Dispatches from the Flying M

Snake in a Skein

Like most Americans, apparently, when Snakes on a Plane hit theaters after months of hype, we were already tired of it and didn't bother making the trek out to see it.  Tuesday night it aired on HBO, and we caught it then.  It was entertaining enough, although it's definitely the kind of movie that's just as good on cable or DVD as in theaters.

This morning, I went out to check on the vegetable garden Maryelizabeth planted earlier this month, as I do most mornings, to see if it needed watering.  A coachwhip, about four feet long, had gotten itself inextricably tangled in netting she put down to keep birds off the plants, wrapping it around itself and knocking over the support posts she used to keep the netting off the ground and above the plants.  At first, I thought the snake was dead, but it turned out it had just realized it couldn't go anywhere so didn't bother trying to move until I tugged on the net.

Wearing my heavy fireplace gloves, I used a pair of scissors to cut through the net.  The snake didn't want my help, and shook its tail ferociously, which may be a rattlesnake imitation coachwhips use as a defense.  Their main defense is biting, though, and while they aren't venomous I still didn't want to start my day with a snakebite.

As I worked, it coiled the last three feet of itself around my left arm, the one holding onto it.  It tried to snap at the scissors and my hand, but I was cutting from back to front and its head remained tangled.  When there were just a few strands left around it, it began writhing furiously, trying to free itself of those, but it was still too tied up.  I held it close to the head and removed a strand that had become trapped in its mouth, then sliced through the last few.  It rewarded me by snapping at me some more.  I tossed it over the fence, and it sped away, as coachwhips do, apparently none the worse for wear.

Samuel L. Jackson would mock me, I suppose, for not tasering it.  But we like our snakes out here, and know they're not all as mean and vicious as the ones shown in the movie.  Although this one, having spent an unknown number of hours snared in a web, would have been happy to chomp on someone, just out of general principle.

Just another day at the Flying M...

Another Graveslinger Interview

On Newsarama.

The moralists who just don't get it

Republicans are calling for their fellow Republican, Idaho Senator Larry Craig, to resign.  I wouldn't mind seeing him go, either, since he's been a consistently arch-conservative enemy of America for a long time.  But the Republicans don't want him to go because he's part of a dangerous movement.  They want him to go because he's gay, or at least bisexual (that subtle difference being entirely lost on them).  His real current offense is that he's a flaming hypocrite, a seemingly self-hating man who votes against every piece of legislation that might possibly help those who share his orientation lead safer, better, more valued lives.

The moralists don't think Craig is fit to serve because of his homosexual leanings.  The die-hard Republicans just see him as a threat to their hopes of re-taking Congress and keeping the White House in 2008.  But the only reason he would be a threat is that they and their moralist brethren keep preaching the gospel that homosexuality is bad, a sinful choice made only by evil men and women.  You would think they could grasp that Larry Craig didn't choose that orientation, or Ted Haggard, or Mark Foley, or any of the no doubt thousands and thousands of other gay and bisexual conservatives.

If the moralists would only decide to teach their flocks that being gay or bisexual is not evil and sinful, then people like Craig, Foley, and Haggard could live open, honest lives.  They wouldn't need to solicit furtive sex in public men's rooms, like Craig, or prey on those over whom they hold power over, like Foley and his pages, or consort with male prostitutes like Haggard.  They could be who they are, and have relationships (or not) with whoever they were attracted to and felt a reciprocal attraction.  They wouldn't have to hate the urges that control them.

I have no problem with how Larry Craig seeks his sexual gratification. I find it sad that he's reduced to viewing public toilet stalls as scenes of erotic opportunity rather than for their intended function, partly because like anyone who's ever needed a bathroom at a busy airport, I hate to think of old Lar and a Minneapolis cop tying up two stalls playing footsie while others went waiting.

The truth is that human sexuality is not a one-size-fits-all affair, and sexual orientation isn't something we pick in the boys' or girls' department of Target along with our first kindergarten shoes.  Everyone is wired the way they're wired, and we're all a little different.  Some men won' t make passes at girls who wear glasses, but others fantasize about Lisa Loeb every time they make love with their wives.  Some women are attracted to the muscular lifeguard, but others prefer the voluptuous bikini babe the lifeguard's checking out.  Mostly, we're attracted to individuals for a nearly infinite number of reasons, we each fetishize different things, different body parts, different activities, and anyone who thinks all humans can be forced to fit into this or that sexual box just doesn't understand humans.

Or they know there's money to be made preying on the fears some people have of anyone different than them.

Graveslinger Interview

There's an art-laden interview about new comic project Graveslinger, here.

Going, Going, Gonzo

August is turning out to be a good month for America.  First Karl Rove announced his resignation, and now Attorney General and all-around Bush stooge Alberto Gonzales has done the same.  They both offered similar lines about appreciating Bush giving them the chance to "serve America," but unless there's a definition I'm not aware of, something along the lines of "to serve" means "to attack the institutions and traditions that have made America great," I'm not sure what they mean by that.

Gonzales, lest we forget, is responsible for the "torture memo" that led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which probably did more than any other single incident to damage our reputation around the world.  He's responsible for the political firings of nine U.S. attorneys (although Rove probably had a hand in that mess too) and for the lack of morale in the Justice Department that's been driving good, career employees out the door in droves (leaving desks available for appointees who will serve the Bush agenda, rather than the American people).  He has continued to view his job as Bush's personal attorney rather than the nation's attorney, and he has let his desire to protect Bush's interests interfere with his real task, which is to enforce the nation's laws.

As John Edwards said when he heard the news, "Better late than never."  But he's been around long enough to do serious damage to the Justice Department, damage it'll take a long time to repair.

Graveslinger Preview

There's an 8-page preview of the new comic book Graveslinger that I'm writing with Shannon Eric Denton, with art by John Cboins, here.

And here's the final cover of #1.

DHL

As far as I can tell, DHL offers only one service--they move packages from one place to another.

Unless, of course, you live here at the ranch.

DHL used to deliver here, once in a while.  But for the last several months, they have given up.  Trouble is, they won't say they have given up.

If someone sends a package via DHL, it goes to their Tucson office, where it sits.  Should anyone call the office to inquire as to why it's sitting there, they'll be lied to.  The variety of stories they tell is wide and moderately entertaining, but the fact is--as we know from experience--they have no intention of actually delivering the package.

Finally, seemingly when they're tired of it cluttering up the Tucson office, they put stamps on the package and put it in the mail.  Our last several DHL packages have all been delivered by the USPS.

I wouldn't mind so much, if DHL would just tell people up front that they won't deliver to us.  Or if they insist on accepting the shipments, if they would immediately put them in the mail, instead of hanging onto them and lying in response to inquiries.

After all, if they only do one thing, they should just do it right, or give up and let someone do it who is capable.

The Artist Within

One of the cooler things at Comic-Con, which I keep forgetting to write about here, was the release of a new book called The Artist Within.  It's a stunning collection of photographs by Greg Preston (of Las Vegas photography studio Sampsel & Preston) of comic artists and cartoonists, usually inside their own studios.  Full disclosure: I've known Greg for many years, he photographed my wedding, and I've seen a lot of these photos before, during the 14 or 15 years he was compiling them, all with an eye toward this eventual book.  Now the book is finally out, published by Dark Horse, and it's gorgeous. It's huge, hardcover, nearly square, and the black and white reproduction of Greg's photos is as good as you can get in a book.

Any comic book or strip fan will find some favorite artists in here, including, sadly, some who are no longer with us, like Jack Kirby and Alex Toth.  It's fascinating and inspiring to see what these creative people surround themselves with.  Some studios are neat, some messy, some full of toys; some artists keep their own art on the walls while others display the art of those they admire.

Each artist is represented in a full two-page spread, with a big photo on one side and a brief bio and art sample on the other.  One of the most meaningful inclusions for me was the great John Severin, who has been illustrating comics professionally since 1947, but who chose as his sample a cover piece he did for the miniseries he drew of my Western horror comic Desperadoes.

Look for this at a bookstore or comic shop near you, and if it's not in stock, order it.  If you're a fan of comic art, you'll want a copy for yourself.  And it'd be an amazing autograph book to take to conventions, if you can lug it around.

Late summer ranch visitors

It's been an active few days in terms of wildlife dropping in here at the Flying M.  Most of the summer, we've had a lot of Sonoran desert toads, who hang around at night and eat some of the plentiful insect population.  They get big--not quite house cat-sized, but sometimes they seem like they are.

Here's one hiding out during the day.

Yesterday we had a brief visit from a desert tortoise, probably stopping by to get a drink from our pond.  The monsoon rains have largely stopped for the past week or more, and standing water for drinking is getting harder to come by--hence some of our visitors.

Today, a black-necked garter snake moved into the pond.  It seems very possessive of it, too.  Some of the birds that usually use it were standing on top of our ramada earlier, screaming at it, but it was just swimming around and thrashing in the water to keep them away.  They'll eat birds, so the birds were wise to keep their distance.

I was watching out a window when a coachwhip approached the pond, looking for a drink. The garter snake had gone down, out of sight.  Thinking a conflict might be brewing, I left the window briefly to call Maryelizabeth to come and see.  But the coachwhip, easily twice the garter snake's size, and maybe more, had decided it wasn't worth fighting over and taken off in a rush--demonstrating where the "red racer" nickname comes from.

The garter snake remains in the pond now.  I'm just hoping it's not a pregnant female, because I like having a variety of creatures using the pond, and this particular snake seems determined not to share.

We've also had a rash of whiptails lately; I saw three or four this morning while I was working outside, and at least a couple every day.

New books

A couple of days ago, I signed a contract with Penguin/Berkley, publishers of Missing White Girl, for two more original horror novels set in the Southwest.  With apologies to Cormac McCarthy, these three books, unrelated in every other way, will be my own "Border Trilogy," each one exploring, as MWG did, different aspects of life on the US/Mexico border, all with supernatural/horrific elements.  I'm about halfway through book two, called River Runs Red, which is mostly set in El Paso and west Texas.  I'm still kicking around ideas for the third one, and have not settled on anything yet.  RRR will be turned in by November 1, and presumably published in 2008, probably under the Jove imprint.