Wild Wild West

I really have no memories of probably my first 10 years of life. When I reflect back, I can remember vague things of the late 1960s, like the Great Chicago Blizzard of 1968, or bits of growing between the years my Dad died in July of '68 to the time my Mom married her second husband in 1971. But up until that second marriage, most of that time is gone, blocked out or whatever. From what I'm told by my mother, I was not the most difficult of her 4 children, but I'm sure I got into a lot of problems. Still, she has told me that I was a kid that she could leave alone for a few hours, in the corner, playing with my cars (one obsession I do remember having), creating (apparently) my own private world. As I got older in the early 70s, TV became an obsession for me, and my siblings. Sunday mornings were spent in front of the TV watching reruns of Westerns on WGN. There was The Cisco Kid, Rawhide, The Lone Ranger, and my personal favorite, The Wild Wild West. I loved that show then, and always wanted to be Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin), he of the disguises and gadget design. I also wanted to live in a train car with all the secret places that one had on TV. I was also, for reasons that I learned later in life, got excited when Jim West (Robert Conrad) would get shirtless. I mean, it was hard enough to understand how he moved in those tight pants, but that hairy chest fascinated me at the time. As I grew up, of course, the understanding of why I got excited for a shirtless Robert Conrad became clear. It was the same reason I loved reruns of Flipper and enjoyed watching Emma Peel kick ass in tight leather outfits, but always have fabulous hair and a cocktail at the end of near-death day. When they cast reunited for a TV movie in 1979, ten years after it ended, I was so excited that on that May evening it aired, I gave up playing baseball with my neighbor. When the show finally got released on DVD, I started to buy the season sets. Of course, in a lot of ways, I was stupid. I had hoped that after all four seasons of the show was out, they would release the two reunion movies. Well, they did, but only included in the Complete Series set, which to this day, pisses me off. I know WWW was hokey, and even Conrad has said that if you've seen 10 episodes of the show, you saw all their stories, but I still have a love for this show -the movie, which I've only seen fragments of, looked like shit. Apparently it was. And this opening credits is, for me, still one of the best.

A bullied gay teen kills self. Again.

It has happened again.

His name was Jamie Hubley and he was another bullied teenager, taunted and made fun of because he was openly gay. And this past weekend he finally decided he had enough of the abuse and the fear that despite the messages of hope that the “It’s Get Better” project gave, he felt he could not wait another three years. So on Saturday, after posting his final, heartbreaking message online, took his life. He was only 15 years old.

Like Jamey Rodemeyer, who took his life last month at the age of 14 due to the bullying of being openly gay is school as well, Jamie Hubley documented his life via a blog he kept. On it, he poured his grief, his fears, his depression and his heartbreaking life of being bullied in school. He also wrote openly about having no friends and no one understanding what he was going through, even posting pictures of him arms that he cut.

His blog is full of startling images of self-harm, interspersed with messages of sadness, what might amount to an almost text book case of what depression, combined with hate and harassment, does to the soul of a person.  Yet, on the flipside of that coin, his outward personality spoke differently. His love a music was obvious, as well as his ability to sing, as he posted many video covers to Youtube from his favorite artists like Lady Gaga, Adele and Katy Perry. 

On Friday in his blog, he posted his final message where he called himself a “causality of love.” Like any person, gay or straight, he was looking for love and acceptance.  “I just remember him wanting a boyfriend so bad, he’d always ask me to find a boy for him. I think he wanted someone to love him for who he was,” long-time friend Steph Wheeler told the newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen.

But unlike Glee –his favorite show- he discovered being an out gay teen in High School was never going to mirror Kurt’s life. Some three weeks ago, he vented on his blog about how he hates “being the only open gay guy in my school…” He also spoke about the “It’s Get Better” project, and felt that it was “not getting better theres 3 more years of highschool left, Iv been on 4 different anti -depressants, none of them worked. I’v been depressed since january, How fucking long is this going to last. People said “It gets better”. Its fucking bullshit.”

And he was bullied, as he posted just before the school year started: "Being open does not help at all. Yeah, someone will call me a fag. But one after the other, after the other ... I can tell on them ... Yeah. But they don't give a shit. They’ll come back after their suspension (fun day at home, free day at school) and continue calling me a faggot. I'm not ready."

Last month, Dan Savage, the man who started the  “It Gets Better” project, noted on the web site Slog about the death of Rodemeyer that “The point of the "It Gets Better" project is to give kids like Jamey Rodemeyer hope for their futures. But sometimes hope isn't enough. Sometimes the damage done by hate and by haters is simply too great. Sometimes the future seems too remote. And those are the times our hearts break.”

We’ve reached a point, I think, where we need to publically addresses this as human beings. This is not a political issue, nor is it a religion issue (though, sadly, it does factor in at times). It’s about doing what right for today’s gay youth, and not what’s best. Too many people, adults mostly, are afraid to help these kids because of another sort fear, mostly from people who are considered conservative. They’re afraid to speak out because they might lose their job or face opposition in their community due to the support of kids who are accepting their sexuality at much younger age and being open about it. 

We stand now at the crossroad of history, as more and more of today’s youth accept that their fellow students, friends, relatives are gay and that there is no shame in being that way. And more importantly, that being gay can’t be changed like a pair of shoes or shirt. 

And while “The Trevor Project” and the “It Gets Better” mission statements are the most well-known groups designed to help these youths navigate their teen years, but there are times when it is not enough. Maybe some will say that there was no way in helping either of the two young men, but I cannot accept or believe that. 

Both needed to tell them again and again that hope is there, that the life line to survival will always be there to help them. We must start in the home and then the schools. Prejudice is something that is taught, we are not born with it. It’s a learned activity, like talking.

We must give them hope and we must make sure that intolerance and bullying will no longer be acceptable. All of us, as human beings, must share the responsibility of making sure that when we send our children off to school, it will be a place of safety, of learning values that all of us are people of great feelings. Hurting and ganging up on someone, verbally abusing them because they are different is not a value anyone should be able to throw around without consequences. Cause and effect, folks, it’s a simple equation. 

We all, in the end, must take responsibility for our words and action. It’s the human thing to do.

Actor Zachary Quinto steps out of the closet

In a time when bullying is in the media almost every day, where kids -kids- are taking their lives because they can no longer live with the endless harassment of peers, parents and even religion, it is always great news when someone with a voice many can hear, can finally speak out and add their name to the cause. 

Such is what happened with former Heroes and Star Trek (2009) actor Zachary Quinto. In a statement posted on his official web site, Quinto tells people that the suicide of 14 year-old Jamey Rodemeyer in September convinced him that doing a It Gets Better video, while helpful, meant little if he was living "a gay life without publicly acknowledging it."

Quinto says:

"when i found out that jamey rodemeyer killed himself - i felt deeply troubled.  but when i found out that jamey rodemeyer had made an it gets better video only months before taking his own life - i felt indescribable despair.  i also made an it gets better video last year - in the wake of the senseless and tragic gay teen suicides that were sweeping the nation at the time.  but in light of jamey's death - it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it - is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality.  our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered citizen of this country.  gay kids need to stop killing themselves because they are made to feel worthless by cruel and relentless bullying.  parents need to teach their children principles of respect and acceptance.  we are witnessing an enormous shift of collective consciousness throughout the world.  we are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government.  i believe in the power of intention to change the landscape of our society - and it is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion and integrity and action.  jamey rodemeyer's life changed mine.  and while his death only makes me wish that i had done this sooner - i am eternally grateful to him for being the catalyst for change within me.  now i can only hope to serve as the same catalyst for even one other person in this world.  that - i believe - is all that we can ask of ourselves and of each other."

A moving, thoughtful statement that can only help more people who face a daily battle with hate from misguided, often hateful people. The notion that bullying is even remotely okay, that everyone can benefit from it, is such a horrible thought.

Yes, most older GLBT have survived. I survived. But because when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, being openly gay was not an option. In the 30 years since I left High School, I'm amazed that 14, 15, 16 year-old's can be open about their sexuality. It speaks huge volumes on how far we've come. 

But the battle continues. The GLBT people of the world wake up everyday facing intolerance for no other reason than because a large group of people, who use religion as hatchet, say its okay, that no one can or will ever stop them. 

This perverse message from people with way too much power, who oppose any sort of logical, meaningful thought process, are worth fighting. Their message, wrapped in an American flag and carrying a cross, symbolizes how they cloak their hatred. That if you attack them, you are attacking America and God. 

The thing is, being gay and living a true and open life is America, it is Godly. The Conservative Right accuses the gays (among other groups that question their moral authority) of cherry picking things from the Bible. Whether you except that the Bible is the "word of God" or a collection of fictional stories, the problem is that even if half of these so called "Godly" people followed what is written in the Bible, then their lives would be so much different. 

They cherry pick the most, me thinks.

Any ways, I'm happy another human being, whether they be a movie/TV actor, can step up and say I'm gay, so deal with it. Quinto's voice is welcomed. And like Sean Maher, recently of the canceled NBC show Playboy Club, who came out as well, we will always be grateful.

We are many. We are human beings. We are.

Candy Everybody Wants

Looking

Candy Everybody Wants

Books: Star Tek: Ishmael by Barbara Hambly (1985)

Many of the early Star Trek novels, especially a few of the 1970s Bantam line, where generally written by fans of TOS. Authors like Sandra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath were huge proponents of the Kirk and Spock relationship, and more so it seemed a lot of the time, just Spock himself. Many of those Bantam titles and the early ones by Simon and Schuster’s Pocket Book line after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, were heavily Kirk, Spock and McCoy centric and a good percentage were written by women. 

Which was not bad, just a rather interesting statistic. Back in 1985, author Barbara Hambly released her first Star Trek novel, Ishmael. And for the last 26 years, it has sat in either a bookshelf or in a box, unread. When I started collecting the Star Trek novels back in the 1980s, I had a lot of good intentions of reading them. But somewhere along the line, I sort just bought them and knew I would probably never read them. It just became, in my new addiction of books, a habit to buy them. While I gave up buying them years and years ago, I still have most of the Bantam Trek’s and most of the Pocket Book editions released in the 1980’s and 90s –with 99.9% of them never read.

Anyways, I had read Hambly before, having enjoyed her Darwarth Trilogy and eventually her Windrose Chronicles. But like so many authors during the 80s, I eventually stopped reading them. Mostly, I guess, because I loved something they wrote before, and was usually disappointed with their later stuff. Not that it was bad, but that was how it worked.

(Side note: I met Hambly once, back in the mid-1980s a Doctor Who convention in San Jose. Decades later, while working at my Borders in Rancho Cucamonga, I would get a chance to meet her mother from time to time, who apparently lives nearby).

So about a week ago, bored or what not, I was on Youtube and was watching opening titles to various TV shows that I grew up with in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Somehow I chanced upon the opening credits to Here Come the Brides, a western/dramedy that ran for two seasons on ABC. I remember the show for one reason, that it co-starred Bobby Sherman, who was a teen heartthrob both my sisters loved –though until I watched those credits again, I did not know future Starsky & Hutch actor David Soul was also on the show. It also starred Mark Lenard, known to us Star Trek fans as Spock’s father.

So, I went over to Wikipedia and hunted down the show to find out what information was on it. Now Here Come the Brides was inspired by the 1954 musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It was also loosely based on the Mercer Girls, a 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle, who decided to "import" women to the Pacific Northwest to balance the gender ratio. The show starred Robert Brown, who also, ironically, guested in a Star Trek episode, The Alternative Factor.

So what is this all leading to?

Well, further down the page on Wikipedia, it told of a crossover of Here Come the Brides and the Star Trek novel Ishmael. So coming back to my main point about fans writing the early Star Trek novels, this one is pretty much an ultimate fan book. So I went out into the garage, found my copy and decided to finally read it.

After 26 years.

The plot concerns the Enterprise arriving at Starbase 12 when a bizarre cosmic phenomenon causes a Klingon ship to suddenly vanish -- with Spock aboard for the ride. Spock's last message from the Klingon ship is cryptic. The Klingons, it is soon realized, are traveling into the past, searching for the one man who holds the key to the future.

Meanwhile, in the past, 1867 in fact, a man named Aaron Stemple recuses a mysterious man with pointy ears. Fearing that if he takes this injured man into town, he’ll be killed, Stemple secrets him away at his cabin, nursing him back to health. But the injured man has no memory of who he is, and once he is well, introduces the mysterious man in Seattle as his nephew Ishmael. Hijinks insure, of course.

Not an original idea by far, but I do commend Hambly for crossing over the huge Star Trek universe into a little seen TV series that premiered the year the TOS was cancelled. But I’m also sure, as a fan of Star Trek –and obviously Here Come the Brides- it was a cool idea to have Spock interact with the characters of that show, some who also acted on TOS. And i as noted, there is a wink, wink for long-time fans: Aaron Stemple, the man who saved Spock in the book, was played by Mark Lenard, Spock’s TV and movie father, Sarek.

The joke goes on way too long, though, and while it was fun, this could have been a short story more than a full-length novel. But that was the status of those early Trek novels.

Beach in October

Books: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1988)

Guns

Sunday Football

The Future of Doctor Who

So, I was thinking about how Doctor Who ended last week. And I've pondered some of the comments on the web about it. Thus, I've come to the conclusion that show runner Steven Moffat has created what amounts to a loose trilogy of seasons on Who. Last season was about the newly regenerated Doctor, but there is an arc to the season, beyond Amy and River Song. The exploding TARDIS is central to last season arc and one that was left hanging; it was also not solved last season. Which means, that it will have to be central to next seasons arc, along with a whatever the Silence is -because the creatures are not the Silence, and remain un-named. And I seriously doubt we've seen the last of River Song as well (if only because she told Amy that she has images of the Doctor in all of his regenerations, which could mean his earlier ones or ones we the audience have yet to see. Decides on how you view that statement).

Now there is some speculation that season 7 will more episodic than the last two seasons. Which might happen due to two things: cut backs at the BBC and the fact the season will be split again, but this time between the fall of 2012 and the winter of 2013. On the speculation front, let us say that in the fall of next year, we see seven stories. All could, essentially, be stand-alone, cost saving stories (after all, the universe will consider the Doctor dead, which lends to a sort of reboot of the show, thus giving writers a fresh slate to work from), with the exception of last episode of the fall season, most likely a beginning of a two-part story (I mean, you do want the fans to come back after a 2 or 3 month break) and one that could lead into final part of Moffat's loose trilogy.

Of course there is problems with my assumption. With November of 2013 being the franchises 50th anniversary, I'm thinking Moffat won't tie up all the loose ends -even the ominous "fall of the Eleventh" that Dorium Maldovar mentions.  To me, while the second half of season seven airs in the beginning of 2013, the series true birthday is November 23. And its no doubt that the BBC and Steven Moffat are already planning something big for the shows 50th birthday, so I would hope that Matt Smith does not leave after his third season is over. If I  was Smith, I would stay at least through an eighth season that will make up the series fiftieth, which would be the fall of 2013 and the winter of 2014. And, by far, it could make him the longest actor to play the Doctor since the show was revived in 2005.

Which leads back to the possibility that the first half or the entire seventh of Doctor Who might be more episodic than arc based of the last two seasons, and where my loose trilogy sort of falls apart. 

But we have a long time to speculate. With the change in air dates, production on season seven won't start until spring of 2012, with the first batch of episodes starting (most likely) around September/October of that year (which, ironically, will return the series back to schedule TOS had during its heyday)

Books: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (2011)

On the eastern side of Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan, lays Westish College. It’s a small liberal arts school, more known for, it seems, Herman Melville and Moby Dick, than baseball. Still, it is here where baseball phenom Henry Skrimshander arrives on a full ride based on the Harpooners team captain’s Mike Schwartz’s recommendation. The Harpooners have never won a championship in over the 100 years of existence, and Schwartz sees the potential in Henry. And through Henry, Mike sees a way out of failure. Which is what, essentially, frames this novel. 

Doc Hammer and Christopher McCulloch, who created the cult animated series The Venture Bros. on the Cartoon Network, have often spoke about the fact that their parody of Jonny Quest was about failure, that the series was about the “failure (that) happens to all of us.” And in The Art of Fielding there is one epic choke, and then a host of failures that are caught in its wake.

The choker is Henry, who has been a flawless at shortstop, the sheer definition of perfection. Mike Schwartz knows he’s headed for the major-leagues contract; big-time scouts and agents are starting to hover. But then...something happens. Henry's brain betrays him. He loses confidence, botching even the most routine throws. He has no idea why, and nothing seems to help. His anxiety grows more as scouts and agents begin to hover around, hearing of his legend. But even Schwartz, studying to be a lawyer, is discovering that his failure to get into graduate school is tied up with Henry’s future, which makes the badly body-damaged senior try even more to get Henry out of his funk. Then there is fellow baseball player Owen, who is a gay, biracial student whom his teammates have nicknamed “Buddha.” Owen spends most of the time on the bench, a book light wedged to the bill of his cap reading, mostly philosophy. A bad throw by Henry injures Owen, which opens the door to more of the young man’s issues, but also allows the College President, Guert Affenlight, longtime bachelor with a grown daughter, to finally express his love for Owen –one which obviously must be kept quiet. And finally, the prodigal daughter, Pella, arrives at Westish. While she arrives with only a purse, the baggage of her failed marriage in San Francisco will soon catch up with her.

It goes without saying, that one might want to pick-up Moby Dick and get a refresher course on Harbach’s themes. But The Art of Fielding is no more about baseball than it is about Herman Melville, but having a working knowledge of both might enhance the enjoyment of the book. Still, I find the obsession with perfection and the driving force that can sometimes drive people mad, very interesting. Each character is at a crossroads, and they need each other to decide where they’ll go from maelstrom that is currently affecting them. But, as always, no book is perfect. And while The Art of Fielding is nearly flawless, its characters are not fully realized, and the ending to just too tidy and Hollywoodish for my taste. Still, the prose is strong and the humor more organic than sitcom. I’ve read that HBO has acquired the rights to the book, and is adapting it into a series. Pretty impressive for a debut author.

Two by Two

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Views

We Lazy Americans

There is a point where you have to say that there is someone, some people, mostly from the top 4% of earners here in America are waging a class warfare battle with the other 96% of us. And they are counting on our laziness to do nothing about it. 

I got a letter the other day from Citibank, notifying me that they are going to start charging a monthly fee for checking. I having a checking account, and even paying by a check is old fashion. And there was a time, perhaps, when I was younger when I thought everything my mother stuck to in the world was old fashion as well. I mean, as I’ve gotten older, a lot of things became convenient, like buying books, music and movies. Why stand in line at the movie theater? You can buy your tickets online, print them up and walk in 5 minutes before the show began (but still bitch about the long concession line, though) now.

And sure, there were “extra” charges for those conveniences; surcharges when buying those concert tickets. We grumbled about paying them, yet it was more convenient than going down to record stores and waiting overnight for them. And now since music stores, like Tower Records, have been shuttled into the past (due to the convenience downloading music), brushed away like leaves on a fall afternoon, where else do you get concert tickets?

Online, of course. Where you pay a premium for the convenience of not going to the box office and risk getting crappy seats, or finding the show sold out. 

The point is, fees have are going up as lazy Americans continue to think anything mundane, like going grocery shopping, going to the bank, the post office, the book store or what not interferes with their watching Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, and every damn show on Bravo. And then texting about it to their friends –cause talking the phone or seeing people face to face is becoming inconvenient as well.

Anyways, back to the point. 

We are being coddled, herded like cows to the slewing machines due to our inability to see the forest for the trees.   

The rich get rich, the poor get poorer. 

It’s a phrase we heard all our lives. And it’s a true phrase, though, no matter how the rich try to spin it. Since the dawn of man, we’ve learned one thing: it’s easy to exploit the will of the people, especially the weakest. Of course, like in the animal world, the weakest are killed off, only the strongest survives. And we humans have adapted that one philosophy of the animal world into ours. But we are not animals, insects or plants. We are human beings, with brains that are so expansive, we’ve hardly tapped into those capabilities.

And why not? Well, because it’s convenient not too, because it’s easier to devour the weakest, instead of helping them. And while there is always going to be ones who exploit the help we are given, there percentage is small. But we punish everyone because of it.

With our current government in the thrall of corporate America, where do we as Americans draw the line in the sand? How many more people will be exploited, surcharged, beaten down like a rabid dog before we realize that rabid dog is a human being?

Are the rich the only ones entitled to free things? 

Well they worked hard for what they got, some would say, so why should they have to pay for things like, for Christ sake, a checking account?

See, starting in December, “customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000.” Now, the laws of averages dictate that not all of Citibank’s customers can do this, especially working class people of modest means, mostly people making less than $30,000 a year. What percentages of those people will get stuck paying this fee, while the huge wage earners, say anyone making $75,000 or more a year, will pay nothing? 

The way I see it, a lot. So yes, the rich will get richer because they will pay no fees, while the lower middle class gets closer to being the poor. 

It’s basic math folks; you’re being ripped off. But you let it go, because banks know your lazy and won’t move to a credit union because it will be inconvenient to trudge down to said bank, pull your money out, drive someplace else, fill out all the new paperwork, wait for a new debit card to come via the mail (of all things).  

Corporate America, who has used mutated math to explain how ripping you off is actually good for you, will continue to exploit the middle class and, especially the poor, until someone, large groups of people, stand up for themselves. We are not David’s against a Goliath that is Corporate America; we are human beings who should treat other human beings with dignity.

Three

Squirrel!

Squirrel!

Best

Mirror of my Dreams