Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in DarkMark's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, December 31st, 2011
1:17 am	What's new? Well, someone in the community...may have been Sparrow, but I'm not sure...wanted me to post again, so here I am. Wish there was more to let you know about. I'm not doing a heck of a lot of fanfic anymore, but I am trying to work on a book about Golden Age comics. We'll see how that comes out. Car died a few weeks back and I've been afoot since then, but it works. Want to wish you all a Happy New Year and hope 2012 is even better than this one. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 24th, 2011
4:08 pm	a note I'm not on here very much of the time because Facebook has supplanted it. On the other hand, for most of you, that may be a blessing. ;-) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
3:22 pm	The update Well, in case I haven't mentioned it, I'm working in customer service for a new client down here at the old firm, and enjoying it well enough so far. Got a few days off and hoping to get some stuff done, including, perhaps, some more writing. (Wonder if anyone cares! ;-)) Hope you all are doing well. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 29th, 2011
2:46 am	An observation Thanks to rejection, I doubt there's much point in trying to get a girl. But when you see a friend's Facebook page showing a great-looking woman he's landed, boy, can it make you depressed. ;-( (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
3:57 am	New post Seems I got a bit more energy by cutting down my meds. Wrote a few more pages and feel a tad more aggressive as it is. Hope you're doing well. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
8:03 am	A thought Wish I was as young as some of you folks out there, or at least had as much energy. My writing output has really dwindled. And I wish I had some friends whom I used to have, but I doubt I can blame that on anyone else. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 22nd, 2010
3:08 am	Week 3 Training is still going well. Not much more to say. Hope to hear from some of you folks. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
3:46 pm	The new job Day 1 went well, and here's hoping Day 2 goes even better. Thanks for your prayers and good wishes. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 29th, 2010
9:23 pm	Another darned self-obsessed post Done saw KNIGHT AND DAY with a friend tonight, which was a gas. Liked Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise in it, especially Cameron, especially in a red bikini. But I kinda found myself identifying with Cameron, and I probably know why. A few years ago, I probably didn't have all that much in the way of survival skills. Mom, when she was alive, was there for me when I failed and took me in. But she wondered what the heck I was going to do with myself once she was gone, and we both knew she was going to go sometime soon. Well, she's gone now. And we both have the answer. I'm not perfect, but I've learned a lot more about how to survive (even if I do need help from friends, now and then). For the past 5 years, I've been on my own, if you don't count my cats. For the past 5 years, somehow, I've made it. Maybe not as dramatically as Cameron in the movie, but I've managed. And maybe that's something to be proud about. I dunno. So much for that. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
5:32 pm	True radio stories, #2 Once, in my deejay days, I played a country song called "Right Now." After I went to another record, I got a call from a listener. "What's the name of the song you just played?" "Right Now." "No, I mean the one you just played." "That's right." "What's the name of it?" "Right Now." "No, I mean the song you just played before this one!" "That's right." "It's called That's Right?" "No." "What's it called?" "Right Now." "I'm not TALKING about the song that's playing NOW, I want to know the name of the song you played back THEN!" "Right Now." ...I must've gone on with him for about three minutes like that before taking pity on him and telling him everything. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
3:45 pm	The very latest Just got employed again by a call center in town. Thanks for the prayers, and thank God. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
8:52 am	In re: The X-Men (and not a diatribe) After reading a bit in an old James Blish Star Trek paperback, which came out during or shortly after the original series, and feeling some comfort at revisiting the familiar characters...Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty...I had a bit of empathic revelation for some of you folks who are a bit younger than me. In a way, Star Trek was family, and I think that's why you liked the X-Men. Now, the X wasn't a club I could join. I liked the first two incarnations of the team, but my enjoyment of them tailed off a lot after Byrne left and especially when Magneto was made compassionate in X-MEN #150. But, let's face it, a lot of you were just getting into comics around that point or after it. Your family was in current comics, and you loved them. I can respect that. It doesn't mean I have to love them, or approve of people putting them thru various kinky hijinks just to fulfill a personal fantasy or to show you could do it. And there are very few comics I like or keep up with now...maybe BUFFY, SUPERGIRL, some SUPERMAN titles, the new LSH, SOLAR, and probably not much more. But I think I understand it a little better now. You, of course, knew all the ins and outs of the new characters because you grew up with them. Just like I grew up with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, Dr. Strange, the Justice League, the LSH, Green Lantern, Batman, the New Gods, and all the rest. I can't play in your playground, but I can understand why you do. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
8:16 am	The latest Got a loan set up for today to bring in some much-needed cash. Got a prescription filled yesterday. Putting in some apps and may wangle an interview. Prayers seem to be working, so keep 'em coming, folks! (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
2:35 pm	True radio stories, #1 I worked in radio for a good long while, something around 16 to 17 years, all told. In that time a number of fun things happened...well, perhaps not so fun at the time, but pretty funny afterward. And the best or worst thing about radio bloopers is that once they're done, the whole town you're broadcasting to knows about them! That's sold a bunch of copies of PARDON MY BLOOPER records and books, despite the fact that some of them (like the Uncle Don gaffe) are "recreations". So, here's one of mine. Back in the late Seventies, in my first pro radio job, our small station was covering a football game the team was playing out of town. The Powers That Be wanted a tape of it. In those days, you didn't have the option of just recording it on a hard drive digitally. Nope, you had to take the phone the lead was coming through, patch it thru a board, and make sure that board fed into a big ol' reel-to-reel recorder. And *hope* it came out right. When I worked there, we had the type of phone which had a push-down button on the receiver. That was so, if you were talking on the air, you could turn down the monitor when you did so and not get any feedback. ANYway...the game started, and I went back to the production room where we were feeding the auxiliary phone line thru the board and thus into the tape deck. At least, that's what was supposed to have happened. The VU meter (Volume Units) on the tape machine was stuck at the left. We were getting absolutely no input from the guys who were covering the game and phoning it into us. I flipped one switch. Nothing happened. Flipped another. Similar. Turned up all the volume pots. Nothing worked. No input at all. At that point I was frustrated as heck. I was holding the phone in my hand and, frustratedly, went, "Oh, $***!" And I looked at my hand... ...and it was pressing the phone button down to the roots. And I looked at the phone... ...and the lights on it were going off and on like a Christmas tree. Well, I kept my job, and we finally got the game taped. But I ended up with one of those war stories I wouldn't trade for anything. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
11:33 am	Believe it or not... ...I'm unemployed again. Prayers and good wishes accepted. Thanks. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
12:24 pm	Jack Kirby's Birthday Party I met Jack Kirby I think a total of two times, which I think is enough for communion. Even got to go to his birthday party. Here's how it went. For those of you a couple of generations younger than me, be assured that Jack Kirby, in the 1960's, was the equivalent of Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and about 25% of Neil Gaiman. The only one who surpassed him, perhaps, was Stan Lee, for whom you'd throw in all the rest of Neil and a controlling interest in Peter David. Trust me. I went to the San Diego Comic Con, that Mecca of comic book geeks (both fans and pros), each year for a time in the 80's and probably the early 90's. They blend together after awhile. During one of those journeys, I met Jack Kirby. He'd just done [i]Destroyer Duck[/i] for Eclipse so, when he introduced himself, he said, "I draw destructive ducks." I said, "I know, sir." He was as short as his legend bespoke. He wore, I think, a grey sweater and blue jeans. His hair was grey and his face and hands bore lines. But the man had strength and some sort of roughhewn charisma. Kirby was not the kind of man you prostrated yourself before, but you knew who he was, and you had to respect that. For himself, he seemed to take what he'd done and his status in the Industry without much concern. Kirby was a workman, and had accepted a workman's hire, and given more than what he'd been hired for. I asked him later if we could do an interview for [i]Comics Interview[/i], the mag for which I was then talking with pros on the phone. He put an arm on my shoulder and said, "I'm in the Thousand Oaks phone book. Call me later and we'll see what we can do." Dave Kraft, my editor, was light on the idea because (I think) Kirby had been interviewed by them before. But this was 1986, I think, the year of Jack's famous-infamous hassles with Marvel over the return of his art. I wanted to do something to help the Cause. Ergo, I gave the Kirby residence a call some weeks later and got Roz, who was his wife, on the phone. After I mentioned wanting to talk about the art return hassle, she said, "So what else is new?" But after talking a bit more and letting her know I wanted to help the Cause, we figured something could be done later on. But it never was. Anyway, some time later, at the Chicago Con (the only time I went there), Jack was going to have a surprise birthday party. You had to have an invitation, which took the form of a printed one-page broadsheet perpetrated by Mark Evanier. Mark and I have been friends for a long, long time, and let me assure you he's the best scripter-historian-fan-and-friend you could have. Even though he's a Democrat. ;-) He gave me one that day at the con, and I wasn't gonna miss that one for [i]anything[/i]. But at the con, which was held at the same hotel where Jack's natal bash was to be held, I did my usual thing, which was to buy a whole buncha freakin' comics. As I recall, it was too late to go back to my room and dispose of the books before the party went down. So what did I do? I went into the party place holding a massive stack of comics in my two arms. Heck, I wasn't going to put them where somebody could snatch 'em! That made for some interesting looks, especially when I was making conversation while the tensile strength of my arms were being tested. Eventually someone took pity on me and told me I could stash them behind the hotel desk, so I did. I chatted with one of Howard Chaykin's assistants, who confirmed what I expected, that Howard thought Alan Moore wasn't really "on" when he stepped in to meddle with [i]American Flagg[/i]. Also, I talked a lot and pleasantly with Leticia Glozer, Cat Yronwode's sister, who ended up with Marv Wolfman sometime after. Also, I had my Polaroid idiot camera. This is important, so remember it. The important minute arrived. Someone had summoned Jack Kirby under a pretext, and when he walked into that darkened room, everyone hollered, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" and made the rafters ring. I believe he smiled with genuine pleasure. Since I had the camera, I was able to take a shot of Jack cutting the big cake. I got another shot of him, but it wasn't as good. What the hey. Once I'd gotten a shot of him, Steve Gerber, Jerry Siegel, and Dean Mullaney all together. They looked kind of like a football team there together, and that was enough. While there, I tried to get Jack to sign my program / invitation. Roz Kirby intercepted me and told me she'd sign it as "Mrs. Jack Kirby", which she did. She was a nice woman. I had to go shortly thereafter. Picking up my stash of comics from the hotel desk, I went. Before I could get to see him again, Jack died. People do that. But I'd gotten my fifteen minutes and over of communion with the Great Man. I was satisfied. So much for that. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
3:07 pm	Peeling post I just peeled off a few friends who hadn't friended me back lately. That's not as coldblooded as it might seem. It just means that, if it isn't reciprocal (or, in a couple of cases, because you're off LiveJournal), it doesn't seem to be worth bothering with. That doesn't mean I took off *everybody* who has a one-way relationship with me. But I did peel off a decent few. So much for that. (Comment on this)
2:55 pm	The usual update Haven't written anything in a while, maybe a couple of weeks. I just don't know if I can get the fanfic engine going anymore. Maybe I've said all I wanted to say. Work is going okay. The loads seem to be smaller and the boss has been complimenting me on my work, as well as my song, "Everybody Must Get Zoned!". Hoping I can find a dentist in town who will take payments. I need work done on about 3 of my teeth, but the one I've been seeing wants full payment per job. That's about it. (Comment on this)
Friday, September 10th, 2010
10:37 am	Something I felt like stating I don't think I'll ever kill myself. Not only am I a chicken, but doing yourself in would be an admission that I'm not tough enough for life. I'm no Schwartzenegger, to be sure. But I don't believe in giving up, and suicide is the ultimate give-up. Hope these words don't come back to haunt me...but I'm just NOT GIVING UP. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 27th, 2010
8:05 pm	Just a note I made a post and deleted it. But, honestly, the question remains: If you can't get anything from the opposite sex beyond friendship, and if the only outcome is going to be rejection, then what good is it? I don't really see the point to all this, "Ohhh, we've got to tease, but don't ever let any of them get NEAR you!" kind of thing, or "You're not good enough for ME! You don't have FIVE BILLION DOLLARS in your pocket!" business, either. Yep, I'm bitter. But if it's honest bitterness, isn't that understandable? And I'm not targeting any women who happen to be reading this blog. (Comment on this)