I am the lord of the dance said he

So I finished everything new I'd been reading, and just finished everything new I'd been writing, too, and feeling more or less lost and aimless as I always do when I'm not engaged in reading or writing something, I wandered up and down the bookshelves for a while and then took down EMERALD EYES by Daniel Keys Moran, because I dig it a lot and I've read it a lot before and I figured I could read it again. Also, because if I read it again then I can read THE LONG RUN and THE LAST DANCER again and sometime in the next year or so he may have THE AI WAR available from some publisher, and I'll take any bet you want to name that the same will not be true of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.

Whew. ::deeeeeeep breath::

But then, on the other hand, I'd rather read something I haven't read before right now and also, I recently sent a fan email to Daniel Keys Moran and he hasn't responded to it and let's face it, he never ever will, so fuck him. I'll read something else. Maybe.

So I was thinking, more or less, after we got back from voting this morning (straight Democratic ticket, although I didn't check the 'straight Democratic ticket' box, as I like to scrutinize all the different races and give myself airs that I'm an independent thinker before I dutifully check off the Democrat in each one... and while I'm resigned to the fact that my Obama vote will accomplish little in the deep red state of Kentucky, where a proud 74% of the electorate polled has 'fessed up to the fact that the candidates' skin color will be a big factor for them in this election, I am hoping my vote for Bruce Lundsford and John Yarmuth will help to get that odious lungfucker Mitch McConnell and conservative she-troll Ann Northrup out of elective office for good... although I suppose that just means they'll stick their snouts deep in the lobbyist trough)... Wait. Let me start over, that was one big goddam parentheses --

So, I was thinking, more or less, after we got back from voting this morning, that I'd try to find something I hadn't read yet around the house. Sure 'nuff, SuperWife has this Stephen King anthology, EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL, sitting on her dresser. So I asked her if I could read it, and she said sure, so I opened it and started reading King's foreword, because I nearly always read author forewords, and, okay, he's talking about how he and his wife own these two radio stations that never seem to make any money for them, so he decided he'd write an old fashioned radio play to run on Halloween, like the Mercury Theater stuff he used to listen to with his grandfather, and he'll syndicate it and it will make money for the station and the station will turn a profit for the first time ever, but when he tries to write the thing it just won't come out the way he wants it to, and then... oh, Jesus, Steve, what the fuck:

"It was busted, and I didn't know how to fix it. Writing radio plays, it seems to me, is a lost art. We have lost the ability to see with our ears, although we had it once. I remember listening to some radio Foley guy tapping a hollow block of wood with his knuckles... and seeing Matt Dillon walking to the bar of the Long Branch Saloon in his dusty boots, clear as day. No more. Those days are gone."

See what he did there? See how he palmed that card? Stephen King can't write something, so, It Can No Longer Be Done. Got that straight? If Stephen King cannot write an old fashioned radio play, then the entire genre and artform of old fashioned radio plays is extinct. Stephen King took a whack at it and came up dry, so as far as writing old fashioned radio plays goes, the entire human race has gone creatively bankrupt. We're universally sterile, we've shot our wads, we've gone tits up, because if Stephen King can't write one, then ain't NOBODY can.

I just... I can't... I... the sheer fucking monumental trumpeting insane elephant-assed HUBRIS of that sends me reeling and staggering. Honest to God. That's no moon... that's Steve King's EGO, folks. Only Godzilla can save us now.

I mean, I'm going to try to read the stories in this bad bitch, but as Toby Ziegler once commented to Sam Seaborn in an entirely different context, "Right away you're starting out bad".

Well, at least I have EMERALD EYES as a back up, even if Daniel Keys Moran won't answer my goddam email.

I will close by urging you to go vote, unless you are planning to vote for McCain, in which case, I earnestly suggest to you that the day would be more productively spent fly fishing. Or getting really really drunk. Or both.