My favorite character from Bloom County was Oliver Wendell Jones. He was the computer hacker who was always taking over corporate websites. He often dressed up like a pirate when he embarked on one of his missions. The predecessor to Anonymous, I guess.
I mention this because I had a close encounter with piracy last week. Google Alerts brought a page to my attention where someone was “generously” offering one of my chapbooks as a download. I posted a follow-up message on the person’s blog asking them to take it down, but so far there’s been no response. However, the file-sharing service the person used was very responsive and had the file deleted from their server the following morning. Kudos to them.
I turned in my column for Cemetery Dance #67 this morning. I have no idea when that one will be out, as we’re still awaiting #65. We’re doing something different with the column starting with #67 so we’ll see if there’s any reaction to that.
Next up: I’m prepping my three-part interview with Mick Garris for FEARNet. We’ll release one part a week for the next three weeks, starting in a few days. On the fourth week I expect to have a review of Bag of Bones, assuming I get the screener on time. That will make it a few days before the miniseries airs on 12/11-12/12. I received a copy of a beautiful photo essay book A&E put together featuring the pictures from the Dark Score Stories website. What a handsome volume. Has a foreword by Mick Garris. Published by Zenith House—does that mean anything to you?
I was in Dallas on Thursday and Friday for Stephen King’s appearances. I drove up on Thursday afternoon. Some places between Houston and Dallas have really been hit hard by the drought. They looked dessicated. And then the leaves were changing color in other places, which is unusual for Texas. A few bright yellow trees.
I’m growing increasingly dependent on the mapping function on my iPhone. I don’t have a GPS, but this is the next best thing. There’s a little blue dot that tells you exactly where you are. It’s very useful. I especially liked the way it got me out of downtown Dallas at night.
Thursday night was King’s appearance at The Majestic, several blocks up Elm Street from the Texas Book Depository. I wrangled a pass into the VIP reception before the event started. About 100 people attended for wine, canapes, and a chance to shake King’s hand and get a photo taken with him. I met up with my friend Bob Jackson, who contributed a lot of documents to The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, and his wife beforehand. His wife was the first to notice that King had arrived on the scene. Most of the people were still outside of the suite getting their parking validated, so we had a chance to go up to him before the crowds arrived. I introduced Bob and his wife to King and then stepped away. As the number of people in attendance increased, the more claustrophobic it got for King. I met up with Russ Dorr, who has done research for King as far back as The Stand and was instrumental on Under the Dome and 11/22/63. Enjoyed chatting with him until someone enlisted him to go over and help build a protective barrier around King, who was surrounded and backed up against the hors d’oeuvres table. Dorr is about my height but has broad shoulders, so he was a good line of defense. Here are some pictures Bob Jackson took.
At one point I heard King calling my name. I turned around and he asked me how far I came to get there. “About 200 miles,” I said. “Ah, he’s talking miles,” King said and turned away. “Okay. 300 kilometers,” I said. Later I found out that he got a kick out of the fact that just about everyone he asked responded in hours instead of miles.
Afterward we went down to the theater, where we had preferred seating in the first several rows. King was interviewed by journalist Lee Cullum for an hour.
On Friday, I spent a couple of hours at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. This is the place where Oswald built his sniper’s nest and assassinated the president. Well worth a trip if you’re in Dallas. The rest of the building serves other purposes, but the entire sixth floor is a museum. An audio guide takes you through the place in about two hours, coupled with video presentations and displays. It covers everything from the political climate in the country and in Dallas at the time, to Kennedy’s trip to Texas and the assassination and aftermath. There’s something awe-inspiring about standing at a window near the one Oswald used. The corner of the room is glassed off so you can see the stack of book boxes he hid behind but can’t actually stand in the same place he did. Even so, you have a pretty clear vision of what he would have seen, looking down on Elm Street and the grassy knoll. It’s all a lot smaller than I expected it to be. The “knoll” is just a patch of grass between two roads. The stretch of Elm Street visible from the 6th floor, extending to a series of three underpasses, is quite short. A comprehensive exhibit. They also have a cell phone tour that takes you outside to some of the major venues in the vicinity but I didn’t have time for that.
Outside, I passed an older couple pointing up at a building, trying to figure out where Oswald had been. I stopped and told them they had the wrong building and pointed out the right one. “God damned architects,” the man grumbled. “All the buildings look the same.” The woman turned and asked, “Do you think he did it all by himself?” I nodded my head and said that I thought so. She didn’t seem convinced.
Later that evening, I went to McKinney North High School for the second event. Got to the venue at 4 p.m. and stood in line until it opened at 5 o’clock. Met a writer from Oklahoma and his wife and chatted with them for the rest of the evening. We ended up sitting as close to the front as I had the night before with “preferred seating” tickets. A brass trio from Louisiana entertained for a while and then the high school band played. They were impressive, especially the solo saxophone player. One of my friends on Facebook told me that one of his friends was sitting in the front row and I should go over and say hi. I couldn’t see myself doing that. Social media conjures up some novel new possibilities, though.
King came out at 7 p.m. and talked for about 20 minutes. He could have a second career as a stand-up comic. He had everyone rolling in the aisles with stories about his early brushes with celebrity. Then he read several pages from 11/22/63 and answered a batch of pre-selected questions. He said that Dr. Sleep was finished (the sequel to The Shining). He said the critics were being kind to him on 11/22/63 and were wondering if he was finally away from all that horror stuff. “They won’t know what hit them when they read Dr. Sleep,” he said. “It’s a god damn scary book.”
250 signed books were blended in with 750 unsigned copies, so attendees had a 1 in 4 chance of getting one. I didn’t (I had one from the night before), and neither did the three people sitting around me.
