Peter David's Blog, page 37

Kathleen Coins a New Word

So while we were driving to the comic book store today, we were discussing how Paramount/CBS was coming down like a ton of bricks on “Axanar,” the new fan-made Star Trek film, and the circumstances that had resulted in it.

And Kath said, “Its become a major conflugration.”

And I said, “What? A what? A ‘conflugration?’ What the hell is that? That’s not a word.”

(It’s not. I ran it through Merriam Webster and the Urban Dictionary. It doesn’t exist. So don’t tell me about some instances you found on Google because I don’t care.)

But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It’s a combination of “confluence” and “conflagration.” It’s when a series of things comes together to create a metaphorical inferno of screw-ups.

So everyone start using it because I want this to become a real word.

PAD

Scans_Daily…again

So it was brought to my attention on Twitter that Scans_Daily is still talking about me. Or perhaps more accurately, talking about not talking about me.

To recap: Seven years ago, someone decided to post half of an issue of X-Factor which I openly begged people not to spoil. Because it was so much of the issue, I brought it to Marvel’s attention. As a copyright defender, I felt obliged to do so (just as people inform me when they discover my books on pirate sites.) I didn’t approach the mods myself because I wasn’t the copyright holder and thus didn’t have the right to.

My expectation was that Marvel would have the pages taken down. Instead Livejournal, who hosted the site, shut down the entire thing because of copyright violation.

Did they blame themselves for causing the site to be taken down? Of course not. They blamed me. And to get back at me, once they reconstituted the site elsewhere, they declared my works were to be banned from the site forever. (They also sabotaged my Wiki page, cried out for boycotts, and flooded my website with diatribes, but that’s neither here nor there.) The ostensible reason was that it was out of respect to my wishes, even though it in fact flew in the face of my wishes. I specifically said that if they remained within the constraints of copyright, reproducing a couple panels or pages, I’d be fine with that. That if they wanted to reproduce more of something to which I owned the copyright, they simply had to come to me and ask. Nope. No go. No Peter David on Scans_Daily ever again, in order to “respect my wishes” that I never made.

So now it’s seven years later, someone asked about posting something of mine, and it’s thirty seven replies. Some people are being reasonable, and some are being dicks, which is pretty much the most that one can expect from the Internet.

Do I still believe I did the right thing? Of course. I did what I had to: I reported a copyright violation. If it had been ten pages of “Fallen Angel,” I’d have handled it myself, but I didn’t hold the copyright to X-Factor, so I told the folks who did. Was I expecting the site to be taken down? Good lord, no. I was quite new to it and had no idea that they were in violation of Livejournal’s term of service, which would result in them getting the heave ho.

If I’d known that they would get shut down, would I have done it differently? Yeah, maybe. I might have violated procedure and contacted the mods directly (although honestly, considering the amount of hostility that was fired off at me when I actually interacted with them, I’d have had no idea if they would’ve listened.) That’s always the oldest question, isn’t it. “If you’d known then what you know now.” It’s really a meaningless question because we all have to make our decisions based on the information we have at the time.

Do I regret anything? Yeah; I think I overreacted to the idiot who said they wanted me to die in a fire. That really pissed me off at the time. But I shouldn’t have let that get to me. That’s probably because the level of discourse on the Internet, and the world in general (*cough* Trump *cough*) has deteriorated so spectacularly that it’s hard to get a rise out of me anymore. I mean, when I had a stroke, one jerk declared that he was happy and hoped I’d die in a sea of my own shit. And I read that and just laughed. I’m 59 and insults from random jackasses just don’t bother me anymore.

In any event, if Scans_Daily still feels the need to keep punishing me for the actions that they took and refuse to accept that they caused, then fine. Whatever.

Hope that answers it.

PAD

ADDENDUM: Just for the record, if any of the Scans_Daily moderators wish to contact me directly at padguy@aol.com to see what can be worked out, I would be happy to speak to them. And for the record, I obviously don’t think everyone on Scans_Daily are idiots. The whole of no group could be idiots. Except Trump supporters.

I wonder how the GOP would react to a million-person petition

This attempt to stonewall the SCOTUS for eleven months is the most blatant example of the GOP refusing to do their job since they shut down the government over a decade ago. I wonder how it would be if they had their own jobs on the line.

I wonder how they’d react if we got a petition going that said quite simply, “If you do not have a new justice on the Supreme Court within three months, then come November, and every election November after that, we, the people, will vote you out of office. We will hand Congress back to the Democrats because you are unable and/or unwilling to do your job.”

If we got a million people or more to sign it, from both parties, I wonder how that would go down?

Hell, ten million.

PAD

Dear Republicans:

So you’ve just had a meeting in which you decided that you definitely would not have ANY hearings for a new Supreme Court justice until after Obama leaves office (clearing the way for Obama himself to be nominated should a Democrat win, but never mind that.)

The excuse, given by the Majority whip John Conryn–when asked if Obama would be allowed to select the next member of SCOTUS–was: “No, after the next president is selected. That way the American people have a voice in the process.”

Please understand that I say this will all due respect:

WE ALREADY HAD A VOICE IN THE PROCESS, YOU ASSHOLE! WE ELECTED OBAMA IN THE FIRST PLACE, REMEMBER?! WE ELECTED HIM TWICE! NOW GET OUT OF HIS WAY AND LET HIM DO HIS GODDAMN JOB, YOU FUCKWIT!



Thanks for listening.

PAD

I’m sorry, guys: I just don’t believe Bernie Sanders can win

Bottom line, he is a Jewish socialist. This country doesn’t elect a Jewish socialist. Most of the country doesn’t even understand what a socialist is; they think socialism is interchangeable with communism. And he’s Jewish. There’s still plenty of anti-Semitism out there.

With those two huge targets on his back, the GOP attack machine will slice him and dice him. There’s nothing more they can do to Hillary, because they’ve been doing it for twenty years and she’s still here.

What worries me is that when Hillary wins the nomination, the Bernie supporters will bail and just refuse to vote for Hillary. Unless she does the smart thing and makes him her running mate. I just hope to God that they don’t bail, because we cannot, CANNOT, have the GOP running the White House. If that happens:

Good-bye to health care. Good-bye to legalized abortion. Good-bye to environmental protection. Good-bye to sanity.

Please, folks: whatever Democrat gets the nod, VOTE FOR THEM. The alternative is unacceptable.

PAD

Belated Superbowl Thoughts

I didn’t live blog the commercials this year because we had friends over watching the game and I didn’t want to sit there typing the whole time.

Glad I didn’t. The commercials were a serious letdown this year. Where were the Budweiser Clydesdales? Where were the commercials that had you saying, “How’d they come up with that?”

Was it a total washout? No. The Snickers commercial that had Willem DaFoe transforming into Marilyn Monroe was inspired. The Helen Mirren anti-drunk driving commercial was brilliant. And everything else memorable was in the comic book realm: The Ant-Man vs. Hulk over a Coke ad, and the Turkish Airline commercials featuring Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne (Remember when everyone bitched about Ben Affleck as Batman? Remember how the bitching stopped once they actually saw him in the trailers? Good. Now remember that next time you want to bitch about something in advance.)

As for the game, I hate to admit it, but I actually paid attention to it when the heavily favored Panthers lost. I will say this: Cam Newton is being excoriated for walking out of the subsequent press conference. I’ve no idea why. If he felt he couldn’t sit there and talk to people about something that was clearly crushing to him, then by all means, get the hell out of there. Much better to say nothing than say the wrong thing. Smart move on his part.

PAD

Boycotting Ike Perlmutter and Marvel? Really?

Okay, maybe someone can explain this to me, because I’m not getting something.

I’m seeing fans react with all manner of outrage because Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter donated a million dollars to Donald Trump. People are decrying him for it and naturally people are shouting that Marvel should be boycotted.

Except Perlmutter didn’t donate money to Trump’s presidential campaign. He donated a million bucks to help veterans. And it was his own money; it wasn’t like he skimmed a mill off the top of the last quarter’s profits and sent that in.

So…isn’t donating money to help vets a GOOD thing? A NOBLE thing? Something to be lauded for?

I mean, yeah, I suppose Trump could misuse the money or something. But that doesn’t seem to be weighing in to the vituperation. Instead people are just saying, “Perlmutter donated to Trump! What a dick!”

What am I missing here?

PAD

The Challenger

I will never forget: I wasn’t watching the launch. At the time, I was working as Marvel’s sales manager and so for me it was just another workday. And then my then-wife called me and told me. She’d been watching it live and sat there in horror as the ship blew sky high. She was choking back sobs as she told me what had happened. I was one of the first people at Marvel to find out, but within minutes word spread throughout the office. Everyone was in shock, stunned.

I wound up honoring them in my own small way years later in the TV series “Space Cases.” We named the ship the “Christa” in honor of the highly publicized teacher who was part of the crew.

My greatest condolences to the families and NASA on their loss.

PAD

Buy my daughter’s Girl Scout cookies

Yes, it’s that time again. Caroline is selling Girl Scout cookies for her troop.

However, the Girl Scouts have joined the 21st Century and you can now buy them on line on a website where Caroline will be credited for all sales.

I should warn you, though, that the Girl Scouts apparently couldn’t get her name right, so if you go to the site, you will see that it reads cookie sales for Courtney. That’s Caroline.

So please spend a few buck to support my daughter and her troop.

You can find the cookies here.

PAD

Ted Cruz and the “West Wing”

You know, this whole kerfuffle with Ted Cruz talking about “New York values” seemed familiar to me for some reason. I wasn’t sure why.

Did he mean generally liberal? Or was there something else involved?

It took me a while to remember, but I finally did. It was from the pilot of “The West Wing.” When Josh had wound up offending religious types on a morning talk show and the crew is having a meeting with them at the White House to try and smooth things over. And one of them, a woman named Mary Marsh, starts off an exchange that immediately puts Toby’s teeth on edge. This was the exchange:

MARY MARSH: You people…that New York sense of humor…it always…

CALDWELL: Mary, there’s absolutely no need…

MARY MARSH: Please, Reverend, they think it’s smart…smart talk…but nobody else does.

JOSH: I’m actually from Connecticut.

TOBY: Yes, but she meant Jewish.

A stunned silence. Everybody stares at Toby.

TOBY: When she said, “You people and your New York sense of humor,” she was talking about you and me, Josh.

So basically, if we follow the thought of Aaron Sorkin’s writing, can we safely assume that Ted Cruz just used conservative religious political code to make a nice big anti-Semitic swing?

PAD