Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 1/22/24

January Blues Edition

Amidst the cold and the dreary and the overcast and the freezing rain, everyone here in the bunker has managed to stay mostly warm and more productive than most. Stories have been written, ‘zines published, projects uploaded, food cooked, and even a rare public appearance onstage in front of paying customers has all been a welcome distraction from the weather and the post-holiday ennui.

Robert E. Howard

Cover art from the boxing collections I helped produce.

Today marks the birthday of the Texas author that made me want to write fiction. Howard was born in 1906, probably on a day very much like what we’re having today. He was mostly self-educated and certainly self-taught when it came to reading and writing. And while many folks know if (if they know him at all) for being the creator of Conan, the barbarian, he also invented the Weird Western as we define it today, and was one of the first, if not the very first, Texas humorists to be published, not regionally, but nationally. That he was writing about boxing sailors and hillbilly mountain men instead of oil and cattle is beside the point.  

One of the things I’m working on is correcting a chapter I’ve written for a book that is being published by A&M University Press under their Southwestern Studies imprint, all about Robert E. Howard as a southwestern writer of note and worthy of study in those particular disciplines. It’s the first academic writing I’ve done in several years and it felt good to let the other shoe drop on a subject I first broached in my biography, Blood & Thunder, and have continued to explore ever since.

If you’re so inclined, grab a beverage of choice, adult or otherwise, and treat yourself to a Robert E. Howard story, or a couple of poems.

An Evening at the Improv Show

Last Saturday, I got onstage with some like-minded folks and did my first improv show. I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time, and I’ve attended practices both in Vernon and the nearby mutant enclave of Wichita Falls. This was a fundraiser for the newly-Christened local theater troupe, which just recently got its 501c3 status, and so here we are, treading the boards, hat in hand, to make it happen. I do not know what I was specifically doing in this photo; only that I was the World’s Worst something-or-other, and I want to assure you, I killed. KILLED, I TELL YA.

ACTING!

It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next time I’m onstage, either in town or out of town. For my sins, I am one of those people who would rather be onstage than off, and so when I’m in front of more than five people, that’s an audience, right there. Even when I’m not feeling it, I firmly believe in the fake it ‘til you make it axiom. At this moment, I am faking it all over the place.

Dealing with Grief

I just dropped a larger essay (2.5k words or so) on my blog at North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, about my grieving process. It’s also about the TV show Supernatural. If you feel like taking a deeper dive into both subjects, it’s right over there, behind the link.

Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review

Echo (Disney)

The character Echo, last seen in the Hawkeye series, gets as newly-coined Marvel Spotlight, something more than a movie, but less than a series. I have no idea what the criteria for a Spotlight treatment is, but we are treated to the character’s origin and her post-Hawkeye adventure to keep sticking it to the Kingpin’s organization. It’s quite enjoyable, especially if you were a fan of Reservation Dogs on Hulu, because there’s a lot of cast overlap. A solid offering for what’s going to end up being a low-key release year from Marvel Studios.

DMRA: 4

The Beekeeper (in theaters)

Jason Statham stars in another shoot ‘em up with a dead simple plot and a really satisfying conclusion. Statham is a retired Beekeeper, as we see in the trailer, who is in charge of protecting the hive—a mechanism and a metaphor all in one. He goes off on a bloody trail of vengeance, armed with guns and honey (no, really!) and eminently watchable mayhem ensues. This movie playfully dances into John Wick’s spotlight several times and then electric slides right back out again. They are certainly kindred in that respect, meaning, if you like the other, you’ll dig this, too.

DMRA: 4

Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”