Peter David's Blog, page 29

Miguel Ferrer

Well, 2017 is off to a great goddamned start.

Miguel Ferrer, the son of Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer, has passed away of cancer at the age of 61.

Miguel was a friend. I met him through Bill Mumy and although I haven’t seen him in years, he was never far from my thoughts. I named Miguel O’Hara after him and still remember when my editor challenged me on the fact that his nickname was “Miggy,” declaring that it was not a nickname anyone used for Miguel. Which was hilarious since that was what we all called Miguel.

I’ve been following his acting career for years, back to when he died horribly in “Robocop” as Bob Morton He told me about his death scene in great, enthusiastic detail, so when I actually saw the movie, I was the only person in the theater laughing during that intense scene because all I could envision was Miguel’s recitation of his acting. I visited him and his then-wife at their home, held his infant son Lukas in my arms, chuckling over the fact that he had Miggy’s nose. He played drums in the comic writer/artist band “Seduction of the Innocent.” He was a great guy.

And now he’s gone.

My sympathies to his wife and sons, and to all his friends and extended family.

Yeah, fantastic launch of the year.

PAD

What Trump SHOULD Have Said

It occurs to me that rather than simply criticize Trump for what he says, thereby adding nothing to the discourse and simply infuriating his followers, I should instead make clear the way a future leader should conduct himself.

What Trump should have said in his Twitter feed is: “I regret that John Lewis believes my presidency is illegitimate. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to working with him and his peers to make America great again.”

That is the proper response for the leader of the free world. Not an assault on the city that the man has represented for decades, and about which Trump himself spoke positively a mere 10 years ago.

PAD

Seriously, Trump? John Lewis?

John Lewis is a great man.

And you are an ass.

PAD

Can senators be prosecuted over the ACA for murder?

Let us conjecture that you are a person who is alive because of the help that you are receiving from the ACA. Let us now further conjecture that the Senate gets rid of the ACA. Without its benefits, you die.

So the question for our lawyer friends out there it is: are the senators who voted to get rid of your health support responsible for your death? Can they be arrested for murder? Can they be prosecuted and jailed? Can they be sued by the survivors?

I figure the answer is no, but it is certainly intriguing to imagine.

PAD

“Franklinstein”

I have a new novelette in the latest issue of “Space and Time” Magazine. It is entitled “Franklinstein,” and features the hitherto untold story of a dark incident during the lifetime of our founding father, Ben Franklin, and how it served to partly inspire Mary Shelley’s subsequent immortal tale.

However the original story was originally a bit longer than the printed version. There was a lengthy intro that helped set up the background, but it made the story too long for “Space and Time,” so we had to trim the introduction.

But I really liked it, and so I am presenting it to you here. If you like it, then go out and get the magazine at your local bookstore or order it online. And since it came out in 2016, well, when it comes to award nominations for the year, kindly keep it in mind if you consider it worthy of recognition.

Ladies and gentlemen: “Franklinstein.”

I should apologize, first of all, for the title of this paper. My original title was “The New Prometheus,” for that was the nickname that was bestowed upon Doctor Benjamin Franklin after his formidable experiments with electricity in the year of our lord, 1752. I am certain you are familiar with that epic battle between Franklin and a lightning storm in which he flew a kite with a key dangling beneath it. If nothing else, it was immortalized in a famous Benjamin West painting that depicted Franklin and his bastard son, William, caught up in the endeavor. The 1816 painting was wrong in every major detail: Franklin was only in his 40s at the time rather than the much older man that was depicted, and his son was in his 20s rather than the ten year old that the artist rendered. But you are welcome to go and argue with creative impulse, and good luck in that regard.

As I was saying at the beginning, “Franklinstein” seems a touch too clever a title for my tastes, drawing comparisons to another work entirely. However, the title was initially suggested—and then subsequently insisted upon—by my young son, Arthur, and as any doting father, I am inclined to give him his head whenever doing so will not end up with him being thrust into some manner of danger.

His fascination, in turn, was drawn from his settling down to read the original Mary Shelley “Frankenstein.” He had recently seen a new movie version of it and was appalled by it. He returned from the film and while his comments disparaging it did not bother me, I took issue with his dismissing the original novel out of hand. So I insisted that he read the original, and he decided to indulge his old man.

He had barely begun and then came to me asking about the very first sentence in the Preface, namely this:

THE event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence.

This mystified Arthur, and he inquired what in the world Charles Darwin could possibly have had to do that would have interested or intrigued Mary Shelley. I reminded him of the dates involved: That Frankenstein was published in 1818 whereas Charles Darwin was only born nine years earlier. So obviously he was not the Darwin being referenced. I informed Arthur that the Darwin that Shelley referred to was most likely Erasmus Darwin, a noted British physician and physiologist, not to mention a gentleman who had his own strong opinions on evolution that might well have influenced his grandson, the more familiar Charles.

Why then, inquired Arthur, did Shelley specify him in her introduction? What manner of experiments had he performed that could possibly have influenced her?

In the 1831 edition of Shelley’s novel, she provides reference to an experiment in which Darwin ostensibly brought life to a bit of vermicelli…a formidable accomplishment since vermicelli is pasta. Obviously Shelley confused the term with vorticella, a protozoa that had indeed ostensibly been dried out but then brought back to life in an experiment.

Still, it is a far step from protozoa to human beings. Shelley claimed that she subsequently dreamt it up while lying in bed, but that was quite a leap for a twenty year old girl with no science background to make. I began to wonder if there was more to the story that history had hidden away. Was it possible that he had somehow become involved in experiments that prompted Shelley to emulate them in the creation of the famed monster? What specific tests could he have rendered? Shelley does not actually go into detail as to how her literary doctor is able to bring life to the oversized corpse. The process is described as “secret,” which makes sense since Shelley herself had no scientific training and thus would have had nothing upon which to speculate the means by which a corpse could be reanimated. What, then, had she discerned from Darwin that could have set her upon a course of monstrous creation, beyond a mistaken account that the author had so thoroughly confused into pasta being animated?

It seemed the only means I might be able to undertake to answer the question was to investigate Darwin. This I set out to do immediately. I must admit that my history as a historian provided me ready access to Darwin’s papers, which had been assiduously preserved by the family over the two hundred years since the man’s passing.

I was struck by the many thoughts, philosophies and experiments in which Darwin indulged himself, but after more than a week of sifting through it all, I was still unable to discern anything specific that could have prompted Mary Shelley’s interest.

And then, when I was beginning to descend into the inevitable despair that pervades a historian when he has hit a dead end, I happened upon a small box. It was not locked, fortunately enough, but instead simply latched with a small trip button that I pressed into the open position. I lifted the box’s lid and found therein an envelope addressed to Mr. Darwin, posted from Virginia. I opened the envelope and was astounded to discover a letter by none other than Benjamin Franklin.

It was addressed to Thomas Jefferson.

It was unquestionably genuine; I recognized Franklin’s script immediately.

I was astounded, because I knew that Franklin had had correspondence with Jefferson, but ostensibly all of those letters were either in the possession of the Franklin or Jefferson estates. What in the world was this doing here? Why did Darwin have it?

The only conclusion that I was able to draw was that Jefferson had forwarded the letter to Darwin. Why would he do that? I could not fathom it, because Jefferson was notably meticulous in keeping detailed accounts of all his diaries, journals and correspondence. What in the world could possibly be in the letter that would prompt Jefferson to rid himself of it?

I took particular note of the date. It was June 18th, 1776. At that time, Jefferson was deep into writing the Declaration of Independence. He did much of that writing on his own, but it was entirely possible that Franklin had some contributions to make. That still did nothing to answer why in the world it had been sent to Darwin.

I read the letter. The further I read into it, the more my hands began to tremble. I was reading something utterly historic. Something that crossed the line between fact and fiction, bringing genuine veracity to something that had always been considered a mere work of human imagination.

I was immediately determined to bring this letter to the attention of historians everywhere.

No one was interested in publishing it. Everyone doubted its veracity. They felt that, despite my reputation as a historian, I had fabricated it. None offered any reason as to why I would feel the need to make up the letter and attempt to present a fakery as a genuine piece of Americana, but why bother? Far easier to simply disbelieve.

I could have printed it on the Internet, I suppose, but the lack of veracity on the Internet is somewhat legendary.

And so I have instead given it to this magazine, which is renowned for its truth and adherence to the real world. At least that is what Arthur tells me and I am certain that he would not lie to me about such an important matter.

The letter, then:

(Continued in “Space and Time” Magazine, Winter edition)

Yes, Mr. Trump. You did mock the reporter.

You stood there in front of a packed audience and you stammered and stuttered and held your hands in a palsied fashion. The “what” of what you said is beside the point. You could have tried to refute his article by simply addressing the facts. Instead you chose to mock, not his words, but his disability.

It was foul. It was evil. It was mean. And it was not remotely presidential.

And your response is to deny it and try to trash Meryl Streep in the process.

How in the name of all that’s holy is anyone supposed to believe anything you say when you deny that you did things WE ALL SAW? When you stand there in less than two weeks and claim that you are going to defend the constitution–a document I would wager you have never read and know nothing of its contents–why are we supposed to think that you mean it?

This goes beyond the fact that you are (at least now) a Republican. This goes to the core of the man you are. A man stands up for what he believes and a man takes responsibility for what he does. You do neither. We do not know what you believe because it changes depending on who you talk to. We do know you refuse to own up to the things you say.

You are seventy years old and remain a cypher, and that makes you possibly the most dangerous individual ever to have high office.

For God’s sake: Grow the hell up.

PAD

Cowboy Pete’s Movie Round Up

It’s been quite some time since I did a movie overview, so let’s round up the horses around the campfire and talk about as many of the films that I’ve seen in recent months that I can remember off the top of my head. I’ll try to keep them relatively spoiler free.

In no particular order:

ROGUE ONE: A Star Wars Tale.

There is much talk about whether one should discuss the shocking ending of this film. I don’t honestly see the point since I knew the ending long before I entered the theater. Hell, I knew it when I first heard the film announced. We all know the ending, and I’m not talking about the fact that they basically stated the ending in “New Hope.” Logic tells you that there has to be a story reason why we never heard about any of these characters again in the film legacy, and you know what that is as well as I do. So basically we have a film that has the most well known conclusion in the history of filmmaking that wasn’t based on a novel.

Where does that leave us? With a film that has a slow first hour because we all know where it’s going and it’s just a matter of waiting for the cast to catch up with us. When they finally do and it roars into its second hour, it’s a non-stop combat fest that features quite simply THE best action sequences in the history of the Star Wars franchise. Felicity Jones anchors the cast of mostly humorless adventurers, with the sole exception being the snide robot K-2S0 (whom Caroline nicknamed Sass-C3PO), one model removed from Marvin the Paranoid Android and voiced by Disney regular Alan Tudyk.

And holy crap, Governor Tarkin. Voiced by Guy Henry but visualized as Peter Cushing, people in the audience gasped the first time he turned around on screen and there was a perfect computer incarnation of the late actor. You became accustomed to it as the film progressed, but Star Wars people, please, a request: Don’t do that with Carrie Fisher in episode IX. It was creepy enough watching Cushing and he’s been dead thirty years.

Bottom Line—It was overall a well told tale, but it’s the only Star Wars film where, if I never see it again, I’m really okay with that.

LA LA LAND

People were telling us we should go see this and when we asked what it was about, were told, “You should just go see it.”

Well, we did, and I believe I’ve just seen the best film of 2016.

La La Land is the brainchild of Damien Chazelle, previously known for his work on Whiplash (which is likely why J.K. Simmons showed up in a small scene here, appropriately as a restaurant owner who has a difficult relationship with a musician.) But La La Land is as far from the hyper-brutal world of Whiplash as can be. Instead it’s a musical (don’t roll your eyes) tale of love and show business which features Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling (who either knows how to play the piano or faked it better than anyone in film history) falling in and out and in of love while their two personal stories of struggling for success play out through Los Angeles. But that doesn’t even begin to describe a film that starts off with a huge song and dance through unmoving traffic on the 105 Freeway, ranges through a love duet across a starry sky, and even has a musical summary of the entire movie had it gone in a different direction. Gosling is wonderful, but Stone absolutely soars to new heights. I admit I’m a sucker for a film where a successful actress plays a struggling actress because since most actresses struggle early in their career, you always feel you’re getting something autobiographical. The songs were so charming that we immediately ran out and bought the CD. You should, too.

MOANA

“If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you’re a princess.”

That is the single best line of dialogue in any Disney film ever, delivered with perfect tongue-in-cheek sarcasm by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Hawaiian demigod Maui to the princess (I guess) heroine of Disney’s latest epic. Apparently Disney has emerged from the “Can’t have a princess name in the title” stupidity that caused Rapunzel to be called “Tangled” and given us “Moana.” It is the tale of a young chieftain’s daughter who sees that her island is slowly dying and is determined to reverse this creeping environmental catastrophe. How to do so? It involves tracking down Maui and getting him to undo a horrific trick he once pulled that is causing the loss of life all through the islands.

Her only companion once she embarks on her adventure? A brain dead chicken named HeiHei, voiced by—of course, Alan Tudyk, who is one remarkably old chicken since we see him when Moana is about two and later when she’s in her mid-teens. Some fans were speculating that he must be some sort of demigod totem following her around, but I checked and it turns out chickens can live to be twenty years old, so okay. Really old, astoundingly stupid chicken.

I was also pleased to see that Disney was promoting newcomer Auli’l Cravalho, who voiced Moana, with the same energy that they mentioned Johnson in every commercial.

The songs are overall tuneful and memorable (yes, we got that CD as well) and the visuals, especially the waterscapes, are just stunning. I also have to say—and don’t take this wrong—I liked her body. By that I mean, rather than having the standard issue perfect frame of a typical Disney princess, instead her body had thick legs and somewhat wider hips that were perfectly appropriate for someone of that region. Maui was also a huge guy, which prompted some people to complain that he was fat. First of all, no, he wasn’t, he was just big. And second, would someone like to explain to me what’s wrong with a heroic character being fat? I mean, jeez, people.

DOCTOR STRANGE

Another rare film that truly benefited from 3D, Kathleen has been waiting for this movie her entire life, and she wound up seeing it three times. So that alone should tell you something about the quality.

Possibly the best origin story in the line of Marvel movies because it felt the least like a comic book, “Doctor Strange” tells the story of arrogant dick/brilliant surgeon Stephen Strange, who winds up in a devastating auto accident that adds a permanent tremble to his hands. Played with a perfect American accent by Benedict Cumberbatch, Strange follows a path that takes him to Tibet and an unexpected tutor, the Ancient One—an aged man in the comics and a relatively youthful Tilda Swinton in the film. Which of course helped defang the social justice warriors because, hey, this was a role that should have been played by a man of Asian descent except, oh, it’s being played by a woman, damn, if we protest than we seem anti-feminist. So nice casting there, director Scott Derrickson. Well-done.

And really, as origins go, you’ve got to love someone who gets his powers not from an accident, not from birth, not from a lab experiment, but because he studies really hard and gets good at it.

The movie becomes something of a buddy film as Strange and good-guy sidekick Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor, who Cumberbatch owned in “Twelve Years a Slave,” so I figure this is a step up) team up to prevent the sinister plans of a villain so evil that I’ve seen the film several times myself and I still can’t remember his name, but he’s played by Le Chiffre from “Casino Royale” so you know he’s gonna be wonderfully nasty.

It’s likely the movie isn’t in theaters anymore at this point, but if you haven’t seen it, then do, because it’s worth seeing on the big screen since there are so many things in some background shots that simply will be missed on a smaller screen.

ALLEGIANCE

“Allegiance” first came to life on the west coast some years back, which was when I saw it. Starring George Takei and Lea Salonga, it is based very loosely on George’s own experiences as a child in a Japanese interment camp back during World War II. A musical that is set mostly in the 40s but with a wraparound in present day, it eventually moved to Broadway where, astoundingly, it ran for less than five months. Reviews were mixed and the Star Trek crowd didn’t turn out to support Mr. Sulu apparently.

But now thanks to Fathom events a filmed version of the Broadway production showed up in theaters a couple weeks ago, and the David family was there to take it in. The show was as wonderful as I remembered, and indeed had gotten only better since the first time I’d seen it. By all accounts, the theaters throughout the country were packed, and it did so well that Fathom will be rereleasing it for a couple of days in February. So you have a second opportunity to go check it out and I suggest you scurry over to the Fathom website and see what theater near you is playing it. If you’ve got other plans for those days, change the plans.

Everybody into the Trump Pool

I do not believe for a moment that Trump will make it through his entire four years. So the only question is, what will cause him to depart the presidency? I’ve decided to start a pool right here. The pool consists of two questions: 1) The date of his departure, and 2) the reason.

Here are the rules of the pool:

1) Your entry must be submitted here at peterdavid.net. I don’t care if you read about it on Twitter or Facebook. If it doesn’t show up here, it doesn’t count, because I’m not going to be bothered to review entries all over the place when the time comes.

2) If you say it’s through assassination on a particular date and then you kill him, you have voided your entry and forfeit the prize.

What’s the prize? Glad you asked: the winner (well, broadly speaking, we all win) will receive a copy of “Altered States of the Union,” the short story anthology which features, among other stories, my tale of an alternative Alaska in which Governor Sarah Palin of North Alaska is locked in a combat to the death across a savage Alaskan battlefield with Governor Donald Drumpf of South Alaska. It will be autographed by myself and as many authors as I can dragoon into it.

So everybody enter.

PAD

ADDENDUM: DATES, people. Reason isn’t enough. There has to be be a date, down to the month, date and year.

I’m back

This is the second time in four years that my body has rebelled against me. The first time was nearly four years ago when I had a stroke in Florida that shut down the right half of my body, an event that has residual effects to this day.

This time around, even a week later, I am still a bit uncertain as to what happened. First my left ankle was wracked with pain, and then my right, and then I could no longer stand up. It was as if I was going dead from the waist down, but this time the work of some virus rather than my brain turning against me. Seven days and a buttload of antibiotics later, I am now able to stand up and walk with the aid of a walker that I’ve nicknamed Imperial because really what else are you going to call a walker?

I would like to thank all of you for your well wishes and support for Kathleen and Caroline during these trying times, and my legs are getting stronger every day, so that’s improvement. I’m hoping to be back to normal within another week.

In the meantime, keep buying my books because the hospital bills are going to start flooding in and we could use the help.

PAD

Peter David Update Christmas/Hanukkah Edition

Kath here-

He’s home. He was released from the hospital yesterday and is very happy to be back home.

It was basically a massive infection that he needed hospital grade antibiotics to kick.

His legs are feeling stronger each day. He said he felt no pain this morning while walking around the house so what they did worked.

Now he has to work on getting his legs back into good order. Right now he is good to go around the house. He is working up to getting to a convention in mid January.

Thank you one and all for your words of support and encouragement. We appreciate each and every one of you.

For Caroline and me, the best gift this morning was having Peter home. Although I got a pretty kicking Dr. Strange statue and my parents gave me a copy of the new Labyrinth game.

Hugs your friends and family. Tell people you love that you do love them. Life can change so quickly and regret leaves a bitter taste.

Merry Christmas-

Kathleen O David