Madman's Mutterings

I’m not sure where the perception came from or when it started, but I have the unshakeable sense that I grew up believing that every book I’d read was written by someone who had already passed on. The classics solidified this, I’m sure, and by the time I hit 6th grade, Tolkien and Twain put the final nail in their own respective coffins.

It surprised people to learn that I didn’t start reading books on my own until I went to college. Between 6th grade and college, all I read were comics, which, while entertaining, do tend to train your brain to absorb information in a pretty specific way. But between the efforts of Professor Gilzinger and Professor O’Connor, I discovered my true love of the written word. One gave me science fiction. The other, Robert B. Parker.

For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Parker is responsible for the Spenser series of detective novels (upon which the show Spenser for Hire was based). O’Connor had suggested I read him for his skill at dialogue. It wasn’t required reading. It wasn’t part of the curriculum. But he made the suggestion and I took him up on it and I’ve been grateful ever since.

A couple of months ago, I was sitting in the waiting room someplace and sifting through their copies of People magazine when I saw that Robert B. Parker had died.

That’s when it hit me; that realization that he’d been alive all that time. Of course, if I had thought about it, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all. I had read dozens of Parker’s novels and checked the new releases for the latest Spenser book whenever I went to the bookstore. But my brain never made that connection. It was commonplace for me to go to the bookstore and get a new book by a long-dead author. It didn’t matter so long as the book as new to me.

But seeing the news there hit me quite a bit harder than I’d imagined. Spenser was a role model for me in those formative years. He taught me a lot about autonomy, about self-reliance, about being who you were and never apologizing for not being anything else. As time passed, I’d had the occasion to recommend those books to others. I’d like to think they liked them.

My old friend Don and I would talk about these characters as if we knew them. And, if we’re being honest here, there was a span of time where it felt like Parker was going through the motions. He’s published the first Spenser novel back in 1971. How long could he keep it fresh? So I tried the Sunny Randall novels on Don’s say-so, and I felt it was all derivative of Parker’s earlier, and quite frankly better, work. They left me cold and I stopped reading after the fifth or sixth book. I have yet to try to the Jessie Stone novels.

This afternoon, I finished reading Rough Weather, a Spenser novel I picked up from Barnes & Noble’s discount section a few days ago. I have to say… it hurt to turn that last page. I’d absolutely devoured the book. Parker was back in fine form and these characters, these people I’d known for more than 20 years, were so alive and vibrant that I had to keep reminding myself that they died with their author. They just didn’t know it yet.

Tonight, as I sat down to right this, I checked Parker’s site and discovered that there are two more Spenser novels I haven’t yet read. One of them will represent the last Spenser novel he ever wrote, and the last one I’ll ever read. Even typing that hurts me.

I didn’t know Parker personally, but he made a measurable impact on my life over the past 2o+ years and it saddens me to come face to face with the feeling that something very important to me is coming to an end. But more, I’m a little upset that I took the man’s continuing presence for granted. I bought too much into the adage that people only really get famous after they die. In today’s disposable world, I don’t see Spenser staying relevant for very long. He was very much a product of his age, much like the man who created him.

About the finest compliment I’ve ever received as an author came from a fan who described my work as “the love child of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Robert B. Parker.” If there’s any truth to that at all, and you’ve enjoyed any of my work, I urge you to go read an early Spenser novel (perhaps The Judas Goat or Ceremony, or maybe Early Autumn or Looking for Rachel Wallace) and get started on an amazing journey. In the end, you may thank me for it, and I can think of no finer way to say thank you to Parker than to pass his work along to others.

May you rest in peace, sir. You shall be missed.

I don’t even know where to start.

It began, I suppose, when I had the bright idea to resurrect the long-dormant superhero universe I’d begun all those years ago. I put the word out and put the band back together. We started a new magazine. “I, Hero.” You may have heard me mention it if you’ve spoken to me for more than five seconds in a row.

It was supposed to be a print-on-demand thing. Someone would order a copy, we’d tell the POD printer, and they’d print and ship one copy. Except it didn’t go down like that. They were quoting us a four-week turnaround time every time we wanted to order something. That’s not “print-on-demand.” That’s “print-when-we-feel-like-it.” And I didn’t take kindly to that. No, sir. So I got together with my partner and we bought the printing equipment so that we could do it ourselves, forgetting that the whole point of wanting to go the POD route was to avoid an enormous outlay of cash up front.

Oops.

But just like that we were in the thick of it, and we couldn’t count on that one little magazine to justify the expense of the printing, cutting and binding equipment. If we were going to be publishers, we’d have to be in for a penny, in for a pound. So I started with the usual suspects. I went to the folks whom I knew could deliver. In a matter of months we’ve signed almost ten new writers to New Babel Books, accounting for more than a dozen new titles to be put out this year.

In the midst of all this, my video production business has never been so busy. I’m working around the clock, taking everything that comes my way, and figuring I’ll get a nap in sometime in 2086. But hey, when you’re a freelancer, these are the problems you want. It’s always a game of feast or famine and I know this won’t last forever. Hopefully New Babel Books will keep us flush when the pendulum swings the other way.

Oh, and about iHero… We’ll be making a pretty significant change in the way we deliver our content this year. We committed to do “I, Hero” as a six-issue limited series and we’ll honor that commitment. After that, New Babel Books will begin to put out full-length novels in the iHero Universe. We’ll put out anthologies, too, but the bottom line is that we’re done swimming upstream.

It’s a little crazy that someone who spent so many years in marketing and advertising failed to see how badly I’d handicapped myself with our chosen format.

Tell people you run a superhero magazine and every single one of them will call it a comic book. Which it ain’t. Try to explain that you publish a sci-fi/fantasy magazine with a very specific focus (superheroes) and you’ll get blank stares. Tell them you run a literary magazine that has prose stories in a superhero setting with spot illustrations and they still don’t get it. It’s only when they see the thing that it clicks. And let me be the first to tell you how many times we went around the block on the size of the magazine. We were caught in an endless logic loop.

“Let’s make it the size of a comic book so it can go on the same racks as comic books.”

“But then people will think we’re a comic book.”

“Okay, so make it a standard magazine size and put it in bookstores next to literary magazines.”

“But our core audience is likely to be fans of superheroes.”

“And they read comics.”

“Right. So let’s make it the size of a comic book.”

“But then people will think we are a comic book.”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

In the end, what really decided the issue was simple math. Twice as many people do searches online for “superhero novels” as opposed to “superhero fiction” or “superhero magazine.” Why not give people what they’re already looking for instead of trying to make our gorilla act like an elephant?

The other consideration was competition. In the comic book market, Marvel and DC Comics have a stranglehold on 70% of the market share. The next biggest player has 5%. iHero Entertainment, with our one little (very special) non-comic superhero magazine would always be struggling to capture a fraction of one percent of the pie. But superhero novels? Almost nobody is doing it. Fewer still are doing it well. It’s a market we can dominate.

And… and…

Geez, look at the time. Nearly 6AM as I type this and I should have gone to bed hours ago. I really just wanted to poke my head in and give a quick update.

LINGO aired its last episode. My work in the film industry has taken a backseat while I build the new Tower. My girlfriend and our dog moved to a new city.

Nothing went the way it should these past few years. Does it ever?

Change. Change is the only constant.

Stay tuned.

Hello, hello and welcome to the end of the line. It’s been a true joy to deliver this show to my friends around the world. I hope you enjoy this, the final episode.

The Final Playlist:

Kiss This Thing Goodbye – Del Amitri
Change – MONKEY MAJIK (Japanese)
Dieses Leben – Juli (German)
그네 (Feat. 개리 of 리쌍) – 이효리 (Korean)
Una Noche Mas – The Corrs y Alejandro Sanz (Spanish)
Pour toi – Jenifer  (French)
Eh… gia – Vasco Rossi (Italian)
Good-bye – Fly To The Sky (Chinese)
Goodbye to You – Michele Branch
Tutto l amore che ho -  Jovanotti (Italian)
If This Is Love – Jane Zhang (Chinese)
my happy ending – Avril Lavigne
Please call me – Hwayobi (Korean)
Good-bye days – YUI (Japanese)
Dreaming of You (Live) – The Real Tuesday Weld

Remember to join our Facebook fan page! I’ll continue to post songs there from time time, and if there’s ever a special one-off episode, that’s where you’ll be able to find it!

Thank you all. It’s been an honor.

Frank Fradella
Boynton Beach, FL
February 2011

Hello, hello and Merry Christmas to you all! I can’t believe we’re already doing another Christmas show! Didn’t we just do one, like… a year ago? Time flies like reindeer!

Here’s what’s rockin’ around the Christmas tree this time:

The 12 Days Of Christmas – Straight No Chaser
Last Night (I Went Out With Santa Clause) – Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Feliz Navidad – Los Lonely Boys (Spanish)
L’Enfant Au Tambour – Nana Mouskouri (French)
All I Want for Christmas is You – Fluxus Artists
My Only Wish This Year – Britney Spears
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Mariah Carey
Last Christmas – 女子十二乐坊 (Chinese)
크리스마스에는 (1989年) – 이승환 (Korean)
Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
A Natale Puoi – Alicia (Italian)
Love Christmas – SES (Korean)
The Christmas Song – Owl City
White Christmas – Takahashi Ai  Mika (Japanese)
Jingle Bells – Glee Cast
소나무 – Bobby Kim (Korean)
Merry Christmas Eve – Better Than Ezra
Angels We Have Heard On High – The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Christmas song – Declan Galbraith  (German)
Merry Christmas – The Ramones
Happy Birthday – BoA (Japanese)
Here Comes Santa Claus – Elvis Presley

Merry Christmas to all and remember to check out our Facebook fan page! Next time: THE BEST OF LINGO SHOW! Want to hear your favorite LINGO song on the Best Of show? You pick ‘em, we’ll play ‘em!

Current Mood:  bouncy

Hello, hello and welcome to a veritable mish-mash of global pop goodness. This week’s a bit of odds and ends, a hodge podge, if you will, and we offer it up with the same steaming bowl of excellence you’ve come to expect. Listen and enjoy!

Here’s rocking the hizzouse this week:

Wonder Why – Julian Perretta
Quien Te Quiere Como Yo – Carlos Baute (Spanish)
空はまるで – Monkey Majik (Japanese)
Ensemble – Coeur De Pirate (French)
Our Song – Taylor Swift
Con Le Nuvole – Emma Marrone (Italian)
Unendlich – Silbermond (German)
Call Me – 태군 (Korean)
HAPPY DAY – China Dolls (Chinese)
Eclipse (All Yours) – Metric
Valerie – The Zutons
Colgando en tus manos (feat. Martha Sanchez) – Carlos Baute (Spanish)
Kiss – standing EGG (Korean)
Estate – Negramaro (Italian)
New Day – Tamar Kaprelian
Hold On Loosely – .38 Special

Thanks for tuning in this week, and thanks to everyone who sent in songs. Remember to check out our Facebook fan page! Next time: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW! Send us your music and thank you for listening!