Podcast Tuesday: "TRUE STORY: I'm in a Happy Days Documentary"

Am I an official Cunningham now? No, but I can dream.

I've been putting original content on the internet for over 30 years now, most of it totally for free. I started posting on Usenet newsgroups and AOL forums in the mid-1990s, and I've never stopped creating material (songs, scripts, stories, etc.)  and trying to get it out to the world somehow. It's really just an evolution of what I was doing in junior high and high school. In my pre-internet days, I made little hand-drawn comics and passed them around class. I also wrote for the school newspaper. You'd think the internet would connect me with a much larger audience than I had back then, but so far that's not really been the case. My appeal has always been extremely limited, bordering on nonexistent.

I suppose I hoped that, eventually, something I made would catch on and I'd garner some kind of following. It just never happened for me, though, at least not on any grand scale. Whatever the zeitgeist is, I've never captured it. About a decade ago, I briefly made an attempt at being a professional freelance writer. I got some things published, but again success eluded me. Then, the work dried up altogether and I had to give it up. Still in all, I've been doing this blog since 2009 and These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast since 2018, and I have no plans to stop either one of them any time soon. I'll keep creating and releasing this stuff for as long as I can, even if my only audience is myself.

These days, I'm always surprised and grateful when anyone reads anything I've written, listens to anything I've recorded, or watches anything I've filmed. It's not often that people find my work, but I'm happy when they do. Recently, I was contacted by a production company that was making a documentary about Happy Days for CBS. I'm not exactly sure how they found me, but they did, and they asked me to be a part of their show. This was pretty extraordinary. This week on the podcast, I talk about that experience and what I learned from it. If you're interested in hearing it, just press the play button on the episode below.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 196: The Ed Wood Experience Project (a modest proposal)

Some Ed Wood math. Are my calculations correct?

"Come out and play!"

A few years ago, I was watching Walter Hill's cult classic The Warriors (1979) when a strange thought occurred to me. As much as I enjoy this highly stylized film about urban decay and gang violence, with its memorable catchphrases ("Can you dig it?") and its outlandishly-costumed hoodlums, I was not watching it in the way it was intended. This film should not be enjoyed from the comfort of a couch in a nice, cozy living room. For maximum impact, you should see it in a sleazy New York grindhouse where you'd think twice about even going into the bathroom for fear of being mugged or worse. Ideally, this theater should also be one where you'd have to take the subway to get home, and your paranoia about that upcoming journey would be on your mind as you watched the film.

I've had similar thoughts while writing these articles about Edward D. Wood, Jr. Sure, I can watch Eddie's movies and read his many books and articles, and I can theorize about what was happening in Ed's life at the time he created them—for instance, how drunk or sober he was. But what do I really know about this man? After all, I was just three years old when he died. I don't drink. I've never been a Marine, a husband, an actor, a novelist, a pornographer, or a film director. 

What's more, I've lived my entire life in the Midwest: first Michigan, then Illinois. I've been to New York City a couple of times but never Eddie's hometown of Poughkeepsie. As for the city where Ed lived and worked for the last three decades of his life, I haven't visited Los Angeles since I went there with my parents on a family vacation many decades ago, and I saw the city mainly from the vantage point of an air-conditioned tour bus. (I did get to meet Cesar Romero, though. On Rodeo Drive, no less!) Cross-dressing has never appealed to me, not even for Halloween. All of my teeth are real, except for one in the front.

If I squint, I can just barely make out a few points of similarity between myself and Ed Wood. We're both Caucasian males born in America during the 20th century. I have written professionally and have dealt with editors, deadlines, and meager paychecks. I share Eddie's interest in classic Hollywood films, especially those of the Universal horror variety. Technically, by the standards of my county, I am living just below the poverty line. But I am frugal with what little money I have, so I've never experienced the bleak, paycheck-to-paycheck desperation that was Eddie's constant reality. Plus, Ed Wood had two expensive, bank-account-draining habits—alcoholism and filmmaking—that aren't a part of my life at all. So my existence is vastly different from Ed's. How could I understand this man without ever wearing an angora sweater or drinking rotgut whiskey?

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Written Wood by Greg Dziawer

This week, Greg gives us an overview of Ed Wood's prolific writing career.

Ed Wood, filmmaker. This is how he is commonly remembered today. If you are a casual fan of Eddie, you likely found him through his low-budget 1950s movies, which earned him the title of "The World's Worst Director." While that is an argument for another day, there is unquestionably a far more prolific avenue of Ed's work and creativity to travel: texts. Many of them, of many kinds. We've shared many in this series. This week, let's delve into a high-level summary of those iterations, both known and speculative.  (Click the hyperlinks below for examples and to dig deeper.)

1. Theatrical Plays 

While the play itself appears to be lost, Casual Company, a comedy cowritten by Ed's fellow service member Harry Kone, is one of his first documented texts. And it surely was staged. An August 1946 Poughkeepsie Journal article notes that it had by then been staged 48 times for military and civilian audiences. It even played at Poughkeepsie High School, Ed Wood's alma mater. That same article notes that Ed wrote other plays, all comedies in "working draft" form, and that one was titled The Inconsiderate Corpse. These plays appear, sadly, to all be lost.

2. Novelizations of Plays

Penned by Ed solo, the novelized version of Casual Company survived, and was subsequently re-printed in serialized fashion in Cult Movies magazine in the '90s. In the August 1946 article mentioned above, it's also noted that a (now lost) novelized version of The Inconsiderate Corpse was completed but in "working form" and would be going through rewrites. It's worth pointing out that the same article lists Ed's ambition as a theatrical writer and actor. After he arrived in Hollywood in 1948, his interest would, of course, shift to film.

3. Film Scripts

Glen or Glenda, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster. Those are just a few of the many film scripts Eddie wrote. In fact, he would write all of the feature films he directed, in addition to penning scripts directed and produced by others, including the majority of films made by Stephen Apostolof.

4. Script Polishing 

Jack Descent, who purchased five scripts from Ed and ultimately produced films from two of them, mentioned to me that Ed was known for quickly polishing scripts written by others. The extent of this work and specific titles are unknown.

5. Movie Trailer Voiceover/Narrations

Ed himself narrates a number of trailers, including for many of the aforementioned Apostolof films. While we can't say it with certainty, it's reasonable to suppose he wrote the voiceover copy as well. Known examples, literally and figuratively, evoke his distinctive "voice."

6. Film Reviews/Overviews

Would a filmmaker write an uncredited review of his own film? While again we can't say with certainty what Ed may or may not have written, there were a number of sex film mags that covered the work Ed was involved in during the late '60s and early '70s. This one, covering Necromania, is equal parts review and feature overview.

7. Teleplays

In addition to feature film scripts, Ed also wrote for television, this iteration of text largely explored in the early '50s. He sometimes wrote for others and sometimes directed his own script, as here.

8. Paperback Fiction Novels

Among Ed's texts and outside of his film scripts, his adult paperbacks are undoubtedly the best known work. You don't have to be a Wood obsessive to be familiar with, or to have even read, such paperbacks as Killer in Drag or Death of a Transvestite. Those are just a few of the many dozens of paperbacks we know of, and there are likely many more that are lost or unidentified. The number could, in fact, well exceed a hundred titles. Just last year, one more turned up, and I will be sharing a few new finds soon! Be careful, though, as the rumor mill oft-times misattributes titles to Ed's hand.

9. Sociosexal Paperbacks

Different than his fiction paperbacks, the sociosex titles generally focus upon a sexual topic or cluster of sexual topics, told from a pseudo-academic point of view. Several of these titles include a byline for Dr. T.K. Peters, sometimes mistaken to be yet another pseudonym's of Ed's. It's not, but only lends murkiness to attributions in this vein. Often, the texts is accompanied by graphic sexual photos on the facing page. Those photos are often strangely captioned, arguably by Ed himself, yet one more textual iteration of his work.

10. Book Reviews

Similar to film reviews, we have to ask the question: would an author, uncredited, review his own work? While we once again cannot say for certain due to the lack of credit, it's hard to imagine that anyone else would have taken the time to review them. Last year's incredible compendium of Ed articles When the Topic is Sex includes a few examples. (And those titles are yet another paperback iteration, the "Pendulum Pictorial.")

11. Short Stories

We've seen two great compilations of Ed's adult magazine short story work in recent years, Blood Splatters Quickly and Angora Fever. Ed was sometimes credited under his own name, while at other times the stories were credited to a pseudonym or given no credit at all. A mid-'70s resume, typed by Ed himself, exhaustively lists hundreds of titles, but as we have seen, there are others. Perhaps many others. Earlier in his career, Ed was represented by Forry Ackerman as his literary agent, and he may have additionally produced work in the sci-fi/horror realm that is now lost.

12. Magazine Articles

As with the short stories, Ed penned a staggering amount of articles for adult magazines in the last decade of his life, perhaps starting as soon as 1962 or 1963. As Joe Blevins noted here last week in his wrap-up to his comprehensive review of every article contained in When the Topic is Sex, there are many iterations of what constitutes an article, from faked interviews to research-based pieces.

13. Magazine Editorials

Though uncredited, the editorials for many of the sex magazines Ed wrote often strongly suggest his authorship. Have a look at a few and decide for yourself!

14. Pictorial Texts ("Short Picture Subjects") 

The typed resume earlier mentioned contains pages and pages of titles listed as "short picture subjects." My first inclination years back was that they might be titles of loops that Ed had subtitled. Then one day, leafing through a magazine, I recognized a title from the resume as the title to a text-accompanied photo feature. That resume lists a staggering 716 items of this type in a mere three years. While these are uncredited, they are most often written by Ed, as can be verified by that resume. 

One thing about the pages of that resume had puzzled me, a notation on the upper right of each page of the "short picture subjects" section: "1500 min." Thanks to James Pontolillo for letting me know that this likely was shorthand for "1500 words minimum," which means those photo features with shorter texts or just captions could very well have been written by Eddie, too! The "short picture subjects," like other textual iterations written by Ed, tend to have their own distinctive and highly consistent internals, e.g. extolling the wonders of free sex and imagining the mind states of the models in the photos. In select instances, they can be quite extensive, as here.

15. Loop Subtitles and Box Cover Summaries

It was first noted in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy that Ed wrote subtitles for silent 8mm pornographic shorts (aka loops). Again, internal consistencies suggest that the same author may have penned the subtitles for literally hundreds of loops. While generally sparse, the subs most often warm up the sexual action when not punctuating the likely sounds (Mmmm's and Ahhhh's.) We've delved into the subtitles often, here, here and elsewhere throughout this series. The box cover summaries for the loops, too, often suggest Ed's voice.
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16. Miscellaneous

Into this category, we'll put photo captions, loop and magazine titles, ancillary magazine texts, magazine ads, and loop series taglines. I could go on an on with possible iterations. How about copy for sales training filmstrips? He surely wrote copy for commercials and industrial and sponsored short films, first for Story-Ad Films in the late '40s and then while on loan-out from Rocket Pictures to Autonetics in the early '60s.

Just how much could Ed Wood possibly have written? We'll keep trying to answer that question as this series continues.

Here are two stories I couldn't sell! Enjoy!

"Can't be a winner every time, hon." - Edith Massey

What can I say, folks? Every once in a while, even a seasoned professional writer like myself comes up with a loser. A flop. A stink bomb. A turkey. It happens. I'm sure even Jackie Collins had the occasional bad day. Not everything can be Hollywood Wives. And when it happens, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. Jackie knew it. I know it.

Some of the stuff I write is purely for my own amusement, but most of it is written to reach an audience, either through this blog or through some online platform that actually pays me. But what is funny or interesting to me is not always funny or interesting to other people. I have learned that lesson many times in the past, and I will learn it many times in the future.

With that said, here are two articles I wrote in hopes of making a sale. Neither one sold, and since they were both time-sensitive, they are no longer relevant or salable. Past their expiration date, both of them. Still in all, I hope that you will either enjoy them or at least learn from my mistakes.

And here's another short story I couldn't sell. Enjoy.

Almonds; delicious but deadly. No, that's not what this story is about.

Note: This, too, was another failed attempt at topical humor. It was supposed to be published before the election. It wasn't. But just so it doesn't completely go to waste, here it is. It has aged like fine milk. This is less a short story than it is a cautionary tale about how not to write a short story. Appreciate it on that level. J.B.

Here's a short story I couldn't sell. Anyone want it?

For some people, 11-9 was the new 9-11.

Note: This was a short story I wrote on November 9, 2016. I tried to sell it but couldn't find any takers. Oh well. It was meant, as you'll soon see, to be topical. Which means that it's now embarrassingly dated and will only become more so as time moves forward. Before it completely turns to dust, I thought I'd post it here. J.B.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Magazine Odyssey, Part Three by Greg Dziawer

Let us journey once again into the swirling vortex of Ed Wood's magazine writing career.

Another fine Pendulum publication.

By 1972, Bernie Bloom's Pendulum Publishers, Inc. was humming along, producing magazines, paperbacks and films. The magazines were packaged and distributed by mob boss Michael Thevis. Thevis diversified beyond solely magazine distribution in the late '60s, his Peachtree News Company of Atlanta merely the first in a long line of companies. He launched Pendulum as an adult paperback publisher in 1967 in Atlanta, then Bernie incorporated the name in LA in 1968. The name of Calga Publishers, Inc. derived from the then-current state postal abbreviations for California (CAL) and Georgia (GA).

By 1972, Pendulum's small office on 5585 W Pico Blvd in Los Angeles churned out an average of three magazines per week under the Pendulum and Calga imprints. Both were legitimate business in their own right, operating from the same address. In those days, Calga published titles under its own imprint, as well as under two DBAs (copyright-speak for "doing business as," in which a business can use a fictitious name so long as it's not trademarked): Gallery Press and Edusex. Pendulum, too, carried a DBA: SECS Press (also a concurrent paperback line: the Sex Education Clinical Series).

Ed Wood, the most prolific staff writer at the W Pico office, wrote as much as the other four or so staffers combined. His resume lists 51 short stories and 52 articles in 1972 alone. (Thanks to Bob Blackburn, co-heir of the Ed Wood estate, for this count.)

Although much of Ed's work from this era has been identified, it is our hope that this list furthers research ultimately leading to the discovery of more. Stories and articles were often written under pseudonyms, or even without credit, and the staff also wrote any and all supporting text: photo captions and narratives accompanying photo sets, and even editorials. The magazines often formed the basis for paperbacks, the staff quickly stitching them together to collect the $100 bonus per paperback offered by Bernie Bloom.

The following list contains all titles filed for copyright in 1972, 154 individual titles in all. A few were filed for copyright as books, though listed in the periodical copyright index owing to being serialized. Volume and Number were oft-times fluid, duplicating or even skipping a number. Some titles only had Volume numbers. The specific day of copyright likewise varied, sometimes coming after publication, sometimes before, and at the end and beginning of the year, copyright records for 1972 cover a handful of titles published in late 1971 or early 1973.

Pendulum/SECS Press

Pendulum

Balling

v2n1 FebMar

Black and White

v2n1 AprMay

v2n2 JunJul

v2n3 OctNov

Blazing Films

v6n1 JanFeb

v6n2 AprMay

v6n3 OctNov

Body and Soul

v6n1 FebMar

v6n2 JulAug

The Boy Friends

v4n1 JulAug

Dynamic Films

v6n1 MarApr

v6n2 JulAug

Ecstasy

v4n1 FebMar

v4n2 JulAug

v4n3 OctNov

Flesh & Fantasy

v5n1 MarApr

Garter Girls

v6n1 FebMar

v6n2 MayJun

v6n3 SepOct

v7n1 NovDec

The Girl Friends

v4n1 JanFeb (in notice: Dec71)

v4n2 MayJun

Girl Lovers

v2n1 JulAug

Gold Diggers

v4n1 JanFeb (in notice: Dec71)

v4n2 MayJun

Heads Up

v4n1 JanFeb (in notice: 1971)

Lezo

v6n1 MarApr

Nude But Nice

v2n1 FebMar

v2n2 MayJun

Nude Rebels

v4n1 FebMar

v4n2 MayJun

v4n3 SepOct

v5n1 JanFeb73 (in notice: Dec72)

One Plus One

v4n1 JanFeb (in notice: Dec71)

v4n2 AprMay

Orgy

v4n1 AprMay

v4n2 SepOct

Pendulum

v4n1 AprMay

Pussy Willow

v4n2 AugSep

v4n3 NovDec

Roulette

v6n1 JanFeb

v6n2 MayJun

Savage Sex

v4n1 FebMar

v4n2 AprMay

Sensuous Strippers

v3n1 MarApr

v3n2 JunJul

Spice 'n' Nice

v3n1 AprMay

v3n2 AugSep

v3n3 NovDec

Suck-em-Up

v2n1 MarApr

Swap

v6n1 MarApr

v6n2 MayJun

v6n3 OctNov

Two Plus Two

v4n1 JanFeb (in notice: Dec71)

v4n2 AprMay

The Wild-Cats

v6n1 FebMar

v6n2 MayJun

Wild Couples

v4n1 MarApr

v4n2 JulAug

Young Beavers

v6n1 MarApr

v6n2 JulAug

SECS Press

Adult Garden of Sex

SECS Press

n6 MarApr

n7 JulAug

n8 NovDec

Bride & Groom

SECS Press (book)

1 FebMar

3 JulAug

4 SepOct

The Sexual Man

SECS Press

n4 JanFeb

n5 AprMay

n6 JunJul

n7 OctNov

The Sexual Woman

SECS Press

n5 FebMar

n6 AprMay

n7 AugSep

n8 JanFeb73 (in notice: Dec72)

Workbook of Adult Sexual Education

SECS Press (book)

2 MarApr

3 MayJun

World of Love & Sex

SECS Press (book)

11 Apr

Calga/Gallery Press/Edusex

Calga

Belly Button

v3n1 AprMay

Erotic Love

v3n2 OctNov

Group Sex (An Illustrated Study of Group Sex)

v4n1 MarApr

v1n2 AugSep

v1n3 NovDec

Hit and Fun

v3n1 FebMar

v3n2 AugSep

An Illustrated Study of Voyeurism (Formerly: Voyeurism)

v3n2 OctNov

Lesbianism

v3n1 AprMay

Lesbo Lassies

v4n1 JanFeb (in notice: Dec71)

v4n2 MayJun

v4n3 OctNov

Love Me

v3n1 FebMar

v3n2 JunJul

Mastering Sexual Adequacy

v1 JanFeb (in notice: Dec71)

v1 MarApr

v3 Apr May

Primer for Sexual Education

v5 JanFeb

v5 MarApr

v7 JunJul

v8 SepOct

v9 NovDec

The Reel Thing

v1 JanFeb

v2MayJun

v3SepOct

Sado-Masochism (A Study of Sadomasochism)

v4n1 JanFeb

v4n2 MayJun

Skin & Bones

v4n1 FebMar

v4n2 JulAug

A Study of Erotic Love Practices

v3n1 MarApr

Switch Hitters

v3n1 MarApr

v3n2 AugSep

v3n3 NovDec

U.S. Sex and World Views

v5 FebMar

v6 AprMay

Voyeurism (Continued as An Illustrated Study of Voyeurism)

v3n1 AprMay

Gallery Press

Boyplay

Gallery Press

v1n1 NovDec

Cherry

Gallery Press

v1n1 NovDec

Couples Doing It

Gallery Press

v1n1 AugSep72

v1n2 OctNov

Deuce

Gallery Press

v1n1 NovDec

Fantastic

Gallery Press

v1n1 AugSep

v1n2 NovDec

Gallery

Gallery Press

v1n1 OctNov

Gemini

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

v1n2 NovDec

Goddess

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

v1n2 NovDec

Hellcats

Gallery Press

v1n1 OctNov

Legendary Sex Tales

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

Lesbian Life

Gallery Press

v1n1 AugSep

v1n2 NovDec

Monster Sex Tales

Gallery Press

v1n1 AugSep

Party Time

Gallery Press

v1n1 AugSep

v1n2 NovDec

Passion

Gallery Press

v1n1 OctNov

Savage

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

v1n2 NovDec

Turn On

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

v2n1 JanFeb73 (in notice: Dec72)

Wanted Women

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

v2n1 JanFeb73 (in notice: Dec72)

Weird Sex Tales

Gallery Press

v1n1 JulAug

Woman's World

Gallery Press

v1n1 SepOct

v2n1 JanFeb73 (in notice: Dec71)

Edusex

The Anatomy of Sex

Edusex

v1 AugSep

v2 NovDec

Female Sexuality

Edusex

n1 OctNov

The Sex Experience

Edusex

n1 AugSep

n2 NovDec

Sex Forum

Edusex

n1 OctNov

Sex in America

Edusex

n1 OctNov

The Sex Scene

Edusex

n1 NovDec

Sex Studies

Edusex

n2 NovDec

Sexworld

Edusex

n1 AugSep

n3 NovDec

We'll continue indexing all magazine titles produced by Pendulum/Calga during Ed's tenure there (the majority of the publisher's existence) in future installments of Ed Wood Wednesdays.

Dashiell Hamster

Dashiell Hamster. Does what it says in the description.

See, this is the kind of joke I find funny, but that no one else ever seems to like. I dunno. Maybe it's just me. But the thought of a hamster dressing up in a suit and sitting down in front of a wee little typewriter, miniature bottle of booze on his desk, tiny cigarette dangling from his mouth... to me, that's comedy. A hamster writing The Thin Man: how is that not hilarious? 

I went on a pulp/detective reading jag a few years back. Cycled through all the usual suspects: Chandler, Hammett, Cain. All good, but Jim Thompson remains my favorite because he didn't give a shit what people thought. Or at least that's the impression he gave off. After Thompson, reading any of those other guys was like switching from whiskey to sarsaparilla. 

But still, Hammett's no slouch. Loved Red Harvest especially. So did Kurosawa, who ripped off the plot for Yojimbo. Usually, the ripping off goes the other way in popular culture. Anyway, here's a picture of a hamster in a suit. Enjoy. 

A Game of Checkers: An extremely short story by Joe Blevins

The Wilsons' names are George and Martha.

Mrs. Wilson turned her head halfway toward Dennis, paused, then looked back at the wall. The room grew very quiet then for about thirty seconds, at which point Dennis heard a sound he eventually recognized as Mrs. Wilson sobbing softly. Mr. Wilson must have heard it, too, because he said something that sounded like ‘goddammit,’ and he lifted his heavy frame from the chair and walked out of the room. Mrs. Wilson didn’t even watch him go. Dennis, sensing an opportunity, rearranged the pieces on the checkerboard in his own favor.

Hey, it's my second thing for Splitsider!

My latest piece for Splitsider is about trucker tapes.

Just a little heads up, in case you somehow missed it. The website Splitsider, which is about the world of comedy, ran another one of my articles. This one is called "The Raunchy, Underground World of Trucker Tapes," and it's the fruition of a long-time obsession of mine. I've gotten some nice comments about it online through Twitter and Facebook, which is gratifying. I don't know how I became interested in trucker comedy, probably because of a few scattered references to "filthy trucker tapes" on MST3K. But I knew I wanted to turn it into an article when I started looking into the career of a comic named Gene Tracy, aka "Mr. Truckstop." There are hours and hours of this guy's stuff posted to YouTube, and I've spent way too many late nights listening to it -- not as comedy, really, more as sociology. I think one thing which fascinated me was the fact that Tracy's audiences were rowdier than what you'd normally expect on a comedy album. You get the sense that any one of his gigs could have turned into a knock-down, drag-out melee at a moment's notice if, say, somebody spilled his beer on somebody else's shoes. In other words, there's a danger to those performances. But I was also interested in the fact that truckers have their own little universe of comedy stars, performers virtually unknown to the rest of the world.

Hey! It's my first thing for Splitsider!

A tense moment from The Ren & Stimpy Show.

So far, I've been incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to write for websites that I personally read and enjoy. I'd been a daily visitor to the A.V. Club website before I became a contributor there. In recent years, Splitsider -- a site specifically devoted to the comedy world -- has become another favorite of mine. And now I've gotten a piece published there, too, which is an honor. It's an essay about the underlying themes of The Ren & Stimpy Show called "Ren, Stimpy, and the Horrors of Manliness," and it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. The idea for this article has been bubbling in my mind for at least a year or so, and now that Ren has returned to TV via TeenNick's late night programming block, The Splat!, it seemed the right time to do it. Maybe I'll write other pieces for Splitsider in the future. That would be nice.

Actually, given my hyper-verbose style of writing, this piece could have gone on literally ten times longer than it did. I was writing about masculine archetypes on The Ren & Stimpy Show, and I thought about discussing the role of female characters on the series. But I stopped myself from writing about that because it would have made the story too long. It was a personal sacrifice to actually make the article a readable length. I never had to do that with the Ed Wood Wednesdays articles, which is why they tended to stretch on to 5,000 words or more apiece. I think, if you added them all up, my articles on Blood Splatters Quickly are actually longer than the book itself. What can I say? When I care about the stuff I'm writing about, the words just pour out.

P.S. - In case you missed it on Twitter or Facebook, here's my mashup of the Spider-Man newspaper comic and Futurama. I swear, the dialogue is taken verbatim from the comic.

Gaston and LeFou could have this exact same conversation.

And here's a Spidey parody I don't think I ever posted here before:

Admittedly, this joke is stolen from one of those G.I. Joe public service announcements.

Ed Wood Wednesdays is going on hiatus (and other disappointing blog news)

Yup. That about covers it.

"If I could not earn a penny from my writing, I would earn my livelihood at something else and continue to write at night."

-Irving Wallace (via Michael O'Donoghue)

Yesterday, I went into my Blogger "Draft Posts" folder, where all my unfinished articles and stories reside, and deleted everything in it. It was a sad and profound moment. I knew I was never going to finish these posts, so why should they taunt me? Among the casualties: a very high-concept short story about cartoon characters (specifically, cartoon nephews) getting together in Hollywood; a far-reaching and history-minded analysis of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, one which connects it with such films as Easy Rider, The Big Chill, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; and a half-kidding, half-serious editorial about how Jim Henson's Muppet Babies was the beginning of the end of everything. They all bit the dust, along with a number of never-to-be-completed reviews of certain movies, including (yes) some titles from my Mill Creek Comedy Classics box set. (I haven't forgotten about it.) I honestly thought I could live like Irving Wallce suggested: earning my livelihood by day and writing at night. Kafka did it. "The Night Writer," some have called him, though that nickname brings to mind talking cars more than talking cockroaches.

Folks, I've tried, but I just can't be Kafka. Not right now, anyway.

Between working and commuting, I have only about two hours every weekday between when I finally get back home and when I have to be in bed. During that two hours, I have to eat dinner, make my daily phone call to my father and patiently listen to every detail of his event-free day, check my e-mail and social media accounts, and maybe try to watch a little TV or part of a movie. That leaves very, very little time for writing. Today, I'm using part of my two hours to write this little update. Was it worth it? You tell me. I suppose I could write on the weekends, and I try to do so, but those are my only days to catch up on laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping. and (oh, yeah) something called sleep. While it's still warm outside, it would be nice to get some fresh air occasionally, too, if possible.

Ed Wood Wednesdays is going to have to go on an indefinite hiatus for the time being, at least until my mind and body adjust to my new work schedule. All other writing projects I may have had are hereby cancelled. As always, I will probably post some brief, informal articles here from time to time, as I have always done. But I don't see myself writing anything research-heavy or complicated in the foreseeable future. This is a very troubling and disheartening time in my life. It feels like I'm putting a well-loved pet to sleep. The creative/silly side of my personality is dying. Maybe it's already dead. I just know that I'm tired all the time now. Tired of mind. Tired of body. Tired of spirit. As Lili Von Shtupp once succinctly put it, "Goddamnit, I'm exhausted."

On the bright side, I discovered a neat little obscure R&B number from the late 1950s, lurking on a compilation I've owned for years. It's called "King of Fools," and it's credited to a singer named Sam Hawkins, who currently does not even merit a Wikipedia entry. Give it a spin.

Announcement regarding the future of Ed Wood Wednesdays (UPDATED)

Jeffrey Jones as Criswell in Ed Wood (1994).

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives."

It was a line Criswell swiped from a 1953 Rock Hudson-Donna Reed flick called Gun Fury. (Rock's version went: "I'm interested only in the future, 'cause that's where we're going to spend the rest of our lives.") Cris recycled this fortune-cookie-ready adage throughout his career: in Plan 9 from Outer Space, on his 1970 album The Legendary Criswell Predicts Your Incredible Future, and even into latter-day personal appearances in his waning days. On the Plan 9 DVD commentary track, Ted Newsom recalls seeing the old faker at one such event and cringing when Criswell nearly forgot the second half of the famous sentence. (To Ted's relief, Cris eventually remembered his own catchphrase.)

Though mocked by the Medved-inspired bad movie crowd, there's a certain forehead-slapping truth to those well-worn words. We really are going to send the rest of our lives in the future. Isn't that exciting? In fact, the dull, ordinary day you just had would probably be extraordinary in a thousand different ways to someone who lived a century ago.

Folks, I'll not beat around the bush. I'm here to discuss the future of this blog in general and of Ed Wood Wednesdays, far and away its most popular feature, in particular. Writing about the films, books, and stories of Edward Davis Wood, Jr. is one of the great passions of my life, but it does not pay the bills. On the contrary, it sucks up money and time that could be (presumably) spent on more profitable endeavors.

In 2014, while my rent, insurance, and transportation costs all went up, my income actually slipped a little. To quote Arthur Miller: "That's an earthquake." (He meant it metaphorically, as do I.) In order to fix this problem, I have applied for -- and gotten -- a promotion at work. This new role will require more of my time, attention, and energy. Therefore, I will be doing much less writing in the foreseeable future. There is no joy in my heart as I write these words. I'm just telling you how it is, as straight as I know how to tell it.

I am not shutting down Dead 2 Rights or even Ed Wood Wednesdays. Writing is my first love, even if I don't have a single reader other than myself, and just like the song says: "Without love, you're only living an imitation... an imitation of life." I don't intend to live an imitation of life. Here is what I propose for now: Ed Wood Wednesdays will drop back to a once-a-month schedule. Let's make it the last Wednesday of each month, huh? This month's article would appear on June 24. And in between, I'll try to post as much non-research-heavy content as I can, whenever I can.

Stick with me, will ya? Maybe I can turn this thing around yet.

Addendum to previous article: 

I wrote that announcement several days ago in a moment of frustration, and I wanted to clarify some points made within it. First off, I don't mean to give the impression that I am in desperate financial straits at all. I'm not. Not even close. In fact, by living extremely frugally and denying myself nearly every luxury, I have managed to save enough money so that I could survive for a year and a half, maybe even two full years, at my current standard of living with no income whatsoever. I pay all my bills on time and have what I'm told is a very decent credit rating. That's the good news.

The problem is that, in recent months, my monthly expenses have been slightly outstripping my monthly income, forcing me to dip into my savings just a little. That frightened me. In order to counteract this, I applied to be a salaried, full-time employee at my current place of business, where I have been an hourly employee for the last decade. I won't even be leaving my current department at work, just moving a few cubicles over and doing a slightly-different-but-mostly-the-same job.

There is no adventure or challenge to this. It's strictly a financial decision made with an eye toward the future. The upside to this is that, ideally, I can worry a little less about money. The downside is that I will have to curtail some creative pursuits in order to focus more fully on a job to which I have no emotional connection whatsoever. That worries me, too. There's no truly "good" news here, just some half-bad, half-neutral news that I wanted to share with my readers. Thanks. - J.B.