Author: admin

So we left. Made our way to Canada. Life is better here. This weekend we head to the forests where they filmed several Star Wars scenes. It is just like that. This will be the kind of trip that wipes the political stink off my body… and my blog. This is also the endgame for the novel. 8 chapters left in the book and the writing is ramping up. I’m generating entirely new material for these chapters, with only a few paragraphs being preserved in the last scene. The new direction is wiz, and I think the fanbase will enjoy it. Enough to buy copies? We’ll see. There is a lot of literary elements in this one. It is heavy on dialogue and light on action, so I don’t know what they’ll think. However, if they want a story about how people in these situations might actually think and clash, this is that book.

Bit of a make or break scenario. I’ll be needing to do things different if it is the break side.

Regardless, I need to do other stories before the world moves on. The Justice Engine is about past its expiration date. It is also the focus of the grad thesis, so it needs to happen and be very very good. I’m talking peak Talislegger levels. I still have that in me, so this is the time to show it.

Today I showed that I can still grind out ten miles in a day and not die. This is no Long Walk, mind you. I’m trying to flip the switch and get back to a healthy routine. Great start, as I walked more miles today than I have in the past three. Tomorrow we start to design the new family routine. I’m excited to see how it all pans out.

I can find a thousand different version of this gif. Some even come with morphed faces indicating present members of our government. None of it holds the impact of the reality we are witnessing day to day. Trump is effectively destroying US credibility for the next few decades. It get’s worse. Now the folks on Fox News are batting around the idea of ‘reclaiming’ the word Nazi like we black folks did with the N-word. The absurdity of the comment cannot be explained–only witnessed. Behold:

Nah, son.

They are fully tripping. Of course, this will be spun into a joke and the burden placed on the viewer for not seeing it as such. Regardless. I saw what I saw. I know what I know. We are entirely losing the shape of this thing. Be it these ridiculous comparisons or Trump’s now weekly threats ranging from Tariffs to firing the fed chair that destabilize the stock market every single time we are losing it. Some people are profiting from it greatly.

Some are profiting from the quick destruction of the country I was raised in. All of this only further proves that we are down to a situation where every four to eight years the country will be remade. At the very least the following period of 4-8 will be spent undoing the damage of the last administration. This is the definition of spinning our wheels. Only we are spinning them in mud and only getting deeper. We cannot get out of this without help.

There is no other country capable of helping.

I’m not leaving yet. I have much to do, both professionally and in terms of family. When that is done the Lady and I will either find some small less-impacted corner of the USA or we will move on entirely. The world is moving on, so perhaps we should as well.

Trump’s Gestapo are performing raids on California farms in what is certainly retribution for California being a Democratic state. Why? Because Cali is far from the only state with a massive number of immigrant farm hands. We haven’t heard of such raids in Texas, Oklahoma, and the likes though we know the workers are there. The entire immigrant conversation is dressed in politics, as it has always been around this world. Human existence is constantly reduced to who does and doesn’t belong to be in a particular place at a particular time.

Moreover, it comes down to who is making these decisions.

Some Thoughts:

1. Slow rolled this ten. I’m deep in thought about the last section of the novel. This is a complete rewrite from here until about the last chapter. The story has changed dramatically. I love that. I love that I can feel like these things are written and re-written to give the characters different lives and endings.
2. Also deep in thought about the upcoming FB season. I want these boys to excel. I hate having to sit around waiting for it to be time to roll, but that is what it is.
3. Of course, there is a wedding before that happens. I’m geeked about that and the run up to it. Gotta get the novel done and get my mind back on the real prize…

it is a curious thing to be a fan of something or perhaps someone and be resigned to that entities utter futility. It is at once an occupation and a curse. You cheer and follow but you do not believe, like praying to a dead God. It often feels like being the butt of a joke or the object of coming ridicule. It’s like being a fan of Richard Bachman but not Stephen King. You’re actively making the choice to believe in a thing when there is a better thing to believe in right there Why do people do that? Why do people build comrade die and community around random names and colors and, over time, dig in hard enough to call it culture regardless of having no control over the course or shape of the thing? Why do I?

There is no good reason that I do it beyond Sunken Cost. Once you’ve invested so much it is hard to imagine letting it all go. We don’t have a good mechanism for letting stuff go. We hold on, dig in hard enough to make it a part of our self-worth. If this country is insulted then I’m insulted. This state, this city, this block, this team, this player. We don’t see enough in ourselves to be the topic of discussion—the rally point—so we get behind something that is. We settle in. We draft behind it with a thousand other people and feel safe in the wake of the group we are in.

We feel immortal because the thing, the idea, we follow is immortal and will outlast us. It will exist after we do not and we will exist because our allegiance to it. We make these Gods of things and people over which we have no control and the more we stake ourselves to it the more control that stake has over us over who we are seen as and how we see ourselves.

I still do it. I don’t know how to stop.

I drank for the first time in a while last night. I wanted the drink. I wanted to taste an Old Fashioned and enjoy a moment having one. The first one was wrong. Twice as much mix as needed. Half the required rye. It was sipped, spat, and dumped. The second was better, but by then the joy of the engagement had fled and I kept thinking about how it could possibly help me sleep through the night.

It didn’t. I experienced the worst series of dreams in some time. Each built off the last and was awful and degrading, even occasionally violent. No more drinks late at night… Except maybe red wine. It’s been a while since I tried that particular beverage.

All of this comes at a time of transition. I’m winding through the final 12 chapters of this novel and preparing for a wedding and preparing for a new semester. All the while the summer work is ending/shifting to another session. I have so much change transpiring that it is easy to get displaced. The one constant is the routine of waking, spending time with the love of my life, walking, writing, and eventually, lunch. We plan to keep that going throughout. There will be minor tweaks to when the words happen vs when the walking goes down. All of it is process. We are trying to be healthy and happy in these routines.

I watched Superman tonight.

As I was walking through the theater parking lot watching roaches scurry from my path, I found myself thinking about how strange the movie was. I waited till I got home to write about it. I’m sitting down with a (badly sitrred) Old Fashioned, trying to figure out what the hell I just saw.

It was good. In truth, Mr. Terrific hijacked the movie. He was a G and had possibly the coolest fight sequence in the film (hard tie with Guy Gardner). The over-sexualization is what threw me. I was talking it out with my kid and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t sexy Superman so much as it was sexy everybody else. Jimmy Olson was hot for days. Well, not the actor, but the character. At one point Lois asks him how he is always surrounded by such beautiful women. I’m not even getting into Cat Grant. Suffice to say, choices were made. With her, with Luthor’s very specific girlfriends.. The list doth go on.

Still, this was vintage Gunn. He did an excellent job of putting together a fun cast and rewriting the darkness of the previous DCverse into something else entirely. We don’t even have a Justice League anymore. What are they? Well, you’ll have to see for yourself.

It was fun. It was very wild and weird. I haven’t seen a movie on my own in some time and this was definitely one to do that with. I enjoyed it. There was a message there. It was not buried at all.

Another day, another blog. I thought about going back to the conversation about college FB–especially after spending most of yesterday playing the video game. I’m not going to do that. I did learn that it is not really about college football for me. It’s about my son’s journey. I told him today that I was missing him and worried about him having a good life. He’s having a blast doing the FB thing in college and trying to take his talents further. It makes me happy.

What doesn’t make me happy is the inability to maintain steady relationships over the phone. I’m not a great phone dad. I don’t call often and often don’t know what to say. Better on text, to be sure, but that isn’t enough. I need to be better as a dad. If this were ten years ago, I’d read a book about it. No reason I can’t do that now…

Some Thoughts:

1. It is taking me two days to do the really tough chapters.
2. I locked in on the summer class and finished with a shot at an A and a 4.0. Love to see it..
3. It is wild how fast and terribly this present government is reshaping the United States. We are quite literally falling back into the 50s in some ways. We are advancing in no ways. This will change the country for decades to come, and the richest will benefit while the poorest–the ones who voted these people into office–will suffer greatly. It’s okay though. At least they can rest their laurels on the fact that they are doing something about the real threats to Americans.
4. The shift of ICE to a near Gestapo-level force is terrifying. These people want to do this.
5. The High Schooler’s FB team held their summer camp at the school. That is just lazy. Add it to the list of reasons they’ve gone downhill.

At the recent Big 12 media day, Deion Sanders (good to see him moving around again!) was asked what he would change about college football. He listed three things: Salary Cap, Pro Rules, and Uniforms. I want to spend this ten focusing on and reflecting on these points, and then I’m gonna go play some NCAA 26. For starters, I am coming to this conversation as a former college walk-on who did not get paid and the father of a D1 player who is getting paid. I don’t think I’ll get to all three, but I’ll start at one.

Salary Cap
So, what is the point? If you believe the point of College Football is parity, then a cap is the thing. However, when has parity ever been the point? The facts of the situation are this: CFB is not about parity. It is about the status quo and about the idea of what it takes to be one of those teams. College Football is built around a dozen top programs and everyone else is just trying to get noticed. You can’t have Ohio State be Ohio State with parity. Ohio State had a rumored 20 million dollar NIL budget last year. My kid’s team, Northern Colorado, had under 40K. There are players on Ohio State getting paid more than the coach and all of the players at Northern Colorado combined. How can you have parity with a situation like that? Sure, you can say he is on an FCS team, but Sacramento State is FCS and was part of their conference this past year. Their NIL budget target is 75 million. This is not including the pay rates listed in the House settlement.

If parity is the purpose than a cap is the way. You have an upper budgetary limitation and coaches/staff must decide how to allocate those funds to best fit their team. Will everyone be able to reach the cap? No. You have to have the fans to get the funds, but at least here there is a chance.

More tomorrow.

Finished a chapter and I am taking tomorrow off. This book is moving into the final phase–the reveals, the ramp ups, the last 10 chapters… or so. I need a break to get my head ready for what is to come. Ironically, that is precisely what the main character does at the end of the chapter I just finished rewriting. Life imitates art, or the other way around?

That day off means a trip to the movies on the AMC A-List tab. For under $30 a month I can get free entry to multiple movies a week. I just don’t. So, I gotta use it and make myself feel like it is worth it. This tomorrow thing along with the Superman movie means two this month after 1 last month. I’ll get better with these things, because I want to have better inputs. This house is filled with bad TV and youtube. I’m a culprit of a lot of it myself. I can change the things I can change. I’m aiming to do that.

Some Thoughts:

1. NCAA 26 starts tomorrow for me. Not sure if I want to go WR or CB. Kinda want to try one of each because you don’t get to do both with one character so far as I know.

Another day, but not another chapter. I have to call it quits for the night. I’m close. I can see the end of it and I know exactly how to get there. Maybe an hour in the morning and I’m golden. That puts me another step closer to the end of this and on to the next project.

I missed Frostpunk for this.

At any rate, I do feel good about being so close to the end of the project. I feel like I am moving faster and better in the word mines, and generating material that doesn’t suck. Part of this is the grad school glow up. I feel like being in these grad classes and excelling (close to a 4.0 depending on the outcome of the summer class where I accidentally missed work) has be remembering that I’m actually good at this. I am, you know, not terrible.

I’ve spent my entire life–50 years–talking about being a writer. Not just middling as I am now, but productive and good. I want to make a splash story. I want to see it optioned for movie rights. I want to ride that wave to do other crossover projects, because I have stories to tell in multiple formats. I want this to be what my life looks like. The teaching, that’s wonderful. However, this is a better third act.

Some Thoughts:

1. Oh yeah, if this gets me a better chance of watching my kids play ball, I’m definitely going to force the issue.