Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

My, my, what a busy year 2009 has been! I no sooner got my feet back
under me than I was taking off in a couple of different directions. Let
me ‘splain. No, there is no time. I sum up.

I started a project two years ago, a museum for Vernon-born trombonist
Jack Teagarden, the undisputed King of the Blues Trombone and one of the
best trombone players of all time, period. I was working with a man
named Joe Showler, who has spent forty years amassing a collection of
Jack Teagarden information that is singular and unique: 78 lps, press
clippings, magazines, reel-to-reel tape, video interviews,
discographies, you name it. Rare, scarce, private, and just plain
jaw-dropping. Much of what Joe gathered went into a two-hour documentary
he made. By diligently going through major newspapers and copying
adverts, Joe figured out where Teagarden was for 80% of his professional
career.

Yeah. It’s THAT kind of a collection.

Sidebar #1: The Jack Teagarden Primer
Here are some links you need to check out. Seriously. If you are into
big band or swing music, and you’ve never heard of Teagarden, and most
importantly, if you’re a Texan, you need to stop what you’re doing and
get caught up.

The Wiki Entry for Jack Teagarden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Teagarden

A fan's Teagarden site with lots of goodies (who knew Geocities was
still around?) http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/2508/

A YouTube video that perfectly demonstrates Jack's technical ability and
great singing style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5MirA2SWiY

Something for my Geek Brethren: "The Sliphorn King of Polaroo" An Early
Walter Lanz Cartoon featuring Jack "Jackson" Teagarden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5MirA2SWiY

Well, Joe wanted to bring it to Vernon, settle down, and turn it into a
museum. It was a good idea for us, because we could pay out on the
collection over time, and have the benefit of Joe’s expertise as a
curator of the museum. We needed a building and some start-up cash, but
it wasn’t not-doable. Unfortunately, our talks broke down when we needed
to focus on the theater to keep it running. That massaging effort lasted
for most of last year, as well. It wasn’t until last Christmas that
Cathy suggested I get back on the museum project.

I got back in touch with Joe. He was excited to hear from me. Yes, he
was still interested, he said, but there was a hitch: he’d been
diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and was given six months to live.
The news rocked me back on my heels, as you can well imagine. It also
changed the shape of the deal significantly. Medical treatments for
cancer being what they are, there was no way he could leave Canada and
that free health care system. Also, with him unable to look past six
months, economically, the deal to buy his collection would have to
change. And change it did.

I scrambled to get a building earmarked for the theater, even as I
started looking for a private institution that would donate two hundred
thousand dollars. That’s what the project needs, give or take fifty
thousand. On the one hand, for the kind of museum that I’m talking
about, that would pull curious folks in from the highway, that’s a
pittance. On the other hand, it’s a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS, JACK!
There’s not a way to make that number sound small.

Well, I wasn’t going to let any of it phase me. In one months’ time, I
secured a building; got the owner to agree to patch it up so that it
would be habitable; and got a promise from the hotel/motel committee for
$50 thousand bucks (provided, for example I can get another group to
donate). So far, so good. However, Joe was nervous. He wanted us to go
to Canada and examine the collection, first-hand. Also, we all knew that
it would be better if we got a piece of paper, some kind of letter of
intent, between us, to cement the deal.

My mother-in-law found some super-cheap tickets to Toronto, and so it
became a family trip; me, Cathy, Pat and Diane, and youngest brother
Mike. All of us with a stake in this enterprise, be it a seat on the
board of directors of the museum, or putting up something of an in-kind
donation, or both.

Sidebar #2 Our Trip to Canada
Toronto is an amazing city; equal parts New York City, Chicago, and San
Francisco, and also with its own unique touches. We were all smitten
with it and made individual promises to go back when we had more time
and just check it out in detail. But there are a few things to know
about Canada before someone goes. I thought you’d like to know the top
five things to be aware of before you get on the plane.

#1: Know your Metric System
Not just your miles to kilometers conversions, but all of it. It’s
confusing. For example, in Canada, when they say “Full Size Rental Car,”
you have to remember that it’s a metric value. In this case, it’s
roughly two-thirds of the value of a regular car. What would comfortably
seat six people in America will barely seat four. I had to dislocate my
right arm in order to get in the car. Fun! Since there were five of us,
the three people in the back were most profoundly uncomfortable as we
traipsed hither and thither across unfamiliar streets and highways. This
leads me to tip number two.

#2: Try not to Drive in Toronto. Ever.
Oh, it’s not because the cars are on the wrong side of the street; they
aren’t. Everything seems normal, in fact. That’s when they get you.
There are major thoroughfares in Toronto that everyone knows about,
like, for instance, Google Maps. These streets would seem to be a
logical way to travel quickly to a certain destination. However, once
you get on these streets, it’s nearly bloody impossible to get OFF the
streets. There are posted signs stating no left or right turns from 9 in
the morning until 5 at night. So, if you were supposed to go left at
that narrow street that looked more like an alley than an avenue and you
miss that turn, you won’t be able to turn left again until, oh, say,
Greenland. There is a bus and a train system in place for Toronto. I
suggest you use it.

#3: Bring cash. A suitcase full.
You may not know this, but as of sometime last year, your debit card
(you know, the one that’s got a VISA logo on it, that’s supposed to
completely mimic a credit card in every respect?) will no longer work in
Canada. The reason? “You know, that identity theft and pirate fraud and
stuff like that.” That’s a quote from one of the ladies at my bank, who
was sympathetic to our plight, but completely unwilling to overturn
federal law and make it so that we could get our money. That said, the
one dollar coins (named “loonies because of the picture of a loon on the
back) and the two dollar coins (named “toonies” because the one dollar
coins were named loonies) were a source of endless fascination with all
of us. I brought mine back. Cheap souvenir!

#4: Moose? What moose?
When you think of Canada, does not the moose pop instantly into our
brains? It really doesn’t matter to me that the beaver is the national
animal, just as I doubt that the average Germanic tourist cares one fig
that the mockingbird is the state bird of Texas. When they come to
Texas, they want to see cows and horses. When I go to Canada, I want to
see Mounties and mooses, not necessarily in that order. However,
Toronto, being so far east, was ridiculously bereft of moose. Not on
t-shirts, nor glasses, nor on tooks, or anything else like that. We even
ate at a place called the Loose Moose, thinking, if anyone is going to
have a moose on a shirt, it’s a faux biker bar called the Loose Moose,
right? Wrong. So, unless you’re heading to Western Canada, keep that
moose talk out of your dealings with the natives.

#5:  Why, yes, you DO have an accent
Everywhere we went; restaurants, the tallest tower in Canada, you name
it, I’d be talking to the folks and let it slip that I’m from Texas, and
they’d all grin, nod their head, and say, “Oh, yeah, I figured that out
(pronounced “oot”) already.” Everyone was helpful in spite of our
linguistic crutches. Eventually, I stopped trying to fool them and
started saying “Howdy.” No point in hiding it if they are already on to
us. Thankfully, Canadians seem to like Texans. I suspect that shared
culture of beer drinking.

Paying attention to these five points will, I believe, greatly enhance
your Canadian experience.

We were all excited about seeing Joe Showler’s collection. We are all
fans of Teagarden to various degrees. This was akin to being a Marvel
Comics fan in the 1960s and getting to go over to Jack Kirby’s house.
When we finally got there, we were greeted by Joe, out on the porch
having a smoke. Now, I’ve only seen Joe on video tape before, so seeing
him like this, thin and moving slow, was a shock. He was jaundiced and
clearly not feeling well. But he lit up when he saw us, and we got to
meet his friends, John (who operates the excellent JazzOracle website)
and Bob (who helped with the making of the documentary and remembered
Pat and Diane from their trips to Vernon). We all tucked in and made
small talk, and when Joe felt up to it, we got to see the collection.

How can I describe it? Picture a bookcase, seven feet high, three feet
wide, and then fill it with two inch black binders. In these black
binders, place photographs of Jack Teagarden and the band until it’s
full. Then put them in chronological order from 1905 to 1964, label each
binder, and there’s five thousand photographs, right there. His book
collection was an impressive thing, about 400 books, all out of print,
all on Jazz and the early days of the movies. Films? Yeah, five hundred
of them. Everything from a commercial print of “The Birth of the Blues”
to private home movies of Jack and his family. Color slides. Lobby
cards. Playbills. Scrapbooks. Ticket stubs. Ads. Trade notices.
Magazines. If it was Teagarden or Teagarden-related, it was all here.
Eventually, we went downstairs into the record room and they played some
78s for us. Warm, rich tones, great sound, and wow, some really rare
cuts, too. As play dates go, it was one of the best. Joe was happy to
talk Teagarden with us. He showed me a peek at his unpublished book, a
900+ page kitchen-sink of a thing that goes from birth to death in a
straightforward style. Incredible.

We left, thinking that what we had seen was pretty much Joe’s life over
four decades. How impressive a thing for someone to collect to the point
that there’s hardly anything left? Considering how many collectors I
know, I felt a real kinship and affection for Joe. I got what he was doing.

The next day, we came back and talked business. John was onhand, as was
his sister, Barb, and we discussed the arrangement of transferring the
collection, the payment terms, and so forth. It was a painless meeting,
since we all wanted the same thing. Joe was really not feeling well, and
aside from his enthusiasm, wasn’t able to contribute much. The doctor
had been by and was going to send him in for another treatment the next
day. Despite that, Teagarden talk kept us there past a reasonable time,
and another friend was onhand, Steve, and we played more 78s and talked
old movies for about an hour while Joe collected himself. My
father-in-law, Pat, has known Showler for quite some time, and they
spent some time together just talking about stuff. Everyone else was
content to entertain us, or let us tell them about our plans for the
museum. We left, all of us, on a high note. This would happen. It was a
lot of money to raise in a short amount of time, but it had to be this way.

We flew out on Tuesday and dropped into Texas right in front of the
tornado stormfront that pushed across that evening. Instead of driving
back to Vernon, we spent the night in Richardson with in-laws. The next
morning, we started back. The sun was shining, and we’d done what we
needed to do in Canada. All was right with the world.

We were about two hours outside of Vernon when Steve Ray, our partner in
the movie theater and also on the board of directors for the museum,
called. He’d been the only one not able to make it, and I assumed he
wanted an update. “Hey,” he said, “where are you?”

“Two hours out. Why?”

“I’ve got some bad news.”

“Oh,” I said. Steve’s father in law had been in and out of the hospital
recently. I braced myself.

“I just heard from Kurt Nauck that Joe Showler passed away Tuesday night.”

It was a punch in the nose. The kind of hit where your eyes start to
water. I didn’t have anything to say. Steve knew he’d punched me, and he
apologized for it. There was nothing either of us could do. I hung up
and told the car the bad news. We all drove quietly for a while.
Honestly, as bad as he had looked, I really thought he’d be around for a
few more months. Long enough to take a trip down and see what our
progress on the building was. Hell, I don’t know what I thought, but I
didn’t expect that.

John called me that night. After we commiserated for a minute, I
apologized for not getting something going sooner. He told me he thought
that Joe specifically hung on long enough for us to get our meeting
done. Then, when he felt that he had his life’s work taken care of, he
could let go.

Ironically, I had been talking to Weldon Adams about the project the
night before. One of the great gifts that I got from my friendship with
Weldon was a stronger moral center. Weldon is a very morally and
ethically strong person, and I’ve tried to be more like him for that.
When I first took on this project (yeah, like I know how to run a
museum), I didn’t do it because I wanted to make money. I didn’t do it
because I wanted to be a museum curator. I did it because it just seemed
like the right thing to do. Joe wanted the collection to have a
permanent home in Vernon. Frankly, that much Jack Teagarden stuff didn’t
belong anywhere else.

Now I feel as though I’ve made a deathbed promise. Joe was willing to
trust us with his life’s work. Now all I’ve got to do is get it here.

Those of you who are still interested in knowing some specifics, I need
to raise $160,000—half of the collection’s worth, up front, in order to
take possession of it, by June 30th. The balance is due over the next
six years. Packing and shipping of the archive is estimated at $15,000.
So, I’m looking for $175,000 from private foundations in the area who
support the arts, museums, and education and preservation of Texas
history. Is it daunting? Yep. But I have to try. We’ve applied for 501c3
status, and we’ll get it with no problems, but that won’t be conferred
until probably 5-6 months from now. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking.
If any of you out there have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.  Thanks
for reading. Sorry about the length, but this just can’t be summed up in
the “what are you doing now” box on FaceBook.

Mark

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn’s Blog is here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or check out : http://www.thecimmerian.com
		 http://www.clockworkstorybook.net
		 http://www.revolutionsf.com

Hey folks,

My computer decided to collapse a week before Christmas. Thankfully,
it was only a minor disaster in that I lost the last three months'
worth of files. There was some research I was amassing for a book
project that has gone kablooey, as well.

Then I got sick, which lasted right up until Christmas Eve. The cough,
a touch of bronchitis, has hung on tenaciously and has driven both me
and Cathy to the edge of sanity.

Thankfully, both things are history. Well, mostly. I am still
coughing, and unfortunately, the only real casualty in my Total
Computer Reboot was the last three months' worth of Emails--including
emails that were sent the last two weeks.

If you had any personal correspondence with me, please resend it. If
you were helping me with my book project and still have your notes,
please resend them. Basically, I want all of my emails back.

Thanks, folks, for the help. And May Elvis Shine his Light on you all!

Mark

Finn’s Wake
An Irregular Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

Something of an Update

I have given up on the possibility of ever getting this thing back on schedule again—apparently, even once a month taxes my faculties to their utmost. The truth is, some months, I’ve got nothing to report that doesn’t have anything to do with fixing projectors and popping popcorn. Maybe this is of some interest to you guys, but trust me, it gets old really quick.

Nevertheless, some things have been happening. I’ve been writing, and sending stories out, and collaborating with no fewer than three people now on various projects, and I’ve even been co-editing a fiction collection with a fellow Robert E. Howard-Head named Chris Gruber. We’re putting together a benefit book, the proceeds of which will go straight to the Robert E. Howard House for upkeep and other necessary repairs and improvements.

Most recently, I’ve been podcasting over at RevolutionSF.com. You can click on the audio tab and listen to our amateur efforts. Fair warning, though: it’s Geek-Talk. Listen at your own risk. Skype is a marvelous thing, I tell you what.

Living in a Small Town

I continue to adjust to this, and it’s hard, really hard sometimes, to bite my tongue or hold back large pieces of my personality, in the interest of “fitting in.” Sometimes, though, it pays off: I’ve been elected to serve on the board of directors for the Vernon Chamber of Commerce. What does this mean? Not sure, really, but I’m GONNA use it to try and push through a couple of campaigns aimed at the consumers and the retailers here in town.

It’s been suggested by many old friends who have known me for more than a decade that this is as “grown up” as they have ever seen me, and I think I would agree with that. Instead of insisting that I be accepted, Hulk T-shirt and all, I’m channeling those pushed back parts of my personality into becoming a community advocate for downtown revitalization. Of course, I know that my real motive for doing all of this is so that me and my wife can own a number of successful businesses in town—including a book store. See, it all gets back to doing what you love.

I like living here. It’s got its drawbacks, to be sure. But nowhere else could I become so politically involved so fast and be able to make changes that can be seen and felt by all. My voice (and Cathy’s voice) can be heard. That’s very attractive to me. However, there are some quirks that come from small town lifestyles in Texas and I find them slowly overtaking me.

For example, no one says “I went to Wal-Mart today.” They say, “I went to the Wal-Mart.” Everything is singular and emphatic. After all, there’s only one Wal-Mart. Why be vague and confusing? You went to the Wal-Mart. This applies to any business, from fast food (the McDonalds) to state institutions (the T.Y.C.).  It’s a tiny verbal crutch, so insignificant that I dare not try to correct it, lest I be accused of putting on airs.

Something else has happened to me; nomenclaturally speaking, I’ve gone back to the Middle Ages, when a man’s profession was part of his name, e.g. John the Baker or Roger the Shrubber. I am now known as “Mark at the Plaza.” It’s okay, I suppose, because we’ve got “Jimmy at the Paper” and “Jerry Lou at the hardware store” and even “Jeff at the Sherriff’s department.” This is apparently necessary, since there could be more than one Jeff and Jimmy in town. Why, I know two women with the exact same first and last name (who aren’t related, by the way) and I have to constantly say “Sue Ann at the bank” or “Sue Ann the realtor” to differentiate them. Personally, I’d rather be known as Mark OF the Plaza, or Mark du Plaza, but that’s just not going to happen because that would be French and just what do you have against Freedom, anyway?

I’m Starting to Hate the Internets

This is ironic that I’m complaining about the very mechanism that allows me to do it; not quite as ironic as Wired Magazines’ 15^th annual “print is dead” issue, but close. I really don’t know what the purpose of the Internet is anymore. I know that, ostensibly, it allows for a fast and seamless exchange of information to large groups of people for a number of reasons. But I wonder: is any of the information any good?

Take Wikipedia, for example. It seems like such a great idea; a community-created encyclopedia that can be updated instantly by as many experts as care to do so. Furthermore, since it’s open ended, it would have entries that could conceivably be more relevant because of their immediacy. Great model. But the problem is, you can’t create or edit an entry nilly-willy, because there are people who fact-check you, and in some cases, flat-out undo what you change if they don’t agree with it. Some folks have taken to guarding certain entries against vandalism or well-meaning people, because they constantly include biased information, speculation, or things irrelevant to the topic at hand. Allegedly. Other folks just like messing with the online experiment.  Even if you don’t have a watchdog on, say, an entry for a particular author. How, then, can you be sure you’re getting accurate information?

You can’t. The Internet is anonymous and in being so, invites everyone to wallow in their id. No reprisals means that the most common, most base behavior is routine, and in fact, many people go online for the specific intent to disrupt and cause mayhem. Anyone can post anything, and it doesn’t have to be true for it to resonate to other people. In fact, I think it does more harm when there’s a mass of inaccurate information at our fingertips that we, by default, merely skim (because no one save for Generation Y likes to read from their computer screen). I think this mass of badly organized, badly written, wrong-headed bunch of opinions is actually making us dumber.

Granted, I am still participating in social networking—right now, on FaceBook, though I still prefer the book-nerdery that is GoodReads. But these social networks are out to make a buck just like everyone else. Pop-up ads, banners that flash like an epileptic’s nightmare, and all the rest of it is just another head on the media hydra that needs me to consume like a Conehead.

So, what’s the answer? I don’t know. I still enjoy reading my friend’s blogs. I appreciate the daily effort that goes into it. I like re-connecting with old friends. By necessity, I do my geek shopping online, since I have no other close alternative. What’s my problem? I think it’s because, prior to leaving Austin, I didn’t have to rely on the Interwebs so much. I got daily stimuli from my friends and colleagues, so there was no need to hit the message boards to find out information about stuff that mattered to me.  And the message boards...

Talk about a level playing field. You don’t have the luxury of only talking to people in your peer group, nosiree. You get the leet-speeking youth, the curmudgeonly older folks, the potheads, the overly-sensitive people that take great offense to, well, everything, and the hard talking, hard typing hardcore people with cynicism, sarcasm, and little smiley face emotes to let you know when you’ve been told off. There isn’t a thread online that isn’t going to spin out of control at some point or another and turn into a slap fight. It’s inevitable. And for what?

Is winning a fight online even a fight? Can you savor a virtual victory?  Do you get more hit points? I don’t know, either. All I know is this: Right now, someone is typing something, badly, and wrong, about something that I care about, in a blog or on their website or on a publically-accessible message board. Whether or not I engage this chucklehead is proportionate to the bad and wrong with how much I care. Meaning, if someone mislabels an episode of Star Trek, I probably won’t notice, but if they botch a detail of Robert E. Howard’s biography, my wrath will know no bounds. I suppose in the end, we’ll have to take the good with the bad.  

Merry Christmas, everyone! May all of your fruitcakes be rum-soaked!

___________________________________________________________________

Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.

Finn’s Blog is here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Or check out : http://www.thecimmerian.com

                        http://www.clockworkstorybook.net

                        http://www.revolutionsf.com

Lots of pots on the old stove, as they say. I’m working hard at the
theater and when I’m not doing that, I’m writing stuff! Yeah, as in,
stuff to read. Like, I mean fiction and things. I know, it’s been a long
while, and I’m overdue. I’m trying to balance that out with some
non-fiction I’m working on; some essays, an introduction or two, a radio
script (hello!) and a book review. But I have to tell you, I’m having a
lot of fun writing the made-up stuff. It’s been grand to stretch those
muscles out and give them a whirl.

Fighting About Howard
August was a busy month. On the Robert E. Howard front, a
discussion-turned-argument became an all-out slapfight, and I was right
in the middle of it. One of the perennial debates in Howard Studies was
the role and importance of L. Sprague de Camp in popularizing Conan and
making him a household name. When it came up again, for the umpteenth
time, it spilled over into two different yahoo groups and prompted one
of scholars to throw up a series of articles on the REHupa blog
(http://www.rehupa.com/?p=250) called The de Camp Controversy. This led
to a comment thread at Conan.com of the same name
(http://www.conan.com/invboard/index.php?showtopic=5976)...and with it
came a continuation of the fight from the yahoo groups.

Well, I was right there in the thick of it, and I contributed a blog
post on the REHupa site, and I was prepared to let it play out on its
own. Then I got wind of the upcoming Underwood Miller book, “And Their
Memory Was a Bitter Tree.” Specifically, I got to see excerpts from the
intro by Arnie Fenner. And I ended up writing a fatwa to him, and this
started a nice little slap fight all by itself:
http://www.thecimmerian.com/?p=1502 . Fenner actually replied to me, and
I was challenged by another de Camp defender, and it all played out in
cyberspace like these things tend to do. You can read replies and
comments here, too: http://www.conan.com/invboard/index.php?showtopic=5870 .

You might ask me why on Earth I would bother? Why on Earth I would care
about something that seems so insignificant. Why make a stink, throw
punches, and create a to-do about something like this? Well, aside from
the reasons stated in my blog entries (which are, I feel, pretty valid),
and aside from the notion that Howard was a Texas writer—THE most
popular Texas writer if we look at the combined total sales of Conan
through the years—and as such, he deserves better, there’s an answer
that has everything to do with Howard being my raison d’être as a writer.

See, when I found REH—Conan, at that—I was twelve years old, angry at
the world, and trying to figure myself out. Between the voice changing,
the divorce and remarrying of both my parents, and the sudden surge of
hostility (testosterone, ladies), I was lost. But when I found these
stories that this guy had written, there was something about the way in
which they were written that made me pay attention to them. The writing,
I mean. Yes, I was taken to other places by the writing. But I was also
able to step back, or at least I tried to, and look at how he put those
words together so that they would snap and crackle in your brain. I read
them aloud, trying to unlock the secret of the magic trick. I started
writing, trying to duplicate the tricks, even as I didn’t fully
understand how they worked.

In the re-reading of Conan through my teen-age years (and also in
finding Howard’s other characters, like Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane),
I came to some truths about the world. Some of those truths were cynical
in nature: not everyone gets to be the hero, even if they think they
are. After all of this time, I honestly don’t know if I have a dark
streak in me and that’s what I like about Robert E. Howard, or I have a
dark streak in me because I read Robert E. Howard. It’s a knot I can’t
really undo.

But in all of that philosophical inquiry, and that sifting through
sentences to find the gems that shine long after you’ve closed the book,
and in digging up all of this information about REH and thinking about
how he lived in the time and place that he lived, I found that I had put
him in front of me like a carrot. Howard’s work is, to me, a kind of
gold standard. It’s a measuring stick by which I can examine my own
progress as a writer. I’ve read most of Howard’s stories and a decent
chunk of his poems, and I always read them twice. Once for the sheer joy
of being taken on a ride, and once to see how that ride was accomplished.

This is something that all writers do, I think. We take writing apart
and examine it and try to understand how and why someone used the word
that they did. Sometimes we try to imagine how someone could have
written such a thing. Other times, we think we’ll never be as good as
the sentence we’re marveling over. Most of the time, we’re trying to
strip-mine the writing to extract whatever usable resources we can. But
Howard doesn’t give up his gold so easily. Oh, we can see it, sure, but
taking it for our selves, that’s another story.

Howard was a ferociously clever writer; he was crafty, inventive, a
proficient bullshitter, and the best kind of mercenary wordsmith. He
seldom gilded his lilies, used only the words he needed to use, and did
so with a surgeon’s precision. What’s more, he did it intuitively, off
the cuff, and frequently on the fly. Not all of his stories were written
that way. Some took him multiple drafts. Sometimes, he stopped in the
middle of a story, having lost the muse. Other times, he finished a tale
in a single draft, and it was perfect. It was an artistic way to do
things, even as he himself examined his markets and tried to create
stories that would sell to them. This is how we got Conan, by the way,
and in some ways, it was his best and worst work all at the same time.

All of that aside, I have found over the years that I have increasingly
low tolerance for the people (and there are a shitload of them) who make
a habit of repeating what they have heard, rather than talking about
what they know. While I can’t fix this in everyone, I can do my level
best to correct it regarding Robert E. Howard. He wasn’t crazy. He
wasn’t mad with genius. He didn’t have an “unnaturally close”
relationship with his mother. And none of the above means shit for
shinola regarding his writing. His body of work, all of it, the funny
stuff and the serious stuff, the humor and the horror, the realistic and
the fantastic—all of it—was a part of Howard. Not his mother, not his
father (especially not his father), not his situation, none of it. He
was fiercely individualistic about himself, and for a man who had little
control over his personal situation, he kept a tight grip on his writing
career.

So when people like de Camp, Fenner, and all of the others, start
talking about Howard like they know what made him tick—when in fact,
they know less than that, since they have not examined closely the
substance of his life or his art, it makes me want to punch something.
It’s frustrating that most people are informed about Howard by a guy who
was as far removed from Robert E. Howard himself in temperament and
personality as Bozo the Clown was to William S. Burroughs. It’s retarded
(not lame, but rather, slow and backwards) to think that de Camp’s
insights, such as they were, had any basis in fact, since he got most of
his information from the town gossip.

Bear in mind that I’m not saying I’m the only person who “gets” Howard,
or that I’m the only one qualified to speak about him, but I know this
much: the people who call Conan an overgrown juvenile delinquent haven’t
read Conan at all, or if they have, it was a skim rather than a read. I
know that the people who judge Howard the man by the twenty one Conan
stories he wrote (not even one tenth of his total fiction output) might
as well judge Ambrose Bierce by the story “An Occurrence At Owl Creek”
and nothing else, which makes absolutely no sense, either. And I know
that no one wants to discuss the real flaws in Howard, nor the real
tragedies in his life, because they aren’t as sensational as the town
gossip. I know well the “Liberty Valence” sentiment that states, “When
the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The people that do that to
Howard do more harm than good. I’m not asking anyone to see what I see;
I’m just asking people to see for themselves.

I’m almost 38 years old now, and that number doesn’t seem so terrible
until I realize that I’m eight years older than Howard ever was, and
that he had written a lifetime’s worth of stories and poems in just
twelve short years. At this point in my career, I’ve inextricably tied
myself to Howard as someone who knows something about him, and can speak
with some authority about him and his work.  So, I will continue to
defend Howard in print, for the simple reason that he can’t do it
himself.  My goal will be for him to one day be recognized for the
genius he was, with no conditional qualifiers attached.

The Gang’s All Here
After the second Clockwork Storybook Retreat this year, it was decided
that we would get the band back together. Not to go on tour, but rather
to help each other out with our solo projects. So, while not jamming
together, we ARE jamming. You can check out the remodeled Fabletown
boards, now that the five of us are represented. Old Clockwork Storybook
fans, you’ll get a kick out of the story I’ve posted in my section. It’s
right up your alley. Check out www.clockworkstorybook.net (and no, the
old animation isn’t up and running...yet).

Other Stuff
I won’t be attending World Fantasy this year, because of the exorbitant
cost of flying to Canada. However, next year’s WFC is in San Jose, and
so I will be doing that. I’m also making plans to be at San Diego next
year, and I’ve got a trip to NYC on the books. In addition, I’m trying
to expand my regional convention appearances next year. We’ll see how it
all goes. Now what I really need is some sales to help offset those
costs. I’ve got projects and proposals out, and I’m waiting on a short
story to come back from where I sent it so that I can send it back out
again. You know the drill.

It’s been good to start that writing process again. It’s helping to
distract me from the massive falling off of our theater business due to
high school football. We’re not out of the woods yet. If we can last one
more year of this, we’ll be all right. Everyone keep your fingers
crossed for us, and if you want to come up to see a movie, email me
ahead of time so that we can have something good to show you.

Thanks for reading, for your support, and for your love.

Mark

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

In the Middle of a God-Awful Summer
Heat! Tornados! Ridiculous gas prices! How’s your summer been? We’ve
been coping as best as we can; after all, this year’s crop of Summer
movies have been pretty faboo, and despite the lackluster turnout
(nationwide, not just with us), we remain optimistic.

I’ve been busy, setting up my office in the Plaza, along with my
library, and also my private work space. Moving all of my books into the
new library has been an easy chore, because every time I open a box up,
it’s Christmas all over again. I’m still trying to get the office set
up, which will allow me to transfer ALL of the Plaza Business over to
the theater, and will frankly empty my personal office. I’m
de-cluttering, re-organizing, and not surprisingly, my writing has
picked up.

I’ve done some Robert E. Howard-based writing (book intros, prep work on
two different articles), and I’ve done some fiction writing! I’ve got a
couple of short stories based on a character that I really love. They
are fast and fun for me to write, and they really crack me up. They
shouldn’t, I know, but there you have it. I’m the funniest person I
know. I’m still waiting for news about a reprint of Blood & Thunder from
Del Rey. And, because I still have time left over for sleep and food,
I’m co-editing a fiction book with a buddy of mine from REHupa, a
benefit book that will raise money for Project Pride, the organization
that takes care of the Robert E. Howard house in Cross Plains, Texas.

If I saw you at this year’s Robert E. Howard Days, thank you for
attending during the year that I was the Guest of Honor (the youngest
ever, in fact). That was a fun gig, and I really enjoyed reading and
performing and in general hobnobbing with everyone at length.

In the Upcoming Appearances Department, you can find me in Austin this
August 15-17 at ArmadilloCon 30. Count on me for some general tomfoolery
there. Unfortunately, unless some sort of fuel-related miracle happens,
I will not be attending World Fantasy this year. Flying to Canada is
just too darned expensive, as much as I’d like to go.

And for those of you who can’t get enough of my rambling screeds, I was
recently interviewed by the gang at Major Spoilers for their regular
podcast. You can find it here
(http://www.majorspoilers.com/archives/4503.htm/), and my bit starts
about 30 minutes into the show.

As Wowio collapses under the weight of its new owners and me and the
Clockwork Storybook gang have pulled our old material off of the site, I
am considering some self-publishing of my own. A variety of projects
suggest themselves, from the second, long-overdue Sam Bowen volume to a
script book for the Sailor Steve Costigan Radio Plays and all points in
between. I am really not a fan of Lulu.com, but I may not have much of a
choice. I’d rather make ten dollars on the books than nothing, but I
really liked Wowio’s business model. We’ll see what else comes up, and
I’ll let you know what I’ve decided. Any requests, as long as I’m
contemplating this stuff?

   That’s the news, in brief. I’ve got more to say, but I think instead
of writing a small piece within a larger email, I’ll blog a larger piece
separately. Stay tuned, and thanks for your interest.

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Finn Also Blogs REH-related stuff at the Cimmerian:
http://www.thecimmerian.com
Finally, you can go and check out the Vernon Plaza website:
http://www.vernonplaza.com

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn


Charlton Heston passed away the other day, and because of my affection
for Planet of the Apes, folks want to know how I’m taking it. Well, he
wasn’t my uncle or anything like that, so I am taking it the same way I
take any celebrity death whose work had an impact on me: with
bittersweet remembrance. I’m always sorry that they have died, but I am
always pleased and grateful that their work will remain—and isn’t that
part of the engine that drives all creative people?

I am grateful that many of the corporate-owned news sources have chosen
to emphasize Heston’s acting career and not kick him for his
late-in-life politics. I, too, said some stuff about Heston on
RevolutionSF, but it bears repeating here: Now is NOT the time to
remember Charlton Heston for his political beliefs. Such things should
be buried, as with Caesar, along with their bones. The only thing that
matters, in the end, was the work.

Was he good at his job? The answer is yes. Hell, yes. Heston was never a
macho character, but he was always a man. Consider the movie he's most
closely associated with: Planet of the Apes. Taylor is an iconoclast,
railing against the very society that sent him into space. Had they not
"blew it all up," as in the movie, and a new, Utopian society had
greeted the astronauts on their return, Taylor would have undoubtedly
looked around, found something else not to like about civilization, and
gone to live in the mountains. Heston informed masculinity and the role
of same in so many of his movies, whether he was the leader of men, or
just trying to get along from day to day. One of the best scenes in
Soylent Green is when he and his buddy manage to scrounge enough real
food to eat a meal.

Gusto, vigor, vitality, and even vulnerable, but never weak. Heston was
one of the greats, in the same "man's man" category as Steve McQueen and
John Wayne. For a generation of latchkey kids, fixing our own afternoon
snacks and gleaning what we could of the world from a mixture of Mad
magazine and cable television, those images of manhood imprinted upon
us, unchecked, as a seminal influence. We received no real guidance save
a nod of approval from Dad, when he was home, or an uncle, when he was
around, whenever Heston, McQueen, or Wayne came up in a conversation.
We learned from Moses. We "got it" from Taylor. It made more sense, and
in some ways, was more dependable, than dealing with the adults in our
lives. They wouldn't have understood anyways; they thought a planet of
intelligent apes was the apex of stupidity. I loved Charlton Heston. I
didn't care about his politics. I excused them, the same way that you
excused your grandfather for dropping N-bombs at Thanksgiving. He was
from a different time and place. You ignored that, because there were
other things about him that were of much greater value to you.

That stunt that Michael Moore pulled on him during his Bowling for
Columbine movie really irritated me. It was akin to hiding your
grandfather's cane and then telling him that those kids were back on his
lawn, stealing his pecans. It wasn't funny. And in the end, it doesn't
matter. Heston's work will long survive him. He vaults up into the
canon, if he hadn't already done so years before.

Today's latchkey kids are watching ambiguous anime and Will & Grace
marathons, instead of all five Planet of the Apes movies back to back.
They don't watch The Ten Commandments every single year. They've never
seen Ben Hur. Without Heston to guide these fey little troglodytes, I
weep for the future generation.

Godspeed, Charlton Heston. Tell the Duke howdy for us, will you? You
will not be forgotten.

Making Money on the Internet (sans Porn)
It took a while for this to shake itself out, but there is a model
emerging for creative people to make money online without charges of
piracy or the threat of lawsuit from large, corporate fatcats. Have any
of you heard of www.wowio.com? It’s a website that gives you, the end
user, free downloadable content in the form of books and comics. But at
the same time, it pays the creators for every single download. Of
course, it’s sponsored with advertising, the great American grist for
the mill. It’s a pretty sweet deal. Best of all: no one gets to see me
naked.

Why bring it up? Because I’m starting to list some of my old projects on
Wowio. Back in January, I listed Gods New and Used, and now I’ve got
Year of the Hare, the first Sam Bowen book, up for grabs. Free. You got
it. Just go click on it. You get a free E-book and I get some money.
Everyone wins. You can find many of the projects by Clockwork Storybook,
as well as new stuff from us. If Year of the Hare does as well as Gods
New and Used did, I’ll put the second book, Bowen’s Bluff, up as well.
That’ll be all of the Sam Bowen stories I did for Clockwork Storybook.
I’ve also got a story collection, Empty Hearts, that can be listed, as
well. Let’s see how these do, first.

New Rule: Never Get a Massage at the Mall
Cathy and I had to go to the big city of Wichita Falls a couple of weeks
ago, and I decided that I did not want to share her joy of Target with
her. So she dropped me off at the crappy mall, wherein I could wander
through the crappy Books-A-Million store, and pine for BookPeople in
Austin. Well, I got so mad at the B-A-M that I decided to take a quick
stroll through the mall and get a soda. Instead, I found myself enticed
into a chair massage by a woman who spoke no real English; she only
repeated the last word that I said to her, over and over again. I
thought at the time that a twenty minute chair massage would be just the
thing. However, the little Asian woman that goaded me into it wasn’t
going to be much help. She actually laid me down on a table and tried
her best to loosen me up, which was fine, for the most part. It was a
lot like watching a pygmy lift an elephant.

Then the man who ran the place told me, in better English, to get in the
chair, which I did. What happened next can only be described as making
War Reparations to Viet Nam: I let him beat the crap out of me. At the
time, it felt pretty good; I don’t mind deep tissue stuff. But what this
guy did was akin to a war crime. There was a time when he just kept
hitting me and hitting me, and he wouldn’t stop. A couple of times, I
told him “That hurts.” But he kept right on going. After my time was up,
felt loose and invigorated, but that was mostly the endorphins.

The next day, my neck and spine were ridiculously sore. How hard had
this guy worked me over, anyway? There were no bruises; it was like the
old Oranges in a Towel insurance scam. It was impossible to figure out
what he’d done. On the next day, the pain had gravitated to the back of
my skull, and by Saturday, all of those muscles which had required
muscle relaxers to unlock proceeded to seize up on me with the intent of
crushing my skull.

Well, now I’m back on the muscle relaxers, trying to get my head and
neck unknotted. And to the people of Viet Nam, I am very sorry for
whatever it was that brought this terrible Touch of Death upon me.

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging intermittently now:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn
A Biggish Update from the Bunkers of Vernon

How’m I doing?
First off, thank you to everyone who sent me good wishes, shared
personal anecdotes, or just empathized with my situation. I really
appreciated what all of you had to say, and it helped a lot. Really!

The corner I turned back in January is now behind me, and I’m doing way,
way better—in fact, this is the best I’ve felt since moving to Vernon.
I’m getting a handle on the town, and I’m no longer seeing it through
rose-colored glasses, but rather with more realistic expectations. You’d
think that the drop in enthusiasm would be detrimental to me, but
unfortunately, I seem to thrive on the slightly negative. Who knew?

Nevertheless, things are looking up. I am finding my joy and my bliss
where I can, and trying not to think too hard about the other stuff that
I can’t fix. At least, not by myself.

The Second Annual Clockwork Storybook Retreat
Last year, we went to the Kipling Home and inducted a new member. This
year, we drove to the Hill Country and added no one. But it was a great,
week-long writing vacation, nestled high in the hills in a hunting lodge
(they had a hard-on for deer) that overlooked Pipe Creek Ranch. Very
nice, indeed. And it was just cold enough to justify building a fire in
the great hall of the lodge just about every night and most of the days,
too. This led to everyone taking at least a half-day to nap in front of
the fire, snuffling into the crooks of our arms like hibernating bears.

Of course, re-connecting with everyone was a highlight—these are four of
the smartest, most diverse, and brutally clever guys I know. They are
perfect to workshop with, because they will look you in the eye and tell
you they hated your story, and then explain to you why it doesn’t work
and how you’re a much better writer than that, and they expect better
from you. And then after they’ve clubbed your story down like a baby
seal, everyone pops a beer and starts talking about the Legion of Super
Heroes, and we’re all buddies again. Nice. Actually, invaluable for a
writer, I don’t care how successful you are. I’d give my eye teeth to
get Gaiman in a workshop. Just once. But I digress.

I took Willingham’s cue this year and decided to write a story a day. I
had a back-up of ideas that I wanted to flesh out, and it was taking its
toll on me. In the end, I produced four short stories (with two of them
being eminently sellable if my partners’ reactions have a shred of
merit), and I finished some polish work on a longer piece, and also got
some writing done on a long-extant collaboration. Not quite a story a
day, but certainly enough smaller projects to qualify as a rousing success.

However, Friday night was an exercise for all of us. We have started
what may charitably be deemed “a Dumb-Ass Challenge.” It’s also a
writing exercise, but it was initially a gauntlet of cleverness thrown
down. Every one of us had to include some, if not all, of the specific
‘things’ that each person suggested. For example, I suggested that
everyone’s story include “one excellent swordfight.” Another suggestion
was that the story should include a cow skeleton (drawing from our
environment). Matt thought he could throw us with the suggestion of a
gruesome death involving pepper. Another in-joke, the inclusion of an
upside down chicken. Okay, these were all whimsical, but doable. Then
Willingham threw in the coup-de-grace, by invoking some old Clockwork
Storybook mojo: the inclusion of Mike Bretz, in legend or deed.

And that was the final ingredient in the alchemy. See, we’d made this
into a contest: whoever used the most suggestions and wrote the best
story (by a vote of all the others) would get to pick their choice of
restaurant the next night, and everyone else would pick up the tab.
Naturally, all of us picked up the gauntlet of using all five dumb-ass
things in our stories, so it would inevitably come down to who could
pull it off with the most aplomb.

I knew everyone would have at least an entertaining story. I knew I’d be
dazzled by at least one other tale. I also knew that I had put in a
solid effort and had an excellent chance of pulling it off. I could take
this prize. I thought about this as I cooked dinner (it was my turn that
night), and everyone was subdued as we ate my dense shepherd’s pie.  The
tension was thick in the air as the dishes were cleared and Willingham
took a final few moments to polish his story. Chris and Matt smoked.
Bill Williams paced.

Finally, Willingham was done. We cut cards to see who’d go first. Matt,
who had no confidence in his story (because he’s a doofus), traded his
pole position with Bill Williams in the last slot, because he wanted to
go first and get it over with. We were seconds from starting the reading
when Willingham said, “You know, we could make this a drinking game...”

That broke the tension. We all leapt up and ran for booze. Rules were
quickly established: one drink for each mention of the suggestion in
everyone’s story. And then Chris added, “And two drinks for each ‘Boop.’”

Sidebar: “the Boop.”
This was a noise we used to make, back in the old days, to denote a new
passage or the passage of time. Commonly denoted with number signs or
asterisks in a manuscript, for out-loud readings, the “boop” (in a
high-pitched tone, like a pong sound effect) became a staple of the
readings and was quickly re-adopted at our get-together last year.

Matt and I cheered Chris’ suggestion, and I heard Bill Williams say,
“Oh, God,” and I wondered what was wrong. Then he started reading. To
say his story was a little “boop-heavy” would be an understatement.  He
wrote about a chase that took weeks, punctuated with little incidents.
In a short story. By the time he’d finished his tale, most of us were
getting refills. But it did help to lighten the mood considerably.

Everyone’s story was great. That sounds like a cop-out, but seriously,
when we voted, it was a five-way tie, and no one voted for their own
story. Even Chris’ story, which was so full of “can’t publish this
anywhere,” was perhaps the most enjoyable read of the night for his trip
down memory lane with Timmy Gromp.

In any case, the retreat was wonderful for me. I got some peace and
quiet, got to put my head in a creative frame of mind, and got several
stories out of the trip—stories I fully intend to shop around.  Seeing
everyone again was terrific, of course, and we have found that seven
days is the perfect amount of time before we start barking at each other
and actually meaning it.

Upcoming Stuff
Let’s see, what’s on the near-horizon? I’ve been named the Guest of
Honor at this year’s Robert E. Howard Days Festival in Cross Plains,
Texas, June 13-14. I’m looking forward to that with great anticipation.
I’m also a guest at ArmadilloCon, August 15-17.  Outside of that, I’m
going to enjoy the upcoming glut of Summer movies, promote the bejeezus
out of them in Vernon, and keep writing daily. That’s the real goal,
there. Write something daily.

Something else is happening right now: we have made the first salvo of
purchases for my library, which will be adjacent to my office at the
theater. This is a huge, huge deal; many of my books have been trapped
in boxes for almost ten years. I’ve never had the space to get them all
out and organize them and alphabetize them and love them and dust them
and call them George. Until now. After the library is assembled, my
office will be finished out, and then I will have two distinct areas to
do my work—my home office, for things like Finn’s Wakes and stories and
graphics—and the business office for movies, bookings, special events,
and related hoo ha. Everything should be in its place by May.

This is even better, since it will give me the much needed separation
between work and play. Living above the business makes it hard to do
that, and this will really help to balance my brain out. Once all of
that is up and looking swell, I’ll inundate you with pictures of the
theater, the office, and the library—especially the library. If only to
gloat.

Three Deaths
Oddly enough, the retreat was framed, as it were, by the deaths of three
notable people: William F. Buckley, E. Gary Gygax, and Dave Stevens. We
learned of Buckley’s death just prior to going into the wilderness;
Chris brought us the news of Gygax while we were in country, and I
caught the Dave Stevens news on my first night back in Vernon. I’ve been
slightly melancholy about all three of these people, for different reasons.

Buckley was an intellectual, and he wasn’t afraid to talk to people as
if they were of the same mind as he. I always found him to be a
fascinating speaker, one who spoke intelligently and sincerely whether
you agreed with him or not. Excepting his feud with Gore Vidal (and why
NOT feud with Gore Vidal, really), Buckley kept his discourse at a level
where he felt everyone else’s ought to be; he never seemed to think that
we as a nation were getting dumber. I don’t know if one can say that
about his many detractors. And setting all pretense of politics aside,
we need smart people in this country now, more than ever.

It was my step-father that brought Dungeons & Dragons home to me for the
first time. He’d heard about it, and was determined that we’d all have a
family night and play it together. Well, we never got much farther than
down a long hallway when something in the rules vexed him and he stopped
the game to read some more. A couple of months later, I opened the
softcover book for myself and, well, that was that.  Here was a game
that you could play by simply imagining what was going on—or in my case,
you could create the action and write it down and thus inflict it on
your friends whom you’d coaxed into playing. Gotta love that! But it
wasn’t until a couple of years later, in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,
that I stumbled across Gygax’s recommended reading list; the books that
Gygax read and infused into AD&D and that he hoped would stimulate other
dungeon masters with new ideas. In short, Gygax gave me Lovecraft,
Zelazny, and Fritz Lieber. He also taught me how to play.

Maybe the coolest thing about the Rocketeer was that it was a mashup
before there was such a term. Back in the 80s, we called them homages or
sometimes, pastiches, depending on what was being discussed. But there
was nothing else like the Rocketeer. It was 30’s-pulp-porn for us sickos
who wished we were old enough to get that pop culture the first time
around. I mean, really: a guy at an airfield finds a rocket pack and
decides to use it in the airshow—while the Nazis are looking for it,
too—and the inventor of the pack, Doc Savage, sends his two men out to
retrieve it—but Cliff has other problems, like Bettie’s insistence in
furthering her modeling career as a pin-up girl—and then there’s the
Rondo Hatton nod, and the experimental planes...oh, it’s just so GOOD! I
got to meet Dave Stevens years and years ago, and he was nice, funny,
gracious, and humble. I think it’s because he knew that, while he was
certainly the creator of the Rocketeer, he didn’t invent the world. It
was always there, in the landscape of his mind, and he just played with
it until he got the story that he wanted to tell. To date, the Rocketeer
is one of my all-time favorite comic book projects for no other reason
than its subject matter. It was lightning in a bottle, and anyone else
doing adventure stories in the 1930s will always invite a comparison,
whether they are looking for it, or not. There was one other thing that
Dave Stevens did for me. He re-kindled my love for the golden age of
aviation. This gave me and my dad something to talk about, for hours on
end. I had those connections too, in my own life. It just took the
Rocketeer to show them to me. So, thank you, Dave, for everything, and
by all means, if you see my dad, let him that the Gee Bee out for a
spin, will you? He always wanted to fly one.

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

Happy 2008!
Well, this is nice, isn’t it? Been a while since we’ve chatted. I’m
thinking that it’s been far too long, and I really don’t know what to
say. Wait, check that, I really do know what to say. Let me start at the
beginning. This may well be the longest Finn’s Wake I ever wrote.

The General State of Things
First of all, a number of you have been wondering (a) what I’m working
on now, and (b) why I don’t write more updates. The truth of the matter
is that I have been in a state of crippling depression for much of the
last year. It came about from a number of sources, but in a nutshell, it
went down like this: I went from being well-connected in a major urban
city with relatively minor responsibilities and a heavy creative output
to being not-connected in a ridiculously small town with huge
responsibilities and virtually no creative endeavors to speak of.

I feel gimpy even talking about the word “depression.” For a long time I
didn’t even want to admit it to myself. I’ve never dealt with depression
before (my teenage years don’t count; and anyway, I blame Pink Floyd).
Not like this. Some days, I didn’t want to move. Some days, all I could
do was eat. It was scary. But I still wasn’t talking about it. It felt
like a weakness. And the absolute last thing I wanted to do was end up
on medication.

Don’t get me wrong: I wanted to do this. I thought that it would be a
small matter to just step into the role of theater owner and go to town.
Oh, hell, was I wrong. I was so very wrong. The number of things that I
didn’t know were legion. My learning curve, especially since we hit the
ground running, was steeper than the stretch of Route 66 that did James
Dean in. I wasn’t necessarily thrown to the wolves, but it sure felt
like it. I had a concentrated knot in my stomach from Mid-March, when we
first re-opened, to the first week in December. It’s been that bad.

Again, let me stress, this town is lovely. And we’ve made many great
friends here, too; genuine people, who care and offer a helping hand,
and listen to our troubles and in general bend over backwards to help us
out. We know some folks, too; some of the local movers and shakers. We
attend the city council meetings. It’s a big deal. Folks want to know
what we think. This is, of course, diametrically opposite to Austin,
where the city council doesn’t give a fig what the citizens are on
about.  But in the end, it’s not Austin, is it? The culture shock was
significant. Not having a bookstore that’s five minutes away (try an
hour) is debilitating to someone like myself.

Add to that the challenges of trying to massage a business that has been
down on the canvas twice already, and that pretty much ate up all of my
free time. Cathy and I ate and slept the theater. We didn’t get away
very often, and when we both did, we didn’t go very far. I had a couple
of sabbaticals this year, but I found that within forty-eight hours of
coming back, I was knotted up in my stomach again and unable to write.

That’s what shocked me the most this year. I was able to make myself sit
down and write non-fiction; essays, reviews, introductions, etc. But
fiction writing eluded me. I couldn’t get more than a page done at a
time, and when I got up, I found that I couldn’t hold the story in my
head. This “holding” skill is critical for writers; it’s why so many of
us walk around with that gobsmacked look on our face all the time. It’s
why our long-suffering wives choose strange times to discuss household
chores and other mundane affairs with us—they are waiting until that
far-off look in our eye winks out for a moment before rushing in with
everything they’ve been holding back for two days.

I discovered that I was incapable of writing fiction while I was
thinking about the theater. And since I lived above the theater, and
since every single day brought a different responsibility to us
regarding the theater, I was spending every day thinking about the
theater, our financial situation, marketing, and literally nothing else.
This, more than anything else, has been sheer agony for me.

The good news is this: I’m getting over it. My mother, the Jedi Knight,
has done some work with me, and I’m now making some space for myself.
The theater has become a rote endeavor (and I’ve learned as much as I
have been able to absorb at this time), and it’s freed up my brain to
work on other things. Life is again returning to the sleepy village.
What this means is that fiction writing is close at hand—thank God. I’m
adjusting, slowly adjusting, to the ridiculous and total life-change we
undertook, and in retrospect, it’s surprising and goofy that it took me
until a couple of months ago to realize that I was depressed. Doofus.

The Vernon Plaza Theater
I told you all of that to tell you this: we’ve made it one year! The
theater is alive, and it’s viable, and it’s more or less well. We’re
bringing in a couple of new innovations this year, and we’re still not
in the black yet, but hey, it’s our first year. Now that I’m getting
used to the idea of not being in the black, I’m relaxing my grip on my
own spleen and concentrating on not going more in the red.

We’ve got some great things planned for this year. I’m going to try and
do something that, as far as I know, no other independent movie theater
has ever done. I’m getting paperwork together and doing some calculating
so that we can create a little island whereupon movie-goers, upon
exiting the Iron Man movie, will be confronted with three or four Iron
Man trade paperbacks, a couple of action figures, Pez, and the like.
This would apply to all of the big summer movies; trading cards,
official souvenir magazines, etc. If it works, and I find that I can
build a clientele out here for such geekery, well, I think you can
figure out what comes next.

Also on our immediate horizon is a digital projector. This is mission
critical in our arsenal of cool, and will allow us to do a lot more
stuff in a more flexible manner; things like birthday parties (and the
kids can play Halo on the big screen), college football games, stuff
like that. Again, there’s nothing like it in the area, so we have a
decided advantage on our competition.

In the near future, I’m going to post some pics on the website and you
can all get a virtual tour of the place. In the meantime, just know that
we’re doing all right, and the place is slowly but surely catching on
with the folks in town again. We snag 2-5 new folks a week. It’s getting
better; it really is!

So, What ARE You Working On?
Well, I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire right now: I just sent a
proposal in to Del Rey for an expanded hardcover edition of Blood &
Thunder. We’ll see how that flies. I’ve also been asked to adapt a movie
script for comics. More on that later. Finally, I’m working on a couple
of short stories with fellow Texas writer Scott Cupp. After that, I’m
going to decide which novel I want to work on and pursue.

In the meantime, for those of you who are curious about such things,
I’ve got my out-of-print collection Gods New & Used available for
download on www.wowio.com, as do the other members of Clockwork
Storybook. I’ll be adding more stuff from the old CWSB site in the
coming weeks, but for now, you can get Gods New & Used for free—and I
get paid for it! Truth!

Also, this year, I really want to get back to doing radio drama, both
writing and performing. I’ve got some scripts that are all mapped out
and need to be written, and I’ve got a couple of outstanding obligations
to uphold. If I get through with those, maybe I can start on my one-man
show idea. We’ll see.

   Currently, I’m still doing articles for Dark Horse Comics for their
Conan trade paperbacks, which is a lot of fun. I was recently
name-checked in the Best of Robert E. Howard, volume 1 introduction
regarding the boxing fiction of REH. Also big fun. I still contribute as
time permits to www.revolutionsf.com, and you really should swing by
every so often to check it out. That I make no money from this writing,
yet still try to do things for them, should be telling.

World Fantasy Awards
Some of you knew that I was nominated for a World Fantasy award for the
REH biography. Well, I didn’t win it. There was, in retrospect, no way
in hell that I was going to win it.  Here’s why. I was nominated in the
Special Award: Professional category. Now, those two awards at the end
of the nominations list: Special Award, Professional, and Special Award,
Non-Professional, are intended to recognize folks who don’t fit into any
of the other categories. In particular, Special Award, Professional was
designed to honor publishers, editors, copyeditors, booksellers—heck,
ANYONE not a writer of fantasy who contributed in some meaningful way
that year. It was never supposed to be for non-fiction books. It’s just
that, when non-fiction books are written onto the ballot, they end up
there, having nowhere else to go.

So, in a year when Ellen Asher lost her job at the SF Book Club, after
years of printing and reprinting everyone good in the field, and
moreover her whole staff was let go without so much as a by-your-leave,
you can see how there was NO WAY in hell that I was going to take home a
statue, when the award was a far more perfect way to honor her thankless
contribution to the field.

Is it fair? To Ellen, sure. It’s very fair, and she deserved to get the
award. But what about to me and the other guy whose book garnered enough
votes to make the top five? It doesn’t seem that fair, not really. But
had I won instead, the industry would be calling it a travesty, because
Ellen should have won it. Am I upset about it? Sort of, but not because
I didn’t win. Rather, because there have been a number of good
non-fiction books in the past few years that received no recognition,
simply because of a lack of categorization. The judges for each year’s
World Fantasy awards keep their own council on these matters, but
basically, if the five of them decide to award a statue to someone, then
their name is automatically added to the list, and no matter what the
popular vote says, it’s going to go to who the judges want. That’s the
attraction of a juried award. And Special Award: Professional is the
very place to give such recognition.

The thing is this, though: if the judges have the chance to right a
wrong, or acknowledge an oversight, as in the case of Ellen Asher, then
they are going to do it. Again, that’s what the category is for. Anyway,
I had a pretty good idea that I was on the outs. Having spoken to my
fellow nominees, they all agreed that Ellen was going to get it. And
every time I saw a judge, I watched a slight shadow pass across their
eyes. No guilt, per se, but rather a shield of neutrality that they
consciously put on so as not to give anything away.

The only part of this that doesn’t work is when you take something like
a biography written (and let’s use the excellent James Tiptree, Jr.
biography instead, since it was a book that also needed to be written
and was nominated in similar categories last year), and compare it to
what an editor does with a book line. That’s apples and oranges, and it
creates a disparity within the category, since there is no way to really
reconcile the two. In the end, of course, it’s the judges’ call, anyway.
But wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t have to make such a call? Then a
critical studies book AND a deserving editor could be recognized in the
span of a year, and no one would kick about it.

In the end, I wrote an open letter to the WFC administration board
asking that they add a non-fiction category, and was politely rebuffed.
This is not over. Again, I’m not angry about it, but I really think that
there’s an oversight here that could be easily and quickly addressed.

You Know What Tomorrow Is...
That’s right, it’s Elvis’ Birthday! And may I pass along my most sincere
wishes for a happy and prosperous new year. Go forth and find your
favorite Elvis movie, or just cue up one of his many fine albums. Shake
a hip, eat a peanut butter and banana sammich, or shoot out a television
set. It’s YOUR day tomorrow, so make the most of it. Me, I’ll be making
my usual promises to the King and watching Viva Las Vegas.

Boy, that Anne-Margaret, she sure was something, wasn’t she?

Y’all be good, now.

Mark
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is an award-winning writer, playwright, and Robert E. Howard
scholar. His latest book, Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E.
Howard, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award.  To get the latest
info, rants, and missives from Finn, visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

At the behest of several folks, I decided to do a trip recap of my
recent sojourn to ArmadilloCon, by way of the Greyhound Bus system. This
was, of course, a major mistake, and one that I won’t repeat again, may
God strike me dead if I’m lying.

*On the Road Again...*
I took the bus because it was the cheapest way to get to Austin (Cathy
needed to stay in Vernon because of Summer’s Last Blast, and thus needed
the car). If we were doing a straight shot from V-town to A-town, it’s
six and a half hours, give or take thirty minutes if you’re a small
bladder person or a road camel. By bus, it would take eight and a half
hours. Sure, it’s for the stops in the route, but see, there’s not a
direct route from V-town to A-town by bus. And so, I had to make a
stopover in Dallas.

According to Hank Hill, Dallas is full of “crack-heads and debutantes,”
and I will certainly bow to his superior wisdom on the subject. But the
Dallas bus stop is full of very poor people trying very hard to get
somewhere else. For some people, they are going to a new job. Others are
bringing their children to a new city to start over. Everyone has a
story on the bus. There’s also some freaked-out meth-headed sub-mutants,
too, but they usually find each other quick enough. Crazy attracts
crazy, don’t you know.

Only this time, I ended up sitting next to a sweet old man, one of those
guys who was a regular Joe and who lived a regular life. He had been
traveling; visiting his grown children and grandchildren, and now he was
on his way back to his hometown and his wife. They had been married for
sixty two years. He’d served in World War II, in the infantry, and their
platoon was proficient in beach landings. Yeah. One of those guys. He
came home, settled down, and got married three months after getting out
of the service. He landed a job as a trucker, bought a house, and drove
that truck for thirty six years until he retired. He got two and three
week vacations every year, so he and the family loaded up the car and
hit the road, like we knew we were all supposed to do. They saw all of
the major sites, and after he retired and they bought a RV, a lot of the
minor sites, all over the country.

His wife didn’t make this trip. She was in hospice care. She had major
Alzheimer’s. Dementia. She didn’t know who anyone was anymore. They were
waiting for her to die. He got tears in his eyes when he told me this.
He didn’t know what he was going to do. So, to keep him from thinking
about his dying wife, we talked about everything under the sun. I told
him about me and Cathy, what we were doing, and where we were going. He
told me all about his grown children and even the granddaughter that had
just high-tailed it to Alaska, because it sounded like fun.

We parted company in Austin, but I thought about this man a lot.
Counting his three grown children, their four grown children, and two or
three of THEIR children, he was directly responsible for the lives of
ten people, all of whom, by his account, are model citizens, good,
family-oriented people, with strong roots in the community and good
jobs. Incredible. And I wondered, as I said good-bye to him, how long
his wife would have to live, and how long he would go on without her
before he, too, joined her. Sixty two years.

I never even got his name.

*Don’t Con Me...*
ArmadilloCon has blossomed in the last six years into my favorite
convention; it’s the perfect mix of socializing and networking, and it’s
kept its reputation as a literary SF con without going the way of the
snooty elitist. How else do you explain a series of Gorilla panels, each
one better attended than the last, for the last four years? Exactly.

This year was a kind of homecoming for me. A chance to visit Austin and
friends, sure, but also a chance to relax a little bit. Last year’s
appearance at ArmadilloCon included doing emergency toastmaster duties,
as well as a VCRP performance of King Kong on Saturday night, in
addition to any panels I might be on. It was during our move to Vernon,
as well, and I had, literally, no idea what the future would hold for us.

Coming back a year later, I was in “promote the movie theater” mode,
since everyone had seen the article Rick Klaw had written about the
Vernon Plaza a few weeks ago. And talk about it, I did. A great many
friends and well-wishers wanted to know all about what we were doing,
how it was going, etc. I told them the truth: great, but we’re still
learning.

All of the panels this year were great; exceptionally entertaining and
well-programmed. The whole con, in fact, ran like a top. This was, of
course, the same group that put together and ran the World Fantasy
Convention in Austin, last year. So, this show, according to most of
con-staff, was a breeze.

Highlights included:
1. Hanging with Chris Roberson’s Bunch-o-Drunks (you know who you are)

2. Hitting it off with the dark-haired, buxom, big-eyed waitress on
Friday morning and getting, in return, a hotel restaurant breakfast that
for once in my life was the equal to the price I paid for it. She gave
me eleven strips of bacon, I swear to god.

3. Getting to meet my good friend Peggy’s cousin, who acted just like
Peggy in really amusing ways.

4. The RevSF panel, which was not only well-attended, but really
interesting to see how many of us could fit into a room.

5. Our subsequent trip to Dog Almighty (a hot dog restaurant in Austin).
I got Corn Dogs. They were awesome.

6. Listening to con-chair pimp her dead dad to sell stuff at the charity
auction. I felt like a ghoul (in a late night horror show TV host sort
of way). It was her father’s No-Kill animal shelter that we were trying
to raise money for.

7. On the Lost panel, listening to one of the other panelists insist
that there has to be a logical explanation of what’s up with the island.
Me, Aaron DeOrive, and Jess Nevins got it right: it’s either Purgatory,
or it’s quantum physics at play—and the two don’t necessarily cancel
each other out. Our fellow panelist thought we were all wrong, and that
logic and hard science would rule the day. I almost told him to stop
watching the show now, because he was going to explode when he finds out
it doesn’t make sense, but I kept mum.

8. When the Barbarella-Burlesque-Dancers showed up at the RevolutionSF
party, and (of course) sucked all of the manly attention out of the
room, it was the height of gratifying to have one of the dancers point a
finger at me and sashay over, saying, “Don’t I know you?” The three
geeks I was talking to were mightily impressed, don’tcha know.

9. The Liar’s Panel, which ended up being “just my thing,” despite never
having done it before. I had a great wingman in Jess Nevins, and a
fabulous leader in Jay Lake, but in the end, it was all about delivery.
And I can deadpan it, I tell you what. This is like the convention-goers
version of “the Aristocrats” joke; how
Out-There-Where-The-Buses-Don’t-Run can you get? Pretty far, it would
seem. The audience loved it.

10. Panel-crashing with Jess Nevins. There were two or three panels that
we wanted to be on, and we just took it upon ourselves to sit in the
front row of the audience and either heckle or help our friends who were
on the panel.

*Special Award: Professional?*
One of the things that everyone was talking about was the fact that the
World Fantasy Awards hadn’t been announced yet. Usually, they hit right
around ArmadilloCon every year, but for some reason, were running a
wee-bit late. There were a number of folks onhand, myself included, who
were waiting on those nominations with baited breath. Many of us, in
fact, decided we weren’t going to talk about it. That’ll show ‘em. Yeah!

But after I left the con, I found out early (whoops!) that I had been
nominated for Special Award: Professional for Blood & Thunder. This is
huge. And an honor. And very, very cool. And huge.  This year, the
categories are all strong, filled with folks who deserve to win, along
with friends and acquaintances I’ve known for a while (who also deserve
to win), and I don’t begrudge anyone in my category. We’ll see how it
all shakes out. The Awards are given out during the WFC, in the first
week of November, in Sarasota Springs, New York. Wish me luck, folks.
I’m going to need it.
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Finn Also Blogs REH-related stuff at the Cimmerian:
http://www.thecimmerian.com
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/
Finally, you can go and check out the Vernon Plaza website:
http://www.vernonplaza.com

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn


Hey folks,

It’s been a while since the last update, and while there’s some neat
stuff going on with regards to the Vernon Plaza Theater, it’s just
business as usual on the other side of that. I’m struggling with a
writing schedule, after spending almost 10 months without one. But I am
working on things as my time allows. In fact, I’ll be reading one of
those things at ArmadilloCon this weekend. Here’s my schedule, for those
of you in attendance:

Sa1000De Expect Unexpected Evil
Sat 10:00 AM-11:00 AM DeWitt
Carl*, Gould, Kimbriel, Klages, Utley, Sturges, Finn
Sometimes our antagonists aren't always who they
appear to be. What are some of the most unusual
antagonists in literature and what tools did the
author use to make them that way?

Sa1200De Revolution SF
Sat Noon-1:00 PM DeWitt
Klaw*, Finn, Bey, Wilson, Blaschke, Porter
Being an editor for a small SF site can be
challenging.

Sa1500R Charity Auction
Sat 3:00 PM-5:00 PM Robertson
Finn*, Babcock
Last year we made a record amount of money for our
charity. Come by this year and help us spread the geek
love to the world!

Sa2200Dz What is the island?
Sat 10:00 PM-11:00 PM de Zavala
Babcock*, Davis, Levine, Nevins, Finn, Orive
For fans of Lost, this gives you a chance to discuss
the  show with other fans and professionals and hear
their  thoughts on what happened, will happen and
won't happen.

Su1000De Liar's Panel: Hard Science
Sun 10:00 AM-11:00 AM DeWitt
Lake*, Finn, Archer, McHugh, Nevins
Panelists attempt to come up with the most outrageous
claims about hard science in writing, films and
television.

Su1330R Reading
Sun 1:30 PM-2:00 PM Robertson
Mark Finn

Note that the reading is on Sunday, which is great for you, as there
will be not much else going on, and shitty for me, in that I will most
likely be hung over and hoarse. But if you haven’t attended a Finn
reading, you need to do so, because I’m really really good at it.

Hope to see you there!
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Finn Also Blogs REH-related stuff at the Cimmerian:
http://www.thecimmerian.com
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/
Finally, you can go and check out the Vernon Plaza website:
http://www.vernonplaza.com

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

It’s been a busy month, and I’m sorry I haven’t sent something out
sooner. But it’s with a pretty good reason or two. Hopefully, this will
make up for it all.

I got a call from Bill Willingham in April. He had an interesting
proposal for me: “I’m renting the Rudyard Kipling house in Vermont, and
I’m inviting you, Matt, Chris, and Bill Williams to come up and have a
writer’s retreat here.”

When I told Cathy that this would be the first-ever Clockwork Storybook
reunion in several years, all she said was, “You gotta go.”

That’s why I married her, right there, folks.

The Trip to Vermont Starts right here:
http://finnswake.livejournal.com/35644.html
Pictures of the Vermont excursion can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/finnswake/sets/72157600222004855/

In other news, I’ve won one and a quarter Cimmerian Awards this year:
http://www.thecimmerian.com/?p=685

The whole award I won was for Blood & Thunder. I’m really pleased, since
this award comes from my peers in the REH community. The other award,
I’m sharing with my fellow bloggers at The Cimmerian website; we won the
award for best website with our group blog. I ended up accepting for all
of us, but only because Rob and Leo wouldn’t get up to do it. Still,
it’s pretty cool and very flattering.

I won’t know until next weekend how the Locus Awards shook out. I doubt
that I’ll be called upon to provide a mailing address for the trophy,
however. And it won’t be until the end of the month that we’ll find out
if Blood & Thunder was nominated for a World Fantasy award. I’m
deliberately not thinking about either one; it does no good to dwell on
such things. Really, I’m just happy about my third Cimmerian along with
the nomination in Locus. There may be a hardcover edition yet, if the
buzz keeps up.

The theater is, of course, doing very well. We’re busy, and the
attendance is great, and the money is tight, and it’s all very First
Year in Business, now, isn’t it? Seriously, there’s a lot of blood,
sweat, and tears but it’s all for the best. Now that we’re settling into
the groove, the Plaza Loft is getting worked on and some of our other
projects are starting to shape up. The summer is being very good to us,
so far (go knock on some wood, will you?), and we’re overall very
pleased that our first year is going as well as it has so far.

Okay, that’s the big news. I’m going to let you get back to your day, now.
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Finn Also Blogs REH-related stuff at the Cimmerian:
http://www.thecimmerian.com
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/
Finally, you can go and check out the Vernon Plaza website:
http://www.vernonplaza.com

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

Lots of News from the Plaza Loft

Hey folks, it’s been a while, and I’m sorry I’ve been to busy to keep
everyone up to date on the big stuff, much less the little things. I’ll
do that now, since the next two weeks are going to be certifiably crazy.

*Personal*
My hand continues to heal, and without surgery. I’m able to do most
things with it splinted up, although I’m not looking forward to taping
my fingers together for stability. Tendon injuries really stink.  Thanks
to everyone who rooted in their own way for it to get better.

Other than that, Cathy and I are slowly settling into the Plaza loft.
Finally, we’ve got a bed and a dining room table to eat on—now we feel
like adults again. The space is less of a disaster area, but still
cluttered and unfinished. But we’re slowly getting it done.

I also recently did something that I’ve always wanted to do: I am now an
ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. This is, of course,
merely a footstep or two away from establishing a Universal Church of
Elvis. Think of the tax breaks! I actually did it because two good
friends of mine are getting hitched and they asked me to perform the
ceremony. Talk about an honor! Talk about a great excuse to go buy
ministerial credentials.

I’m looking forward to the wedding.

*Business*
The Vernon Plaza Theater is now a going concern. We’re generating great,
unilateral word-of-mouth and everyone is very excited about what we’re
doing. Our first big coup for the town of Vernon just went through:
we’re premiering Spider-Man 3, a feat which will insure that we start
our summer season (which is akin to Christmas time for retailers) with a
bang. The website is about half-completed, but you can get a good look
at the structure and form at www.vernonplaza.com. And yes, if you
refresh, the poster change. You film geek, you.

Running the theater is very different from running a bookstore. If
there’s a power outage, or some kind of technical difficulties, you can
still take money at a bookstore. Whereas in the theater world, your
technical difficulties grind everything to a halt. Interesting
juxtaposition. I’ve got employees, though, and that’s a universal deal.
The kids here are funny; they are all sharp, clever, and great workers.
But I find I have to dial my pop culture output waaaay back for them,
for a couple of reasons: I’m officially too old (or they are too young)
for me to drop any kind of dialogue or movie quote from the 1980s or
back. They just assume that I’m speaking nonsense. Also, the pop culture
underground railroad has no stop in Vernon. They know ABOUT YouTube, but
they’re not “into” YouTube, for example. It’s tough sometimes trying to
relate to them.

*Professional*
In an amazing turn of events, Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of
Robert E. Howard, has been named a finalist in the Locus Awards Best
nonfiction category. I am stunned and pleased, and I also think I have
no chance of winning. But it’s very cool to be nominated, it really is.
I just feel that the Tiptree, Jr. biography is going to stomp a mudhole
in my ass. But wow, it’s a real honor to get nominated, alongside of Win
and Sam Delaney, too. Will this mean that I might get a nod for a World
Fantasy nomination? Jeez, who knows.

The other very cool thing that is about to happen: I’m going to take a
week off in early May to spend a week at a Writer’s Retreat. We’re going
to Rudyard Kipling’s old house in Vermont—no pressure to create
something there, eh? I’ll be joined by several very talented writers:
Award-winning author and publisher Chris Roberson, Eisner award winner
Bill Willingham, and this year’s Eisner award nominee, Matt Sturges.
Together, 8 or 9 years ago, we were known as Clockwork Storybook, and
this will be the first time we’ve been together in at least five years.
We’ll be joined by mutual friend and up-and-coming writer Bill Williams,
and I’m certain that all of our latent one-upmanship will kick into
overdrive.

Me? I’m going to finish the Gorilla Man mystery, long-dallied over, and
rescheduled twice. This will be the first extended batch of fiction
writing I’ve done in over a year. I’m hungry for it. I miss it, like I
miss a brother. It’s going to be great.

I’ll post some of what I get done after I return, along with offline
blog notes of the week. Wish me luck, or call me names, whichever leaps
most to mind when I tell you I’ll be occupying the same physical space
as one of the great classics authors of all time.

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn


Well, it finally happened. The Vernon Plaza Theater officially re-opened
this weekend. And it was everything I could have hoped for: a week full
of 12-15 hour days, very little food or downtime, learning a completely
new set of technical skills, dealing with unruly children, building a
concession stand system completely on the fly, dealing with money,
training volunteers...

I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It’s my movie theater.

Now, with that comes lots of stuff that I am learning for the first
time. The motion picture industry, as we have all known for years, is a
blind idiot god, flailing mindlessly about in California with little
regard to rhyme or reason. Well, that actually extends all the way down
to the movie theater level. This whole last week was a series of heart
attacks as my booking agent called to tell me that we couldn’t get one
of the movies we’ve been telling people that we would have; no, wait,
there’s a print available after all; oh, and would you drive to Oklahoma
to pick up the other print from another theater; and hey, this other
carrier has a print for you: Snakes on a Plane—you wanted Bridge to
Terabithia? Well, I’ve got snakes on a plane for you...

And then, just like that, we were open.

About four or five weeks ago, as the air conditioner repair man was
walking me through the manual process of reversing the airflow in my two
gigantic units and we were both marveling at the computerized
thermometer that had been somehow connected to this fifty-plus year old
giant, I realized that this building, with its creases and crevices,
Byzantine wiring and patchwork infrastructure, was my Millennium Falcon.
It made me grin, and I immediately set to trying to get Cathy to learn
the Chewbacca roar. She refused, of course, mainly because I think she
thought of herself as Han Solo, and me as the Wookie.

Flash forward to opening day. I’ve got 155 schoolchildren in my
building, buzzed on Dr. Pepper and popcorn, and the ice machine has just
stopped working, after two weeks of a steady avalanche of cubes every
fifteen minutes, whether we need it or not. Cathy was running wild, my
volunteer staff was gamely scooping out of open bins, and we discovered
that somehow, the water had been turned off. Hence, no ice. As we
started the flow of water into the ice machine, I could almost hear
Carrie Fisher asking me, “Would it help if I got out and pushed?”

“It might!” I said aloud.

This weekend was a real trial for me. I’m learning, on the fly, four or
five new skill sets. The projector maintenance and film handling involve
a multitude of steps. Daunting. And I’m also in charge of the concession
stand—and I have NO IDEA how to best set that up. Talk about humbling.
I’m asking the sixteen year olds with fast food experience how to best
make it work. They are teaching me, even as I’m showing them how “Mickey
Finn” acts in full-on managerial mode. They think I’m strange for an
adult. I have to keep reminding them that I’m from Austin.

Stay tuned for more on the saga of the Vernon Plaza theater. I’ve got
some plans, including a big, cool surprise for the Grand Opening at the
end of March. We’re showing a (limited) FREE classic movie-and one of my
all-time favorite films in the whole entire world. If you know me at
all, you will know that I’m speaking about a very short list from which
to choose. As part of the promotion, we’re doing a bit with the local
radio station whereby Cathy and I will act out a scene from the film,
and callers can guess it and win passes to the free show.

Here’s the scene:

Her:  How come you haven’t settled down, gotten married and raised ten
or twelve kids like your friend Sallah?

Me: Who says I haven’t?

Her: Ha! I say. Dad had you figured out a long time ago; he said you
were a bum.

Me: Aw, he was being generous.

Her: The most gifted bum he ever trained. You know, he loved you like a
son. Took a hell of a lot for you to alienate him like that.

Me: Not much, just you.

If you don’t know this scene, then I will weep for our friendship.

Finally, at long last, I can start to set up a working schedule of what
I need to do and when. This will finally, at long last, free me up to
start writing in earnest. Finally, at long last, Cathy and I can start
putting the Loft together, get a bed, stop sleeping on our futon, and
begin to assemble our Fortress of Solitude over the theater.

It’s been a long couple of months. We’re really tired, but we’re also
really happy. It was a great opening weekend. We made money. Everyone
was excited for us. It’s just the beginning.

In other news, Blood & Thunder is still doing well. I’m getting a
trickle of fan-mail, emails, congratulatory messages, and other
epistolary missives, all of it really positive. I’m in the middle of
another essay right now about REH, and I’m still enjoying exploring
various aspects of his life, but I’m REALLY ready to start writing
fiction again. I’m WAY overdue for a short story or three.

More later, folks. I’m tired. I’ve got a concession stand order to make
out. We popped about 90 lbs of popcorn this weekend. And I’m out of
Skittles. The horror of it all! So, if I’ve been quiet, unresponsive in
emails, haven’t called, or apparently dropped off the face of the earth,
now you know why. The blogging will continue on LiveJournal, and it’ll
be little things every day—mostly about the movie business at the
ground-level.

Take care,

Mark Finn
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives from
Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.

Finn is Blogging now, mostly about the movie theater he and his wife
Cathy are running as they adjust to life in a small North Texas town:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page and see if you know who he
knows: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

Finn's Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

The Hugest News in the History of the Entire Planet
Well, maybe not that big, but it's still pretty important to Herr
Finn: my wife and I have finally, at long last, moved into the loft
above the theater and are deep in unpacking mode.

I'm just going to let that sentence sit there for a second, because it
looks so damn nice all by itself. It's been a very trying six months,
to say the least. We moved to this small town of Vernon, fully
one-tenth the size of Austin, about six months ago. We did so with the
full confidence that we would be able to get financing for the
business venture and take possession of same in four to six weeks' time.

In the interim, we were to stay at the guest cottage (really, a
one-bedroom house that was originally built for the servants) of my
in-law's property. It was small, had very few amenities, but we could
get the internet, via dial-up, and the window-mounted air conditioners
DID work. Besides, it wouldn't be for very long, now, would it?

Our belongings (literally ALL of them) were stored in the actual movie
theater, in anticipation of us getting financing, and besides, the
owner said, I've still got some minor repairs and some brick work to
do in the loft. Plenty of time to get it all done before you move in...

That was six months ago.

It's only slightly dramatic to say that we were homeless during this
time. True, we didn't lack for food, clothing, or shelter, but a lot
of it was charitably given. Certainly, having family here in Vernon
was a huge help to us, but that's really not the point. See, I found
out something about myself: I do NOT do well if I don't have a job of
some kind. Cathy, either. We've had jobs, the both of us, since we
were teenagers. It's been extremely difficult to make my own schedule,
particularly when we both knew that it was arbitrary and temporary.

Well, we thought our problems were over when we signed the papers at
the end of November. However, the old owner was still not finished
with those few stray repairs and brickwork. That took a month. Then we
cleaned and stained the concrete floor, a job I would not wish on Nazi
Dentists, and finally, this past week, got all of our long dormant
stuff upstairs.

Now the work can really begin.

In particular, we will be dealing with the movie theater at the same
time that we're making a home for ourselves, and the theater gets top
priority. Now that our accumulated belongings are upstairs and not in
the lobby of the Plaza, the cleaning and prepping can commence!

To all of you who wrote notes in the last six months, wishing us well
and praying for our good fortune, it has finally come to pass. We are
not ready to receive visitors yet (that'll take a few months, to say
the least), but we'll let everyone know  that has vowed a road trip to
see the theater just as soon as it's all ready.

Goodbye, 2006
Not surprisingly, this past year was one of strange upheavals and
monumental triumphs. Cathy and I quit our jobs, threw caution to the
wind, and moved so far into North Texas that we can almost see
Oklahoma to completely re-invent our lives. At the same time, Blood &
Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard came out, to
enthusiastic reviews and accolades.

I've gotten a lot of PMs, IMs, emails, and even a hand-written letter
(!) from fans who read the book and thanked me profusely for writing
the book and giving them a different picture of Robert E. Howard. That
has been a little humbling. I mean, when I wrote the book, I
specifically wrote the book that I wanted to read. It has been very
cool to see that other folks have enjoyed that take on REH's life, and
moreover, got something out of it. I'm going to try and line up some
signings in this area prior to this year's REH gathering in Cross
Plains, in June. My first signing of the year will actually be in the
town of Cross Plains. I'm talking to (a) the Friends of the Library,
(b) the Cross Plains Kiwinis Club, and (c) the Cross Plains High
School English classes. Not necessarily in that order.

What do I do for 2007? Well, that's a promise between me and Elvis. I
do have some non-fiction work in progress (halted by the move and the
chaos), and I've got a proposal for a book that I'm working on for a
major publisher. But my focus, so far as it goes, is to finally finish
Replacement Gorilla and find a home for it. All of this will revolve
around the theater schedule, of course, since we've really got to
massage the business for the first two years, but I think it can be
done very handily.

I'm really excited that I've turned the corner and started this new
phase of my life. So, in order to keep up with all of the changes, and
stay plugged in to my fascinating anecdotes and screeds, I'm going to
redo some of how I talk to everyone.

The Yahoo Group list, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake will
henceforth be for big, broad overview stuff, recaps, and similar
life-altering hoo-ha. If you're not on that list and want on it, you
can click through the above and sign up. It's free, and isn't spammed,
unless you count what I send out, and it's also not a discussion
group, so you won't see any replies to me by other people.

The LiveJournal blog, http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/ will
be for smaller anecdotes, musings on life in a small town, running a
theater, and other day-to-day short posts. If you haven't checked out
my LiveJournal blog before, well, it's a mishmash of stuff. But it's
pretty interesting, and there are folks who read it that aren't on the
Finn's Wake list. It's also free to read. I am contemplating moving to
eBlogger, but haven't really looked into how that will work, if at all.

As for the MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/ well, it's
kinda become a catch-all for everyone who has written a book and
published it on lulu.com. No offense to those of you using Lulu.com,
but do we really *need* another erotic vampire thriller? Since my
myspace friends list has become a strange and exotic thing, I'm just
going to send out occasional nonsense and wonky bits via the bulletin
feature. If you want to see those, you know what to do.

I think that's it, for now. Later this year, I'll have a website up
(finally!) and most likely with embedded blogging tools, so there will
be that, as well. You can't say that you don't know where to find me.
I'll also take a number of pics and post them (likely in LJ, since it
links directly to my Flikr account) for those of you who can't wait to
see the theater, the loft, and etc.

Thanks for reading!

Mark Finn

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood
& Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at
bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants, and missives
from Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

*So, these two people walk into a movie theater...*
Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. The deal is finally done.
Well, mostly. But today, Cathy and I (on behalf of our partners)
bought the Vernon Plaza movie theater. It's official. We're
entrepreneurs, now, in addition to being all of those other things, too.

I've got a lot of stuff to do in the next two months, including
setting up the website, which will be located at www.vernonplaza.com
and will be fully tricked out. Movie times, schedules, upcoming
events, the works. In the meantime, you can stop by and look at the
few pics online so you can see what Cathy and I got so excited about,
lo, these many months ago.

The current plan is to open up in January 2007, with a grand opening
sometime in February, 2007. Obviously, it's a big deal, and so I fully
expect every single one of you to roadtrip to Vernon, Texas, at some
point in the next three-to-five years. Hell, y'all pool your funds and
get a bus together!

*Blood & Thunder*
The other big news is, of course, the release of Blood & Thunder: The
Life and Art of Robert E. Howard. I've been interviewed several times
so far, and a couple of fine folks have already seen fit to do
reviews. The first came from Rick Kleffel's Agony Column:
http://trashotron.com/agony/news/2006/11-20-06.htm#FinnMarkHowardRobertE

Shortly thereafter, I got a nice write up from fellow Texas author and
all around fine fellow Bill Crider. His Blog of Pop Culture is worth
checking out:
http://billcrider.blogspot.com/2006/11/blood-and-thunder-mark-finn.html

There's rumors of a Publisher's Weekly review, as well as some
newspaper coverage down the pike. I've been contacted privately by a
number of people who congratulated me or thanked me for writing the
book. I'm really happy with the response it's received so far. My
buddy Jess Nevins, himself an amazing popular culture scholar, even
tipped in the first customer review on Amazon.com.

The next few months will be a huge challenge as I balance the writing
side of things with the entrepreneurial side of things. Thankfully,
Cathy will be onhand to keep me in clean socks. She's a saint, I tell
you. And of course, we're STILL not moved into the loft yet, but we
now have a semi-firm date on when we can get there—ten days away and
counting. Stuff to do, stuff to do.

*On the Personal Side*
Living in the country brings critters of all shapes and sizes. I
shooed a wolf spider out of the house that was the size of a
regulation poker chip not three days ago. Skunks, possum, raccoons,
bobcats, foxes, coyotes, scorpions, bull snakes, vultures...Vernon is
a critter lover's paradise. I guess it's just dumb luck that we have
been adopted by a feral cat.

This is not our pet. It's the cat that we feed. There's a big
difference. Chief among them is our inability to actually pet said
cat. That alone disqualifies it for `pet' status, as the name well
implies. In fact, the cat is such a chicken, that Cathy has named our
gray tabby Sir Robin. Insert Monty Python music here.

I didn't want a cat. I don't want this cat. I want a dog. Preferably
one that will keep all cats away. But now that we've got this...animal
lounging on our cottage porch and mewling piteously until he is fed,
we're responsible for him. Provided that we can actually get him into
a box, we will take him to the vet and explore our options—namely,
snip the balls and the claws and take him to the loft, or drop him off
so he can wait for some neurotically unbalanced cat-person to take him
in. Whether he stays in the loft or not depends entirely on how much
we can domesticate him. I will not be the owner of an animal that
doesn't consider me some sort of food-bringing god. I've got thumbs
for a reason. And I have no allusions about cats, how smart they are,
or any of that nonsense. It really all boils down to one thing: Let's
say, god forbid, that the building catches on fire. Do I want a pet
that will (a) bark until I wake up, and allow us to get out of the
house with my Robert E. Howard books intact, or (b) go hide under the
sink in a blind panic? See if you can guess which one I will pick...

This year is the first year in perhaps, well, ever, that I am
completely unplugged from the retail end of things. As such, and
because i know how stressful it can all get, you owe it to yourselves
to check out the latest offering from the Violet Crown Radio Players:
Moneygo on 34th Street! Visit http://www.violetcrownradio.com/ for
information and showtimes. Trust me on this. The show is going to
become our Christmas staple. You can see it on the ground floor, now.
If you're coming to Austin, it's playing all December. Hope to see you
there!

More on our "cat," our loft, and our new status as Vernon-ites, as we
get the time to update you. Thanks for reading!
Mark Finn

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

A Prime Number

So, I turned thirty-seven today. That’s weird.

I mean, it’s weird in that it’s a prime number. It’s also officially on
the downhill slope to forty. When you’re thirty-five, you’re solidly in
the middle of your thirties. It’s a good, solid number, thirty-five.
Divisible by seven, if you like lucky numbers. Thirty-six, well, that’s
closer to thirty-five than forty, and shoot, it really doesn’t count.
Besides, it’s divisible by six. Maybe not as good as seven. Maybe more
good. I don’t really keep up with numerology.

But thirty-seven. That’s the age equivalent of walking a pirate’s plank.
It’s out there, all by itself, in the deep end of the thirties. And it’s
a prime number. I don’t quite know why I keep obsessing about that,
other than I think it’s the first real time I’ve taken stock in the fact
that I am dealing with prime numbers. Mathematicians like them. I think
they are, well, interesting, but nothing else. Prior to this, my only
other frame of reference for this number was the scene in Monty Python
and the Holy Grail involving Dennis, the rabble-rousing peasant that
Arthur meets in the road to Camelot. You know the scene:

Arthur:  Old Woman!
Dennis: Man.
Arthur:  What?
Dennis: I’m not a woman, I’m a man.
Arthur:  Oh. Sorry.
Dennis: And I’m thirty-seven. I’m not OLD.

I keep playing that sound byte in my head, over and over, like a mantra.
“I’m thirty-seven. I’m not OLD.” Sure, Mark. Whatever. They say now that
forty is the new thirty. I can dig that. I think that’s partially
because my generation (we used to be called “latch key kids” in the
seventies, and doesn’t that sound like a good-for-you PBS kids show?)
didn’t have the pressures put upon us by parents who grew up in the
sixties, and so we took our own sweet time getting married, having
children, starting careers, etc. Maybe that’s just a rationalization,
but most of my friends are just now getting their shit together.

I haven’t been much of a grown-up for most of my thirties. In fact, I’d
say I haven’t been a grown-up at all until I got married three years
ago. Having a wife tends to change things like that. But, at heart, I’m
still roughly fourteen years old. I still watch monster movies for
Halloween. My birthday cake today had a toy of Spider-Man fighting Doc
Ock. That was from my mother-in-law. I read comics today, and got a
pedicure. It was a lazy, easy day, and I’m glad I took it. Despite my
best efforts, I only managed to speak to one banker today, and it was
brief. Everyone needs a break.

Life in Vernon has picked up. I’m getting involved with the Chamber of
Commerce, and last week, I spoke to the Rotary Club. I’m almost a
respected member of this community. That was quick, I tell you. We
continue to meet nice people who are genuinely excited about what we are
doing in town. All we need is a loan...

My email has bristled today with well-wishes from folks across the
country (thank you, every one, for the birthday thoughts, by the way).
Many of you Austinites told me how much you missed me and Cathy. Well,
we miss you, too. We’re doing okay, and we hope to have a big
announcement about the Vernon Plaza after we get back from World Fantasy
in Austin. And speaking of which...

In addition to my appearance at the World Fantasy Convention, in Austin,
here’s another gentle reminder that I’ll be signing at BookPeople on
Monday, November 6th, at 7 PM. If you want to see me, hear a little
about the book, and get some face-time, this is your chance, buddy.
After that, Cathy and I will be literally buried in work on the theater
and we won’t come up for air until the end of the year.

Older, and probably wiser,
Mark Finn

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His forthcoming book,
Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, will be available
in November at bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants,
and missives from Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

No News Isn’t Necessarily Good News

Greetings from Vernon, Texas, Ladies and Gentlemen, the birthplace of
Jack Teagarden, The Waggoner Ranch, and the new home of Mark Finn and
his lovely wife Cathy Day. They’ve just bought the refurbished Vernon
Plaza theater and they...what? They haven’t bought it yet? Well, I’m
sure they are in escrow right now...they aren’t? Well, what have they
done? Talked to a lot of banks? Well, poop, that’s no good.

Yes, folks, it’s true; Cathy and I are marooned in Vernon. Our original
bank fell through, and our back-up bank fell through...and so we’re
shopping our loan to several banks now, and hoping that someone will
scoop it up. It’s been daunting, but we haven’t given up.  I promise
you, the second we get our loan, I’ll scream like Robert Plant and then
I’ll throw out a dozen emails, including a big honking Finn’s Wake
update, to let you know what’s what.

In the meantime, we’re getting the lay of the land and meeting folks in
the community. It’s one of “those” places, you know, where everyone is
friendly, says howdy, and wants to know what you’ve been up to? Yeah, a
small town. Actually, I’m adjusting very well. I like the feel of this
place. Lots of potential here. It’s like being at BookPeople, if
BookPeople had 11,000 employees.

Cathy is gardening. That’s all. Just...she’s gardening. She keeping
wanting me to garden, and so far, I’ve found several excuses to not join
her. Does she not remember what happened the last time I tried to help
her garden? That’s right, dislocated tendon, surgery, etc. No one needs
that again. That story is only funny the first time you hear it.

I’ve actually been pretty busy, myself. At long last, the book I started
on in late 2004, Blood & Thunder: the Life and Art of Robert E. Howard,
is mere weeks from hitting the bookshelves. Many of you who know me
personally know how close to my heart this project is. Those of you who
only know me professionally...well, this project is very close to my heart.

You will be able to purchase Blood & Thunder at finer bookstores
everywhere, including your favorite indy bookstore of choice. If you are
the kind of person who doesn’t do well with other people, feel free to
use your online bookstore of choice. Either way, it will be in stores
this November, and it makes a great Christmas gift for the Robert E.
Howard fan in your life. Not me, of course, the other one.

Or, if you are feeling particularly saucy, you can catch me live and in
person at BookPeople on November 6th at 7:00 PM, where I will do my song
and dance routine for a bunch of folks and then sign copies for them.
This will be hot on the heels of the World Fantasy Convention, so if I
seem hung-over and listless, it’s because I will be. Nevertheless, a
Finn Reading is a required thing, and I encourage you to come out and
stare at me goggle-eyed. There may even be beer. Seriously. There may be
beer.

Other dates are being established even as we speak, including an
engagement in Cross Plains, Texas (where else?) on February 13th, 2007.
If you want me to come to your city or town in Texas, shoot me an email.
Right now, I’ve got time on my hands.

See you soon!

Mark Finn

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His forthcoming book,
Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, will be available
in November at bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants,
and missives from Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

As I break my life down into cardboard boxes, all neatly labeled at my
wife’s insistence, a familiar depression washes over me: is this all I
am? A box of magic tricks? Stacks of old horror comics? An Elvis shrine?
   God, I hope not. We’re sleeping on futons because the Salvation Army
has taken our bed away (willingly, mind you. It wanted to co-operate
fully.) Cathy’s sisters have been helping us pack and clean. The garage
sale moved piles of unwanted stuff out of our vicinity. And I’m just
stuffing handfuls of books into boxes like there’s no tomorrow. How skewed.

It’s been an emotional month as we slowly disengage from Austin, Texas,
where I’ve become, in my own geeky way, part of a scene. What scene, I’m
not sure; the theater scene, the geek scene, the “Keep Austin Weird”
scene. It’s not as easy as it looks, leaving literally hundreds of
friends, acquaintances, and ex-customers, to move to a small town.

It’s not all gloom and doom, however. We got our fifth rubber chicken in
the mail today. About once every six months, we get an anonymous rubber
chicken, no two alike, in the mail. We suspect that it’s our old
neighbors, Craig and Eve, who were fairly fascinated with my beer can
chicken cooking efforts. It was just the thing we needed to bring us out
of our funk—and trust me, until you’ve gotten an anonymous rubber
chicken in the mail, you have not lived a full and complete life.

Speaking of mail, here’s my new mailing address:

Mark Finn (and Cathy Day)
PO Box 1584
Vernon, Texas 76385

Please update your records. Email will stay the same. Phone numbers?
It’s up in the air. We’ll probably just get cell phones...and we won’t
be happy about it.

I’m also not happy about the shocking early demise of David Gemmell, a
British author of heroic fantasy and one of the few literary heirs to
Robert E. Howard’s work. Here’s his obituary:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5224868.stm Someone from one of
the many message boards I frequent posted this excerpt, Gemmell himself
talking about his own work:

'There was this boy. He lived in fear. Not the tiny fears of manhood,
but the awesomely powerful, living, breathing fear that only children
can experience. He was different, this boy, from the other boys who
lived in this bomb damaged London Street some few years after World War
Two. He had no father.

Some of the other children had no father, but their lack was honorable.
Dad died in the war, you know. He was a hero. This boy's lack was the
subject of sly whispers from the adults, and open jeering from his
peers. This boy's mother was - the boy heard so many times - a whore.

Happily the boy was only six, and had no real understanding of what the
word meant. Anyway the word was less hurtful than the blows that would
follow it. Most of the blows came from other children, but sometimes
adults too would weigh in.

It was all baffling to the child. What he knew was that, before
venturing out into the narrow streets and alleys, he had to peer from
the windows of the small apartment to see if there were other children
about. Only he didn't think of them as children. They were enemies, and
he was frightened. Fear was the ever present companion. Fear was grafted
to him. The journey to school was fraught with peril. The dark of the
night brought fearful dreams.

His mother read him stories about heroes, and tried to encourage him to
stand up for himself. But stories were just words, and words could not
stop the punches, the pinches and the slaps.

The boy never dreamed of heroes. Not until he met one.

It was a bright, cold morning and he was sitting on a wall. One of the
boys who made his life miserable ran up, shouting and gesticulating. The
boy - more in panic than courage - finally struck out, punching his
enemy in the face. The other child ran off screaming. His father came
running from the house. 'You little bastard!' he shouted.

The boy took off as fast as he could, but no six year old can outrun a
grown man. Within moments he grabbed the boy by the collar, swinging him
from his feet.

Just then a huge shadow fell over the pair. The man - who had looked so
threatening moments before - now looked small and insignificant against
the looming newcomer. This colossus reached out and took hold of the man
by the shirt, pushing him up against a wall.

In a low voice, chilling for its lack of passion, he asked. 'Do you know
who I am?'

The man was trembling. Even the boy could feel the dreadful fear
emanating from him.

'C-c-course I know who you are, Bill. Course I do.'

'Did you know I was walking out with this boy's mother?'

'Jesus Christ... I swear I didn't, Bill. On my mother's life.'

'Now you do.'

The big man let the little man go. He slid part way down the wall,
recovered and stumbled away. Then the giant leaned over the boy and held
out a hand that seemed larger than a bunch of bananas. 'Better be
getting home, son,' he said.

The world changed that day. Men like Bill do change the world. They are
the havens, the safe harbours of childhood. They are the watch hounds
who keep the wolves at bay. They have an instinctive understanding of
the child that is denied to the wise.

Two years later, as my stepfather, he cured me of dreams of vampires
coming to drink my blood. My mother had tried explaining to me they were
just dreams. They weren't real. It didn't work. She took me to a child
psychologist, who showed me pictures, told me stories, explained about
the birth of myth and the way that fear created pictures in our night
time thoughts. It was very interesting, but it did nothing for my
nightmares.

One night I woke up screaming - to find Bill sitting by my bedside.

'There's a vampire, dad. Its trying to get me.'

'I know, son,' he said, softly. 'I saw it.'

'You saw it?'

'Yeah. I broke its bloody neck. I won't have no vampires in my house'

I never dreamt of vampires again.

Years later, when I wrote my first novel, I used Bill as the model for a
character. His name was Druss the Legend. Bill re-appeared in many
novels thereafter, in many guises.

Always flawed, but always heroic.

Three years ago, at the age of 82, Bill was mugged on the streets of
London. Three muggers broke his jaw, his nose and two of his ribs. He
still managed to 'chin' one of them and knock him to the ground. That
was Bill.

Last April he died.

And I wrote Ravenheart, and gave Bill centre stage.

Jaim Grymauch, who strides the highlands like a giant, is my homage to
Bill, and to all those world changing fathers who pass away without
fanfare; who leave the world just a little brighter than it was.

Men who know how to deal with vampires.


Reading this, I found tears in my eyes, thinking of my own father. No,
he wasn’t huge and heroic. But he did know how to deal with vampires. I
recommend David Gemmell’s work highly, particularly if you like your
heroic fantasy muscular and vivid.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Of course, I’ve been working on the sides of the Blood & Thunder
project. When you turn a book in, you’re not done. I don’t think you’re
ever done. I’m already writing down articles to work on things that I
couldn’t put in the book.

In the good news department, I placed a story in the upcoming World
Fantasy Convention commemorative book, Cross Plains Universe. My short
story features Clay Stark, the King of the Gorilla Men, on the set of
the Conan the Conqueror movie, circa 1971. Trust me, it’ll make sense
when you read it.

Also, Gardner Dozois gave my story, “The Bridge of Teeth,” in last
year’s anthology Adventure, Vol.1, an honorable mention in his annual
collection of the year’s best Science Fiction. In fact, Adventure, Vol.
1 was the most talked about book in the collection. If you haven’t read
it, I recommend it to you—my story notwithstanding.

After we get settled in Vernon, I’m going to change some stuff up. I’m
going to start blogging pretty intensely on my livejournal page (the
link is below) about small towns, the movie theater business, and so
forth. It’ll be bloggy, although I’m sure an essay or rant will creep in
there from time to time.

This list, and the myspace bulletins, will be for larger publishing
concerns, announcements, and the Blood & Thunder Book Tour. Oh, yes,
there will be a tour. Or, at least, some signings and stuff. I’m going
to try and keep everyone in the loop. Please do the same for us. Send me
your news.

It’s been a blast. We’re going to miss you, Austin.

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His forthcoming book,
Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, will be available
in November at bookstores everywhere.  To get the latest info, rants,
and missives from Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.
Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/
Or, God Help You, go to his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/finnswake/

Okay, let’s see who bites...if you’re in the Austin area and you’d like
to come paw through our stuff in anticipation of our impending Vernon
move, now’s your chance!
Saturday, July 22nd, from 9 AM to 5 PM.
614 Cliff Drive
Austin, Texas 78704

Bed, bookcases, brickabrac, and lots of other stuff not starting with
the letter “B.” Even cold drinks!

Come see us before we go.

Coming soon to this space:
New Digs
New Business
New Blogging About Same

If you want our particulars, such as phone numbers and addresses, please
send me an email and I’ll fill you in.

Mark Finn

Creative Director
Violet Crown Radio Players
"Radio For Planet Earth!"
www.violetcrownradio.com
Join the Finn's Wake Mailing list at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Finn is Blogging now:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn�s Wake
An Update of all things Finnish
by Mark Finn

It�s been a hile, folks, since I sent out one of these updates, and there�s a few good reasons for it. I�ll briefly recap:

My Robert E. Howard biography is finally finished and turned in. And when I say �finished,� what I really mean is, �I�ve got six thousand words to add because I left out some really cool and important stuff.� But the proofreaders and the publisher are very happy with the manuscript, so that�s a good thing.

After working on this project for more than a year, I took a little time off. And when I say �took a little time off,� what I really mean is, �I started working on the other things that had backed up on me, like the Violet Crown Radio Players scripts.� We just finished the run on the most recent show, and so far, everyone is really digging our new character, Molly McCoy. I�ve got to get my butt in the chair and start writing again! The May show is nigh!

And speaking of May; that brings me to the Big News: I�m leaving BookPeople at the end of May. No, don�t cry for me, Argentina. I didn�t get fired. Au Contraire, I�m leaving the store on a high note. The last five years there have been a real challenge, but I can honestly say that I made a difference in the place.

No, I wouldn�t have given notice unless there was a real good reason for it. And boy, do I have a good reason. Cathy and I are buying an old movie theater in Vernon, Texas. We�ve got a couple of partners, friends of ours that Cathy has known most of her life, and we�re going to make a go of it.

This all came up very fast, and we put the plan together in the space of a single month. But prior to that, Cathy and I had talked about �one day� retiring to a small town and maybe fixing up an old theater to show films and do radio plays. Well, we got to thinking about it, and decided that today was our one day�this day, in fact. We�ve made the offer, they�ve accepted, and now paperwork is flying around like that farmhouse in The Wizard of Oz. Good metaphor, as we will most definitely not be in Kansas anymore.

Okay, you�ve all got some questions, and in the interests of staving off multiple email replies, let me anticipate a few: Cathy and I will be setting up dual citizenship for our new venture�we�ll still keep an apartment in Austin, and we�ll still be making lots of trips back and forth. See, the theater is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That frees up a lot of time for both of us. We�ll also keep a local phone number, though the phone will ring anywhere we are. And of course, we�re finally getting cell phones...dammit. What that means is you�ll all still be able to get us on the phone or through email, just as if we were in town. Cathy and I will still be involved in VCRP (and related endeavors). But we are going to have to set up a base camp in Vernon. The offices above the theater have been converted to swanky living space, so we�re all set!

Yeah, I know, it�s six hours away from Austin. We�re taking that into account. It�s a small town in Texas. We�re also taking that into account. But you know what? How could we NOT do it? It�s a cool old theater, completely refurbished, and it�s ready to play movies right now�and not just new movies, either. We can show John Wayne films. Robert Mitchum film noir. Hell, we can do both! We get to stock the concession stand with cool retro candy and Moon Pies (to go with the RC Cola, naturally). We get to do all of that stuff.

It�s going to be a lot of work, but it�s also going to be a lot of fun. Expect more frequent Finn�s Wakes as I adjust to a new job and a new life as the big city weirdo in a small Texas town. Comedy gold, I tell ya. Expect a lot more writing from me. Look for it on Livejournal (link below). We�re going away, but we�ll be coming back as entrepreneurs.

So, on the horizon we have the big move to Vernon. Of course, you�ll find me in Cross Plains, June 8^th-10^th, for the biggest Robert E. Howard Days event ever. The VCRP troop will be onhand for a special command performance. Guests of honor are Roy Thomas and Glenn Lord. It�s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime centennial celebration.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, and stay tuned for more updates!

Mark Finn is the Creative Director for the Violet Crown Radio Players and the author of Gods New and Used, Year of the Hare, and about a thousand other things. His forthcoming biography of Robert E. Howard, Blood & Thunder: the Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, will be available in November, 2006. To get the latest info, rants, and missives from Finn, visit  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.

Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of All Things Finnish
by Mark Finn

I’m attending ArmadilloCon 27 (www.fact.org/dillo) this year, and it’s
going to be a hum-dinger of a show. Those of you in the area (or driving
distance away) should consider checking out the premiere literary SF con
in Texas!

I’ll be there, hanging out with Rick Klaw, Chris Roberson, Joe Lansdale,
Bill Crider, Howard Waldrop, Rusty Burke, Scott Cupp, Andrew Fox,
Charles de Lint, and many more. In addition to this, I’ll be splint
free, displaying proudly my scarred right mauler, and cheerfully
retelling the tale of woe for the measly price of a beer or two. I tell
a helluva yarn, you know...

Here’s what I’ll be doing this weekend:

Star Wars: Now That the Films Are Over, What Else is There to Talk About?
Fri 9:00 PM-10:00 PM Phoenix North
de Orive, Finn*, J. Mann, L. Mann, McCarthy
This year's release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was
the final planned installment of a film series that's spanned 28 years.
What does a fan of Luke, Leia, Yoda and the rest do to satisfy a craving
for more? Is there any hope beyond endless rewatching of the six films
and firing up your old copy of Jedi Knight?

Reading
Sat 10:00 AM-10:30 AM North deZavala
Mark Finn (I’ll be reading some excerpts from the REH project, as well
as my new Sam Bowen short story from the upcoming neo-pulp anthology,
Adventure, Vol. 1)

ArmadilloCon Charity Auction
Sat 2:00 PM-4:00 PM Robertson
Finn, Martindale
Please come to buy great stuff so we can raise money for Literacy Austin.

Robert E. Howard: The Original Texas SF Superstar
Sat 7:00 PM-8:00 PM Phoenix North
Burke, Finn*, Klaw, Lansdale, Waldrop, Webb
Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Howard,
creator of Conan, Red Sonja, and other memorable characters. Here you
can learn about his life and work, find out why he's still being read,
and hear about plans to celebrate his centennial.

Writers That Time Forgot: Lost Masters of SF
Sat 10:00 PM-11:00 PM deWitt
Becker*, Broderick, Crider, Finn, J. Mann
Our panelists have authors they think you should know about. Come see if
they're right, or share an author you think more people should be reading.

Monkeys Vs. Dinosaurs: Who'd Win?
Sun 11:00 AM-Noon deWitt
Cupp, Finn*, Klaw, Lansdale, Roberson, Waldrop
Join this fun and lively discussion!

With any luck, I’ll see you there!

Mark Finn is the Creative Director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
(www.violetcrownradio.com) and an author, essayist, and all around
entertaining guy.
Join the Finn's Wake Mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Or visit his infrequent blog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of All Things Finnish
by Mark Finn

The Finn’s Wake Summer Fun Special

“Hey, Finn, what’cha been up to?”

“Oh. Nothing much: a little gardening, some hand surgery...”

Of all the dumb-ass things I could do to screw up my hand, I think
dislocating my right index tendon while yanking down errant honeysuckle
vines is just about the dumb-assedest thing in the world.

I won’t bore you with the pedestrian details of just how I screwed up my
hand, but I will tell you that as soon as I did it (and it’s a pretty
uncommon thing to do), I freaked out. It felt like...I dunno. It hurt
like a sonovabitch, but I could still move my hand. However, every time
I made a fist, something would visibly shift across my knuckle.

Now I was starting to panic. I tottered inside, thinking nothing but how
to type with only one hand, and I called out to Cathy, “Honey? I think I
hurt myself...”

Then I fainted.

Yeah, no kidding.

The way Cathy described it, she said, “There was something in his voice
that told me he was hurt. A kind of quiet tremble. I thought, ‘oh god,
don’t let him be bleeding.’ So I rounded the corner just in time to
watch him fall like a tree.”

The next thing I remember was hearing a loud and continuous crashing
sound, cans and bottles banging around. It just wouldn’t stop...and then
I was on the ground. I had fallen into our metal recycling bin...go
ahead and laugh. It’s pretty funny. I mean, it’s a bloody miracle that I
didn’t crack my head open or gash myself up. But at the time, it scared
the hell out of Cathy, who still didn’t know if I had cut something off,
suffered a heatstroke, or what.

I came to pretty quickly, and Cathy yelled me over to the couch. A drink
of water, an ice pack, and a quick phone call to mom later, we figured
out that my hand wasn’t broken. So, off we went to the minor emergency
clinic.

The folks at the clinic took some X-rays and confirmed my amateur
diagnosis: no breaks, sprains, or dislocations. In fact, they didn’t
know what I had done. So, I made a fist for the doctor. “Oh, God!” he
said. I hate it when doctors lose their poise over an injury. “Okay,
Mark,” he began, “You see how that tendon jumped from one side of your
knuckle to the other side?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Well, it’s not supposed to do that.”

Brilliant. They gave me a plastic arm sling and wrapped an Ace bandage
around it. This completely immobilized my right hand. I stared at the
lobster claw that was my new right hand and said, “So when can I take
this off?”

“You can’t,” he said. “Not until a bone and joint specialist looks at
your hand.”

That was Saturday. The clinics didn’t open until Tuesday. What followed
was perhaps the second most frustrating long weekend in my entire life.

I couldn’t do much of anything; no typing, no cooking, no nothing. At
least, not at first... I started wedging various utensils under the Ace
bandage and the crook of my thumb. It was shaky, but I could
write—sorta. I could eat—sorta. I still couldn’t type, but I could read.
I threw myself into my book research, trying not to think about The Hand.

My only real relief came during the five minutes a day that I would undo
the Lobster Claw and let my skin breathe, wipe down the splint, etc. I
would steal into my office and cautiously, carefully type quick messages
or notes. Then the shackles would go back on and I would paint the air blue.

I didn’t get to see the doctor until Wednesday. He took one look at my
hand and diagnosed what was wrong: my middle finger tendon slipped off
its knuckle. My doctor has been repairing tendons for thirty years and
had only seen that particular injury ten times. How special for me. The
good news was that it was 100% repairable. The bad news was, it would
require surgery.

I was extremely lucky as a child. Aside from an early (and complicated)
hospital stay at the age of four to have my tonsils removed, I have
never been seriously damaged. No breaks or sprains or any other
lingering problems (and no, the infamous Elvis Knee Incident doesn’t
count; my kneecap popped back on its own and required no surgery). I’ve
always considered this a good thing because I have a phobia about needles.

As soon as the doctor started talking about I.V.’s and tourniquets, I
patiently explained to him that I was scared of needles. He assured me
that they could put me to sleep, instead. Good, I thought. It’s all settled.

Cathy wasn’t so optimistic. See, she’s had day surgery before. She knew
that the way that they usually put a patient to sleep was with an I.V.
Remember, I’m naive. We crunched some numbers, decided that I really
needed the surgery, and scheduled it for Friday. I was all set and felt
pretty good about it.

Until the hospital called, that is. As soon as the interviewer started
talking to me about living wills, power of attorney, and the I.V. they
were going to use, I freaked completely out. Panic attack. Serious. The
nurse hurriedly scheduled me an appointment with the anesthesiologist
for later that day.

As near as I can deduce, the fear of needles started sometime after my
tonsils came out. I don’t remember being afraid of shots until I was
five or so. Then I started kicking, fighting, and screaming. They
quickly stopped giving me shots after that. As I grew older and blood
was occasionally drawn from me, I stopped fighting and started fainting.
Getting a shot would leave me pale, weak, and shaky. Needles became my
kryptonite. And one of the things I feared most in the world was being
seriously injured or hospitalized and waking up with an I.V. in my arm.

The anesthesiologist took pity on me and promised to gas me prior to
inserting the I.V. If I didn’t know about it, it shouldn’t bother me.
They all warned me, though, that I would wake up from the surgery with a
tube in my hand. Again I figured, as long as I never have to see it...

I talked to my mother, the Jedi Knight, about the whole needles thing.
She gave me some really useful advice on figuring out the root of your
phobia. Cathy and I discussed this in turn. My panic attack subsided to
mere anxiety.

You’re not supposed to eat anything for eight hours prior to your
surgery. They cut me off at midnight the night before, even though I
didn’t go under the knife until 2 PM the next day. So, I’m eating
spaghetti at 11:30 at night, trying not to make myself sick. Maybe
that’s where the dream came from...

I dreamed that a large, wolf-like dog bit down on my right hand and
wouldn’t let go.  In the dream, I panicked until I realized that the dog
wasn’t hurting me; he just kept my hand in his mouth. When he finally
let go, he left a single puncture wound that strangely didn’t hurt.

One of my mother’s Jedi skills is her cultivation of spirit animals. I
called her and asked her if one of her spirit animals is a large, black
and brown dog. She rather smugly said, “Yep.” I thanked her for the
protection. Make of that whatever you like.

Finally, there wasn’t anything else to do but go to the hospital. I
brought a book, but I needn’t have bothered. I didn’t even get halfway
through my Breckenridge Elkins story before they were calling me in,
putting me in the hospital pajamas, and best of all, giving me the most
amazing anti-anxiety medicine ever. I swallowed the stuff and laid back
to rest, taking deep breaths. I thought about Cathy. I thought about
Mom. I thought about writing with two hands again.

I was still a little anxious. I couldn’t quite get to sleep. Not like I
wanted to. Worst of all, every one of those bastards kept asking me if I
had eaten anything after midnight. Jeez, Louise, no, and now I’m so
hungry, the tongue depressors are starting to look good. In desperation,
I asked Cathy to help me get to sleep. She did so by promptly nodding
off herself. Hey, the power of suggestion.

They wheeled me into the operating room, and I tried to tell them that I
wasn’t quite asleep yet...and then they were waking me up. I tried to
lift my right hand and found that it had been turned into a war club.
Incidentally, I had asked the doctor, since he was already inside my
hand, if he wouldn’t mind installing a web shooter. But did that happen?
No. Hell, I don’t know what’s wrapped up in this thing. There’s no
telling. In some places it’s hard, and in some places it’s soft. And it
hurts like a sonofabitch.

But I digress. I came to, and Cathy was looking at me, smiling.  So,
that was a good thing. I asked Cathy, “Do I have an I.V. in?” She said,
“Yeah, honey, don’t look.”

Chalk it up to the drugs, or the amount of self-reflection I had done in
the past two days, but I didn’t panic. Instead, I looked. And it was
okay. I didn’t freak out. I didn’t have a panic attack. Nothing. I even
did okay when they took the I.V.out. It doesn’t make me sick to talk
about it anymore. It’s still not a pleasant subject for me, but I feel
like it’s no longer debilitating. Talk about some personal growth.

As for the biscuit hook, my “bulky dressing” comes off next week (and
I’m counting the seconds). The drugs are helping the throbbing,
incessant pain. After that, I’ll need a brace for about five weeks and
some physical therapy, but my hand will be as good as new. Still won’t
have a web shooter, though.

It took me three days on and off, between drugged out bouts, to type
this one-handed. If you haven’t heard from me in two weeks, now you know
why. Don’t worry, though; I’m still working on my projects, planning,
note-taking (it looks like chicken scratches), and reading. Soon, I’ll
be back in the saddle.

Thanks to all of you who called, sent email, or offered to help! If
someone wants to get my wife a spa day, that would be much appreciated.
She’s the one who needs it. I’m like every man in the world when he gets
sick. I hate feeling helpless. So call me or write me and cheer me up,
dammit. If you thought I was entertaining before, wait until you get me
on muscle relaxers!

Take care,

Mark Finn


Mark Finn is the Creative Director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
(www.violetcrownradio.com) and an author, essayist, and all around
entertaining guy.
Join the Finn's Wake Mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Or visit his infrequent blog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of All Things Finnish
by Mark Finn

Post-Cross Plains and Beyond

I just got back from Cross Plains, Texas, and boy, are my arms tired.
No, really. They are tired because I had to carry not one, but two
massive awards home with me: the first Annual Cimmerian Awards, of which
I am inordinately proud. Here’s the link to the announcement:
http://www.thecimmerian.com/cimmerian_awards_2005.htm.

These awards are large, set on solid marble bases, with cool (and large)
resin helmeted skulls atop, with my name on the plate. I’m a little
humbled by my winning two. I thought I had a chance at the first one,
but taking first place for my essay came out of the blue, and was a
really unexpected surprise. So much so that many of you long time
readers will note that I was literally struck speechless. I stumbled and
stammered out a few thanks and barely made it back to my seat. Really.
It’s that cool.

Oh, maybe not to the larger chunk of you. But consider how it would feel
to receive an award in your field or profession by your peers. Sure, in
Robert E. Howard studies, there are maybe two dozen upper level movers
and shakers. That’s it. And not only were they included in the voting
process, but also a large chunk of die-hard fans, folks who are plugged
into the Inner Circle of Howard studies. Lots of folks I don’t even know.

So, it’s a big deal. I’m still thrilled. I promptly celebrated by
getting a little whacked out on beer and eating chicken fried steak and
other naughty food until my eyeballs were floating. Now, four days
later, I feel like a steak finger. Go ahead, cut me; I bet I bleed gravy.

In other news, the REH biography is still popping and locking like a
breakdancing fool. I am counting the days until my leave of absence, so
that I might assemble these pieces and parts into manuscript form. I
want to thank all of you who made polite inquiries and kept your eyes
open while I dumped all manner of weird information on you, or simply
expressed enthusiasm for the project.  I aim to not disappoint you.

Coming Up Soon
I’ll be appearing at ArmadilloCon (http://www.fact.org/dillo/), the
annual literary SF get-together in Austin, from August 19-21. If you’re
in the Central Texas area, it’s a great show to attend, if for no other
reason than to watch me and fellow Monkey-Head Rick Klaw discuss giant
gorillas on a panel to be named later.

On the horizon is the 2005 World Fantasy Convention
(http://www.worldfantasy.org), where I will be propping up a barstool
and maybe doing a little song-and-dance number on a panel or two. This
year, the con is in Madison, WI, from Nov 3-6.

If you’re interested in what the Violet Crown Radio Players are up to,
feel free to visit the website and check out the schedule on the main
page. It’s just the thing to get you all caught up.

Thanks for reading!

Mark Finn is the Creative Director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
(www.violetcrownradio.com) and an author, essayist, and all around
entertaining guy.
Join the Finn's Wake Mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Or visit his infrequent blog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn’s Wake
An Update of All Things Finnish
by Mark Finn

As Cathy and I walk through our beautiful South Austin neighborhood that
we can’t really afford to live in, we like to play the Real Estate game.
It goes something like this:

Me: Look, here, a nice, two/two, recently repainted, hardwood floors,
small front yard, bad plumbing. What’s it list for?

Cathy: Half a million dollars.

Me: Correct! Now, this next house is stucco, two/one...

You get the idea. We really want to buy a house, and preferably a house
that we can afford, but we don’t want to live in Cedar Park. We want to
live in Austin. Preferably North Central or South Central. You
know...Austin. I’m not built for the ‘Burbs, man. Many of you live out
there and love it. Good on you, I say. But I gotta be me. Unfortunately,
so do all of the Californians, Washingtonians, Coloradonians, and the
rest of the really expensive places to live. They sell their townhouse
in Washington, D.C. for 900 million and come to Austin to buy a friggin’
bungalow for 500 million and laugh all the way to the bank.

That’s why I’m starting a new campaign. I call it the Austin Sucks
campaign. It’s very simple. Whenever you meet someone from another
state, and they ask where you are from, before you stick out your chest
with pride and say, “Awston,” think of someplace really sucky (Dallas or
Houston usually does the trick), and then deliver the old hometown as if
you were in a concentration camp. When the out-of-stater’s eyes start to
glaze over, as if they must have misheard you, launch into everything
negative about Austin that you can think of. Make up stuff if you have
to. The town is overdeveloped. It’s all corporate now. The drinking
water is terrible. The grackles have taken over. Inchworms. Locusts.
Daily slayings of the newborn. Whatever it takes. Just say what you have
to say in order to get them to consider moving somewhere else.

I’ll let you know when the bumper stickers come in.


It’s with a mixture of awe and humility that I announce this: I’ve been
nominated for an award in Robert E. Howard studies. The Cimmerian
magazine is sponsoring them, and I’m amazed that I made the cut for some
of these categories. The number of deserving people on the list make it
very unlikely that I’ll win anything, but I’m really flattered that the
stuff we’re all doing, us scholars and fans, is going to get an
acknowledgement and what’s sure to be an ongoing award. You can see the
list of nominations here
(http://www.thecimmerian.com/cimmerian_awards_2005.htm). Sorry, but you
can’t vote unless you’ve been reading the magazine. We have all asked
ourselves if REH is on the upswing (what we refer to as “A Second Howard
Boom,” in deference to the publishing frenzy of the 1970’s), and looking
over the list of stuff being produced—and this doesn’t even include the
book publishing, either—I’d say it’s a safe bet that Howard will be the
Next Big Thing.

Speaking of REH, my book proceedeth accordingly. Research is piling up,
and I’m folding each new idea into the existing structure so that I
don’t overshoot the mark. I’m not yet ready for folks to see what I’m
doing, but I’ll share some of it once it’s all pretty and nice.


You know, it’s really funny growing up with folks. Recently, other
friends of mine were nominated for a much larger award, the Hugo Award
(http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/pressr31.htm) . I’ve known Chris
Roberson (http://www.chrisroberson.net/) for almost ten years now, and
I’ve known John Picacio (http://www.johnpicacio.com/index2.html) even
longer. We are veterans of the black and white comics explosion (and
implosion), strange bedfellows business ventures disguised as writers
groups, and so much more. For as long as I’ve known them, they’ve been
extremely talented people. Right away, you can just tell that about some
folks. Some of us gots it, and some of us don’t.

Over time, of course, friends become just friends. You hold their head
up when they puke, you listen to their whackjob theories about Dr.
Who...you do what it takes. And even when you see your friends doing
well, you congratulate them, but you know that they snore when they
sleep, or that they can’t drink sidecars for beans. And sometimes, just
knowing a person really well makes you sorta immune to just how good
they are. You take it for granted.

Chris and John, you guys are amazing. I’m in awe of your talents.
Sincerely, my warmest congratulations to you both.  I’m so proud to know
the both of you.



In other news, I’ll be attending AggieCon (http://aggiecon.tamu.edu/)
next week with bells on. This makes me what is commonly called “a
regional guest,” which is a polite way of saying, no one you’ve ever
heard of, or that guy who’s here every year. On the other hand, I’ve got
some great panels, and with some big name folks, too. Best of all, I am
going to spend at least one day, and maybe two, if I can swing it, at
Cushing library, researching You-Know-Who (see above). How sad is that?
I get hyped about the library. Sheesh. I WILL be giving a reading this
year, so those of you who plan on attending the con, seek me out for an
old-school treat (well, if you’re old Clockwork Storybook fans, that is).

Next up is the Annual Robert E. Howard gathering in Cross Plains
(http://aggiecon.tamu.edu/) June 10th and 11th. This year, we’ll be
doing the usual, and I’m going up there early to—you guessed it—do some
research. I sound like a broken record. Nevertheless, if you’re thinking
of going to one of these get-togethers, I recommend that you strongly
consider the 2006 shindig. That’s where all the action will be. This one
will be fun, too. Just more...low-key.

Also on the event horizon is ArmadilloCon (http://www.fact.org/dillo/),
the annual get together in Austin. I am delighted to see that Charles de
Lint will be back in town, as I fully intend to spirit him away for a
sampling of Tex-Mex dives. I’ve got duct tape and a van, if it comes to
that. He’s never been to Taco eXpress. What kind of pal would I be if I
didn’t take him to Loco Maria’s?

Finally, if you can’t wait that long to get a little public
Finny-Goodness, you can come see the Violet Crown Radio Players May 6,
7, 13, 14, 15, 20, and 21st at Ventana del Soul. We’re doing another
episode of The Blue Menace and Dr. Geist’s Cabinet of Curiosities. I
won’t be directing, but I will be acting, so there’s that. Pick up some
details real soon at http://www.violetcrownradio.com.

Thanks for reading!
Mark Finn

Mark Finn is the Creative Director for the Violet Crown Radio Players
(www.violetcrownradio.com) and an author, essayist, and all around
entertaining guy.
Join the Finn's Wake Mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake
Or visit his infrequent blog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

The Impact of a Prank

by Mark Finn

When a subdued Orson Welles stood before the press on October 31st, 1938, it may have been the greatest performance of his career. He appeared appropriately shocked and chagrined that the listening public had been “inadvertently” tricked into believing that the Mercury Theater’s Halloween offering had been, in actuality, a Martian invasion come to life.

Welles had made a reputation for himself as a war-monger and a risk-taking producer of politically-charged theater. Very few of his Mercury Theater stage plays from 1936 to 1938 did not include a maniacal dictator or a commentary on the pursuit of power and the dangers of the rise of fascism. In particular, Welles was critical of America’s Isolationist policies, and wanted Roosevelt to take a more active role in what was occurring in Europe.

His most recent stunt, however, was very different. Welles’ updating of the H.G. Wells novel, “The War of the Worlds,” was not unlike any of the other works that Welles routinely rearranged (often at the last minute) to insert his various political views. What was different about this particular adaptation was the way in which it was performed.

It started like every other Mercury Theater broadcast: after the theme, Welles came on and made some introductory remarks about the radio drama that was to unfold. An announcer faded in, mentioning some weather conditions, and then it was off to the dance hall with Ramon Raquello and his orchestra...this program of dance music ran through two numbers before another announcer interrupted to report that a series of explosions was seen on the surface of the planet Mars.

Telling the story in this fashion was just one of the ways that Welles and his crew helped to modernize the Victorian classic. News flashes interrupting programs was nothing new to listeners; between the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 and Hitler’s increasing aggression in Europe, it was a fairly commonplace occurrence.

What was noteworthy about the broadcast was the timing. Welles set up the gag at the beginning of the show: we’re doing a fake radio broadcast. The problem was, most of the folks listening to the radio weren’t listening to the Mercury Theater. They were instead, inexplicably, listening to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the Chase and Sanborn Hour, a variety show, with musical acts wedged between the skits with the ventriloquist dummy. Chase and Sanborn was already in progress when the Mercury Theater started. More people, it seemed, were interested in Edger Bergen than popular music, and so, when the first musical number was announced, millions of people on the Eastern seaboard spun their dials, listening for something else to distract them for a few minutes. They found it on CBS.

Roughly twelve minutes into the broadcast, at about the same time that Edgar Bergen was wetting his whistle offstage, Carl Phillips was announcing that he was at the crash site in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. Police sirens and a crowd of people could be heard as he interviewed the farmer, Mr. Wilmuth, who described the crash as he had witnessed it.

All at once, things started happening very quickly. The cylinder opened. Something horrible crawled out, described by our panicked reporter. Fire. An explosion. And then, radio silence. Welles held the silence for only six seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to the entranced listeners.

The reports piled up faster and faster. Death totals. Militia. Martial law. Panic in the streets. With twenty minutes to go in the program, the broadcast changed gears and became a straight radio drama, and of course, all was explained at the end by an impish Welles. By then, of course, no one was around to hear it.

Reports came from all over the country. Folks in rural areas, and farmers in New Jersey, took up arms against the Martian aggressors and kept a vigil outside. A water tower, mistaken for a tripod, was winged in combat. Cars were crashed. People rioted. Astonishingly no one was killed (the reports of suicides were actually leading questions from reporters trying to milk a reaction out of Welles, and have now become part of the myth). Some people were injured, but the biggest singular wound was to the gullible public’s ego.

The program had no sooner ended when police crashed into the studios and confiscated everything. The reporters followed, and the entire Mercury Theater troupe was grilled by authorities and the press for hours while civilization slowly restored itself. CBS executives scrambled to respond; the phone lines were jammed. Everyone was outraged, calling for Welles’ head on a pike. What had started out as a novel twist on a standard radio play and precocious prank on Welles’ part, had backfired spectacularly.

For days and days, the controversy raged. The FCC got involved and promised a review of the broadcast. Welles had covered his bases, however, announcing the play in several different breaks in the show. CBS promised not to re-air the program. Even Welles apologized for making such a mess of things. He told the New York Times:

"I don't think we will choose anything like this again." He hesitated about presenting it, he disclosed, because "it was our thought that perhaps people might be bored or annoyed at hearing a tale so improbable."

Experts in the media lauded the performance as showing how unprepared we were for any crisis, and how stupid we as a nation had become. Soon thereafter, the incident became fodder for jokes, cartoons, and humorous editorials. Everyone was talking about it. Letters poured in from all over the country, either congratulating or condemning the young Welles. New York Times drama critic Alexander Wolcott sent Welles a telegram:

This only goes to prove, my beamish boy, that all the intelligent            

people were listening to the dummy and that all the dummies were listening to you.

Welles came out of the controversy more popular and powerful than ever. He was quickly approached by Hollywood, where he would go on to fame as the auteur of Citizen Kane, another project infused with meaning and a cautionary tale of the path to power.

The incident was swept over by the FCC, who found no fault with the program, and while people within the organization threatened to impose a system of ratings for radio shows, nothing ultimately came of the incident.

Except that we never forgot about it.

The War of the Worlds hoax sticks out for us because it’s the first time (but far from the last time) that we had the wool pulled over our eyes as a nation. Were we ever that stupid? How could something like this have happened in the 20th century? Good question. Hadley Cantril, author of the 1940 book Invasion from Mars, offers this explanation:

Particularly since the depression of 1929, a number of people have begun to wonder whether or not they will ever regain any            

sense of economic security. The complexity of modern finance and government, the discrepancies shown in the economic and

political proposals of the various “experts,” the felt threat of fascism, communism, prolonged unemployment among millions            

of Americans—these together with a thousand and one other characteristics of modern living—create an environment which

the average individual is completely unable to interpret.

Welles himself confessed to the crime in 1955, although it may have been in part his hindsight at the incident that colored these remarks:

We weren’t as innocent as we meant to be when we did the Martian broadcast. We were fed up with the way in which everything that came over this new magic box, the radio, was being swallowed...So, in a way, our broadcast was an assault on the credibility of that machine. We wanted people to understand   that they shouldn’t take any opinion predigested, and they shouldn’t swallow everything that came through the tap, whether it was radio or not.

Given the amount of different media outlets available today, and the sheer volume of information that is launched through the ether at us every day, in some ways, Welles paved the way for modern journalism. His commentary was supposed to be a gentle reminder that we are not alone on this world, and that we weren’t prepared for an attack by a foreign power. Instead, he showed with alacrity the influential and sometimes misleadingly dangerous effects of mass media on the general public.

Production Notes

Mark Finn adapted the script from the original work by Howard Koch and Orson Welles, as originally performed by the Mercury Theater on the Air, on October 30th, 1938. Locations were changed and names were altered to bring the drama closer to home and to recreate a sense of what it would have been like for the average listener in the late 1930s.

Additional theatrics were employed in the creation of this radio play, which is something of a departure for the Violet Crown Radio Players. Future productions may or may not have the benefit of these flourishes, depending on the gravity of the production and the capricious whims of the director and the producer, who are both noted curmudgeons and ne’er-do-wells.

I end up on the local television stations a lot, either talking about the ongoing construction downtown or the sales of the new Bill Clinton tell-all. It's pretty rare, and very cool, when I make it onto NPR. Those of you who have never heard my speaking voice are in for a real treat, if you like flat, mostly nasal near-Texan twangs. Thanks to Johnny for pointing the segment out to me:

 

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_3613546.html?place=home01

 

Also, over at RevolutionSF.com, The Transformation of Lawrence Croft is in its final chapters. Click here to check that out (and look for the personal photos from the author's private convention collection). There's other things at RevolutionSF, too. Click through a few things; we've been updating regularly for a while now and the site is very cool:

 

http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=1827

 

Also, I'm plugging away at my period mystery, "Replacement Gorilla." Those of you who can stand reading things online can go check out the latest chapters (one per week, more or less) here:

 

http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

 

And speaking of new writing, I'm one of the guests of ArmadilloCon 26 (August 13-15th) this year. Those of you in the Austin area are invited to my reading on Friday, August 13th, at 6 PM. You can expect to hear some of "Replacement Gorilla" in the inimitable Finn fashion. More details about the con can be found here:

http://www.fact.org/dillo/

 

That's all, folks! More soon!

 

Mark 

 

 

Author of Finn's Wake, found at:

www.revolutionsf.com

For updates on articles, stories, and other related nonsense, join the Finn's Wake Yahoo Group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake/