I have a Democratic friend who, to this day, is still violently pissed off over the 2000 election. He emailed me a message that had been forwarded to him by a mutual acquaintance by some anti-gay zealot and asked my opinion.
Now, anyone who's a longtime reader of Macroscope knows, I have very strong feelings in favor of gay rights: In my opinion, the way we as heterosexuals brought up in Christian traditions treat homosexuals, personally & politically, is the very definition of putting your faith in action. And I don't think God will look kindly on those who use anachronistic scriptures to justify their bigotry, while ignoring those very same scriptures on things like personal hygiene.
In other words, I have no patience for gay bashers of any stripe, and it really offends me when other people of faith defend or exalt them.
So, when I responded to my friend, I pretty quickly dissected the zealot's argument and dismissed it. At which point my friend responded by forwarding the response of our mutual acquaintance to MY response (Yeah, I know - read it again if it's confusing), where he basically called me a bunch of names.
I was pretty pissed off, and responded in kind. And my friend had the nerve to respond, in so many words, "why are you so angry?"
In other words, he'd asked my opinion out of the blue. I gave it. He then forwarded me, unsolicited, an insult in response to my opinion, and then was perplexed that I might be a tad miffed.
That whole exchange just showed me that there are some people who actually really love to fight. I have an ex who once told me that the way her family showed that they loved each other was that they'd scream and yell and argue with each other until everybody started crying. And then they'd hug and make up.
It's like "Fight Club" - some people need to be punched in the face to feel alive, so they'll go around punching other people in the face just to earn a new knuckle sandwich.
I don't enjoy fighting. I never have. It simply doesn't feel good.
That's why I had to stop seeing that girl (which was, shall we say, messy).
That's why I stopped arguing politics with my brother, the Republican.
And that's why I stopped responding to the e-mails that this particular friend sends me that are political in nature.
It just doesn't feel good.
And, ultimately, fighting just for fighting's sake is a waste of time. I'm much more interested in having a discussion where both sides are open to being swayed. If you can change my mind and I can change your mind, well, that's a conversation worth having.
Conversation, mind you. Not argument. Not even discussion. Conversation. Dialogue.
But I can see the Fight Seekers coming a mile a way, now. On both sides of the aisle, someone will post something provocative about one or the other candidate, just to get a rise out of their supporters, and then it will just be ON!
And far too many of us non-combatants fall into this vicious cycle - we think this is the only way to participate and respond: with verbal fists.
Is anyone, then, still surprised at how poisoned our political process is today?
So, here's my challenge to you all:
Tell me why YOU are voting FOR your candidate. And not just "because we need change" or "I believe in strong defense", because, frankly, those aren't answers. Tell me what you think is the most important, concrete, actual THING you expect either Barack Obama or John McCain to do once either one gets into office, and why.
And be forewarned, McCainites - if your response is "He'll win the war in Iraq", I expect you to say both how you define winning, and how you expect him to achieve it. No more of this Nixonian "I have a secret plan to end the war" bullshit.
(And, let's be honest, if MCain really does have a plan, why hasn't he shared it with the President? I'm sure he'd appreciate the help)
Personally, the single most important thing I expect Obama to do as president is begin planning & implementing some sort of phased withdrawal of our combat troops from Iraq. Why?
It will stop the unnecessary drain of literally billions of dollars from our treasury during a time of fiscal & economic chaos.
It will free our military to deal with the REAL terrorist threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It will stop the series of accidental Iraqi civilian deaths at the hands of American soldiers, which just generates more potential terrorists.
It will show the world that America, in the end, does finally learn from its mistakes.
So, what about you? What do you want from President Whomever in January?
You know, I try to keep my inner "crazy-conspiracy-theorist" in check, but sometimes....
So, if the United States government assumes sweeping authority to actually take ownership of millions of mortgages, essentially becoming the landowner for vast tracks of the American landscape....
I mean, isn't this kind of "eminent domain" taking to its absolutely worst extreme?
So, before all of you liberals, progressives, and Democrats start doing the electoral victory dance because the failing economy has turned the tide presumably in Obama's favor, let me make one observation:
Although most people don't want to admit it, the vast majority of the electorate does not cast a vote for a specific policy or issue, even when they say they do. They're not voting for the issue, but for their emotional response to the issue.
They're not voting FOR a pro-life platform - they're voting because aligning themselves with the pro-life platform makes them FEEL better about their relationship with God.
They're not voting FOR environmental platform - they're voting because aligning with conservationism makes them FEEL like responsible stewards of the planet.
They're not voting FOR gun control - they're voting because the idea of gun control makes them FEEL safer.
As I mentioned earlier, Republicans figured this out a long time ago and decided to just cut out the middle man: they don't even really bother to run on issues anymore. Their campaigns are almost like reality TV shows, with characters cast in the roles as candidates to elicit specific emotional responses.
"The Maverick"
"The Hockey Mom"
"The Guy You'd Like To Have A Beer With"
Bill Clinton got it. He was "The Man From A Place Called 'Hope'".
Obama gets it, too. Just look at the early speeches.
The point is, if you're pinning your hopes for the election on convincing people with a rational argument about taxes and incentives and plans and such, I've got news for you: the average American is not listening.
They're feeling.
And if you want to win, you'd better start feeling and sharing and eliciting those feelings right along with them.
A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about the use of both negative and positive manifestation through the manipulation of collective emotional energy in the election process. I titled it "Before Sunrise", to hearken back to my Election '04 postmortem, "The Sun WILL Rise" (with a little nod to Richard Linklater), but also because so many of us seemed to be in a dark, scary place during this part of the election cycle, and, as they say, it's always darkest before the dawn.
But what else happens in the dark before the dawn?
We dream.
One of my dreams as I wrote that blog was that there would be a place where people could share their dreams and hopes and aspirations for the future of this country and the world, and where that collective, beautiful, joyous energy could coalesce into powerful, inspired action.
So, imagine my shock when a friend pointed me to this brand new blog:
That comes from my training and natural inclinations towards math, science, and the rational process. I like to know how and why things work.
I have also always been a creature of faith.
Perhaps it's the rural roots of my family and our own brushes with the esoteric and unseen.
And I don't consider these to be mutually exclusive.
One of my all-time favorite books is "Fire In The Mind" by George Johnson. In it, he examines a pair of seemingly mutually exclusive systems of thought in Santa Fe, New Mexico - the nuclear physics labs in Los Alamos and the traditional religions of the local Native American tribes - and shows that, in many ways, they have much more in common than the average person would think. After all, whether it's a sky god or an electron, they both use a series of instruments and tools to predict the behavior of things we cannot experience directly with our 5 senses, but which they both assume have a direct impact on your everyday life.
So, let's start with a somewhat lazy logical argument:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
And by "technology", I'm pretty much in agreement with Wikipedia's initial definition that it is "a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment."
Now, if that's true, than the logic student in me would also posit a corollary - that anything that appears to be magic is simply the usage and knowledge of a series of tools and crafts that the observer does not fully understand.
In short, magic is simply a science you haven't figured out yet.
For those of you who don't know, Dee was, officially, the queen's surgeon, as in Queen Elizabeth I of England, way back in the 16th century. Not only was Dee a scientist and a mathematician of the first order, he was also a specialist in mysticism and the occult. So, not only did the queen turn to Dee for his scientific acumen, but she relied on him to interpret her dreams, to check the path and influence of the stars, etc. Because, of course, back in those days, if you were a scholar, you studied everything and treated it all with equal weight based on the actual results, without having a bias to one system of thought over another (e.g. rational science over mysticism).
But, you'll notice, individuals in positions of power almost always have someone next to them, just behind the scenes, who is doing.... something that the average layman doesn't quite understand.
Every King Arthur has a Merlin behind him to "work the roots", as they used to say back in "the country", to help him stay in power.
Now, I'm sure some of you have read this and said "wow, Day really hides his insanity quite well. I had no idea he was such a madman."
And that's OK, because I needed to put what I'm about to say in some context first.
I want to talk about Karl Rove.
I know what you're thinking.
And, yes, you're 100% right - I AM saying that Rove is to Bush as Merlin is to King Arthur or Gandalf is to Aragorn and so on and so on.
And it didn't fully click for me until today. Here's why.
Right after the 2004 Presidential election, I wrote a post called "The Sun WILL Rise", in which I said the reason why Bush won was because he was, literally, The Candidate of Fear (tm). The entire electorate had bought into the fear paradigm - Republicans were afraid of what might happen to them if Bush lost, and Democrats were afraid of what might happen if Bush won. But the fact of the matter was that everyone's attention and emotional energy was all focused on Bush. Our collective national fear put him in office.
So, as I wrote in a 2006 blog called "The California Democratic Party Sucks", I was no longer going to vote out of fear ever again, even if the absence of my vote for Phil Angelides meant that Arnold would get re-elected governor. I was only going to vote FOR what I believed in, not AGAINST anything.
And, yes, Arnold was re-elected, but, if you look at his record since then, for all intents and purposes, he may as well have been a blue-dog Democrat for the last two years.
Now, consider what's happened this year - there had been a tremendous amount of positive energy flowing in Barack Obama's direction. He figured out that it wasn't enough to have good policies. You also had to inspire people and activate their hearts. Luckily, he also has the skills to do that. The Democrats were on their way to a landslide victory.
Until McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Oh, wait - let me clarify that.
Until Karl Rove and his surrogates who are now running McCain's campaign forced him to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate.
And, while everyone on the left and in the media is screaming "but she's completely unqualified!!! She's a right-wing ideologue!!! She has a history of misuse of power!!!", they've all completely missed the point.
The Rovians made McCain pick her BECAUSE she's unqualified. BECAUSE she's an ideologue. BECAUSE she has a history of misusing power.
They picked her because she terrifies us.
Sarah Palin is The New Candidate of Fear (tm).
And now, instead of all this talk about hope and the future, we get Democrats and Obama supporters running around with their hair literally on fire over the possibility of President Palin.
I mean, people who've been completely silent over the course of this entire campaign have suddenly been bombarding me with crazed e-mails, sounding like Randy Quaid in "Independence Day":
"We've got to stop them!!!!!!"
The entire focus of the campaign is now on her - those who love her, and those who're afraid of her. And, at the moment, our collective national fear is putting her in office.
The manipulation of the emotional state of a group of people as large as a voting electorate is a science that Rove has employed for decades to adjust and control the political landscape to his liking. A science that the average person simply doesn't understand.
It's magic.
So, for those of you who support Barack Obama like I do, here's the plan - remember how you felt when you saw this?
Don't be misled by the news or the opposition: Our candidate gets it. He knows the power of the collective American spirit is what has propelled him this far and is what can bring him to victory.
So, from now until Election Day, stop forwarding all of those e-mails about how crazy Sarah Palin is.
Instead, tell me stories about the America you dream about.
The President and leadership you hope for.
The Future you believe in.
Write about your own faith in tomorrow, and forward THAT email to everybody in your address book. Re-ignite your belief in the horizon and pass those on to everyone you know.
There's a reason why this is Obama's logo:
To paraphrase Harvey Dent, it's always darkest before the dawn, but keep dreaming about the warmth of the sun on your face, and I promise you, THE DAWN IS COMING.
I think both the haphazard process McCain employed to pick her as well as her own general lightweightness as a national candidate, not to mention McCain's proposed trip to the Gulf Coast while local officials are trying to prepare for a freakin' hurricane.... all of this simply reinforces the reality that the modern Republican party (at least, at the national level) is far more interested in symbolism and appearances than in actually, you know, doing what they're elected to do.
Let's LOOK like I'm doing something to respond to the hurricane.
Let's LOOK like I actually vetted my potential running mate.
Let's pick someone who literally LOOKS like she could appeal to the Hilary voters.
Let's drill for oil off our shores so that we LOOK like we're doing something for high gas prices.
Let's pass a law called "No Child Left Behind" so that it LOOKS like we're not leaving any children behing.
Let's pass a law called "Clear Skies" or something so that it LOOKS like we're doing something about the environment.
The GOP is just a massive sleight of hand being perpetrated on the American populace. There's no "there" there.
Given the verbal smackdown he received at the hands of Obama last night, isn't McCain's selection of Gov. Palin kind of the equivalent of The Macho Man Randy Savage pulling Miss Elizabeth between himself and the Ultimate Warrior and saying "you wouldn't hit a girl, would you?"
Of course, if he'd picked Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the GOP version of Sensational Sherri, it might be a different story....
Watching that Obama acceptance speech tonight, I kept thinking back to the end of "8 Mile", with Eminem in the final MC battle against his nemesis, Papa Doc, the head of the so-called "Leaders of the Free World" clique.
Now, for those of you who've never seen an MC Battle before, it's basically a competitive performance where two rappers are given a fixed period of time in a hip-hop club to mock each other with rhyming lyrics they make up on the spot, i.e. freestyle. The crowd decides which one dissed the other the hardest, and awards him the victory.
By this point in the film, Eminem, who lived in a trailer park with his broke down mom (Kim Basinger) had just gotten his ass kicked by the entire Free World crew in a team beatdown, after one of them had had sex with his new girlfriend. And his own crew were so lame that one of them had even shot himself in the foot trying to be tough.
But watch how it all plays out. It's profane, but, man, is it worth it.
After that total tongue lashing, where Eminem basically threw every attack he knew was coming right back in Papa Doc's face, he as completely speechless and was booed off stage. Eminem wins.
I'm saying all of that to say, what could John McCain and the Republicans possibly say next week in response to Obama tonight that could have any weight or value?
Obama just asked McCain and the Rovians "Is THAT the best you've got?"
I think the WSJ article above is somewhat encouraging to me, as both a movie fan and a comic fan on a number of levels:
I think we can all finally agree that "Superman Returns" was a failure.
I think we can all finally agree that a "JLA" movie as a spin-off spaminator is a bad idea.
I think we're all starting to agree that comic book movies do not have to be aimed at small children, since comic books themselves stopped being aimed at them at least 20 years ago.
I'm still a bit antsy about this "Green Arrow/SuperMax" movie, because I'd rather see Green Arrow as Green Arrow, not as the superhero version of Tom Selleck in "An Innocent Man". I'm also concerned that the studio may be making the same mistaken assumption about superhero storytelling that the comic industry made in the late '80's in the wake of the success of "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen": namely, that all superheroes need to be dark, grim, and gritty. Yes, it can work for certain characters - Batman, Wolverine, The Punisher, Green Arrow, even Wonder Woman to an extent (I mean, the S&M aspects built into that character from the very beginning are just too rich to ignore).
But Superman is different.
And, frankly, all this talk about how Superman is no longer relevant in today's world is a bunch of B.S. In fact, I think Superman is even MORE relevant than ever.
What most don't seem to get is that the best Superman stories are, essentially, morality plays. When you can do ANYTHING, it's not the physical obstacles that are the challenges, it's the CHOICES you must make.
Moreover, Superman's purpose is not just to save us physically, but to save our spirits by inspiring us to be better.
Honestly, in my dream version of "Superman Returns", he comes back and finds that the Earth has turned into....
naw. Can't give that one away. I may still get the call. :-)
Point being, you don't hire Paul Greengrass to direct a Superman movie. With the right script, I actually really like the idea of Tim Burton - the Tim Burton who did "Big Fish" and "Mars Attacks", not "Nightmare Before Christmas" Burton - making it into a sort of modern fairytale.
On second thought, the guy who could REALLY do it right would have been Luc Besson from about 10 years ago - Leelo Dallas was basically a female version of Superman.
In short, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll relax when I see someone with real DC Comic street cred step up to be the Warner's equivalent of Avi Arad.
According to the CDC, as of 2004, the average life expectancy for a Black Man in the United States is 69.8 years.
Three days ago, I turned 35.
It's sobering to know that my government now considers my life half over.
Especially since I feel like it's really just getting started.
But then, I suppose I've been beating the statistics since the day I was born. A girl once pointed out to me on a date some 15 years ago, I was young black man from Baltimore who'd never been to jail, had no children, and was in the process of receiving an Ivy League education. "You don't realize how unique you are", she said.
Wow. 15 years ago.
My best friend just pointed out in his birthday wishes on my Facebook page that we've been friends for nearly 30 years. I can barely process the fact that I can measure anything over such a long period of time.
I can vividly remember my brother pumping his fists in the hospital the day that his son was born. Three months ago, that little baby just graduated from college. In the pictures from my recent trip to Comic-Con, my young cousin the photographer made a point of acknowledging me as "his older cousin".
But, for all of this talk about age, why can't I stop smiling this week?
Why do I feel so.... alive?
I feel like I've waited my entire life to be this age.
All week long, as people ask me how was my birthday and how do I feel to be another year older, I keep telling them the same thing:
This has been a great year. And the next one? Even better.
Thank you everyone for all of the calls, emails, notes, well wishes, free drinks, cards, unmentionables, and everything else I've gotten in tribute this week. You all make every single moment sparkle like new money, and I appreciate every second.
Last Christmas, when we were all sitting around chatting about the upcoming election over some Yultide dessert, my mother, a fairly reliable progressive Democrat, said that, while she was a Hilary girl who found herself falling head over heels for Obama, under no circumstances whatsoever would she vote for John Edwards.
I was shocked.
That's when several of my cousins also nodded in agreement.
"Why?" I asked my family. "Why not Edwards?"
The response?
"There's just something about him. He just seems shifty".
I couldn't see it. I'd been a fan of Edwards from back in '04 - he was actually my choice before I became a Deaniac. He seemed to be the guy who'd be forceful in his defense of progressive beliefs and values, almost to the point of recklessness. No one could deny how passionate he was. Surely no one could doubt that, given the chance, he'd be a good advocate for that other America he kept talking about.
No, let's be honest.
I didn't WANT to see it.
Not even subconsciously.
This election has been a real education as to how so many negative traits aren't just inherent in members of a given party.
Because a man who'll do anything for a given cause, no matter how noble it may be, is, by definition, a man who cannot be trusted. And it's just as true of John Edwards as it is about George W. Bush.
It took 22 years for the seminal graphic novel "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" to give birth to a movie version of the Caped Crusader that truly matched its sensibilities both in tone and substance, namely Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight".
Although, to be fair, "The Dark Knight"'s actual literary reference points are "Batman: The Killing Joke" and "Batman: The Long Halloween", featuring The Joker and Two-Face, respectively, but "The Dark Knight Returns" really reshaped the character into something much more rich and essential.
Three months after the last issue of "The Dark Knight Returns" shipped to comic stores, a comic with a blood-stained smiley face on the cover appeared on the newsstands that asked a very simple question:
How would the world that we know actually have changed if a man gained superhuman powers and declared himself our protector?
That was the beginning of "Watchmen", by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. And what Frank Miller did for Batman in "The Dark Knight Returns", Moore & Gibbons did for the entire genre of superheroes.
So, now that this is the year that the superhero movie has finally arrived (thank you Iron Man, Hulk, Hellboy, and Batman), it's only fitting that the story that dismantled superheroes should follow right behind.
Friends, the trailer for Zack Snyder's movie adaptation of "Watchmen":
Will this be as rich and satisfying and as qualitative a film as "The Dark Knight" appears to be? Doubtful. Chris Nolan is a singular storyteller who wrestles every single aspect of the film to make it tell the story, and nothing more. Zack Snyder is a director with a tremendous visual eye and a great sense for good stories. But the difference between them is Nolan is also a writer, and Snyder is not. In fact, when Snyder says that he's absolutely committed to everything put on the page in the Watchmen graphic novel, that actually makes me MORE nervous about the final film. Slavish devotion to a literary piece is not what makes for a great film.
Just ask Mark Steven Johnson, who directed Daredevil and Ghost Rider.
In fact, I would even suggest that the reason why The Dark Knight surpasses Spider-Man and Iron Man is that Nolan was willing to jettison whatever didn't fully support what he felt was the basic premise of Batman - a regular man who makes himself into a superhero through the application of his wealth and force of will in self-mastery. It's the absolute commitment to reality that makes The Dark Knight transcend other films in the genre.
And, frankly, given the basic premise of "Watchmen", that should be the same basis of that film as well.
At least, that's what I would do. :-)
In other words, I seriously doubt there will be any Oscar buzz around Watchmen.
But I DO think it it will be a fabulously fun movie, with the potential to be a very provocative film in the vein of "The Dark Knight" if they stay true to the heart of the story itself.
It seems like, in every election, there's someone who really needs to get their ass kicked.
Back in 2004, it was Ralph Nader - enter Howard Dean to administer the verbal beatdown in a debate, as I described here.
Ultimately, the debate I really wanted that year was Dean v. Bush, which I just knew would devolve into a fist fight on national TV.
But this year, my friends, we may get the next best thing.
Because someone somewhere had the delicious foresight to pit Karl Rove against John Edwards in a debate. Excuse me, potentially, in a SERIES of debates.
Just the thought of watching Turd Blossom getting his teeth kicked in verbally by this year's Angry Man Progressive is far too juicy to ignore.
I'm reminded of my days back in Princeton, when many students of color were passionately lobbying the university to add an Ethnic Studies program to the curriculum through a series of rallies, protests, even a sit-in of the President's office. In the midst of this, were were a number of students who, at best, acted as devil's advocates that actively engaged the protesters on these issues. On many occasions, these Devil's advocates would make statements that were often contradictory, but were all individually inflammatory. As a result, some of these passionate protesters would become so incensed that they'd loose sight of their ultimate goal as they tried to shout down the inherent stupidness of elements of the opposition.
These so-called Devil's advocates, of course, grow up to be the Tucker Carlsons of the world.
And, in many cases, these well-intentioned passionates grow up to be Keith Olberman.
As much as I love and enjoy "Countdown with Keith Olberman", I suppose I must remind myself that, as often insightful and passionate as he can be, he can often loose sight of the forest for those damned trees.
Case in point: my recent post about his recent segment, laying much of the blame for high oil prices at the feet of Enron, oil speculators, former Senator & Mrs. Phil Graham, and, by proxy and omission, John McCain. As a number of commentators pointed out in that post, and, as this New Yorker article linked in the title addresses, while speculators can assume some of the blame, much of it must be laid at the feet of the insane growth of oil demand. Now, I'm still not entirely convinced that there isn't whole scale market manipulation, but I would not be doing my due diligence to not give voice to these other, potentially stronger factors.
And, as the New Yorker points out, these regulatory measures against speculators may, in some ways, be as much of a political stunt as the gas tax holiday proposal from the spring. While I believe it's clearly a more substantive stunt, it still beats up a familiar bogeyman for the public while not addressing the fundamental, underlying issues.
Whenever I've been watching one of the billions of presidential debates over the last few months, my roommate has occasionally asked me "what are they going to do to bring these gas prices down?" And my answer has been pretty pathetic: "uhm, there's not enough refineries, and China's increasing the demand, so it's out of their control until we switch to renewable fuels.... I think".
But the more I really thought about it, the more that simply didn't make sense. If Exxon is making a BILLION dollars in profit for the first three months of this year, that means that their revenues have vastly outpaced their expenditures. So, even if the processing of crude oil had become so much more expensive because of bottlenecks in the pipeline, which would, presumably, drive up the price of a barrel of oil, it still doesn't account for the huge profit disparity.
And then I saw this segment on "Countdown with Keith Olberman" last night.
In short, it's all Enron's fault. Enron and Phil Graham.
So, the question is, if the so-called "Enron Loophole", that allows energy speculators to simultaneously drive up the price of oil while hording it as an investment and then reaping insane profits, has single-handedly caused the price of oil to double since it's inception, why haven't ANY of the Presidential candidates talked about it this year? After all, you would think that Enron is a pretty easy boogeyman to present for further public flogging.
And, yes, I'm talking to YOU, Senator Obama.
Some legislation has been passed to address this, but there's much more work to be done. If you want to help do something about it, check out StopOilSpeculators.com.
The other thing that concerns me is that, near the end of Keith's report, he mentioned the term "oil bubble".
Having lived through both the 1st internet bubble and now a real estate bubble, the thought of an oil bubble makes me extremely nervous. I mean, sure, if the bubble burst, the oil prices should collapse, which would be easier on my petrol budget. But, if all of these financial institutions are acting as major oil speculators, would the crash of the oil market make some collapse like Bear Sterns, pouring even more salt in the wounds of the credit crisis?
But it's still pretty tasty - because the minute somebody is paying an A-list writer for a script, you can at least know that somebody, somewhere, is serious enough about actually making the film to put some real skin in the game.
My only concern is that Robotech is a MASSIVE story. I mean, originally, they were three separate and totally unrelated anime cartoons that the producers redubbed and smooshed together to make one big, epic story spanning three generations of heroes fighting successive waves of mecha-enabled alien invaders (namely, the Zentraedi, The Robotech Masters, and, my personal favorites, The Invid). To do it even sort of right, you really ought to do three separate trilogies, one for each generation.
And, perhaps that's the point. If I was a studio head, I would be salivating at the chance to launch a property with a massive built-in audience and 8 potential sequels. Especially since you only need three-film commitments from any one actor (so the costs are fairly fixed, as opposed to other franchises that become increasingly expensive from actors' salaries).
And, unlike most 80's cartoons, Robotech already had fairly sophisticated dramatic elements - real death and cross-racial romance and the cost of war. It doesn't need to be upgraded to adulthood like, say, Transformers. In fact, my other concern is that the studio might try to soften some of the hardcore storytelling at the end of each saga in hopes of "sending people home happy".
Just tell a good story, man. That'll make people happy enough.
Then again, Kasdan did write "Empire Strikes Back". Maybe I shouldn't be concerned.
And I do think Tobey Maguire would make a pretty good Rick Hunter. And Katee Sackhoff is the obvious choice for Dana Sterling. Dare I suggest Grace Park is Lin Minmei?
Actually, the more I think of it, the more I realize Ron Moore is totally jacking Robotech tropes for Battlestar Galactica. Edward James Olmos is a total shout-out to Captain Gloval. The tone and lessons about war are also very similar, as well as the effect humanity has on alien cultures.
In short, I'm still anticipating the nerd-gasm. But, done right, this could be the "Lord of The Rings" for giant robot sci-fi summer action movies. I have renewed hope.
Damn that Obama!!!! I was supposed to be the first Black president!
PSYCHE. :-)
MSNBC & CNN are 4 years late.
I called this back in 2004, in a blog post I called "The Future".
Barack Hussein Obama is the presumptive nominee from the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America.
Think about that for a minute.
As we sit, a Black man has a 50/50 shot at becoming the leader of the free world.
And, if I can get all Marcus Garvey-ish on it for a moment, we're basically a coin toss away from having a man who looks like, frankly, the majority of the population of this planet, become the de-facto leader of said planet.
A bi-racial man of African descent who was raised by Americans of European descent, who worships with the majority religion on Earth (namely, Christianity), but wears a name with deep cultural resonance with the 2nd largest religion on Earth (namely Islam).
I'll just say this: anyone who doesn't understand why someone like Rev. Wright might say something like "God Damn America", while still being a patriot, read this article from the New York Times, and understand that, while this case got a lot of publicity, stories like this happen every single day in this country and never get reported.
Black people (and, I increasingly suspect, Brown people as well) who simply want the opportunity to live their lives are KILLED.
They're killed with impunity.
They're killed by people who are supposed to enforce the laws like those against murder. They're killed by people who are supposed to protect them because they're citizens.
And when they're killed under such circumstances, on the extremely rare occasion where some sort of trial is convened, their loved ones are told that said killing wasn't really criminal or even improper.
The call from Rev. Wright isn't "Go To Hell America".
The call is "Damn it, America! Why can't you do right by me like you promised?!?!"
It's the glaring absence of justice on earth that makes us call for divine retribution.
I'm sure many of you have been wondering why I haven't had anything to say about all of the recent electoral controversies of the last two months. Nothing on Rev. Wright, or Bosnian snipers, or phone calls at 3 in the morning, or bitterness in small town Pennsylvania, or the Weathermen, or flag lapel pins, or bowling, or whiskey shots, or even the debate last night on ABC.
And, yes, I do spend a fair amount of time following these stories, and I have pretty strong opinions. So strong, sometimes, that it literally drives up my blood pressure and makes my hands tremble in fury.
Which doesn't feel good.
So I don't say anything.
Because these things are distractions.
As my roommate likes to say, "they keep us all REAL busy, don't they?"
So, I've chosen to contribute as little as possible to the cacaphony, because, at the end of the day, the choice is really very simple:
If you like the direction the country is going in right now, internationally and economically, vote for John McCain.
If you don't like the direction the country is going in, but feel that the partisan divide in the country is just insurmountable, so that the best we can hope to do is cobble together the slimmest majority necessary to win and then, with no mandate, make whatever changes are available to that 50.01% of us, vote for Hilary Clinton.
If you don't like the direction the country is going in, and that the problems are so big that the incrementalism available to those slim majorities won't be enough to cut it, and are ready to at least try to bridge the partisan divide to build a real majority so that the entire country can be galvanized actually make some significant changes, vote for Barack Obama.
If you don't think voting for either of these three will effect your life in anyway, write in a 3rd party candidate who you think could, if given a chance, and vote for him. if you don't think voting AT ALL can change the direction of the country, stay at home, roll up your sleeves, and get to work making your own contribution to making things better.
It's that simple.
Ask yourself what you believe, and then act accordingly.
But don't let them waste your time with this crap.
I know it's hard. Because the crap is madly entertaining.
So, some time ago, you all heard me crying the blues about how Universal & Co. screwed up the film adaptation of Mark Millar's supervillain opus, "Wanted". After all, as the image to the right clearly shows, half the fun of that title came from the fact that they were comic book supervillains run amok, right down to their 4 colored costumes and utterly reprehensible behavior. So, when I heard they weren't incorporating any of that into the movie, and really kind of white-washing the characters for the film, I was completely prepared to dismiss this film, sight unseen.
I don't care if it's some of my favorite actors like James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. (Truth be told, I won't say Angelina is one of my favorites, but she does have talent along with a tremendous sense of global responsibility and I'm occasionally happy to pay to look at her in various states of undress)
I don't care if it has eye-popping special effects and death-defying stunt sequences.
I don't care if it's actually a good movie.
IT'S NOT "WANTED", SO STOP CALLING IT "WANTED"!
OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system..... :-)
I cannot tell you how many different ways I've tried to start this post, which I think is indicative of how big a topic this is.
Today, I want to talk about fear.
But let's begin at the beginning.
I was having breakfast with a young lady last week, and the topic drifted into the Presidential election. She commented that so many men who say they couldn't or wouldn't vote for Hilary Clinton are, ultimately, afraid of having a woman as President.
Now, of course, I've made no secret of my support for Barack Obama, but, at least consciously, I would never have thought that my opposition to her may be based in some latent misogyny. Quite the contrary, actually: the foreign policy position she's presented has seemed far more belligerent and, frankly, male than most of her Democratic contenders, to the point where, in some instances, she's starting to sound like the Republicans. My opposition to her has, at least consciously, always been based in my general opposition to DLC-style politics (i.e. "We're Democrats who want to beat up the same people as the GOP, so vote for us instead of those girlie-man Progressives"). Which is why I don't like guys like Joe Lieberman (even before he showed his true colors last year), or Evan Bayh, or even, in some instances, Harold Ford.
On the other hand, the Clintonistas will say the same thing that one of my cousins up in Milwaukee said back in 2004 on why he was supporting Bush: "Sometimes, you need a bully." After all, the world is full of scary stuff and scary people. Isn't it obvious that we need someone big and bad to go beat up the scary people?
And this has been the rapp on Obama - he's not tough enough. If he thinks he can talk to the Iranians, or Al Qaeda, or the North Koreans, or the lobbyists, or the big polluters and pharmeceutical companies, he's either a sucker who's too naive to be in office or a coward who's too spineless to get into a fight.
This is the same thing John Edwards was saying before he dropped out. You've got to be ready to take these people on. Because they're coming to get you. Hell, they may already have you.
And MY GOD, if Obama is talking this Hope crap now, just wait until the Republicans get a hold of him! None of us can possibly imagine the onslaught of character assassinations that will be unleashed against Barack by the likes of Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh and the Swift Boat Vets and all the other cogs in the Right Wing Attack Machine (tm).
And let's not even get into what radio host Stephanie Miller called "Right Wing World". If you thought WE had enemies to be afraid of, progressives, that's nothing compared to the enemies that the conservatives see.
I mean, let's take a step back for a minute. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of conservative is: –adjective 1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change. 2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate. 3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.
And, once you get past the politically specific definitions, you get to my favorite one: having the power or tendency to conserve; preservative.
Preserve. Protect. Defend.
The very definition of the word assumes a state of constant siege. Their enemies are legion.
It's not just specific terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or Hamas or Hezbollah, in their eyes. It's not just specific countries like Iran or Syria. It's not even the whole of the religion of Islam. It is a clash of whole civilizations. Our very way of life is at stake. These people don't just want to kick us out of their countries. They don't just want to control the world's oil supply. They want to enslave us. They want to steal our God. And, barring that, they want to kill as many of us as they possibly can, for no other reason than the fact that we exist.
I think 9/11 is probably the first time that the average white person in America felt like there was a man out there, somewhere, who was plotting to kill them in the most newsworthy fashion possible, simply because of their identity, as opposed to some assumed grievance.
Which is probably way far fewer Black people in America had their world turned upside down as a result of that day: we've lived under the threat of random, indiscriminate identity-based violence & bloodshed for centuries. So what of Osama Bin Laden wants to blow up my office? The LAPD may shoot me tonight before I can even pull out of the driveway, ya heard?
When I was accepted into Princeton, my older brother pulled me aside and explained to me that, when I got to campus, I was suddenly going to be a "nigger", and subject to unspeakable affronts like the kind he experienced at the University of Maryland back in the early 80's. Things like being bombarded with so-called water balloons filled with ketchup, or having to endure regular racist cat calls from trucks full of his fellow students simply walking home from a late class. And that I needed to steal myself for what was coming.
But, see, the funny thing is, by the time he pulled me aside, I'd already been going to school with the sons of rich white people for the better part of seven years, and it simply wasn't the case. The worst racial incidents that I'd experienced there both came in 6th grade - in the first, one kid told me that I was the blackest Black person he had ever seen, and, in the second, another kid called me "Buckwheat". When I confronted him about it, he tried to spin it that Buckwheat was famous (thanks to the Eddie Murphy skit) and that it was meant as a term of endearment. Whatever. It stopped. And, as far as the first incident, hey, let's be honest - I'm a deep chocolate brother and I wear my complexion with pride.
And, in the one instance in my life where a white kid did have the nerve to call me "nigger" to my face, he was inches away from having a "come to Jesus" meeting with my fist before the host at that particular party, my token white friend at the time, kicked the offending child out while his mother pleaded with my mom for forgiveness for exposing me to such riff-raff.
The point is, I'd been around white people for a while.
And I wasn't scared of them.
Now, I'm not saying that I'm some hero or that I deserve a "Profiles in Courage" award. Put me in the room with just about any kind of barking dog, and watch my inner punk flourish.
What I am saying is, fear is easy. It usually goes hand in hand with people who talk about being realistic.
But, personally, I'm tired of being afraid.
In her book, "The Game of Life and How To Play It", Florence Scovel-Shinn defines fear as having perfect faith in evil.
It's that other 'F' word that was key for me.
Faith.
And not the way Mike Huckabee means.
Like I wrote the morning after the 2004 Presidential Election in "....the sun WILL rise...", I suddenly understood that I had been a willing participant in a system that validated evil, even if it was only as the lesser of two.
And, in that moment, I decided that I would NEVER, EVER vote for someone because I was afraid of something ever again.
When I wrote "The California Democratic Party SUCKS" back during the 2006 Gubernatorial Election, I caught a lot of flak from my local progressive friends for saying that I would not vote for the Democratic candidate, Phil Angelides, even if that meant re-electing Arnold. They were all terrified of 4 more years of Herr Schwarzenegger. But I had faith that, by not choosing the lesser of two evils, I would get closer to the outcome that I wanted. In short, I put it in the hands of a higher power.
Two years later, I think most Californians will agree that, while he's been less than ideal, the Governator has been a fairly decent steward of the Golden State.
Everyone was so down after Bush was re-elected, and appropriately so. 2005 was an awful year for America. But didn't I say that that particular election was going to be the low point before a progressive surge in the American electorate? Look at the country now - Democratic primaries are seeing, in some cases, double the voter turn out than 4 years ago.... which was already a record year.
My point is, I stopped letting George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger steal my joy. And that was not blind faith. It was a belief backed by conviction and effort and wisdom. But it is also founded in the fundamental understanding that nothing anybody else can do to me can hurt me more than what I can do to myself.
Which is why I love this little mantra from Frank Herbert's "Dune: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
What so many people may not understand is that Obama is offering the same message and operating on the same frequency as not just RFK or MLK, but of, ultimately, Gandhi.
It's not about Peace Through Strength.
My friends, it is about Strength Through Peace.
Not world peace. Inner peace. Spiritual peace. Human peace. Peace at the center. The peace that passes all understanding.
And folks, you know that I am very much a Prodigal Son when it comes to the traditional church. But the peace that comes from knowing that you are MORE than how a poll or an election or a pundit or an attack ad defines you, let's you confront the smears from the Hannitys and O'Reilly's of the world, directly, without malice, without hatred, and without fear.
The peace that comes from knowing that the true idea at the center of America is much older and deeper and fundamental and eternal and MORE than the political, social, and economic structures that have been put in place on this particular mass of land by these particular people over the last 232 years, and it would be impossible for a group of men in a cave with some explosives or a despot with an army of any size to destroy it - THAT peace lets you confront those with foul intentions with a resolve so steely and a strength so insurmountable that they wither in your presence.
The strength for those confrontations is the same that Gandhi used to dismantle the oppressor of a nation, or that Dr. King used to gain equality for his people.
Now, those who still live in fear simply cannot believe in the validity of any other kind of power besides that which is fear-based. And that's OK.
When it gets scary for them, the rest of us will hold their hands and whisper that it will be alright.
And, honestly, as long as the likes of McCain and even Hilary are preparing to wage war from a place that is ultimately based in fear, neither of them will EVER get my vote. Even if she is the Democratic nominee.
Like I've said before - I'm MORE. And until she realizes that she is, too, she cannot possibly represent me.
And I have faith that the world will unfold to my liking as long as I am true to who I am and what I believe.
Just like the State of California did. And just like the American electorate did.
In short, I think it's time for us all to get past our fear, and have the courage to hope for the world and the life we truly desire.
In all of the areas where you feel the tension to be secure, to be protected, to be safe from the Bogeymen... in every place where you hold your fear like a warm, soothing blanket:
Fear of Republicans. Fear of Liberals. Fear of Homosexuals. Fear of Homophobes. Fear of white people. Fear of black people. Fear of Bush. Fear of McCain. Fear of Hilary. Fear of Obama. Fear of Bin Laden. Fear of women. Fear of men. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of Satan. Fear of God. Fear of life. Fear of death.
My first year in film school, one of my classmates interned at a production company and was able to get her hands on a copy of the screenplay for "Unbreakable" about 7 months before the movie actually hit the theaters.
As a 1st year screenwriting fellow at AFI, freshly minted in Los Angeles, during an 18 month period that saw the release of "The Sixth Sense", "The Matrix", "American Beauty", "The Insider", "The Talented Mr. Ripley", "The Thomas Crown Affair", "Fight Club", "The Beach" (yes, I REALLY like "The Beach"), "American Psycho", "The Blair Witch Project", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Dancer In The Dark", "Gladiator", "In The Mood For Love", "High Fidelity", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "Being John Malkovich", "Magnolia", and "Three Kings"....
You get the idea.
It was a great time for movies, and the chance to actually read a script for what was one of the most anticipated films of the year BEFORE it was even produced was VERY satisfying.
I read it, and, for the most part, loved it. Until the very end.
As a comic book fan AND a filmmaker-in-training, I was so geeked about the prospect of this film, but I knew that something just didn't - quite - work.
So, I started drafting a letter to M. Night Shaymalan.
Yes, as a first year film student, I was going to give script notes to a guy who'd just been nominated for three Oscars (Picture, Directing, & Original Screenplay) for what is now the 30th top grossing movie of all time.
But then I figured, hey, he's so good, of course he'll see what's wrong and re-write the script before shooting. I mean, after all, who am I to tell him? He clearly knows what he's doing.
To this day, I wish I'd written that letter.
And, as both "Unbreakable" and "A.I. : Artificial Intelligence" clearly demonstrate, not even the very best filmmakers are above notes.
I like "The Sixth Sense", and, for all it's flaws, I still love "Unbreakable". But I LOATHE the endings of "Signs" and "The Village", to the point that they really ruin the movies for me. And "The Lady In The Water" is just a train wreck.
Maybe I'm a sucker.
I mean, I suppose 2 for 5 is still a .400 batting average, but his most recent efforts haven't really been inspiring.
I think M. Night Shyamalan is an amazing director. He has a masterful sense of color, framing, camera movement, and pacing. Taken strictly on an aesthetic level, his films are marvelous.
But, first and foremost, I am a writer.
And the storyteller in me finds M. Night Shyamalan to be a wildly inconsistent screenwriter.
SO, like I said, maybe I'm just a sucker.
But, damn, this looks good!
So, Variety is reporting that he shopped the original draft of this script around town, and everybody passed. So, he went back and re-wrote it, and THEN got a green light from 20th Century Fox.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to tell you who to vote for. But don't just take my word for it.
Wouldn't it be just poetic for Obama to become the first African-American presidential nominee of a major American political party during Black History Month?
12 years ago, there were no such things as "blogs".
In fact, back in 1996, there was barely even an internet.
Even in my day job, where we were ostensibly on the leading edge of software & technology at the time, we were still using things like VI, the MS WordPad of text editors, to write complex computer programs, line-by-line-by-line. Lotus Notes was the latest thing for intra-company communications, and only senior management had actual accounts on the system. A laptop? You may as well have asked the company to buy you a Rolls Royce while you were at it. And, if you were one of the blessed few to have a company e-mail account, chances are, you were keeping a manila folder in your file cabinet, where you kept hard copy print outs of every single e-mail you ever sent or received.
At home, things weren't much better. I bought a Compaq Presario that year and subscribed to a local Mom & Pop internet service provider to get dial up access to the nascent web. After being spoiled by free e-mail back in college, I couldn't wait to rip open my shrink-wrapped copy of Netscape Navigator and jump back onto the so-dubbed "Information Superhighway".
One night during that same year, as I was listening to Hot 97 on the train ride back to my humble abode in Montclair, New Jersey, Angie Martinez & company came on the air in tears.
Tupac Shakur had just died.
I didn't know this man. And yet, his passing had meaning - real personal meaning - to me.
And, even though I was a relatively content, well-compensated (albeit grotesquely overworked) little corporate drone, I had to say... SOMETHING.... about this to someone.
I was driven..... compelled to write.
So, I sat down at my Presario and composed a little essay called "2Pacalypse", where I related the suddenness of 2Pac's passing to Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge on San Luis Rey", questioning this notion that death is God's way of saying "mission accomplished". Was his soul actually supposed to learn something by getting gunned down on the Las Vegas strip? Were the rest of us supposed to take something away from it? Or was the search for terrestrial meaning at all a fruitless gesture?
Of course, what took me a page or two to say back in the mid 90's I can now do in one paragraph. Practice makes perfect. :-)
Point being, even back then, when I couldn't even imagine living the life that I lead right now, was the DNA for Macroscope.
Even more to the point, I'm still struck by my personal need to respond in a personal way to the passing of a person who had no direct contact with my life.
Then again, as I stated in "2Pacalypse", Tupac been touching my life in some way since 1991. As a popular artist, his music had provided a kind of Greek chorus to my life. I remember cruising the summer streets of Baltimore with my friends to the tune of "I Get Around", or planning to scare the white people in the dining hall at Princeton with a song that starts "...They claim that I'm violent, just cause I refuse to be silent", or feeling warm and fuzzy and agreeable listening to "Dear Mama".
If I can paraphrase Jeffrey Wigand, we artists are in the Emotion Delivery Business.
And anyone who can make you FEEL something will always have a place in your heart, regardless of how that feeling is given to you. They become your friends, you family even. They can make you laugh or cry. They can inspire you, and even disappoint you, even if you've never ever met.
Thus is the odd conundrum that is mass media and celebrity.
Even though he was a stranger, 2Pac's art made him feel like he was my friend.
Which is why I'm suddenly reminded of him and his passing today.
Not that long ago, I hated Heath Ledger.
He didn't really register with me the first time I saw him, opposite Mel Gibson in "The Patriot". I mean, his character irritated me, but there were so many other things in that movie that pissed me off even more (Black slaves who were just tickled pink to pick Mel's cotton? A church full of people burned alive, but everything is cool because Mel killed Jason Isaacs? Shall I go on?), that I just sort of ignored the young Aussie.
"A Knight's Tale" was when he really started to irk me, because I could feel the studio machine tuning up the band to proclaim him "The Next Big Thing(tm)". I'd recently read William Goldman's "Adventures in The Screen Trade", and tended to agree with his thesis that new stars were only created when an established star passes on a juicy role and the producers are forced to cast a talented unknown in the part. Sadly, I think I was unfairly heaping Heath in with my feelings on Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor ("The Next Harrison Ford"? come ON!) and just this overwhelming sense of Jonestown-style Kool-Aid that was floating around movie marketing that year. In fact, by the end of the summer of 2001, I was so irritated with the kind of films I'd been seeing, that I teamed with a like-minded classmate from film school to write a film that directly addressed many of the failings that we saw while still telling a good yarn.
And after a year of working on said film, we got word that Heath Ledger was going to star in a new movie with the EXACT SAME TITLE AS OURS.
Yes, I HATED Heath Ledger.
But then I saw "Monster's Ball". In particular, this scene made me a believer in Heath Ledger.
(And, if you've never seen the movie before, I beg you, PLEASE don't waste time with this YouTube clip. Just go out and rent the damn thing, because it's just a fantastic film):
I even loved "The Four Feathers". And a big part of what I loved was Heath's performance - just through his body and his face, he was able to transport me directly inside his character's emotional journey, from false pride, to cowardice, to guilt, resolve, sacrifice, despair, and, finally, triumph.
I read an interview with him where he said that, regarding acting roles, he felt like it would be a waste of his time to repeat himself. Which is why he turned down a ton of nice, frothy teen films at the start of his career and was, at one point, forced to borrow money from his agent to survive, waiting for a good, original role.
The guy wasn't just a teen idol-in-training. He was an f'n actor.
And the very best actors have always been anthronauts- literally, "sailors on the seas of humanity" - exploring the uncharted corners of the soul and bringing the breadfruits of this spiritual New World back to nourish those of us who wait on the safer, civilized shores of our own identities.
But, knowing what I know about actors who channel the spirit of their characters, like Mr. Ledger clearly does, I can't help but wonder about the toll it took on him to accomplish... THIS:
Before The Joker, he appeared to be on the path to be a reasonably peaceful & content family man. Then, after locking himself in a hotel room for six weeks to inhabit this most unhinged of all supervillains, he separated from his love and complained that he'd been unable to sleep for weeks.
His brain just couldn't stop spinning.
I believe I even heard that he'd been prescribed Ambien, and it still only helped him sleep for an hour at a time.
Am I suggesting something as crass as "The Joker killed Heath Ledger"? No. What I am suggesting is, when people describe certain actors as fearless, it's not just about doing their own stunts. There are emotional and spiritual costs to doing this sort of work at the highest level.
I remember my father wondering out loud about Ricky Williams: "with all that money, you'd think a guy would be able to keep himself off of drugs".
Sadly, Dad, sometimes, for some people, the drugs are the only things propping them up to allow them to even do what they do. Athletes. Rock stars. Movie stars.
Delivering a feeling to millions upon millions of people, night after night, day after day...
Think of it this way: consider how much energy it takes for you to have the relationships with the people you personally know and with whom you maintain a personal connection. Now, imagine if you had to do that for a living, where every single person on the street feels connected to you. Deeply. Personally. Spiritually.
Every. Single. Person.
The best of them give us all so much. Things we simply could not live without, no matter how much we want to dismiss them as inconsequential.
After I got through shouting "WHAT?!?!?" at my computer screen, hoping that if I said it long enough and loud enough, the sheer force of my voice would change the words to anything other than "Heath Ledger Dead at 28"....
After I got over the deep sadness I felt for people like Michelle Williams and his daughter, or even someone like Christopher Nolan, who now has the unenviable task of looking at his friend Heath's face every single day for the next six months while trying to finish editing his movie....
After taking the stream of phone calls from friends who were as astonished and saddened at the news as I was....
After all that mourning....
All I honestly have left to say is "Thank you."
"Thank you, Heath, for the deliveries"
"They were always right on time."
Send some light and love both to him and the people who knew him best.
If you look to your left and see the nifty new Archives feature here on Macroscope, the statistics are very telling. I generated more posts in 2003 than in all of the other six years of this blog's existence, combined.
2003 was a heavy year.
I turned 30 that August.
And, on the day of my birthday, I had to attend a funeral.
One of my co-workers, a very nice young Mormon fellow, had recently left his job to go back to law school. About a week after we'd given him a fond send off, he was celebrating with his family, including his parents, brothers, his wife and two young children, during a cookout. At one point, my friend's father was playing with my friend's little two year old son in the front yard, and he took his eyes off the child for a moment.... which was all that was needed for the little boy to run over to the next door neighbor's pool that had always fascinated him.
He fell in and drowned.
2 years old.
And the funeral was the day of my birthday.
I remember my girlfriend & I driving deep out into Ventura County early that morning. She's an artist and she'd made a painting of the two of us and her young daughter as a birthday gift. After being together for nearly a year, I believe we broke up roughly a month after this drive.
It was a beautiful day and the area surrounding the church was full of orange groves and farm land. I remember stepping inside the viewing room for the wake.
To this day, I can think of nothing more abominable than a tiny casket.
Inside, he just looked like he was napping.
By the time I got home, my mother had called to wish me a happy birthday. She was on the road coming back from Georgia at the time. A young man from my family's church back in Baltimore was a Marine paratrooper and he was being court-martialed because he and two other marines had been caught tampering with the parachute lines for their unit. They claimed it was meant to bring attention to some unknown ill on the base, but, really does it really even matter? However, the other two had somehow managed to cop a plea, so he, at 19 years old, was left holding the bag and facing the full righteous fury of the United States Marine Corps. He was being sentenced that day in Georgia, so a group from our church took a bus down from Baltimore to act as character witnesses in hopes of inspiring some leniency in his sentence.
Mom told me that, after they all made their impassioned pleas, the judge sentenced him to 20 years in Ft. Levenworth, KS.
As opposed to life in prison.
In this same phone call, Mom told me that one of her old co-workers who'd been a longtime family friend and had even done my taxes on some occasions had just died after a long illness. She also told me that one of the elder statesmen of our church, himself a Marine who was praying for the young man's freedom, had died.
2003 was the first year I had official representation as a tv writer. After several meetings, I apparently came within a hair's breath of getting hired to write for a major NBC drama. But was not. So, I, as an Ivy League graduate, formerly a highly paid IT consultant, now holding a Master of Fine Arts degree, would continue to subsist for another year as a glorified secretary in a non-profit. Excuse me, as a TEMPORARY glorified secretary in a non-profit.
At various points throughout the year, I'd had both my telephone and my electricity disconnected because I hadn't paid my bills. It's moments like then that you think, "Maybe that payment protection plan on my credit card wasn't such a crazy idea."
I turned 30 that year.
To paraphrase Max Cady, 2003 was the year I learned about loss.
Loss of loved ones. Loss of the dream of a family of my own. Loss of opportunities. Loss of pride.
I wrote a lot that year.
But if you look at Macroscope, circa 2003, you won't find any of these stories there.
Instead, you'll find page after page after page about what's wrong with the world outside. Dozens of invectives against George Bush and the invasion of Iraq and intolerance and Rwanda and water politics and CSA sympathizers, with some pop culture & comic references sprinkled in between.
And, of course, LOTS of posts about Howard Dean.
And, if I may psychoanalyze myself from 5 years ago, Dean was going to be the one to make it all right in my life again. And he was going to do it by making Them pay. We were going to take Our Country back. We were going to steal our dreams back. And kick the asses of all the people who'd taken our dreams away in the first place.
I mean how else can you explain this?
I think I was dying inside, and Dean helped me live again by being an avatar for all of rage that was building inside.
Sometimes, I think anger is a necessary tool. You can't go from abject despair to rapturous joy overnight. There are steps. Sometimes, you need a righteous fury just to muster the energy to pick yourself up again.
I loved Dean for America and everything that it stood for. But, like with all things, if you continue to grow, eventually, you'll outgrow them.
Case in point, sometime in the summer of 2004, I was conducting yet another e-mail debate, this time, over legalizing gay marriage, when my brother, staunch, pro-defense Republican that he is, waded into the thick of my progressive, liberal friends to defend the church's official position on the subject. And, of course, it was just ON. But one guy, who'd I'd campaigned with extensively for Dean, took it too far. While everyone else was saying that my brother's position was rediculous, THIS guy started saying that my brother was stupid and that people like him are the reason why this country is in the mess that it is and that he hoped that my brother didn't have children so that they wouldn't grow up to be as stupid as he was and...
You get the idea.
I was livid.
I was out of work, sitting at home at my computer in my underwear, and I was livid.
How DARE he attack my family like that?!?!
I basically told my brother "I got this", and then spent an hour composing a blistering response.
I was using Hotmail at the time. And it wouldn't let me send that e-mail. I'd exceeded the maximum number of e-mails I could send in a day and would have to wait.
I'm suddenly reminded of an episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes to buy a gun and is told that he can't take it home right away because of the 5 day waiting period. His response?
"Five DAYS?!?! But I'm angry RIGHT NOW!!!"
At this point, I had a new girlfriend, and I called her to rant. And, of course, she would have none of it. Moreover, she pointed out to me that this was, in fact, my fault. After all, I'd spent the better part of a year sowing bile, venom, and anger to this little virtual community. The guy in question hadn't said anything worse than I had over the year, it's just that this time it was about someone I cared about instead of some abstract evil OTHER out there.
You reap what you sow.
And that was really the moment that I realized that, if I wanted a different world, I had to start making different choices.
I had to BE different.
I realized that, ultimately, as easy and viscerally satisfying it may be in the short term, fighting just really didn't feel good at all. And it simply wasn't constructive. I stopped arguing with my brother about politics. In fact, I stopped arguing about politics, period. Because, in the end, it was never about America. It was always about me.
And a funny thing happened once I started focusing on myself and getting right inside. My life actually started getting better. I got a real, permanent job. I got to travel. I lost weight. I got a house. I nearly sold my movie. Twice.
As a Dean supporter, I used to make fun of the Kucinich people, especially as their candidate spoke of replacing the DoD with a "Department of Peace". But, now I see, that, if peace is what you truly want, you have to make peace your intention.
And, more specifically, as I said after Dean's collapse in a post called, ironically enough, "Electibility":
America is, for lack of a better term, a symphony.
It is the blueprint for a song that calls upon the very best from every single instrument in the orchestra. And the President is the conductor. A conductor cannot take the elements of the piece meant for the brass section and give them to the strings simply because he likes the way the strings sound. On the other hand, the conductor can't take from the strings and give to the winds because he thinks the strings are too arrogant and full of themselves. And he certainly can't make the symphony work by catering to the natural divisions between the various sections.
The conductor's goal should be rousing, fulfilling, beautiful harmony.
Which means the President of the United States of America has to represent the entire country. Not just the red states or, my personal favorites, the blue states. Every section has a role to contribute to the endeavor, and the President's job is to led the way by which ALL sections contribute and are provided for. He must be the President for the workers, the poor, the underclass, but he must also be the President for the business community and the wealthy, those who provide the opportunities for the others.
Which brings me to the events of the last week in Iowa.
There was a time when my hopes for Barack Obama waivered, and I was leaning more towards John Edwards. But, again, I had an epiphany.
I get those a lot now.
I realized that Edwards had transformed himself into a more disciplined and effective version of Howard Dean. He was the new servant of red meat for the progressive faithful.
Even more scary, if you compare their speeches and take out the '90's nostalgia, Edwards sounds an awful lot like Hillary Clinton. While Edwards is talking about fighting and taking on the powerful corporate interests, Hilary is saying that she's the only one who knows how to fight the right wing machine.
They're both there to fight The Bogeyman. Just like John Kerry in '04 and Al Gore in 2000. They're all spoiling for a fight. For them, it's not about peace and prosperity, it's about victory on the battlefield.
Just like the Republicans. I was struck by last night's GOP debate, where they all talked about this giant existential battle for the soul of the planet against islamofascism, but not a single one of them gave any time to discussing how do the practical things like, I don't know, securing the loose nukes laying around the old Soviet republics that could actually make the islamofascists so dangerous. To them, Al Qaeda and the PLO and Black September and the Ayatollah Khomeini are all faces of the same monster, like Sauron in Middle Earth.
Bogeymen.
But, as I said in my Christmas post about Freddie Krueger, Bogeymen are only as powerful as you make them.
In the end, you can't stop war by waging war on war.
Which is why I love what Obama's doing. He is operating on a totally different, and, dare I say, higher level than anyone else in this race. He is conducting his campaign and trying to lead the nation in the tradition of RFK, and MLK, and even Gandhi.
He understands the power of peace and reconciliation. He is the only person who is actually running to be President of the UNITED States of America.
Oddly enough, the night of the caucuses, they interviewed Howard Dean on MSNBC. And he really didn't look well. He looked sickly. And old.
I still love Dean, but his moment has past.
My mom was a staunch Hillary supporter until I gave her Obama's two books. Now, she thinks, given the improbability of Obama's very existence (Kenyan father, Kansas mother, schooled in Indonesia, raised in Hawaii, on to Harvard law, etc.) that he must be a divine gift.
Over Christmas dinner, she asked my brother who he's supporting, and, even though he's a Republican who voted for George W. Bush TWICE, he said that, if he gets the nomination, he's voting for Obama.
THIS is the America I want. And, as any student of manifestation and divine energy will tell you, before you decide to fight like Edwards or get to work like Hillary, it all starts with choosing and cultivating the right dream.
Dreams reshape the world.
I read recently that one of the beliefs about the ancient Mayan calendar is that, when it ends in 2012, the world as we know it will come to an end.
A moment of profound loss.
But you need that loss to get to the next world, the so-called "Noosphere", a state of transhuman consciousness for the entire planet.
I know. More about that later.
In 2003, I needed those losses to be who I am right now. You have to let go of the old to embrace the new.
I think Obama is the vanguard of a transformation. Of this country and, potentially, the world.
Because it's the beginning of a new year, I suppose it's only appropriate to talk about the things I loved in the 365 days past. So, without further ado, and in no particular order: Favorite films released theatrically in 2007
Talk To Me
No Country For Old Men
Sunshine
Hot Fuzz
Grindhouse
Lust, Caution
Superbad
3:10 To Yuma
The Bourne Ultimatum
Favorite films I saw in my living room in 2007
Equilibrium
Deja Vu
The Dreamers
Silent Hill
Idiocracy
Dirty Pretty Things
Favorite comic series published in 2007
Green Lantern
52
New Avengers
Thor
Eternals
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
World War Hulk
New Avengers: The Illuminati
Favorite musical discoveries of 2007
"Frequency" by Naked Rhythm
"Singles" by Vikter Duplaix
"Belle Et Fou" by Jazzanova
"International Affairs" by Vikter Duplaix
"Bebel Gilberto Remixed"
"A Night At The Playboy Mansion" by Dimtri From Paris
"After The Playboy Mansion" by Dimitri From Paris
"The Street Experience" by Raheem Devaughn
"Danger Doom" by Danger Mouse & MF Doom
Favorite TV shows airing new episodes in 2007
The Wire
The Shield
Battlestar Galactica
Lost
Heroes
Chuck
The 4400
John From Cincinnati
Entourage
Biggest Disappointments of 2007
Bionic Woman
Flash Gordon
John From Cincinnati (and no, this is not a mistake)
American Gangster
Spider-Man 3
Countdown to Final Crisis
Justice League of America (the comic)
Baltimore Ravens
Democratic Congressional Majority
Best weekly parties in L.A. in 2007
Sweeterlife
Room Service
Mingle and Plei
The Do-Over
Reflection
Pause
whatever the Hell Garth Trinidad was calling that party he used to through in the Purple Room in the Standard Sunset Hotel
