No Blog=More Clicks? WTF?!

Hi.

So, every week after posting the latest news and wit-drenched insights about SuperHuman Times here, I always hit the Pimp My Stuff message board at wizarduniverse.com to promote it. It's a well-traveled forum run by the good folks at Wizard Entertainment, the brains behind Wizard and ToyFare magazines, as well as the Wizard World Comic-Cons. It's a lively place, and since it's got the only comic fan-centric board with a forum where you can promote damn near anything, I figure it's perfect for promoting Times to an audience I'd really like to reach.

I don't know if the show's garnered any listeners from this, but the postings have been getting noticed. The first one, from May 2008 -- when "Dashing" began; can you remember back that far? -- has been viewed 155 times to date. But that's over a two-year period, so that's an average of, charitably, one per week, so it's not that impressive. But I'm gratified by the fact that 155 people have taken the time to check it out.

Now, a more recent one, from September 4 of this year, has been viewed 40 times in two weeks. Okay, that's nice. About three views per day. Again, gratifying that my latest ravings have attracted some attention.

But now I'm just baffled...

Last week's posting -- which promoted the fact that I would not be posting so that I could hawk Prometheus poobah/Times director Steve Wilson's interview on The Blowhard Experiment -- has generated more than 60 views in one week.

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to everyone who's been checking out the plugs. I just hope they've clicked through to the blog and, more importantly, to the podcasts. And I'm not jealous of what may be implied as Steve's appeal versus my own... on my own blog, MY OWN BLOG.

No, really, I'm fine.

It just reminds me of a time when Steve and I entered separately into a national screenwriting competition without realizing it. I made it to the quarterfinals before I was eliminated. I mentioned this to Steve months later... and he told me he'd made it one step farther to the semifinals before he, too was eliminated. And it's been that way between us ever since. He always ends up one step ahead of me. I'm used to it.

But come on, when a plug for a blog entry where I write very little (and Steve talks a lot) gets, on average, one of the highest responses to date, ya gotta wonder if I should just knock this off.

Then I remember that first 155. And the 40 from last week. And all the others from the Steve-less weeks inbetween. And you're mine, all mine! (Cue villainous laugh, because these entries should always have something to do with SuperHuman Times, which has, you know, villains as well as heroes. I'll stop reaching now.)

Someone's reading. Hopefully, someone's listening.


If it's you, on either count or both, thanks a lot.  

-- L.

If I Write It, Will They Read (or Listen)?

Hi.

While we all wait for the return of SuperHuman Times, I thought I might do something unusual.

Write. For the hell of it. Here.

If you've read past entries, you may already think I've been doing that -- talking about podcasts one minute and pets the next, that kind of thing. All over the map. But I think for the most part I've used this to push the show the way I wanted to.

The problem -- for me, anyway -- is the amount of time between entries. Makes me crazy when I visit someone's website or blog and discover that they haven't updated it after a couple of weeks/months/eons.

So I've made a late-year resolution: I'm going to try and post something here at least once a week. And to try and make it at least vaguely relevant to the show. Both will make me feel like I'm not wasting my time and yours.

Part of that will include maintaining the delusion that someone's out there reading all this stuff (and, more importantly, listening to the show). I know one or two friends have kept up with it, but it would be nice to get an audience of some kind for the series. I'm kicking around different promotional ideas to get the word out, ranging from program book ads at comic conventions ($$) to YouTube audio ads (free, but a tech challenge for me). But demands of the real world keep getting in the way.

Still, I look at some of my former work colleagues who have gone on to better things writing-wise -- despite their real-world obligations -- and wonder if it's too late, if I'll ever write anything good enough for anyone else to deem it worth reading/listening to...

Then I remember meeting the Apollo astronauts, and that a long time ago, we went to the Moon. And that anything is possible.

But since I stink at the science and math required to send people to the Moon (in addition to most sci/math), I'd better stick to writing.

Here.

For the hell of it.

Later. Promise.

-- L.

Memories of Treks, Cheap & Otherwise

Hi.

Aside from a new graphic that I just posted on the web page, nothing truly newsworthy to report, but I’ve been watching some stuff on TV and it made me want to share some thoughts with anyone who might be following this blog, the show, and its origins.

Not long ago, we bought the Blu-rays of what I consider to be the three best Star Trek movies ever made, namely II, III, and IV – or, as I refer to them, the Holy Trinity. If you’re into old Trek and haven’t picked them up yet (and you have a Blu-ray player, of course), I highly recommend the box set of them . The visual effects look stellar (well, okay, there’s some FX masking in a few shots in III, but it doesn’t ruin the overall film) and the stories hold up quite well. All of the extras from the films’ last DVD releases are intact, plus there are a few new hi-def extras on each one. (No offense to Nick Meyer, but I suggest skipping the “tribute” to Ricardo Montalban on II. It’s just Meyer talking about Montalban in 1080i. For about five uninterrupted minutes. No clips from “Space Seed” or any of Montalban’s old movies. Just Nick sitting and talking. Next!)

Anyway, I watched II and III yesterday, and the memories attached to them overwhelmed me. Not just the usual ones you’d associate with watching a movie you first saw many years ago – which friends were with you, where you first saw it, that kind of thing – but memories associated with how I and a bunch of my best friends had the time of our lives systematically ridiculing these and so many other films and TV shows on convention stages for a decade.

I refer to the moron squad we called Cheap Treks (1987-1997), and I mention it because it played an important role in how my overall writing developed and, consequently, how SuperHuman Times came to be. In fact, if it weren’t for a horrible onstage spoof of Star Trek III, you might not be hearing the show at all.

See, Cheap Treks came into being after Dave Keefer (playing Scotty) and I (playing Kirk for what would be the first of many times) took part in an abominable parody of III in 1986 that caused us to look at each other after wards and say, “We could do better than this.” (This was also how we started the Boogie Knights four years earlier, only with filksinging; Dave was always suckering me into such things – thankfully.)

Anyway, back to ’86: The only things that made this show tolerable for us were 1) the Cole Porter musical score (yes, this was a musical; no, we could not sing); and 2) the fact that the director – the late and much-missed Marion McChesney – gave us permission to experiment during rehearsals. And we did. Hell, we didn’t just throw in an ad-lib or two, we ran amuck, and the audience loved it. If I can find the show tape and can finesse the quality, I really should put the Scotty rant that Dave came up with on YouTube. I remember him reciting it for me the first time as he drove us to a rehearsal. My God, that’s still funny.

BUT, what does all this geezing have to do with SuperHuman Times?

Well, like I said, the next year, Dave and I began Cheap Treks with our Trek IV parody, “Live Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. It, and all the shows that followed, were terrific exercise grounds for me as a writer and, when summoned, as an actor. Remember, I was still in my 20s, when I still believed the All Things Are Possible, like my becoming a professional scriptwriter. And having convention stages to play on allowed me to try writing different types of shows, experiment with verbal and visual gags, play with timing, and, basically, figure out what a given audience would let me get away with. It also gave me and my pals a chance to put on what I humbly submit were some of the best and most elaborate spoofs – no, that's a disservice; by the time it ended, we were doing plays -- to grace any convention stage (and I’m not just talking about the ones I wrote or co-wrote). To this day, it’s hard to watch the Trek films – and a host of other things, from the original Star Wars trilogy to Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera to Dragnet – without reciting the lines we wrote/made up on the fly. And that cumulative experience has guided me in every “serious” writing project since – including (FINALLY, the point) SuperHuman Times.

“But Lance,” you’re asking, if you’ve read this far, “you said something about how we might not be hearing the show at all if it weren’t for that godawful Trek III spoof in 1986…”

True enough. Here’s why. While I was playing Kirk, I met a very twisted and talented young man who essayed the role of David Marcus, the Admiral’s son. Like Dave and myself, he ran with every opportunity to make the show better for us and, more importantly, for the audience. A prime example of this can be found in his offstage death scene, which he used to (successfully) knock me off guard on stage during the performance and bring down the house. I knew he was a farceur to be reckoned with and, if you’ve heard Prometheus Radio Theatre’s Planet of Dark Shadows, you know I was right.

His name? Steve Wilson, master of Prometheus and he whose whim allows SuperHuman Times to have a home. Being incurable parodists, our paths probably would have crossed and entwined eventually beyond that show, but I want to think that SOMETHING good came out of that Cole Porter show, so it may as well be our friendship. And, oh yeah, Cheap Treks.

Thanks, Steve, Dave, et al for the writing lessons. And a great ride.

-- L.

Cheap Treks' first class picture from Shore Leave 1987: "Live Long & Thanks for All the Fish", featuring a few names you may recognize from Prometheus productions.
Back, L/R: Paul Balze, Steve Wilson, Sharon Palmer, Dan Coggins, me, David Keefer, Barb Helfer, Eric Burch
Front , L/R: Chuck Coates, Alan Chafin, John Scheeler, Winchell Chung
Yes, we often took liberties with the costumes -- like Spock's mohawk -- which I'll go into some other time.