Interesting JMS Facebook Posts & Tweets

[DaveNarn]

I liked his Continuity essay a lot.

This poem immediately came to mind...

Sometimes
not often enough
We reflect upon the good things

And those thoughts always center around

those we love

And I think about those people

who mean so much to me

And for so many years have made me

so very happy

And I count the times I have forgotten to say

'thank you'

And just how much

I love them

Karen Carpenter recorded it.

http://youtu.be/aHokKI-_fao

- and don't blame me if the song gets stuck in your head

[phazedout]

Joe posted this morning:

Cool five-star review for Sidekick #4, and on Wednesday Protectors Inc. #2 hits the stands!... http://fb.me/6AVi42A8C

to which I replied

@straczynski i bought all four sidekicks, the last two ten grand ans protectors one in the sale , loving My new straczynski writing

and he sent back (much to my surprise)



@phazedout I think you should get fortune cookies with that.

Joe replied! happy days

[Jan]

A poster talked about how people like JMS and 'military brats' who moved around a lot fosters an attitude of fearlessness.

David...that's a good point that I'd never considered in terms of fearlessness. I've never been afraid of losing everything because I lost it all before, not just once but repeatedly. So after a while, you realize there's nothing they can do to you. That's true in both my career and my personal life. I love my house, but if it burned down tomorrow, I'd just start over, as long as I got Buddy out okay. The rest is just stuff.

Jan

[Jan]

Most of the time I envy Buddy's life and then JMS posts something like this:

I'VE JUST HAD AN ENTIRE BOX OF RED VINES AND A MOUNTAIN DEW CHASER AND I'LL FIGHT ANYBODY IN THE HOUSE!

IT'S OKAY, DON'T PANIC, I'M EATING SOME CHEEZ-ITS TO BRING ME BACK DOWN!

:-)

Jan

[Jan]

@straczynski 3h
A friend asked a mutual female friend why she and I never got together. Her reply "We have too much to talk about to screw." Best line ever.

That explains that.

Jan

[Jan]

From last night:

Attention British Fans! I will be signing at Gosh Comics in London on January 8th 5-7. https://www.facebook.com/events/1439460916267315/

[Jan]

JMS' traditional 'bah, humbug':

A holiday greeting to each of those who "should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

Jan

[Jan]

Faith (and a lot of talent) manages!

See, here's why I have no right whatsoever to complain about any part of my life, regardless of how annoying some of it may be on a nearly daily basis.

As a kid, all the way through adolescence and adulthood, I loved the Twilight Zone. Never thought I'd get near doing anything related to it. But on top of working for the '88 Twilight Zone, I have a new Twilight Zone book coming out this week. The geek in me is ecstatic.

Now, you'd think that would be enough. But it ain't. I can still remember when and where I saw the first Terminator movie: Larry DiTillio and I caught one of the last showings at a theater in Eagle Rock just abaft from Glendale. We were both wog-boggled (his term) by it. There was absolutely no question that James Cameron had created something truly extraordinary. As I sat watching T2 years later, I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to play in that universe? But of course the odds of that were pretty much zero.

Yet this week, the second issue of my Terminator series for Dark Horse also hits the stands, a story that will stitch together all of the Terminator mythos. Two geek dreams realized in the same week, no less. (And both beginning with the letter T.)

Sometimes I think things like this are the way the universe rewards you for staying true to the art. Other times I think I'm just really fucking lucky.

And as if that weren't fun enough, this week French publisher Delcort announced that come January they will be reprinting Midnight Nation in a French language edition.

I am in geek paradise.

Lucky. Really freaking lucky.

And when somebody congratulated him on being married to Pat Tallman :

Ian: umm...no. We're still good friends, and we were going out for quite a while, but we went our separate ways in terms of a relationship nearly a year ago. And never married. Where does the internet get these things?

Then when somebody commented that he's blessed rather than lucky:

If I were blessed, the road from there to here wouldn't have been quite so ridiculously hard. And I'd have more hair.

Switching over to Twitter...

Realized the good & bad things that happen become coins in the heart. The more meaningful you want your life the more you have to spend them.

Also: spiders are scary.

Christmas Eve, Day and New Year's Eve dinners exactly the same: eating at my desk to catch up on deadlines. Good work but crazy....

I teasingly asked him when the last time he actually took his traditional days off (Christmas, New Year and his birthday):

@JanMSchroeder Don't remember. Long, long ago. But this period is especially tense. Glad you like the book, it's fun.

(I'd also included in my tweet that I loved the Apocalypse Al comic)

You know, usually when someone's balls drop, they don't make quite this big a deal about it.

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but the rest of you seriously need to straighten up.

And that appears to be the end of JMS' New Years eve posts 2013/2014!

Jan

[Jan]

I'm only part way through this but it looks to be an interesting podcast interview with JMS just recorded while he's in London.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/01/09/pop-culture-hounding-joe-michael-straczynski/

Jan

[DaveNarn]

I'm only part way through this but it looks to be an interesting podcast interview with JMS just recorded while he's in London.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/01/09/pop-culture-hounding-joe-michael-straczynski/

Jan

Thanks for posting the link.

I like his candor about his business dealings, he's giving a lot of advice in this interview.

[Ubik]

Listening now... Really good interview, even though I've heard a lot of JMS centric life stories / experiences before. I do like how grounded he sounds here, and is very humble for the most part.

I think JMS may be a little over fond of the term 'never done before' when it comes to some of his new work. Although I think part of that is just genuine excitement in trying out new ideas and approaches. For example, Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen's 'Phonogram - The Singles Club' comic series used the same narrative structure he's describing for the Twilight Zone comics. Must admit, it sounds nifty and it's an approach I'm fond of.

I'm very excited for Sense8! One thing that really pricked up my ears was that a '5 year arc' was mentioned! Folks, we could very well have JMS' next B5 style project before us. That's more than enough to get my blood pumping! Can't wait!

[babylonlurker]

I'm only part way through this but it looks to be an interesting podcast interview with JMS just recorded while he's in London.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/01/09/pop-culture-hounding-joe-michael-straczynski/

Jan

Just listened to that, even if there is not a massive amount of new information (well, there is a lot of new stuff coming out) - if you follow JMS regularly - It was good to get even more background.

Definitely worth a listen.

[Jan]

Just found this one:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=706044779430388&id=139652459402959

Not that this interview, discovered recently in a dusty archive, has anything whatsoever to do with current events....

Anno Domini 1351.

And...cue interview.

“Good evening. I’m standing here with Monsieur Phillipe LeGrand, who has been gracious enough to come out today to talk with us about plans to deal with the Black Plague – ”

“Can I stop you there for a moment? The term “Black Plague” is something that you in the media made up. Yes, there are some people getting sick and dying, but there have been people getting sick and dying for all of human history. It is the cycle of life. These are simply isolated incidents.”

“But in these numbers – ”

“What numbers?”

“The last reports by our experts indicates nearly 200 million people have died.”

“Have you personally seen 200 million dead people? Has anyone?”

“Well, no, but – ”

“Our own experts are saying it’s no more than a few thousand.”

“Those are a minority of opinions – ”

“But no less valid because of it. Look, we have to be careful not to engage in fear mongering based on figures provided by this new class of “scientists” who inflate the numbers for their own benefit.”

“All right, well, wherever the final numbers end up, what is being done to deal with the current crisis?”

“Again, this isn’t a crisis, but that issue aside, even though there is considerable skepticism about whether or not this “black death” even exists, we are taking sane and reasonable steps to deal with the problem.”

“Such as?”

“Because these are isolated incidents, as I said earlier, we’ve been looking into what might be responsible for these outbreaks, and concluded, as any sane person would, that it’s ultimately the Jews.”

“The Jews?”

“Yes. Well, also friars, foreigners, lepers, and gypsies, but mainly it’s the Jews who have been attempting to spread this sickness by poisoning wells. So we’ve taken the very proactive step of eliminating as many of them as we can.”

“The wells?”

“No, the Jews. Started well enough about two years ago, when we cleansed the Jewish communities in Mainz and Cologne, then another two thousand or so cleansed in Cologne...the last figures I’ve seen show we’ve eliminated about sixty major and one hundred and fifty smaller Jewish communities. Very good progress overall.”

“There are some who would suggest that an action like that has nothing to do with the problem and more to do with using the current crisis to help advance a religious agenda.”

“And they’d be wrong. Also, tortured to death.”

“What else is being done to deal with the crisis...I mean, the situation?”

“Well, we’ve done an excellent job killing as many cats across Europe as can be found. Tricky little beggers, very fast, but still – ”

“Why kill cats?”

“As I said, this whole notion of a plague that could wipe out vast tracts of god-fearing, Christian people is against everything we believe and know to be true. So the only other thing that can reasonably, logically explain the situation, other than Jew poisoning, of course, is Satan.”

“Satan?”

“Yes. Now, everyone knows that cats are the emissaries and tools of Satan, so we’re getting rid of them as quickly and efficiently as we can. Millions so far, as I hear it.”

“But there are reports that the plague is carried by rats, so wouldn’t killing the cats make the problem even worse?”

“Only if you actually listen to these so-called “scientists” with their unbelieving ways. Just the other day we heard one of them saying sickness might be caused by things too small for us to see...which is of course absurd because if we can’t see it, well, it’s not there, now is it? God would never put something fatal to humans in a form that small, just doesn’t make any kind of logical sense, now does it? And even if they did exist, the idea that something so small as to be invisible could have an effect on the entire world is ridiculous. Only God could do something so massive that the entire world, or at least all of Europe, would be affected. So we had him tortured for a while until he changed his mind.”

“But Monsieur LeGrand – ”

“It is very simple, my friend. God gave Earth to mortals as our home, our safe refuge. He would not have infested it with anything that could simply wipe out millions of people in a single blow. Only God is capable of such a thing, and He would not allow Christians to die in such numbers before the Day of Judgment.”

“But nowhere in the Bible does it say how MANY Christians are alive at the Day of Judgment. Some interpret it to indicate that there may be only a few hundred thousand. So there could easily be some sort of massive worldwide catastrophe that would wipe out millions of humans before that date...just as, say, an earthquake can kill thousands, or storms – ”

“If you’re going to bring weather into this then you’ve completely lost your credibility.”

“Well, except for the Great Flood, of course...water rising, cities flooded. Many who believed in God also died in that flood.”

“Is there a point in this?”

“Well, I – ”

“Look, it’s very simple. There is no such thing as this so-called Black Plague. These are only scattered incidents which a few individuals are exaggerating for reasons of their own profit and position. I’m surprised I have to even explain this. I mean, look around. If there were a Black Plague killing half of Europe as the hysterics among us claim, then doing the math every other person would have to be sick. But you look quite healthy, and I’m perfectly fine and healthy, so there can’t possibly be a plague.”

“Actually, I was going to ask you about that black mark on your face.”

“What mark?”

Cologne mentioned twice is a typo; the second one should be Strasbourg.

Jan

[babylonlurker]

Just found this one:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=706044779430388&id=139652459402959

Jan

Yes, brilliant !

[Jan]

JMS may have taken a breather between deadlines last night. A new photo and tidbit about Ye Olde Tyme Joe:

More Ye Olde Tyme Joe...in a shot I'd completely forgotten ever existed.

While checking out some books my assistant had moved, I found a folder she'd inadvertently moved along with them, a folder that I'd been trying to find for years, containing...well, a lot of crap but also some mementos of earlier times.

I'd previously been aware of only one photo of me from the period when I was working as a reporter down in San Diego. In the folder were two others. This is from an interview I did for the Los Angeles Times with Professor Irwin Corey, who was then touring with Jackie Gleason and Cleavon Little in a production of Larry Gelbart's "Sly Fox." I believe this was taken backstage at the theater. I always recorded my interviews and made sure my notes and the recorder were where I could see them to make damned sure the little wheels were turning.

I was ridiculously scrawny, yes, I had hair, and yes, I apparently had terrible taste in clothes, even for the period. (This was taken in March of 1978, so I was 23.)

I'd already been working for the Los Angeles Times/San Diego Bureau for about a year or so when this photo was taken, so I'd started there at about age 22, one of the youngest stringers to work for the Times. Everyone was nudging me to go into being a full-time salaried reporter, but I stayed on the stringer side (meaning I committed to x-number of articles per month). I wanted to keep my options open. Would've been a very different but, I suspect, no less interesting future if I'd committed to being a full-time reporter.

A fan commented that he'd probably read some of JMS' writing back in those days.

Eric/Ac...yeah, if you were in San Diego and reading newspapers around 1976-80 you probably read some of my stuff at least once. I was writing for not just the LAT San Diego Bureau, but also the San Diego Reader, Tuned In Magazine, San Diego Magazine, the Daily Californian, and had a weekly on-air review segment on KSDO-AM. Most of my work was in the features area, but I did do some investigative work for the Reader, including a cover story about the Moonies.

The one paper I didn't work for was the Union/Tribune, mainly because that wasn't allowed if I was working for the LAT. There was a fierce rivalry between the two at that time, especially on the part of the UT, and if you allied yourself with one, you couldn't do the other. Eventually the UT won that battle -- more by maneuvering than quality of reportage -- but for a while there the two papers really kept each other on their respective toes.

And IO9 posted a list of people they'd like considered when the time comes for Moffat to leave Doctor Who.

The Will Never Happen But Hey Let's Take a Punt Choice

J. Michael 'JMS' Straczynski

Doctor Who experience: J. Michael Straczynski was a fan of the original Doctor Who in the 1970s and 1980s. He has cited it - along with The Prisoner and Blake's 7- as an influence on the writing of his TV show Babylon 5. Specifically, he has cited the season-long story arcs (such as the Key to Time season) as being influential on his development of Babylon 5's story structure.

Other experience: Straczynski was a script-editor and producer on shows likeMurder, She Wrote and Captain Power whilst also writing for animated series including He-Man and Ghostbusters. He is best-known for being the co-showrunner and primary writer of Babylon 5, which ran for five seasons in the late 1990s and is credited with the boom in 'story arc' storytelling in television (which Doctor Who itself has latterly employed). Straczynski later went on to become the primary showrunner on Jeremiah before writing the script for the Clint Eastwood move Changeling. He is also extremely active in comics, writing for everything from Spider-Man to the recent Before Watchmen project.

Pros: JMS is a highly experienced writer and showrunner. He is famed for bringing in shows under-budget and on time (a notably different situation to the Moffat era of Doctor Who). He is, generally speaking, well-regarded as a writer, though his extremely prolific output (he wrote some episodes of Babylon 5 in less than a day) does mean there's a fair amount of mixed material as well.

Cons: JMS is American, based in LA and is working on the TV series Sense8 for Netflix, based on an idea from the Wachowskis. This would presumably tie him up for some years to come, and it's unlikely he'd be willing to relocate to London, despite occasionally-voiced ambitions to retire to the UK to write novels. JMS is also well-known for having many fingers in many pies and it's unclear if he would be willing to give up his comics work and other projects to commit to Who for such a long time.

Likelihood: Non-existent. If they ever do a US-based remake or reboot of the series, however, don't be surprised if his name came up.

Boy, would that ever be a dream job....

So I asked if JMS would relocate and all if the job were offered.

In a heartbeat.

And on Twitter when somebody pointed to the same article:

Never gonna happen, but I would be ridiculously honored and happy...would be the gig of a lifetime.

That said, however, Moffat is doing an extraordinary job and I hope he stays at Who and Sherlock to the end of time

Jan