Monthly Archives: August 2023

Not the B’s! Not the B’s!

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I’ve become kind of obsessed with Scott Adkins.

First, let me back up a little.

I used to really love B-movies. It was one of the few things I had in common with my ex-wife. What makes a B-movie? Well, back when going to the movies was an event, as opposed to the chore it is today (in my opinion), there was a newsreel, a cartoon, a serial (including the original 1944 Captain America), a B-movie, and the marquee film. That’s how people my dad’s age saw cartoons before they were rerun on TV ad nauseam, without the nauseam part. The serial kept people coming back for more. The B-movie had a smaller budget, wooden acting, bad writing, and was usually sensationalist. When TV became ubiquitous, B-movies could be seen late at night on the networks or during the day when the soap operas (or as I called them when I was a kid, “soap poppers”), weren’t on. They also made straight-to-television movies that were often failed pilots, like the original 1979 Captain America, made shortly after I was born, but rerun over and over again, so I saw it in the eighties, back when I was too young to know how bad it was.

During the cable era, they were moved to networks like USA and HBO, and later, Cinemax, where they were known as straight-to-video releases. That horrible disappointment in film, the original 1990 Captain America, was a straight-to-video release. B-movies could be anything, from horror movies (the gorier the better), to sex thrillers (one of two non-scrambled places to see nudity before the Internet), to action (this is where Chuck Norris’s infamy comes from), to raunchy sex comedies (the other place to see nudity), to cheap sci-fi flicks (which were my favorite at the time), and more.

B-horror movies were the most popular overall because they would produce more gems, like The Evil Dead, which did have a minor theatrical release, but found a wide audience on cable and video. Fans were thrilled by the low production values and the over-the-top plots and action. Also, watch enough B-movies, and you begin to recognize the actors, who nowadays will appear in small roles in big-budget movies or on the CW. They are popularly known as “character actors,” I refer to them as “Hey, that guys!”

And that brings me to Scott Adkins. Scott Adkins doesn’t have a lot of roles in big movies. The biggest role (ha!) I’ve ever seen him in was in John Wick 4, where he wore a fat suit and wiped the floor with Keanu Reeves. He’s got a big following, though. He’s good-looking, a gifted martial artist, and a pretty decent actor. I’ve seen him in serious roles, like Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear (“A man who seeks revenge must dig two graves.” “They’re gonna need a lot more graves than that.”), comedic roles, like Max Cloud, and movies that are both, like The Debt Collector. My favorite of his is Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, during which he flashes his dreamy smile a lot and fights a clown armed with a cinder block on a stick.

I don’t know why he’s not a leading man. Actually, I attribute that to the fact that actors are no longer chosen for their natural physicality. Instead, they’ll hire an out-of-shape comedian like Chris Pratt, make him lift weights and not eat carbs for six months, make him dehydrate for a day or so, and dunk him in a bathtub of ice water, just to film a thirty-second shirtless scene. Meanwhile, their stunts are performed by wirework or a CGI engine, like in the 2011 original Captain America They didn’t hire real martial artists for The Matrix even, until The Matrix Reloaded, where they found three of the top B-movie action stars of the decade and made them agents probably because they had charisma (not in this movie) and because they didn’t have to train them.

There’s the fact that action starts pushing sixty, like Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise, won’t retire and still insist on doing their own stunts. Also, Hollywood execs are Gen-X, the Nostalgia Generation, and will only do movies based on comics or toys from their childhood and will drop $300 million on an Indiana Jones movie, despite the fact that only people over forty even care about the character anymore.

As for me, I wanted to watch a movie the other day, and I couldn’t find anything that appealed to me on any of the dozens of streaming services I’m subscribed to. I blame this the single-take sequence in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Hope You’re Not Here for Anything Fun. I think single-take sequences are really cool. I watched the one from Oldboy over and over again, and when there was one on True Detective, followed by one on Daredevil, it was jaw-dropping. Fast-forward to the last few years, and we had one on Loki, and it was fine, I guess. And we had one at the climax of Guardians 3, which was almost completely computer-generated characters. It was cheating. The single-take tracking shot went from a stunning achievement in directing, choreography, and the persistence of repetition into something you could do if you had enough VFX artists. What used to be a rare treat was turned into something I was getting tired of.

This in mind, I chose a Scott Adkins movie, the goofier, the better, and it had a single-take sequence that was actually fun. This wasn’t because a digital tree was jumping over a digital monster, but because Scott and his co-heroes were in a hallway, beating up a bunch of faceless bad guys. The only special effects (as far as I can tell) were the plasma blasts from the bad guys’ sci-fi guns. Mostly it was Scott kicking space ninjas in the face and hamming it up as an over-the-top video-game hero. I made it all the way through the movie in one sitting. The next day I watched another one, which started with Scott having four fights in the first thirty minutes, three of which he got his ass kicked hilariously, and ending on a note as heartbreaking as watching small animals get tortured and murdered and have it be the most important part of the movie. (Guardians of the Galaxy: A Silly Comedy Series. You know, for kids!)

The appeal of a good B-movie is that, without computers that have the processing power of an entire country and producers cranking out increasingly unprofitable blockbusters again and again, they depend on human beings. Their writers may not have the allegedly witty banter of a Marvel movie, or their biggest star may be Ryan Phillipe, but they’re not afraid to play with the formula. I know a lot of these movies are crap. I’ve complained about them on this blog before. They’re real, though, and they deserve our love. There’s not a lot of Scott Adkins movies on the multitude of streaming services I’m subscribed to, but I’ve put them all in my lists (“my stuff,” “my watchlists,” whatever), and I’m going through them one at a time. I’ve given up on blockbusters, and by the looks of the box office receipts for 2023 (Barbie and John Wick 4 notwithstanding), the rest of the country is starting to as well.

The Principles of Magnetism

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In the fall of 1992, I said something mean to a very nice transfer student. Nevertheless, a year later, she invited me into her home to have a weekly lunch with her and her mother. We were nothing alike—I was an awkward outcast who thought Kurt Cobain was the height of fashion, she was a pretty, popular, academic achiever. In that time together we became very intimate, not as in romance (or attempted romance), but as in people who were incredibly comfortable being themselves together. Crushes were destructive for me, especially as my mood swung from manic to depressed, but I never developed a crush on her. I saw her for what she was, an incredibly close friend who welcomed me into her life.

Spring of my senior year, I was going to ask her out as a prom buddy, but she already had a date. I spent the evening with Shane, shoveling quarters into fighting games at the local pizza parlor, and calling it an early night. I don’t regret missing prom, since my friend was the only one I would have had fun with. That summer, I stopped by my friends’ houses with a camcorder (whatever that is) and asked them if they were evil. She was the only one who said she was not.

When we graduated, we promised to keep in touch. We didn’t.

Eight years later, after getting off the PATH train in New York City, I spied her getting off a different car. She looked exactly the same as she did when I’d last seen her, and I wasn’t going to let her escape. This was a challenge because I looked like I was in the witness protection program. I was wearing button-up shirt that wasn’t made of plaid flannel—actually buttoned up—and had cut my hair, grown a beard, and filled out. It took her a minute, but she recognized me. We had dinner on Halloween at the Tick Tock Diner on Thirty-First Street, and the magic was no longer there. She didn’t feel like the same person I knew, and I was well aware that I wasn’t tha same person she knew. We didn’t keep in touch.

The next spring, a mutual friend from high school got her number from me and set up a dinner with her. I tagged along (much to his dismay), and that evening, the magic was back. Broke and frustrated with dating, we spent weekend after weekend finding free things to do and cheap places to eat, often accompanied by her best friend who shared her name. This included Coney Island, where a walk on the beach led to a guy with a telescope showing us Mars when it was closer to Earth than it had been or would be in our lifetimes.

I was right on Halloween of 2002—she was different. When I knew her as a teenager, she was studious and reserved, but she grew into an artistic free spirit. I never saw that side of her before, but it was always there. She was also the same, having always been curious, serious, and focused, like Alice in Wonderland. I saw more of her in the coming months than I saw her best friend, who was my roommate. She met a number of my friends and got along with every one of them, who were all impressed with her.

But eventually, she left town for the Southwest, and we didn’t live near each other again.

I’ve seen her a few times since then, including her wedding, when she made a little bit of time to hang out with me (which was, I am well aware, more time than she had), and on the tenth anniversary of September 11. There were a few reunions with her, her best friend, and me, but it always ended with my old friend and me walking around New York, keeping each other company.

I haven’t seen her since October 2014, and we’re both don’t text well. When, at a deep low of depression, I took to Facebook to confess my shame of having taken a retail job, she called me on the phone (which is something you can do with phones, I guess) and made me feel better. I’ll always remember how much I needed to hear from her, and how it parted the clouds over my head.

I prematurely wrote my memoirs in May 2022, and each of the chapters was about an influential figure in my life (Kate got two). There’s an introduction about me to tell the reader who I am, but before that, like the pre-credits scene in a TV show or James Bond movie, is the history of my friend, the pom-pom girl who looked past my asshole tendencies and opened the door to her life.

Inspired by my relationship with her, I wrote an unfinished novel about two socially opposite teenage girls who find each other, lose each other, then find each other again as completely different people in New York City. This is my mockup of the cover, which will need to be redone, after I’ve had some time to work on some other drawings. The background looks great, but the figures didn’t come together like I’d hoped. Their proportions are off, and their poses and expressions are stiff. But if I can get it right on the next try, it will hopefully communicate in one image the kind of relationship my friend and I had.

I will always love her, with all of my platonic heart.

Pop Goes the Culture

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I’ve had a bad attitude about pop culture for a while now, ever since 2007, when they released Hairspray, a movie based on a Broadway musical that was based on a movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love pop culture. I love(d) Marvel movies and TV shows. I learned how to read from comics, along with some very patient teachers. I even bought and assembled a (very inexpensive) Short Circuit MOC Lego set. On the other hand, there are other things going on.

I get it, though. I barely read the news because it’s infuriating. I’ve gotten into shouting matches with people because of the news, and these are people who agree with me. But when I scroll down Facebook, 75-80 percent of the posts are related to pop culture somehow. And they are extremely popular posts. When I post art of a character I conceived and developed and painstakingly drew and colored, I consider it a raging success if it breaks six likes. When I posted pictures of the aforementioned Johnny 5, a character whose only connection to me was that I saw the movie a bunch when I was a kid and I spent less than an hour putting it together via detailed instruction, I got dozens of likes.

While that sticks in my craw on principle, the fact is, I write and draw to impress myself. Do I want more people to appreciate my forms of expression? Of course I do. Can I live without it? Half of the six likes I’ll get are regulars, so I know I have fans. And I know for certain that a number of my friends and family see and appreciate my posts without saying anything. (It’s not like I’m consistent about visibly appreciating others’ posts.) Besides, since I found out how bad writers have it, from novelists, to TV and screenwriters, to comic book writers, I’m perfectly content with a Dropbox full of unread manuscripts.

In my last sentence, I used the word content, but pronounce it differently, and it’s content. Content is what you get on streaming services and YouTube. It’s art as a commodity that can be bought and sold, but most importantly, it’s disposable. Last year, I complained about the Willow TV show on Disney+. Well, it’s gone. If you enjoyed it, tough, because Disney pulled it, and physical media is obsolete. The actors, writers, and directors will never be paid again for all the work they put into it, and the worst part is it’s not because the show was bad (I mean, it was), but because pulling it saved Disney a bundle on taxes. Since art is disposable, there’s no point in paying the “content creators” decently, or at all, for their work. How do you think YouTube got so successful? But that’s okay, if you don’t want to create for pennies, they’ll just find someone else who will. That’s why this strike is so important.

With art as a commodity, you’ve got CEOs and presidents of a rapidly shrinking number of entertainment conglomerates saying that they won’t even consider a work if it doesn’t represent an existing intellectual property. That’s how you get the Fatal Attraction streaming TV show, which was delightful trash to be sure, but it had all the soul of worn-through shoe. Meanwhile, as I’m walking out of the Metro, I see posters of Moulin Rouge the stage musical, based on a movie musical which was based on previously recorded music. There’s a True Lies series. What the hell is the point of True Lies without Arnold and Jamie Lee, but instead a generically attractive couple in just another generic spy show.

Meanwhile, a genius like Greta Gerwig has to make a movie about a doll to get the recognition she deserves. Yes, it was a very good movie, and there were more layers to it than any of her previous movies, but it was fucking Barbie. Naturally, the studio response to this is not to make more deep movies with important social messages but to make more movies about toys. There are seven Transformers movies, and only one of them is good (Bumblebee) and two terrible GI Joe movies. The Lego Movie was amusing and meta, but had no substance at all.

*deep breath*

I’ve been meaning to rant about this for a while, but I still haven’t formed any really coherent thoughts about it. The reason I had to say something about it now is because I had indulged in some McDonald’s, and I was sitting outside, watching Newcastle creep around our backyard, and I saw written on my iced tea, “The McDonald’s Cup, as seen on” and then it listed over a dozen TV shows and music videos and movies, going back as far as Coming to America, up to Loki, season two, which isn’t even out yet.

What. The actual. Fuck.

The Printed Menace Revisited

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I learned how to read from comic books. My dad had a huge stack of The Amazing and The Spectacular Spider-Man, The Avengers, and my personal favorite, the first fifty or so issues of The Defenders, all from the seventies and early eighties, and I read them obsessively. He had an original copy of Amazing Spiderman #129. In many ways, my dad was awesome.

I stuck with comics through the nineties, and I refused to take sides during great rivalry between adjectiveless Spider-Man and X-Men #1s. I remember my friend Tony telling me I was stupid for not picking up Superpro #1 because it was a NUMBER ONE, DUDE! I foresaw the collapse of the speculator boom when this guy I knew bragged about how he bought five copies of Spawn #1, and I thought, “If he has five copies, and his friends have five copies, who’s going to buy them? (And sure enough, twelve years later, when Chris Claremont did a surprising signing at Jim Hanley’s Comics in New York City, I bought a copy of the gatefold cover of X-Men #1 for a buck, or 20 percent of what I paid for it in 1990.)

When a guy named Robert opened a comic book store in my tiny hometown in 1993, I had found home, as well as Grendal, and I hung out there until 1994, when I went to college and became an intellectual, reading only Sandman. After that, I branched back out into the comics world and discovered lots of new stuff, a collection only confined by the size of the tiny apartments that my ex-wife (X-Wife?) and I lived in. When we moved to the DC metropolitan area, she surprised me with tickets to DC’s AwesomeCon, where I met my first muse, Peter David. But one day, I just stopped reading, even books by my favorite writers, such as Ed Brubaker.

However, my youngest sister, who prior to this point, read only Garth Ennis Punisher comics, suddenly became fascinated by Robin, and from there has become her own encyclopedia. When I told her who Snapper Carr was, she found out quickly that I had no idea what I was talking about. The student has surpassed the master.

Which brings me to the main event. Originally written to pit Brian Michael Bendis and Warren Ellis against each other. I love them both. They’re both very clever, very exciting, very cerebral writers, but they couldn’t be more different. To explain this to my friends (and later to my sister), I let them both write Star Wars. As I’ve revisited this, I’ve added more writers with distinctive voices.

Brian Michael Bendis:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: You got a bad feeling about this?
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: About this?
LUKE: Yes.
HAN: A bad feeling?
LUKE: Yes.
HAN: You got a bad feeling about this?
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
LEIA: This?
LUKE: This.
LEIA: This is what you got a bad feeling about?
LUKE: It is.
LEIA: You got a bad feeling about this?
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!
LUKE: Chewie’s got a bad feeling about it, too.
LEIA: About this?
LUKE: He does.

Warren Ellis:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: Me, too. Let’s shoot it in the head.
LEIA: (Lights cigarette) Bloody right, then.
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!

Frank Miller:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN (In captions): I had a bad feeling about this, too. A real bad feeling. A bad feeling burning ice cold in my gut. It tells me things are bad. Real bad. I watch the boy. Luke Skywalker. Age eighteen. He thinks he knows what he’s getting into, but he has no idea how bad it’s going to get. This feeling he’s got? It’s roses. Roses and picnics and apple pies to how it’s really going to get. Luke Skywalker. Age eighteen. He’s in for a world of hurt.
LEIA: Oh, Han! I can’t stand it anymore! I have to have you! You’re so manly! Take me, you wicked, manly space pirate! Smuggle yourself inside of me! Take me now!
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!
HAN (In captions): The Wookie screams a dark, primal scream into the cold, dead interstellar void. A void colder and deader than that bad feeling in my gut. The Wookie screams. I know how it feels.

Joss Whedon:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: Then maybe we should go all Buck Rogers on it and kick its evil ass! Set phasers to awesome!
LEIA: Totally!
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!

Garth Ennis:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: Fuck!
LEIA: Cocksucker!
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!

Kevin Smith:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: That’s because my cock is in your mouth!
LEIA: You guys are so gay!
CHEWBACCA: Han, I think your bluster hides the fact that you do, in fact, have sexual feelings for Luke, but are conflicted because there is also something there for Leia, as well.
LUKE: Snoochie-boochies!

Chris Claremont:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: Of course you got a bad feelin’ about this, old friend, because the evil we face is the Empire, which has caused us no end of difficulties. If you’ll recall, Darth Vader has revealed himself to be your father as part of his master plan to overthrow his lord and master, Emperor Palpatine [See The Empire Strikes Back—Ed.]. We’ll need to face this together …
LUKE (In a thought bubble): Han’s talking tough, but it was only recently that I was able to rescue him from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, and he may still be suffering from the side-effects of carbonite hibernation [See The Return of the Jedi—Ed.]. He can’t keep pushing himself like this. Hey, is that an Imperial Storm Trooper about to shoot at us? It is! I’d better warn the others. (Out loud) Look out!
LEIA: (Thought bubble as she jumps over the blaster fire): Incredible! It was only months ago that I was a helpless princess in the clutches of Grand Moff Tarkin [See A New Hope—Ed.], but now that it has been revealed to me that I am the daughter of the once-noble-Jedi-turned-evil, Anakin Skywalker [See The Return of the Jedi—Ed.], and with the training I’ve received with the rebels, I can easily evade this blast! (Out loud, still mid-jump) Luke! Use your lightsaber and Jedi training to deflect the blast! Chewbacca! Use your crossbow gun to stop the Storm Trooper before he can get another shot off!
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH! [See The Revenge of the Sith—Ed.]

Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
LEIA: What are you gonna do about it?
LUKE: Are you going to wear the metal bikini all the time now?
HAN: I have no objection to this.
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!

Ed Brubaker:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: It’s about to get a lot worse. (Shoots Luke in the back) Now we can be together, Your Highness, without him standing in our way.
LEIA: (Points her gun at Han) Oh, Han, don’t you see? It was never about you and me. You were the one standing in my way.
HAN: No!
LEIA: (Shoots him.) Now, Chewie, we can take the money and get away from it all! Just you and me.
CHEWBACCA: (Strangles Leia) WRAURGH! (Wipes a single tear from his cheek.)

Neil Gaiman:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
NARRATOR: The bad feeling drifts through the hearts and minds of the galaxy, like the smell of something foul, yet bittersweet, like kimchi. The words cross their lips as the feeling overcomes them. The Correllians know it …
HAN: I got a bad feeling about this.
NARRATOR: The Mon Calamari know it …
ACKBAR: I got a bad feeling about this.
NARRATOR: The Gungan know it …
JAR-JAR: Meesa got a bad feelin’!
NARRATOR: The Hutts know it …
JABBA: Botaka! Hoo hoo hoo …
NARRATOR: The Ewoks know it …
WICKET: Yub yub!
NARRATOR: The Wookies know it …
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!
NARRATOR: But never is it more real than in the dreams of the exiled royalty of a world that is no longer there …
LEIA: I got a bad feeling about this.

Peter David:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: Are you sure it’s not “More Than a Feelin’”?
LEIA: (punches Han in the shoulder) Han, this is serious.
HAN: Oh, dry up, Princess.
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!

Grant Morrison:
LUKE: I got a bad feeling about this.
HAN: The only way we can get through this is if break the parsec barrier and cause a chain reaction. This will require everything we got, all of us. And if we fail, we run the risk of turning every living creature in the galaxy into yarn.
LEIA: (turns to camera) That is if it’s okay with the writers.

Ben Edlund:
LUKE: As he stares out across The Galaxy, the galaxy far away, our intrepid hero stands there, asking himself the same tough questions. What is it far away from? If Darth Vader is indeed his father, why don’t they have the same last name? Do they have Chinese food in space? It’s these questions and more that make him think. They make him cry out to the stars! The warring stars! I! GOT! A! BAD! FEELING! ABOUT! THIS! AND I’M OKAY WITH THAT!
HAN: Who are you talking to?
LUKE: Hello there, old chum. I’m just setting the mood.
CHEWBACCA: WRAURGH!

My favorite writer is Matt Wagner, but he doesn’t have any consistent tropes to hang one of these on. I was also going to do Mark Millar, but thinking about it made me want to throw up a little.

The Truth Is Way out, Man

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I saw a UFO between twenty-five and thirty years ago. My dad was performing one of the DIY projects he had no expertise in but managed to pull off because he taught himself how to do it, pre-internet, and the radio was on. The hosts breathlessly announced that an unidentified flying object could be seen above my neighborhood. A pair of binoculars in my hand, I ran across the gravel street to the undeveloped land where I had a clear view of the cloudless sky, and there it was. It was hard to figure out its size and shape, as there was nothing to reference it against, and it seemed to bend the light around it, like the Predator. I watched it to see what kind of cool UFO shit it would pull. And I watched it some more. And it didn’t do anything.

Later, authorities identified it as a weather balloon. A likely story. That’s what they always say.

This will be my most controversial post because most people tend to get offended when I spell out my belief system. As if by having them, I’m an asshole. That by telling them my philosophy, even though I’m not actively challenging theirs, I’m attacking them. The truth is, I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe anything that can’t be explained with the scientific method. The usual response to that is “There are things that science can’t explain,” to which I say, “Duh.”

Some go so far as to claim that people like me are dogmatic, and they compare us to the religious figures during the Renaissance—you know, the ones who used to execute scientists. Nothing could be further from the truth. A true skeptic looks for anything that challenges their beliefs, but we have a very high bar for what we’ll accept. What skeptics are dogmatic about and dismissive of are claims made with a lack of evidence, which pretty much defines UFO culture.

First, some definitions. When I use the term UFO, I mean aliens, which is pretty much how the term is used in American culture. People will ask, “Do you believe in UFOs?” Well, there are things seen in the sky that have not been identified, that’s an actual fact. What they’re really asking is whether you believe they are otherworldly. On the other hand, if I spell it out as “unidentified flying object,” I mean exactly that—something in the sky that no one can figure out. One term I won’t be using is the in-vogue UAP, or “unidentified arial phenomena.” It means literally the same thing, except it adds the term “phenomena,” which has a mysterious flavor to it. Besides, UAP reminds me of the late twentieth century when Trekkies tried to change their name to Trekkers because “Trekkie” has such a goofy connotation that no one will admit to it, unless they have a good sense of humor about fandom. “Trekkers” did not catch on.

I could provide a number of examples, including Britain’s most famous and enduring UFO sighting, believers of which neglect to mention the nearby lighthouse. However, I’m going to focus on the most spectacular example of modern times: the Phoenix UFO invasion of 1997. Thousands of eyewitnesses saw lights descending on the biggest city in Arizona. Some people even filmed the display with their camcorders (whatever those are). The National Guard later explained that some of their planes dumped flares over the city for some reason, but certain witnesses scoffed. Flares don’t bank, rise, fall, and quickly zip away.

Except they didn’t do any of those things. Really bright light can burn an image into the human eye. What about the cameras? They leave light trails on videotape. Ask anyone who’s ever filmed at night. Therefore, while the flares were falling straight down and fading out, witnesses were looking around, and the burned-in images were following them. Even if you don’t know the scientific method well, you can use Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is usually true. Ask yourself which makes more sense: dozens of aliens unseen on radar dropped in on a densely packed city and just zipped around like a bunch of Tinkerbells? Or that bright lights are altering our vision, as anyone who’s ever had their picture taken with a flash can tell you?

I can already hear my friends who might soon be my ex-friends objecting. But with what? Verifiable science has already stated the most natural explanation. If someone is making a claim that goes against that, the burden of proof lies on their shoulders. Are there any reliable photos? Is there any physical evidence of the flying light show? Of course not, and the lack of evidence is what proves it to them. (The flying saucers are so advanced they don’t leave evidence behind. The military is obviously covering everything up. Men in black, people.) And finally, with the irrefutable proof provided by the UFO enthusiasts, why is this the first time you’ve heard of this in twenty-five years, if ever? Is it the cover up?

Something cannot be proven by coming to a conclusion and finding evidence to support it. (I’m guilty of doing this. We all are.) You cannot make a claim that you saw something weird in the sky and therefore, it’s up to science and the government to prove that it’s not UFOs. The proof that tends to be presented is eyewitness, or anecdotal evidence, and science will not accept that. Human memory is flawed. Google “The Mandela Effect” for some examples. If anyone is being dogmatic, it’s those who refuse to except any other explanation but flying saucers.

Another scoffed-at fact: most unidentified flying objects are clouds. Going back to retina burn, the moon and sun are also culprits. Another fact: a number of witnesses are lying. Barney and Betty Hill are the mommy and daddy of alien abduction, being the first to report the big-headed, bug-eyed aliens we all know, and they have been thoroughly discredited as conmen. Hypnotism is completely unreliable, or it wouldn’t be considered fringe (and no, it’s not discriminated against; imagine how useful it would be if it worked). And whether consciously or not, Barney was describing the aliens that appeared a week earlier up in an episode of Outer Limits. They weren’t disproven by the government hiding the truth, but by doctors looking for evidence of aliens because aliens are the holy grail of science.

A couple of years ago, enthusiasts celebrated when it was revealed that the government was spending tens of millions of dollars to investigate unidentified flying objects. Of course they were. Anything in our skies that can’t be identified is a security threat. And what enthusiasts don’t point out is that the government has identified nearly everything previously unknown. But just because you don’t know what it is, you can’t just jump to the conclusion that it’s aliens. That’s just not reasonable. Also, for such a tight, organized cover-up, a shocking number of those who do the covering tell their stories on UFO documentaries and don’t get stuffed into unmarked vans.

I don’t believe in UFOs because there is no evidence to support life on other planets. From what science can determine, the emergence of life on Earth is a side effect of a number of unlikely coincidences and phenomena that put our planet in the exact place it needed to be not to cook or freeze, as well as to develop the chemicals necessary. The odds against this happening elsewhere are astronomical. However, there are an astronomical number of worlds out there, so who knows? As a skeptic, I say there is no proof that we are being visited by aliens, but I’m crossing my fingers that one day we find it. How cool would that be?

Ace up my Sleeve

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I wrote this angry. I put it down, worked for six hours, and came back to it. I was still angry (though I managed to add some clarity to some confusing bits). I feel like I was remarkably patient, even though this has happened one time too many.

There appears to be a misunderstanding. Maybe people forgot this about me. Maybe people don’t even believe this about me. Either way, I want to take the time to clear this up. Last month, I wrote a post about wanting to say hello to a woman I see every week at the café. I was anxious about it, to the point of paralysis. Enough of my friends are under the assumption I wanted to ask her out on a date.

No, goddammit. Over the past fifteen years, I have developed crippling social anxiety. I can carry on a conversation with a stranger if they start it. Ask me to start a conversation, and I get the yips really badly. All I wanted to do with this woman was say hello, tell her I’d seen her here every week, and share my name, which I didn’t think was possible without looking like a creep. I didn’t inherit the anxiety from my dad, who would pursue a person through a parking lot if they had Jersey plates.

That brings me to the larger issue. The abbreviation LGBTQ is actually an abbreviation of LGBTQIA. The I stands for (I think) intersex, and the A stands for asexual (ace to its friends). Being left out of the term that describes alternative sexuality is only one example of asexuality erasure. Mostly it’s the flat-out denial, including—from a whole lot of people in the LGBTQ community—that it exists at all. Maybe an ace hasn’t met the right person. Maybe they’re just not trying hard enough. Maybe they can’t possibly know if they like sex or not if they’ve never tried it. Maybe they’ve had sex before, so they can’t be ace.

I identify as asexual. I’m not sure anyone I know believes me because I hear a lot of doubt about it. I’ve been hearing some lately, and it’s been really getting under my skin. It’s part of my identity, and I shouldn’t have to justify it. I shouldn’t have to explain it. I should just be allowed to be. Just this once, I’m going to go over the common things that make people doubt me.

I’ve had sex before. In some cases, I’ve had sex a lot of times before. I once bought a family-sized box of condoms on a Friday with the intention of not having to buy them again for a while, only to discover that I needed a new box come Monday. A lot of people don’t fully understand their sexuality until later in life. I had an inkling that I was asexual in my early thirties, but I became sexually active briefly, so I figured that invalidated that. It turns out I’m bipolar, and I’ve only ever been horny when I’m manic, when I’m a different person altogether. In the past, mania turned me into the Incredible Hulk. Now, with the right treatment, mania turns me into the Credible Hulk.

I have crushes. Yes, I get butterflies for both men and women, but men don’t impress me as often as women. The most important thing is that I don’t want to have sex with them. Sex never even crosses my mind. I just want to follow them around like a little puppy.

I write a lot of sex in my novels, and I used to write erotica. Like Stephen King is a non-threatening dork who can write an entire novel from the perspective of a homicidal dog, I write fiction. The definition of “fiction,” from Merriam-Webster, is “fic-SHUN. n. made-up shit.” Emphasis on the made up. I don’t write a lot of sex anymore, but I write a lot of kissing, and words cannot describe how revolting I find pieholes grinding up against pieholes. Sex is even grosser because there’s a wider variety of fluids involved.

I draw a lot of sexy women. Here’s where I think most people get tripped up, but the answer is, I am attracted to sexiness. From the presence of a woman in a power suit to the muscle of a 1970 Pontiac GTO to the swagger of David Tennant in Good Omens, confidence (even feigned confidence) grabs my full attention and holds on. The word sexy trips people up because sex is in it, but I have never associated the two.

Asexuality is a spectrum, like all sexualities. There are aromantics, who want nothing to do with dating and holding hands. (I’m borderline aro. I’m extremely touch averse, but there is one person who is allowed skin-on-skin contact with me.) There are people who are revolted by sex. There are people who have sex, usually for a partner, and don’t hate it, but don’t get off on it. There are demisexuals, who are only attracted to someone once they get to know them. Most importantly for the point I’m trying to make, there are aces who tend to lean into one sexuality or another. I, for example, lean heterosexual. It doesn’t mean I want to have sex with anyone of the opposite gender, just that I find them more interesting than my own.

To be clear, despite that my eye is drawn to physical attributes, they have nothing to do with my opinion of someone. For example, the woman in the coffee shop I wanted to approach is not the kind of woman who catches my eye. Neither is my ex-wife. I hooked up with the latter because we spent an hour in a car together getting to know one another. I said hi to the former because we share a space for an hour a week, and it seemed like the polite thing to do. While I have dated women who were my physical type, I can say of the three most beautiful, two did not go well.

It’s been four years since I’ve had sex, and I don’t miss it. †here are behaviors and preferences I have that seem to indicate sexual inclinations, but I’m asexual. Please do not challenge this. Please do not call bullshit on me. This is a truth about me that you need to accept if you want to be a part of my life.

I’m ace, I’ve accepted it, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

And Another Thing

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One more point on the reason I hate AI so much and why it’s not art: What’s the point? If you can produce a professional-looking image or a coherent novel or even a movie just by filling in some Mad-Libs, why would you even bother?

It’s frustrating that my art doesn’t look like it does in my head or that I’ll never illustrate those action comics I used to fantasize about walking home from the PATH train. It’s disappointing that I’m not going to finish the last comic I started working on. But look at what I’ve done in the past 25 years. I can crank out a full-color drawing in about a day, and it’s hard. And yet I take pride in my poses. I savor filling in the details. I can’t do that by typing in a box.

I’ve written over 30 novels, plus several unfinished, and with each one I fell in love with the characters, and I learned who they were with every page. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, piecing together a story is a rewarding challenge, and one I hope to get back to someday.

I’ve even made 2 movies in my life, one in French, and I don’t even remember the finished project. I don’t even remember the titles–wait. They were The Rat and Rambo et Juliet. What I do remember clearly is hanging out with my friends and traveling all over town and being goofballs and how Max simulated the sound of someone falling off of a balcony (he stomped on a small branch behind the camera).

I’m never going to be a famous artist or writer or a filmmaker. My stuff will never be as polished as what some of these AI engines have produced, and I don’t care. It’s not sampled from other art (I use a lot of references, though, and some swiping) and writing and movies, it’s mine.

One day soon, all of our popular movies, books, and graphic images may be produced by AIs, but it won’t be art. And I, for one, and really smug about that.

Or, to put it another way, I bought this from an MOC site.

After spending an hour with it, I had this.

Another hour later, this:

I could have scoured the internet and found a Short Circuit action figure and put it on a shelf and forgot about it immediately, or I could have spent my drawing time this morning enjoying it, feeling it in my hand, guessing which iconic part of the robot I was constructing next, and building a scale replica of a memory from my childhood from a couple bags of plastic. I feel accomplished, and on a day I had Artist’s Block, I passed the time (somewhat) productively.

Some things shouldn’t be easy—not because it’s hard for me, but because it’s good for the soul.

Girl of my Dreams

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I could say I don’t dream, but humans will die if they don’t dream, so I’ll say I don’t remember them. Every once in a while, I’ll get one that sticks with me and inspires me. In 2005 or 2006, I dreamt that a middle-aged mentor type was tempting me to smoke marijuana (which I hadn’t done by that point for over a year) in the library by saying, “Let’s take a walk on the green,” a phrase that I don’t think was used by a marijuana smoker at any other point in history. I was also a student in high school, and I was my age at the time (let’s see, 2005 was eighteen years ago, so that would have been twelve), and I had a thing going on with a fellow student. I took the imagery, reduced the creep factor, and penned my first novel, posting it on LiveJournal while I was writing it.

A side effect of marijuana withdrawal is vivid dreams, which would explain why I’ve woken up over the past few weeks, swearing I would write this down as soon as I finished brushing my teeth, then forgetting everything. The other night, though, grabbed me. It wasn’t the part where Kim Basinger came onto me and eventually kissed me. Of course not—I think kissing is gross. It wasn’t that I tracked down Clark so I could brag. Clark was a childhood acquaintance of my ex-wife who moved to Bloomington while we were there who turned out to have a lot in common with me, and we became good friends. Ultimately, he was Team Kate, and like everyone else I met through her*, he ghosted me following the divorce.

But what got me so much I didn’t forget, even after brushing my teeth, was what happened when I was lying in the hammock in my backyard. The hammock exists in real life, though I haven’t touched it in over a year, during which it rained an average of every third day. Approaching me from the alley on a dirt bike was a slight figure wearing a hoodie, hood up. The figure hopped off the bike, let it fall, and rushed over to me. It was dusk, so it took me a while to figure out it was a girl in her mid-teens, her face obscured by the shadows. We fell into an easy conversation. I don’t know what we were talking about, but it had to do with my book. Eventually, she pushed her bike home, and I walked with her.

We did this every day—she’d meet me on the hammock, always at dusk, and we’d walk together through the dirt road that cut through my neighborhood. The hood stayed up until the last trip together when she pulled it down. I don’t know what color her hair was because of the grayish blue of the sky and the amber of the street lamps, but she was pretty, with delicate features. She also had the scars of a Glasgow smile, which is one name for the Joker’s disfigurement in The Dark Knight. It didn’t upset me, and it never occurred to me to even wonder where it came from. All I saw was the girl’s unique face.

That wasn’t the reason it was our last walk together. She invited me over to dinner to meet her family, but when I tried to drive over to her house, I couldn’t find it. And in the way that dreams will change the subject, it wasn’t about the nameless girl anymore.

The scars aren’t the reason I haven’t stopped thinking about her for the past couple of days either. It was her positivity. She had a warm, friendly, energetic personality that made me feel at ease, the way no stranger, or most people I know can. Our conversations, even though I don’t remember what they were about, were intimate. She didn’t think of herself as ugly, and the scars didn’t get in the way of her finding someone to talk to. I feel like I could learn from that.

In the way I took the classroom and the relaxed mentor of that dream eighteen years ago and spun it into a long tale, I’d like to write about this girl, but I don’t have any ideas for a story. And on top of that, I don’t want people shipping the me character and the girl. I’m thirty years older than she is, and even the idea of being her friend is already kind of weird.

In the way that I dreamed about falling in love when I was young, I dreamed about making a close friend, something I have a dearth of. The day after I watched a goofy Marvel franchise descend into DC darkness, I could use a little positivity. I have a new character now. She just needs a name and she needs a story.

* With a pair of exceptions—though she actively reached out and tried to recruit them to her side.

** Which was the dirt road in front of the house I lived in in high school.