Let's Talk About Ghostbusters, Shall We?

WARNING: Some spoilers ahead.

All this week I went to various older movie theaters, catching matinees and jotting down my thoughts as I went. I’ve got a solid five weeks worth of blog entries out of my little travelogue, and I meant to put the first part of the series out this week…

But my movie theater pieces will start next week. I really want to talk about the last movie I saw this week.

Ghostbusters (2016) is fantastic. It is easily the best movie of the summer (and I spent the last week seeing pretty much everything), and it is without a doubt far superior to the depression shit show a direct-sequel Ghostbusters III would have been had it come to pass.

It’s bright, colorful, and occasionally startling*. The special effects are on point. It’s filled with awesome variations on the original gadgets, and several cool additions to the arsenal. It’s also a completely workable adventure story about four unlikely heroes saving the City of New York from imminent disaster.

In short, it is everything that a Ghostbusters movie needs to be.

Which also means that it was undeniably and consistently funny. Deal with it.

Now, I’m not going to say that the only possible reason you could have to dislike such a film is that you are so blinded by your misogyny you can’t see two feet in front of your face. You’re just going to have to deal with how much you hate women on your own time. 

Okay, some of you may be so attached to your childhood memories of the original that you worry this film will somehow break down the purity of those memories. Let me reassure you. Somewhere around the time that I heard the familiar whine of a proton pack booting up, I felt like a kid again and that feeling didn’t let up until the final post-credits scene**. The movie won’t ruin your childhood; if you’re lucky, it’ll bring you back to it. 

There may be a few quibbles with the movie, but they are so minor as to not warrant reference here. Go see Ghostbusters. Go see it twice.

That all being said, Hollywood: Please don’t remake Back to the Future. I don’t think my mortal human heart could take it.

*Anybody who insists that the original Ghostbusters is actually scary is lying, or was a child when they first saw it and has refused to develop beyond that point in the ensuing thirty years.

**Speaking of that post-tag scene: While I really hope the mentioning of Zuul isn’t meant to telegraph the jumping off point for their next adventure, an amusing exchange happened after the scene that works as a perfect microcosm of the bullshit controversy this movie has attracted just for existing.

Just as the scene ended, one girl, no more than seven years old screamed out with geekish delight, “THAT’S THE VILLAIN FROM THE FIRST MOVIE!”

Immediately, some meathead douchebag right around my age turned his nose up and said, “Uhh… Actually, Zuul was the villain in the second movie.”

This is the problem with guys like this. They’re not only assholes; they’re wrong. For a flash, I thought about defending the child, but then I realized: both she and the movie didn’t need me to defend it. Just go see it.

The Great Music Purge of 2016

I bought a new computer. It’s a wonderful thing. I feel like my whole life, which was bogged down by the sludge of malware, is now moving just a half second faster.

But there is a downside, and it always is tied to the music.

It’s probably been nearly a decade since I last illegally downloaded an anything, but that shit doesn’t really transfer from iTunes enabled computer to iTunes enabled computer. So every time I get a new machine, I have to drag out one spindle of CD-R’s I burned in the winter of 2007 if I want to keep them.

As I combed through my musical autobiography, something started to happen. I wanted to de-clutter. I wanted to make my electronic life more streamlined. I was more than a little ashamed of my past musical choices.

“Bring Me to Life” was the first time I showed any sign of resistance. It became clear fairly quickly that anything I got off of Daredevil - The Album was not something I was going to need unless I suddenly found myself in 2003 again. If time travel is ever discovered, it’d be a Serling-esque twist if that was the only year to which I could travel. One imagines that Ben Affleck feels the same way. The rest of the album didn’t fare much better. I lingered, if for only a moment, on the love ballad “My Immortal,” but then I realized I can still do that song in Karaoke without looking at the screen. It’s in my head now. There’s no deleting it. Also, whatever happened to Evanescence? Don’t answer that. If we say their name three times, they may come back.

“Clocks” by Coldplay. I may have gotten a little ornery on this one. I mean, its an okay song. I may be squarely on the side of Gwyneth in that whole debacle. It may have something to do with my affection for Shakespeare in Love, which is a completely different confessional blog.

“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith. The last time I didn’t immediately skip over this song when listening to my larger music library, George W. Bush, hell, maybe even Bill Clinton was in the White House. Most of the few remaining tracks I had from Armageddon: The Album met similar fates. Except “Remember Me” by Journey, because a) I’m fickle and b) Journey.

Eventually, after the third or fourth track from the soundtrack to Revenge of the Sith I really started to question why I was memorializing anything from three movies I don’t care for. I since bought the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back, so I’ve got the main fanfare. What else would I need from this album? 

I kept the Gary Jules and Tears for Fears version of “Mad World” but deleted any other version of the song. Limewire users couldn’t be choosers, back in the day. That’s also the only reason that I was the proud owner of an entire Dane Cook album, I swear.

“I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You” by Marc Anthony from the soundtrack to The Mask of Zorro. The same thought that went through my head with the aforementioned Aerosmith song occurred to me at that moment. In fact, when you think about it, its the same song with a little bit of Latin guitar thrown in there.

There were songs that drew different responses from me, too. I deleted the only song by John Mayer I have ever owned, “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” only because I had apparently bought the song from iTunes in the years since. I really don’t know why I did such a thing, but life is full of little mysteries. In other news, Ronny Jordan’s soft jazz “The Jackal” will never be deleted. Ever.

I had the title theme from the 2002 stinker Halloween: Resurrection in the library for the longest time. I figured why don’t I just get the John Carpenter original. So I did. Life hack: If you can get past the dread-inducing qualities of Carpenter’s synth-heavy score, its percussive qualities can jump start your productivity like none other.

The cleansing is now complete and I can hit shuffle on my music without wincing now. It’s the little things, you know? Before I go for the week, though, we probably need to have a discussion about my most egregious offense. A track from the soundtrack to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me that had Dr. Evil singing the Joan Osborne song “One of Us” to Mini-Me. Look, I could try to say that someone tried to sneak that track into my music library as a prank, or I could insist that it was 1999 and no one knew what the hell they were doing. One of those might even be true. Ultimately, I just have to own up to my own shitty music tastes. I’m trying to get better. Please help me.

The Flea Marketer's Tale

The Tulsa Flea Market, held at the Tulsa Expo Center, is mysteriously one of the few naturally occurring phenomena that doesn't really change. When I was a kid, it was a treasure trove of toys and knicknacks from an era before I was done. Before George Lucas re-flooded the market with items in the mid-nineties ahead of the prequels, the Tulsa Flea Market was the only place nerd larvae like myself could find Star Wars toys. Now, it is a perfect time capsule of the tchotchkes of my own youth. You may not be able to go home again. But occasionally you can find the various pieces of the past available for negotiable prices. I periodically go back to that hallowed place that time forgot, and I thought I'd share some of my recent observations.

• As I'm buying two packs each of cards from The Rocketeer, and Batman (1989), the guy at the booth says: "Don't chew the gum." My first response? "Oh! I don't chew gum!"
• Can you imagine what twenty-seven year old bubble gum is like? Well, it has the consistency of plaster, has an aroma like what you would expect a ressurrected mummy to smell like, and vaguely whispers the word "doooooooom" as you open the package. How does it taste? I have no idea; I've never chewed a piece of gum. No, really.
• Note about those trading cards: I'm now the proud owner of a photograph of what appears to be TV's Arli$$, Robert Wuhl, threatening Tim Burton with a baseball bat. The things you find in these places, I tell ya...

Johnny Depp's best friend never saw him coming... 

• I saw a little kids to another table, who in turn saw a Michael Jackson in-his-military-style-jacket doll and for the better part of five minutes tried to draw his father's attention to it. "Dad, look! A newscaster! A newscaster! Dad, look!" I'm still trying to figure that one out.
• Then again, some aren't interested in negotiating. One merchant had a copy of Bob Kane's autobiography "Batman and Me." I asked the price, and he said ten bucks. Originally sold at 15, it seemed like a rip off.
• It's just now occurring to me that the Tulsa Flea Market is where all the items from the fabled Batmania of 1989 went after they left the shelves of Wal Mart. It also explains why I'm such a repeat customer.
• Every time, every time I'm there, I see one older man with a booth that is nothing but a massage table. Extending the mystery, nearly every time I walk by his booth, he has an eager customer on the table. I'm not sure if you need a license for that sort of thing, but man, I hope he has some kind of credentials if anyone starts asking questions.
• I wish I still had a VHS player. For that matter, I wish a place lousy with VHS tapes might have a machine able to play them for sale.
• A man with a pink mohawk and a tattoo that read "heretic" inquired as to the identity of a loose action figure. The dealer plead the fifth, explained, "If it's weird, I sell it. Doesn't mean I know what it is." The fact that I knew it was Rat King from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line, and I didn't need to Google it to find out. Sign number 358 that my day job is completely incapable of using my real skills in any meaningful way.
• I find the typewriters in a flea market like flocks of bird somehow know to go south in the winter and back again in the spring. Two Smith Coronas and an Underwood lured me to the far end of the inhabited tables... But against all odds, I walked away without adding to my already stellar arsenal of antiquated machines. I must be slipping in my old age.
• It's comforting to know that the past is safe in flea markets. I can't wait to go back. There's still a whole lot of bubble gum for me to throw away.

10 Months Studying Under the World's Greatest Zen Master OR How I Became a Dog Person

I presented the following at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Stillwater this morning.

###

Until last year, I had never owned a dog.

Growing up, we had a gold fish named Zach Morris who lived to the ripe old age of forty-eight hours, and an African Grey parrot -- creatively named "Bird" -- that my sister and I weren't allowed to touch, not because she cost more than my first car, but because the creature hated kids, had talons like a sharpened number two pencil, a vice-like grip, and an eagerness to use both.

But I liked dogs. Really, I did. But after three years of marriage, and thirty years of having nothing to show for that affection, my wife felt like I needed to prove it.

Weeks of browsing the websites of humane societies and animal shelters passed before a shared Facebook post emerged from the mist. Someone had found a stray Great Dane/Labrador mix. They had contacted the owner, and they had had enough of her frequent escape attempts. The poster didn't have room for another dog, so the stray's next stop would be a shelter, and from there...

Well, at any rate, we sprang into action. Taking off early from work ahead of the Martin Luther King holiday, we went to go meet the Facebook friend-of-a-friend.

After a few pleasantries with the human in question, this lumbering, gangly, jet-black-except-for-the-grey-snout monster came out of the house's sliding glass door. From there, she immediately sauntered next to me, rubbing next to my leg, as if to say: "Hi there! I know we've just met, but I've decided we're best friends now!"

She then proceeded to fall on her back, legs akimbo, informing me beyond all doubt that: "If we're going to keep this 'best friends' thing going, I think it's time you learn of my fondness for belly rubs."

Which brings me to the first lesson I learned from this Buddha by way of a Labradane, this I Ching that could be mistaken for a small horse:

Never be afraid to be friendly; it costs you nothing. At the same time, it never hurts to set a few ground rules, especially where belly rubs are concerned.

We took her home within the hour, and promptly renamed her CJ Cregg, after Alison Janney's character on The West Wing, as befitting any tall lady destined to be the boss of any room she walks into.

While we were initially quite smitten with our recently adopted 5-year-old, we weren't prepared for how much of a spaz she would turn out to be. Long were the evenings where, somewhere between sleep and reality, she would twitch, kick and flail at nothing, without a single concern for the fact that she was the size of a velociraptor.

She possessed an Olympic-sized, fury-filled phobia of rabbits, but she wouldn't take that terror lying down. Her quest to bring their kind to justice shifted the balance of power in our neighborhood, and the hoppy little guys still whisper her name in fear to this day.

That first night she stayed with us, nervous of her new humans and surroundings, CJ considered the small army of toys we had purchased for her. She ignored all of them, except one: a twelve-inch squeak toy in the shape of Chewbacca the Wookiee. While CJ might have been our pet, Chewie was hers, and if you ever squeaked the thing in front of her, she would make her gentle disapproval known.

Now, I'm willing to grant that in that little ball of fur she saw some latent memory of a litter she cared for in years past, or that her softer Labrador jaw may have opted for the softest of the toys we made available. But I like to think that she was just really into Star Wars. It's a theory that only gained strength after she eschewed every tennis ball and bright red chew toy on the market in favor of only Star Wars toys, including plush representations of Yoda and an Ewok. Not only was she a Star Wars fan, our dog turned out to be a bit of a collector, and she was really only interested in the Original Trilogy. Just as it should be.

In short, she was quickly teaching me the second lesson she felt important:

Don't be afraid to be a weirdo; your people will find you one day.

As my office was closest to home, it fell on me to go home each day and make sure that CJ got the... ahem... outside time she needed during the day.

The procedure did not vary much day-to-day. I pull up in the driveway, and the sound of my engine immediately sends a wave of activity through the house. Blinds would rustle as if they had come to life on their own, and then a free-floating grey snout pokes out through the exposed section of the window. If anyone tried to break and enter at my house, the sight of CJ might have intimidated them away pretty quickly, but if they were willing to rub her belly, she'd probably help them load up the electronics.

I would enter through the front door to be met with a greeting that was the perfect cross-breed of pouting and impatience. From there I moved as quickly as I could to get her leash attached, and we were out the door. In a flash of kicking, spring-loaded legs CJ would conduct the pressing business of the afternoon, check every inch of the backyard's perimeter (the ongoing threat of bunny attack was something against which she remained ever-vigilant) and then promptly found the sunniest spot of the yard in which she could luxuriate.

The thing is, my lunch was pretty short. In the span of forty-five minutes I had to drive home and back to the office, and make sure CJ was taken care of. Also, I needed to, you know, ingest food so that I wasn't a walking, grouchy corpse before three in the afternoon.

There was never enough time. The ritual descended into chaos most days. In one particular instance, there was some crisis at work that needed my immediate attention (spoiler alert: it turned out to not be an emergency and it didn't need my attention), I was behind in my writing, I was in a not insignificant amount of pain that would soon lead me to my second surgery in as many years, I was hungry, I was tired, I was grouchy, and I really had to use the bathroom.

And the damned dog wasn't remotely interested in coming back inside.

I wished I could explain to her what was at stake. I wished I could tell her that all of this sunshine is great, but if I don't get back to my day-as-scheduled, and I mean right now, then the entire planet is likely to implode without me!

As crazy as that thought may sound, I'm sure it sounded even loopier to the neighbors when I stopped wishing I could explain my dilemma to her and started actually verbalizing it.

She took all of my words, curved her eyebrow in a way only she could and, after a fashion, said:

"Hey dad, I know you're really busy and everything. I don't understand what the hell it is you think is so important about those glowing rectangles. You call them computers, but for my money, they're broken squeaky toys. That's fine--we can continue that argument later.

"But I'm worried about you. Sunny days are a finite resource; I don't know how many we have left. I do know this: For me, this backyard is enough. It's pretty great. There are trees, and it is often free from dirty bunnies. For the next ten minutes, I think it should be enough for you, too. In ten minutes, I'll be a good dog and come back inside, but for right now I think we need to sit here and be quiet."

She then barked and licked her paw like a cat might, just so that I could know she was serious.

She made her point. I stayed out there for twenty minutes. Work would wait, and CJ managed to drive home yet another lesson that I'm still working on, you know, actually learning:

Sometimes all you need is grass beneath you, and sunshine above; although, to reach that particular level of nirvana, it helps if you're allowed to pee in the backyard.

The writing of this sermon has been hard; harder than you'll ever know. I'm inching towards the end now, and I have to get into what I've known this whole time, and what many of you have already suspected: This story doesn't come complete with a happy ending.

We only had CJ for about nine months before she started slowing down. Always a fussy eater for a dog her size, she got even fussier still. The Vet was at a loss to understand her rapid weight gain coupled with her stubborn refusal to eat. I internalized the mystery in front of us to mean that I had snuck her one too many pretzels in an ongoing campaign to buy and maintain her esteem. We kept going back and forth to the vet's office twice, even three times per week to get to the bottom of the matter. It had to be so demoralizing for her. Even though it was doing a number on Lora and me, CJ never lost her poise. I'm sure there was a lesson in her subdued reaction to prolonged poking and prodding, but I've yet to figure it out.

Then, after she even refused to -- under any circumstances -- take the pills meant to treat her mysterious symptoms, the vet finally got a clear read on the issue.

And, well...

My wife and the vet cried, I must have had a blank expression, as I really couldn't perceive much beyond the faint but persistent ringing in my ears. CJ, true to form, yawned in response to the news.

We took her home. From then on, we wouldn't struggle with the pills. Our days would be filled with treats, extended time up on the human bed, howling at nothing in particular, and ever-vigilant patrol of the ongoing rabbit plague.

That next day, I brought home Wendy's for lunch. I'd say it was the kind of culinary choice people make when confronted with sadness they don't yet know how to put into words, but it's eighty percent of my diet on a good day, so I'm really at a loss for excuses. Knowing the curative and restorative powers of flame-broiled beef, I also got our ailing pooch a bacon cheeseburger...

And I have to tell you, words will fail to assist me in describing the expression on her face:

This creature, who beyond a tummy ache couldn't have a conception of her impending fate, saw that cheeseburger in my hand and had a verifiable, theological revelation. In that moment, she knew one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt:

Heaven is real, and it had bacon on it.

Seizing the moment, she snatched the burger from my hand and led me on a chase through the house that ended only when CJ realized that she couldn't swallow the thing whole, and needed my help to tear it into chewable pieces.

It was another lesson she was trying to teach me, although she may have been too preoccupied to know that she was teaching me at that moment:

A cheeseburger is a luxury fit for Kings; and yet, it is always important to chew your food.

We had several good days during that time. Long gone were the people that kept her as an outside dog because actually caring for a pet was too much of a drag. She was loved, and she didn't need treats to know it.

But it didn't last.

The grim news from the vet came to pass. One more visit to her office still had to come.

Even though it seemed at that moment like we failed her somehow if we couldn't keep her happy and healthy for more than ten months; even if it seemed like everything was ending in that moment, she still had one more lesson she needed to teach, or more importantly, remind me of, before she had to go.

We sat in the vet's office, numbness the only human quality I could reach for. Another family passes us in the waiting room, and without any thought as to the circumstances of the moment, CJ trotted free of the hold I had on her leash and promptly sniffed the butt of the other family's German Shepherd. She had to be in such pain at that moment, and more than a little scared, but when I first met this dog ten months earlier, she made it clear that you should never be afraid to be friendly. On that last day, she made one final point that still vibrates through my head all of this time later:

Don't be afraid to be friendly, but remember this above all else: It's never too late to be friendly.

CJ Cregg the Puppy passed away a little over six months ago, and I wish I could tell you that I've internalized all her lessons and become a better man for all the heartache it cost.

But my dog dying so soon after she came home with us was kind of a bummer. I know! I was surprised, too. It felt like grief, I suppose, but I guess it had to be different. Dogs die all the time, and I probably should have been ready for it. That idea seemed pretty silly the instant I wrote it, but it pales in comparison to how silly I've been behaving in the months since.

I've been busy. Some might say -- cough, my wife, cough -- I've been so busy that I've been ignoring those pesky things that often crop up in the wake of tragedy and disappointment -- I think you humans call them "feelings." What's more, it feels like I've been doing my damnedest to ignore the things CJ tried to teach me while she was still here.

I still need the maximum allowable dosage of caffeine in the morning before friendliness is anywhere on the agenda.

As I'm growing older, I worry I'm, despite CJ's stellar example, becoming that most odious of things: normal. I'm fighting that development with everything I've got, but I think it's going to take a lot more than Star Wars toys to stay ahead of that ongoing struggle.

A cheeseburger isn't some sort of divinely manifested mana. For me, it barely qualifies as lunch.

I can't remember the last time I took that time for lunch to simply marvel in the wondrous serenity of a field of grass and clear skies. I know it's been at least six months.

I suppose sermons are meant for you, the people sitting out there, to bring you all to some greater understanding, or at the very least bring you closer to more profound questions. I hope there are some notions that CJ brought to my attention that might help you in your search for truth and meaning, but I'd be lying if I didn't say this one was aimed at one particular attendee of this service: me.

As of the end of this sermon, I'm going to be more or less on vacation, and I intend to take my own lessons to heart. I'm not going anywhere, but I think I may try to reach out to some old friends. I'm going to sit in my backyard and remember how much my dog enjoyed being out there. It goes without saying that I'll probably ingest a few cheeseburgers, but I may actually try to enjoy them.

In short, I will remember the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part, and as that's an ongoing process, it's probably time for me to get another dog.​

Cheat Week, Part Three: You Open This Door With The Key Of Imagination

I originally promised myself I would only make "Cheat Week" entries every month. I managed to go over two months since the last one, so I've got that going for me. 

A lot of fun stuff will be coming from Party Now, Apocalypse Later in the weeks and months to come. New blogs (a series on old movie theaters?), multimedia projects (radio shows would be a natural progression, no?), and maybe even a frank admission/prolonged panic that I have no idea what to title my next novel. But I have to work on those things. That takes time. Thus, another cheat week. 

Also, I spent a sizable portion of the weekend with some good friends playing pinball at Cactus Jack's in OKC. Seriously, they have a Twilight Zone table. How was I expected to get any work done this weekend when my hero Rod Serling kept heckling me to fill the gumball machine. 

See everybody next week! 

Yee Haw

I went to a Wild West show last night.

For those of you now patiently awaiting some kind of a punchline here, there really isn't one. I went to a Wild West show.

"Why?" is a fair question. The outdoors (in June, no less), animals larger than me, and an array of porta-potties* the only sign that I haven't fallen into the nineteenth century like Twain's Connecticut Yankee. It isn't exactly a 20th anniversary screening of Fargo at the Circle. It's a little outside of my comfort zone.

Well, after eight and a half years I've come to a very important realization about the job-I-do-because-I-like-to-afford-food. Work is pretty dumb. It's a necessary activity. If we all stopped working, the world would descend into some kind of Ayn Rand fever dream from which there would be no escape. Plus, that previous crack about the food thing. But, taking away its utilitarian trappings, work is pretty dumb. I've got my distractions from the drudgery. You're reading one of them now. Life is not made up of last year's performance appraisal, or the next round of promotions. It's something deeper; it's something else.

In the past year, I've really started enjoying talking to some of my coworkers, especially if we're talking about anything but work. So, when my cubicle mate told me she was playing Annie Oakley in a Wild West show, of course my first instinct was to politely decline, and then find the other engagement that will keep me from going...

That instinct was wrong. Just because other people don't try to put Alfred Hitchcock in charge of the A-Team in the space of 55,000 words**, doesn't mean I shouldn't be interested in their outside activities. Hell, I'd like them to be interested in mine; it's only fair.

So west I went. To Pawnee, Oklahoma and Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show.

And, no jokes, it was really cool.

Between the exploding wagons, death defying stunts***, and pure magic with a lasso, the performers at the show aimed big, and delivered.

Then there was quick-shooting Annie herself. Thundering around the arena during the introductions, I heard children cry out, as clearly and unironically as they could, "Wow! She is really fast!" This wasn't mechanized, pre-packaged spectacle slowly oozing out of a cathode tube****, this was legitimate wonder at a thing actually happening.

This was before she brought out the guns. Let me tell you, Annie Oakley and I are buddies, but I'm going to be very, painfully careful not to piss this person off in the future. Twenty shots, not one missed. Stationary targets, moving targets, moving targets that should have been stationary. Shots straight ahead, shots over-the-shoulder with only a mirror as a guide. It was a sight to see.

I don't know if I'm going to become a horsemanship and trick shot afficionado from here on in, but I'm glad I went. As I return to my spaceships and DGA lists, I encourage all of you too look up from your cubicles once in a while and find out what your fellow indentured servants are up to. There's a wealth of interesting stuff out there, and it sure as hell beats the Thursday morning staff meeting.

* A term that may have so rarely been put into print, that the pluralization rules are the last true American frontier.

** You'd be shocked by how many plot ideas I get from trying to come up with ridiculous examples to prove other points.

*** Seriously, some of these people were doing things on horses that should only be depicted through the use of computer generated imagery.

**** Cathode tubes? God, how old am I?

I'm the horrible pale ghost that haunts Annie Oakley. 

These aren't the cards you're looking for...

I hate greeting cards. I mean, I hate them. Nothing frustrates me more than combing through the aisles of CVS looking for the pre-packaged sentiment that will never make me sound like I've become a being of pure saccarhine, like a caller into that "Delilah" radio show with training in calligraphy.

Each year, from my father's birthday in April, all the way through my sister's birthday in September, I periodically launch onto the breach of the greeting card section. Regular cards always suck. Funny cards...? Well, they suck too. Crom, protect me from "funny" cards. And if you don't, then to hell with you.

Then I broke the matrix. I love greeting cards now. They are my third favorite thing to shop for, right after books and cholesterol.

How did I do it? How did I learn to love the long-distance social interaction that had so thoroughly defeated me in the past?

Easy. I started doing it wrong.

Birthday cards weren't getting across the idea that I was thinking about loved ones on their birthday. Father's and Mother's day cards were barely getting across the idea that I remember I still had parents. I had to look further. 

I had to start buying the wrong cards. For one mother's day, I decided my mother had worked hard to be born in this country, and it was about time someone acknowledged it. Bingo: She received a "congratulations on attaining your citizenship" card. At some point in the future, someone will be receiving congratulations on passing their driver's test, even if they did so over forty years ago.

Now, to be fair, there are pitfalls. Over a year ago, I bought a "Sympathies for the loss of your Son" card that, while it seemed hilarious and foolproof at the moment I bought it, persists to this day in being unable to find its appropriate moment. Most sympathy cards are dangerous, especially where pets are concerned. No one wants to get that card. This is supposed to be fun, not an unfortunate reminder of mortality. This can seem like a method for getting out of work during special occasions. It isn't. If you're lazy, the correct card is still available.

Father's Day 2014? You've never lived until you've bought a Bat Mitzvah card from a Walgreen's in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

CASHIER

I didn't even know we had batmitzver cards here... 

ME

Well, it's for my father. 

Another year I got him a quinceañera card. It appears I very much want to celebrate my father's burgeoning adolescent womanhood, while still honoring our eclectic (and non-existant) cultural heritage.

Mom's birthday this year? Let me tell you, your average Hallmark store has a wide array of strangely specific cards. The more specific to a religion that is not your own, the better. Unless my mother was recently ordained as a Priest in the Catholic church, my birthday wishes for her in 2016 are going to be befuddling for sure. I may only be able top that one if Hallmark starts publishing a line of "Greeting Cards for the occasion of your Scientology Auditor's 47th birthday." You have a year, Hallmark! Get to work!

The rest of the family joined in on the fun. My parents celebrated my thirtieth birthday with a card that celebrated my commitment to play an active role in my children's lives (I am childless) and extolling the proud example I am serving for the rest of the African-American community (...). I'm waiting for the day when I get an anniversary card with Batman telling me that I'm 5-years-old now, and "getting to be a big boy."

Anyway, that is how our family has managed to interrupt the doldrums of otherwise obligatory interactions. Do you have any strange family traditions? Tell me about them in the comments. Hell, I might just adopt them.

REMEMBER: Party Now, Apocalypse Later is now hosting guest blogs. We pay competitive rates, and are interested in all sorts of material. Send your stuff to submissions@partyapocalypse.com and get into business with us!

Guest Blog #1: Fat Blogging by Malea Marx

Today is a new day for Party Now, Apocalypse Later Industries. We're going to start periodically posting guest blogs here. Today, or first guest post is "Fat Blogging" by Malea Marx. Malea writes with a raw, uncompromising voice that both you and I can only hope for. I'm thrilled she is our first entry, and you will be too. You can also check out her tumblr here.

How do you get in on the guest blogging action? I'm so glad you asked. We'll pay for guest blogs, and all you have to do is send your post to submissions@partyapocalypse.com in order to be considered. If you've been reading the blog up until this point, you know what kind of posts I like. I'll entertain anything in the same vein. I'll also entertain posts that will are completely different, that I'd never be able to write in a 1000 years. Send me your best, and if you have that Party Now, Apocalypse Later something, I'll send some bucks your way!

Now, enough about the opportunities on the site, on with our first guest blog:

Fat Blogging by: Malea Marx

Have you seen the Calvin Klein ads with their first “plus size” model? To be fair, Calvin Klein hasn’t labeled her as such, but many sources have. Her name is Myla Dalbesio. She is 5’11” and a size 10. She’s absolutely stunning.

There is nothing about this photo that I have a problem with. She’s beautiful, and, in my opinion, pretty much has the ideal female form. Long limbs, hourglass shape, full breasts, collar bones to die for, and we’re not even talking about her face.

But this isn’t about her.

We’re inundated with messages about what appearance is appropriate. Too short, too tall, too fat (is there any such thing as too thin according to the media?), too scrawny, too muscular, too dark, too light, too something. If we don’t fit this fabled idea of what a body should be, it’s because we’re not trying hard enough. God forbid we be overweight. A little chub is bad enough, but when we approach the O word, there’s clearly something wrong with us.

Here’s the thing: I’m a fat girl. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a full picture of myself online. I could say it's because I'm concerned with online safety or privacy, but that would be a lie. The truth is, seeing pictures of myself is somewhat startling. I still think of myself as I was in high school (23 years ago) at 180 pounds and in amazing shape. I participated in four sports, played the quads in marching band, was involved in a ridiculous number of extracurricular activities, and was just generally fit and active. Instead, from 2000 to 2005, I doubled my weight. Since then, I have hovered around 375 pounds.

Even though I lived it, it’s astonishing to think that a person could gain 180 pounds in five short years. This breaks down to about 36 pounds a year - three pounds a month. That sounds like a lot. I had to eat at least 5,000 calories a day to pack on that much weight, right? Using loose math (there is no solid scientific answer as to how many calories one must eat in order to gain a pound), that’s only about 280-370 extra calories a day. One candy bar over. Twenty-four too many potato chips. One cup of yogurt for a midnight snack. A quarter of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s at the end of a terrible day.

Here’s what people don’t understand. I didn't get this way just because I like food. I didn't get this way just because I blew out my knee, had it reconstructed, and could no longer play sports or be active like I had always been. I didn't get this way because I was lazy. It’s something else that people, including myself, often can't see.

They can't see the girl who was losing her mind when her nightmares and flashbacks got so bad she couldn't sleep and for whom life is still a major struggle.

They can't see the girl whose family told her she was disgusting, going to hell, couldn't live at home anymore, wasn't allowed to sing in church because she "clearly didn't mean it," wouldn't be allowed to see her nieces and nephews because she would be a bad influence, couldn't use her aunt's pool to throw a birthday party for her girlfriend because her aunt and uncle didn't want their son to think that being gay was okay (though it was frequently used by other family members for similar events), who was forced to go to religion based psychotherapy, a process that reforms gay people after being forced out of the closet at 19.

They can't see the girl who, from the age of 13, was called sociopath, liar, trouble maker, family destroyer when she tried, repeatedly, to get someone, anyone, to listen about the abuse she'd been enduring her entire life.

They can't see the suicidal ideations and attempts, the scars that crisscrossed her arms and stomach and thighs, the pounds of junk food binged because she didn't feel like she deserved to have food that would be healthy for her, the hours of therapy, the weeks of hospitalizations, the bottles of medications.

They can't see the girl who endured practically every category of abuse, and in fact sought it out as a way to try to protect her younger sisters.

They can't see the girl who was so angry at everything that all she wanted to do was scream and be left alone to listen to music, who had been serving as a replacement parent since before she even started school, who took her anger out on her sisters because she was given the responsibility but not the authority to take care of them, who punched through a window to shatter glass into her cousin's face, who stabbed a pencil through a classmate's arm, who thrashed said classmate’s twin brother, who easily dispatched any boy who pushed her too far (other girls seemed smart enough not to start fights).

All people see is the fat.

There's no recognition of the torture and torment that went into every swollen adipose cell. There's no thought given to why those cells got that way. The assumption is that the morbidly obese (do we even need to talk about that terminology?) person is lazy, dirty, slovenly, gluttonous, unhealthy, has no self-control, has no will power, and is generally sub-human.

Obesity is the last politically correct and socially acceptable prejudice. It implies that it’s okay to judge someone for being overweight because it’s obvious they just eat too much. It’s easy to be bigoted when society supports that bias because the individual has no self-control. It’s understandable, and even lauded, when the (unwanted, unsolicited) advice is: “Just exercise!”

Am I saying that I don’t like to eat? Am I saying that I exercise the recommended amount? Am I saying that the calories I ingest are always fewer than the calories burned? Of course not. I’m not unaware of my own shortcomings. I’m not naive enough to think that anyone (including myself) would believe it if I were to claim it.

What I am saying is this: When you look at an overweight person, especially someone as drastically overweight as I am, ask yourself why. The how is simple: it’s mathematics, science, fuel intake versus fuel burned. The why, however, may very well be something you never would have considered.

What Schumaucher's Batman and Robin got right

WARNING: Heresy and rubber nipples lie ahead.

It's 3AM. My stomach is a churning miasma of unsettling notions. Naturally, my mind wanders to the work of Joel Schumacher. They go together like nausea and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Between the rubber nipples and cascade of puns that have become the stuff of legend, Schumaucher's contributions to the legend of the Caped Crusader are uniformally seen as the dark ages for the Dark Knight.

Here's the unfortunate secret that most bat-fans wouldn't dare admit, unless they're waiting for an industrial-sized dose of Peptol Bismol to kick in:

There are some things -- just a few, mind you -- that Joel Schumaucher not only got exactly right with his second crack at Batman, but in fact did better than in any other Batman film to date.

I had to be wrong, so I went ahead and did the one thing I should never do: I re-watched the damned movie. Thankfully, the world is not completely upside down. Batman and Robin is just as bad, if not worse than you remember. The movie is congenitally unable to latch on to anything resembling a story arc for its characters. Every quip falls flat. It's kind of a miracle that even the law of averages wouldn't have given the movie some semblance of wit at some point in the proceedings.

Maybe it is all because the film was more of a toy commercial than it was a major motion picture. I tend to think it was because Schumaucher and company came to the conclusion (perhaps rightly so) that superhero films are for kids. Where they went off the tracks and never bothered to look back is determine that because these films are for the under-15 crowd, then it doesn't matter if the film sucks. It doesn't so much matter that the film is bright and campy and doesn't take itself too seriously. It's of far more importance that the film just sucks.

And yet, as I watched the movie again today, there they were, those few scant things that, while they hardly elevate the film in any measurable way, do show some semblance of awareness for what Batman is and can be.

1) The Batman does not kill.

Quick. Go watch every Batman movie, and then go read every Batman comic in existence. I'll wait. Done? Notice anything? The main theme people come away with is that in publishing, Bruce Wayne is bound by a particular code, springing from his origin at the end of Joe Chill's gun. Put simply: The Batman does not kill.

Except, no one bothered to inform the various screenwriters who have handled Warner Brothers' number one franchise. In Batman (1989) Bat-Keaton specifically tells Jack "I'm going to kill you," and he damned sure he puts a grapelling hook to good work to get the job done.

In Batman Returns (1992) Bat-Keaton again dispatches Louie De Penguin with a carefully orchestrated wave of bats and a steep fall. Don't even get me started on the circus strongman that blew up real good for the capital crime of asking Batman to hit him.

In Batman Forever (1995) Iceman-Batman flung Billy Dee Tommy Lee Jones from a tall height* even after Robin O'Donnell learned the important lesson of sparing one's enemies.

In Batman Begins (2005), Bale-Bat does go out of his way to not directly kill Ra's-al-Gon-Jin, but he's pretty content to not save him, when he had plenty of time and resources to do so.

In The Dark Knight (2008) Bale-Bat returns to fling Billy Dee Tommy Lee Eckhart from a tall height** after spending the entire movie not killing Ledjoker, despite literally everyone being fine with that possibility.

In The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Batman drops a thermonuclear bomb into Gotham Harbor, thereby ensuring that the next seventeen generations of Gothamites can look forward to a litany of thyroid problems, if they're lucky.

And most recently, in Batman v Board of Education: Dawn of the McMuffin (2016), Batman's antipathy for guns didn't get translated to the other 807 plot points, because Batfleck is more than content to drop a few no-names in the pursuit of... Kryptonite? Barely a month out of seeing the movie, it already feels like a blur. 

Sense a pattern here? Batman and Robin is the only post-Adam West cinematic outing where Batman does not kill. One point for Schumaucher and company. Brings the score to 787,231 to 1, but at least it won't be a shut out.

2) Who is Batman?

By the time the fourth film in the series begins, everyone should know. It doesn't take much to find out. Alfred Pennyworth, Vicki Vale, Jack Napier, Selina Kyle, Oswald Cobblepot, Max Schreck, Dick Grayson, Edward Nygma, Harvey Dent, Chase Meridian, Ra's Al Ghul, Rachel Dawes, Lucius Fox, Coleman Reese, Talia al Ghul, Bane, Selina Kyle (again), Non-Robin Gordon-Levitt, James Gordon, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince. Through the course of the Bat-films, all of these characters have figured out Bruce Wayne's secret. Here's the question: are there any other characters in the Batman universe? Outside of Bat-mite and Aunt Harriet, does anyone not know?

There's only one film where Bruce Wayne's secret identity isn't sussed out by the villains or his girlfriend (or some mixture thereof). Which film is that? You guessed it. Batman and Robin. Yes, Barbara Wilson trips over the truth***, but I'm grading on a curve here. Give me a break.

3) At least they didn't run out of money.

I don't think anyone is going to get this far into this blog post and get the idea that I'm actually defending the core of this movie. It's a completely wrongheaded cluster of half-baked almost-ideas, packaged into a cheap sausage casing of '90s fashion. It's the cinematic equivalent of haggis, although saying that does a grave disservice to a sheep's stomach filled with food you wouldn't otherwise want to look at.

But at least they, you know, finished the movie.

It's not neccessarily high praise to say that Warner Brothers didn't just cut their losses and release a rough cut of the turd they had in the oven, but it does make it, fundamentally better than other fourth entries in superhero franchises. Superman IV (1987) is content to just use the same footage of Christopher Reeve flying towards the camera, and has a climax that confirms the long-heard suspicion that Mariel Hemingway can breathe in the vacuum of space. It's important to keep things in perspective. 

There are a lot of other examples from there. The villains' origins are -- if goofy -- more or less correct. The mythos isn't contorted to make it so that Mr. Freeze is the one who pulled the trigger on Thomas and Martha Wayne, even if that would've been one hell of a flashback. The Schumaucher movies also make Gotham City appear as if it may have the actual scope of a major metropolitan area, even if that city might be a maddening mish mash of Greek statues. In retrospect, Burton's movies look like they take place on a remaindered set from a dinner theater production of Our Town. The movie tries to be funny, which isn't the worst thing in the world. Batman can be funny. Adam West as Batman is funny. The problem is that the movie only tries, and forgets to bring the laughs. It is an important distinction.

So, maybe Batman and Robin is the worst. Making movies is hard. We can't imagine what they might have been up against, and even if Schumaucher's myopia is to blame, there are far more serious sins in the world. Don't believe me? Go watch Superman IV: The Quest For Peace one more time.

* A lot of falling deaths in these movies, no?

** Sound familiar, no?

*** Again, it's not like a lot of deductive reasoning is applied; she uses an infinite amount of password tries to unlock an interactive CD-ROM.

The Weekend is Nearly Over - Thoughts on a Writing Convention

All heroes must be tested. It is an undeniable truth that has been ingrained into the DNA of storytelling since Odysseus first met the Cyclops. In our collective quest to become known as writers, we at Party Now, Apocalypse Later, Nevermore Edits, Inkubus Publishing, and A Murder of Storytellers must also be tested. Ours will be an arduous reckoning, and comes at the Oklahoma Writer's Federation Incorporated* annual conference in Oklahoma City. Not all of us may get out alive. A continental breakfast is also provided.

The weekend is fraught with dangers unseen. The agent you've scheduled time to pitch with may think your stuff is "smart" but maybe "too smart" for their market. I mean, there's no reason that the children's market isn't ready for a densely plotted trilogy of books centered around Orson Welles saving the world, but whatever. 

The agent may flee your pitch session, having suddenly become ill. I'm not going to use any names on this one, but I know for a fact some variation on this story happened both this year and last.

The vast majority of the weekend may be consumed with the politics of writing far more than the writing itself. Seriously, we're local authors trying to get better at our craft and maybe, one day, make it big. Stop treating it like it's House of Cards fantasy camp. People flexing their egos only for show ought to be flogged. And caned. And then shamed. Repeatedly.

You might try your hand at the contest. You may win something and feel vindicated. You may win nothing and feel slightly discouraged. You may win nothing and get a critique back on one of your submissions that read, in brilliant fortune cookie fashion, "Your reputation as a writer will be very poor indeed." At the time of this writing, the contest winners have yet to be announced. I may yet change my tune.

It can be a frustrating, discouraging experience for many. Maybe it needs to be. Maybe it doesn't have to be.

Ultimately, I'm left with one question: So what? So what if it's frustrating? So what if it can be demoralizing? If a less than productive weekend is going to cause you to fold up your sails and put up in the harbor forever, then something else would have stopped you before too long.

Remember, if you put pen to paper and plan to keep putting pen to paper, you belong among the other writers. If you're out there, come next year. Good things will happen. I have no idea what they may be, but they will happen. I guarantee it. No matter what happens, don't buy into the hype, and don't listen to the harshest things you think about yourself. Tomorrow, get back to work on the writing. Don't let any more time you could spend working on your craft slip away; the weekend is nearly over.

*OWFI: It's like wi-fi, except it hurts. Ow. Ha.

Typewriters: Big, noisy mistake machines

Woo, boy... I thought I'd try to experiment with something new for this blog entry. I'll display how it's important to live with errors in your early writing...

And I really did it. 

Anyway, here's a blog entry I wrote entirely with my IBM Selectric. How did we ever blog before we had computers? 

*Oh, man. I was in pretty big trouble, like, ten words into this thing.

"Beer, Wine, and the Apollo Program" OR "Yes, but I've loved Batman for far longer"

Coming up with blog subjects can be a bit of a chore. Luckily, one of my friends from Nevermore Edits has been similarly searching for blog subjects, and was advised by people-in-the-know that creating a list of 100 things you love is a great way to send a jolt through your entries. Naturally, when she shared this with us, it became a free-for-all to finish our own lists. Here's mine, in some particular order. Some will notice that my wife, Lora is listed first, but Batman comes in a close second. That seems fair, although I have loved Batman for far longer...

Some of these have already been blog posts, others may yet become posts. Some are absurd, but probably more truthful than I would like to admit (I'm looking in your direction, freshly starched shirts...).

1. Lora

2. Batman

3. Wrath of Khan

4. The West Wing

5. Buffy

6. Nicholas Meyer

7. The Twilight Zone

8. Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman

9. 30 Rock

10. Not being in Law School

11. Not being in middle management (This has been on my mind quite profoundly as of late, see my argument with myself from a few weeks back to see how that discussion has been going nowhere)

12. Black and white monster movies (If James Whale made it, assume I love it)

13. Pretzels

14. Tea

15. Pepsi?

16. Community

17. Chicken (fried)

18. The Reuben at Margaret's

19. Rick and Morty

20. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

21. Unbreakable

22. Schmidt (From New Girl. Really, all three of the guys on that show feel like parts of me split up into the cast of a sitcom, but the echo was far more important than anything else. Sorry, Nick Miller.)

23. Woody Allen movies... (I know...)

24. Sherlock Holmes

25. James Bond

26. Cheers

27. Wheel of Fortune (I'm not kidding... I'm developing a real problem. Happy to report my Vannamania is still under control. For the moment. Although, my next great creative undertaking may be an audition video to be a contestant on the show.)

28. Movie scores

29. Fountain pens

30. Typewriters

31. Fargo

32. Don Draper (take that to mean what you will)

33. Orson Welles

34. Charlie Chaplin

35. Time Travel (it's a living...)

36. DVDs

37. Writing

38. Writing group

39. Michael Keaton

40. Ice cubes

41. Jon Stewart

42. Billy Joel's "The Stranger"

43. Ron Funches

44. Drive-in movie theaters

45. Pinball

46. Star Wars (all of it? The prequels are often a drag, but the larger tableau of the Skywalker clan has always been and will always be quite strong)

47. Productive days

48. Comic books

49. CJ the Labradane

50. Really Good Man

51. That feeling after a final exam/publishing a book

52. Scarves on ladies (is that my kink?)

53. Journey

54. ...Enya

55. The Simpsons

56. David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian

57. Pinky and the Brain

58. Mark Twain

59. Primary Colors (the book and the concept)

60. Doctor Who

61. Adele (I'd ask you not to judge me, but if you don't love Adele, I judge you)

62. Breaking Bad

63. The Rancher's Club in Stillwater

64. House of Greek

65. My writing room

66. Sushi

67. Fish eggs

68. Used book sales/flea markets

69. The Marx Brothers

70. Boobs (I could try to be a little more evolved, but that would be pretty disingenuous)

71. Stephen King

72. A freshly starched shirt

73. Johnny Carson

74. Walter Mondale

75. Dill pickles

76. Breakfast foods

77. Ribs

78. House of Cards

79. When my co-workers have interests outside of work (Just hearing about the singers, football players, and rodeo queens with whom I work makes the world make a little bit more sense)

80. Alfred Hitchcock

81. The Universal logo they started using in Back to the Future III and stopped using with the Lost World

82. Back scratches

83. Naps (or as I like to call it, leisure time)

84. Reading

85. Bacon

86. The random feature on the FXNOW app's "The Simpsons" section (Netflix, get with the times!)

87. Cinnamon things

88. Beer

89. Wine

90. The Apollo program

91. Pop vinyls (I tripped over a rare bloody variant Leatherface this weekend. It's like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine)

92. Lego

93. Kisses (I'm not without my romantic notions)

94. Murphy Brown (start releasing those DVDs already, Warner Bros., will ya?)

95. Murder, She Wrote

96. Playing lizard people in RPGs

97. Politics

98. Being released by surgeons (95, 97, and 98 paint a decidedly geriatric picture of me)  

99. GPS (it's saved me from having to learn how streets work)

100. Die Hard

A couple of other items have occurred to me since putting the list together on Wednesday night. I really love not accepting as important what other people would insist are important. That feeds into a lot of the other items on the list, but it is often the overriding motivation for the big decisions in my life.

Also, I really like selling a book to somebody. It only happens every once in a while (although it is, thankfully, happening more and more often) but the little money I get from those efforts are far more important than the rather good living I make from my day job.

Got a list of your own? Share it in the comments! Or, better yet, blog about it yourself and link to it in the comments.

 

Books Written by Friends, Part 3: Happy Days, Sweetheart

I've written at length in this blog about the magnificent turns my writing career has taken since I've stumbled upon the group of people making up both A Murder of Storytellers and Nevermore Edits. For this third entry in my series of "Books Written by Friends," I thought I would venture into the beginning of their work. Thankfully, the book I read isn't the end of their work. If it were, the ending might not be a happy one at all.

The endings in Happy Days, Sweetheart are all designed to be unhappy, but this--the first anthology from Murder--proves to be a thrilling beginning to a creative output that has already lit the local writing landscape on fire and shows no sign of stopping there.

While Murder is primarily a horror imprint, the stories in Happy Days... keep to the macabre by virtue of their theme, but do have some variance in genre:

"Finding Annie" by Shannon Iwanski starts off matters in a darkly comic tone.

Iwanski and C.J. Miles IV eventually steer matters into the abjectly tragic with "Good Morning Mr. C" and "Repeat After Me," respectively. 

Kaz Kirkpatrick offers a quick sharp, detour into the subversive with the aptly titled "Repelzul." 

Jack Burgos and editor Adrean Messmer finish the proceedings with "Bloody Lizzy" and "Left and Leaving." Fair warning about the final stories in this volume: they are not for the faint of stomach.

The book is short and a breezy read, despite its heavy subject matter. The editing is polished* and indicates a level of professionalism that always challenges me to do better in my own work.

I highly recommend Happy Days, Sweetheart. You can acquire an eBook or paper copy for yourself via Amazon. Alternately, you can acquire a signed copy of Happy Days... and all of the other Murder books at the Hastings in Bartlesville this Satruday, April 30th from 1-5 PM. The authors will be there to sign copies.

Oh, also, I will be there. I have books as well. Maybe I should review one of them in this blog? No. As we all learned last week, I tend to not to get along with myself.

* There are very few typos that I found. Most of them might be attributable to me reading the book on a progressively antiquated Kindle Fire. Those that I did find were almost entirely found in Jack's stories. This is the part where Jack goes quite mad and starts searching all of his stories for bugs. Ha! I'll never tell where they are! Mainly because I can't remember where they are, and those few errors did not interfere with the proceedings in the slightest.

KILL US BOTH, SPOCK! A Study in Duality

"The Enemy Within" is a truly great episode of the original Star Trek, and one I've been thinking about a lot lately. In fact, it's one of the first episodes where the show became the truly special thing that I won't shut up about to this day. It's a bonkers premise -- Kirk is split into two halves, one "good," the other "evil." Experiments on space poodles, arch camera angles to tell the different Kirks apart, and some truly horrendous gender politics* ensue before we realize that neither the ineffectually compassionate Kirk, nor his power-hungry beast of a brother can survive on their own.

If you've never seen it, Netflix it now. I'd put it ahead of "City on the Edge of Forever" as a showcase for young Shatner at his Shatneriest. It's written by Richard Matheson, who is second only to Rod Serling in my pantheon of truly great science fiction television writers. He also wrote "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," which, speaking of Shatner... Just go Netflix it.

Why bring this up now? Good question. I've always had a bit of an "Enemy Within" thing going on. For more on that we go to Gary. Say "hi" to the readers, Gary.

"Hi" to the readers, Gary.

What did we talk about it? I do the jokes around here.

Fine. My name is Gary M. Boyle. I was named for my father, and for once, we'll hear a little bit from me. I figured I'm entitled. I write all the checks, and Mac couldn't get a social security card if he tried. I've seen to that much.

We are all two people on some level, I suppose. Clichéd storytelling might call one half "dark" and the other "light." Just as in Mac's example from that space ship show with the guy from Boston Legal, "good" and "evil" doesn't cover the whole truth. I don't have a goatee. Well, any time I have had a goatee, Mac had one too, but that's beside the point. We're not separate people. Of this much, I can assure you. In truth, Mac and I are just better at different, albeit sometimes conflicting, things. We just happened to have the odd fortune of having one legal name, and another nickname. We've had both since birth. I should probably stop using that "we" pronoun, lest we--damn it--alarm some of you.

I'm more analytical; Mac is more creative. My greatest weakness is my ambition will sometimes blind me to the most prudent path. Mac's tragic qualities come from a desire to screw up on purpose, purely in the interest of creating a better anecdote for later on. Mac thinks he is the funnier one--

Hey!

--and he's probably right.

Mac was the one who wanted to do a story about Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin fighting demons. I suggested that it be a larger metaphor for the McCarthy era and that it state unequivocally that there are far worse things in the world to be than a communist. The book landed somewhere in the middle.

It was my idea to go to law school way back when.

And I put a pretty effective stop to that, if I do say so myself.

To be fair, I needed to have a better reason--or any reason, really--to be there. Also, my brief flirtation with a political career was all me.

And I've learned to forgive you for both of those indiscretions. Without them, I never would have found the basis for that first novel.

And, yes. Thank you so much for basing the villain of that book on me.

Ronald Reagan?

You know what I mean...

Are you saying you didn't deserve it?

I'm saying that you'd have a hard time finding someone at the age of 22 who isn't the villain of their own story.

Fair point.

But I digress. The problem has always been that for one of us to feel as if we are pursuing our best selves, the other has to be on the decline. The moment I've been slightly open to career advancement--

...

--advancing the career at which we actually make money, that is--you tend to freak out.

My freaking out is directly proportional to the degree to which I think you're selling out.

And every time you are able to tune the whole world out and focus on the dream we both had since we were young...

I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

And I secretly wonder if we're not living up to our potential. Actually, I wonder if we both need to grow up and join the larger world.

It's not much of a secret. You won't shut up about it.

Look, this sniping at each other is going nowhere. You really want to finish this blog post and go to bed. Here's the truth: I really don't know if I'm ever going to consistently help you be a better writer.

And the odds against me helping you be more traditionally successful are pretty long indeed.

But if either of those things are ever going to happen, I'm pretty sure we're going to have to start working together, so...

Truce?

...

Mac?

I'm thinking! Fine, truce.

For the moment.

I was just about to say the same thing. Struggle with your other half? Tell me, or us about it in the comments.

*Evil Kirk's sexual assault of Yeoman Rand, even before they figure out that strange things are afoot. I fully intend to expound on it later, but by all honest accounts, Gene Roddenberry was a terrible person. He stole brazenly from other writers (when he was even actively involved in the show that gave him his legacy), was absolutely brutish to a slew of women, and basically drank and snorted his way through the last ten to fifteen years of his life. I think this makes him a far more fascinating figure than the saintly pop-philosopher that we remember, and I--we?--want to write that book someday. 

Cheat Week Part Two: Enjoy it While You Can

Ours is a difficult business, writing. If it weren't for a more-than-healthy dose of compulsion, I would imagine most of us (read: me) would default to engaging in some more obviously lucaritive endeavor. Blockbuster Video franchisee comes to mind.

Therefore, when you're having a good week, it is probably worth taking a break and enjoying the fruits of your labors. I won 1st place in the Tulsa Library Writing Contest, and the awards ceremony was today. It's a win, and I intend to enjoy it as much as I can.

Hence, another cheat week here on the blog. Stay tuned here in the next few weeks for a brief study of unhappy endings, my attempts to re-kindle my romance with my typewriters, and if the stars do truly align, some thoughts on returning to the directors chair for the first time in nearly fifteen years.

In the meantime, enjoy your wins where they may come. I know I will.

Nicholas Meyer: One of pop culture's most influential figures (trust me, you've heard of him)

A piece of news more than a month ago lifted my spirits immensely. As CBS' All Access prepares to go into production on the sixth live-action* Star Trek TV Series, showrunner Bryan Fuller is assembling his team. While Fuller is the mind behind many recent TV triumphs, including Pushing Daisies and most-especially Hannibal, he made his bones in the Final Frontier during the famine years towards the end of Star Trek: Voyager. Mild concern, I'm sure, but Fuller completely nullified any concerns I had when he made the best hire since Jimmy Smits appointed Alan Alda his Secretary of State**.

He hired Nicholas Meyer as a writer and consulting producer.

This is like Johnny Carson hosting The Tonight Show again, or Michael Jordan finding the fountain of youth just in time to re-sign with the Bulls, or even Michael Keaton playing Batman just one more time. This is an absolute master of a particular field returning to contribute once again. I couldn't be more excited for this new series.

I know. You're asking, "Who?"

For shame. Nicholas Meyer wroter and directed The Wrath of Khan (1982)*** and The Undiscovered Country (1991). He also co-wrote The Voyage Home (1986). In essence, when people say the even-numbered Star Trek movies are the good ones, he is the constant factor.

His influence goes beyond those three films for which he may be most likely be known. Many moments from modern blockbusters are stolen directly from Khan. In The Dark Knight Rises (2012), when Commissioner Gordon quotes from A Tale of Two Cities at Bruce Wayne's graveside, I can't help but think of Kirk speaking similarly as he watches the Genesis Planet form beyond. When, in Batman v Superman (2016****) the funeral of (REDACTED) is filled with the sound of Bagpipes belting out "Amazing Grace," maybe that's just a thing that people do at funeral,s but I can't help but think of Scotty in a kilt and photon torpedo caskets. At the end of X2 (2003), as we are exposed to just hint that the recently departed may not be permanently gone, just as the opening narration is echoed by the deceased, I would bet anything I have that Bryan Singer was thinking of Nicholas Meyer's masterwork. Had Singer been given the chance to follow up his Superman Returns (2006), he would tell anyone who would listen that his first order of business was to, quote, "get all Wrath of Khan on it." Meyer is everywhere, even if hasn't directed a film since Vendetta (1999) for HBO.

All too often, the imitators in Meyer's wake are just, to borrow a line from Star Trek IV that he didn't write, mimicking the sounds, but not the language. When the sequel needs a big bad from the past, or the current political climate is a thin inspiration for the action, or even when a beloved character is only mostly dead as the final credits roll, I can't help but think some people are just trying to imitate what happened before*****. Don't even get me started on Star Trek Into Darkness. 

But there are several less-remembered works from the maestro that you should check out:

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud. Correction, Sherlock Holmes desperately needs the help of Sigmund Freud. If the popular conception of Holmes is as a deeply troubled, it entered the popular zeitgeist by way of Meyer's typewriter. 

The novel that first brought Meyer notoriety made a terrific film starring Nicol Williamson and Robert Duvall. I'd write more about it, but it’s a deeply fun story with a lot of surprises. You should go watch it now. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution also received a recent graphic novel adaptation, which is definitely worth a look.

Time After Time (1979)

H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper through time. Not enough of an argument for Meyer's directorial debut? Malcom McDowell plays against type, making the author of War of the Worlds into a sprightly nerd for the ages. Anything else you need? David Warner is in it. If that's enough for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, then it should be enough for you too.

Volunteers (1985)

Tom Hanks is a complete, unrepentant asshole. It's a rare thing, but also a glory to behold in this movie, bridging the gap between Meyer's Trek gigs. In an age when it was thought Tom Hanks and John Candy were thought of as a new Hope and Crosby, Meyer produced his most obviously commercial film outside of the Star Trek milieu. Despite all of this, it also manages to be one of both Hanks' and Meyer's strangest movies, somehow managing to mix The Bridge on the River Kwai and a Marx Brothers movie. It also sports a score by James Horner in his bombastic prime, and that is something that will be in tragically short supply from here on.

I could go on and on about his work, but that would take away time from your own discovery of his work. He is far and beyond the number one influence on my work. Who's the bedrock of your output? Let me know in the comments.

*Yeah, there's an animated series. It's on Netflix. All of the original series cast (save Chekov) are back from the proceedings. It isn't the worst thing in the world.

**That's an entirely different blog entry, one I'm sure I'll get to soon enough. In the mean time, kids, ask your parents.

***The screenplay for Khan is credited to Jack B. Sowards, but every source who would be in a position to know indicated that Meyer took the disparate parts from the development of the first sequel (a large share of which were from the Sowards draft) and over twelve days gave them life in a new draft where the film finally took shape.

****Man, the conventions of writing about film seem silly sometimes, don’t they?

*****Myself included. At its core, Orson Welles of Mars is a Nicholas Meyer mixtape. My only hope is that I understand the language and the sounds more than most. Small ambitions get more work done, if you ask me.

Batman v Superman v Nuance

EXT. GOTHAM POLICE HEADQUARTERS - ROOF - NIGHT

In the light of the bat-signal, BATMAN and SUPERMAN are trying to punch each other for some reason.

BATMAN

YOU ARE DANGEROUS!

SUPERMAN

I'm trying the best I can...

BATMAN

YOU ARE--

(beat)

Wait, are you trying to say you aren't

the bad guy?

SUPERMAN

Yes! But no one will listen...

BATMAN

ARE WE BEST FRIENDS NOW?

SUPERMAN

(nods)

Yay!

The two heroes frolic into the sunset together, even though I previously established that this was taking place at night. Somehow, Doomsday is also involved.

TITLE: Justice League Coming Soon.

FADE TO BLACK

<<<<<>>>>>

Okay, so I won't go see Batman v* Superman: Dawn of Justice: Part One of the Justice League Trilogy: Man of Steel Part Two: The Movie until later today, but I feel like the above scene needs to be in there. Superman and Batman are supposedly two conflicting sides of the same coin. The film sells itself on the false premise that the two characters simply can't exist in one film, and that one of them must "win."

I'm not entirely sure why we think the world isn't big enough for both The Dark Knight and The Man of Steel, but the idea sure as hell propels a movie to undeniable box office in defiance of lukewarm reviews. I shouldn't be terribly surprised. So much of our collective rationalization is absolutely dependent on the idea that when two seemingly conflicting ideas present themselves, one of them has to be wrong, and the other right.

Isn't there enough room for nuance in the universe to allow some conflicting things to be true?

Objectivists put the advancement of self-interest as the only truly moral consideration. Altruists believe that the only avenue for humanity to better itself is through service to others. Why can't we individually attain the best versions of ourselves through service to others? Why can't it be both?

Some Republicans say that Donald Trump isn't truly one of them, and that his putsch-like march on Washington is nothing more than opportunism. Others are pretty sure he is a Fascist and an ominous omen** of dark days ahead. Can't he be both?

Some people like ham sandwiches. Others like chicken sandwiches. Some people like both, but at different times. The fine people at Arby's know what's up. They offer the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich, and it's... Well, it's fine, but it is certainly both of those things. Only less intelligent creatures than we insist on choosing in instances like this.

In the end, isn't there enough room for both Batman and Superman in theaters and on the shelves of comic book stores? I don't want to spoil the ending of a movie I haven't seen yet, but I tend to imagine that there is plenty of room for the two.

So, dear reader, if you ask me, the easiest way to tell when someone is pulling a fast one on you is if they try to make a binary choice out of a complex decision, whether it is your vote, the type of person you are going to be, what movie to see this weekend, or what type of meat you're willing to entrust to an Arby's employee. Go for the third option; go for the answer that mixes the best of the available information you have in front of you. The world is a much more interesting place when seemingly conflicting things can both be true.

*The actual title of the movie is still 712 pages long. Would the extra "s" to make "vs." have made that much of a difference? I don't get the movies made for the kids these days. And when did they stop making movies about things other than explosions? Also, I remember food tasting better twenty years ago. I'm old and tired.

**I can't get away with that kind of alliteration, can I?

If you listen closely, you can forever hear the sound of the Macarena on the wind: thoughts on the eighties and nineties nostalgia boom

I watched one episode of "Fuller House." All right, I watched an episode and a half of "Fuller House." Cut it out* with the third degree. I remember watching the original show when it aired, but it held no particular special place in my childhood memories. Rather quickly on its course from Friday Night ABC staple to perennial Nick-at-Nite favorite, the show struck me as the same sort of crass, commercial calculation that comes about when TV executives come to the conclusion that kids will watch just about anything.

But when Netflix released their new original movie "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday?" I watched the thing within 24 hours after release. The man who was once the boy who claimed he wanted to be P.W. when he grew up** would not let a whole day pass without seeing his latest exploits. It was terrific! It was funny! It was... almost exactly like the much more anarchic "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" from thirty years earlier.

Before you point out the hypocrisy of my Pee-Wee fandom coupled with my desire to never hear Dave Coulier speak again, I get it. The nostalgia marketplace is big enough to include people who seriously wondered what Fred Savage's little brother is up to these days, and the people who suddenly realized they had the capacity for human emotions only when they saw Han and Chewie on the Millennium Falcon once again. The Venn diagram between those two groups may have a larger overlap than I originally thought.

Between "The Gilmore Girls" and "The X-Files," we as a society may have developed the cure to the scourge of cancellation. There are even a few unrealized avenues for nineties nostalgia. Amazon can't shell out the duckets to get us a few more episodes of "Animaniacs?" I might be in the minority, but if Crackle were to foot the bill for 6 more episodes of "Murphy Brown***," I'm liable to take the day off of my day job to binge watch. DC Comics recently rejected a pitch for a series that would have depicted the ongoing adventures of the Caped Crusader as portrayed by Michael Keaton. I'm not sure why DC would be against a money printing machine, aside from their desire to hurt me personally, but there it is.

What's behind the appeal for nostalgic things? If the nineties last forever, do we never age? It seems like a dumb reason, but if there is another motivation, I don't know what it is. I want to resist the glut of 90s nostalgia. I want the world to be weird and wondrous, but then again I also voted for Hillary Clinton, so I may be a big old pile of contradictions. If you have a problem with that, feel free to cancel me. I'll only come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Maybe the solution is to embrace that weird and wondrous in our own work. Big companies will be happy to make the same old thing we've already seen, and we'll be happy to pay for it to keep the sense of time passing at bay. But I can resist the temptation to make my stuff like what came before. That is, of course, unless the current rights holders of Short Circuit are reading this. I have a pitch for a third movie. You know where to find me. #johnnyfiveisstillalive

*My wife suggested I put periods after those last three words, a la Coulier, but I just won't do it. #teamalanis #yououghtaknow

**My pre-pubescent ambition made for an awkward conversation after Paul Reubens infamous arrest for indecent exposure in 1991.

DAD

Pee-Wee was arrested.

ME

What did he do?

A silence transpires, long enough to fill the Alamo basement.

DAD

...he stole things.

ME

But what did he steal?

DAD

He...he stole things.

***Remember what that lady did to Dan Quayle back in the day? No? Well, kids, ask your parents. Then imagine what she could do with the current crop of self-righteous used car salesmen (all right, and women... Contradictions!) that we have running for President today.

In the interest of not hanging separately

Stop me if you've heard this one. After all the clack-clack-clacking of drafting, and the excruciating bleeding of editing, you have written a book. It's done*. Your work isn't just a pdf file floating out in the information superhighway**, but an actual, physical copy of a book. It smells of glue, and paper, and one day it may smell like the shelf it sat upon for years on end. You can touch it; it has mass. It is a thing that, were it not for you, would not exist in this world. You are filled with a quiet gladness that you had more resolve than you might have previously thought. I can't imagine the experience is anything like having a child. If the child smells like wood pulp and Elmer's, something else is likely wrong. But another key difference lies beyond the elation of the creation:

You have to sell the damned thing.

Online engagement and posts -- like this one -- have their place in the process, but something else will elevate those sales. Face-to-face contact is key. Have you ever tried to sit at a table on your own, peddling your wares to an indifferent public? The first book even I went to after I finished Right - A Novel of Politics went about as well as you'd expect. I sold one book in four hours, to a very nice lady who was far too polite to admit that she thought I was someone else. She may have taken pity. Either way, I hope she enjoyed the book.

The Murder folks faced similar disappointment when they previously went to the Underground Monster Carnival they collectively only sold one copy from their catalog during the entire event.

Writing is lonely work. It's part of the reason I live for it. The quiet battle with the blank page is as close to a meditative trance as I'm likely to achieve. I believed for so long that making the case for your book should be a similarly long and lonely road. I was certain that going it alone was the only path to success.

I was wrong. There's so much out there to consume. Individually, our work is only a small drop in a churning, ever-expanding ocean of content.

Last weekend, the Nevermore Edits group*** had a huge weekend in sales. I sold plenty of books. Others sold plenty of books. The important thing is that we sold a lot of books. A rising tide lifted all boats, and we all quenched a little bit of our thirst for success in a field that is content to knock us down at every turn. I admire the hell out of these people, and while publishing success may prove tricky for anyone, I would much rather fail with the gang I belong to now, than fail on my own.

*Yes, I know "done" is a relative term. I've only abandoned books when I've published them.

**Apparently, I'm writing this blog entry in 1997. Time travel is hard, folks.

***Made up of myself, the aforementioned Murder folks, and more than a few other brilliant writers working in common purpose.

Books Written by Friends, Part 2: A Body to Die For

A writer who I tangentially know recently lamented* the pigeonholing of writers into genres. Authors are expected to be innovative and create new things, while at the same time fitting into an easily identifiable market. They are often conflicting goals. Where the nameless author I mentioned before felt the only solution was a poorly considered rallying cry to break free of the shackles of genre, I think the solution is far simpler. Just write out of your genre. While it's not done that often, it's not that difficult to do. Mainstream success through writing is so elusive, I reject the argument that building your brand should be the chief concern of budding writers.

Need more encouragement? Perhaps I can recommend an author that has already built a catalog of titles that refuse to be placed in one single category. Shannon Iwanski has written dystopian science fiction, and contributed horror titles to a number of anthologies. This list doesn't even begin to cover the long list of work he has published under various pen names, which truly explore the farthest reaches of every genre possible.

Iwanski's second novel A Body to Die For, brings the authors talents to the Cozy Mystery genre, but surrenders none of the courage and biting wit that he consistently brings to his other works. Max runs a gym in a Tulsa strip mall. As he returns from a Barbados vacation, he finds that his ex has hired Skylar to work in the gym. Skylar's sketchy past would make this unwelcome news enough, but it doesn't take a huge leap in deductive reasoning to realize that Skylar is the new man in his ex's life.

Max will have to use far more deductive skills to put his life back together, keep his customers happy, and most importantly, solve the murder that happened in his place of business. When I told Shannon that I was halfway through his book, he got a stricken expression on his face and asked if I had already figured out who did it. I hadn't, and I can honestly say I hadn't figured it out, even as Max reveals the truth. A Body to Die For will keep you guessing until the very end. The characters are likeable, and the story moves along at a brisk pace. It is perfect beach reading. What's more, Iwanski deftly weaves his own experiences into the character's background stories, making Max and friends leap from the page in a pointedly real way.

A Body to Die For is available in both eBook and paperback via Amazon. I highly recommend it. In the annals of artists who regularly transcend genre, like J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, and my personal hero Nicholas Meyer, Shannon Iwanski emerges as a talent to be envied, who already has a body of work to die for. Go find his work now; you won't regret it.

*In the most moronic way possible, but I'll leave that for other people to pick apart. Let's just say the writer in question was champing at the bit for Black History Month to end before he could make his point.