OVER TWO MILLION WATCHED SUPER BOWL LIVE STREAM

This is the first time the NFL live-streamed the Super Bowl and the hook was what they called a “second screen” experience, which sounds like the idea was to convince those watching the game on television to also keep their computers on.

How many people, though, watched because they didn’t have access to a television? In the car, for instance? The NFL has to sell this as a “second screen” experience or else cable and satellite providers will howl. If this kind of programming starts streaming, people will cancel their cable packages.

Two million is less than 2% of those who watched the Super Bowl, but that’s still a lot of people.

Right now, the NFL and content providers make a fortune off of cable fees, but you have to wonder  if numbers like these won’t have them looking for a way to cut out the middle man.

WHY DENZEL WASHINGTON IS THE LAST OLD-FASHIONED MOVIE STAR

The author of this piece makes some good observations, but misses the big one. Denzel has never insulted, talked down to, or offended his audience. I’ve seen him hug Obama, I’ve seen him visiting our troops in the Middle East, but there’s nothing divisive about him — nothing anyone can hold against him. That used to be the norm in Hollywood — class — and now it’s an endangered species. Washington is also a family man and openly Christian. What’s not to like about him?

Audiences also trust Denzel not to offend with his film choices. He not only chooses quality projects, but also sucker-punch free projects. We can relax during a Denzel Washington film. We can settle in and not worry about the cheap shot.

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HOLLYWOOD’S NEWEST CRYBABIES: LEPERS … AND INDIA

It doesn’t bother me when crybabies crybaby. That’s what crybabies do, especially GLAAD and CAIR — two of the biggest, fascist crybabies in the history of crybabying.

What bothers me is that the politically correct cowards that run Hollywood only listen to certain crybabies. Southerners, Christians, stay-at-home-moms, Republicans, and pro-lifers continue to take hellacious beatings in all things pop culture. Everyone else is hands off at the first sound of a crybaby.

Those of us on the right can take a joke better than anyone; it’s being singled out by Hollywood cowards who pose as “edgy” that’s galling — the double standard.  Take us back to the good old days of “Blazing Saddles,” and we’ll never complain again.

It’s not satire when you’re singled out. It’s bigotry.

AMAZON PONDERS NEW CHALLENGE TO NETFLIX IN STREAMING MARKET

There’s a bigger story here than just this:

Ever since Netflix first alienated its consumers last summer with a price hike – ruining a perfect record of consumer satisfaction – the market seemed to open for new challengers. That door swung a bit wider after Netflix and Starz failed to agree to terms, further limiting the service’s movie offerings.

At the moment, Amazon has deals with the likes of CBS, Fox, Disney and NBCUniversal.

Hollywood is fighting streaming harder than they would ever fight terrorists and yet you have two of the biggest entertainment retailers on the planet — Netflix and Amazon — expanding this service. It was only a matter of time before someone stepped in to challenge Netflix Streaming, and Amazon is the perfect choice.

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Back in August of  2010 I posted an article on Big Hollywood discussing the release of my World War II novel, “Hummel’s Cross.”  It is a fictional account, as told from the introspective first person narrative of an old man, of the events in the life Erich Hummel, a German youth who ends up flying fighter planes for the Luftwaffe during the war and is so skilled as to be decorated by Hitler himself.

And yet he will eventually turn traitor to the Nazi regime by first helping to hide and then eventually spirit a family of German Jews out of the country during the height of the air war over Western Europe.

What made the book’s release an interesting story in and of itself is that I decided to forgo—perhaps ‘bypass’ is a better word—the traditional route of many submissions to literary agents and then, should I be lucky enough to land representation, eventual publication under an existing publishing house. Instead I took a chance and published the book myself, through my own company that I formed called OCM Paperbacks (a division of my money management firm Occam Capital). There were several reasons for going down this road.

Why Did I Self-Publish?

First of all, it is very difficult for even the finest of fiction pieces to find an agent, let alone get published.  This is a sign of the times, and I do not fault the houses for this.  Like all businesses, they have limited resources and must, in the end, make a profit more than a literary statement.  If given the choice between an unknown author offering up a fiction title or either the next batch of Stephen King manuscripts or a renowned (or infamous) figure in the news coming out with a tell-all memoir, of course they must go for the sure thing.  So the odds are my manuscript, like the vast majority of  submissions, would have died in the “reject” pile. (more…)

We’ve already taken a look at the content of this month’s big bestseller, but digital sales of Lady Gaga’s Born this Way have illuminated an important caveat about new music distribution technologies. In an attempt to harness demand for Lady Gaga’s Born This Way and drive more and more customers to adopt their Cloud Drive Player, Amazon overloaded their server capacity and could not deliver the full album to thousands of customers for much of the day. Digital copies of the album sold for just 99 cents on its release date, but since Amazon has made it so mp3s can only be downloaded once they load into users’ Cloud (web-based storage) Drives, incomplete and delayed downloads turned many off from the service.

British singer Adele has sparked debate about British’s public services in an interview with Q magazine, covered brilliantly by James Delingpole. The singer said of her taxes, “I’m mortified to have to pay 50 per cent! [While] I use the NHS, I can’t use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are ––––, and I’ve gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [her album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire.”

In other news, Adele’s albums are currently available wherever music is sold.

Hipster music journalists have fallen head over heels for a shock-mongering rap group known as Odd Future, led by “Tyler, the Creator,” whose first label-released album Goblin has earned accolades hand-in-hand with feeble excuses for its deeply nihilistic, violently misogynistic lyrics. Canadian singer Sara Quin of the indie band Tegan & Sara published an open letter on her blog pushing back against justifications of Tyler’s indefensible bile. Quin cut right to the heart of the issue– fear of the race card:

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The torture techniques described in this harrowing chapter from Exchange Alley (now available on Kindle for 99 cents) are true. Taken from the second half of the novel, this sequence dramatizes what happens to the rogue KGB agent, Egil Ekdahl (here called Vanya) as the Soviet spy agency first breaks him and then reconstructs him into a stone killer.

Not for the squeamish. Enjoy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Sakhalin Island, USSR; 1984 

They never turned the light off. That was the rule.

There were many rules in prison. The way you had to sleep, for example. Only one position allowed, facing the light. The light, which was always in your eyes. How did they expect a man to sleep with this way? They didn’t. That was part of the punishment. That was part of the treatment. That’s how you made the New Soviet Man: by shining the light in his eyes until he finally saw it.

No matter how you tried, you couldn’t avoid the light. You couldn’t roll over during the few hours they allowed you to sleep. You had to lie on your back, facing the light; if you fell asleep on your side or on your stomach, the guards came in and woke you up, flipped you over, and made you observe the light, ponder it. There was no escaping the light, although it did give you, the prisoner, adequate radiance to illuminate your crime.

After a while, however, you got accustomed to it, used to the position, used to the lack of sleep, used to the light. The light was like the Almighty, drawing you nearer. Into the light, as if you were dead, shooting along the dark tunnel that was this earthly life into the eternal light of the next.

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This is the first chapter of my first novel, Exchange Alley, originally published by Warner Books in 1997 and now available on Kindle for the introductory price of just 99 cents. It introduces the main character, Frankie Byrne, and presents him with a very nasty little murder case — one that quickly turns extremely personal.

CHAPTER ONE 

Ramapo, New York 

Thursday, October 18, 1990; noon 

“Bob and them found it just over there.” The woman smacked her lips in recollection. She was only about forty, but she looked sixty. One of her front teeth was missing, and the others were crooked and yellow. Her hair hung in greasy strands around her forehead, and there was a large mole on her left cheek. Her hands were wrinkled and gnarled. Arthritis, thought Byrne, and bad nutrition. Life was tough in the country. Almost as tough as it was in town. “We live out here pretty much by our lonesomes,” she said. “Like it that way.”

Lieutenant Francis X. Byrne of the New York City Police Department asked the woman for her name. Jean, Jean Brandmelder. He wrote it down as she spelled it out. Byrne followed the woman through the clearing in the woods. Even though it was mid-October, the weather was still warm; hot, even. “Bob and them was out hunting this morning, early,” Jean explained. “But really it was the dogs. They all of a sudden set to barkin’ and Jimmy – that’s my son Jimmy right there – went over to see what’s all the fuss about.” Another smack of the lips. Byrne took notes as he walked, and hoped he would be able to read them later. The nuns always said his handwriting sucked, and the nuns were always right.

“Bob and them” were standing near the body. Bob was Mr. Brandmelder. He was a big, heavy-set, older man with a weak handshake and the outsized girth that comes from a rigorous diet of McDonald’s, Coke and Cheez Doodles, one of the rural widebodies; Byrne thought he looked and sounded just like Andy Devine. Or maybe, with enough eye shadow, just Divine. Over his shoulder, Bob was carrying a shotgun, broken to show it was unloaded. On his face, he wore a gap-toothed grin. “Howdy,” said Bob as Byrne approached. He was pointing. “Over there.” He had a slight accent of indeterminate origin.

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My first novel, Exchange Alley, is now up on Kindle and can be yours for the special introductory price of just 99 cents. Such a deal — especially when used paperback copies are being offered on Amazon for up to $688.88.

The original hardback cover

A Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection upon its publication in 1997, and the recipient of a starred review in Publishers Weekly, Exchange Alley (for reasons that will become clear as you read) has become something of a cult novel. In it, I introduced the character of Lt. Francis X. Byrne, the hot-tempered detective who catches a grisly murder case that, literally, changes his entire world. Frankie became so popular with readers that I brought him back last year (and promoted him to Captain) in Early Warning, where he battles against a spectacular terrorist attack on Times Square, and I suspect he’ll turn up again in another novel very soon.

I first got the idea of writing Exchange Alley during my various trips to the Soviet Union, beginning in 1986 (I was in country when Chernobyl blew up) and continuing right up to its dissolution in 1991. At the same time, I was deeply fascinated by the Kennedy Assassination, which I recalled vividly from my boyhood. So, as writers do, I thought: what if? (more…)

I used to think I was a fan of the genre known today as fantasy, and specifically the subgenres of High Fantasy and Sword-and-Sorcery. This was due to a number of factors. A childhood imagination dominated by Dungeons & Dragons. An exposure to memorable movies like Excalibur, Clash of the Titans, Conan the Barbarian, and their lesser 1980s cousins.

Towering above all, though, was (and still is) my unabashed obsession with the two titanic literary talents chiefly responsible for birthing the entire shebang: J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and Robert E. Howard (1906-1936). I consider each the complete equal of the other, two flat-out geniuses destined to be remembered and reread hundreds of years after the Pulitzer-winning authors praised by most mainstream critics are forgotten.

But it was only recently, after decades of ever-increasing reading disappointment, that I grudgingly began to admit the truth: I don’t particularly care for fantasy per se. What I actually cherish is something far more rare: the elevated prose poetry, mythopoeic subcreation, and thematic richness that only the best fantasy achieves, and that echoes in important particulars the myths and fables of old.

This realization eliminates, at a stroke, virtually everything written under the banner of fantasy today.

The mere trappings of the genre do nothing for me when wedded to the now-ubiquitous interminable soap-opera plots (a conservative friend of mine once accurately derided “fat fantasy” cycles such as Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time as “Lord of the Rings 90210”). Nor do they impress me in the least when placed into the hands of writers clearly bored with the classic mythic undertones of the genre, and who try to shake things up with what can best be described as postmodern blasphemies against our mythic heritage. (more…)

So as you probably know, Amazon.com kicked Wikileaks off its servers – due to pressure from politicians. This, after the Wall Street Journal revealed that Amazon computers had been hosting the site that leaked all the secret cables.

And this has caused an outcry among bloggers. Censorship, they moan.

For example, a TechDirt dweller frets that “the government is resorting to more traditional censorship methods: pressuring companies to silence Wikileaks.”

And there’s Valleywag, who scolds Amazon for being “weak-willed,” suggesting that “avid readers … are unlikely to enjoy doing business with Amazon if they think the company is censorious.”

But the blogger reminds us that, being a private company, Amazon “is of course free to pick and choose what it wants to sell.”

Thanks Valleywag!

At this point, I think we need a palate cleanser:

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DC Comics has announced a new look and origin for Wonder Woman. They’re blaming it on the gods.

Once again DC shows it doesn’t know what to do with one of its most iconic characters. The problem with Wonder Woman isn’t her costume. It never was. But leave it to the suits to think a PC reboot is going to solve the problems that have plagued this character since her inception.

DC describes the new outfit as “a Wonder Woman look designed for the 21st century” that will allow Diana “to be taken seriously as a warrior, in partial answer to the many female fans over the years who’ve asked, ‘how does she fight in that thing without all her parts falling out?’ …The bracelets are still there, but made more colorful, tied on the inside and over the hand, with a script W on each of them that form WW when she holds them side by side… and if you get hit by one of them, it leaves a W mark. This is a Wonder Woman who signs her work.”

The problem with Wonder Woman isn’t her look. It’s her personality. She has never been a warm, appealing character. She comes from an island populated only by immortal Amazons who hate men. And men aren’t allowed to set foot on the island. This island of super-women send her to “the man’s world” where she brings the baggage of this sexist worldview.

See, here is problem #1. Most comics readers are male. So you start off telling them their gender sucks. Great sales pitch.

Let’s deal with some reality for a second. I know the PC crowd and leftists in general love the concept of “protected classes” and the idea that, say, women could do things better than men if they had the chance. But aside from the chauvinistic mentality of this argument it ignores a simple axiom. Women are human beings. Human beings are flawed creatures. (more…)