Marshall J. Stephens's Blog, page 2

Short Story – Untitled

Notes: The story below was a response to a writing prompt on Reddit. I present it here only a little polished. It may appear in a future anthology.

Content warning: non-graphic references to sexual assault.

“Lo, as the gods of the New Age decreed, thus shall it be!”

Anya hated the ritual. She hated the Church. She hated the irony that the “New Age” had been going for ten thousand years. She hated that her parents had forced her to be here.

The one thing she did not hate is that tomorrow, she’d be able to leave.

Anya walked down the center aisle of the Cathedral, head held high. The usual whispers started. She couldn’t hear them over the music of the organ, but she could see people leaning in, saying things into one another’s ears. She could see people’s companions fluttering from shoulder to shoulder, passing messages to those who could not sit in the same pews.

What they were saying was no mystery:

“White? She has the audacity to wear white?”

“Such a shame.”

“Ruined when she was only a girl.”

“There were four of them, I heard. Four! Four at once!”

“Should have been exiled. Does not deserve forgiveness.”

Anya ignored them, though internally she wanted to set the building on fire. For two years, the humiliation was a constant buzz around her at every public gathering, at every market day, at every feast after penance.

A memory of the day flashed before her eyes. The way Colin had been so kind that day. The way she’d looked forward to riding. His three friends in the stables. The hours of it all turning sour and painful and vile. The way that everyone had looked at her once the altar boys had confessed a pale shadow of their sins before the congregation and looked to her to do the same.

The way everyone after had looked when she refused.

Anya was finally at the altar. She stared into the eyes of the priest, shoving the knowledge that among the sixteen altar servants, Colin and his merry band were among them still.

Thankfully, all grew silent. The priest cleared his throat and began.

“It was on that day that the voice said ‘I shall give unto you a sign. Ye shall not walk alone, but ye shall have a servant, a sign unto you that you are loved. You are cared for. You are given aid’.

“Will you, Anya Marie Corrine Riverward, take this sign?”

“I shall,” she spat. And none of you will own me. I will have my freedom. I will be your peer, not your pity.

The priest extended his hand. She took it lightly. There was murmuring in the pews. Apparently, people lost bets that she did not instantly light ablaze nor did the roof collapse.

The priest led her to the cauldron.

“Water and soil, fire to warm it and air above. Now, the last. Will you give the cauldron your blood?”

“I will.”

“By your own hand!”

His ancient, liver-spotted hands produced a knife, as if by magic.

Anya took it. She briefly thought of shoving it into the neck of the priest, into the vein of the Church for how it had failed her. That, though, would not lead to her freedom.

She put her finger to the tip. She felt it go in. Three drops, just three, fell into the bubbling water.

The organ music rose to greet her companion. Her family crest was a dog, a great wolfhound. That would be the most likely. Birds and mice were quite common. The priest’s own companion was a horse.

The congregation held their collective breath.

The lights dimmed. The cauldron’s contents turned to vapor. The choir raised their voices to greet the companion.

Then everyone stopped.

A head of dark hair came up out of the cauldron. Then two enormous brown eyes. Round cheeks followed. Finally, throat, shoulders, and a naked body.

The priest stammered, “It’s… it’s a girl?”

You could hear the collective gasp as the congregation saw that there was, in fact, a girl standing in the cauldron. She looked no more than seven. She looked out at them all, past Anya, with indifference.

A woman, the baker’s wife, stood up from the first pew and shouted, “She’s a bastard! A sin child!”

A man said, “No, a demon! She’s summoned a demon in our church!”

Anya’s father held her mother as they both began to sob.

The whole congregation burst into bedlam, shouts, and shrieks.

“FINISH THE RITUAL.”

Everyone went silent again. The child had uttered her first words, it seemed.

The priest stepped forward. His voice was barely a whisper and he shook like winter.

“Um… yes… Do… Do you, Anya, recognize this grace?”

“I… I do.”

She could not believe the words coming from her mouth, but they came as easy as exhaled breath.

“Extend your hand that she may know your… your scent?”

The words didn’t seem right. Yet Anya, as if sleepwalking, raised her hand the way she had in the half dozen practices. The child crawled out of the cauldron; the priest didn’t even try to help. She plod on bare feet to Anya and smiled. She then bent forward and nuzzled her hand.

The priest said, “The Companion is yours. Glory… be… to the Gods of Sky.”

He then fainted.

The Church erupted once more. The Deacon, frozen before, unstuck himself and swept up, extending his cloak. He wrapped it around both Anya and the child and pulled them into the back. The next moments were a blur. A garment was found of the girl, a choir boy’s uniform. People were shoved out. The priest was carried in back and given brandy.

“What can we do for you?” Someone asked Anya.

“Just I… no, we want to be alone.”

They were taken to the priest’s office. Everyone was kept out, as requested. Anya was alone with her companion.

They stared at each other for a long while. Finally, Anya spoke.

“What should I call you.”

The child shrugged.

“Are you really my companion?”

The child nodded.

“Oh… wow. I… this…”

“Shh.”

The child was smiling as she shushed Anya. Her voice sounded like that of any other child.

“I am your companion. Not daughter. Not sister. Not sin. I will serve you as the others do. I will be by you, like this, all your days. You will have me with you always. I won’t speak very much, but when I do, you should listen.”

Anya stood. Tears began to form. She balled up her fists and began to pace.

“So, I’ve got a little commander. This is such a joke. The gods wouldn’t help me when I needed it, but they’ll tell me what to do. I was… I’m going to be free today. I’m leaving here. Going far away. You can be with me or not, but no one is telling me to stay. I leave tonight.”

“Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“You should leave tomorrow.”

Anya’s mouth hung open. The child’s face was serious. A pit formed in Anya’s stomach that felt like nothing would ever fill it.

The door swung open. The priest was there. So were her parents.

“They’ve come to take you home.”

Anya could not find the strength to argue. A tiny hand took hers. The child was smiling now. Anya was not.

Neither her mother nor father said anything to her on the ride home. They had said enough when she’d told them the night before that she was leaving. Mother’s ferret and father’s wolfhound snuggled with the child.

Anya mused to herself that was the only reason they weren’t trying to leave her new companion by the road.

When they got home, Anya asked the servants to send food to her room. She went up. The bed she’d prepared for her companion seemed comical now, a pillow on the floor and a pile of blankets. Anya went to her bed instead. She invited the child to come with her.

She stood by the edge of the bed and held up her arms.

Anya bent over and picked her up. They both sat cross-legged, looking at one another for a long time.

“Do you need food?”

The child shook her head. No other companion did, but she figured it was polite to ask.

There was a knock at the door. Anya answered it. The maid, Gayla, dropped off a tray of food, destined to remain untouched. With it came a small bundle of clothes.

“For… um… her.”

“That will be all. Thank you.”

Anya brought them over. They were obviously her own dresses from when she was much younger.

She said, “They’re yours if you want them.”

“For tomorrow. You should sleep now, my mistress.”

Anya shook her head at the honorific. She could not argue that she was tired, though.

Anya changed into nightclothes. She laid on the bed. Her companion watched her but did not move or change out of the altar boy clothes.

Anya laid down and asked, “Do you want to rest, too?”

“I don’t sleep, mistress.”

“Oh. Of course.”

The child did sit by her, on a pillow, sitting up against the wall. As Anya drifted, the child sang to her.

Anya woke a different song.

She cracked her eyes and saw Gayla, who was shaking. She was by the bath and the child was in the water, humming a happy tune and scrubbing her hands. Anya mouthed the words, “Everything okay?”

Gayla’s eyes flitted to Anya’s dresser. She looked over.

At the foot of it was a blood-soaked choir boy uniform. On top of it were four hearts. Human. Four.

Anya found herself strangely happy.

It was noon when they set out. No one stopped them. No one whispered. At the edge of town, on foot with nothing but what Anya had in her pack and the clothes on their back, they prepared for Anya’s journey.

“May I call you Faith?”

Anya’s companion looked up, “I’d like that.”

Hand in hand, they took to the road.

Let me know what you think! If you have a suggestion for a title, I’d love to hear it.

Doing It In Public Again

There’s an adult film that aired on the Playboy channel in which the social custom around sex and eating were reversed. Eating was an intimate thing that you did in private, only with people you love. Sex was a publicly accepted activity supported and satisfied in open establishments.

I never saw the film, but I thought the concept was interesting. Sex and eating have lots in common after all. Both are steeped in etiquette if not ritual. Both are engaged in as a result of powerful, primal urges, but refined through artistry and practice. Both are messy. Both can be routine or elaborate affairs. Both can drastically affect your health. If used judiciously, whipped cream can enhance both if you’re in the mood. And both are natural appetites that serve a biological purpose but can be engaged in for pure pleasure.

This was on my mind when I ate at a restaurant for the first time since the lockdown began.

I ate a Sonic in my truck about 4 months in; it was nerve-racking and I felt positively lewd. People could see me, see my face, watch me eat. I was constantly questioning how far away I was from everyone. I’d repeat the experiment a couple of times with my wife in front of the eatery that used to be our Sunday brunch habit. Still, I’ve resisted the idea of eating in public, even when restaurants were accomodating the “new normal”.

The risk just seemed too damn great.

Eating out is one of life’s great joys, as Alton Brown once said. He also said never eat a meal from someone you wouldn’t hug. I would definitely embrace the little place we go that serves French-inspired cuisine mixed with American standards like bacon and eggs.

Crepes With Chocolate Cream and Berries

Today, vaccinated and still socially distant, we took the plunge and brought our to-go containers to the patio. We opened the containers and I looked at them for a good minute with my mouth covered in the tiny barrier that has been my bulwark against organ failure for months.

I looked at my wife. I looked around. I finally took it all off.

I felt like an exhibitionist.

The exposure was soon replaced by the smell of eggs, bacon, and nutella filled crepes. As I couldn’t get the scent a moment before, I was glad to know the mask was, in fact doing its work. I was also ready to eat.

Any time someone walked behind me, I held my breath, a reflex I’ve developed over time. I eyed people walking up, waiting for my internal six-foot measure to start blinking red; people kept their distance.

The eggs were fluffy. The bacon was crisp. The crepes were divine.

After about ten minutes, I think I was in some sense of customary breakfast normalcy. I ate, caffeinated, checked my phone, and talked about the day’s plans as well as the goings-on in the world. As exposed and naked as it felt, it also felt familiar.

We finished our meal and got on with the rest of the day. We haven’t talked about it becoming a regular thing again, but it wouldn’t be bad if it did. I still am wary of my neighbors, especially people who are tossing aside masks or wearing them like they don’t get the concept. I know for a bone-deep fact that I am not ready to eat inside.

But for a sec, the decade that has been the last year seemed firmly in the past and a bright day ahead.

I think we could all use a few of those to look forward to.

New Digs

I had not updated the website in literal years. The previous incarnation of Marshall Makes Media had a lot of stuff in it, but it also was more than I really needed.

Welcome to the new, improved, and stripped down version.

Keep an eye here for more to come. Check out the links to the left to find me on other parts of the interwebs.

Peace

MS

Split: A Film To Remind Us That M. Night Shyamalan is a Brilliant Liar

M. Night Shyamalan is a victim of his own success. When the movie Unbreakable came about, audiences didn’t know what they were looking at when they walked in and when they walked out, they were blown away. The misdirection and sheer visual artistry that went into that movie were amazing. It thrilled critics, film geeks, and casual moviegoers alike. It was a triumph.

The Sixth Sense set a new bar. Audiences were still new to Shyamalan’s style of deep, thoughtful narrative combined with exquisite imagery and his signature big twists. He washed you over with a compelling narrative, filled your eyes with wonder, and then at the end pulled the rug out from under you. His genius was pretty much confirmed.

But there’s a problem with this formula: the twist works best when you’re not looking for it. And as soon as you put the name Shaymalan on something, you start looking for it.

Signs earned ridicule for some weak plot points that have since been bettered by fan theory. The Village was a lovely film, but again failed to wow, partially I imagine because the big reveal was easy to guess and that the rest of the story didn’t hit people as hard as the previous tales. The Lady in the Water was derided as self indulgent, even though it had amazing performances by serious actors. Then The Happening occurred and skepticism in Shyamalan’s abilities turned to ridicule. He did what should have been a safe film, an adaptation of an already popular franchise, but The Last Airbender turned out to be a blow to his directorial kneecaps as it left fans and critics alike disappointed.

His name became a reason to skip a movie. And personally, I did skip quite a few.

And then, Split. Damn if he didn’t come back in a big way, and with his biggest twist yet.

I will warn you that what follows includes some heavy spoilers, so if you want to see the movie as it was intended, read no further. If you want to geek out with me, come on! Let’s go!

This is not a friendly father daughter chat.

So the base plot of Split is pretty straightforward psychological horror: a man with multiple personalities kidnaps a trio of young girls and terrorizes them with tales of “The Beast”. If you’ve watched a trailer, you already know this, though this is a movie that if you hadn’t seen the trailer, if you walked in completely cold, it would be even better, as the director takes his sweet time in revealing even the tiny bit of the story listed above.

Personally, I avoid trailers. As I said earlier, as soon as I saw the man’s name on it, I was wondering what the twist would be. The fact that James McAvoy was in it sealed it for me, but I thought I had it figured out.

The execution of the movie is great. The camera work tells the story well, framing the tale in menace and a simplicity that makes the more outrageous of the tale’s aspects more than believable. Every performance is top notch, from the sympathetic but savvy psychologist played by Betty Buckley to the terrified but grounded teen played by Anya Taylor-Joy, to the several roles played by McAvoy, each one distinct and none of them the cookie cutter stereotype other people playing multiple personality characters fall into (dude deserves an award for this).

The story itself is remarkably straightforward for Shyamalan, so much so that I started to wonder if the twist to this movie was that he was playing it straight. Yes, there are minor reveals about characters and backstory. There is tragedy and depths we’re not told about until they happen. There’s the director’s cameo. And there is the central tale of survival, fear and madness.

All of that is window dressing. The twist is that this movie is a sequel.

I know, right?

I’m not a deep geek when it comes to movies, but I appreciate touches like how Shyamalan framed scenes in Unbreakable to look like comic panels. It’s things like that which elevate the art form and make people like me who read the trivia on IMDB.com really happy. I noticed that he’d adopted a similar style at the beginning, but didn’t think anything of it.

It’s not until the end, once we’ve established the fate of our kidnapped girls and their kidnapper, that we get to find out what this movie was about. It’s not until after they throw up a title screen, just before the credits, and we get a shot of a diner and a news broadcast discussing the events of the story. It’s not until the very last moment, when we see Bruce Willis, sitting at a counter, in the persona of the main character from Unbreakable.

In any other film, such a cameo would be a toss off. Fan service. A shout out to those who watched his films before. But no, this was the point of the whole dam piece. This was the movie. The entire near two hours of the telling was to bring us to that moment, to set up that returning character for the final chapter of his arc. It was to establish a villain in way that you can’t do in a 5 minute snippet at the beginning of a summer blockbuster.

People had been saying they wanted to see the sequel to Unbreakable. But how do you make a sequel to a film when your whole career is built on not letting people see things coming? You don’t tell anyone, and you do a damn good job with it. That’s how.

When I saw Willis on the screen, at first, I felt cheated. Then the magnificence of what I was witnessing sunk in. I hadn’t been this giddy about a superhero film since Deadpool.

Even if you haven’t seen it, you’ve read this far, and I’ve just spoiled the big moment for you, I’d say see the thing. If you’ve already seen it, I share my happy dance with you. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, go back and watch Unbreakable then get this one on DVD, because in my own plot twist, I’m writing this review at the end of the film’s first run lifespan.

This is one for the film geeks. And it’s a doozy.

Ghostbusting and Girl Power: How Hollywood Failed a Reboot

Since it had been a couple of years since the first one, I wanted to post my second “Who played it better” article comparing the 80’s Ghostbuster film to the new all-female reboot. I saw it when it was on it’s way out of the theater, enjoyed it, but I can’t do a comparison the way I did for the Dredd’s. The reason is that these are not the same characters. It’s not the same story. And that should have been good, but it wasn’t.

The pitch for both movies, of course, is the same: a group of academics who study the paranormal find evidence of real, verifiable experiences and turn it into a business. The first film holds up to the test of time and was practically perfect in every way, just like Mary Poppins. It spawned a less perfect but watchable sequel and rumors of a third installment bounced around, dodged mostly by Bill Murray, until at last, someone said, “let’s do an all girl remake”. 

That twist, the re-imagined vision of Phd genitalia, got a lot more flak than it deserved, in my armchair opinion. McKinnon, McCarthy, Wigg and Jones are all immensely funny, deeply talented, and actresses with proven wit and range. The effects of 2016 are far superior to those of the 80’s (though they still hold up, really) and everything pointed to this being a film to silence the naysayers and show that you can do a reboot that differs from the original and still make a good movie.

But that’s not what they did.

Don’t get me wrong. The reboot is an enjoyable film. But the problem is that it had the core of a much better film within it and I think some key decisions kept it locked up behind a shelf full of mediocre ideas.

The first film had some very strong archetypes in the four principle characters: the Charlatan who must reluctantly admit and adapt to the reality of that which he denied. The kid who never grew up, discovering the world is really a neato as he thought. The cold, rational misfit who finds his niche in the bizarre. An everyman who keeps the audience grounded and offers a touch of reality to a scenario that could easily spin beyond the bounds of willing suspension of disbelief. 

The new one, however, abandoned those roles for a slightly dry and quirky straight woman to set up gags, a more quirky woman to bring them home, a psychotic, and a wise minority woman who saves the day with down to earth knowledge. They traded archetypes for stereotypes and then decided to serve them poorly.

The first was a comedy with elements of horror, but a lot of heart. We cared for the quartet when they announced they would cross the streams. We felt that there were stakes involved. It was more than a collection of sight gags. The new one, however, kept setting up opportunities for a touch of drama or interpersonal conflict with the characters that might add depth to the movie, but then walking away from them without another mention.

The highlights of the ’16 effort were actually the action, which was really badass. The humor is there, but it’s more the sort that calls for an ironic chuckle rather than laughing so hard you spill your popcorn. They didn’t unsex the characters or just turn them into female actresses portraying male characters, but all of the heart of the original was left on the cutting room floor if it was ever there.

And again, it shouldn’t have been. All of the actresses performed their roles well. Wigg was uncharacteristically restrained, but still funny. McCarthy was brilliant as usual. McKinnon was by far my favorite character, riding on the edge of absurd but still honest and compelling. Jones’ character bounced between subdued and outrageous with ease and comic dexterity that demonstrated her talent.

A surprise was Chris Hemsworth. While he was packed into a stereotype too, namely a vapid pretty boy who substitutes looks for talent, he was handed some of the best lines in the movie. The Thor actor played the role to the hilt and as such raised every scene he was in. There’s even one in the credits that I wondered why it had been left out because it would have taken the movie from “ha-ha” to “OMG, that’s hilarious” in three minutes flat.

It made me wonder if when we see the director’s cut, if there will be some cut scenes that were the moments I was hoping for, scenes that got the laughs by pushing the envelope and making you accept the reality of the storyline through infections commitment. If those were shot and excluded, it might explain the meandering, mis-paced mess that showed up on the screen, a series of plot strangling choke points that turned what should have been a river into a trickle.

Most telling, I think, is the final after the credit’s scene which hinted at where they were going with the very unlikely-to-be sequel to the film, a call back to the original 80’s blockbuster. It suggests that this was intended to be an origin story and that the biggest moments were to come. Given the flak the concept got on announcement, I think that this was a poor choice as they really just needed to lay all out on the first effort rather than rely upon momentum to give us the best parts of the story. I am sure that a script or treatment that will pop up that will make all of us who wanted this movie to succeed all feel sad for the awesomeness that could have been, but was murdered by timidity and business before craft.

I want to compare the two films, but beyond the trappings they share, they just aren’t the same. Judging the 2016 in it’s own right, I don’t feel it wasn’t a waste of time, but rather than giving me nostalgia, it gave me disappointment, making me pine for the things that could have been and the movie that the very talented cast deserved.

I hope to see that cast all on screen again, but the next time, I hope they are backed by a screenwriter who can bring out their magic and that the internet will shut it’s mouth for five seconds and let them shine.

Dear Advertisers: I Have a Dare For You In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

I hate trailers. I avoid them like a vegan avoids KFC. I do not want to see a sneak peek. I do not want to guess at a plot point. I do not want to know secrets from behind the scenes before I have seen the movie

I want the title, the genre, the actors, the directors, maybe the writer and that’s it. Don’t even have to show me a poster. I’ve made my decision as to if I will go see the film.

I’m not alone. There are others like me. We just want to experience the piece as the creators intended, i.e. on the big screen, all in one chunk.

No spoilers. No previews. No trailers. Nada.

I will admit that some films needed advertisement. I doubt Deadpool would have been the smash it was without the ads. Some films, though, really don’t need it.

Doubt me? Can you, without Googling it, tell me the subtitle of the next Avengers film? If your answer is no, can you tell me if you’re going to go see it?

Yes. Of course you are. Because the first one was amazing and the second one didn’t screw anything up. Your butt will be in a seat, popcorn in your lap and your sense of childlike wonder engaged.

But I was getting to a dare, wasn’t I?

There’s a movie coming up about Boba Fett. The Boba Fett. The only guy who gets to backtalk Darth Vader. The biggest fandom to dialog ratio in the Star Wars franchise. Subject of comic books, cartoons and rap.

Boba. MFing. Fett

Whole movie. All his.

And I will go watch it. You bet I will.

So here’s the dare, Hollywood. You can advertise, but don’t make a trailer. No scenes from the movie. Just put up billboards with a picture of Boba Fett, a date and leave it at that.

I dare you to let people experience the story without warning, to see the movie that they’re going to see whether you advertise it or not without a hint of what it’s about aside from the fact it includes one of the biggest badasses in screen history.

I double dog dare you.

So that way, I don’t have to sit through previews with my fingers in my ears, humming.

Coffee, Disappointment and Politics

Hi. My name is Marshall and I’m an addict. My addiction is legal, widely available, but apparently it’s also mindboggling.

I speak, of course, of coffee. What’s mindboggling about coffee you ask? Let me explain.

A few months back I figured out that after abusing my gastrointestinal system at every opportunity for the first 30+ years of my life, now in my 40’s, I find that coffee gives me anxiety. Like many desk jockeys, I require the black blood of the earth to function, so I was suitably upset when this discovery was made. After a little more experimentation though, I realized it was not caffeine that caused this, but rather the acid in the beverage.

Drawing on my days as a barista, I recalled that cold brew, which is made by steeping course ground coffee overnight, has lower acidity and that I might have an out. I do, however, prefer to have my coffee hot.

The solution is simple. I order cold press coffee, heated. This is where the confusion sets in.

Starbucks and other commercial bean pushers do offer cold brew on their menus. When I ask for cold coffee to be heated, the answers are varied:

“I can’t do that.”
“I’ll do this just the one time.”
“Do you want it in a hot cup?”
“Isn’t that just our regular coffee?”

…but only a couple of times in the twenty or so samples I have of this order have I simply gotten a “Okay, coming right up”. (Of a particular note, thank you Starbucks of Statesville, NC for not making this a hassle. You will be remembered.)

The worst of these experiences, aside from the manager outside of DC who made me feel like I was bothering him, was going to Atlanta and having a location of the chain where I learned how to tell a latte from a macchiato, Caribou Coffee, and got the blank stares and the “I need to ask my manager” experience. Pulling shots at one of their stores taught me this trick; having to explain it to them was like finding out that your mother had forgotten how to bake. They made it for me, though they left about two feet of room for cream in the cup, and while it was still better than the burnt bean juice I get from most java joints, it was garnished with a dollop of disappointment and a solemn reminder that the training I received is simply no longer of value in the corporate world (I got a week of education on coffee before I ever so much as touched a steam wand).

Even as I write this, I recognize that this is such a first world problem. Bombs go off and distant lands and kill children. Disease threatens to wipe staple crops from the face of the earth. Trump is making a sideshow of the American political process. Surely I have better things to bitch about than my order at the cafe, right?

The answers is yes, of course, but I think there is a bigger issue besides my drug dealer not realizing that if they push steam through cold liquid, it will become warm. It’s that we’re training the common sense out of people in favor expediency, profit and speed. It’s the same thinking that makes us continue to choose between a pair of sub-standard options rather than seek an actually preferable third. It’s the same thinking that has reduced so much pop music to a line or two of repeated drivel with a riff thrown in from a banjo or xylophone or something. It’s the insidious conformity that insists that stepping outside of the box never actually accomplishes anything positive, only complicates the system.

Maybe I’m just being cranky. Maybe there is no greater lesson to the the fact that somebody being undervalued at $8 an hour plus tips has procedure drilled into them so much that a simple request is received like I’m asking them to reverse engineer the moon landing with a pocket calculator and a measuring tape. But I can’t help that this is the smallest of symptoms of larger problems that lead to people being accepting that things like suicide bombings are standard procedure and that a choice between Trump and Cruz isn’t more than deciding which testicle you’d like stomped on. It strikes me as the tiny bump that turns out to be connected to the cancer.

Cold fluid. Add heat.

Does not exactly require Neil deGrasse Tyson to build a CGI model, does it?

So why does it?

I did this to myself.

I am not a morning person. I have tried to be. By necessity, I have been living as one for over 8 years now and that has confirmed it.

If I had my druthers (let me know if you see some on sale on Groupon or something), I’d Wake up around 11am and go to sleep around 3am. I am convinced I’d be more well adjusted and happier. Sadly, remaining employed has been more of a paramount necessity than catering to my Circadian rhythm, so I rise around 7am to a succession of alarms, arranged in ever increasing levels of annoyance (though Pandora on my Power Metal channel has been pretty effective).

As a side note, I’ve considered committing some heinous crime and having my alarm tone be my confession. As I don’t sleep alone, I think this might work brilliantly. On the other hand, I might decide 5 more minutes is worth jail time. But I digress.

The past couple of nights I’ve given myself license to stay up a little late and I’m feeling it. It’s like bad drugs. None of the euphoria, all of the downsides. The memory is more full of holes than a colander. My temperature is up. I’m not quite to the point I’d murder someone for sleep, but I could see that on the horizon.

Ironically, I’ve been very productive and responsible today. I just have done it after making myself wobbly. I don’t intend to repeat the experiment.

I wish I could shake this, the high pitched whine in my ears and having to choose which limbs I wish to feel at any given moment, but the only thing that will fix it is sleep and there’s more to do before that can happen. I’m just positive that I won’t one-more-thing myself tonight until my eyes start to cross and even the dog is looking at me like “I’m worried about you man. Seriously.”

If we could weaponize this feeling, we might end war in a week.

Outside of wishing to share my current state of being, there are no great insights here. I hope that if you’re reading this, you’re no where near as impaired. If you are, nap. Just nap.

See you on the other side of fatigued. Peace.

Waiting for my Fish Fingers and Custard

Doctor Who has the unique distinction of having the lead character, every so often, switch actors. This is a nail biting time for fans because there’s so much that can go wrong and that has gone wrong in previous incarnations. It’s unlikely that the actor simply won’t be good; I trust the showrunner and the BBC that much. It’s more that the character changes subtly as well and there’s more than a little possibility that the new Doctor just won’t work as well as the old one.

When we met the 9th Doctor, we were introduced to him in the middle of a crisis. He was almost overshadowed by his companion, Rose Tyler (played by the talented Billie Piper), but very shortly, we got to see what he was made of. I was flipping channels one night, having resolved to not watch the reboot, when I came across one of my favorite episodes, Dalek. I watched five minutes of exchange between actor and genocidal robot prop and I was blown away.

I want to make a joke here, but I can’t find a synonym for dramatic acting that rhymes with “Exterminate”.

When Tennant came on board, they set him up rather quickly, lampshading the question of what sort of Doctor he would be by having him ask the same thing. In moments, he was swinging a sword and simply being bad ass. This lead to a brilliant run that made it seem like no one could follow, and yet, they gave us Matt Smith and made it work. There’s a moment in his first episode where they overtly juxtapose him against the images of all the other Doctor’s regenerations as he stares down a giant alien eyeball and, unarmed and without a plan, comes off as the most dangerous man on the planet. That was a good moment and cemented the rise of the 11th doctor, but it wasn’t when we fell in love with him.

That was the amazing comedy piece between the Doctor and a child ending in a fish fingers and a big bowl of custard.

Admit it. You’ve thought about trying it, haven’t you?

When they transitioned to the 12th Doctor, they chose an older, seasoned actor for the part, Peter Capaldi. He is magnificent as an actor, no doubt. They gave us his intro and it had much of the confusion and curious nature of the introductions of Tennant and Smith but even as the end of a very good first episode ended, I felt something was missing. I wanted my fish fingers and custard and I didn’t get it.

Sure, they gave him some good lines. They also made him distinct and interesting. They had a great moment where his younger self vouches for his older self. But there was something missing.

Several episodes in and I’m still waiting for my mismatched treat. I like the performance. I like the stories. The most recent, Listen, was amazing in terms of script and finally letting Capaldi speak clearly and slowly, which his where his diction seems to work best. But what I’m not getting is that brilliant contrast, that hint that beneath the dottering and the brashness, there’s something deeper and wiser, something infinitely dangerous yet comforting. I’m waiting for the ingredients that shouldn’t work together to coalesce and produce a flavor, a unique presence, that I’ve not experienced before, making me fall in love with the character again.

I mean seriously, where is this guy?

I have faith in Steven Moffat, the showrunner and still one of the best scriptwriters. I have faith in the actors and the crew of the show. I know that what I want is on the menu and I’ll find it if I am patient.

But I wish they’d hurry up. It seems like a long time since I’ve tasted what I’ve craved and waiting isn’t making it any better.

Doing it Cosmic: Guardians of the Galaxy

I remember, when the title was first announced, seeing articles predicting the fate of Marvel’s new film, Guardians of the Galaxy, both that it woudl be a huge success and a huge failure, sometimes from the same website. It was a long shot, true: none of the established, recognizable characters. It was set in an alien environment. It had a talking raccoon, for crying out loud.

Personally, I saw all of these as selling points, but I’m a geek.

After much hype, promotion and months of dodging trailers, I got to see what James Gunn had brought to Marvel’s table and I have rarely been as jazzed as I was walking out of a theater. There were parts of the movie that left me grinning, jaw dropped and dancing in my seat.



Beyond here, there be spoilers!

From the getgo, the use of music makes the alien environment relatable. Getting ancient civilizations and complex planetary politics is a lot to ask of an audience, but asking them to relate to a guy dancing by himself is pretty simple.

We get a McGuffin, another Infinity Gem, and the comic book nerds in the audience are all nodding their heads and saying “I see where this is going”. Then it’s straight into action and adventure.

As characters are added, they are presented as people first and their respective odd racial quirks second. The raccoon is a bounty hunter and that’s what we focus on. His walking tree companion is likewise presented in a rather straightforward manner. We get to relate to them as people before we’re challenged with their peculiar visual quirks.

Each character gets a little bit of the spotlight. Rocket is a competent tactician and planner. Groot is a lovable goof, but also a solid warrior. Gamora is deadly and determined. Drax, perhaps the weakest written character, is driven and guileless.

The movie had a decision to make and I think that when we get the DVD, we’re going to find a lot of extra footage on it. The movie is already two hours and they managed to pack in the backstory for seven or so characters, to various degrees of depth. They could have delved more into the “Kree Fanatic” Ronan the Accuser, but instead relied upon his intimidating looks to convey that he was to be taken seriously. They could have spent time making Drax a little more sympathetic, making us care for his fallen family a bit more, but I don’t know they could have spared the cinematic real estate. They could have added depth to Gamora, Nebula and their relationship to Thanos, but again, that would have involved pushing the length out a bit farther.

I know I could have stood more backstory, but I think most people came for the explosions.

And this guy.

The story suffered some flaws, specifically in the shallowness to which it examined its principles and handwaving things like why Xandarians look pretty much human (and are the potential chief victims of the Big Bad’s wrath), but as spaceships bounce off one another and the main protagonist saves the world by being goofy and vulgar, the less refined points of the movie are easy to overlook. A lot of these gripes are likely to be addressed in the sequel(s), I’m sure, and that I’m glad to say are now scheduled.

Here endeth any spoilers.

Even if you haven’t been up to your neck in the Marvel universe, either in the comics or the movies, Guardians of the Galaxy is worth watching. It’s been favorably compared to Star Wars and I think that’s fair, not in that it is as transformative, but in that it is just that much fun.

And stay for the scene after the credits. Especially if you’re a child of the 80′s.