Last Chance to Sign up for Script Frenzy

Tomorrow is day one of the month long Script Frenzy. That means today is the last chance for you to sign up...that's probably a lie. I bet you can sign up in the next few days as well. You will be a few days behind.

As I did with National Novel Writing Month (at least until I petered out about halfway through) I am going to post updates every few days about where I am at. I have never attempted anything like a film script, so who knows what is going to happen. I am not going to post everything that I write, maybe a snippet here and there.

One interesting thing about Script Frenzy is that you can work in duos. I don't know of anyone who would be willing to work with me on this, so I am going to go solo. I do know someone though who I will probably harass frequently with my ideas. She isn't afraid to tell me when something is lame.

If anyone is interested in collaborating at all, feel free to email me. Even if you want nothing more than a second set of eyes on your project. Enjoy.

Won't you be my neighbor

Izzy and I went on a walk this evening and took a few photos. Then when he went to bed, I abused them with editing software. Hope you enjoy.

This next one is my favorite.

Check out a few more at the Lloyd Zeffler Flickr. Any of the photos will take you there.

As Wrestlemania fast approaches..

The arena lights black out. The bell tolls and smoke rolls into the aisle. A crack of thunder and flash of lighting. The funeral dirge creeps in as a figure in black appears. The camera cuts to the crying faces of children in the crowd.

As a young kid myself, I have just experienced one of the greatest spectacles in all of professional wrestling - the entrance of the Undertaker.

Whereas some kids might read comic books and others watch professional sports to find their superheroes, I had professional wrestling.

In preparation for the biggest wrestling show in the world, I took a few words to express my appreciation for an often maligned form of entertainment that captivated me as a child. Read my full article at Associated Content - Spectacle and Athleticism: What Makes Me Proud to Be a Wrestling Fan.

Now Playing - The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips – “Do You Realize??”
From the album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

I was late in arriving to this record. The Flaming Lips just seemed like an odd little band who sold their song to Hewlett Packard. A few years after the release of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, I finally picked it up after reading the positive press and realizing I might actually be missing out on something special.

I am attracted to a certain kind of melancholy. A hopeful wistfulness, I guess. Must be the country boy in me. From the chiming introduction, acoustic guitar and Wayne Coyne’s voice, this song has that in spades.

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

I bought this record at a time when there seemed to be a number of deaths in people I know, including my grandma. I am sure that has added to any emotional connection I have with the song. Certainly an obvious connection. That is what is amazing about music. Because of the events in your life, are you looking for a certain song – or is that song looking for you? Call me wistfully hopeful, but I believe it is the latter.

Sometimes the song looking for you is glorious, wonderful and has a simple lyric that punctures you in the heart. Sometimes it blows that heart out of your chest.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

A song can know you better than your best friend does. It can tell you everything you needed to hear – even the things you didn’t think you needed to hear. Even if a song doesn’t touch you in a dramatic way, it can still be a gorgeous little 3 and ½ minute pop song. That’s always good too.

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face

Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

Home demos at their best offer a glimmer of hope to what a song could become as a finished product. On the other hand they can be the vague meanderings of a musician's bad ideas. Every once in a while one of those musicians feels like unloading their homemade tapes on the record buying public.
Weezer's Rivers Cuomo is just such a musician – unleashing the coulda-been songs he recorded alone in his bedroom. Many of them should have stayed there.

Read my full review at antiMusic.

As a teenager in the late 1990s, Weezer's debut album was a must have and is still one of my favorite records. I have been progressively less interested in them with every passing record though. I didn't even bother to grab the last one. Here is to the hope that their next record, tentatively scheduled to be released this year, is something special.

Backstage Happenin's

Many apologies to any Zeffler readers who come by frequently but haven't had much to see in the last few days. That doesn't mean the gears are not turning. I am catching up on some CD and book reviews, booking some photography jobs and preparing some Zeffler-exclusive articles.

Admittedly, the remainder of April may be a little quiet, but be prepared for a hot time in April. Not only is it the 10 year anniversary of antiMusic, but it is also Script Frenzy. I have a few potentially interesting interviews lined up for the next few weeks and some contributions from people besides me.

Stay tuned...

Saturday Art

Photos taken by my sexy lady - bad post-processing done by me.

Now Playing - Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne – “Suicide Solution”
From the album Blizzard of Ozz.

Wine is fine but whiskey’s quicker

Suicide is slow with liquor

Take a bottle and drown your sorrows

Then it floods away tomorrows

As a 10-year-old, just getting acquainted with the madness of Ozzy Osbourne, all it took was one of Randy Rhoads incendiary riffs and Ozzy’s unique voice and I was completely enthralled. Ozzy manages to surround himself with incredible talent. Depending on which story you believe, Ozzy wrote this song about Bon Scott, or Bob Daisley wrote it about Ozzy. Either way, this is an absolute classic.

Alcoholism is ugly. It is easy for everyone involved to play the victim – none more obvious than the drinker himself. There does come a point though, where the harsh words, erratic behavior and every other ugly side effect an alcoholic will put you through will not hurt anymore. This comes after years of anger, resentment and frustration. Frustrations that you don’t mean more to someone than a six pack of beer or a bottle of booze. After time, when they have made it clear they want no help, and see nothing wrong, you wait around to watch him die. Your hands are tied. You had nothing to say that mattered in life, why should it matter in death?

Now you live inside a bottle
The reaper’s traveling at full throttle
It’s catching you but you don’t see
The reaper is you and the reaper is me

It’s strange to feel cheated. Cheated by the drunk who can escape all the problems with just a few drinks. That’s the point, right? Escape. Because you can’t deal with anything. Meanwhile everyone around you deals with everything.

I have addictive tendencies. The few times I drank – it felt incredible. I was funny, maybe even charming. The next morning I desperately wanted to feel that way again. I didn’t have to be me. After a turn at the hospital, morphine was even better. A ride on a completely different planet.

Without taking myself there, I have seen the other end. It can’t be fun. It is full of blackout nights, embarrassed mornings, broken hearts and burnt bridges – and that is just the minor problems. It’s not worth it. How can it be worth it?

Wine is fine but whiskey’s quicker
Suicide is slow with liquor
Take a bottle and drown your sorrows
Then it floods away tomorrows

As much as I love this song – it is incredibly difficult to listen to. The reaper is you and the reaper is me. We all get to live and die with that.

Now Playing - T. Rex

Welcome to a brand new feature at Lloyd Zeffler. "Now Playing" will highlight favorite songs of mine. The only prerequisite is that as the song is playing, I don't want it to end. Is that easy and vague enough? Good. To introduce this series we will travel all the way back to 1971, somewhere in England...

T. Rex - "Mambo Sun"
from the album Electric Warrior.

I got stars in my beard
and I feel real weird
for you

T. Rex was a band I only knew in photographs. Marc Bolan was the quintessential pop star. Top hat, feather boa and a guitar slung way down low. By the time I picked up a copy of Electric Warrior I was in desperate need of a musical shot in the arm. With the first song, I could already feel my little rock 'n roll heart get set to explode...

Beneath the bebop moon

I want to croon

with you

Beneath the mambo sun

I got to be the one

with you

It had everything I love - lyrics that boggle the mind in a fun way, a rock and roll singer with an unmistakeable croon and a perfect little guitar groove. Bolan wrote better songs than "Mambo Sun", more memorable songs, but as the lead off track to a catchy as the herp record, this song was a breath of fresh air.

You're a savage lake

make no mistake

I love you

I got a powder keg leg

and my wig's all pooped

for you

What the heck does it mean? Who cares? Love is gibberish most of the time. It is never what you say, but always how you say it. Sometimes the best way to say I love you is with a wink and a nod.

Beneath the bebop moon

I'm howling like a loon

for you

beneath the mambo sun

i've got to be the one

for you

Adoption: The Essential Guide to Adopting Quickly and Safely by Randall Hicks

With the popularity of overseas adoption increasing, potential parents without a famous name need guidance in order to safely adopt a child.

Randall Hicks is an adoption attorney with more than 20 years of experience on more than 900 domestic and international adoption cases. His book Adoption: The Essential Guide to Adopting Quickly and Safely is everything it claims to be.

Hicks leaves no stone unturned, explaining the laws, regulations and necessary documents that adopting parents must be informed on. There are 14 types of adoption, and Hicks explains each one then gives tips including how to select the right attorney or the right adoption agency. One important chapter highlights red flags to be aware of. Most deal with the health and habits of the birth mother but also include other emotional and legal issues.

The final third of the book lays out the laws and contact agencies for each state as well as useful appendices with recommended readings, helpful organizations, publications, Web sites and sample documents.

Hicks writes in a plainspoken, casual manner that removes the legalese but is still able to get down to business and be informative. His experience has given him the opportunity to work with any adoption case imaginable, and he is able to cover many topics with depth and knowledge.

This is as much as you can learn about the legal side of adoption without graduating from law school.

Learning how to be a parent is a whole other experience.

Zane Ewton/2008 for curled up with a good kid's book

Script Frenzy 2008

From the minds who brought you National Novel Writing Month...set aside the month of April for...Script Frenzy.

Similar to NaNoWriMo, participants have one month to cram in as much writing as possible. Instead of novels, writers can work on a few different projects including "screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, comic book and graphic novel scripts, adaptations of novels, or any other type of script your heart desires."

An interesting twist to Script Frenzy is that writers can work in teams of two. The goal is 100 pages. Writers will need to keep a pace of about 3 1/2 pages per day to meet the goal by April 30.

Check out the site at this link. It includes a number of resources and tools to help writers get started, but you are not allowed to begin writing until 12:01 a.m. on April 1st.

I already signed up - feel free to add me as a writing buddy.

sunshine, peeps and lillies

Every spring I am driven to madness. Frustrated with myself for the things I haven’t done. Good intentions, without ambition, can quickly become regrets.

It is a strange feeling to be happy and content with my life (wonderful wife, happy kid, good job) and to also be restless, dying for something exciting to happen.

I am amazed that I found someone who is as restless as I am. We weren’t built for mundane. We can’t afford anything else. Funny how life can work out that way.

So, before summer ends and another year passes, I want to be able to look back and feel a tinge of accomplishment. Just a tinge, because I will be going mad again by spring, frustrated and longing for more. To be honest, I don’t even know what I am looking for, and probably wouldn’t know if I had it.

In the meantime I will enjoy my little family and how much all three of us are searching for something exciting, colorful and brand new in our lives. It wouldn’t be worth finding without them.

Not "good" enough

Welcome ladies and gents, to the 400th post at Lloyd Zeffler. Imagine black balloons and streamers shooting into the air. It's almost a fiesta in here. Now back to some business...

Every year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame puts on its tie and loafers for a boring shindig that not even the nominees are interested in going to. It is fairly obvious that these awards don't mean much, and at this point the whole process leaves music fans scratching their heads. I like to read the annual article about who has yet to be inducted. I laugh and realize that the intangible spirit of rock and roll is completely lost on people that work in it for a living.

A few of the notable names I have seen this year run the gamut of rock and roll sub-genres, but all can be included as highly influential, highly important, highly successful or all of the above.

Rush - I am personally not a fan, but Rush is prog rock. Same can be said for Yes. You might need a math degree to figure out the songs, but that doesn't mean rock fans haven't loved them for years.

Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water" is the first song everybody learns the second they pick up a guitar.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - This seems like an absolute shoo-in. Completely puzzling.

Genesis - I think Phil Collins killed this for everybody.

Alice Cooper - This is gross and shocking. Not Alice - the fact that they have ignored him for so many years. It is actually kind of satisfying. Alice earned the respect of some of Hollywood's heaviest hitters - everyone from Bob Hope to Sinatra - but he is left out of the rock crowd repeatedly.

The Stooges and/or Iggy Pop - Certainly more important than the Sex Pistols. Oh well, the day will come when we are all gone and all that will be left is Iggy and the rubble.

There are more that are just as equally puzzling. Not to mention the artists who have been inducted who probably should not have been. I wonder if the academy/association/conglomeration plans to include only one or two top notch artists, then pad the rest of the show with people nobody except their mothers can remember, just so the top artist won't feel threatened?

It doesn't matter - the fans "get it." or at least I hope they do, it is hard to tell these days.

hearts in need...

Lloyd Zeffler 101

There has been quite a jump in visitors to the Lloyd Zeffler Web log in the last week, so in the interest of getting everybody up to speed (and since I will be away from a computer the next few days), here is a crash course in Zefflerology.

My name is not Lloyd Zeffler. My name is Zane Ewton. I am a writer. This is the place to come to as a Grand Central Station of sorts. There will be links to everything I write for other Web sites and publications - the most frequent links will lead you to one of these sites:

• Lloyd Zeffler Photography - For information on photography rates in Phoenix, AZ as well as prints available for sale.
• antiMusic - Cutting edge music commentary, reviews and special features. Celebrating 10 years in April '08.
• BUSRide - The most relied-upon resource for more than 16,000 successful transit and motorcoach operations across America.
• Curled Up With a Good Book - An e-zine committed to bringing good books from presses of all sizes to the attention of our readers and newsletter subscribers.
• Associated Content - My personal writer page with articles on a variety of subjects.
• Boxing Herald - News, interviews and views on boxing.

Lloyd Zeffler sprang from my love for music, and even though it has evolved into other areas it will always be fueled by music. Even more importantly it is just a place where I am either looking for, or trying to create, something that is good and positive. Anything that is good and positive really.

Here are a few more links in Zeffler land.

• Lloyd Zeffler Store at CafePress - T-shirts and other goods emblazoned with the LZ logo.
• Lloyd Zeffler Photography at Flickr - More and more photos everyday.
• MySpace.
• Facebook.

As always, feel free to comment on anything or email me at zane@lloydzeffler.com.

Keith Richards/Annie Liebovitz/Louis Vuitton

As bored as I am with Annie Liebovitz's pictures of celebrities and their new offspring, I love how she photographs musicians. Her iconic photographs are probably long gone, but every once in a while she stops raking in the Vanity Fair cash and actually photographs somebody interesting. Even if it is for a Louis Vuitton ad.

Grisly. Most of my favorite photos can be described as grisly. So what if he is old, he is still friggin' Keith Richards.

Jimmy and KJ's Photos

I have been harrassing people for awhile now about taking thier picture. If you ask those closest to me I have been harrasing them for about a decade now, but even more so in the past few months. Finally, Jimmy and KJ took a chance on me. If you see anything you like, let me know - maybe I can point a camera in your face too.

Everything I Learned About Writing Came After Journalism School

Freshly published at Associated Content - Everything I Learned About Writing Came After Journalism School.

"A few years after completing a bachelor's degree in journalism and finally landing a writing job, I realized that I knew nothing about writing. I could compose complete sentences and I was trained in the style of finding the who, what, where and why in a story and then piecing it together in an inverted pyramid. The most important aspect of the story should be in the first two to three sentences.Instructors were always careful to point out that nobody reads past the first paragraph anyway, so make sure what needs to be said is said before they are gone. This fact is only aggravated by the Internet and its multitude of shiny links waiting to be clicked. If my instructors are right, the majority of readers who clicked on this article are now long gone by the time this sentence is complete."

Since this article is exclusive to Associated Content, head on over to this link to read more.

Update:If you rush right now to http://www.associatedcontent.com/lifestyle/ you will see that this article is featured on the front page of the lifestyle section. Don't blink, these things don't last very long.

Partay

Now that I have written that title I have become incredibly embarrassed. Anyways, here are a few new photos from my nephew's birthday party that chronicle my abuse of the Picnik photo editing software.

Published in Church Executive

Church Executive is a sister publication of sorts to BUSRide. This means there might be moments of cross pollination possibilities. Church Executive is another trade magazine, but it caters to indivuals who operate the business end of a church, for lack of a better description. Churches frequently charter buses so that is at least a yearly topic in the magazine.

Long story short, my article on leaving children behind on a bus was picked up for publication in Church Executive, You can read it in all its slightly altered glory at "Don't Forget Your Most Important Passengers".