Spice Up Your Holidays With Gender Swap Erotica!

About four months ago I decided to do a special holiday-themed version of my gender swap series, Transformed for Halloween.  Which recently actually got a nice review:

I feel that Eric is an especially gifted writer of this particular genre. He takes time to set the plot in motion and typically has an unexpected twist at the end. That said, I enjoyed the multiple transformations in this story, especially since they caused the transformed to live the life completely opposite of their own. 

Then since I did Halloween I thought I might as well do Christmas.  And since I did Christmas, I thought Valentine's Day would seem natural.  Which the Valentine's Day one came out about two weeks ago, so go buy it now!

And now since I did Valentine's Day, what other holidays could I do?  I thought of two that are fairly similar.  Tomorrow the first one releases:  Transformed for Mardi Gras!

Though it's not an official holiday, next up on the 15th is Transformed for Spring Break!

I have at least two more planned:  Transformed for St. Patrick's Day

and

Transformed for Easter

I'm not sure, what holidays could I do after that?  Transformed for Memorial Day would be kind of tacky.  Transformed for Mother's Day?  That could work.  And Father's Day too!  Transformed for Independence Day?  Meh.  Transformed for Labor Day?  Also meh.  Then I suppose I'd have to do a sequel to the Halloween one, thus beginning the cycle all over again.

In the meantime, the oddly titled My Wife Changed Me Into a Pinup Girl! did big business this month--at least in the USA.  So maybe crazy titles work.  Or not.  Who's to say?

The other day I finally updated my website--and then Amazon destroyed four of my books.  It was like Smashwords:  you can't have children in erotica books.  Even though one had been on sale for over six months now!  And really all they wanted was for me to reclassify them to another genre.  Instead of just telling me that, they had to go into their Gestapo routine of shutting down the pages on Amazon, blocking my access to the books in question, and then sending me an email.  So then I have to spend an hour loading all four again instead of just reclassifying them, which would have taken maybe 10 minutes.  Plus now I have to go update my website links again.  Jerks.  Would it really kill them to treat authors like human beings and actually communicate with them instead of just raining down Commandments like the Old Testament God?  It makes me want to find a viable alternative to selling on Amazon, though nothing springs to mind.  I guess that's why they figure they can treat people like crap.

Anyway, that's the writing-related stuff going on.  Huzzah.

Birdman Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

I had a vested interest in watching Birdman because it's about a former superhero actor who is cracking up and almost 9 years ago now I wrote a novella about, wait for it--a former superhero actor who is cracking up.  Beyond that the two stories don't really compare, but obviously I wanted to see for myself just how similar or dissimilar they were.

This was the kind of movie where afterwards I thought, "What the heck was that about?"  A movie that odd I know is supposed to be dripping with deep meaning and thus I have to try to come up with some kind of deep meaning out of it beyond, "When it comes to suicide, if your first attempt fails, try try again!"  Because I'm pretty sure that's not what the filmmaker wanted me to think, even if it was accurate.

Eventually I came up with an old-fashioned deep meaning that goes back to ancient Greece and stuff:  You can't fight your fate!  Like in Oedipus Rex where it was foretold he would kill his father and marry his mother so his father had the baby sent out to a mountain to die but the kid grew up and ended up killing his father (whom he didn't know as his father) and marrying his mother (whom he didn't know was his mother).  Thus by trying to avoid fate, the father had brought it about, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.  (Though the real message is like in the Austin Powers movies, if you're going to kill someone, just do it and be done already!)

There's no murder or incest in this movie because that's not the fate for former Birdman star Riggin Thomson (Michael Keaton essentially playing himself in a comeback bid which ironically is like when Robert Downey Jr. essentially played himself as Tony Stark and made his comeback bid as Iron Man.)  Riggin is trying to avoid the fate of the has-been, fading away until only echoes remain in Trivia Pursuit questions or merchandise sold on eBay.  He doesn't want to become a joke like say my hero Bill Shatner or Gary Busey or a multitude of other celebrity has-beens.

To avoid this, he decides to write, direct, produce, and star in a Broadway play based on the Raymond Carver story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."  I haven't really read any Carver; all I know is that he's not Raymond Chandler.  Anyway, the idea is that this will be his big chance to show everyone that he's not just some has-been joke, that's he's a serious artiste.

And yet events undermine all of Riggin's attempts to be serious.  First his lead actor (Edward Norton who also was a superhero once upon a time) gets drunk on stage during one performance, followed the next night by displaying a huge boner.  When he's frustrated with his actor's antics, Riggin goes out to smoke a cigarette only to get his robe caught in the door and end up running through Times Square in his tighty-whities, which of course breaks the Internet.

Even his attempt to make a last grand gesture on stage fails with tragi-comic results.  Thus my supposition that the more Riggin attempts to not be a pathetic joke, the more he ends up becoming one.  Had he not staged the play, he could have just gone gently into that good night, just faded away into obscurity.  By staging the play, he ends up getting a lot of attention, but not really in a good way.  He becomes the punchline he tried not to be.

That's how I saw it anyway.  A movie like this I suppose you can come up with all sorts of interpretations or theories.  I haven't seen most of the "Best Picture" nominees so I can't tell you if this is the best picture of the year, but I enjoyed it and obviously it made me think.  My main criticism is that we should have seen more of his Birdman career just to have something more than a poster to weigh his present against.  You know, like start the movie with an old clip from his movie, but maybe that would have cost too much money.  The only other thing is that Zach Galifinakis seemed too young to be Riggin's lawyer best friend.  I mean he would have been what in his early 20s back when Riggin was at peak superstardom?  I'm just saying.

It's worth watching and now it's in wide release, so go check it out. (3.5/5)
Here's an appropriate song from another Has Been:

I'm Hoping "The Man in the High Castle" Gets Picked for a Full Season on Amazon & So Should You!

After you read this, you can go to Indie Writers Monthly and read about deep writing issues brought up by the recent movie "The Gambler."  What does a movie about a gambler have to do with writing?  Find out!

A couple years ago, after Netflix had some success with original shows like "House of Cards" it seemed a lot of other online platforms wanted to jump on the bandwagon like Yahoo!, Playstation, etc.  Amazon was another, only they have this thing where they have shows audition by putting up a pilot and then ones that are popular will get picked up.  The only one I ever watched was the "Zombieland" pilot, which wasn't very good as they recast the movie roles with actors who were less than impressive.

In this year's bunch of Amazon pilots is "The Man in the High Castle," which is based on a Philip K Dick novel I read a year or two ago and don't remember all that well.  The basic premise is that this is an alternate history where the Axis won WWII in 1952 thanks in large part to Germany nuking Washington DC.  The former USA is divided so that Germany controls everything east of the Rockies and Japan controls everything west of the Rockies, with the mountain range being a neutral zone.

The series takes place in 1962 when Hitler is on the verge of dying, which promises to create tension between Germany and Japan.  Most of the show follows a young guy who joins the American resistance in New York and is sent to the neutral zone with a special package and a woman in San Francisco whose sister gives her a movie before being killed by Japanese police.  The movie is supposedly made by "the man in the high castle" and is a documentary showing what we think of as our history, where the US-UK-USSR defeated Germany and Japan.

Since it's only an initial episode that's as far as the story goes.  Like I said I read the book a year or so ago and don't remember it extremely well.  I do remember the part where a factory worker designs some jewelry and shows it to his boss who tells him the Japanese don't want original designs, they just want replicas of old American stuff like Colt .45 revolvers.

Anyway, this reminds me of the old "V" movies and TV show, only less campy because there's no lasers and spaceships and stuff.  I like too that even though it's alternate history, they haven't worked in a lot of people we would recognize.  I mean it's not like JFK is the head of the resistance or anything dumb like that as some alternate history books do.  I'd really like to see more because there's a blend of action, history, and sci-fi unlike anything on TV that I'm aware of.  I'm hoping it's popular enough for Amazon to pick it up, though I imagine one thing that might prove detrimental is a series like this is more expensive to produce than the others.  The subject matter might also piss off redneck Fox "News" watching types."Whaddya mean we didn't win the war?!  My granpappy killed 50 Japs with his bare hands!"

If you have Amazon Prime you can watch it for free.  I'm not sure if they charge you to watch it if you don't have Prime.  Some people also have it on YouTube if you want to search for that.  Here's a much shorter video:

While you can check it out.  Or you can read the book too if you want.

Movie Round-Up 1/14/15: The Interview, The Gambler, Life Itself, A Walk Among the Tombstones

If you want, after you read this entry, head over to the Indie Writers Monthly blog to read about my attempt at using draft2digital instead of Smashwords.  Is it better or worse?  Go there to find out!


The last couple of days I was at the Hampton in Midland, MI and I could actually hook my Roku up again, so I took advantage to catch up on some movies.


The Interview:  Like many people, I didn't really care much about this.  I mean I never paid to see Seth Rogen in a movie in a theater before.  Or I don't think on DVD either unless I got one from Redbox at some point.  But like many people after theaters turned to total pussies and didn't want to screen the movie, I wanted to stick it to North Korea by watching it.


I get why North Korea wouldn't want North Koreans seeing it.  From an article I read on Yahoo! the idea that Kim Jong-Un's people believe him to be a god is true, so he wouldn't want his people seeing a movie that portrays him crying to a Katy Perry song and crapping his pants.


Beyond that, the movie is OK but not great.  It's a little too long like many comedic movies these days.  As you would except from a Seth Rogen-James Flacco vehicle, it features a lot of dick and shit jokes, but there is at the core the truth about the North Korean situation. (2.5/5)


The Gambler:  I watched this in the theater while waiting to check in to the Hampton.  It was the only movie playing at 11:45 in Midland, plus I figured no one else would be there.  I was close; one other guy showed up.  Anyway, this is better than I thought it would be, but while it's billed as a thriller, I think the real focus of it is more of a drama.


For me, the film's ultimate message is that some people have to dig down all the way to the bedrock before they can force themselves to start climbing out of the hole.  Marky Mark Wahlberg's character is an English professor who had some falling out with his grandpa at the start of the movie and then goes into a spiral of losing money to gangsters.  At the start of the movie he loses a bunch of money to a Korean gangster and then goes out to the parking lot to borrow money from a black gangster, which he also loses.


What I didn't like is the guy seemed like a total idiot.  I mean every bet he makes is all-in.  If you win $160,000 or so, you should probably keep at least a reserve of $10,000 or so to start over again if you lose.  But as the movie unfolds you realize that he makes those bets because at the core he really wants to lose.  Even when his older ex-wife (Jessica Lange) gives him the money to pay off the gangsters, what does he do?  Blow it in an Indian casino.  Because only then could he hit absolute rock bottom and have nowhere to go but up.  Understanding that made me like the movie more than I would otherwise.
(3/5)


A Walk Among the Tombstones:  I read the book for this when I was gallivanting across the country.  Specifically it was the day I went from Seattle, to Cape Disappointment, then on to Portland.  I was going to see the movie when in Portland, but then a tooth broke and I never got back to it.  So finally I had to wait until it came out on digital download.


The book is part of Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series.  Scudder is an ex-NYPD detective who retired after years of drinking led him to accidentally killing a little girl while trying to stop some thieves.  Or at least that's the movie version; I haven't read most of the Scudder series.  Since then, Scudder works as an unlicensed PI while dealing with his drinking issues at AA meetings.


Scudder appeared on the big screen before back in the 80s in "8 Million Ways to Die" starring Jeff Bridges and Bridges might have worked better than Liam Neeson as the gritty New York cop.  But whatever. 


The movie stays mostly faithful to the book, including the 90s setting.  I had been wondering about that since much of the book depended on 90s technology, including a couple of guys who hack into phone networks.  The criminals also depend on pay phones to make their calls, so how would that translate to 2013 when the movie was made?  The phone hackers weren't included in the movie but the payphone angle remained, which I suppose is why it was set in 1999 when payphones were still a thing.


The main plot of the movie (and book) is that a couple of crazy guys are going around abducting the wives of drug traffickers.  They get ransom money but kill the women and keep the money.  Scudder is drawn in by the alcoholic/druggie brother of a trafficker, but by then it's too late--at least until the next time the bad guys take someone, only in this case a Russian trafficker's daughter.


I suppose it is ironic then that the star of the movie is also the star of the "Taken" franchise, though the two are grossly different.  There are no car chases and there's no Neeson taking down a roomful of Albanians.  There are a couple of gunfights and some gore, but it doesn't have the frenetic pace of the "Taken" movies.


Overall I thought it was good.  I wish it had done better in the theaters because I'd like to see more Lawrence Block franchises on the big screen like gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenberr or neurotic, stamp-collecting hitman Keller.  In fact I'd like a whole Lawrence Block Cinematic Universe, but that ain't gonna happen.
(3/5)


Life Itself:  The irony of writing a movie review about a movie about a movie critic!  This aired on CNN a couple of weeks ago, though it had also played the indie theater circuit.  It's a documentary on the life of Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times critic who was half of the famous Siskel & Ebert. 


The documentary alternates between Ebert's past and his present in 2013 while recovering from a broken hip.  He had already lost the use of his mouth from cancer back in around 2007 and since then had been communicating mostly through the Internet, a laptop, or a notepad. 


The current parts were pretty heartbreaking to watch, especially knowing that soon after he was going to die.  The past was a lot more enjoyable.  I didn't know much about his life before he became a critic and while it doesn't go into tons of detail, it gives you enough detail to know he wasn't some stuck-up jerk, or at least he tried hard not to be.


When it got into his relationship with Gene Siskel was probably the most interesting part of the film.  Really I think there needs to be a biopic that focuses just on that because it's clear there's a lot of room for drama.  The two guys worked together but really didn't like each other for a long time and really it was only after Siskel's death in 1999 that Ebert's feelings about his partner could become more fully realized.


In the end it's a great documentary on one of the last great film critics.  We will never see another one like him.
(4/5)


Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas:  Basically the plot of this movie is Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as Hunter S. Thompson and his lawyer "Gonzo" go to Vegas, get wasted, tear up a hotel room, leave, repeat twice more.  There was probably a point amongst all the tripping balls. (2/5)


Inspector Gadget 2:  A silly sequel to a pretty crappy original movie.  I watched it because Briane Pagel mentioned his son loved it and I remembered I had kind of wanted to see it at one point because I watched the TV show in the 80s.  It really is a movie aimed at 7-year-olds (or younger) but at least it gets some things right that the first crummy movie didn't, such as that you're not supposed to see Dr. Claw's face.  Really you're not supposed to see much more than his arm, but oh well.  In this movie Gadget gets a new female partner, something I thought would have been cool for the Robocop movies, like if Lewis had been shot and she became a Robocop too and then we could all have tried to imagine cyborg sex.  But obviously there's no cyborg sex (or even thoughts of it) in this.
(2.5/5)

My New Year

My last post pretty much left off at XMas.  Didn't read it?  You're probably not alone, so go read it.  Not that you have to read much, since most of it is pictures of Graceland and airplanes.

Anyway, New Year's I didn't do a lot.  Hotwire let me down (again) and gave me an Extended Stay America in Novi.  This is like the 3rd time they've given me one of that type of motel and it's always like, "Those aren't real motels!  They're studio apartments!"  I mean if you don't get maid service or a pool or anything then it's not a freaking motel.  But I digress.  No one in my family was really doing anything for New Year's Eve.  None of us really give a shit about it.  I wasn't about to drive to New York and freeze my ass off in Times Square or anything like that just to watch a stupid ball drop.  I just watched it on TV and drank some apple juice spiked with Big K Coke Zero because I forgot to buy any sparkling cider and didn't feel like going to the grocery store.

So now I'm back in the Detroit area, applying for jobs, filing for unemployment, and other assorted crap you don't care about.  Boring crap really.

I did find out something interesting the other day.  When I went west and southwest I couldn't watch Netflix, etc most of the time unless I wanted to watch it on my laptop or tablet because most motels use an internet portal and the Roku doesn't have a browser.  I don't think the Chromecast does either and Amazon's is "Coming soon!"  Which is no help.  Anyway, I got the idea when I went to my storage unit the other day to try my Nintendo Wii because it has WiFi with a Netflix app and it has a browser.  Surprisingly it did actually work with a little finagling like finding the right site address to put into the browser.  The only disappointing thing is that all the Wii has is Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu Plus.  That is almost literally all the channels they have anymore, I guess since they stopped making these years ago, about the time I stopped using the Wii too.

Writing wise I found a new way to wring more money out of the unsuspecting reading public.  All of my Transformed novels were on Amazon, so I hadn't been getting anything from Smashwords or B&N or anything.  Since they're on the KDP thing I couldn't publish them through there.  Then I found a way that I could bring them to those platforms, with the ultimate omnibus!

So for $14.99 you can buy all 22 books of the series (to date).  The good thing about Smashwords is you still get the 70%-ish of the profits even at $14.99, whereas with Amazon anything over $9.99 is only 35%.  If you're wondering whether $14.99 is fair or unfair, it's over 500,000 words!  That's like almost the size of Stephen King's The Stand.

I've been doing some other similar books that aren't part of that series.  When I bought cover images from Fotolia, I usually bought 3-4 since you have to buy so many credits at a time.  So I ended up with some extra pictures I hadn't used and thus thought I might as well use them for something.  And since I wasn't using the same series, I made up some wackier titles.  I've finished 4 of these so far.

Unlike my other ones they only have one story so they're shorter--some more than others.  And I have a bunch more that I may or may not get around to writing. Or I might come up with wackier or less wacky titles.  You can probably guess the stories from the titles:

 At some point maybe I should do a PT Dilloway book again just so people remember that guy exists.

This being the new year, a lot of people do posts about what was the best whatever of 2014.  I looked at the list of 260 books I read on Goodreads last year and I couldn't really decide what was the best.  I can't even think of which book of mine I like the best.  As for movies, I liked "Captain America 2" a little more than "Guardians of the Galaxy."  For artier movies I'm not really sure; I watched so many it's hard to remember them all.  Don't even ask me about music as I stopped caring about that a long time ago.

In case you're wondering, my most viewed post on this blog and Indie Writers Monthly was the same entry:  Pro Tips From "Authors Anonymous."  The comments on the IWM blog were better as the writer of the movie actually commented whereas on my blog there was only Offutt making a generic comment.  Surprisingly (or not) most of my Grumpy Bulldog Does America entries barely cracked 25 views.  This entry will probably barely crack that too.

I hope your new year was more exciting than mine and that you have lots of cool shit planned for 2015.