All That Chazz: Your Brain Tickle Destination
Apocalyptic Epics and Killer Crime Thrillers by Robert Chazz Chute
You can read Hollywood Jesus as a standalone thriller beginning October 1, or read the series from the beginning, in the The Divine Assassin’s Playbook, Omnibus Edition.
FYI: The Omnibus will contains the first three books: Bigger Than Jesus, Higher Than Jesus and Hollywood Jesus and will launch at the same time.
I’m working on the last draft of the next instalment of the Hit Man Series, Deader Than Jesus. My luckless Cuban assassin has big plans for tonight. Here’s an excerpt from today’s revisions…
Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the character of the clever hit man will be played by Jesus Diaz. The actor’s motivation will be supplied by his lost childhood and tortured fool’s soul.
Take a deep breath. Step closer to the mirror. Look into your eyes and try to find the man behind the scary luchadore mask. What happens tonight shouldn’t be narrated by Morgan Freeman. Tough guy voice over work for tonight’s adventure should be supplied by the cowboy in the Big Lebowksi, Sam Elliot. Or maybe Dennis Leary could put a funny, edgy spin on what’s about to unfold, like he does for those truck commercials.
Somebody really badass should play you. If John Leguizamo isn’t available, can Jason Statham play a short Cuban?
I think the book will be out in a month (or less.) Stay tuned, and be sure to read Bigger Than Jesus and Higher Than Jesus. You can jump in anywhere, but you’ll get the full flavor if you start at the beginning. Enjoy.
If you ever wondered about some behind-the-scenes stuff about writing a massive apocalyptic saga, check out my fun interview on Armand Rosamilia’s Arm Cast: Dead Sexy Horror Podcast.
We have a good talk. The interview begins at about 9 minutes. (It’s Episode 2 of the podcast as listed on iTunes.)
The ebooks of This Plague of Days are finally available on Amazon. However, there’s more here than meets the eye! You can click quick on the covers below, or go to this link at ThisPlagueOfDays.com and find out about the deals, markdowns, secret video and the free thriller you can get with the purchase of the Omnibus Edition.
Thanks so much for
your enthusiasm
for This Plague of Days!
Autism and zombies
do mix!
As I’ve mentioned on Facebook, it seems whoever’s in charge has decided that it’s okay to spoil Game of Thrones immediately. I’m now hypersensitive to the problem of spoilers so, though I won’t get into great detail on the movie Transcendence, I’m going to tell you up front that I plan to spoil it. Perhaps enjoy this review more like a Slate Spoiler Special (a review of a movie you’ve already seen, not one you plan to see.)
So, straight to the problem with Transcendence:
If the very foundation of the film wasn’t immensely flawed, it wouldn’t have been a bad show. I like Johnny Depp. He’s good in this in that he says his lines and doesn’t walk into furniture. (He hardly does any walking at all since mostly he’s on screen and percolating through the net. They sure didn’t give him much to work with in the script.
Sadly, Morgan Freeman plays the dumbest character he has ever played. Here’s the deal: Download a brilliant, dying scientist’s mind into a computer. The photocopy of his consciousness might not be entirely him, but there’s no evidence it isn’t all him.
We’re supposed to be worried it isn’t all Johnny and it might be PINN, the autonomous computer that MIGHT DESTROY THE HUMAN RACE! Except we barely meet PINN before the scientist gets on PINN’s hard drive and there is no sense of menace. PINN isn’t HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s as innocuous as Microsoft Word’s paperclip character that popped up to ask, “It look like you’re typing a letter. Can I help?” PINN will open the pod bay door and won’t keep you out of the airlock, Dave, so relax.
Anyway, the ghost in the machine (i.e. Johnny’s character of Will Caster) embraces solar power and starts making the blind see, saving lives and doing good everywhere.
Morgan’s character’s answer to all this good news? A note that tells the dead guy’s wife to run away because…um…well…hm. Because paranoia! Because freedom! Because your dead husband is down in the basement curing cancer with nanotechnology that could save us all! What a jerk!
Making the people he cures of terrible diseases into a slave army (part-time) was supposed to alarm us. However, if the doctor said, “I’m curing your blindness for free but I get to run around in your body, as needed, maybe 10- 20% of the time,” I’d say, “Sure! Thanks! Better than being a debt slave for the rest of my life. That’s a fair exchange! Bring on the nano-tech!”
Dying wife looks up at dying husband (again) and says, “It’s you.”
Meaning: You aren’t the monster we feared.
He answers, “Always was.”
Meaning: I was always Jesus. You’ve killed me again and learned nothing in over 2000 years.
She smiles.
She smiles!? No! She should not be smiling. She should be weeping and begging forgiveness, not only from her dead husband/computer program, but from the human race.
Pain. Disease. Weakness. Congratulations, humans! You had a shot at long, healthy lives and hope for the future but you weren’t worthy of the gift. You “win”, ya big dopes! That’s what anti-intellectualism and paranoia and fear of new things gets you. I’d call it a life lesson, but your lives are so short and miserable, who cares? Sure, science guy healed the planet a bit in the end, but we still die hooked up to machines. Whee! We win!
Transcendence needed a lesson from Lawn Mower Man. You don’t make a guy a beneficent god and bring him down. You transform him into a mad, evil god and then you bring him down. Bring down monsters or we’re all doofuses.
I wonder if studio suit thought, Add in some hope for the husband and wife at the end, despite the fact that the anti-virus worked everywhere else. Sure. If we confuse the audience with a vague ending, maybe they’ll forgive us the rest.
We won’t forgive. The point of the movie is, we won’t. We aren’t worthy and we don’t cut anybody else any slack, either.
As I poke through two piles of receipts, I’m thinking about the last year. Tax time is a diary of numbers. It’s mostly depressing, first because accounting is a job I don’t want to do. Second, because it’s a job that would have been easier if I’d kept track of everything all along instead of saving it all up for an Easter weekend blitz.
It’s also sad to see the things that didn’t work. Google Adwords and Facebook Ads (for business #2) was a sinkhole with negative returns. “Negative returns” means it sucked. When the outgo outpaces the income, it starts to make you reevaluate your vocational choices. If I hadn’t been so afraid of public speaking, I could have been a lawyer, I suppose. I cured myself of the public speaking phobia (and probably dodged a bullet by not going into law.) Probably saved myself an ulcer and several clients from life sentences by staying the hell out of that profession.
One of the things I did that showed up in the receipts was donate to Authors Supporting Our Troops. It’s a good cause no matter what political stripe you wear. As for the many little bills that add up to a tower, I’m doing like we all do. I’m a shark. I move forward. I’m making headway and I’m hopeful.
Two of the beta readers for This Plague of Days Season 3 have returned their notes already and the feedback is very positive. Stunningly so. It’s exactly what I hoped it would be. I can’t wait to get through recording my receipts so I can get back to the real business I’m in.
Writing is bigger than the bills. It always will be.
This is the podcast that asks, “How are you going to kill a thing like Lurch?” Brace yourself for a rant against today’s journalists by a journalist from yesterday. Then, an author reading from Higher Than Jesus by Robert Chazz Chute.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“That question has baffled experts.”
Episode 83 of the All That Chazz Podcast gets medieval, but first we begin with a rant against the media and the truth about New Jersey governor Chris Christie that no one would say (until now.) It has to do with fat and truth and fatheads standing under expensive haircuts.
In this chapter, From Dusk Till Dawn, funny and luckless Cuban hit man, Jesus Diaz, must find his love, Willow Clemont, before a couple of white supremacist terrorists kill her. My love of Tarantino is real. Most of the book’s chapters are from movies, old and new, noir and not noir. Enjoy.
This podcast is sponsored by the most excellent graphic designer, Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. My opinions aren’t necessarily his, so don’t blame him. Just use his awesome services for book covers, web banners and advertising.
To donate to the podcast or buy a book, please go to Amazon through the affiliate links at www.AllThatChazz.com. Thanks for listening!
~ Chazz