Frankbeaton.com

• I am made of email and stress. #
• Flip through your CDs. Scroll through your iTunes library. If you see the name Jack Johnson anywhere, then guess what? You’re boring. Sorry #
• @Heather1773: I don’t make the rules. #
• Why didn’t anyone tell me the new Palahniuk was out? #
• @jillybeaton: I’ll start forwarding your mail. #

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• Need to finish a story yesterday. Also have 8,000 people I have to email. This is what post-SD is going to be like from now on, isn’t it? #
• Nearly done with story for music anthology thing, although it’s currently running three pages longer than I’d planned. Oopsie! #
• Hard to get excited about day-job after the events of this weekend. #

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Had a fantastic time this year. Even though I’m exhausted and my feet are ready to secede from the union of my body, this proved to be the most laid-back, good-vibe-y Con I can remember.

In addition to discovering the joy and wonder of room service at the Marriott (I tell you those raviolis were stuffed with LIGHT!), we got to see a ton of old friends and hang out with some really awesome comics people. (And some less-than-awesome Hollywood people.) Plus, our professional-type efforts actually bore some fruit! I sold a couple stories and had some very interesting meetings that I’m not allowed to talk about, and Jill’s first convention as a full-fledged editor was a rousing success — so much so that, after five straight days of meeting with creators, reviewing portfolios, taking pitches and selling books, she managed to completely lose her voice, poor thing.

I’ll be posting a bunch of photos to my Flickr page in the next day or two. In the meantime, I propose the design for the Eisner award be officially changed to this:

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Yep, I’m going this year.

I’ll be lurking around the Oni and Image booths a good deal of the time, so if anyone wants to say hi, get something signed, or discreetly hand me a suitcase full of cash, you know where to find me.

Also, after much toil and heartache, I managed to set up the post-by-email and MMS dealy on WordPress, so I may do some live-blogging from the convention floor with my not-quite-an-iPhone, if the fancy strikes me.

See you in the sunshine.

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I’ll admit I’m a bit more susceptible to hype than most of my snarky, ennui-filled contemporaries, who are all so smart and above it all — but come on. You have to admit that, from this distance, the fall season looks like a family-style plate of awesome-stuffed awesomes with a light drizzle of awesome sauce.

Consider:

New Alan Ball show… about friggin’ vampires!

New David Milch show… about friggin’ Serpico!*

New Joss Whedon show… about, like, brainwashed spies or something!

New JJ Abrams show… also about spies, I think!

Second season of SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES… co-starring Shirley Manson??!??!?!??!?!! (OMGOMGOMGOMG)

Plus new seasons of PUSHING DAISIES, FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS, PSYCH (just discovered this one — thanks, James!), BIG LOVE, HOUSE, and ALWAYS SUNNY.

Holy smokes! My TiVo is going to explode in a shower of beauty and wonderment!!! Should not yours, as well? (Hint: it should.)

ADDENDUM: Commenter ProgGrrl points out that LAST OF THE NINTH, DOLLHOUSE, and BIG LOVE aren’t scheduled to air until (at least) January. Thanks!

* [Okay, JFC was a bit of a disappointment. Fine. But after DEADWOOD I'll pretty much follow that guy anywhere. Besides, the new show is about corrupt NYPD cops in the 1970s. Deep in dude's comfort zone. Milch + cop show + semi-fictional period piece = I'mma watch that shit.]

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I splurged last week and bought all three seasons of DEADWOOD on DVD (they’re pretty cheap on Amazon right now). I won’t bother telling you how brilliant the show is. If you’ve seen it, and “got” it, you already know.

One of the special features in the first season set is a 45-minute interview with David Milch, conducted by Keith Carradine, who played Wild Bill Hickok in the first few episodes. It’s an amazing interview, and Milch proves to be one of the flat-out smartest writers I’ve ever seen interviewed. His understanding of human behavior and social dynamics — and, by extension, character development — is absolutely mind-blowing at times.

At one point, the conversation turns to the nature of celebrity, and the way people feel toward famous people — that fine line between adoration and contempt. It’s a subject I’ve been really fascinated by lately (which will someday manifest itself as a story) and I was anxious to hear Milch’s thoughts on it.

In particular, they were discussing a scene in which Wild Bill, busy doing carpentry work with his new friend Bullock and enjoying a rare moment of peace, is interrupted by an annoying fan. Hickok is exasperated. He suffers the idiot for a minute, then he just can’t take it anymore and tells him to go away. Immediately the man, who had up to this point been heaping praise on Wild Bill, turns on him and screams “I hope you fucking die! And I hope it happens in this camp!” (Very similar to that scene in THE KING OF COMEDY, where the sweet little old lady wishes cancer on Jerry Lewis’s character after he apologetically denies her an autograph.)

Milch’s comment:

“Nathaniel West wrote, I thought, beautifully about that syndrome, and W.H. Auden, the poet, wrote an essay about West’s analysis of that syndrome, which he called ‘West’s Disease.’ It’s about people who, for whatever reason, are unable to turn wishes into passions in their life, and lacking that capacity, sit passively in mute outrage, anticipating disasters. They go to fires. Any sort of natural disaster attracts them. And in the absence of a natural disaster, they sometimes try and create disasters. And they hate the people whose lives, whether successful or not, are pursued with passion. At first they idolize them, then they want to destroy them. They want to appropriate the vitality of those people.”

Pretty damned astute, no?

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