Unabashed

[Re]Evolver

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that sustainability is an important issue for me. The human propensity to waste natural resources has always rubbed me the wrong way. I’ve blogged about it often (here. Here. Here, too. And there’s lots more of them, just check the categories for environment and green energy. It’s a regular and recurring theme around this site). So, rather than just blogging about it all the time, I finally decided I would try to do something positive. Enter [Re]Evolver, a website that I developed with huge aspirations: I not only want to end waste, I also want to end hunger, and I want to ensure the survival of humanity and the Earth for several millions of years. The sad part is, not only do I know it’s possible, I know it’s possible right now, if we would only just do it. But we are victims of convenience in everything we do. [Re]Evolver not only wants to show you how easy it is to live your life sustainably, but to show you that it can be fun, as well as rewarding.

[Re]Evolver is a project with grandiose dreams, but I believe there are enough people out there who are concerned enough to want to contribute, and maybe a few more who are concerned enough to want to learn. [Re]Evolver is a project that was built on the foundation of those two principles.

So if you think you might like to help the world, drop by [Re]Evolver and sign up for a free account. Look around and see if there’s anything you like. We’ve got lots of fun stuff. You can have your own blog, profile page, status updates and photo uploading. There’s a growing community of like-minded people to meet and make friends with. There’s an on-site wiki to catalog our developing genius, and a skyscraper full of forums in which to chat and elucidate.

Nobody’s asking you to change the world. Just to join a little website. In the long run, will that do any good? Maybe it will. We hope so. 

http://www.reevolver.com/user/register. We are the Last Indigenous Tribe.

When We Finally Fight A Galactic War, This is the Flag We’ll Be Fighting Under

The Flag of Earth symbolizes the Earth (the center blue disk), the Sun (the yellow disk on the left), and the Moon (the white disk on the right). The Earth and its most important celestial neighbors - the Sun and Moon - are overlaid on a backdrop of the darkness of space.

The Flag of Earth website is administered by NAAPO - the North American Astrophysical Observatory.

Wolverine [OVEREXPOSED]

Wolverine is, and has been, for many years, Marvel’s most popular character. Spider Man is up there with him, and maybe one or two others, but really it’s Wolverine’s house. It would be interesting to see what Wolverine’s popularity would be like if Marvel hadn’t tried their damndest to run him into the ground and destroy him with overexposure. If they’d kept him mysterious, making guest appearances here and there, maybe with his own title, but otherwise not a permanent member of any super group–even the X-Men. Let’s face it, it’s not in his nature to be a member of a group. The X-Men attachment worked because Professor X was helping him work through some of his personal demons, so he stuck around. But Wolverine as an Avenger? No. Any writer who scripts Wolverine into a group is writing him out of character.

Of course, it’s the publisher’s fault, he who makes the demands of the writers.

Marvel EIC: “I need a six-issue series of Avengers where we introduce Wolverine as a permanent member!”
Writer: “But–don’t you think that’s inconsistent with his character, to join the Avengers?”
Marvel EIC: “Doesn’t matter! Avengers sales have been down for years. Wolverine’s our most popular character, we put him in Avengers and we’re giving the fans more Wolverine while at the same time bringing back the Avengers! It’s a win-win!!!”
Writer: “I’ll have to write this totally against his character…”
Marvel EIC (sounding more and more like J. Jonah Jameson): “Just make it work! What do we pay you for! Write Wolverine into the Avengers! Now get out of my office, I’ve got to talk to (writer B) about making the Fantastic Four the Fantastic Five with Wolverine as the fifth member! It’s a WIN-WIN!!!”

And if you think that conversation hasn’t happened, you haven’t been keeping up with Marvel. Wolverine’s origin never needed to be told. He doesn’t need to guest star in every single comic Marvel publishes. He’d have been dark, enigmatic… dangerous. He still is, to a degree, because when Len Wein created him some of those attributes were ingrained into his fiber. They are what he is. Despite Marvel’s atrocious mishandling of their number one character.

To see what I mean in more stark contrast, take a look at the “New Avengers.” It’s a comic I’ve never read, now would I want to. The reason for that is simple. It is comprised of a host of popular characters who do not belong on teams. Captain America belongs on a team, it’s in his nature to lead. Iron Man too. But Spider Man, Daredevil and Wolverine? Not on your life. Those guys are loners by nature.

Jack Kirby is BleedingCool

Via BleedingCool.com on Warren Ellis’s new column “Do Anything,” an anecdote told by Mark Evanier of “King” Jack Kirby:

Kirby liked to innovate, not follow. His attitude was best summed up a few years later when he read that some new artist would be taking over on Captain America and hoped “to do it in the Kirby tradition.”

Said Jack, “This kid doesn’t get it. The Kirby tradition is to create a new comic.”

Status Update

The web, she is evolving. Again. Of course, the whole world is constantly evolving, so that should come as no surprise, seeing as how the web is only an extension of human culture and creativity. In the midst of this evolution, I have a few observations to make.

Despite my infrequent postings on this website of late, I am active on the web. I’m just trying to figure out in which direction mattmitchellfiction should evolve. I’ve been a long-time user of MySpace, although I have now abandoned that site because I am convinced it is just crap that got hot at the right time. For keeping up with friends and relations I now use Facebook, which is kind of the ultimate where that kind of thing is concerned. It’s one of the things that keeps me away from here. Not that I’m spending all my time on FB, not at all, but I can keep people, friends and acquaintances up to date on my personal life instantaneously on FB, so there’s no need for me to do any of that on Unabashed any longer. Not that I did all that much updating, it’s just that now it’s become entirely superfluous, so I don’t do it at all any more. But that was never what this website was intended to be any way. This was a creative venture, and in that respect, I have fallen short. I hope to change all that in the near future.

Unabashed is not going away. Not any time soon, anyway. I’m reprogramming myself, just as we all seem to do on a regular basis, in how I and the web get along. I’m reprogramming lots of things, lately. For instance…

I don’t write the same way any more. I think more and more about concepts rather than production. I constantly try to refine material I’ve already filed away as complete. I don’t worry so much about “success” as a writer any longer. I’m not as desperate to have my work in print. That was a goal of mine, and I met that goal, and now I’m finding new goals to set for myself. There are many things which need to be done.

Comic books. A love I’ve had since before I could read, when I would look at the pictures and just imagine what they were saying. The first comic book I remember looking at was Guardians of the Galaxy. I distinctly remember not being able to read it. I’ve always wanted to work in comics, but I’ve never put forth any effort toward it. Well, that may be my next goal. I’ve written a 24 pp comic book script and I’m submitting it to Dark Horse. This is not a superhero comic, no. This is the next Sandman or Hellblazer. This story is sure to make comic book history. Or get rejected a few dozen times. One or the other is bound to happen, though ;)

Is the comic book industry as tough to crack as the mainstream publishing industry? God, I hope not. But it probably is. Which means you’ll be reading a post from me in the next few years concerning the agonizing process in both industries.

But the main point with me has always been creativity. Having a medium that I can vent into. I have that. And then some. Writing has been my pressure valve for many years now, and it will continue to be, regardless of whether it’s read or not by other people. I guess so long as I have this website, though, and Facebook, at least it will be read by a few.

Hollywood Faithfulness

Okay, you’ve got an immensely popular book that has a dedicated cult following on one side, and Hollywood on the other. Invariably, the story that was so popular in the book is re-written for the big screen. To me, this is utterly nonsensical. We all know they do it, we expect it, we just hope they don’t massacre the more important key plot points in the process. But usually they do. We hope the casting director doesn’t screw the pooch, so to speak, and cast the wrong people in the roles we love. But again, they usually do.

For instance: Hellblazer, a story of which I have often been in the middle of the cult following. Keanu Reeves, who I distinctly do not hate, was utterly wrong for the part. I’ve ruminated on the absurdity of casting directors before, and it’s a point that Hollywood really should pay heed to. This isn’t the ’50s, and we don’t go to movies just to see a star any more. Just because Keanu Reeves was great in Speed or Point Break doesn’t mean he’s going to be a major draw playing a modern-day British sorcerer with a nicotine habit. It’s time you realized that Point Break was a major draw because it was a good story, and because Reeves fit the role he was playing. But even worse, infinitely worse than the casting lunacy, was that they based the movie in Los Angeles, and made John Constantine an American. The problem with this is that California’s culture isn’t old enough to pull off the Gothic elements of the Hellblazer story. You walk around London and you feel the age of the place, you sense the despair of so many millions of ancient lives still lingering long after their deaths. Walking around L.A., with its sunshine and palm trees and trendy clubs and art deco and modernity just falls short on the effect. It cannot successfully tell the story of John Constantine. And so, the movie, though a successful one at the box office, fell far short of what it could have been.

What Hollywood sees, of course, is Keanu Reeves raking in another big take. They don’t see the fury of fanboys everywhere, or they choose not to see it, because the fanboys still paid to see the movie. I did. But if the movie had been any where nearer to what I might consider authentic, I would now own the DVD too. As it is, I do not. Stick that in yer ear, Hollywood.

I know sometimes Hollywood does what it does for budget concerns. But really, Keanu must have gotten in excess of ten mil for Constantine, ten mil that could have been spent shooting on location in London with an actor more suited to the part.

Lately, there have been some directors and some movies that have strived to be as faithful to the original story as possible. The Lord of the Rings movies, for instance. Or the Harry Potter movies. These movies put a premium on casting the right person in the right role and then became dedicated to telling the story as it should be told. And they’ve been rewarded. Honors have rained down on them, money, acclaim, awards…but did Constantine get any thing? Nope. It did well enough at the box office. But it could have been art! Constantine could have been a best picture nominee if they’d only tried!

Among the unfaithful movies of Hollywood: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or any number of Alan Moore adaptations. Even the Watchmen, which the director proclaimed would honor the original story religiously, shied away from the one plot point that made the entire story make sense. In the end, it was a good movie, but unfortunately flat. Lacking.

In Hitchhiker–granted a story that probably wouldn’t have gotten a nom from the Academy, but still–the entire story is rearranged and restructured to make the Hollywood ending, to include an element of a love story. The HHG2TG books sold over 15 million copies before Adams (the author) died in 2001. Do you really think this is a story that needed changing? That’s really what’s so aggravating to me. They take perfectly perfect stories and “adapt” them with their arcane, devious and moronic methods to be something less than they were, in order to…what? Certainly not to create a work of art. To make money? Well, of course to make money, but art would make money too, so it can’t be that. I’ve got it: they’re idiots.  

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was a movie that was kind of like the comic series: it’s not really any one’s favorite, but it’s entertaining and usually delivers some worldwide or universal scourge that we all must be saved from. As a movie, it really wasn’t actually all that bad. Right up until the end. The cast was fine, I don’t have any real gripe about the casting…but like The Watchmen, they bailed at the end. Maybe they needed to wrap it up within a minute or two, I don’t know, but they essentially threw the whole script down the toilet with that ending. Read this: there’s no story without Galactus. The threat of Galactus, the imminence of his arrival, the doom hanging over all our heads and then…what? A cloud? That’s the threat? No. Galactus is an elder of the Universe, almost an entire different element unto himself. You can’t just crap out on Galactus, sorry. Fanboy won’t buy it.  And don’t you tell me that vague shadow was Galactus, no. And even worse–even worse–they had the audacity to suggest that if the Surfer got really emotional that he could vanquish Galactus. No. That was a travesty possibly even greater than Constantine. It turned a decent movie into garbage. Garbage!!!

The really good news is that there are some making the attempt. The aforementioned Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson, for instance. Why did he win the award? Hm. I wonder. Was it because he took a really marvellous story and retooled it to fit 93 minutes and to add the element of a love story? Er, no, it was actually because he made the books real. He brought the story to life. That, my friends, is art. Art is rewarded. Mediocrity is not. Marvel, now that it owns its own studio, is staying more honest to their own characters. Although Marvel is obviously capable of mucking things up, as evidenced by the way they’ve sodomized their own series’. I’m still hopeful that they’ll at least keep things real. In the end, that’s all I care about anyway. If you’re going to adapt a movie from a story that I love, just keep it real.

Keep it real.

Coolpedia

An encyclopedia is, by definition, a compendium of information. I would add that the information must read as dry as possible, presenting the facts without any meandering about trying to be overly interesting. You might say an encyclopedia reads like a technical manual for a digital watch. Even Wikipedia, that bastion of information written entirely by its own users, ruthlessly edits out any needlessly entertaining verbiage. It seems that Wikipedia’s goal is to resemble Britannica’s humorless, priggish, puritanical and self-important style as closely as possible, but with all-original documents.

Why not go ahead and publicly state your policy that articles will only be approved if an article of the same title also appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica? That would save a lot of time from people who want to be interesting.

But I really shouldn’t complain about Wikipedia. It is free, after all. And nearly as accurate as the mighty Britannica beast is itself. Try looking up something on the Britannica website and you’re prompted to upgrade to a premium account. So, in reality, I can’t really make a comparison of Wikipedia v. Britannica, because I can’t really look at Britannica’s material. All I know is that’s what it seemslike Wikipedia is doing.

And the point to all of this? It’s simple: I want my articles to be entertaining as well as informational. Give me fun facts as well as the stuff we must learn by rote. Of course, there arises the problem of accuracy again. If you’ve got people hamming it up all over the place, there’s sure to be a lot more errors. People would report on urban legends as fact. But I think I’ve got a way to solve that problem. You’d simply have to make sure that everyone understands that, in the event that reality and the material do not match up, reality is the one that is wrong. Here’s a bit of legalese I’ve prepared to satisfy this end (supposing that our new encyclopedia’s name is Coolpedia):

In the event that information presented in the Coolpedia is found to be in direct conflict with the ‘presumed’ reality of any topic specified or unspecified, Coolpedia’s stance is that it represents the more actual reflection of accuracy and should be acknowledged as such. If circumstances are found still that suggest a conflict between a Coolpedia entry and a ‘presumed’ reality, it is the official stance of the Coolpedia Corporation that the ‘presumed’ reality is incorrect and that Coolpedia and all information presented therein is thereby factual and complete in dynamic. Therefore, the Coolpedia is a more accurate representation of reality than any specified or unspecified ‘presumed’ reality.

There now. That takes care of any unnecessary lawsuits that might arise due to errors, right? (For the record, I doubt I would use “Coolpedia” as the name, but if anyone does and wants to pay me royalties for coming up with the idea, I am at their disposal.) But I’m not saying that I would want to read information that is wildly inaccurate. No, I just want accurate information to be passed on to me in a way that is pleasing, that might even make me chuckle or gasp once in a while. Is that too much to ask? And what kind of participation might someone get if they attempted to take on a venture like that themselves? “Our business model is to be truthful AND entertaining, factual as well as fun.” Now that’s a business model I can get behind. Any investors willing to throw some cash in my direction to get the venture started…I remain at their disposal, as always :)

Really, what’s so difficult about this idea? I just want to catalog everything that exists, in a fun, entertaining way. I think people will come back for that again and again. I would. Jump on board.

Albatross

I’m not a pilot. I have no desire even to be a pilot. Sure, there was a time, back in the days when the movie Top Gun was still fresh in everyone’s mind, that I thought being a pilot would be pretty neat. That was before I joined the Navy and came to realize how much monotony is involved in flying. Yes, there’s scenery, there’s the euphoric sensation of leaving the Earth, of breaking the bonds of gravity and soaring into the heavens. Sure, there’s that. But there’s also the ever-present drone of the engines, a constant reminder that these are wings of steel which require massive amounts of thrust–just as a brick would–to keep the thing in the air. An airplane environment in the air is something completely alien to nature. It’s a world in itself in many ways. And when I’m flying I often have the sensation that I’m not entirely attached to humanity any more.

In many ways it’s like you’re riding in a delicately contained thunderstorm, or a tornado. And the realization that it could all go horribly wrong in an instant is at once a thrill as well as something akin to a death knell. But really the most disconcerting part of it to me is the sensation of the alien dimension, and the understanding that, until we land, we are entirely separated from our people, in many ways dead already. Needless to say at this point, I imagine, but thundering about at thirty thousand feet and eight hundred knots is not an entirely thrilling sensation to me. It’s boredom times separation anxiety times paranoia. I don’t have a fear of flying, I just really, really despise it.

I suppose, as with many things, that I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was me in the cockpit. I don’t like riding motorcycles when I’m not driving, nor cars. Maybe that’s a control issue, and I’m willing to own that, but for me, I can only be really comfortable if I know that I am the one whose hands are handling my fate. So, it’s not like I haven’t thought about being a pilot, I just can’t for the life of me imagine it being anything I would enjoy. After takeoff and before landing, you simply point the thing in the direction you need to go, level out your altitude, and then wait for the countless hours until you finally begin your descent. It just doesn’t sound fun to me at all.

But if I were a pilot, I can tell you unequivocally that I would be a pilot of a seaplane. A plane that would hug the Earth, not work as best it can to separate from it. A plane that could splash through cool blue Caribbean waters as easily as it posts up on the tarmac. And, for my money, there are few other planes that I would care to command as the Grumman Albatross. Part of the reason for that is because Jimmy Buffett immortalized the aircraft in his book A Pirate Looks at Fifty–a decent book at best, but made wondrous by the characterization of his adventures aboard the Hemisphere Dancer. But the biggest part of the reason is because the Albatross is one of those throwback planes, built in the ’50s it hearkens to the golden age of many things. It’s big enough to haul cargo, or you can dress it out to better resemble an RV. It makes me think that flying might not be entirely boring after all.

The Grumman Albatross is one of the most remarkable aircraft ever built, with beautiful, boat-like lines that any 18th century Post Captain of the Royal Navy would have fallen instantly in love with. I could drop her in a lake or on the sea, I could become a pirate and haul coffee, tobacco and rum to the Keys from Cuba. I could be a bush pilot in Alaska, landing hunting parties deep in the interior of the arctic wild on placid, icy, unspoiled lakes shimmering in the midnight sun. I could see Africa and India, Bangladesh and Bora Bora. I could wear khakis and a leather flight jacket and people would understand that I had been to the edge and back and was returning to the edge in a moment. I would know many ancient languages and could communicate with the bush people of the various exotic locations I would visit. I would be an adventurer of Earth. I would fly fish the Big Blackfoot in northern Montana, alone, utterly connected with the Earth in ways I have never experienced. The Albatross makes me think that flying would be uncannily cool, and if I ever finally strike it rich, you may not be surprised to find that I have purchased one and am searching the South Pacific for a remote desert island where I can disappear for a few years.

You’ll Never Walk Alone

Here’s a nice bit of trivia for you: As the characters in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy approach the ancient and presumed-abandoned planet of Magrathea, the automatic planetary defense system launches a pair of nuclear missiles at them and their fabulous ship the Heart of Gold. Eddie, the Heart of Gold’s onboard computer (imbued with GPP–Genuine People Personality), begins singing a song aloud as the missiles approach, intermittently updating the occupants with the time to impact. Now…what was the name of that song?

Answer:  You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Gerry and the Pacemakers

Youll Never Walk Alone (2002 Digital Remaster) - Gerry & The Pacemakers

In my opinion, this goes a long way to furthering the proof of Douglas Adams’s genius. What better song could there be to have sung to you when you’re on the doorstep of destruction?

Money Crazy

“What do you want to do?” she asked, lamplight flickering across her profile.

He looked at her sideways, “Whatever you want. That’s what I’ll do. I can’t deny it any more.” They were surrounded by whippoorwills in a humid Alabama night, amongst a din of crickets and frogs, sitting on a blanket an arm’s length apart. There was a lantern on the ground between them and an almost perfectly round pond.

“You’d leave them?”

He skipped a rock across the pond, watched moonlight ripple on its disturbed surface, and then he looked straight into her eyes, “I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m yours.”

She held his eyes for a few moments, but had to break away. There was something shockingly serious in them at that moment, and she didn’t want to ponder on their severity. “Those are serious words,” she said as the pond returned slowly to its placid state, with one big fat moon right in the middle of it, like a bowl of milk.

“Which ones?”

“‘I’m Yours.’”

He nodded. Damn right they are, he thought inwardly, but only said, “I mean them.”

“And all that they imply?”

“What more do you want me to say? I’m yours. They mean what they mean. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I don’t want this to end.”

She could have said, I said those words to you months ago, but she didn’t. She let the words trickle down through her consciousness and warm her like a tot of rum. They implied mighty things, for two simple words. Even more than “I love you,” which has a power all its own, but is singularly expressive. I’m yours is much more far reaching, expansive. He’d told her he loved her many times over the past few months, but he hadn’t yet told her that he was hers.

“If you’re serious, then run away with me.”

“Where to?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Anywhere. Somewhere warm.”

He sat in silence for a few moments, long enough for her to think he was changing his mind. Her lips thinned and she squeezed her eyes shut and her fists into balls waiting for him to respond.

Finally, he said, “Anguilla. I’ve never been to Anguilla.”

She nodded, her tension ebbing away like the ripples on the pond. Could there be a happy ending in all this? Could there really be? It was difficult to contain her excitement. Butterflies were churning in her stomach and a brand new, but different, form of tension began to spread through her body and mind. This was only the beginning.

He was looking at her, shaking his head and smiling a sly little grin. “What?” she asked.

“I’m kidding. I’m not moving to Anguilla.”

Her breath caught and held fast, and she felt an amazing pressure constricting her chest. But his smile was still there. “I don’t want to leave the country,” he said.

She relaxed, breathed, said, “Where then?”

“How about Mississippi?” He tossed another rock across the pond.

“Ugh. Why don’t you just buy me a moo moo and some curlers and then, while you’re at it, let me shoot myself.”

“Ha.”

She was grinning when she said, “Ha yourself. I’m not moving to Mississippi.”

“Where then? Where do you want to go?”

She nodded a few times, weighing her answer. “Actually, Anguilla doesn’t sound so bad to me. Or maybe even Mexico. So long as it’s coastal.”

“You’re serious?”

“Hell yes.”

His eyebrows raised and he put his hand over his mouth, resting his chin on his thumb. “Fuck it. Why not? When do we leave?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m leaving in the morning” she said.

“‘Summer in Anguilla,’” he intoned, nodding. “It makes sense. But how exactly are we going to pay for this?”

Summer looked at him. “Why don’t we just steal it?”

Max stared blankly for a few seconds, and then tipped his head back and laughed a full, deep belly laugh for minutes on end. Summer crawled over to him, smiling, put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back onto the grass. She straddled him, with her hands on his chest, and was still smiling down at him when he finally stopped laughing.

“So,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “We’re thieves now?”

She shrugged, in that adorable way she had.

His heart thudded insanely in his chest. He knew without a doubt that he would do anything for her, anything at all.

She leaned forward and kissed him, parting with a heavy smack at the end and smiling steadily. He realized he must have had an odd expression, because she threw her head back and chuckled softly. Again, in that beautiful, adorable way she had.

“So what are we stealing?” Max asked.

“Money, crazy.”

“Well,” he said, knowing he was at the cusp of a great adventure. “We’d better steal a lot of it.”

Luck

Luck, that intangible element of the Universe. Some people live and die by what they perceive to be their luck. Fortunes are made and lost, and here I sit, wondering how this elusive phenomena affects me personally.

I’m not a gambler. I never have been. I do like winning money, and have at times when I’ve rolled the dice, but temper that with the inevitable losing of money and the scales tip into a position I’m not comfortable with. I don’t drive down the highway flinging my money through the window, I don’t set fire to it, and I don’t gamble with it. For me, those three options are equivalents. But that doesn’t mean that luck doesn’t affect me and my world, because I’m very attuned to its perceived polarity.

For instance: I had a string of days where every time I pushed the button for the elevator at work the doors would open instantly, with no waiting involved. For those seven or eight days I was certain that I was being bombarded by cosmic love.

I measure my luck every day in some minute way. When I make the bed (weekly), I lay down the fitted sheet corner with the tag on it first, because I know which corner to fold it over for the sheet to fit right. When I pick up the sheet and grab a corner, I know it’s a lucky week if the first corner I grab has the tag. Luck decreases exponentially with every corner I grab subsequently, and if I make it all the way back to the original corner and find it there–find that I’d missed it when I first picked it up–then I know there is no cosmic love for me this week.

Getting held up by a train is a sure sign of bad luck for me. Or a bad commute in general. If I flip a coin I always pick heads–that way the cosmic love will know what I’m going to pick every time, and we don’t want to confuse the cosmic love. If it comes up tails, I know the love is out for the moment. But I can always go two out of three, best of ten…might as well just keep it going, right? Unfortunately, if the love is out I’ll invariably lose out no matter how many times I go. So I just keep it to one flip. I find that I’m a fifty percentile guy–That is, I’ve got the cosmic love half the time, and half the time I don’t. That’s a lot better than some people, probably most people, but not nearly as good as many.

There are always people who it seems the Universe just loves to heap love upon. You probably know some of them yourself. These are your high-percentage people, those who flip a coin and hit between fifty and seventy percent every time. It seems like they always draw the winning number, get the promotions, never get ticketed for speeding though they always speed.  I’ve known a few people like that, who it seemed could never do any wrong. I wonder if they can hold on to that intangible quality for their whole lives, or if it fades eventually just like everything else. Does it fade, so that their percentages drop occasionally? I assume it does for everyone, except up middle-of-the-road folks–we stay comfortably in the median, with only a little variance in polarity. But a sixty percentile person? Next year they may run into a string of forties, and that’s when you know the Universe is just shitting all over you. They may stay in the sixties for years–for a decade, even–but when they bottom out you know it’s bad. Forty-five percent is rock bottom for some. Look for suicide when the numbers drop below twenty. Nobody can bear to be out of favor with the Cosmos.

And, of course, just as the Cosmos loves some, it seems to hate others. The downtrodden, the destitute, so many people who seem to get no love, no more. It’s cyclical, of course, just as everything else is. Is our luck influenced by our personalities? If I’m a better person, does that mean my luck will be better? I think we all know the answer to that question. We’ve grown up now, and we know that all cops are not good, that all criminals are not bad…that sometimes the wrong guy hangs. Good does not always triumph over evil.

Does any of that have anything at all to do with luck? Got me. All I know is I’m on heads today, and tomorrow is a day away.

Rain

It’s been a long, rainy weekend, but I’m not complaining. The memory of the summer of ‘07 is still a bit too close behind me. When the leaves on all the trees crumbled to brown and died in midsummer and the grass was withered and tan-colored and crunched underfoot, I felt every day like a part of me was dying too. I made a little promise to myself that I would never take rain for granted again, nor curse they sky for darkening, and I pray I never see another drought like that one.

The water levels are all back up now. The trees, for the most part, survived. I did lose one of my magnolias and several hedges, but overall we fared well enough. ‘08 wasn’t exactly a deluge, but the rains did come, and they’ve been with us steadily since their return. And this weekend’s rains weren’t the crash-and-slash style full of twisters and thunder and lightning, it was a steady downpour of the cleansing kind. The kind you want to soak up and smell, the kind that leaves the black dirt moist four feet deep, the kind that encourages toads and insects into their spring nighttime song.

The rainy month is still ahead of us, but this little glut of moisture has primed the spring of my dreams. In another few weeks, the whippoorwills will begin mating and their songs will echo through the whole valley. The redbuds are already blooming, as are the willows, and the grass in my yard is gaining green every minute. I’ll be mowing next weekend.

I’m planting two peach trees and a fig in the back yard, praying the deer will leave these alone, that my last ones that they ate didn’t give them a taste for the species. But these will be closer to the house and my faithful peach guard dog Terra. Maybe she’ll keep the deer honest.

In all, I’m excited to see spring, thankful for the rain, and thankful for so many new additions in my life. My heart is so full of love I can barely contain it–it seems unfair so much can be heaped upon one set of shoulders, one heart.

Desert Island

Okay, so let’s presume I’m leaving. I’ve had it with society and I’m bound for a desert island where I can be alone, without all the distractions of “civilized” life. What should I take with me? Certainly a good sturdy knife and all the survival basics. Tools and fishing implements and such. But I’ll probably want some entertainment, too. And today I began thinking about what books I would take and, presuming I’d have the foresight to arm myself with a solar power generator, what DVDs would I take?

My first thought was that I wouldn’t have much room, so I couldn’t take everything on my shelves. I’d have to restrict myself to, say, five books and five movies. Granted, DVDs take up a lot less space than books, but I could protect the DVDs within the pages of the books, and I don’t want to damage the books by packing in too many…let’s just say five is the number.

I’d also want a variety. I love certain types of movies, yes, but I can’t say I’d take my five favorite because what if those five didn’t include a killer comedy? If I ever got in the mood for a comedy I’d be SOL. So, a variety of greats. And by great I mean GREAT. Like listening to a guitar solo by Randy Rhodes vs. one by Jack White of the White Stripes. When you listen to Crazy Train, you KNOW you’re in the presence of greatness. The White Stripes have turned out some decent tunes, but snappy tunes don’t make one great. You might as well be Men Without Hats or even the Bee Gees. Now granted, my idea of the awesomes and yours probably will be very different, but I’m talking about my favorites here. You can add yours in the comments below and tell me what a fool I am for my picks if you want to.

Also: I wouldn’t take my favorite book–The Old Man and the Sea–because I can read it in about an hour and a half. So in books I’d want longer works that I could read over and over.

Movies:

1. Napoleon Dynamite–This movie is remarkable. Every word spoken contributes to the story. There’s no filler at all, and everything ties perfectly together. Plus, it’s hilarious.
2. Pulp Fiction–So many dynamics, so much craziness, such a great movie.
3. The Lion King–IMHO, the greatest animated film. Evar.
4. Smokey and the Bandit–lowbrow humor at its absolute finest. I can laugh all day long at this classic, and I’ve seen it a dozen times and never get tired of it.
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2–You might say I’m cheating here, but to me this is just one movie on two discs. So pffft. This is my action film.
6. 1st alternate, in case one of the comedies is unavailable: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective II.

Of course, I’d probably end up with one of those Endless Beach videos and nothing else, just an endless loop of nothing but beach scenes. On my deserted island.

Books

1. The largest volume of collected Shakespeare available–I pick this because it would take me a long time to read it. There’s a lot of meat there, and if I ever did return to civilization I would impress everyone with my amazing knowledge of Shakespearean works.
2. The Bible–Not for it’s religious doctrine, mind you, but because it’s so very long. And a lot of meat to work through. I’d probably go for the KJV.
3. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams–all five books in one neat volume that I could read over and over and over and over.
4. Watership Down by Richard Adams–Such an amazing book. Thick enough to take some time to read, too. Entertaining enough to want to read over and over.
5. The collected works of Jack London–Call of the Wild, White Fang, and don’t forget the short stories like To Build a Fire. All excellent, and a little taste of winter would probably be welcome on a tropical island.

Note: If I’m not on a tropical island, I’m probably going to commit hare kare anyway.

I should probably think about taking How To Escape From a Desert Island, but that would waste my valuable space.

So, that’s my list, what’s yours?

Tribute to the Natural Woman

I usually stay away from sex talk, because I don’t think people want to hear guys talking about sex. If you do, then this blog definitely isn’t for you. Move along now. But I have an opinion on something that I wanted to share, concerning the art of the woman, and how I wish she could see herself through my eyes.

Woman, Thou Art Beautiful
I may be in the minority here, but big, giant fake tits are not appealing to me. Not attractive at all. In fact they’re kind of repulsive. And for all those women who strive to make themselves “perfect” through cosmetic surgery or otherwise doll themselves up to try their best to match a Barbie doll out of the box, I argue that they’re ruining the features that make them individually beautiful.

Granted, the laws of attraction do not apply to every single person. Just because I don’t like big giant fake tits doesn’t mean Joe Shmoe doesn’t. In fact, he probably does. But in my humble opinion, he that does will never be able to love the woman underneath. He’s in love (Love in this case is spelled L-U-S-T) with the Barbie doll facade, and I can’t believe he could bring himself to respect who she is as a woman and all her individuality and personality.

Men are attracted to their physical preferences first, sure, and in that regard I’m as guilty as the next guy. But don’t expect it to go anywhere if there’s not some level of mutual respect thrown in for good measure. There has to be substance–and saline and botox, while substances, do not qualify. I’m talking about soul. And every so-called imperfection on a woman’s body is a qualifying character mark. If I’m attracted to you, then I am, period, and no “improvements” you make are going to increase that amount of attraction. In fact, for me, they’re more likely to reduce it!

Are there exceptions? Sure there are. If you have an accident and want to get that scar worked on, I’m good with that (generally). I wouldn’t put up too much of a fight if you wanted a boob job once they stopped pointing skyward, but I wouldn’t want you to make yourself into something you never were. Don’t go crazy and overdo it. And keep in mind that you’re doing that for yourself and your own self confidence (which I am also fine with), you’re not doing it for me. Because I love you as you are. I fell in love with you because of the way you look and because of your personality. Increasing your boob size isn’t going to make me any more interested, but it may do just the opposite. And while we’re on the subject, my attraction to you isn’t something that’s going to be dampened by a scar or stretch marks or by anything else. The body of the woman is the highest form of art in the universe for a man (at least for a hetero man). And that goes doubly if I’m already attracted to you. You are greater than the Mona Lisa, greater than any other work of art ever crafted by human hands. You are priceless.

Example: Poor Pam Anderson, the girl with no self confidence. Once was a remarkably beautiful woman but thought she could make herself better. And now? There’s nothing left of the lovely girl she was, who needed no augmentation at all but who evidently couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror. She turned herself into a plastic doll, and I’m going to tell you, plastic dolls are not attractive. If anyone tells me that pre-Baywatch Pam Anderson wasn’t better looking than the current version, then I’ll know automatically that I’m talking on entirely different wavelengths with that person. And her age has nothing to do with it. If she’d aged gracefully I’m quite certain she would be just as lovely now as she was then, especially if I loved her.

The woman as art
I said before that the body of the woman is the highest form of art in the universe. Let me qualify that by saying this: As art is something that’s supposed to extract a response from the viewer, and often that response is desired to be emotional, even sexual, can there be anything more artful than the body of a woman? Nothing elicits the emotional and sexual arousal of a (hetero) man like the body of a woman in all it’s natural splendor. And if he’s already attracted to her–physically as well as mentally–then there’s nothing you can show him that he won’t find beautiful.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Labyrinth

The movie Labyrinth (1986) has a very powerful, but cryptic, plot device. It’s rarely ever realized, I imagine, because of the aura of Muppet ambiance that permeates the film. It seems like a children’s movie, and I don’t think grown ups will give it much attention, despite it’s more mature elements.

Take the dwarf-goblin Hoggle, who is recruited through devious methods by the Goblin King (Jareth) to offer Sarah, the main protag, a peach that will induce a dream-like coma, making her susceptible to the Goblin King’s temptations. Hoggle is deeply indebted and devoted to Sarah, but his fear of the Goblin King finally wins over the inner struggle, and he gives her the peach. When she takes a bite of the peach and realizes something is wrong, she asks, “Hoggle, what have you done?” And Hoggle walks away bitterly, saying, “Damn me and damn Jareth too.” Doesn’t sound much like a children’s movie there, does it?

But by far the most powerful hidden element of the film is the Goblin King’s overwhelming love of Sarah. At one point he tells her that everything she sees he created for her, and that everything he’s done he’s done because he loves her.

At the beginning of the movie, Jareth appears as a snowy white barn owl. He listens outside her window to her complaints of her sad domestic life, her frustrations, her anxiety and her dreams. And he determines to make her dreams come true, to give her an adventure that would win her heart and convince her to join him in his realm. Of course, he finds out that her dreams are mostly that, just dreams, and that she is more dedicated to her family than she’d let on–much as a fifteen-year-old girl might actually be.

For me, I imagine the Goblin King as some elder of the Universe, floating through the ebbtide of the galaxy, lighting here and there just to see what’s what. And when he finally passes by our wee blue planet, the lone voice he hears amidst all the din of  our seven billion voices, is that of Sarah, and he instantly falls in love with her. He assumes the form of an inconspicuous-yet beautiful-creature and ventures in for a closer look. I imagine I know myself how his heart strained, how he longed for her when his eyes fell upon her. I think I know it very well.

There’s room for another movie here, the story of Jareth, which was told only in abstract in the film. And to tell the truth, what I’d really like to see would be Tim Burton’s hand involved in a reproduction of the movie, rewritten to expound a bit on Jareth’s existence and motivations.

Besides all that, it’s a great children’s movie, and great for grownups too if you can get past the drag queen makeup and hair Bowie wears and the giant stuffed package he sports (in tights, no less).