Dan Dan The Art Man

TV Memories # 13by Laith Preston When Dan approached me to do another guest post for him, this time on the topic of my TV memories, my first thought was that this would be an easy one to pull together. However, just like the previous post, more and more memories arose as I thought about it. Some of my earliest TV Memories revolve around, surprise, surprise, a children’s show - Mr Roger’s Neighborhood. I can recall the wonder as the trolley dinged along its track, taking us to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. I grew up in Kansas City in the 80s and 90s, so most of my memories were of watching TV on cable, rather than over the air broadcasts. However, there was one show I was somewhat addicted to that bucked this trend, The Secret City Adventures, a PBS kids art program. I can recall many times spending a number of minutes fiddling with the rabbit ears on an old television with dials on the front, trying to pull in the PBS station from Topeka, KS, 70 miles to the west. My deep interest in technology (and radio

This week I share how I wasn't able to get the next guest blog post out due to just getting back from vacation. Download the .mp3 Brought to you by: http://www.dandantheartman.com/

TV Memories # 12 by Dan Absalonson This week is by me again and it's audio only. Sorry there is no blog post to go along with it if you prefer reading, but the audio will be a nice change this week as it's not scripted. Just me talking off the cuff about one of my favorite TV memories. I talk about a summer long ago when I sat as a little boy around a small TV with my parents and neighbors watching the Olympics. I also bring you up to speed on how my novel is coming along. The second draft is almost done! Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend. Download the .mp3 Brought to you by: http://www.dandantheartman.com/

My novel is a little like this Easter bunny. It's almost done, but there are still a few really good bites left to take care of. I spent a lot of time revising the outline before going back through it. Now I have cut several chapters, moved others around, deleted scenes, written new ones, and planned out a new ending. Even though I'm almost through with revising the first draft, only a few chapters left, and the climax of the novel will remain the same, I will have a couple more chapters to write once that is all done. It's been this way for a couple weeks now. I have many excuses, but more of it should be done. Our kids have been sick, all three of them. We've been to doctors appointments and the ER more times than I have fingers just in the last couple months. That said, I have had stretches of time here in there. The problem is, I'm just too dang tired to write when I get those chances. So lately I have had a new plan. For the first time in years, I'm trying to actively get at least eight hours of sleep. B

TV Memories # 11 I Saw Men Walking on the Moonby Richard Green aka Mainframe On May 25, 1961 President Kennedy said these words, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” On July 20, 1969, a five year old me joined millions of others in watching those words being made reality. Not only did Apollo 11 send men to the Moon, it took television with it. On our black and white TV, my family watched from lift off until the astronauts were safe. Walter Cronkite and the rest of the CBS reporters provided a near constant running commentary. These men who spent their early adulthood during the second World War knew that they were chronicling the better side of history. For that matter, even this small boy knew that this was an incredible moment. I had no context for how relatively soon in human history it was that men built a machine that flew under its own power. I had no idea how many people it

TV Memories # 10 by Arlene Radasky My first television memories. Wow, takes me back. I really have a hard time remembering much back that far, but I can remember the hour my brother and I had on weekend nights to watch our programs. We had a tv that has a tiny screen and it was black and white, but the images that came to the screen were fascinating, magic. I had no idea how it worked and didn't care then, but when it came time, my brother and I would sit, cross-legged on the floor and mom would tune in Rin Tin Tin, The French Foreign Legion, Sky King (wanted to learn how to fly because of this show) or Lassie. Mom didn't have to worry about the language or the content of these show, the violence was never more than a punch in the nose and the worst language was Gosh, mom, Lassie made me late for school! Eventually the family shows made their way into our evenings, mom, dad, brother and I would enjoy Ed Sullivan, Groucho Marks and so many others. The earliest detective show I remember is The Naked City. "

TV Memories # 9By Thomas Reed (AKA Treed) I grew up watching Make Room for Daddy, The Donna Reed Show, Dennis the Menace, Leave It To Beaver, My Three Sons, Father Knows Best, The Andy Griffith Show, Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk, Milton Berle, Ozzie and Harriet, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Lost in Space, the Flintstones (when it was a prime time show, not a Saturday morning cartoon),Star Trek, reruns of McHale’s Navy, I Love Lucy, Hogans Heroes, Rat Patrol, Combat!, Saturday cartoons when Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry (the original, not the crappy later ones) and Woody Woodpecker ruled. Johnny Carson ruled the night and games shows and soap operas ruled the day. Afterschool viewing was dominated by Popeye and Olive Oyl (in my viewing area, Capt. Gus). My mornings were all about Captain Kangaroo and bunny rabbit before I headed off to school. Is it any wonder I have a twisted view of the world? I used to believe the family life depicted on TV was how every household in America behaved, except for mine. I used to thi

TV Memories # 8 by Justin Macumber Like most Gen-Xers, I grew up on a steady diet of television. Some of my first memories are of watching SUPERMAN in grainy black and white, later graduating to shows like V and KNIGHT RIDER. Really it's no wonder that I became the sci-fi geek I am today. I doubt I had a chance of being anything else. That said, for a long time I never considered television a medium for truly transcendent storytelling. Sure, there were the occasional episodes that rose to the level of true art (STAR TREK TNG's "Inner Light" and BABYLON 5's "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars"), but it wasn't until I watched Joss Whedon's FIREFLY that a TV show was able to get into my heart and soul and become part of me. Because FIREFLY was so good I knew I had to see if the rest of Whedon's shows could do the same, and thus began a long, wonderful journey into the glory that is BUFFY and ANGEL. Now I look back and wish I'd tried them sooner. Whedon is a master storyteller, and his characters are some of t

TV Memories # 7 by Zach Ricks I'll admit up front this may be a bit of a cheat, but I'm going to defend it because it is about TV. Just… Foreign TV. That I may have watched over the internet. Which brings up an interesting question. What is TV any more? Does netflix count? How about Hulu? iTunes downloads? DVR? Huh. Anyway... I grew up watching Saturday Morning Cartoons, which meant that on any given Saturday I would wake up before 6:00 AM to catch Super Friends or Alvin and the Chipmunks. It was a perfect time of day - the sun wasn't up yet, no one else in the family was up, it was just me, maybe a bowl of cereal, and our giant old Zenith console television that I'd cracked my head on doing flips into a bean bag chair. We lived in a very small farming community in rural Idaho, USA, and we didn't have cable. We didn't even have FOX. (But I did have an uncle who lived in Alaska who would tape the Simpsons and mail us the tapes a season at a time because he felt bad that we couldn't get it where we were at. Th

TV Memories # 6 by Scott Roche I watched a metric butt ton of TV as a kid. I could have given Mike Teavee a run for his money. As a “latchkey” kid who had cable TV when that was something of a rarity, I watched quite the variety of shows. Possibly the best TV memory I have though, from a life full of them, would be weekday afternoon TV from my Elementary School days. I’d get home, sling my books onto the couch, fire up the snack foods, and get my watching on. Far and away, the biggest standout had to be the one-two punch of G-Force/Star Blazers. I know, I know, the anime purists out there are cringing. These where the chopped up, re-mixed, over dubbed versions of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman and Space Battleship Yamato respectively. I cared not a whit then, blissful ignorance my only excuse. All I knew was, the cartoons were awesome, and my classmates and I zipped around the playground pretending to be Jason or Derek Wildstar. As much of a science fiction geek as I was then, and am now, the optimism and but

TV Memories # 5 by J.R. Murdock I remember being very young and sitting quite close to the television to watch. It was around that time that my parents realized that I needed glasses. What a difference that made in my television watching experience. But beyond that, I grew up way back in the woods. When I say way back, I mean it. We got four television stations and one was on two of those channels (10 and 13). We also had 3, 6, and 8 (PBS). That was pretty much it. Changing channels on the one television set in the living room wasn’t as easy as clicking a button. I’m going to show my age here. We had to get up, walk over to the massive console television, and turn a knob. After the knob had been turned, there was the matter of adjusting the antenna outside. This normally became a two person task. One person would stay inside and look at the set while the other person went outside and turned the antenna until the set became clearer. Needless to say we didn’t change channels much during the winter or in the

TV Memories # 4 by Michell Plested Growing up on the farm, television was always a means to connect with the outside world. We lived more than twenty miles out of town and the nearest neighbor was a couple miles away, so it also served as a social outlet. The fact that we only had three channels for the first several years of my life meant we watched whatever was on at the time and we liked it. Especially if the weather was bad and one or two of those channels were unwatchable. Still, there were several shows that I never missed: The A-Team, the original Battlestar Galactica, “V”, Charlies’ Angels. They showed me worlds that I never dreamed I could be a part of. Whether it was outer space or some foreign country, I was able to put aside my rather mundane life and experience something totally different. I think it was the fantasy and spectacle of those shows that really made me gravitate towards Science Fiction and Fantasy writing. Through that fiction I was able to go wherever and whenever I wanted. It also

TV Memories # 3by Tim Ward I could write about living in Korea for six months, and the only thing I could watch was 24 hour loops of UFC fighting (with Korean announcers). I could write how I'd spend hours in the local video store scouring the shelves for anything serviceable to watch. Instead, I think I should write about what happened last night when a friend and I watched the last two episodes of The Walking Dead. One reason why I highlight this memory is because I can't remember being this excited about and during a show. Two "hour" long episodes felt like twenty minutes, the last hour feeling like five minutes. I don't really know why, because there is a lot of dialogue and only a tiny fraction is zombie hunting. Maybe it's that anticipation of the large zombie fighting scenes that keeps me on the edge of my seat. The other strange thing is that The Walking Dead is the epitome of what I'm looking for in a zombie experience. Since I don't have AMC (extremely bummed about this fact, but oh well) I've been

TV Memories # 2 by Jeff Hite “Good Afternoon Baltimore. It’s 5 o’clock.” I have no idea who he was, or what station he was on but this man was my very first TV Hero. It may sound silly that the anchor for the 5 o’clock news was my hero, but you have to remember I was three at the time, and when he said those words, it meant it was only minutes until my dad came home. And like most three year olds my dad was my real life hero. Times moved on, so did TV and so did we. By the time I had reached the more informed age of seven we had moved to Ohio, and had gotten our first cable box. Scooby Doo was on this new cable box, and the first of the muscle bound super heroes started to appear. Thundarr the Barbarian and Blackstar. I often wonder how the writers of Thundarr felt when 1994 came and went with nary a comet in sight. But Blackstar would leave more of an imprint on me as his double sword would be the basis for my very first written story. And no, I will not share it with you. All these fantasies formed who I

TV Memories # 1 by Dan Absalonson The first TV show that made me realize how cool the medium can be is Ed. I was in college and tbs was playing reruns on weekdays. It's the show about the guy who moves back to his home town, buys the bowling alley, and practices as a lawyer from inside its alley filled walls. One of my housemates was really into it and bought a device for his computer to capture every show to his hard drive. Its still not available on DVD, otherwise he would have just bought the disks. At the time I had a Netflix account that sent me three disks at a time. I usually watched at least all three movies in a week. I love movies. Just like books, they were a way for me to hang out with cool characters and go to fun places. Other than cartoons, I just never got into any TV shows - until Ed. I discovered a new joy that a two hour movie couldn't supply. I got to hang out with my beloved characters for a much longer time. I could experience way more of their story - even more than my three extended

I give a brief update on my novel revision and then re broadcast my Christmas story from last year. Enjoy. Download the .mp3 My Info: Blog: http://writingsofdan.blogspot.com/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DanDanTheArtMan

When Tammy is house sitting, she get creeped out. She keeps hearing and seeing things in the dark corners of the mansion she is alone in. This time, it's not her imagination. Download the .mp3 Bed Music Attribution: http://www.freesound.org/people/thanvannispen/sounds/30274/ My Info: Blog: http://writingsofdan.blogspot.com/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DanDanTheArtMan

In this episode (of the 6 Goals Podcast) I make up for not publishing a podcast in weeks and weeks with a special bonus - a reading from chapter two in my work in progress science ficion novel, and a short running spot. Thanks for sticking around, and I'll keep my schedule of posting every Monday going from now on to the best of my ability. My Info: Blog: http://writingsofdan.blogspot.com/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DanDanTheArtMan Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

I had a short story published by an online eZine publisher who runs a short story contest called Fiction Tuesday! It's about soldiers sent to rescue children who have been made soldiers themselves. You can read it on their website or listen to my recording of it with sound effects. I had a blast writing it and putting the recording together, and I think you'll have a blast reading it or listening to it. Below is the link to my story, and please enjoy listening to it here after some chatter and updates. Flying Island Press - Pirates Cove http://flyingislandpress.com/cove/fiction-tuesday/writing-contest-fiction-tuesday/ Promo at the end of the Podcast was for John Mierau at: http://servingworlds.com/ My Info: Blog: http://writingsofdan.blogspot.com/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DanDanTheArtMan Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

Videogame Memories # 12 GUEST BLOG POST by Laith Preston Thinking back I have a hard time placing what the first video game I played. Computer games of one form or another have been a part of my life for so long that it is hard to pick out when we first met. While considering this many happy memories float to the surface of my mind.   I remember many hours spent with my Mom waiting at the Kansas City airport for Dad’s flight to arrive, as I mastered the intricacies of a little hopping guy and a snake. To my recollection I got fairly good at Q*Bert in those days. In my mind this wonderfully addictive game endures as one of the great early games. The next machine over was Joust. I never really got Joust. I mean seriously ostriches? What kind of messed up world do the soldiers ride around on freaking ostriches? I then spent years in a close relationship with a console. It all started with stick, a big red button and a triangle. Yes, I’m talking about Asteroids on the Atari 2600. I remember spending many