Good marks from Publishers Weekly!

"Touching and humorous....Debbie and her offbeat cohorts are nuanced and authentic"


See full review at Publishers Weekly

first SPARKS review

In an upcoming issue, Kirkus will call SPARKS  "original and appealing....a kinetic and well paced comedy that just might win a few converts…"

This is the first review I've seen, and a good review from Kirkus is always nice to get (they're known to be rather curmudgeonly). It lists the release date as Nov 1, which is a week earlier than I'd thought, and means that I can call off my beef with Adam Selzer, whose new book was to come out on the same day as SPARKS. He's the captain of the Smart Aleck Staff.

ETA: Nope, still Nov 8th. So the fight is still on, Selzer!

Adam Selzer unwraps mummies (probably)

Now and again, Adam Selzer will pick a classic book or play or something and try to work as many references to it as possible into his current book, just to see who notices. There are shout-outs to Our Mutual Friend all over I Put a Spell on You, and his new book, Extraordinary, is loaded with Music Man references. There's even a Wells Fargo Wagon (full of unicorn poop).

And his "Satanic YA" novel that he's been tinkering with is full of Moby Dick references.

Now, let me explain something: Selzer is a guy who gets REALLY into what he researches. When he was reading Moby Dick, he got the bug and decided to go harpoon a whale himself. And how would he do that, here in Chicago? Well....let's just say that no one from the Smart Aleck Staff is allowed to show our face down at the Shedd Aquarium anymore.

And now he's working on a section about Victorian "mummy unwrapping parties" for The Smart Aleck's Guide to Grave Robbing.

And seeing how much gauze he has leftover from his recent sinus surgery...

I guess we haven't been kicked out of the Field Museum yet, but I suppose it's only a matter of time before every museum in town has our picture in the box office with the words "do not sell to these hooligans" above it.

Oh, goodness

Adam, boss of the Smart Aleck Staff, has just announced that he intends to bring tying onion's to one's belt back into fashion, and that we all have to help.

Headquarters is going to smell INCREDIBLE.  We put out two new Smart Aleck's Guide ebooks, then Adam rushed out a book on Chicago ghostlore in time for Halloween, and now I think he's at loose ends. Nothing to do but work on fiction and try to bring fictional retro fashions back. This does not bode well.

But we drill for things like this.

Sparks Trailer!

Here's the video trailer for SPARKS, coming November 8 from Flux Books.





You can also see it, and download the song from the background, on the new downloads page.

Trailer Stills

Here are some stills from yesterday's trailer shoot:

Julie Kostynick as Debbie and Ava Raddatz as Emma Wolf.  We filmed this scene at the same high school that was used for Mean Girls, just to say that we did. It probably won't make the final cut.

Emma and Tim (Tyler Streb) kick old ladies' butts at bingo.

Bluddha, the current mascot of the Church of Blue (it WAS Emma's car, but you just can't have a deity that stalls out on you every day).

Emma and Tim complete their Holy Quest Goal of finding someone with the same name as a US president by meeting Andrew Johnson, who is just THRILLED.

Keeping an eye on Adam today - he's reading up on mummy "unwrapping parties" that were popular in the Victorian era, and something tells me he's going to want to try it out....but we drill for this sort of thing around here.

The Ragged Glory: Debbie Does Detention playlist

From the feverish days of trying to write the first draft in two weeks back in 2007 through two weeks ago, when the last of the edits were finalized, the RAGGED GLORY playlist has been the heart and soul of SPARKS. I took the term from Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, who said they wanted their TV show, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, to have a sense of ragged glory in their DVD commentary. I want all of my stuff to have that, too. They borrowed the term from a Neil Young record.

Over time I've added a bit to the list, so some things are from post-2007. But now you can listen to most of it yourself on spotify!

Click to open spottily behold the ragged glory!

Three months out...

Just a few months until SPARKS is unleashed upon the world. I turned in all of the last round of changes and fixes on Monday morning, wrapping up four years of work on this project. The last song to be added to the "Ragged Glory" playlist was "Chesire Kitten" by SJ Tucker (she pronounced SJ as "Sooj." I go by "Sij.")

We're knee-deep in work for the video trailer(s) now. I wonder if Flux would mind if we ended by saying "Flux Books. YA Lit with 50% fewer dumbasses than the next leading brand..."

Now that the main body of work on SPARKS is done, I'm going full time on the new launch of the Smart Aleck's Guide series. You can help us get launched at kickstarter.com!

Theme from Sparks

A new band called The Holy Quests came by Smart Aleck Staff HQ to record some incidental music for the book trailer we're putting together for Sparks (using one of Adam's old songs). The trailer is going to be GREAT! We've got a really cool cast lined up. Here's a free mp3 of the "theme song."

New York Rain (Theme from Sparks) by scapegoat95

Excerpt from SPARKS

Emma backed out of the garage, pulled onto the street, and stepped on the gas, saying “praise be to Blue, and hallelujah!”

Tim looked out the window as we started down the street. "I'll bet no one in heaven still says 'hallelujah,'" he said. "It's probably like saying 'gee golly' on Earth."

I chuckled for the first time in hours.

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked.

 Emma slammed on the brakes and pulled over onto the side of the street, in front of a yellow house where a bunch of little kids were playing out front. The kids stopped and took a step backwards when Emma stopped the car, like they thought she was a stranger who was going to offer them candy.

“Shit,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that. I was just veering in the general direction of George the Chili King.”

“We should at least get the checklist out,” said Tim.

He opened the glove compartment and started digging around. “We have a checklist of things to do, see, or find on Holy Quests,” he said. “Some of them are quests in and of themselves, some are just things to do along the way.”

“It’s like playing Auto Bingo,” said Emma. 

Tim handed me back a sheet of paper. I looked out the window to see the kids decide Emma wasn't a threat and go back to playing, then read it.

HOLY QUEST GOAL CHECKLIST

1. Find and play a “Love Tester” machine.

2. Locate a guy with the same name as a U.S. president and get his autograph.

3. Talk our way into getting to the top floor of the Principle Building (801 Grand).

4. Plant a Pressed Ham at a place patronized by old ladies (or at the Governor’s Mansion).

I looked up from the list. 

“What’s a pressed ham?” I asked.

“It’s where you press your butt cheeks up against a window 

when someone’s sitting on the other side,” said Emma. “We did it at an old lady place, but we should really hit the governor’s mansion, too. Branstad deserves it.”

       “No objections from me,” I said.

I looked back down at the list. 

5. Drink six shots of straight espresso each.

6. Find a waitress named Irene, Wanda or Rhonda.

7. Go inside a teacher’s house.

8. Acquire a statue of a monkey.

9. Find the grave of Tim’s great great great grandpa Harry.

10. Convince a guy with a bad comb-over to shave his head.

11.  Find someone who has a Scottish accent.

12. Touch something from ancient Rome.

13. Pee in the 18^th hole of the Waveland Golf Course.

14. Find a guy in a suit and tie at George the Chili King.

15. Shake hands with a bowler who has bowled a perfect 300.

16. Win a game of Bingo (and act all arrogant about it, like Bingo hustlers, yo).

17. Fill Heather Quinn’s shoes with whipped, sour or shaving cream.

18. See a naked person of each gender (live and in person) in the same place at the same time (hands off, Emma!).

19. Break something expensive.

20. Witness a girl-on-girl kiss in which at least one participant has never kissed a girl before (boy-on-boy also acceptable).

All but the last three on the list had check marks next to them. 

       “So you guys did all these things?” I asked.

      “Yeah,” said Emma. “That’s actually our fourth list, too. Some of them take a while, but we meet interesting people, find interesting places, and do amazing things along the way.”

      “Some of these kind of seem like they’re breaking the ‘don’t be an a-hole’ rule,” I said.

      “Maybe a little,” said Emma. “But mostly it’s being a jackass, not an asshole. There’s a difference.”

      “Like when we stole all those Neighborhood Watch Signs,” said Tim. “That sort of toes the line, but proving they didn’t really mean anything seemed like a good idea at the time.”

      “And we’re giving them back,” said Emma. “Our holy quest for spring break is to find really cool places to put them up.”

      “What did you touch from ancient Rome?”

       “They had some old Roman coins at the coin shop on Fleur Drive,” said Tim. “That one was easy. The hardest one on that list was actually finding someone with a Scottish accent in Des Moines.”

“I’ll bet,” I said. “No one emigrates to Iowa.”

”That last one works out perfectly,” said Tim, as he took the list back. “Debbie can kiss Lisa at the end of the night. Who's the patron saint of goal setting?"

"Christ, I don't know!" said Emma. "But blessed be the name of whoever the hell it is, huh? I’ll bet we can do all of those last three things tonight.”

“Anything can happen on a night when you finish off a holy quest checklist,” said Tim. “Especially if you knock three of them off to get there.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “To be totally honest, I think the odds that she’ll end up kissing me tonight are about a million to one.”

“Gotta have faith,” said Tim. “Blue will provide.”

“Still,” I said. “Naked people? Where would you find those?”

“That’s no problem,” said Emma. “I mean, if the night is winding up and we haven’t done either of them we’ll find something to break, and Tim and I’ll get naked behind a bush or something before you talk to Lisa and kiss her. I’d hate for either of you to have to see my fat ass, but we’ll do what we have to.”

“I’ll survive,” said Tim. “I saw already saw it when you planted the pressed ham at the coffee shop. I didn’t die.”

Emma laughed. “I think the old lady who was sitting at the window almost did. She sure screamed loud enough.”

“I’m putting that goal on the next list, too,” said Tim, “but this time the governor’s mansion is a requirement, not an option.”

“Look out, Governor Branstad!” said Emma.

“I still don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never even seen a naked guy before.”

“Well, all the more reason, then,” said Emma. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Trying new things?”

“We’re not saying it would straighten you out to see someone’s shlong or anything,” said Tim. “But seeing people naked is like, a life experience thing that everyone ought to do.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Does it even count if I’m the one who sees the people? I’m not Bluish.”

“Anyone coming along on the quest is qualified,” said Emma.

I nodded. “As long as I can keep my clothes on.”

“Oh, you totally can,” Emma said. “We wouldn’t make you do anything you weren’t comfortable with. But if we cross off all three of these tonight, anything can happen. I’m willing to get naked to get us to that point.”

"So, how much time do we have?" asked Tim. “You know when movie they were gonna see starts?”

"Not off the top of my head,” I said. “They had other stuff in the afternoon, but they were going to two of them, so they’re probably at, like, 7 and 9. Angela might know for sure. Let me call her.” 

I reached around behind me for my backpack -- and felt nothing.

Oh, God.

I thought back, and realized I hadn't had it in detention, either. Or in the class before. Or in the bathroom. I’d been in such a haze, and everyone else had been so much into spring break mode, that I hadn’t even thought to pull out a text book. I must have left it at the lunch table when I ran out in a hurry.  

I always do things that. Lisa used to joke that I’d lose my butt if it wasn’t attached.

My chest started to tighten. My guts felt like they were going to come climbing out of my throat. My breathing got really short. My backpack had the list of reasons I was not just a wacky sidekick in it. Including the Big One. Which I had stupidly not written in code or something. 

And now someone else had it.

“Oh, crud,“ I said, starting to shiver. “Oh, crud, crud, crud.”

"What?" asked Tim.

"My backpack... I think I left my backpack at the lunch table! It had my phone... and a list of reasons that I’m not just like Kimmy Gibbler from Full House...”

"So, if whoever has the bag opens it, you're outed?" asked Tim.

I nodded. “If Norman reads it, he’ll tell Lisa and everyone else in the world. And she might feel like she has to prove to him that she’s not gay, too…”

If Lisa found out that I liked girls from me, she’d probably be okay with it, at least. I mean, I didn’t think it was really likely that she’d turn out to be in love with me, too, but she wouldn’t throw a Bible at me or anything. A couple of the ACTs sponsors thought that having gay marriage be legal in Iowa would the end of the world, but Lisa said she didn’t really have a problem with it. I don’t think much of any of the kids in ACTs did.

However, if Norman had my bag, and he found out and told her before I could, he’d probably tell her not to hang out with me anymore. I hoped she’d have the sense to tell him to go to Hell, but she was stuck so far up his butt she could barely see out.

Emma turned back to me and put a hand on each of my cheeks.

“Breathe.” she said. “Just breathe a second. We have this under control.”

I tried to breathe. It helped a bit. Hearing her speak so confidently didn’t exactly reassure me, but it kept me from going into total panic mode.

 “Who do you think might have it?” asked Tim.

”Lisa probably picked it up after lunch,” I said. “Do you have a phone I can use?”

Emma passed me back a phone and I dialed Lisa’s number, but there was no answer. Just her voicemail:

“Hi, this is Lisa. If you’re being chased by a bear, hit the pound sign, then hang up and run in a a zig zag pattern. Otherwise, leave a message.”

The phone beeped, and I said “Hi, Lisa, it’s me, Debbie. I’m on a friend’s phone. Do you have my backpack? Call me at this number, okay? I really need it back.”

 I thought maybe I could call Angela or something, since I needed to know if she knew what movies Lisa and Norman were seeing anyway, but I didn’t know her number. Lisa’s was the only one I really knew offhand. I mean, I never actually dial people’s whole numbers. They’re all saved in my phone. 

I called my own phone, hoping that whoever had it would answer, but it went to voicemail, too.

"Can we just go to Oak Meadow Mills, where Lisa lives?" I asked, handing Emma her phone back. “Her mom might know where she is. And she might have dropped my bag off at her house.”

"Perfect," said Emma. "And Quinn probably won't be heading that way, so it's extra perfect."

“Sounds like a quest has fallen right into our laps,” said TIm. “The Quest for Debbie’s Backpack.”

“If Blue or whoever it is hid my backpack just so we could have a quest, I’m moving to Minnesota and starting my own damn religion,” I said. “One whose whole purpose is to wage war on Bluists.”

"We could use one of those,” said Tim. "It'd be great if we could be oppressed a bit. It'd really bring Bluists together."

"All two of us, yeah," said Emma. “Don’t worry, Deb. Blue wouldn’t pull that kind of crap on you.”

“Can we just go?” I asked.

“Of course.”

And she took off through the streets of Cornersville Trace. We pulled away from the school, past De Gama Park and through the "historic" part of town near the mall and my house. 

Buzz Cuts: An Essay for Pride Week

(originally posted at The Hate-Mongering Tart)

As a student at South Gwinnett High School in Snellville, Georgia. I was not exactly bursting with school spirit. In fact, I spent a lot of time imaging that I had a "doomsday button" on the corner of my desk. But I certainly hated Brookwood, our rival school. It was a more affluent school, with (I swear) chandeliers in the cafeteria and a nearly undefeated football record. I competed against a lot of snobs from Brookwood in debate tournaments. I remember one girl lamenting "we didn't win a single trophy last time... you don't understand. We're BROOKWOOD. That does NOT happen." Even now this sort of makes me want to hit myself (or her) in the head with a text book.

I was the only person at South who worked at the Fuddruckers on Scenic Highway in the spring of 1997. Everyone else who worked there went to Brookwood. They were not keen on having to work with someone from South - especially one who was rumored to be gay.

My job at Fuddrucker's was "Guest Service Relations," a position so useless it no longer exists. Most of my job was refilling salt shakers and giving customers someone to complain to - and they had plenty to complain about. It was not a well-run place. It did a lot to spark my life-long prejudice against managers.

 

I was only an employee there for a couple of months, but looking back it seems like I was there ages. Of the other employees, the one I liked best was a long-haired, no-good kid who said that his parents were kicking him out the day they turned 18 so they could start recovering. Most of the other employees thought he was a heavy metal-loving Satanist. In reality, he was a classic rock guy; he and I spent a lot of time quoting "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel and getting on the intercom after hours and pretending to be God ("Attention Fuddruckers...this is God...I urge you all to take up Buddhism....")

I was also said to be a devil worshipper, and had the added fun one of being three people there was who was widely rumored to be gay. All three of us had a hard time with it, but we didn't band together in a show of solidarity or anything. In fact, the three of us genuinely hated each other.

The first guy was one of my fellow Guest Service Relations workers. He spoke in somewhat of an effeminite voice, so much so that I was pretty sure he was gay myself. I remember that he called napkins "napoupons," for some reason. He had an interesting trick for dealing with accusations of being gay: when accused, he would offer to kiss any girl who happened to be present. For some reason, this deflected all doubters. "I thought he was gay," one girl said, "but he'll kiss any girl any time."  Apparently, this girl was operating under the impression that gay men will shrivel up and die if their lips touch those of a girl.

Guy #2, a cook (I think) exhibited similar stereotypically "gay" mannerisms, but deflected the rumors by being the most homophobic sumbitch alive. This two month period when I worked with him happened to be the period when Ellen Degenerous came out of the closet, so the subject of whether all gay people were going to hell came up a lot. He was quite insistent that they were.

I remember one girl trying to defend homosexuality to guy #2. I jumped into the conversation right around the time he said "There's no such thing as gay love. It's not love, it's perversion!"

"No," she said, "sometimes..."

"You're not supposed to stick things in that hole," he said. "It's wrong. It's why being gay is a sin. It's disgusting and perverted."

"Well, guys and girls do the same thing," said the girl. "Is being straight a sin?"

He continued to act disgusted.

I don't remember anyone's names from that place (just the faces and occasionally a first name), so I can't look any of them up. However, I would not be at all surprised to find that both of those guys were happily out of the closet now.

Personally, their reasons for thinking I was gay revolved around two things (besides the fact that I didn't go to Brookwood): 1. I didn't think all gays were going to hell and didn't join in on the "it's disgusting" chats, and 2: I had curly hair.

"It's natural," I said. "It's not like I put it in curlers or anything."

"Mine is, too," said another guy. "But I do the right thing and cut it off!"

I noticed that a lot of the guys there - really, almost everyone but the long-haired guy - had a buzz cut. Anything but the GI Joe look was un-American. I can only guess what these guys would have said about the Beatles' haircuts a few decades before.

It got a bit uglier than just being picked on - one guy even took to chasing me around with, knives following me out to my car, and generally stalking me. Most of the staff (including the girl who'd defended homosexuality to guy #2 and had seemed friendly enough) helped him out. The manager wouldn't fire him, even after he did things that resulted in me getting hurt and threatened to do worse. 

Once when he threatened to kill me, I alluded to the fact that if I made one phone call, he could end up in jail "and find out what a real gay guy looks like."

I'm not really proud of that one, looking back, but it shut him up for a minute.

Meanwhile, he had his gangster-wannabe friends (one of whom went by the name of Boat Show) come in as customers to give me a hard time, and told me that I should refer to all other employees as "sir" or "ma'am." I never once did. These people were not knights of realm.

Eventually I told the manager to fire the guy right that second or I'd quit. He wouldn't, so I gave him my notice and found another job (this was the Clinton era - EVERY restaurant was hiring). I didn't really expect that the staff at my job at Po' Folks, which catered to hicks specifically, would be any more progressive, but the job at Fuddruckers sucked, the manager (who horrified me by saying "i see a lot of myself in you, SJ") was kind of an idiot, and it's just not pleasant to work in a place where people think it's funny when a guy chases your around with butcher's knives and expects you to call him "sir." 

On my last day, when I left the place for the last time, a handful of the employees gathered at the front door to shout "get out of here, you queer!" in unison as I walked to my car.

I sometimes wish I'd said something profound or something that made them feel a bit guilty, but my actual response ("fuck me running, you chickenshit bastards") was all I could think up at the time. 

I never saw any of those people again.  

Nor have I heard hide nor hair from the group in my algebra class who one day came to class in homemade "stay straight" t-shirts covered in slogans such as "we hate fags" and made plans to sing "Dixie" outside of the trailer that served as a classroom for a teacher widely rumored to be gay. They spent the whole class thinking up other hateful things to write on each other's shirts. Just to see how they'd react and register my disapproval, I suggested they add a swastika. 

They were baffled by this. Though these guys made no secret of being racist, anti-semitic, and anti-everything else, it had genuinely never occurred to them that being anti-gay was a form of prejudice, too. After all, the general consensus among people at that school was all that gay men were child molesters, or, at the very least, rapists who lurked in the shadows to prey on any man fool enough to go into a big city alone after dark.

In the middle of all this I did know one person who claimed to be bisexual - a young man who rode my same bus. He was also an outspoken neo nazi (though he thought the phrase was "hail Hitler," not "heil."), had purple hair and was operating under the odd misconception that he wouldn't have been forced onto the first train out of Berlin.

I was actually sort of friendly with another guy who claimed to be a Nazi, too. When you actually talked to him, you found that he didn't really follow the idealogy - he was just rebelling and looking for a way to fit in, really, and some local racist punks gave him a place. I thought it was important that people besides the other local Nazis be friendly to him. We liked some of the same music and I was able to point out the giant holes in his logic without seeming like I was threatening him. I wish I'd done more.

When I look back now at the people I sat with in other classes (who never missed a chance to rail against "fags") (sometimes using that exact word to quote their minister), I'm surprised at how many of the people I argued with seemed, in retrospect, like they were probably not being honest with themselves (indeed, I later heard that one or two had come out). I feel terrible for them. They were gay in a town where ministers apparently had no qualms about using the word "fag," and where people thought that gay bashing was no more "hateful" than Brookwood-bashing. Where local groups sent out mailers accusing the mayor of being a "sodomite." Of COURSE they tried their hardest to be dishonest with themselves - I can only imagine the stress they were under. Most people weren't getting online yet; finding friends among whom they could be honest with themselves was not an option, and must have seemed totally impossible. 

I ended up leaving the school after junior year and going to the local "alternative" school where the pregnant girls and burnouts went. I loved it there. It was a whole school full of freaks. Some kids there were openly gay. Others were openly pagan. There were rednecks there, too, but they weren't running the place like they seemed to at South in those days. There were no sports, no proms, no clubs, no social curriculum of any kind. It was like escaping to Wonderland to me. The school treated us like adults and expected us to act like it. We did.

Not every student has the option of going to such a place, but at least the internet gives us all a place to go. Everyone can find like-minded people going through the same things online, and watch TV shows where gay teenagers deal with the same things they're going through. At the very least, gay teenagers are being told that "it gets better" and there a million ways for them to find that they're not alone. 

We have a long way to go, but so many things happening today would have been unthinkable when I was in high school. Bills are failing to pass by one vote instead of thirty. There's a reason the anti-gay lobby is scrambling to get their laws and restrictions on the books now. They know that in another 10 years, they won't have a chance. The anti-gay brigade needs to decide what side of history they want to be on.   

As for those guys in high school, I can't find most of them online, but I know that at least a few are out of the closet now. The bisexual neo nazi from the bus is probably married with kids and working at the bank, and I hope the one from my chemistry class got it out of his system, too. "Boat Show" might still be a douche bag, but I'll bet he feels like an idiot whenever anyone reminds him that he used to think he was a real gangster.  I can't say for sure, because I honestly don't remember most of their names. And they probably don't remember mine, or the fact that I was a complete dork who only occasionally had the balls to stand up for myself or others. When high school ends, it ENDS. Thank god.

Sparks Arcs (boy, is that fun to say out loud!)

I'm weird about ARCs. They're fun to get, but they're also UNCORRECTED. I feel like people are seeing me in my underwear when they read them. Copyediting is scheduled to start late this week, then the final, fully clothed version will hit the printers in September. Sometimes I just fix typos in copyediting, and sometimes the process gets more involved than that. I know Adam Selzer fixed a LOT in the last, post-arc stages of EXTRAORDINARY, the book out the same day as SPARKS.

Anyway, you can see that I've been productive lately. But Adam? Well, that's another story. He's been wasting his time with music. He has a gig at a sci fi convention next weekend, and he just recorded a new album with his 8th grade band, SCAPEGOAT.

They were not the first band to be called that. Nor would they be the last. Scapegoat was just two guys - Adam and a friend of his. In their songs, they claim to be nogoodniks who beat up little kids, drink a LOT of slushees, and terrorize their algebra class (note: algebra class was a LONG time ago, guys!) 

They have never, ever released an unexpurgated version of any of their songs - most of them are really inappropriate (or, at the very least, unlistenably bad). You know Goofus and Gallant? Well, Scapegoat is Goofus and Goofus.  

However, while they were in the same town, they played a three song set at a local venue, marking their first live appearance on Earth since 1995. One uncut recording from it, a new song called "Something Scapegoat This Way Comes," is up on their new facebook page. It's about them beating up little kids (yeah, half their songs are about themselves) (and, yeah, there are few little kids in the world they could actually take on).

More will come soon. Part of our job on-staff is to find and catalog Scapegoat's entire output and figure out what to do with it. Most of the time, the answer to THAT one is easy (burn it before anyone else hears it, for Gd's sake), but some of it IS getting worked into new dance mixes and stuff. Lord help us.  See their page.

So that's what ADAM has been wasting his time on. While I flip through my awesome new arc and work on casting the trailer.