We all get ensnared in the 'Net. It's become such a part of our lives. Podcasts, videos, commercial sites, political rants, hate speech, love speech, the cuter than cute, the most horrible of the horrific, real and true information, and myths upon myths upon myths. All this makes the internet really not that much different from any other conduit of communication: TV, Radio, newspapers, books, pamphlets, the local coffee shop, and the neighborhood bar. It is just so much bigger, pervasive, and not only in your face, and in your home, but in your pocket. It is a big (even if small), digital companion. We can only hope that for most of us, it is also a friend.
For an author of books, it allows you to get your face and voice out there for discovery. As authors rarely get invited on to early morning and late night network and cable shows, that's a pretty good -- if nowhere near as potent -- benefit.
And it can be fun. I've had some good times being a guest on podcasts and videos, and even making a few of my own in the past eight years or so. And I thought it might be useful to gather them together in one place just in case anyone trying to decide to take a chance on my books wanted to get to know me a bit. So, here they are:
Cara Santa Maria is quickly becoming one of our best and brightest science communicators. She was the senior science correspondent for the Huffington Post, and now not only reports on science for public TV station KCET in L.A., but participates in several popular podcasts, including her own, Talk Nerdy. I was thrilled to be her guest one fine day last year to talk about science fiction, the future of humanity, and my novel Traveling in Space.
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Frank Thompson is a film historian who has a great podcast, The Commentary Track. Here he has illuminating conversations with other film historians and people involved in the making of films. As he knew of my twenty-year plus history of working in film, and some of the people I worked with, including Chuck Jones, Dick Zanuck, and Ray Bradbury, he asked me to sit down and yak with him. I was more than happy to oblige and had a good doing so.
Sword & Laser is a popular internet show on all things SF (the laser) & Fantasy (the sword). Jeff Cannata, who recorded the audiobook of my novel Traveling in Space (which I produced and directed), and I appeared on the show and talked about our collaboration and my novel in some detail.
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April 2, 2014, Peter Lonsdale and I finish recording the audiobook of Traveling in Space with the very talented Jeff Cannata. And we get a little silly.
On September 23, 2013, the Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library in Los Angeles was dedicated to Ray Bradbury. This had been Ray's local library, and he had spent many hours here with his four daughters and often spoke here. I helped bring this about, although it really was the combined efforts of Councilmember Paul Koretz, the Los Angeles Public Library, the Friends of the Palms-Rancho Park Library, and leaders in the local community that made it happen. After the dedication I joined fellow authors Harlan Ellison and George Clayton Johnson upstairs in the Ray Bradbury Room to talk about our mutual friend, Ray Bradbury. This video was shot by another friend of Ray's, John Sasser.
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L.A. public TV station KCET invited me to be one-day food critic on their internet show, Free Lunch. I was happy to do it as free lunches are gold to a writer.
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I've guested often on Peter Anthony Holder's The Stuph File podcast. Here's on of my favorites, sharing the mic with Jonah Cummings, the audiobook narrator of my novel Blood is Pretty.
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Speaking of Blood is Pretty, here's a piece shot by Peter Lonsdale of me -- speaking about Blood is Pretty
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The last work I did in film animation was to voice the character of Scott, the owner of a Snow Dome store, who wants a son, in Steve Moore's (although credited here as Oscar Moore) award-winning animated short. It's a charming, if off-beat, love story.
I was the first person to be asked to give some free advice for a series of internet shorts. My free advice actually was wisdom I had received from a world famous film animation director who shall remain nameless.
At the end of March I received an offer for a free lunch. As a writer earning somewhat less that Stephen King, no two words in combination are sweeter to my ears than free and lunch unless they are best and seller.
My two favorite words in combination used to be free and love -- but that was in the 1970’s. The offer came from Diego Nunez, a video producer for KCET.org, the multifaceted and fascinating website of the largest independent public television station in the United States. He asked that I be the second “public” reviewer in a new web-series, FREE LUNCH (catchy title), which features visits to some of the more interesting eating establishments in Los Angeles by people who like (or possibly really need) to eat. They are then videotaped giving their on-the-spot reviews of the food and the experience. The first public reviewer http://www.kcet.org/socal/freelunch/green-peas.html was the lovely Lynn Chen, an actress who writes a blog about the life of a Hollywood actress (oddly enough). http://theactorsdiet.wordpress.com/I’m not calling her lovely just to be a gentleman, she truly is lovely as you can see here in this photo by the lucky Chopper Platt.
Lynn Chen - photo by Chopper Platt
The aesthetically unbalanced me
I can only assume Diego picked me to be the second reviewer for aesthetic balance. But that doesn’t matter, because, for whatever reason, I got a free lunch out of it! The restaurant Diego picked for me to give my intelligent and/or peckish consideration to was Wurstküche -- Purveyor of Exotic Grilled Sausages, http://www.wurstkucherestaurant.com/ located in downtown Los Angeles at 800 E. 3rd Street. You can see Diego’s logic here. As I grew up in Azusa, California, east of Pasadena, about one of the most subdued of suburbs in the American West, I’m about as exotic as you can get. It was a good match.
The subdued yet exotic me in Azusa
Diego and his fine and pleasant cinematographer, Ana Shepherd,
Diego and Ana
picked me up in front of the Central Library in downtown L.A. I had taken my beloved subway from the Valley.
My beloved
(Can a subway be beloved? Well, it is by me -- but then I always wanted to be part of an underground resistance). We then made the short drive to Wurstküche and entered the realm of exotic Sausages.
The place itself
The sausages themselves
Before coming I, being a writer, naturally did a little research and had already seen the menu on their website and knew what to expect, so I was not shocked to see among the exotic: rattlesnake & rabbit with jalapeño peppers.
Indeed, I was intrigued (the exotic will do that to you) and although my general wuss-like nature would normally see me order the safe chicken apple sausage, I screwed up my courage to order this dish. It was not, as you might have already in a deep fit of prejudging guessed, the combination of rattlesnake and rabbit that would put me off -- it was the jalapeño peppers. I have never liked jalapeño peppers, not just because of the heat generated, but I find the taste not at all appealing. Not that the heat is not a consideration: As the general existential and random nature of life are enough to give one heartburn, I have never considered it intelligent to intentionally give it to yourself. I was a big disappointment to my father, whose family came to California from Spain some 240 years ago. “But son,” my father would say when I would refuse to ingest a whole jalapeño pepper the way he had a habit of doing, “You’re Spanish.” Reminding him of his choice in wives, I said, “But, Dad, I’m only half Spanish -- and not that half!”
In any case the combination of rattlesnake and rabbit I found interesting so when I ordered I told the kind man behind the counter of my concerns regarding the jalapeño peppers.
The kind man behind the counter
He assured me that the sausage was not hot, indeed was one of their milder creations. Wanting to believe this informed professional, I ordered the rattlesnake and rabbit for, as my daughter, Miranda, had pointed out to me, it is a very ironic sausage as rattlesnakes eat rabbits. I love the ironic. When I mentioned this to the bright guy behind the counter he immediately, with the slight smile of one who can appreciate the ironic, said, “Actually it’s said that’s how we get this sausage. We only capture rattlesnakes that have just ingested a rabbit, then we grind them up together!” Even if I hadn’t been sold before I would have been then for, as I told my new friend who I hope to visit again, “There’s a certain logic to it because aren’t we all going to end up in the great universal sausage of eternity?”
The man in front of the counter contemplating the great universal sausage of eternity Photo by Ana Sheapard
I gave Wurstküche -- Purveyor of Exotic Grilled Sausages a good video review. You can see it here: http://www.kcet.org/socal/freelunch/wurstkuche-rattlesnake-rabbit-sausage.html I liked the R&R sausage a lot, I liked the counterman a lot -- he alone would bring me back -- and the well designed, comfortable feel of the place makes it a wonderful and relaxing stop for something exotic yet down-to-earth (you know, where the rattlesnakes and rabbits are) to ingest during the noon hour.
I've guested often on Peter Anthony Holder's The Stuph File podcast. Here's on of my favorites, sharing the mic with Jonah Cummings, the audiobook narrator of my novel Blood is Pretty.
