New Poem!

Once before, with "Ironic Occupations", I had a poem published in one of Mark Sonnenfeld's Marymark Press Giveout Sheet Series.  I make a return appearance in the last bit of the 2012 series with "Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen?"  It's paired with one of Mark's poems, "Bleecker Street".  The sheet is available directly from Mark.  If you want one, just send a self-addressed stamped envelope along with your request to 45-08 Old Millstone Drive, East Windsor, NJ 08520 USA.

"Hokie Low" by The Artist Formerly Known As Crazycarl

let me preface what I’m about to say with 2 disclosures: 1) i have a good job now and don’t have the freedom to write the way I did back in 2002 and 2) on my worst day, I wouldn’t claim to be a republican or a democrat……more on the latter: I am against all forms of violence……I don’t respect you if you kill your baby (which makes me a republican), if you go to someone else’s country to kill them because you don’t have the skills to get a regular civilian job (which makes me a democrat) or if you need to prove your masculinity by shooting little animals (again, democrat)……and if these views make me seem more like a democrat to you, let me try to balance the scales by reflecting on my appalachian heritage…….why do poor hillbillies consistently vote republican?----npr would condescend that we’re ignorant, but the truth is that republicans want to steal our money whereas democrats want to pat themselves on the back for explaining it to us…..i don’t know about you, but I have more respect for the person who wants to steal my money than I do for the one who condescends……anyway, that’s 2-2 and my political leanings aren’t the subject of this piece anyway…….i want to talk about gun control and I don’t need to quote bill o’reilly or superimpose charlton heston’s face on a goat on my facebook page to make my point----it’s just common sense……I’m visiting my parents in virginia for the holidays and I’m fortunate enough to be able to walk a trail from their house down to the local river (the trail is part of my high school’s property)……..anyway, it’s hunting season and during my walk last tuesday, I had a creepy feeling that I was being watched…..a few minutes later, the faculty advisor for the school skeet club rolled up in his $4000 golf cart and “warned me” to stay off the hiking trail because hunting season was in full effect and I might get shot……my mom still works at my high school and even though I wanted to tell him that he “could fill his quota in 15 seconds at the local elementary school,” I was obliged to be polite/philosophical and say something along the lines of “you gotta be free”…….and as I walked back home that day, I started thinking about the shootings in connecticut----like what kind of person walks into an elementary school and shoots twenty first graders v. what kind of person’s life revolves around killing an animal for fun…….i promise you I hate the government as much as you do (they burned my great aunt’s house down in 1933 to give flatlanders jobs and a national park), but no one is free in 2012 anyway……we no longer need to defend ourselves against foreign invaders or our own government-----there’s a camera at every intersection and each and every one of us is already chained to the tracking number on our walmart charge card…..you’re not free and i’m not free and none of us will ever be free again…..with that being said, it’s time to stop the killing……I know y’all are “smart” and have read many magazine articles, but this isn’t about sitting on a porch in kentucky sipping mint julips and discussing politics/bragging about what you’ve read……it’s about common sense>political lines……it’s about 20 dead children> the obama/romney sign in your yard……you say that there are millions of guns in america?----I say: STOP PRODUCING THE BULLETS……you say the bad guys will import the bullets from overseas?----I say: DON’T LET THEM MAKE BULLETS EITHER (they’re on camera, plus our missiles are bigger)……you say you don’t trust the police?----TAKE THEIR BULLETS AWAY TOO----it’ll be just like “reno 911,” but without the bullets…..it may take awhile and there might be more short-term violence, but if you take away all the bullets, I think it might work….it’s fucking 2012, ya know?.....one last thing: if you think there’s a potential school shooter in your class, you should facebook “like” every picture he posts of his cat sleeping and what he had for lunch
 
TAFKAC graduated from Virginia Tech and wishes you a Happy New Year.  If you want more, head on over to the local bookstore and pick up Bloodreal.

Give Us This Day, Our Daily Blog

Looking back on 2012, I cranked out over 200 posts, including posting every day since the middle of June or so.

Yikes!  I've got to get outside more!

Dear reader, I do have a few surprises for you in 2013, but don't be surprised if you find a less frequent blog.  I have some other projects that I need to turn my attention to now.

Happy New Year!

Reading Review: Batman Incorporated Volume 2 Number 5

I've been fairly disappointed with the New 52, the DC Comics reboot.  The one exception is Batman Incorporated, perhaps because it is a title that essentially was left alone storywise.  Publicationwise, it was abruptly ended and then in hiatus for almost a year, so the New 52 was a pain where this comic was concerned, but it could have been worse.  Writer Grant Morrison has been creating a massive Batman story since 2006 across such titles as Batman, Batman And Robin, Batman:  The Return Of Bruce Wayne, and Batman Incorporated, and I have found it very enjoyable.  Sure, it's embarrassing to be a fortysomething reading Batman comics, but if they write them like this, then I'll read them when I'm an eightysomething.  Basically, the overarching storyline is that Batman has formed an organization called Batman Incorporated that internationalizes Batman and creates a Batman army so he can confront a terrorist organization called Leviathan that's run by Talia Al Ghul, his ex-girlfriend from Hell and mother of his child, Damian.  From what I can gather, Talia is mad Batman broke up with her so she is getting his attention by sending Man-Bat ninjas to attack him and Gotham City.  Also, she's decided that her son has spent enough time with his father, and she wants him back as well.

Yes, it's a superhero custody battle.  This comic is totally ridiculous, but it's also totally fun.  In this issue, Batman has a vision of the future wherein the current Robin, Damian, is Batman and Gotham City falls under the assault of a virus that seems to turn people into Joker zombies.  As a result, Batman decides to send Damian back to live with his mother, but Damian is having none of it.  Some of the pages could use a few more panels on them, but overall it's a satisfying comic.  Even when Morrison's panel per page count is light, enough daffy but thoughtprovoking ideas are floating around in his stories that the comic must be read carefully to get the full impact.

I noticed in this issue that the future Commissioner Gordon is Barbara Gordon, and Morrison has her back in her wheelchair, which disappeared controversially in the New 52 reboot of the character.  Some of the story parallels The Dark Knight Rises movie's plot with Gotham under threat by a nuclear bomb from the federal government.  This time, Batman doesn't save Gotham, and that isn't even the cliffhanger ending.

Morrison's reportedly leaving this title and Batman in general with the 12th issue.  If so, I will miss him.  This comic isn't high art, but it's a good time!

Reading Review: Ghosts #1

Since I have enjoyed the past adventures of The Dead Boy Detectives, characters created by Neil Gaiman, I picked up this Vertigo comics anthology containing a new adventure of theirs.

What a disappointment!

The new Dead Boy Detectives tale is all of 8 none too great pages before one hits the phrase "to be continued in the next Vertigo anthology", which apparently will be Time Warp #1, coming in March 2013.

Time Warp is a science fiction anthology, so I'm not quite sure why the Dead Boy Detectives, who fit perfectly in a horror anthology called Ghosts since they're, um, dead, will be in a sci-fi comic.  Maybe they're blasting off into space or something.  I could see them appearing in a mystery anthology since they're, um, detectives, but why a sci-fi anthology?  It just looks like the story is something that's been in the files for some time, and Vertigo is dumping it out in drips across various anthologies just to get rid of it.

Since the rest of Ghosts was underwhelming as well (Hey, wasn't that creepy, vaguely misogynistic cover great?  Let's run it twice more on the inside to waste pages!), I won't be there to do the Time Warp.  When Vertigo debuted in 1993, I read most of its titles, which were very good.  Over the years, the quality seemed to drop and I read less and less of their output.  I continued to read Hellblazer, but few of the newer titles seemed interesting.  With Hellblazer ending, I suppose I won't read any Vertigo titles, but, if Ghosts is any indication, it doesn't look like I'll be missing much.  

Presidents Vs. Veterans

In the latest issue of the city newsletter that came in the garbage (see yesterday's post), a list of federal holidays is printed.  I found it interesting that "Presidents' Day" was listed with an apostrophe and "Veterans Day" was not.

Yes, I like language.  Those of you who don't should probably stop reading now.  It's just going to be more of the type of stuff that people who find apostrophes interesting will find, um, interesting.

Indeed, the line between an adjective modifying a noun making up a proper name and a noun containing a possessive making up a proper noun is pretty thin, and I'm not sure there is a good guide to distinguishing between the two.  It doesn't help that in spoken language, both "Presidents Day" and "Presidents' Day" would sound exactly the same.

Before we get into a discussion based on social hierarchy with "Presidents'" being possessive because presidents are considered more important than veterans, it's probably helpful to point out that the actual name of "Presidents' Day" or "Presidents Day" or "President Day" or "We Don't Have A Bloody King But We'll Act Like The President Is One And Have A Day Named After The President Day" or whatever you call it isn't actually any of those.

It's "Washington's Birthday."

That's probably where the apostrophe comes from.      

This Newsletter Is Garbage!

My city likes to send out a monthly newsletter, but they don't use the mail.

They use the garbage.

When the garbage collectors pick up the garbage, they leave the newsletter behind wedged between the can and the lid.

I don't think the garbage collectors mean this to be an editorial comment on the quality of the newsletter, as in "Dear resident, this newsletter is garbage, so don't bother reading it and just let it fall in the can" (though I suspect that probably is what happens to the majority of the copies of the newsletters); they just want to make sure it doesn't blow away in the wind.

Although it's a bit icky to read a newsletter that came in the garbage, I do applaud the city's innovative way to avoid using tax dollars on postage.

Perhaps in the future the city can find other ways to use the garbage collectors as a distribution method.  Maybe someday I will be able to just throw my tax money in the garbage.

And cut out the middleman.

Nyuck, nyuck!

And if that joke isn't funny now, just wait until April 15 or so and you'll find it hilarious, I'm sure.

Anyway, back to the newsletter that comes in the garbage.  Actually, I rather like it.

And, when I do dispose of it, I make sure to recycle it.

Presidential Elections As Fertility Myths

I've been reading some mythology lately, and, whenever I do, I find it interesting how similar our society is to those of the societies that created the mythologies.  Even though we like to think that we are much more sophisticated than those primitive societies, one can find many parallels between the societies.  For example, they often have endtime myths such as Ragnorok in the Norse mythos.  Well, we have Revelations in Christianity and we just had the silly 2012 thing in secular culture.  Less easy to parody are worries over nuclear apocalypse or global warming catastrophes.  Endtime myths usually serve as guidelines for us to modify or control our behavior so as not to bring about the end, though in some cultures the end comes no matter what the people do--see our own ideas in science of entropy or the heat death of the universe.

Looking back on the year, despite the 2012 Mayan nonsense, I think the myth that struck us Americans the most was that of the fertility ritual.  Even though we don't dance for rain or sacrifice virgins or have to perform a quest to heal the fisher king, we do elect a president.  And what do we believe the president can do?

Stimulate the economy.

We might not be harvesting corn, but the basic concept is the same.  Of course, the president can have some effect on the economy, but probably not as much as we believe he will have (if he could fix everything, then do you think the current economic malaise would have hung around since 2008?).  Nevertheless, I bet people often vote in a mythological sense.  We certainly know that people don't vote rationally much of the time.  If people did vote rationally, then one wouldn't find so many working class people voting Republican.  Instead, most people seem to vote more for emotional reasons such as which candidate can tell the most compelling narrative.

Which brings us back to mythology.  Both of the major political party candidates had sexual stereotypes working for them in a fertility sense.  Obama had the stereotype of African sexual prowess whereas Romney had the Mormon polygamy thing going for him.  In reality, both men were family types, but mythology and reality don't always cohere.  Mythologically, perhaps voters wanted to see which one was most virile, and they decided on Obama.

Of course, mythology is one of those attractive lens similar to economics and psychology through which one is tempted to explain all of human society, when the truth is likely a bit more complex.  Still, it's hard not to look at a clip such as the one below and not think that voters in 1992 might have thought Clinton was probably a bit better than the other two in bed and voted for him accordingly (in contrast to handsome Willie, Grandpa Bush is looking at his watch, wondering when he can just get this over with and go to sleep):
 
Which brings us to 2016.  It will be interesting to see how a female candidate fares if the presidential election is basically a fertility ritual.  With two females, would a premenopausal candidate fare better than a postmenopausal candidate?  How would a female candidate face off against a male candidate? 

Stuff like this does sound crazy, but it's amazing how much a mythological approach can explain about our culture.