Red Light Bytes: 10-20-2023

Updates, Op-Eds, Culture, & More!

This Week

Overview

And we’re back! Again!

October is racing by faster than ever, and that goes double for us gas-guzzlers here on the Force. Not a lot of big news on the production front, so we’ll get the updates out right here and now:

WRITING CONTINUES!

Having time away from the characters gave me the chance to really focus on straight-ahead plotwork and slipping back into the world with ease. I think Issue 7 has the makings of one of the most electrifying set of stories yet to be told. There will be action, suspense, horror, and dare I say it, a spot of romance!

Moving on, I’ll confess to not having any indie highlights on the docket this week thanks to getting over being sick and my nose-to-the-grindstone workload. That said, the tastemaking rolls on, and in fact, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic for the old RLB layout. Let’s take it for a spin, shall we?

Battlefield Thoughts

Recently on my second Substack, I’ve been on a bit of a tear about the arts and entertainment, and more specifically how we as independent creatives should take to our crafts in these times of “culture wars” and such.

My latest article, “Saving the West Alla Prima,” discussed modernist art, Bob Ross, and pointed out that if one pines for something that isn’t around, the only logical solution is to get up off your ass and do it yourself. It may take months, years, possibly decades, but the truth of the matter is that if you can’t find anyone to do it, it’s up to you to make it happen.

Saving The West Alla Prima

I’ve taken this can-do attitude to just about everything I make (365 very much included) because of the simple fact that it yields results. Perhaps not all the money in the world, perhaps not a Berlin airlift of hot blondes and Bugattis, but the end goal is achieved: I wanted something, no one was around to make it for me, and so I made it myself to the best of my ability and came up satisfied.

I think about this often because I know way too many people, both personally and in passing, that seem to be waiting on something. Waiting on a great change that will magically solve everything, or at bare minimum, make the world a little more conducive to how they wish to live. And while I wouldn’t mind such a change if it benefited my life and work, the simple fact is I only know what I can control and what is beyond my control.

For a corner of this project titled “Battlefield Thoughts,” I’m gonna encourage you all to take this touch of Zen with you wherever you go: life’s too short to wait. It’s not too short to plan, to dream, to build, but it is too short to wait. I elected to spend my first year out of school freelancing and working exclusively in my creative fields, regardless of all ensuing hardships and payouts, because above all else, life is too short to wait.

As a wise (if slightly deranged) man once said:

Just do it.

Streetwise Caviar

Really wasn’t joking by the way, we are going for the old format this time! In ye olden days, I’d select a painting, a song, and a movie or game to share with you all, and that’s precisely what I’m doing today. Prepare to get cultah’d!

Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński, circa 1973

I got turned onto Poland’s infamous “Nightmare Artist” Beksiński a few months ago. From his hellish palettes to his handle on form that resides somewhere between surrealism, expressionism, and balls-out cosmic horror, the Polish painter, sculptor, and photographer managed to conjure up scores of paintings that existed in a strange, fantastic dystopian dimension. Truly the stuff that nightmares are made of.

That said, I chose this 1973(?) piece because of its inherent and somewhat contrasting quality against the artist’s more infamous catalogue. There is tranquility here. While bathed in one of the master’s trademark rust-colored deserts, the great celestial, oceanic sphere in the sky caries with it a hypnotic beauty that proves Beksiński could weave dreams just as well as nightmares.

For the musical chaser, a piece of electronic library music from Canadian production house Parry Music. From the 1988 compilation Foreign Journeys, it’s a mysterious little ditty that goes by the name of “La Sierra,” one that pairs excellently with the mysteries of the late, great Zdzisław Beksiński.

Now here’s an odd duck. Not a bootleg, not a half-rotted demo, but a live 1978 radio performance by the legendary Black Sabbath with English journeyman singer Dave Walker, best remembered for his time in blues-rockers Savoy Brown and a brief stint in Fleetwood Mac. The song is an early version of what would become “Junior’s Eyes” on the ill-fated (if still cool) ‘78 album Never Say Die, the band’s last with legendary frontman Ozzy Osbourne until career-closer 13 some 35 years later (give or take a few reunion tracks).

Now, why an early version of a kickass tune from an oft-maligned record? Because I honestly listen to this one more than the final version, and 99% of it is thanks not only to Walker’s voice, but his lyrics.

A strange, blues-drenched yarn about life in the streets where money is scant and death is just around the corner, Walker isn’t far off from Ozzy’s deeply personal tract on grief in the wake of his father’s death, but goes in enough different directions and puts his own spin on it with a sloppy street-level demeanor that makes for a heavy blues number with or without the Ozzman. But no matter whose singing on it, that classic Tony Iommi riff drives the sucker on like a flat-out Dodge Charger, backed by Geezer Butler and Bill Ward’s indomitable rhythm section.

“Junior’s Eyes” from another time. Well worth a listen for Sabbath fans and blues-hounds alike.

Dovetailing into the mentions made of modernism in our off-world article is one of the absolute finest pieces of American animation to come out of the mid-century (back us up!

Animation Obsessive

)

This is the 1953 UPA production of The Tell-Tale Heart. Narrated by English legend James Mason, directed by Ted Parmelee, and based on the classic chiller by Edgar Allan Poe. In an era where theatrical comedy cartoons dominated the Silver Screen, there had never been a sight or a sound as chilling as that produced by this film. Mason brings Poe’s deranged narrator and his quest to rid himself of an old man’s eye to feverish life against stark and surreal landscapes done up in appropriately muted palettes. Backed by a strikingly dissonant score and conjuring up an overall Gothic ambience of unease, it is no wonder this production managed to net an Oscar nomination at the time.

Like the story it tells, 1953’s The Tell-Tale Heart is a timeless, engrossing suspense yarn that should be a season staple for all lovers of the creepy and the macabre at this time of year.

Byte of the Week

It is appropriate enough, given the two slices of 70s goodness I just shared, that this week’s story partakes in an age-old ritual from mid-century America: the acid trip. And what the innocent Kate is about to experience, courtesy of her seasoned lover Chris, can only be described as a case of Technicolor Fields.

I got a thing for writing about couples in this series, and in particular I find young love is fun to play with, especially when I lean into our exploitation roots. I haven’t done a drug trip story yet and figured some good old-fashioned acid imagery would be in-season. What sorts of strange, freaky things can our gal see now? Read on to find out!

As always, May God Bless You and this Force. See you next time!