Month: June 2020

I wanted to write the second of these 10 minute Covid tales, but I am not at the point where I know what story I want to tell. Instead I am going to let you in behind the scenes of how my brain works.

Stories for me are always about what I observe and what I am going through. I am observing what everyone else is right now: I am watching the country look at itself and try to pledge to change systemic racism. I strongly suspect there is a correlation between this and the number of people stuck at home and or laid off during Covid and frantic to do something. This is a cause they can get behind and feel good about.

On the me side I have not been feeling physically well and that is grinding down my mental side. I want to write about that concept–how physical energy can impact the mental. There is a spiraling affect that happens there and I can tell you first hand it is aided by the 24 hr news cycle.

Some Thoughts:

1. If you are on the so-called left you are supposed to think and feel one way. If you are on the so-called right you are supposed to think and feel the other way. This binary thinking leads to zero sum outcomes that fail to reflect the reality of human thought.
2. I suppose core to the above is the question: Who is making these decisions and designing the parameters of the zero sum game? Why are we letting them? Are we letting them mostly by not caring enough for the nuance to normalize the idea of nuance? It has been this way since roughly 1852, which marks the start of the binary styled presidency.
3. I suspect, based on this, the next ‘in threes’ story is going to be able to explosion of political parties that are not aligned with the major two. That is coming for sure.

“These things always happen in threes,” She said, and wrung out the cloth mask, casting colored droplets into the sink. This mask was tie-dyed. Pink and purple splotches mixed in with a galaxy of green. Arnold wasn’t even sure it was the right kind of cloth. He hadn’t done the research and he knew damn well she hadn’t. His sister wasn’t the research type. She just flipped through her phone to see what everyone else was doing and then found some version of that which worked for her.

Arnold sat on what passed for a couch in what passed for a living room in the cramped studio apartment. He was trying to watch the broadcast of the latest BLM march that’d gone bad, but dammit if Shelley didn’t keep talking. He thought silence my buy him some piece but it never had before. It was better to just answer and get the stupid conversation over with. He said, “What is the 3rd shoe?”

“What?”

“You said these things come in threes, so what is the 3rd shoe?”

“Shoes come in pairs.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So a 3rd shoe doesn’t make any sense. This is not that. What I’m saying is bad things always happen in threes.”

He sighed, turning his attention back to the TV where a reporter (he could tell she was pretty even though he could only see her eyes through the mask and the hood she wore) talked about the march being largely peaceful but both mounted and riot police were feet away ready to ‘enforce the law’. He knew what that actually meant. His dad used to ‘enforce the law’ on him when he was little.

Shelley said, “What I’m trying to get at is something else is gonna happen. Something really big.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Covid-19 and Floyd’s death aren’t even related.”

“I think they are. I really think they are, but they don’t have to be related for a third bad thing to happen. It’s just how things go. Do you remember when Farah Fawcett died? Then Ed McMahon died? We were all just waiting for that 3rd death. I told you then it would be somebody huge and guess what?”

She snapped her fingers so close to his ear that he jumped out his seat. She smiled and said, “Just like that Micheal Jackson died.”

What he wanted to say was, why the fuck did you do that? What he said was, “huh.”

“Huh indeed. So I am waiting for the 3rd bad thing and I think it is gonna be China.”

For starters, I am back to lists. Clearly I do not do well with time organization without some sort of cueing system. I am one to quickly fall into whatever I am doing and as of late that has been Apex Legends. No, not even Minecraft. I can definitely balance out the activities if I have a daily list of what I need to do. As a bonus, adding and starting the day with a workout tends to make this situation work better for me. I know this: I need to be writing more and getting back in shape, so those are the priorities at the top of my list on a daily basis.

Okay… maybe I haven’t been entirely about the writing lately. Why? Well, I cannot really say for certain, but part of it is not fully being able to process the situation going on around me in a way that serves for fictionalization or any paralleling in story outside of the ‘now’ and that feels problematic because we are all too close to it right now.

And it keeps piling on.

These things come in threes. Well, there it is. There is the fictionalization. I read that phrase early in life and now I think it could be the doorway to a story that captures some basic understanding of the situation happening outside my door. By that I mean to write (tomorrow?) a story imagining the 3rd thing to happen. We have the Covid-19 problem. We have the murder of a black man for little more than passing a bad $20 (not to mention all of the others that lined up before it like dominos waiting for the resolve of the establishment to topple beneath their fall). What could a 3rd thing be?

In the article, “Is Afrofuturism the Answer to our Current Crisis?” the author writes, “There is an urgent need among black folks to imagine ourselves in the future.” I accept that specific challenge with the earlier phrase as my lead prompt. These things come in threes. Perhaps this is the week of threes, with each prompt a different story imagining the 3rd wave of trouble hitting home for black people.

It isn’t actually going to change anything, but at least it can be the beginning of a conversation about what is happening to us.

I’m watching the Hunt and though it is not over I thought I would offer a ten minute review regarding characterization and set up.

Movies are known for taking shortcuts. Horror movies in particular rely on blondes as the damsel in distress or, to turn the trope on its head, the protagonist. The Hunt plays with that dynamic while switching perspectives often to keep the viewer guessing. The movie is fun in that way and early on you are not entirely sure what side you’re supposed to be cheering for. I found myself split down the middle early on and observing from a distance–never really settling down on a side. This was clearly part of the plan. In fact the plan was to pull us away from the characters so we saw them merely as sketched archetypes and the carnage as metaphor and comedy backed by the soundtrack.

So far the movie is more of an idea than a story, and already it feels heavy handed.

I am a huge fan of the Incredible Hulk. I even watched the TV show as a kid. I still believe that Hulk is one of the most enjoyable Marvel characters. World War Hulk (IMHO) is among the top 5 story arcs in Marvel history. That being said, the MCU screwed Hulk up by nerfing him. Basically, Marvel turned the Hulk into a level boss that allowed other characters to elevate to the next level of the story. Consider who has beaten Hulk in the MCU:

1. Thor (realizing his powers in Ragnarock)
2. Iron Man (ascending to over powered with the Hulk buster armor and all that followed it)
3. Thanos (this was basically his introduction)
4. The Ancient One (established her OPness and thus Strange’s own)

In truth Hulk was beaten so often that he eventually decided he was out. That Thanos fight really was the moment dude was like, “nope. you guys nerfed me.” In fact they had to ‘yada’ over the 5 year stretch where Banner brought him back. I wish we could have seen that story. I wish we could see any new story that helps reset the Hulk mythos, but all we have is Hulk the punching bag and the resulting destruction to the character’s arc.

In truth we should’ve been able to see the absolute rage that compels the Hulk to destruction. The Thor and Iron Man fight should’ve resulted in even more destruction and Tony’s victory should’ve come at a higher cost–one that taxed him beyond his limits (and required a gang of suits) as opposed to him flying away at every punch.

We don’t see the anger bring the escalation of size and strength, and that is what I believe is missing. We don’t fear Hulk and we should.

The key (for me at least) to real creativity is recharge. That means spending time unwinding with family and just not worrying about the words or the world. This is how I’ve spent my Friday evening. Between playing games and watching movies and snuggling up with the love of my life I have found that elusive recharge button that has me slipping out of this depressive funk triggered by tuning in to what is happening in these (occasionally) United States. It is a big deal to recharge. Likewise it is a big deal to step away from worlds you spend too much time in. If you ask me, George RR Martin cannot finish a Song of Ice and Fire because the man has spent too many years deeply immersed in the world. He has no perspective and he has lost the thread.

I’ve done that in my own way with worlds I am associated with. In truth it is happening now, and that is part of why I don’t want anything to do with the slate of projects happening right now. I need to step back from that and step into new thoughts and directions in my science fiction and even return to those fantasy roots. There are stories still to be told. I want to speak some of them here, and I believe I will start back at that tomorrow.

Some Thoughts:

1. Keyboard on this particular laptop is sticking and it bothers me something awful. I keep having to go back and add spaces between words.
2. NBA is moving to Disney! No, seriously. The plan is to finish off a small run of regular season-style games and then conduct the playoffs there as though it were the Vegas Summer League. Should be really interesting to watch.
3. Note: It will be watched, because there is nothing else happening in the sports world. It will also be a fine experiment to help us understand if football can return in any capacity.
4. Meanwhile, high school football is already returning and college is about to get underway. So much for Covid fears…

In 2016 Emory Professor Carol Andersen released a text called White Rage. The book, written by a black woman, was largely ignored by the people who needed to hear the information the most. The book broke down the response of an aggrieved white populous to what they felt was an assault on their way of life. She traced this call and response all the way back to the beginning of this country and what she calls structural racism. Her main thesis goes like this: African American progress is always met with white backlash. This goes back to the loss of a labor force (i.e. the end of slavery) and quickly erupted into the social and legal criminalization of blackness. Her argument is sound, thorough, and absolutely timely.

Her book came out the year we elected Donald Trump. That election was a clear cut rebuke of the Clintons and the Obamas, as Trump’s foul-mouthed rallies did all they could to gin up anger to what had ‘been done’ to America and argued that he was the only person who could Make America Great Again. Well, is this the great America he hoped for? Instead I think the last 3.5 years have been a massive backlash for 8 years under Obama and the hyper-polarization and vitriol that followed his election in 2008. Fox News built a brand around divisive rhetoric at the expense of their pursuit of the truth. Now, as the election nears, we see more and more stations and websites following that mold. We see people like Rush Limbaugh, who is a known conspiracy pedaler who claimed repeatedly that Covid-19 was no worse than the common cold and openly dismisses the notion of consent in sexual relationships, be awarded the Medal of Freedom.

The argument here is also clear: You black and brown people get a step up and we will show you in no uncertain terms who this country belongs to.

So perhaps that is the question: does America belong to one group? Is it meant to be a place for all creeds and colors to gather and find freedom? Whatever we become, it shouldn’t be what we are now. What we are now is a reflection of some of the darkest societies in the world. We are narcissists and we are racists and elitists and extreme in our views. We are not what America should be.

There is this person out there in the world who makes rosters for fun. They made a madden 21 roster stuffed full of the hopes and dreams of football lovers everywhere. I played that roster. I started an entire new franchise based around the Madden 21 New York Giants roster.

And I lost my first game.

It was the Cowboys. It felt about right. We still had no secondary and no real chance to stop the receiving corps. Each of the three starters scored a TD and the TE did all kinds of work. It pissed me off something awful. Now Barkley went off too. He recorded a ton of yards from the ground and through catches, but the fact remains that we lost. We lost because we had no secondary. Maybe I can attribute it to my lack of skill on the D side of the ball, but I want to be clear: I was in position at the start of the play and speed pulled me out of position quickly. We just slow like that. We just bad like that. I just struggle with the hope end of things as a result now. This is gonna be something to worry about throughout the possible upcoming season.

Yeah, Covid-19 is really still out there, in spite of our open refusal to stay indoors or perhaps because of it. We are out in the streets protesting and rioting and getting manhandled by the police and, to quote a famous SNL skit, “Ain’t nuthin gonna happen.”

So, we ought to be staying home and getting right. The message has been sent and now the real work needs to be done in the boardrooms and the courtrooms of America, where something can happen. We should get right so we can come out and vote in November and handle business as we were meant to handle business.

” I love you” He said. Her face scrunched up in that specific way that made him think she was about to cry. He started to say something else but his brain, little more than a biological computer with no real emotional intelligence beyond that which she fed to him or he picked up from the constant feed of bad television relationships had already ceased functioning in a rational way. That computer did not recognize how the facial input followed the verbal statement and thus he did not know how to act.

“I love you too.” She said, and then she turned away. He didn’t know if she was going to cry. He watched her walk away from him, their small bedroom becoming it’s own de-militarized zone; her footsteps soft pops on the cold tile. He was going into the bathroom and she was going into her annex. He’d tried to name the space her ‘Apertif’ because it sounded cool. She decided not to name it, because she hadn’t found a name she was comfortable with. It was her space, not his just as the bathroom was his space, not hers. The biological computer that he called a brain processed those two variables and openly wondered if this was language and thought she put to the spaces or, like everything else, was this his own interpretation and by that he meant, misinterpretation.

The stained glass double doors shut behind her and he wondered again if she was crying and what it meant when someone cried when you told them you loved them.

Some Thoughts:

1. Well, that character clearly has a lot to work on emotionally.

I am angry. Everyone I see on TV and on social media is angry for one reason or another. We’ve gone over the tipping point and the result has been extremely violent. Today authorities fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of protesters in front of the White House, ostensibly so the president could have a photo-op walk to a nearby church that caught fire. It makes sense on the part of security–you don’t know who is in the crowd and a threat, so if the president is walking out there, you gotta take them out. Only, that entire situation is the result of a president who doesn’t think about anything but his ego and optics. So, yeah, I am angry.

I am angry at the looters who are making everyone else protesting look bad while stealing the spotlight. I am angry at police for the institutionalized racism that created this situation. This is a known and has been for the entire history of the United States. We were stupid to even speak out loud that having a black president somehow indicated all that had changed. It indicated progress and a shift in voting power. That’s all.

So, I am angry, drained, and unsure how to move from this moment. I think we all are.

Some Thoughts:

1. Might be moving–not from the moment but from my home of nearly a decade.