Now, to the extent I can make any sense of this, what this fellow seems to be saying is, last year, he posted something I wrote for him on his website. Then, enraged that I actually asked him to fulfill his promises to me, he yanked it off again. However, in only ONE DAY, my work attracted a lot of positive attention, to a site that is supported by advertising, where the extra hits I pulled in made him actual money. Being unbelievably intelligent, Mr. Monkey then decided, “Say, I won’t try to work something out with this fantastically popular writer to our mutual benefit, because then I’d have to demonstrate maturity; instead, I’ll launch some bizarrely complicated conspiracy to deceive and defraud all those people who showed the bad taste to tell me they liked his work, while adding to my paycheck for the month at the same time”.

I guess this means that poor James was real, after all, and I guess he’s been massively fucked over by this Monkey fellow. I feel bad about that.

Yet, honestly, I cannot feel bad about being told, by someone who obviously hates me for no reasonable or rational reason, that my work, in the one day it was posted on his site, drew enormous amounts of positive attention... so much positive attention, in fact, that it apparently drove this poor fellow completely and utterly mad.

Most of the rest of his missive honestly makes no sense to me; maybe it will to someone else out there. He doesn’t seem to write very well, though. But his closing statement, in which he claims that the reason I can’t get published has to do with my writing, is self evidently wrong. If this experience does not demonstrate that the publishing industry is full of contemptible moronic self centered little swine who would rather cut off their own noses than see anyone they have taken a dislike to, no matter how idiotic that dislike may be, have any success at all, then I don’t know what does.

Boiling it down: this guy published my work for ONE DAY. He was overwhelmed with positive responses to it. He chose to vilify and victimize me, and those who liked my work, rather than profit from his discovery of a popular and controversial writer who would make him money, because, you know, I would benefit from that, too. Why? Well… I don’t know, it makes no sense to me, but apparently, it’s because, after he was childish and unpleasant and dishonorable to me, I called him on it, and did it using writing skills he himself knows on some level he can never in a million years aspire to emulate, and he just can’t stand that.

I mean, does the bitter, self loathing, corrosive and caustic level of jealousy in this email simply resound off the screen to anyone else out there, or is it just me?

I’m assuming that this guy is ‘Davis’, and probably a few of the other trolls who have attacked me over the last year, and… geez, Monkey Boy.

Grow up.

WELL, FUCK A DOODLE DOO

I watched Shaun of the Dead again last night. Everyone else has already noted what a brilliant blend of horror and comedy it is, so there’s little more for me to say there. Going on and on about the hilarious sequence where our lead character, Shaun, reels out of his house on Sunday morning utterly hung over, staggers to the nearby shop, picks up a beer and a couple of ice creams, and staggers back to his home, all the while surrounded by the living dead, without noticing them, is unnecessary, since various others have covered it all comprehensively. In fact, there’s really nothing for me to say about this movie that hasn’t already been mentioned by better bloggers on other pages, so I’ll just say, if you haven’t watched it yet, do so, worm. And move on.

“Do so, worm” is this thing… well, it’s an in joke without reference, now. See, I was once running this roleplaying scenario for the Late Great Jeff Webb and our mutual buddy Brent Burford, where they had to run super-villains, and they decided to run Mr. Hyde and the Cobra, respectively, and Brent decided to run the Cobra with this great Peter Lorre voice, acting towards Jeff’s Hyde much like Lorre did towards…whoever the hell it was who played the evil older brother in Arsenic & Old Lace. Anyway, it was hilarious, as was Jeff doing Hyde, and at one point, they were going to break into this museum, and Brent was going on and on about how he could get all the blueprints and find out all about the guard patrols and like that, and Jeff just snapped out, “Do so, worm”. Which cracked me up, for no reason except that it was so perfectly in character. And since then, I’ve often found myself wanting to say that to people in various different situations, but, sadly, as mentioned, it’s an in-joke without referent any more. And would take too long to explain, although that doesn’t keep me from filling space with it here.

I tried to post a comment on Scott Saveedra’s weblog, directed there by an entry on Mike Norton’s excellent blog. However, Scott has comment threads that require you to log in, and I hate those things with a passion, and the ‘comment anonymously’ feature didn’t seem to work, so he will have to live without the Wonder That Is Me. I’m sure he will manage fabulously.

I have this Heroclix battle going on on my card table. Last time around I did Machine Men vs. Beast Men. This time it’s Aliens vs. Gods. On the Aliens side, we have Captain Marvel (Kree), Deathbird, Ronan the Accuser, 2 Kree Warriors, Kilowog, Firelord, Gladiator, Maxima (rookie), Doomsday (experienced), Beta Ray Bill, the Super Skrull, and the Silver Surfer. Come down from various different versions of Olympus to take the field in the name of Divine Retribution, we have Thor, Moondragon, Tanaraq, Circe, the Enchantress (you wouldn’t think those two would get along, would you?), Loki, Hecate, Nightmare, Dormammu, Darkseid, Hecate, and Black Adam.

I’ve only done the opening moves, and boy are the Gods grumbling over my ‘no attacks on the first turn’ rule. It has the desired effect of keeping everyone from turtling (i.e., refusing to move until the other player does, which I find maddening) and making First Player status something of an advantage (when you play without a ‘no attacks on the first turn’ rule, being First Player sucks, because either you turtle, or, if you actually move out onto the board, everyone else in the game has the rest of the turn to take free shots at you before you can move again) but with the Silver Surfer and Maxima bringing the Super Skrull and Doomsday out to the center of the board, Circe, Moondragon, and ‘Chantie were all chafing at the bit to wreak some mind control havok. Instead, they had to settle for Thor and Tanaraq heading out to engage Norrin and the Super Skrull, while Black Adam and Hercules zipped out to tie up Maxima and Doomsday.

Meanwhile, Kilowog had airlifted Ronan, two Kree Warriors, Gladiator, and Firelord onto the roof of a nearby building. Gladiator and Firelord both have Trick Shot, so they are safely behind, while Ronan is, of course, contiguous to his two Kree Warriors, so their SHIELD TA can pump up his multiple Energy Explosion attacks.

Offsetting this, Loki, Dormmamu, and Darkseid have all taken position on an opposite rooftop, with Nightmare positioned behind them all to Enhance up each Psionic Blast.

Beta Ray Bill remains back as a reserve for the Aliens, while Moondragon, Circe, the Enchantress, and Hecate stay back to see how the battle develops.

Although the Gods have a slight points advantage, as well as Rip It Up and a couple of Taunt cards (on Thor and Moondragon, respectively), I’m expecting Kilowog’s mobility and the two Trick Shot cards, as well as the Kree Warriors being able to augment Ronan’s Energy Explosion attack, to be an insurmountable edge for the Aliens. But we’ll see. You never know how the dice will roll.

And, in fact, three turns in, the Gods seem to have a slight advantage. They’ve lost Loki to a couple of Trick Shots from Gladiator and Firelord, but have come back and taken out both Doomsday and Ronan. Nonetheless, Ronan got his shots in before he was taken out, and while Black Adam is still in the game, he’s been reduced by Energy Explosion barrages to little more than a taxi service. Thor and Circe have been knocked down to a point where they aren’t much use any more, either (Thor disastrously rolling snake eyes while swinging a fork lift at Captain Marvel, knocking him off his last click of 3 damage down to an utterly rubbishy 2).

Gladiator has lost his two clicks of RCE, which means no more Trick Shots, but he’s nearly as deadly as a close combat machine, so that’s probably not as good for the Gods as they’d like it to be. Darkseid has been knocked out of his Psionic Blast clicks and has also lost Outwit, which isn’t helpful, and Dormammu got smacked off his roof by some knockback and needs a lift from Black Adam to get back in it. Silver Surfer, Super Skrull, Captain Marvel, Deathbird, Kilowog, Maxima, and Beta Ray Bill are all still untouched on the Aliens side, while over on the Gods side, Enchantress and Moondragon are the only ones still on their opening clicks… although Dormammu is still pretty useful, especially if I can park him next to Nightmare again.

I’m still calling it for the Aliens, but the dice have been running cold for both sides lately. We’ll have to see. Some well placed Mind Control in the right place, and the tables could yet turn…

And in a closing note of utterly no importance whatsoever (meaning it fits right in here), it took someone at work pointing it out to me before I realized that, indeed, the people who screen the hundreds of thousands of folks who originally audition for American Idol must be under orders to pass along the really really wretched as well as the really gifted, just so the truly bad ones can go in front of Simon Cowell and get viciously mocked on national television.

This strikes me as loathsome, but, well, it’s FOX, and it’s reality TV, and honestly, you put those two together and its like distilling acid down to its essential caustic form or something.

This is as good a place as ever for me to list the rules I will enforce if I ever somehow gain total control over what is broadcast on television and what isn’t:

1. Reality television will be over. Yeah, I know, some of it is better than the rest… The Amazing Race isn’t as horrible as, say Survivor, and Survivor is a long way from, say, Average Joe, The Bachelor/ette, or Who’s My Daddy?, but, nonetheless, it’s a sick subgenre of television that has done nothing except encourage and validate vile, venal, mean spirited, utterly self centered behavior in public, rewarding it not only with millions of dollars in prizes, but with what is the only thing most people are looking for anyway… world wide attention. Give me control over the satellite grid that transmits TV signals all over the world, and I will plug in Hill Street Blues re-runs in any timeslot where any network is trying to show anything even vaguely resembling a reality show… even those godawful syndicated dating shows will go. Along with those dreadful mock court shows. (I haven’t made up my mind about talk shows yet. They task me, but I suppose some of it is just a legitimate difference in taste… but some of it, like Jerry Springer, just has to be stopped. I’m not sure I’d extend that blanket moratorium to Oprah or Dr. Phil, though. I’d need to think about it.)

2. No sports on major non-cable networks except football.. I make an exception for football because it’s kept decently on Sunday in the afternoons and early evenings and doesn’t pre-empt anything I want to watch. Any sporting event that keeps me from watching NYPD Blue, however, which is to say, any sporting event that gets shown on weeknights during prime time, goes to cable only.

3. No goddam awards shows. I’m not even going to explain this. The Academy Awards were and remain utterly soulless, but when they were the only awards show on TV, okay. Now these things are like God’s divine retribution against Pharaoh, or something. I wouldn’t allow them to be broadcast any more. If the Beautiful People want to get together and show off their pearly whites for each other, let ‘em. Nobody needs to watch it on TV, especially if it keeps me from watching The Simpsons on Sunday night.

4. No pop music in commercials any more. Pop music is a commercial product in its own right, but it’s a commercial product I have warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings for, and abusing those feelings to shill other commercial products is not something I would continue to tolerate if I didn’t have to. I’m not sure whether I’d just blue screen the commercials entirely, or simply edit out the pop music soundtrack and put in something electronically generic by Tangerine Dream instead, but advertisers would quickly get the news… you try to sell your crap using my high school memories, and I will shut you down.

5. Eight minutes of commercials per hour, and no screen clutter. I would allow commercials to be shown from 14 minutes past the hour to 16 minutes, from 28 minutes past to 30 minutes, from 45 minutes past to 47 minutes, and from 58 minutes past to straight up. All shows would start on time, i.e., on the hour or half-hour, and there would be absolutely no streaming banners or commercial animations along the bottom of the screen while the show was broadcasting.

6. No paid political commercials or endorsements. There’s my answer to campaign finance reform; they can spend their money on something besides TV commercials. I would not allow these crappy things to be broadcast. Red or blue, right or left, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, I don’t care. They all pander to the lowest common denominator, they all lie, they all abuse the influence of the media, they all have to go. Let political candidates start behaving like responsible adults in what they spend millions of dollars to put on the air, and I’d think about relaxing that restriction, but as of this moment, there is simply no excuse for the toxic nonsense that gets spewed by candidates from every point on the political spectrum during campaign season. I’d end it all, unless I also had the superpower of fact checking each commercial, in which case, I’d simply tag each at the end with another 60 second spot explaining exactly how the previous announcement lied and what the truth was. That seems like a much more unlikely ability than simply somehow gaining control over broadcast television, though, so changes are I’d just bluescreen all political ads.

My temptation, of course, when I start ranting and raving about how I’d keep certain types of television off screen permanently, is to go hog wild and start banning shows simply on the basis of me not liking them. And to an extent, you could say I’ve already done that simply by deciding I will not allow awards shows or reality television to be broadcast. Nonetheless, much though I hate Will & Grace, I wouldn’t pull it off the air. I don’t think its broadcast has a detrimental effect on our society that rises to the level necessary to make someone take that kind of action. Seinfeld, on the other hand, single-handedly altered the American mainstream thought mode, making mean spirited self centeredness trendy and cool. I’d have yanked it in a heartbeat, and still would with its eternally syndicated reruns, given a chance. However, that’s because I genuinely that Seinfeld models behavior our culture cannot tolerate. On the other hand, shows like King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond are dreadful things, but they don’t teach anyone to behave in an anti-social manner, and if I don’t want to watch them, I don’t have to.

I do, honestly, think our culture’s apparently insatiable appetite for celebrity dish & dirt is a vastly unhealthy thing, and that, more than the annoyance I feel when something I like to watch is pre-empted for the 17th Annual We Just Made These Awards Up To Get Ratings Show, is why I’d just take awards shows off TV. I’d be tempted to shit can all these ‘Hollywood Insider’ shows, too. With those shows, and the dating shows, and the mock court shows, off the air, though, I have no idea what networks would put on between 7 and 8 p.m., or in the early afternoon between soap operas and the news. But you’d think it would nearly have to be a step up… or, in this scenario, if it’s not, I’ll just bluescreen whatever it is, as well.

Rule No. 2, regarding sports, would piss off millions if not billions of viewers, but I swear to God I would not hesitate in the slightest before removing golf, baseball, basketball, tennis, the Olympics, and especially, frickin moronic ‘why does anyone WATCH this crap’ NASCAR from national television. I wouldn’t interfere with anything put out on a pay cable station, mind you, so sports could certainly find a home there, and if you just have to watch a bunch of ugly southern men with mustaches drive modified mid sized sedans in circles for hours at a time, you can subscribe to the All Morons Network and stare yourself into a stupor. But there's no need for this nonsense on major television stations, when they could be showing endless reruns of Mutant X instead.

Actually, whenever I get six or eight rules into this sort of thing in my mind, I eventually end up with the idea that if I had control of broadcast television, I’d just shut the whole damned thing down and let people use their TVs as monitors for their videotape and DVD players. At least that way, we’d all be required to get off our couches, go out someplace, and exercise some level of decision making process over what we are going to watch, instead of surfing around the dial until we find whatever qualifies as ‘least objectionable programming’ to us at that particular moment.

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, "Wow, I didn't recognize you in men's clothing". According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I'm reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I'd take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here's The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people's blogs, you MUST NOT:

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin's Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron's blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don't really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren't related to me by marriage, I'd most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I've learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don't care if you:

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I'd get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don't Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.