Man, I’ve been swamped.  Being able to set aside 90 minutes just to watch a schlocky vampire flick felt like an accomplishment.
I woke up this morning to an interesting wrinkle.  Not to brag, but…I just got a GMail account.

It was my crazy scheme to contribute something to GMail4Troops.  I signed up for one and forgot all about it.  The first thing in my mailbox every morning is usually a posting from some mailing list or a private e-mail from a friend who hasn’t seen me since the Hyborian Age.  This time…I found an old ticket for the cyber-lottery was actually worth something.

I’ve spent the morning going on a crazy unsubscribing/resubscribing spree, convincing myself this was going to help me clear out the junk in my main mailbox.  I just hope I haven’t screwed anything up….

I wanted to put in an appearance and make a mention.  I just saw an article on Comic Book Resources reporting that comic book master Will Eisner died December 22.  I wanted to go into his contributions, but…funny how certain kinds of bad news just drains energy out of you.
Anyway, I found a Wiki article that covers the basics pretty well.

It’s like finding out Leonardo Da Vinci died.  He was that talented.  His contribution to English literature and popular art…it was that significant.

Now I know why the wind has been blowing so hard.

Jamie decided to get a totally unnecessary and much appreciated gift for yours truly — the new U2 album.
It’s screaming with a new energy and yet a recognizable passion familiar to U2 nuts like me.  I’ve been a fan of theirs since I saw concert footage of them on MTV back in January 1981.  Yeah, it was that memorable.  Seeing Bono on stage was a shock.  I got the same emotional response, amazement and awe, that I got when I first saw the Beatles.  He was like a mix of Patti Smith and John Lennon.

Here’s the beauty of what they do and Bono’s writing in particular.  Their new single, “Vertigo,” is obviously about a certain kind of confusion.  But the context, the cause, is left open to interpretation.

Hello hello (hola!)
I’m at a place called Vertigo (sorpresa!)
It’s everything I wish I didn’t know
Except you
give me something
I can feel
FEEL

Is it about personal change?  A whirlwind romance?  Political upheaval?  Spiritual crisis?

Or how about a chorus from another song,  full of poignancy and self-recrimination:

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

All I know for certain is that the emotions are genuine, the music is honest, and that the boys are at the top of their game.

And I miss you when you’re not around
I’m getting ready to leave the ground

To quote Gypsy from MST3K, “Working like a dog.”  For a wonder, I’ve been able to do a lot of catch-up.  The wretched neocon Ugnaught is no longer in my hearing range.  The NYC radio station hosting him and the rest of their demon horde of screaming heads has changed their audio stream.  So I’m getting a much needed vacation imposed on me.
But I have a lot of work ahead of me.  Lots of editing, e-mailing, scheduling, researching, note-taking.  One of these days I’ll actually get to do some writing.  God, my kingdom for an intern.

I haven’t completely bowed out of the media monitoring thing.  For one, someone has got to slay the poisonous beast that cable news has become.  Wolf Blitzer has gone from Gulf War luminary to Bushco stooge.  It should be of no surprise to anyone, I suppose.  But I was reminded of it this morning, courtesy of Media Matters for America.  If you follow the link, you’ll get an idea of why I sent this to CNN:

I’m writing in response to the November 21 installment of “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.” It’s a bitter reminder of why I stopped watching CNN on a regular basis. After this, I won’t forget again.

The Nov 21 program was brought to my attention this morning while reviewing the website for Media Matters for America. MMfA posted a transcript and, later, video excerpts of a segment with US House Representatives Loretta Sanchez, Jesse Jackson Jr, and Martin Frost along with radio personality Al Franken.

Instead of moderating the discussion, host Wolf Blitzer was leading it. Instead of eliciting opinions from his panelists, he tried to muzzle them. He was pushing a premise when he should have been testing it. He asked leading questions and repeatedly defended their subtext, often at the expense of the panel’s analyses. He had already decided that his opinion, not those of his panel, was the focus of that segment.

When panelists openly challenged the news media’s effectiveness, and specifically that of CNN, he shut them down. He didn’t explore their points or even tried to disprove them. Instead he openly dismissed them. Further, he also did a poor job of encapsulating those points, distorting or exaggerating their arguments as a result.

Mr Blitzer’s abilities as an impartial journalist have proven lackluster. Unfortunately such blatant partisanship and poor skill has become typical of the entire network. CNN has become a major source of disappointment and anger for me, a former longtime CNN viewer since 1981.

But I will win — for I am good and the Mads are evil!  But how?!?!?!

File this entry under, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”  I won’t be expending a lot of blogspace or words on the election.  Anyone who knows me can guess where I stand on it, assuming they haven’t heard me already.   No, you’ll get to dismiss my thoughts on a different topic altogether.

I need someone else to explain this to me.  I’ve been a vocal supporter of feminism for some time.  When the ERA was effectively crushed, I was stunned.  I was in junior high at the time (called “middle school” in my neck of the woods.)  But no one, not even militant feminists, has ever explained to me why the word “lady” is now an insult.

The discourse went something like this:  I refer to someone I admire as a lady.  Someone jumps on me for it; the perp usually calls me a sexist chauvinist pig.  I explain I was giving someone a compliment.  Perp says it’s an insult, not a compliment, that I was demeaning women.  This is where it all falls apart:

I ask how the word demeans women.  Instead of explaining that, Perp insists it was cruel, condescending, belittling, humiliating.

I lose patience and get confrontational.  I asked about the word.  Instead I get an emotional audit of the entire area.  When forced to admit whether he or she is reading minds, naturally Perp denies it.  The other person scrambles to regain some credibility, issuing excuses and ultimatums.  I’m picking them apart, trying to separate fact from spin.  But no explanation or definition of the word.

And it isn’t just me.  Many others don’t understand why the word “lady” is no longer acceptable.  Scroll down a bit and survey the comments with this entry of Cam Edwards’ blog.  You’ll see more than a few people, men and women, scratching their heads on this whole thing.  Consider it a testament to the confusion and rancor generated by the incoherent belligerence of poorly equipped intellectual warriors, who ransack casual conversations and social discourse like robber barons in the name of their chosen causes.

Yesterday, while smarting from the election, I got back on this issue by an on-air remark by Katherine Lanpher, Al Franken’s co-host on his Air America Radio show.  She nailed him hard about addressing someone as a lady.  Jesus, here we go again.

Feminists and pseudo-feminists have failed to educate me on this solitary point.  I decided to get to the bottom of it myself.  It took a few Google searches, playing with keywords a bit.  I found (gasp) an explanation in, of all places, the March 2000 newsletter of the Victorian and Edwardian Ladies League, with my emphasis:

Now would it have killed anyone to read up and explain that?

On the other hand, maybe folks couldn’t justify their actions.  In that context, it constitutes a socio-linguistic war, waged in the here and now, against the Victorian Age.  Modern speakers don’t use the word “lady” in the same context as the upper-class of one or two hundred years ago.  And yet we’re held to the same ancient account, plus interest, whether we made the investment or not.  That’s revisionism, the rewriting of history to better control the present.  Big Brother luvs yoo.

You can argue that the word “lady-like” is antiquated and even derogatory.  Easily.  “Lady-like” behavior has no place in the real world.  In the modern age, women must express themselves with political power and harsh words just to hold their own.   We need women with backbone, integrity, and genuine wit.

To me, that describes a woman of substance.  Someone worthy of respect.  A class act.  A lady.

Now here’s my problem.  Does that make me a terrible person?

Maybe I’ve unintentionally redefined the word.  Or maybe that’s the definition we should all use.  Should I be punished for trying?  Is the very word so dangerous that it must be completely excised from the language?  How can such oppression be justified?

Sorry, I just can’t go along with that premise.  We don’t need thought police to defend the honor of women everywhere.  That’s hypocrisy.  There is no such thing as equality through oppression.

A woman’s place is in control.  But get your foot off my throat.

I’m going to be all over the map.  Bear with me.  I need to get these thoughts and emotions out of my system.  Relax, this won’t be rant.  I’m not in the mood right now, but nobody is.  Maybe this’ll be a shellshocked tone poem or something.  I don’t know.  I just need to put this stuff…somewhere.

Neocons
I try not to demonize people, but as I continue to track their distortions, insults, and out’n’out slander, they seem less and less human.  And so do their fans.

I’m tracking this one neocon talk show host.  Thanks to a wonky CD burner, I spent the better part of yesterday scanning through 36 hours’ worth of right-wing paralogia and neocon hate speech to catch up on my work for Media Matters.   I feel as if someone’s taken a lead pipe to my soul, man.  I haven’t felt so emotionally overwhelmed in a while.

Between shrill diatribes against liberals, Europeans, and Muslims (who are all part of a conspiracy to take over the world apparently; I’ll bet you didn’t know that), grown women call up this one guy’s radio hate-fest to flirt with him and giggle like schoolgirls.  Sometimes I flash on that one piece of newsreel footage of a glassy-eyed woman wearing a Jokerfish grin at a Nazi rally.  Power is sexy.  Oversimplication and unshaking certainty are sexy, I suppose.  Maybe even blood is sexy, provided it’s on a sufficiently attractive pair of hands.

To be fair, it’s not just neocons.  I’ve seen dysfunctional support systems form up around popular people all the time, throughout the political spectrum.  Cults of personality just coagulate around the charismatic person in range, it seems.  And yet how often are the objects of such affection good people?   Instant dime-store idolators:  Just add Dark Side points.

God, how much of their souls have they surrendered to be so wretched and so proud of it?

RPGs
Doing so much work on role-playing games lately has brought back a feeling I try to avoid.  I get wistful, thinking back on those special moments that make those games unique, the sense of empowerment and awe that comes with participating–not just writing or witnessing–in adventures and worlds worthy of legend.  Die-hard gamers have war stories of derring-do, mirth, and wonder.  You get to invent your own myth.  That legendary one-liner just came from you and your friends, not Hollywood.  You get to be a hero, to test your wits and abilities, to transcend reality a bit and bond with your buds over pizza at the same time.

I haven’t been able to do that in a long time.  Jamie and I have been busy.  Even if we weren’t, the only people we know around here clearly aren’t interested in the kind of stuff I want to do.  They might try a game if they can meet Qui-Gonn or Data.  But that’s it.  No desire to explore a new world, meet mythical beings, or show that we have in ourselves to be just as magical.

It’s a sad world when even dreams become the property of the corporate sector.

Trekdom
Speaking of which, I’ve been getting curious about “Enteprise” lately.   Anticipating the season-opener, I started catching up on past eps.  It’s just modern Trek again, isn’t it?  I didn’t go in expecting Theodore Sturgeon or anything, but it’s all formula.  “Cue the interrogation scene.  Okay, Big-Bad, gloat at your prisoner.  Good.   Cue the hero.  Spit in the interrogator’s face in five, four, three, two…good!  Cut to camera two.”

I might watch, but I’m at a disadvantage from the start.  So far I can see every punch before someone throws it.  I suppose this is when someone yells at me for not turning my brain off before the movie starts.  I keep getting wake-up calls and apparently it’s disturbing everyone else’s viewing experience.

Depression
I’ve been painfully aware of its presence in my life again, probably from the sheer psychic assault of all the neocon screaming heads.  Circumstances haven’t been the easiest either, but to complain or vent about it only invites mockery.  Didn’t I know that life was supposed to be so grueling or miserable?

Anger seems to be my first defense against it.  That only makes sense.  More often than not, depression is what happens when you sit on your emotions for too long.  That’s why it’s so exhausting.  You had to cut off those power sources, stifling parts of yourself.  And anger is a defense mechanism.  It’s sadness with a sword and shield.  And let’s face it.  Anger is more respectable than sadness.

(Is there any wonder we glorify violence?  “Hey, Governator, what are the best things in life?”  “Kicking girly-men arse.”)

It’s not easy to go out into the outside world, but it’s the only way to feel the wind or the sun on your face.  That sounds lame especially here in the land of liquid sunshine.  I can’t avoid the truth of it though.

I was reminded of that when I gave a neighbor a misaddressed package meant for them.  Nice guy, nice lady.  Everyone there shook my hand and thanked me.  Even their one-year-old son.  When he shook my hand, his hand barely made it around my forefinger.  He even had a Spider-Man shirt on.  Always a good sign.

I don’t have the time or energy I’d like right now, otherwise I’d be able to do the rounds, say hi to everyone, help people with their writing (always important, if you ask me) and perk a few folks up wherever I can.  I just get worn down sometimes.   I wish I had more time.

Not to mention a speeder bike.

Behold–I return from the wilderness.  Nope, no holy tablets though.  No souvenirs either.

For those who weren’t in the loop, I took an extended leave from cyberspace to chase a writing gig at Mongoose Publishing, the publishers of several role-playings including Babylon 5, Conan (which is fantastic), and the new edition of Paranoia.

The final verdict?  I just couldn’t meet the deadline.  I’ve been getting some nasty leg cramps for the last week or so, and even got a prescription of quinine for it.  Quinine…the stuff they used to use for malaria?!  Yup, the same.  One dose really messed up too.  My legs felt great, but the rest of me felt like I’d just had a nasty visit from Torquemada.  By mid-afternoon I couldn’t even type.  There were other things, the new kittens and some of the health problems they were having.  Minor ones, thank God.  Earlier in August, we also had a long humid heatwave run through here.  It sounds like a lot of excuses, but I was genuinely off my game these last few weeks.

I didn’t just leave it at that, though.  Jamie’s been a real trooper, pulling for me and backing me up on whatever I had to do.  And I really wanted the gig.  Writing for B5, Lone Wolf, Conan or whatever and getting paid?  I was sleeping a few hours a night for the last two weeks.  Last night I stayed up till 4am, throwing ice water into my face, on the hour, every hour. Then I went back to the keyboard and typed like crazy, crunching d20 stats and data as I went.

I wanted it bad, but I had to be realistic.  I  wasn’t going to make the deadline no matter how good I was.  Exhausted, in constant pain.  50 pages in just a couple hours?  Nah.  I learned a while back I had to forgive myself for having limits.  I send a short e-mail to Mongoose.  I figured I’d be lucky if they asked to see what I had so far, but there’s no reason to.

I didn’t get the job, but Jamie and I ended up achieving something more important.  We proved to each other that, despite all our missteps and nightmarish failures, we’re still a good team.  In sports, people would call it a character-building defeat.  You can have a good team, a good driver, the best technology, the best skills…and still have a bad day.  I think that’s what we’re having now.

Okay, so we get to live and fight another day.  The next battlefield will probably be more Afterhell, maybe a novel.  So we lost a battle.  We’ll win the war.

Just thought I’d try out the new settings.  It’s a good excuse anyway.

My submission for Mongoose Publishing is really behind.  I’m guesstimating that I need to do at least 12,000 words today to make up for lost ground.  I was getting some nasty, nasty leg cramps last night which put me completely off my game.  My doctor has written up a ‘script for quinine, of all things.  The stuff they used for malaria?  Sheesh.

Not sure why this has flared up.  The RNCC, a veritable goulash of hypocrisy and meanspiritedness, has been going on all week.  The news media has given up its roll-over-and-play-dead routine and gone straight to lovin’ on the legs of neocons.  Here in the real world, Jamie and I are trying to keep fleas off the new litter of kittens.  Most of the last five weeks have been hot and muggy, especially at night.  It seems I have so many reasons to choose from.  [shrug]  Well, I thought it was worth a laugh.

A few quick tidbits for folks, if it ever comes up in their own lives.

• At the RNCC last night, Ahnod the Governator was lying up his carefully crafted backside.  Apparently honesty isn’t counted among the rarely codified and loudly touted family virtues.  Don’t let anyone get away with stuff like that.  Pin them down.
• This has been bugging me for some time.  I’m one of several people monitoring right-wing media for Media Matters for America.   The neocon screaming head I’m tracking is a shrill, detestable  little gnome by the name of Mark Levin.  If you ever hear someone sing his praises, get that person to a professional cult deprogrammer immediately.  Those of you who follow the ISA Phoenix Babylon 5 PBEM might have witnessed a caricature of him just recently.  Sorry, I had to get it out of my system.

Anyway, I wanted to get all that out.  I don’t want to bog folks down in a rant.  It’s a time-honored cyberpunk tradition, but I’m not sure if I have the energy for a good old-fashioned Johnny Storm moment anyway.

In case people haven’t heard already, the object of King Kong’s affections has gone to the Mann’s Chinese Theater in the sky.   Here are a few links:

I saw the original 1933 King Kong just a few weeks ago, and inadvertently renewed my childhood crush on her all over again.  I’d forgotten what a good actress she was, the way she expressed an ongoing struggle between tenacity and vulnerability.  For many years after, she had to reconcile herself to the shadow that King Kong cast over her career, and finally did so with charm and aplomb.  In fact she’d even become friends with director Peter Jackson when he took the reins of the King Kong remake.  She might not be here, but she’s radiant somewhere.

A quick postscript:  I prefer to keep Afterhell as non-partisan as possible, but I had to throw this bit of synchronicity in.  While I was writing up this entry, the second hour of the Al Franken Show started with a horror-oriented intro complete with John Carpenter’s theme for Halloween.  Oh man, I hope they do that again when October 31 comes around!

I just heard that Jackson Beck has died at the age of 92. He lent his voice to many characters, probably numbering up into the thousands if you count commercials, of which he did many, for everything from Chesterfield cigarettes to Little Caesar’s pizza. You know that “Pizza Pizza” snip? That was Beck.

He was the voice of Bluto in Popeye cartoons, Philo Vance in a rather well done detective drama in the late forties, and did dozens of narrator roles in radio, film and television. They ranged from “Faster than a speeding bullet!” for the Superman radio and TV shows, to “On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence …” for The Odd Couple TV show, to the narrator of Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run.”

Beck’s work has become a part of our popular culture to the point where we probably don’t even notice it, and I thought it appropriate to make note of his passing here.