Tag Archives: rant

Cruel Summer

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In August of 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide. I took it pretty hard. It’s not so much because I’m a big fan of his work; it’s because of what it said about me. I logged off of Facebook and Tumblr for a full week after this, because I didn’t want to see everybody’s assessment of the event. Regardless, I saw everybody’s assessment of the event. 

As a bipolar, I have a rhythm—autumn puts me into hypomanic phases, winter and spring are pretty stable, and summer lulls me into a deep, deep depression. Therefore I was barely holding on anyway when this happened, crippling me with grief. Add this to the guilt of feeling so miserable, despite how wonderful my life is, with the cats and the spouse and the adventures and the time to write and draw as much as I want; and my own death was not far from my mind. 

It’s said that suicide is the coward’s way out. I disagree with this fully. At those lowest of moments, all I could think of is the burden I put onto my spouse—we’d been married for five years before I’d gotten a proper mental-health diagnosis, and the damage done to her is incalculable. What she needed, I told myself, was to be free of me. 

What this brought me back was my parents. For a long time, they’ve looked at me as the go-to guy for info on bipolar, attention-deficit disorder, and depression. I have them, I’ve learned about them, and in their mind, I’ve beaten them. My sister was not so lucky. She’d attempted suicide many times, and, and I’d been the one who was able to get through to her (this is because I’m anti-platitude).  

It was me my parents turn to for comfort and reassurance. For years, I’ve been an expert in (mostly) keeping the depths of my depression to myself, especially from them. Can you imagine what it would do to them if I finally snapped? So I was able to talk myself out of it, no matter how hard it got. 

In the end, I recovered, then hit my annual manic period, then cycled rapidly, and finally stabilized … for now. Summer’s starting, and I’m worried. Will it be as bad as before? Or will the thrill of returning to the States keep me afloat? I have no idea. 

I haven’t been able to talk about this to anyone but my spouse and my psychiatrist (because reasons), but I really, really need to share with someone else. And my journal is locked … and now it’s out there. Keep your fingers crossed that I make it to late September in a somewhat chipper mood. 

Who Writes This Craps?

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So I’ve been thinking about gambling. For example, there’s craps. I’m not 100 percent certain of the rules, but I do know that it’s a game of chance: you throw a pair of dice, and they need to land with a certain series of numbers facing up.  

So let’s say you’re in a ritzy casino, and you’re wearing your finest tux or gown—whichever way you swing, really. You clutch the dice in a loose fist, shake your wrist, and toss them onto the table.  

It comes up exactly as you want it.  

The crowd cheers, you do a little fist pump, place another bet, do another shake, and toss another toss. 

Again, you get exactly what you’re shooting for. 

You do another fist pump, make another bet, shake, and toss. 

For a third time, you win. 

You’re on fire. You scoop up the dice, blow on them for luck, and throw. 

That little gust of wind from your lips has to control the movement of your arm, the ricochet of those little cubes off of your fingers, and the angle it flies out of your hand. It has to guide the distance and number of tumbles it takes, factoring in wind resistance. Once on the table, it needs to balance the pressure of impact, followed by the amount of bounces and turns until the friction of the table brings the dice to a halt. Long story short, luck has a lot of work to do. 

This occurred to me this morning as I received a third acceptance letter (yay me!) for a short story. To understand how awesome this felt, you have to be aware of the way I treat publishing. For the past year, I’ve been sending out to magazines and anthologies about a submission a week, and I’ve been getting responses a little less frequently than that. My first acceptance letter came in August of 2014. My second came six weeks ago, after dozens of rejections. And now I have a third, with only one rejection between it and the last one. So when I received the “We’re very happy to say you’ve been accepted …” email this morning, I said to myself, “I am on a hot streak, baby!”  

My second thought was, “Easy there, buddy.” 

I currently have eleven stories out there in the ether, and two (almost) back-to-back acceptances don’t change the odds of publication for any of them. “Well, what does change the odds?” I asked myself. 

Well, assuming I’m a decent enough writer (I like to think I am), then the answer is nothing. An unsolicited piece of writing is affected by any number of factors. 

My pieces tend to run humorous—but what if the editor had been looking for something more serious? I write almost exclusively female protagonists—but what if the editor is a tiny bit misogynistic? I’m not crazy about fairies—but what if fairies are cool at the moment? What if the editor is in a bad mood? What if the editor checked his or her email after a liquid lunch? How many other entries are there? What if mine gets caught in the spam filter? I have no control over any of this. 

And so, when I sent out another piece today, I thought of it not as an act of talent and skill, but rather as a die-roll. And oddly enough, this makes me feel pretty good about it. 

Superman’s Pal

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When comes down to the whole Superman versus Batman debate (or Batman v. Superman if we’re talking about a legal dispute), I come down firmly Team Superman*. This puts me in the minority, I know. 

Why do people love Batman so much? They typically give three reasons for this: 1) He is way cool; 2) He’s the serious hero; 3) He has no superpowers, and that makes him relatable.  

To that, I say: 1) He is totally cool. Most of his comics, movies, and even the 1966 show are hip and slick and often compelling; 2) He’s the serious hero. As serious and hardcore as someone who wears pajamas and throws expensive toys at clowns and drives a car that goes vroom can be, I guess; 3) No powers? More relatable? This is where I get off the boat, laughing.  

Bruce Wayne is obscenely wealthy, and he’s spent most of his life traveling the world, learning the way of the ninja, which are kind of superpowers in themselves. In the end, though, he wants the best for his ailing city, so he invests in local businesses to drive up employment, funds infrastructure projects, donates his time and money into charities, and supports politicians who are socially conscious. 

Ha! Just kidding! He buys pajamas and toys he can throw at clowns and a car that goes vroom, because he’s a serious hero, and uses these things to go beat up on the other 99 percent. 

Clark Kent, by contrast, was raised in middle-class, small-town America by loving parents, and he uses the talents he was born with to rescue people from disasters, save kittens from trees, beat up bullies, and overall to look out for the little guy. 

“But … but …” detractors often say. “Superman has godlike powers! Where’s the challenge? How are you supposed to defeat a guy with godlike powers?” To me, this speaks to the level of imagination in these detractors. Is this all Superman is? The hardest puncher in the world? What about his morality? His honesty (not counting that whole secret-identity thing, of course)? His loyalty? His friendships? His sense of hope? A villain doesn’t have to be strong to oppose these. Hell, his greatest foe is a regular human being with an intellect and some cash, and that guy has Superman on the ropes all the time. 

Therefore, if I want a story where Superman battles an unmarried, genius, obsessive billionaire with lots of gadgets and suits of armor and an iron will, I think I’ll stick with Lex Luthor.  

But, to quote a pre-bonkers Dennis Miller, that’s just my personal opinion, and I could be wrong. 

* But not the one from Man of Steel. I hated that movie. 

Cosby

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As an aside, I had a buddy in college … he had a man crush on me, and I thought he was pretty awesome too. My two favorite memories are when we each bought a flask of Wild Turkey and drank ourselves sick, just because we were trying to impress one another; and how he found me wallowing after my girlfriend dumped me (he raced over as soon as the rumor got to him), and he took me on a long drive through town, playing my favorite artist on his tape deck (PJ Harvey), which was cute because he only had one song by her on his mix tape.  

His only flaw was his girlfriends, who were all pretty not-with-it, and sometimes positively unhinged. Years after we graduated, a good friend dated him for a long time, and I thought, Finally, someone cool worth his attention. 

And when she finally extracted herself from that relationship, she reported that this guy was physically and verbally abusive, and utterly, totally controlling. And it explained everything. Now, upon this revelation, there was no conflict in my mind about my loyalty. To me, he seemed like bromance material. To women, he was a piece of shit, and that made him a piece of shit to the core. I don’t care how much I liked him. 

But what makes me cringe is this: Am I allowed to have good memories of him? How could I just not see the common thread with these women he dated? How could I miss this about him? How could I be so fucking stupid?  

This is the first time I’ve shared this, so it’s a little rambly. But a similar feeling came to me about Bill Cosby’s rape allegations. The man was an idol and a major inspiration to me, storytelling-wise. How can he continue to occupy such a happy place in my memories. How am I allowed to chuckle to myself when I think of his material?  

This has really rattled me. 

Regarding the Slender Man Murder

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Today I made the mistake of popping into the “trending” sidebar where it mentioned my imaginary friend, the Slender Man, and his culpability in a recent murder in Wisconsin, and I read the comments.  

If I had to tally up what I’ve seen so far, roughly 20 percent of the comments I read were defenses of Creepypasta (as in “I read Creepypasta/played D&D/watched the X-files/consumed horror in general since I was a baby, and I turned out okay!”); 15 percent were clumsy, ill-informed definitions of the Slender Man and Creepypasta; 3.75 percent were accurate and correct definitions of the Slender Man and Creepypasta; 1 percent were debates about whether it’s “Slender Man,” “Slender-Man,” “Slenderman,” or my preference, the “Slender Man”; and 60 percent is blame*.  

Fifty-five percent of those blamed the parents; 20 percent blamed liberals, 75 percent of whom were singled out as liberal Christians; 15 percent blamed the actual stabbers; 5 percent blamed video games (Minecraft being the biggest offender because of the Enderman character); 2 percent blamed Harry Potter; 2 percent blamed the Slender Man himself; and, in the biggest shock, only 1 percent blamed Barack Obama.  

“The way sin is justified these days, I will not be surprised if the liberal Christian will believe these two girls are victims.” 

“Slenderman…. A demon quite possibly. A world deviod of God must find something to fill that place. In this case a fantasy character. … and a demonic entity that personifies it.” 

“Parents who use [the internet] as a babysitter are in for a RUDE AWAKENING!” 

As a man who loves the Slender Man, I’m not shocked or even disappointed about the narrative, nor am I defensive about the reputation of my beloved meme, or about Creepypasta in general. The latter is because I don’t think anybody not stupid is blaming these stories. Also, getting defensive would make me a huge hypocrite, in that I condemn with venom anyone whose first reaction to a shooting is to launch into NRA bumper-sticker slogans. 

The only thing that shocks me about this is that it hasn’t happened before. The only thing that disappoints me is that this has pushed out of the news cycle the actually important discussion of the dangers of misogyny and replaced it with an imaginary villain that doesn’t force us to look at ourselves. 

A twelve-year-old girl was stabbed nineteen times, and we will likely never understand why. I don’t know the circumstances or anything about the three children involved, and so, unlike 60 percent of the commenters I read (because I’m dumb) I can’t blame anyone. 

__________ 

* The remaining 0.25% is quoted below, verbatim,  because it’s AMAZING: 

XAVIER: How much do you bet Clinton is gonna use this as “proof that video games are bad for children”. Bitch video games taught me how to look a terrorist in the face and paint the walls with all his hopes and dreams.  

MEG: are you special ops?! Oh, you work in food service… who’s the bitch again, Xavier? 

For the People

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I learned this week that a seventeen-term US Representative from Texas—the oldest living member of Congress, was turfed out of his seat. I was horrified.  

I am not horrified that a millionaire Tea Party candidate with beliefs that most certainly clash vehemently with my own won the primary, and, in a gerrymandered, middle-class, Caucasian district in a restricted-voting state like Texas, will more-than-likely go to the Capitol next year to vote on a straight party line and may or may not grandstand while doing it. 

I am horrified that a ninety-one-year-old white man has been sitting in that seat since I was four. I’m upset that, when this man was my age, segregation was legal, and there was no such thing as Medicare. Women had the right to vote for only five years before this man was born. He has been a politician for sixty-four years. During his political career, he has been a CEO and a bank chairman and a corporate lawyer and We the People of the United States have the audacity to call him a “representative.” 

He is not unique. Our government is made up of entrenched millionaires being fed by millionaires, regardless of whether an (R) or a (D) follows their name.  

I am exhausted and cynical and, as long as someone like Ralph Hall’s primary challenger can spend $400,000—money that would take the average American about eight years to earn—of his own money to get himself elected, I have no hope of it getting better. 

Comics of Errors

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I am done with DC Comics. 

What did it for me was their offering for Free Comics Day, an annual event where publishers create a title to hook new readers. For example, Marvel released a Guardians of the Galaxy book to get the attention of anyone interested in the movie. 

DC released one in which Batman Beyond, a character created for a cartoon show aimed at children (and adults, but mostly children), has to fight against the cyborgs decorated with the horribly mutilated corpses of beloved superhero icons. The specific image that broke my back features Black Canary, whose head and face have been sewn to the chest of Frankenstein for use as a weapon. 

And that’s it for me. I’m done. 

I’m done because, after their big mega-crossover events like “Final Crisis” and “Countdown” and “Blackest Night” and “Injustice: Gods Among Us” and now this “Futures End” thing, I am sick of seeing shock deaths, dismemberment, and rape of well-known characters because that’s edgy or something. Also, the Joker ripped off his face and stapled it back on because he is also edgy. 

I’m done because I can’t read a title without it being interrupted by one of these mega-crossover events every few months, and I’m not willing to invest in all these books to follow the story. 

I’m done because they’ve adopted a house art style that makes all the artists kind of boring and interchangeable. 

I am done because their TV animation department canceled the smart, popular Young Justice and Green Lantern: the Animated Series to revisit the Teen Titans—except even more hyperkinetic now—as well as another Batman series, because the former didn’t appeal to the young, male demographic who buy toys. 

I’m done because I kind of hate all the new Jim-Lee-designed costumes. 

I am done because DC’s live-action movies and TV shows* are joyless, monochrome, and just soullessly destructive. Likewise, their animated movies, like Green Lantern: First Flight (i.e. Training Day with magic rings) and Wonder Woman (i.e. the goddamn Wonder Woman), were once clever and exciting, but are now adaptations of ultra-violent Batman or Batman-worshiping graphic novels with endless blood-splatter and death (there were eye-gougings in the last two, and a full-body, third-degree-burn-causing electrocution in the one before that–all taking place onscreen).** 

I am done because they won’t do a live-action film of the most recognizable super-heroine in the world, but are instead giving her a glorified cameo in what we all know will be a movie about Batman beating up Superman (because apparently that’s edgy too). 

I’m done because awesome, diverse legacy characters like the Hispanic Kyle Raynor and Jaime Reyes, the Asian Ryan Choi, and the African-American John Stewart have been replaced and upstaged by their presumed-dead white-guy predecessors. 

I’m done because Starfire, who potential fangirls met as a quirky, adorable, tough kid through the Teen Titans cartoon***, became a sex-toy who can blow up tanks. Likewise, bureaucratic badass (How many times can you use that to describe anyone?) Amanda Waller went from CCH Pounder to Halle Berry, and Harley Quinn went from wearing a cute-but-sexy body-stocking to a corset. 

I’m done because DC these days seems to stand for Dudebro Comics, and that’s just not my thing. 

_____ 

* I am a huge fan of Arrow, FYI. Dark doesn’t mean bad; it just doesn’t mean good by itself. 

** One of my favorite movies in 2012 was The Raid: Redemption, which featured the most creative use of both a door frame and a fluorescent light bulb. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not squeamish, just exhausted. 

*** Yes, I know how scantily clad and sexual she was during the Wolfman/Perez era, but I also know she had a personality back then. 

Fast and Peaceful

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I am a few weeks into the month of Ramadan, where, according to Muslim tradition, you fast from sunrise (about 3:30 a.m. here) until sunset (about 6:30 p.m.). This is required, but it’s a privilege to believers, not a punishment. I wish I had that kind of conviction about anything. 

I also wish that holier-than-though Christians who are currently occupying important State and Federal government could live here during Ramadan and see what that kind of dedication to God really looks like. Would their dedication to faith withstand that kind of sacrifice? Given the highly public sexual infractions of the “devout,” like New Gingrich, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, David Vitter, Larry Craig, and so on, one has to wonder.  

Many of these wasting taxpayer money pushing through their agendas (including establishing state or national religions) as opposed to what they run on, which is “jobs.” Maybe they should spend some time here. In Qatar, it is unlawful for any resident, Muslim or otherwise, to be seen in public eating or drinking during these hours (it’s okay in the home). At the moment, the government is looking to establish morality police to speak to Westerners about the way they dress; shorts and bare shoulders on either gender are considered extremely disrespectful. This process is taking a while, because they’re trying to find a way to be polite about it, which is generous, considering how rude cleavage is in this culture.  

This is what a state religion looks like. And Qatar is a very liberal theocracy. 

Cognitive dissonance would, of course, make this kind of learning experience a wasted experience (“See what Sharia does! Ban it everywhere! In America we have freedom! That’s why everyone needs to follow Jesus!”) but still, it’s something. 

Minority Report

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So I’m walking down the street, and I see this guy. He’s young and tan and good-looking, with blond hair peeking out of his backwards baseball cap, wearing Abercrombie shorts and expensive aviator sunglasses that are dangling from his unbuttoned, pastel-colored polo. And I think, “This guy is a dude-bro douchebag. And I think he’s a rapist.” I’ve never met him, but I have a pretty good feeling that he’s coerced a woman—chemically or violently—against her will to have sex. If he hasn’t already, he will. I can just tell. He’s got that look. So I follow him. He goes into a bar. Who knows what he’s going to do in there. For sure, he’ll drink, which will impair his judgment and increase the chances of him raping someone. Maybe he’ll meet his victim there. Worried about the fate of his potential victim, I wait. When he leaves, I follow him. He didn’t leave with a woman, which is good news; however, there’s still a chance he’ll find someone else to assault. If not tonight, then sometime in the future—if he hasn’t already. Something needs to be done before a crime is committed. Maybe I should go accost the guy to let him know that I’m watching—that he won’t get away with it. If he takes offense to this and resists, then I’ll have to defend myself. 

So later, I’m walking down the street, and I see this guy. He’s about my age, I think—I can’t tell. It’s dark, and he’s sitting in the driver’s seat of his SUV. The vehicle isn’t running, and there are no lights on. He’s just sitting there, watching. And I think, “This guy is a vigilante. And I think he’s going to hurt somebody.” I’ve never met him, but I have a pretty good feeling that he’s assaulted someone he thought looks suspicious. If he hasn’t already, he will. I can just tell. He’s got that look. Worried about what kind of crimes might be committed tonight, I wait. I notice a teenage boy on the same street. I can’t make out the race of the boy from here, but this doesn’t matter, because vigilantism, as I’ve been told, is colorblind. Something needs to be done to protect this kid. Maybe I should go accost the man in the SUV to let him know that I’m watching—that he won’t get away with it. If he takes offense to this and resists, then I’ll have to defend myself. 

Opinions, Assholes, Etc.

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I am sick of the social-media shouting at itself. I am sick of anybody, right or left, posting images with misattributed quotes or links to articles from online magazines with agendas. I am sick of hearing that Monsanto is evil; the Second Amendment is sacred above all else; gay marriage undermines our entire way of life; Planned Parenthood callously murders children; Trayvon Martin is racist; George Zimmerman is racist; misogyny; misandry; the Supreme Court is a corrupt, activist body for what they did and their decisions should be suspect; the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution as it should be. I am sick of hearing what the Founding Fathers wanted.  

I am sick of feeling helpless and frustrated. I am sick of slactivism. 

I don’t want to parse the words of public figures. I don’t want to hear what Rush Limbaugh had to say about anything. I don’t want to read what Alec Baldwin had to say about anything. I don’t want to be told why Obama is abusing executive power and running America into the ground; I don’t want to hear about how Gretchen Carlson is suddenly the voice of reason. 

I want to know why, if someone supported blanket surveillance ten years ago, why don’t they support it now? What changed?  

I want to know if the president can really be held responsible for rising gas prices? If so, I want to know how. I want to know if the president can be held responsible for falling gas prices as well. I want to know why the media never seemed to hold the former president responsible for rising gas prices before 2009. Moreover, I want to know if the media really didn’t hold the former president responsible for rising gas prices prior to 2009, or if this observation is biased by my political leanings.  

I want proof. Don’t show me evidence from Mother Jones, or from Americans for Prosperity. Show me their sources. Show me the sources of those sources.  

Before we take to the pulpits and legislate based on spite and focus groups, we need to debate about what the role of government should be. If it’s to create jobs, tell me how. Will tax breaks create jobs? Show me how and if that actually works. Will infrastructure projects create jobs? How will we pay for those? Is government a business? Should it turn a profit? 

Let’s talk about something that matters. Let’s talk about how to fix it.