Westeros in Belfast

October 5, 2024 at 11:56 am

The last time I visited Northern Ireland was in 2019. Worldcon was in Dublin that year, and a week later there was Titancon up in Belfast, a small regional that a number of the members of the Brotherhood Without Banners helped put on. There was no way we were going to miss that. So we hopped in a car and headed north, from Dublin to Belfast.

We enjoyed ourselves at Titancon, but Belfast had other attractions as well… one of them being the Paint Hall, where the big ships were painted in the heydey of the old Harland & Wolff shipyards, where the Titanic was built (along with hundreds of ships that did not sink, as our Irish friends like to point out). The shipyards were long closed, but the Paint Hall was such a huge space that HBO was able to convert it into one of the largest sound stages in Europe (actually, four stages, if I recall correctly). Most of the interiors of GAME OF THRONES were shot there. That was where our throne room was, and the Iron Throne. Those sets had been struck when GOT wrapped, of course, but new sets had gone up in their places, interiors for Casterly Rock and Winterfell designed for BLOODMOON, the Jane Goldman pilot that had just wrapped. Interiors for Winterfell and Casterly Rock, as they might have looked thousands of years before The War of the Five Kings , occupied much of the Paint Hall, and we were able to wander though them. That was pretty cool.. but even cooler, there was a GOT museum nearby, not far from the Titanic museum, and we visited that too. Just a few rooms, with a display of costumes and armor, some great dragon skull, an Iron Throne, and a wall of faces straight from the House of Black and White (well, kinda sorta).

That was 2019, though. There have been a lot of changes since then, and none more than the GAME OF THRONES display. It’s not small any longer, and it’s not in the Titanic Quarter. There’s a whole new GOT Studio Tour outside of Belfast in a own called Banbridge, inside an old Irish linen mill. A big, big, building, maybe larger than the Paint Hall itself, filled with room after room of props, costumes, dioramas, an Iron Throne, another wall of faces even bigger than the first one. And dragon skulls, of course. Cannot forget the dragons. There’s a restaurant as well, and a big parking lot where the tourist buses come and go, and… oh, a gift shop with all sorts of GOT merc, a lot of which even I had never seen before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Caq728rnE

We spent half the day there, wandering from room to room while oohing and aahing, and talking with the staff, some of whom seemed to know more about Westeros than I do. A warm and friendly crew, they were so welcoming to all the visitors, Starks, Lannisters, and White Walkers alike. We could easily have stayed longer, but we had other places to go and people to see. But if your own travels take you to Ireland, don’t make the same mistake; there’s a lot to see, so leave yourself time to see it all.

Here are a few more glimpses, the pix we shot ourselves.

It is one thing to watch a television series at home and admire the look of it… but the studio tour really brings home the incredible amount of care that went into making it… the blood and sweat and craft, the hours and days of dedication, labor, and love that brought Westeros to life. GAME OF THRONES filmed all over the world, in Scotland, Iceland, Malta, Morocco, Spain, and Croatia… and in Northern Ireland most of all… but I live in New Mexico, and while I did visit the shoots a number of times during the show’s run, it was not nearly enough. I am so pleased that we now have such a magnificent museum, so GOT fans from all over the world can experience a taste of what was.

It’s the next best thing to visiting Westeros.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: game of thrones, travel

GOING UP, COMING DOWN

September 30, 2024 at 9:52 pm

Kris Krisofferson has died.

I knew I would have to write those words eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. Kris has not looked good the past few times I’ve seen him on the tube. His health has not been good for some years. Still, one can hope. The world was so much richer with Kristofferson in it, and it is poorer now that he is gone. But we still have his songs, and what songs they are.

I am no musician myself; that’s a gift I never had. I cannot sing, I cannot dance, I cannot read music. But that doesn’t mean I do not love music… or rather, songs. Instrumental music, classical music, operas, those are all great, no doubt, but they are not for me. I am a word guy. I want the lyrics. I want them to be audible, not drowned out by the instruments. I want them to be beautiful, I want them to touch me, to move me, to make me think, become a part of me. Some of you may have noticed that the word “song” keeps appearing in the titles of my books and stories. A SONG FOR LYA, SONGS OF STARS AND SHADOWS, SONGS THE DEAD MEN SING, DREAMSONGS, A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH. There’s a would-be songwriter buried inside me, no doubt. Oh, I managed some to do “The Rains of Castamere” and “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” (part of it, anyway) and “The Dornishmen’s Wife” and “The Last of the Giants,” but damn, writing songs is hard, even if you’re only doing lyrics and leaving the actual music to the listeners.

I don’t know how Kris Kristofferson did it.

But he did it better than anyone else.

He has been my favorite singer/ songwriter ever since I first heard “Me and Bobby McGee,” back when I was in college.

It was the Janis Joplin version I first encountered, as with most people. Kristofferson was a songwriter then, but not yet established as a singer himself. The song was a huge huge hit, the biggest Joplin ever had. Sadly, it was a posthumous hit, since Janis had died shortly before it was released. In the days and years and decades that followed, many other people covered “Me and Bobby McGee; there was Roger Miller and Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot and Reba McEntire and many many more.

I liked almost all of them, but the one I loved best was Kristofferson’s own version, when it was finally recorded and released.

On my recent visit to England, there were several instances where strangers came up to tell me how much they loved my books, how my writing spoke to them, moved them, even changed their lives. That’s a lovely thing to hear. I’ve been on the other end of that as well. There have been songs and stories and books and authors who have had profound effects on my own life. Sometimes it seems as if the writer is speaking only to you.

“Me and Bobby McGee” was like that for me. I’d had my own Bobby McGee not long before I heard the song. No, I did not pull my harpoon out of a dirty red bandana and she did not sing the blues, and we’d never rode a diesel from Baton Rouge to New Orleans… but we were good together, and then I’d let her slip away (not near Salinas). Afterwards, alone, I knew what Kris meant by “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” and like the singer, I would gladly have traded all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday.

Kristofferson was a poet. His best lines haunted me for years. Only a few years later, I wrote a story I titled “… for a single yesterday” for an anthology called EPOCH. A post holocaust story about a singer and a lost love, natch. I wanted it to be the best story I’d ever written. It wasn’t. Some folks liked it well enough, but as a tribute to Kristofferson, I would have liked it to be stronger.

Kris was no one hit wonder. In the years that followed, I bought every one of his albums as soon as they came out. (Albums were these big vinyl things we listened to then). And there were other great songs that I fell in love with, that spoke to me almost as deeply as “Me and Bobby McGee” had. There was “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Casey’s Last Ride” and “For the Good Times,” there was “Billy Dee” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “The Taker,” there was “Silver Tongued Devil” and “From the Bottle to the Bottom” and “Loving Her Was Easier,” and “Silver: the Hunger” and “Darby’s Castle” and “Here Comes That Rainbow Again” and…

This one.

Half talking, half singing, Kris talking about his early days as a singer. It seemed deeply personal when I heard it; for him, but it sp0ke to me as well. Especially during the hard years, when my career crashed and burned (as it did from time to time).

Kristofferson was an amazing man, all in all. A Rhodes Scholar, Flew a helicopter in Vietnam. Swept floor as a janitor in Nashville trying to break in. Then he became an actor, and a damn good one. CISCO PIKE. BLUME IN LOVE. PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. (Best Billy the Kid movie ever made). ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANY MORE. A STAR IS BORN (the Streisand version). LONE STAR. He was damned good at that too.

But it will be as a singer and songwriter that he will be remembered.

For “Me and Bobby McGee” and all those other songs… especially this one. He was singing about himself here, not just the friends he mentions in the opening. And he was singing about me and my writer friends as well, my collaborators and contemporaries and rivals, all of us struggling to tell our stories and make a living and survive in SF and fantasy in those bygone days. We were all pilgrims.

(I slipped a reference to this song in one of my stories as well).

I heard Kris live in concert once, back in the 1970s, when I was living in Chicago. I was never lucky enough to meet him in person. I wish I had gone backstage after that show and tried to introduce myself, but I was way too shy and I doubt I could have gotten in. I wish I had tried, though, if just to tell him how much his music meant to me. Assuming I just didn’t freeze up and lose my tongue.

If I could speak to him now, I know what I would say.

His going up was worth the coming down.

And he went up very high. We shall not hear his like again.

Current Mood: sad sad

Tags: game of thrones, life and death, music, writing

Here Comes Hodor

September 29, 2024 at 4:56 pm

I promised you all a report on our trip.

I haven’t forgotten. We left Santa Fe on July 15, and returned home on August 15. In between, we visited Belfast in Northern Ireland (and Ashford Meadow in the Reach), Amsterdam, London, Oxford, and Glasgow, where the World Science Fiction Convention was being held.

It was a splendid trip, and one that did wonders to restore my bruised and battered spirits and relieve some of the stress that I had been under before we left. The first few months of 2024 had been… well, no fun, let us say. January, February, March… things just kept getting worse until we came to April Fool’s Day, when it finally dawned on me that I was the fool, and had been for years. But I do not want to talk about that now. (Or maybe ever. We shall see).

But never mind about that. I wanted to talk about our travels. And I did… at Bubonicon, a few weeks after we returned, when I spoke about the trip and its impact on me during a speech called “Eighty Minutes With George R.R. Martin.” It was a pretty good speech — at least I thought it was — and one I had hoped to share with you. We did record it. Unfortunately, the iPhone malfunctioned, and the recording was lost. My staff has spent weeks trying to recover it, or as much as can be recovered at least, but it appears to be a lost cause. And of course I did not have a written text. I was speaking off the cuff.

I do recall some of the things I touched on. Only the broad strokes, though, not the exact words.

I had intended to do a lengthy Trip report once we got back to the Land of Enchantment, but unfortunately I managed to pick up a case of covid at worldcon (along with two of my assistants), so I found myself in no condition to write much of anything for a week. I am better now, though. Or at least I do not have covid. Sadly, a lot of the stress that I escaped during my travels has crept back in again, but I suppose there is no avoiding that. So let me begin at the beginning, in Northern Ireland.

GAME OF THRONES filmed all over the world, you may recall. Scotland, Morocco, Iceland, Malta, Spain, and Croatia… but our main location was in Northern Ireland, in and around Belfast and the Titanic Quarter, where the Paint Hall of the old shipyards had been transformed into four huge sound stages, among the largest in the U.K. That’s where the throne room was, and the Iron Throne, and most of the other interiors of the Red Keep. I visited there a number of times during our filming. It was in Belfast, and in Scotland’s Castle Doune the week before it, that I first met most of GOT’s amazing cast: Sean Bean, Mark Addy, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, Lena Headey, Ron Donachie, Alfie Allen, and all the rest… among them Kristian Nairn, our one and only Hodor.

Which made it a delight that Kristian was the first old friend we encountered when in Belfast, the first stop of our trips. He still lives there, working as a DJ, doing some acting… and writing. He has a book coming out, a memoir called BEYOND THE THRONE, about his boyhood during the Troubles, his days on GAME OF THRONES, and so much more. He told us all about it during our lunch.

I have not read the book yet, but Kristian promised to have his publisher send me a copy, and I am eager to get my hands on it. It sounds fascinating. I am a little envious, though. I said to him, “You’re telling me, I’m twelve years late on my book, and you wrote yours over the summer?!” And he had all of his dialogue for the first season of GAME OF THRONES memorized the day after we cast him.

(We will not speak of my own acting, which mainly consists of having my head bitten off by a shark in Sharknado 3).

Kristian will be touring the USA to promote BEYOND THE THRONE, and we’re hoping to persuade him to come to Santa Fe for a signing at my Jean Cocteau Cinema. If we get him, I’ll be sure to announce it here. Watch this space, and cross your fingers. We’d love to host him. Maybe we could convince him to DJ for us too. And hold the door as well.

((More to come about the trip. Much, much more.))

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: game of thrones, television, travels

Some Stuff and Nonsense

September 9, 2024 at 7:44 pm

Stuff I thought I’d mention:

Week one of the new NFL season was played yesterday. The Giants had the Vikings at home, and looked just as bad as last year. They made some good draft picks, I thought, adding a top receiver and bolstering the O-line, but it did not seem to make a whit of difference. Daniel Jones did not impress at all. Maybe we need to go back to Tommy DeVito. I fear I am not going to get much joy from Big Blue this year. Maybe the Jets will be better. They play tonight. Here’s hoping that Aaron Rodgers will last more than three plays.

So, this year’s Bubonicon, our friendly hometown SF con, was August 23-25 down in Albuquerque. I could not attend the whole con, but I dropped down on Saturday for the mass signing and our traditional dinner with the Pope. I also had a speech, “80 Minutes with George R.R. Martin.” I did not have time to write a speech, as I’d intended, so I played it by ear and ad libbed my remarks… which turned out surprisingly well. I’ve had a lot of things on my mind of late, so there was plenty to talk about: WINDS OF WINTER, my television projects, the trip and my visit to Tolkien’s grave, my upcoming birthday, what I want to do when I grow up… er, rather, what I want to do for the rest of my life. It was a serious talk, parts of it quite personal and heartfelt. I am wrestling with a lot right now, and it felt good to share some of that with my listeners. Afterward several fans told me how much they enjoyed it. One told me the speech was “poignant.”

One of my assistants was recording the talk on his phone, so that I could post it here. Supposedly he got all eighty minutes… but his iPhone was glitching and overheating, and the next day, when we tried to play it back, we discovered we did not have it after all. The phone had failed, and the speech did not make it to the cloud either. You have no idea how much that bummed me out. We have brought in a recovery expert to try and find the speech on the dead phone, but I fear the odds of recovering anything are slim. That sucks. I had really wanted to share that speech… no, there were no huge earth-shaking announcements, but I tried to give some insight into where I am right now with my writing, and the rest of my life… If anyone reading this was in the audience for “Eighty Minutes With George R.R. Martin” and happened to record it, let me know. I want to know what I said, and if it was half as profound and eloquent as I remember.

Politics? I could talk about the election, but I think I won’t. Not now, at least. Suffice it to say, I am worried. Trump was the worst president in American history, and if he gets in again, he will be worse, judging from the remarks he keeps making about retribution and bloodbaths and the like.

I had some cool guests in between worldcon and Bubonicon: Anne LeGuernec, the amazing French actress who starred as Cat in my DOORWAYS pilot back in 1993, came to visit with her incredible family. Anne and her husband did a reading for us at the Jean Cocteau, and we showed them Santa Fe and Taos and introduced them to green chile. It was great to see Anne again, and talk about DOORWAYS and the roads not taken, all the stories we might have told had the show been greenlit.

Oh, did I mention that the first two seasons of DARK WINDS are now streaming on Netflix (as well as AMC), and doing very very well?

https://www.netflix.com/title/81613903

https://nativenewsonline.net/arts-entertainment/dark-winds-soars-to-top-10-on-netflix

Meanwhile, the third season is filming here in New Mexico, at Camel Rock Studio.

Speaking of television shows, I have always loved alternate history and Jane Grey, England’s nine-days queen, has always fascinated me. Small wonder, then, that I really enjoyed MY LADY JANE, a clever and original historical fantasy on Amazon Prime, set in an England full of witches and shapechangers, where Jane lasts more than nine days. Meredith Glynn is one of the showrunners. I had the pleasure of working with her on one of the GAME OF THRONES spinoffs that HBO shelved a few years back, and knowing her talents, it did not surprise me that MY LADY JANE was so much fun. Witty and original, it reminded me a bit of THE GREAT, a show I loved. Alas, THE GREAT is gone, and it appears MY LADY JANE is too. Amazon did not renew it for a second season.

The show has a lot of fans, though, and they have launched a petition to get Amazon to order more. (Got to love the fans).

https://movieweb.com/my-lady-jane-fans-petition-canceled-prime-video-series/

I wish them luck. Jane deserved more than nine days, or eight episodes.

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: everyday life, nfl, television

A Belated Blog

September 9, 2024 at 2:10 pm

I am way behind in my Not-a-Blogging, I know.

Along with a thousand other things.

I was traveling in Europe from July 15 to August 15. I do not travel with a computer (never have), so I had hoped to catch up before I left… but it was hard, hard. The first half of my year was pretty miserable, dominated as it was by the death of Howard Waldrop on January 14. Howard was my oldest friend in science fiction community; we had been corresponding since 1963, when we were both in high school. His passing came suddenly, only six days after our last conversation, and there’s a part of me that still cannot accept it, that wants to pick up the phone and ring him up and hear his voice again.

Nor did I find much solace in my work. Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both THE WINDS OF WINTER (yes) and BLOOD & FIRE (the sequel to FIRE & BLOOD, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more. My various television projects ate up most of those months. Some of that was pleasant (DARK WINDS, and THE HEDGE KNIGHT), most of it was not. The stress kept mounting, the news went from bad to worse to worst, my mood seemed to swing between fury and despair, and at night I tossed and turned when I should have been sleeping. When I did sleep, well, my dreams were none too pleasant either.

I had been planning our European trip for some time. The Dunk & Egg show would start filming in July and I wanted to visit the shoot in Northern Ireland, and a month later there would be a worldcon in Glasgow. I had not been to a worldcon since the Dublin convention in 2019 (we won’t count Covid Con, the New Zealand worldcon in 2020 that went all virtual) and I wanted to return. Fandom had been my second family since 1971, and worldcon our family reunion. Even so, I had so much on my plate that I seriously debated whether I should cancel the whole trip so I could stay home and fight on. I am glad I decided against that. I was so stressed out that I doubt I would have accomplished much anyway… and the trip turned out to be a blessing, balm for my bruised soul.

We had a great time on the trip, and I meant to tell you all about our adventures and experiences when we returned. Those will be happy posts, made of happy memories, and I still mean to write them… soon…

But when we finally got back to the Land of Enchantment I had a thousand emails waiting for me. I also managed to bring covid back home with me, after picking it up at worldcon. It was a mild case, thankfully, but even so, it put me out of action for a week or so, with the worst sore throat of my life. (I am fully recovered and testing negative once again, thank you. Don’t get covid, boys and girls, it is no fun at all). And, alas, the moment I opened my computer again, the stress came rushing back. I managed to put my problems aside for a month, but they were still waiting for me.

So… I have a lot to blog about. Big things, small things, glad news and sad news. I do want to talk about the trip while it is still fresh in my mind, but there is so much else…

Current Mood: stressed

Tags: life and death, travel, worldcon, writing

September Morn

September 3, 2024 at 11:54 am

My calendar is telling me it is now September. Really? Damn, the days are going by fast.

We got back from our month abroad on August 15, which seems like yesterday on the odd numbered days and last year on the evens.. I returned to find more than a thousand emails waiting for me, which proved even more daunting than usual since I brought covid home with me as well, acquired at the worldcon in Glasgow. Two of my assistants tested positive as well; Parris and the other two were spared. We’re all negative now, I am pleased to say.

Joe Lansdale and kin were here in Santa Fe with us for a few days. Joe departed this morning, heading for LA and the red carpet premiere of THE THICKET, the new feature film based on his novel, starring Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis. We didn’t have a red carpet here, alas, and we didn’t have Peter or Juliette, but we did have our own premiere on Saturday at the Jean Cocteau Cinema, along with Joe His Own Self. A good crowd turned out for the movie, and for the signing at Beastly Books before hand. Joe signed a good number of copies of the latest edition of the novel, as well as his new new Hap & Leonard novel, and a collection of horror stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. For the collectors among you, signed copies of all three are available at Beastly… while the supply lasts.

The Santa Fe audience seemed to like the film, as did I. It’s a western, but the sort of western only Joe could write, dark and twisty and filled with a cast of colorful characters. Dinklage and Lewis were both excellent. If you’re a fan of the Old West, be sure and catch THE THICKET when it turns up at a cinema near you.

And speaking of movies, we are moving along with the short films we made based on some of the short stories by the late, great, great great great, Howard Waldrop. Steven Paul Judd’s adaptation of MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER has been accepted into WASTELAND, depp in the heart of the Mohave Desert.

WASTELAND FILM FESTIVAL

Mary-Margaret will also be showing down in New Zealand, at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in New Zealand

https://filmfreeway.com/wairoa

There will be more, I am sure; festival season is just beginning, and we’ve entered MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER and THE UGLY CHICKENS in other festivals all around the country and the world. Watch this space; I’ll announce other show dates and locations as soon as we know.

Two other shorts are still in post production here in New Mexico; another Waldrop, with the working title FRIENDS FOREVER (that is likely to be changed), and an original called THE SUMMER MACHINE, based on a story I pitched THE TWILIGHT ZONE back in the 80s, just before it was cancelled. SUMMER MACHINE stars Lina Esco, Charles Martin Smith, and Matt Frewer. Michael Cassutt wrote the short, based on my treatment, and directed as well.

We have several other movies under option or in development, but whether any of them will ever get filmed, well, I really couldn’t tell you. It’s Hollywood, boys and girls. As the late great William Goldman once wrote, “Nobody Knows Anything.”

Current Mood: stressed

BURN HIM! BURN HIM!

August 30, 2024 at 7:50 am

It is Fiesta here in Santa Fe, one of the oldest festivals in the City Different, and once again the highlight of the festivities will be the Burning of Zozobra (the original Burning Man, for those of you who have never heard of him).

Zozobra will be 100 this year, so the celebrations should be even more spectacular than before. For the first time, Sky Railway will be joining the madness with the FLAME TRAIN, set to carry the fire that will consume Old Z from Lamy through the heart of Santa Fe to Fort Marcy Park.

Zozobra himself is a towering marionette representing Old Man Gloom. The pyre that devours him after dark — as he shouts and screams and waves his arms and legs — contains within it all the doom and grief and depression and despair of the past year. It is Santa Fe’s way of devouring the darkness, to clear the way for the light and joy that will hopefully mark the new year.

And believe me we need that, more than ever before. The world, the country, and yes, certainly me. This has not been a good year for anyone, with war everywhere and fascism on the rise… and on a more personal level, I have had a pretty wretched year as well, one full of stress, anger, conflict, and defeat.

I need to talk about some of that, and I will, I will… I was away from my computer traveling from July 15 to August 15, so a lot of things that needed saying did not get said. I am glad I took that trip, though. My stress levels beforehand were off the charts, so much so that I was seriously considering cancelling my plans and staying at home. I am glad I didn’t, though. It was so so good to get away for a little, to put all the conflict aside for a time. I began to feel better the moment the plane set down in Belfast, and we all headed off to Ashford Meadow to see the tournament. We had five great days in Belfast and environs, and that made me feel so much better. The rest of the trip was fun as well, a splendid combination of business and pleasure that included visits to Belfast, Amsterdam, London, Oxford, and Glasgow. I look forward to telling you all about our adventures… though it may take a while. I had a thousand emails waiting for me on my return, and then I went and brought a case of covid back with me from worldcon, so I am way way behind.

I do not look forward to other posts I need to write, about everything that’s gone wrong with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… but I need to do that too, and I will. Not today, though. TODAY is Zozobra’s day, when we turn away from gloom.

BURN HIM! BURN HIM!

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: Fiesta, life and death, santa fe

Come to The Thicket

August 29, 2024 at 12:02 pm

THE THICKET is one of Joe Lansdale’s best books — and believe me, that’s saying something, since the Sage of Nacodoches has written a lot of them. Science fiction, mystery, horror, fantasy, humor, westerns, Joe can do it all.

And now THE THICKET is a major motion picture as well, starring the one and only Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis.

We’ll be premiering THE THICKET this Saturday at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe.

And Joe Lansdale, His Own Self, will be on hand in person to join us, and answer questions afterward.

Don’t miss it.

Tags: films, jean cocteau cinema, movies, signings

Not a Blog

Westeros in Belfast

Some Stuff and Nonsense

September Morn

Come to The Thicket

Latest Month

Recent Posts

Syndicate