RARE FOOTAGE OF PKD'S ANDROID

MY TOP FILMS OF THE DECADE

In no real particular order, here are my favorite films of this decade:

District 9
Children of Men
The Dark Knight
LOTR (Trilogy)
Crash
Donnie Darko
Kill Bill
No Country for Old Men
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Incredibles
Man on Wire
Pi
Memento
Wall-E
Up
Traffic
Iron Man
Star Trek
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
It Might Get Loud
Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace
Hotel Rwanda
March of the Penguins
8 Mile
Punch Drunk Love
The Simpsons Movie


BONUS: Movies I wanted to like but really didn’t:
Happy Feet
The Aviator
Minority Report
A.I.
King Kong
The Wrestler
Michael Clayton
Knocked Up
Letters from Iwo Jima
Lost in Translation
Spirited Away
Ratatouille
Pan’s Labryinth

My CD, "Elysian Skies" is now on iTunes!

*TOYS I WISH I OWNED: THE ROAD WARRIOR SET

If I had $35 to blow I could easily own four of the Road Warrior Toys, in the box, over at Frank & Sons in Diamond Bar.

One vendor has the following toys:

*Mad Max w/ wild boy
*Gyrocopter pilot
*Lord Humungus
*Mowhawk Rider Wez

He's told me I could have all 4 toys for $35, but that's still a bit pricey for me.

What I really want is just the Mad Max figure with his dog.

Another vendor there has all of them (which includes the version w/the dog, and the girl figure with the white shoulder pads), but she wants $60 for the set, and will not break them up individually.

(sigh)

I've determined to wait until I can find the figure with the dog out of the box for less than $20.

AMERICAN FLAGG - THE REST OF THE STORY

Thanks to the awesome deals at Frank & Sons in Diamond Bar, I have filled out my American Flagg! comic collection with issue #'s 8 through 25 of the series.

It's amazing how entertaining and intelligent this series was. In fact, it's a lot better than anything on the stands right now from the big guys.

There. I said it.

Oh, and I picked them all up for .25 each!

Eat your heart out.

NEW MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER/SOLAR: MAN OF THE ATOM – JIM SHOOTER

I can't really fully explain why, but ever since I heard that Jim Shooter was returning to write new Magnus Robot Fighter and Doctor Solar stories for Dark Horse I've been itching for this to release.

SLEEP DEALER - DVD Review

Well, I watched it last night and I have to say – If you’re looking for a well-acted, moving, authentic drama watch “Sin Nombre” instead.

The story was pretty linear and it missed so many great chances to be great. Instead, it settled for “ok”.

If you’ve seen the previews you already know the entire story. No surprises. No mystery. No enticing little details about this future world.

This is one of the few foreign films where a big-budget Hollywood re-make would be a huge improvement. Cast Benecio Del Toro and Salma Hayek and have Ridley Scott direct it and then you’d have something.

Pass.

KING CITY

Not sure why, but the solicitation for this new comicbook series appeals to me.

Maybe because I have an affinity to insane storylines?

KING CITY #1, story BRANDON GRAHAM, art & cover BRANDON GRAHAM
Coming AUGUST 19, 32 PAGES, BW, $2.99

Pete falls in love with an alien he’s forced to betray…Anna watches her boyfriend literally turn into the drug he’s addicted to…and Joe has a cat that can become any tool or weapon.

It’s all just another day in King City, where mystery is down every alley…and weirdness is crawling through your window.

From critically acclaimed comics vet BRANDON GRAHAM comes a comic unlike any you have ever read!
**

SHADES OF SOMA?

Today's news story about how pharmacutical giant Pfizer is giving away free Viagra and Lipitor to those who are unemployed sounds like the beginning of a Soma-like society where the masses are kept drugged and happy (ala Huxley's "Brave New World").

Story
HERE

TRENTON, N.J. — Pfizer Inc. says it will provide 70 of its most widely prescribed prescription drugs _ including Lipitor and Viagra _ for free to people who have lost their jobs and health insurance.

The world's biggest drugmaker said Thursday it will give away the medicines for up to a year to Americans who lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been on the Pfizer drug for three months or more.

The announcement comes amid massive job losses caused by the recession and a campaign in Washington to rein in health care costs and extend coverage. The move could earn Pfizer some goodwill in that debate after long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices.

The program also likely will help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands.

*FULL STORY IN LINK ABOVE

"THE ROAD" Release Date - Oct. 16th

One of the most powerful and elegantly written novels I've ever read in my life was Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". If you haven't read this book, you must go out and do so as soon as you possibly can. It is poignant, lyrical and poetic in its language and heartbreaking and stunning in its prose.

The film has been in development and post-production for quite a while now. There was some fear that the story wouldn't translate well to the big screen and that movie audiences would balk at the bleak subject matter (the end of the world) and the long, empty scenes where no one talks and silence suffocates the two survivors (a father and his young son).

Finally, the film has a release date (Oct. 16th) and an early review by Esquire magazine calls it "the most important film of the year".

The film stars Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from LOTR to most) and was filmed primarily in locations of ruin and along abandoned freeways and in actual ghost towns to provide a stronger sense of realism and destruction.

I've been looking forward to this film even before I had read the novel.

Here's the blurb on the Esquire review:
Esquire magazine calls The Road, the post-apocalyptic movie based on Cormac McCarthy's best-selling SF novel, "the most important movie of the year."

"Go see it because it's two small people set against the ugly backdrop of the world undone," writes reviewer Tom Chiarella. "A story without guarantees. In every moment—even the last one—you'll want to know what happens next, even if you can hardly stand to look. Because The Road is a story about the persistence of love between a father and a son, and in that way it's more like a remake of The Godfather than some echo of I Am Legend. Only this one is different: You won't want to see this one twice."

PKD's "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" Film in Development

I read this press release (below) and had to jump for joy. One of my favorite all-time PKD books is now being made into a feature film. Yes!

PRESS RELEASE
Halcyon Co. co-founders and co-chief executives Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson, who picked up first-look rights to SF author Philip K. Dick's estate in 2007, have selected his 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said as the first of his works they will adapt for the screen, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Set in a futuristic, dystopian world, Tears is the tale of a celebrity who wakes up after an assassination attempt to find no one has ever heard of him.

Isa Dick Hackett and Laura Leslie, co-founders of Electric Shepherd Productions, the production arm of the Dick estate, will develop the work alongside Kubicek and Anderson. Dale Rosenbloom and John Alan Simon also will produce.

Dick's works have served as the basis for such movies as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly, which together have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.

WELCOME CBR READERS

Apparently I won the cover challenge at PERMANENT DAMAGE and my blog was linked from there.

So, if you're joining me from CBR, welcome.

I actually used to write for CBR about seven or eight years ago doing mostly interviews with guys like Jim Steranko, Stan Lee, Brian Bendis, David Mack, and Paul Pope (among others).

These days I only dabble in comic and sci-fi stuff and if there's anything worth sharing along those lines it will end up here.

I also blog over at www.KeithGiles.com and that's mainly my focus these days along with my 3rd book project.

On the sci-fi front I'm currently just cracking open Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" and so far it's great stuff. I'll post a full review here when I'm done.

I'm also reading ARKHAM ASYLUM for the first time and I've just finished PKD's book of philosophical writings which was fascinating.

More to come, I promise...

NEW PAUL POPE SCI-FI SERIES: ADAM STRANGE

Awesome preview artwork from the upcoming series by Paul Pope: "Adam Strange" starting in July as part of the new, weekly newsprint comics zine from DC Comics called "Wednesday's Comics".

Can't wait!

REVIEW: RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH BY PKD

"Radio Free Albemuth" is one of Philip K. Dick's finest novels, having been discovered and published after his death in 1985.

Although Dick wrote the novel back in 1975, ten years before, the book was orignally rejected by his then-publisher Bantam books and sent back to him for re-writes. Rather than handle the re-writes, Dick sent them a different book instead, although he did go back later and write new chapters to correct plot issues.

His original title for the book was "VALISystem A" but when Arbor House acquired the rights in 1985 they published an edition under the current title (the original was too close to VALIS, already published by then). The new, published manuscript was retitled "Radio Free Albemuth" and assembled from the corrected script given by PKD to his friend and fellow science fiction and fantasy author, Tim Powers.

"Radio Free Albemuth" is easily one of Dick's most thought-provoking and provocative books. As a novel that includes many of Dick's personal experiences, and Dick himself as a major character, the story takes on a strange, surreal quality that invades our reality and toys with our perception of the book itself - as fiction or as an allegory of actual events in Dick's life.

At one point in the story, Dick and his friend Nicholas are arrested by the authorities and taken into FAP custody (an SS-like group of secret police who intimidate ordinary citizens). One of the FAP officers tells Dick that they plan to publish books under his name in order to plant subliminal messages in people's minds. At this time in the authors life he is in the process of writing "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" and it makes one wonder if Dick had any intention of casting doubt as to the authorship of his own body of work after his death.

The book blurs the edges of reality, as most of Dick's books do, however this one manages to ask "What is fiction?" rather than, "What is human?" in a way that is quite entertaining and provocative.

One thing I loved about the book was how, at the midpoint, the first person narrative changed, in mid-sentence, from the voice of author Philip K. Dick to that of his friend Nicholas Brady. The effect was slightly disorienting and yet, ingeniusly well-timed in the story. Later on the voice switches back again in mid-sentence which makes sense. After all, we're reading a book written by Dick in the first place, so having Dick drift in and out of the narrative is fitting- because he's been the voice all along.

As someone who is aware of a lot of the major spiritual events of Dick's life, the book took on a fascinating quality as specific details spilled over into this book. Nicholas (or "Nick") and PKD (or "Dick") are practically synonymous. Events that Dick experienced such as hearing a voice speak to him about his son needing immediate medical attention and saving the boys life are re-told here as happening to Nicholas. As the two share in Dick's autobiographical experiences it becomes clear that the two are meant to serve as the one, interchangable character- Dick himself.

There is a bit of an alternate history going on where Richard Nixon is personified as "Ferris F. Fremont" and described as an undercover agent of the Soviet Communist Party, and an extra-terrestrial satellite is discovered orbiting our planet and openly reported about in the daily news, however we are always left wondering how much of this is allegory and how much is meant to be taken as fiction.

What makes reality more challenging to unravel stems from Dick's own, and very real, drug use. Of course, in this book he denies being a drug user and attributes the misconception to a misinformed quote from Harlan Ellison. At one point he laments the perception that he uses drugs and says that his readers should no more believe he uses drugs simply because he writes about drug use any more than a crime fiction writer should be assumed to be a murderer because he writes about murder. Of course, it is no secret that Dick did take large doses of amphetamines in his lifetime, largely to stay awake and allow him to write more - which meant he would get paid more. This fact is supported by the astounding number of novels Dick wrote in such a short time (over 36) and the hundreds of short stories he published as well.

In addition to the drug use, Dick also had his own personal bouts with mental illness. His behavior - self-medicating and constantly at the typwriter- suggest someone with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), which also largely contributed to his seemingly endless variety of story ideas.

For the uninitiated, Dick was also someone who dabbled quite a lot in philosophy and beleived that he was receiving messages from either an extra-terrestrial being (Valis) or God himself, much like Nicholas Brady in this very book. Because of this, Dick uses the book to unpack quite a bit of his own personal thoughts about God and his own twisted version of a quasi-Christian religion.

Another surprising element of the book was the humor. It was genuinely funny, which is something I cannot say about the majority of his novels (at least not the one's I've read to date).

Having finished the book I am curious as to whether or not any of Dick's other books can equal the quality of writing or the wall-to-wall lunacy found here.

So far this book ranks in the Top 5 list of Dick's books for me which include "Ubik", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", "The Man Who Japed" and "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said".

Highly recommended for fans of PKD.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER?

When I was a kid I used to repeat this old nonsensical limerick for fun. It went like this:

"One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.

Back to back they faced each other, drew their knives and shot each other. A deaf policeman heard the noise and came and shot those two dead boys.

If you don't believe this lie is true, just ask the blind man he saw it too."

5 PAGE PREVIEW: PKD'S "DO ANDROIDS DREAM..?" COMIC

The first 5 pages of the new comic version of PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" are now online
HERE

Not sure how I feel about the constant and unnecessary "he said/Iran said" on every word balloon, but the art looks great and having a comic version of this amazing novel is enough to push me over the edge.

Especially since there's the chance that the success of this comic novel could mean future PKD projects down the road and I'd love to read a comic book version of "Flow My Tears" or "Ubik".

ON CREATIVITY BY LINFORD DETWEILLER

This letter below was sent to me by someone I consider a friend, although he probably doesn't remember meeting me at the Squeeze concert 15 years ago in Los Angeles.

Linford is a songwriter and gifted musician who also happens to write letters that read like poetry.

His band, Over The Rhine, also records some of the most beautiful music around.

Here ya go:
**

Hello friends and extended family,

I know of a glass blower who gets up every morning in the dark to do
his work. Before the world wakes up, before the phone starts ringing,
in the sacred remains of the night when all is still, he gathers and
begins to fuse his raw materials: the breath from his lungs, glowing
flame, imagination, dogged hope.

I used to work from the other direction. I loved the feeling of still
being up after the rest of the city (and world) had grown sleepy, the
light of a lamp making my third story bedroom windows glow while I
leaned over my desk and sailed towards something I couldn’t name.

Someone sent me this little excerpt awhile back, in a beautiful letter
of encouragement I should add, the sort of letter that makes everything
slow down, hold still:

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?
- GK Chesterton

I’d really be okay with this being my epitaph.

When I was younger I would often write myself short job descriptions. I
was thinking out loud about what might be worth hanging a life on, a
life I was willing to sign my name to:

-Create spaces where good things can happen.

-Give the world something beautiful, some gift of gratitude,
no matter how insignificant or small.

-Write love letters to the whole world.

-Build fires outdoors, and lift a glass and tell stories,
and listen, and laugh, laugh, laugh. (Karin says I’m still working
on this one. She thinks I still need to laugh more, especially at
her jokes, puns and witty asides.)

-Flip a breaker and plunge the farm into darkness so that the stars can
be properly seen.

-Do not squander afflictions.

-Own the longing, the non-negotiable need to “praise the mutilated
world.”

-Find the music.

I still crave the extravagant gesture, the woman spilling a year’s
wages on the feet of Jesus, the rarest perfume, washing his feet and
drying them with her hair, a gesture so sensual it left the other men
in the room paralyzed with criticism, analysis, theoretical moral
concern - for what - the poor? Or was it just misdirected outrage in
light of the glaring poverty of their own imaginations?

Some friends of mine were talking about this scene the other night. We
got to imagining Mary with a pixie haircut, which made the drying more
difficult. We were drinking wine and Rob had made something to eat late
at night: take a cracker, put a thin slice of fresh pear on it, then
some sautéed goat cheese from the skillet, and top it with walnuts
drizzled with honey from the oven. At midnight?!

Someone once described our music as a mash-up of spirituality, whimsy
and sensuality.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Music and art and writing: extravagant, essential, the act of spilling
something, a cup running over…

The simultaneous cry of, You must change your life, and Welcome home.

I’ve been trying to write songs again, and I’ve been hitting a maze of
dead ends. I want the songs to reveal something to me, teach me
something. It’s slow going. I’m not sure where I’m going. Uncertainty
abounds.

But the writing works on me little by little and begins to change me.
That’s why I would recommend not putting off writing if it’s something
you feel called to: if you put it off, then the writing can’t do the
work that it needs to do to you.

Yes, I think there’s something there. If you don’t do the work, the
work can’t change you. (No one expects to change overnight.)

My sister Grace recently sent me this quote from a slim little volume
called Art and Fear:

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to
your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the
prerequisite to succeeding.

A blessing for the writers among us: May all your dead ends be
beautiful.

When I was younger and I found myself sitting down in a new season of
writing, I would put my pen down and close up the pica typewriter (the
only letterpress printing machine I ever learned to operate all by
myself, the bell of encouragement and mild alarm ringing at the end of
every line, I can still hear it) and feel compelled to clean my rooms,
put my world in order. It used to take 3-4 days.

Now it takes 3-4 months.

Our messes get bigger. And bigger.

So, I’ve been getting “caught up” with taxes and filing, putting things
away, making lists, getting more than a few lagging projects out the
door that are overdue (the first Over the Rhine songbook?!). And on and
on.

Someone in our Santa Fe songwriting workshop once confessed, I’m good
at a lot of things that will kill me. For those of us who write, there
are always so many options that don’t involve the dilemma, the
extravagance of the blank page. When we sit down to write, there’s
never a guarantee that we’ll have anything to show for it that we can
touch with our hands, or see with our own eyes. In fact, life is a lot
cleaner and more manageable when I’m not writing.

Yes, I’ll just admit it. I’m a writer that all too often is more than
happy to run from writing. But sooner or later I realize something is
dying inside. And then I try to get back to work.

From Linford Detweiler, Over The Rhine
April, 2009

VISIT OVERTHERHINE.COM

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

Boom! Studios Announces new 24 issue comic book mini-series based on PKD's classic novel.

Written by Phillip K. Dick, art by Steven Dupre, covers by Dennis Calero, Bill Sienkiewicz, Moritat and Scott Keating.

The book that inspired the film Blade Runner comes to BOOM! with backmatter by Warren Ellis!

Visionary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" has been called "a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today" and served as the basis for the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner.

The Story: San Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust. The World War killed millions, driving entire species to extinction, and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic fakes: horses, birds, cats, sheep -- even humans. Rick Deckard is an officially sanctioned bounty hunter tasked to find six rogue androids -- they're machines, but look, sound, and think like humans, clever, and most of all, dangerous humans.

Rick Deckard, Pris, The Voight-Kampff Test, Nexus 6 androids, the Tyrell Corporation: join BOOM! Studios as the complete novel transplanted into the comic book medium, mixing all new panel-to-panel continuity with the actual text from the novel in an innovative, groundbreaking 24-issue maxi-series experiment.

Coming in June.
32 pages, $3.99.

To Luke Crow

As the serpent is lifted up in the wilderness
so is my anger lifted up against you
If my desire to end your life were a flame
oh how I would burn
supernova, under a blue sky
with a Bible in my hand
and a thorn in my side
I am torn, I am
torn between lusting
for the warmth
of your blood
on my hands and
longing to see you covered
in the blood of the Lamb.

And I hope one day
to find you sleeping
and to raise my sword
above your head
to cut a lock of your hair
and leave it beside you
as you dream

You are not the king
you hope to be
and my songs can never
soothe the demon
in you
or me

by keith giles

Elegy by Keith Giles

and so we make ourselves ready
with cloth and comb and polish
measuring the circumference
of a life once lived
careful with our hands
we smooth the wrinkles
straighten the crease
immerse ourselves in sunlight
shallow and warm and silent

we cradle the glass
in trembling palms
take sips between exchanges unspoken
breathing slowly
when it comes between us
unexpected, quiet, and dark.

we make ourselves ready.