Whiskey Delirium

It’s 2AM, and the whiskey has done its work.

I can still hear the dead outside, walking around, scratching at the doors and windows, but I no longer care. I’ve managed to drink away the last of my survival instinct. It went down cold and bitter, like the Tequila once did.

I miss Tequila.

The cameras on the wall still follow my every move. I suspect they’re programmed now. No one left alive to control their movements. Not in this world.

The light outside the window is bright. Too bright for the middle of the night. The sun doesn’t work anymore, anyway.

It’s a trick, it has to be. I wonder who’s behind it. I don’t think the dead are that clever. Maybe I’ll ask the one who brings my pills. It should be along, soon. It’s been nearly three hours.

You don’t have to tell me, you know. I realize that I’m not all right. There’s something wrong inside my head. Things no longer track.

Would you be okay in these circumstances? If the dead walked and the sun refused to shine and a decomposing nurse brought you little blue pills every three hours? I didn’t think so.

Dammit, the whiskey is wearing off.

Where are my clothes?

Uhhh…

con·serv·a·tive
–adjective

1.	disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

“We need very bold, dramatic change, change at every level…. That’s what the Republican Party has to stand for.”

— Newt Gingrich

I’m going back to bed….

This Will Take Some Getting Used To…..

Had the strangest experience the other day. I was coming out of the post office here in Frankfort and was stopped by a stranger who had read something I’d written on the internet and wanted to talk with me for a bit. Nice chap, told me how much he enjoyed the article and shook my hand.

That was off of a blog post. Makes me wonder how much this sort of thing is going to happen when the book eventually comes out……

Goodbye Larry, Hello Lana

Apparently, Larry Wachowski (of the Wachowski Brothers) is now Lana Wachowski. This is news, I agree, but only in the “hey, I’m a fan, I should at least know what name to use when referring to her” kind of way. I wish Lana a wonderful future and I hope the siblings continue to make entertaining movies.

But Fark, where I read this bit of news, scares me. Take a look at a few of the comments from the discussion thread.

“He is not female. He is a surgically altered male and you’d have to be out of your mind to go to those “lengths”. It’s beyond reason for a person to mutilate their bodeis like that. And for what?”

“What’s wrong with some people? I mean, in today’s society people treat things like this as normal? It was weird enough reading about his weird SM lifestyle with his dominatrix-thing, but to actually have sex reassignment surgery? That’s not normal!”

“People can do what they want to their own body, but it’s still weird and abnormal. And to think that today’s society treats things like that in a supportive manner rather than with the ridicule and mockery it rightfully deserves is just goofy.”

“Where are the honest people like me who aren’t afraid to admit that they think this guy is a homodeluxe and that the idea of a bald dude with tits and an inside out penis makes them throw up a little?”

Now, that’s not a fair representation. Most of the comments in the thread were very supportive in nature. But still, looks like society still has a long way to go in the live and let live category….

Huge Mega Important Super Crossover, Collect Them All!!!

I am not a big fan of the huge mega-crossover event that seems to dominate comics these days. That’s not unusual. I’m not really a big naysayer of such events, either. I view them as a necessary part of the industry.

I understand those that hate them. From a purely budgetary point of view, they can be a thing of pure money-sucking evil. If you’re only purchasing a handful of comics on a monthly basis, a huge crossover that requires you to purchase several other titles to understand the basic story can be a real burden. (Confession: I purchase pretty much every major title from both of the big two, along with my several monthly pounds of indies. So crossovers rarely, if ever, force me to purchase something I’m not already getting.)

Unfortunately, crossovers often are poorly executed, with issues that don’t quite fit where they should, contradictory behavior in the same character from title to title and plots that are forcibly fragmented to maintain the timelines involved. With no coherent and clearly defined reading order, they often come out as a muddled mess.

However, when you put good writers at the helm, even though flawed, some very good work can emerge. The Civil War event at Marvel is a good example. The main title was too strained, but still readable thanks to Millar. Frontline had some interesting stuff. But the real gems were in Amazing Spiderman by JMS and Captain America by Brubaker, both of which had some outstanding issues.

The smaller crossovers, those limited to a particular character or subset of books, like the X-Men titles or the Batman titles can be better controlled than the larger ones, so they often hold up better. Except, for some reason, Spider-man crossovers.

I have been a fan of Spider-man for most of my life (since 1974 to be precise). Every time a big Spider-event comes up, I get excited. And I always end up disappointed. From the Clone Saga to The Other, every time Marvel gives it a try, they seem to fall on their faces.

And despite the track record, every time one comes up, I get excited all over again. Which is all a very roundabout way of pointing out that I’m really looking forward to One More Day, JMS’ swan song on the Spider-titles. I have no reason to expect this one to be any different than previous crossovers. But I have faith…..

(and yes, reason and faith ARE mutually exclusive)