BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

In case you are unfamiliar with what I mean by that title, to Castle, or Castling, is a defensive strategy in chess, whereby the king moves two squares toward the rook that is to be castled with, (this can be the rook on either side, so long as it fits the rules below). The rook then moves past the king to the square on the opposite side and takes up a position there.

Yeah, that chess piece on each end isn’t called a castle, it’s called a rook. The move itself is called Castling… And, there are a handful of rules, as mentioned above, that go along with the move… Like not having any other pieces in between the rook and king and, neither the rook nor king having been moved from their original positions prior to Castling, yadda yadda…

But, since I don’t have anyone with whom to play chess, I don’t get to do it that much these days. Therefore, I’m not actually here to talk to you about defensive strategies in a board game that stems from 1400’s Europe, and even farther back than that if you want to get technical about it. If I was here to do that, I would probably ramble on about a much more arcane and little used move like, En Passant. But, let’s just not even get started with that…

And, I’m not even going to talk about heavily fortified medieval structures either… As amazing as it may seem, I am going to prattle on endlessly about television… Seriously. Yeah, I know… Kinda weird, eh? Especially coming from me…

So, on with this whole TV thing…

You see, last night, E K was surfing around the web, checking out clips from the Oscars, mainly because we don’t actually watch that stuff, but she had heard a couple of things on the grapevine and wanted to see the clips.  Probably so she could look at Hugh Jackman or something, who knows… Either way, in her searches and such, she ran across an advertisement for a new TV show…

Yeah, you guessed it, the name of the show is, Castle. Here is a little snippet about it from the ABC website:

“Wildly famous mystery novelist Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is bored with his own success. Then he learns that a real-world copycat killer has started staging murder scenes depicted in his novels. Castle is questioned by NYPD Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), a bright and aggressive detective who keeps her investigations under tight rein. Though they instantly clash, sparks of another sort also begin to fly, leading both to danger and a hint of romance as Castle steps in to help find the killer. And once that case is solved, he and Beckett build on their new relationship as they look to solve more strange homicides in New York – as much fun as one can have with death and murder.”

Now, obviously, the minute the Evil Redhead mentioned this to me, I turned my desk chair around, because, well, the way our shared office is set up we have our backs to one another. So, in order to see what she was talking about I pretty much had to turn around… But, of course, that’s not the only reason. First, there is the fact that she said Nathan Fillion was starring in the show. While I’m not a rabid celebrity chaser or anything, I happen to like Mister Fillion’s acting. And, after all, he’s one of our BDH’s. In case you don’t know what a BDH is, the beloved acronym stands for, Big Damn Heroes… Serenity… Firefly… Captain Tightpants… Malcolm Reynolds… Trust me, this is an important thing to know.

Of course, the second thing to capture my attention was something just as important as the fact that Mister Fillion was starring in the series, if not infinitely more so. Obviously, that would be the fact that he is playing the part of a mystery author. I mean, after all, that’s pretty much exactly what I do for a living, so it’s definitely going to spark my interest just a bit, don’tcha think?

But, since the wayback machine is always sitting in the corner of my office, just chugging away as it waits for a passenger or two, we might want to pay a bit of attention to it. We don’t have to take a trip or anything, but just for the sake of full disclosure, maybe we should poke our heads in through the hatch and have a look at the “Visio Temporal Doozy-what-zits Screen“…

Back in 1979 and 1980, there was a short lived TV series starring Dennis Weaver. The title was, “Stone“. (Funny, castles are made of stone, aren’t they? But, I digress…) Anyway, Mister Weaver played the part of Daniel Ellis Stone, a police detective who also happened to be a bestselling crime novelist. Hm… There’s your police procedural element, eh?

But, it doesn’t stop there…

Back in 2002 we had another short lived series about a writer, “Stark Raving Mad.” This one starred Tony Shalhoub, (of Wings and Monk fame), as Ian Stark, a King-esque horror author who was all about practical jokes and having a good time. Hm… There’s your comedic element, eh?

Of course, if we wanted to step all the way into the wayback machine, we could find many more examples of authors as main characters in movies and TV… Murder She Wrote, anyone? However, for a quick look on the “how do these things relate scale,” those are a couple of the more recent…

So, what I am saying here is that the premise behind Castle isn’t exactly new. But, let’s not take that as me being critical, because I’m definitely not. Any writer worth a damn will tell you that there is no such thing as a book or story that hasn’t been written, because it simply isn’t true. There are only so many plots and premises, and trust me, they’ve all been used. What we do, as writers, is put a different spin on those staples we have rattling around in our tool bags.  This show appears to do just that…

So, back to that turning around thing…

E K clicked on over to the ABC website, specifically to the page devoted to Castle, and there happened to be a couple of video excerpts embedded there for promotional purposes. Well, being the curious sorts we both are, she started them up and we sat back to watch.

Of course, as we all know, the excerpts are generally the best parts of the show, strung together in such a way as to get you to tune in to the whole thing, thereby watching the commercials, buying the advertised products, which in turn, causes the advertiser to buy more air time, thereby financing the network and show, and… Well, you get the picture. The other thing about excerpts is this… Very often they will imply things that not only don’t happen in the show proper, but they will even flat out lie about what is going to happen, and even use footage that came from the cutting room floor. Therefore, we have to take these excerpts for what they truly are, that being, promotional gimmicks, see above for more details.

That said, I have to admit I got a kick out of these particular clips.

Mister Fillion has great comic timing, and is a very versatile actor, to say the least. Still, there were a couple of things that bugged me… Just a little… And, while I am gearing up to mention them here, I am also truly reserving judgment until I see the full episodes, because, as I said, excerpts are just excerpts after all…

The things that caused me to raise an eyebrow:

1. Wildly successful authors: In the excerpt, Castle is playing poker with a stack of wildly successful author buddies – Patterson, King, etc… They are all flush with cash, and at one point there is a mention of a series/character keeping a particular author’s “private jet” fueled long after people have forgotten about Castle’s recently killed off character.
2. Me: What I mean by that is, I see a little too much of “me” in the character of Castle. (No, I don’t believe for a minute, nor am I claiming that someone is following me around and using me as a template for the character… see my explanation below…)

Point number one is the real kicker. I am hoping that after I see the actual episodes that some of these “private jet” oriented comments are intended as tongue-in-cheek. If they are, well then I can have a good laugh. Because, while there are a few wildly successful authors out there, few is the operative word. Better than 95% of the literature folks pick up to read and enjoy is written by mid-list and lower mid-list authors… Those of us who are basically pulling in a living somewhere between “poverty level” and “kinda okay average”.  I’m not complaining… It’s a career choice I made… But, I already have folks believing that I live on my own private island with servants and such. I can just see people watching this series and suddenly assuming that all authors are millionaires, just like they make ridiculous assumptions about cops, firemen, lawyers, and any other profession that has been “over-dramatized” on TV. (Remind me to tell you the story  sometime of the parent at my child’s school who made that exact assumption about me when he found out I am a published author of a series. I still haven’t been able to convince him otherwise.)

Point number two… Well, it’s not really a problem so much as an  amusing observation… While I am certainly nowhere near as good looking as Mister Fillion, nor am I anywhere near as successful as his character, Castle,  nor am I a skirt chaser, (although, I readily admit to being a major flirt), I do have something very much in common with him. That is, a tendency to toss silly witticisms out there, no matter what the situation, dire or otherwise. I suppose, like the character, humor is my relief valve / defense mechanism. So, I can easily see myself watching this show and mumbling, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I would have said,” or even literally knowing what he is going to say before he says it. I already found myself doing that with the clips…

In any event, I have high hopes for this one. It’s great to see Mister Fillion doing well, and I cannot say as that I am displeased by the idea of an author getting to be the main character of a TV show, because, well, I’d be lying. Truth is, I’m pretty excited about it.

According to ABC’s website, Castle premieres Monday, March 9th, at 10/9 Central. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ll definitely be tuning in. In fact, I already wrote it down on my calendar…

More to come…

Murv

… PS. Something I forgot to mention. The novel character Castle just killed off? His name was Storm. Ring any bells?

Part 9 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: Clink! Clank! Oh, Murv!

Apparently, I perform well under pressure, even when it comes to mathematics…

Yes… The ring was exactly, and I do mean exactly, where my advanced calculations had said it would be. I didn’t even have to get dirty looking for it. I simply stood on an upturned 5 gallon bucket, removed two screws from a vent cover on the duct work, and there it was, winking at me in the dim light as if to say, “Whee! That was fun, let’s do it again!“

Needless to say, I ignored the ring’s request, replaced the vent cover, and returned upstairs. I also made it a point to show my mother-in-law the ring so that she would know the crisis had been averted, and more importantly, that I was not nearly as big an idiot as she imagined me to be. To this day I’m not really sure she was convinced…

Oh, and before I go any further I need to address a couple of things…

First, my apologies to Z Z Top for snagging one of their song titles for this blog entry. But, I think you’ll see why I did it if you keep reading…

Second, if you look closely at the picture above and on the right, you will notice that E K appears to have a grin on her face… In fact, it is something almost resembling a laugh. Well, that’s because it is. A laugh, I mean. Although you can’t see my face in this photo, rest assured, I was desperately trying to stifle a guffaw myself. It seems our rings were in a mood that evening. Not only had E Kay’s wedding band taken an unscheduled excursion through the HVAC duct work, we  even had ourselves another “ring mishap” right smack in the middle of the ceremony. Scott, (visible on the right), had handed me E Kay’s ring. Erin (remember Erin?) had handed E K my ring. Both of us, at his behest, had handed the respective rings to E Kay’s father, (the guy in front of us performing the ceremony), so that he could bless them… When he handed them back to us,  each at separate times as the ceremony called for, somehow I ended up with my own ring to slide onto Kat’s finger. Well, my ring being larger, obviously, this wasn’t that much of an issue. However, as the logical progression continued, moments later E K ended up with her own ring to place  on my finger and we tried desperately to make a surreptitious swap without letting on, but ended up getting tickled…

But, let’s step a few minutes back in time… (Yeah, don’t you wish you could do that for real? Me too.)

So, here we are, instantly back in the recent past… Well, it was recent past then… Now it is… Well, you know what I mean…

At this point I have recovered the fugitive wedding ring and I am feeling fairly proud of myself over such a grand accomplishment. However, since the clock didn’t stop during the mini crisis, we are at T minus 15 at this point… E K is still in the bedroom making herself too gorgeous for words, or as has been my personal contention for years, desperately trying to pry open the window that had been painted shut by the previous owners in order to make her escape. She maintains that my theory simply is not true, but when we went to replace that window during our continued  remodel several months later, I found claw-like fingernail gouges in the woodwork that looked suspiciously like they had been made by a human being with petite little feminine hands. From all appearances they seemed to have been made while she was attempting to dig her way through the wall.

With evidence like that, you tell me… What would you think?

But yeah, I digress…

We were coming up on zero-hour and fast. People had been arriving for several minutes, and our tiny house was now full, and even overflowing onto the front porch. In fact, it became obvious that there was a bit of an exodus occurring right before my eyes. It was at this particular point when I realized that I had started to sweat more than just a little. At first I thought it was simply because I was the groom and it was my job to sweat profusely immediately prior to the ceremony, however it was soon brought to my attention that everyone else was sweating too. Given that they weren’t standing in my shoes, there had to be something else going on…

You see, as I outlined in the earlier installment, “Mahwage: The Wedding Suit,” not only had the 2008 startup of the Large Hadron Collider screwed with the fabric of time and space, effectively f*cking up clocks on 10/31/87, apparently it had also temporarily shifted the entire planet on its axis, returning us from the beautiful fall weather we had been experiencing, (since, after all, it was autumn), to something more closely resembling mid-summer.

Yes, what I am saying is that  it was unseasonably warm… Way, way unseasonably warm. And when combined with all those bodies milling about in an enclosed area, as well as a half dozen medium-sized cans of Sterno flaming away beneath chafing dishes, along with a couple of crock pots set on high… well, it was just plain sweltering in the house. Not a problem.  Easy to fix. I would just turn on the A C…

… Uh-huh… Yeah… Problem…

And said problem is yet another reason why we paid way too much for our “fixer upper”. I slid the switch on the thermostat, and the A C clicked on. It then proceeded to make a groaning noise, followed by a clank, punctuated by a sputter, underlined by a screech, and then  when it was fully satisfied with itself, the damn thing settled in to a loud, not quite right sounding whirr. All well and fine, except that whirring was pretty much all it was good for at that point. Uh-huh… The compressor was all but shot, and the coil was hot on its heels… And, while that pun wasn’t intended, it is entirely accurate… The A C was blowing hot air…

But, even though the air flowing from the vents felt more like the product of the furnace than the A C, at least now it was moving…  Sorta… Well, a little bit…

So, in a last ditch effort to adjust the comfort level, we ran around the house and pried open every window we could so as to assist in the circulation. There were still more people coming for the reception following the ceremony proper, so heat exchanging was definitely going to be an issue. This process took a little elbow grease, because remember, the previous owners had been very good about painting the windows shut for us. While that thought was awfully kind of them, I was less than excited about it right then…

But, let’s move on to those stockings…

I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I am not a “boob man”. This is probably one of the reasons Erin, (remember Erin? By the way, is anyone sensing an “Erin” theme here yet?) Anyway, this is probably why Erin and her most bodacious and prominent chest didn’t enrapture me as it had done for the other red-blooded males back at ComputerTrend. I mean, nothing against breasts… They’re nice… Even fun to play with now and again… (No, I never played with Erin’s… Sheesh, you people…) But, to put it very simply they aren’t the physical feature that first attracts my attention when it comes to the appreciation of the female form… (As you can see, I am desperately trying to apply some political correctness to this part of my rambling, and failing miserably in the process, so I’m afraid I’ll just have to abandon the attempt…) The long and short of it is this… I’m a leg man. Nothing titillates, (yeah, odd word choice, considering), me more than a woman’s legs. I’m all about the whole stocking-encased, silky thigh, back of the knee, shapely calf, well-turned ankle appendage ending in a stiletto heeled pump…

Uhm… Excuse me just a moment…

…Okay, I’m back now…

What? I was getting more coffee… Jeez… First Erin, now this… Y’all are worse than me… Give me a break.

Okay, so let’s get back to the story… So, yeah, everyone has their turn-on’s, and shapely female legs are mine. So, my lovely bride, both knowing this fact and being in possession of a fantastic pair of legs, (yes, hers, not someone else’s), had picked out a pair of sexy, white, back-seamed stockings to go with her dress and high heels. Trust me… I was not complaining about this fact at all…

Now… I have to divert from the storyline once more in order to pass along a bit of pertinent information. E K was, at that time in her life, habitually late for everything. She still is, but to nowhere near the degree she was back then… Remember the part in an earlier installment about us annoying one another? Well, there’s one for you… As it happens, I’m habitually early. See the rub? I am pointing this out because much time has passed with all that A C mucking about and window opening handjive.

Therefore, much to my chagrin, we have now arrived at T plus 20 or so… Yeah, the mission profile has been altered and I didn’t get the memo.

And so, the tableau is set up thusly… E K is still in the bedroom. I am standing in the middle of the living room with all of our friends and family, doing the only thing I can think to do, which is shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head. My sister has already made a trip or two back to the bedroom to check on E K and has assured me that she is neither sick, nor has she escaped.

We continue to stand and/or sit, as the case may be, around the living room and stare at one another. Every now and then I would shrug once more and smile nervously. By now my best man, Scott, has punched me in the arm enough times that I am convinced I will be needing to head to the emergency room for an X-ray and cast once the ceremony is over… Got all that? Good, because here goes…

Finally, we heard the bedroom door click and swing open. A hush fell, almost like it would in an actual chapel. It must be something to do with “Bride Radar” or some such, you got me, all I know is it got real quiet, real fast… Anyway, from my vantage point I can see down the hallway and slowly, but surely, an absolute vision comes into view. E K was beyond stunning and my breath literally caught in my chest. However, since I realize full well that during this series I have gone on and on and on about how gorgeous  my wife is, in my eyes at the very least, I’ll try to refrain from doing so for a minute or two.

E K smiled and began walking toward me. I smiled back at her, and as she stepped into the living room her heels clacked across the hardwood floor, sharp and obvious in the hush that still gripped those in attendance. She glanced around at everyone and said in a shy voice, “Sorry… I guess we’re ready now.” I stepped quickly to the “altar,” (as seen in the first picture up top, the “altar” was the yet unfinished window at the South end of the living room.)

My plan, of course, was to wait for my lovely bride to make her complete entrance and allow her to be the center of attention for a moment, just like it is supposed to happen at a wedding. She picked up on the cue and ventured farther into the room as she walked slowly toward me.

I continued smiling at her, but noticed that her own smile was quickly fading. In fact, her eyes had grown wide and her face had begun to twist into a look of surprise, fear, consternation, concern, calculating thought, and about twelve other similar expressions… And, these bizarre looks were being displayed all at once. Without missing a single, dainty step, as if perfectly choreographed, she turned smoothly on her heel and continued her march in the complete opposite direction, making a sharp right turn into the hallway from whence she had come, as she called over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

A pair of seconds later we heard the bedroom door open, and then quickly shut. We all looked around the room at one another, totally dumbfounded. This was the last thing anyone had expected, and it once again had me wondering if E K was trying to claw her way out the back window in a bid to seek freedom. Of course, customarily the groom is the one to get cold feet, but since we had already been setting a precedent throughout our entire relationship for re-enacting scenes from movies that hadn’t even been made yet, there was always the chance that this incident was going to be plucked from our lives and inserted into Runaway Bride.

For a moment, I considered sending my sister back to the bedroom with a bottle of scotch  and a tumbler. My hope was that a shot or two would bolster my maybe-soon-to-be-wife’s courage, but before I could set that plan into motion, Kathy reappeared, her smile now beaming as she once again muttered a quick “sorry about that,” and made her way through the assemblage to stand by my side.

It wasn’t until we were preparing for bed later that evening… Yes, later that evening… Not night, not the next morning, that evening… Trust me, we’ll get to the “why” in relation to that in just a bit. Anyway, it wasn’t until then that I found out what that whole little back and forth dance was all about. And, I only found out because my bride suddenly announced to me that she had lost all feeling in her legs…

You see, it’s like this… While me not having a suit was a major screw up…  I readily admit that… It seems I wasn’t the only one who was misfiring in the grey matter department. E K… Yes, E K, had screwed up too. When she purchased the stockings to go with her dress, she had thought she picked up a pair of thigh-highs, when in fact she had picked up stockings. As in stockings that require a garter belt. A garter belt which was still packed away in a box in the basement, because we had only just moved in and were woefully behind in unpacking due to the remodeling activities. So, even if she had asked me to retrieve the lacy accoutrement for her, I probably wouldn’t have been able to actually locate it amidst the boxes until sometime during the spring of 1994, which obviously would have been just a tad bit late. She knew this… Remember, like I said before, she’s a smart cookie…

So, in a MacGyverish gambit, she had attempted to make the sheer fabric stay in place with a bit of  cellophane tape… Unfortunately, by the time she made it less than a half dozen steps into the living room, the stockings began to fall, hence the sudden horrified look upon her face.

But, why had she lost the feeling in her legs? Well, here’s the thing… Her own personal lightning fast calculations in the face of an impending crisis had led her to the only solution available within the confines of the bedroom, and time allotted upon her hasty retreat… For the entire evening she had been holding up her stockings with heavy duty rubber bands wrapped around her thighs… Now, that’s what I call commitment to a cause, for you see, I happen to know my bride had other actual thigh high stockings in the bedroom. I know this because she used to buy Leggs stockings mail-order by the dozen. Now, I doubt if she had any that were white, although she may have. I don’t actually make a habit of inventorying my wife’s undergarments.  That would just be… Well… Weird… Harmless, but weird… Anyway,  my point here is that I’m willing to bet there were some in “nude,” or some other hosiery shade that would have worked just fine with her dress.

But of course, that’s my E K for you… Once she sets her mind to something you best stay out of her way, because she is going to see it through come hell, high water… Or even sagging stockings…

But, as I said, this little tidbit of information came to my attention much later in the evening… I’m afraid this story isn’t over quite yet…

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: Trick Or Treat!