I wish, but I don’t feel like I could ever open up to a therapist.
I like the show though.
Harrison Ford is one of my spirit animals (we share a birthday… Patrick Stewart as well, which is equally cool).
(Also Julius Caesar and Cheech, so you know, pretty good crew.)
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1421 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Call For The Dead, John Le Carre
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 7-10
Music: Fire Water Burn, Bloodhound GangYeah, a pivotal scene and I wrote it like a ninth grader, or a cop show writer.
Grabbing someone by the lapels and screaming, “Where is he?”, like my main character is fucking Mel Gibson or Clint Eastwood, when he’s more like Buster in Arrested Development.
Jesus, I’ve let my family make me watch too many episodes of Tracker – my writing is now devolving as a result.
(For the record, Tracker is shit. The only time I was even remotely interested was the UFO episode, because I thought they might be pivoting and turning into something good, like the X-Files. Sadly, they’ve never mentioned it again.)
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2666 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Code And Other Laws Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig (like, I see good points, but his pro-corporate copyright stance is distasteful, and his insistence on interjecting the government into everything is as well. He claims to have made a point or taken a stance in there somewhere, but other than saying, hey, this is an issue (and it was, back then), I don't really see much of a stance on anything, other than we need more government or the magical mystery market will solve the problem, like some kind of divine hand.)
Comics: Gen 13 v2 65-67, GenActive 6
Music: The Fat Of The Land, The ProdigySee, these are reboots that I can get behind, because the movie was whatever. The series though…
The problem is, we don’t need to need to reboot everything. Where’s our new ideas?
Where’s the innovation?
No wonder fascism is on the march.
Everything old is new again, and we’ve apparently run out of ideas.
Target: 1400 words
Written: 1392 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Bloodstrike Brutalists 23-24, 0, Bloodstrike Battle Blood 1
Music: Wolves In Wolves' Clothing, NOFXHow precious? How far are we willing to sacrifice our happiness to hypocrisy, cruelty or outrage?
How many concessions must we make to others’ feelings?
Is there a limit to empathy? Is there a limit to courtesy?
Sometimes, joking about farts or shit or cum or dicks and boobs is just fun.
What happens when we live for the microaggression, so we can live for our offense? So we can satisfy the dragon of outrage?
Or should the focus be on live and let live, taking a stand when it truly matters, like ICE or concentration camps or the oppression of the minority vote?
Sometimes, a U-turn is strategic, not sexist. That’s all I have to say about that.
Target: 1400 words
Written: 1275 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: The Faded Sun: Kesrith, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Bloodpool 2, Riptide 1, Youngblood v2 1, Chapel v2 3
Music: Who's Next, The WhoMy daughter just turned on How It’s Made, and it’s about making a fur coat.
This shit is disgusting. Food for sustenance is one thing; we have things that work better than fur now.
What a fucking disgrace.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 1505 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Dead To The World, Charlaine Harris
Comics: Team Youngblood 7-8, Brigade v2 8, Bloodstrike 9
Music: Whiskey On A Sunday, Flogging MollyGood lord. Watching Reba’s new show and all I can think is (and I never watched her old show, but the bits I’ve seen seem about the same)…
How fucking stupid do they think people are?
And what happened to all the good writers out there? So many are supposedly struggling, where the fuck were they when this shit was made?
Good Christ, fuck.
Target: 1000 words
Written: 836 words, comic: Western Cradle #3
Read: Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Comics: Preacher 34-36, Preacher: One Man's War 1
Music: Nice, Rollins Band (I saw this listed as their worst album, and all I could think was, "if this is their worst, how fucking bad is everyone else?" Rollins is the shit.)Why isn’t this a show on HBO yet?
Other than maybe Y: The Last Man, I’ve never read anything that doesn’t so perfectly beg to be made into something onscreen.
Of course, they fucked up Y: The Last Man apparently, because it was cancelled after one season, but hey, gender identity politics do kind of make that a tough sell in the current climate. Dichotomy was sort of the thing before; spectrum doesn’t really play to the story as well.
But still.
100 Bullets.
Are you fucking kidding me?
GET IT DONE.
Target: 900 words
Written: 983 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Hepatitis Bathtub And Other Stories, NOFX
Comics: 100 Bullets 97-100
Music: Uprising, Muse (what we need right now)I’m back to it – the non-Molly Parker, plus-Marta Kristen version, in which I don’t understand the infatuation with the latter.
I mean, she’s beautiful and all, but she’s window dressing most of the time in the show, like her mother. Nice to look at, but ultimately, boring.
In the Netflix version, Judy and Maureen were anything but (and I would be lying if I didn’t have an unnatural attraction to Molly Parker’s Maureen). Strong women are wonderful.
Flirty and light can be fun, but when the chips are down, I prefer a woman who engages, not one who demures.
Long term, superficial is unsustainable. But the depths of a strong woman?
They can feel so big, you get lost in them.
(In a good way, an endless exploration way, not a strong woman subsumes a weak man, though certainly, in any gender context, strong personalities do have a tendency to swallow the meeker, and that’s something to explore as well, but not in this particular instance. Men who wish their women are weaker are, well, sad and pathetic, and vice versa).
Anyway, so be it. I am married to a strong woman, of that there is no doubt. I’ll be the John to her Maureen any day.
Target: 900 words
Written: 992 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Wishsong Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Once And Future 20-22, Die 20
Music: Oh, Fuck, Even More Bootleg Rolling Stones Live Shit, The Rolling StonesI mean that literally. It’s possible for someone to just die from lack of sleep, right?
Like, too many half-nights, no naps, no drowsing in the recliner while watching Frasier or the latest Yellowstone, right?
(By the way, how great is Kelly Reilly? Whatever one might think about her character’s behaviour, one must recognize what a terrific character it is, and what a great job she’s doing with it. The show can meander a little bit and doesn’t always seem to have an organic forward purpose, but capturing the endless anger of the tragically damaged, and how that can simultaneously mix with little bits of good, and absolutely vindictive evil, she does a great job.)
Anyway, dying from lack of sleep and heartburn. That’s me.
Over here.
Dying.
Target: 700 words
Written: 916 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Symmetry 7, Postal 15, Eden's Fall 2, Romulus 1
Music: Other Words, Screaming TreesMy wife was a big fan of the original series; I was more of a Star Trek/Doctor Who guy growing up. My dad always looked down on Lost In Space. If we watched something from that era, it was Captain Kirk or Adam West.
That said, I adore the new one from Netflix and wish it went on much longer. Molly Parker and Parker Posey are two of my favourite actresses and they are terrific in this. I also have a visceral attraction to Molly Parker; I don’t know what it is, but man, she just does it for me.
Anyways, the point is that I recently started watching the original series, as a nod to my wife (sorry about the Molly Parker thing, honey), and I have to admit, I’m in. They do a good job of creating tension and doing that writerly thing of “keep them in danger”, even if it’s outlandish in the actual science part (as, admittedly, was Star Trek).
And Jonathan Harris, what can I say? Every time he shows up on screen, all I can think is “this motherfucker“, so I guess he’s doing what he’s supposed to do, in creating a perpetually evil villain. I suspect there’s a redemption arc for him, but I’m not that far into the series. Certainly, there was for Parker Posey’s Smith, who was also terrific, as she always is.
Anyway, out, bitches (and please picture that said in Parker Posey’s Dazed and Confused character), maybe followed by a stumbling “fuck all of you”, with some middle fingers and shit.
Target: 700 words
Written: 84 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Saga 45-48
Music: One Chord To Another, Sloan