Category: culture

phantom menace

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Every once in a while, when I’ve highly esteemed a thing, or dismissed it out of hand, or ranted against its mediocrity, I like to re-experience it, to see if I really got it right. Older, more mature viewing. Maybe it’s not the masterpiece I thought, or the disaster it seemed. Maybe I wasn’t mature enough or in the right headspace to understand.

I’m not talking about how my love of The A-Team or Dukes of Hazzard as a child has been thoroughly reevaluated as an adult to understand how shitty they were (outside of Catherine Bach, because wow. Masterpiece). That was obvious.

I hated Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when my roommate dragged me to the premier. I wasn’t the biggest Star Wars fan, though I like the original series, but I couldn’t help but think, fuck, people waited twenty-five years for fucking THIS?

I mean, the text scroll starts by talking about tax and trade disputes. Tell me you’re an out of touch rich guy without telling me you’re a rich guy, right? Then, comes the wooden acting, and all around poor script. I mean, you’ve got Evan McGregor and Liam Neeson, and the only halfway decent performance comes from teenage Natalie Portman. I don’t include the racist caricatures of the Gungans and Neimoidians or the original character redux performances of C3PO, Yoda, Jabba, etc., where it’s imitation and not performance. And while I hated everything to do with the kid, it’s not Jake Lloyd’s fault. Like I said, one halfway decent performance coaxed by a director, who should know better, out of some pretty heavyweight talent means the kid is not at fault. The script had so much exposition as to be almost on par an 80s TV movie. How could we excoriate a child for material Academy Award winners couldn’t make compelling?

Anyways, my point is that sometimes, I find things better than I thought they were, and sometimes worse. This time, the result was exactly the same.

What a piece of shit.

Anyway, my point is that in trying to explore kindness while I write Father Lightning, I’m finding the shadow of my prior focus on conflict and anger and myopia is like a phantom menace haunting the back halls of my mind.

I’m finding kindness quite difficult these days, and fucking Jar Jar Binks didn’t help.

Bad fucking hoodoo, man. Bad fucking art.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2192 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: 100 Side Hustles: Unexpected Idea For Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. v6 12
Music: Folk Rock Essentials, Various Artists (so good)

angry

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My wife says I’m angry. I say she’s angry. She says that’s just at her daughter, but it bleeds out into the rest of the world.

Mine does as well. I’m sick of other people.

I listen to A Wave Across The Bay and I want that for myself.

I want endless falling, never crashing, never landing, never ceasing to exist, but never engaging again.

Endless travel, free of care, free of responsibility.

When Sartre says hell is other people, he might be on to a thing.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1721 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: On Love, Charles Bukowski
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. v6 8-11
Music: Flyin' The Flannel, FIREHOSE (I don't why it's listed in all caps)

father’s day 2026

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Not my immediate family, but man, it’s funny how everyone says Happy Father’s Day to a person, then curls the corner of their mouth in a snide rebuff, at the word step.

Here’s to all the men who stepped in when the biological fathers could or would not.

You deserve to be recognized, and not given the proverbial asterisk.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1791 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Night Shift, Stephen King
Comics: Grifter v3 14-16, WildC.A.T.S. v6 1
Music: Floridays, Jimmy Buffett

trying to remember kindness

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This is a tough world in which to focus on kindness. I try to, but my frustration with our current political climate and people’s unfortunate behaviour makes it difficult to find sympathy.

It’s very easy to retreat.

Crippling depression and overwhelming stress doesn’t help. When one is in crisis, doing the extra for others seems a step too far.

But perhaps that’s when we need it most.

(What we really need is for someone to show us the same grace in return, but let’s face it – this isn’t that kind of world, and that’s a rare act.)

As someone who has dealt extensively with depression, I can confidently say that most kindness is tempered by judgment.

Oh, I’m so sorry, honey, maybe you should just buck up.

I feel you and what you’re going through, but maybe if you weren’t depressed, you wouldn’t have this problem (no shit, Sherlock).

He’s having a hard time, but he brought it on himself.

Etc., etc.

Do not temper your kindness with judgment; just be there. Give the hug. Hold the hand. Help clean up. Make a casserole.

Listen. Don’t be a jerk.

After all, better out than in, and judgment forces the latter, intentionally or otherwise.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1354 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Night Shift, Stephen King
Comics: Voodoo v2 12, 0, Grifter v3 0, 13
Music: Flood, They Might Be Giants

toxic masculinity

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There’s nothing wrong with strength, but posturing is never truly the mark of a strong man.

Indeed, kindness, compassion, sober second thought – the ability to see perspective and to act on a combination of conviction and data (never blinding oneself to what is for the sake of dogmatic ideals) – these are the hallmarks of a strong person.

Those who would sublimate themselves in order to help someone in need.

Those who show kindness to anyone who needs it.

Those who would stand up for those that need their help, regardless of the consequences to oneself, in the face of the laughing masses.

That’s fucking strength. That’s “masculine” (and really – it’s everyone. Nothing in this precludes anyone of any gender to be any of this – good and bad).

Anyway, that’s my point.

It takes more courage and strength to be soft and kind than it does to put up walls and pretend to be hard (and if you’re truly hard, well, then, why would we venerate you? As the Tao puts it – the hard and stiff are disciples of death; the supple and flexible are those of life.)

(Paraphrased, obviously.)

Corpses are rigid, and only move at the whim of others as they decay.

Life moves in an intricate dance, wills and choice mingling, and isn’t it better to dance well with your partners, than do the meathead thing and forget that a mosh pit isn’t sanctioned bullying; it’s energetic celebration.

Kindness isn’t toxic; neither is it feminine.

It’s human, and a fully obtainable ideal.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1130 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Night Shift, Stephen King
Comics: Voodoo v2 10-11, Grifter v3 11-12
Music: Flogging Molly, Flogging Molly (floggingmollyfloggingmolly)

hard decisions

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You ever find something you love, that you’re really into, but the time sink is just too much with everything else you need/want/have to do?

I feel that way about baseball. I love the old game, the strategy, the drama, the fact that everything can change with one great pitch or one great swing or one great play (or one big fuck-up, to be fair).

But I can’t do it. It’s too much. It’s too much of a time sink. The stats, the game length, the fact that it’s three hours a day every day for almost half the year… would that I had nothing else in my life, but I do.

My love of ball is less than my love of reading. Or writing. Or love.

Such a shame is life.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1938 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Well Of Shiuan, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Voodoo v2 8-9, Grifter v3 9-10
Music: Float, Flogging Molly (Float, the song, is my spirit animal)

leave ’em lying

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The rule down south now. Hell, anywhere right wing leaders are – they lie, lie and lie some more, and someday, someone’s going to leave them lying.

It’s what happens to all fascists in the end.

Chickens come home to roost. Houses made of cards collapse, and pretending to be humble, aw shucks or bombastic “the big lie is the best lie” won’t mean a goddamn thing.

They’re doing it to themselves. They could stop their downfall, but they don’t want to – this is a death cult, squeezing every last bit of misery they can, for the personal profit of their own power and their own pockets.

I preach kindness and pacifism; I preach fortitude and no compromise with bigots and authoritarians.

There is no grey area in dictatorships.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1446 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Well Of Shiuan, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Voodoo v2 4-5, Grifter v3 5-6
Music: Flick Of The Switch, AC/DC (that's how fast it will happen)

the world’s first trillionaire

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People seem to think this is some kind of achievement; I think it’s a crime and an illusion.

He doesn’t have a trillion dollars laying around. It’s all made up money, floating around in the ether with no actual value.

Take away the stock market and what’s this guy got?

What’s SpaceX actually worth to humanity? Tesla makes some of the worst electric cars out there – there are far better options.

Twitter? A fucking joke now.

This guy can and has contributed a negative value to the world. He may be a trillion dollars on paper.

In reality, he’s just some fucking asshole who thinks he’s far better than he actually is.

He is a net minus, in every way that matters, save in a made-up high score in a virtual game for rich dicks, all of whom pretend that worth on paper is the same as actual worth.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2280 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Well Of Shiuan, C.J. Cherryh (I have been waiting to get back to Morgaine with great anticipation.)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. v5 30, Grifter v3 1-2, Voodoo v2 1
Music: Flashpoint, The Rolling Stones

the official word

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I’m sick of draws. Every once in a while is fine, but come on.

Let’s have a winner sometime; and let’s make it the good guys (or gal, as the case may be).

Target: 1600 words
Written: 3611 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: In Search Of The Castaways, Jules Verne
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. v5 22-25
Music: Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy, The Refreshments

ugh

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I love Doctor Who and Tom Baker in particular, but The Talons Of Weng Chiang?

Yikes. Racist.

It’s got Leela at her best, however, so there’s that.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1134 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Coppermine Journey, Farley Mowat
Comics: Wildstorm Revelations 2-5
Music: The First Edition, Kenny Rogers & The First Edition (I just dropped in)