“Maps of Fallen Skies” was written after a strange fever-dream. When I woke up, drenched in sweat with a Nyquil hangover, I had this weird feeling that my “real life” was on “pause” somewhere, just waiting for me to get back to it. I grabbed a notebook and wrote this down in five minutes without thinking much about it. Later, when I read it, I found it to be quite disturbing. Again, this is part of “Stripmine”.

Maps of Fallen Skies

(September 2008)

Where are the maps to these places?

To fallen skies and hidden empires?

Along the long and lonely roads not taken

To the palaces of kingdoms never built,

Are there worlds made of dreams long forgotten?

Great golden lands that dissolve in the morning

Melting away like ice cream in summer sunshine

Are there lives led elsewhere—the Could Have Been,

The Should Be or Would Be?

The silent, desperate beauty of another path, a different choice,

A better or worse reaction or result

Could we have been heroes or killers or

Actors or husbands to wives never met

Or kissed or glimpsed beyond

The shadow of what might have

Come to pass,

Elsewise and elsewhere?

In these dreams I can almost

See her—but I never do

Waiting, forever, like a bride

At some altar

For this stranger

I have become

I’m writing some more for the XSEX Webzine. If you are 21 and want to read some smutty smut, check out XSEX.

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NOTE: This is a poem from Stripmine, a book of poetry and essays I’m publishing online and in print. I’m doing some limited-edition books–each one is one-of-a-kind, unique, hand-lettered titles, heavy paper, textured inserts, signed and numbered, etc. They are available for $50. Email gregorypurvis@live.com for details. “Blur” is written “in character” and relates a conversation I had in 1987 in Tuscaloosa, though it is set in a haunted area of southeast Atlanta, near East Point, where I was born in 1969.

BLUR

(copied verbatim from the remains of another fugue-state/unknown date.)

Some conjure woman my mee-maw knowd                                                                                                                                                        On the East Point BlueBird                                                                                                                                                                                          She say to catch me a black cat and kill it quick n clean                                                                                                                             And do it four more time                                                                                                                                                                                          and four more still til that cat hiss he last                                                                                                                                                         Kill him one more to make it nine life gone                                                                                                                                                    And then she say:                                                                                                                                                                                                      take the long bone and wrap it round tight                                                                                                                                                    With bright red ribbon                                                                                                                                                                                              like pretty women wear in they hats                                                                                                                                                                     So I sit in front of the old pharmacy over to Peachtree,                                                                                                                               Closed up like a tick for ten years                                                                                                                                                                       And it rains and rains and Lord God we pray                                                                                                                                                 you stop Before 40 days pass this time                                                                                                                                                                   I hold that bone close                                                                                                                                                                                                and keep the rain off best I can                                                                                                                                                                     Waiting for a ghost— And some do pass by                                                                                                                                                      But they the wrong kinds:                                                                                                                                                                                   Gaunt-gray predators with brown teeth                                                                                                                                                           like crooked caramels                                                                                                                                                                                                   A nondescript nobody:                                                                                                                                                                                              mind up there on the high shelf                                                                                                                                                                              With the crystallized methamphetamine                                                                                                                                                      Some tall Spaniard girl/boy in hotpants                                                                                                                                                            Them lips painted cotton-candy pink                                                                                                                                                                Tan that come from an aerosol can                                                                                                                                                                 Pouts and smiles at all them wrinkled cadavers                                                                                                                                               In they scuffed shoes and gravemoss on they sleeves,                                                                                                                        driving them big old DeSoto’s                                                                                                                                                                                  In their last loop-de-loops                                                                                                                                                                                  Them smiles never slip                                                                                                                                                                                               So which the ghost I’m waiting for?                                                                                                                                                                      The rainy night dissolve like                                                                                                                                                                                       a still in a hot stop-bath                                                                                                                                                                                   Pictures thin-out nice in monochrome                                                                                                                                                            Like moon on old concrete                                                                                                                                                                                    Still waiting                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Still Waiting still                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Maybe I’ll shake this old bone                                                                                                                                                                                  At this fading old street                                                                                                                                                                                               See what new ghosts turn up

GENTLEMEN! YOU CAN’T FIGHT IN HERE! THIS IS THE WAR ROOM!   “Dr. Strangelove”

After a two week hiatus (okay, “more or less”), I’m patrolling the television airwaves last night, looking for blog fodder. I’m basically thinking about breaking new ground with raw, undiluted honesty. Meaning, I’ve been toying with the idea of blogging about some of the real-life misadventures that make up my life: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This would of course mean that I would be discussing a lot of things that have been more or less off limits until now. I bitch, whine, and complain about things, and talk AROUND a lot of personal issues that affect my life. I am, after all, trying to exorcise a novel while at the same time exorcising some pretty strong and potent personal demons. Sometimes it seems like I am failing. Othertimes I feel pretty good about fighting the pretty good fight. But I took some time off while dithering with the details, made some promises, broke some; went to a Halloween Party. Then I decided to go ahead with it, to talk more about these inner demons and take their power away. Then I could, like a soul-sucking black demonblade (don’t ask), add this power to my own. Physician: Heal Thyself. Except that I’m not, strictly speaking, a physician. I was gonna start the blog again, fresh, and be honest. Honestly. Then I picked up the remote, ready to turn off the idiot box. After all, I didn’t have to find crap to complain about on TV for my blog. I would complain about MYSELF…I would be HONEST.

And then “Breaking News”: they were digging a dozen bodies out of some yard, carting them piecemeal (sorry, I didn’t so that on purpose: just being honest) from a lunatics house. Who? Didn’t catch the name. THAT many? Decomposed…some as long as…YEARS?! Well, maybe I can be honest later. This is not the average news story. Well…sadly…it kinda IS, isn’t it? Anyway: is this another Dahmer? Gacy? He’s got Dahmer’s body count beaten already, but the repetitive video clips of ashen-faced crime scene cops carrying out body bags and…well, just BAGS…is eerily like those old, early 90’s clips of Dahmer’s kitchen getting cleaned. Ewww. 

I finally fell asleep, had a nightmare.

Now, tonight: fire up the ‘puter. Found an errant, stray wi-fi signal nobody was using. Got online…typed in “wordpress.com” and logged in. Let’s get HONEST….

then…

“Breaking News”: Oh no.

A military psychologist at Fort Hood, Texas shot and killed 12 people, then managed to wound 31 more, according to early reports. Apparently the medical doctor had been killed at the scene. Then, the army reversed itself: the suspect was alive. Those early reports were a bit shady. But he is, apparently, now in military custody and in stable condition, though he’s left a wide swathe of carnage behind him that’s about as far from “stable” as one can get. Fort Hood is home to more than 50,000 people, being the largest military base in the U.S.

Major Malik Nadal Hasan was about to be posted to the Middle East. Investigators revealed that Internet postings by Hasan included information about suicide bombings. One of those insta-experts MSNBC finds on short notice guessed that Hasan may have believed killing soldiers at Fort Hood may have saved thousands of Muslims in the Middle East. Way to hype the situation! That’ll calm everyone down!

Anyway, it’s been two days or mayhem. I just don’t want to be personally honest right now. But stay tuned. I’m sure nothing else bad can happen before I turn the TV off…

oh shit.

Republican public protests (disguised as a “press conference”) against Obama healthcare reform featured the ever-droll Congresswoman Bachman comparing healthcare reform to Nazi death camps. Okay, this is ENOUGH.  A big poster is labeled: “National Socialist Healthcare – Dachau, 1945″ showing a pile of bodies of Holocaust victims. Masses of elderly Americans mill about, terrified by the party line that age-related government-sponsored euthanasia is Obama’s goal. Okay, TV: OFF.

Hope you’re ready for another bitchfest. I’ve been saving up all my anger and vitriol over recently becoming an (official) crotchety old man. And what better way to let it all hang out than blog about my favorite target: reality television?

First of all, I’d like to say something I believe a lot of people who watch TLC’s “L.A. Ink” are thinking: Kat Von D (starlet and resident painted lady) is a bitch. I’ve been fascinated by tattoos since childhood, thanks to bikers. My father owned a tire store and garage that catered to people with a taste for offroad tires and expensive rims. When I was about 9 he hired a mechanic that was a newly-made member of an outlaw motorcycle club. Listening in when I wasn’t supposed to, I heard a lot of this guys stories of debauchery. I also watched him work so I could see his tattoos, as I was too intimidated to ask him about them. After all, this was the 1970’s, when the bad guys on every TV cop show from Starsky and Hutch to ADAM 12 were likely to be members of a motorcycle gang. Long story short, I grew up, learned not to judge a book by its cover, and got my own first tat at 27.

So when L.A. Ink first premiered, I thought: Great! This might be a kool show. And it DOES have its moments…if you can stand the pretentious attitude and all the quasi-New Age babble about “negative energy”. I’ve watched Kat and Corey prance about like they were some kind of rock star, name-dropping and prattling on about their “art”. Don’t get me wrong: as I said, I think tattoos and tattoo artists are very interesting–but there’s just so much talk about deeper meanings that I can take without rolling my eyes. As an artist myself, I find it necessary to keep what I do in check with the real world. Art school snobbery (in my humble opinion) is often used to disguise something in your life  that is lacking. Like a soul, perhaps.

The real complaint I have about L.A. Ink isn’t about the attitude of the artists about their art, however. It’s the attitude of the artists towards non-artists. Not so much the customers (after all, if you run off your customers you lose your source of income; not many people would watch a documentary about a bunch of tattoo artists sitting around pontificating about the deeper meanings of an anchor with ‘Mom’ written over it in Olde English script)…no, where Kat and company show their snobbery is in how they treat their employees.

But it should be noted that their employees keep coming back for more abuse. As Kat herself says in the opening mini-monolog (complete with MTV-style editing and music): “It’s Hollywood!” Apparently there are plenty of folks who will sell anything for Warhol’s promised 15-minutes of fame. Including their soul, shapeless and tattered though it may be. I think it’s time to switch back to a diet of PBS for a while.

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—————————————————————————————————————————————————DISCLAIMER:—————————————————————————————————————————— I’m writing this blog for the stated reason that I don’t want to write about my birthday (September 18). I turned 40. The highlight of my day was that I began the (hopefully short) process of finding a literary agent. Other things that happened on my birthday: my Xbox 360, DVD player and fridge (in that order) shat out on me. And I’m not fond of 40. But, as my Uncle Slats said (when I called to wish him a Happy 89th birthday Tuesday), it IS better than the alternative.————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

As an “instead of-” blog, I present… (drum roll please) “I’M NOT FAMOUS”…

I’m not famous AT ALL, for ANYTHING. And as a 21st Century American, that should probably bother me. After all, I live in a nation where adults recognize Jerry Springer more often than our first president, Abraham Lincoln. (Note: That was a joke; I know Ben Franklin was the first president). Some folks claim that America is a Christian nation. Well, fundamentally speaking (or should I say “fundamentalist speaking”?) that might have been a true statement, once.  No more.

Because now we are a nation of pagans, and I’m not talking about my friend Laura the Pagan. One of her screen names is “Witchy Poo”, she likes candles, knows all kinds of kool stuff about herbs and she can tell you what an “athame” is. No, I’m talking about the new American god: we worship young, skinny and famous. I’m, uhm, none of the above. And maybe it should even bother ME a little more than your average person, because I have a famous person in my family. My cousin is a fairly well-known actor: Ed Harris. (The Abyss, Enemy At The Gates, The Truman Show, Radio, etc.) I feel a little weird name-dropping even though he is family, and the reason I’ve done so much more than I ever have in the past is simply because I’m involved in the movie biz myself as of late–though admittedly on a much smaller (trust me, much smaller) scale. But Ed’s place in the Hollywood hierarchy has made me think a great deal about Fame (and its fat and fugly–but wealthier–cousin, Fortune) here of-late. 

The movie, if you missed that blog, is called THE LOST IDOL OF AMUN-RA. (Did you hear the 20th Century Fox musical fanfare and that guy with the deep voice that narrates all the movie previews? That’s what the ALL CAPS TITLE was supposed to trigger if I did it right…No? Ok, let me try again…)

THE LOST IDOL OF AMUN-RA! (No? Still nothing? I’ll get my people on it, sorry).

Anyway, that’s the name. Why? Well, for one, it’s about a lost idol. And “Amun-Ra” sounds kinda Egypto-sciency fictiony, doesn’t it?  The movie in an indie picture (duh) written by myself and longtime friend, David Lusk. Actually, David wrote most of the screenplay and that was probably best because I’m directing the movie and–trust me–I’ve got all I can handle.

You can find out all the gory details on the movie web page (which will be up and running shortly), but the basic idea is: A secret agent is racing to beat a Russian archaeologist (who might or might not be a secret agent, as well) to the “find of the century”: you guessed it, the LOST IDOL OF AMUN-RA. (Still no, huh?) But a UFO-piloting pair of aliens, the mysterious Robot Empire’s Legion of Doom, and a nosy reporter on the trail of the story of a lifetime are all looking for the IDOL as well. Golly, jeepers! Doesn’t that sound swell? If you haven’t guessed already, it’s a spoof of 1950’s-era sci-fi serials/Ed Wood classics. Think pie-plate UFO’s and claymation monsters and you’ll get the general idea.

I started this projects with the very best and most honorable of intentions. No, really. Okay, an eensie-weensie TINY little SMALL, BARELY ANY real reason AT ALL part was because I wanted to impress my cousin. But the more and more that I think about how that conversation might go, the more I think I will probably just end up sounding like that weird 5-year old kid, Stuart, on Mad TV. (“Hey, Ed! Look what I can do!”)

But this whole experience is really trying my patience. Though there are some genuinely talented and dedicated people working on the project (we’re still in pre-production, with a few more weeks before principle photography starts), there are others who have to be hand-held and coddled. And in addition to not being famous, I’m not good at hand-holding or coddling. Particularly coddling, since I’m not 100 percent on what it actually means. First of all, let me ASSURE YOU that you DO NOT have to actually be a famous actor to ACT like a famous actor. And I don’t mean the good kind of acting either, which I obviously welcome and desire. I mean ACTing like an ASSHOLE. Egoism is apparently a universal trait. Add to this my propensity to be extremely unsympathetic to idiotism as well as egoism and you have a director who is himself an asshole. But give me a freakin’ break! It’s my first time directing (we’re not counting porn, right?)…

I’ve decided–in an attempt to keep track of my thoughts and “blog away” my stress–that I’m going to post every time we have a production meeting, a script meeting, or a fight. Which means I guess I have to blog every five or ten minutes. (NOTE TO SELF: Think before typing; some thoughts and most declarations or promises of action are better once edited, where they are often deleted, becoming a non-issue).

If this experience doesn’t make me nuttier than the proverbial fruitcake, I don’t know what will. More later. I need a valium sandwich and a bottle of vodka.

DISCLAIMER NUMBER TWO: Gregory Purvis does not use or endorse valium sandwiches or vodka. Though he is willing to sell out for a (probably smaller than you would think) price.

For endorsement offers write to: P.O. Box 681505 Fort Payne, Alabama 35968.

The Loudmouth-in-Question is Rep. Joe Wilson (R [Duh]/S.C.), who called the President a “liar” during one of Obama’s increasingly-opposed pleas for lawmaker’s to step up to the plate–that plate being the public trough all these pigs gorge at as they go about their charmed lives with full medical coverage and enough perks to make a fat African dictator blush–and do the right thing about a national healthcare plan.

Being the bleedingheart liberal commie sympathizer/socialist I’m often accused of being, I support the President’s efforts. In fact, I don’t think any incarnation of a national healthcare plan will ever be good enough, even if “The Plan” was secretly authored by Barnie Franks’s gay lover, who turns out to be a Closet Canadian Commie with Evil Plans to take over the world by destroying Blue Cross/Blue Shield with the nuclear weapons Bush couldn’t find in Iraq and a trailer-truck full of band-aid-camoflauged Kalishnakovs.

MY Secret Plan is simple: I talk to convenience store workers, and leave some change in the buckets you see in many of these stores to solicit help for some unlucky worker who has some horrible disease and zero healthcare. Isn’t it sad that the placement of these change jars had to be okayed by convenience store management…? Which means, of course, that they are the REAL “company-provided employee healthcare plan.” In other words:

“If you get sick and can’t cover your third-shift schedule selling gas and beef jerky to drunks, Don’t Worry! Be Happy! We’ll stick a bucket with your pathetic face on it in all our stores where customers will (hopefully!) donate enough pennies and nickels to pay for the chemo we’re too cheap to provide! Get Well Soon! (Or You’re Fired!)”

My own Plan calls for a couple minutes two or three times a day, whenever I have a need to swing by one of the eighty-two thousand convenience stores that are within 4 yards of my house. I look for one of these pity jars (which are, sadly, all too common). I drop whatever change I have on me into the jar, and ask about the person whose scared face is taped on the side. Don’t worry, all the employees know the story. After all, this is what passes for their “healthcare plan”. They’ll tell you a familiar story that is repeated with all-too-numbing regularity across this nation.

MAPCO is the local Big Corporation, owning many of the convenience stores in north Alabama, northwest Georgia and southern Tennessee. I don’t know where they are headquartered at–probably the Death Star. No doubt the corporate elite (all the atormtroopers running the Death Star) have a decent healthcare plan. But their average, blue-collar “working poor” employee?

Well…yes! Yes, Mr. Commie Sympathizer Big Mouth! We DO offer our VALUED EMPLOYEES healthcare coverage!”

“Uh-huh. What kind?”

“Well…uhm….err…uhhh……….(supplementalhealthinsurance)”

“WHAT WAS THAT?”

“supplemental [mumble] [inaudible mutter]…”

“OH YOU MEAN SUPPLEMENTAL INSURANCE?!” In other words, if you PAY FOR YOUR OWN insurance, out of the no-doubt VERY fair salary you are paid, and that insurance pays for 80% of your need–AFTER the deductible is met, which often means a tearful trip to a cash-for-title franchise or a pawn shop–then your generous employer’s supplemental plan (at God know’s what price) will kick in to help with the 20% that remains.

In plain, unvarnished English: you’re gonna pay, one way or another…and they’re gonna getcha in the end no matter who licks the stamp.

After I commiserate with the employee–who’s  now reminded how much s/he hates the cheap-ass employer and, more importantly, WHY–I meekly suggest that MAYBE the Nazis we elected to look out for us in D.C. aren’t doing such a good job.

“They’re liars,” I say, before heading out the door, leaving them to stew.

Just like Rep. Wilson. 

I’ve often said I could watch a documentary about paint drying and find some meaning in it. This is not because I find meaning where other people find only a headache from the smell of five gallons of Sherman-Williams laytex interior. It’s simply due to the fact that I love documentary filmmaking. More so than any other genre, the documentary has the power to inspire, entrance, educate and involve me. It gives a brand new meaning to the term ‘moving picture’.

That’s not to say that your garden-variety Hollywood blockbuster doesn’t have the ability (albeit occasionally) to work the same kind of magic. Like any red-blooded American man, movies are not just a source of entertainment–they’re also a source of dialog that my friends and I still take adolescent pleasure in quoting to each other whenever an appropriate (or inappropriate) moment reveals itself.

“GENTLEMEN! YOU CAN’T FIGHT IN HERE! THIS IS THE WAR ROOM!”

Like most geeks in my generation, I’ve seen many of my favorites over and over again since I was a child. I was 7 when Star Wars was released in 1977. If pressed, I’m fairly confident I can quote entire PASSAGES from that movie, complete with sound effects and a running trivia commentary culled from issue after issue of Starlog, Fangoria, and Famous Monsters. I can do the same for Blade Runner, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, and all of the Alien movies.

But those films move me in an entirely different way. They move me as a geek, a science fiction writer and closet movie nerd. Other films move me as a human being.

Some of these are fictional, Hollywood blockbusters, too–even if they are sometimes based on true events. Schindler’s List and The Gray Zone both fall into this category (and both have similar themes, but that’s simply coincidence). Two examples that ARE NOT based on true events are Vanilla Sky and Magnolia (both of which star Tom Cruise, but, again, that’s simply coincidence). But documetaries–the nonfiction of the film world–hold a special, and often magical,  power over me.

Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father is an amazing example of a moving picture. And it makes you think about how many lives you affect just by going about your daily life. Like the butterfly that flaps his wings in Newfoundland and whips up a hurricane in Fiji, you can never be certain how the smallest actions will affect those you come into casual contact with.

It’s something to think about as I begin preparations to start filming The Lost Idol of Amun-Ra, a 1950’s sci-fi spoof some friends and I are making. Though I am a cynical Gen-X’er by birth (and proud of it), I suppose it’s possible to attach some greater meaning to even an indie sci-fi/comedy. Possible, but doubtful. After all, the greatest power a comedy has is its ability to make us laugh. That is, in itself, enough for me.

So what makes us think we can make a movie? Modern technology has made a LOT of things possible. For me,

 THE REASON  is another indie movie–a horror film called 5 Across The Eyes. This movie was so BAD, so AWFUL, that I had a revelation: if these people could make and market a movie I could check out in my local Hollywood Video, well…wait a minute! I can do that! And better! After/if you read my review of this steaming pile, you might think I’ve been a little harsh, considering what I’m working on myself. So go ahead: rent it. THEN tell me if I was “too harsh” or not.

In a way, movie-making is in my blood. My cousin is a big-name actor (Ed Harris), and my brother has played a couple small roles when we were living in Orlando. Okay, so that doesn’t exactly make me Hollywood royalty…I suppose the real reason I never considered doing it before was simply that movie-making always seemed like something that had to cost millions and required a diploma from a film school–neither of which I have. That’s where technology comes in. Affordable digital video cameras have brought movie-making to the masses in the same way that digital recording technology has made it possible for musicians to make an album in their living rooms. 

The main thing you have to have in order to get your ideas across in a movie is a good story. Since I consider myself a fairly competent storyteller, I figure I have a shot. I guess I COULD run to Ed and beg his help, but I’d rather send him a finished product and say: “Whaddya think, cuz?” Otherwise, I’m really just a pathetic name-dropper and since I respect what he has accomplished…well, this is the better way.

As for moving people, the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” may or may not be correct. I think a good movie is made better by a great story…so my “secret weapon” is to start with a great script. BTW, I’m working on a software review of Celtx version 2.0.2 but if you don’t want to wait around, let me just say this: Celtx is an incredibly versatile, easy-to-use scriptwriting program with templates for movies, comic books, stage plays, etc. If you want to get into screenwriting, download the free version and give it a go.

Well, wish us luck. We’re going to need it.  

It feels like this summer is turning out to be the Summer of Movies. First off, I’ve been working on two movies of my own: the first is THE LOST IDOL OF AMUN-RA, a take-off on 1950’s sci-fi serials. I’m directing and acting in this one (well, I agreed to play a bit part: the powerful metal juggernaut known as “Robot”); the screenplay is being (mostly)written by David Lusk, with the main character (Russian Archaeologist, Professor Ecaterina Vodka) played by Judy Nicole Kirby. The second film is as-yet unnamed: a zombie movie set in a small southern town consumed by a decaying economy and brain-eating drug addiction. I’m writing and co-directing this one, with my brother Brad, and Eric Cekala is handling the cinematography. We’ve formed a production company to handle the zombie movie and a host of other projects that I’m really excited about. I’m most proud of the production company itself, and I’m working on a longer post that describes how this came to be and who is involved.

It’s also turning out to be a pretty decent year for film in general. Last week, my brother and I went to see Peter Jackson’s DISTRICT 9 tonight…and we were both blown away by the incredible special effects and the engaging plot.

DISTRICT 9 hits the mark as a great science fiction movie for several reasons–not the least of which is that it has a well-developed alien race, perjoritively called ”Prawns” by their human “hosts” in barely-racially integrated J’Burg, South Africa, where the movie is set. The Prawns are an insect-like race that are found caged and dying in a huge spacecraft that floats motionlessly above the large African metropolis. They speak a language composed of mandible clicks and odd chittering sounds. The movie combines this fictional alien language with Afrikaans, English and a smattering of Nigerian. Jackson has had considerable experience with integrating complex fictional languages into his movies. The Lord of the Rings–Jackson’s opus–utilized J.R.R. Tolkien’s finely-crafted (but ersatz) Elvish.

Though a bit heavy-handed with some of the morality issues (setting the film in South Africa, for instance, feels as if it were done solely to make a point about racism, as was some of the dialog–added apparently just so NO ONE could miss this point), the movie was a great sci-fi film.