Tales from Exile

Were I Invited to the UN...

2011-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, folks. I know it's been a while since last I posted, but after Google decided to not monetize my blog, I was a little disheartened. Even so, I can't stay away from my techno-journal forever, and I have something bouncing around in my head.

Namely, the Palestinian bid for statehood is commanding a lot of my attention. Blame Time and NPR. For those not in the know, Palestine's president, Abbas, is going to the UN to ask for recognition for the occupied nation, giving it observer status (like the Vatican).

Over the past few years, my feelings on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict have changed dramatically. I used to be, if this isn't too dramatic, a Zionist. I had little sympathy for people I viewed as terrorists, launching rockets into Israelites' homes and businesses, which is obviously despicable.

Tell 'em, Daffy.

Reaching college, as it has a tendency to do, opened my eyes to a more nuanced view of the situation. Certainly, there are terrorist elements in the Palestinian nation, people who will not rest until Israel is wiped off the face of the earth. On the other hand, Israel has perpetrated its share of violence against civilians, but that's not "terrorism" because a for real government said it was ok.

People tend to be radicalized by those sorts of crimes, leading to escalation and deep anger. So while the Palestinians are desperate enough, after years of failed negotiations, to go to the UN, Israel is not going to let what it views as a dog off its leash. To Israel, going to the UN represents a disavowal of the negotiations. For Palestine, years of negotiating without progress is just placating talk.

The motivator for both parties, the germ inside that desperation, is fear of losing identity, presence, justice. Yet haven't both sides seen been victimized by oppressors long enough to be able to decide to act with justice and mercy?

A few weeks back, my church discussed the Exodus story, and how whoever is listening at the time puts themselves in the Hebrew's shoes. We then asked ourselves whether that was the case, if we are not, at least occasionally, the Egyptians.

The reason the Egyptians strangled the Hebrew nation was out of fear the Jews would rise up and destroy them. No such thing, of course, happened. Instead, the continuing enslavement of the people caused death and pestilence to descend on the Egyptians.

That, and messing with this guy('s G-d).

I'm forced to wonder is Israel, with America's help, hasn't emulated this despotism. All sorts of economic sanctions are being threatened against Palestine for making this bid, and the first to suffer from those are always the people. It's the sort of punitive "justice" that will only intensify the dichotomy of who appears to be in the right, and who is wrong.

I'm not saying Israel doesn't have valid concerns in Palestine's becoming a nation, but if it does and attacks Israel (which it's doing anyway), Israel must have the rest of the UN on its side when it cracks down. Seems to me, the band-aid strategy of forcing a change in the status quo is the only way to move forward, for Israel to become a country not only democratic within, but without.

Foreign Policy

Batgirl v. Wal-Mart

2011-06-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Women in bat costumes have come to my aid before in making sense of the American political landscape, so I can't say I was very surprised to come across this crusade against the evil of one of my oldest foes: Wal-Mart.

Always staring

Six women who work for Wal-Mart filed a class action lawsuit against the Wal-Mart, the convex of the 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith, a tower of commerce plunging humankind into devolution by offering crap we don't want at slightly-less-than-average prices. The suit was over sex discrimination.

While the lower courts held that this could be a class action lawsuit, the Supreme Court, unsurprisingly, did not. It is exactly what is to be expected from a judicial system which can tell unions in Wisconsin they haven't a leg on which they can stand. The system, despite ample evidence of Wal-Mart's shortcomings, has decided to cut the retail giant another break.

When that system fails people over and over again, someone has to step out and make a statement for the rights of these women, and that person is Batgirl.

Female empowerment itself

The above link will take you to a PSA in which Batgirl demands equal pay for the equal work performed by Robin. To be fair, she gets to wear pants, but she's right to put forth the stipulation.

Batgirl has the right idea: if she won't be taken seriously (and Batman won't do so, even when about to explode), then she'll stop working. I would love to see what would happen if the Women of Wal-Mart took the Dominoed Daredoll's (I guess. I looked it up.) tactic for their own. I want to see the Women of Wal-Mart strike and empower themselves.

Not female empowerment

I wonder if the President would have to step in, or if another Ludlow Massacre might happen. Either way, the people who work for Wal-Mart here have a chance to stand up to the largest retail chain in the world, and they have the best reason to do so: they're right.

Me, I try to avoid Wal-Mart whenever I can, and I think it's a good idea for the rest of us to do so, too. Batgirl agrees.

Not that Batgirl

Making Stuff Up

2011-06-16T08:48:00.001-07:00

It has long been my understanding that middle-class people work for their money, while the wealthy make their money work for them. The former is the belief that if you work hard enough, long enough you will be successful. The latter means you're going to yoga at ten in the morning, going home and taking a nap.

My recent graduation from Columbia Chicago has me thinking about the school's philosophy and how it intersects with conventional wisdom, because education should never dare to challenge social norms. The pervading thought at Columbia is that you need to find something you can do to make money, and that might mean doing a set job you hate.

I understand this thought process, really I do. I even appreciate it, to a point. Everyone needs to eat, and Lord knows this culture is not going to tolerate the feeding of those who work to stimulate the imaginations of the populace. Next thing you know, we'd be paying teachers a living wage.

The common opinion making this all a necessity is the ubiquitous, "it's hard to make a living being an artist," which is pretty much the same as saying, "it's hard to make money off creativity."

This is rather true, but largely because art is undervalued. My wife has tried on several occasions to illustrate children's books, only to find the author was willing to pay her for the whole project what she should be getting for one two-page spread.

People have a tendency (and you'll find this everywhere) to suggest you should consider taking a pay cut for this sort of thing (or any sort of thing). The grocery store isn't cutting its prices, and neither should we.

Yes, "we." This is about all of us: artists, wait staff, crossing guards, electrical engineers. We should be doing what we are because we have to, either in the sense of "I can't stand the idea of not filmmaking," (in which case it's hard to survive as a non-artist) or "gotta eat."

Either way, creativity is what our jobs need. All of them. For instance, take electrical engineer. You can go to work day in, day out and not put your personal stamp on anything, or you can use your creativity (and yes, science requires creativity) to rework a system and make it more efficient. Too often does shoddy work smack of someone's hand, so rarely is a good idea a personal one.

The reason's simple: you won't be rewarded. The way to fix this is to create a need for our idea. People want movies, but if I can pitch the idea of a Civil War veteran traveling to England to reconnect with his long-lost daughter and trying to stop a plot to seize the country with an army of steam-powered robots, then people want that movie. If you can figure out a different way to bus tables, then that's what you should do.

It amounts to us forcing people to pay for what we give them. This culture needs to value ideas more than stocks, concepts more than bonds and real, life-changing epiphanies over projected profit.

Or we could just pay basketball stars more.

These People are Terrible and it Makes Me Wonder Why

2011-06-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

This is the sort of thing people pay spin doctors to cover up, lest they be revealed as the monsters they are. If you don't feel like leaving the warmth of my page, the context is this: a democrat was recruiting gang members in jail to convince current gang members to knock of the shenanigans. While this has been shown to work before, the conservative politicians mixed up in the debacle have distanced themselves from it.

What I can't understand is why this got made: it's just the most offensive thing you can imagine toward women, black people and poor people. Someone had to write this down, someone had to write down that two black guys have to wave around AK-47s while a woman(?) shakes her booty. A vignette of Janice Hahn--the aforementioned democrat who is "bad for America"--floats in the foreground.

Moreover, someone had to put out a casting call for two (I assume) "thuggish-looking black men." And they got two people willing to do it!

But plenty of people do things with no sensibility, like the GOP in NC (am I hip now?) killing Planned Parenthood through budget cuts. Wherever you stand on the abortion issue, this doesn't really make a lot of sense. According to the HuffPost article, "Planned Parenthood says it will now have to axe its teen pregnancy prevention and adolescent parenting programs and force its low-income patients to pay out of pocket."

The people who will be hurt most by the legislation aren't dumb kids who got knocked up and want a quick fix, but rather poor people in a bad situation who want to improve their lives, which might nix the status quo and we just can't have that.

Someone had to sit down--knowing that most of the criticisms about Planned Parenthood are of dubious veracity, that low-income people will be hardest hit and we can afford to give adolescents parenting classes--and make sure the number of people whom Planned Parenthood could help will be drastically cut.

The thing is, it's just that video as legislation: it's not about morals or, really, politics. It's about people in power taking enfranchisement away from people who would otherwise improve their situations. It's racism, misogyny and selfishness.

It's making sure a bitch who don't have much money don't get to keep it, and that's just bad for America.

And Wouldn't that be a Shame

2011-06-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

I try to shy away from chains, and it's really changed the way I look at a place like Target, which I used to think of as a "Wal-Mart for picky people." My last visit to the bulls-eye boutique left me feeling irritated with humanity after watching miserable people waddle around ignoring everyone around them and what kind of world do we live in where all these middle-aged people are working at Target?

At least they're neutral on gay marriage now.

There is one chain I do embrace, and that's Caribou Coffee. I can't help but love that homey atmosphere, and if you're thinking what a sell-out I am, hey, if Howard Zinn can love Dunkin' Donuts coffee, I can have this.

Anyway, one of the reasons I'm tight with the 'Bou is they do, sort of, have a political slant: a major shareholder in the company is a pro-Palestine bank.

I'm not anti-Israel, but I am anti-a lot of the things they do in the name of security and "freedom," which is pretty similar to many of my opinions on America. I like the idea of getting a good cup o' joe and supporting people who want their own country back after it was sliced in two by England.

Pictured above: foreign policy

I understand that Palestine didn't, strictly speaking, have to launch a war against Israel to try to get their land back, and that terrorist actions aren't cricket, but I think America should have a little sympathy for people who decide to fight back against those who don't allow them representation in their government. *Insert belabored comparison to American Revolution here.*

I like to think that when I go to Caribou, I'm helping out my Palestinian friends (yes, I do have Palestinian friends). It's an easy way within the system to maybe convince myself I'm affecting a little change.

Sometimes that change needs to be a little more radical. If you recall my recent article on Americans being all for Egyptians taking control of their government, you'll see people are ready for the idea of bucking the system to get democracy.

Not so surprisingly, the EU doesn't feel this way about Palestine unilaterally declaring themselves a state. They're worried it will "cause disturbances of the kind we've seen in neighboring Arab countries." Riddle me this: what kind of world do we live in where we deny people self-governance because it might inconvenience us, even when the means of reaching that governance is peaceful?

Libya is pretty much the only country in which the fight has come to blows, and the EU has no right to complain about that, so I suppose the only response is, it's ok to get democracy as long as it doesn't inconvenience the West.

Sorry for answering my own question, but the kind of world where this makes sense is the kind of world where people who should be able to save for retirement are wearing red polo shirts and stocking shelves. Maybe they have more in common with the Palestinians than they think.

Coasters and Patriotism

2011-06-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

A while back my parents visited my brother out East, stopping in Chicago both ways to see me. On the return trip, my mom gave me a gift she picked up at the Smithsonian Institute: a set of Beatles coasters. There's four of them (coasters, not Beatles), featuring the covers of my favorite Fab Four albums: Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's and Let it Be. It doesn't matter that our coffee table came from the alley, negating any need for coasters; it was a real nice thought.

It got me to thinking, though, "why would the gift shop from 'America's Attic' carry the penultimate British band's memorabilia". What does it say about America if our repository of pop culture ephemera has been infected with foreign elements. I decided, considering Fonzie's jacket is kept there, not much.

America

Beatlemania was an American invention just as much as an English one, so in a roundabout sort of way it makes sense to peddle knickknacks emblazoned with the Lads from Liverpool. Realizing that, it dawned on me that if it makes little difference to what America is, it might have something to say about who I am.

You might have heard that Superman has renounced his US citizenship and Mike Huckabee's a little mad about it, going so far to say he "won't buy the comic." I'm sure DC Comics has lost sleep over the loss of Huckabee's patronage.

Huckabee goes on to say that he doesn't cotton to any of this globalization garbage, which is interesting considering that he is a member of a political party which rewards multinational corporations for being, you know, global.

What he's saying is that he doesn't believe in being a citizen of the world, that American Exceptionalism is correct. I can't understand his position, considering that an ordained Christian minister maybe should be for the whole world like its Creator is, but maybe that's just, like, my opinion.

I hold it because I do consider myself a citizen of the world, and maybe that's why at a place where my mom could have bought me any neat little bauble, she chose a British rock band's. Granted, she and I have bonded over the Beatles, but we also share healthy, American appreciations for James Taylor, Carol King and non-coked up Neil Young (who's Canadian, but I didn't know that until just now).

Not my favorite

Huckabee's right in that there are a lot of great things about America, but there are a lot of great things about a lot of countries (not so much with Azerbaijan, but you can't win them all), and I'm going to embrace that every time I protect my table from condensation. Here's to being a citizen of the world.

The Doomsday Cult of Free Thought, or, How Standarized Tests will End the World

2011-06-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school English, we studied Romeo and Juliet, because if teenagers need one thing, it's to read a story of people their age committing romanticized double suicide after going out for a week. Blue Oyster Cult would be proud.

On the test (constructed mostly of the usual sort of "what, literally, happened?" sorts of questions) was an essay question, "was Count Paris a victim or did he victimize?" I thought this a pretty silly question.

I answered "no," citing that Shakespeare, being a good writer, did not make cardboard cutouts, but rather characters with nuance and motivations beyond a binary system.

Like that, but with a reasoned argument

Instead of being lauded for my lateral thinking, which Sir Ken Robinson would have lauded, my teacher rewarded me with "-5 YOU MUST PICK A SIDE!" It was like being asked who I wanted to win the Superbowl, only more inane.

Of course, this is the sort of thinking championed by recruiting gang members in turf wars and standardized tests, which have gone so far as to use computers to grade essay questions. I doubt they've made a computer sophisticated enough to understand the argument I made, but computers work best when the answer is one of the first four or five letters of the alphabet.

Last night I asked my wife the question from my recent superhero comics post about Superman's powers. When I told her he had all of them, including super-reading retention, she complained I asked her a trick question.

Superman can also be a super-dick, so Jimmy knows all about no-win situations.

I told her that I shouldn't have to give her permission to say "no," but the fact she felt the need for a "none of the above" option is telling: in the American school system, we are taught that only the options presented to you can contain the correct answer.

This thinking is going to kill us all.

If you were asked to solve hunger as a multiple choice question, it might look something like this:

I'm so hungry I can barely lump all 10th-graders together by asking them how to solve global hunger. The answer you should give me is _____________ .

A) Allot more land for farming
B) Build better food with GMOs
C) Lower food prices
D) It'll work itself out

While "D" is clearly wrong, everything else seems to be right. Well, blind men, elephant, you know what I mean? The answer to the question requires creativity, not dogma, but standardized tests (which are informing how students are expected to learn) only offer four or five options.

The problems facing our world, things like food shortages (actually, there's enough food for everyone), oil shortages (also, enough for everyone) and water consumption (guess what) all require thinking outside of binary systems.

It's been said that if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. Makes sense, but we need to take a step back and realize that if we think the way we always have, we'll do what we've always done. We need to stop standardizing thought, since the thinking we're doing doesn't seem to be working, and instead demand of ourselves an education system in which creatively answering questions is rewarded, not punished.

Either that, or we can see how this will pan out for us.

A Turn to Systemic Change

2011-06-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

Luke 6:30 has Jesus telling us to give to anyone who asks of us. I try to take this a little seriously, although some people come to me with unreasonable requests.

There are some requests I can neither take seriously nor grant.

Living in Chicago, with its high number of unemployed and homeless people, this sometimes leads to moral dilemmas: I don't want to tell a guy to screw off, but if he waves me over from across the street and asks me to buy him a sandwich, why shouldn't I? (I did buy him a sandwich, by the way, because I was feeling nice.)

In the time it took me to get from the Orange El at Clark and Lake to the Blue subway, I dealt with both a grateful homeless man and a complete jerk. I was going home with some leftovers culled from friends around the table at a Mexican joint, including a burrito I really, really wanted.

Art

The first guy who asked me for food got a taco I didn't really want, but he was thrilled to receive. Wonderful: he got food, I felt good, all was well.

The second guy asked me if he could have the whole thing. I told him no. He pursued me, and I offered him another of the tacos. He demanded the burrito. I said no. Then my companion told me to just give him the whole thing. I'm still a little sore about that.

Today's event makes me downright mad. I was approached by a man telling me, as beggars often do, that he doesn't mean me no harm. I suppose they think I am a small, frightened thing which would be terrified of black people.

I guess they met him first.

He also told me he hadn't worked since 2002. Why I didn't ask what he's been doing for the last nine years is beyond me, but again, I wanted to be nice, do what Jesus did, that sort of thing.

So I offer to buy him a slice of pizza. The shop's out of pizza, so I order a hamburger, but he doesn't want a hamburger. I just look at him. He starts talking about the price, saying that if what he wants is too much, than forget it. I don't say a word. I'm dumbstruck.

I once told a guy at one of my role-playing games that we can't project our comfort on the homeless, that giving them money rewards them for begging. I know they aren't choosing to poop in alleyways just so they don't have to work, no one would.

On the other hand, I'm done with this crap. From here on out, I'm only going to worry about systemic change, because I'm tired of being punished for trying to help someone out, especially when I see that person, like earlier today, immediately go smoke a cigarette after begging from me. I don't have money for cigarettes, so that's not going to work. I want to help people, but today's beggar seemed like he just didn't feel like working.

Jesus could produce magic bread and fish. I'm going to help food pantries.

I'm Just too Excited for (fewer than 600) Words

2011-06-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard (which is probably all of you, since you have lives), DC Comics will be restarting its whole superhero universe from square one in September and offering those comics in both print and digital media every Wednesday. This means that Superman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and a bunch of stalwarts are going back to issue one, like, for real.

My knee-jerk was pretty much the same as Hitler's: these are characters I've known since I was knee high on a grasshopper. There's no need to change them; they're working. You can't just take everything I've so meticulously studied and do away with the entire continuity. I mean, I'm the guy who can tell you why Green Lanterns' rings are weak against the color yellow. I know why Wonder Woman has those bracelets. I know why Speedy did heroin. Hell, I know who Speedy is!

He's the one with the needle in his arm.

Then, aware I was having a Comic Book Guy ego reaction, I stopped to think about it. I mean, it's not like the stories I love (Batman: Year One, Superman for all Seasons, Rage of the Red Lanterns) never happened. They just didn't happen in this new continuity. Realizing this, I saw the possibilities of what a restart could do.

Remember that whole "yellow weakness" thing I mentioned earlier? This article can explain that, as well as what yellow rings can do. Oh, and violet, orange, indigo, red, white and black rings can do. This is all well and good (I like the spectrum), but that black rings bring something important to mind.

They can only be wielded by the dead, which means that a bunch of characters who had been alive for years were suddenly back to being dead and Black Lanterns. Jason Todd was not among them, even though the Joker had killed the second Robin and he was resurrected by Superboy Prime ("Prime" being our world) punched reality so hard he came back to life.

I'm not joking.

In the new continuity, maybe Jason's never been dead. Maybe no one will be brought back to life, but will just stay dead. Wouldn't that be just great?

Think of all the other stupid, stupid things they've had to retcon (yes, there's a portmanteau for "retroactive continuity") or explain away. All those things are gone. Imagine what else could disappear.

Without peeking, tell me which of the following powers comic book Superman has never had:

A) Super-smelling
B) Super-ventriloquism
C) Super-hypnosis
D) Super-reading retention
E) Microscopic Vision

...Done? If you answered "he's had all of those," you're right, but not necessarily so when September rolls around, the Flashpoint event ends and everything restarts.

Not even Pre-Crisis Superman could withstand this.

You may know DC has rebooted its continuity several times before, but those caused more harm than good, like when the Justice Society of America, a superteam composed of Earth-1 heroes who survived the Crisis, found Superman from Earth-22 on New Earth.

See? I won't have to tell people stuff like that with a whole-new continuity. And if you read that last link, you read Constantine von Hoffman--who I can only assume wrote this in his Nuremberg-assigned cell--speculate that now the women will be showing even more skin.

He's wrong: that Catwoman costume, adored by all, is a hold over. Wonder Woman's getting a costume with pants. In fact, all the uniforms will be more practical.

Or, at least, better than this

DC has a huge opportunity to make a more cohesive, practical and inclusive superhero universe, in which new and old readers can relearn what made them love all these characters in the first place.

Or, at least, I'll be able to read Batman again, which I haven't been able to do since Grant Morrison made a flying Batmobile and ninja Man-Bats.

I'm still not joking.

It Is My Problem

2011-06-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

Today was Slutwalk Chicago. I was thinking of going, but I had yoga. I did catch the tail end of the Daley Plaza gathering, but by then it was just tables of people wanting my e-mail address, bad pop music and some shirtless guy dancing.

And really, that guy is the reason it's that much harder to care about important things like violence against women. It's sort of how I want to exercise my enjoyment of anime more, but there are certain fans who make it a little tedious.

Yet, violence against women is something we need to stop. Then again, we can all take little steps to stop victimization of people in general.

A couple of years ago, I was at GameStop picking up some cheap movies while they were cleaning out their DVD stores. I got in line behind some redneck whose little was trying to return his Xbox 360.

As you can expect, a several hundred dollar system is kind of a big deal in a place which makes most of its money by selling high, buying back low and reselling high. I am not a fan of GameStop for the way they exploit gamers.

Proven business model

So while GameStop may be actively evil, it's wage slaves are only, at worst, passively evil. The poor guy behind the counter trying to explain to the angry, Budweiser-swilling hillbilly that he cannot take the Xbox back is not trying to make the world a worse place or anything; he's just locked out of the computer. Seriously, the guy literally could not enter it back in the system and give the kid store credit.

That did not make that good ol' boy happy at all, and he let the clerk know in no pleasant terms. The GameSlave offered to call his manager, who was attending a going away party for his soldier pal headed to Iraq, and summon him to deal with the problem.

At this point, I just wanted to buy my flippin' movies and watch them, instead of watching someone who's probably chained to the counter wilt before the wrath of Hick Supreme.

Very much akin

So I asked the yokel to leave the guy alone and the bumpkin had the audacity, the audacity, to ask me if I worked for GameStop.

"No."

"Then is it your business?"

"Yes. He said he can't help you."

The provincial, taking in the litmus test of jackassery I offered, relented and left, much to the GameSlave's joy.

Which made me feel good, since I helped someone whom I didn't need to help, but saw his pain and remembered that "the enemy of my enemy is a guilt-free target."

Which brings me back to Slutwalk. Say you don't really mind the systemic misogyny and violence against women. The least you could do is side with them in putting street scum in jail. You don't have to be part of the solution to be a dick to the problem.

Venn Diagram That

2011-06-03T16:29:00.000-07:00

I was recently at the kick-off event for Borderless, a non-profit organization started by a few kids who aren't sure what they want to do, exactly, but know they want to make the world a better place. They gave me meat they grilled (I think some of it maybe not long enough) and we chatted. There were also some readings done: original poetry, hip hop rhymes, letters from Malcolm X (not to Borderless, specifically, but enlightening nonetheless).

One of the people I met there was a young socialist who volunteers for the party and has been posting flyers in my neighborhood. I tend to think of myself as a socialist (which is why I have ads on my blog, because I can't get a real job, apparently), so the two of us hit it off pretty well, despite his silly bicyclist cap.

Pinstripes. Classy

One of the topics to come up was this year's political uprising in Egypt. You remember, the one that the news stopped covering after, like, a month. Maybe the coverage should have continued, what with all the problems of the military continuing to show what we'll call an excessive interest in things like government and women's viginity.

Even so, the people rising up and demanding a change in government (which has gone so far as to actually jail Mubarak) made my new socialist friend glow a little. He said we need to emulate that sort of activism in our own country and maybe our leaders would listen to us instead of motorbiking all over Creation for what, I'm not sure.

"I love that smell of the emissions!" --Sarah Palin, at a motorcycle rally in Washington, D.C., where she rode in on a Harley, May 29, 2011

A couple days later, I heard another person say he was "proud" of the Egyptians: a Marine. I'm not going to tell you who, since I'm not sure how the government treats people who say things the government may or may not like. But, anyway, he was glad they decided democracy was cool.

America

And that got me to thinking: if a socialist and someone who has been trained, specifically, to kill Commies (they still teach them that) can agree on something, all of us in the middle should listen. Lincoln said, "a universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded." Americans need to disregard their universal apathy, seeing as how, essentially, a hippie and a Marine have agreed that complacency isn't working.

So go out, get involved, have a political debate, something. Just fight like an Egyptian.

Evolving Christianity

2011-06-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, my wife's cousin visited us for the weekend. It was a lovely time going around the city and showing her some of the things we like to do here in the City of Broad Shoulders, which included going to our church.

When we were getting worried we might be a little late, she offered, "there'll be about ten minutes of music, so we might miss that." I realized how different our church is from others, in that we don't follow the same format every service, let alone the same as every other church.

Which got me to wondering why most churches have a system of "come in, stand, sing, say 'hi', sit, sermon, announcements, stand, sing". A couple of those might get moved around, but that's the gist of it.

I think the answer lies in the sort of language used in the sermons. What pastors tend to say when they talk about a passage of scripture is, "this is what this passage means." A "correct" answer is being presented, which doesn't actually help.

At Wicker Park Grace, our pastor, Nanette, has offered the idea that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. When we stop doubting, we stop learning; this applies to God as much as anything else. If there's a right answer, than when you reach it you can stop thinking about the question.

Problem with God is, there is a lot of unknowable there, and I think we need to change the way we think about Jesus and God. That is not to say we need to change what we think (although that might be a good call in some instances), but our methods of thought should change.

This is obvious when you look at how prayer has evolved over the centuries. Jesus offered certain prayers as templates, and most people do not take those as the only proper words to say. Likewise, the early church looked into the sky when they prayed. If our method of talking to God can change, so too can the way we think about speaking with God.

The whole "right answer" schema comes from a misunderstanding of knowledge. When I was in high school, I knew people who said they liked math because it had right answers, unlike English (even though when you're in high school English, there is certainly only one right answer). This only embraces the most rudimentary way of thinking about and doing math, a field which has so much room for creativity.

If Futurama can create new theorems to solve its plot, then there aren't just a set of known quantities. It's the same with faith and theology. We need to move past the comfortable, legalistic ideas of "right answer" and "wrong answer" and embrace "rewarding answers".

Reason being, the world needs people who care about each other the way Christ did, and he was creative about it. It takes creativity to fix the military-industrial complex, corporate farming and health care systems that aren't working.

The best way to mobilize Christians is to move past the kind of binary thinking for which God didn't design humans to settle and to ask better questions; we can find comfort in not having answers.

Unlucky in the Force, Or, How Authority is Abused

2011-05-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, I was fond of wearing a long, black coat, and I only did this after checking the handbook and finding no rule against it. The only restriction on jackets and the like was that they were not to be worn between classes.

Eventually, the principal took me aside and asked me to stop wearing it, explaining that there was, in fact, a rule, but it was not in the handbook. This might have been a lie, but it doesn't really matter.

In high school, the time when we learn (or are told) how to think, we are taught that we are responsible for our actions by people who have a vested interest in keeping us from acting as if we were in the "real world," which leads to our skewed sense of how authority is supposed to work. The existence of the phrase "too big to fail" bears this out: a person with power can't fail, but he'll still foreclose on you. This, of course, is hypocrisy, but that's power for you.

What brought this to mind for me today was an article on io9.com about two students who were not only suspended, but barred from their graduation ceremony, for staging a lightsaber duel in their high school cafeteria.

I'm callin' you out!

The principal, despite all the people on Facebook who are supporting the students (because Facebook=moral rightness), is sticking to his guns. He says that since someone could have gotten hurt, they should be punished to such a severe degree.

At first glance, that makes sense. These two boys hadn't really considered that their lightsaber toys, approved for children eight and up, might so egregiously hurt a 17 year-old that that victim would have to sit out graduation. Well, fine. That works, since we are all punished equally for what might happen, but doesn't.

Oh. No. Wait, that would mean the principal isn't full of crap, but I can prove he is.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, since most drivers disobey speed limits, so, too, has this principal. That doesn't, at first, seem like a big deal. You speed. I speed.

A reason for us all to speed.

Going a little over the limit isn't a big deal, but thanks to moral luck, it's actually a pretty dicey issue.

You've probably never run over a child while speeding. I haven't (and gotten caught). But if we were speeding and ran over a child, that would be a contributing factor. So, by the principal's logic, we should go to jail for manslaughter whenever we speed, because it could happen.

If you read the wiki article on moral luck, you will see the philosophical contention that a person who doesn't run over a child is just as blameworthy as the person who does, but the kid-killer should feel worse. This is the plot of the indie mope-fest Bella.

There is no argument for depression beards

The principal isn't going to ask to go to jail because he's sped, but since he's a person with power, he gets to take other people's freedom away for trivialities.

The rub is that this is how everything is run in our society: the wealthy and powerful can manipulate, steal and kill, but as long as it's done through "contracts, foreclosure and war" it's ok. I think it's about time we point out that children are being taught this is how the world is supposed to work.

By the way, that coat of mine? I guess the reason the teachers were so nervous about it is because they were afraid I'd bring a gun to school. I think they would only have worried if they gave me a reason, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, there was another student who violated the rule in the book and wore a windbreaker all day, every day.

He brought a gun to school.

Maybe if high schoolers were treated like thoughtful adults, we'd have more thoughtful adults.

Before he was Professor X... He was Doctoral Candidate X

2011-05-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

Last night Allie and I went to see Priest. It's pretty much about a Catholic Jedi rescuing his niece from a trainload of vampires. It was just as cool and terrible as it sounds, which didn't surprise me.

What surprised me, though, was the US Army commercial beforehand. Nestled in-between the usual sugar water and car ads was the usual Army ad, because your average moviegoer, mallrat and high schooler have nothing better to do than join up with the military.

Those groups in Venn diagram.

I'm used to seeing these ads constructed with glamor shots of what you get to do in the Armed Forces: rappel, ride in helicopters, travel on a ship. You know, all the things you do on vacation in Australia. The audio will be some baritoned man telling you this is how you are going to make yourself a better American by going to interesting places and shooting interesting people.

The best ones are those cut with music videos. You could say 3 Doors Down is not the kind of band that would make you want to put your life on the line for your country, and I can understand that (I wouldn't want to die with "Kryptonite" stuck in my head). On the other hand, knowing Kid Rock got paid by the US government to tell you how awesome soldiering is makes me want to kill someone, and you can do that in the Army.

Be all you can be, kids.

But even compared to the absurdity of some rich hillbilly singing that I should sacrifice for his freedom, last night's military fetishism/thing kids like mash-up had to be the weirdest I've ever seen: between the derring-do of our people in uniform we saw clips from Matthew Vaughn's upcoming X-Men: First Class.

At first glance, this might make sense. The military has stealth jets, the X-Men have a stealth jet (although, in the movie, the Blackbird hasn't been painted and is a... white bird, I guess.) The X-Men have uniforms, the Army has uniforms. The X-Men and Army both get intelligence through sometimes questionably ethical channels.

Just like the Patriot Act

But then I considered the differences. In the trailer for First Class, you can see the heroic Prof. X (or maybe, since it's a prequel, Grad Student X) trying to talk Magneto into not killing humans. The Army seems pretty pro killing humans.

In fact, they're probably more so than Magneto. Magnus won't kill humans willy-nilly; I saw him divert missiles from what I think was the coast of Cuba. Or America. Either way, a country in which he wouldn't be free.

The Army, on the other hand, uses "Freedom isn't Free" as a carte blanche to kill all sorts of people different from us Americans.

These are only dissimilarities though, and metaphors are never perfect, otherwise there would only be tautology. That last point, though, presents the most egregious difference between the X-Men and the military: the military keeps the mutants down.

I know, I know, I'm comparing our actual military to a fictional, multiculti superhero team, but think about it like this: how many Americans were killed by communists in America during the Vietnam War?

And how many by soldiers?

The commercial use of a deeply (and heavily-handed) subtextual franchise asks us to call the mutants and soldiers "good," and that doesn't always work. I think we need to question if "X-Man" and "Soldier" are equal values, which will make us ask what kinds of violence we justify.

And what fashion sense

He Asked, No, Demanded I Punch Him

2011-05-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

I feel relatively safe in Chicago. I bike under the assumption that no driver wants to

dig me out of their grill
wrench my bike out of their axle
go to jail

... but I still wear my helmet.

I also don't worry too much about the occasional gangland executions in earshot of my apartment. While I know these events make everyone less safe, not being in a gang myself, I'm less likely to get shot in a gang war.

Even so, I don't leave the house at these times (well, mostly. I did step out with my roommate the first time, but that's because I wanted to make sure she would be ok).

I'm worldly enough to know, and this is partly from watching No Country for Old Men a few too many times, that violence is partly random.

And looking sad at it won't make it stop

So I work out, study the martial arts and have developed a disdain for those who would hurt me or others. I wouldn't say this disdain has reached a crazy level, but one that I think has balance the fear I naturally have of being hurt with the anger that someone would try. Which, again, I don't think makes me crazy.

Being Rorschach makes me crazy.

So, like in Watchmen, I had an experience which amounted to, "he tried to [rob me]. I mean, can you believe it?" Ironically enough, it fell squarely into my passive, non-target defense style.

My wife and I were getting onto the train (Blue Line, if you're curious) and I had my yoga mat sticking out of the top of my backpack. I wasn't too worried about it, since it was fairly secured and I figured the kind of person who boosts your stuff on the train don't do yoga.

He's stressed out 'cuz he hasn't done no Savasana.

As I was getting onto the train, I felt my mat getting pulled up. I turned, my first thought being to apologize for bumping someone. My gaze was met with an angry look and that's when I pieced together what happened. I returned the look.

I guess the guy expected me to back down or something, which is why he got up in my... grill? Is that what the kids call it these days? Yes? Well, that's what he got up in and started asking me if I thought he was "rolling" one me, if I was (*ahem*) [screwing] with him and the like.

I assured him I wasn't screwing with him, but that's when he said something I didn't expect. He told me to "start swinging. Swing [insert nasty word here]! Swing!" I didn't, but I also didn't back down. At his behest, I let him on the train and assured a concern-expressing fellow passenger that I still had my wallet.

That fellow later congratulated me for handling the situation as well as I did.

The next day, my father (who was a police officer and works in a prison) explained the behavior as one of being tough and expecting me to apologize for the whole thing--I had no intention of being a bitch. This plays into Allie's surprise that he was, you know, asking a superhero to punch him.

Lucky for him my parents are alive.

Even if he had known all that, would he still have been all... fronting on me? Probably. It's like the King and Duke in Huckleberry Finn, or the guy in Sandman: Season of Mists, the one who says Hell is only possible to bear because someone else is punishing him: we can't forgive ourselves, and we meet that inability with anger.

I did that very thing this morning: I got angry because I felt like I ruined plans Allie and I had made. I didn't, but I got angry at myself, and by extension her, which exacerbated things. When I calmed down, I realized that this was the same thing that thug on the subway tried on me, and, like Roy Batty, maybe that's the reason I didn't hit him. Maybe I saw that, deep down, that thief and I are more similar than either of us would like to admit.

Though being like me would be trading up.

(PS: BATMAN, BLADE RUNNER and NO COUNTRY all in one post! Woo-hoo!)

Reading Things on Things

2011-05-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

I just saw an ad for Barnes and Noble's Nook. It's an e-reader, named a bucolic epithet to put it in direct competition with the Kindle. If you were to use both at once, you would find your favorite reading perch is, in fact, a Thomas Kinkade painting, so homey would be your e-usage.

I knew this thing existed and haven't given it too much thought. I own books I haven't read, others I'll reread and others still I just like having around, and they all have a feature the new Nook proudly totes: they are all touch-controlled.

I was surprised to find the Nook didn't already have this function, as I supposed it was the obvious thing to do. The Nintendo DS had a touch screen years before the Nook, Kindle or Hearth (or whatever the next one will be called) existed. The technology was there, but a device created to ape the effect of holding a book didn't have a book's number one feature, one an old .45 record told me to do in my youth. That is, *ding dong* turn the page.

There are plenty of things to like about e-readers, enough that I would accept one as a gift, should the opportunity arise. As Neil Gaiman has pointed out, they make any book large type with the push of a button, they are often more portable than bound volumes (Perdido Street Station is a monster of a book) and you don't have to go to the pesky library to get another one. The last one may seem like my trademarked tongue in cheek humor, but you haven't met some of the Chicago librarians. Seriously, they're not even eccentric about being stuffy; they're just kind of mean.

My favorite thing about the e-reader, though, is what it will do to books themselves. Every e-book feels the same, its texture and tone that of your Warm Blanket or Tree Shade, but a book like The Yiddish Policeman's Union has a feel all its own, with distressed pages and fold out covers (even in paperback!). It's sort of like the introduction of the PSP's competition made the DS get off its duff. Similarly, the printers' monopoly on printing is at its end.

But for all the good points of an e-reader, they're one step-backedness seems to work against the people who make them. You're a large bookseller, with stores across the country, stores which you are staffing with people who you get to pay below what their English degrees deserve, but still you pay them. You're paying utilities, property taxes, kick backs to the mafia, all those niggling fees to exist, yet you decide to sound your own analog death knell by entering the digital sphere. With the advent of your Patch of Sunlight (wait, no, that's where cats relax, not where people read. Sorry.), you have effectively ended your support of books made out of trees.

I understand the desire to diversify, but I also think giving people a reason to not come into your store is questionable business. Seems to me, I come out with the Umbrella-Protected Beach Blanket or the Grassy Knoll, I start selling my stores like mad and let the artsy-fartsy people careen to their doom on their Gutenberg raft.

It's not that I don't think both platforms will survive, but Barnes and Noble, Borders and that half-aisle at Wal-Mart can't really spread themselves too thin and still compete with libraries and independent booksellers, especially when they're working against themselves. Seeing as how e-readers offer less of the book experience, maybe it's just time for the big boys to pack up and let people have their readin' the way they want it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to flip through pages just because I can.

Accidental Produndity 2: Bookstore Closings

2011-04-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

It was in some book about Neil Gaiman in which he said that it seemed bizarre to him that the ghost stories of Dickens should be in the LITERATURE section of a bookstore while the ghost stories of most contemporary authors (whose names I don't know) are consigned to the horror section. I might add that I find it bizarre that the willfully-ghosty Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger made it to FICTION.

Her science fiction book's movie's poster

Michael Chabon has, as an author who has migrated from "naturalistic fiction"--stories about divorce, homosexuality, drug abuse, the death of a loved one... divorce--to a writer of "genre fiction" (which is a story about a detective or a 10th century mercenary or a comic book artist, etc. dealing with divorce, homosexuality...) said in his interview with the AV Club, "when these labels are used to prevent discussion, to prevent a work from being taken seriously, on its own terms as literature, because of how it came packaged, that's what bothers me."

We can tell you where your book belongs.

That marketing is what bookstores use to tell you what you're reading. You like stories of people in love? Here's ROMANCE. Comic books? GRAPHIC NOVELS. Actual novels? FICTION. Never you mind that Pride and Prejudice is a romance, that Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Boy on Earth has nothing to do with Superman, that Pulitzer Prize winners are regularly left out of FICTION. Each has its proper, arbitrary place.

Until the ship starts to sink.

Borders is, largely, going out of business. Small wonder, really. There are so many books in the world, I sometimes wonder whether we need to actually reprint so many. Seriously, people, check out a used book store.

You can find something in there you want.

I stopped by a closing Borders on the way home today and found the most bizarre thing: ASTROLOGY mingling with wedding planning guides, FICTION cavorting with ROMANCE, RELIGION and SCIENCE frolicking on the half-priced shelves (it was actually the shelves they were selling).

In In the Blink of an Eye, Walter Murch discusses how changing about one gene makes a human into a monkey; moving one scene of a film turns a comedy into a tragedy. Likewise, consider how unified knowledge is: Astrology is superstition, but how much hokum is in your average wedding?

Rice doesn't make this happen

FICTION and ROMANCE? Harper Lee thought To Kill a Mockingbird was a simple love story. I purposed to my wife with a soap carving and some chewing gum in a knothole.

RELIGION and SCIENCE? Science is magic explained. Magic is science understood. Both go well with guacamole.

So does everything else.

I think about how we've compartmentalized thought into a bento box of consciousness and realize Chabon was right: it's all about marketing. Capitalism determines what goes where, since it's all about consumption, and labels are the easy way to make something consumable; they are the sugary BBQ sauce of literature.

Make that a mental image. I already have 4 pics in this post.

Sure, the system is capitalist, but what if you were to step outside the system? What if you thought for yourself? Certainly, as Chabon points out, genre is workable. It's not bad to say a book is a fantasy story, but it's bad to say it's "only" a fantasy story. Capitalism reduces things to their most cursory parts, while true appreciation for art (a political stance in and of itself) uses genre as a way to free art.

The best way to do this is to read in a sense that doesn't vote with the dollar, but with the mind. Check out that used book store I mentioned earlier or even (hold on tight, I'm about to blow your mind) the library you've already paid to use! Reward people who want what we have and let the chain bookstores know we don't need to be told what to want.

If we do that, we will read better, think better and live better and maybe, someday, we can get those labels down to FICTION and NON-FICTION... and then start thinking about how gray those terms are.

Summer in Chicago

2011-04-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

So it was nice out yesterday. It's nice again today! I live in Chicago and let me tell you, we thought winter was never going to end.

Winter has our name all over it.

So to celebrate how lovely this weather, I'm going to tell you what I love to do when it's warm and sunny.

Fallout: New Vegas is amazing

I really like Chicago: the CTA shuts off platform heating on April 1st, regardless of the temperature, sidewalks in tourism-bereft areas don't have a snowball's chance of getting salted and you have to dig your car out yourself. Word to the wise: those lawn chairs mean "dibs" and that if you park there, you will lose your windshield.

But for the next couple of months I can look forward to my favorite summer activities. Many of you might be thinking about the beach, but I hate the beach. Here are a few facts:

Sand is the worst.
The cover band the beachside restaurant has is redoing Queen's Seaside Rendezvous as Lakeside Redezvous.
I single-handedly ended the debate of whether black or white was the absence of color by taking off my shirt at a convention of artists, biologists and paint manufacturers.

Perfect translucence is perfectly hot

So the lakeside is out, but some of you who know me already knew that and had sports in mind. "Brandon's active, right? That's something to do in summer." Wrong. I run, so it's great when it's nice out, but the best run I've ever had was on a cool, misty day. You know how a hot day gets your shirt to stick to your back and you feel sweat inundating your socks and you start to worry about the smell. Now imagine that, running.

What about basketball? Baseball? Any other sport? Guys, I'm terrible at all of these. I only enjoy one sport: fencing. Those masks and vests in 100+° weather are like your own chain gang punishment box like in Cool Hand Luke or episode 23 of Batman: The Animated Series.

Obligatory Batman reference achieved

So what, you wonder, do I like to do outside? The same thing every other good Chicagoan likes to do: drink beer.

Remember when you were a kid and nothing was quite like a cold bottle of Coke on a hot day? I sure don't. I hate Coca-Cola, anathema and ichor to my delicate digestive system. On the other hand, beer is full of things my tummy loves, like grain and hops and not much else.

On a hot day I can hold the still glass bottle and sip at a drink designed to make me feel great, an artistic ambrosia demanding the sun step off and let me enjoy the world. And it's great with a burger.

Seriously, head outside to your favorite pro-patio restaurant or grab some brew from the store and enjoy the sun.

RoboCop 2: Most Important Sequel Ever

2011-02-26T13:36:00.000-08:00

The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie. The Godfather: Part II is better than The Godfather Part I. The Dark Knight, Dawn of the Dead, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. When people say "the original's always better," they can be easily disproved by any of these and a handful more examples. Then they bring up the Matrix sequels, or Stayin' Alive or Blues Brothers 2000 and you're back at square one in trying to convince this guy Back to the Future Part II is the superior film.

Ah. That's better.

The truth of the matter is, like movies based on books, the law of diminishing terms apply, and all you want from a sequel is to be more fun with characters you love and aren't quite ready to say "goodbye" to quite yet.

In Mr. Smith Returns to Washington, Jimmy Stewart teaches members of Congress what "books" are.

Most of the time, the sequel will meet this facet and everyone leaves the theater satisfied by sagely stating, "the original was better." This happens in a certain progression of understanding: Movie X was good, Movie X part 2 was okay, ad hoc. Such are movies.

Occasionally, though, is the movie that makes someone go, "wow. I guess the first one was actually pretty good."

A lot of people didn't think that about RoboCop, and you can't really blame them. Just look at the word. Say it a couple of times. Pretty ridiculous, huh? That's what the film's director, Paul Verhoeven thought, too. He just threw the script away until his wife read it and discovered there was some pretty funny stuff in there, like when Officer Murphy is crucified with a shotgun.

So Paul makes the movie and, as with Starship Troopers years later, it was too dumb for smart people's attention and too smart for dumb people's attention spans. Discourse came down on it being just another action movie.

Enter RoboCop 2 with the old switcheroo.

¡Olé!

RoboCop 2 is unquestionably bad. To quote Roger Ebert in his review, "in fact, we see relatively little of RoboCop in this movie." And even though Cracked.com accorded the film as the second best RoboCop, it claims, "The film was loathed by many."

So the sequel sucks. No surprise, right? Dead wrong, scumbag. The reason RoboCop 2 is so special is people reevaluated the first and found out it's a really, really good movie. It has humor, over-the-top- violence and, here's the clincher, a really interesting plot.

That humor (as even Ebert points out), is about the only through-line between the two movies. Jokes in RoboCop flicks are more or less confined to fake ads, like the ones they used to run on Saturday Night Live, only more terrifying and probable (a Battleship-like board game called "Nukem," and 8.2 miles/gallon car, 5000 SPF sunblock).

This, bizarrely enough, was real.

So laughing at them in the horrifying/boring seesaw that is RoboCop 2 makes you look back at the original and say, "yes. I would buy that for a dollar."

It's that oscillation of "what did that child just say?" versus "why am I still watching this?" that makes RoboCop 2 a retroactive wonder. As I pointed out, there's hardly any RoboCop in RoboCop 2, but he's replaced with anti-union and anti-smoking propaganda while not going anywhere or solving any problems.

"At least in the first one he killed some bad guys." Boy howdy, does he.

Which is how its sequel proves RoboCop is a great film, bar none. It is actually just another dumb action movie; some clever bits, a couple cool 'splosions but nothing to get in the Criterion Collection.

In an obtuse way, the film is what Nathan Rabin would call a "secret success" and sheds new light on how a sequel can suck but make the original better in its own right.

The third one, though, is so bad Nixon met with RoboCop and asked him to stop making movies.

Seriously, don't see RoboCop 3.

Let's Just Quit. Really.

2011-01-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

I remember Mrs. Best's third grade class at Willits in Monmouth, up there on the second story overlooking the playground, the sun beating into the room and roasting us. Any kid knows the only way to escape blistering heat is to go out into it, running and laughing and daring it to dent the proof of your boundless energy (I tended to beat the heat with technology [A/C and SNES]), but we were languishing in our classroom in reparation for our few, paltry snow days.

Mrs. Best answered our cries with that empathy shared by parents and teachers. "I don't want to be here any more than you do." We had all heard this argument before and hammered it out by maintaining that, for instance, if our teacher didn't want to spend so much time grading, there should be fewer assignments. It made sense to us.

What didn't make sense to me in my eighth year and doesn't to this day, is why people don't just band together, declare how much it all sucks, and stop playing the game. It's as if all of humanity is caught in a game of horseshoes and no one is willing to say "this isn't fun, let's stop playing," and instead we reach the other inevitable end of the game: "ow, you hit me with a horseshoe."*

This is why there's war.

In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn writes on how the guards of the Siberian prison camp hate being there as much as the inmates as an explanation for the lack of animosity between the two (we didn't have any ill-will for Mrs. Best).

Solzhenitsyn doesn't offer a reason for why the soldiers didn't rebel and demand to not be stationed in Siberia. We know that in the Soviet system, someone is going to be a jerk and make you do it or hurt you so bad as to make an example of you. In this case, I'm sure the man's badge would be taken away and he'd have to stay in Siberia for a couple more months.

If only those men had just used their guns and said, "Screw this." If only we could. If only we could look at the dumb systems in which we find ourselves (I'm dealing with college bureaucracy, for example) and just ignore the rules for a more sane system.

The Jerk, the Bully, the Powermonger is the reason, by the way. Most discussions of this subject would end by feeding you the usual, hegemonic line that we fear what's on the other side of the ostensibly unassailable wall, but that's not true. The truth is we don't fear what would happen if all malls were closed Black Friday. We fear the repercussions of Stalin or the school principal.

If Mrs. Best had let us out to play all day, we wouldn't have learned anything other than maybe a lesson in letting people be people. I don't remember what we did learn, but I'm sure that whatever it was, it must have been important.

*thanks to Dave Attell for the horseshoes joke

It Was Pretty Stellar, but then Stopped

2011-01-14T09:10:00.000-08:00

One precept ruled my adolescence: if I wanted to succeed, I showed up. Pithy divisions of life's constituent parts aside, mere presence was 100% of what was required for me to be a winner. I'm sure some of the merits I won in those bleary years were earned, possibly more than the Superintendent's Award for Excellence in Spanish, but most have not taught me about who I am to be. Academics and extracurricular activities have been spotty in my college years, but that Spanish class put me in a larger world.

I qualified for the honor roll every semester of high school, doing so by turning in my assignments, mostly completed. I was, and remain, a sharp mind trapped in the brain of a lethargic student, a gaseous mass preferring to go nova than sustain light as a star.

This has carried over into my college years. The first essay I wrote for college English won an award (I think you can find the paper in these archives). For another English class I offered insight into Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums that actually impressed my teacher (who gleefully let us know a former student accused him of being "Hitler's long-lost Irish twin). I kicked ass when I cared.

On the other hand, I took mythology twice and only passed the second go because Neil Gaiman's Sandman books inculcated me with a deep love for the deep stories.

I didn't only get to middle through academics, though. As I'm rubbish at anything involving a ball, I didn't do high school sports, instead opting for speech and scholastic bowl. For the former my parents have a box full of medals, plaques and even a few lei won for talkin' just so perdy-like.

What these shining (in some handmade cases, glittering) examples of bric-a-brac don't tell you is that I won them by default; it's easy to place third in a three-person competition. Even so, I tend to tell people with a measure of pride that I went to sectionals all three years.

In college my extracurricular activities finally included a sport: fencing. And while I didn't do a lot of tournament winning, I did a lot of fine fencing. I had always wanted to learn how to sword fight, and it came naturally to me.

All this shows sharp compared to the one award I never expected to get, the Superintendent's Award for Spanish. It was an award handed out at these year-end functions designed to highlight the best and brightest of my submerged school, in which students were recognized for various subjects and sports.

By my senior year, I had been to three and never won an individual award. So when the opportunity arose to do some airsoft gunning in the woods, I jumped at it, since I was rarely invited to do things with my school chums (probably because I use words like "chum").

Late in the game, several players left for the awards, but I refused. I did not want to sit through another award ceremony for nothing (for me, anyway). I was going to enjoy time with my friends.

Little did I know that when I was hunting for them, my friends had decided to head home, each thinking I was with another. I ended up walking to within a mile of my house, only to be picked up by my superintendent/principle, who told me I had been mentioned that night.

I never thought of myself as a good Spanish student, but I was in Mr. Higbee's class for four years, which has excused me from taking foreign language courses in college. I was one of the three in my class to finish the program and I think that I was chosen partly because the teacher liked me. Unfortunately, I wasn't there that night.

I have always wanted to apologize to Señor Higbee for that, and to let him know that the culture and language to which he exposed me remains a warm place in my mind. It's too late to do so now, so for the rest of my life I will think to the first award I rightly earned and hear my inner voice, "lo siento."

Like Listening to Kids Bicker

2011-01-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

I was skimming an article on Huffington Post about how the past few generations of Americans have taught me and mine to eschew responsibility. The author, Dr. Mark Goulston, offers as evidence a hypothetical conversation amounting in a teenager telling their parent they will take responsibility for their actions. When the adult presses for a definition of "take responsibility," the teenager responds, "I'll say I'm sorry."

Feeling remorse is not, in and of itself, taking responsibility but is the first step in doing so. Even a child can realize and acknowledge a connection between his or her actions and the next step of causality. Sarah Palin cannot, and I'm wondering if I've done such a bang-up job myself.

As you probably know, Arizona representative Gabrielle Giffords was recently the target of a madman with a gun. This violence has shocked the country and it is, like any shooting, a tragedy.

Of course, Sarah Palin had nothing directly to do with it, but there is a link between Giffords and Palin: Palin had put out a map which prompted voters to oust politicians who had voted for the Obama health care reform, and Giffords' district was one of the targeted. The map used crosshairs to mark these districts.

A reasonable person will say that Palin is in no way responsible for what happened in Arizona, and I'm inclined to agree. No sane person would see this map and think they should kill the residing Congressperson. That much is clear, but I do think this even should give us pause to consider where American politics are heading.

Even making an abstract based on violence is hateful speech and wrong. I'm not saying we don't have the right to use hate speech, but we all know we shouldn't. In a small sense, I wonder what Palin was thinking when she approved that map with crosshairs, how she would, if needed, explain it to her children. In macro, we have all gotten acclimated to the idea of threatening people who disagree with us and lowering their value as human beings.

We need to take responsibility for our actions, and that includes what we say. Even a child knows how to do that.

According to this article, though, Sarah Palin doesn't. While an aide of hers protests that the symbols on the map were never meant to portray gun sights, Palin herself said that her followers should "reload."

Palin's backpedaling is reprehensible, but it reminds me of something I said just last night. I was talking to a friend about House Republicans reading the Constitution in session and wasting everyone's time and I told her, "being angry with Republicans for making a false show of patriotism is like the girl who put the snake in her coat and got mad at it when it bit her." To put a fine tip on it, I implied, "Republicans=snakes." And that was reprehensible.

It's time for all of us to stop dehumanizing our political opponents and start talking like civilized people.

The Weight of "?"

2011-01-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

In considering Voltaire's criteria for judging people, that is, by their questions and not their answers, I find myself worried to introspect and find myself too simple: my overwhelming, all-encompassing question over the past few weeks has been a straightforward, "wait, really?"

My question is prompted by an ongoing series of answers ostensibly about WikiLeaks and its editor in chief Julian Assagne, but are actually about freedoms like speech and press. The US government demands his Twitter account info, Vice President Biden labels him a "high-tech terrorist" (as did Newt Gingrich) and some buffoons want to kill the "traitor." Assagne is Australian.

Compare answers like the US government calling Assange a terrorist to the Economist awarding him the Index on Censorship award and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggesting he win a Nobel Peace Prize.

So while Sarah Palin is the only person I've found who has actually levied a specific charge against him, on her Facebook page, all other criticism has been nebulous at best. On the other hand, you only need hop over to Assagne's Wikipedia page to find out he's published material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumping in Africa, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer.

But that all amounts to weighing good and bad, which is so largely a matter of perspective. According to Joe Biden, Assagne is guilty of the monstrosity of making meetings with world leaders "cumbersome." So that's bad.

All these answers are given to the woefully underasked question, "is Julian Assagne and WikiLeaks in the wrong?" I'm going to come down and say "no." I voted for Obama because he promised for transparency in government. I really wanted to see the people in my government who started the war in Iraq held responsible for their actions. I hoped this administration would stand for the liberties the PATRIOT Act (which Obama upheld) usurps. Obama didn't, Assagne did.

But the US still wants to jail him for releasing State Department documents and no one could blame them. Just consider Assagne's audacity for exposing US diplomats in selling Boeing jets.

Which incites me to ask another too-simple question: so what? So what about all this bickering and name calling? So what about the government lusting after classification and opacity? So what about Joe Biden's convenience?

And what about the First Amendment? The accusations levied against Assagne and WikiLeaks shouldn't amount to a hill of beans next to the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the rights of people in a democratic society to know whatever they want about their government.

Right Newt Gingrich? Sarah Palin? Joe Biden? President Obama? The freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are more important than vagaries and speculative charges, right?

Right?

My questions are simple. I might be a simple person, but I don't think that's such a bad thing. I'm incredulous, and that disbelief might be the beginning of something better.

Scott Mendelson vs. Brandon L. Sichling

2011-01-05T16:40:00.000-08:00

I was sharing my thoughts on this Huffington Post article with my roommate, Pete. To summarize, it's the "10 Most Overrated Films of 2010." When I finished, Pete asked me, "So what it boils down to is... what movie did you like that was on the list?"

I damned Pete's astuteness. "What kind of world do we live in where no one sees Scott Pilgrim and it's still 'overrated'?" I think this is a fair question, but not the pressing one.

The important thing to wonder is why we live in a world in which people put together "overrated" lists at all, since it's not the job of a critic, does the audience no good and wastes space for conversations worth having.

I really respect Roger Ebert. Sure, he gave Space Jam a glowing review, but he has a philosophy on critique and audience and it makes sense even if I disagree. In the aforelinked article, he talks about what is a reviewer's job, and that is, largely, to foster appreciation, to defend the new and bolster people's ability to engage with it.

A list of what films you think people liked too much doesn't do that. It tears down the work of people who have labored to, in this case, put something meaningful for themselves and others on the silver screen. They risked a lot to do so: people have talked mightily about how Edgar Wright and Michael Cera's careers will suffer because they made an offbeat film in Scott Pilgrim.

To paraphrase Ebert, Scott Mendelson doesn't risk anything to say people were too fond of that movie.

Fostering fondness is what the critic can do for an audience. I took a cinematography class this semester and now I not only appreciate movies more, but also photography and paintings, storybooks and comic books, a host of visual arts opened to me thanks to the critical eye.

When the audience is told by a critic that they are wrong to be beguiled by something, the critic insults the audience and discourages them from meeting with more art. "Engage better" becomes "don't engage."

Engaging with an interesting conversation is harder when so much space is devoted to negativity. When Catherine Hardwick released Twilight, Ebert did point out the film's problems, but he put a silver lining on it: see Let the Right One In instead.

I did, and it is the most interesting vampire movie I have ever seen.

When a critic spends time telling you what you were wrong to enjoy, he denies you his privileged knowledge, knowledge that could help you find something new to love.

Love is what makes art go 'round. I'm pretty sure of that. An "overrated" list says there was too much love for whatever it names, but it also implies an "underrated" list. I wish Scott Mendelson had let me know his 10 movies from 2010 which needed my affection. As it stands, I'll just watch Scott Pilgrim again.

How Raspily Can You Say, "Gaaaaaay!"

2010-12-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

I don't really consider this space as one to evidence my opinions, per se. I'll let my biographers handle the question of where it all went wrong. Today, though, I'm going to discuss an opinion that is used to argue against everything from gay marriage to drinking milk: how "natural" something is.

I've been using my facebook status to throw up ideas, leaving little nuggets of politically-charged opinion here and there to the delight of my friends and relatives. I've poked fun at free market capitalism by using "Wal-Mart" as a verb, questioning the wisdom of using chemical weapons manufacturers' artificial sweeteners and letting the world know about Arrested Development Monopoly, all greeted with joy.

The time I quoted Marianne Williamson's "Out Greatest Fear" led to my mother asking what a glory hole is, but you can't win them all.

My current status is off the chain. "If your argument against gay marriage is that 'it isn't natural,' then you shouldn't use Splenda." 14 likes, 6 comments.

If you're reading this you're almost certainly my facebook friend so take a second, check it out and come on back. Done? Good.

Now you may have noticed that it's not a terrific argument, but I'm merely engaging the "not natural" idea on its own terms. And "natural" is a stupid argument for anything.

I've been told time and time again that Socialism can't work because it's "against human nature." I've been told this by Christians, and I finally retorted with, "isn't human nature sinful?"

Some people point out that humans are the only mammals who drink milk past infancy as a shorthand to offering any scientifically-reasoned argument, instead offering a fallacy a step below "correlation=causation." Specifically, they just say "causation" and leave it at that.

How about this: humans are also the only mammals to put themselves on the moon, have a codified system against rape, write books and invented the Beatles. We can drink milk if we want.

Now back to the gay thing. Check the fb discourse if you want, there are some interesting ideas floating on the thread. But let me question what the "natural" argument gets to, which asserts that God did not design humans for same-sex relationships. If we excuse the questionable translations of Greek into English, the fact that Paul even says he offers his own commentary and the fact that a reasoning brain says that God has bigger concerns than two people doin' it when there are child soldiers, we are left with the inescapable conclusion that it just doesn't make sense to keep people from getting married.

I'll tell you what's "natural." It's natural to be a small, spiteful, selfish little monster who cares only about itself. Get over what the world has to say and make your own evidence.

Hafiz Said So

2010-11-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

There is a difference, and this difference defines us, between having a responsibility to someone and owing them something, not that they're mutually exclusive. We all need to recognize our responsibilities to each other and ignore what we owe one another.

This shows itself vitally in our lateral relationships, it may be even more important in our vertical relationships. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "the most important measure of a person is how he or she treats someone who can do them absolutely no good." The flipside is that how we think of those on whom we depend indicates just as much about us. Specifically, I am considering the responsibilities between God, us and our stories.

It has been asked who [we are] that God should be mindful of us. With all due respect, this sort of thinking is bunk, one with a rich tradition in hymnals everywhere ("that saved a wretch like me"). A more accurate thinking would suggest that God in fact has a great responsibility toward us if He created us (which I believe he did). The problem with this thinking is it doesn't honor the relationship humanity has with the Almighty, for He does think of us and if he only does what's right then it's self-debasing to conjecture otherwise.

The purpose of the relationship, giving meaning through the stories of our lives, is ignored by such thinking. Seeing God as responsible to us further suggests and validates the idea of a responsibility to Him.

This is all well and good, but I say it carries over to what humans create. I read a book recently that explored the illusions of happiness and the joy of truth and in it a hallucination pleaded with the dreamer, saying, "I need you." I wondered why.

The realization to which I arrived is that, while I find meaning in the framing narrative of Christ, our stories find meaning from us. For example, a friend of mine pointed out that to the Greeks, Pandora finding hope at the bottom of her urn was the worst of all, because it was false.

As you know, we use this story as one to comfort us and these two meanings seem to be at odds. I argue that we have every right to take from our stories what helps us explain our world and give our stories meaning and purpose (which is why they were told in the first place).

My friend maintained that meaning could not be divorced from original intent. This has, even in the last century and throughout history, been proven patently wrong. People always take meaning from stories when they need a meaning. Like in Northern Exposure when Chris said "Casey at the Bat" was about the Cold War. It's what we need sometimes.

Mr. Gorbachev, strike out this wall!

Our stories need us because without us, they would happen anyway: we'd still have hopes and memories. But when we work for our stories, read and consider them, we make them and us into something more. We have that responsibility and it teaches us how to relate to each other.

Which is good, since the most important relationships are lateral ones.

Accidental Profundity, or, How a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Makes You Realize Horror

2010-10-28T08:07:00.001-07:00

I've played violent video games my entire life which, according to the Parent's Television Council makes me something of a monster. While some of my more cherished video game memories include harvesting tomatoes and tending to my cows, I've also killed thousands and thousands of men, women, maybe some children and quite a few dogs. My tools have been jack knives, katanas, FAMAS rifles, proton torpedoes and probably a nuke or two. By the numbers, I'm a genocidal maniac.

Even so, every once in a while I realize how not desensitized I am, even to fictional violence. Playing Heavy Rain on the PS3 put me in some uncomfortable situations of killing: I killed a man I had every right, as an officer of the law, to shoot. I felt really bad about it.

This guilt compliments a similar stress I felt when editing the final shootout of The Wild Bunch into 2 1/2 minutes of pure carnage. It's tough to watch, and it seems bizarre that video games and movies should make me feel the weight of violence so heavily.

That is, of course, the power of visual media. The neat thing about narratives is they can enhance who we are, freeing us from the bad wiring we have in the monkeysphere. Which is to say, it's hard for us to wrap our minds around human suffering not immediate to us.

Allow me to demonstrate. These are the statistics of how many Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

Polish-Soviet area	4,565,000
Germany	125,000
Austria	65.000
Czechoslovakia (in the pre-Munich boundaries	277,000
Hungary, including northern Transylvania	402,000
France	83,000
Belgium	24,000
Luxembourg	700
Italy	7,500
The Netherlands	106,000
Norway	760
Romania (Regat, southern Transylvania, southern Bukovina)	40,000
Yugoslavia	60,000
Greece	65,000
Total Loss	5,820,960

This table is from Judah Gribetz with Edward L. Greenstein and Regina S. Stein, The Timetables of Jewish History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in Jewish History. (New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster, 1993.) p. 479.

Keep in mind, this doesn't include gays, gypsies or any other victims of the Holocaust. Now, just imagine how many people died in military actions (not combat, as many civilians died, too) during WWII.

Can you wrap your mind around that? If you can, it's not easy since these are numbers, the kind we learned in high school. Now, a visual.

That cattle car is full of paper clips. Around 11 million (11,000,000) paper clips.

That sort of idea hits me pretty hard, but I recently saw this and it stopped me cold:

Yup. Raphael socking Hitler. See, when I described this to friends, I stopped and said, "because, Jesus, Hitler killed millions." It struck me. And worst of all, the worst punishment meted out for something like this is paltry violence.

"...for the millions!"

It's absurd, but a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic made me a little more human.

Go Ahead and Piss Them Off (for Jesus!)

2010-10-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school I went to youth group at a local church, spending my Sunday evenings learning about God, the Bible, Jesus and their apologetics (defense of a faith). One night we watched a short film about a man on death row for Jesus saying goodbye to his wife and son, encouraging his son to fight the Good Fight despite his father's death at the State's hand.

By virtue of the filmmakers setting it in the near-ish future, the movie looked hokey. The music did little to help, because if it was any sappier and you could put it on a pancake. Acting? Please. Even so, this film certainly got its point across: heathens and blasphemers will soon control the (United) State(s), so you had better be ready to die for Jesus. For Jesus!

There's a scene in Five Easy Pieces in which Jack Nicholson's character is trying to order toast, but it's lunchtime so they don't serve toast. So Jack orders a sandwich on toasted bread, hold everything. He's kicked out and his friends congratulate him on sticking it to the waitress. "Still didn't get my sandwich." What the movie's message and this scene have in common is that taking the defining characteristic from something ("sandwich," "Christianity") and using it asininely ("hold everything," "Us vs. Them") defeats the purpose, dismisses the crusader and sends the poor, downtrodden hero away hungry.

There was an amazing amount of hubris in Die for Jesus in the Year 2000 or whatever it was called. See, it thought that in the near future, someone, anyone in the US will be threatened by Christianity. Maybe they figured the USSR would take over and outlaw religion and were hedging their bets, but I doubt it. No, these people honestly thought the government would be worried about a group of people who:

are naive enough to watch Fox News.
bored enough to argue over Harry Potter's devilry.
complacent enough to hole up in the suburbs.
demure enough to allow atrocious wars in US's name.
gullible enough to elect a man to start those wars because he's "a Christian."
Buy, consume, bitch and buy some more.

It's as if the government decided that since waitresses could, maybe, someday spit on their food, better throw them in prison now. Next time, bitch'll give me my sandwich. Right?

American Christianity has removed the point of the faith: rockin' the boat. Jesus asked the rulers of His time, "why are people poor?" "Why are you still wealthy?" "Is that what God wants, or are you using God to get what you want?" "Will you carry your cross (sign of a criminal) and follow me?"

A friend of mine recently posted as her facebook status, "God, keep us safe from the police." I responded, "God, make us the kind of people of peace whom threaten the police." Let's think about what's wrong with the social order and mess things up a little. Let's get sent to the Death Star's death row. Let's earn all the promises of suffering Jesus made by doing His will on earth.

What would Jesus do?
Rebel.

Kids can be Terrible People, just like Everyone Else

2010-10-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

When I was four years old
They tried to test my I.Q.
They showed me a picture of 3 oranges and a pear
They said, which one is different?
It does not belong
They taught me different is wrong
-"My IQ" by Ani DiFranco

I was reading up on cyberbullying in Newsweek this morning, reflecting on how we train children to think and act a certain way, then are shocked when they exceed a suicidal society's wildest hopes and dreams. The article opened with the tale of Phoebe Prince who was "bullied to death" over Facebook and in real life (IRL). The poor girl was fighting a two-front war and decided to surrender with a rope.

The article goes on to call into question the logistics of punishing Phoebe's (and other victims') tormentors. It points out sticky spots like Phoebe's history of suicidal tendencies, her attackers' good academic standing (as if that matters), and the fact that it's difficult to hold people responsible for actions they did not directly perform. I'm sure those girls didn't want Phoebe to kill herself; that would have ended their awful little fun.

Those of you who know me very well may be familiar with my own experiences with the shitheadedness of children. To this day, there are a few things that just bug me, hurt me or shut down my coping mechanisms thanks to a slight breech by some unwitting person in my life reminding me of something said when I was 11. These things, they happen. Certainly I had mornings I didn't want to get up, let alone go to school, and some times I got that wish. Sometimes not. I look back on those days with a slightly better emotional framework, so I'd like to offer a couple of ideas on the cyberbullying conversation. Maybe I can even contextualize it in the human condition.

Cyberbullying, and the whiplash reaction to it, occurs at the intersection of at least two of three phenomena in human sociology/psychology:

Different is wrong: how interesting this possibly evolutionary trait should be applied within a species.
Pattern-finding: while this determines "different," it also leads to the decade sentences over some of these bullies' heads. Check out the Historian's Fallacy.
John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory: or, to quote Oscar Wilde, "give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." Not that calling someone a whore is truthful, but it does release the caller from a modicum of responsibility.

While I can't determine which of these occur within our minds and which we've created, or a mixture of the two, I do know these cause of lot of this conversation's talking points.

The US government legislates against homosexuals, many churches decry their "lifestyles" (because you are who you fuck, right?) and in general are given the scarlet word of "other," so people shouldn't be surprised when children treat gays like subhumans. This was the case of two boys in California and a college student named Tyler Clementi who threw himself off George Washington Bridge.

The problem lies in a culture which trains children to think in terms of exclusivity and entertainment: Clementi's roommate streamed a video of him and a lover. Children, even college students, have a hard time separating degrees of what society considers acceptable levels of hatred. It's generally okay in the US to support "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (you won't lose friends over it, probably), but it's wrong to out and out ostracize LGBT people.

Furthermore, when a culture values entertainment like "Flavor of Love," which operates like "Lord of the Herpetic Flies," children are going to think the "other" is there for entertainment. If we want to stop cyberbullying, this would be a good place to start.

Breaking the human's idea of pervasive patterns would be something to consider as well. Newsweek, hoping to elicit some sympathy for her torturers, points out that Phoebe Prince had already attempted suicide. The idea is that since she had the problems anyway, there is less responsibility on the bullies' part. If Jessica Bennett (the article's author) really thought it through, she'd realize it would make more sense to hold them more responsible (you don't give an alcoholic a fifth of Jack).

She is right, though, in asking whether bullies can, as a policy, be punished for their victims' actions. The Historian's Fallacy and people's... interesting use of cause and effect make us work backwards. So while two bullies post the same sentence on Facebook, the one whose subject commits suicide becomes the media's pariah. It reduces the question of causality and responsibility to moral luck. When you factor in the fact that one of Phoebe's bullies had her own emotional demons, this takes on a whole other facet of culpability.

As for the intersection of anonymity and responsibility, Facebook disallows most of that problem, but this has become part of human's approach to interaction online. Couple that with how analogous using a computer to socialize is with gaming, where moral rules are often suspended, stark realities focus. Again, people should not be surprised when "just a video game" thinking leads to "just a wall post" actions.

I hope this will give you something to consider, and maybe even help around the water cooler when and if this comes up. And let's have some sympathy for our devils.

Manly Men!

2010-09-23T20:39:00.001-07:00

Newsweek recently featured an article on masculinity and how it hurts men by forcing them to think it's imperative they work in the auto industry when the jobs are in nursing. This, along with paternity leave, would redefine masculinity. Cool. Whatever.
Now for my rebuttal: fuck "masculine," "feminine" and any other moniker you want to hang on people. Wanna know why? Here's why. Let's set up a few facts.

Fact: No one is pleased with how things are. You know, in general.
Fact: If you think the way you've always thought, you'll do the things you've always done and you'll get what you've always gotten.
Fact: The world has always used labels to confine the human being.
And we're fluid.

Einstein said insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think Bob Dylan said my #2 up there, more or less. Jesus compared this to putting new wine in old wineskins, and in His metaphor, the wineskins broke; the problem gets worse.
I was reading Y: The Last Man recently (and if you aren't/haven't FOR SHAME). In it, there's a scene in which Yorick (our hero) is having a water gun fight with his girlfriend Beth. In this scene, while Beth is using a run-of-the-mill multicolored toy, Yorick's pistols looks like a freakin' pistol. Yorick says some bravado garbage and Beth calls him: his gun's empty. He claims he's refilled it with his piss.

I thought long and hard about this. Masculinity, as I understand society to understand it, demands anyone with a penis (that's me) act as though we have the capacity for deadly violence. It calls for bravado and the infantile. Just think about the last comedy you saw. Chances are it was about a grown man acting like a child and a woman teaching him to act his fucking age already. The reward is often true love--or at least empty sex, which, as far as empty experiences go, is one of the best.

This sort of thinking has really screwed men. Last night, Allie and I were biking and, long and short of it, a guy in a taxi called me a faggot and told me to suck his cock. He also spat at me. I told him to fuck off (of which I'm not proud).

Looking back on it, I realized how hard it must be for that bro. Brah? Whatever. Dude felt the need to show off in front of his buddies by hurting someone else, to assert a masculinity in which he had no confidence. This masculinity plants the seed of "do, not be," which is to say one must do something to be a man, not that you can just be a man. This manliness is the peg on which so many hang their self-worth. How terrible.

How difficult it must be to affront someone's sexuality to glorify your own, to demand a homosexual act while calling someone a faggot. I say it's difficult in the sense of how scared a person is from masculinity's compulsion. Really, it's the easy way.

The hard way is to be happy with the masculinity you create for yourself (you women, too! Everyone's welcome!). I cook and clean. I lift weights. I play violent video games. I enjoy Audrey Hepburn movies. I make movies. I write poetry. Comic books. Dungeons and Dragons. Have a wife, but try to think of her as "spouse." None of these things are inherently masculine or feminine. To contextualize, there are gay men in the military killing people. There are gay men singing showtunes. There are straight men baking pastries, building a house with their own hands. That's the masculinity we need: not a paradigm, but a personality. We don't need to "do" to be valid, and "being" does not validate either. Rather, everyone needs to find the place between the two where self-love and love for others is best realized. One can only occur with the other, you know.

So I encourage all of you to consider how you view yourselves and others, because it's not just the examined life worth living, but the properly examined life. Help me to do the same.

And you know what else? That guy wasn't even my type. I wonder if I'm his?

The Greatest Sin

2010-08-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

I was recently discussing The Inferno with friends and found we knew not the third traitor in the Beast's jaws. We remembered Judas, Brutus and I have decided the third: myself. I am the great betrayer, the actor in bad faith, the unknower of self. Understand, I've never studied the Divine Comedy beyond checking Wikipedia just now and playing the Dante's Inferno demo (a lackluster game, at best, a misogynistic gorno at worst). I'm just trying to make some sense of me with this limited understanding of the work.
The nature of identity is the nature of leading a just life, and it is in this I have failed and find myself both deserving and redeemed from the Jaws. While the greatest commandment is, "to love the Lord your God... and your neighbor as yourself," to paraphrase, this is not the definer of what sin is. I have sinned by not knowing who I am and that is the germ, the spark, that causes me to hurt others. I cannot love my God and other people fully because I act in what the existentialists call "bad faith".

“I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
Here, Thompson operates on what I think of as a sort of "worst faith". In my understanding of existentialism, one works on bad faith by refusing to acknowledge he or she is acting outside of their own accordance of right or wrong (for lack of better terms). Thompson is aware of the destructive nature of his lifestyle, but disavows its immorality.

Truth to tell, I like this idea. He knew himself well enough to recognize his shortcomings, and that's a start of self-awareness. The evangelist would consider this an acknowledgment of being a "sinner". Both are all well and good, but there's a level of intentionality lacking. Even fans of Thompson have to agree with me on this, as football season did end, and he lost sight of his purpose. I have done the same by punishing Allison for my own shortcomings, along with her unwillingness to punish me for them.

I will fail in getting the grill going well and proper and snap at her. I will fail in getting directions right and yell at her. I will commit these little failures and commit myself to a depression for them. And, as Lincoln said, "Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." Well, my father told me, "Depression is anger without the enthusiasm," and I need to work through both to live with a decent self-awareness.

I realize I need to consider why I'm walking, why the walk is worthwhile. To do this, I have to know myself. I'm reading T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone, and have just finished the duel between Merlyn and Madame Mim, in which they transform into sundry animals, vegetables and microbes to outwit or outtrample one another. It's the stuff of great literature, and adumbrated Gaiman's battle between Choronzon and Morpheus in the first volume of The Sandman. In the fight between Dream and the demon, the former is trying to win from the latter his helm, in which is his own power. He is trying to win himself. Throughout the battle the two move from form to form, seeking to kill each other by stomping spine and desecrating life. In the end, Choronzon becomes Anti-Life. Dream becomes the one counter to this: Hope. The demon finds no recourse and Lucifer punishes him for his lack of imagination.
Afterward, Lucifer fancies he has the Dream King in his clutches, but is outwitted by the Prince of Stories. Morpheus again invokes hope; what good is Hell without the desire for Heaven? Lucifer, enraged at his impotence, swears vengeance.
Ultimately, there is nothing simpler and more disarming to hatred than this: asserting oneself. Scripture tells us the only unforgivable sin is the one committed against the Holy Spirit, and this is the Spirit in and among us. In fact, it is each of us, if we believe in a personal, loving God in and through Christ. So across the years we can hear Shakespeare's gentle assertion, not a commandment, but a lens through which to read it: "to thine ownself be true". I haven't always held this precept in my heart and mind. I will fail again (and again, ad hoc) in doing so.
In thought, word and deed I have betrayed my friends, family, wife, self and God by denying simple truths: I am not one or the other of any number of dualities (sinner/saint, lover/bigot, artist/sloth), but rather what is born through my actions, actions which take concepts from essence to existence. The great sin to which I have committed myself continually is denying who I am, which, I think, is really what causes my betrayal of others and God more than anything else.
I think of Christ asking his disciples to profess who He is, and it leads me to consider who I am in His light. I think he can tell me what I am (his beloved) and that will tell me who I want to be (someone worthy of belovedness). It seems rather simple, really.
I mean, when I'm faced with my own darkness (of which I have plenty), I can try to crush it underfoot, or deny its validity, but that's fighting me at my own game. I don't think the way of Love (veryily, the Way of Christ) plays the game that way. It makes itself a nettle in a thicket of nettles and allows wickedness to tire itself. Love makes itself hope, which outlasts every enemy, resting quietly at the bottom of the urn after all shadows have spread. Compassion asserts itself as itself and thus receives freedom from Hell.
I will do my level best, and please hold me to this, to better love myself by loving you, because it's worth it to me to act as though Heaven can, should be here on Earth.
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
-Abraham Lincoln

Reflecting on Creation/Discovery

2010-08-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

In The Science of God Gerald L. Schroeder tells us that the verbs used in the Creation story have a connotation of discovery; God does not simply will things into existence, but finds them and shapes them, calls them and molds them.
-
I was on set a few months ago working on Dustin Supencheck's zombie romance Hostility, having a conversation about the ennui of people my age (about 20). The malaise a lot of us have is the concept of identity. This is nothing new, but it has an ever-growing context, especially in an art school such as Columbia. Couple this with the fact I was speaking with an actor, it was pretty engaging.
It was posited to me that travel is the way to discover oneself. I like the idea of having a walkabout around Europe, eating interesting foods, drinking interesting drinks, sleeping with interesting women; all those European things. The idea I like. As I told the actor (Kai Young), I didn't buy it. My difference was rooted in my understanding of identity's nature.
-
I wondered aloud if the facebook "About Me" quiz could, if completed, be used to recreate a person. My friend Marc said it couldn't, making me realize how much goes into a person beyond a preference for root beer over cream soda.
-
I told Kai I thought the real definer of a person was rooted much more in the act of self-creation. I told him, I'm working on myself, making myself into something. Explaining my position, I told him I'm looking to change, that at 22 I'm far too young to believe I'll stumble upon some heretofore unknown "me" and that'll be that: Brandon achieved!
-
"Do you think the things you're interested in will change?" asked my directing teacher.
"God, I hope so," I answered.
-
I've been rethinking my denial of self-discovery. I'm not into most dualities. I don't buy into mutual exclusivity. Check it: you can be pro-life and pro-choice. Sorry if I just blew your mind (though I doubt I did). Realizing I had made a false distinction in this instance, I had to reconsider my position.
To be clear, it is a false duality (then again, the overwhelming majority of them are). Being an artist, I discover as I create. I write this sentence, choosing words and crafting syntax and this sentence leads into the next. I discover a desire to say, to tell you, to realize who I am in this writing and what this writing says about my context.
-
In Christopher Nolan's Inception, Cobb (DiCaprio) tells Page's Adriane that dreams are a process of discovery and creation feeding into one another.
Dreams, art, Homer in that one "Treehouse of Horror":

They all feed one into another.
-
In my life, I've been dealing with some questions of how I relate to people. I've been thinking about whether or not I could be physical with a man. I'm not opposed to the idea, to be sure. I don't even think this is a question of identity (you aren't who you fuck). Even so, I don't think I've found a man with whom I'd want to be intimate. I don't believe people choose to be gay, but I also think I might have the capacity. The bottom line is, I don't know if it would work for me.
I'm looking at my art these days and considering what my characters make, and what I find in them.
At least in my art I can find a universe to help me create my place in this larger reality.

Pilgrims' Portion

2010-06-16T13:27:00.001-07:00

How many miles to Columbia?
Three score miles and ten.
Will she still love when we arrive?
Rest assured and don’t ask again.
How many miles through Umbria?
Three score miles and ten.
Will she deign be mine by candlelight?
If you throw a stone to see by night,
You’ll reach Columbia by candlelight.

How long must we navigate Umbria?
The shared lifetime afforded to you.
Will he still honor when we arrive?
In 42 years he will stay true.
Will his heart hold out for two score and two?
He’ll bear the burden with and for you.
Will he be my King and I his Queen?
If you swim like dolphins can swim,
He’ll care for you through land dim.

Will we bear fruit in a home of our own?
Your quiver will be full.
Need we defend our single fledgling flesh?
Athena will bless your soul.
Will we see our new Bohemia?
You’ll be blessed with la vie en rose.
What will our deeds and words be then?
If your hands are just and words are light,
Your progeny will arrive after candleligh

Father's Day

2010-06-16T13:26:00.001-07:00

It’s a wise child knows its father. I know mine well enough to be wise as to what I should buy him. Coffee. Chocolate. Stimulates.
Knowing father? Learning wisdom? Trust in Mother (who Father is)? Does it always come back to her?
Sperm determines sex. Fundamental identity? Wisdom in knowing oneself? Father begetting himself his own son.
Leaving house, Lloyd meets himself meets Brandon Lloyd. Pallas Brandon. Pallas Athena’s avatar: owl, bird of wisdom, asks, “Who?” “Who is your father?” I, knowing mine, am a wise child.
Lloyd, in creating Lloyd, created Brandon Lloyd. Brandon Lloyd seeks to beget ______ Lloyd.
Father loves self, loves son’s supersession. Father becomes quintessential teacher (imparter of wisdom). Stimulates mind, imparts ability to love.
Loved Mother, loves coffee, chocolate, son.
Love because he first loved. Stimulate love. Wisely buy wise father stimulants. Happy Father’s Day.

Intaglio

2010-03-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

by
Brandon L. Sichling

The blank does not intimidate me
Because I know better, shrewdly,
Than to show it any fear
Other than of the failure
On which I’m about to embark.

I know the blank’s dimensions
And I know my materials (how)
And I know what I want to say (why)
And I am flabbergasted if I know (where)
They intersect.

When I am dead I hope
This rune will speak for me
To those I leave behind.
I hope it will strengthen me
To explain myself before God
Almighty.

While I am here I will fill
The blank with the idea
In my heart, pulling
It in and staining it with my inks
Pumped by desire and desperation
To create.

I know it will only leave me when I’m through,
Even though my signature adorns it
And makes it my responsibility.
Almighty will raise this point
And my void cast onto another
Will give me the will
And negate the inclination
To apologize.

I Can't Tell You

2010-03-03T14:31:00.001-08:00

by
Brandon L. Sichling

Love is real, but it doesn’t exist.
It’s “there” because there is always
Where we fruitlessly seek.
Love is not here. Humanity declined
The honor of its presence.

My body exists, but it isn’t real.
It’s measurable, at 11.814286 stone,
A few colors, blue and hazel being the two
That matter, but mostly a tolerable shade of
Pasty, constituent clay.

My thoughts are broken, small things.
Occasionally I dream a few nights straight.
I dream and the dreams scare me
To Death & Equal Realities.

Love is real, but it can’t exist.
Existences start by screaming:
Babies, combustion engines, tea.
Love is only real in quiet places
With heartbeats echoing.

Existence, a tiresome long gestation
Love tries to punch through.
It’s trying so damn hard
I see it when I turn out the light.
I can tell you because it’s not mine.

I’ve seen gas burning in night skies.
I’ve looked into your iris.
Gas and fire: formless, but voluminous.
I guess the severity of your headaches.
Frustration is summons, declined.

Love doesn’t exist, but I know where it is.
I can hazard some measurements like recipes:
1 scream = x decibels
1 flare in your iris = x BTUs
1 orgasm is Love tearing into this world.

The Price of a Bomb: A Rundown with Batwoman

2009-08-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I'd share something close to my heart with you. See, while my brother is a Marine and I support the idea on a war on terror, I think the military budget should be cut. Let's start with, oh, 1%. This translates to about one billion (1,000,000,000) dollars. To put that in perspective, that is about half of what it would take to start up the public health insurance option (which would seem to cost no tax money anyway). Considering this, I thought we might consider on what we could be spending that money, where else it could go and why the military is not the best place for it. I am not an expert on economics or military science, so I brought in someone who also is not an expert, but opinionated and fiery. Today's guest is Batwoman. Batwoman, how do you feel about the amount of money the US is putting into its military and not into its healthcare? Would you say it makes you mad enough to kick a gorilla?

And some to spare, I guess. You even drew some blood. Well, let's get down to business, then.
According to the CIA World Factbook, the US spends 5.3% of its GDP on education. That ranks us 57th in the world. That's below Slovenia (41), Ethiopia (43) and the Sudan (42). We're behind Cuba (9!). The only countries we respect above us are Switzerland, Norway, Finland and the UK, which spends 5.6% of its GDP on education. With our GDP at about 14 and 1/4 trillion, that's a lot of money, but we're .3% behind England, which doesn't seem like too big a deal until you realize that England has (besides its health care) free secondary education. That's right, the English get free college. I have to take out about 48 grand in student loans this year. Granted, I'm going to a private school (I actually wanted to learn how to turn on a camera), but that is just way too much damn money. I am getting loans from the government, but really, there is no good reason for me to be paying this much, let alone being punished for trying to improve myself and my position. Imagine if everyone could go to school for free. Just think of how much better this country would be if everyone were trained to think critically, compose arguments succinctly and stop being so stupid.
On the other hand, if college were affordable, a lot of people would stop joining the armed forces. What do you think, Batwoman?

Speechless and slinking from a geisha's room? Me, too.
As I mentioned earlier, the $1 billion that constitute 1% of the US military budget would go halfway to getting the public health insurance option running. Some people think this program shouldn't exist at all, which makes sense when you consider that children should be allowed to die from entirely treatable diseases. We could take $1 billion from the 17 going to nuclear weapons to make up this money. Some people might think this is also a bad idea, and they're probably right; the fact that our current cache of nukes is hundreds of warheads, each about one hundred-fold more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb just goes to show how much more we need to make. Do you think these people are right, Batwoman?

You're right Batwoman, those bitches are silly.
Now, I'm not saying we should take money from the $3 billion spent on family housing. I've seen some of the houses troops' families live in, and they still aren't that nice. Those people more than deserve that money.
I'm by no means saying the $70 billion spent on retired pay is wasted, as that money is going to people who served their country and deserve their pension, just like anyone else.
I'm just saying, I'm sure we can find 1% we can spend somewhere more worthy than, say, building a new fighter jet when the US already has the best jets ever.
A good choice might be helping the poor. From 2009 taxes, almost 12% will go to help the needy, compared to the 44% going to the military. The gap between the rich and poor, and the rate at which that gap is growing, is larger than anywhere else in the world and the largest its been throughout American history. With $1 billion, Obama could bring back the Food Commodities Assistance program, which cost $300,000 and help struggling single mothers get a bag a groceries free every month. That money could fund soup kitchens or help poor children get free lunches at school. Instead, it's building bombs and buying guns.
By the way, the military spends about twenty two times more than what is spent on education and jobs, science and the environment and over double what is spent on health care.
I was thinking recently about something I read in a book of Norse mythology. It talked about how warriors and sailors were guaranteed a special place in the afterlife, the high seats at Valhalla, for their professions on earth. I also remember a statement issued by a union around WWI, mourning the deaths of soldiers but wondering why their brothers who died in mines or on railroads were unsung. Nothing has changed: we still hold fighters aloft and let workers toil unappreciated. I'm not saying my brother should be given anything less than the best, but I think we should try to respect all Americans, all people. This might be the best way for us to get along.
We all might end up getting better, being happier.

Or we might all get shot at by terrorists while fighting gremlins and werewolves. Both are equally likely.

I'm Going to Pick a Few for Myself

2009-08-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

I'm a Jungian. I like the idea of, not expunging, but rather embracing my faults. This works with my faux-egomania defense mechanism and almost, kind of, artificially, boosts my self-esteem. Which is unhealthy, probably more so than alcohol, but it is cheaper. That is, until I finally decide to suck it up and see a shrink. Does calling them "shrinks" hurt their feelings? Analyst, then.
There is something to be said for my method of shadow dispersal, despite its rampant self-destructive nature: it acknowledges bad parts of me as parts of me. I'm never going to be rid of my most basic character flaws, the first of which is my near total lack of character. "Just because you are a character, doesn't mean you have character," quips Mr. Wolf near the end of Pulp Fiction. This is shortly before he offers the advice of, "move out of the sticks." I should listen to Harvey Keitel more.
Still, old Carl would have me look at my insecurity, self-loathing and juggernaut inferiority complex and say to them, "you are part of me and I don't have to like you, but I need to like me." Which is probably healthy, but I don't know; I'm not a doctor. Or even a post-graduate. Or graduate. Or... anyway, in an attempt to overcome some of my more malodorous aspects, I've been looking over, little by little, Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project blog. I noticed one of its cornerstones is a list of 12 commandments to guide her through this process of achieving a real, meaningful and lasting joy. You should check her out, because she's pretty sharp, but also rather pretty. Everyone loves redheads. I am not a redhead. I can give you an idea of her precepts as being things along the lines of being comfortable with herself and embracing love and proactivity. Hunt down her blog and check the list out for yourself. It's a good list, and we all love the hell out of lists.
Looking at Ms. Rubin's roll call of self-improvement, I thought I'd give my own a shot. This is largely precipitated by my yelling at my fiance earlier when she was, and I'm choosing my word carefully here, encouraging me to try harder in seeking employment. Now, I'm not going to say I was wrong in how I felt, but I communicated this poorly, much like yelling at someone for jumping your car with their own cables: I'm just pissed I can't help myself.
So, here goes:

Being Brandon.
Remember: that person is not necessarily an asshole.
Remember when Jesus got good and pissed.
Silence is not judgment.
I don't have to be polite, just fair.

Don't take life seriously.

I don't have to be prefect

Blame myself once, move on.

Trauma

It's okay.

I am not above flipping burgers;

People's opinions are important, as long as I care.

Pray about it.

I just wanted to share this with my vast readership, and I thank you both from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me when you read these posts, and feedback is always requested. If you write your own list, I'll read it. We're all in this together. Now excuse me while I aggrandize myself with breakfast cereal and the edifying, soothing words of Harvey Keitel: "You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. Say the goddamn words! You're gonna be okay!"

Vitreous, not Humour

2009-08-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

Feeling weighty fog,
Feeling my rat's callous bite
I dig out my eyes

An Apartment Window on Congress, Near State

2009-07-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

I can only see the back of the canvas
And wonder of the other side.
Even though the Easel is lovely,
I'd love even more to know the Image she constructs.

Does she paint the street as she sees it from her perch?
No. How could she?
How could one bear to reproduce the
Homeless beggars and wide-eyed youth,
Preparing for college, together?

Possibly, I almost hope, she paints the street as
She she sees it from her mind:
Clean, quiet, bustling, free,
A tollway whose charge is kindness.
I'm sure she does not
If only because I'm sure that from where
She is, the problems seem so small as to not be
Worth the fixing. Or ignoring.

She could, if she had any sense,
Be painting something neither here nor there.
She could just be making something up,
something redeeming, wonderful.
This is unlikely, as
Most artists need models, and there are
None handy to show a tolerable world.

Or maybe someone else's painting
Rests on the easel. Possibly it is
Merely decoration.
It would be a shame, but the easiest one with which
To live.

That Third One

2009-06-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

If I got up in front of my parent's church, or just about any church for that matter, and said "goddamn," regardless of context, it would be a scandal. I'd be asked to leave. It would make the paper. Old ladies would faint... upon reading it in the paper. Never mind what my future in-laws would do.
Taking the Lord's name in vain (the Third Commandment, for those playing at home) is not kosher. It's offensive. I was recently wondering, though, if merely saying "Oh, my God!" to a shoe sale or funny joke, defined as one not told by Dane Cook, is too narrow a definition of this sacrilege. Understand, I am not for the light usage of the Name of the Most High, even if I have mused as to whether or not you can content "God" and "Lord" are names and not titles. In this, I remain unconvinced, but stalwart in my fear of a self-proclaimed "jealous God" able to destroy my very soul. Anyway, I wondered if invoking the name of God for an action beyond the mere intoning, compounded the sin, should be considered a more true taking of the name in vain.
I took a history class in which we discussed early American movements. John Brown and Nat Turner were discussed. They both killed people for a greater good, the whole class was on board for this interpretation, but we divided them on another issue altogether: John Brown was just pissed off to all hell, which I've always wondered about, and Nat Turner got his marching orders from God. Why God would suddenly change his policy on slavery, I don't know, but Nat was convinced. In light of this schism, general consensus came in that Brown was an angry man, possible a terrorist, while Turner was, in academic parlance, bugfuck. So, when you attach God's name to something, there's some significance in it. You may thing this is a bygone, though. Brown and Turner were about 150 years ago. Normal Americans generally don't give God a second thought, let alone kill in His name. Right?
Wrong. You know better than that. Dr. George Tiller, an abortion doctor (don't worry, I'm not getting into that now), was gunned down on May 31 of this year by Scott Roeder during church service. Tiller was handing out bulletins at the time. Roeder may or may not think that God told him to do this. It doesn't really matter, but when Randall Terry, professional ignoramus, said he "reaped what he sowed," among other similarly ignorant comments, he attached God. He approved of murder in God's name, an attribution in vain.
Killing in the Name is nothing new, but not as nicely confined to the Middle Ages of history as we'd like to think. The American-Philippine war was waged, partially, to "Christianize" the Philippines. Never mind that Spain had already converted an overwhelming majority of the population to Catholicism, America was saving them for Jay-sus (the name I give to the American Conservative God). That was in the early 1900's, by the way. And don't think this Imperialism in His Name isn't still going strong: Bush ran on the platform of Christianity, despite his many evils, like starting a war in Iraq. It shouldn't be surprising that the Muslim world thinks this has been a Christian v. Muslim war because, as far as they can tell and the US has acted, it is. We'll see if there's a faith-based appeal to intervene in Iran and end the repressive Muslim regime. It is oppressive, but most Iranians were Muslim before the Koran was being used to abuse them, and many will continue in that faith when they are free.
We make all these claims about God being on our side, asking God to bless America and facilitate our Imperialism. President Lincoln said, "...I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." We can no longer justify our actions with a doctrine of divine inspiration. The United States government's actions and inactions will reflect well or poorly on them and their people. Let us no longer allow them to reflect on God, for it compounds our sins.

The New Nerd

2009-06-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

"It did the best a musical has ever done at the box office, I know," I said about Mama Mia!, "but I don't know why they'd put it up against The Dark Knight."
"Brandon," my mom admonished, "not everyone wants to see a Batman movie."
"Well, It's made over a billion dollars, so, yes, they do."
Congratulations, Reader: you are a nerd (you're reading my blog, after all). You, friend, boosted Batman to the top spot. You are making video games an industry to rival film and television. You, yes you, made sure Star Trek opened at the top of the box office. Scientifically, Star Trek is to box office as matter is to anti-matter. This stuff is for everyone, and everyone wants it now.
Notwithstanding my prior comments on the proliferation of nerdom, I'm pretty happy about the way things are right now. I'm a lifelong Batman fan, so even though the comics suck right now, I've been getting a lot of other media to keep me elated. Be sure, I have the collector's edition of Batman: Arkham Asylum pre-ordered. I have been Hitleresque in my nerdiness. Society has proven a capable David Lloyd.
The benefits aren't just mine, though. I have no love for Transformers or G.I. Joe, but they're both stepping out this summer. I have a great love for Terminator, and my dad and I finally got our movie focusing on the war with the machines. With that and Star Trek, it's been a sexy summer, and the bikini of pop culture is revealing, flattering and one size fits all.
Even the cool kids. My dork brethren, you have been trading blows with me about the Star Wars Prequels for a decade now. You're established. It's everyone else who just showed up to the party, and we need to welcome them, putting aside past abuses and usurpations. The new nerd is the Halo fanboy, who is also on the football team. He mixes this up with some Gears of War, but XBox exclusives, either way. Christian Bale is dreamy, Heath Ledger was riveting, and the sorority sister has recognized the allure.
This isn't a one-way cultural diffusion. Indeed, none are. Those "regular" people we supposed to have existed are invited to Comicon this year. "Hope to see you there!" Edward Cullen smiles his fangy grin. New Moon is making its debut at the Seder of nerdism. Twilight is appearing with the spandex-clad and gun-toting heroes of our extended adolescence. Of course "normal" people are coming into "our" culture. We've invited them. They're the cool kids (check out Rayne Summers of Least I Could Do. We're all the cool kids.
Which is good. Twilight, not so much, but what these trends represent is. It's not just that nerds are now more accepted. That's becoming old news. What's exciting is now, we are going to pick up new habits, pass times and fandoms. Me, I work out, and have become something of an athlete. I've even watched a couple of football games in the past few years. I'm reading different books, seeing different films. It was in my supposed nerdy differentness I got engrossed in a lot of the same. This culture is growing, and we need to be inclusive. Except for, you know, the kids who wear cosplay items in public. Everyone else is in.

My Time at the Picket Line

2009-06-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

“Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least.”
-Eugene Debs

While, in general, I lament things being “lost,” there are bits of human consciousness I am glad to see go, or rejoice at my awareness of their having left. Bell-bottoms, feudalism and electing Republicans to the Presidency all make the list, along with the chant, “What do we want?” “Justice (et al.)!” “When do we want it?” “NOW!” I always thought this antiphonic rallying call invited smart assness with its inanity, yet repulsed the same by being such an easy target, much like “(repeat)” showing up in printed lyrics.
So I was pleased when this little bit of phraseology didn't show up today as I attended my fist “street action,” a picket line around the Congress Hotel, Chicago. This was my history class, instead of talking about worker's struggles. A few classmates and I went, found our professor and posed for a couple of pictures. Most of the group, having been counted, bolted, leaving my new friend Eric, whose father is a surgeon, and I to take a lap 'round the Congress Hotel. Which took a while, as the picket line had surrounded the building, a picket line that taught me as much about the American Working Class, America itself, as any textbook could hope, a picket line illustrating the American bravado, diversity, foolhardiness and heart inherent in a healthy democracy.
What first struck me on this march was the size of the thing. I had heard the figure of 5,000 people, but I was not prepared for the impressive spectacle the protest was. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of the YouTube video our class had watched a week or so ago: it was the same hotel, with Columbia students joining the much smaller fight. Now, it was an event, a cultural presence. There were signs, giant inflated rats, t-shirts, stickers, chants and so many people. I was there, man. I was one of the people. I got this sense as soon as I took up the walk, and had it bolstered as a woman handed me a sign of my own, which served as my lightning rod, galvanizing my zeal.
It was a sign of the local union. It had plain type, telling its reader to “UNITE HERE,” in red, with “Local 1” in black. There were other signs, though. There were several featuring the President, who has said he will walk with this picket again (he did so as a senator). There were many signs similar to my own. There were even some homemade signs, evidencing a spirit you can find in any Illinois prairie if you merely look in the sod.
The variety of signs was matched by t-shirts. I saw many shirts of the Local 1, but also the wagon wheel of the Teamsters. I saw AFSCME shirts, picking them out of the crowd easily; they are a particular green, a green emblazoned on many magazines delivered to my house for my father. What enlightened me was a group in blue. These were representatives of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. I labor under a misconception of Jews being generally affluent. This is mostly prejudice, buoyed by the only Jew I know being something of a JAP. Even so, here they were, supporting laborers. So, there goes that crap theory, but it wasn't what really surprised me.
What got me was the fact that one of the guys wearing this blue shirt was black. Which is to say, I'm pretty sure he isn't Jewish. On my walk today, I heard a bit of “¡Si se puede!” Which I expected, and black people being there didn't surprise me, but it was the sense of cross-cultural inclusion I admired. I was part of this, and anyone could be.
Not to say this was an entirely amicable function. Sure, people were laughing, smiling, joking around. People are ebullient when in the process of emancipation. Still, they don't take to the streets because they're happy, and these people were pissed. People entering the hotel were reprimanded by the crowd. “Shame on you! Shame on you!” Truth to tell, I felt this was a little unfair. These people weren't the bigwigs in charge of the building. These people had no control over where their company was having the annual bullshitting convention. Nor were they necessarily aware of the poor conditions of the hotel for both workers and guests. These poor, unwitting folks just clicked on whatever Orbitz or Travelocity or whatever the hell site told them had the best price. Oh, well.
What pervaded my thinking at the time was not the unfair chiding, nor was it the heterogeneous group. Rather, I was suffused with a sense of how American all these things were. Even while the crummy conditions of these workers is ubiquitous in America, it is in America people can take to the streets and be angry about it. All these little wonders coalesced into something sublime, democratic. I was, more than any other time in my life, proud to be an American, proud to be the son of parents who believe in the union, the son of workers. My parents, as a second job, do cleaning work themselves, and I help out fairly often, so this was my struggle. It wasn't my fight just because I've done a lot of service work myself, though. It's my task because it's my fellow Americans' task. Today, I was dedicated to that great task that lies before our nation: that all people be respected. A sentiment, I pray, never goes out of style.

“When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. we will be comrades, we will be brothers, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known.”
-Eugene Debs
If you want to learn more about the Congress Hotel strike, visit http://www.congresshotelstrike.info/ .

I Want You So Ba-a-a-a-ad

2009-06-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

How is your beauty?
To posses, to hold, to hurt
No one but myself.

It Isn't About You

2009-05-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Sad, Lonely Author,
Creating dramas
More his own than tales.

Like You've Never Seen a Cute, Goth Girl Before!

2009-04-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

What a pretty smile
And you are even polite
Oh. You're Death? Dammit.

Review: Dragonball: Evolution

2009-04-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

Right off the bat, I miss DBZ. Just so you know.
When the name Dragonball: Evolution was announced, I was a little disappointed. Dragonball did not need a subtitle, let alone one as generic as “evolution” (X-Men: Evolution, Underworld: Evolution, Darwin’s The Origin of the Species 2: Evolution Reloaded). Then, I saw Dragonball. Not only did it need a little clarification as to what it wanted to do, but it should have had a different qualifier. It should have been Dragonball: Contrivance.
DBE, as a character self-consciously passes as dialog, follows the story of freshly 18 year-old Goku. Goku is an abnormal boy who enjoys learning martial arts from his chicken foot-eating grandfather, imagining hot Asian girls who will later be important to the plot eating strawberries in a field of flowers and, it would seem, shopping at American Eagle. He is also a Senior at futuristic Japan/America High, where he learns what causes a solar eclipse. I guess everyone’s just too busy learning kung fu to worry about science.
On this day when Goku becomes a man, his grandfather gives him a magical dragonball. It helps summon a wish-granting dragon, which is probably the best kind of dragon, mostly because if I had one wish, I might wish for a dragon. It’s already out of the way if the dragon is the one granting the wish. So this dragonball, well, evil alien warlord Piccolo wants it. Don’t ask why. He just hates people. So Piccolo and his worthless, but formulaically necessary hench-chick waylay Grandpa Gohan’s house, killing the old man. Don’t worry. Goku isn’t there, as he was conveniently called away from a family tradition of birthday celebration to the hot girl’s party. Her name’s Chi Chi, but don’t worry about that, because all she’s in the story to do is have big, tan boobs. Sorry, Chi Chi.
Goku comes back, meets Bulma, who gives an account of her backstory/motivation so you don’t have to discover it in pesky narrative, and they go find Roshi to help in the quest to find the dragonballs before Piccolo. Desert bandit Yamcha makes an appearance as a decent character.
While I’m talking about characters, I want to point out how odd Roshi’s character feels. Chow Yun-Fat was the only actor in this movie trying to act; Goku’s “mourning” period for his grandfather amounted to, “I heard your grandfather died.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sucks. Anyway, do you have a dragonball and if not may I sleep with you?”
Thus Fat is the only one acting. But it’s an acting in which he chews scenery as if it were one of Grandpa Gohan’s delicious cooked songbirds. You just have to gnaw and gnaw and gnaw on it. Every other actor is just a set piece, filling up space, moving the plot. I'm going to say Fat did a great job and everyone else let him down. They were just so wrapped up in being nebulous and useless.
Which makes them just like everything else. Everything in the movie is so step-by-step and by the numbers, it only functions under the most artificial plot developments. Piccolo needs to get around, so he has an airship. Goku needs to cross lava, so he builds a bridge out of fallen enemies. There needs to be a love subplot or two, so characters who previously hated each other very suddenly and inexplicably fall in lust. And that’s just to get the plot moving. The combat, which you may recall as the point of a kung-fu movie, gets its share of streamlining. Goku can prodigiously bend air, with the incentive of those aforementioned boobs. Characters don’t use real guns when they actually hit people. None of the main martial artists actually have a martial arts battle.
What made Dragonball (Z) so special was that very violence. DBZ didn’t pull punches, unless Cartoon Network censored it. In DBE, all the violence is stylized and adulterated. And I don’t mean wire-fu stylized, although that’s here, too. I’m talking about how all the important combat is enacted through air bending and ki manipulation. All the good punches, all three of them, were covered with particle effects (a great video game term).
In fact, a lot of this movie seems to have come from a video game. There’s a fetch quest (not a quest narrative. Fetch quest.), leveling up system (jugs=exp) and even video game dialog. There is a scene in which Goku is actually told that there are five unlit lamps in a courtyard and for every one he lights, he gets to step closer to those perky Asian hooters. This is at least a motivation, one worth lighting lamps with chi magic or any other means, but it is also what you expect from the tutorial level of a video game. It’s the part of the level that comes right after they tell you to press the jump button to jump.
And while I’m watching this bad fighting game unfold on my screen, I’m wondering things. I’m wondering things like, “why didn’t they just fly the Humvee the whole way?” Or, “I understand Goku needs to gain muscle, but having him carry the gear for an hour isn’t going to do it. And driving at his running speed is very, very slow. Isn’t there a whole ‘time is of the essence’ thing?” I couldn’t help but ask, “if Bulma only knows about one dragonball, why would she build a radar?” “Why is Piccolo using such a worthless hench-chick?” “Why does Piccolo do anything he does?” This is a diminutive list, rest assured. Point being, I was wondering these things because I was bored. I was bored watching what should have been a grab you by the short ‘n’ curlies violence fest. Instead, it was all so tame: no real combat, no on-screen shootings, no overabundance of kicks and Roshi’s prized porn collection became a swimsuit catalog. It was the Dragonball I knew so well, only less.
Which was hard to believe. I went into this expecting little; very little. But I got less. I got less character, less action, less violence. I wanted to be entertained. If only people had really, honestly beaten the living hell out of each other, I would have forgiven everything. Instead, I’m wondering why Goku’s clothes are indestructible over lava, among other things. That was among so many other things...

Blind Cartographer [Destiny]

2009-04-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Turning, Unfolding
Pages, stories, final words.
Inert Sisyphus.

Mister Henry Clay

2009-04-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

Light, oily leaf around
Colombian tobacco
Art, burning toward me

You Have to be a Little Obvious, Little Birdie

2009-04-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

I've started twittering (or do I also say "tweeting" to clarify my presence on Twitter?). Of course, I know you'll all rush over to your own accounts and hit my "follow" button, but while you're at it, you should also add Neil Gaiman. I did, and I'm a better person for it, but sometimes I'm taken a little off guard.
A few days ago, I was looking over my tweets (or everyone else's. Who do they belong to?), and noticed Neil had posted a number of them, as he usually does. By the way, Neil and I are on a first name basis. If any of you see him, please tell him. One of his posts linked to an article in which were both a woman claimed she had no sexual attraction to the superwriter, and another woman who, essentially, called "bullshit." The other woman, the article read, had written a book on Gaiman's sexiness.
Then, "neilhimself" posted another article. This one was about the possible revocation of his Newberry Award for The Graveyard Book. Having just finished the book, I was more than a little interested. I mean, I was interested in the first article, but only a little. I know how dreamy Neil is. Ahem. Anyway, I read over this new bit of disquieting info: Neil's Newberry was null for nary else than a nefarious librarian needling the rules. One of the book's chapters had been published previously, and this woman claimed this disqualified the work.
I wasn't too upset. I loved the book, sure, but things like award revocations just don't happen that often. In my estimation, it wouldn't happen here. Then, I noticed something amiss: a photo of the plaintiff and two other women. It looked photoshopped, and badly, I might add.
My suspicions had become peaked by the time I got to the third article. It was about the prevailing effort of inducting Gaiman to sainthood. If it were up to me, I might just recommend him, but there was a quote in the piece I thought a little out of place. Gaiman was quoted as saying words to the effect of, "I have to finish a miracle... man comic script. Yeah. Miracleman." And then I knew the whole thing was a sham; Neil hasn't written Miracleman in years.
Also, it was April first.
When you're sarcastic in text, you have to be careful. Even if what you say is unbelievable, someone will believe it. They will believe because people are stupid. Which isn't as easy to quantify as you'd think. One could easily say I was stupid for biting on any of those aforementioned articles, but remember, I'm a satirist myself. Read over the Miracleman bit again. Oh, and I have subtly used language to suggest I have multiple, that is, more than one, readers. Obviously, I'm as full of it as the next guy, so my own idiocy is not the sole reason you should forgive your audience, when you make fun. The real reason is, your supposed subject may be stupid, and your audience cannot plumb those inane depths.
It's happened to me. I remember, years and years ago, an article I came across online reporting the Bush administration banning Final Fantasy VII. It's pretty much my favorite game ever, so I was pissed. As I read, I learned the reason for this was because the game's heroes, members of a group called Avalanche, were environmental terrorists. I was a kid, and didn't know much, but it was my opinion that the Bush oligarchy would do something so despicable. Now, being older, I would probably still believe it. W. is pretty evil.
Maybe it's a video game thing, though. I saw in an issue of Game Informer a letter complaining about how a hypothetical Metal Gear game made by the creators of Assassin's Creed would be an abomination on the face of gaming. Game Informer came back with the usual antipathy they exhibit for their readership (something at which I marvel, and would never do to any of you), lambasting him for his inability to see the obvious kid being made. The thing about kidding is, though, that you have to, humorously, present an idea that just cannot be true. GI is neither humorous, and the idea was pretty tenable. In MGS4, Snake can unlock Altair's costume. That, and I've seen some deficient games in my time, like MGS4, for instance. Just so you know, the sentence immediately preceding was entirely heartfelt.
So much of irony depends on tone. You're reading this with the voice in your head, which is more or less how you hear yourself. I mean, I read in Dr. Farnsworth's voice (Good news everyone! Now you are, too), but that voice doesn't know when and where to inflect for that comedic twist. Good writing has tone, but between my faithlessness in both the general public's (not your) intelligence and many writer's abilities, I can't always tell when there's a snicker or two in there.
The way to fix this is to develop of voice in your writing. And if a reader comes back and makes a for serious comment, be nice. Just don't stop being funny. Or, in some people's cases, start.

I Won't Leave You Now

2009-04-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

My reader recently voiced a complaint that I hadn't updated this little journal in a while. I don't think that's a fair statement, but who am I to argue? I must respond.
I was running one night, this was when I was still living in DeKalb, and an SUV pulled up beside me. From it, an occupant ordered that I "eat his asshole." Similar things have occurred to me, and the result is always the same: I lose faith in humanity and the offender drives off. Cowardice does that, yes, but maybe it's a matter boorishness. Maybe it isn't about fear.
It's not so much that these people are afraid of me: I like to smile. People just like sniping from an unassailable position. They like it. It makes them feel safe. This explains my recent flamewar on YouTube. I made a considered comment, and got reprimanded. I offered an explanation, which was ridiculed. I then proceeded to tear into this guy on terms of his illiteracy. He responded with liberal application of variations of "fuck."
Looking around, I see a lot of people who deserve to be put in work camps, as they are obviously too inept to be allowed in regular society. Not that I'm saying we should do that, mind you. I just like the thought. When I realize this plan will never come to fruition, though, I get to the next thought. Which is, "this world is terribly, terribly boned. Hard."
I know it's not a new observation, but this place is unfair and ignorant. I think the extent to which our society has become an idiocracy is newer, but it's been around for some time. We're embracing views pretty blindly, simply because someone might have told us something one time, and that equals truth. You know, Truth!
It was an adherent to Truth I was listening to when I was driving to DeKalb one day, and I paid him mind because he was reviewing Watchmen. My excitement for the movie was palpable (I enjoyed it a lot, by the way), but I wasn't expecting to enjoy the review. I'm not a big K-LOVE fan. The reviewer described the movie as "pornographic" and claimed it looked like The Dark Knight. While the first assertion did not, at least, surprise me, the second was clearly incorrect. I came across another Christian review for Watchmen earlier tonight. One reader comment claims "without storyline, it is like a castle without a story." I have no damn clue what in the hell that even means. These people are idiots, the very kind of people who make us targets for the dreaded "liberal media" and terrorists. And, assuming the increasingly cacophonous voice of these people, I might learn Arabic.
All this comes to me at a time when I am not particularly pleased with God. I still believe the Gospel, and that I need Christ. Actively need him, that is. I just have been unsure if I want Him around. I've been thinking about some things, like His killing of Egyptian children, revoking His promise from Moses, and allowing AIG CEOs to continue breathing (Look! I'm topical!). Of course, a lot of this is my jockeying around frustration I have in my life, but I can't sell a single piece of writing while He allows Dan Brown to publish, and Hannah Montana to release a movie. To clarify, I just think both produce crap, no opinion on personal outlooks withstanding.
I look at where I am now, and of course I'm angry. And then I think about how we are to know that the evil in the world is our fault, but everything from God is good. Well, I have a little problem with this one, as I don't think it should be so easy to have it both ways. If I took this concern to a pastor, I would be told, "God can do X, but you can't do X because if God does it He's right and if you do it you're sinning." "X" can be things like being jealous, revoking vows or killing. I understand the theology, but it's still maddening.
It bothers me because I don't even get the chance to argue. The statement I want to debate rides away in an SUV with "DON'T BLASPHEME!" printed on the side. I just can't approach "eat my asshole" or "God's always right" safely. One might get me run over, the other could accompany threats of eternal damnation. Again, I know I'm saved, but I've been questioning how much I want to be associated with all of this, this Christianity.
But tonight, I got my answer. I remember why I need to identify with Jesus. I read a Christian review for Coraline, a book and movie I adore. Read it here. Go ahead, I'll wait. I hope you're sufficiently raging, because I'm going to continue, now. I look at something like that, and remember: my problem with God is not nearly as important as other people's. Some people look at bits of writing like that, and cannot understand how someone so ignorant, confused and downright mean could possibly be right about the big mystery. Michael Karounos's problem with God is having turned Him from a tower of refuge into one from which you can pick on people. To be fair, this guy has it right. But the idiots, they don't understand Christianity, Christ, either of those entities' place in our world or said world. If I walk away from Jesus, saying, "I've gotten all I need from You, but You and your Father, well You're just too difficult," I'll let these fundamentalist fools poison the minds of people who might need to see Jesus instead of JAY-sus. That's JAY-sus as in, "JAY-sus heal this poor woman... and while I have your attention, good job on that whole AIDS thing. Faggots had it comin'."
If I stop running the race just because something that doesn't sit well with me comes along, I lose, anyone I could help loses, and that's unacceptable--especially since these are both criteria, really, in which I win. Sure, God has a plan for me I won't always like. And He doesn't think He needs to let me in on it, let alone ask for input. Even so, I think that's reconcilable in terms of, you know, avoiding eternity in Hell. His is the kind of forgiveness that teaches me to not kill stupid people for principle's sake alone. I still need Him, and even though He might not need me, these jerks do. That's three links, by the way.
So, I'm going to go back to God, say I'm sorry for my tantrum, and continue to pursue the de-idifi...unstupi... I don't want people staying dumb. Watch out, YouTube commenters, car-yellers and hardliners. I'm back, and I'm armed. With knowledge.

Looking Forward to the Night

2009-03-16T16:33:00.000-07:00

I am riding home on the L tonight
I feel restful in the fading light
But I consider my fellow travelers’ plight
They look forward to the night

There is a woman sitting a few seats down
She was once a girl in this town
But she saw her mother’s debt and frown
Timeworn and poor and looking forward to the night

There is a, was a, white collar man
He had a future for himself, his family, a 401k plan
But that was before the Japan hangman
Broke and looking forward to the night

The El continues along its course
We passengers wish to scream 'til we’re horse
But enthusiasm, like self respect, is a dwindling resource
What choice have we but to look forward to the night?

There is a smudged child with choppy hair
The Parents unable to afford healthcare
But universal insurance would surely be unfair
So damn those with nothing but to look to the night

No more could I sit and be silent
Waiting to be the one to suffer affront
But when I left my seat and went to the front
I found the conductor only worked for those
Who buy those looking forward to the night.

Exultation of a Wheelchair Comic

2009-03-12T17:03:00.001-07:00

My first stand-up gig was by far my hardest. Don’t get me wrong, I was funny, and it was great being up in front of an audience, but getting there was hard. Not just for the fact that the nearest comedy club wasn’t wheelchair friendly, but more that the chair makes people want to not laugh.
“I don’t think we can help you out,” explained Mr. Waylon (we’ll call him Mr. Waylon), “because, well, people in wheelchairs make people…”
“Laugh?” I asked, hoping that was the answer.
“Uneasy,” he sighed.
Even so, I was able to convince Waylon I should perform. Waylon has no sense of humor, which is actually a pretty good idea for a comedy club owner, but not so much for a manager. I convinced him people would come in for the novelty of a not-so stand-up comedian. So we signed the papers and I started going over my act for the next few days. I was up on Friday night.
So the big night rolled around and it turned out I was right; the place was packed. They had already been warmed up and were a little tipsy and I was ready to go in for the kill. A couple of the bartenders lifted my chair and me onto the stage and I wheeled on out.
Dead silence.
I looked at them for a minute, looking at me. Some of them looked confused, some agitated, some almost concerned. I have to admit, this left me a little phased. I was expecting a wave of goodwill, some encouragement for being “so brave,” as they like to call it when us non-walking folk do anything at all. But no, I was getting the concern kids give a dead bird. “Poor little birdie,” says Suzy. This is quickly followed by, “No I will not touch it!” I was a dead cardinal in a polka dot bowtie.
“What?” I asked them. They stayed quiet and I glanced down. “It’s the tie, isn’t it?” I started taking it off. “My wife bought me this thing and it would break her heart to know you guys didn’t find it funny. Truth to tell, I hate it.” They chuckled and I decided to let them know what they were in for. “I was worried for a second you guys were all quiet because of the chair, which couldn’t have been the case. You can all read, can’t you? Then you weren’t befuddled by the wheelchair comedian ads, were you?”
The ones who still had sticks up their butts after the bowtie thing start smiling, offering “Well…” and “Yeah…”
Those of you who have done public speaking of any sort know you have to get your audience on your side, and I had about everyone. Everyone except those people. “Those people” is how I refer to… those people who see me and think, “Oh great. He’s gonna talk about being in a wheelchair. How unexpected.” I had a message for them.
“And for those of you,” I began, sounding stuffy as possible, “who are worried I’m going to spend my time up here talking about being in a wheelchair, I’m just going to let you know that you are, of course, absolutely right.” I could tell a couple of the people out there were some of them, particularly a fat old white dude with a perpetual jowl-frown. “But let me assure you I am not here for your pity. As a matter of fact, by tonight’s end you should all hope to be as fortunate as I. And hey, give me a break, will ya? You don’t have to be so hard-up about everything.”
I notice a pair of young lovers in the back. They are making out like there’s no tomorrow. I think about picking on them, but stick to the script instead. “Now, your parents probably told you not to laugh at people in wheelchairs and let me tell you, that simply is not fair. We can be funny, too. And, hey, we laugh at you guys.” A few members of my audience seemed legitimately shocked by this. “Yeah, we do. You guys trip and stub your toes and get bad knees and all I ever have to worry about is a can of WD-40 to keep me going strong. And as for us making fun of those less fortunate, which we all do (the honest ones always nod with me), my friends and I make terrible fun of quadriplegics. When we’re feeling really mean, we’ll sit in front of a few of ‘em and just comb our hair, talk about how great it is to be able to wipe our own asses.” The young couple in back have started paying attention with all the laughter going on around them, and cease to interest me. Now I’m gunning for the alcoholic on the end of the bar. He will pay attention to me. “So please, I give you permission, no, I implore you, please, laugh at me. It determines whether or not I’ll be able to keep up my extravagant lifestyle, including all the fine dinging I do. See, people ask me how I stay so fit, and I tell them I cannot cook very well at all. I make my wife do it. ‘What’s the difference?’ you ask.” I lean toward them, whispering into the mic. “She can’t use her arms.” The guy at the bar is still unimpressed, and I wonder why he’s here. “So we go out a lot. And I scratch her nose for her. This is one of the nice things about being in a chair, one of many by the way, is any place is a sit down place.” My audience, save a few stragglers, is with me.
“Oh, yeah,” I tell them, “there are lots of neat things you can do in a wheelchair. And I don’t just mean this,” I pop a wheelie, one of the first tricks I learned. “For instance, you’re at a coffee shop and you want cocoa in your joe. If you ask for it, they’ll tell you to put it in yourself. Me, I wheel on up to the counter and try to reach for it while balancing my coffee and lo and behold I have a pretty young lady bestowing the chocolaty richness unto me. Before, I was an asshole. Now, I’m pampered, and people are too busy being nice to notice I’m still an asshole.” Now my friend jowls is smirking, so I’m not too worried about him anymore. Bourbon over there is not rapt, but there’s still time. “The comfort of being yourself is the joy of the chair. If I get a little drunk at the ol’ watering hole, I don’t have to worry about stumbling home. My only concern is a drunk driving ticket.” I wobbly wheel around a little for effect.
This is where I like taking people with the wheelchair jokes: the mean stuff. They think being in a chair is so horrible. They can’t imagine how they would get by. Screw that. They like being taken here, anyway. “Incidentally, I entered the legions of gimp when a drunk driver hit me with his car, so naturally people ask if I’ve an aversion to alcohol. I can assure you I don’t. In fact, I’m a little buzzed right now.” I did waggle my eyebrows and I’m pretty sure they believe me. “But when people ask if I want to crusade against drunk driving, I get a little pissed. If you,” I tried not to motion directly toward the fella at the end of the bar, but to little avail, “want to get absolutely smashed and drive home and wrap yourself around a telephone pole, be my guest. Just don’t hurt anybody else. Other than that, go for it. Be the drunk you always knew you could be! I’m asked sometimes to go to schools and tell kids not to drink and drive. This happens on a lot of prom weeks. I tell those principals, ‘Hey, the kids might enjoy it and who am I to tell them not to?’ I hated those assemblies and they obviously didn’t do me any good.” I know I’m getting a little preachy, a little angry, and I decide to pull back. “People also ask me if I miss it. You know, using my legs. I tell them, ‘Oh hell no!’ What’s so great about your legs? Always havin’ to walk places, do things.” I glanced over toward the bar. The guy left and I was proud. “I wasn’t partial to walking, I hated running and I will never have to do it again.” Some of the dopes out there really looked like they thought this sounded good. I decide not to tell them about how damn hard it is to get into a car. “The hard thing, the worst part about losing your legs, though, is the initial depression. Learning you’re a cripple is the kind of news you have to take sitting down, ya know? Anyway, when I found out, I was really depressed. I sat at home playing video games all day, eating Hot Pockets and bitching online.” At this point I grew visibly despondent, staring off into space. Then, “Which wasn’t any different than any other day, mind you. I just frowned more doing it.” In the space of the laughter I noticed the guy back at the bar. Probably just went to the can. I can see he has slicked back hair and a brown leather jacket, and now that I’m not talking about drunk driving he is looking at me. “And I was doing this for like, a long time when I realized I was looking at this whole never walking again thing the wrong way. All I could think about was how I had lost my legs. I realized a great truth, though: I gained all of yours! You people will go out of your way for me, now. You’ll push the button at crosswalks and put cream in my coffee and grab stuff from the shelf and I could easily do all of these things but I’m just too lazy! It’s great!” The laughter subsides and I’m ready to wrap up. I try not to look into the eyes of the guy at the bar with the slicked back hair and brown leather jacket, but only because the lights hurt my eyes. “And I think you all do it because you feel a little guilty. You think that by helping me out you are appreciating your legs better. Don’t do that. Take your walking for granted. That way, when you get fat, I can beat you to the last doughnut. I may not even want it, but I love the look on a fat person’s face when they see me eat a pastry their handicapable fat asses couldn’t get to in time. Because a cripple was there first.” The guy at the bar was smiling, then. I realized that for the first time that night, I was, too. “So short of that, give yourself a break, okay? Night, folks.”
I nod to the audience, get a few nods back and make my way off the stage. I’m glad that guy was there that night. No, of course he wasn’t the guy who hit me. Don’t be so melodramatic. But it felt good to let him know it was all water under the bridge, anyway.

The end.

Let's Look at This One More Time...

2009-03-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

Postmodernist revisionism has us by the nuts. Or, in English, we all have hard-ons for perverting what we traditionally think to be innocent. Maybe "perverting" isn't the right word. A better word might be, rationalizing. Nowadays, people want an escapism that isn't escape at all. They want to see their world, exciting. We love/hate our world, plus; our world plus superheroes, our world plus video game characters, the list goes on and on. With the release of the long-awaited Watchmen and the less long-awaited second episode of There Will Be Brawl, I've been thinking about how we rethink our heroes.
For those of you not in the know (both of you), Watchmen is, ultimately, a collection of stories about superheroes and their irrevocably messed up lives. The book is pretty old now, and was always a fiercely postmodern work, but the movie takes a couple steps forward in this area, so I'll focus on it. Watchmen denies a lot of what we assume about superheroes. You can attribute various proxies to its characters; I like to describe the sundry costumed adventurers as "______ if he/she didn't give a damn about anything." The Comedian is, in my mind, who Captain America would have been under Nixon. Dr. Manhattan is even more powerful than Superman, but has no real attachment to his home, unlike the Man of Steel focusing so much on his adopted status. I know this is a cursory way of explaining the characters, but it serves to get my friends into the book.
And when they do, they see what I mean. These characters would have nothing to do with the tried and true, primary-colored champions of American Exceptionalism we know and love. Comedian would probably consider Captain America (at least Steve Rodgers) as something of a faggot, not wanted to mow down dissenters and protesters. Manhattan would summarily dismiss the Man of Tomorrow's desire to save life. To Ostermann, it would simply be superfluous effort. In the movie, Nite Owl is much more brutal, and Silk Spectre II is a killer. While these may be extreme examples, but they shed some light on how we are beginning to look at superhero--for lack of a better term, as "comic book" would include A History of Violence and Road to Perdition--escapism. Considering the trend, superheroes are getting more realistic. Spider-Man existed in a more believable world, and now Batman and Iron Man look at real world problems, being solved and exacerbated by the presence of masks. These new superheroes are darker, meaner and more relevant. This is no longer Tim Burton's Batman. That was a world from which the viewers could safely distance themselves. It was a bleak, sprawling and, most importantly, idealized landscape. Now, if you watch a superhero movie, you will most likely recognize the world as your own. Gotham looks an awful lot like Chicago. The Middle East looks like the Middle East. It can be terrifying to think of the insanity of society or war encroaching in our lives, which is why the heroes win. And they should. We need Batman and Iron Man to triumph over evil because, for decades, that is what they do: they save us.
This is where Watchmen questions our desire to be safe. It presents a world that looks and sounds similar to our own, but is subtly different. If Bill Finger and Tim Burton crafted a dystopian 40's/80's American city, Moore and Snyder showcase a recent past/near future in which you wouldn't want to live. Watchmen postulates if superheroes would be so great after all, and offers mixed evidence. I still feel it, both as a book and a film, has mismatched priorities in some of its storytelling, but it is, at best, skeptical of cowled do-gooders. Which is why it's a classic: we want to know what would happen if our heroes failed, not so much in their exploits, but in their persons.
There Will Be Brawl thinks about this same thing, and decides that the characters are correct, Mario is still Mario, Princess Peach is Princess Peach, but the world around them is suspect. Mushrooms are drugs. The Koopa Coins littering the Mushroom Kingdom are avarice given shape. Even when it seems the characters are the ones who have changed, its a matter of interpretation. Boiled down, Kirby is a monster, a cannibal. The Mario Bros. are brutal mushroom heads (not literally, like Toad). Peach is not a cocktease, as you'd think from the games, but rather a slut in a little crown. Unlike Watchmen, There Will Be Brawl shows us a world we only know from its approximation in our own. Watching it, one could wonder if something was lost in translation, and this was a more accurate way of looking at the Nintendo universe. What is scary is, the series candidly represents what the Nintendo world would be like if it was our world. Watch the first episode here.
These are the games many children of my generation grew up playing, and now we can see them more as we see ourselves.
In the end, this is what all the pomo, all the revisionism is. It is a means of rending imaginary worlds into our own. Superheroes like Batman and Iron, Man along with Rorschach and V, ask hard questions about our world while making what was once a safe way of asking, movies and comics, dicey territory. The Nintendo denizens throw in our faces what we loved as children, only to find it has become mired in the filth in which we live. This is not something we should find disappointing or disenchanting. It is something to consider. We no longer read old Batman comics for a reason: they're outdated. Superman Returns was largely panned because it was found to be preachy. People want heroes with whom they can identify in worlds they can recognize. This newfound importance in the postmodern "hero" is a shepherd. We do not have to root for A because he is good and B is evil. We can ask questions about our own lives, what our heroes really say about us, and grow as people. Our new superheroes demand of you, would you implement a Big Brother network to catch a madman, beating cops in the process? Would you use the tools of war to do good? Would you, well, I'm not going to ask you what Watchmen asks. Go see/read it yourself. It may be a hard question, but our new heroes lead us not by telling us where to go, but forcing us to find the answer within ourselves.

My Brother's Best Suit

2009-02-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

My brother Andrew and I hail from western Illinois, a place where hail is seen every so often. It's said our state has only three seasons: cold, colder and construction. Much to the chagrin of everyone, it gets cold around late August, and by mid-December, you're just about ready to die. In a fire, if you can help it.
With temperatures dropping like anything drops in a vacuum like everywhere not Chicago in Illinois, it gets absurdly cold by Halloween. Growing up, my brother and I had to trick or treat in out coats more than once. It's awful for a kid to have to beg for candy in a hand-me-down coat.
"Oh, look, two little hobos."
"We're Batman and Robin."
"Oh. Well. You know, the coats."
"Yeah. That and hobos are known for having pointy ears and masks."
"Get off my porch."
To a child's mind, Halloween being so cold just isn't fair. Batman didn't wear a coat when he fought crime, so why should I wear one in a quest for sugary deliciousness? My parents always answered this by telling me to put on my coat, successfully circumventing an argument I was bound to lose.
One year, deciding the best course of action would be to avoid the whole coats/no coats, but long underwear conversation, my parents purchased for my brother and me costumes containing hooded sweatshirts. It was a masterstroke, to be sure. And in what was, in retrospect, an even more portentous move, our parents picked out the costumes themselves, apparently according to our personalities.
I was a mouse. My brother was a devil. We went out on All Hallow's Eve, got a bunch of candy, and had a great time. What worked out pretty well for our parents is, after the holiday, we could still utilize a good portion of our suits. Not that I didn't keep a number of batsuits, mind you, but the blue ranger and Dracula have both been lost to time. So, Andrew and I would wear these outfits to go out and play in the next to our house. We would be having a swell time in the leaves, and then Andrew would do something that I absolutely hated.
He would play dead. We'd be running around and he would drop like a stroke victim. This scared the holy living hell out of me. What would Mom do? Dad would kill me.
"You were supposed to be watching him!"
I was barely able to tie my own shoes, and here I was, foreseeing my father berating me for being unable to combat ST(oddler)DS. This, playing out in my mind, revealed the most traumatic part of all: Mom would cry. And she wouldn't cry like she had on the roller coaster at Six Flags. No, she would full tilt lose it, balling and calling for her little boy who I had allowed to perish in the balmy Illinois fall, in a pile of dried, red leaves. Well, I wasn't about to let that happen. So, grabbing Andrew by the wrist, I would pull him toward the house. He may die, but it wouldn't be on my watch. Let Mom and Dad deal with this. So I would drag him, worried sick and maybe crying a little myself, and he would laugh and laugh and I would get so mad at the little shit for it.
Years have passed, and we are still a mouse and a devil. I have graduated into a clever mouse (see me write these entertaining little stories?) and he has become a Devil Dog. Yup, he's a Marine, complete with rifle, boots, the whole shebang. We have both traded in our jackets for more substantial clothing. Not to say those jackets weren't warm enough. They were fine. No, what we wear now defines us better. I wear my writer's fedora, which makes me feel all artsy, like I should sip on absinthe and be poor. And he wears a dress blue jacket with gold buttons. Each button is embossed with the Eagle, Globe and Anchor the Marines proport to have taken over responsibility for from God Himself. It makes him look appropriate to attend the Marine's Ball. It's BDUs he wears to kill people.
I remember when he decided to earn that uniform. He and Mom and Dad went to see the sergeant at the mall recruiting center. I was not allowed in, for fear I would start with my drivel about peace and not let the man speak his. I consented to absence, with the understanding Andrew would not be allowed to sign up for the delayed entry program. That night I found out I should not allow my parents to go it alone. Andrew was signed up for the Marine Corps.
He was all smiles, my parents had a look of solemnity about them, and Andrew got a "Congratufuckinglations" from the poolee who would be given credit for helping get my brother's name on the line. I was disappointed, and a little worried. This was my little brother, after all. I had seen him in the direst vulnerabilities. I had seen him deal with untrue friends and girlfriends, battle with weight gain and could even remember buying diapers for him. I remembered how much he cried when his guinea pig died.
And I made a choice. It is a cold world. We all choose the best way to get through it, and in choosing, decide who we want to be. I decided the best way was to tell stories. Andrew picked "oorah." I could have tried to pull him toward the house, put him in front of Mom and Dad and say, "look, he wants to go and get killed." I know I have to let him. I wouldn't want him to stop me, tell me what I do isn't right. I will not say the same to him. The truth is, despite the danger, in spite of the fear I now possess more than ever for his safety, I'm proud of Andrew and would not change his profession for anything.
He has chosen the costume to wear to protect him and who he is, and it's something he wears in autumn as red leaves float to frozen earth, or if hot sand and lead whips about him. I will not pull him from either.

Poster Plaster: How to Effectively Decorate Your Home with Movie Posters

2009-02-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

I was reading a men's magazine recently, and it said to get real conversation starters on your walls, not movie posters. Well I think that's a little narrow-minded. Movie posters can be great conversation starters! And let's face it, if taking down your Friday the 13th poster is the best way to festoon your digs, you'd rather be bland. Here are a few thoughts on how hip you can be with the square.
All (manly) men love Scarface. It's a great movie. But if you want to make your home a little more intriguing, pick stuff a little off the beaten path. You don't have to go too far, either. If you like Scarface, maybe a Goodfellas bill could be up your alley. Instead of The Boondock Saints, maybe you could throw up a History of Violence ad. If you get a little more "out there" with your choices, you can turn what would normally play out as, "That's a great move." "Yeah." Into, "Wow, you like that movie, too?" Which will cause a real back and forth. You might want to stop yourself from being too oddball, though. Keep Saturday Night Fever over Stayin' Alive. Please.
"But I like Scarface," you say. That's fine. You can work with that. Instead of the usual A run poster, look for something a little more obtuse. Some people like to get foreign posters. While you can't read the text (which you don't need to), you can sometimes get some pretty wild art. It's nice to perform this little excercise in cross-culture. And you know, deep down in your heart, that the Japanese posters for Star Wars are cooler than the US releases.
One of the other cool things about not getting the actual theater poster is it can pull something from the movie in a more meaningful way than an advertisement. I once saw a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas poster, on which was printed a picture of Johnny Depp and his character's "Drug Collection" monologue. I've never seen the movie, but that poster told me more about the story than anything that's ended up on a DVD case for the film. Likewise, my fiance has a The Breakfast Club poster with a cast photo and the letter from the end of the film. If the movie means something to you, it will get you every time.
Generally, when you're trying for posters that wouldn't have been used in theaters, you'll come across older movies, films that have taken time and found a place in our culture. My advice on the olies: go for it! Make sure it's a movie you've actually seen, but always favor put-ups for older films. Pretention aside, there's more to talk about when the movie is older. People generally know more about Raiders of the Lost Ark than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Everyone knows the story about Harrison Ford being sick as a dog, thus shooting the scimitar-wielding warrior. But if you know any anecdotes for the most recent Indy film, chances are your guest doesn't.
Another good reason to go old is the quality of the posters themselves. I have a Breakfast at Tiffany's poster that is absolutely gorgeous. It features an illustration of Audrey Hepburn, along with a smaller drawing of her and George Peppard kissing in the rain. All this on a white background with a primary colors border. It just looks good, and it always ellicits conversation. Being a man, not all of them have been pleasant conversations, but that's life. It's also an incontrovertible fact these drawn pieces are head and shoulders above the photoshopped, oversaturated collages we have today. If you saw Dirty Work with Norm McDonald, you might remember a scene in which he and his buddy are trashing apartments, and his buddy comes across this old From Russia, With Love poster. He steals it. It's sexy. Keep that in mind.
The other thing about that particular poster, is it was small. Vary size. I have a couple of smaller posters, like my Pan's Labyrinth, V for Vendetta and Halloween pieces. Variations in size will draw in the eye. Mixing it up will also help you fit more pics, which is not to say you should wallpaper, but more to say you can create a sort of texture. You can squeeze in more of you.
Maybe you don't like old movies, though. Maybe you like widely-known blockbusters. Maybe you don't care for art films or foreign films and just want a Stepbrothers poster on your wall. Maybe you hate American movies, but worry your friends won't get your 8 1/2 poster. Put them up, dammit! I proudly display my posters for The Fountain and Spanglish. Those movies mean a lot to me. The whole point is picking things important to you. This is your house, where you live and it will reflect you. Just make sure what you put up there is important to you, and you will be happy with it. If you have good friends, they'll love it, too.

You People are Pompous Jerks: A Fair-minded Open Letter to the MPAA

2009-01-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

Dear Academy,
How are you feeling today? Proud of yourselves, I hope. I'm glad you were able to almost entirely disregard The Dark Knight for any of the nominations it deserved. You passed over a great film for the best picture category, an outstanding director for his work and you gave an obligatory nomination to an exemplary actor not because of his talent, but because he died. And all this because you refuse to sully your arrogant waters with such comic book fare. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Titanic is the top grossing film of all time (right now) and received 11 Oscars. Interestingly enough, it is not on the iMDB top 250. The Dark Knight is #5 on this list, currently behind The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather (1 & 2) and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. TDK received universally positive reviews, many of them lauding it as a great film, one representing a paradigm shift. It is one of the best movies ever made and is simply being fobbed off for having a man with a cape.
Memento is a great movie. So is The Prestige. So is Insomnia. Christopher Nolan directed all of these films, along with TDK's predecessor Batman Begins, which was nominated for cinematography. Nolan has proved himself an inventive storyteller, crafting films that strip characters down to their basic ambitions even while putting them in imaginative and often bizarre circumstances. His daring use of camera (including filming parts of TDK with IMAX cameras), his understanding of emotion and motivation and his ability to tell a rich, deep story should have garnered him a nomination. Unfortunately for him, the Academy looks down on someone who would dare make a movie about something as childish as comic books.
So if the rest of TDK has been shunned so, one would resonably assume its actors would be as well. I will be the first to admit Heath Ledger did a magnificent job as the Joker, but it seems Oscars are not being given out based on actual talent. This is a token nomination, which is a shame. It is a shame to diminish such talent by essentially nominating out of pity. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see who wins.
The passing-over of The Dark Knight is yet another example of movies being overlooked because they aren't up to the high brow standards of elitists and self-styled aristocrats. It's just a pity films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is getting lukewarm reviews, are so rewarded while movies like The Dark Knight are treated as little more than pulp. Which is saying something, because this is the same institution which gave the Oscar for best song to "It's Hard out here 4 a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow. This just makes me sick.

-The Renaissance Writer

Respecting the Edit

2008-09-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

When I was in my "Kevin Smith Phase" (which is not something I'm entirely out of, mind you) during my high school career, I did a crawl through the Chasing Amy DVD. It was one of my earliest and best encounters with deleted scenes. I still remember Smith saying "this is the director's cut. The one you see is the director's cut." The scenes were generally interesting, gave a little humorous insight, but were unnecessary and boring. I found myself saying, "I see why he took them out." Or even, "I'm glad he took them out." I felt I was fortunate to learn a little more about the characters and plot, but knew they had no place in the final cut.
Well a couple of months ago I was pouring over my copy of Juno. So I'm watching the deleted scenes, finding them all pretty amusing. Amusing, but cut for all the right reasons. The racist old woman in the very first scene, for instance? Total tone breaker, kills pacing. That was obvious. What I found interesting was the scenes concerning Juno herself. In these scenes, she is a stark raving bitch. She sings about how Bleaker has left her up shit creek without a paddle, berates him at school (more harshly) and just treats everyone around her a little less than peachy keen.
People have said about Juno that she doesn't deserve Bleaker because she is so selfish, but I debate this. I couldn't if those cuts hadn't been made. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is whether or not the theatrical Juno is the real Juno.
It's been said that in a movie's life, three movies are made: the movie of the screenplay, of the raw footage, of the edit. This is more or less true, considering multiple cuts and edits along the way. I still wonder, though, if I can separate the final character from the earlier version. When a film is so lauded for its screenplay, I'm not entirely sure it's right for me to divide it from the finished product so completely. Understand: the movie is entirely different, these scenes considered. You don't know for sure if Juno is a virgin or not when she and Paulie first make love, but I can tell you, in the script, she wasn't too vestal. Instead, she was so ego maniacal she rivaled Lex Luthor.
"Wait," I said, "this isn't my Juno. I love my Juno." This may be the true basis of my problem. She looked like my Juno, but I didn't know this person. And I didn't like her. At all. But here was filmed evidence of this doppelganger being a total shrew.
Can I watch Juno again and like the main character? Is this Diablo Cody's Juno? Does it matter? Well, yes, sort of, and no.
We have to disassociate the bad writing and filming that does get cut from what doesn't. The filmmakers did. If I considered Harpy Juno a sort of apocryphal, true Juno, I'd have to honor 1st draft Col. Kurtz (Holding a machine gun, "I can feel the power in my loins!" I shit you not.) They cut it, it's not real anymore. Cute, telling, food for thought? Yes. But Lucky Charms are food, academically speaking.
As far as the screenwriter goes, well, that's as far as she goes. She didn't direct Juno. Jason Reitman did. Cody did well, but she is not the author of the film. Sorry (don't read that as smug. I mean it.).
I wouldn't have met this Evil Juno whom I didn't recognize had I not the special access DVD affords us. She is a character put to death for being too unlikable for most audiences. Good. There are enough shitty people in real life. We don't need them as our heroes.

boston.com = Poorly Researched Tripe

2008-05-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Boston.com recently published an article mirroring ideas found in English Professor Mark Bauerlein's new book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. Apparently, though, both boston.com and Bauerlein consider actual research far too tedious and non-fallacious arguments unnecessary. Here's why.
The first point has something to do with my generation making excellent "Jaywalking" targets. I don't watch Jay Leno, as I read more than watch TV, but I don't think there is any real way to quantify this. Leno's team can, I'm sure, edit the segment for the best possible, oh, how should I say it? LOLs? Unless Bauerlein can crunch some numbers and prove, conclusively, that most of the "guests" of that segment were under 30, I'm calling foul from base one.
Then the inevitable "they don't read" argument. According to this article, while everyone has always hated homework, we are just now singing the praises of illiteracy. Mark Twain did say, "Those who don't read good books have no advantage over those who can't." I'm sure he was talking about us in 2008. Also, I checked into it; according to an Associated Press poll, one in four Americans read no books at all this past year (http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/08/22/surveys-and-stats-us-reading-habits/). That's all adults. Bauerlein doesn't compare "tweens" to "real adults" with any sort of numbers, or boston.com didn't post those very same numbers. Either way, there's a lot of room for doubt.
"Lack of capitalization and IM codes dominate online writing. Without spellcheck, folks are toast," claims the article. Problem: IM conversations are not academic or scholarly. They are colloquial. Listen to an average conversation in which no one is trying too hard to impress someone else. Is their grammar flawless? Is their enunciation sublime? Does it matter? No, of course not. Read Their Eyes Were Watching God. See the errors in spelling. It's all dialog. Same thing here. You cannot use colloquial communication to decry in an idyllic sense. That's just dumb.
Point 4: "They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing." The smart kid has always been made fun of. Also, MySpace is not a realm to fairly typify all young people, as MySpace denizens are not necessarily a representative sample.
The fifth point has something to do with "Grand Theft Auto IV, etc." Bauerlein is trying to say there is some link between video games outselling other media and this somehow makes kids dumber. I've read this bit a few times, and I cannot find any semblance of causality so much as hinted. Wonderful fallacy, that, putting two "facts" next to each other is oftentimes enough to convince some people, but not this member of the "dumbest generation." If there is a link, pointing it out helps an argument.
Next is, "they don't store the information." Now, the article doesn't specify if this means storing it on the computer or in the ol' noggin, but either way it's the internet's fault for being an information conduit. Yes, the internet is notorious for "metooism," but this isn't unique to the internet. Lots of people above 30 "read something somewhere that said..." The internet is just another way of doing this. There is an assumption here that reading something then writing it in a research paper makes you remember. If fact, it's the same thing.
The next point puts responsibility on the adults who don't foster intellectual growth, allowing for self-esteem to supersede ability and allowing IMing at midnight. No, it's not because the adults in this country have abandoned both the inner-city and rural area schools in favor of rich, white neighborhoods. It's because of the rise of awareness of the student as an actual human being. Even in taking responsibility (albeit left-handedly), Bauerlein misdirects the information to serve him, instead of looking at the real problem: a sub-par educational system built on racism and elitism.
His eighth point? "Because they're young." Filling space, are we? Yes, we lack experience. That's a much more valid point than our news sources being habitually false and favoring celebrity trials over actual news. Even worse, the article is titled superlatively, yet you bolster it with a universal truism. This rather points out the problem with the article: there are no solutions. Not that there aren't any solutions to any of these problems. Rather, Bauerlein makes no attempt whatsoever to find them. I guess that doesn't sell books. It doesn't do anyone any good to attack another group of people and not even try to help. Is this generation a little slow? In some ways, yes. But our generation will make wonderful progress. Maybe it won't just be Americans helming the world anymore, but that may not be a bad thing. Bauerlein does not look at anything but the bad things, and complains about them. No fixes, just breaks. Well, in the words of my mother's generation, "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Vantage Point

2008-03-08T21:50:00.001-08:00

Last night, I saw Vantage Point, so I'll give you a quick run-down on whether or not you should see it. As a preface, it's worth seeing, but listen up.

There's this opening that feels like something out of a flick produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. You know how it is, all grayscale and mysterious and you just want to know more! You are then launched on a thrill-a-minute thrilling thrillride full of intrigue, twists and thrills!

Vantage Point is pretty entertaining, which should have been, more or less, what you expecting. The characters are at least fun to watch, like Superman secret service agent Dennis Quaid, cuddly Forrest Whittaker or compassion-rific President William hurt, just two parts of a reasonable well put-together cast. You don't get the sense these are real people, but they are at least they aren't obnoxious. Well, news media boss Sigourney Weaver is made of censor and fail, but other than that you don't hate yourself for caring about these people. The only character who gets any development is Quaid, who leaps from a shaky man in a suit to American badass superhero.

The whole film, while billed to be told from 8 perspectives, only serves to augment this one character's perception. A solid narrative tool, to be sure, but not as artistic or interesting as it could have been. You follow Quaid as he tries to foil the ill-defined geopolitical boogeymen in this one.

See, the crux of the film's tribulations is a plot to kill (?) the President. Supposedly. I'm not going to spoil the plot for you. You'll be able to spoil the plot for you about an hour or so into it. That's Vantage Point's problem: you know what's coming, which is not the best case scenario for a thrilling (remember the thrilling part?) tale of intrigue. The relatively by-the-numbers plot, bound together by, what, seven rewind transitions serves only to comment on how awesome America is, even in the face of adversity. Don't question who these people are or what they want; America Rules!

Even so, the obligatory car chase scene is adequately outrageous, the camera is, occasionally interestingly used, and it's overall an entertaining movie.

Worth seeing, but wait for the DVD. Or Blu-ray. Whatever you kids are watching these days.

The Academy and What I Say (Because it Matters)

2008-02-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

So I thought I'd share with you my reflections on some of the Oscar nominations. I'll let you know who's nominated, (or at least) who I want to win and who I think will win. I may also offer some justification, or force you to take my word as truth on its own, with no reasoning. That's how the internet works, anyway.

Best Picture:
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Who I want to win:
Juno

Who will win:
No Country for Old Men

Two of this year's nominees have really long titles. That doesn't matter, I just thought I'd point it out. It is a little odd. So, this year's batch has some fine films, to be sure.
Michael Clayton was pretty impressive, with a narrative style growing in popularity. It was an important, moving, complex film. Even so, it was accessible and interesting. I liked it, but it didn't resonate with me like others on the list did.
No Country for Old Men was remarkable, with vibrant characters, disturbingly precise shooting (film, that is. Not guns.), and a style pushing the envelope. The acting was also top-notch; after all, Tommy Lee Jones. The Coen Brothers should be proud.
Even so, my pick for the year is Juno. A movie like this only comes along once in a very great while. Few screenplays are sa imaginative, poignant, clever, thought-provoking and just plain good. It's funny, but not flippant. It's powerful, but not overbearing. It's delightful, but not condescending. It's everything we miss about movies from years gone by, with the edge we need in modern cinema. It also has an outstanding soundtrack, emotionally grabbing you and augmenting the overall experience. Also of note, the acting is so well-done. Ellen Page is flawless in her titular role. You cannot tell where she ends and Juno begins. You fall in love with the character, the movie, you believe in love after seeing all sorts of love gone wrong. It's intelligent. It's good. It's important. Thanks, guys.

Seeing as how I've only seen two of the Best Actor noms, I'll only share thoughts on those two.

George Clooney is up for Michael Clayton. Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises. Now, George did a great job, and, out of the two, I think it's the more "Oscar friendly" role. I watched that movie and, well, honestly I was thinking about how great that scowl would have been when he was Batman. I give an audible sigh.
That said, I'd love to see Mr. Mortensen win. Eastern Promises was a terrific movie, and Viggo played his part with such precision. Also, he had the (forgive me) balls to do a whole fight scene nude. "I'm a driver. I go left, I go right, I go straight. I know nothing." He's just too damn cool.

For Actress, I want Ellen Page to win. I detailed earlier her work as Juno, and why it was so splendid. As for who will actually win, I cannot even begin to speculate.

The Academy and I should both pick Javier Bardem for his work in No Country for Old Men. He invested himself entirely into the role. He made a character who is pure evil, yet human in his depravity. He was vivid and believable, yet beyond the realm of human emotion. Bardem did such a great job just making you feel what the Coens wanted you to feel. I think he'll get it, and he did so very well.

Original Screenplay and Best Director are just the Best Picture category. Best adapted, though, should be (I think will be) No Country. Come on. Just accept it.

For animated, I want Persepolis to get it, as the graphic novel is a masterpiece of coming-of-age literature. It captures the humanity of a people oppressed, given from the point of view of a child who doesn't understand. It's this naive nature that makes so clear the ridiculous nature of hatred and war.
Ratatouille will win. It's American.

That's all I really care to write about. Not that cinematography, for instance, doesn't matter to me, but those categories generally get mopped up by the winners of the big ones. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this look at the awards, and that your favorites win.

Take care.

The Cage

2008-01-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

Written for my "Feature Story" assignment for English 103
...

As I drive down South Main in Galesburg, past the car dealership and the tombstone makers, I see a billboard that scares me. No, it’s not an ad informing me that if I cook meth, policemen with guns will come. Nor is it telling me that I need the oversized hamburger emblazoned on the front. Actually, it’s something honestly scarier for me than the idea of my drug-based livelihood getting shut down or getting a coronary from imbibing delicious beef and cheese. It’s a warning that I am in an understaffed prison area. This sign that looms over quiet Galesburg is not just something to heed along with the “don’t pick up hitchhiker” signs that come with a prison. It is something to consider. The shadow it casts on the little town is both dark and long, stretching all the way from Gary’s Sandwich Shop across the street all the way to Springfield.

In Galesburg you will find the Henry Hill Correctional Facility, which is a nice way of saying Hill Prison. Located just inside the city limits, this state facility has brought a lot to Galesburg, but problems are brewing in its brick walls. Indeed, the fire beneath the stew can be found in our own state government. I wanted to take a good look at the problems of our prison system, to observe the receptacle into which our society pours its refuse and how it treats those who daily deal with the thrown away and the locked up. Have no misconceptions. This is not a story about Tom Hanks or Billy Bob Thornton dealing with caged criminals. Nor is reality what you’ve seen of Tim Robbins and Burt Lancaster and their defiance to the system. No, this is real men and women who are really, actually, caged with the criminals.

Enter Lloyd Sichling. Lloyd has been a correctional officer (that’s “guard” in English) at Hill for several years and has been in the employ of the Illinois Department of Corrections in general for eleven. Before that, he served on the Flossmore Police Department for a decade. His is a member of AFSCME, the state employees’ union. Lloyd is also a husband and has two sons, one in college and the other in high school. I wanted an inside look at the DOC and decided that the best way to really discover what is wrong with the prison system is to ask one in its employ. So, I gave Lloyd a call.

Now to understand how Lloyd would act toward my questions, you have to understand a little about him. You see, when he puts on his uniform, his face changes. It doesn’t get hard or mean. It doesn’t get smug, either. When Lloyd dons the dark blue fatigues of an officer, he becomes almost aloof. He is there to do his job. And this is a job that he doesn’t talk about at home. If, and that is if, he does, it is only an amusing anecdote from one of the prisoner’s letters or another CO. So when I ask him about the prison, I get a response that deals with how the state runs the institution. I’m lucky. That’s exactly what I want.

Now I want to remind you that this is a man who makes sure that murderers, rapists, and other bogeymen of our communities are safely locked away. He and his fellow officers protect us. And this is what this one had to say.

“Hi,” says the voice. His cell phone, the one that rings with the theme song from Star Trek: The Next Generation, has identified the caller as me, an assurance that lends his voice an air of familiarity. After a little chit chat, I get down to brass tacks. I tell him that I want to know about the prison system, specifically being a CO.

What he told me doesn’t seem like the words that should be used by someone who is holding those keys. He told me that, as an officer, you have a feeling of being replaceable. He told me that nothing is a sure thing and that, even though he feels that the state recognizes good workers, much of whether or not you have a job is in the politics of the warden. Moreover, he says that you “feel dispensable.” I never had any idea. Now, this didn’t seem right to me, and I told him so. I told him that it didn’t make sense. “Well,” he assured me, “if you’re an officer the union will have a job for you. If you’re in a commanding position, though, you have no union.”

This floored me. I knew that the IDOC is run in a paramilitary fashion, so an officer can move up and become a major or lieutenant. I also knew that Lloyd always registered in the same political party as the governor at the time. But the idea that politics affected commanding officers was mind-blowing. “Yup. If you’re a ranking officer, you can expect to be worked hard and let go.” I was astonished to find out that the people who make policy are in such a position. It made sense now that they felt, as Officer Sichling put it, “apathetic.” They didn’t necessarily have a job that would last.

He told me all this and I was appreciative. Certainly this was important stuff; the idea that people were treated so crassly in our prison system was appalling. But it also wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. So I asked my next question: “What about the current administration?” Without a beat, I heard, “Oh. You mean the Blagojevich Regime?”

I gave the affirmation and asked for specifics. I got enough of that material (which is oh-so dangerous to politicians) to choke a camel. And just so you know, that material is truth. Although if you were thinking I meant accountability to voters, morals, or a system of checks and balances that actually works, well, that’s just silly. Those don’t exist anymore.

Anyway, my interviewee then launched into his laundry list of problems supported or instigated by the current administration, the first of which being the closing of several correctional facilities across the state. Lloyd, being a fair man, was sure to point out to me that Blago didn’t set up the closings, but they were performed under his administration. These closings present several problems to the IDOC and the state a large. Firstly, as would make sense, the misplaced prisoners from these closed facilities have to go somewhere, seeing as how even our system cannot let all those criminals free at once. We have to pretend they were rehabilitated more cautiously. So all of these inmates are then sent to other sites which are ill-equipped to deal with the influx. Secondly, a prison is very good for a local economy. That’s why Galesburg allowed one to open up in their backyard. Isn’t it odd, then, that any prisons would be closed when Illinois has a 4.4% unemployment rate and when laid off officers are just waiting to work?

Now, these things happen. There have been budget cuts across the board. But this isn’t when it got bad. No, according to Lloyd, it started to get bad when the rank of captain was done away with. Officers at that rank were either promoted or demoted. This blocks the line of ascension for those under them (which would be a violation of their work contract). It was also this act that destroyed the ranking officer’s union. All of that was, to be sure, pretty crappy, but not as bad as what happened.

This was the event that harkened in the use of efficiency analysts. Lloyd, again in the spirit of fairness, told me that this wasn’t an absolutely bad thing. “There was this guy,” he told me, “that just walked around. I had no idea what he did. He was probably a brother of the warden’s or something. Either way, he was out.” It did make sense on a constrained budget to cut such paper-pushing positions. It doesn’t make sense to cut more. The efficiency “experts” incited massive cuts to the workforce of the IDOC. The expectation was that fewer officers would do more labor. “Sadly, it worked for a while,” Lloyd said with a little laugh. The laugh left and I heard, “a while.”

To put this in perspective, I’ll tell you a story that Officer Sichling told me. Two of his fellow officers were watching the lunchroom of 200 plus inmates. Reread that if you have to. Now read my assurance that you read it correctly: You read that right. One officer per 100 prisoners! Now I’ll continue with the story.

This is not uncommon in the understaffed system. It gets hairier when a disgruntled inmate decides he doesn’t like his meal. A prisoner of just such a temperament walked up to one of the officers and complained about his food. When the officer’s answer was not to his liking, the prisoner punched the officer in the face, knocking him out cold and sending him straight to the floor, where a pool of blood from the back of the officer’s head would momentarily begin to pool. The other officer went for his mace. The mace, frighteningly, did not leave the belt. The prisoner then went to attack the other guard, and did so. Fortunately, the guard was not rendered unconscious by the blow, and he sent the inmate straight into the nearest wall.

Consider that. I mean really think about it. Governor Blagojevich has made our prison system one where our jailers don’t lock up incarcerates; they are locked in with them. If that second officer had been knocked out, think about what could have happened. They could have been killed, their weapons taken, and somewhere around 200 criminals would have free reign in that facility. That could happen to any officer, even my father, Lloyd Sichling.

I thanked my dad for his time and his help with this story. We talked a little while longer about the usual things we talk about: upcoming happenings in the Star Wars Universe, his hunting season and all things related to it, my goings on (which is pretty much just looking forward to the upcoming happenings in the Star Wars Universe). I hung up the phone and thought about what my dad had told me, what it really meant, and how to put it in a story to let people know and care.

Blagojevich, on the other hand, already knows and doesn’t care. In fact, the union, made up of men and women who are prison guards, supported him. He then turned his back on them. I wonder what else he could do as governor. I think that maybe these things should be considered in the voting booth this month. I think that Blagojevich has no business being in charge of our state. I think that if he keeps this up, it will kill my dad. Think about it.

Escalation to Nowhere

2008-01-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

This was written for an essay contest, the prompt claiming experts had decided world relations were degenerating
...

So the “experts” have come to the conclusion the world is just going to get worse. According to these men and women, there will be more violence, more war, more suffering. To me, this seems more than just a little pessimistic, it’s wrong.

Granted, there has always been strife. In its circa 200 years of existence, the United States has fought a dozen wars. The regionalist terrorists of Spain bomb their fellow Spaniards. The battles in the Middle East stretch back to Biblical times. And these are just some of the countless conflicts on the large scale. Even in 2007, even in this country, there is domestic violence. There are still parents who beat their spouses in front of their children, or even those children. Worse things do occur, but need not be discussed here. You get the point: there is violence. This is part of the human condition, a sad fact of life. After all, we aren’t perfect, but to say things are just going to get worse is erroneous, not to mention the easy way out.

While there is still fighting (obviously), there is less than imaginable. Congress is talking about taking the troops out of Iraq, more or less. Conflicts in Eastern Europe and Ireland have deescalated. The world is finally waking up to the heaped tragedy of Darfur, and it is taking action. We now have films such as Invisible Children to alert us of the wars in Africa. I have seen billboards urging people to check a box on their taxes to give of their money to domestic violence prevention. At least, it may help end the cycle of violence in homes. As we look around, we can see effort and results thereof to end violence.

There is more than the practical view, though. By declaring our planet a battlefield, we wash our hands of responsibility. We disavow our children’s futures to be grief-stricken and without promise. Certainly it is hard here, but we are learning. As the world gets smaller and smaller as we trade thoughts and concepts with other cultures, we will learn how to care for each other. As I go to class with students of diametrically different backgrounds than my own, as we read more stories from other cultures, as international trade increases, this is being accomplished. As these things happen, we will learn how to care for ourselves. Until then, yes, we have growing pains, but as we make the effort to learn and love there can be less war, less pain, less heartache. I suppose you could call it a “bloodless revolution.”

How Much I Love Bioshock, or, How Much I Hate Objectivism

2008-01-11T09:58:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I rented Bioshock, and, since I was ill at the time, I got to play a pretty sizable chunk of the game. For those of you who aren't in the know, Bioshock is an FPS taking you through Rapture, an underwater kingdom gone awry through genetic experimentation. It's ambient, atmospheric, terrifying. It's also one of (if not the) best game of the past year.
Understand, I'm not here to review the game, far from it. No, if you want to read how well-constructed it is, from its sheer entertainment value to its exquisite controls and graphics engine, be my guest. For some, it would be enough to say it utilizes the Unreal Engine superbly, but that is neither here nor there. No, today I'm going to reflect on why I enjoyed the game on a personal level. Oh, this is going to be fun.
See, back around the 40's there was this author name of Ayn Rand. Having emigrated from Soviet Russia to the States, she had a very particular view of economics. She developed her theories in her novels and sundry writings and called it Objectivism. You can research it for yourself at the Ayn Rand Institute website . It's a blast. For a summary, you can also check out The Simpsons episode "A Streetcar Named Marge". It's in the forth season. Look it up. For our purposes here, I'll just say I don't agree with such extreme and atheistic capitalism and have been an anti-Objectivist for quite some time now.
Which brings me back to Bioshock.
Bioshock takes place in a Randian Utopia at the bottom of the Atlantic. Brought to fruition by Andrew Ryan, Rapture was to be a place where man and man alone would individually reap the rewards of his own work. What he had belonged to him, and him alone. He was to strive for perfection in all things, including appearance, because that is moral. As a matter of fact, in Rapture, one could change anything about one's looks, which makes me wonder at everyone (save a scientist or two) being white. It was a celebration of "all for me" living. It was everything Rand would have wanted in the world.
Problem was, unchecked capitalistic abandon led to a few hitches: smugglers, cruel experimentation, mutation through genetic-enhancement abuse. The list goes on and on. By the time your character arrives, it is hell on earth, with monstrosities of all types running around eviscerating each other and, if you aren't careful, you. The upside is, it's the end of a world, and you have a wrench.
See, this is what I truly love about Bioshock: it puts right in the thick of everything wrong with lasseiz-faire economics and tells me to beat it to death with a wrench (and a wrench I upgraded to do cold damage, no less). I love it! Seeing how Socialist many of my views lean, what more could I ask of a game than to be unleashed upon evil capitalists with a shotgun? Answer: nothing.
This game eloquently, disturbingly, and powerfully comments on what would happen if any society chooses to leave each other to die for the good of the individual. Folks, we need to care about each other, and this is the heart of Bioshock. It's why you are rewarded for saving the Little Sisters (young girls turned into ghouls). It's why you need to help Atlas to save his family and himself. It's why we cannot allow ourselves to become too reflexive.
To me, that's the beauty of Bioshock. It points out how much we need to care about one another, politically and economically, lest we fall into decadent decay. And, to make its point, the game showcases masturbatory philosophy in all its sick grandeur and gives you one simple command, "Shoot it."

The New Wave in Bad DVD

2008-01-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

So nowadays people love shock value. Well, they always have, but now it comes at an even bigger value: the unrated DVD. One problem, though. Several movies recently released in this style don't require an unrated cut. Sure, movies like American Pie may justify this, but come on, Dukes of Hazard? To be fair, it doesn't warrant an unrated cut because no one saw it in the first place, but still. Then there's Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I would rather see an even more edited version. That's right, I would love it if they removed Angelina Jolie. I hate her. Finally, there's Dodgeball. It's just not necessary. I think it was fine in the first cut and nobody would buy the new DVD because if you cared you already bought the first. Oh, well. I'm not in control of the movie industry... yet.

A Comment on Batman continuity

2008-01-02T13:18:00.000-08:00

This was written in response of the second Robin, aka Jason Todd, returning to life
...

Jason Todd died. I watched as he was murdered at the hands of the Joker. I watched as that madman beat him to death with a crowbar. I saw him get blown up. I watched it. He died. As a matter of fact, I paid 13 bucks to watch him die. $13 well spent.
But comic book authors so often have trouble with letting sleeping dogs die, so what do they do? They bring him back. I know Jeph Loeb could be held almost solely responsible for this, but I don't blame him. He has talent. And I like his work. But all these people that brought Todd back to life are foolish for doing so. Honestly, why? Why take one of the most important events in all of the Dark Knight's career and dump all over it? I'll admit, I haven't read any of these stories, and when I do if I change my mind I will make rebuttal for this paltry facebook note, but I just don't like the idea. It seems cheap, gimmicky, and stupid and I wish it hadn't happened.
Not that I have to respect that it did, but I wish it hadn't.

You don't know what Fooly Cooly is? But you're the main character! A FLCL Review/Retrospective

2008-01-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

You know certain things are possible when a miniseries discusses its title in detail: it could be really well made, it could be really original, it could be terribly, amazingly, confoundingly, cracked out. All might be true. Especially when no one knows what said title means. And that's not just the characters who are discussing it. The people who made the darn thing don't know what it is they named it.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about... I wish I could help you.

But the show is called Fooly Cooly (aka Furi Kuri). It's the story of a twelve year-old boy who lives in a terribly boring town, has to constantly deal with his absent older brother's girlfriend hitting on him, and an older woman living with him and his lechorous father and grandad. Did I mention that she hit him in the head with her Rickenbacker guitar and now his noggin is a transdimensional portal that summons robots to this plane? I didn't? Well... that too, then.
You know, it sounds trippier than licking a toad. And it is. And I mean good toad. But that's not what's truly great about this series. It's good fun, but where this show shines, if you let it, is its characterization. It's true. These people are handled so well and so touchingly that you can't help but smile watching this thing. Yes, the Japanese punk is fantastic and rivals Cowboy Bebop's tunes, the animation is better looking than a pancake breakfast, but the way it's written is beautiful. You fall in love with these people and really see who they truly are. I have fond memories of watching this show and I love it.
Watch it.

Trancendentalism

2008-01-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

This was written during my first semester at college
...

I love living here at NIU. I do. I even enjoy walking to class. Walking doesn't fly out in podunk where I live, so I enjoy the leisurely stroll. And what I enjoy best about these jaunts is walking along the dirt paths.
If you are a student with me here at Northern, you've seen what I mean. If not, then I will elaborate on these tangent paths. These are the kind of paths that emerge when people, too lazy to use the sidewalk designed for efficiency by engineering majors, cut a corner to reach the sidewalk they were already on more quickly. Simple geometry.
Understand that I do not take these courses out of laziness. Quite the contrary. Verily, there are times when, at the end of the day after getting two PSYC lectures (one on how we suck as students and the other to learn something), I appreciate the opportunity to create brevity in my circa twenty minute walk. But my real reason is that when I walk over the dirt, I can truly feel the Earth beneath my feet. Hokey? Maybe. True? Emphatically.
When I walk along these paths, even through the thick soles of my boots, I feel connected to everything that walks the Earth along with me. I feel reassured. This Earth has stood since about three days into the beginning of time and will possibly be here long after I'm gone. I feel comforted to know that the Earth that nourishes the corn in these fields, the rice in China, the deer back home, a child in Africa, is there to support me. I feel connected and free.
Which brings me to one thing that I hate. During the day, there is the sun. Whatever is in the sky is clear and lovely, to be sure. I don't like the day as much, seeing as how the air is not nearly as olfactorily pleasing when the solar heat burns the air, but it is at least an honest sky. I often find myself walking home after dark, though, and increasingly during these progressively chilly nights. And during these nights I find one thing that unsettles me to the core of my being: I cannot see the stars. I live out in the country and have for several years. Not seeing the stars was something that just didn't happen. There were few, if any, lights on the ground to obscure your view of the heavens and I liked it that way. You could see the entire majesty of the entire universe in fine little flakes of light and it was liberating. But when I walk home I cannot see these illuminations. I look up at a steel sky that offers no respite. And when this coincides with asphalt under my feet, I suffocate. The "splendor" of man, manifested in his brilliant use of stone and the electrical light, have sundered me from Earth and Sky and at times like these I just can't stand it.
"Why" you ask? Simple. The early American poets and novelists, including Emerson and Thoreau, believed in Trancendentalism, nay, they created it. They believed that The Creator, God Himself in all His Glory, could be seen in his creations. This was especially true of nature. They thought that being in nature one could decode mysteries of the Allmighty and grow closer and more connected to a personal Saviour.
And mayhaps there is some truth to this.
When I see the stars and touch the Earth, I feel connected to God in Heaven and man on Earth. I am a small, small part of a larger universe and tapestry of life. I am a beloved chilld of God and a real component of His creation. So when I walk home alone on those cold nights, cut off from heaven and earth, I feel cut off from everything. Luckily, I can come back home and see the friends who live mere feet from me and I realize that, while out there the world may be concrete and smog and isolating humanity, there is still a God in Heaven and all is right in the world. I am still part of something larger and greater than myself.
And I look forward to going home so I can see the stars.

We Laugh at what We Secretly Love. Namely, Hoth

2008-01-02T13:15:00.001-08:00

For those of you who just read the title and are giddy, yes, downright GIDDY with anticipation, I am sorry to disappoint you: I am not a subscriber to any deviant lifestyle I have made fun of in the past.
No, I'm here to point out what all Star Wars/Video Game fans already know: We have all fought the battle of Hoth more times than we have done just about anything else. More times than we have been to Six Flags, more times than we have had a truly satisfying Italian dinner, more times than we've gotten laid (not that that's especially hard for a nerd such as myself, seeing as how if I had only fought the good fight once the ratio would be met, but still...).
I know it, you know it, Tycho and Gabe know it. But I offer a reconciliation to our ennui-overtaken souls. I would like you to consider the fact that you have had a lot of fun playing that same damn level on just about every game console you have ever owned.
Think about it. On the SNES, you got to actually go into an AT-AT and cut up stormtroopers as the valiant Skywalker. On the N64, you not only took to the skies as Dash Rendar in the level that was used to give the very idea of what Rogue Squadron would be, you got to fly the mission as a Rogue. I got a gold medal on the first try, which earned me my gold bar. On the Gamecube, it was a solid mission for Rogue Leader (even with agonizingly long cutscenes) because you got to leave the Speeder and hop in an X-Wing to defend transports. In Rebel Strike, it was one of the few decent missions. When you play Battlefronts 1 or 2 on your PS2, you get into the nitty-gritty of the war and may even see the battle from the point of view of the Dark Lord Vader himself. And some would say that there isn't enough life on this rock to fill a space cruiser.
That's the thing about Hoth: no single battle in Star Wars history offers as much variety as that of Hoth. Sure, the endless white burns your retinas. Granted, it pisses you off that no matter how much you do or how many you kill, that damn shield generator still gets blown up. But at the end of the day, you stood up for peace and justice in the galaxy and you looked at endless droves of snowtroopers marching toward Echo Base, their armor blending in with the land so that it looked as if the planet itself were coming to claim your life and you struck them down just long enough so that your friends could escape to fight another day. Try to feel that inspired about freakin' Yavin.

O'er Thy Praries Verdant Growing: Review of Sufjan Stevens' "Come On, Feel the Illinoise"

2008-01-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

I recently had the happy circumstance to finally get a hold of a copy of Sufjan Stevens’ Come On, Feel the Illinoise. I had a lot of interest in and expectation for this album. Firstly, despite the fact there has been little pride in individual state citizenship since the Civil War, I love living in Illinois. I do. I love this state, believing it to be the greatest in the Union. Secondly, I am always looking forward to the next progression in popular music, yearning for something that, even if not good, is different. I knew this was about right for this CD from the song titles alone. Illinoise is not only radically different from most anything else out there, it exhibits a remarkable diversity in itself. Furthermore, I don’t know if Stevens is from this great state, but his sentimentalism, sincerity, and knowledge for the subject matter and its relation to what he is really talking about is sometimes touching, sometimes frightening and always reminding me of why I adore living in the Land of Lincoln.
So with that in mind, I should give you a heads-up on what this album sounds like. If asked me you this in conversation, I would answer, “It sounds like beauty.” You would then, of course, consider me a vague idiot. You’d be right, but know I do this because I don’t want to sound like a trying idiot attempting to explain something so vast. The point is, stylistically speaking, this one everywhere. There are tracks sounding like the best in modern pop rock, as if Coldplay had suddenly decided to ditch Britain and sing about America’s number 2 corn producer and number 1 sweet-as-all-get-out maker. There is ambience which is not overdone, but rather measured to fit within its borders, which makes Iowa jealous and Missouri angry. Other times, there is a strong element of instrumentalism, from eerily melodic flutes (my weapon of choice against silent complacence), to blazingly inspiring trumpets. It is a sort of big band alt. rock. Sometimes, the entire track will be wordless, depending only upon horns and pipes to carry the homeland’s soul. They do so wonderfully. There are also some outstanding examples of the new standby for white males ages 16-24 (the acoustic guitar). That said, there is one approach taken here that impresses me beyond belief: using bluegrass. I know, it’s crazy, but Stevens actually embraces a genre stereotyped to hillbillies. The wild thing is, it isn’t a joke. There is no parody, pantomime, or even play at the homespun (redneck) style. It’s sincere, legitimate, and, get this… you ready?.. amazing.
Also, Stevens is making a lot of statements in this album. There is commentary on the depravity of man in the song, John Wayne Gasey, Jr. There is a message of the strength of character required to truly love in The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts. There are so many tracks on here, and they are all great, some serving as imperceptable interludes, but it works.
That all said, it is a thematically and musically advanced piece. I mean, there’s not much more to say than that. I’m so glad Stevens kicked his Unites States Project off with my home state, and I’m so glad I got to hear it. Thanks Sufjan, I look forward to hearing more from you soon!

Here Lies Fankid: Revelations on the True Meaning of Dork

2008-01-02T13:11:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months, I've been thinking long and hard about a subject I find more than a little troublesome: am I not a nerd anymore? Well, we all know the answer to that one; I make the guys I play D&D with cringe with my encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars. So, rather, the question is, "are my interests less nerdy?" I have to reason through this first, then we'll come to a conclusion and work with that.
So, are my loves less than socially shunned nowadays? I suppose the simple answer is, "yes." Certainly, those who know me well enough know I have very large places in my heart for comic books and movies, and by large, I mean these fandoms are enshrined, but the point is, there is some acceptance. For instance, comic book movies are making insane amounts of money. Video games are now being considered as art. My ilk and I are finally allowed to talk to girls (with mixed success, the mixture being that of "bad" and "worse."). We are no longer on the fringe of pop culture, but rather, in it.
The commerce market noticed before I did. Check it out. We have the aforementioned superhero flick, making mad cash from day one, we have no fewer than three huge bookshelves at my favorite Waldenbooks showcasing manga (while my beloved US books occupy a scant two rows), we have anime everywhere. I do mean everywhere.
Bringing me to the heart of the matter: with this influx of consumer goods, especially those of otaku fare, I cannot help but wonder: "with this level of mainstream acceptedness, is true fandom dead?" Think about it. Sure, Trekkies are rather... obscure people, but if everyone spoke Klingon or was aware of the Praxis Effect, there would be no real Trekkies at all. I wonder if anime fans are at such a crossroads. It's true. Consider, gone are the days of rummaging around in some video store bargain bin, the one next to the porn, getting eyed over by the other client el as you searched for a very badly-dubbed copy of Akira to call your own. No longer are we wapanese obliged to order comics from Japan, gazing at our heroes triumphing over evil and knowing the only way it could be better is if... we could read it. I can wear Batman t-shirts in public. Batman shirts. In public. As far as Star Wars goes, well, I have entire conversations in Star Wars quotes, so I'm a skewed source. The point is, I've been worrying, with the proliferation of goods and the internet, is fandom is dead.
I thought long and hard about this, thinking this essay would be a eulogy for my beloved eclectic nature, my idiosyncratic disposition, my weirdness. Rather, dear reader (you are dear to me if you've read this far), there is hope on the horizon. See, I was thumbing through an old issue of Animerica, an anime magazine, when something struck me as odd. On one side I saw the cutest thing you could think of: a smirking little hamster with his little hamster friends who go on big hamster adventures. Ah, Hamtaro, you frighten the living piss out of me. On the page opposite, I found, in all his badass glory, Optimus Prime, ready to take on any Decepticon come 'round. I looked at that gun-toting semi-bot. I looked at that kawaii (Japanese for "cute") hamster. I looked, at the giant robot. I looked at the little hamster.
This was the moment of my epiphany. I understood. Fandom isn't dead. It's never been more alive! These odd loves have brought together all sorts of people. People who love giant robots, people who love fantasy adventures, people who love seeing a girl snuggling up with the tentacled love of her life. These people all have something to talk about!
There it was, right before me. I realized, people are brought together, people who would (and by people, I mean, "me") otherwise be faced with their extreme social retardation. We find ourselves with a shared love. That is fandom. That is our love. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch The Simpsons.

A Sort of Apology

2008-01-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

I know what I've put up so far is pretty heavy, so I'll try to lighten it up a little. I'm also going to be posting my Facebook notes and other essays I've written, so that'll mix it up a bit.

We, the Gunmen

2008-01-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

This is an article I wrote last year, soon after Marvel Comics published Captain America's death.
...

“We murdered Bruce Wayne. It was us. Whoever pulled the trigger, that doesn’t matter. Whoever that killer was, he was just working for us. We couldn’t live with a giant in our midst. So we murdered him. All the rest of the heroes spared us the trouble. They went away… we couldn’t stand the sight of them. They made us feel small.”

-Jim Gordon

The Funeral of Bruce Wayne

Three shots. Three shots heard around the world. But all it took was one. One bullet was all it took to kill a true Patriot. One bullet was enough to kill Captain America.

If you haven’t heard it on the news between pop stars and name calling, Captain America was murdered this month. He was gunned down on the steps of the courthouse in which he was to be tried for his opposition to the Superhuman Registration Act, a law which required all costumed adventurers to turn in their true names to the United States government. The star-spangled hero who had fought against Nazis, Communists, and a bevy of the vilest villains ever known to American literature, including Doctor Doom and the Red Skull, was killed by a sniper’s bullet.

And as the dust settles, the question remains: why was he killed? On the surface, he was killed solely for his stance against the Superhuman Registration Act. Or so it would seem. But I believe there is more to it than this easy explanation. I believe Captain America was killed because we Americans hate our heroes, and it must stop.

Now, let me clarify. I am a DC fan. Some would even go so far as to say, “elitist”. That said, Marvel comics are not my strong suit. Yet I write this essay in the spirit of bi-partisanship, meaning to bring some solidarity and clarity. This is not just a commentary on comic books. This is more than a reflection on a literary character. This is an analysis of our national identity.

And our national identity demands we kill our heroes. And ol’ Cap may just have been the most American of all those heroes.

Captain America was conceived way back in 1941 as the symbol of American strength and fighting spirit. He was created to stand for the troops who were fighting and dying on the fields of France and the waters of the Pacific. He went on the protect the American way of life against the threat of Communism. No matter what the circumstance, he was America’s greatest defender. That is, until his kid sidekick got blown up (still one of the great triumphs in American comics) and he himself fell into Arctic waters, entering a state of suspended animation. He was then thawed out in our modern age to continue the fight for freedom. It was at this time he became the leader of the Avengers and the cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. He was the pillar of might, and the world rested on his Union-blue shoulders.

Such was Cap’s allure. Such was his downfall.

Understand, Captain America believed in the America of the 1940’s. He believed in an America that had not seen a President assassinated, had not suffered through the Iran-Contra Affair, had not been betrayed by Watergate. He believed in an America that would never back down, never give up, and never trade what was right for what was easy.

Which is why, when he was told to report to the U.S. government, he refused. He thought this country was better than bullying its way into getting what it wanted. He thought this country was above bargaining with freedom, ransoming security at the cost of liberty. He thought he could show everyone what justice was, make them believe in themselves as much as he did.

This is why he fought a civil war against his best friend and compatriot of years, Tony Stark, better known as The Invincible Iron Man. This is why he tried to gather as many heroes as would stand with him. This is why he went toe to toe with the most powerful warriors on Earth. This is why he struggled.

But he realized the fighting was in vain. He realized this battle could not be decided by men in costumes, but rather by the Americans he wanted so desperately to protect. So he turned himself in to be tried. He thought he could champion his rights and the rights of every American before a jury of his peers and redeem the America gone awry. He had thought wrong, and he paid for it with his life.

There is, however, more to it. There is more to this than a man being gunned down for standing up for an ideal. This is the gunning down of the ideal.

Still looming above is the great axe emblazoned with that most dangerous of syllables, “why?”. The answer is: we begrudge those who save us. The answer is: we are small. We are hateful. We are killers and the Captain’s blood is on our hands.

This is not so outlandish a claim. We were angry with Cap for wanting to save us when we were too scared to save ourselves. We were mad that he wanted to work for what was best when we were simply too lazy. We were upset that he was better than us. So we killed him. And we didn’t do it by fighting him, though God knows we tried. We didn’t do it through intimidation or legislation, though God knows we wanted to. We did it through cowardice. In our fear, with our fear, we murdered him.

To us, Captain America was America. He was strong, fearless, resolute, and, above all, just. We knew that and we hated that. So we tried to fight him. We put on our red and gold armor, leaving humanity, and we did battle against our own principles bundled in our own flag. This is when we ran into a problem. We found we could not beat him. We were too weak, and he refused to die. Yet still we tried. We would not accept our failure and continued trying to rescue our complacency.

Then came the coupe de grace. To our chagrin, it was not a red, white and blue shield crushing crimson armor. Nor was it a laser beam incinerating a white star. No, it was a simple man wearing the very weight of Glory offering his wrists for bondage. We watched as he saved us once again by offering himself as a sacrifice. Boy, did that ever piss us off. Who did he think he was, stopping our suicide mission against ourselves? Where did he get off, ending the war by letting us decide? We would show him. We would show him but good.

So before he could deliver us from the penalty of our gluttony, we put three rounds into his chest. We looked through the scope, leveled off the weapon, put the crosshairs right above those broad stripes and right on that bright star. We then proceeded to pull the trigger. Three times we pulled the trigger. Three times we murdered Captain America. Thrice did we murder America.

After that, we surveyed our handiwork. With smug glee, we looked at the trouble we saved ourselves, the trouble of responsibility. We then took out our pocket knife and carved another notch into the butt of our well-worn rifle.

That’s right. This isn’t the first time. We always kill our heroes. We kill anyone who asks more of us than follow. If you don’t believe me, take a look for yourself.

Abraham Lincoln had brought together a United States that was anything but. He reunified a country torn asunder. He bore the brunt of helming the souls of innumerable Americans. He had, whether he meant to or not, brought freedom to countless more. He

looked back across five long years of animosity crying for him to administer wrath and he said, “No, you move.” Knowing citizens of this nation north and south had already long endured wrath, he asked only one thing of us. He asked us to forgive one another. We shot him instead.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy had given us something to be proud of. He had given us Camelot. He had given us a mantra with which to tear down the Wall. He had turned away the wrath of the entire Red world. In fact, he had stared down and through the Iron Curtain and said, “No, you move.” He had rescued us from others and ourselves. So, with the ear-splitting lion’s roar of “…but what you can do for your country” echoing in our ears and souring our tongues, we took the shot.

And now, we’ve killed Captain America. We’ve murdered another Patriot. We did it. We did it because we told him to give up his freedom and ours and he responded, “No, you move.”

We did these things because we were afraid and they were not. We did these things because we chose the easy way out and they would not. We did these things because we could be apathetic and they could not. We could not stand that they understood the value of life, so we took theirs.

Now all we are left with is a smoking gun and a choice. Do we continue to be the faceless mass begging for surrender without even so much as the declaration of war? Do we continue to demand the brave obey us because it is “for the best,” and crucify them if they do not? We cannot. We cannot.

We can and must, however, climb down from our rooftop and approach those courthouse steps. We must take responsibility, not only for the blood on our hands, but for our nation. We must take the flag down from the mount, we must pull the clothes off the body. We must mend the tears in the Colors. We must fix the bullet holes in the costume. This battle-worn banner on this heavy oaken staff is our cross to bear. This battle-damaged suit is our uniform to wear. We must carry it ourselves, none other can. We must wear it ourselves, none other can. The whole world is watching us, breath bated, waiting for us to do what we must.

When Peter Parker, former soldier of Iron Man, asked Captain America how he dealt with being not only the country’s hero, but the country itself, Spider-Man’s idol looked him straight in the eye and told him, “Being a patriot is standing up for what’s right. Even when the mob and the press bear down on you, even when the whole world has decided something wrong is something right, it is your job to plant yourself like a tree next to the river of truth, and tell them, ‘No, you move.’”

I ask you, when next the whole world has decided something wrong is something right, and you know it deep down in your heart to be wrong, and they tell you to move, what will you say to them? I, for one, am done moving for the masses. I, for one, am done fighting for what is wrong. I, for one, will no longer sacrifice my heroes. I, for one, will be a Patriot, and I will tell them, “No. You move.”

Entreat

2008-01-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

We have gone into the dark, darkly. We have submitted, gladly. We have surrendered, gleefully. We have offered up our rights and our joys and our privileges as Americans in our fear. We were afraid of terrorists and forces we did not understand, and that fear paralyzed us, robbed us of our judgment. God help us, that's not entirely true. So help me God, I wish it were. No, we have given up our true citizenship for comfort. It is our complacency we bought with our birthright. Time was, in this country, people would stand up for their rights and those of their families over any encroachment. They participated in their government. Now, we Americans have refused any sort of responsibility. We have stood by, with bated breath, as our rights have been taken from us by no less than our own federal government. Our air is not stolen from us because we are shocked; we know not to trust politicians. Our lungs are not emptied from any blow delivered us by these usurpers, as the only line of protest I can recall from recent times is, "don't taze me, bro!" There are few willing to be struck for their beliefs. No, our breath is bated because, if we were to breathe, we would have the responsibilities of air, namely, speech. We would have the means and responsibility to speak against our government's rapaciousness, and that would just be too much damn effort. You did it. I did it. We stood by and let the government take whatever it wanted, the bastards, and lifted not a finger. Those who did, photographers for the New York Times, for instance, who took pictures of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq did. They lost their jobs for it, at the behest of the United States government. They should have been able to depend on us, on some public outrage. You know, letter-writing campaigns, public protests, something. We let them down.
Sure, we had our reasons. No one wants to put their job on the line for anything. You want to be able to take care of your family, and yourself, for that matter. You don't want to rock the boat. It's scary. I know. I'm scared, too. We live in scary times. Problem is, we can do something about it, and we don't, because we're afraid. We aren't protecting our families with our inaction. We are harming them. This nation's children are coming up in an age when rights are for sale, at bargain bin prices. They are growing up in an age of fear, when the only thing we can fear more than terrorists and other geopolitical bogeymen is our own government. As we allow the government to act unabated, we are putting ourselves on the line. Before long, dissent will be illegal, if we aren't careful. In which case, your exercise of your First Amendment rights will be grounds for jailing, anyway. Helluva compromise. I say, go for it now. Besides being the right thing to do, it's just practical. Things are getting worse, anyway.
And believe you me, they are. The federal government is breaking any law they so please. Prisoners have been detained, not just in Gitmo, but in a number of military installations here in the States, without even being so much as charged. This is a violation of Constitutional and international law. Wiretapping without a warrant is also blatantly illegal, but allowed by the Patriot Act. Your Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights are no longer viable. Congratulations. Not sending supplies to New Orleans was criminally negligent, and even more heinous when one considers it was because Bush doesn't give a shit about poor/black people. It was criminal.
Which brings me to something I've been wanting to drive at for a little while now. To be precise, I wanted to point out that George W. Bush is a criminal, and should be thrown in jail. The Constitution says the President can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors," but there is no such action being taken. Never you mind the fact Bush pushed through legislation excusing himself and his posse from being tried of war crimes (is starting an illegal war a war crime?). The war in Iraq is illegal, by the way. Congress has yet to declare war, so the armed forces are being used illegally, not that anyone will call the US government on it. This provided, though, would make Bush responsible for over 3,000 Americans dead, unknown Iraqi dead, and millions of displaced Iraqis, but that may be a bit of a jump. I would be willing to settle on Bush being only partially responsible. Point is, if any other country's leader pulled this, the entire world, including many Americans, would decry the despotic and arrogant actions. Maybe we decry Bush's actions, too, but he's still in the Oval Office. He should be behind bars. To be fair, what can I or anyone else expect from a man who refers to the US Constitution as a "goddamn piece of paper"?
Granted, the next presidential election is quickly approaching, and many, many of these things could be put behind us. I'll take this opportunity to encourage you to not only vote, but vote for Obama (Paul if you go for the GOP). All this could easily throw into question the validity of this whole post. True, it may be pointless to kick Bush and his little cronies and of the White House at this point. The damage has been done. I would argue this same line of thought wasn't applied to the Nuremberg Trials, but that is all very well beside the point. The point is, there are greater considerations. My fellow Americans, we cannot allow this sort of abuse to continue. It has indeed been a long train of abuses and usurpations we've suffered at the hands of our own government, and we need to consider why we let that happen. We've been comfortable, but it was said, (I think by Ben Franklin, but I couldn't find the exact quote, so I'm paraphrasing) that democracy won't be destroyed by attack from without, but apathy from within. Consider that. You are responsible to your fellow Americans. You should consider yourself accountable to other Americans. This is not an optional, quaint idea. It is a moral obligation. John F. Kennedy said, "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." This is true. You need to take more responsibility in your government. Please do so, for your sake, for mine, for America's. With you voting, voicing, being active in your government, this country can truly stand for Truth, Justice, Freedom, Equality, all the angels we've trusted to look over us for so long. We've depended on these mercies to protect us and guide us. They will. All we need do is love them enough to stand for them. That way, this will not be a country where there are people and there is government, but a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. God willing, it will not perish from the Earth.
God bless you, thank you for reading, and please consider these things. May mercy and peace follow you, the wind be at your back, and your dreams before you.

Hi there!

2008-01-01T19:58:00.001-08:00

If you're reading this, that means I've probably, miraculously, goaded you into reading what I've written. If you don't already know, this will focus on what I'm focused. Namely, these things will be film, maybe some music, literature and most likely a healthy dose of political opinion. There will be other things covered, as well, like fencing or video games. I'm also going to wax philosophically every once in a while, and I hope you'll suffer me that. I really enjoy writing, I really enjoy people reading what I've written, and would like to thank you for giving me this time out of your day to read what I've put down. Again, thank you and please, join in the conversation!