Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh! Third Degree burn from Ramen Noodle Soup after 2 weeks of healing. It absolutely hurts as much as it is hideous to look at. I have to see it twice a day to change the bandages so I figure everyone else in the world should have a peek as well. I'll try to keep a photo-journal of the healing process. No, no don't try to thank me. Your revulsion is thanks enough.
2009 was among my least productive writing years to date. Several of the pieces here are reworks of years gone by. That having been said, I think there was a memorable moment or two. Enjoy!
I have been terribly absent from LIVE WRONG AND PROSPER for months now. Some of my distance has come from an increased participation in Social Media and Online Communities. Okay! I have a face book and twitter problem. The most I've managed here and on the epistle are clever creations of other people and a couple of overly easy gags.
I'm not sure that there's anything I can offer now but that information. I don't feel like I'm sitting on a project or projects that are just screaming to be written. There are a half-dozen 'ideas' - some with pencil outlines - idling in my brain now. I don't think I'll stay 'Socially Spent' forever. I usually bore myself back to my favorite topic... myself.
As she dozed on the crowded city bus, draped on the bench atop her plastic bags, mismatched luggage - everything she owned carried with her - I snapped her picture with my cell phone. Trying not to stare her awake, I looked away. Her imprint in my mind was indellable - a Pieta. The Bag-lady crucified, Christ of my commute that day. The blue vinyl bus seat seemed to be holding her like the Blessed Mother. Something about her made me think of peace.
She must have been a regular on the route, for when the driver braked, he indicated it was her stop and asked that her fellow passengers wake her. No one moved, though everyone heard, and since I knew their paralysis was unique to Minnesota and incurable, I stood up. Shaking her shoulder and saying, "Excuse me, Ma'am?" in a clear gentle voice, I tried to rouse her. Her face was paper thin and paper white. Complicated lines of weather and time flashed a sweet smile as her dream ended and her moist eyes blinked open. I explained we had arrived at her stop and helped her gather her life's luggage and disembark.
Though years ago she haunts me still. Did I do a good thing by helping her get where she was going? Or was my action an assault? A rude interruption of the temporary peace her passing dream-time had provided? Just a moment's reverie in a life I doubt she'd ever dreamed would be hers. Sleep sweetly, sister. May you be cradled in dreams without trouble, want or pain.
1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, longer life spans, cell phones, personal computers, and reality television!
All valid points. I only wish I'd written it. Cudos to the Author whomever you are.
Once upon a time when we were friends I gave you my heart. the story ends No happy ever after, now were friends Wish upon a star if that might help The stars collide if you decide Wish upon a star if that might help Whats it like to have loved and to lose her touch? Whats it like to have loved and to lose that much? Well I hope and I pray That maybe someday Youll walk in the room with my heart Add and subtract But as a matter of fact Now that youre gone I still want you back Remembering Surrendering Remembering that part All of my heart Spilling up pink silk and coffee lace You hook me up, I rendevouz at your place Your lipstick and your lip gloss seals my fate Sentimental powers might help you now But skip the hearts and flowers, skip the ivory towers Youll be disappointed and Ill lose a friend No I wont be told theres a crock of gold At the end of the rainbow Or that pleasure and pain, sunshine and rain Might make this love grow But I hope and I pray That maybe someday Youll walk in the room with my heart Add and subtract But as a matter of fact Now that youre gone I still want you back Remembering Surrendering The kindest cuts the cruellest part All of my heart Yes I hope and I pray That maybe someday Youll walk in the room with my heart And I shrug and I say That maybe today Youll come home soon Surrendering Remembering Surrendering that part-all of my heart
The Granfathers of Hip-Hop and Johnny Rotten as prophets.
Speak of the destruction. (x3)
This is a world destruction, your life ain't nothing. The human race is becoming a disgrace. Countries are fighting with chemical warfare. Not giving a damn about the people who live there. Nostradamus predicts the coming of the Antichrist. Hey, look out, the third world nations are on the rise. The Democratic-Communist Relationship, won't stand in the way of the Islamic force. The CIA is looking for you. The KGB is smarter than you think. Brainwash mentalities to control the system. Using TV and movies - religions of course. Yes, the world is headed for destruction. Is it a nuclear war? What are you asking for?
This is a world destruction. Your life ain't nothing. The human race is becoming a disgrace. The rich get richer. The poor are getting poorer. Fascist, chauvinistic government fools. People, Moslems, Christians and Hindus. Are in a time zone still searching for the truth. Who are you to think you're a superior race? Facing forth your everlasting doom. We are Time Zone. We've come to drop a bomb on you. World destruction, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom!
This is the world destruction, your life ain't nothing. The human race is becoming a disgrace. Nationalities are fighting with each other. Why is this? Because the system tells you. Putting people in faceless categories. Knowledge isn't what it used to be. Military tactics to control a nation. Who wants to be a president or king? Me! Mother Nature is gonna work against you. Nothing in your power that you can do. Yes, the world is headed for destruction. You and I know it, cause the Bible tells you. If we don't start to look for a better life, the whole world will be destroyed in a time zone!
I could forgive the pain-pilladdiction and prescription fraud and even cavorting with Space Aliens to back a Presidential Campaign that never (thank God) came together. But why is he the highest paid idioton radio - that I cannot understand?
Was the Space-Alien Oxycontin trippyer than the domestic "hill-billy heroin? Why did their plan to make you President in 1996 fall through? Too tweaky to campaign or did they just realize that backing you for President was like putting lipstick on a Hockey-mom?
Phil Spector's Wig began life in the jungles of west Africa - a lone surviving pup - after poachers illegally and cruelly killed its mother and litter-mates. Orphaned, cold and desperately thin, Phil Spector's Wig was found by a kindly National Park Ranger and given a home. Hand fed 4 times a day with bottles of goat's milk, Phil Spector's Wig was raised as human hair for three years before it became too large to continue to live in the tiny forest quarters of the Ranger. Trading the caged hair for the equivalent of $40 American, Phil Spector's Wig was seperated from a loving environment for the second time in its short life.
The next five years were a blur of animal traders, zoos and carnival side shows - a parade of cages and handlers that seemed to reawaken the wild yearnings of the seemingly tamed beast . At long last Phil Spector's Wig came to rest in a habitat at the L.A. Zoo, sharing the space with Burt Reynold's 1970s Fill-In-The-Blank, an Eva Gabor Fall and three of Shatner's Early Rugs.
It was at this time that Phil Spector's Wig was seen by the legendary music producer's stylist. Ageing, dry and in need of an all-over blunt trim, Phil Spector's Wig was bought for an undisclosed sum and quietly removed from the Zoo's collection. After six months of aggressive moisturizing and rumored electro-shock treatments, Phil Spector's Wig initially appeared on his head shortly before Mr. Spector was put on trial for the murder of Lana Clarkson replacing the hairpiece that had been a potential witness to her mysterious death.
In early court appearances, Phil Spector's Wig displayed the aggression of a beast long tamed against its will - it threatened to take over the trial and tip the scales of Justice against its Master. For this reason, it had to be beaten mercilessly into an obedient blonde Page-Boy where it sat for the four-plus months of the trial.
On Monday, April 13th, Phil Spector was found Guilty of the Second Degree Murder of Lana Clarkson. Should his Wig have been put on the stand in his defence? Just what did the hair see? We may never know.
Free Phil Spector's Wig! I believe that slow exposure to the wild would make it possible to someday release Phil Spector's Wig to the jungle from which it was taken. Phil Spector's Wig could live the life that Nature intended, wild and free - no longer beaten down by relentless brushing and cruel triple-processing. Phil Spector's Wig could once again take its place among the jungle's apex predators.
Please join me in this moral quest. Make your voice heard with mine! Free Phil Spector's Wig!
*This message brought to you by epistleoftimothy & The Campaign to Free Phil Spector's Wig which are solely resposible for its content. Funding from the World Wildlife Foundation and the United Hairdressers of America Philanthropic Fund.
In 1818 Mary Shelley unleashed FRANKENSTEIN, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS on the literary world. This Gothic cautionary tale warned of an Industrial Revolution spinning out of control. Man, mad with arrogance, dared to enter the realm of God - the creation of human life! Victor von Frankenstein cobbled together pieces and parts ("... now pieces is pieces, but parts is parts...") of discarded human remains to construct his monster. I've always thought he was particularly lucky to have found body parts of similarly sized men. Had he used Shaquille O'Neal's left leg and Nathan Lane's right leg the poor monster would have just spun counter-clockwise when it tried to move forward.
But I digress, my point was that Ms. Shelley warned of the horror of patchwork living creatures at a time when harvesting the DEAD to save the LIVING was a dread thought. Today, we can participate in a process thought noble and compassionate by simply indicating our willingness to be "harvested" on the back of our Drivers' License. In the last 60 years, medicine has saved countless lives by attaching pieces and parts from the dead (soooo pig! sometimes even from the dead of other species) to the sick and dying. Medical ethicists, philosophers and theologians struggled with early transplants - thinking them "a step too far" and evidence of Man's arrogant attempt to usurp God's power. Luckily, those arguments abated and settled themselves as the lives saved bore evidence of God's will for Medicine.
They have resurfaced, however, as we have begun to master the Human Genome and all of the potential industries that might flow from the application of our new Knowledge. Stem cells and genes are just smaller pieces and parts, really. We are only just glimpsing the "blueprint" of human life - yet already the ethicists, philosophers and theologians have begun their emotional, moral hand-wringing. Have we, at last, gone "too far?" Will God smite us for our prideful folly? Is there no end to Man's Curiosity and the lengths to which he will go to apply cutting-edge Knowledge to improve all of our lives?
FEAR! The GODZILLA franchise of films (god bless you TOHO Studios) symbolized, for the last half of the 20th Century, Man's struggle with the horror of nuclear war.
The monster mutant - created by the remorseless H-bomb experimentation of the world's superpowers - grew out of Japanese cultural consciousness as a dark-lampoon excorcising their shared terror as the only NUCLEAR GROUND ZEROES ever. I ought to know, I wrote a paper about it in college.
Of course, I also wrote a paper about the odd homo-erotic relationships betweenSuperheroes and their same-sex sidekicks (Q: Boy Wonder, how do you separate the men from the boys in tights? A: Holy with a crowbar, Caped Crusader!) but that topic hardly ever surfaces in conversation.
FEAR! however, is inescapable for us humans. It is the PRIME first tier emotional response. In college Psych courses I learned how FEAR! grips our lizard-brain and massages out a whole host of hormones for the classic FIGHT or FLIGHT response of all animals. As I've aged and pondered the nature of human fear (I've had some painfully dull decades) it occurred to me that for our sick twist of a species, the response is really FIGHT, FLIGHT or LIE LIKE A RUG!
Were Adam and Eve kicked out of Paradise for eating the fruit of the forbidden TREE OF KNOWLEDGE or for lying about how they were set up and tricked into doing it? Free-will made them God-like and the second they exercised it they started back-pedalling, denying that their choice was entirely their own. I bet it went down like this...
GOD: Adam? The apple? Huh?
ADAM: Eve made me do it! (Sorry guys, I don't see MEN diverting from the established Creation Myth.)
GOD: Oh, for the love of Mike..., Eve? Do tell?
EVE: Well, there was this serpent...and oh Hell, you made me curious gave me Free-will and told me there was only ONE THING I couldn't do here in all of Paradise? What's up with that? I'm pretty sure I was set up!
GOD: Excellent, Eve! You passed the test and may remain with me in Paradise for All Eternity. Adam, you are cast from the Garden and must till the soil, slaughter the animals you named and painfully squeeze out your offspring and die unforgiven. Oh, note to ME! Don't make Homosexuality anAbomination. It's Boy's Night Out on Earth Forever!
Okay, maybe not.
Ironically part of that which makes us God-like and separates us from fish and fowl is the ability to LIE when AFRAID. Try it! Catch a Toddler in the cookie jar or your Golden Retriever in the garbage can and only one of them will make up a story (either way you might need a towel for the floor.)
Batman: Gotham Knight was headed by an impressive list of directors who have brought their distinctly different anime styles to the classic Batman character. The production was divided among three renowned studios – Studio 4C, Production I.G and Madhouse – and included the truly inimitable visions of directors Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka.
With stories written by several of the most talented writers of film, comic books, and animation, including Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Emmy-winner Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series), Jordan Goldberg (Associate Producer, The Dark Knight), and award-winning comics writers Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello, Batman: Gotham Knight presents thrilling new adventures of Batman that spotlight several of Gotham City’s most dangerous villains, including the fearsome Scarecrow, the freakish Killer Croc and the unnerving marksman known as Deadshot.
For the record, I am not an anime hater. More specifically I think the anime classic AKIRA (Katsuhiro Otomo 1988) is one of the finest films I have ever viewed. In fact, I'm terrified that it will be live-actioned into mediocrity - the impact of the hand drawn animation is SO compelling.
But I come not to praise AKIRA, but to bury BATMAN:GOTHAM KNIGHT.
First and most annoying-ly - who the hell is this moppy-haired prissy-mouthed twink below? Certainly not Bruce Wayne, billionaire industrialist man about town? Not even young Bruce in my universe. How would he ever get all of that beach bum hair into a cowl?
Oh, I see. You give his cape and cowl a cowl-neck. Like the sweaters Judith Light wore on Who's The Boss? In fact the rendering below also features shoulder pads ala Designing Women from the same sad era of television fashion. If he had a Cliff Huxtable sweater he'd be wearing the 80s trifecta.
Thankfully, some of the animation teams chose the traditional black and gray. No armor, no wings, no rubber suits with nipples (sorry George Clooney) - oy!
On balance, however, I found more anime conventions than Caped Crusader. Why even bother wearing a utility-belt if - instead of reaching for it - things can just suddenly appear in your hand? Your trunks will hold your tights up, Bat-dude! If it doesn't DO anything it's an accessory-belt.
I'm certain the attempt was for an edgier, younger, darker Dark Knight but it fails in the opinion of this long-time Bat-maniac. And the claim that this somehow bridged the space between Begins and Dark Knight is silly. One of the stories was a re-imaging of an Alan Burnett script from BATMAN:The Animated Series where the differing POVs of some urban tweens result in "Batmen" who fly, wear armor, drink blood, eat quiche, blah blah blah. I liked it better the first time. The others feature a cast of characters that I have enjoyed more in the Saturday Morning animated versions. And uh... JOKER?
I'm glad I waited to watch this on Cartoon Network instead of buying my own copy. Do yourself a favor. Skip this 'toon and buy a copy of AKIRA if you want animation with edge, pathos and well, the ubiquitous tousled-haired twinks.
I think your idea for alternative fuels for America and an end to foreign oil dependence ROCKS! Never would I have dreamed that I would see eye to eye with an 80 year old Texas Oil Billionaire but the Universe is huge and Irony rules.
Was the Space-Alien Oxycontin trippyer than the domestic "hill-billy heroin? Why did their plan to make you President in 1996 fall through? Too tweaky to campaign or did they just realize that backing you for President was like putting lipstick on a Hockey-mom?
