And until that shit changes—and the unregistered sex offenders The Record Companies have as their lawyers are put in Prison where they belong, I won’t be buying another music CD anytime soon. They’re just not worth my money.
Meanwhile, sine I blazed through NaNoWriMo for the third year in the row—I’ll give you updates on the story and progress soon—I switched to some much needed artwork before I go on to the next book. I’m definitely getting some books proofed over at LuLu—something I should have done last summer—and planning my next projects for 2011, including my Counter-Cyberbullying book. Stay Tuned.
In order to fully appreciate what you’re about to hear and see in this video, keep in mind this: This song is made in its entirety by five vocals and a drummer! There is no other musical instruments of any kind present in the song.
And this is Power Metal, folks!
You doubt me, check out Metallica’s Battery…performed by five vocals and a drummer!
Guitars? We don’t need no stinking Guitars to kick you ass!
It’s that time of the year again. It’s November, and NaNoWriMo is upon us, the tradition in the waning months of the year where millions around the world vie to write the first draft of a 50,000 word novel within the thirty day month. This will be my third year, and I’m well on schedule.
But now I have things paused long enough for me to tell you about this project. It’s a break from the usual titles. In fact, the story used to be part of Blood and Metal until I decided to use the brand to focus on Americana.
In this salvaged story, a heroic figure is found near death by a group of robots, and is turned into a robot him or herself to lead them. This figure, the Command Unit, is the latest in the line of leaders, but this one is very different from the previous CUs, especially the last one who brought the whole world down to war and polluted the environment. This CU is sort of an Anti-Robotnik, planting trees and filtering water and air, repairing the damage caused by the war and their former ways. Research and Development go into overdrive as wounds both visual and spiritual were healed by beings the humans were accustomed to fear. In fact, three children stumbled into the Robot World and found their new ways first hand.
At first, the person who became this Command Unit would be Eric Krockett himself, after the original BAM-style reveal and an act of treachery from Nicolas. But now that this story is taken from BAM and put in its own world, a new character can be put in his place.
Meet Command Unit Delta.
She was a conservationist who refused to believe that the environment of the world around her is irreparably destroyed. (In the real world, she would dismiss the hysteria, if not the entire theory, of Global Climate Change. In other words, she’d think that Al Gore is nuts.) If she had enough skills, material, and like-minded people, she could actually repair the damage caused by not just human’s own actions, but also by the robots in Gynoidon and its Command Units Beta and Gamma. But nobody wanted to hear her out until she was found in a bloody heap by the remaining robots that survived Command Unit Gamma’s death. (Think EMP. Seen one of those go off in Modern Warfare 2? They’re not pretty.) As the fourth Command Unit to Gynoidon, her body transformed into a glowing white nanites-based angelic being and her mind reaching out to every drone, sensor, and android on the planet, she has the ability and the desire to fulfill her wishes.
Will she succeed? Will the other humans allow her? And how much of the robots in Gynoidon are actually on board?
Command Unit Delta will be my NaNoWriMo 2010 project. And I see no problems going purple with it. Second Drafts and editing will occur in between the main brand projects, although I hope it’ll be done sometime in the coming year, gods willing and the Mississipi doesn’t rise.
You wanna know why I like this guy over even Glenn Beck? Watch this episode:
No, you Tea Baggers, it’s not a parody spook episode for Halloween. It’s about what happened to the American Dream, or as I prefer to call it, “do you have a reason to get the bleep out of bed in the morning.” Most people in America, like myself, have lost their jobs to the economy, most of the major trends that they see around them are hitting the basement, and they feel very pessimistic over what the future will bring for them and their kids.
Most of the Fox News shows are usually doing the same Political tract, mainly because of today, and the expected bitch slapping the Democrats are receiving that you’re seeing right now. But Fareed thanks to his more international scope provided a different approach, a more personal approach, especially in the final block of the show, when he suggests things that you yourself can do to restore and reclaim the American Dream. This goes above and beyond any of Glenn Beck’s calls to action ever since he joined Fox News.
Most of the reasons Fareed describes for this current malaise. While some may debate globalization—losing your job to someone living in India sucks balls, but idea hashing with like-minded dudes from around the globe is great–in this and his related Time front page article, they would agree with him when he mentions what I’d call hyper-consumerism. It’s where you’re encouraged to buy, buy, buy, and just plain keep on buying, because keeping the flow of money going would—according to the theory—keep the economy afloat. Only thing is, not only does it eventually lead up to a mountain of debt, almost to the point where the only thing some would do is the nasty thing and walk away, but it also takes advantage of you as a customer. Most of the stuff you’re being told that you should buy you could really get for free with just a cheapo computer and an internet connection. You don’t have to believe me, go see a recent Cracked account that warns of big cat corporations wanting you to pay $19.95 online for a DRM-infected CD with the only good song you can download for less than a buck, without the DRM.
Take a look at this Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. Everything from the second rung up can be achieved on the tubes, and all of it can be achieved for gratis. And even if there are some pay venues to address these needs, there are always a free alternative. In fact, the only reason I actually pay for something outside of my local bills, it’s only because I like the product that much—and even then, I always look for deals. If more people had that mentality, and be that much more stingy with their money, we wouldn’t have most of the problems we have right now. Sure, plenty of corporations would be pissy, but fuck them.
The second major reason behind the perceived loss of the American Dream would be the lack of investment involved in recent years. As a country, as a business, and as a people. It’s related to the focus on hyper-consumerism I mentioned earlier. Whenever you see a project or a business or an invention going up, which is what actually pushes any country forward, it a safe bet that someone invested in it, either by the government or some private philanthropist. We’re not seeing that in America recently, and that can trickle down Regan-style to our collective holding to our pocketbooks in the coming holiday season.
Unspoken by Fareed, although hinted on once, is something I mentioned often myself. It is our inability to see ourselves as our fellow man. If you’re down and out, or in serious help, you are more likely to have someone hit record on their cell phones and laugh at you rather than actually help. This general nastiness to each other, which goes from the eight plus years of Bush Bashing all the way down to schoolkids mocking those who were bullied to death, must be a factor to the lack of optimism. It could be a vicious circle of negativity feeding negativity that is making this Recession the Great Depression 2.0.
Fareed’s Call: Invest in yourself.
While the Value Added Tax is debatable in some quarters—something Fareed supports, and I’d only go for it if they revoked the 16th Amendment—Fareed made some very great suggestions on what you can do personally at the end of his GPS episode. ‘Questioning with Boldness’ and ‘Reading up on our Founders’ may be good advice for the political sphere, but what Fareed suggests is more personal. Learn a new trade, set up a local service, learn a new language, hell, learn math. Learn how to fucking read. (That one came from me.) All of this are something you can do now—and do it online for free, look back to that pyramid—and each of them will re-energize your personal life and your personal improvement. And if enough people would do that, and stop railing on each other and get off their couches and do something—anything, even a hobby—with themselves, the American Dream will without a doubt be back to full speed.
And the best things in live will be back to being just ahead.
ThiNot too long ago, I wrote about Glenn being wrong to say that the division of this country occurred during the late 60s, instead of the more plausible time of the 2000 Election which I claimed was the moment our country splintered. I made this statement because I believe that, even in that time, the hippie group and the group that watched the moon landings, were still in speaking terms. Sure, they may be misunderstandings, and of course there was drugs involved, but the two philosophies can still pretty much intermingle.
That’s because every generation needs in some part a counter culture for those who want to break away from the social norms of the previous generation. It’s almost expected, and in some degree, should be even welcomed.
What I don’t think I alluded to, but should, is that there really no difference between the hippies of the 1960s and the current Tea Party/9-12 movement of today. Mainly because—Surprise—their beliefs are in fact very similar.
I refer to a recent post from Pajama Media’s Zombie, which uses a more accurate two-axis political diagram to better place the groups. Note that this is not the Conservative-Liberal Right-Left Red-Blue scale that’s more in use. Think of the scale of political control between Totalitarianism and Anarchy. That’s the horizontal axis. The vertical axis will deal with whether or not Humanity has an intrinsic value (“That we were endowed by our creator,” or as what Eric will say, “That we were endowed upon our birth…”) or something that can be built and molded into a person’s being, constructed according to the scale.
Here’s that particular scale and I’d like you to notice the lower left corner. (The horizontal axis might need to be flipped in my book, but Zombie doesn’t do it that way. To each his own.) I’ve also put up some points of interests showing where various Blood and Metal characters and kingdoms lie.
Take a look at where Eric is straddling!
Tea Partiers show “A craving for independence,” and so did the Hippies. Tea Partiers celebrate individualism, and so did the Hippies. Tea Partiers find “Joy in the freedom offered by self-sufficiency,” away from political pressure and an over-consumerist society, and so did the Hippies. Tea Partiers accepted a natural order of the way things are, and so did the Hippies. Tea Partiers prefer the use of peaceful, non-violent, demonstrations. Hippies are known to stick flowers in gun barrels. Tea Partiers are against an out-of-control government. It wasn’t the Republicans who got rioted on in 1968.
It also makes me wonder if there are some drug use hidden within some pockets of the Tea Party. The group would gain more of my respect it it did. I mean Come on, how many Tea Partiers would share a beer with Eric, scruffy fur and all?
I expect to see Teabagging Furries in the future. I’m blabbering.
If you had a quality education—doubtful if you’ve been to that shithouse of a public school—you’ll know how far the Hippies fell from pretty much the time around the Democratic riots on. The Soviets took the Hippies as their own and molded their socialistic beliefs into the group. These are the beliefs that guided a good number of them to this day where ideas that would’ve been anathema during the 60s are now prevalent today. Some might think that the world has flipped flopped when they see what some consider Conservatives turning into American-flavored Hippies dressing up as Besty Ross and Uncle Sam and saying “Down with the Man” and all that, but it’s really a correction in the Hippie movement.
The reality is, the Tea Party of 2010 is in fact the Hippie Movement of the 1960s. They have the same influences and pretty much share the same believes. And if by some cases you find yourself blending Tea Party and Hippie into your own personal beliefs, that’s pretty much expected, considering how close they are. Just as how Zombie closes his passage:
Do any of these apply to you: Are you a Deadhead? Attracted to alternative spiritualties? Avoid chain stores? Love nature? Listen to ’60s music, reggae or jam bands? Smokepot? Go to Burning Man? Wear ethnic clothing? Like world cultures? You may not be a full-on hippie, but you’ve been influenced by hippie culture. And because of that you may…assumed is hippie politics…has prevented you from embracing, or even truly acknowledging, the anti-authoritarian vim of the Tea Party…you no longer have to resist temptation. Let it all in: your newfound awareness that the Tea Party is the embodiment of the hippie ethos after all.
You’re home at last.
Let Eric share a Bud with you. Go ahead and smoke that joint; he’ll let you….he doesn’t smoke, though.
PS: Important Caveat: Think of quadrants when using this scale, not halves. People who are too stuck on Conservative/Liberal thinking and would just think of one side of one axis against the other are DOING IT WRONG! Just because Libertarians share a side with True Anarchists…or Nazis for that matter, doesn’t mean jack shit.
I know it took me a long time to get this set up, and finally I just said, just do a beta launch and work up from there.
The new site for the Scarlet PI brand is up and running ( http://scarletpi.foxfirestudios.net ) with a new HTML5 framework and new artwork from both myself and Brian Rivers.
With this site, I have a link for all the present and future Scarlet PI titles, including first, the first book from SPI fan Joe Doe called “Adventure under the Rising Sun,” and I promise you, this story will make for a great read. After that, the official Story series will appear, which restarts from the second comic strip and works on from there. The first book is awaiting some killer illustrations and will be released by Christmas time, if all goes well.
And now for the WTF! department: What I heard on the radio one day this week made me do a double take…it concerns the Autism rate and how it’s being presented in the media. And how I hate predicting shit.
When I first heard about autismspeaks.org, they had ads on the Odds having someone who’s "on the Spectrum" as Aspies like myself would say, as 1 in 166, and then raised it to 1 in 150. The truthiness node in my brain–the node that’s connected to my guts–told me that this might go up to 1 in 100 and under.
Turns out truthiness was correct. The ad I heard wasn’t a typo. The sites now say that Autism hits 1 in 110 children, and 1 in 70 boys! Double Emphasize the word ‘boys,’ people.
And I’m calling bullshit on this. There are several reasons why someone would tip the scales like this–and someone is tipping the scales, I know it. Someone might be putting shit in the vaccines, which is highly unlikely. Or they might be spreading this Spectrum a bit too wide, which might be possible, but what I think is definitely happening, and I can tell because of the different rate in boys is something I’ve been dreading: They’re doing the same thing with Autism as they’re doing with ADHD in the 90s; they’re using it to label children who can’t quite sit still in a school chair.
And God help them if they find a ‘wonder drug’ that would control the effects, and pressure people to take the drug claiming that it’s the ‘cure!’ Now, I’m not a bio-diversity activist, I would not go, "If there is a way for me to be cured of this Autism, I will not take it." My position is based on what I’ve seen in recent history and what I currently know about how the brain works, especially with chemicals. With ADHD, they dope up the kids with Ritalin, sometimes to get them to simmer down–usually on the more chronic cases–but more often than not just because they don’t want to deal with them in school, and then they turn in utter horror to find that those kids who were on a steady diet of these pills making the news. (That’s what I call it when someone brings a gun in school, kills him or herself, or in some way or another becomes the classic an hero in spectacular–and usually violent–fashion.) It was as if the ADHD was in fact keeping that crazed spree killer in check and by dealing with one nasty condition, they’ve allowed an even worse condition in that same person to come forth. All those school shooters weren’t off their meds, they were doing all this while on their forced-upon prescription.
(This was the thinking behind Stephen, one of my characters in SPI and will also show up in the Johnny Briz script. He was forced to take Ritalin for his school-diagnosed ADHD, but he didn’t like who he was on it, so he stood his foot down and refused. When the pressure got too great, he ran away and joined the Straightedge Punk society. Regardless of what his parents and some cops said, and especially the school, Steve was firm: He’s not going back to their normal life with Ritalin in his system. Turns out he wasn’t hyper, but the more common malady of being bored out of his skull in school. Didn’t help his parental relations at all, judging from what happened in Murder in Main Street USA showed.)
With that in mind, I ask you: What if it’s the same thing with us Aspies? What kind of dark side of our psyche would rear its ugly head if it weren’t for us being on the spectrum. What sort of monsters would be unleashed if we were ‘cured’ of our ‘condition?’ At times I could feel a wave of white hot anger and rage overtake me at times, especially if I’m emotionally stewing in something. Sometimes I shudder at what might happen if I let that rage out.
Someone else with a less ‘political’ goal than autismspeaks.org might need to take a second look at what causes Autism and verify where this rate lies. It’s a bad enough situation to be in without it being overshadowed by groups who might more desire a focus group for whatever goals they need–especially groups that want to keep its members in a disadvantaged status so they could press the government or even other people for funding or some sort of psudo-tolerance–which make it worse than it should be.
As for myself. I have Autism. Aspergers, to be exact, but I see it more as something for which Grace is Sufficient rather than some flag to pin on my shoulder. I have this condition, but this condition is not me. I’m a writer, and an artist, and I’m working on getting a publisher. That’s what I want to show first and foremost. If we can get together on the area I’m interested in, and deal with the quirkiness I show, we can get along just fine.
I haven’t been on recently because I’ve been setting up my new computer, settling into going into writing full time (since there’s no jobs in Granite City) and taking a week’s vacation with the family to an old familiar place in Kentucky Lake. What got me back here is something that I’ve been waiting for since 11 SEP 2001: An high-ranking Muslim condemning the attacks and taking Bin Laden to task.
And the person was someone who fought with OBL against the Russians!
“I write to you as a former comrade-in-arms. We fought together. We were ready to die together. Under the banner of Islam, we came to the aid of fellow Muslims in Afghanistan. To this day, I take pride in having fought against the Soviets and the Communists. We were in the right and no enemy could have stood in our way. This is no longer the case. After our victory, we became a curse for the very people we sought to help
This letter has been written by someone who was once a personal guest of Osama bin Laden. In personal and political terms, this document will trouble bin Laden because the letter asks questions that will embarrass al Qaeda and expose its failures. Will bin Laden respond. Time will tell.
What has the 11th of September brought to the world except mass killings, occupations, destruction, hatred of Muslims, humiliation of Islam, and a tighter grip on the lives of ordinary Muslims by the authoritarian regimes that control Arab and Muslim states?
Your actions have harmed millions of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims alike. How is this Islam or jihad? For how much longer will al-Qaeda continue to bring shame on Islam, disrupt ordinary Muslims’ lives, and be the cause of global unrest?
Muslims across the world have rejected your calls for wrongful jihad and the establishment of your so-called ‘Islamic state’ when they witnessed the form this has taken in Iraq. Even the Palestinians consider your ‘help’ to have had negative repercussions on their cause.
In New York, your un-Islamic actions have caused hurt, loss, pain and anguish to thousands of innocent people and their families. One consequence is that those Muslims seeking to build a House of God in New York are today being compared to Nazis. And now we hear that on the anniversary of your attack, an American preacher is even planning to burn the Koran in revenge!”
– Noman Benotman, Muslim in General, in an open letter, excerpted
I say this to Islam: THIS is what we should have heard by sunset on September 11, 2001. Only multiplied by 50 billion voices. Instead all we heard was X Thousands dying, X Billions Fapping—and yes, I’ll say that some of you actually masturbated to the attacks—and half of the whole fucking world blaming America for the attacks in general and George W. Bush in particular. No wonder we acted like a High School Shooter that past decade.
And no, Mr. Bentoman, it might not be okay to include some insane American calling a good number of Muslims snuff film addicts. May Mr. Peace Be Upon Him have mercy on us all.
Well, it seems that I had Friday the 13th for a whole fricking week. I knew that it was a matter of time before things get back on track, and thankfully it started today.
I finally got the replacement screen for my computer—had to send it back once because stupid me didn’t know that Lenovo 3000 N100s come in two sizes—and with some moderate surgery to put it in place, my laptop is now a laptop again! And tomorrow, my parents are helping me get a new desktop to get fully back on track. (Once I get all the software put into the desktop, it’ll be perfect for me. That’ll take a couple months though.)
Hopefully my projects will speed up now that I got working tools to use. And speaking of tools, Open Office has updated with a good one for proofreading:
Take a good look at the right side of this picture. This is where the Notes and Comments going. Usually they’re just little icons on the page that you have to hunt and and click. But Microsoft Word 2010 had the interesting and very eye-appealing concept of presenting these notes on a strip outside of the page with a line leading to where you placed it. Along with highlighting and color ink. It was a perfect addition to your proofreading tools.
It was one of the bigger draws for Microsoft Office (the biggest one, of course, being One Note) but now Open Office 3.3 (the latest version) can do it to, which makes Open Office an excellent free alternative, and the perfect beta-reading tool. You don’t need to buy anything or install any special programs. I’m sure that everyone I know has some form of Open Office, and now is a perfect time to update that program for all you proofreaders out there.
