The last month has been one of change for me. Physical change, emotional (?) change, personal change and some changes around me. They’ve been more accomplishments than setback and my mood hasn’t always been the best but there is progress in my life and that makes me feel better than I’ve felt in a long, long time.

Last year around this time I was falling into an abyss as I was losing ability with my legs. Go back for yourselves and take a look at June and July 2003 and you can find my personal writings that talk about my legs giving out from under me. Now? Now I’m again at a point where there is a great deal of light in front of me but I am not entirely ready to emerge from the tunnel of darkness.

Jack Ryan needed a year to regain the ability to walk, that was what was said in The Hunt For Red October and I won’t be surprised if it lingers that long for me.

Anyway, I’ve traded my walker (which I only use rarely) for a red cane and am mixed using that and trying to walk on my own. Comes and goes with how well I can do that but it’s close enough for government work.

I started not posting onto this journal last month because I’ve had my room torn up and lost in discordia (we’ll get to the discordia reference in a minute kiddies :wink ) as I’ve finally had my ugly mica furniture removed as well as had a real floor put in… It’s a big change from what I have had. Brighter. More positive for that matter. Good for the soul, say thank ya.

And of course things really got better the last week with me getting out and seeing I could do again – that’s with help, however. I have to still put up a post about what went on with my friend Keith but that’s for another post. Maybe tomorrow.

As for now, I go back to Stephen King’s latest – Song of Susannah which I’m enjoying as I near the finish of the book. Big step up from his last Dark Tower novel. I will give you a better review of the book when I am done…

Positives are around… Quite a change of pace for the Artful Dodger, but positives are around again — thank God.

I emailed my older brother Mike the other night after I came across a piece of movie trivia on IMDB that caught my eye:

(From The Matrix Revolutions
All of the crew members of the Hammer (with the exception of Captain Roland) are named after firearms (i.e. Mauser, Colt, AK)

Now most people won’t understand the quirk but I immediately put two and two together on this and thought of The Dark Tower saga and Stephen King. Roland of Guilead is the last Gunslinger and he is normally associated with guns – hard calibers, so to speak. I just had to pass that along to someone as a possible Dark Tower reference.

Of course, Mike could give a shit but you still gotta love him – for some reason :tongue

I also told Mike (after his “I could care” reply to my note) that I have been noticing another quirk lately7y that has been driving me bonkers just because it’s so obvious and so veiled at the same time. I’ve been thinking of The Godfather when I watch First Wives Club on cable. Diane Keaton yells something about “Uncle Carmine” and there is this weird progression that ties that line into the Godfather and Keaton’s role in it. (“Uncle Carmine” is what Bruno Kirby calls Marlon Brando’s character in The Freshman,. His full name is Carmine Sabatini and the character is a caricature of Don Vito Corleone, the character Brando portrayed in the epic Godfather film).

I don’t know, stuff like that has stuck out a lot with me lately. Anyone else have things like that happen when watching movies? Seeing ties to other movies and such?

My Understanding Of Truth

By John M. Chambers*

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” – T.S. “BUTCH” ELIOT

“My first thought was, he lied in every word.” – ROBERT “SUNDANCE” BROWNING

The gunslinger is the truth.
Roland is the truth.
The Prisoner is the truth.
The Lady of Shadows is the truth.
The Prisoner and the Lady are married. That is the truth.
The Waystation is the truth.
The Speaking Demon is the truth.
We went under the mountains and that is the truth.
There were monsters under the mountain. That is the truth.
One of them had an Amoco gas pump between his legs and was pretending it was his penis. That is the truth.
Roland let me die. That is the truth.
I still love him.
That is the truth.

When is a door not a door? When it’s a jar, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
What has four wheels and flies? A garbage truck, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
You have to watch Blaine all the time, Blaine is a pain, and that is the truth.
I’m pretty sure that Blaine is dangerous, and that is the truth.
What is black and white and red all over? A blushing zebra, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
I want to go back and that is the truth.
I have to go back and that is the truth.
I’ll go crazy if I don’t go back and that is the truth.
I can’t go home again unless I find a stone a rose a door and that is the truth.
Choo-choo, and that is the truth.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
I am afraid. That is the truth.
Choo-choo.

*from Stephen King’s The Wastelands, part of the Dark Tower saga

Choo Choo and all that jazz… Ya gotta love this

I’m done with Wolves of the Calla for over a month, making reference to it before I went into the hospital and finalizing it the day I got out of the hospital… but I haven’t made mention of that once in this journal.

There, I just did… Once.. :tongue

The Dark Tower V starts with a section of the story that was already published online – an introduction to Calla Bryne Sturgis and their dillema with the Wolves… A band of rough-riders/brigands/harriers who steal children from the Calla once every genereation or so. We then have our hero’s — Roland of Gilead (whom the Dark Tower saga revolves around) and his band of Gunslingers — Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, Jake Chambers and Oy…

And what commences is what seems to be author Stephen King’s literary version of a bridge that gets him back to writing the Dark Tower saga after years off.

What I am saying doesn’t exactly shed new light on the story. I could go into detail with each section of the story and give a general synopsis of what happens, but I won’t. I will say that though we are re-introduced to Father Callahan (who is a character in King’s vampire horror novel, ‘Salem’s Lot), I found some of Wolves of the Calla to be a let down… Specifically the end when not only does the climax come off anti-climatic (build up throughout the story and then — fizzle!), and some points that lead us on to the next chapter of The Dark Tower saga (episode VI, Song of Susannah, due out soon) don’t just put a damper on the story, but a damper on the entire Dark Tower saga.

Does that mean Wolves isn’t worth reading? Oh hell, it’s worth reading. Anyone who has gotten immersed into the Dark Tower saga knows that Wolves is a must read for the sake of one’s sanity… The problem is that Stephen King knows how big the Dark Tower is to himself and his fans, and seems to play up that fact and — as an end result – falls a bit flat with regards to telling the tale and furthering the tale.

The wheel of Ka will continue to revolve for me and drive me to finish the saga when the last two novels are published, but for all the build up, for all the intense wait, for all the long stories and tension that drives Wolves Of The Calla, I still feel let down by the end result of the tale.

Oh sweet Jesus, I got a haircut. .

Anyone who knows me, knows I tend to grow my hair in really long — a pretty good mop top. My hair was ratty and overgrown and not cut evenly (I had trimmed it twice myself and that was only to give me more visibility from my eyes instead of seeing hair) and generally was just a mess…

I’d give you a picture but I haven’t taken a picture in the longest time.

Now? Now I have a close cropped ‘do with no sideburns. Dear god — NO SIDEBURNS. I feel naked. I told the barber that I felt violated after I saw all my hair falling to the floor. It’s not just long hair, but it’s thick too (wonder if that will give the ladies any ideas? :tongue) and it was just… well, it was mine. Damnit, mine.

But now I am good to go another year without a haircut so :tongue j/k… I’ll probably keep things more closely cropped in the future, but who knows.

Meanwhile, I’m only 162 pages into Stephen King’s newest Dark Tower tome, Wolves of the Calla. I spent the entire day yesterday just sitting around in boxer shorts and reeding. The thing is over 700 pages long in total and that means I gotta put my nose to the grindstone with it.

I read slow though. Why? Because I enjoy it. I don’t shovel something into my brain, I savor it… Maybe that is why I am an impassioned, sensitive person? I savor what I experience — even if it’s negative. Does that make me a sadist too? :tongue I’d rather be a happy-ist, and of course those who have talked to me have seen me more like my old self lately….

I started realizing a dilemma that I’m going to be facing if I am in the writing realm… It’s actually something I noticed a long long time ago but didn’t think it would have any effect on me because I didn’t know where I was going with things with my life. The fact I am getting into writing and — possibly — going to make a name for myself through fiction and other writings causes one slight, teensie little problem.

My name.

You see, John Fontana is a really popular guy. I mean REALLY popular. Not only was he a bartender in New York (My grandfather — known as Giovanni Petra to his parents, I believe, from what my mom was telling me) and the guy I got my name from… He also is a Senior Editor at Network World Fusion and Linux World, a writer for Infoworld and CRM Daily… Not to mention a baseball coach as well as a thousand other things out there.

John’s a popular guy… Real popular. I mean, he even worked on “Bag of Bones” for Stephen King!

Of course, JP Fontana is a wacky Frenchman writer and that causes me some more grief but not as much as I could be having over it.

I need to make a habit out of calling myself John P. Fontana (or J.P. Fontana — I like that one)… I could see a future where some guy gets a call asking to pen an article for a fiction magazine and they were looking for me the entire time… Or me getting asked “When did you get into writing like that, John? I thought you dealt with only the tech stuff?