Category: Avitabile
Iterations of the Apocalypse
Throughout the evolution of mankind the Chicken Little gene has survived intact. Every 50 years or so, mankind decides things are too boring and we collectively embrace end of the world scenarios. Halley’s Comet was thought to bring poison gas that would wipe out all life on earth on May 18th, 1910. In the mid 50’s a group called The Seekers, I guess after OD’ing on films like ‘Earth vs. the Flying Saucers’ and ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, were convinced that aliens had told them of a massive flood that would destroy the planet.
Last week, we escaped another cosmic billiard ball as those incredible prognosticators of science, technology and human sacrifice, the Mayans, got it wrong again. You remember Mayan Airlines, the Mayan cell phone and the ever popular Mayan Ginsu knife for human sacrifice. (Pay separate shipping and handling and get two.) Those chocolate coveting geniuses, who didn’t see Columbus coming, by the way, threw a dart at a calendar and it came up last week. Now December 22, 2012 is added to the pantheon of apocalyptic prognostications.
But who am I to talk! I now throw my Mayan headpiece into the ring announcing, for your nightmare pleasure: a little ditty called, ‘The God Particle’, my soon to be released third novel which continues the Bill Hiccock ‘Thrillogy’.
Now even though scientists are still searching for the God Particle and have spent billions on the largest machine in the world to find it, not unlike Jodi Foster in Contact. I step ahead and use the really scary notion that it won’t be cosmic forces or the shifting of the magnetic poles or collisions with NEOs (Near Earth Objects) that will end the world – though NEOs make good reading if you don’t want to sleep for the next 30 years.
No, it won’t be anything so glorious, just one part of mankind embracing technology to destroy all of mankind. At this point we re-read the name of this blog: It’s only fiction til it happens, and hope I’m dead wrong.
But as laid out in The God Particle, historically there was a plausible, logical threat matrix that had been ballyhooed for years beginning with the fears that the atomic programs of the ‘40’s would get out of hand and all the world would be consumed in the dreaded ‘chain reaction’. The very same argument echoes today, with ‘Chain Reaction’ being replaced by ‘Black Hole’ as all the world’s geniuses gather near Geneva to recreate the Big Bang. What could possibly go wrong?
Big Bang: The unimaginable explosion that created everything and was so powerful that the most distant stars and galaxies were flung from the bang’s epicenter to the furthest reaches, trillions of light years away. Don’t even try to think about it.
But hey, that’s what Bill Hiccock and the White House’s Quarterback Operations Group was put on earth for, and boy do they earn their pay in this one. Oh, and by the way, get to know the name ISON, because around Halloween of this year some crazies somewhere on the planet will be screaming about ISON. The comet ISON, will be a dazzling omen in the night sky. I can just hear the tales of the apocalypse getting re-racked and reloaded for next year.
BS (BlogScript): Keep those letters to ABC going about not canceling “The Last Resort!”
The Wall
In my novel, Hammer of God, a relic of the Cold War war-fighting machine plays a key role in a terrorist attack today. I grew up during the Cold War. It left an indelible mark on me, and probably everyone else who, as part of their school day, had to practice being immolated and turned into nuclear ash. Ostensibly as neat piles under our desks to make the clean up easier or why else have us duck and cover?
An iconic symbol of the Cold War was the Berlin Wall. An actual concrete wall, which was built after World War II, to split the city into two parts. The East Germans lived on the other side, the side that was connected to the Communists, the Russians or in short, the Enemy.
In later years, when things changed, I remember a factoid that the average East German visitor to NYC dropped $23.22 a day into the local economy. A Japanese tourist spent $989 per day.
The reason for all this nostalgia is that, last night, I went to a restaurant located behind the Berlin Wall! Albeit a piece of it, now residing in a plaza on 53rd Street in NYC. I was struck by the fact that the cheapest (and there was only one) entree on the menu was $37.50. My appetizer alone cost my host for the evening, $25.00. So just the first course would blow the average East German visitor’s budget into dust.
That fact caused me to remember that nobody fired a single shot during the entire Cold War! In fact, it ended like a game of Monopoly. The other side just ran out of money.
So as dozens of Christmas Party goers who collectively dropped $1,200 to $1,800 per table on this one part of one night’s entertainment, passed by this huge chunk of concrete on their way in to the restaurant, maybe 1 in 10 knew what the hell it was. And even smaller odds that it was America’s robust economy that defeated all the nightmares, terrorizing classroom drills and nuclear paranoia that gripped this country no so long ago.
Admittedly the restaurant goers I am writing about are the top end of business folks and well to do revelers and most of them are on expense accounts. But still the irony was not lost on me. That even though today America may be heading for a fiscal cliff, years ago we avoided the Wall.
Planned Applescence
Today, I will depart from the usual focus of this blog, which is to focus on writing and my books.
Instead, I am going to sound off about an annoyance beyond belief. Water. 70% of the Earth is covered with it. Humans are 60% made of it. We drink it, wash in it and use it for everything from cooking to cleaning. Yet, Apple has produced a product, which if it comes in contact with this “Rare” element, immediately, irreversibly and incredulously becomes $784 dollars worth of dead plastic. The iPhone 4s and the 4s and the 3g and the 3. Not a typo, two 4s’, that’s how many different phones I lost to WATER; that ubiquitous entity in which we are surrounded.
Now, I know you are saying, “How stupid can this guy be?” OR “Hey, Dropsy! Get an Otterbox!” (I have had three) And I admit that I dropped these phones. BUT Come on Apple. How tough, how difficult would it be to close up, and seal a phone, which has no moving parts? The answer is, not too difficult, but the reason they don’t do it is… obsolescence. They want us dropping our phone in puddles, sinks, toilets, bays, oceans, baths, birdbaths, pools, cups of coffee, oh and lastly, Hurricanes!!! Yes, Sandy and her little floods and rivulets claimed my last 4s.
Add up $319 dollars to save the data (yeah I know, iCloud and backing up but…) $784 for a new phone, and that little refreshing dip took about a grand out of my lunch money. Just like any other bully, Apple will say, “Why do you keep hitting yourself, why do you keep hitting yourself?” as they use your fist full of dollars to pay for the same act of Neptune over and over again. Well I am sorry, but for 30 dollars more, max, they could have made the phone waterproof, but Nooooooooooo. They’ve made almost $2,100 off me (don’t get me started on AT&T) because I chose to live on a planet that’s 70% Water!!! I think I’ll try the Galaxy next.
iPhone is a registered trade mark of those sons-a-bitches at Apple Inc.
Tom Avitabile’s “It’s Only Fiction..’til It Happens” T-shirt Giveaway
Authors and other writers alway seem to hold a definitive key to the future. Remember how Jules Vern wrote about space, air, and underwater travels well before it became possible. Well, Tom Avitabile’s work with the House committee on Science Space and Technology allowed him to see ideas emerge as fact. His “Wild Bill” Hiccock thrillogy will take your breathe away as Bill Hiccock embarks on a gripping fear-filled, all-too-realistic thrill ride where science and homeland security are tested beyond consideration.
From Nov. 19-Dec. 23 you can enter below to win one of ten of Tom Avitabile’s famous slogan T-shirts, “It’s Only Fiction… ’til It Happens.” Win this eye catching T-shirt in midnight black, navy, burgundy, and heather grey! CLICK below to enter.
My Internal War on Woman… Defending my inner female
In a discussion with a friend, I was relating an aversion I was having about pushing for an answer from a Hollywood Studio that is currently considering my third book, The God Particle, as a potential big budget blockbuster.
Now, truth be told, this whole adventure started much like the nine other phone calls that were going to change my life. In every prior case, I was fearless, I aggressively followed up, I dared to ask uncomfortable questions, to probe the true dynamic in play. With this drummed up courage and “damn the torpedoes” attitude I went full speed ahead, braced and buttressed against the disappointing news that eventually came. But the stinging barbs of “oooo so close” and “We love it but…” bounced off me like bullets off Superman.
But not this time! This time I am filled with apprehension. Dreading the phone, not wanting to tempt fate, or anger the Gods. It is a very uncomfortable place for me to be. But the question is why? Why this time, why this manuscript? (the others were mostly screenplays). At first I thought the answer to be self-evident… Age! As you get older you get… well, soft. You become tired of the bumps and bruises you never noticed before. But that didn’t quite fit. During this same time I have put my butt on the line for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of production and media time, by taking on projects with impossible goals and deadlines. I have relished the challenge. Never shrinking away but embracing the opportunity to perform beyond 100% and prove to myself that I can adapt, innovate and overcome any situation, in life and in business.
So why the timid, little boy, “scaredy-pants” act over this book? Over this tenth “life changing” opportunity? What is different?
Then it hit me. Everything I have done before was in my wheelhouse. Part of my success was always assured by the fact I was only playing on home-fields, at games I had a chance at winning. These were situations where I was in control of all the elements, and confident in the product.
Ahhh but this story is my first, full-fledged jump into the life, psyche and thought patterns of a female! Specifically my FBI agent turned Quarterback Group Operative, Brooke Burrell. At first I thought this was a kind of starter kit into the female mystique, in that I already had a good character base for her developed over two books, where she not only grew into her character, but into her life. And the safety rail for me was, she was in a traditionally male line of work, she had to interface and meld into the workplace mindset. Therefore, if I went too heavy male in her actions or motivations, I felt and hoped the reader would allow it, as her reacting to a male dominated environment. Easy to write a woman in that context! Piece of Cheesecake.
However, then she was always a supporting character. Therefore, I could, by reflection in the other characters, define her. It was my choice to go as deep as I wanted or leave it to the observation of the other characters to fill in the blanks.
Now, Brooke is the main character of my third book with my usual main characters taking a more supportive role. Many times in the story there isn’t anyone around to reflect off of, so I have to go inside her. It’s scary in there! I adhere to the adage, “You are a piece of all the characters you write.” So hello Brooke, welcome to my inner female. Not much organic female development in here within me, so my external observations of females have to be reversed tracked into the woman I am defining, creating motives and histories; impulses and predilections that become the cause that affects her behavior.
When writing about her, I can throw the world at her, and make her deftly respond, win, lose or draw. But going into her being, writing “her,” needs a feminine map with symbols and marks on it that most males are genetically incapable of reading.
So that’s it. That’s the fear. If they decide to make the movie, that would be nice, but if not, nothing changes, no big deal. But the reason for my nail biting apprehension, however, is the fear of them saying, “SHE doesn’t work for us.” Or worse, “you wrote a guy with breasts!”
Well, Brooke is all written now, she’s out there in the big world, I hope I have given her all the attributes of character and flaws of humanity that make her a compelling figure, but like most fathers, I pray that I just made her a good woman.
What did Kim Kardashian do right?
A few weeks back there was a tragic local story here in New York about a Staten Island teenager who threw herself in front of a subway train. It was her way of escaping the cauldron of hate, derision and character assassination that ensued after this young girl made a bad decision. She participated in a sex tape. Hold it, wait, actually given today’s relative morality and the age of sexting, hooking up and other sleazy “social activities” that are now common place in our elementary, junior and high schools and communities, how could she have known it was bad.
Kim Kardashian made a sex tape and it was a brilliant career move. She is universally loved by all the “cool” kids. Why couldn’t this Staten Island teen find even a tenth of that adulation?
In my book, The Hammer of God, a young girl, damaged by our culture’s confusing signals of morality and acceptability, attempts suicide the same way, but in her case, someone instinctively reacted and saved her from the on rushing train. But it’s only temporary, as her self-image is solely dependant on the acceptance of males. This eventually leads to her demise after having been used by many different kind of men, from her professors, to fellow students, to even a terrorist. Each man, asserting his societal given right, and rationalization to her, which somehow always inexplicably ended in her giving them sex.
Neat huh? I mean how our society has made youth and beauty the standard by which young women judge themselves, mostly and harshly, by other young women. You see how genius it is that somehow men-kind has convinced them (and their mothers) that attracting a man sexually can help you define your esteem.
Okay, but lets get back to the body parts and blood splattered tracks in Staten Island. Her friends turned on her, her school ridiculed her, the video was passed around the homerooms for the momentary visceral thrill. All at the expense of this young girl’s esteem. A crushing peer pressure which had she lived long enough, some “sensitive” male would have convinced her could be eased by sexual attention to that very male!
And yet, she did nothing different than Kim! However, there is a double standard, it resided in her. I guess Kim could laugh off the names and ridicule that came her way from some quarters by focusing on the cool accolades coming from the Hollywood-schooled throngs who know Rodeo Drive but couldn’t identify Tottenville on a large map with big type. But our desperate little girl wasn’t a skinny blonde, wasn’t rich, didn’t have a sliding moral scale of “pop” culture and a heritage of “what – evvv-er.” So something inside, some self-conscious, ate away at her and darkened every option until all that was left was self destruction.
She’s dead. God rest her soul and comfort her family, who must be going through unimaginable pain and anguish. But Hollywood, the media and fashion industry roll happily along, perpetuating the greatest scam MAN has ever perpetrated on WOMAN. The objectifying of females and diminishing standards of morality (read: our society saying to little girls, Shhhh, That’s okay, shhhh see it’s art, it’s beauty, it’s fashion, it’s what’s expected, Shhhh, it’s just sex, it’s cool, it’s how you become popular, you want to be popular don’t you?)
Just ask Kim Kardashian.
Tom Avitabile | Best Selling Author, Book Coach, and Screenwriter 