Monthly Archives: September 2013

FRIDAY NIGHT FIEND – MISOGYNY

Posted on by

no girls allowed 1What’s crackin everybody! It’s your favorite villain-loving, miscreant-embracing host getting the party started this Friday night with a SAT vocabulary word. Party over here, whut whut!

Now misogyny is a downer word replete with a downer definition: the hatred or dislike of women or girls. I’m not talking about the kindergartner “I don’t yike guls so I hitted her” approach. I’m thinking something a bit more pervasive and more institutional…and wholly unintentional. I know you’re like “Damn, Chris. It’s Friday, I love girls, and you are really fucking up my vibe.” I get it. Let me put it in comic book terms.

A couple of years ago, DC Comics and Warner Bros put out an absolutely horrible superhero flick called Green Lantern. This was at the height of the superhero craze: Heath Ledger had earned a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker in the Dark Knight, Robert Downey Jr. had been Iron Man twice, and Marvel was one year away from pulling together the Avengers into the 3rd highest grossing film of all time. You might remember Green Lantern (if you saw it, I ‘m sorry—the support group meets on Wednesdays at the Y): it had Ryan Reynolds as Ryan Reynolds in a snug CGI suit, a villain with the largest head on film (and it pulsated), Dora-level special effects, and it made about $14 at the box office. It was a shit movie and this is from somebody who likes shit movies.

But this isn’t about Green Lantern. This is about the trailer for the Green Lantern.

I took the Honey Badger to see one of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies—whichever one had fucking Alvin doing the Castaway on a deserted island after falling off a cruise ship. As an aside, talking chipmunks or not, once they were off the ship, fuck the damn rodents and their high ass voices—I would have taken the money and run. Anyway, as we’re waiting for the movie the start, we get to see this wonderful trailer:

The trailer was better than the movie. Trust me. But as we watch the trailer and I start to get hopeful about Green Lantern (I kinda like the character but don’t tell nobody), the Honey Badger says, loud as day, “How come it can’t ever be a girl that saves the world?”

And some of the women in the theater clapped.

But I didn’t have an answer for that. I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know what to tell her. I watch movies with her and I see her fall in love with Bella Swan—a girl stuck in a horribly abusive and controlling relationship, who refuses to act EVER, and simply lets everything happen around her. I see Katniss Everdeen start a revolution but be mired in a love triangle. SHE STARTED A REVOLUTION!! Fuck Peta! She’s changing the world. (BTW I haven’t read the books—maybe there’s more, I don’t know). I see Hermione play second fiddle to Harry’s Jesus Christ and Ron’s redheaded idiocy when she is CLEARLY the smartest, most prepared player in the game. How the fuck did Ron survive those 7 years at Hogwarts and how the hell did his broke ass pull Hermione Granger?

And, as much as I love her, I see Scarlett Johannson get played to the curb in 2 different movies. If there was a pretty perfect portrayal of a female superhero in the movies, it’s Johannson’s Black Widow. This woman infiltrated Stark Enterprises and got Tony Stark back to work, she hacked Ivan Danko’s Russian computer system and rebooted Don Cheadle’s suit AFTER beating the cowboy shit outta like 6 dudes. She took a backhand from the Hulk—THE HULK who fought Thor, a demigod—then got up and socked the shit out of Hawkeye before she dove into battle with 2 guns and a taser. There were no romantic entanglements, she was nonplussed about all these people with their amazing powers, and held her own in the Battle of New York. Oh yeah, and she outsmarted Loki (the God of Mischief) and shut his shit down.

But she isn’t considered an Avenger. They only count Cap, Iron Man, the Hulk and Thor as Avengers. She doesn’t get equal billing. She’s a token. Marvel actually removed the other female founding member of the team because…well, I actually don’t have an answer for that.

And that’s bullshit. And my daughter knows it.

A couple weeks ago, I made Canada my Friday Night Fiend. You might remember that one. A friend of mine, my villainous partner in crime, writer ED Martin, added a comment about how independent women should be my next villain. She has a point. What are TV and film studios so afraid of? The portrayals of women in cinema have a massive impact on who our daughters and sisters and nieces decide to be. Who they believe they can be. How do I convince my daughter to be less Bella and more Hermione when she’s ridiculed for her intellect and eschewed for her preparation? How do I encourage her to start revolutions like Katniss and be independent like Natasha Romanov when the world is more concerned with her love life than her capabilities? When she’ll never get the credit she deserves?

I’m gonna end this little diatribe with the most important female superheroine who, for the dumbest of reasons, cannot get ANY cinematic love: Wonder Woman. It is an absolute travesty that, in 2013, after Hillary Clinton garnered 16 million votes and led the most viable campaign for a female president in history, Wonder Woman cannot find a place on film. Or TV. Or her own cartoon. Do you know why? She’s “tricky.” That is the actual reason.

“We have to get her right, we have to. She is such an icon for both genders and all ages and for people who love the original TV show and people who read the comics now. I think one of the biggest challenges at the company is getting that right on any size screen. The reasons why are probably pretty subjective: She doesn’t have the single, clear, compelling story that everyone knows and recognizes. There are lots of facets to Wonder Woman, and I think the key is, how do you get the right facet for that right medium? What you do in TV has to be different than what you do in features. She has been, since I started, one of the top three priorities for DC and for Warner Bros. We are still trying right now, but she’s tricky.”

Tricky. Tough. Hard. So fuck it, right? By the way, it was the female president of DC Comics who gave us that quote.

I’ve paid for shitty Superman, Batman, Green Lantern (well, I didn’t pay for that piece of shit), X-Men, Star Wars, and Spiderman movies. Jackass is a SERIES. You saw Bill and Ted just like me. And Gremlins 2. And any of the Child’s Play movies. Jason Vorhees has like 57 shit movies. My point is someone is greenlighting these bullshit movies and you cannot say a guy who stalks you in your dreams or a retarded kid who lives at the bottom of the lake and cannot die or a group of idiots who film themselves hurting themselves makes more sense than Wonder Woman.

So there you have it: Friday Night Misogyny courtesy of superhero movies. I’m gonna leave you with this tweet about Marvel’s response to DC’s “Wonder Woman is tricky” comment. I thought it was just funny:

brett white Marvel:DC See ya Tuesday!

Whatchootalkinbout Tuesday! 99 Days…

Posted on by

Party people in the place to be! What’s crackin?! It’s Tuesday and that means I’m talking. Yes I know I missed the last couple of Tuesdays (and you missed the last couple weeks of spontaneous commentary)—yeah yeah yeah, I know. Why you bringin up ol shit? I’m here now and I got stuff to talk about.

If you are one of the fortunate 328 friends of mine of Facebook, you saw me post something about a 30 year old ninja and some thought-provoking questions about the remaining 99 days of 2013. For those of you who didn’t make the cut, here’s the background: I follow a blog by Izzy the 30 Year Old Ninja (yes, that’s really the name) and it’s by a guy who woke up one day, decided he really wanted to be a ninja, packed his shit, and moved to Japan. Giggle if you want to, my man said he wanted to be Batman and is learning how to do it. His point is simple: if there is something you want to be or do in life, stop bullshittin, get off your ass and do it. He does say this in a much more Tony Robbins-ish manner but you get the gist of it. And what you can say? This dude is not rich, he’s not an actor or an activist—he’s a pasty, slightly out-of-shape white dude who wants to be awesome.

Can’t blame him for that, can you?

Anyway, when you join his site he sends you emails. Most of them, admittedly, I delete (I am OCD about alerts on my phone and most email alerts come between midnight and 5am—if you want me to read your email, send it after 7am. Just sayin). But today, it caught me. It simply said, “You Have 99 Days…” Title got me curious, I clicked it and was given this breezy little story about how Izzy (the ninja) called his sister yesterday and told her she had 100 days left in the year. Then he decided the share that info with the rest of us, but waited a day so we only had 99. Ass. But there are these questions he asks that bothered me:

  • What results do you want to get over the next 99 days?
  • What sacrifices will you make to get these results?
  • If something is going to stop you, what will it be?

Those are real questions. Like the real, deep kind of questions. The ones that make you be honest with yourself, about what you’re doing and what you’re not doing. Shit. And everybody I shared them with had the same response that I did: I don’t freaking know—which is code for “I really wasn’t prepared for you to ask that question and now you’re making me be honest with me, and I wasn’t ready for that.” Yeah, neither was I.

Now before I delve into what my answers are, I have to say that if this blog post runs into Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, I’m gonna do you guys like Cartman: Screw you guys, I’m going home! I’ve been looking forward to this show since they announced it and some wannabe ninja who’s soft in the middle ain’t gonna ruin it for me.

So, question by question (heavy sigh), here goes:

What results do you want to get over the next 99 days?

I am admittedly bullshitting on this latest novel. Seriously bullshitting. My first draft left PLENTY to be desired. Inconsistent character arcs, unclear objectives, a rushed ending, unrealistic romance (yes, ROMANCE people! I’m multifaceted). The challenge of this novel is different than anything else I’ve ever written. And it matters more to me. It cements the fact that I am a writer, a real author, capable of telling more than one story. Able to handle the production end of this business. It’s a “you can do it!” moment for me and I’m scared of failing. So my results I want to get over the next 99 days are to finish Come Hell or High Water as best as I possibly can.

What sacrifices will you make to get these results?

Apparently sleep is the greatest sacrifice I have to make. That and time with my family. They understand, sure, but that makes it that much more imperative for the book to be as good as possible. It has to be worth it. But more than anything, I have to sacrifice my own fear. I have to accept that I was given this story for a reason, that I was “chosen”—either by the story or something greater—because I have to tell it. And it’ll be good. I have to trust that.

If something is going to stop you, what will it be?

Me. Honestly, the biggest impediment to my own success in this endeavor is me. My fear. My lack of faith in my own abilities. My nonsensical fear of success (that’s fodder for another post). It’s nothing external, barring the cost for editing and my cover and turning my masterpiece into epub and Kindle files—the barriers to success are internal. And I have to deal with that.

There you have it folks. There’s my soul on the page or screen or whatever, exposed, “like a nerve” (I’m still in Avengers/Agents of SHIELD mode). And lucky you, I finished this with 21 minutes to spare.

That’s the deal. Answer those questions yourself, either in the comments or in the mirror.

See ya Friday!

FRIDAY NIGHT/SATURDAY NIGHT MF—Whatever, I’m talking about SYLAR

Posted on by

SylarContrary to popular belief, I can actually tell time. I know it’s not Friday night. I know it’s not Saturday morning. I had good intentions and wrote the vast majority of this before 10am. I had lofty goals today and they started with getting my blog back on track. I got sidetracked by a Honey Badger. Let’s just chalk it up to shenanigans.

Anyway, let’s get it!

In the mid-2000s, long before she was the bitchy teen drama queen who showed a geeky, nerdy kid the night of his life in I Love You, Beth Cooper, before she tried to kill Neve Campbell in Scream 4 (umm…spoiler alert?), before she played Carrie Underwood in Nashville, Hayden Panetierre was a cheerleader. A cheerleader who couldn’t die. You remember that whispered “Save the cheerleader, save the world” shit, don’t you? That’s from a TV show about regular people who get superpowers and the organization that tracks them down. No, not Agents of SHIELD (though it’s the SAME shit). I’m talking about Heroes.

Now I dug Heroes—well the first 2 seasons of it. It had some good shit—the indestructible cheerleader, the time-traveling, teleporting Japanese dude, the politician who could secretly fly, the shadowy organization trying to kill them. And it had some misses—we had a whole season when Hiro didn’t have powers? Boo! And what was up with Ali Larter’s character? First she was a split personality, single-mom hulk-thing, then she’s a clone? What happened to the black chick who could copy moves she saw, learned karate watching TV, and was kicking ass in Popeye’s Chicken? And Matt Parkman as a telepathic police man was no Professor X. But one place it excelled was with its first and main villain, Sylar.

Before he was the Gimp on American Horror Story or Mr. Spock in the lens flare-laden Star Trek reboot, Zachary Quinto was Gabriel Gray, a quiet, introverted watch repairman longing to be something greater. Did you read that? Quiet, introverted? That means “quiet, kept to himself” which is THE profile for all serial killers in the US. What Gabriel Gray was blessed with, or cursed with, was the heightened ability to figure out how things worked. They called it intuitive aptitude. And when people started developing powers, what did Gabriel Gray figure out? How to take them. By eating their brains. AND HE WAS FINE WITH THAT!

So he changed his name and starting tracking people down, ripping their skulls open and stealing their powers.

What kind of shit?

That, my friends is awesomeness. As a comic book reader I know a little something about people taking other people’s powers. Rogue from the X-Men (you know her as Sookie from True Blood), takes people’s powers through physical contact. But that was only temporary. It wears off eventually. They even dealt with it on Heroes: Peter, who is really the main character, would mimic powers from people he was standing next to. And again, his shit is temporary. But Sylar, he could take your powers from you permanently by taking the part of your brain where they lived. And eat it.

And they put this shit on network TV.

What you ended up with was a super-powered serial killer who only tracked down other super-powered people. And he had a method to his madness: he killed a telekinetic to get telekinesis, killed a shape shifter, then a guy who could forsee the future. When the precognition told Sylar he would cause an explosion that would kill thousands, he killed a guy who could go nuclear and stole his power. Oh yeah, and he killed his mom too.

Sylar went though a series of changes in his pursuit of ultimate power: he tried to kill the cheerleader (fuck saving the world, huh?), got stuck in Parkman’s chubby mind, had his own mind erased and replaced with Peter’s brother, even tried to be a hero—until he learned that his father killed his real mother and had the same powers, and psychopathic problems, that he did.

In the end, I loved this dude because he was methodically horrible. Sylar literally took his opponents apart and made himself stronger while doing it. Bloody and vicious but cool and collected, it was like watching Dexter Meets the X-Men every week at 9pm. And he did it all for the most human of reasons: to feel special.

FRIDAY NIGHT FIEND (kinda) – SYLAR

Posted on by

Once again, it’s Friday night. Once again I have missed my Tuesday post. Once again I am tired. But it’s not Canada’s fault. Not this time. Not directly. I think I have Canada Fallout Disease. CFD is a condition where the things you went to Canada for, the things that caused you to risk your limbs walking the 2000 miles from your plane to present your passport—those things follow you back home. Like ghosts. Or scabies.

CFD makes you tired and irritable and crave distinctly American products that are horrible for you, like Skyline chili dogs and the BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich from Burger King (This wass a bad idea to begin with made worse by having them both on the same day. Do NOT do it! Trust me!) Then there’s the Boy, my arch-nemesis, back to his usual shenanigans. At present I am exploring Washington’s Child Protective Services website to see what exactly I can get away with. Seriously. (hmmm, lead pipes are out. Dammit.) In short, it’s been a long week and though I have a fantastic villain to explore—seriously, do you guys remember Sylar from Heroes? He was AWESOME!—but I have to cover him tomorrow. I’m too tired to do him justice tonight.

So we’ll have a Saturday Morning MF instead of a Friday Night Fiend.

Catch ya tomorrow!

FRIDAY NIGHT FIEND: CANADA

Posted on by

Canadian-Flag-300x200Yeah, I said it. Out loud. Your Friday Night Fiend, your Friday the 13th master of malevolence is that maple-syrup-filled, hockey-loving, fireball of national passive aggression directly to our north: Canada.

But first, let me step back. I’m tired. Real tired. Like I spent a not so sexy week doing not so sexy work in a nation that has a not so sexy Queen Elizabeth on the money, only to go through customs TWICE, have my flight canceled, re-routed to another city (which had me on traveling for the last 7 hours) and then these knuckleheads to lose my bag (which I still do not have)—I’m THAT tired. And grumpy. So I’m gonna be cursing A LOT. And it’s Canada’s fault.

And yes, I know I missed Tuesday–I was busy. Thanks for the reminder.

Now let me say this, because my blog is insanely popular and this little tirade is likely to cause an international incident, Canada is a cool, clean place, full of friendly people who love their syrup, their beer, their hockey, and the metric system. They’re good, earnest people who seem to sincerely enjoy life. Canadians are the world’s nice guys: they don’t cause any trouble, they’re always there to help, they have lovely uniforms for their police force—they’re global Kramers.

But they pissed me off.

It starts with customs. Now I don’t begrudge Canada: you wanna protect the sanctity of your nation? I get it. You’re tired of being called America’s Ballcap? Fine. You wanna be your own people. You have little brother’s syndrome. I understand. I am a little brother. But come on man, it’s us! Y’all know us. What’s with this “show me your passport, why are you here” shit? Largest undefended border on the planet, the ones who gave you Starbucks (which you guys LOVE) and Coca Cola and all your planes—you know us! But what do you do? You give us Michael J Fox (who probably can make a mean martini—you know he can. I bet he can shake the hell out of that drink. Is that wrong? I’m going to hell for that, aren’t I?), Justin Beiber, and Drake. And, as an aside—for real, Drake? You’re from Toronto, dude. You ain’t thuggin in clean ass Toronto. Toronto ain’t Detroit—you can’t be hard, wearing Blue Jays and Maple Leafs jerseys. We’re trying to bomb Syria for using chemical weapons; you’re trying to make it illegal for public workers to wear religious dress on the job. You ain’t hard. Shut the fuck up.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, customs. Truth is, it’s not customs that pisses me off. It’s the goddamn walk TO customs. Have you ever been to Canada? Ever? Let me tell you, it doesn’t matter what airport you fly into inside of Canada, the walk from your plane to where you present your passport is the LONGEST FUCKING WALK EVER! They ought to have those people passing out water and energy bars like at marathons. There are people on death row who would rather take the walk to the electric chair than have to walk in any Canadian airport to present their passport. It’s long as hell. And then when you finally get up there, out of breath and sweaty and hot and shit, they ask you one simple question: “What brings you to Canada?” You know what? I fucking forgot during the ten-mile hike from my goddamn plane! But I’m fucking here now, I’m obviously committed, just let me in, man! I think they land in the US and actually make you walk across the border.

And don’t get stuck in the airport. God forbid you have to charge something. My damn phone has 6% power because you asses have 110 volt electricity and my technology doesn’t appreciate it. And you know fucking well I gotta charge my shit! I didn’t see any low-energy iPhones. Oh! That reminds me! Muthafucking ROAMING! WHAT THE FUCK? Its 2013, godammit! We’re a global society, interconnected by technology, faster travel, and interdependent economies—we’re closer than ever and you’re still hitting me with fucking roaming charges? For real? I thought roaming went out with actually getting charged for long distance. And how the fuck do I have to pay for roaming in fucking Canada? It’s Canada. You wanna hit me for roaming because I crossed an ocean? Fine. I’m on another continent? Whatever. But Canada? That’s like charging me to make calls because I crossed the street. What the fuck is that?

You know what, I’m gonna take my grumpy ass to bed. Hopefully my airline will call and tell me they found my bag. Hopefully my feet will shrink back to their regular size after walking across God’s green earth to show you my passport. Hopefully the Canadians will forgive my rant and let me back into their country.

Catch you Tuesday!

FRIDAY NIGHT FIEND – GENERAL ZOD (I know, I know, we did it already)

Posted on by

ZodHey hey hey friends and foes, welcome back to another does of your weekly villainy.  Can you hear that? Can you? Mr. Anderson! That is the sound of regularity. OK fine, so it doesn’t sound like Agent Smith from The Matrix but it does sound like the posting schedule is working. And that is a good thing.

Today is Friday and that means it’s time for your Friday Night Fiend (Fiend Fiend Fiend…) Last week, we looked at the first of our previously Crooked-ized villains who had been rebooted and dove into the JJ Abrams version of Khan from Star Trek Into Darkness. This week, we hit the other dastardly do-over with Zod from Man of Steel awesomeness.

And I am biased. I LOVED this cat!

Well…loved is pretty strong. I LIKED him. A lot.

We’ve looked at Zod before. In the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve Superman: The Movie and Superman II masterpieces, we are introduced to a Hammer pants and deep-V Zod played by a Pimp Named Slick Back AKA Terrance Stamp (if you watch the Boondocks, you know how funny that is). He’d been caught by the Kryptonians for the crimes of sedition, trapped in a couple hula hoops and sent off to live in a Romper Room pane of glass with this threat, “You will bow down before me! Both you, and one day, your heirs!” Not bad. He gave us some fantastic lines that I still use everyday like “Why do you say these things to me, when you know I will kill you for it?” (my kids love it!) and, of course, “Kneel before Zod!”

But beyond the revenge thing, there really wasn’t more to Zod. He actually got bored in the movie. After he beat the cowboy shit out of Superman, what was the plan? Boom, one dimensional character.

Then they made Man of Steel.

This Zod was on some other shit. Entirely other shit. Not just world domination shit, but he was on a world-building, people-saving bent. The first time we saw Michael Shannon as Zod he walked in the door bucking people. Shutting down the studio. “On whose authority,” they said. “Mine.” Pew pew and people started to die. He killed a council member, launched a coup and killed Jor-El in 20 minutes—the first 20 minutes of the movie. He tried to kill a baby (Kal-El), spit on people, threatened Supes’ mama (twice) and when he said “I WILL FIND HIM!” you knew that MF was serious.

And then he found him. Best Hide And Seek Player EVER. Across the entire universe, Zod found his man, showed up and threatened a whole planet. Then, once he had Superman, he told him the truth, told him he was gonna kill 7 billion human beings, told Kal-El a) he better pick a side; and b) that he killed his daddy, and then threatened his mom for the second time. He had his folks tear up a small town then got busy terraforming planet Earth with this lovely little exchange:

Jor-El: You’re talking about genocide.

Zod: Yes. And I’m debating its merits with a ghost.

I mean, Damn. And when everything was lost, when he realized he didn’t have any people, Zod decided he was going to just kill every single person on Earth. By hand. He learned Supes’ powers, learned how to fly—he beat the shit out of Superman and made him commit the one atrocity that prevented Man of Steel from being a billion dollar movie.

As a character, Zod has always been an issue for Superman. I’ve kind of delineated his role in the comics already and I think this version strikes much closer to the original intent. Zod has always made Superman choose between being a Kryptonian or being a human—this was no different. What I loved was you actually saw Zod snap. Not that his terraforming-kill-the-humans plan wasn’t already fucked up; you actually saw him lose his rationale for everything he ever did. What started as an imperative to save the remains of his dying race—a noble sentiment for Zod—became full circle to a revenge story in the end. And you saw Zod lose his shit on screen.

It was awesome.

That’s my word! I’ll swing back on Tuesday for more crooked nonsense.

Out!

WhatchootalkinboutTuesday?

Posted on by

It’s Tuesday and that means it’s the first installment of WhatchootalkingboutTuesday! Look I have an intro:

Come on, have a seat over here (do I sound like Chris Hansen?) Let me tell you a little about my life. I work at home. I have a routine. It keeps me sane.

Everyday, the Damn Dog (which is her official blog name) wakes me up an hour before my alarm to tell me she has to go pee and really wants to rip limbs off my bushes to bring them in the house to chew on. As I fall back asleep on the couch, I check emails on my phone, make sure I don’t have any early meetings, snore for about 40 minutes, then get up, curse at the dog (and her fucking mess), give her food and make coffee. For about 2-3 hours, I have exquisite silence: the dog goes back to sleep, the wife does her Disney stuff upstairs, I power through stuff with the Day Job Dragon and the world spins in harmony.

But for the past 72 days, my delightful mornings have been interrupted by little people’s loud ass iPhone rings and alerts, shoes and dirty cereal bowls and candy wrappers strewn about, a litany of somebody else’s kids eating my goddamn Swiss Cake Rolls, and my fucking creamer coming up empty when I make my coffee—for the last 72 days school has been out. My damn kids have been home.

It’s been a nightmare.

But tomorrow, tomorrow, that bullshit ends tomorrow! Why? Because it’s DMFGBTS—Deez Muthafuckas Go Back To School! Can you tell I’m happy? Dude, I am ecstatic. Actually, this is me right now:

I’ve been in my house doing the Dougie for the last 3 days.

I gotta admit though, I’m only so optimistic this year. If you’ve read my little blog, you know The Boy has an adversarial relationship with his academics. In fact, HE is the reason there is DMFRH at all. All summer, he’s been talking about turning over a new leaf and taking his studies much more seriously. Apparently, that’s tomorrow’s shit. Today, he had a 4 hour orientation to high school. High School. The precursor to adulthood. It ain’t no surprise–we’ve been talking about it for the last 70-some days: “Dude, you gotta be up and ready for your orientation at 8.” Come 7am, was the cat up? No? How about 7:15? Nah. 7:30? That’s better–once his mama kicked in the door like she got a warrant and a flak jacket.  “Why didn’t you set an alarm?” His response: “You didn’t tell me to.” For real? Like for real for real? How are you late on your first day?

But it all hasn’t been shits and giggle the last few days. I’ve already told you that I have a Superman complex and, while I like to believe I’m invulnerable, I can actually get hurt. And this week, the Boy got me. He cut me deep.

Like mothers and daughters, sons and fathers go through a tête-à-tête of sorts—in Discovery Channel fashion, the young lion tries to assert his dominance on the older alpha lion (are there alpha lions?) and routinely gets smacked down. This is our relationship these days. I know he will challenge. He knows he will lose. It works. For the most part. But on a routine mission to Disneyland (yes, again, but this time without me), the Boy had some commentary about me. He called me a “replacement” for his real father. A replacement. I was feeling some kind of way about it too. I actually got my feelings hurt.

I’d love to know what you think on this (and whether my response was justified) and, in order to do that I have to bring up another point. You may not know this but I have another blog, Falling From Grace, where I discuss my novels, their themes and other weighty topics. In my post there Sunday, I brought up this little tidbit in light of some grander themes in my Heaven Falls novels—mainly forgiveness. You know what that means, right? Crossover!

What you think matters to me, so follow the link, take a look around and gimme your thoughts! Feel free – hint hint – to also check out the Heaven Falls Facebook page and drop me a note!

Last week, I dropped a lovely Breaking Bad/VMA YouTube mix. I hope it cracked you up as much as it did me. And, as I was finishing up my new-and-improved Khan post, I stumbled across this lovely vid of Kirk watching Miley. This shit was funny!

We’re back on Friday with ZOD!