Blog-A-Rama-Ding-Dong!

The New Coke returns -- as coffee

2008-04-24T13:48:00.002-05:00

So, I don't drink coffee. Never liked the taste.

My wife, however, the lovely and talented Barbara, is a coffee fanatic -- and a regular customer at Starbucks. Although that might be changing.

Starbucks, which used to rotate its most popular coffees as "daily specials" has now instituted a single new coffee as its everyday blend, a blend that (so I've heard) is supposed to appeal to those who drink that other popular coffee over at Dunkin' Donuts. Late in the day, this new blend is the only option available at Starbucks. And my wife thinks it really stinks.

I was immediately reminded of the New Coke -- the revised soft drink forced upon an unsuspecting public when some dim bulb at Coca Cola corporate decided that they could better compete with Pepsi by making Coke more like Pepsi (in this case, sweeter) completely ignoring the loyal customer base that had given plain old Coke its successful century-long run. New Coke was a dismal failure, and I imagine this new run by Starbucks -- where they force a new product down the throats of their customer base -- will also end in tears.

But hey -- maybe this will be a boost for independent coffee stores. You can always find that silver lining!

A public service message.

2008-03-07T12:27:00.002-05:00

Poor Jack. He had waited too long. His letter had arrived only moments after the 200th membership had been sold for Camp Necon. But 200 was the limit. He was shut out.

"Noooooo!" he cried out, throwing his substantial collection of stuffed animals and action figures against the walls of his bedroom. But venting his frustration did nothing to change his situation. Jack had always been a man of action. And action was his only hope.

Membership or no membership, he was going to Necon.

By the time he got there on Thursday night, the festivities were well under way. He stopped by registration, hoping for some last minute cancellation. At first, Mary Booth seemed happy to see him. And then she realized he had been -- too late.

"Sorry, Jack," she said, her voice tinged with sadness. "We're sold out. You have to go."

This couldn't be! Jack raised his voice to complain, but before he could utter more than a few bitter words, Mary nodded her head at a pair of nearby students, and Jack found himself quick-marched out of the room by two particularly burly co-eds.

He found himself back at the college guard house, outside the camp. But a man of action didn't take "sold out" for an answer. Maybe Jack couldn't attend officially, but he could at least spend a few minutes hobnobbing with his fellow campers.

Jack's idea would have worked, too, if not for the unfortunate events that had occurred at Necon 33. After that unpleasant, embarrassing Friday night two years before, the college had wisely surrounded the dorms with the ten-foot-high fence -- the fence Jack now looked through -- at the Campers mingling together, so close yet so very far away.

Jack called out to a few familar faces. Most didn't seem to hear him, although one of two glanced at him and waved a bit sheepishly before returning to their beers.

It was all too much. "Noooooo!" Jack screamed again. He would be a part of Necon, or he would be nothing.

He rushed the fence, determined to get to the party on the other side. He jumped as high as he could, a good six inches from the ground, and screamed even higher than before as 10,000 volts of electricity turned his body into a blackened corpse.

A few of the campers noticed the flash of fire as Jack was instantly incinerated.

"A real shame," Dallas Mayr remarked as he lifted his glass toward the charred remains. "I always liked Jack." With a final, sad smile, he turned back to resume his conversation with the young woman he had so recently met.

A breeze came off the bay, and Jack's ashes wafted over the college quad.

Nick Kaufman sniffed the air. "You know," he said to those gathered around him, "all of a sudden, I'm in the mood for a Saugie."

**************

(My contribution to the "Kill Jack Haringa in Your Blog Day." Way to go, Jack!)

Stuff and bother

2008-02-29T16:00:00.002-05:00

So, once again I haven't been around in like .... forever.

There have been reasons for this. Late 2007 was a big season for death -- two close friends passed away. One of them was John Garcia, the artist on THE BIG WHOSIS, which you can still access on my website. Tom Linehan, my fellow Bad Movie Commando (I'll explain that someday) had been ill for some time and was hospitalized, so his passing was not unexpected. John, on the other hand, seemed fine on Thursday (I had talked to him on the phone) and was gone on Friday, dead of a heart attack. I guess we're not all going to live forever, huh?

John and Tom were both big film geeks (as am I) and for some years we had a series of "video days" where a bunch of us would sit around for ten or twelve hours and watch movies, centered around a theme -- film noir, Hong Kong action, Edmund O'Brien (John's fave), giant monsters (Tom's fave). The most successful was "Swashbuckler Day" -- centered around the three Richard Lester MUSKETEER films -- 21 people showed up! The silliest was "Excuse Me While I Wash My Hands Day" -- where we showed Really Bad Movies (such as VEGAS IN SPACE the first sf film with an all transvestite cast) any of which could be stopped at any time, but with a price! Every time we stopped a film, we would all have to watch another five minutes of PUSS IN BOOTS, a badly dubbed Mexican import starring a midget in a mangy cat suit. About twenty minutes into the film, the first midget is joined by a second in a mangy chicken suit. Did I mention that they sang? We almost had a riot on our hands.

So goodbye, John and Tom. I hope you get to hobnob with Randolph Scott and Godzilla up in heaven.

*****************

On to other things.

This brush with mortality has caused me to redouble my own efforts writing-wise. I'll try to announce various projects as they become available -- which reminds me, THE FAIR FOLK, the World Fantasy Award Winning anthology edited by Marvin Kaye -- with an Ebenezum novella by yours truly, is now available in mass market paperback!

More soon. Really.

The Workshop Returns!

2007-09-27T12:11:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note (this blog knows no other kind) to let folks know that Jeff Carver and I are once again running our incredibly intense sf/fantasy/horror writing workshop at Pandemonium Books in Central Square, Cambridge, MA, starting in Mid-October. Details can be found at www.pandemoniumbooks.com or at Jeff's website, www.starrigger.net. One of the graduates of our last class already has gotten an agent AND a book sale! So, if you're serious about getting your writing to a professional level, this is the class for you!

Excuse me while I disappear

2007-07-05T14:23:00.000-05:00

Hey, I haven't been here for a while, have I?

Life gets busy. But I will actually be showing up at two -- count them, 2 -- conventions during the month of July. First, I'll be at Readercon this coming weekend, where I'll be participating in a panel on humor on Saturday morning and co-running the Kirk Polland Memorial Bad Prose Competition on Saturday night!

A couple weeks after that, I'll be spending the weekend at Camp Necon, a small convention down in Rhode Island that has been sold out for months. As a way of getting back into this blogging thing, I'll try to write up a con report on both of these.

See you later! Really!

I want to live without this in my head!

2007-04-09T13:26:00.000-05:00

The jingle workers are at it again.

All morning, I've been singing "I want to live on the Edge!" spontaneously, involuntarily, hopelessly. Everyone reading this will no doubt recognize these words as the catch phrase from a newish car commercial where hip young people drive their hip cool car over impossible, CGI-produced images. It is a car that, thanks to said commercial, I will never ever look at, much less drive. It's bad enough when you get, say, "Build Me Up, Buttercup," stuck on repeat play in your brain. But a car commercial? Feh!

Excuse me while I put something -- anything -- on the CD player.

An Extra Bit of Ebenezum

2007-04-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

Just a note to let people know that my latest, brand new Ebenezum novella, "An Embarrassment of Elves", is now available as part of the trade paperback collection THE FAIR FOLK, edited by Marvin Kaye and published by Ace books. This collection, which features five other novellas from the likes of Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder, is so incredibly cool that it won the World Fantasy Award (!!!) for best collection this past Halloween. It originally was issued as a special edition harcover for the Science Fiction Book Club (so you had to belong to the book club to even order it) but now, it's available to everyone! So, for anyone wondering what happened to Wuntvor, Hendrek, Norei and the rest after the events of A DISAGREEMENT WITH DEATH, this book is the place to go.

My funny fantasy lives on -- I've got another humorous story which should be showing up in a different anthology in the next couple of months -- you just have to look a little harder for it.

Quick notes!!!

2007-03-28T15:22:00.000-05:00

Because I don't have time for slow notes.

The SF Writing Course that Jeff Carver and I teach over at Pandemonium Books will NOW start on April 2. So you still have -- oh, DAYS -- to join. Go on over to www.pandemoniumbooks.com and e-mail them if you'd like more info. Jeff and I will also be teaching a school vacation week class specially designed for teens later in April!

And NECON, the greatest convention in the world, is almost sold out! For those who don't know, Necon is a combination horror and fantasy con, with a bit of summer camp thrown in. I'm on the planning committee, so I'm always there. To find out more about it, head on over to www.campnecon.com.

That is all.

Boy, you'd think I'd post here more often, wouldn't you?

Things I Should Mention

2007-03-01T15:41:00.000-05:00

So, I realize, looking over my Spotty Blog here, that I have not yet mentioned that, since Jeff Carver and I enjoyed ourselves so much the first time, we're doing it again!

I am, of course, referring to our Ultimate SF/Fantasy Workshop, which will once again be held in the basement of our beloved Pandemonium Books and Games in Central Square. The course runs for ten weeks, during which time Jeff and I will wrestle your prose to the ground repeatedly until it says "Uncle!" -- and in the process your fiction will become leaner and meaner and that much closer to publication! We'll also talk to our class about agents, editors, magazines, anthologies, the small press and big NY publishers, and anything else you can possibly think of.

Jeff Carver, as if you didn't know, is the author of numerous sf novels and stories and has been nominated for the Nebula! If you were to wander around my website, you'd see I'm more of a fantasy and horror guy, plus I've done a bunch of media tie-ins, one of which was a New York Times bestseller!

The course runs for ten consecutive Mondays, starting March 19. Cost is around 400 bucks. I think there are still spaces available, but we will most likely fill up. Stop in or give a call to Pandemonium books (http://pandemoniumbooks.com) and they'll give you all the info.

Let's Try This

2007-02-12T14:26:00.000-05:00

So Blogger modified their software, and I found myself locked out. But, thru the genius of my webmaster Dave, we may have found a way back in.

Did we?

Skiffy stuff!!!

2007-02-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

Boskone is coming (next week) to a new hotel (The Westin down near Boston Harbor) and I will be there, pontificating on everything from funny fantasy to Battlestar Galactica! Hope to see you there!

And speaking of sf, our beloved Pandemonium Books and Games (located in lovely Central Square, Cambridge) is in financial trouble, but we can save it! Go on over to pandemoniumbooks.com and click on their "ljblog" and buy yourself a t-shirt!

Tag!

2007-01-10T15:56:00.000-05:00

So, apparently, that devilish Skott fellow (learn more about him at Textiplication.com) has tagged me, which means that I need to tell you five things about me that most people don't know!

So which five should they be?

1) My very first job was delivering papers in my suburban hometown outside Rochester NY, for which I would rise every day at 5:20 AM and trudge through the Rochester weather (often snow). By doing this and then entering an essay contest, I actually got a scholarship to a summer Journalism program at Syracuse University, an experience that convinced me I didn't want to be a newspaper reporter.

2) My very first pet was a mostly black cocker spaniel with one white patch. I named her "Spot." Hey, what do you want from a six-year-old?

3) In ninth grade, we were introduced to haikus, and I came up with one that predicted my future writing career:

"The gigantic dog
Leaps and bounds among the trees
And tears out my throat."

Really chokes you up, doesn't it?

4) Early on in my writing career, I wrote a sword and sorcery story that I managed to sell three times, all to markets that died before they could publish the story (including one of the many rebirths of WEIRD TALES). Realizing that I was being punished by the gods, I retired the story, and it has never again seen the light of day.

5) I have attended every single Necon and Readercon ever held, including the one time they were both scheduled on the same weekend! I believe I'm the only person to actually accomplish this remarkable achievement.

That's my five. Now, I think I'm supposed to tag five more folks, but instead, I'll tag ONE person who is five times less likely to write in his blog -- Christopher Golden!

And Speaking of Whosis

2007-01-09T17:06:00.000-05:00

Those of you who actually look at the dates around here may realize that the old comic strip is a bit behind. (Next update was supposed to be the end of December.) We're going on hiatus for a bit with our favorite tentacled amnesiac until a couple of things get reorganized, but with any luck WHOSIS will be back shortly, to become EVEN MORE COMPLICATED!

Happy New Stuff!

2007-01-03T13:41:00.000-05:00

Excuse me while I blow off some of the cobwebs around here.

I have to face it. I'm not a natural blogger. I have to be pulled kicking and screaming sometimes away from my "other" writing (you know, the stuff that pays money) to show up here and talk about just about anything (both a blessing and a curse, that.) But I'm going to try to be a bit better about stopping by here for the three people who regularly read my stuff.

Lord knows I've got stuff to talk about. My Writing Workshop starts up again in the near future. My giveaway contest was a resounding success. I'd really like to put some essays here about both writing and film. And I could even talk about my actual day-to-day writing, tho I think a bit of that can get boring quickly, so you'll only get glimpses.

Having a website and a blog are interesting experiences. I've actually had a couple folks pop up from my past, only to quickly disappear again. Still, it was nice of them to drop by and say "Hi!" And a lot of people have told me -- in person -- that they've enjoyed my site, so I can only imagine that a whole bunch of other people are dropping by. So "Hi!" back to you.

And if you're just visiting this blog and not looking at the rest of my site, I'd recommend you going over to take a look at The Big Whosis, which is getting ever more complex. We're now in our Outer Space Flashback sequence!

That's all for now. But more soon. Really! I promise!

Bunnies are everywhere!

2006-12-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

A quick thank you here to a couple of web sites that have said nice things about my Cineverse books. Yes, you can find cool quotes about SLAVES OF THE VOLCANO GODS and the rest at www.mondo-digital.com, and at Tim Lucas' Video Watchblog! And over at Twitchfilm.net, they actually ran a contest giving away copies of the trilogy! More on that later, as soon as I figure out where I put the winners (some day, I gotta clean off this desk!)

Free Books! Free Bunnies!

2006-10-25T13:10:00.000-05:00

Hey! Over at Twitchfilm.net, they're giving away three -- count them, 3 -- sets of my Cineverse Trilogy, signed by yours truly. That's right, SLAVES OF THE VOLCANO GOD, BRIDE OF THE SLIME MONSTER and REVENGE OF THE FLUFFY BUNNIES can be yours, but only if you make up your own B-movie title for some movie that never was (THE SON OF HERCULES VS. THE ARMY OF DARKNESS?) You can find the contest by scrolling down to October 23 on the new entries, or going straight to the "giveaway" section. Good luck!

The curse of e-mail!

2006-10-21T16:28:00.001-05:00

So my e-mail hasn't been working properly in a while, and when my web guru Dave went to check things out, he found 3 thousand (!) messages backed up. The sad thing about this is that at least 2997 of these messages were spam. But we have a new e-mail addy hereabouts. If you e-mailed me in the past two months and didn't get a reply, send something again! I promise I'll get back to you.

While life goes on...

2006-10-05T16:58:00.000-05:00

Good heavens! I haven't been here in over a month! Many reasons for that, alas (including the death of my close friend Charlie Grant). More on all that later.

In the meantime, if anyone is in the area, I'm doing a signing this Saturday at Pandemonium Books in Central Square, Cambridge! Yep, I'll be there with my Battlestar Galactica and Cineverse books, not to mention three -- count them, 3 -- other authors with all sorts of stuff to sign, namely Jeff Carver, Chris Golden and Tom Sniegowski! And books galore!

If you haven't been to Pandemonium's new location, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's a huge space!

We'll be there Saturday night, from 7 to 9 pm.

Come on down!

The Ultimate SF Workshop!

2006-08-16T11:57:00.000-05:00

This fall, Jeff Carver and I will be teaching a science fiction/fantasy/horror writing workshop at Pandemonium Books and Games in Central Square, Cambridge. As the flyer says, this course will be "taught by science fiction professionals to show you how to better write and sell your sf. fantasy and horror stories and novels!" Both Jeff and I have taught sf workshop courses in the past, and I, for one, found them extremely valuable as a new writer back in the day -- the day being the late 70s, when I took courses from Hal Clement, and then an intensive workshop taught by Samuel Delaney, Norman Spinrad and Carol Emshwiller. These courses really showed me (a) that I had the stuff to be a writer, and (b) just how much hard work it was both to write and to properly pursue publication.

Writing is a solitary business. You sit, you write, you try not to talk on the phone or surf the net or get lost in a hundred other distractions so you --can-- write. Having these workshops taught me how to focus and discipline myself so I could take the tools I already had and use them to become a professional. And this is what Jeff and I would like to do for another generation of sf writers.

If you're curious about the workshop, you can find all the details over at www.pandemoniumbooks.com. Go to their livejournal link and look up the entry for August 9, which reprints our Workshop flyer in its entirety.

Now, back to writing my own stuff!

All Kirk All the Time

2006-08-05T09:12:00.000-05:00

And now, for an example of the madness that is Kirk Polland.

As stated in my last blog, as moderator, it is my duty to read an actual example of bad prose. Something like the following:

"Moving quickly from the radio to her living quarters, she squeezed a little water into a plastic container and put a few dabs of toothpaste on her brush. She slipped the brush into her mouth and pressed the small bitton the end which activated its electric motor. The bristles -- soft, gentle bristles, guaranteed not to damage the enamel or the gum -- moved swiftly against the teeth. She began with the top left molars, worked round to the bicuspids, and came round again from them to the incisors, the canines, the laterals and the centrals. Once she reached the front of her mouth, she changed the grip on her brush ..."

This teeth cleaning description goes on for quite a bit, then continues in a new paragraph.

"Once more she put paste on the brush in this same elaborate ritual and concentrated her attention now upon ..."

That's where the bad prose ends -- mid-sentence, and it is the duty of the contestants to finish the thought in a convincing enough style to fool the Readercon audience.

Except for me. My duty is to write something silly, like what follows next:

"Once more she put paste on the brush in this same elaborate ritual and concentrated her attention now upon the most wonderful man in the world, her beloved Brian. She quickly checked his restraints. Yes, he was still bound securely to the chair, with the metal clamps pulling back his lips to reveal his own lovely set of molars, teeth that one day would be every bit as white as her own.

"Did she see fear in his eyes? 'Mmm Nnn Mmm Nnn!' he protested vigorously.

"'Oh, honey-poo,' she purred. 'We're only brushing now.'

"He relaxed a bit at that, and she set to work, concentrating her efforts in every corner of his dental array. He had the most beautiful incisors! And that one, slightly chipped molar -- some women might reject a man for such an imperfection, but she found the damage rather exciting. She licked her minty-fresh lips despite herself.

"A mere twenty minutes, and she was done. 'There, honey-poo. That wasn't so bad!'

"But the fear was back in Brian's eyes. 'Mmm Nnn Mmm Nnn!' he moaned even more piteously.

"What could she say to that? They both knew what happened next. And there was no way she could stop it. She needed what came next. And Brian did, too.

"Soon, the flossing would begin."

#####

And thus ends our reading of Kirk (taken from our most recent event, btw).

Any questions?

The Visible Kirk

2006-08-03T09:09:00.000-05:00

So what is it with this "Kirk Polland Memorial Bad Prose" panel, anyways?

Ever since we had our annual dose of Kirk a couple of weeks ago, I thought I might explain it here to those who are not fortunate enough to attend Readercon (a situation they should surely rectify.) But it got to be summer, I got busy, it became insanely hot, my website e-mail broke down, yadda yadda. But now it's time for this blog to get back to work! (Insert mental picture of the burly A-Rama-Ding-Dong rolling up his sleeves.)

So, the Kirk contest, invented by Eric Van and his talented minions at Readercon, is kind of like "Pictionary," where players invent fake dictionary definitions of obscure words, and then have to guess which one is correct. Except, in the Kirk version, the contestants all write fake prose -- fake BAD prose -- and the audience (usually many hundreds of people) have to guess the correct answer. Which they regularly do not. Sorry, audience.

With me so far?

So, back in the dim recesses of time, at the very first Readercon, which was held at a small hotel in Brookline, MA, I was approached by Eric to participate in the very first of these contests. I suggested that I help out by being the first reader of the prose -- the bad writing excerpts are broken in the middle, with me reading the first few lines to give the audience a taste of what they are in for. The contestants -- generally three others besides myself and Eric, all take turns reading the (mostly invented) endings, and the audience then votes on which ending they believe to be real.

So, at this very first Readercon, a couple of decades (!) back now, Eric gave the first set of contestants the first few pieces of bad prose, and we all wrote (in long hand!) our bogus answers. We were all instructed to come up with the very best bad prose possible, so that we might have a chance to win.

But a very strange thing happened to me along the way.

I started trying to turn out genuine bad prose -- really I did -- but my mind kept coming up with not just bad but SILLY conclusions to all the prose samples. I couldn't help myself. It was just the way my brain worked.

And so it came to pass that I would provide silly answers (or sillier answers) to the prose, and so step outside of the true competition. Which helped to make Kirk funnier and move faster (occasionally, the prose would just get to be too awful), and became my small part in making Kirk the institution it is today.

Well, your explanations are fine as far as they go, I hear you say. But we want examples!

And I'll give you one, from our most recent competition, in my very next blog.

E-mail? What e-mail?

2006-08-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

Somehow, through the wonders of Verizon, my e-mail here has temporarily ceased to function. How I'll live without endless offers from Canadian drug companies and Nigerian princes (which is 98% of what I get) I don't know. I had a couple recent e-mails I hadn't answered (I've been busy), for which I apologize, and I can't even access them now. If you need to say hello, or whatever, reply to my blog, and I'll let folks know when the e-mail acount is up and running again. Thanks!

Readercon in Review

2006-07-10T13:31:00.000-05:00

Well, another Readercon has happened, and from what I saw of it, it was a good one! We had a very nice BATTLESTAR GALACTICA panel, where I got to show off the arc (advanced reading copy) of my book, THE CYLONS' SECRET. Readercon only has a media-related panel once every few years (the last one was about BUFFY), so this speaks well for GALACTICA's standing in the "literary sf" world.

The Kirk Polland Memorial Bad Prose Competition was its usual big hit. If you haven't seen one of these, well, what can I say? You're missing one of the truly unique experiences in all of Fandom. And it's funny, too!

The nicest thing that happened at the con, tho, was running into Elizabeth Bear, a young sf/fantasy author whom I have not yet read (tho I will be correcting that situation shortly) who reminded me that we had met years ago at a series of conventions held at the University of Connecticut (in fabulous Storrs, CT, as I recall). I was their one regular attendee over the three years that they held these conventions, and they threatened to rename the event Craig Shaw Gardner Con! (Really!)

But Ms. Bear very nicely thanked me for all the advice and encouragement I had given her way back when, and said I was a big help getting her started in her career. Which -- writing being the lonely business that it is -- is one of the best things a writer can hear.

More on Readercon soon. And this Thursday, Necon! A writer's work is never done.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2006-07-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, I know that's supposed to be Christmas. Except, you know, it's cold at Christmas. And -- at least around Boston -- you have to deal with crazy drivers who become even crazier as the holiday approaches, as though they were taking their true feelings about their families out on the road. Or so I imagine.

No, no, the best -- and busiest -- time of the year is right now, at the beginning of July, when the two best sf/fantasy/horror conventions EVER make their annual appearances.

I'm talking Readercon, which happens this weekend, which is a literary science fiction con with very little media involved, although there will be a Battlestar Galactica panel this year, with me as one of the panelists. I'm also involved (as usual) in the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition, which -- well, if you haven't sat through a night of Kirk, your life is not complete. What can I say?

And then the following week is Necon, aka Camp Necon, which is a horror/fantasy convention which features four days of ghost stories and panels and movies and softball and Valuable Prizes and college food and miniature golf and staying up all night. It's sort of like a big family thing if your family were all horror writers and all liked you better than your family actually does. It's exhausting and wonderful all at the same time. It might even be better than Readercon (tho it's a close call.)

If you wander over to my links page, you'll find websites for both these cons. If you're ever in the Boston area this time of year, you should stop by one or both. They could change your life.

These cons are thatgood.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!

2006-06-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

Despite everything we try to do, I guess age creeps up on us. We are no longer hip, groovy, cool, or whatever the current term may be. Heck, we don't even know what the current term might be! Despite years of fighting against it, we are now officially out of the loop.

I am brought to these thoughts by the Pussycat Dolls. The Pussycat Dolls seem to be this large group of young female musical performers, all of whom dance around a lot, and one of whom sort of sings. Suddenly, the Pussycat Dolls are everywhere -- or at least in a lot of TV and commercial stuff that passes me by as I watch my beloved Red Sox. Now, I also seem to have mysteriously gotten a subscription to BLENDER (a magazine I never ordered, and sometimes can barely understand) -- my guess is that it got piggybacked onto my ROLLING STONE sub. But the most recent issue of BLENDER has those darn Pussycat Dolls on the cover, plus an article/interview with them in which they appear even more boring and shallow than I originally thought possible.

Why do the Pussycat Dolls annoy me so? I guess it's because, besides the fact they they have Very Little Talent, they are blatantly about one thing -- sex. And of course, they are prepackaged like the Backstreet Boys or the Spice Girls, but with far less personality than either (which before now, I would have thought impossible.)

Not that I'm against sex, mind you. But there have been myriad performers over the years -- from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna -- who have combined sex with actual talent. Whenever I hear the Pussycat Dolls sing "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?", I immediately think, no thanks, I prefer women with personality and brains.

I guess I'm just funny that way.