The Celebral Cortex

Side Prediction: In the future, we are not going to
understand the fashion sense of our children.

Continuing from where I left off in my last blog, in a world where TV is a more personal medium and where there is greater accessibility to creative equipment, and the means to distribute those personal creations, I have to wonder what will become of those wonderful glittering stars and starlets that we are so used to obsessing about. This leads me to my next point in our little theoretical journey through the future...

PREDICTION 4. THE DEMISE OF CELEBRITY

I am going to start off this blog by saying that I hate celebrity. Now I am not saying I hate all celebrities, in fact there are some pretty cool ones out there. What I really hate is this obsession that our culture has developed with an elite set of individuals, which we allow to dominate the news. "Oh we lost how many troops in Afghanistan today, it doesn't matter because Paris Hilton bought a new dog." (I will not even go into my disgust at the talentless celebrities who are celebrities for no other reason than the fact that they know how to drink and work a video camera while in the bedroom.) In fairness, I am sure this is not a new thing, but I have to wonder if Rock Hudson and Cary Grant found themselves hounded by cameras and reporters with every step they took. There is no doubt in my mind that it has gotten worse.

However, in a future world where anyone can pick up a camera and make themselves a movie star or a sound recorder and make themselves a hit singer, can celebrity survive? I do not (hope)think so, mostly due to the fact that celebrity culture is built upon business and corporations. As much as many of Hollywood's elite would hate to admit that their own status rests in the hands of production companies, that is the way the industry tends to work. After all, if you cannot get hired to start in the big movies or be on the label to make that hit single, no one is going to call you a celebrity. Yet if the entertainment industry becomes more decentralized among independent artists and filmmakers producing and distributing their own art this removes the power more and more from the hands of big business. It is logical to then believe that the status of celebrity will start to decentralize as well. I mean in a future where movies, music, and TV have become so easy to produce and distribute I have to wonder how important the status of celebrity will be. If everyone in the world is suddenly truly capable of being famous does that make anyone famous anymore? Will the Oscars and Emmies become more like those participation trophies you receive at the end of the Little League season when you were a kid?...

Probably not. After all there is the element of fantasy that goes along with the obsession of celebrity. The idea that offers people a sort of release from life. People obsess about celebrities because they want to be them and they want to forget about their own humdrum lives. This is a truism of human nature. We envy and fantasize about the things we cannot have and the people we cannot be. Yet, even this argument brings us back to the bigger picture. In a world where there is social media, cheap and quick access to production technology, and humanity's driving artistic nature, why can't we all become celebrities if we want to be?

Speaking solely as a writer, with technologies from spell check to blogging to eBooks and everything in between, we have already begun to see the world of publishing explode. There are now a whole slew of ways to self publish and promote yourself as a writer. The days of Thoreau sitting in a log cabin by candle light are long gone. (Heck, if Snookie can write a book how hard can it really be, right?) We also need to take into account that technology and our access to it grows exponentially every year. Not only does it become better, but cheaper. So in fifty, twenty, or even ten years I can foresee a time when anyone who wants to make a song album can use equipment found in their room that will match the quality of anything we hear today on the radio, or use a green screen and editing software to make a movie at match for any Hollywood blockbuster today.

Side Prediction: Coming for the Fall 2086 Season:
The World According to Paris Hilton's Brain

This new wave of Post-Indie (Because Indie is not even "Indie" anymore, just ask George Clooney,) material will also serve to cut drastically in the profits of production companies, which means a huge drop in profits for the artists, actors, writers, directors, etc. Currently, production companies pay celebrities millions of dollars because in turn they expect to make billions of dollars from the consumer. If the consuming stops, (or at least lessens to a trickle) not only will celebrity salaries begin to drop as well but the celebrity life-style. If companies can no longer afforded to pay actors and singers their unreasonable and outrageous salaries for two months of work than that actor will no longer be able to afford those fancy cars, huge homes, or throwing those parties that would put Andrew Jackson to shame, (and if you don't get the reference read a history book.) As we all know (and as Paris Hilton certainly knows) money is one of the key aspects to the celebrity fantasy, but if singers, actors, and all the rest are no longer making the big bucks will the fantasy be able to hold? More to the point I think we will find out very quickly how many people are in it for the money and how many are in it for the love of the craft.

Now I am not saying that there will be no more famous people. There will always be people who amaze us or who we wish to emulate. There will always be people who are extremely talented, but with a more decentralized entertainment system I think we will see the demise of celebrity as a cultural phenomena. After all, when I think of the people I truly admire and truly enjoy meeting, they are not the untouchable upper-strata of the silver screen. No, they are the lower levels of the entertainment industry who continue to trudge along because they truly love what they are doing, most of which are local artists and writers who have not forgotten how lucky they are to be doing what they love.

As a sort of disclaimer, I do not believe sports stars would be really affected by any of this. Mostly, because in order to be a professional sports player you have to have a highly developed skill set and compete in an already rigorous vetting process to attain the professional level... and to be honest I really do not believe that that there is any professional player that I would consider a celebrity (despite some of their outrageous behavior).

Similarly, in the future I see that skill and creativity will be what really counts in entertainment, and by leveling the playing field, the truly talented, (and I do not include myself among this rank) will receive the recognition for their work based upon their ability and not upon their status. Those who are famous in the future will be admired in the same way we admired people like JRR Rowling, John Glen, or Colin Powell. They will be people who deserve the respect and adulation not because they are highly paid, but because they accomplish great things. Nor will these people have every aspect of their private lives scrutinized and photographed. They will not have to adhere to some kind of quasi fantasy/reality TV-like life style in order to keep the media interested in them, and I think we all can agree that is a much needed change, for all our sakes.

I do realize that more than any of my other prediction this may just be wistful thinking on my part, but I really hope not. The truth is that even if we progress to a future where entertainment becomes truly decentralized we may never be rid of the idea of celebrity as long as we are still creatures of material desires. This, of course, brings me to my next installment: THE ENLIGHTENED ECONOMY... See you in the FUTURE... future... future.... future...

The Pepsi Amendment

For those of you who haven't heard Mayor Bloomberg of New York City is working hard to pass a law that would forbid the sale of soda products over 16 oz within the limits of the city. The law would apply to restaurants, bodegas, movie theaters, even food carts on the street, and stadium concessions. Now I understand what mayor Bloomberg is trying to do with this law, but I find that I cannot agree with it. I loathe throwing around words like "unconstitutional," "nanny-state," and "Big Brother," but sometimes when certain phrases apply you have to use them even if they are cliche, hackneyed, over-used... forget it. I'm not using them.

I was going to write this blog as a witty proposition to create a new amendment to the Bill of Rights that gave Americans the right to drink as much soda as they would like, but I realized that there is already an amendment that does just that. I am talking about the Second Amendment. (But, hey, isn't that about owning guns?) Stay with me on this one... Yes, the Second Amendment is about the American right to own guns, (and quite frankly I am waiting for amendment 2a that guarantees me the right to own a sword,) but in actuality it is about more than just allowing Charlton Heston to arm himself against the impending Ape Revolution of 2086.

The amendment states, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. This means that the amendment itself is really more about the guarantee to the security of a free state with the right to bear arms as a by-product of that. The point being that in a free state, where gun ownership is not only allowed but protected how can the ownership of 32 oz. of soda be any less protected. Its an absurd dichtomy.

Now I am not in anyway diminishing the obvious health care risks of soda. In fact, scientists are now saying that drinking a single 330 ml can of soda each day translates to more than 1lb of weight gain every month, and that studies prove that Americans with type 2 diabetes has tripled from 6.6 million in 1980 to 20.8 million today, with soda as the leading culprit. Even dentists agree that drinking soda eats away at the tooth enamel faster than candy or any other sugary substance. There is no denying that the stuff is not good for you, but that does not mean we should be denied the right to drink it.

Our forefathers put down the Bill of Rights as a charter that not only gave Americans certain "inalienable rights," (I have the right to not be abducted and probed,) but also as a blueprint of American society. Washington and his fellow patriots saw America as a country where we had the choice to do as we like and to take responsibility for those actions not through the enforcement of laws, but through the lessons of freedom. For example the right to gun ownership is not so much about owning guns as it is about the right to choose our actions. If we choose to own a gun we need to choose to be responsible in that ownership. It is the same way that if we choose to purchase fatty foods. We need to have the rights to be responsible, not have responsility forced upon us. Now I am not going to sit here and make an argument for gun ownership, because obviously the comparison between buying a hand gun and purchasing a Big Gulp is not really a one to one comparison.

We restrict gun ownership because we can't have people walking around the streets of New York with AK47's in the same way we restrict cigarette smoking. Both have the potential to harm other people beside the ones who own and operate the items in question, thus to restrict them is to guarantee the rights, life, and freedoms of those who did not make the decision to purchase the weapon or dangerous substance. However, soda has no dangerous by-product. There is no way for others to get second-hand carbonation, or get caught in the middle of a drive-by-sodaing, and I believe that is part of the litmus test for just and unjust laws. After all, a ban on large sodas would only be for the sole purpose of restricting the harm we do to our own bodies, where as limits on cigarettes and guns are meant to protect the rights of those around us. Even Bloomberg's own trans-fat ban used in restaurants protected the life and rights of those who ate at those restaurants. He did not ban the food, just the way they were prepared as there were viable alternatives available to restaurant owners. The difference is between personal restrictions and public protections.

There is also more to this ban that just the mere outrage of the transparent big-government social agenda behind it. They are not banning soda all together, just certain sizes, nor are they restricting the amount of other sugary or unhealthy drinks such as apple juice, milkshakes, or even beer. They are not even banning how many sodas you can buy. Instead, this seems to be an attempt to use the law more as a political statement than as a responsible tool of protection and enforcement. Ironically, I am not even saying that the principals behind the ban are wrong, but anything that restricts freedom on flimsy and misguided abuses of power are wrong. We need to drink less soda, in the same way that we need to eat more fruits and vegetable, so why not make it mandatory for us to do so, or ban cookies or chocolate cake? Why not have all New Yorkers submit to biannual physicals and be required by law to work out for thirty minutes a day? The simple answer is that this is America, and as sad as it sometimes is, we have the right to be fat and lazy if we so choose. Remember that if you make obesity illegal, only the criminals will be obese... I guess, then, they would at least be easier to catch.

Pond of Consciousness: Running

"I wonder if the recorder is going to pick this up... People are looking at me because I'm talking to myself... A little iPod action... I don't want to run... Left, right, left, right, left, right, feeling good... Car... don't kill me... So I'm supposed to record my thoughts... why do they call it stream of consciousness... I guess because of the water imagery, but a stream... I would think thoughts are really more of a pond... Amelia Pond... I mean they are all sort of jumbled up and on top of each other, and sometimes its really more of a conversation..."No, I have a thing. It's like a plan, but with more greatness"... What do I normally think about?... Cute girl... Keep smiling... Why'd I bring this recorder... everyone is looking at me strange...Leg cramp. That's what I get for not stretching right... Why do I run? I mean who was the first person that thought-up running. Were the Romans out jogging, did the Hun's go for a fun run... Hun Fun Run in the Sun with me Mum... why did I make the Hun's British?... Were our ancestor like, "hunting our food and tilling the field is not enough exercise, maybe I'll go out on a run for two miles."... "I'm sorry sir, Mr. Adams can't sign the Declaration of Independence just yet, he's out clocking his 400-meter,"... Well, I'm sure it wasn't Franklin. He got other types of exercise... Old people walking. "Hey Marge, let's go to the park and stave off our impending death for another 48 hours." When I get old I am going to spend my time in front of the TV eating fried chicken... I'm hungry. I want Popeye's... "Well blow me down."...Should I add paragraphs when I'm writing? Does a stream of thought have paragraphs... Fat man on a little bike... It's like the circus is in town... How did they get that beach ball to balance on the thin side of that sheet of paper... Wouldn't it be great if there were dragons... I bet we would have domesticated them like dogs... A Yorkshire Burner... a Doberman Spiked Tail... I guess then we might have them abducting our women and stealing our valuables... "Hey come back with my wife and my HD-TV"... Song change... Damn you, Nelly Furtado. How did you even get on my iPod?... Oh, hello? How are you? That's fine just keep on running by... Should I ask out that cute girl at work... "Hi, would you like to get a drink sometime"... too soon. I've only worked up to polite smiling... I can engage in small talk in like two months... Maybe I'll ask her out for Christmas ... If only there were dragons stealing women. I own a sword. I would be so in... Who walks with an umbrella in the sun... well I guess geisha do... Oh look at the duck... What do you do all day, Mr. Duck. You just sit around, paddle, play in the water, pick on tourists for bread... Ducks migrate. I haven't seen a duck migrate in years... at least Geese migrate, they go home to visit Canada, ay... Hello, nurse. How are you?... Ducks are kind of lazy. They have very few responsibilities in this world, one of which is migration, but they don't migrate... Global warming. I blame Al Gore... Isn't that part of their job requirement. Doesn't that have to be on the resume when you apply for the job of Duck? If I suddenly stopped one of my job requirements, and instead decided that I was just going to paddle around and defecate on running paths, I'm sure I'd get thrown out on my ass... I don't own a donkey... Maybe God should start downsizing the duck position... "I am sorry, Mr. Mallard, but I don't think this position is quite working out for you. I am demoting you to pigeon."... "I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the winged scrouge that pecks at your nightmares"... "Maneater, make you work hard, make you spend hard/Make you want all of her love/She's a maneater, make you back hard, make you step hard/Make you fall real hard in love"... Almost there... Almost there... Almost... Halfway done... Damn it... Does Superman go running? Does he lift weights? I mean, yeah he's got Kryptonian DNA, but does that make him automatically cut? You can be strong and not have that kind of physique, washboard abs that would make the Situation jealous... man, that was a weird reference... A barrel chest, nice pectorals... I have to assume he works out. Probably like a human would, except he does eighty laps around the world and does twenty reps with... Why do old men have a culture that makes them feel the need to work-out without their shirts on?... So much hair... Nobody needs to a sixty year old graying Wookiee on roller blades... That however... Hello.... No. Nope... Sorry, eww. I really need to start wearing my glasses when I run.... I wonder if he works out with the Flash. Maybe they have a gym membership together? Is there a Gold's Gym on the watchtower... Booster Gold's Gym... I wonder if Chewbacca ever manscaped? Wookiee-scaped? Even dogs have to go to groomers. Maybe he is o'natural... Maybe other wookiees look at Chewie the way we look at French women... Getting tired... Want to stop... Hello, there. Yeah look at me running. I can run for miles more.... new song... Rush... Damn you, Doug!... What do dog's think of the park, or of leashes? I bet they don't even know... "I rove rou raggy"... "You're gonna endanger us, you're gonna endanger our client - the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog"... I wish I had telekinesis. It is probably one of the most powerful powers anyone can have. You can do almost anything... Unfortunately, if you get too powerful you burst into flames in the form of a phoenix, and then you have to die every time your writers sneeze or are looking for more ratings... Maybe I should tweet that... I need to tweet when I get home. It's so much pressure. It's like stand-up comedy, but you can't reuse the same material all the time, like Mark Curry... wow random Mr. Cooper reference... Maybe I can tweet that... Almost there... almost home... No, too obscure and no punchline. There is no pizazz... What kind of word is pizazz?... almost there... I bet it's Italian... You are only saying that because it sounds like pizza. I can have pizza for dinner... I'm too old for this... It's too hot... I need to stop... Who is this coming up on me. Oh you want to race, buddy? I'll race you with that gimp leg brace of yours... I'll... okay you win... Good bye... I need milk. I don't want to get milk. I can drink water... I need some bread too... I need to stop going shopping when I'm hungry. I wind up buying three bags of chicken fingers and two rolls of cookie dough... Car!... Run, run run... made it... Final stretch... work it out. C'mon, big guy... Ahhhhh... Ruuuuun.... left, right, left, curb, right, left... Whew. I'm done. Now for pizza. When do I end this stream of consciousness thing? I guess anytime I choose. Shouldn't I try to find something scholarly and profound to end on... No.

The Age of Nerd

It's Geek Pride Day, and speaking of a
geeky Day.... I love being a nerd.

Friday is May 25th, and in case you do not know, it is Nerd and Geek Pride Day. Nerds have come a long way over the past sixty years since the term first entered into popular use in the 1950's. The term nerd was coined by none other than Dr. Seuss in his book If I Ran a Zoo, (which  Matt Damon just turned into a a major motion picture,) but in 1951 Newsweek reported that in Detroit Michigan the term was used to describe someone as "a drip," or "a square,". Being a nerd in 1951 Detroit meant wedgies, and probably not being able to go to the sock-hop on Friday nights or something like. Fortunately, it is now 2012 and the nerd population, along with its vibrancy and appeal is soaring, while, ironically, Detroit... not so much. My point: Nerds Rule.

Wikipedia defines Nerd as a derogatory slang term for a person typically described as socially-impaired, obsessive, or overly intellectual. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular or obscure activities, pursuits, or interests, which are generally either highly technical, or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Other nerdy qualities include physical awkwardness, introversion, quirkiness, and unattractiveness. In the stereotypical high-school situation, they may be either considered loners by others, or they tend to associate with a small group of like-minded people.

Okay, maybe that is not the best definition to try and prove my point, but if you continue reading, the article goes on to say that the term "nerd" has been reappropriated by some as a term of pride and group identity. The article also talks about the evolution of the nerd from the stereotypical glasses-wearing social outcast to... well to people like Nathan Fillion. We are truly living in a Golden Age of Nerdom. Not only are nerds more respected than ever but society itself is developing nerd-like qualities. Think about the movies that everyone is watching this summer, like Avengers and Batman. These are comic book movies, but they will be the highest grossing movies of the year followed by movies like The Hunger Games and possibly (hopefully) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer, (but more likely by some other movie about vampires which I will leave unnamed.) Still, all these things have their roots in nerd culture, because suddenly being a nerd is cool. Granted, you will probably not see your high school quarterback rolling a D20 anytime soon, and the though the sightings of attractive females in comic book shops are starting to rise, I would not exactly call them a common occurrence. However, thanks to the internet and an explosion of nerd pride our subculture has never had it better.

Partially I believe the acceptance of nerd culture has a lot to do with the general malaise and cynicism that has come to be associated with mainstream culture, propagated mostly through grunge and emo music of the 90's and early 2000's. Yes, it is cool to sometimes pretend to be disinterested and aloof, but it is also boring. Nerds on the other hand seem to be the last people on the planet that are legitimately allowed to get spazzed-out excited over things. First of all, because we -by definition- are not cool, so we do not have to worry about appearing as such and secondly, because we have so much cool crap to get excited over. I mean really when was the last time anyone dressed in costume to go see a George Clooney Indie Film debut (unless you count hipsters, because in my opinion they are always in a costume.) Turn instead to the openings of Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Avengers, where you get a bevy of irrationally excited movie-goers dressed as everything from Jedi to Orcs. Even more to the point, a lot of these movie-goers are not the usual assortment of hard core fans but are people who would not usually claim themselves as nerds. The best example of this is Game of Thrones and Star Trek. Who would have ever thought that Star Trek would become a summer blockbuster or that non-nerds (we call you normies) would find themselves becoming so dedicated to a TV series based on high-fantasy.

We are seeing a transformation where nerd-stuff is becoming cool. I speak from experience as the modern and hip "Cool Nerd" (though I think actually writing that and using the word hip probably just knocked me out of that category and back down to "Lonely Poindexter.") Really people just want to get excited over things. Fantasy and imagination are not traits limited to a sub-culture of the population. Everyone has dreams, and hopes, and the desire to see laser guns blow up spaceships or awesome sword fights or even magic. Being a nerd is really nothing more than not forgetting that at one point you were a child. Everyone threw a towel over their shoulders and called it a cape or swung a stick around and called it a lightsaber, but the only difference between a nerd and everyone else is that for a nerd that time was last week. Its about having fun, having some passion, and most importantly not taking yourself too seriously. After all, I think that's an attitude we could all stand to adopt, a little bit more.

Nerds rock because how can you fault a guy for having this

much fun and being this frelling creative, also check out this

crazy kiwi at his YouTube Channel: Matt Mulholland

Miss Atlanta

Picture courtesy (once again) of Graham Smith

"Why don't you let me take you away from here," said the man as he rolled a coin across his fingers. His pressed suit was unbuttoned and it flapped open as he leaned back in his chair. "You and me can be so happy together?"

"Com'on, Sugah, you know that line ain't never worked on me," I say as I picked up the empty glass from his table and put it on my tray.

"And yet I am compelled by your beauty to say it every time," he winked and the coin in his hand disappeared in a flash of fire and sulfur.

"Zagan, darling, you may have been a king in hell, but up here ya just another bar fly, and this month's tab is due."

He smiles his wicked smile and for moment I get a glance at the demon that must have been underneath. One moment his hands were empty the next he was holding several hundred dollars of crisp green bills.

"Now, Sugah, JJ done warned you about using that funny money in here. We don't accept no bad bills."

His face is suddenly all innocent as if he has no idea what I am talking about. "Georgia, darling," he says with his best smile that only serves to remind me of some of the men I've dated in my life. All of them were no good neither, just like Zagan. "You think I would dare swindle good Mr. Friday, or you, my delicious pomegranate?"

He takes my hand to kiss, but I'm faster than he thinks. In one swift jerk I not only manage to slap some sense into him but I come back with his money square in my grip. All I need to do is squeeze and the bills turn to ash, like year-old burnt paper. I watch the little bits of them float to the ground, nothing more than soot and lies. I know what's coming next. I've done this dance before.

"You dare strike me," he thunders. He's up faster than my old dog, Bush, when he used to hear the cats scratching around out back. His chair clatters to the ground and he has a sort of red glowing flame about him. "I am a Lord of Hell," he continues. "I have killed scores of angels and men. Both the good and the wicked whisper my name in fear and awe. I am the Lord Zagan, and I will not be treated..."

He's too busy doing the old monologue to really see my fist until its landed square in his jaw. He staggers back in surprise and that red glowing aura of his is no where to be seen. He's cradling his mouth as if I've broken it. I haven't. I know how to break a man's jaw and what I gave him weren't anything more than a friendly tap. In the background I see Edward perk up from his place near the front, but I shake my head at him. I don't need no help with the likes of men like Zagan.

"Don't give me that ol' speech, Sugah. Everyone knows you were thrown out of hell faster than a priest from a whore house. Now best git from here before I do the same."

"You bitc..." He rounds on me his fist coming like he intends to do some harm. Its a big mistake. I've been trained by the best and even if Zagan is immortal he still bleeds like the rest us. His punch finds nothing but air, but my roundhouse on the other hand, connects squarely with his chest. He gives off a noise like a deflating balloon before he impacts with the wall a few feet behind him. He keeps his feet for a moment but soon enough collapses like a dog on a summer's day.

Edward is already there, bless his simple heart. He doesn't even say a word as he picks up the fallen demon and throws him into the side alley with the trash. The rest of the villains in the bar barely notice what happened. Things often get rough in here, but I don't much mind. Back in my day I was one of the most feared martial artists in all of Dixie, back when I was known as Southern Bedlam, but those days were ages ago.

Now I'm just plain old Georgia Atlanta, bar waitress and mom. I smile at the thought of Owen, my son. He's the only man in my life now and as much as I miss the thrill of it all, I would gladly do it all again. I'd do anything for that boy. I already have.

"That was really great, Miss Atlanta," says Gil. He's whipping up the beer and blood from the floor as I finish clearing Zagan's table.

"Sugah, how many times do I have to tell you, call me Georgia. Last time I was Miss Atlanta it was during my beauty pageant days, back when I was sixteen goin on thirty, and I haven't been sixteen... in well a while."

"Sure," say Gil as he stands from up off the ground. "Whatever you say."

I can tell the boy is sweet on me, but I try not to encourage it. He's a nice enough kid, but as wet behind the ears as a tadpole. JJ took a special interest in him, but I don't have time to be playing nursemaid to some wonder struck youngin'. I have my own concerns in life. Even as I think it, I glance at the dirty clock on the wall, and realize that I have to be at daycare to pick up Owen at quarter past.

"Gil, I gots to get going. You can finish up for me here, right?" I don't even wait for an answer I just shove the tray and empty bottles into the boy's hand. I turn toward the back of the bar and begin to undo my apron. "And tell JJ..."

"Hello, Southern," the voice is strong yet scratchy. Like it hasn't been used in a long while. I had not heard it in years, but all the same it is still unmistakable.

I never finish what I am about to say to Gil. I freeze mid-step, my hands still fumbling with the strings of my short apron. It takes a moment to find the fellow I am looking for, but sure enough he's right there sitting at a table not three feet in front of me. He must have come in when I weren't looking. The man was older than I remember, with a shaggy growth of hair that covered him chin to nose. One of those brimmed hats was covering his face, but as he talks he takes it off and I see his once beautiful Blondie hair is showing patches of gray.

"Albert," I hear myself exclaim. I take a step back from him before I even know what I am doing.

The man stands and now the whole room is paying attention. His frame is thin, thinner than I can remember, but I know that his wiry body does not do justice to the power this man has. As he comes to his feet his brown coat comes open and I see the symbol adorning the tattered suit hidden beneath, it is the symbol of a fist orbited by four stars. Some of the other patrons see it too and suddenly I hear his name being whispered all about me like crickets on a spring night.

"General Relativity," I hear them say. "I thought he was dead?" asks one man. "Nah, I heard he was doing time is some government max-pen," responds a another. All the voices are lost to me as I find myself falling back into old memories.

The world knows him and fears him as General Relativity, one of the most powerful super-villains to walk this here planet or any other for that matter, but I knew him as the man he was, Albert Issacs. To them he was destruction incarnate, to me he was the man who brought me flowers and fumbled over his words like a wide-eyed schoolboy. I suppose that for all his power, even old Albert was powerless when it came to love. For my part, I can't be sure if it was love or just awe. The most powerful man in the world had fallen for pretty little me, who was I to refuse him.

Our lives were fun at first, my skills as an assassin and his power, we were unstoppable. We did what we wanted, went where we wanted, and no one with a badge or cape could tell us otherwise, though they sure as hell tried. Yet, after a few months it got to be too much. Albert was too destructive. He enjoyed killing too much, and he wanted it too much. All the things that had so attracted me to him in the first place were now what scared me the most about him. After I found I was pregnant with Owen, I knew it had to stop, but how do you tell the most powerful man in the world no? Where could I even run that he couldn't follow?

So I did the only thing I saw fit to do. I sold poor Albert out. I watched from the shadows as the Feds gassed the motel where we had been sleeping. My former lover never saw it coming. He was too busy, passed out from all the beers I had been feeding him all night long. I watched as they carried him out of the room, all unconscious, knowing that the next time he woke he would be staring up at the inside of some government holding facility. I hoped that would be the end of.

"Five years," says Albert bringing me back to the present. "The government kept me alive, but I couldn't move, could barely think. They fed me through a tube, and I was kept in complete darkness, to keep me disoriented. I was alive, but everyday I wanted to die. I couldn't feel, couldn't hear, couldn't see. I forgot the taste of food and the smell of fresh air." As he's talking he's taking steps closer to me. I want to move, but my training has kicked in now and I refuse to show fear even in the face of him.

Edward seeing that I was in trouble comes charging out of no where. Normally, people know to steer clear of the big galute. He's near-indestructible and weighs more than a house full of mack trucks, but I know even that won't be enough this time. With a wave of Albert's hand, Edward just stops in place. He suddenly under the pressure of a gravity more than thirty-times that of Earth, but the big moron keeps trying to move. He keeps trying to get at Albert. I try to tell him to stop but Edward always had more muscle than sense about him. Albert just laughs.

The bull of a man finally falls to his knees at about fifty-times normal gravity, and at a hundred-times he is laying flat on the ground. The wooden planks around him begin to shatter under the pressure and even the concrete foundation below groans and cracks with the weight of it all.

"Albert," I call frantically, "stop this! Albert, stop!" Edward can't even breath. Albert once explained it to me that with gravity that high even oxygen weighs as much as my old Chevy. "Albert!"

With another laugh the man once called General Relativity lowers his hand and I can see Edward's chest begin to expand and collapse again. The big galute is passed out but at least he's alive. Most of the patrons, I notice, have decided to do the smart thing and make themselves gone. A few still stand around caught between their head and some morbid curiosity which will probably be their death.

"Now wait a minute," I hear JJ say as he hobbles out from the back. He had been doing inventory. "Nobody causes trouble in my bar..." He stops. I can tell he is taking in the destruction around him. JJ was always clever and cagey, but  even he seems at a loss for what to do when he sees Edward passed out only a stone's throw away.

"Stay out of this, old man," says Albert. "This is between me and Southern here." He rounds on me like a mountain cat. "You took a lot from me, Georgia. You took five years of my life. You took my heart, but most importantly, you took my son. Before I kill you for what you did, I want to know where he is."

I begin to figure how long it would take for me to make a move, but as wild as Albert's acting, he's no one's fool. He's staying out of reach and anything I can think to do would take at least a second's worth of time. Albert's power works at the speed of thought and as fast as I am, I ain't that fast.

"Now just calm down there, son," I hear JJ say. "I know you think you have been wronged, but there is no need to do anything rash."

"Rash?" says Albert and as he turns his head to stare at JJ all the tables around us begin to float up to the air as if they was balloons at a carnival.

"I just mean to say that you're free now. There is no reason to go and jeopardize that. You start throwing fits and you'll have everyone from the FBI to every blasted member of Eternal Vigilance here. No one wants that."

"I had to bust my way out of that government facility. They forgot I used to be military. They forgot that they were the ones who did this to me. I know how they think, and now they're not thinking anymore. What I did to them, I'll do to anyone who tries to stand between me and my son, including the woman I love."

Suddenly, I got that feeling you get on roller coasters or when you are in a plane and even though I leave my stomach standing where I was I feel my back land hard against the far wall. I can see JJ is similarly pinned to the wall near the dartboard. Next, Albert starts in on the pressure and I can feel it build it on my chest. First it feels like a small stone but soon enough its the weight of a boulder.

"Where is my son? Where is Albert Junior?" He is screaming now. The tables are doing slow orbits around him and everything else in the bar is rattling like hell. Any straggling patrons are nowhere to be seen, which is good because Albert is losing it. I only ever saw him like that once before, and Lincoln City was never the same after that.

"His name is Owen," I managed to squeeze the words out as the pressure on me doubles. Somewhere far off I register the sound of my rib snapping, but I was trained to ignore such trifles.

Then suddenly its over. I fall to the floor like a sack of beans. JJ and the tables too come crashing down around me. The bar is strangely silent and when the bells in my head stop ringing long enough for me to pull myself upright all I can see is Albert in a heap. Standing over him is Gil a dented carrying tray in his hands. The boy's eyes are popped open so wide I think they might fall out his head to land next to the unconscious Albert.

I'm not sure how the boy got close enough to him do it, but he just stopped one of the most feared super-villains of all time, and all he could do was stand there and try not to wet himself. If right then and there it hadn't hurt so much to do so, I would have laughed. I guess even tadpoles grow up eventually.

Phantom Menace Syndrome

Phantom Menace Syndrome: Symptoms include: soreness,
redness, irritable geek movements, product placement,
directile dysfunction, age-inappropriate characters, weakness
in the plot, induced vomiting, commercial tie-ins, and
George Lucas.

Over the weekend I got out to see The Avengers and I was not disappointed, but I was surprised. I was not surprised so much by the movie itself, (as Joss Whedon hit the nail on the head and made this movie everything it should be and more,) but I was surprised that I was not surprised... maybe I need to explain this better.

I have come to understand the existence of an affliction I call Phantom Menace Syndrome (PMS). It is the illness of the body that causes a person to become irrevocably and unreasonably excited about an upcoming form of media (usually movies, but can also be applied to books, TV shows, music, and video games... though for video games it may be more appropriate to call it Galaxies Syndrome.) It is not to be confused with Battleship Syndrome, which is when something that is released is as disappointing as you expected it to be, if not worse. Nor should that be confused with Snakes on a Plane Sickness (which is so bad it gets its own disease named after it.)

PMS is when the hype of a film cannot stand up to the horrifying fact of the product and though some of the creations of George Lucas epitomize the disease they are not the only culprits. Movies such as Spider-Man III, Superman Returns, Matrix Revolutions, and (anything but the first) Pirates of the Caribbean, have all caused us to suffer from this incurable affliction. Even the youngest among us are not immune from the suffering with movies like Cars 2 being put out (though I truthfully never expected much in the way of serious plot progression from a movie based on a sport where all you do is drive in a circle for six hours.)

Perhaps those who suffer most from this horrible disease are the good movies. Movies like Dark Knight or The Avengers. These are the movies which I find more and more I cannot let myself get too excited over for fear of suffering from PMS. It is not that I will refuse to see them it is just that I will enter into theaters with a wall around my heart and a healthy dose of doubt, and that's not fair. I want to be irrationally excited over movies which so epitomize the things in life I love the most, (Family and friends?... no...) comics and fantasy. I want to geek-out and dress up and obsesses over every bit of a movie franchise as the release date for that newest anticipated movie grows ever closer, but I have been burned too often in the past. Most recently, I allowed myself to relapse with the release of Green Lantern. Mind you, it was not a bad movie, just a forgettable one.

Sometimes even the healthiest of franchises can succumb
suddenly and irrevocably to PMS.

Too often (especially with comic movies) production companies become too caught up in the action to remember the ethos of a story. Movies about superheroes especially are movies about modern myth and should be treated with the appropriate weight and seriousness that such myth deserves. (Though to be fair they also made a mockery of Clash of the Titans, and you have wonder how hard it is to screw up a remake of a movie that originally featured a claymation mechanical owl.) Even with the release of the upcoming Dark Knight Rises I still find myself overly skeptical that Chris Nolan can pull another masterpiece out of his hat, and like any trilogy the third movie is in some ways the most important. Too often with franchises like Spider-Man and X-Men, terrible third movies will not only ruin a franchise but completely invalidate the great movies that came before it, which sucks because by the time the third movie comes out I already own the other two DVD's, so I really have no choice. I have to get the third to complete the collection.

The real fear with the new Batman movie is that it has a lot in common with the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises. All were directed by lauded directors who proved themselves in the tellings of their first two movies. All three franchises peaked with their second movies. Spider-Man II  was the best movie of the trilogy, as was X-Men II. The Dark Knight of course was a masterpiece of cinema, storytelling, and acting, but that only raises more concerns. How can any movie follow Dark Knight let alone top it? I suppose only time will tell. As for me I am doing my best not to succumb to PMS. All I can do is hope for a Dark Knight but prepare for a Terminator: Salvation.

At least The Avengers did not fail to disappoint. Joss Whedon deserves a lot of praise and thanks for his work on this culminating piece of movie magic that we have been waiting for since Nick Furry stepped from the shadows at the end of Iron Man in 2008. So far (at least as the Avenger titles go) Marvel has not failed us yet, but this latest installment was not the end. The last scene of The Avengers offered a tantalizing new look at what was to come. So as we begin this second chapter in the franchise's history we can only wonder if the quality of storytelling will continue to improve or if the franchise will be brought to the Jar Jar Brink of Disaster. I suppose only time will tell, but as for me I find that I am looking ahead with cautious optimism and an open-mind. After all, PMS is as much a mental disease as anything else. So just because PMS can sometimes cause physical discomfort like, fatigue, loss of sleep, and swelling in our breasts we must also remember that it is not a strictly physical disease. In fact, the affliction can be brought about by our own infalted expectations and exaggerated ideas about what a movie should and should not be. This like (most things) can be easily solved by keeping an open mind. Sometimes a movie can surprise you if given a chance... except for an Adam Warlock movie, that will never work.

The Evolution Will be Televised

Side Prediction: In the future we will stop weaing pants.

"Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!"

"Why do you always have to say it that way?"

"Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called Showmanship"

    -Futurama 1x01

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the future lately, (mostly about what I will have for lunch and for dinner, and possibly the vaguish possibilities of a zombie apocalypse.) However, if the world is lucky enough to survive the undead uprising of 2026 I do have a few idea on where we are heading both technologically and culturally, because I as I explained briefly in a previous blogs, the two things are inexplicably linked in our society.

This actually lead me to my next point:

PREDICTION 5. THE DEMISE OF TELEVISION

I know it sounds as hard to swallow as any of the programing on TLC (at what point did they stop being "The Learning Channel," and start being the "The Exploit the Depraved and Hapless For Profit Channel?") but it's already happening. It is also best for me to clarify that I do not mean television shows, just live television as we think of it. Already TV is becoming much more personalizable (is that a word?... it is in the future.) With things like On Demand, Hulu Plus, and Netflix (all of it streaming right through my PS3) the world is already starting to become a place where TV is something we no longer have to schedule our lives around. According to a survey done by TiVo only 38% of the TV watching Americans do is "live," and Netflix is the 15th most watched channel in the US. This statistic also takes into account people watching delayed TV and is rather self-servings for the TiVo corporation, but it does make a certain amount of sense. Personally, I do not watch "live" TV unless I am bored, (which is not as often as I would sometimes like.) With the ability to shape my TV watching around my schedule I can see no reason for anyone to go back to watching TV shows according to a somewhat draconian programming schedule... well except to make sure that your jerk co-workers don't spoil the ending to Game of Thrones for you on Monday morning, (Thanks Matt... Jerk.)

All of this is compounded by the fact that with premium channels it is possible to get upwards of 1,000 channels on your TV and most of them are filled with crap I will never watch in a million years (and by that I mean reality shows.) Americans will only ever watch the smallest fraction of everything being broadcast. Even if we go with a safe estimate of an average of 500 channels that every American TV viewer has access to, and say they run programing for 20 hours a day (also a low estimate). That means we are still looking at 10,000 possible hours of TV watching to be done in a single day. According to the NY Times the average person spends 4 hours and 39 minutes. (The 39 minutes must account for the fact that no matter what I do, something always interrupts me before the end of Law & Order... All I want to know is if he is found guilty!) That means that the average person spends 4.65 hours out of our estimated 10,000 watching TV. Thus, using our numbers the average American TV watcher will only watch less than .05% of everything being broadcast on a daily basis.

This is an unsustainable system, and more importantly an annoying one. The reason there is so much crap (reality shows) on TV is because there is so much airspace to fill. I just paid my cable bill which was about 88 dollars. Roughly 30 dollars of that is phone and internet (I only got the phone because they made me get the damn bundle package.) I ran some quick calculations the other day I determined that I am paying roughly $50.00 per month for my basic cable use. I barely use it. Instead I could cancel my cable (and phone landline), just pay for my Internet, and also pay for Hulu Plus for an additional $9.99 per month and not only get the benefit of watching almost any show I can think of (except premium channel shows) but also of watching any episode of almost any show that I can think of. Even if I was feeling crazy and I added on a monthly subscription of Netflix I will still be saving roughly 20 to 30 dollars of money per month. Why am I not doing this?

Side Prediction: The trend of 3D movies will die a horrible
death only to be resurrected in another forty years.

My own financial issues aside, I can see a world where TV and movies all exist within a digital Internet queue. If you feel in the mood to watch Doctor Who, you pull up the menu, scroll to the episode you want to watch and let it fly. New episodes will be added on a weekly basis as well as new and old movies. There will probably still be some "live" screened channels such as the news and sporting events, but I am sure even that will give you the option to watch at a later time. There is a lot of implications that come with this cultural shift. Not only will phrases like prime time programming, day-time programming, or even Saturday morning cartoons become meaningless, but we will move to a world where our culture is no longer bound to the shackles of TV. We will come to treat TV more like personal movies. We will be able to watch them when we want, and we will probably become more discerning in our choices. A lot of the filler that exists will drop off and shows will compete with each other not just across "time-slots," but on a one-to-one basis. Without a need to fill airtime shows like Backwater Hicks Doing Backwater Things, I Married My Ancient Alien Abductors, and anything on HGTV will probably not survive the transition. These "boredom" shows are what people watch when they can't find anything they like on. Such shows will become obsolete, and hopefully take the reality show industry down with them, (but that may be wistful thinking more than conjectural based prediction.) Also, in this scenario the DVD rack will become something of a relic. When everything is a remote click away there will be no need to keep physical DVD's or Blu-Rays anymore. Things being as they are, I am sure that there will still be advertisements, but we will learn to live with it.

More importantly, this will really open the door more independent projects created not by big name production studios but by average people on the internet. If we start streaming all TV from the Internet it will be easier for local and Indie productions to make the jump to mainstream TV watchers. This trend will only be helped by the rapidly dropping costs of professional-grade cameras, production equipment, and digital graphics and editing programs. Culturally, this should make for greater competition and higher quality programing. In the long term, this could even spell the end for the monopolized TV industry and their network corporations. If the playing field that is TV is leveled according to quality and viewing demands than that can only be a good thing for anyone who enjoys watching quality television.

Even as far as the "industry" is concerned they should not see this move to personalized-streaming TV watching as a bad thing. In actuality, this could be the move that saves TV and movies. Online piracy is a fairly common problem. More and more websites crop up that allow people to download torrents and illegally stream movies and current TV shows. If the networks and production companies get behind a TV system where everything is streamed from the internet and available when a consumer wants it for a minimal price than I predict you will see a lot of these pirate sites close up shop pretty quickly. As a disclaimer, piracy will never go away, but after iTunes came on the scene pirate programs like Napster and Limewire wound up losing a lot of users and content. Usually, if there is a simple and cheap way to get what consumers want they will be too lazy to go through the hassle that piracy entails. If it comes to having to pay $9.99 a month for any TV show a person wants or having to set up a torrent downloader, search through the internet for a reliable download source, and finally spend a few hours downloading the content most of the lazy consumer driven public will choose the former rather than the latter.

More than likely the "industry" will survive along with some of its more powerful corporations, but maybe those who will have the greatest to loose from a system like this is the actors (or more specifically the celebrities.) In a world where there is greater accessibility to TV creation and little to no live TV the status of celebrity will start to lose a lot of meaning. A lot of this leads me to my next prediction THE DEMISE OF CELEBRITY, but I will talk more about that in my next post. For now... I'm hungry.