Peter David's Blog, page 7

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My apologies to GalaxyCon Richmond

I wound up double-booking myself for the weekend of May 30, accepting an invitation to do a store signing and lecture at a library in Knoxville, Tennessee. When the conflict was discovered, I elected to stick with Knoxville because there are lots of guests for Virginia but only one me for Tennessee.

I very much apologize to the convention organizers and to any Virginia fans who were looking forward to meeting me. I assure you there are still PLENTY of terrific guests coming to Virginia and I cannot recommend the convention highly enough.

Kindly do NOT blame the GalaxyCon staff, who are a great bunch of folks. This was entirely my screw up and I’m sorry for any confusion.

PAD

Freak Out Friday – April 19, 2019

There is obviously only one story regarding Trump dominating the news, and that is the Robert Mueller report. The report which Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a witch hunt even though dozens of people have been prosecuted and convicted because of it is finally available to be read. Or at least most of it is. Attorney General William Barr, redacted portions of it, ostensibly for security reasons.

The problem is that we all know Barr is Trump’s stooge. That’s been evident from the get-go, when Barr was trashing Mueller’s undertaking and declaring that Trump could not possibly be charged with any crimes: effectively saying he was above the law, which is naturally exactly what Trump wants to hear and believe.

I have ordered the Washington Post edition of the report from Amazon. I intend to read it cover to cover, something that Trump has not done and will never do, even as he lies about how it “exonerates” him. I will post about it in detail in a future Freak Out Friday. Perhaps Trump can read a summary on Wikileaks, the site he repeatedly obsessed about during the campaign before he recently declared that he knew nothing about it and it wasn’t his “thing.” (Thanks to Stormy Daniels, we already know way too much about his thing.)

Damning pieces of the report are already surfacing. Whether it’s learning that Trump declared the launched investigation meant an end to his presidency and he was fucked, or discovering that the only thing that prevented him from obstructing justice was the unwillingness of his subordinates to break the law, an incredibly disturbing picture of the Trump presidency is emerging.

Unfortunately it’s one we already know. There have been countless news stories about Trump, countless verifications of his incessant lies. He has lied over eight thousand times in his first two years, so what are a few hundred more designed to cover his tracks? There have been numerous books about him, including one by Bob Woodward that detailed many of the findings that Mueller came to independently.

The question is: what impact will the Mueller support have on Trumpies? Provided genuine, indisputable proof of Trump’s dishonesty, at his repeated attempts to impede justice, to cover his own ass…will they come to the realization they’ve been had?

Of course not.

Just as any con man does, Trump has taken measures to make sure his idiots will blindly continue to follow him. His repeated claims of “fake news” have sunk in, even as the Mueller report firmly states that the charges aren’t true and that the news was reporting facts. Facts are passe. The truth is so 20th Century. 1984 is firmly here and we believe only what Big Brother tells us. Trump represents to them a world of white supremacy where the country is uninfected by annoying people with dark skin, or Muslims, or Jews, or women who want control over their bodies. A world where climate change does not exist. A world where they are at the top of the social ladder, even if they’re living in a trailer park with twenty bucks to their name, because the President is one of them and cares about them. It’s a fantasy world, but he’s sold them on it, because they’re so unhappy with the real world that it’s the only place they can find any satisfaction.

And unfortunately they have plenty of company. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has released an incredibly alarming study. There is simply no disputing the fact that America is becoming stupider. Many Americans could not pass a simple citizenship test. Only one in five people surveyed could name all three branches of the government (although they could name the Three Stooges easily enough) and two in five couldn’t name a single one. Only slightly more than half knew the first ten amendments were called the Bill of Rights. A majority of Americans believe the US is a Christian nation despite the First Amendment specifying Congress shall make no law regarding religion…but that’s okay, because a third of Americans can’t actually name a single right assured by the same amendment.

I hate to say this, but Trump may be the perfect president right now. The United States is becoming a country of morons, and who better to reign over it?

PAD

Symbiote Spider-Man #1

Wow. People are loving this book. It helped that Marvel sent out advance reading copies for reviews.

Me, I loved the artwork. Very well done.

I just read the finals for issue #2. It just gets better.

PAD

Freak Out Friday – April 5, 2019

So Trump has been spending the past two weeks claiming that the Robert Mueller report completely exonerates him, even though the four page summary of the 400 page report produced by Trump flunky William Barr explicitly states that it does not exonerate him. I mean, of course we know Trump is lying because, well, he’s Tweeting and speaking, so naturally it’s lies. But what makes this even more intriguing is that Mueller’s notoriously press-shy employees have told the New York Times that they are extremely dissatisfied with Barr’s summary of the report. That there is ostensibly plenty of damning evidence in there about Trump that Barr is anxious to sweep under the rug.

This is only to be expected. Barr got the job entirely because he was already on record about how much he despised the entire concept of the report and felt that the President was pretty much immune to prosecution. So naturally he would endeavor to whitewash the results.

Now you might think that because Trump has a “win” on his record, he would have spent the next two weeks focusing exclusively on that. I know I would have, and so would you. But no, not the Big Orange Cheeto. He immediately had to go completely off the rails.

1). Healthy, wealthy and dumbass. First the Justice Department decided to agree with an idiot Judge in Texas and proclaim that Obamacare was unconstitutional and should be scrapped. Apparently Trump is oblivious to the fact that the Democrats largely managed to recapture the House on the issue of health care. It was considered a far more effective issue of greater concern than all of Trump’s warnings about caravans heading across the southern border. It’s an issue that the GOP now wants to stay the hell away from since people have become accustomed to having medical coverage and aren’t anxious to lose it. Yet Trump shoved them squarely into the middle of it, declaring that the GOP would be known as the party of health care. Which they are, if the topic is, “Which party doesn’t give a damn if you get sick?” Upon realizing that he had stuck his foot squarely into the middle of a topic he couldn’t win, Trump declared that the mythical “much better” health care system that the GOP concocted would be introduced after 2020, once the US reelected him and restored the House to GOP control. This, of course, ignores the fact that the House, Senate and White House were all under GOP control for two fricking years and got zero done with overturning Obamacare.

2). Cleaning up his own mess. One of the favorite stunts of dictators and tyrants is to introduce a problem and then claim they are solving the problem. To that end, Trump began a trade war with China and has now announced that he is going to meet with the head of China in order to solve the whole trade war problem for which Trump himself is responsible. This, of course, he views as a good thing and very presidential, solving this problem that didn’t exist until he created it.

3) Closing Borders.. There’s nothing new about closing Borders. Borders was closed back in 2011, leaving us pretty much with just Barnes and Nobles.

Oh, and also, Trump announced that he was going to close the Southern border with Mexico. Just shut it all down. Legal, illegal, fleeing aliens, trade, it didn’t matter. He was just gonna shut it all down.

This is, of course, a monumentally stupid idea. It would impact everything from avocados and meat to car parts. It would cost billions upon billions of dollars and drive up the cost of living to absurd degrees. Fortunately enough, Trump’s handlers finally managed to talk some sense into him and then he came back and declared he was going to give Mexico a one year warning. This, naturally, assures that it will never happen because a year from now Trump will have completely forgotten about it. That’s because…

4). Seriously?. Trump forgot where his own father was born. He claimed that he was born in Germany. No, he was born in New York. His GRANDfather was born in Germany. But seriously, what kind of man cannot differentiate between his father and grandfather? What kind of adult man doesn’t know where his father was born?

It is becoming abundantly clear that in addition to being a narcissistic megalomaniac, Trump is in early stages of dementia. He can’t remember his father’s birthplace. He screwed up his wife’s name. He can’t remember the word “origin,” being unable to distinguish it from the word “orange.” The simple act of communication is eluding him. Listening to one of his lengthy rants is like spending two hours with one of those guys who wanders down Broadway muttering incessantly to himself. If the GOP were wise, they would utilize the 25th Amendment and get him the hell out of there and run Pence in 2020. But they’re too deeply buried in his hip pocket to accept what they need to do.

5). Noise cancer? Come on. We know that Trump hates windmills because he believes they screwed up his golf course in Scotland. But during one of his hours-long rants recently he hit a new level of stupidity. He asserted that the noise from windmills gives you cancer.

This is such a shockingly absurd and idiotic statement that I’m curious if even his most devout followers buy into it. It’s completely nonsensical. No kind of noise produces any sort of cancer. It’s impossible. I’m inclined to tweak the famous words of Justin Playfair: “(Don Quixote) thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be, well… All the best minds used to think the world was flat. But what if it isn’t? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what might be, why we’d all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes. However, thinking that the noises from windmills might cause cancer? That’s just idiotic. What sort of damned fool would believe that?”

The answer is, of course, our damned fool President.

PAD

MiniMegeneration update

We caught a break when we checked in. It turns out the presidential suite was indeed available. So we took it. Festivities will be up in room 950 beginning at 7 PM sharp. Also, since were now in a private room, food is available. So if you want some, bring some! See you then.

Announcing: MiniMeGeneration

So I tried to get a larger room at the hotel. Failed to do so. I attempted to book a meeting room at the hotel. They sent a nice email saying they’d get back to me about a price and, big surprise, never did.

Screw it.

At 7 PM tomorrow, Saturday, I am going to be in the lobby of the Bethesda Marriott North, 5701 Marinelli Road, Rockville, Maryland. I will have stuff of mine to sell. And I will be happy to talk to anyone who comes by and autograph their stuff.

Please get word of this out since we’re talking about barely a day in advance.

PAD

Announcing: MeGeneration

UPDATE: Forget it.

Marriott booked us at the wrong hotel. When I discovered it, I switched to the correct hotel and, big surprise, the Presidential Suite is not available. And we can’t hold this in a standard sized room, so I’m afraid we have to toss the idea. Sorry.

Bummed out that ReGeneration is cancelled? No problem.

Announcing:

MeGeneration

Taking place at the Bethesda North Marriott (the same hotel as the convention was originally scheduled) this weekend, MeGeneration will be a DOCTOR WHO convention about me.

I have booked a Presidential Suite at the hotel. I will be there by 3 PM this Saturday, March 30, and the convention starts at 4 PM.

We will have a dealer’s room, which will consist of my books, including scripts for YOUNG JUSTICE, BABYLON 5, and my fanzine, THE TARDIS AT POOH CORNER featuring the adventures of Doctor Pooh. And hey, if any other authors show up, they can sell their books, too.

We will have an artshow displaying Kathleen’s puppets and Caroline’s drawings.

We will have a video program consisting of DOCTOR WHO episodes, both original series and the reboot. We’ll have readings. We will have filk singing, providing someone with a guitar who knows filk songs shows up.

Admission is free.

What can you bring? Food. We’ll have munchies, and will likely bring in pizza for dinner, but if you want to bring food and drink, you are welcome to do so.

So come to MeGeneration this weekend. Because you kept the weekend free and have nothing else to do.

Dora Croft

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Congratulations to Nickelodeon for finally coming up with the idea that Ariel first pitched over a decade ago.

Here is a picture of Caroline as Dora Croft the Explorer.

Freak Out Friday – March 22, 2019

Trump’s been very busy this week. Not that he’s been accomplishing anything. Instead he’s been hurling himself head-first into disputes and situations that are entirely his own making. He is psychologically incapable of letting anything go. Insanely, that’s what his supporters adore about him. He goes around stirring up trouble, getting liberals angry. And it doesn’t matter that he is literally destroying the country; all they care about is, “Are the liberal snowflakes upset?” If the answer is yes, they love it. The fact that his base is inadequate to get him reelected doesn’t even enter into it.

1). Dead and loving it.. John McCain died seven months ago.

Now let’s face it: McCain did a good deal of dumb stuff. What pissed me off the most was his run for the presidency, where he buried his own personality in favor of something he thought would get him elected, plus he elevated Sarah Palin to the national stage. So thanks a freaking lot there, Senator.

Nevertheless, the man was a war hero. He spent five years being tortured in captivity, and then rebounded from that to serve his country. In one of his most dramatic moments, he killed the Senate’s attempt to do away with Obamacare so that they could replace it with absolutely nothing.

And because of that, President Bone spurs, who received five draft deferments, not only had it in for McCain while he was alive, but has been trashing him while he’s been in the grave for seven months.

He launched his unprompted assault (despite his subsequent accusations that the media started it) at an Ohio tank manufacturer plant. In an audience crowded with vets and army guys, Trump trashed a war hero, mentioning a fabrication that he had something to do with McCain’s funeral and that he was never thanked for it.

Even Republicans are appalled at his actions, although some are doing so in their customary gutless manner (McConnell praised McCain without actually mentioning Trump.). But Trump doesn’t care about that. All he cares about is his base, and if his base knows liberals are pissed, they’re ecstatic.

Neil Robertson suggested that I provide a list of other things Trump was never thanked for. Interesting suggestion.

1). No one’s ever thanked him for his countless insults involving people who worked for him, were friends with him, or served him in a variety of ways.

2). Have Democrats ever actually thanked him for the two years of his presidency that so turned off voters it enabled us to recapture the House in November? Don’t think we’ve done so formally.

3). Pretty sure the Washington Post never thanked him for basically taking Saudi Arabia’s side over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

4). Putin has never thanked him for taking Russia’s side over the beliefs and opinions of America’s intelligence agencies.

5). Alec Baldwin has never thanked him for providing Baldwin a regular gig on SNL.

Speaking of which…

2). First Amendment? What First Amendment?. Although Trump has repeatedly favored the rights of gun nuts and the Second Amendment over all things, he is apparently oblivious to the First. Unaware of the fact that the fairness doctrine only applies to political candidates and not elected officials, he wants to launch “investigations” into all late night variety/talk shows in general and Saturday Night Live in specific, demanding to know how they can get away with unilaterally criticizing him and no one else.

This is an outstanding new low for someone who swore to uphold the Constitution. There are no grounds–none–upon which to launch an investigation. There’s nothing to investigate. They can make fun of whomever they want, period, end of story. But Trump, whose skin is thinner than that of the invisible man, wants to go after the people who regularly depicted Gerald Ford as a bumbling klutz and have gone after every president–not to mention presidential candidate–without exception, since then.

One can only hope that no time or money will be wasted on Trump’s desires because Congress has no place to do so. As much as Trump wants to find a way to prove that the Russians are conspiring with Hillary Clinton to attack him, the bottom line is that he’s a freaking moron who brings all of this down upon himself. Not that he’ll ever accept responsibility for anything negative, of course. Anything that goes wrong, it’s the fault of a) the Democrats, b) Hillary Clinton, c) Robert Mueller, d) the “fake news,” or some combination.

3). Shrink, Shrank, Shrunk.. Some months ago I reviewed, on my website, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” It was a fascinating book in which twenty-seven psychiatrists and mental health experts evaluated Trump. (It has since been updated and modified; now it’s thirty-seven psychiatrists.). One of the recurring evaluations was narcissistic personality disorder.

This was pointed out on Twitter by George Conway, the attorney husband of Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s main apologist. God knows there have been “mixed couples” in Washington, D.C., but usually it’s a Republican and Democrat. The Conways are both Republicans, but George is a genuine Republican who still believes in the basics of his party that have been trashed by the current President. He posted the textbook definition of narcissistic personalty disorder and it took no genius to realize that pretty much every symptom of the disorder is regularly displayed by Trump.

An intelligent president would have kept his mouth shut rather than put one of his most trusted advisors into a conflict of interest. An intelligent president would have had loyalty to Kellyanne and not said anything. But Trump only has loyalty to himself, and so this twice-divorced adulterer who forgot his own wife’s name referred to George Conway as the husband from hell and dismissed him as a loser who is pissed because he didn’t get a job in the White House–a job that Conway actually turned down.

I wanted to feel sorry for Kellyanne, but honestly, I can’t. On the one side she’s got Trump, loyal to himself and uncaring about sticking her into the middle of his dispute with her husband. On the other hand, she’s got a husband who somehow thought it was a good idea to publicly go after her boss who is notorious for attacking anyone who says something he doesn’t like. But you know what? Screw it. Kellyanne has divested herself of any conscience that she might have possessed so that she could serve the worst president we’ve ever had. She got herself squarely into this situation. The fact that it’s come around to bite her on the ass is entirely because of the decisions she herself made. Apparently she doesn’t want to be condemned as Hillary was for sticking with her husband, so Kellyanne is publicly taking Trump’s side in this dispute, which of course is exactly what you want to do when you have four children and a husband who despises your boss.

If she were smart, she’d take no side. “This is between my husband and the President,” and she’d recuse herself. But no, she had to weigh in for Trump. Yeah. They must have great evening meals.

PAD