So whether you are a leader or a follower, you have influence in preventing the future school children of little Bb (you cry like a Bb) from being beat up when they travel to other planets.
Imagine your worst day so we can compare notes with Akiya, the main character in Caveman Funk. You’re a modern person (perhaps even post modern), have a loving family, and maybe even a fridge full of food to go with your beer. Akiya’s a neanderthal boy who’s a foot shorter than his peers and his tribe is legendary for feats of strength and are all built like The Rock. Akiya’s more the Woody Allen type. His older brother and friends constantly tease him for not being able to pack very much dead game (you had this problem too?) to the point that Akiya is getting a complex about helping the women gather nuts and dates rather than going out with the men.
Akiya’s back is against the wall. His tribe’s counting on him to transport deer to a neighboring tribe. His dad’s counting on him not to be an embarrassment. His brother and friends won’t help him because they’re more interested in the lifestyle portrayed by new arrivals, music television evangelists. So getting slain deer home is all on Akiya’s shoulders.
How does your worst day compare with Akiya’s?
What do you think Akiya should do?
To check your answers and be entertained, go download Caveman Funk to your Kindle for less than the cost of a latte.
Slodive, a popular graphic and web design site did a feature on Fauji M. Bardah (aka BakArt), a very talented artist whose work I admire. I love his work with robots, how he integrates action into his scenes, and his future visions. I think the following three pieces really showcase those points. The last piece below I commissioned for the cover of Honolulu Hottie (the woman in the monitor with the knife, she’s the hottie).
Size Doesn't Matter
Angel Red
Honolulu Hottie
Check out his work in the Slodive feature and he has more on DeviantArt. And if you want to find out why the above Samoan is watching this woman on his monitors, get Honolulu Hottie for your Kindle reader.
You remember those Duke boys? Of course you do if you’re at least 37 years old. Though with the recent Dukes of Hazzard movie, there’s a whole new generation of fans of Duke-dom. The Dukes enjoyed worldwide viewership and was an American icon. (In the ’80s, I heard reports that people in Portugal thought that Americans all drove like the Duke boys.) Recently, I sent a “Dukes” story I wrote set in a science fiction near future during an environmental apocalypse. What better time is there then an apocalypse when you need red-neck ingenuity to save someone’s life (in this case, their cousin Daisy’s)? I hoped that the story (The Kooks’ New Hazard) would be a good fit for a collection called Once Upon An Apocalypse.
But is it a fairy tale?
I and Scott T. Goudsward, one of the editors of Once Upon an Apocalypse, discussed this.
My answer was “yes” based on the following criteria:
It’s a well known tale — Just like Humptey Dumpty or Jack & the Beanstalk, The Dukes of Hazzard is a cross cultural story that many are familiar with.
It’s been updated to fit our times — The Dukes of Hazzard, same as the Grimm tales, have been adapted as times goes by and is available in multiple formats
During its initial 6 year run, the show survived a contract dispute that sent characters Bo and Luke leaving the show to race in NASCAR, the real NASCAR, not the fantasy games people can play now thanks to FanDuel and the likes, imagine that – driving in a show to go on and race in an arena like NASCAR. In their place came two parallel universe brothers (well, not really explained in cosmological terms) Coy and Vance who were practically twins of the brothers.
Duke video games were made in various formats over the last twenty years (since Colecovision!).
The tale was brought to a newer generation with the 2005 movie and then another TV series for 2007 (The Dukes: The Beginning).
The tale’s mythos is supported by other branches of art such as the Dukes’ theme song by Waylen Jennings is a lasting classic. Waylen’s song refers to the Dukes as being “like modern day Robin Hoods.” So Waylen thinks the Dukes are fairy tale too!
Like the occasional Brother’s Grimm museums of Europe, you’ll find Duke museums in Tennessee.
It’s safe to say the Dukes of Hazzard is a cultural meme, which is another way of saying it’s as much as a fairy tale as tales such as Little Red Riding Hood. I won’t be at all surprised to someday see a flying car called “General Lee.”
I’ve been accused of being unsavory or even outright bad, but also I’ve been accused of being a great citizen. None of those charges, I’m happy to say, have stuck!
As an author, I get to create characters that are bad people. In “Better than God,” I plausibly simulate a very rich jerk who likes to show others he’s the boss, to the point of getting away with murder. This story has been published in a book filled with stories of people doing bad things, called Malicious Deviance. Its editor, Robert Essig, sent me a message about how he found the story a little offensive, and that’s why he wanted to buy it for the anthology. The anthology’s published by Library of Horror Press so it’s loaded with stories that are better than a triple latte for staying up at night (my mom had to force herself to stop reading James A Sabata’s “Gossip Hounds of Sherry Town” so she could sleep). The anthology was reviewed by HellNotes. My story, “Better than God,” is about this very successful jerk who owns a Ferrari and knows how to use it. What could be so offensive about that?
Some may say that to write such a character, I must have quite the inner jerk. And to that I say, NO! Maybe there have been causes where I was a jerk to you, dear reader, or perhaps I was just “writing.” For like Brad Pitt who is just acting handsome for the cameras (Angelina Joli says he has a horrendous beer belly), a writer who misbehaves so he can tap the correct keys on his keyboard, is just writing.
To everyone who wishes to defame my character, you’re wrong! I’m not a jerk–I’m writing. I might not actually look towards a California defamation lawyer for such instances, so if you do feel as though I am malicious when writing, I might very well be. So I’ll not apologize for working on my craft. Someone has to suffer for art, so it might as well be you.
Do you agree? Take control of the world, even though it’s only one corner, but hey, if the world was square, you’d have 1/4 of it. So take control by answering the below poll. Defame Lancer’s character or cover the man’s back.
Save a world from awful naming! NASA discovered an M class planet (means Earth-like) less than 5 light years away, over half of the distance of our previous favorite place to put an overflow parking lot. But how would you like to live on a world saddled with a crappy name as Alpha Centauri Bb? Save Alpha Centauri Bb and save NASA’s outreach programs (without which we won’t know half the cool stuff NASA’s doing) which are in ruins due to sequestration. Pony up a few bucks and drop a new name for Alpha Centauri Bb!
