Attention, blogmonsters and Fletchfans:
I'll be performing a new song at Mt. Hollywood Congregational Church this Sunday morning during service. It's a piece based on 1 Corinthians 12-20, by one of my personal favorites, Saul Paulus of Tarsis. You may know him as St. Paul, and anybody familiar with the HBO Western DEADWOOD will recognize it. This is one of two annual solos that have become traditions for me at Mt. Hollywood, (4607 Prospect Ave, c/o Rodney between Hillhurst and Vermont in the Los Feliz Village), the coolest progressive Christian church in all the land. We like to say, "Where ever you are on your life's journey, you're welcome here." And kids, we mean it. We're about to welcome Rachel, our new pastor, so anybody who hasn't sampled this awesome place should consider this a great time to take me up on this personal invitation. And you might not want to miss the opportunity to tell me how much you hate my Geico ad parody on Youtube. This one really has the nerds cackling, folks -- I'm not sure why. it's one of my most-watched shorts. I mean, it's not SONG OF THE SOUTH or anything, but... oh well. If anybody's curious, there's a link to it from the SHORTS page of the homesite. If you don't like it, maybe a few of the others will be more to your liking. For those of you who can't make to church this week (services start at 10:30 am), keep an eye on the PERFORMANCES page of my site, as a video single seems likely next week.
In other news, there is a new cover design for the LAST TANGO WITH MARLON novella, now at the LAST TANGO WITH MARLON Yahoo! group and, shortly thereafter, on the home site, FLETCHER RHODEN.COM. The book is still slated for a late July release from Trafford Publishing.
See you on Sunday!
FR
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Stump the Band dvd & real-life gruesome crime drama!
Fellow Stumpers and blogriders everywhere:
2008 continues to be a busy and exciting year. The novella of LAST TANGO WITH MARLON is still on schedule for a July release, with everyone at Fletcher Rhoden.com working to get the word out with readings & signings and associated media interviews. Look for those to start in the fall, lit fans!
There's also a new screenplay in the works, and a new live production, of sorts. Without saying too much about it, I can mention that it would feature both a live appearances tour, along the lines of the TANGO book tour, and will likely have a new non-TANGO DVD release as well. For those hoping for a LAST TANGO WITH MARLON dvd, we'll have to wait until certain union matters are straightened out.
But the main reason for this particular blog is the indie slasher STUMP THE BAND, finally available at Amazon.com and Netflix. Reviews are popping up all over the internet, at each end of the scale. Nobody's been unfair, that's something. DVDs are being given away in contests on various horror sites, and the buzz is really starting to pick up. After a few years of floating around before a proper dvd release, STB has had a period to sink into the public consciousness, for good or ill.
Even more startling is the news that severed human feet having been washing up on the shores of Vancouver, BC. THE GUARDIAN's Dan Glaister wrote a story dated this very day -- this is an ongoing, unsolved mystery. Human feet, encased in shoes, are washing up and nobody can figure out why. Some suggest mafia or gang corpse dumps result in feet which have "popped off" the victims and washed up, protected from decay by the shoes themselves. Two such feet were found in the last four weeks, today's article states.
One foot appears to be a hoax, but others are suggested to originate from such diverse sources as the 2004 Asian tsunami or other maritime or air disasters.
But a more sinister theory is also fascinating those following the mystery: They could be remains of pig farmer Robert Pickton, convicted last year of murdering six women and, according to the prosecution of his trial, confessed to killing 43 others. It is impossible not to notice the similarity between the story and the morbid tale at the heart of STUMP THE BAND. Both center on a rural nutcase who kills women and dismembers their feet. It's a most unusual MO in fact or fiction, but to have them overlapping is astonishing.
Well, it might not be astonishing if one had inspired the other, but as the story writer of STUMP... and the person responsible for introducing the dismembered-foot element of the story (it goes with the title, thank you very much), I was certainly not inspired by Pickton's exploits. STUMP THE BAND's first draft was written around 1996, and I'd used the same MO in a cop thriller I'd written the year before called FOOT OF PRIDE. The crazy, ax-wielding foot fetishist, who was in that version (and is revealed to be this in the final STB film in deleted scenes!) is a former shoe salesman (like myself). I based the whole of STUMP THE BAND around that story idea, tossing in the all-girl rock band for obvious reasons. Once John and Robbie and Jojo got a hold of it, they did a pretty drastic overhaul of the script, keeping the basic concepts, title, characters and a few of the bits and basically rewriting everything else. Still, no Robert Pickton. And since Pickton's crimes predate any kind of release of STUMP THE BAND, I think we can safely say he didn't get the idea from us.
So what remains is a gruesome coincidence, a horrifying implausibility, but it's front-page news in Vancouver (the feet are, anyway.) Makes you think...
Coming up, my delayed follow-up to the CHARM & HAPPY.COM JINGLE, the LAST TANGO WITH MARLON novella and more cool stuff. Stay tuned.
Fletcher Rhoden
2008 continues to be a busy and exciting year. The novella of LAST TANGO WITH MARLON is still on schedule for a July release, with everyone at Fletcher Rhoden.com working to get the word out with readings & signings and associated media interviews. Look for those to start in the fall, lit fans!
There's also a new screenplay in the works, and a new live production, of sorts. Without saying too much about it, I can mention that it would feature both a live appearances tour, along the lines of the TANGO book tour, and will likely have a new non-TANGO DVD release as well. For those hoping for a LAST TANGO WITH MARLON dvd, we'll have to wait until certain union matters are straightened out.
But the main reason for this particular blog is the indie slasher STUMP THE BAND, finally available at Amazon.com and Netflix. Reviews are popping up all over the internet, at each end of the scale. Nobody's been unfair, that's something. DVDs are being given away in contests on various horror sites, and the buzz is really starting to pick up. After a few years of floating around before a proper dvd release, STB has had a period to sink into the public consciousness, for good or ill.
Even more startling is the news that severed human feet having been washing up on the shores of Vancouver, BC. THE GUARDIAN's Dan Glaister wrote a story dated this very day -- this is an ongoing, unsolved mystery. Human feet, encased in shoes, are washing up and nobody can figure out why. Some suggest mafia or gang corpse dumps result in feet which have "popped off" the victims and washed up, protected from decay by the shoes themselves. Two such feet were found in the last four weeks, today's article states.
One foot appears to be a hoax, but others are suggested to originate from such diverse sources as the 2004 Asian tsunami or other maritime or air disasters.
But a more sinister theory is also fascinating those following the mystery: They could be remains of pig farmer Robert Pickton, convicted last year of murdering six women and, according to the prosecution of his trial, confessed to killing 43 others. It is impossible not to notice the similarity between the story and the morbid tale at the heart of STUMP THE BAND. Both center on a rural nutcase who kills women and dismembers their feet. It's a most unusual MO in fact or fiction, but to have them overlapping is astonishing.
Well, it might not be astonishing if one had inspired the other, but as the story writer of STUMP... and the person responsible for introducing the dismembered-foot element of the story (it goes with the title, thank you very much), I was certainly not inspired by Pickton's exploits. STUMP THE BAND's first draft was written around 1996, and I'd used the same MO in a cop thriller I'd written the year before called FOOT OF PRIDE. The crazy, ax-wielding foot fetishist, who was in that version (and is revealed to be this in the final STB film in deleted scenes!) is a former shoe salesman (like myself). I based the whole of STUMP THE BAND around that story idea, tossing in the all-girl rock band for obvious reasons. Once John and Robbie and Jojo got a hold of it, they did a pretty drastic overhaul of the script, keeping the basic concepts, title, characters and a few of the bits and basically rewriting everything else. Still, no Robert Pickton. And since Pickton's crimes predate any kind of release of STUMP THE BAND, I think we can safely say he didn't get the idea from us.
So what remains is a gruesome coincidence, a horrifying implausibility, but it's front-page news in Vancouver (the feet are, anyway.) Makes you think...
Coming up, my delayed follow-up to the CHARM & HAPPY.COM JINGLE, the LAST TANGO WITH MARLON novella and more cool stuff. Stay tuned.
Fletcher Rhoden
Friday, June 6, 2008
New series of online articles from Fletcher Rhoden
Greetings, Blog Monsters:
To help celebrate the release of my new novella, LAST TANGO WITH MARLON (Trafford, July 2008) about Marlon Brando and Wally Cox, I've begun a series of online articles, posted on Writing.com, Helium.com and on a new page of my home site, Fletcher Rhoden.com (the page is called Online Articles. Easy enough to remember?) My first two subjects are, not surprisingly, Marlon and Wally. The first essay is called Sean Penn: Our Marlon Brando. Are the similarities more than skin deep? For Penn's sake, let's hope so -- or is it not? Next up is the successor to Wally Cox's comedic throne. No fun giving it away, you can read them for yourselves, real quick and easy like.
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1435845
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1435146
http://www.fletcherrhoden.com/onlinearticles.htm
If you chose to read the articles at Fletcher Rhoden.com, you can always pop over to the NOVELS page for the LAST TANGO WITH MARLON excerpt, available nowhere else on the net, not to mention all the other cool free stuff on that expansive site!
In other news, I am currently booking readings/signings of the book, with Q&A, mostly at campus and bookstore events, plus I'm putting together a series of print, radio and TV interviews. More on those as they materialize.
There's good news for STUMP THE BAND fans -- the growing cult flick WILL be coming out from Invincible Pictures, I'm told, although the release date of June 3 has come and gone like a pair of size 7 1/2's ("My favorite...") But they tell me so I'm tellin' you... it's coming.
There's even more to come, but again it's no fair to give away too much too soon. Stay tuned, hang tight, and keep reading!
Best,
Fletcher Rhoden
To help celebrate the release of my new novella, LAST TANGO WITH MARLON (Trafford, July 2008) about Marlon Brando and Wally Cox, I've begun a series of online articles, posted on Writing.com, Helium.com and on a new page of my home site, Fletcher Rhoden.com (the page is called Online Articles. Easy enough to remember?) My first two subjects are, not surprisingly, Marlon and Wally. The first essay is called Sean Penn: Our Marlon Brando. Are the similarities more than skin deep? For Penn's sake, let's hope so -- or is it not? Next up is the successor to Wally Cox's comedic throne. No fun giving it away, you can read them for yourselves, real quick and easy like.
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1435845
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1435146
http://www.fletcherrhoden.com/onlinearticles.htm
If you chose to read the articles at Fletcher Rhoden.com, you can always pop over to the NOVELS page for the LAST TANGO WITH MARLON excerpt, available nowhere else on the net, not to mention all the other cool free stuff on that expansive site!
In other news, I am currently booking readings/signings of the book, with Q&A, mostly at campus and bookstore events, plus I'm putting together a series of print, radio and TV interviews. More on those as they materialize.
There's good news for STUMP THE BAND fans -- the growing cult flick WILL be coming out from Invincible Pictures, I'm told, although the release date of June 3 has come and gone like a pair of size 7 1/2's ("My favorite...") But they tell me so I'm tellin' you... it's coming.
There's even more to come, but again it's no fair to give away too much too soon. Stay tuned, hang tight, and keep reading!
Best,
Fletcher Rhoden
Sunday, June 1, 2008
LAST TANGO WITH MARLON @ the Louis B. Mayer Theater
The rumors were true, blogdalereos, the cast, crew and I headed to Calabasas for a rare shot of live theater at the famous Motion Picture & Television Fund. LAST TANGO WITH MARLON played out as usual, with satisfied customers all around. I'm currently booking interviews and campus/bookstore appearances for the novella, which comes out in July. I know it's been delayed a few times, but the final result will be worth it. There are other TANGO matters pending.
You may have read, bloggies, that Quinton Flynn and I had discussed a new toon venture, but with Q on tour and me getting ready for a similar venture, that toon may not be in the cards. I really want to invest myself in promotion right now, so keep in touch with www.Fletcher Rhoden.com for more details. You can also read the as-yet only online excerpt of the new TANGO novella, up on my site now.
See you on the junket!
Fletcher Rhoden, esquire
You may have read, bloggies, that Quinton Flynn and I had discussed a new toon venture, but with Q on tour and me getting ready for a similar venture, that toon may not be in the cards. I really want to invest myself in promotion right now, so keep in touch with www.Fletcher Rhoden.com for more details. You can also read the as-yet only online excerpt of the new TANGO novella, up on my site now.
See you on the junket!
Fletcher Rhoden, esquire
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