BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

One of the questions I get on a regular basis – I guess that would make it a FAQ – is, “If the Rowan Gant Investigations were ever made into movies, who would you pick to play the lead roles?”

Well, the reality is, IF the RGI series ever ended up in HollerWood, I can almost guarantee you that I won’t have the least bit of say about who is cast. In fact, I seriously doubt I’ll have any say whatsoever in anything, because once they negotiate a price and pay me for the rights to base a movie on one of my books, they can pretty much do whatever they hell they want.  That’s how it works.

And, ya’know, if there are enough zeros behind that dollar sign, I won’t have a problem with that. Maybe some of you would consider that “selling out”, but hey, I have a family to support, and even though I’m a fiction author I am also a realist. I would certainly hope that they would stick to the story and ideals, but as I said, for the right price, I would be happy to look the other way. It would be, after all, only a movie.

But, I digress, as usual…

The actual reason behind this blog is that I was recently contacted by the folks over at storycasting.com. Their site is sort of like a “fantasy football/baseball” thing, only instead of being sports based, it is Fantasy Movie Casting for literature – i.e. readers/fans are able to log in and cast an imaginary movie based on books in classic and popular literature, using a database of actors. They will even add actors if you have one in mind that isn’t already in the DB.

So, to make a long story even longer, they contacted me because they had listed the RGI series in their database, which means folks are now able to “virtually cast” a pretend movie. I thought this was kind of cool, so I sent a note out about it on Twitter – feel free to follow me, btw. Just not too closely, as I make frequent stops –   and, of course, folks began asking about the actors I would pick.

Well, just for grins, I made note that if I were to cast the stories as really friggin’ bizarre dark comedies I would probably go this route:

Rowan = Paul Reubens or Jack Black
Felicity = Kathy Griffin
Ben = Brad Garrett
Constance = Kathleen Madigan

I’m not exactly sure how well that went over, to be honest. Of course, it was just a joke… Hopefully everyone took at that way. I know one of my fans did for sure, because she came back with the suggestion of Ron Jeremy.

Methinks she was casting a different type of movie based on the books if you get my drift…

At any rate, the folks over at Storycasting.com have set up an “author” account for me so that I can, as they say, create an “authoritative” cast list. (I thought that was kind of a funny play on words, myself… Of course, as we know I’m fairly easily amused which is why E K doesn’t bother hiring someone to watch me while she’s at work…)

I’ve already started playing around with the “authoritative” cast.  It could change, you never know. I have some research to do and bribes to take. (Grin) But, y’all should feel free to start generating your own cast lists right away. I’ll be interested to see if any of them match up.

More to come…

Murv

I’ve been Googled.

Of course, that probably isn’t news to anyone. In fact, some of you reading this very blog post may well have arrived here courtesy of a Google search… Or Yahoo… Or MSN Live… Or any one of countless other Internet “search engines.”

I bring up Google, in particular, because it seems to be one of the more popular search pages out there. And, why shouldn’t they be? After all, they have all the money… Well, them and Bill Gates, but that last bit just goes without saying.

But, in this case, I haven’t just been Googled. I’ve been Googleified. In case you are wondering exactly what Googleify is, it’s my own special word. It is a combination of Google, from the colloquial Google, trademark for a search engine, and mystify, from the French mistifier, from mystère mystery, from Latin mysterium, to bewilder.

Yeah… Google has gone and mystified me. Or, as I like to say, Googleified. (Soon, I’ll be adding a petition for you all to sign. Maybe we can get Webster to add it to the lexicon… But, that’s a different chicken…)

The thing here is, and I have mentioned this before, WordPress tracks incoming traffic to this blog. In doing so, it logs all manner of cool stuff. Things like, IP addresses, country of origin, search phrases, and referring pages. Well, it isn’t very surprising that quite a bit of the incoming traffic to Brainpan Leakage comes from Google. Sure, there is plenty of traffic from other search engines, and there is also a good share from folks who arrive via notification emails, Twitter, and the like. But, where Internet searches are concerned, the overwhelming majority of the visitors arrive here courtesy of the Big Multicolored G.

So, I am sure you are now wondering why in the hell there is a picture of a provocatively clad woman astride a broomstick embedded on the left. Well, believe it or not, it isn’t a result of my “I Can Haz Blog?” post back in February. What I mean is, I’m not just sticking it in here to generate traffic, besides which, she’s not naked and it is a pretty common picture, so I doubt it would draw any visitors in the first place. And, no, Virginia, it’s not just so I can have something pretty to look at. If that were the case, she would be a redhead and look just like E K… Yes, I’m a little single minded in that respect. And no, E K doesn’t have that outfit… Well, actually she has something really, really close, but it’s not exact. Actually, it’s much better… So there…

But, on with the blog… Believe it or not, there is actually a salient point behind the picture. Well… It’s obvious to me since I’m the one writing the blog, but that’s not the point. What is the point, however, is that the picture actually has something to do with Google, in a silly, roundabout sort of way.

You see, when the WordPress plugin that tracks incoming traffic tells me how people arrived at my site, it actually extracts a list of the search words used. As you already know, these search words are matched to content, description text, and meta-keywords, on an indexed site, which is how Google, and other search engines for that matter, provide you with a list of websites. But, enough techie talk…

As you would rightfully surmise, there is the laundry list of obvious search parameters that land folks here at Brainpan Leakage. Things like…

• Sellars
• Brainpan
• Rowan Gant
• Paranormal Mystery
• And so on…

There are quite a few others. Some of them obscure, some not so much. Usually they make at least a little bit of sense… Such as “Erma Bombeck.” After all, I wrote a blog entry about one of her columns, so it isn’t really all that surprising that a search of her name would lead you here at some point. However, as I was perusing the the list the other day I ran across one that gave me pause…

“witches with big tits”

… Obviously we had someone here who was a boob man… Or woman… I’m not about to discriminate. And, by the same token this individual apparently had a fetish for Witches, or more likely if I were to place a bet on it, the colloquial “Witch Costume” sex fantasy sort of thing… I mean, let’s face it, even I still get a bit of a tingle from the adolescent memories of Elizabeth Montgomery in her Witchy garb…

Now, I have to admit, upon seeing this search phrase I assumed there had to be some kind of mistake. After all, a search like that should probably have landed this person at www.dorothymorrison.com.

Oh, chill out… Dorothy and I are like siblings and we pick at each other like this all the time. You folks know that… Not to mention that she makes plenty of her own jokes about her chest. Rumor has it she slings lightning bolts from her tits, but I’ve yet to see this myself, and I’ve been on tour with her more times than I could count, even if I took off my shoes and socks. So, if you ask me, I think that whole lightning thing is just a PR gimmick…

But, back to this particular Googleification leading someone to Brainpan Leakage…

After ruminating a bit, I thought maybe the phrase in question might have something to do with the op-ed entry I wrote about Facebook and the breast-feeding pictures issue. But, after going back and having a look, I didn’t find a direct mention of “big tits” in there… Not even “small tits”… Boobs, yes. Tits, no… And, definitely no mention of witches…

So, back to the drawing board I went…

Well, it took me some time, but I finally sussed it out. Seems Google had indexed the page containing the sample chapter from Never Burn A Witch, and in that particular sample was the scene where the old bum was singing his ditty about the ample-chested weather girl. All three of the primary search words from the phrase, (we aren’t counting with), were there on that page. And, if you want to count “with” anyway, it was there too.

Simple enough. Mystery solved. For a moment, I was no longer Googleified…

However, that didn’t last long. You see, I thought maybe I would look into figuring out some of the other strange search tags that brought visitors to Brainpan Leakage. It wasn’t long before I was “Google Eyed” and had a headache… If any of you would like to help, I’m still looking for connection to the following…

• R?zus p?rti?a apraksts
• ????????? ??
• jak przej?? gr? rattle and clank
• pokrútené ?revá u detí
• syntymäpäivä kortti

Ya’know… On second thought, don’t worry about it.

I think I’ll just go look at that sexy witch picture… Better yet, I’ll just go look at E K. Maybe if I’m really convincing, I can get her to wear her pointy hat and babe on a broomstick outfit…

More to come…

Murv