Rerun Junkie–Characters: Big Chicken

~ Kiki Writes ~ 5 Comments

Big ChickenThere are two guest characters from the TV shows I’ve blogged about that end up in searches that lead to my blog and one of them is Big Chicken.

It’s understandable, really. First of all, the old Hawaii Five-O series ran for twelve years and it was pretty popular. Second of all, Big Chicken, even though he was only in two episodes, was pretty damn memorable.

His first appearance, in a first season episode called “…And They Painted Daisies on His Coffin”, introduces us to the Big Chicken smarm. In the episode, off-duty Danny chases and ends up shooting an armed “kid” (they called him a kid; I called him twenty-five). Only, surprise! The victim’s girlfriend takes her now-dead boyfriend’s gun and runs off so it looks like Danny killed an unarmed “kid”. An investigation ensues and wouldn’t you know that dope pusher Big Chicken is involved? He thinks the law is cool. You can tell by the way he breaks it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t feel the law is so cool by the end of the episode.

Big Chicken in prisonLike I said, you get a hint of his smarm the first go-round. But it really comes on full-force and pretty much evolves into shudder-inducing creep later in the first season in an episode called “The Box”. The first time you see him, he’s in the prison shower (which is apparently some sort of broken pipe trickle), singing while some of his cohorts jump and beat a man. It’s unnerving and creepy and smarmy and just plain wrong.

The episode involves McGarrett entering the prison after the scuffle in the prison shower turns into a sort-of riot, but mostly hostage situation. It’s then that Big Chicken really turns it on. He weasels better than any weasel, ingratiating himself to the guy that his boys (one of whom is Al Harrington, who went on to play good guy Ben later) were whipping only a little while before in an attempt to get McGarrett killed. It’s a total slime act and the tension between Big Chicken and McGarrett has a real uncomfortable passion to it. His skeev level is off the charts.

I want to take a shower after I watch that episode (but not in a prison because no).

To me, the greatest part of this character is that it’s Gavin MacLeod playing him. When you think Gavin MacLeod, you think Captain Stubing, happy Loveboat guy, making dreams come true for his passengers and being an adorable father to his adorable daughter. Or maybe you think Murray Slaughter, TV writer and desk neighbor of Mary Richards, a good guy with excellent timing when it comes to insulting Ted Baxter.

You don’t think of him as a creeper’s creep.

I’ve seen him play a jerk before. He was a pretty big one an episode of The Big Valley. But to see him play the lowest of scum in such a slimy, skeevy way sticks with me. Kudos to him for that.

And kudos to Big Chicken.

Ya creep.

Writing–That Walk Away Point

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Illustration from the Collier's magazine print...

It really doesn’t matter what kind of writing project it is -novel, novella, short story- it seems that at some point during the revision stage I have to walk away from it. Letting the story settle after a round of revisions, putting a little distance between myself and the words helps me see what needs to be done.

However, for some stories, the walk away isn’t just part of the revision process. It’s because I’ve grown to absolutely detest the story

I mentioned last week hitting that point with the Ivy novella. It’s not a unusual breaking point for me to get to when a project is being difficult.

There comes a point when I don’t want to look at the story anymore. I don’t want to read the words. I don’t want to try to make the story better. Just thinking about the story saps my will to live and makes me question my dedication to being a writer.

The only logical way to deal with this overwhelming feeling of disgust is to walk away. I put away the disagreeable project in question and I leave it alone until I’m done hating it. Sometimes that’s a couple of weeks. Sometimes that’s a couple of months. But the distance eases my hatred and makes my heart grow fonder for the piece.

Okay, not always. Sometimes the distance allows me to just hate the piece less while I gain the important objective view of the story so I can finally finish revising it and make it worth reading.

I don’t like hating any of my stories, but it happens. And I think it might be very easy for me to just abandon the stories I despise and move on to something I love. But, I don’t. I force myself to finish them to completion because just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean that someone else won’t adore it. It’s not fair for me to give up on it just because I don’t like it. If I’ve gotten that far with it, then the story deserves to be told, whether it ever gets published or not.

And I also don’t hate stories for an eternity. Sometimes I hate them at the walk away point, but then rediscover my like/love for the story during our separation. Now, if I abandoned the story just because I didn’t like it when it was being its most difficult, that would be a total injustice.

I’m exaggerating, but only a little bit.

I usually feel guilty when I first walk away a story, but I know in the end it works out for the best.

We all need our space, you know.

Sensory Overload at the Movies

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A Night at the Movies (film)

I went to see The Conjuring with my roommate. She’d been really wanting to see it, but since it’s scary, she didn’t want to see it alone. After being subject to some bribery in the form of a Salted Caramel Pretzel milkshake from Steak n Shake, I was persuaded to see it with her. After reading some reviews, I thought it might not be too terrible, high praise from someone so finicky and critical of horror films, particularly recent stuff.

And I do think it was pretty good. I’m looking forward to watching it again on TV so I can really appreciate all of the elements at work.

Why TV? Why not see it in the theater again?

Simple.

Seeing movies in the theater has a tendency to be a downright painful experience for me.

I’ve found as I’ve gotten older that I have a certain sensitivity to sounds. Theaters are almost always too loud for me. Now that’s not too big of a deal most of the time, unless I’m seeing a film like The Conjuring that contains a lot of jump scares. A component of the jump scare, of course, is the sudden crash of sound that accompanies the visual shock. Yeah, those crashes hurt.

My roommate noticed that I was cringing at things I was hearing long before anyone else heard anything. There’s a moment in the film when a mix of voices are heard on a recording. I had to plug my ears. It was too much noise. I’ve been known to do this during action sequences, too, with a lot of gun shots and explosions. Too loud.

I’ve also found in my old age that the visual experience of movies is hard for me to deal with. Hi-def is great, I’m sure. But for me, in the theater, everything is too big, too close, too  much and it’s hard for my brain to adjust. I’ve never been good with point of view shots, but put them up on the big screen and my eyes can’t handle it. Same with anything that has too much shaking. It makes my eyes cross. There’s no way I could have watched Open Water, Cloverfield, or The Blair Witch Project on the big screen. My brain wouldn’t have been able to take it.

As it was there were a few times during The Conjuring that I had to close my eyes, not because it was scary, but because I couldn’t take the shaking and/or point of view angles. The sudden swing of the camera made my eyes cross. There’s a whole swath of movie that took place in the cellar that I couldn’t see because it was all done from the POV of a handheld camera.

Some days are better than others when it comes to the visuals, but the noises are always brutal. My roommate suggested that the next time I go to the movies I wear ear plugs. It might help and I’m willing to try it.

Anything to tone down the overwhelming theater experience to bearable so I can at least enjoy a film based on the film and not how painful the sensory overload is.

Just another reason I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to going to the movies.

Writing–August Projects

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August

I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do this month. I know one thing one thing I’m NOT going to do. The Ivy novella is going to rest this month. I’ve hit that point in the revisions where I hate everything about it and everything it stands for. I need to forget about it for a month and let my disgust cool for a bit.

I think this month I’m going to be focused on finishing the short stories for the anthology I want to do. I should find out about the one that I submitted to the contest pretty soon so I can decide if it’ll make it in the anthology. Otherwise, I’m writing one right now that could take its place. The rest need the final edits/polishing. It’s entirely possible that I could have the whole thing put together and ready to publish by September.

I also think I’m going to make this the month of the short story. I’ve got a couple that I’ve written that could be edited/polished and put up here as freebies. And since the anthology will be wiping the slate clean so to speak (one of the reasons I’m feeling the urge to do it), I’ll need to build up the inventory again.

It’s going to be another low key month.

Writing–Time to Loosen Up

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"TUESDAY" production sign

When I first started this blog, I set up themed days and a nice schedule that insured that I would update at least three times a week and I’d always have an idea of what the blog post would be for each given day. It was a way of establishing my blog, a safety net, in a way, so I never found myself slacking.

Now that I’ve been at this for a couple of years, I’m finding the safety net a little too constricting. There are times when I can’t think of anything I’d like to write for the Monday blog post, but month’s worth of Wednesday topics. There are times when I want to post something for Friday immediately…but it’s only Tuesday. And then there’s this new idea that I think Rerun Junkie should be its own thing instead of being relegated to just Fridays.

It’s time for me to loosen up and trust that I’ll be able to blog randomly, but regularly throughout the week. I need to trust that I’ve earned the freedom to roam a little, to blog when I want to without the restriction on days.

And of course, if it doesn’t work out, if I find the ideas drying up without a designated day or if I find myself posting too infrequently, the old structure will still be standing there for me to go back to.

But I feel like I need to bust out and start something new.

Time to liven up the joint.

I Cut My Hair

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Kiki Okay!I didn’t cut it myself, of course. I went to my stylist. I’m not completely crazy.

But I did feel a bit daring.

The last time I got my hair cut before this time, in the shab style I’d been rocking and loving for the most part, I didn’t have the top layers cut short enough. I spent most of the time with my hair pulled back into a pony tail.

A couple of weeks ago I realized that this was stupid. My hair was already somewhat short and yet I had it back in a pony tail all the time. If I was going to do that, I should  just cut it all off and call it good. It’d be the same thing.

Only it wasn’t exactly the same thing.

I’ve posted before about my hair and the hang-ups I have with. In short, I was afraid cutting my hair off in a pixie style would obliterate what little femininity that I think I project. A short cut on me would just add to my already somewhat intimidating demeanor.

Shorter short: I thought it’d make me less desirable, if that were even possible.

I thought, almost in jest, that I’d do the short cut when I was 40. Something to look forward to. Another way to shake-up a milestone birthday and make it fun. After all, by then who would care how short my hair was? When you’re 40 and a woman, you might as well be dead, at least that’s what I gather from society.

But a couple of weeks ago, I thought, why wait? Let’s just do it now and see what happens. Femininity be damned. I have boobs. That should be enough for people to know that I’m a girl, even though my youngest niece put my fears into words by saying that if I got my hair cut short, I’d look like a boy (she wasn’t convinced the boobs would be enough; honestly, neither was I).

You see, I’ve been in desperate need of a shake-up. I haven’t been feeling too peppy lately. In fact, I’ve been feeling downright blah, if you want to know the truth. Something had to give, something had to change. There’s very little in my life that I have the power to change right now. Too much of the changes I need require resources I just don’t have right now. But a revamp of my appearance. That I could afford.

I admit, I was more nervous the night before my hair appointment than I was the night before I had major surgery. I was more concerned with the negative outcomes of a haircut than I was the negative outcomes of a surgery, and considering those negative outcomes included death, I think that illustrates quite well just how vain I can be.

But it was more than just vanity. It was the excitement, the anticipation of doing something new, something different, of making a change. Things have been stuck in such a rut in my life that the idea of doing something as small as changing my hair style proved to be a huge mood booster.Kiki Okay Again!

It also ended up being quite the look booster, too. Turns out, the youngest niece doesn’t think I look like a boy (neither do I). She does, though, think I look like a completely different person.

I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think it turned out pretty well.

Don’t you?

 

Writing–Like Love Letters

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English: Love Letter

I read Stephen King’s On Writing at least once a year. It reminds me that it’s okay for me to write what I want to write and how I want to write it just so long as I’m being true to myself and the work. I need that reminder every so often, particularly during the long, barren stretches when nothing is getting accepted, published, or read.

In the book, he talks about having an “ideal reader”, someone you have in mind when you write your story. It could be anybody. It can be your wife, your husband, your best friend, your cousin, the shlub down the street that throws things at the pine trees when it rains. Anybody. The person doesn’t even have to be living. Considering their current popularity, even zombies could be ideal readers nowadays.

I’ve developed an odd take on this. I don’t really have an ideal reader exactly. At least, that’s not how I look at it. To me, my stories are my love letters to certain people. There are certain people I have in mind when I write them. When I put those stories out there, traditionally or self-published or whatever, I’m hoping that those particular people read their particular stories. I want them to read them and know that I’m thinking of them.

Love letters.

Most of the people I’m thinking of will never read what I’ve written. Many of them don’t even know I exist. But just in case they should happen to stumble upon something I’ve done…

I’ve never been good at expressing my emotions. I’m better at it when I write them down. I’m unbeaten at it when I can express myself through fiction with the relative comfort that the love letter I’m writing won’t be interpreted as such, isn’t obvious, and likely won’t even by read by the intended.

But, like I said. If they do happen to stumble upon that story I wrote just for them, I hope they read it and I hope they know it was sealed with a kiss, just for them.

I bet you didn’t realize that horror could be so mushy in a non-entrails sort of way, huh?

CornBelters vs. Otters 7/20/13

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Normal CornBelters

I don’t know how you work your girls nights, but ours have a tendency to involve baseball. This time we went to see the CornBelters play the Evansville Otters.

Despite Mike Mobbs losing the battle with the sun early in the game (he dropped two catches), some hits, and a few walks, the only run the Otters scored was on a home run that tipped off the glove of Keoni Manago. The CornBelters managed to come from behind, manufacturing a couple of runs to win the game.

The Otters manager got ejected at one point. I’m pretty sure it was for commenting loudly on balls and strikes since the ump’s zone was rather inconsistent. After he got the boot, he came out to let the ump know exactly how he felt. His feelings were long-winded and he took his sweet time walking back to the clubhouse. We were all disappointed when he didn’t stop at the corn they have planted on the berm to grab an ear and chuck it out on the field in protest.

The pitching was pretty stellar on both sides despite the ump. Aside from that home run and a few walks and hits, Ryan Demmin was on it. Jose Trinidad and Alan Oaks were fabulous in relief. It was a really great game.

I’m happy to see Mike Mobbs  back with the Belters. He was a favorite during the 2011 season and I missed his face last year. He also has the best walk-up music, Tom Petty’s “Last Dance with Mary Jane”. You can’t beat that, though I wish some of the guys would try.

It was a gorgeous night for baseball and our seats were superb. The win was just the icing on the cake. We couldn’t ask for a better girls night, really.

Let’s go Corn!

Sew Dressy

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kikitshirtdressMy apologies for the poor-quality selfie. I took this picture in my middle niece’s bedroom and I’m too lazy to try to stage a proper one.

Behold my latest creation! It’s my t-shirt dress.

My roommate buys enough clothes at Old Navy to keep that place in business. She ordered some t-shirts last year, but decided she didn’t like the way they fit or the fabric. So, she gave them to me. Since she’s a couple of sizes bigger than I am, she thought that maybe I might like them to sleep in or something. I do like sleeping in one of them, for sure, very comfy. Great on hot nights when I don’t want to wear pants. But when I tried them on for the first time, I thought, “As big as this is, if I added a little more fabric to the bottom, I could call it a dress.”

So, I did.

I cut off about seven inches of the bottom of the gray t-shirt and sewed it onto the bottom of the navy blue t-shirt. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do and I’m sure if I tried it again, I’d probably figure out a better way to make it come together. But for a first attempt, it wasn’t bad. I’m not thrilled with the stitching, though. I’ll probably redo it at some point just for my own satisfaction. It holds just fine and nobody else would notice it unless they were a seamstress inspector looking to make my life hard. But it would make me feel better if I did it up a little better.

Also, the dress ended up being a little bigger than I’d normally get and even with the belt, it’s not as structured as I’d like it to be, BUT! It’s actually quite comfy and makes for a nice, lightweight dress on a hot day that doesn’t look shabby or lazy. Also, beggars can’t be choosers. It’s a two-sizes too big t-shirt, for crying out loud. I can only do so much with my limited skills.

In the end, I’m pretty pleased with the effort.