... 8-bit, side-scrolling, simple to understand, and incredibly difficult. It's a wonderful throwback to the days before fancy 3D graphics, long and ponderous cinematics, pretentious overblown storytelling, and the hard-to-play-but-easy-to-beat philosophy of game design had taken over the industry. We need more games like it - who doesn't want to see another truly 2D Mario game on a home console? And how about a new Sonic - you know, one that's actually fun to play? Hopefully this little project will inspire game companies to engage in little nostalgia trips of their own.

Thank you, Capcom, for teaching us how to fall in love all over again.

Don't panic, it's nothing major. The original script to the Mr|Tots production of Death Ray X! is now up in the portfolio section. Enjoy!

There may be no band working today that is as fundamentally unique as Marillion. Every lyric is poetry, every song is wonderful, every album is a masterpiece. And what they do for each album is so stunningly different than any other band that I've ever heard that I can't bring myself to classify it. They're one of those precious few acts that completely defy genre, not because they're trying to, but because what they're doing is so characteristically them that to lump it into a category like prog-rock would completely neglect the intricacies of their music.

I just finished the band's latest album, Happiness is the Road, and while I'll need a couple more listens before I really figure out how I feel about it, right now I think it's one of their strongest efforts. It's a brilliant piece of work, and felt to me like sort of a bizarre fusion between two previous efforts, Marbles and Brave. I'm just blown away and can't wait to listen to it again.

With one exception, every member of the band is talented but not mind-blowingly good at what he does. Steve Rothery is a wonderful guitarist, Pete Trewavis is a wonderful bassist. Ian Mosley is a fine drummer and Mark Kelly is a great keyboardist. But what makes them special is the way that they fill each others gaps. No one is trying to show off, but everyone is doing exactly what he needs to do in order to create a listening experience that leaves the listener stunned.

The exception, of course, is Steve Hogarth, who is perhaps the most wonderful vocalist working today. His voice isn't the best I've ever heard, but I can't think of anyone who sings each line with as much raw passion as Hogarth. I'm generally pretty dismissive of band members who just sing, but Hogarth gets everything out of his voice that he possibly can. He's an absolutely incredible vocalist, and his voice acts as a fifth instrument. It never overpowers the music, but often gives it that little boost that it really needs to become more than just run-of-the-mill awesome.

What I think puts the band over the top for me is its power to elicit an emotional response from each listening - the sort of response that the vast majority of artists hope to get just once in their career. Remember how you felt the first time you heard Pet Sounds? How it grabbed you by the heart and soul and left you with a different appreciation of music? Remember the first time you heard Abbey Road or Remain in Light or Animals? How each of those albums wrenched this raw emotion from you? Well, Marillion does that with every album on every listen, or at least it does with me. They make the music I want to listen to when I'm happy and that I need to listen to when I'm down. I can't explain why or how they do it, but somehow, someway, they have tapped into the very definition of what music should be and I can't stop listening to them.

If you're searching for new music, I can't give any band a stronger recommendation.

It's difficult to find the time to write when working full-time, but having gotten some rest, I'm finally managing to get the creative juices flowing again. I was up until 3 AM last night getting some work done, and I'm feeling pretty good about where I'm at creatively. I'm still feeling my way around the project I want to devote this space to, but I should make a decision soon.

So I've been thinking about what I could put here for my new content, and I think I've got it narrowed down to two: a four-part noir mystery or a three-part science fiction story. I'm outlining both, and will have the first part up within the month.

Fiction pieces to be posted some time next month.

Late last spring I was having a conversation with a couple of friends shortly after the death of Charlton Heston. The topic eventually turned to music, and we began to discuss the inevitable wave of death that would soon sweep over the music world. Since so many of the great musicians burst onto the scene in the 1960s, it only wagers that most of them will die within the same five-to-ten year period at some point down the road. It's horrifying to think that we'll be deprived of so many talented individuals in such a short time frame. However, it's not something that I have trouble accepting.

What I have trouble accepting is that David Bowie will die.

I don't know what it is that makes it impossible to comprehend Bowie dying, but my friends agreed that of all the great music icons, he is the one that it's impossible to imagine not having anymore. Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters, and the rest are all going to go at some point, and their musical contributions to the world will long be appreciated. But Bowie is something else, something entirely different. Consequently, it's tough to imagine a world without Bowie.

I think one obvious key to Bowie's appeal is that he's remained a consistently brilliant musician over a forty-year period, without the extended slumps that most musicians go through. I've listened to the man's entire catalog, and while there are certainly periods I prefer to others, there is nothing in it that I'd call anything less than enjoyable. Contrast that with McCartney, who went through his "ebony and ivory" phase and still hasn't produced much memorable in the last twenty years, or with Page, who hasn't come close to achieving the sort of brilliance since the fall of Zeppelin that he did when they were together, or with Waters, who followed "The Wall" with the painful and depressing "The Final Cut" and has wallowed in mediocrity ever since. But Bowie continues to produce excellent music in nearly every genre, as he has for forty years.

That may be another reason why it's so hard to imagine losing Bowie. I was thinking about genre the other day, specifically how Bowie and Zappa approached it so differently. To Zappa, genre was a restraint, to be mocked and broken. His music defied genres. Like a mad scientist, he would grab fragments of each and stitch them together before blasting them with a surge of musical genius. But to Bowie, genre represented an opportunity. It was a chance to redefine what he did and step into a new musical space where old rules didn't apply. Whereas Zappa's philosophy was to work outside of genres, Bowie embraced them. He then made quite simply the best music of that type available. Neither philosophy is necessarily better than the other, but it's interesting to examine the differences between the ways two musical geniuses approach(ed) what most people can't see beyond when creating their art.

And when Zappa died, a lot of that anti-genre point of view died with him. It continues through his son Dweezil; through Mike Keneally and Joe Travers; through Umphrey's McGee; and through other artists who heard him in their younger days and were inspired. But it's becoming rarer and rarer to see someone breaking free of genre-imposed restraint. And in a world without Bowie, we may see it become rarer for artists to dance between genre's the way he does. We will certainly see it become rarer for artists to succeed in various genres the way he does. Is a world without Bowie a world where the walls that separate musical styles become impenetrable? It's possible.

The third and maybe most important reason why it's so tough to imagine a world without Bowie is, I think, his image. Now you might be thinking, "What image?" And you have a point. Bowie is nothing if not a chameleon, and his image today as the skinny guy in the nice suit is a far cry from the coke-fueled Thin White Duke, or the pop icon of the 1980s, or the unforgettable Ziggy Stardust. But it's the essence behind those various identities that makes Bowie what he is. Bowie has cheated musical death countless times, leaping from one phase to the next with no hesitation. He is in a constant state of reinvention. David Bowie doesn't die - he changes.

Which is why it's so hard to believe that one day we will indeed live in a world without Bowie. Bowie isn't supposed to die. He's supposed to reinvent himself and come back and continue to rock. And God willing, he'll keep doing that for years to come and let us keep pretending that David Bowie will never die.