Bright Lights. Big Cities. Pretty Ladies.

In many ways I suppose I'm a recovering professional wrestling fan. Call it yet another Saturday morning habit that I never grew out of. One of my earliest memories with my best friend & future best man was watching him mimic Pedro Morales' convulsions after being thrown out of the ring on his head by Greg "The Hammer" Valentine when we were both about 7 years old. My grandfather was also a huge fan, and one of the ways we bonded was that he would take me with him to the live events at what used to be called the Baltimore Civic Center.

But, of course, Wrestlemania was different. It was always a huge event in some huge venue, and, in the days before pay per view, if you couldn't get a ticket, your only option was to go to some hall where they'd be projecting it on a movie screen in closed circuit TV. So, Granddaddy took me with him to see Wrestlemania IV on the closed circuit, where the main event was a tournament for the WWF World Championship. In the end, the winner, and my favorite to win the night, was The Macho Man, Randy Savage.



The Macho Man died in a car accident yesterday, and the world is definitely poorer for having lost his unique brand of craziness. I was always a fan, and I'll miss him.

But, as I think back to that show, something really awful dawned on me.

Here's the card from that night back in 1988:
* Bad News Brown (DEAD - Heart Attack) won a 20-man battle royal, including the Junkyard Dog (DEAD - Car Accident), Bred Hart, Harley Race, and others
* Don "The Rock" Muraco def. Dino Bravo (DEAD - Gunshot)
* Greg Valentine def. Ricky Steamboat
* One Man Gang def. Bam Bam Bigelow (DEAD - Drugs)
* Ravishing Rick Rude (DEAD - Drugs) fought Jake "The Snake" Roberts to a draw
* The Ultimate Warrior def. Hercules Hernandez (DEAD - Heart Failure)
* Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant (DEAD - Heart Failure) were both disqualified
* Brutus Beefcake def. The Honkytonk Man by disqualification
* The Islanders, Haku & Tama, and Bobby Heenan def. Koko B. Ware and the British Bulldogs, Davey Boy Smith (DEAD - Heart Attack + Drugs) and The Dynamite Kid (PARALYZED)
* Demolition def. Strike Force
* The Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase def. Hacksaw Jim Duggan, then Don Muraco
* The Macho Man, accompanied by Miss Elizabeth (DEAD - Drugs) def. The Natural Butch Reed, Greg Valentine, The One Man Gang, and Ted Dibiase to become the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion

Let's not even get into the long list of wrestler deaths in between (Mr. Perfect, Crash Holly, Eddie Gilbert, Owen Hart, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Louie Spiccoli, Rocco Rock, Johnny Grunge, etc.)

There's something terribly wrong when something that's supposed to be fake, pre-determined violence leads to so much death.  As much as I enjoyed it, I can't help but wonder did I, as a fan, contribute to many of these deaths by encouraging this insane lifestyle?

It's entirely too sad.

That said, I have a treasure trove of fond memories, both of the shows, and what they meant to my family, so, for that, I am eternally grateful to The Macho Man and his friends.

Thank you, Randy Savage. There will never be another one like you.  Rest in peace.

The Darker Side

I'm a pretty sociable person, so, when I first arrived at the American Film Institute, most of my classmates just assumed that I wrote comedies.

And then we had our first cold reading session, where we essentially bring in a bunch of actors to sit on stage and just read your script as if they were in some sort of radio program.  The piece that I'd submitted was a short film script called "Recipe for Disaster", which is all about a pair of mob accountants who're trying to kill their mob lawyer buddy over dinner before he can inadvertently reveal to their bosses that they've been embezzling.  The murder plot involves a pot roast, plyers, and a potato peeler, and the characters all gleefully bounce around each other like something out of a 50's sitcom.

When it was all said and done, one of my classmates looked at me, shook his head, and said, "You're sick."

Like Garth Brooks said, I blame it all on my roots.  As I've said about 6 years ago in my blog post about Eli Roth's Hostel, I love horror, starting with my Dad's fascination with "monster movies".  October is probably my favorite month of the year for movies, because all of the new horror flicks premiere while all of the old ones get their just due in constant rotation on cable TV.  I remembered being terrified of the little vampire boy outside the window in the TV version of "Salem's Lot", which, for my money, is still Stephen King's scariest novel.  I used to burn through King novels like mad in high school.  I think I read "It" in a week.  And THEN I discovered Clive Barker and HP Lovecraft, where horror wasn't just bound by what you could see and touch and feel.  There were other things, and other worlds too terrible to imagine.

My favorite Lovecraft stories always seem to have a moment where the main character sees.... something, and says "and in that moment, I went insane."

And, in those moments, I'm reminded of John Carpenter's commentary on the Saw movies:  he finds them all incredibly funny.  And, frankly, so do I.  Just like Re-Animator, or the moment when the alien head grows legs and tries to run away in The Thing.

Did I mention that I have a soft spot for Metallica, too?

Like King said, I've had all of these ideas bouncing around in my head, and frankly, why wait to see them in film form?  They're stories.

Which is why I've decided to just write.  Like Poe and Shelley and Bram Stoker and all of those other storytellers who predate the moving picture.

So, I've concocted this gruesome little tail that begins with a pair of hitmen killing each other.  It's called "I'll See You In Hell", and, if you're curious about the plot, remember that my favorite Clive Barker movie is "Hellbound: Hellraiser II".

 If you'd like to read it, you can buy it and get it in electronic format from my friends at Amazon.com.  See?
My friends, not only would I appreciate you buying it and sharing it with your horror loving friends (and I mean that seriously, because it's not for the faint of heart), but it would also be a massive help if you did the following:

• Go to the page for my short story on Amazon.com and click the "Like" button.
• Rate it (five stars, please)
• Comment on it (which would probably require you reading it, but that's up to you).
• share it on your own Facebook page
• and, for those of you with Twitter, watch for my tweet and re-tweet it.
• And, if you're feeling REALLY helpful, go to my author page at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004YXN65U and do the same (like, post to Facebook, tweet, etc.)

And for those of you who don't have Kindles, don't worry: you can download it to your computer or your smart phone as well, too.

This is the first in a series of short stories I'm writing for the Kindle marketplace, the vast majority of which are  going to be horror, sci-fi, and genre pieces, so keep an eye on my author page, Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, Macroscope, for the updates.

Thank you all for being such a good audience over the years here at Macroscope.  I hope some of you will follow me down this new path.  It may be scary, but I'm pretty sure it will be worth it.

I Write

Just the other day, I encouraged one of my students to start posting daily on Facebook so that she can become more comfortable with sharing her work with the public.  She called her first post "I am a Writer", and frankly, I was a bit inspired by her affirmation.

That phrase is something that I've said for years to justify or explain away my behaviors and proclivities.  Why I can't wait to tell, basically, anyone anything.  I suppose, at a level, it's a love for the sound of my own voice, regardless of the medium, but it I think it's also something deeper.

My uncle died when I was about 6 years old, and after the funeral, I had a bit of a morbid curiosity for the program, his obituary in particular.  As I read about his life, I began to imagine what those moments were like: growing up in Cambridge, MD; joining the Army; getting married and starting a family.  I had the entire scene in my head.  For reasons that are really beyond me, I was compelled to draw these images and, essentially, make a picture book companion for this obituary.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, "Wow, I had know idea his craziness started that early."  And, if that's the case, boy, you're really in for something on my next post.  But more about that later.

I shared this picture book with my folks, and my mother, bless her heart, photocopied it and started sharing it with her coworkers.

My very first publisher.  :-)

I've always written.  It's in my DNA somewhere.  I come from a family of storytellers.  Some who like to hold court in the middle of a crowd, holding sway like a gladiator at the center of the colosseum.  Others who like to lean over tables and tell secrets in quiet.   But the story is always an act of sharing.  Sharing feelings, news, affections, horrors, tributes, rebukes...

Film, to me, is just another form of writing.  But there are other forms that are more essential, more primal.  No one ever needs to give you permission to write.  Not the public, not a publisher, certainly not a movie studio or producer.  To paraphrase Talib Kweli, if you can talk, you can write.  And that's not just a statement on capability.  That is your birthright.

Seven Last Words

HE died for you.  Sunday, HE lives.

Jesus Dies on the Cross
The Greatest Story Ever Told at MOVIECLIPS.com

First Amendment Remedies

A very brief comment about the revolution we just saw in Egypt:

There's a reason why freedom of speech, religion, and public assembly come first in the Bill of Rights, before the right to bear arms.

THOSE are the things that are the basis of your freedom.  Not a weapon.

The founding fathers knew it.  Gandhi knew it.  MLK knew it.  And it looks like the people in the Middle East are starting to figure it out.

In the age of intercontinental ballistic missiles, your 9mm cannot guarantee your freedom.

Only the courage of your convictions and the purity of your ethics has the power to do that.

One is just an emblem of your fear.  The other is a symbol of strength unfailing.

Sleep on that a bit, patriots.

Congratulations, Egyptians.

Conspiracy of Dunces

So, a few things about this year's crop of candidates.

The other night, Rachel Maddow mentioned a GOP Senate candidate who makes a point of telling his supporters that he can't pronounce names like "Sotamayor". Or "Ahmadinejad".  Or "Chu".  It's always a big laugh line for him.  To this day, Sarah Palin is OFFENDED that Kathy Couric had the nerve to ask her what newspapers she reads.

Now, there are other conservatives who at least recognize that creating the appearance of education is a good thing.  Christine O'Donnell tried to pretend she went to Princeton and Oxford. But, I can tell you for a fact that there are no mice with human brains running around the Evolutionary Biology department at Princeton.  Now, Glenn Beck is trying to create his own university, with classes on Faith, Hope, and Charity.

I think about the creationists, who've now retreated into the realm of "intelligent design", which basically breaks down like this: a lot of really complicated things happened to create the universe, and I don't understand it, but since it all works, there MUST be some intelligence behind it.

I know studying and reading and learning aren't exactly easy.  But, since when did willful ignorance become a virtue?

Why are people now PROUD to proclaim that they don't know things?  Why are people ANGRY when you suggest that they should read more?

I know I'm weird, right?  Because I'm an obsessive researcher.  I love to know, well, everything.  So I study like crazy.  But I'm not asking people to be like me.  I'm just asking people to, I don't know, learn something.

I mean, if you got on a plane, you wouldn't want the guy who is proud that he doesn't know anything about aerodynamics or flight controls or, well, flying, to actually pilot the plane, right?   I mean, no, I don't know how to fly, but I'm not insisting that the pilot be as ignorant as I am about flying just so I don't feel, what, inadaquate as we're soaring at 30,000 feet.

So why are we so ready to vote for "the guy I could have a beer with".  Christine O'Donnell says "vote for me because I'd do what you'd do".

No!  I want someone who'd do what someone who knows more about these kind of things than me.  At least it gets done right.  My pride is not so fragile that I need to see the country go down the tubes just so I can say to my congressman "I could do your job".

I remember reading Bill Bradley's book, "Times Present, Times Past", where he talked about his involvement in the US Senate with water management legislation in California, which is a stupidly complex thing involving land rights, aquaduct construction & management, and a ton of other things I know nothing about.  The end result is that clean water comes out of my tap.  I WANT someone smart about these issues in there making the decisions.

Representative government means representing my interests, not replicating my own stupidity.

Wake up, people!

But the reality is that all of these GOP/Tea Party loons are just a big distraction.  There are people who fundamentally don't believe in government who support these clowns, because the government is all that stands between them and a state of nature, which is what they really want.  There are some economically powerful people who want all of the laws to go away so that we're returned to a world where only the strong survive, because they figure they're strong and they'll win.  They want you to think that government doesn't serve a purpose, or is only worthy of clowns, charlatans, and con men.  And, frankly, I think those people are just fundamentally unAmerican, because the end result of such a world is feudalism.

A conservative I greatly respect is David Frum.  I don't agree with his philosophies or political agendas, but I admire his firm faith that government is a place where the country can be made better.  And he's commented on his blog several times that many of these so-called candidates from the GOP lately actually have no interest in running the country.  Mike Huckabee and Palin and O'Donnell are only in the race so they can get their own TV shows later on some network that pays them a lot of money.

Serving in public office is a privilege that carries a heavy responsibility.  If you believe in your principles, you should want to be the sharpest, smartest, most logically & legislatively sound public official you can be.  Frankly, I wish there were more David Frums.

Don't Let will.i.am Destroyed America!

Remember this video?



And how we were all so inspired and fired up and ready to go two years ago?

I may have mentioned this in a previous blog post, but it's worth repeating:

I had a dream back in February of 2009, about month after the inauguration. In the dream, I was at Camp David during a snow-covered winter night, interviewing President Obama for this very blog.

I kid you not.

And after he'd given me the walking tour of the place and introduced me to the First Lady (where, I'm sure, if it had been in real life, I would have traded a few stories with her about the old Third World Center at Princeton), I stopped him and asked him if there was anything he wanted to say directly to my readers. And the President's words were, and I quote:

"Keep dreaming. But be ready to do the work."

I'm reminded of John F. Kennedy's speech about the moon landing.

"We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

The easy part, my friends, was electing Obama.

When it was all a wonderful silly dream about how amazing we could make this country.

But the fact of the matter is, it's a lot of freakin' work. And I don't have to tell you that work, frankly, sucks. It's tiring and time consuming and it takes away from all the games you want to play and all the movies you want to watch.

But laziness has a very high cost.

My point is, things are very hard in the country right now. And we keep hearing about this so-called enthusiasm gap, where all of the energy appears to be with the people who are so mad that Obama's not a magician and can just make 30 million jobs and trillions of dollars in debt to China and a crappy infrastructure and political corruption disappear by wiggling his nose like Samantha on "Bewitched".

And THESE fools would rather that Obama stop, so we can keep on losing 700,000 jobs a month, like we were back when I had that dream.

I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to all of you who watched that will.i.am song and decided that I should vote for Obama because it would be kewl.

To Hell with Kewl. This country still needs your help. We're moving, very slowly, in the right direction, but we need to continue to have a supportive congress and local government to make it happen.

Obama's not officially on the ballot next month, but everything that he and his supporters have bled to put into law is. And all of the positive things that have been done and could be done are in jeopardy.

Are you really telling me that just because will.i.am didn't call up all of his celebrity buddies to make a new video for this midterm election, you don't have a beat you can dance to that can take your butt into a voting booth next month?

Do we really have to have theme music before we can get to work and save the country?

Just because the Black Eyed Peas aren't inspired to make this election entertaining, that's not an excuse, people!

Click the link in the title of this blog, find out who's on the ballot locally, and VOTE!

And email 20 other people you know and make sure they vote! And tell them to do the same.

Our country is literally dancing on the precipice.

Things I Didn't Know About Black America: Shirley Sherrod

So, I'm not going to get into the guts of this whole Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Breitbart fiasco.

But what I will say is, I think the sister has a serious point when she said she'd like to talk to the President about what he doesn't know about the history of Southern Black America.

One of my very good friends invited me to come along with him this summer to tour civil rights era sites throughout the south.  And, in my smugness, I said "dude, I'm Black from Maryland - my family LIVED the civil rights movement.  I don't need to be a tourist."

That said, Maryland is very much the line state.  There was terrible racism and race terrorism there, of course.  But it wasn't really the epicenter of Jim Crow like, say, Alabama, Mississippi, or Georgia during the 50's & '60's.

I don't really know.  And just because I'm Black doesn't mean I know by default.

And neither does President Obama, who, as far as I can tell, has yet to visit any of those Southern states since the election.

My Jewish friends have quite skillfully laid claim to the term "never again" in the face of the Holocaust, and I have yet to meet a young Jewish person who doesn't have some vivid living memory handed down to them by parents & grandparents & great grandparents about why they need to be both eternally vigilant and eternally better than the examples of their oppressors.

How did our history get lost, Black America?  Why aren't we talking to the Shirley Sherrods and Bill Cosbys and Dick Gregorys and Harry Belefontes and Ruby Dees and, yes, Clarence Thomases and Condolezza Rices, about how we always remember, always honor, and always excel despite the horrors?

Things I Didn't Know About Black America: Clarence Thomas

Thanks to my fellow netizen Brokenbeatnik, I came across the Washington Post article about the opinion Clarence Thomas wrote supporting the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Chicago's anti-handgun law as an unreasonable restriction of the 2nd Amendment.

Now, ordinarily, I'm not big on gun rights (after all, as my brother always says, nobody in the hood manufactures Uzis), and I'm really not crazy about Clarence Thomas, but I've gotta say, he really caught my eye with this opinion.  If you look at the nearly 20 page paper he wrote, you see that his vigorous defense of 2nd amendment rights is founded in his own first hand experience, I'm sure, of growing up in the Jim Crow South.

Cue Wikipedia again.

I didn't realize that Thomas' home town was founded by freed slaves, or that Gullah (or Geechee) was the spoken language in his home.  I didn't realize the man didn't live in a house with in-door plumbing until he was 7 years old.  I didn't know that he dropped out of seminary after hearing his classmates celebrating Martin Luther King's assassination.

If I did, I shouldn't have been surprised that, in his mind, the Federally protected right to own a gun, unabridged by a local or state authority, was the only think protecting him & his family (heck, even his whole home town) from organized, often local government sanctioned, white racist terrorism from the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and God knows what else.  Justice Thomas practically echoes Rob Brown's book "Negroes With Guns", a tome of self defense that became the cornerstone of Huey Newton's thinking in founding the Black Panther Party.  I have huge problems with many of Brother Clarence's votes, and I'll disagree with him with a lot of things, but I doubt I'll ever question the sincerity of his intentions again.

It reminds me of how I used to think of Condolezza Rice:  she grew up with the same four Black little girls who were murdered in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963 that Spike Lee featured in his documentary "Four Little Girls".  I used to think, "How can she not be more super-pro-Black nationalist after having lived through the horrors of that era?"

But Thomas reminds me that, while many Black folks were radicalized by the internal terrorism of the late 50's and '60's, just as many were raised in households more aligned with Booker T. Washington's thinking than, say, my man W.E.B. DuBois.  That the best revenge was success & dignity in the face of the terror, and those children like Clarence Thomas or Condolezza Rice or Colin Powell owed it to the people who died to reach and strive as far as they could.  So many radicals who didn't have access to the opportunities they had ended up dead, incarcerated, or ostracized.

Huey Newton?  H. Rap Brown?  These are not stories with happy endings.

But are those the only choices?

One could argue that Clarence, Condolezza, & Colin and many others like them earned their success by turning their backs on the broader Black community.  Yes, they're all involved in charity and philanthropy, but when decisions were made in their midsts regarding economic policy, war policy, social policy, and the like that had a direct impact on African Americans at large, did they really do all that they could to protect their voiceless brothers and sisters?

I don't know.

Just like I don't know what sort of sacrifices they had to make in order to reach their positions.  Does their mere presence in those positions carry more weight than their actions while in those positions?

My generation came of age in the post-"Black is Beautiful" era.  We take our ethnic pride and abilities as a given.  But that has not always been the case.  Folks like Clarence and Ward Connerly and others carry the scars of de-legitimacy to this day.  And the memories of the horror probably never go away.

I find myself thinking a lot about "The Spook Who Sat By The Door" as I read about Clarence Thomas this week.

Just getting to the door has been so hard for so many.  But does simply sitting there make it easier for others to join you and/or walk through?  Or are you responsible for wedging it open, no matter the personal cost?

Things I Didn't Know About Black America: Supermax

I grew up in a house with three sets of encyclopedias, which, of course, means, today, I am a compulsive researcher.

Or, as one of my friends from the all-girl's private school around the corner from my all-boy's private school once said, "You're such a little bibliophile."

Whenever I learn about something new that I can't really talk about in some detail and great length, the first thing I do is look it up on Wikipedia.

But through an odd confluence of inputs over the last few days, I find myself knee deep in the recent history of African Americans here in these United States.  So, here's the first in a series of web research diversions into my own cultural & ethnic history...
---------
I was watching Zombieland, and was wondering what else Woody Harrelson was up to as a part of his recent career resurgence.  Cue wikipedia - turns out Woody's dad was a contract killer who died in supermax prison on conviction for taking out a Federal judge and occasionally bragged that he was one of the dudes on the grassy knoll who helped take out JFK.

Crazy, right?

Realizing that I didn't really know what constituted a supermax prison (in short, solitary confinement for everybody 23 hours out of the day and no interaction with any other prisoners), I followed the links to to ADX Florence, the only supermax federal penitentiary.  And the current inmate list reads like a who's who of enemies of the state: FBI double agent Robert Hansen; the shoe bomber; the unabomber; the 1996 Olympic park bomber; Oklahoma City accomplice Terry Nichols; the guy who masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing; H. Rap Brown.

H. Rap Brown?!?

Wasn't he supposed to be one of the heroes of the civil rights movement?  Shows how little I know, right?

Cue wikipedia again.

Turns out the brother, one of the founding fathers of the original Black Panther Party for Self Defense (yes, let's get the full name right, folks), had converted to Islam and attempted to become an arbiter of peace of sorts.... until two cops got shot up trying to serve him an arrest warrant (one died) and he fled the scene in a bullet-ridden Mercedes.

In reading this, I realized I'd confused him with Eldridge Cleaver.  Probably because they'd both written books about being Black and radical in America in the 1960's (Brown's "Die, Nigger, Die" and Cleaver's "Soul On Ice").  Honestly, I only really knew about them from Mario Van Peebles' movie "Panther".  Oddly enough, Cleaver had become a born-again Christian and a right wing Republican in his old age before he died.  Brown, for his part, had originally been involved with SNCC - the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee - who helped organize the Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, and the March on Washington, before interference from law enforcement and increasing threats of violence led to a schism in the group.  They had to change their name because, as one leader said at the time "I don't know how much longer we can stay nonviolent.

But, still: a supermax prison?  That guy is still considered an enemy of the state on the level of a traitorous enemy agent and Al Qaeda operatives?  Really?

More to come on these.  In the meantime, if you're not familiar with the history of SNCC, The Panthers, and the crazy political climate of the late 60's & early '70's, you may want to check some of these out:

Dreaming about Bond

According to the article above, Christopher Nolan wants to direct a James Bond movie.


We can dream, right?  


Of course, LOTS of big name directors have wanted to do Bond, but have not.  Spielberg wanted to right after JAWS but was denied, which eventually led him & George Lucas to create Indiana Jones.  Tarantino wanted to, but was denied.  


Recently, they've gone the prestige director route, with Marc Forster (FINDING NEVERLAND & MONSTER'S BALL) on QUANTUM OF SOLACE and Sam Mendes (AMERICAN BEAUTY) waiting on deck.  But I suspect the producers don't want a celebrity director for fear that his name may compete with Bond himself.

Silly, right?

Maybe if the Brocolis deny Nolan, too, it will give birth to another totally original action film franchise.


Frankly, I want to see a modern Bond film that really touches on the original flair with a modern twist.  If you look at all of the old '60's Bond movies, they're action movies wrapped within the corridors of the super-duper rich.  

I want to see bullet-time fights on the ski slopes of Chourchevel.  I want to see Bond steal a girl from Raffaello Follieri and manslap the Sultan of Brunei at baccarat.  I want to see an Aston Martin DBS V12 speed chasing through the streets of Dubai.  


Can we get that?

Building The Next World

So, this is an open call among my various Macroscope readers.

Given all of my belly-aching recently about the general weakness of sci-fi films these days due to their lack of sci-fi lit foreknowledge, I've decided to put my money where my mouth is.  I've had a bunch of different sci-fi story ideas bouncing around in my head, and I think I'm just going to write one of them as a short story.

Who wants to join me?

In other words, I'd like to challenge my other screenwriting fellows out there (and, frankly, anyone else wo wants to jump on board), to write a sci-fi short story between now and, say, the start of Comic-Con 2010 on July 22nd, 2010.

And by "sci-fi" I mean based on some sort of actual science speculation or imagination.  And that's a really broad term.  I mean, technically speaking "Flowers for Algernon" is sci-fi.

And by "short" I mean less than 7500 words (the limit to be eligible for the Nebula Awards, I might add).

I'd love to get a head count to see who's in, and then we'll figure out what sort of forum or format we want to share these stories with the public (maybe some sort of blog governed under a creative commons license, perhaps).

And feel free to share this with whomever else you like that you think would be up for the challenge.  The more the merrier.

So, show of hands?

Some final thoughts about "Lost"

So, I know many of my readers out there are fans.  Here are some things that come to mind, now that the finale's been marinating in my mind for a week now.  Beware of spoilers.  Brain dump commencing:

• First of all, I thought the finale was beautiful, and recasts the entire run of the show in an entirely new light.  Done right, I think the way you end a story tells you what it's actually been about from the beginning.  Just like Battlestar Galactica: they told you in the very first episode what the whole series is about when Adama asks "why are we, mankind, worth saving".  In the same way, "Lost" told you very early on in the catchphrase "Live together, die alone."
• Then again, I'm a bit bothered by the shifting motivations for Jacob & The Man in Black.  I mean, is Jacob trying to convince the Man in Black that humanity is worth saving to convince him not to leave the island?  Good luck with that.
• I love the intermeshing (if that's really a word) of the mystical and the sci-fi.  Electromagnetism as a catch all for all the weird time & space distortions on the island.
• I really love the resolution of Ben's story.  After all the horrible things he's done, he ready does still have some work to do, doesn't he?  :-)
• So, Miles, Kate, Frank, Sawyer, Claire, & Richard all escape.  Somehow, I don't think this "Ajira Six" is going to get the same treatment as their predecessors.  Can you imagine Frank trying to explain what happened to the other 40+ passengers on his plan?  Can you say "jail time"?  And, really, where are these others going to go from here?  I suppose Kate becomes Claire's nursemaid, which means Sawyer probably won't stay to far away, which means Miles won't stay to far away either.  Richard's path would be the most interesting after this.
• Jack's story, while triumphant, is, ultimately, a very sad one.  I mean, yes, he sacrificed himself and saved the world & all that, but only because he realized that he had nothing else.  Whatever Jacob had set in motion for Jack at the very beginning had stripped his soul completely naked and left it laying in the street.  Of course he'd take that job!  Hurley still has a family that loves him.  Kate has a child.  Sawyer's too bitter.  I felt really sad about what he'd come to by the end, despite his resolution in the afterlife.
• And don't even get me started on John Locke!  I suppose his demise ultimately served the purpose of catalyzing Jack, but, man, talk about the suffering of Job!
• I LOVE the final confrontation with the Man in Black.  May trump Sayid vs. Keamy as the best fight in the series.  Just absolutely epic.

But, at the end of the day, the true triumph of the show is that they could accomplish something so vast & complex, but still make it ultimately in service of character, above all else.  In many ways, Lost is the opposite of "The Wire", where story trumps all, especially character.

In short, a masterpiece of TV story telling.  As far as genre shows go, very little can even touch it.

But, if you're a fan of Lost and you haven't watched the new "Battlestar Galactica", you are really doing yourself a disservice.  The plot is not as complex, but the seriousness of the storytelling and the authenticity of character & performance are on the same level as "Lost".  It's equally spiritual, and, like Lost, you don't realize just how much until the end.

Actually, now that I think about it, "BSG" is kind of the mutant love child of "Lost" and "24", because it's just as ruthless as Jack Bauer's home town, and just as political, but still is a good solid genre show firmly based in characters.

Lost rocked.  I'll miss it.

What are your favorite sci-fi novels?

Statement of the obvious:  I'm a geek.

Always have been.  Always will be.  And I wear it proudly.

Heck, when I was in middle school, instead of joining Columbia House, I joined the Sci-Fi Book Club, where a new science fiction novel was shipped to my house to read every month.

Last week, the New York Times magazine published an article where the interviewed top authors in various genres and asked them to list their favorite books in their own genres.  The one that caught my eye was William Gibson, author of the famed cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer"and his list of science fiction novels.

Now, long time readers of Macroscope know I've had a bit of a bee in my bonnet over the years about how modern day science fiction film seems stuck in "Blade Runner", largely because most sci-fi screenwriters today only reference other films instead of actually reading sci-fi fiction like their predecessors in the 60's & '70's.  And, frankly, I criticize them because I am one of them.  I've not read nearly as many classics in sci-fi as I would like, and I would really hope to change that.

If nothing else, how can you go beyond what's been done if you don't know where the edge is?

So, with that in mind, I'm curious to know, among you folks out there, what are your favorite science fiction novels out there?

And, by science fiction, I mean fiction that is in some way referencing some actual scientific theory.  Fantasy like "Lord of the Rings" or "Chronicles of Narnia" don't count.  And neither does "Star Wars", since there's really no underlying science at work in those stories.

And, with that in mind, here are some of my favorites.  Not in any particular order, but, of course, the order the come to mind probably indicates a level of preference:

• Frank Herbert's "Dune" series (I've read 4 of the 6 of his original series.  Working on "Heretics of Dune")
• Arthur C. Clark's "Rama" series (the 1st one is a bit dry, but after he teams with Gentry Lee for "Rama II" and the rest of the series, it's a pretty amazing treatise on evolving human society, literally in a bubble)
• Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series
• "The Demolished Man", by Alfred Bester - perhaps the best prose depiction of telepathy I've ever seen or could even imagine.  Just on a totally other level.
• "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and its sequel, "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul", one of the most underrated sci-fi comedies, courtesy of Douglas Adams
• Mary Shelley's original "Frankenstein"
• H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds"

What about you?  Feel free to contribute.

Kill Zone

My admiration for Barack Obama is no secret, but, I'm sorry, Mr. President, this time, you've crossed the line.

As the article in the title link indicates, the White House has essentially ordered a hit out on Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim cleric in Yemen who's basically Bin Laden 2.0 - he preaches against America from Facebook & the web, and who seems to be the mastermind, or, at least, the inspiration, for the Ft. Hood killings and the Christmas Day underwear bomber.


The problem is Mr. al-Awlaki is an American citizen.


How is it that Khalid Sheik Muhammed, a foreign national, is going to be tried here in the US, but Anwar al-Awlaki, who was actually born in New Mexico, is apparently going to be killed on sight?


I'm very far from defending this guy's actions.  But, at the end of the day, we're still supposed to be a nation of laws, not men.  

If he's a citizen, he has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers.  Period.  I'm sure 12 Americans will have no problem sending this guy to the gas chamber if the evidence is as damning as the White House says it is.


Because where do we draw the line?  How about these fools, the Hutaree: the radical Christian militia group that was plotting to assassinate cops at funerals in their bid to fight the anti-Christ?  They're unquestionably terrorists.  What's to stop the President from putting a hit out on their spiritual leaders?  The only difference between them and Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula is their mailing address. 


What's to stop the government from sending out a kill order for YOU if they deem you to be a terrorist without a public trial?


This is bad, folks.  And NO ONE is talking about it.

Tinker Toys

So, ever since the auto bailout last year, I've been thinking a lot about how to reinvent domestic car manufacturing into something much more efficient & successful.  Which is why this article from the UK version of WIRED really grabbed my eye.  Because apparently the emergence of the web, open source development methodologies, crowd sourcing, innovative 3-D modeling & technologies, and easy access to cheap overseas manufacturing hubs are allowing for the complete reimagining of the manufacturing base.  Today, instead of needing millions of dollars to start a new business based around a mechanical product (i.e. a new car, a new vacuum cleaner, a new kind of cell phone, even a new kind of Lego weapon (I kid you not), you only need the ingenuity, creativity, and the cash to build a prototype to get started.

Of course, it raises other issues, though, right?  Because now we're essentially saying that China is the world's manufacturer.  Which means all of those manufacturing and manual labor jobs in the factories that fled the United States over the last three decades stay gone.  Now, for the educated, engineering class like me, we just see lots of opportunity.  But for all of those people who either made their living or intended to do so through UAW memberships and working in the local industrial plant, this is a very dangerous and scary new world. 

As Chris Matthews once pointed out on Hardball, it's all well and good to tell everybody that they need to go get educated to compete in the 21st century economy, but not everybody is going to get an electrical engineering degree so they can start their own xPhone business. Some people just want a steady paycheck with a reliable company.  Are we really saying that, in the new world economy, America is a country for entrepreneurs and inventors only, and that our working class is just a relic of a by gone error?

Given the new technological landscape, someone needs to devote some very serious thought to what can be done with all of the skilled trade workers out there who are just looking for an opportunity to contribute to someone's business.  Isn't there a way to make a profitable domestic American version of the Alibaba network in Japan?  Isn't there a business model that allows us to actually still make things in the USA?

Should I really like Bruce Wayne?

So, before I begin, let me just say, I love "The Dark Knight". I never get tired of watching that movie. I think it's a masterpiece at every level.

But there are two moments that always get this nagging little voice in the back of my brain squawking.

The first is where Morgan Freeman's character puts the conniving Wayne Enterprises lawyer who uncovers Batman's identity in his place:

"Let me get this straight: you think that your client, one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his spare time beating criminals to a pump with his bare hands. And your plan is to BLACKMAIL this person? Good luck."

Good writing & performances. But stick with me for a moment.

The second scene is when The Joker crashes the crime boss meeting. And as great a scene as that is, I couldn't help but notice something.

Sal Maroni - Italian American.
The Chechen.
Gambol - African American.
Lau - Asian.

This one room had more ethnic diversity than any other scene in the entire movie. But these were the criminals.

Who were the heroes? With the exception of Lucius Fox and, some may say, The Mayor, they're all non-ethnic whites. In the case of Bruce Wayne & Harvey Dent, fairly upper class non-ethnic white men at that.

Dent constantly refers to the criminals as "scum".

I don't know. Am I crazy?

But I felt like I never saw what was actually so bad about Gotham City. Did it have criminals? Of course. Every city does.

But if John D. Rockefeller's great, great, great grandson & his wife had been gunned down after sneaking their scared son out of an opera at Lincoln Center, and that son grew up to decide that he would devote all of his considerable resources to allow him to run around New York City in a costume to shoot up the Gambino crime family and the Brooklyn drug cartels with military grade firepower, would we really consider that kid a hero?

There's a really understated element of direct class warfare in the Batman mythos. In many ways, Bruce Wayne starts reminding me more and more of Bill the Butcher in "Gangs of New York". And class warfare almost always has a racial undertone to it.

I mean, I know it's just a movie based on a comic book, but, as a writer, I always try to think about the fantastic in the most real terms possible.

Like the irony that Captain America, who makes his debut punching Hitler in the face, is, in fact, the living embodiment of the Nazi ideal of a so-called master race. I guess that's why The Red Skull is constantly trying to steal Cap's body.

And let's not even get into the homoerotic undertones of THAT superhero conflict!



But I digress.

I love The Dark Knight. It's one of my favorite movies.

But still....

Diamonds from Lumps of Coal

Nine years ago, I attended a Christmas Day service at Bethel AME Church in Baltimore. The minister, Frank Reid, talked about the so-called "Slaughter of the Innocents" - after the three wise men saw Jesus in the manger and lied to King Herod about his whereabouts, Herod decided he couldn't risk the potential threat to his throne from the so-called "King of The Jews". To that end, he ordered the execution of every male child below the age of 2 in Bethlehem.

Rev. Reid's point was that, even something as beautiful and transformative as The Nativity has a cost. Like he said, for some people, this is their first Christmas without their mother. The holidays make the grief that much harder, like a phantom limb that just won't stop aching.

Magic isn't free.

As 2009 draws to a close, I keep thinking about the line Max Cady says to his former lawyer before he begins his campaign of terror in "Cape Fear":

"You gonna learn about loss."

Because, in fact, that was the big lesson of 2009: Loss.

Michael; Teddy; Farrah; Dom Deluise; E. Lynn Harris; Jennifer Jones; Edward Woodward

Personally, I lost a lot. More than I ever imagined.

And, in some ways, the deepest cut was the loss of dreams, in particular about film and writing. The year opened with so much promise, but brought so much profound disappointment in its wake. I'd held to the dreams for so long, they were comforting and reassuring.

But, then again, so was Falstaff to Prince Hal.

See, that's the thing about dreams: no matter how much you want to, you can't live inside them. They're there to inspire and offer visions of all that seems possible.

But, in the end, you have to wake up and live.

Back in February, I had a dream that I was interviewing President Obama for this very blog, and I asked him what was the most important thing he could say to my readers.

He replied, "Keep dreaming. But be ready to do the work."

2009 hurt so much because we finally saw the deep chasm between where we are and where we dream of being.

But the blessing in this year is that it also made me open my eyes, look around, and see the true treasures I had that can more than bridge the gap.

Lost a job? Found a better one.
Lost a home? Prepping to buy.
Lost a friend? Gained a deep & unconditional love.

Lost Nana?

Well....

Some holes can't be filled.

But, as my better half said the other day, I don't need to buy my grandmother a gift because now she's everywhere and knows where my heart lies.

And as for that lost dream? Talk to me this time next year. You may be pleasantly shocked. :-) Because the shortest path between two points is sometimes the most crooked and counterintuitive of lines. Sometimes, you need to walk away to get where you're going.

2008 was a magical year. But 2009 was the end of delusions so that we could all see what's necessary to conjure the next feat.

This is the time of year to think about magic. But magic isn't free.

2010 is the year to do the work to make the dream real. And 2009 told us that there are no short cuts. No easy ways out. No quick fixes.

As the joke goes, 9 women can't have a baby in a month.

But we have everything we need. Our loved ones, our faith, our skills, and our will.

Like Obama said, we ARE the ones we've been waiting for.

Stop waiting. Stop crying. Stop stalling. Stop negotiating.

Make the magic.

In Memory of Nana

Thursday morning, I got the call that my paternal grandmother had died.

Her real name was Delancy, but all of us among her 12 grandchildren and countless great grandchildren called her "Nana". She was 90 years old.

I'm told that, in the Ashanti language, "Nana" means "grandmother". Life is full of odd coincidences.

I'm reminded of a line from "Cape Fear", where Max Cady tells his former lawyer who condemned him to 14 years in prison by suppressing evidence that could have led to his acquittal "you're gonna learn about loss".

Now, it's not like I'm a stranger to tears these days. Hell, just turn on the last 5 minutes of "Rocky II" and I'm just a gusher.

But until the moment when I got that phone call, I'd never experienced ANGUISH.

I mean, just pure, unadulterated, raw, emotional pain.

It was like someone had stabbed my soul with a jagged knife and was just twisting and twisting and twisting it.

It was just tears. I wailed.

Understand: from the moment I was born, there were 5 people in the house where I grew up: me, Mom, Dad, my older brother, and Nana.

Nana used to tell me that she was the one who brought my mother to the hospital when she was in labor with me. She used to walk me to elementary school. During the summer, we would sit out on the porch, playing War, aka the world's simplest card game, and watching the street lamps turn on. And every weekday that she was home and able, she started cooking dinner for the whole family at 4:30 sharp - watching Oprah, mind you - to make sure it was on the table by 6. She was essentially my backup mother.

My grandfather died 45 years ago. My father tells me that he once asked her why she never remarried. She said, she was afraid that if she took someone else's name, my grandfather wouldn't be able to find her in Heaven.

I miss her laugh. I miss her stories.

She told me she made sure she sent money to my nephew when he was in college whenever she could because of her own experience of going away to school. She was one of 12 children growing up on a farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, just outside the little town of Cambridge, and she was the first among them to be sent into town to get a formal education. Because it was so far, her parents paid a woman to let Nana use a room in her house near the school. One day, Nana came back from class and found the landlady dead in her bathroom. "So, I know how hard going away to school can be", she summarized.

Clearly she was far from perfect. But, frankly, the imperfections make me love her even more.

After she lost the lower half of her right leg due to diabetes, she almost exclusively got around in a wheelchair, and spent many days sitting at the dining room table in my parents house, watching the TV in the kitchen: remote control and cordless phone constantly by her side.

Nana had long been in the habit of calling, well, everybody. She regularly called her remaining siblings, long distant children, close friends & relatives on routine weekly schedules. Just to see if there was any "Newsy News", as she would say.

Her bedroom is a virtual family museum: literally, wall to wall pictures of kids, grandkids, great grandkids, the children of the wealthy white family she worked for as a domestic servant for nearly 20+ years, or just friends.

Rarely pictures of herself.

I feel like I've been to a million funerals in my lifetime, but this will be the first one in my own house. I wasn't ready for it at all, despite her age and all of the associated health issues that came along with it.

I really, honestly, expected her to outlive me.

Because what kind of world would it be without her in it?

Then again, we're all still here, aren't we? I said to my significant other that I wish she could meet her. And she said, "I already have, because I met you. And when you and your family get together, she's there as well."

As Dad said, it's been a rough week, and it doesn't get any easier.

But Nana is in me always.

A kind of immortality.

In the end, I suppose that's all anyone could ever ask for.

Nana, I love you and miss you so very much.

And I know you'd tell me to stop crying like a baby, so, because you asked, I will.

Purple Hearts

Work can make strange bedfellows sometimes.

Case in point: Who knew that my good friend & former co-worker from my very first job back in New York City would turn into the wildly successful West Coast blogger, The Truth Laid Bear?

Now, if you look at truthlaidbear.com, the first thing you'll probably notice that he and I have WILDLY different political views. I'm a die-hard Howard Dean-iac, and he's one of the founders of the "Top Conservatives on Twitter".

But, like I alluded to in a recent tweet about Andrew Sullivan, these are the kind of conservatives I can deal with: they're principled, but rational. We can debate & disagree, while still agreeing that we all have the country's (and, consequently, each other's) best interests at heart.

So, even though I think many, many conservatives hide behind the military as an excuse for any number of, shall we say, questionable decisions, I know my friend is sincere in his beliefs and in his support for the soldiers themselves.

And, as a child of a family with deep ties to the Army & Marine Corps, support for wounded vets is the very definition of common ground.

As our president likes to say, there are no Red States or Blue States, but the UNITED States of America.

That said, Mr. Bear recently brought this project to my attention: Project Valour-IT. It's a charitable campaign designed to raise money to provide laptops & other enabling technologies for severely wounded war veterans. He mentioned to me that they'd gotten a ton of support from the conservative blogsphere, but it's virtually invisible to the left side of the social media universe.

Fellow liberals & progressives - I encourage you all to take a look, spread the word, and make a donation. Regardless of your politics, these are people in need. Show your hearts.

Two Americas

Last time I checked, wasn't the City of Chicago and, for that matter, the whole State of Illinois, still part of the United States of America?

So why are all of these conservatives cheering because AMERICA, not just Chicago, but AMERICA, lost the bid for the next Olympics?

Oh, right. I forgot. It's because Obama lobbied for it.

I'm reminded of an incident way back when I was in high school. I was driving home late one night after visiting a classmate who lived in the Northeast corner of Baltimore. Since I lived on the exact opposite side of the city, I had a bit of a drive ahead of me, so I wanted to stop & get some gas. There were no brand name stations around, but I did manage to find one mom & pop-ish full-service station still open at 11PM.

So, I pull up to the pump, and the guy in the station waves to me, saying "I'll be there in a second."

So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And another car pulls into the station. The guy comes out of the booth, pumps gas for the other car, and then goes back into the booth.

And I wait. And I wait some more. And then the guy looks out of the booth and smiles, saying "Oh, did you want some gas?"

I said "I get the picture" and left.

Do I even need to say that I'm Black and this guy was white?

What I could never fit my head around was this: I was coming to buy gas from him. I was going to literally put money in his hands.

But no. He doesn't want MY money. He doesn't want anything to do with me. He would rather hurt his own business than help me in any way.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Now, am I saying that all opposition to Obama is racial? No, not really.

But what I AM saying is that a lot of opposition to Obama is just as irrational, crazy, and self-destructive as racism.

They don't want him talking to their children so he can tell them to stay in school. They don't want him lobbying for an American city to host the Olympics.

They don't want him anywhere doing anything for or with or about anyone.

It may not be race-based, but, if I can use a computer programming analogy for a moment, it sure has the same methods and interface as racism.

Why Roman Polanski belongs in jail

Now, don't get me wrong.

I love "Chinatown".

And I cannot even begin to imagine the horrors that man has experienced over the years. I mean, for one guy to escape the clutches of one crazed white supremacist cult leader, namely Hitler, only to have his wife and unborn child murdered by yet another crazed white supremacist cult leader, namely Charles Manson, 30 years later in a single life time is just unspeakable.

But, let's think about this for a moment:

You're a 40 some year old man who drugs and rapes a 13-year-old girl. The prosecution has a difficult, but potentially winnable case, so they offer you a plea deal that requires you to plead guilty to said rape. The deal is set, but the judge appears to be buckling under public pressure to not honor the deal, so you flee the country.

And you've been living scott free ever since.

Remind me, again, why I'm supposed to feel sorry for you?

I mean, what price has Polanski paid for raping a child? How has he atoned for it?

Moreover, are we supposed to excuse you're living outside the law for over 30 years?

And another thing:

Michael Jackson was investigated twice, tried, and then ACQUITTED of child molestation. And yet, that poor guy was literally scandalized and terrorized by the press to the point that he probably drugged himself to death.

MICHAEL WAS ACQUITTED. But it didn't matter.

Polanski PLEAD GUILTY to RAPE. But that mofo wins a freakin' Oscar, splits his time between France & Switzerland, and, when he finally does get caught, has people organizing letter campaigns to get him off for a crime he's already admitted.

No.

Send that guy to jail. It's time to pay the piper.

And don't even get me started on Woody Allen....

Why Kucinich WIll Never Be President

Or, Frankly, Ron Paul, or Tom Tancredo, or Carol Mosley Braun or any number of politicians who are, regardless of what you think of their politics, at some base level, qualified.

It's the same reason why someone as manifestly unqualified as Sarah Palin is still considered a legitimate national figure. Or why John Edwards or even the President himself, Barack Obama, was considered a legit contender after less than a single term at the national level in the senate.

I'm reminded of the very last episode of "The Practice", where Alan Shore was finalizing his relationship with Crane, Poole, & Schmidt, ultimately leading to 5 years of Emmy glory on "Boston Legal". As Shore introduced his assistant/paramour Tara to his new boss Denny Crane, Crane said to her in typical Denny fashion: "We only hire pretty people here. Are you a pretty girl, soldier?"

It's the same reason, apparently, that Kennedy beat Nixon, or why Reagan beat Mondale, or why Clinton beat Dole.

The camera loves them.

And when the cameras love them, the press love them.

More specifically, the advertisers love them.

Yes, there is substance to many of the debates, and, yes, I do truly believe that Obama is far and away the best person for the job. But if he looked like Al Sharpton, he'd never stand a chance.

The modern presidential election has bore more than a passing resemblance to American Idol for quite some time, but it's all behind the scenes, in media focus groups who decide who can best get the American public to keep tuning into 24/7 cable news outlets to drive advertising dollars to support the revenue streams of those networks.

And let's be honest, do you REALLY want to see Dennis Kucinich on your TV every night for 4 years?

I'm just sayin'.

On Glenn Beck

One of my most prized possessions as a middle schooler and into early high school was my Sony Walkman Radio. And, unlike most of the young black kids in Baltimore in the late 80's and early '90's, I was a total Top 40 baby. Which, of course, meant that my favorite radio station was WBSB, B-104.

I spent many a night drifting off to sleep to the sounds of Mister Mister and Duran Duran and Bruce Hornsby and YES and all of that stuff.

On the flip side, when I was finally old enough to drive, I listened to Brian and O'Brian's morning show on B104 on the way to school. They were a pretty well-established mainstay - the prototypical morning drive cut-ups. Until they suddenly vanished for no apparent reason.

I was pretty bummed at first, until I got a wiff of the new guy.

The replacement show was called "Glenn Beck and The Morning Guys".

This was 1990.

And Beck was f'n hilarious. I LOVED that show!

While I don't remember all of the various gags they pulled, one particular recurring character stood out in my mind: they'd have a guy call in as "Mr. Stress", and he was basically a guy who was on a hair trigger and would freak out screaming at the least little thing that would upset his fragile little world.

Honestly, I still make jokes about Mr. Stress to this day.

It was all character and performances designed to shock an audience into laughter.

And one of the things that I've always told my fellow screenwriters and storytellers is that the difference between comedy & horror is often just a matter of lighting. They both rely on shock value. And Beck was a master of funny shock craziness.

He's an entertainer. Always has been. Always will be.

Which is why I find it amazing that there are people now hanging on every word Beck says as if he's some sort of sage. Just because he sounds serious and talks about serious stuff doesn't mean that he actually has anything of value or merit to contribute to the discourse in any way whatsoever.

I mean, really. If Ed Lover or Big Boi told you the President was secretly a racist socialist terrorist mole, you would just laugh and say "Man, those guys sure are funny." You wouldn't stop and think, "Man, that Big Boi has a point! I'd better buy a gun!"

If you're going to get serious political thought from Glenn Beck, you may as well write in Dr. Johnny Fever on the next election ballot.

Beck is a professional clown, and the joke is on you if you think he has any agenda beyond being shocking & entertaining.

"Real American Heroes"?

If I had to guess, I probably have around 10,000 comic books in my collection right now.

But the very first comic I paid for with my own money was G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #6.



What always struck me about that comic was just how hardcore it was, given that it was ostensibly designed to sell action figures to little boys like me. But the main writer for those original G.I. Joe comics, Larry Hama, was a Vietnam vet who made a point of adding real stakes to the stories. Like when they dropped a bomb on a bunker while our hero, the mute commando Snake Eyes, was still inside. Or when the team's Pentagon liason, Col. Flagg, was killed during a Cobra assault on The Pit. Or the intense creepiness of the Cobra front masquerading as a small town in Illinois.

I've got a lot of military in my family, so I appreciated that, although it was a comic, G.I. Joe was about soldiers, with all sorts of specialties from all different branches of the American military, pooling their resources to defeat a common threat.

American soldiers.

So the minute I heard that the movie version of G.I. Joe would feature, instead, an international team based in Europe.... yeah, I was plenty offended.

Especially since the reasoning was, "well, nobody likes America overseas these days, so we've got to tone down the American-ness of these 'Real American Heroes'".

And, it seems like every day, I get a new bit of news that makes me even more angry about this movie.

"Accelerator Suits"?!?! Come on, man! That's Iron Man, not G.I. Joe! If anything, the fetish in G.I. Joe was authentic, top of the line, military hardware. If you're into that sort of thing, the U.S. Army has some of the coolest, craziest weaponry on the planet. REAL weaponry, man. Not this B.S. made-up sci-fi crap.

And, as I twittered earlier, I knew for sure that this movie would stink because they had no presence whatsoever at Comic-Con.

So, now, I see this L.A. Times article, where the producer, Lorenzo Di Boneventura, says, "well, there's no pleasing those guys at Comic-Con, so why bother?"

Excuse me? Iron Man? 300? Spider-Man? Hell, even flippin' Twilight! As long as you don't crap on what makes the property great, the fans will embrace you. But when you do things like, I dunno, cast Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, well, yeah, you'll have a fan revolt on your hands.

(For the record, I thought Constantine was actually a great movie, and Keanu was quite good, but, if I'd been a hardcore Hellblazer fan, I would have totally boycotted that movie on principle)

And when you loose your core fans, you'd better pray what you've changed will appeal to the general audience, because you'll have no word of mouth support.

Consider Battlestar Galactica - again, fans in full revolt after Ron Moore made Starbuck a girl. Luckily, she was such a kick-ass girl and the level of quality of the show was so high (I mean, they won a Peabody and had a panel at the United Nations dedicated to them), it overrode the fan bitterness.

My point is, G.I. Joe had better be some Nobel Prize winning sh*t to make up for the garbage I've seen so far.

What makes me even more mad about that article is that Paramount has apparently decided the best way to promote the movie was to show it on American army bases.... after they've already decided that the American army is so unpopular that they can't feature them in the show like they were originally in the property.

And why are these soldiers dressed up like Bryan Singer's X-Men?



And what's killing me is there are some amazing actors in this movie, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Christopher Eccelston.

Actually, what's really killing me is that they're releasing this movie on my birthday. That's just salt in the wound. :-)

Now, people are telling me it's a good summer action movie. But I wonder, are these the same people who thought "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was a good summer action movie"

Maybe I'll finally see "The Hurt Locker" on Friday. THOSE guys are the real American heroes.

As a matter of fact, that sounds like a plan.

Go see "The Hurt Locker" and pay your money to support a movie that's not afraid to show real American soldiers. G.I. Joe's not going anywhere, so they certainly don't need your money opening weekend.

You can get your tickets to see "The Hurt Locker" right here at Moviefone

FUCK "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra".

On Comic-Con, or "a finer world"

As I was making my way through the teeming, costumed, merchandise-clutching masses on the exhibit floor at the 40th annual San Diego International Comic Book Convention, better known as Comic-Con, I caught site of something that I'll not soon forget.

A young man in a wheelchair was wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm too sexy for my legs".

Ironically enough, three days earlier, I had the privilege of seeing the very first advanced footage of James Cameron's new film, "Avatar".

In "Avatar", humans are exploring and prospecting on the distant planet Pandora, which has an amazingly beautiful and completely alien habitat that is totally inhospitable to humans. To that end, eschewing traditional environment suits, the humans collect DNA from the indigenous inhabitants and genetically engineer alien/human hybrid bodies into which the human explorers can download their consciousnesses, giving them free reign on the planet. The protagonist, played by Sam Worthington of "Terminator: Salvation", is a paraplegic who becomes the hero of the story once he's freed from the limitations of his wheelchair-bound human form and gains the incredible abilities of his 10 foot tall blue skinned avatar.

Now, not only is "Avatar" a story about a man who is transported to another world as another self, but it's a 3-D film that lets the audience experience the planet Pandora as if it were a living, breathing, glowing, lush environment around them.

Moreover, the reason why it's taken Cameron 14 years to bring this movie to screen is that he's spent that time perfecting what he's called "performance capture", where, instead of just translating the general body movements of an actor to a CG character, they can actually translate the slightest facial nuances of an actor, capturing the emotion inherent in the performance. So, when I see a blue-skinned CG native girl yelling at the stupid humans screwing up her planet, I know just by looking at her face that it was Zoe Saldana on the performance capture stage.

But beyond that, Cameron took it to the next level by building a platform that actually renders the computer-generated landscape and creatures of Pandora for viewing THROUGH THE CAMERA, so that Cameron and his cinematographer can actually SEE Pandora and their actors as Pandora natives in the environment AS THEY'RE SHOOTING.

In short, he's made it possible to actually shoot on location on a planet that doesn't exist.

THIS is the essence of Comic-Con.

I once heard a man say that a reasonable man bends to meet the world, while an unreasonable man insists that the world bend to meet him. Therefore, all progress comes from the unreasonable man.

Those of us who proudly call ourselves geeks are very unreasonable.

Geeks like Jules Verne first dared to dream of poking the Moon in the eye with a rocket, and people laughed at the absurdity.

40 years ago this month, a man planted an American flag on that very same Moon and established a pinnacle of human achievement.

Geeks like Gene Roddenberry insisted on a world where all ethnicities worked together towards a common good and a man could ask a machine a question and expect an answer with complete sanity.

There's a little device on the other side of this room that, after it's finished recharging, I can make diverge every public document about that astronaut just by saying the words "Neil Armstrong" to it.

Geeks like Bob Layton imagined a world where an alcoholic can overcome his addiction and become a superhero.

Next year, Robert Downey Jr. will channel his own struggle with substances into a performance about that very same character in a way that will dazzle, amaze, and, perhaps, in some small measure, give hope to those who struggle in the dark.

We geeks know that just because we may not be the most popular or the most beautiful or the most politically astute or the most financially or athletically gifted, we trump each and every one of those people in faith, passion, belief, and imagination.

And there is nothing in this world, literally nothing that exists, that was not something that someone dreamed of first.

The costumed, fictional, GG-generated and otherwise genre based characters we celebrate at Comic-Con are simply representatives of the qualities we hold most dear, be it Batman's focused determination or Tron's rage against the machine or Green Lantern's fearlessness in the face of the blackest of nights.

And Comic-Con is probably the only place in the world where an entire city can be full of wonder for 5 days straight. Where Green Arrow can share a beer with Luke Skywalker. Where new worlds are revealed moment by moment, be it on a giant movie screen, or through a video game, or just within the pages of an indie comic book.

Part of me worries that all of the non-geeks who come to Comic-Con because they think it can help them make a few more bucks are a bit like the human interlopers on Pandora. But, in the end, if they want to thrive in our world, just like on Pandora, they have to wear our skin, too.

And who knows, maybe they'll take a little bit of that blue skin back with them for the Muggles.

Personally, I can't wait to go back.

Born in the USA

I have, on occasion, been known to indulge in conspiracy theories.

For instance, there's a part of me that still believes that John Kerry struck some kind of deal born of Skull & Bones to basically throw the 2004 election for George Bush. After all, he fought like a hellcat to destroy Howard Dean, robocalls & all, but declined from using similar tactics against the 43rd president.

So, yes, I do buy into some conspiracy theories. But I find the recent Birther phenomenon so amusing for two reasons:

1. for it to be true, you have to assume the complicity of The State of Hawaii, at least two major Hawaiian newspapers, the Federal Election Commission, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and basically the entire Republican political apparatus. And that various elements had been upholding this conspiracy for nearly 50 years (that, or they went back and planted false evidence in the record, 1984-style). To which, I would respond, why? If Sarah Palin had some serious doubt about Obama's citizenship, do you think she would have waited a second to use that in a campaign speech? She was damn near calling the man a terrorist because he'd been in some guy's house. Which gets to the larger issue of most conspiracy theories, namely the presumption that all of the important famous people are out to punk the rest of the world so they can.... do what, exactly? "Control us"? I mean, really, if all of these players were interested in fabricating Obama's birth, wouldn't they have come up with a better cover story.

2. To borrow a line from Rush Limbaugh, the Birther movement is totally about race. The guy who's credited with originally trying to discredit Obama's nationality is a dude who once ran for congress on the promise that he would "exterminate Jew Power in America". The woman who shouted down that congressman in his town hall meeting about the birther stuff ended her tirade with "I want my country back!", because, of course, this can't really be America if a Black man is now president. Lou Dobbs teased the notion that Obama might even be an illegal immigrant. The fact is, these people are looking for anything that would just undo the last election, because that election proves that the majority of America thinks they're a bunch of crackpots.

Barack Obama is an American.

And he's your President.

Suck it up.

REVIEW: Ninja Assassin

It's funny: the thought of an American pop star becoming an action movie hero (e.g. Justin Timberlake as Green Lantern) seems just patently ridiculous to most. And yet, here's a Korean pop star who calls himself Rain seems perfectly plausible as the baddest, bloodiest, most hard core Ninja assassin on the planet.

I wonder if I'd feel the same if his music was on continuous rotation on MTV?

Whatever.

Because Ninja Assassin is, far and away, the best martial arts movie I've seen in a big theater.... probably since The Matrix.

Which makes sense, since it's produced by The Wachowski Brothers and directed by their protege, James McTeigue.

The film follows Rain as Raizo, an orphan raised from near birth to be a merciless killer, as he cuts a bloody swath of revenge across Berlin, while an intrepid Interpol researcher (played by Naomi Harris, who opts for the soft & vulnerable play instead of her 28 Days Later she-warrior mode) is trying to uncover the ancient secret of a clan of mythical ninjas who may be responsible for countless political killings over the years. It intercuts between Raizo's youth in the brutal orphanage/ninja factory and the modern ninja war that literally spills out onto the streets of modern Berlin.

Honestly, I couldn't tell you where the actual stunt work and wire work ends and the CGI begins in most places, because the choreography is just seamless, frenetic, and breathtaking.

Oh, and did I mention that the alternate title for this film should be "Buckets of Blood"? When the director introduced the film at last night's extra secret exclusive screening at Comic-Con 2009, he made a point of telling the audience that they shouldn't fear the gore. Yeah, it's pretty violent. Like, half-a-head lopped off in the first 3 minutes violent.

But it's definitely worth it. Beyond the fact that it's action packed, as a viewer, I totally bought all of the emotional relationships in the film that make the action matter. You care who lives or dies, who's betrayed and who outsmarts.

In short, it's bloody f'n good. If you're like me and grew up on a steady Saturday afternoon diet of Bruce Li, the Shaw Brothers, and the like, do yourself a favor and check it out when it's released in November.