Confluence literary science fiction & fantasy conference in Pittsburgh, July 27-29th. I’ll participate in these events:

FRIDAY:

Panel: Short Form Fantasy (with Tamora Pierce, Michael Swanwick, Joshua Palmatier, and S. C. Butler)

SATURDAY:

Reading

Autographing (with Tobias Buckell, Susan Dexter, and Eric Raymond)

Literary Beer (with Daniel O’Riordan)

SUNDAY:

Panel: Writing Horror (with Lawrence C. Connolly, Michael Arnzen, and John A. Taylor)

So I really recommend Statcounter.com. It’s free, and it lets you see who’s visiting your website and how they’re finding it (what links they’re following, what search terms they’re using, etc.), which is very useful.

Though it’s a little discouraging sometimes. Back when I just had a hit counter on my site, I used to imagine that most hits represented people who were interested in my writing. Not so much, according to Statcounter. In some search engines, just typing in the word “virgins” brings up my “Blood of Virgins” page as one of the top results. In fact, more people come to my site now by searching for virgins than by searching for anything else, including my name. Wow, I guess people just really love virgins. Or rather, as many of the search parameters make clear, people really love virgins who are extremely unlikely to remain virgins in the next few minutes.

My good friend Andrea Kail just saw the appearance of her first print publication. Watch for her story “Soft, Like A Rabbit” in Fantasy magazine.

In other news, Pseudopod just bought audio reprint rights to my story “The Disciple,” which originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine in 2002. The general crappiness of my life at that time inspired a foray into out-and-out horror fiction, and “The Disciple” achieved some modest infamy as “the cat crucifixion story.” It’s really true what they say: As an author, you can kill off as many human beings as you want and nobody cares, but geez, you crucify one cat …

Well, I finally finished transcribing the Lydia Davis translation of Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. (I copied out the whole book longhand into a series of spiral notebooks in order to really closely analyze the prose style and sentence structures.)

Wow, that took a really, really, really long time.

I did learn a hell of a lot about sentence structure though, so hopefully it will be worth it.

Hey, another sighting last night of a celebrity (sort of). I went to the Writers Guild to see a panel on writing for videogames. I noticed one of the guys in the audience and thought, Hey, I know that guy. It’s the computer geek henchman from Mission Impossible 2. He left shortly before the end of the panel. Later, I was talking to another writer, and I said, “Hey, did you notice the guy sitting to our right?” And the writer said, “Yeah, it was him. I was texting my girlfriend and being like, ‘Hey, I’m sitting next to Ethan from Lost.’ Tom Hank’s brother.” I said, “I thought he was Tom Cruise’s cousin.” The writer said, “Yeah, maybe. I’m not sure.” I said, “I’m not sure either.” Neither of knew his name. Wow, it’s like a Zen koan: Is a celebrity still a celebrity if nobody knows who he is?

Last night as I was strolling the Sunset Strip I passed a red carpet that had been set up in front of a hotel. Some of the people gathered there were obviously celebrities, but I didn’t recognize any of them, so I kept walking. All sorts of vehicles were pulling up to the curb, and camera crews were jumping out and setting up, and the crews all looked really intense, as if they were doing something incredibly important, and I sort of thought to myself, Wow, these guys really get worked up over a bunch of minor celebrities that I don’t even recognize.

As I was passing House of Blues, this big black guy said, “Hey, can I give you something?” and thrust an object into my hand. I figured it was a handbill and took it. It was actually a CD. The guy said, “This is my CD. We’re giving them out as a free promotion.” He pointed to the cover. “That’s me there — the bald dude — and this here is my crew. We’re very respectful. We don’t call women b-i-t-c-h-e-ses or anything like that.” I was like, “Sounds great. Thanks, dude,” and went to leave. He added quickly, “Of course, we are accepting donations to help us cover the cost of production.” And I was like, Argh. I am. So. Gullible. I figured, Well, that’s what you get for letting someone hand you something/letting someone engage you conversation. I figured a dollar was a small price to pay for a lesson learned and a chance to get away without this encounter turning any more painfully awkward than it already was. The guy managed to talk me up to two dollars, since “It costs us two dollars to make each of these,” which is total b.s., but whatever. Anyway, I am seriously never letting anyone hand me anything ever again.

Then some Scandanavian tourists pulled up next to me and ask me how to get to Hollywood boulevard. I am asked for directions with insane frequency by poor fools who don’t realize that beneath my affable exterior lurks a tragic — almost superhuman — inability to navigate. About 80% of the time I manage to send people 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Which I did again last night. And yes, I’ve given some pretty bad directions in my day, but being in the middle of Hollywood and misdirecting people to Hollywood boulevard, which was one block away, I think represents new heights of accomplishment.

On the way back to my car, I passed the red carpet again. A whole family of Southerners was gathered on a stoop there with cameras poised. My curiosity got the better of me, and I asked, “What’s going on over there?” They said, “They’re opening a new club. We saw Ashton Kutcher and Demi. But they went inside already.” So, I blew my big chance to see Ashton and Demi. Dammit. Two years in L.A. now, and what do I have to show for it? One lousy Giovanni Ribisi sighting. (Sorry, Giovanni.)

Speaking of celebrities, according to Locus online Greg Bear will be appearing on the Daily Show on Thursday, which I can hardly believe, but if that’s true it’s awesome. On the exceedingly rare occasions that I watch late night talk shows, I am usually filled with despair at the thought that no matter what I accomplish in my life, my society will never value what I have to say as much as it values some airhead telling a lame anecdote about how she once accidentally tripped over her dog, or whatever. But this gives me hope.

Best T-shirt spotted recently: “I was bald and drunk before Britney.”

Overheard in a bookstore last night:

“So I’d been having this pain in my left arm, and I went to see my doctor, my @#$!#%! Kaiser doctor, and he tells me it’s tendonitis. I didn’t think it was, so I talked to my old roommate, who’s this really good internist, and he tells me, ‘Man, you’re sitting on a heart attack there.’ And sure enough, a few weeks later I had a heart attack. The thing was, I was seeing my doctor when it happened. So there I was in his office having a heart attack, and he just keeps telling me it’s tendonitis and doing this chiropractic massage on my arm. So after I left his office, my wife drove me over to the emergency room, and I told them I thought this doctor had broken my arm with his massage, and they told me, ‘No, you just had a heart attack.’ So anyway, after that I run into my friend, and he’s got a big piece missing out of his head, and I say, ‘What happened? It looks like someone took a bite out of your head,’ and he says he had to have surgery for a brain aneurysm. So I start telling him about my experience with Doctor So-and-so, and he says, ‘Doctor So-and-so? Doctor So-and-so should be shot!’ So he had the same doctor, who told him his problem was a migraine! So later when I saw this doctor … what? Yeah, I kept seeing him after that. With Kaiser you don’t really have any choice. Anyway, this doctor got fired, but not because he can’t tell when a patient is having a heart attack right in front of him. No, this woman went to see him because she was having headaches, and he told her to take off her blouse and bra, and she reported him. So that’s America for you. Matters of life or death, nobody does anything, but if it’s got anything to do with sex, then bam, that’s it.”

Last night I went to a reading by Lori Andrews, a leading geneticist and bioethicist who incorporates her knowledge of those disciplines into her new series of mystery novels. She told this story: Years ago she was teaching a law class at a university, and she decided that on the side she’d enroll in one of the school’s creative writing classes. The class was taught by a rising young writer who wrote very literary novels. Andrews, who was used to the high-pressure environment of the legal world, quickly became bored with the slow pace and low expectations of the creative writing class. She told the instructor that she was thinking about quitting. He encouraged her to stay, saying that if she did he would work with her more one-on-one and teach her to write in a more literary way. He added jokingly, “Which I promise will knock at least $100,000 off your advances.” She was charmed by this, and decided to stick with the class.

Oh yeah. Also spotted at Venice Beach recently: a woman wearing a T-shirt that read “Free Katie.”

Overheard by me recently at Venice Beach:

A tall middle-aged guy wearing khaki shorts and a collared T-shirt holds hands with his attractive wife as they stroll along. They pass a cluster of homeless guys sprawled on the grass. One of the homeless guys, who is obviously intoxicated and has a biker look going on, shouts, “Wow, man! You are one lucky dude! Man, you are luckiest guy in … this whole place! Damn!” Oddly enough, the guy and his wife do not seem particularly grateful for the compliment.

Two homeless guys are engaged in a verbal altercation. One of the homeless guys is missing one leg and is a wheelchair. He shouts several obscenities, then concludes, “I’ll a kick your ass!” The other guy says, “Oh yeah? Well … ” (A painfully long pause ensues.) ” … How … are you going to do that, huh? You … only got one leg! You’ll … fall over you try to kick my ass, ha!”

A sinewy white homeless woman dressed like Cindy Lauper is chatting with a huge shirtless black guy on rollerblades. The woman says, “They just let me out.” The guy says, “What were you in for?” The woman says, “Fightin’. I’m always fightin’. I been in fourteen fights just the past couple months.” The guy: “Where you do that?” The woman: “Here, Inglewood … ” The guy: “You fight those black girls down in Inglewood?” The woman: “I’ll fight anyone — black girls, white girls, chicanos. It don’t matter.”

A guy who has a long, puffy white beard and is wearing white robes approaches a pair of construction workers and says, “Good news, brothers! Jesus walks the earth again!” One of the construction guys says skeptically, “He does, huh?” The robed guy: “Yup!” The construction guy: “Are you him?” The robed guy shakes his head and says, “Oh, no.” The construction guy mutters, “Good,” obviously relieved that at least the robed guy isn’t that crazy. The robed guy adds, “No, I’m his brother, James.”

I think tonight I’m going to go check out an appearance by Larry Doyle, a former Simpsons writer who’ll be reading from his debut novel, I Love You, Beth Cooper. I have to say I’m a bit intrigued by this book because the story it tells, that of a geeky guy pining after a beautiful, unattainable female, is so contrary to my own experience. But that’s really one of the great strengths of fiction, isn’t it? Being able to slip inside another person’s skin and see the world from a completely new and alien perspective. Actually, I’ve been reading up recently on these so called “geeks,” and it’s really quite fascinating. It turns out that they tend to be into science fiction, computers, role-playing games … actually, a lot of the same sorts of things that I’m into. Who knew?

I’d just like to give a shout out to one of my favorite podcasts, StarShipSofa. The hosts are two British guys, Tony Smith and Ciaran O’Carroll, and every week they get together to sit on a sofa and discuss a different science fiction author. The show can be a bit rough around the edges — the digressions are sometimes extreme, and the hosts tend to mispronounce authors’ names (Zelazny = “zelaney,” Kuttner = “nutter,” etc.) — but that’s all part of the charm. What I really like about the show is that the hosts are obviously having such a good time doing it. One of the downsides to being a professional writer is that you get exposed to a lot more jadedness and politicking, and I’ve come to really appreciate the weekly dose of pure passion and enthusiasm about books and authors that I get from this podcast.