Category: culture

a white russian and a kind thought

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It’s okay to have a drink.

I know it’s en vogue to make out anyone who has an alcoholic beverage to be an irredeemable drunk. So many shows and books and things turn even the most casual of drinkers into real problems, but gimme a fuckin’ break.

For some people, they have to go cold turkey.

But for many, many others, it’s totally reasonable to have a drink without being labelled an alcoholic.

I’m so sick of the condemnation and outrage; the denial of possibility and nuance.

The non-existence of middle ground.

There was a time when we knew that not everything was black and white, that there was room for complexity. For moderation.

There is kindness beyond the outrage.

Try and remember that.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 954 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Gregor And The Marks Of Secret, Suzanne Collins (you know, this is one of the best written YA series ever - the depth of the subject matter, dark, man, for kid's stuff.  Great work.)
Comics: WildCats v2 20-23
Music: For Tomorrow, Blur

did i oversexualize lynda carter?

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I mean, didn’t everyone?

But, yeah. I’m supposed to be better than that. I still think, that to this day, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.

I’m also in awe of the kindness and compassion she shows, which is actually more attractive than her appearance ever could be.

Indeed, that kindness and compassion is one of the sexiest attributes anyone can have, regardless of gender or appearance.

Being a hateful thing only serves to strip even the most beautiful of us of any allure.

Just ask Brigitte Bardot and her Marine LePen supporting ass.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2093 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildCats v2 1-3, Wild Times: Grifter 1
Music: Foot In Mouth, Green Day

wonder woman

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So I’ve been watching oldie TV lately, and I’ve finally hit on the first season of Wonder Woman. Now, I love Lynda Carter, and not just because she’s one of the most beautiful women, possibly ever.

She seems like a very good person, strong, compassionate, kind – it’s like she took all the non-magical traits of Diana and kept them for herself. She is an inspiration and much to be admired (personality-wise, though she’s still very good looking. She’s aged exceptionally well. I certainly hope she’s that nice in real life, and not some Neil Gaiman redux.)

Anyway, not the point, my point is this. There’s an episode late in the season where she’s tracking down some cattle russlers, and some war orphans break her out of jail by giving her back her belt.

And I swear, there’s a moment where she’s pulling open those bars (filmed a bit for the male gaze with an emphasis on the chest, obviously), and then they cut to the kids looking flabbergasted, and I swear, I SWEAR, you can actually see those kids hit puberty in real time.

I’m not going to say that’s how it happened for me (I’m pretty sure it was my first time seeing Elvira), but you know. It made me laugh.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1661 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 4, WildC.A.T.S. 50, WildC.A.T.S./Aliens 1, Wild Times: WildC.A.T.S. 1
Music: Your Favourite Toy, Foo Fighters

we need to talk about wil

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I’ll be honest. I find a lot of commonality with Wil Wheaton, even though Wil Wheaton and I have lived very different lives.

My parents weren’t particularly overbearing, but I definitely feel the anxiety and the insecurity, the desire for people to think I am more than I am, and the head-up-the-assiness of my fully filled with bullshit youth.

How’s that for a sentence?

My first thought when reading Still Just A Geek was, my god, he’s still stuck, still defined by his bitterness and angry from decades before. Thankfully, it mellowed out a bit, but there was a moment there where I was genuinely concerned for him, that he was going to be forever caught in this bitter hatred, this ravaging insecurity, only now, instead of blaming Hollywood and overplaying his hand, he was blaming his parents.

I mean, shit, is he ever hard on young Wil, even as he’s telling young Wil that it’s not his fault. Plus, there’s an oversensitivity to his own insensitivity, in that he wants to give himself a break for being hard on himself, but excoriates himself repeatedly for even the most minor of politically incorrect offenses (never really truly acknowledging that while we know better now as we’ve grown, it’s just not someone we understood back then, and we cannot live our lives in perpetual guilt for the smallest of past actions, and outrage for the current ones by everyone else).

I worried he’d traded the bluster of overperformative insecurity and anger for the bluster of overperformative modern social standing (and believe me, it is a major pet peeve of mine when it comes to people whose use of modern political correctness is done solely as performance art, to make other people think of them in a way that doesn’t reflect who they truly are – for example, those who think a social media post is all that’s needed to end racism or transphobia. Exposure helps, but if your only interest is in how it makes you look, well then, fuck you. You’re the example right wing fascists use when they want to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the left – and while they’re still assholes and fully in the wrong about pretty much everything, there’s something to that.

Don’t be a hypocritical asshole.

In any case, I made myself do what I always do – devil’s advocate. Because I didn’t want to dogpile on the guy. I enjoy his work. I just worried he’d moved into a space where he’d not really moved, but only shifted the focus, or done some minor redecorating.

Of course, again, this was 2021 when he did all these annotations, so another five years gone and who knows where we are now? I’ll guarantee dredging through those old memories was a trigger for past trauma, so while he may have started with the best of intentions, he may have let that past anger infect him a little. It shows in some of the comments he makes. The second half is better, with more recent and more inspired stuff, but at times, it feels like he’s a little scared to really get into it, to let us dive deep into his psyche.

Then again, as he himself mentions at points, he’s under no obligation to share any of that.

And he’s not. He’s right.

Anyway, this sounds like I’m being a jerk, but I really do identify with the whole thing. I want Wil to be happy because I want myself to be happy. If he is, if he grows and changes and moves on to a full life without all the baggage, well, shit.

Maybe there’s hope for us all.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 726 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 47-49, Voodoo 4
Music: Foo Fighters Essentials, Foo Fighters (it's been a few foo foo kind of days)

subtweet

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Is there any more passive-aggressive bullshit than this?

Out with it, or shut the fuck up.

Anything less makes you seem petty and disingenuous.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1554 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 43-44, Voodoo 1-2
Music: folklore, taylor swift (i gather she likes the lowercase and not, you know, LOUD NOISES)

happy mother’s day

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To all the mothers out there, human, dog, cat and other, we see you.

And to people who had shitty moms or absent mothers and love to point that out today, we see you as well, but maybe let the good mothers have one day. It’s no disrespect to you for other people to honour those that loved them.

It might be painful, but it’s not always about you; it’s hardly ever about any of us.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 301 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 3, Wildstorm Ultimate Sports Edition 1, Grifter v2 14, WildC.A.T.S. 42
Music; Folk Rock Essentials, Various Folk Rock Artists

kindness, in mini

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Let’s start small. Yesterday, I had difficulty reconciling the lifestyle of kindness and compassion with the need to punch a Nazi in the nose (because that may be the kindest thing you can do for the world, and perhaps for them).

Today, I’m just thinking about little things, and mostly, it comes down to paying attention. Instead of living in our own heads, we focus outward and really pay attention to the people around us, the people with whom we interact. How are they responding to what’s happening around them?

Do they need help? A good chuckle? A hug? A pat on the back? Some uplifting words?

Or maybe they just need someone to sit with them and be there for them.

I’m naturally drawn to the underdog, the person everyone’s ignoring in place of the most obvious victim or the cause du jour. Caregiver burnout is a real thing, and I think it behooves us to show some grace to those who do the work.

It’s very easy to feel empathy for an aging mother whose mind is wavering, or someone in a wheelchair, and very easy to criticize those who are most responsible for their welfare, who have set aside their own wants and needs in order to take care of someone else.

And it’s easy to sympathize with those who are caregivers, except when they get frustrated or dare to take a little something for themselves. Then, it’s easy to criticize; they’re bad people for getting angry at their charge, for taking a few moments to collect themselves while a child or parent is screaming; the accused, seeing the press whirl up against them without any regard for fact or nuance.

It’s easy to judge, to write off, to label as mean, as a bitch, an asshole, an abuser.

It’s much more difficult to try and understand, and in that, there is kindness.

I guess this wasn’t really mini at all.

More on that another time.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2094 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 38-39, Grifter v2 11, WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 2
Music: Fly On The Wall, AC/DC

kindness in the face of insanity

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I’ll admit, this is the part of kindness where I struggle. I know, in Buddhist though, Taoist thought, compassion is for everyone, no matter who they are or what they represent.

And I understand that. But I see kindness as having little effect on the authoritarians of the world, or on those who absolutely refuse to help themselves. In many cases, kindness is an enabling factor, not a mitigating one.

Kindness needs to be tempered with a resolve that doesn’t allow for bad behaviour to continue. Tough love, I believe it’s called, but I hate the concept itself – it’s so ripe for exploitation and coercion. Like so many great concepts “in theory”, there are always those who would twist the sentiment to their own end.

Tough love as the excuse for an abusive parent. Kindness as a shield for an exploitive guru. Compassion as way to enable another’s bad behaviour and thereby, avoid conflict.

It is not kindness to let people continue to behave poorly in their lives. Sometimes, the greatest kindness is letting go of that person, or devising a means by which their harm can be minimized (or eliminated altogether – and since I preach non-violence as much as possible, I prefer minimization – not ignorance, awareness without engagement).

Sometimes, the most kind thing is to recognize that the person you need to be kind to is yourself, and that the person who you believed deserved your kindness is not of more consequence than that. If compassion for another is killing you, it flies in the face of compassion. Compassion does not equal martyr.

Then again, maybe I just don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. Perhaps I’m only saying this because I feel on the verge of breaking, and am putting up walls to allow myself time to rebuild, refocus and rest.

Thus, it’s back to the Buddhist texts and a continued re-reading of Tao Te Ching. Kindness, empathy, compassion – the structure is in there somewhere.

And I’ll get it eventually.

I hope.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1369 words, novel: Father Lightning (and the tradition of missing my updated target on the first day continues)

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton (wait, is this a rewrite?  Ugh.)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 37-38, Grifter 9-10
Music: Flowers, The Rolling Stones

the world must be terrifying

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I mean, it is, but if you went by all these 911/CSI/NCIS shows (the U.S. Navy must have the highest peacetime mortality rate of any branch of service in the world), or by the local news, you’d swear you were about to get ganked around every corner.

I think there’s a lot more kindness happening than that.

Although… why is this girl smiling about the murder/suicide that resulted in an apartment building half-burning down?

This is a twisted planet.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1400 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: On Cats, Charles Bukowski (I'll admit, I teared up at the Manx)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 34-35, WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 1, Grifter v2 8
Music: Floridays, Jimmy Buffett

motherfu—

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So, listen. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist. I know everybody immediately assumed the White House Correspondent’s Dinner attempt was fake, and then immediately, in the interest of both sides-ing it or covering their ass from a litigious president, decided to pretend maybe it wasn’t.

I personally think we are right to be suspicious. Certainly, there’s arguments both ways. On one hand, President Rotting Orange has given the world more than enough reasons to hate him. Fuck all that shit about Democratic rhetoric turning the heat up – those folks are mostly cowardly, hedging their bets every chance they get. Donald, on the other hand, ratchets up to a hundred pounds of hateful rhetoric and bullshit every time he opens his mouth.

That said, maybe the hateful rhetoric spewing from his piehole (and his minions’ pieholes) is enough to spur someone to violence, in anger, in retribution, in a misguided attempt at justice (and justice does need to come, though preferably, not with bloodshed).

On the other hand, this administration and its orange cult leader have flooded the world with so many lies, so much bullshit, so much flagrant dishonesty, that you could hardly blame anyone for taking anything they say with a healthy dose of skepticism. We all immediately start asking, what are they really after? What are they really trying to do?

And that’s a hundred percent valid. You don’t fight fascism by letting it lie without examination.

Add to all this the fact that they are literally running the fascist playbook, as example after example after example of past authoritarian leaders will show you, and it’s pretty clear they’re looking for their Reichstag moment.

A moment, you’ll recall, was fake.

Butler was bullshit – a hundred percent staged no matter how you slice it. The coordination of MAGA influencer accounts and MAGA politicians who with fast came out with the same coordinated message of “build the ballroom!” within what? A hour, hour and a half of the assassination attempt?

Yeah, my credulity is strained, and it was essentially nonexistent before, again, because of the firehose of deceit that gushes out of every Republican and MAGA influencer’s mouth.

You are the boy who cried wolf, and despite the fact that no one believed you, you kept crying wolf over and over again. And unlike in the story, where eventually there was a wolf and no one believed him…

There’s still not a fucking wolf.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 987 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Against The Fall Of Night, Arthur C. Clarke (shades of 2001, this, before 2001 came to be)
Comics: Spartan: Warrior Spirit 4, Grifter 6, Zealot 3, Grifter/Badrock 2
Music: Flag Of The Shiners, State Radio