SO WHERE WAS DOC LAST WEEK?
A moment of calm comes in the production of a work of fiction when (the author hopes) it becomes clear that it is all going to make sense. The plot will resolve itself as one has always hoped and all of the characters will be in place and where they’re supposed to be to do their respective parts. The moment of calm is usually preceded a sometimes prolonged bout of screaming anxiety, (sometimes verging on insanity, and, on occasion, necessitating Jack Daniels by the tumbler-full) that the whole fucking thing is completely off the rails, and you will never write again. It’s only when the crisis is behind you, and the calm has come, that the writer is able to settle down for the final grind of internal trench warfare, and the push to The End. (And if you think this is just the cry of the whining artist, try it for yourselves, goddamn it.)
The good news is that the push The End of Conflagration is almost over. 120, 000 words in and only a mile or so to go until I sleep. Last week saw massive strides, and next week will almost certainly see the culmination.

I might actually be finishing right now, except LA CityBeat is celebrating it’s 100th issue, and I was asked to write not only a de luxe edition of my regular Mick’s Media column – about God, The Pope, and Elvis – but also part of the celebratory lead story. All this will be out next Thursday, and the links will be right here.

So keep on clicking to Doc40, I need the validation.

IN THE MEANTIME, HERE’S SOME OF THE STUFF THAT WAS SO VITAL IT NEVER GOT POSTED...
I neglected to post a link to the last Mick’s Media...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1960&IssueNum=98

This (from the NY Times) should not go unnoticed...
Last week President Bush signed a Family Entertainment and Copyright Act that allows "family-friendly" companies to sell filter technology that cleans up DVD's of Hollywood movies without permission or input from the films' own authors and copyright holders. That sounds innocuous enough until you learn that even "Schindler's List" isn't immune from the right's rigid P.C. code. As the owner of CleanFlicks, the American Fork, Utah, company that goes further and sells pre-sanitized DVD's, once explained to The New York Times: "Every teenager in America should see that film. But I don't think my daughters should see naked old men running around in circles." And so Big Brother can intervene to protect our kids from all that geriatric Holocaust porn.

See what happens when the Christians get hold of one of my columns...
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=91481

And who could get by without the Opus Dei Awareness Network?
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=91481

CRYPTIQUE – The thousand yard stare is bloodshot.

The secret word is Cordelia