Later, When Chris Berman Would Remark on the "Rasputins of Football" It Would Conjure Up Very Unpleasant Things For Me. . .

In my Flunky Flashback post I made a passing reference to a certain group of individuals, which raised some questions from some non-Parkerite blog monkeys about who the heck those individuals were. Well, I'm not sure who first coined their name; I'm pretty sure it was meant as a jab at them, but they appropriated it with gusto and glee, making it their own badge of honor, sullied as it might be. Most of them were only around for that first year in Parker, but they definitely made an impression on just about anyone who walked through the doors. Let the easily offended be warned: the realm of the Gutterboys is not for the faint of heart.

I don't know if my descriptive powers are up to the task of doing the Gutterboys justice, especially hampered as I am by my desire to keep CoIM at least moderately family-friendly; it's hard to accurately portray the Gutterboys when your vocabulary is limited to what you might find on prime-time TV; of course, that leaves a lot more open for use than what such a restriction might have excluded 12 years ago, when the Gutterboys first formed.

As with so much from that time, I'm unsure of just how it all began, what strange set of circumstances led to the formation of the proudly obscene group known as The Gutterboys; what I can tell you is this; at some point early on in my Freshman year, a group of 3rd floor residents made the Parker lobby their base of operations; at almost any hour of the day you could find them gathered together, making rude and crude comments about anyone and anything that crossed their path. Though there were several who styled themselves as Gutterboys, and a couple who were granted a grudging honorary title, there were really only four guys who truly earned the name through and through; four guys who seemingly shunned all that was expected of an Honors student to enjoy an endless litany of profanity; these four guys who were undeniably Boys of the Gutter, and the one known as Everclear was their king.

I don't know how much of their behavior was done for the benefit of each other, and how much was done for their shifting audience; the majority of the dorm shunned and ignored them, but enough people provided them with attention to encourage them to keep their show going non-stop. I confess to spending a great deal of time observing the Gutterboys in action; this was the semester of quicksilver relationships, of alliances formed from shifting sand, and I wanted to be in the middle of everything; hanging around the Gutterboys in their center of power seemed like a good place to start. Plus, I think a part of me was endlessly fascinated by just how brazen, how outrageous, how downright perverse they allowed themselves to be. Coronela was another frequenter of the Gutterboys entertainment zone, and was, I believe, conferred with an honorary Gutterboy title before that first semester was over; I'm pretty sure she was even included in their theme song.

Ah, the theme song; to this day I cannot hear "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" without hearing the Gutterboys version in my head. You see, one of them had heard a bit of trivia about the mad Russian monk Rasputin and his, oh, how shall I put this . . . his, um, prodigious manhood. And so, inspired by the story of his uncanny equipment, the Gutterboys composed a song they felt was worthy of the gutter, comprised of verses filled with sexual innuendo, each verse connected by the chorus of "Swing Low, Rasputin," said line always being accompanied by a chopping motion near the singer's knee; do I have to spell out why? I remember going to see Addams Family Values that semester with a group from the dorm; during one scene a depressed Gomez begins to sing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," which prompted all of my group to scream "Noooooooo!" in horrified unison, much to the surprise of all those who had yet to be scarred by the presences of the Gutterboys.

Many were the ways in which the Gutterboys reveled in their profanity and obscenity, from generic dirty jokes to specific conjectures about dorm residents to the oh-so-clever adoption of nicknames for themselves designed for embarrassing others; Everclear was "thirsty," Big C. was "hungry," another one was “tired” and so forth; if someone with a bit of a potty mouth were to slip up and say "I'm f-bomb hungry," well, much hooting and hollering and banging of the chair would ensue.

What's that, you ask? What does "banging of the chair" mean? Well, now we get to the heart of the tale, the true axis on which it spins: The Evil Chair.

At some point in time, the right arm rest of the chair most often frequented by King Everclear somehow came loose; it was easily put back in place, but it was just as easily dislodged again; the arm of the chair quickly became the way in which the Gutterboys signaled approval of a particularly amusing, biting, and/or obscene comment, dislodging it and banging it loudly against its base. They soon began to attribute mystical attributes to the chair, claiming that it was the source of their perversity, and declaiming that anyone who sat in it would be corrupted. I couldn't even begin to count how many times I heard one of them shout out something along the lines of "Oooo, that one deserves a bang of the Evil Chair!" The Gutterboys were expanding their mythology, and the Evil Chair was their Unholy Grail.

Of course, even with the power of the Evil Chair watching over them, there was one thing the Gutterboys were vulnerable to: low GPAs. By the end of that first semester, three out of the four were kicked out of the dorm because their grades had fallen too low to allow them to stay in the Honors program; apparently, spending all of their time worshipping at the altar of the Evil Chair rather than going to class had a negative impact on their scholastic activities; who knew? And who, you may ask, was the one Gutterboy who was able to maintain a sufficient GPA? You probably already guessed it: King Everclear. Maybe the Evil Chair offered some protection to its most loyal subject after all.

Now, even though they were no longer official residents of the dorm, all that meant was that they no longer slept in Parker; but considering that most of their time had been spent in the lobby anyway, it really didn't make that big of a dent in their activities, and the Gutterboys continued to terrorize and entertain Parker residents throughout the rest of the year; still, I think there was a subtle shift in the general dynamic due to their ouster, and tolerance of their activities began to grow a little thin now that they weren't actual residents of the hall. It was into this environment that newbie Flunky entered and decided to shake things up.

I can't claim to speak for his exact motivations; maybe his status as a fresh pair of eyes and ears made him much more sensitive to their activities than those of us who'd lived with it for several months and had come to accept their presence as an unavoidable pitfall for living in the dorm; maybe their actions offended him on some fundamental level; maybe they just rubbed him the wrong way; or maybe he just wanted to stir things up. Whatever the reason, one night while The Gutterboys were all off doing who-knows-what, Flunky took it open himself to launch an attack at the center of their power: The Evil Chair.

Now, since The Evil Chair was technically university property, Flunky couldn't do anything destructive to it without repercussions; he could, however do something constructive to it. The plan was simple: some glue to reattach the arm, and a quick exchange with one of the similarly styled chairs in the living room, including an exchange of colored cushions to make the illusion complete; but first, a trophy picture of the conquering hero, foot confidentally planted upon the less-evil arm of his prey:



After that, it was just a matter of waiting for the Gutterboys to return and make a comment worthy of banging the Evil Chair. I don't recall if Flunky stayed around to watch the show, but I wasn't going to leave that lobby for love or money until I saw Everclear's reaction.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before the Gutterboys congregated in the lobby yet again, a crude comment was made, and Everclear went to bang the evil chair, only to find his throne had been replaced by a seat much less inclined towards wrong-doing. There was much consternation on their parts of course; they at first theorized that the Physical Plant had replaced it, but quickly decided that they were the victims of resident-induced reverse-vandalism. Everclear, perhaps using only his logic, perhaps being drawn in by the Evil Chair's siren call, quickly began the hunt for the cursed thing; in a depressingly short time he was able to locate the abused piece of furniture, thanks to the fact that the right arm was so danged worn down and scarred from the constant banging. Within instants of locating it, The Evil Chair was back in its original place, and a couple of good hard yanks undid the good Flunky had managed to do with his wood glue, and the Evil Chair was banging away again. I think they held some grudging admiration for Flunky’s nerve; it was a valiant effort, Flunkrow, and I salute you for it.

By the time my Sophomore year rolled around, the Gutterboys were no more; the three who had been kicked out of Parker apparently didn't learn their lesson, and were no longer even enrolled at OSU; the Evil Chair had been replaced by new furniture; Everclear was still around, but had moved out of Parker. He hung around the dorm a bit in the beginning of that year, but was never able to reclaim that base of power; the Gutterboys were officially defunct, leaving behind little in their wake but unhealthy and disturbing associations in my mind for a gospel song and an historical figure; so I suppose, in some ways, their legacy lives on; after all, the Evil Chair may have been replaced, but was it destroyed? Or is it out there, somewhere, haunting the night, and waiting for the opportunity to revenge itself on the one who was able to humiliate it . . .

Watch your back, Flunky, watch your back. Evil never dies; it just gets reupholstered.

Just a Perfect Blendship pt.2 : B.F.F.

Welcome back for round two of my ruminations on friendship; again, I’m kind of letting my rambling side take the wheel here, so I’m never sure what I’m going to wind up with; there’s no telling what weirdness is slumbering beneath the surface of my mind. For this installment, I’ll be pondering what exactly it is that compels me to label someone as My Best Friend.

Growing up an only child with an Outsider complex, I think the concept of the Best Friend has always held a fascination for me; it was almost like if I could find that one person with whom I really clicked, then it didn’t matter if nobody else gave a tinker’s dam about me. That was the unconscious theory, anyway. So, I was always on the lookout for that best of the best, without ever truly thinking through what the term Best Friend really meant to me; I was operating on the theory that I’d know it when I saw it, and so left it up to my subconscious analysis to let me know when it popped up.

Now, in the course of my life my internal assessment processes have saddled exactly three people with the onerous titles of My Best Friends: Ol' Vick, Flunky, and Dr. G'ovich; out of those three, only one still holds the title (the poor fellow; the other two were lucky enough to escape). My friendship with Ol' Vick was a pretty shallow one, of course, and he basically claimed the title of Best Friend because, well, he pretty much held the title of Only Friend at the time, too; he won it by default. While I've traced the ups and downs of my friendships with Flunky and G'ovich ad nauseum, let me sum it up thusly; they were both granted Best Friend status in my head because they were the first two people I ever felt comfortable lowering my guard around; after I took a few too many psychic sucker punches from the Doc during my Dark Years, up went the guard again, and, eventually, off came the title; it’s hard to think of someone as your Best Friend if you can’t carry on a normal conversation with them.

Does that sound harsh? I don’t mean it to, but I suspect it does; yet another piece of evidence the Doc can use to show that he’s the villain of CoIM. And really, aren’t some of the best hero/villain rivalries born from the falling out of Best Friends? Not that the Doc and I had a falling out so much as a falling away; now that that weird awkward phase is mostly in the past, not sure where in the friendship hierarchy he falls now: might have to invent a new category for Eeeeeeeeevil Friend; but I digress.

I had raised my guard around Flunky as well during my Dark and Bitter Years, but that last year rooming together helped me lower it again, and firmly entrenched him in my mind as my one and only Best Friend, even through those large periods of time when we don't communicate at all. Which, I suppose, kind of begs the question: why? Don't get me wrong; I'm not taking a crack at Flunky here; he's a great guy who has put up with a lot of my crap over the years, which has earned him a permanent position as Honorary Best Friend and The Brother I Never Had until the day I make one “Flunky won’t email” jab too many and he snaps, hops in his car, drives to Denton, hunts me down, and beats me to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat while screaming “You want me to reply, do ya? Well, how’s this for a reply, ya Jackass?!?!”: I might have to downgrade his friend status just a tad after that . . . once I finally come out of my coma.

Anyway, my question isn't "Why do I think of Flunky as my Best Friend" as much as "Why don't I think of so-and-so as my Best Friend as well?" Why don't I think of J.D. or Papa Lightbulb or Insert-name-here as my Best Friend? What is there that relegates them to the status of "good friend" or "close friend" or "old friend" or what-have-you? Let's look at another example a little more closely: Wrath teh Berzerkr.

Now, technically speaking, I've probably been friends with Wrath longer than anyone else out of the three groups, with the exception of Coronela; got to know her during the weekend before classes started, got to know him a week or so later. Over time we became pretty good friends; over the years I think I've had more serious, in-depth (and occasionally downright bizarre) conversations with Wrath than with anyone else; conversations about religion, politics, sociology, etc.; where my conversations with G'ovich and Flunky forced me to clarify my views about myself, my conversations with Wrath forced me to clarify my views about the world. I was definitely on better terms with him during the Dark Years in the house than I was with either of my Best Friends at the time, never having any problems past those which will always crop up when guys share a living space for extended periods of time; heck, he's the only friend whose wedding I’ve ever been in. So, why is it that he rests firmly in my mind as a Good Friend, rather than a Best Friend?

Think the answer to that is really self-evident: in the last installment, I defined the Best Friend in general terms as a Good Friend you don’t feel the need to censor yourself around; and, while I was willing to talk to Wrath about my views on almost any topic under the sun, the one thing that I never addressed was my neurotic nature; as much as we clicked on certain levels, to be perfectly frank I used to feel pretty intimidated by Wrath; it's kind of hard to let down your guard around someone who intimidates you.

And that bit of insight leads us to the larger answer of the Best Friend mystery; it’s all about vulnerability. Ol’ Vick aside, my Best Friend fixation was formed around feeling like I had found people I could open up to; after that backfired on me, and my mind went through its period of degradation and despair, that idea of the Best Friend was seriously injured; even when I was willing to open up to others, there was generally a little part of myself that I held back, fearful of being hurt again. Flunky’s kind of grandfathered in to the whole Best Friend thing; not sure what circumstances could arise to get me to label some other poor sucker with that tag.

You see, back in the Parker days, the act of lowering my defenses pretty much consisted of being forthright about my role as Cap’n Neurotic; over the years I’ve become more comfortable sharing the neurotic side of myself with others, and as it became more and more common, the instant connection between myself and those I told weakened; the more people who know, the more diluted the effect. And now, here I am, doing the Internet version of Queen Inos screaming the magic words to the teeming masses waiting below her balcony, spreading the power of my neurotic words so thin that I feel no major connection with my audience, only a lessening of the pressures that threatened to consume me; and if you don’t understand that reference, that’s okay; I ‘m pretty sure My Best Friend does.

Just a Perfect Blendship pt.1:Move Over, Maslow, There's a New Hierarchy In Town

Here's an honest-to-goodness "thinking out loud and have no clue exactly where I'm going with this" rambling post for y'all. The topic: the friendship hierarchy.

Let’s see if I can somehow make it through this without going too far off course, shall we?

Back in pt.2 of my Secret Origin, I wrote the following:

[M]y biggest stumbling block is determining just how to refer to the people I hung out with back [in high school]. Is there some word which adequately covers the ground between "acquaintances" and "friends"? Pals? Chums? Homies? My need for specificity of verbiage defeats me.

I wonder if I'm in the minority in this sort of over-analysis . . . okay, okay, I know I'm in the minority, but I wonder how small of one it is; does anyone else think about our societal impulse to just choose words without thinking through the exact connotations evoked by the choice, trusting to context to sort it out? I'm as guilty as anyone of this, usually as a result of my hyperbolic nature; the word "love" has become my standard unit of measurement for anything I enjoy: I love this show, I love that show, I love that book, I love that actress in that one movie which I also (in case you were wondering) happen to love. I'm usually only aware of it after someone questions the depth of feeling I've just expressed (You love her in that? Really?), and then I rein in the exaggeration a smidgen and downgrade to "I liked her a lot." Do such distinctions really matter? And just how far off topic have I strayed, anyway?

Getting marginally back on track: what makes a friend? Or, more accurately, what makes somebody think of someone as a friend? And what wide range of variations are contained within that word for each person? Have you ever been telling a story and been forced to refer to someone as your “friend” because it sounds less awkward than "this guy I used to know and kind of hang out in the same circles with, but really didn't have a whole lot in common with otherwise"? I know I have.

Another thing I wonder is just how far off the average person's concept of "friendship" my concept is, and how much of that deviation is a result of my younger, Outsider nature coupled with a fascination for fictional friendships; does the influence that TV played on my idea of group roles also creep up in my view of who I consider a friend? I don't think the parallels are nearly as strong there, but I think the influence can still be felt; the stronger influence is probably my innate need to categorize, to collate, to define; a place for every thing and everything in its place.

There are lots of different levels of friends: the Old Friend, the Good Friend, the Friend of a Friend, etc., as well as that most elusive of creatures, the mythical “Best Friend.” To be honest, most of my views on the level or kind of friendship I have with someone are formed on an instinctual level; I don't sit around with a pen and pad and work out the formulas to assign the labels: "Okay, number of years I've known them times the number of in-depth conversations we've had, divided by the number of years we've been out of touch, minus the number of times we've ticked each other off squared equals . . . 0.075. Fair-weather Friend it is!" No, like just so many of my worldviews, most of the cogitation is performed far below the surface, where my conscious mind is blissfully unaware of it; it's not until the right circumstances come along to jostle those thoughts free that I suddenly have an epiphany: "Hey, you know what? I consider Papa Lightbulb a Good Friend; imagine that!"

So, we’ve established that, for me at least, friendship determinations are calculated on an instinctual level; but what factors play into that? That’s a pretty impossible question to answer fully; as I look at the list of friends I have, I see so many variations in sense of humor, temperament, interests, beliefs, politics, career, etc.; I see no common factor amongst all of them other than the fact that they’re all somehow able to tolerate me for extended periods of time.

Now, I do not have a solid list of all the different levels of friends, complete with definitions; I'm kind of winging it on this one (remember the whole “thinking out loud” intro?); I will, however, provide you with some basic thoughts.

My general sketch of the hierarchy of friendship unfolds thusly:
LEVEL ONE: REAL FRIENDS

• Best Friend: pinnacle of the hierarchy; in overly-simplified terms, a Good Friend you don’t feel the need to censor yourself around
• Good Friend: slightly below the Best Friend, the Good Friend clicks with you on multiple levels, both shallow and deep; someone with whom you can have a fun time and then switch to a serious heart-to-heart without missing a beat
• Old Friend: someone whose friendship has been maintained mainly through inertia and the accretion of memories; if all you have in common now is nostalgia for the good ol’ days, then you have yourself an Old Friend. The Old Friend straddles the line between Real Friend and Semi-Friend.

LEVEL TWO: SURFACE FRIENDS

• Casual Friend: someone you enjoy hanging out with, someone you can have a good time with, but who doesn’t necessarily “get” you; the potential for a real friendship may be there, but has not yet been able to develop
• Contextual Friend: gotta come up with a better name for this one; someone with whom you share an interest, but little beyond that; you could talk for hours with a Contextual Friend about that interest for an eternity, whether it be church, work, hobby, etc., but once you stray from the topic, you both flounder.
• Fair-weather Friend: someone who only remembers you exist when all of their real friends are MIA; not necessarily a bad guy/gal, just obviously not as invested in the friendship as you are
• Friend of a Friend: a bit self-explanatory; for me, it’s always been hard to break through the imaginary barrier that separates a FoaF from being So-and-so’s Friend to them being My Friend; no matter how much I might like the FoaF, getting myself to accept that they might also like me takes some mental gymnastics that have always been difficult for me.

LEVEL THREE: NON-FRIEND

• Former Friend: someone who was occupied one of the higher levels, but with whom there has been a large falling of such a degree that a workable friendship is nigh unto impossible; it takes a lot for someone to get relegated to this spot for me; my need to be liked, to repair what is damaged, will keep me clinging onto hope long after its obvious to all others that the hope is long dead.
• Unwanted Friend: the hanger-on who likes you, but who bugs the ever-living crap out of you, and whom you’re constantly trying to avoid; I spent most of my Dark Years feeling like I was the Unwanted Friend in all social situations; for me, the Unwanted Friend is often a reflection of my less admirable qualities, or a projection of what I fear I could become: nobody likes to look their negative attributes right in the face.

A brief interruption to stave off the comments, questions, and suggestions I can sense headed my way; I can hear G'ovich in my head now, suggesting that I make a list of everyone in the Cast List and what sort of friend I see them as, and don’t leave out any details, make myself vulnerable, controversy is good! To which I say: get thee behind me, Eeeeeeeeevil one! That way lies madness and hurt feelings; I’m not sure I want to deal with the fall out of telling someone that I don’t view their friendship status the way they view mine.

Along those lines: does friendship have to be reciprocal, or can it be a one-way street? Granted, to have the goodwill flowing both was is preferable, but not truly necessary; I’m sure there are people out there who I’ve considered friends who wouldn’t bat an eye if I dropped off the face of the earth; I can think of a couple of cases from over the years where I felt the same way. Of course, the lack of relational balance might not be so extreme; it could just be a matter of degrees: my view of Flunky as my Best Friends is not dependent on him viewing me at the same level in his own personal hierarchy; whether he sees me as Good Friend, Old Friend, or Damn Nuisance has little to nothing to do with it. Now, I couldn’t have said the same back in the college days, when my need for validation and recognition was at its paranoiac heights; but now I’ve come to terms (of a sort) with the vagaries of each individual’s personal perceptions.

And now, we shall take a brief recess from my ruminations on the nature of friendship; I know that the typical reader can only take so much of my rambling before the cracks in their sanity begin to show, so I’ll let you have this break to gather your wits about you before you return this afternoon to read a little bit about my thoughts on the top of the hierarchy: The Best Friend.

Get Out of My Head, D.C. Simpson!

Seriously, how did he know my alternate title for the Secret Origins series?

Written Word Wed. - Millenium Hand and Shrimp!

Running a little late with the posting today because I got sucked into reading last night, and by the time I was able to make myself put it down, my brain wasn't really in "coherent thought" mode anymore.

Finished one book and got about 3/4 of the way through another this past week; probably would have finished it if I hadn't been compelled to watch Earl, Office, and Gilmore Girls; it's so sad when my obsessions get in each other's way, don't you think?

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman: On the whole, still not my favorite Gaiman novel; I enjoyed American Gods much more. However, after my wishy-washy feelings which I related last week, the book definitely took a turn for the better once Fat Charlie decided to become more proactive and stand up for himself. I also enjoyed it more once it started to delve deeper into the mythology of the world that Gaiman had created. In the end, I would still recommend this to fans of Gaiman's work; I think my dislike of the early goings was more of a personal taste issue rather than a reflection on the actual quality of the work itself.

Thud! by Terry Pratchett: The 31st (!) installment in Pratchett's excellent and hilarious Discworld series; I can't say enough good stuff about these books. I think I might devote a later post to exploring this series more in-depth; for now I'll just say that Thud! contains my favorite of Pratchett's characters, Commander Vimes and the City Watch. While I love pretty much all of the series, the Watch books are by far my favorites. One of the things I've enjoyed in reading this series is seeing it evolve; if you were to go straight from reading The Colour of Magic, the first book in the series, to Thud!, you would see a world of difference. Over the years Pratchett has managed to turn what was essentially a Sword & Sorcery satire into an insightful societal and political satire as well. I think the earlier books may have had more laughs per page (not to mention more silly footnotes), but the later books contain much greater depth, while still managing to make me laugh out loud constantly. I have about a 100 pages to go on this one, so I'll try to have a nice Discworld post up next Wednesday.

Once I finish Thud! I’ll probably start on either A Feast for Crows, the much-anticipate and even much-more delayed latest entry in George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, or possibly In the Ruins, book 6 in Kate Elliot’s Crown of Stars series which should be completed with the 7th volume in February *fingers crossed* And, at some point, I need to get around to those Robin Hobb books Rocket loaned me. So much to read, so little time not spent indulging my TV, movie, and blogging addictions. *sigh*

Can't Imagine Why G'ovich Sent This Link to Me . . .

Can you?

TV Tues - It's Going to Be a Thing

It's a sad, sad day for fans of smart, off-beat, hilarious comedies everywhere: Fox has yanked Arrested Development from the schedule and cut its order down from 22 to 13 episodes. Here's hoping that someone like HBO picks it up; I don't want to lose out on seeing the misadventures of the Bluth family. A world without GOB performing illusions to The Final Countdown is not a world I want to live in.

And with that painful news out of the way, its on to the reviews.


My Name Is Earl: I love how this show's humor ranges from the subtle (Earl referring to Say Anything as "that Matthew Broderick movie") to the bizarre (the transformation of the burning golf clubs). Also love how they have managed to have great guest stars for almost every ep, but they don't feel like stunt casting like they might on Will and Grace or Joey or just about any other sitcom out there.

Amazing Race: One annoying family down; one to go. I really really want the Florida team to lose; drives me crazy to see them playing the injured party who are being ostracized for their beliefs, when it's painfully obvious that they're being ostracized because they're rude and self-absorbed; episode after episode you see them spend half of their time whining and complaining about how awful everyone one else treats them, and then spending the other half treating everyone else awfully; the hypocrisy is overwhelming.

Survivor: Gotta love how the ads made it seem like Judd was going to be the focus of everyone's enmity due to his drunken behavior, and then nothing happened. Was glad to see that not only was the hidden immunity idol found, but that it actually did change the outcome of the tribal council; now I'm just waiting to see if Gary tells the tribe that Judd was lying about his immunity idol clue.

Desperate Housewives: I'm a bit behind, haven't watched this last ep yet, so I can't comment on it; but the episode from a week ago? Hated it. The scene where they crucify Lynette for her wardrobe? Awful. Not as awful as the whole Susan/Mike/Zach storyline, perhaps, but awful nonetheless. Susan was not my favorite character to begin with, but this season I've gone from feeling bad for her to wanting to slap some sense into her . . . violently.

Grey's Anatomy: Zap2It.com's columnist The TVGal made a comment in a recent column about how this show has gone from being a mediocre show with a terrific cast to a show that's actually worthy of its cast; I couldn't agree more.

Gilmore Girls: While I'm glad to see the Rory/Lorelei feud begin to die off, and enjoyed watching Rory realize just exactly what her mother lived through at the mercy of Emily, I felt that the scenes with drunken Logan in the first act were forced; I have no problems with showing that Rory was starting to be bothered by the Life and Death Brigade's partying, but to have it happen just as Jess shows back up . . . well, it just didn't seem worthy of this show. That's the problem with being one of the best shows on TV, I suppose; being held to higher standards than, say, One Tree Hill.

Supernatural: Killer bug ep was the weakest ep so far, but even the weakest Supernatura is still miles above the strongest ep of Invasion I've seen. My biggest problem with the ep, other than the horrible execution of the final act, was how heavy-handed the "Sam and Dad didn't get along" stuff was; the show usually does so well with the relationship between the brothers, but this time the arguments over the dad rankled me.

How I Met Your Mother: So we established a few weeks back that the character of Barney reminds G'ovich of himself, while last week's "Don't Ted out about it" moment and the description of Ted as someone who avoids conflict until it festers and he does something passiver aggresive are obviously signs that the writers of the show are frequenting the blog; so should it worry me that I find the G'ovich character much more entertaining than the Cap'n Nuerotic character, or is that just a given? Anyway, enjoyed the sword fight, and loved the fact that Barney was more caught up in the fact that his "It's going to be a thing!" prediciton came true than that it came true at his expense.

Bones: I liked the glimpses of some vestigal pop culture knowledge from Bones. I'm going to have to rework my VCR timer for this one; the last two weeks I've missed the last couple of minutes due to it switching over to tape My Name is Earl, which means the last two weeks I've missed the resolution of character interaction between Booth and Bones. For a show that survives on the strength of character interactions, that's a no-no.

Everwood: Oh, look, it's the return of jerky Ephraim, I'd wonder where he'd gone; at least he was back to being not-as-jerky by the end, although I would have preferred to see him talk to Reid before the ep was over. I just really hope that next week isn't the last we see of Hannah.

The O.C.: I like the fact that Julie was able to figure out what Evil Jeri Ryan was up to so quickly; I also like the fact that she's being given an opportunity to join in on the evil; she always has been nothing if not opportunistic, so it's going to be an interesting process to see her work through just how far she's willing to go.

Oh, If Only I Had a Dime for Every Time I Had This Conversation . . .

Except usually I'm the one making the pencil/eyeball comment . . .

That's My Queue!

As most of you are probably aware of by now, I am a big fan of Netflix; my rental queue must be weeded periodically to make sure I don't hit the upper limit of 500 titles. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of DVDs, and that's because it is; however, nearly half of the DVDs in my queue are ones which haven't even been released yet; every time I hear about an upcoming movie that sounds interesting, I jot the title down in a Word document, and periodically I search Netflix to see if it's available to be put in my queue; it's just my way of trying to ensure that intriguing titles don't slip through the cracks of my increasingly spotty memory. Now, in the past I've kept track of the titles that I added and sent them in an email to Rebel Monkey, but I thought I'd go ahead and just turn it into a semi-regular post, since I know there are several blog monkeys out there who partake of Netflix or a similar service; maybe one of these titles will jump out at you and make you think "Oh, yeah, gotta get that!" Or, maybe this will be a complete and total waste of my time; odds are pretty even on that one, I think. Still, the idea has been planted, and so I shall not be dissuaded!

Now, on to the queue!

Now, when I used to send the list to Rebel Monkey, I would usually just send the titles themselves; but since I have been accused by certain parties who shall remain nameless (and Eeeeeeeeevil . . . nameless and Eeeeeeeeevil) of posting stuff just to be posting it, I figured I'd try to give just a little info about each one to give you a better idea of why you may or may not want to check it out; at the least, it'll give you a better idea of why I want to check it out.

Again: these are primarily items which have not yet been released on DVD; most of the movies haven't even come out at the theater yet.

Halloween 9: Not much to say here, it's the 9th installment in a never-ending horror franchise; I'll be watching it out of sheer inertia.

Munich: Upcoming Steven Spielberg film about the terrorist activities during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, featuring Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush and (according to Netflix, but not IMDB) Emma Caulfield.

Ringer: Johnny Knoxville comedy about trying to rig the Special Olympics; when I first heard about this, I had no desire to see it, but have to admit, the latest trailer made me laugh out loud several times.

Aeon Flux: Both the live action film starring Charlize Theron and the full animated series box set, which includes several other Liquid Television shorts as bonus features.

For Your Consideration: Latest mockumentary from Christopher Guest, the mastermind behind Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, the target this time is Indie filmmakers.

Date Movie: A spoof of romantic comedies which mainly gets in the queue because it stars Allyson Hannigan.

The Notorious Bettie Page: Biopic featuring Gretchen Mol as Bettie Page

Home Movies Season 3: Off-beat animated series which I enjoy quite a bit, but didn't discover till right before it was yanked from the Adult Swim regular rotation.

Gargoyles Season 2: One of the best American animated series around; the amount of subplots and story arcs involved were pretty much unheard of for the time it was made; looking forward to finally being able to watch it all in order.

Once Upon a Mattress: One of those "classic" musicals I've never seen, this version features Tracy Ulman, Carol Burnett, and Zooey Deschanel.

I Love Your Work: Giovanni Ribissi, who has become one of my favorite actors, as a movie star losing his grip on reality.

Solitude: One of those cases where I have no idea where I first heard about the film, or what it was that made me go "that sounds interesting": still, it was on the list, so it goes in the queue. Described as a "dark comedy", so that bodes well.

Tears of Kali: German horror film that got some positive press on AICN a while back.

Creep: Another German horror film, this one starring Franka Potente of Run Lola Run fame; the trailers for this one looked nice and creepy.

That’s it for my latest queue additions. But as long as we’re here, don’t forget about some of the new DVD releases coming out tomorrow:

The Skeleton Key
Happy Endings
Madagascar
Stealth

And, last but not least, the movie that’s currently number 2 in my queue (R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet is number 1, of course) . . .

The Gingerdead Man: From the Netflix blurb:

Evil never tasted so good! When Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney) testifies against three murderers in a death penalty case, she never expects them to return to life in the form of delicious desserts. But that's exactly what happens when their cremated ashes accidentally fall into a batch of batter and are baked into a trio of gingerbread men. Now, the adorable yet evil cookies will stop at nothing to find the woman who sent them to the electric chair.

How can you pass that up?

Movie Mon - Return of the Zed-words

Four reviews today: a remake, a sequel, and two indies.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: I'd heard mixed reviews about this remake, so I approached it cautiously; have to say that in the end, I liked it. Johnny Depp was, as usual, da man; I love the fact that he's finally getting lots of recognition from the general public, but still continues to go after these oddball parts. Was happy to see Missi Pyle, one of my favorite comedic actresses, pop up as Violet's mom; was only sorry she didn't have a whole lot to do. Lots of pretty creepy little moments here, which I appreciated, and I could definitely see the Veruca Salt sequence giving some little kids squirrel-fear. I guess my biggest complaint was the Oompa Loompa songs; the lyrics were great, but most of the tunes just didn't do it for me; I had to turn the subtitles on during the Violet song, the words were so muddled. Outside of Johnny Depp's bizarre performance, think my favorite moment was during the Mike Teevee sequence, with the 2001 references.

Grey Knight: Horror movie set during the Civil War about a group of zombiefied soldiers (yes, I thought of saying "zed-word-fied," but it just sounded weird). For such a low budget film, it's got an interesting cast: Corbin Bernsen, Adrian Pasdar, David Arquette, Matt LeBlanc, Martin Sheen, Billy Bob Thornton, and, my favorite casting choice, A.J. "My So-Called Life's Rayanne" Langer as "Thomas, the drummer boy"; you know that's gotta be the highlight of her career, right? "Yes, I was on My So-Called Life, It's Like You Know, Three Sisters, Eyes, but none of them can compare to my 5 minutes of screen time as Corbin Bernsen's 12 year-old nephew in a cheapo horror film." Adrian Pasdar's narration made me feel like this was a very special and strange episode of Profit: kept expecting for the movie to end with him curled up in a cardboard box (and if you don't get that reference, run and rent Profit now).

Road Kill: Early film from director of Dead and Breakfast starring Erik Palladino and Jennifer Rubin, who is better known to Rebel Monkey and myself for her big screen debut as Turn, I mean Taryn, in Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Erik plays a film student on the verge of flunking out of school who tries to salvage his grade by shooting a documentary on new neighbor Turn, who happens to be a hitwoman. Pretty well-done indie; I particularly liked the hypochondriac roomie. And, I have to admit, Turn did a pretty good job here.

Land of the Dead: Romero returns to the subject that made him a household name; the zed-word. Conceptually, a very cool idea; in terms of execution, not that great. FX and zed-word acting were exceedingly well done, of course, and I liked the characters of Charley and Riley quite a bit; just about everything else was a little lacking. Plot-holes and logical flaws abound, and the acting . . . oh, goodness, the acting: I usually like John Leguizamo, but his character seemed forced this time around, part of which may have been a result of the difficulties mentioned in the commentary of trying to cut around his improvs to get takes to match; as for Dennis Hopper, well, he long ago become a caricature of himself, and continues in that fine, scenery-chewing tradition here. I think there's enough cool stuff here to justify a rental for a horror fan (just about everything centering around Big Daddy Zed-word and his right hand undead men and women is cool), but to be honest, it just can't compare to any of his first three Dead films.

Book Monkey Theater Presents: Cap'n Neurotic in "Spammer-Girl and the Instant Message of DOOM!"

Well, I promised a Book Monkey post this weekend, so let's talk about one of the more upsetting workplace experiences I've had in my life: my encounters with Spammer-girl.

Spammer-girl could almost be described as the Anti-Flunky: she never met an email she didn't like, and subsequently forward on to everyone she knew. Spammer-girl's forwarding activities were a long-standing joke in the unit, but only amongst each other, never to her. And that, of course, was where the problem began. For you see, on one fine day, when another co-worker was out of town, Spammer-girl asked if I could help her out with some of the increased workload. I, being in a job which often found me searching for ways to occupy myself, was more than happy to help out. Now, over the years, my memory of the event may have been compromised by my love of hyperbole, but I'm pretty sure that no sooner had I gotten back to my desk after being asked for help, than I suddenly received several forwarded emails from you know who. Barely thinking, I sent off an instant message to The Mag which basically said "Oh, sure, she can't get her work done but she can forward me a zillion emails." Like I said, I love me some hyperbole. Now, the driving emotion behind me message was not one of anger, but one of amusement; the timing of the emails' arrival struck me as just too funny not to comment on, so I instantly sent off a message to The Mag, who I knew would appreciate it; have I mentioned before that I’m a bit of a smartass? So, yeah, I sent the message to The Mag . . . or, at least, I meant to send it to The Mag: instead, a slip of the mouse had me sending it to Spammer-girl herself.

The next few minutes are all a little blurry due to the intense state of panic that ensued, but I'm pretty sure I realized what had happened before she responded. I no longer remember the exact wording of the following online exchange, although I do remember my saying "Please don't kill me" in an attempt to lighten the situation, and her basically threatening to cause me great physical harm if I didn't pay her friend back the money I owed her for a movie ticket the night before. A few minutes later she stormed out of the office to cool down, at which point I walked over to Rebel Monkey and informed her of my impending doom, so that she could notify my next of kin of the idiotic events leading up to my demise. I started to feel sick to my stomach at the thought of having a possible face-to-face confrontation (me no likey confrontation), and soon said "screw this" and left work early. If memory serves, I was so upset and discombobulated that I actually went over to G'ovich's place to hang out and relax, so you know it was bad.

The worst thing about the situation was this: it was all my fault. I was the one who was making jokes about someone behind their back, and who had inadvertently let it slip in front of the target of the joke. Again, there was no maliciousness intended, but that's pretty hard to convince someone of after you've been caught red-handed. I like to think that if I had made a similar comment directly to her, softened by an emoticon, things would have been okay. But that sneaky, behind-the-back snarking set me up for a fall, so I had to deal with the consequences. And yes, there were consequences.

The biggest consequence was Spammer-girl's influence with the student workers. You see, at this point in time I was still relatively new to my role as Lending Supervisor, the first supervisory position I'd ever held; most of the more experienced students (including Ang and Bubblegum Tate) had left by that point, and I was forced to deal with a workforce primarily comprised of newbies. Trying to make sure that everyone was properly trained was difficult in and of itself; trying to do so once Spammer-girl started commiserating with the remaining experienced students and fermenting rebellion among them was even more so; it soon became obvious that every time they would notice a newbie doing something wrong they would not complain to me, but to Spammer-girl; suddenly I was the clueless boss who was running the unit into the ground. I tried to address the problem with the students directly, not wanting to throw any fuel on the fire, and just tried to drum it into their heads that it was really hard for me to correct problems if they didn't tell me about them.

I soon discovered that she wasn’t just talking me down to the students; on one of my night shifts, when there was only one of my more sympathetic student workers and a fellow staffer in the office with me, my co-worker made some comment about an email Spammer-girl had sent out about me; I expressed confusion, at which point she started dying laughing, saying "You didn't know about this?" She then opened up her email, and let me read the email that Spammer-girl had sent off to most of my co-workers, in which she told them all that they needed to make sure that all Lending questions went to me, and not to my assistant, since my assistant was drowning in work, and I just let her do it all, and she was too nice to say anything, and so they should make sure that I was forced to deal with it and not her since it was my job, and so on, and so forth.

Felt some conflicting emotions reading it. On the one hand, the fact that the co-worker who showed it to me was laughing about it showed me that not everyone took it seriously, which was a relief; however, there was still that fear that maybe my assistant had been taking on too much and just didn't want to say anything. Now, it's worth noting that the Send To list did not include my assistant, so she was as clueless about it as I was. Who was my assistant at the time? None other than Rebel Monkey, who I had become fairly good friends with by that point. I had that sinking feeling in my gut that I was being a jerk to a friend without realizing it, so the next day I asked her about it; she assured me that everything was fine, that the email was blowing things way out or proportion.

From that point on, I tried to keep a sense of humor about the situation; I remember a cookout for library employees where I was sitting with several students and staff who were talking about a really funny email; when I wasn’t joining in, one of the staff members from a different unit made a comment, and I said that I hadn’t gotten it; she gave me a puzzled look, when one of the students from my office went “Oh! That’s right; you don’t get forwards anymore!” At which point all of the people from my office who were sitting there burst into laughter, while those from other offices merely looked puzzled. Once again, I was happy to entertain others with my pain.

Eventually, the feud died off; whether I was able to somehow redeem myself in her eyes without knowing it, or whether it was just that one of my other co-workers ticked her off more than I did and thus became the new target of her wrath, I don't know; I'm leaning more towards the latter. We were never on really great terms from then on, but at least we finally were able to be cordial to each other.

Over the years, numerous people have asked me why I didn't say something to my boss; I suppose it was a mixture of my fear of confrontation, and embarrassment over the fact that, in the end, it was all my fault to begin with: I'd been caught talking about someone behind their back so, even if I felt persecuted for a while, I couldn't in good conscience play the role of wronged party.

Me Llamo Cap'n Pusher

Last night I attended my second Murder Mystery party, with participants from First Baptist and from Denton Bible Church; I had hoped that it would be more fun without having to serve my borderline-OCD need to keep the script on course like the first time; were my hopes in vain?

The answer is: kinda.

Before I got to the party, all I knew was that I was going to be playing a South American (I decided beforehand I would be Argentinian just so I could say "Soy de Are-hen-tina" with a gutteral h all evening) businessman who knew the deceased Baroness; once I got there I was handed an envelope with a little more back-story: my character was, in fact, a drug dealer specializing in heroin; the Baroness, who had died of an overdose, had been my biggest client, and another character, Simmie Shade, p was another. My goals for the game were (a) to find the killer in order to clear myself; (b) to find buyers for six bags of heroin (actually Ziploc bags of flour); and (c) to buy an artifact during the auction portion of the game as a means of laundering my drug money; I wound up fulfilling two out of three, sort of.

The first 30 minutes or so of the game were a flurry of activity, as many people who heard me list my job as "import/export" figured out that I was the pusher; I quickly sold 4 of my bags, but was stymied thereafter by a rival dealer, J.J. Sly. Unfortunately, once everyone had made their requisite drug purchase, hardly anyone had anything to say to me; there were multiple plotlines going on among the rest of the characters, and none of them intersected with mine. And while I was enjoying staying in character, the whole murder-solving aspect just wasn't working for me. When it came time for the auction, I still had a couple of baggies left that I hadn’t sold; while bidding on the final item, it looked like my competitor, J.J. Sly, was going to out bid me, but Cap’n Cluck and Cap’n Disaster both gave me some money to help me win, since his character had cheated them earlier on in the evening; after I won, I gave each of them a baggie in appreciation.

As I had predicted, there were varying degrees of role-playing going on, ranging from totally in the zone to totally bland. Interestingly enough, most of the people getting into the swing of things were the druggie characters: the aforementioned Simmie Shade, who played creepy so well that everyone started referring to him as Slim Shady; Cap'n Disaster, whose jonsing for a fix transformed her into Cap'n Sniffles for the evening; Cap'n Cluck, who was exhilarated when her character sheet instructed her to be Cap'n Twitch, although Slim Shady told her it looked more like she needed a neurologist than a fix; Bruiser, who, after scoring a hit from me, then proceeded to walk around the rest of the evening stuffing his face and exclaiming very loudly just how good he felt now; and Cap'n Bumper's fiancé’s roommate (really need to come up with a nickname for her), whose character was hallucinating for most of the evening. Out of the non-druggie characters I interacted with, the most into it was probably Smooth Money, who played the super-clueless police inspector; he had the full Sherlock Holmes outfit, and went around accusing everyone ceaselessly; I had fun stonewalling his interrogation attempts, especially when he forgot exactly what it was he was accusing me of doing; he had me confused with one of the many, many characters who were trying to sell him information, instead of the guy he was trying to extort money from.

The biggest downside of the experience for me was the way my character's story died out pretty early on; nobody other than the druggies and the inspector seemed interested in talking to me, even though heroin was the murder weapon; which is too bad, since in the end nobody guessed who the real killer was: my one pre-existing drug client, Slim Shady. There also seemed to be a bit of segregation between the participants from First Baptist and the participants from Denton Bible; not that either group was overtly stand-offish towards the other, but without directions from the character sheet to seek out a specific person from the other camp, most of us tended to stick to people we already knew. I tried branching out a few times, but as we all know by now, the whole "mingling with strangers" thing is hard for me at the best of times; when everyone is playing a part and trying to keep secrets, it becomes even harder; had a difficult time telling how much of their behavior was character, and how much was real. Plus, I don't know if the people who didn't know me knew quite what to make of my, shall we say, original interpretation of a South American accent; still, it must have made an impact on the planners, since when it came time to hand out some awards at the end, guess who got "Best Actor"?

All in all, an entertaining evening, but either a more integrated character, or a larger percentage of people willing to interact with me, would have increased my enjoyment quite a bit. Plus, I didn’t get to have a spectacular death scene yet again; one of these days . . .

Oh, Look, Another B-day

Good wishes for a happy b-day to the youngest of the three G'ovich children who, two years ago, was kind enough to wait an extra day to be born so her momma wouldn't have to share her b-day. Wasn't that sweet?

Not Quite Belated B-day

Barely getting it in under the wire here, but wanted to wish a happy b-day to the latest addition to the Three Amigas of The Singles, Scuba-girl, who had the honor of being serenaded by all of the Murder Mystery participants before the game was afoot; if that doesn't make for a happy b-day, then I don't know what will.

Dying on Stage

Tonight I shall be attending a Murder Mystery party hosted by The Singles; I'll try to have a full report on it in a day or so. But first, I thought I'd tell you all about my first Murder Mystery experience.

A couple of years back The Singles decided to host a Murder Mystery dinner; the set-up was a little different from what I was familiar with for these things; instead of having everyone at the party assigned a character and some clues, there was a set script and fixed number of actors who would intermingle with the audience at the beginning of dinner, and then put on a mini-play; I, never being one to shy away from making an ass of myself in a theatrical venue, volunteered to be one of said actors; it would prove to be both an enjoyable and a frustrating experience.

The script that we did was a 1920s gangster theme; I was the hot-headed younger brother of the Don. The basic plot was that someone was sabotaging the Don's business; one by one the suspects get bumped off, until finally it's revealed that it was our cousin, the daughter of the old Don (played by Trouble), tired of being overlooked and ready to establish herself as the Godmother. My character was one of the last three standing; after gunning down one of the final suspects and dragging his body from the room, I would then be honored with a toast from the Don, only to find that the drink was poisoned; I then got to do an over-dramatic “choking, dropping (hard) to my knees, convulsing on the floor” death scene; by far the most spectacular of the on-stage deaths, so I was pretty happy with it . . . during practice. The night of the performance? That's a zoot suit of a different color . . .


I knew the play aspect of the dinner was in trouble when we were only able to get together to practice once before the day of the dinner, and not even all of us could make it then, since one of the actors was out of town; he wound up not getting back until right before the dinner, so we really only had one full run-through, and even then everyone was still carrying their scripts with them the whole time. Now, one thing I've always been gifted at is memorizing stuff, and many years of doing plays and competitive speech and the BSU drama team made me fairly adept at learning lines quickly; I may give a totally wooden line reading, but at least they're going to be the right wooden lines. Most of my fellow actors for this event were lacking this sort of experience, however, and I found myself having to fall back on another skill that I had been forced to cultivate in my acting days: maneuvering everyone back on-script when they would stray. After the total confusion of our first rehearsal, I typed up a streamlined cheat sheet of plot points in the hopes of keeping everyone on track; I wasn't as concerned with the exact dialogue, which, let's be honest, wasn't exactly Shakespeare, so much as making sure that people didn't accidentally jump the gun on key scenes (an oddly appropriate choice of phrasing, as it would turn out). I'm not sure if it did much good in the end, since nobody got the cheat sheets until that final rehearsal, but it made me feel like I was doing my part to stave off total chaos.

The first part of the evening where we just got into character and mingled with the dinner-guests, comprised of other Singles and their family and friends, was lots of fun; I think I do a lot better with my acting when I'm in improv mode; when I'm shackled to a script, my need to be exact in my line delivery takes me out of the moment a bit, whereas a free-flowing improve let me just run with whatever was going on. Had a lot of fun playing the hot-headed, short-fused, bloodthirsty gangster; Papa Lightbulb kept telling everyone I was scaring him. My other favorite aspect of this early section was one of the Singles who had volunteered to be in it, but had been unsure if she could make it, so got assigned an optional character who was mainly there to serve as an additional red herring; of course, since she was an optional character, her name didn't appear in the list of family members in the faux obituary that was printed as part of the story, so she used that fact to make her character a Cellophane-esque paranoid, always trying to be noticed; we all, in turn, kept calling her crazy and telling the guest to ignore her, which would incite cries of indignation on her part; several of the audience members commented afterwards that her character was their favorite part. And then, it was time to start the play itself . . .

From the start, I was having to do damage control; I really don't know how many things got omitted, transposed, or altered during the course of the evening. There are two things in particular that stand out to me. The first involved a note one of the actors was supposed to give the Don at a key moment late in the play; I think he got that piece of paper at least three times before he was supposed to. As she would hand it to him at the wrong time I would try to signal him "Not yet, not yet!", and whether through his own memory or my efforts, he played each of these premature deliveries off as a note from the kitchen about dinner, or something like that; of course, when it really was time for the note to be delivered she missed her cue, and had to be prompted. A minor thing, but it kept me on my toes.

The second thing that sticks in my mind affected me much more directly; we had just reached the scene where I drag the dead body out into the hall and then come back in to get my poisoned drink; however, my Cap'n Cellophane powers must have been running at full steam that evening, because no sooner had I exited the room than the Don and Trouble forgot I existed, and proceeded onto the next scene where she pulls a gun on him and reveals that she was behind it all; enter a confused and bewildered me, who has just come back in ready to go all out in my poison death-throes only to find the play has moved on without me. I think I may have made some sort of exclamation to get their attention, at which point the quick-thinking Trouble trained her gun on me and opened fire; I launched myself backwards into the air and collapsed on the floor; I was so startled by the odd circumstances that I apparently forgot to close my eyes after I "died," which apparently freaked a couple of people out. While I was pleased that Trouble and I were able to roll with it, I was very saddened to miss out on my big death scene; I had bruised the heck out of my knees doing it during rehearsal, and now all of that was for naught. *sigh*

In the end, I really did have a good time doing it, despite everyone doing their best to drive my borderline-OCD to distraction; it was the first time I'd gotten to stretch my dramatic muscles in many a year, which was fun. Tonight's event is of what I think of as the more traditional Murder Mystery variety; as of this moment all anyone has is a brief outline of the crime (rich Baroness murdered), the setting (an auction of her belongings) and a short character description; I'll be playing Jay de Silva, a rich South American who often visits Britain on business, and used to visit the deceased regularly. When we arrive tonight, we'll each be given an envelope with more information and clues; while I'm bummed that I'm not going to be able to utilize my amazing rotating U.K. accent (look, he's a cockney! No, he's a Scot! No, he's one of the Beatles!), being able to just relax into character and not worry about herding all of the other actors should increase my enjoyment by a tremendous amount. Plus, who knows; maybe with all of the excitement, Baby Lightbulb might decide not to wait till his due date on Tuesday to make his grand entrance into the world; now that would make for one heck of an entertaining evening.

Have a Rocketing Good B-day!

Like to give a quick "Way to Survive Another Year!" shout-out to Rocket G'ovich. I had thought about doing some sort of super-special post in honor of her birthday, but then realized that I graced her with my presence last weekend; what more could a girl wish for?

You, Sir, Are an Ass

It occurred to me as I was finishing up my Spotlight on Flunky that the final number 5 in my trio of fives might sound a little harsh to anyone not around during the college years, so I figured that I'd take a few minutes to explain the history of The Battle of the Jackasses.

I don't remember exactly when it all began; at some point around the time when I moved into the house with the full compliment of roomies there was this story circulating about a man who was taking some small revenge on a couple of guys who ticked him off through prank calls (you can read the story here); a pretty amusing story overall, but one thing kind of jumped out to us: the last exchange, in which the prankster responds "Hello, Jackass"; it just had a nice ring to it, I suppose: “Hello, Jackass.” Yes, a very nice ring. Anyway, we joked around about doing it to other people, and to doing it to each other, and so forth; whether the other roomies were involved in the initial discussion I don't recall, since the true Battle of the Jackasses took place solely between Flunky and me.

It was a pretty simple (and silly) little game; we would each look for the perfect opportunity to call the other one a jackass in an exaggerated voice; there were no hard and fast rules as to when this was acceptable, although there were some general parameters: sometimes we would wait 'til the target had said or done something stupid, which would elicit something along the lines of "I didn't mean to do it now, ya jackass!"; other times it would be used by the recipient of a particularly crushing witticism, almost as a concession of defeat in that round of verbal sparring. The best, though were the jackass-ambushes, when you were able to sneak up on the target without them noticing and announce yourself with a loud, "Hello, Jackass!" I think there may have been one occasion in which the much-sought after phone-call-ambush was actually achieved, but I could be wrong.

The Battle of the Jackasses would wage for several years, the two combatants fairly evenly matched in their jackassary, up until the end of The Year of the Flunky, when he finally graduated and moved out. I think I'll remember the day he moved out until I take my very last breath; I had come home from work to find that he had already set out on his way to Texas and Flunky Lover; sitting next to the phone was a note detailing what all still needed to be taken care of in terms of cleaning the carpets and whatnot; at the bottom of the note was an arrow, indicating that there was more on the back; I flipped it over to find only a single phrase . . .

"Made ya look, Jackass!"

And with that, my blog monkeys, The Battle of the Jackasses was pretty much over; Flunky had made a masterful final move before fleeing off into the night, and I was forced to concede defeat. Oh, sure, I would slip the occasional jackass comments into my letters and emails, suggesting in the post-script that he name his PFL team the Flunkrow Jackasses, for example; he sometimes responded in kind, such as his reply to an email I'd sent about a dream I'd had, which he interpreted for me as symbolizing the fact that I knew everyone hated librarians, ending his missive with the following: "Duh. You think that you could have checked out a library book on dream analysis. You work right there you Jackass." Good times, good times.

Fast-forward a couple of years: in a rare fit or bravery, Flunky was able to force himself to overcome his fear of reply buttons and actually respond to an email I'd sent, wishing me a happy birthday in the process. He typed out the lyrics to a couple of different birthday songs, and said that he had wanted to come up with five of them but couldn't think of any more. I, of course, took this as a challenge, and planned on coming up with the requisite number of songs for his birthday a few months later; then, in the month before his birthday I got to go see a sneak preview of a film thanks to Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate; a film which contained a song in it that inspired me to take my birthday song list and build on it; with Rebel Monkey's help, I burned a CD with ten songs on it and designed a "Flunky's Solid-Gold Birthday: 5x5" label for it, complete with Axis and Allies symbols on it; yes, inspiration had struck, and the borderline OCD was in full effect.

The first five songs on the CD were all different birthday songs; the other five were the Five Faces of Flunky, each listed only by a vague clue about what the songs might be; Flunky would have to listen to it to discover what each track really was. The first four were all songs from the Parker days: Old School Flunky was "I Remember" by Coolio; Military Flunky was the "Airborne Ranger" song, although missing the "Shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shot to kill, drive on" refrain we all enjoyed so much in the Parker days; Gangsta Flunky was "Pocketful of Stones"; what I finally decided on for the fourth song eludes me, it was probably either Musical Flunky ("Skid Row" from Little Shop of Horrors) or Dancing Flunky ("Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows). And the fifth song, the one which I entitled "The Real Flunky"? Why, the Bloodhound Gang's "Jackass" of course.

So, I packaged the CD up with a birthday card I'd got him the year before but never sent, shipped it off through UPS 3-day express four days before his birthday, and went home that night immensely amused at my own joke, anxious to get his retaliatory response.

The date I sent the package off? September 10, 2001. Within 24 hours Army Officer Flunky would have much more pressing things on his mind than my silly little b-day joke; to be honest, I still don't even know if he even got it or not, since I didn't have any contact with him at all for about two years after that, and when I did finally see him at that first PFL draft, he never mentioned it . . . the Jackass.

Pollin', Pollin', Pollin', Keep Them Monkeys Pollin'

Well, it was much more highly contested race this time around in the CoIM Poll, with the two leads switching position frequently. But in the end, there could only be one victor . . . Wanna know who?

Spotlight on Book Monkeys

Which of these bodacious Book Monkeys would you most like to see featured in a special spotlight post? Self-promiting wizard, Bubblegum Tate (4) Former TV addict, current alien infestee, Rebel Monkey (2) Super storyteller, Rose Hips the Enforcer (7) The ophidiophobic Amazon, The Mag (1) The wiseacre whippersnaper, Tinman (1) The naughtiest of the naughty, Bunny (6) Everyone's favorite future malevolent dictator, Insidious Evil (0) The walking word generator, Strengthy Girl (0) Lance Armstrong's favorite stalker, Kookamama (1) Total Votes: 22

That's right, storyteller Rose Hips the Enforcer narrowly edged out the naughty Bunny; I'm afraid you'll have to check elsewhere for naughty tales now, my all-too curious blog monkeys. Now that Rose Hips is up on deck, it's time to be fair and give The Singles a chance to duke it out, so be sure to vote in the updated poll at your leisure.

And speaking of the Spotlight posts, I talked to Flunky about his after it was over; he seemed to be pretty happy with it overall, so I guess he won't be sending his secret assassination squad after me just yet; unless, of course, that' just what he wants me to think to lull me into a false sense of security; he's a wily one, is our Flunky. However, he did have a couple of caveats to his approval: first was his concern that the post only showed a picture of the young Flunky, and didn't really reflect all the changes he's gone through in the last 6 or 7 years. There’s a good reason for that; my strongest memories of him are from those early days, since I’ve unfortunately probably only seen him in person 6 or 7 times in the last 6 or 7 years. I suppose he's afraid that without having the full picture, the blog monkeys might be less susceptible to his subliminal ways. So, in the interest of fairness and in hopes he might spare me when he establishes his glorious regime, let me assure you that the Flunky of today really is a zillion times less obsessive than the Flunky of yesteryear; of course, that just frees him up to be a zillion times more dangerous . . . His other concern can be summed up in two words: the picture. It must be tough for a future world conqueror, to see his plans potentially derailed by a youthful indiscretion. Still, as a soon to be public figure, he needs to be prepared for such things, at least until he can finally seize control of all the media.

In case you couldn't tell, the Flunky Flashback spotlight was specially structured for his 5-star fixation; after much agonizing I finally decided that each Spotlight should be structured to accommodate the specific subject; plus, when the 5 idea jumped out at me, it wouldn't let go, and so all of the other ideas where instantly trashed, as I had to come up with all new stuff to fit the structure; have I mentioned lately that all remarks about others’ OCD is merely sleight of hand to distract from my own? I haven’t? Well, now I have. Luckily, despite the total disarray my sudden inspiration caused me, nearly 12 years of knowing Flunky have given me lots to draw from; some other Spotlights will be much spottier in breadth and depth of content, I'm afraid, and there are some who might wind up feeling slighted when their spotlight doesn't measure up to someone else's; my only response to that is simply this: deal with it. The soul of compassion, I am.

Since I've spent so much time dealing with the Parkerites, I'm planning on having at least one Book Monkey and one Singles post up by the end of the weekend; don't want any group to feel that the Cellophane effect is contagious.

Because I Asked For It: Bubblegum Tate's "Two-Fisted Philosophy" pt.1

Happy 4-Color Friday, everyone! I know all of you loyal blog monkeys are just dying for the latest installment in comic book goodness, right? Well today we have a special treat: the first of a two part essay by everyone’s favorite self-promoter, Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate. Please, pay him the same faux respect and feigned interest that you present to me each day.

Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate’s Two-Fisted Philosophy

Greetings! I am the oft mentioned but not-heard-from-enough, one-time Book Monkey and currently fellow blogger, Bubblegum Tate. I recently found myself in front of a class of high school seniors having a conversation about Friedrich Nietzsche. Because I have absolutely mad skillz (and the teacher of the class was steering the class this way in an effort to allow me to talk in front of high schoolers), I was able to turn it into a conversation about one of my top five favorite subjects: COMICS!

Now, many of you blog monkeys may be intimidated by things you know nothing about like Friedrich Nietzsche and, let’s face it, comics. BUT, if you can manage to stick with me as long as the seventeen-year-olds did, you just might learn something.

I have an initial caveat. I will not be editorializing on Nietzsche’s philosophy except in how it comes into play with my personal favorite slice of pop culture, the super hero comic book. If any of you would like to discuss it in greater detail and in light of your own philosophical or religious leanings, that’s what comments are for. And believe me, I have got some SERIOUS commentary on Nietzsche, I’m just trying to maintain a tight scope.

As I’m sure many of you are not aware of the basic tenets of Nietzsche’s philosophy, we’ll start with a basic primer. In as few words as possible (which isn’t really all that few), I bring you the Brief Guide to the Glorious Anti-Christ. Don’t look at me, that’s what other people called him, I’m just borrowing it.

With no belief in a transcendental God but a desperate need to make some sense out of the universe, Nietzsche developed a few core beliefs. He vehemently believed that life is Tragedy; devoid of hope for good or justice but also devoid of the cynicism that would believe in evil’s ultimate triumph. Indeed, Nietzsche thought of good and evil as abstracts with no real meaning, that there could be no immorality in a world that was inherently amoral. For Nietzsche, the only hope against despairing nihilism was to give in entirely to the Dionysian spirit.

Dionysian thought was centered on tragic optimism and sought to stop the moment in time through a lust for knowledge, youth, beauty and your own superhuman power (starting to get an inkling of where we’re headed here?). A Dionysian would create a superabundance of creative energy and seek to harness that energy towards change or “becoming.” There was no hope outside of yourself, only the potential of self-transcendence could hope to lift humanity out of its mire. Its pretty heady stuff, I know. You can believe me or not, but I really am trying to boil this down to the simplest explanations. He was called the Glorious Anti-Christ, cut me some slack!

Nietzsche hated the middle class and its so-called “good life.” Comfort and conformity were chains causing the mass of humanity, the Herd as he called it, to stagnate in its own mediocrity. The merely average spent their days toiling away trying to get that slightly nicer house or slightly larger television (pardon my modern perspective) while the Dionysian sought to write music, create poetry, make art, love, fight battles and really LIVE, even if they would ultimately fail (a core concept I’ll deal with in greater detail shortly).

Nietzsche also loved the theories of Charles Darwin. He believed that humanity will be supplanted by a newer, better humanity even as we supplanted the apes before us. However, Nietzsche also believed that this next evolutionary step, this creation of the ubermensch (overman or superman) would not be merely biological. Humanity would do with its Will what biology could never hope to do. Humanity has an innate Will to exercise power over itself and others, according to Nietzsche, and it is this Will that is the key to the next step in human evolution.

Nietzsche’s most influential work and the best example of his thought is the epic poem Thus Spake Zarathustra. Zarathustra is a fictional Persian prince who comes down from the mountain to explain that he is in absolute awe of humanity’s potential, but is in constant lamentation over its inability to move the vast majority of itself out of a passionless, orderly and rational existence and into something greater.

According to Zarathustra, we should aspire to heroism because it is the highest state of self-actualization. The definition of a hero is one who strives to achieve goals that have hitherto been the purview of the gods. However, because the hero strives for unattainable goals, they usually fail. Tragedy is the glorious end for the Hero! The Herd also fails, but its goals are so low that there is no tragic or transcendent dimension. In the striving and ESPECIALLY in the failing, the hero rises above the Herd’s pathetic, lowly existence and becomes something more through the exercise of the hero’s will.

Sounds pretty damn good, doesn’t it? The attractiveness isn’t surprising. The examples of the tragic hero are nearly uncountable in mythology. The Greeks had Achilles who, knowing that life was useless and fleeting, sought immortality through fame. The Norse had Siegfried who knew throughout most of his life that it would end in tragedy, but fought the good fight and demanded all that life could give him despite the whims of the gods. With very little investigation, you will find examples of this in nearly every culture.

“But what about our culture?” you might be saying (that is, if you intrepid blog monkeys are still awake at this point). Examples in today’s pop culture are nearly as rampant as they were in older civilizations. Think of James Bond who succeeds in the face of insurmountable odds through his own strength of will. But his successes are never long term; he is just holding the line against the Communists with no real hope of ultimate victory. To borrow my friend Dallas’ favorite example, you also have Ferris Bueller. Ferris’ life is hopeless. He is embroiled in his last opportunity for “one good day” in the last good time in his life, his waning youth. Soon, college and adulthood will close in and turn Ferris into the middle-class drone striving for the mediocrity that he sees his parents exemplifying. But before that happens, he will have one amazing day despite all the powers and circumstance arrayed against him. (If anybody likes, we can also talk about how Ferris Bueller is literally an example of evil in its truest form, but that’s a bit off topic in a discussion of a philosopher that didn’t really believe in good or evil.)

At last we come to my wheelhouse. In almost every way, the supermen presented in glorious four color and newsprint are exemplars of Nietzsche’s philosophy in pop culture. Let’s look at a few examples of how they’re the best examples and then I’ll share with you the two I consider to be the BEST of the BEST examples.

So that's where we'll leave off for this week; I love a good cliff-hanger, don't you? those of you still intrigued/interested/awake can check back next week for the conclusion of Two-Fisted Philosophy

Flunky Flashback Five-by-Five . . . by Five

Well, no bribes were forthcoming (and I would tell you if they were: I’m an honest sort of extortionist), so I guess it’s all up to me to decide just how much embarrassing stuff I can get away with printing before the assassination attempts begin. So now it's time: time for a look back at the early days of the man who would be a founding member of The Clique; the man who would be my roommate twice over; the man who avoids the reply button almost as much as a vampire avoids sunlight; the man who, while never rising to the level of "arch-nemesis" or "bane of my existence", would at least often qualify as "thorn in my side" and "pain in my neck":the one, the only: Flunky!

Flunky came to OSU halfway through my Freshman year; my pre-Clique memories of Flunky are pretty spotty; as a matter of fact, my solid Flunky recollections from that time number a total of five, which should make the Champion of the Pentacle in the Great Numeral Wars happy:

1. Going through the lunch line at the S.P.W. cafeteria (a.k.a. "Spew") next to him during his first week, trying to engage in small talk, and failing miserably
2. G'ovich and Rocket returning from an excursion out to the lake with Flunky a bit freaked out from his talk of his military training with explosives, joking that they had been fearful for their lives
3. Going to my first OSU wrestling match with an odd mishmash of Parker residents, and hearing someone down at the other end of my row cheering in a manner reminiscent of a wounded wildebeest; a couple of us thought it was one of the future-ATOs, but five guesses who it really was . . .
4. Flunky taking it upon himself to wage war on The Gutterboys' symbol of power, The Evil Chair (no relation); the battle was lost, but Flunky moved up a few pegs in my book that day
5. Walking through the Parker living room, singing a song from Little Shop of Horrors, only to be surprised to hear another voice join in; this would be the moment when I decided Flunky was cool; G'ovich, upon hearing this much later, would question my definition of the word.

Now, if you were to ask most Parker residents to name one word or phrase that popped into their heads when they heard the name Flunky, you'd probably get one of 5 (trying to earn as many brownie points as possible before dropping the big bombs) answers:

(1) Axis & Allies : Above all else, Flunky is a game-player, with a particular interest in, nay, let us say an obsession for, strategy games; Axis & Allies was once the pinnacle of his game obsession. The siren call of A&A would usually draw in several others, including Wrath, Dr. G'ovich, and The Old Man; not me, however; I never once played the game. And not just because I didn't care for that sort of game; I got roped into playing variations on it like Shogun fairly often; no, I avoided A&A because Coronela had developed such an all-powerful hatred for the game during her time with Flunky that she made me swear never to play it, a promise I have kept to this very day.

(2) Army: At the time we were living in Parker, Flunky was in the National Guard and would have to leave to go on drill periodically; by the time he graduated he had gone through R.O.T.C. and became an officer, enlisting full-time, eventually having to go overseas after 9/11. But back in the early years, the main impact of Flunky’s Army life would be the times he would often entertain us with cadences and the like, with the P.T. song being a particular favorite. His military life would also be indirectly responsible for the Night of the Face-paint, the evening where he and G’ovich finally discovered their commonalities, but more on that some other time.

(3)The number 5 : I honestly have no clue how this all started; I was not in on the initial discussion, just had to ride out the aftermath. At some point after they discovered each other, G’ovich and Flunky struck up a conversation about which number was better: 3 or 5. For weeks this debate would consume their discussions, as they each tried to come up with some example that would prove theirs to be the superior number; I would occasionally join in the debate, lending support to whichever side seemed to need it at the time, but I could never match them in their zealotry.

(4)Obsession: I talk quite a bit about my borderline-OCD, but trust me, next to Flunky, I’m an amateur. Whether it was A&A, or trying to learn how to do a back-flip, or the latest girl he liked, once Flunky’s eyes were on the prize, little could distract him, no matter how futile the task. He has, of course, mellowed over the years a bit . . . either that, or his desire for world domination has overridden all other obsessions.

and, last but not least . . .



wait for it . . .



it’s coming, I swear . . .





(5)The Short Shorts!

Ah, yes, here lies the true secret of Flunky’s lady-killer aptitude back in the day: the short shorts. I’ve lost track of how many girls I had to listen to talk about seeing Flunky running around in his little running shorts; I do remember how upset Coronela got at one of them for saying stuff in front of her, though. Now, the picture above is not really a picture of the short shorts; I think some higher power insured that none that were taken actually survived, for the good of humanity; this example of Flunky making love to the camera at the OKC Zoo is the closest we have.

And while each of the above resonates strongly with me (well, except for that last one), very little of that plays into my view of Flunky from the early years. So now I give you the final of my three sets of five: the Five Facets of Flunky:

(1)Whipping boy: I'm honestly not sure exactly when my pattern of constantly picking on Flunky began; the earliest recorded evidence I have of our interaction is from a video tape during Sophomore year, and it was most definitely firmly entrenched by that point; to be frank, my Role in the group at the time (this being before the self-consciousness kicked in) was probably best defined as "The Smartass" . . . or maybe "The Sarcastic Smartass" . . . or most likely "The Singing Sarcastic Smartass" . . . anyway, taking jabs at my friends was just my way of interacting with the group; some people just lent themselves to it better than others, and Flunky most of all. Part of it was probably the way he reacted to the jabs: sometimes playing along, sometimes jabbing back, sometimes conceding the battle, sometimes threatening me with great bodily harm albeit in a joking way . . . I think. It wasn't long before the Flunky-bashing had become almost automatic; during the Year of the Flunky, he would admit that there were times it got to him a little; I would try to scale it back a bit, but it would be hard: he's such an easy target! (See? I can't stop myself!)

(2)Confidant: Flunky was the first person I opened up to about my neurotic nature; not just at Parker, mind you, but ever; yes, he was the poor soul who had to wade through my paranoia and insecurity first, and most often. He was very good at never treating me like I was crazy; sure, he had to have thought it many a time, but he never acted like it. Which is not to say that he just sat there and nodded his head; he was more than willing to slap me around and try to shake me out of my own personal dramas. He also opened up to me about stuff as well; nothing as insane as what was going on in my head, of course . . . well, most of the time, anyway. I tried to be there for him as much as he was for me, but don’t think I always succeeded.

(3)Encourager: While reading through my journal, I came across an entry where I talked about Flunky trying to batter it into my head that I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody; here it is over 10 years later, and that still hasn’t sunk in 100%, I’m afraid. Still, Flunky was always trying to get me to stop living inside my head so much; he also browbeat me about eating right, getting in shape, investing money, and learning to drive a stick-shift; those were even less effective than the “nothing to prove” thing. Still, it’s the thought that counts, although if he couldn’t change weak-willed little me, I don’t know how he thinks he can conquer the world . . .

(4) Brother: Okay, I know it sounds incredibly sappy, and I totally own that; as cynical as I am in so many things, when it comes to my friends and family, I’m as sappy and sentimental as the day is long. As an only child, growing up with no truly close friends, losing myself in a world of movies, TV, and comics, I often wished for a brother; a sleepover at a friend’s house in the second or third grade would quell that wish for quite a while, but it was still there under the surface. When I finally got to Parker and made what I consider my first true friend, trained by years of pop culture saturation, in my mind I instantly adopted him into my family; in the early days I tried to look out for him like he was my little brother, which was craziness, since he’s not only over half a year older than I am, but was also, y’know, in the Army, and trained to shoot and kill and blow crap up. But still, I was always worried about him not doing well in classes (think it used to drive G’ovich crazy when I’d be giving Flunky the cliff notes of the latest play he’d neglected to read on the way to Intro to Theater), always worried about his financial status (there was a problem with his out-of-state tuition waiver at one point), always worried about his mental state (the boy could be a bit dark at times, especially in the pre-Flunky Lover days). Still, over the years the balance of power shifted, and now he’s married with a Spawn of his own, has been sent off to war and back, and now I feel like I’m still a kid in comparison. Even through the dark years, even through all of the lapses in communication, even through my stubborn bitterness, that fraternal bond that exists only in my head has remained; he might drive me crazy sometimes, and frustrate me others, and occasionally incite a desire for violence (oh, if I only had a nickel for every time I uttered the words “I love Flunky like a brother, but the next time I see him I’m slapping him upside the head”), but regardless, I’ll always consider him my brother, even as he tosses me into the lava pit for daring to contest his iron-fisted rule. Family squabbles can be so messy, y’know?

So, if that load of cloying sentimentality was #4, what could possibly top it at #5? There’s only one thing left to adequately describe Flunky now . . .





(5)Jackass

Yeah, that’s right, Flunkrow: I went there. Game on, bro.

A Foolish Consistency Is the Blog-goblin of Little Minds

First of all, I’d like you to notice the new addition to my side menu: Categories. Sadly, Blogger isn’t super-friendly to the whole category-compilation issue, so I’ve had to go through a separate web-site to do it until I figure out something better. If you click on the link, it will take you to my del.icio.us page devoted to that particular topic, which basically looks like a Google results page, with the most recent post on the topic at the top. I’ll need to go back through the archives and tag all of my old stuff with the appropriate categories sometime soon, but I wanted to at least get the Cast List link up there, since I’ve been meaning to get around to that ever since G’ovich said “You know what you need . . .?”

And now, time for a bit more metablogging

I've been trying to work on my Spotlight Post on Flunky for the last couple of days, but have hit some snags along the way. With my spotlight on G’ovich it was simple; it was early on in the process, and was actually part of a larger overall post, so more of a mini-spotlight, if you will; I was able to hit on the basic mind-messing aspect of the Doc in brief without feeling the need to expand too much; with stand-alone posts, the pressure to make them substantial in and of themselves increases for me, and I begin to quadruple-think everything.

The first snag in effective spotlighting is deciding on the overall tone of the post; it kills me that I, who am among the first to crucify a work for its lack of a unified tone, am so guilty of the self-same offense all too often. There are times you could get conceptual whiplash from the speed at which I change from earnest to maudlin to absurd and back again with a few sentences; it's one of the dangers of writing from the gut, letting my random thoughts guide the process with little or no structure 90% of the time; as my warped mind goes, so goes my post. Mindful of this, I've been trying to decide just how to approach the Spotlight; should I focus on the overly-exaggerated persona I've developed for the subject, e.g. power-hungry world conqueror, or stick to the only-slightly-exaggerated persona that lives in my mind's eye? His real-life personality helps inform the exaggeration, but at times may also contradict it; I run into similar problems when describing G'ovich; playing up the Eeeeeeeeevil nature is fun, but sometimes gets in the way.

The second snag is deciding how in-depth this should be, and exactly where the focus should lie; should I just do a general character sketch, or talk about him mainly in terms of how he relates to me? Either way, it’s problematic figuring out what to say that won’t require gobs of extra information that I plan on covering anyway at some other time; which should come first, the spotlight or the Number War? Flunky or The Gutterboys?

And if I decide on a particular course of action, will I feel compelled to follow it to the letter when I get around to Wrath or Rose Hips or Little Man Stud or anyone else that the spotlight decides to fall on? Will the style used for Flunky’s spotlight work well for Rose Hips’ spotlight? And if not, will I try to force her spotlight into the Flunky-mold, just for some sense of consistency? Or will I be able to rise above my borderline-OCD and just do what best services the narrative? At this point, I think it could go either way. Is this too much thought to put into a blog-post? Indubitably. Especially since it’s just about Flunky; I’m sure by this point he’d be just as happy if I said nothing at all.

Afraid you’re not getting off the hook that easily, Flunkrow. Although, there’s still time for you to offer me bribes to omit the more embarrassing stuff (both real and made up) and paint you in a positive light (that will definitely by made up). Cash, money orders, Paypal, and/or a promise of a high-ranking position once you’ve completed your world-domination accepted; but the clock’s ticking, Nature Boy, the clock’s ticking

Thankful Thursday

In honor of the season, and in keeping with my inherently sappy and sentimental nature, I had planned on doing a "Thankful Thursday" post each week in November; obviously my obsessive blogging last week messed that up, although I suppose that my finishing up the Secret Origin series last Thursday made all of you blog monkeys feel pretty thankful.

So, what does your good Cap'n have to be thankful for?

Originally, I had planned to line up each of my Thankful Thursday posts with whichever group I was going to be interacting with that weekend, since my November was booked solid with activities with Parkerites, Book Monkeys, Singles, and family; it would have worked out so well, thematically speaking. But, I missed the first Thursday, and then the Book Monkey gathering fell through, so now I have to juggle my structure around a bit; now instead of leading into the gathering, I shall use it as a springboard instead; so, fresh off of my adventures in Eeeeeeeeevil, TX, here's Thankful Thursday: The Parkerite Edition.

• I am thankful for Zinger and Pooh, who kept in touch when nobody else did, and who have extended their hospitality to me so often that I sometimes take it for granted
• I am thankful for Flunky and the many, many times he patiently listened to me vent about my latest neurotic crisis; I'm also thankful for his concern and advice about my health and financial well-being, even if I never take it
  
• I am thankful, in retrospect, for Dr. G'ovich and the way he constantly challenges me; I might not always appreciate it in the moment, but his pushing and questioning of me have forced me to push and question myself as well, instead of sticking my head in the sand
  
• I am thankful for my former roomies who dragged me kicking and screaming off of my lazy butt and out of my shell
• I am thankful for email, instant messenger, and online message boards, without which I probably wouldn't be in contact with any of these folks anymore
• I am extremely thankful that in the past couple of years I've been able to rebuild some bridges I once thought irreparable
• And above all, I'm thankful for over 12 years of being part of this group, who I really do think of as family; after all nobody but family would be willing to put up with my crap for so long, right?