Johnny Murdoc

Pfft, whatever, it’s not like my dick knew it was an ad.

Via The Sword.

Like thousands of websites across the internet, I’m blacking my site out to protest SOPA & PIPA. Because the tools used to black out my website may work differently in different jurisdictions or browsers, I wanted to write a post about why I’m doing this.

All morning long, I’ve been reading posts by creators that I respect and I honestly think that they can say it more eloquently than I can in the short time I have to write this morning, so I’m going to share some of their thoughts:

You done got swindled, sons and daughters of the creative age.

SOPA and PIPA are not about piracy.

They are about control.

See, the Internet is this unruly pubic tangle of possibility. It is raw potential given form and it puts a great deal of power in the hands of the individual (are you listening, creative-types?). Power in the hands of individuals can, in some cases, wrest power from the hands of corporations. And corporations don’t like that, so they go to the government and they pour giant buckets of money into the government’s slavering maw and lobby for legislation and the result is, in this case, SOPA, PIPA, and any other naughty anti-pirate hydra-heads that pop up.

Writers and creatives — again, as individuals — have a lot of opportunity in the Internet Age, in part due to the innovation and distribution the Internet offers, in part due to the social media that connects us all. Harming these by harming the Internet then harms free expression. And that’s no good.

Just to be clear, in case you don’t realize what it means to give corporations power over censorship and the subject of artistic originality, please cast an eye no further to the MPAA, whose arbitrary and often insane ratings of films put out by the film industry help stifle creativity and the craft and art of filmmaking. You really want that kind of control over sites like YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Google, Wikipedia?

No, you do not.

SOPA and PIPA hit the issue with a hammer when what’s called for is a scalpel.

— Chuck Wendig

I believe every owner of copyrights — everyone who creates art — has these same moral and legal rights, and should have the same ability to address violations. Creators should be able to present their creations on their terms, not anyone else’s.

SOPA/PIPA aren’t the way to do this. These proposed laws are poorly constructed, overly broad and frankly thoughtless, the equivalent of dealing with burglars in someone’s home by carpetbombing every house on the street. You might stop the burglar, but the collateral damage makes it a hollow victory. The collateral damage here would be the hamstringing of the Internet, and trampling rights of speech and expression. That these proposed laws have been debated by a number of US Representatives and Senators who seemed proud of their ignorance of how the Internet works (and at least initially didn’t want to hear from technical experts) made it that much worse.

— John Scalzi

I am not American, nor do I live in America. But the internet is an interdependent creature, and unilateral SOPA or PIPA actions will affect the entire animal. One country, even a country I love and admire, should not wield that power, especially in service of a cause both confused and mendacious.

— Warren Ellis

If you don’t see the blackout page on my website, you can use the easy tools at this website to contact your legislators to do your part to stop SOPA & PIPA: http://americancensorship.org/

I’m supposed to be wrapping up an essay so I thought “Hey, now would be a great time to do a blog post!”

Actually, Wolf Hudson tweeted this photo from his Tumblr:

and I thought “Hey, that belongs on my blog.”

Because, well, yeah. It’s fucking hot.

Back to work.

Sometimes I see images on the internet, and I think “I want to play with that in Photoshop.”

(Original found floating around on Tumblr. Sans credit, of course.)

“Every pro writer knows a better writer who started out at the same time but you’ve never heard of them. Why? Because they gave up when things got hard. And you know what? Fuck ‘em. They didn’t have the guts to stick it out. If you want to be professional writer, get yourself a truck-full of guts and a shot glass of ego and maybe you’ll make it. You’re not dead until you decide you’re dead.”

– Richard Kadrey

I have enough work to do as a writer right now to fill a full-time job and then some. If only the pay were comparable to the workload. Things are going well for me, so I shouldn’t complain. My mind races a hundred-miles-a-minute, just thinking about all of the possibilities.

One of my next steps is to work as a publisher. Not just a self-publisher. There’s one project that’s been in the works for some time now that will kind of kick this off.

There are so many great writers in the world, but not all of them are publishers or designers. I don’t know if I’m lucky, or if I work harder, or if I just happen to have the right sets of interests that make it possible for me to create books and ebooks, from the writing to the design to the production. I’ve already proven that I can be a one-man book producer. Now I want to help others.

The other day, I learned about Bloody Pulp Books, Steven Niles’ publishing collaboration with graphic designer Alex Lodermeier:

Niles is probably best known for creating 30 Days of Night, the vampire comic, but he’s written an impressive collection of horror comics. One of his creations, Cal McDonald, a supernatural investigator, lives in both comics and prose stories, and one of Bloody Pulp Books missions is to release some of Niles’ prose stories in handsome editions.

I love this idea of creators releasing their own work, and doing the labor involved in making sure that it’s an attractive release, something more than just words on a page. Something worth having. I’ve talked about Amanda Palmer before; she’s another artist who is taking things into her own hands.

Chuck Wendig has another ebook of writing advice out. I’ve talked about Wendig before, and I continue to enjoy his writing, his books and advice, and his sense of humor. Aside from his recent post about believing in ghosts, Wendig has a no-nonsense approach to writing (and other things) and his blog and books are always worth a look. 500 Ways to Be a Better Writer is currently only 99 cents, but will go up to 2.99 in a few days.

Damn. Writing that last bit reminded me of a former quote of Wendig’s that just clarified some things for me.

Micro-pub. Yeah.

Stay hard.

I’m always excited to get an email from Travis Mathews, because it’s always bound to contain something awesome. Today’s bundle of awesome came in the form of the first official teaser for Mathews upcoming feature film, I Want Your Love:

For those of you who’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know I’m a huge fan of Mathews’ work. There’s a genuine lack of emotional honesty in queer cinema these days, and Mathews is doing his best to fill that hole. His work explores sexuality with the care and attention it deserves. I can’t wait to see the full feature of I Want Your Love.

You can count on seeing more about the film here on my blog as we get closer to the film’s release date. Mathews is one of the good guys, and the good guys need all of the support they can get.

My silence over the past few weeks is uncharacteristic, especially given that I was doing so damn well at this blogging thing for the few weeks preceding the silence. There were a fair number of things keeping me busy and away from the blog, namely work and the subsequent death of my car. It wasn’t a sudden death, rather a decision made to put an ailing creature out of its misery. Also, my misery. So now I have a new car, a tiny black subcompact that takes up 2/3 the space (and mileage) of my last vehicle.

As we picked up my new car, my partner surfed through my iPod, picking out a car-themed playlist from the songs available to him:

Nightcall — Kavinsky and Lovefoxxx (from the Drive soundtrack):

Gimme the Car – Violent Femmes:

The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side – Magnetic Fields:

Handshakes – Metric:

Black Sheep – Metric:

Pa Pa Power – Dead Man’s Bones (featuring The Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir):

My story “Man, They Say Cutter’s Gay” is up over at the Nifty Archive to read for free:

“He ain’t gay,” Mark says. “Ain’t no way. Look at the man.”

Truth is, I look at Cutter a lot. I watch him train, I watch him box. I watch him sit and read his book. Ain’t no way Cutter’s gay because that would be too much for me to take. Mark says “Just look at him,” and I do. I watch him move. I watch his feet dance on the floor. I watch his fists hover in front of his face as he works the speed ball. I watch him and I can’t stop thinking about the curve of his jaw. The line of sweat that slides down from his armpit and disappears into his sleeveless shirt. The way his junk bounces when he jumps rope.

Cutter’s the best thing that this gym has going for it. Cutter’s the guy that all the other guys want to be. We want to move like him, we want to box like him and don’t let anyone tell you any different, we all want to look like him. Cutter’s fucking gold, man.

The story is available in my new ebook, Hard Lessons and features Billy and Cutter from “After the Fight,” which can be found in Rough Love.

Via… nearly everyone on the internet, comes these male pin-ups (or, “Men-Ups!”) by photographer Rion Sabean:

You can see more at Sabean’s Flickr page.

I’m sitting outside on the porch. It’s 68 degrees, Fahrenheit. The high today is only 71. It’s weird to wake up to a day that has pretty much already settled in.

Bad weather means I don’t have to go outside, I don’t have to take advantage of every single minute of my life and live as fully as possible. I’ve always been better at sitting back and contemplating. Nostalgia is my favorite emotion. -Natty Soltesz

I read this yesterday and it made my heart soar. Soltesz nailed something about me that I hadn’t really considered, but I related to it instantly.

In a conversation with someone the other day, I wrote, “I’m prone to… romanticizing the more rural part of my existence. It always kicks in this time of year when the weather starts to cool down and I find myself falling back into a rural Gothic mindset and crave Stephen King novels. It doesn’t help that, today, I’m working out of my old community college, about ten minutes from where I grew up. Think more ‘rural Missouri’ than St. Louis. Think ‘Meth Capitol of the World.’”

I think that it’s my Pavlovian response to fall, that the end of summer will always reconnect me to “the new school year,” whatever that may be. I’m only thirty; new school years weren’t all that long ago. Fall reminds me of my childhood, and my childhood reminds me of home. I love summer, I love being able to strip out of (most of) my clothes and step outside, I love being able to bike in the park, I love being able to sit out on my porch and drink a beer. When I was in my early 20′s, the onset of Fall always meant the impending arrival of Winter, with our life-stopping snow and ice storms. I hate driving in the snow.

Now I enjoy Fall for what it is: a relief. Late summers in Missouri can be toxic. This year, we went through the same stifling heatwave that most of the country did and going outside could be downright oppressing. Fall means the end of that. Fall means sweaters and, yes, Stephen King novels.

I’ve been posting a lot of jack off videos lately. I don’t know why. I think I’m just perpetually horny right now.

MrDopeDick1:

I got up early in the morning, and had to take care of my morning wood.