A Milestone and a New Experience

I turned 30 on Friday. As I see it, half of my life is over. Sure, I may live to be 129 with robot parts, but the amount of booze, smoking, driving fast and needle swapping (totally kidding) that I do on a weekly basis probably limits my time on this big blue marble. So what has my first 30 years brought me? I’ve graduated school. I’ve had jobs I loved and I’ve have/had jobs that I feel emotionally empty about. I’ve built a house. I’ve gotten married. I’ve gotten divorced. I’ve had health scares. I’ve had years and years of good health too. I have loved, laughed, cried and hated. But I find myself asking… er… myself… “Is this it?” Am I just going to plod through my next half of my life? Will I continue to scrape by? Will I take shit and avoid the fights, even if I know I’m right? Or will I break these chains, become something more? I guess only time will tell. I’ll say this though, I’m not content right now. There are things in my life that I want to change. There are things I want to do. I want a better life. Now, it’s just figuring out how to achieve it. My father quit his job and became self employed when he turned 30. He also had labor skills and I don’t see myself following in that role…

I celebrated my birthday by going to Hot Springs, NC with my girl Haley, X and Cootie. Cootie makes fantastic hand painted skull art and hand made skull jewelry. It’s a niche market, for sure and unfortunately we were out of our demographic. It was also very under-advertised, so what I imagined as a crowd of people and streets lined with vendors turned out to me maybe 100 people, half of which actually walked by or stopped and 5 booths. But, that being said, I had soooo much fun. I got the chance to help create some of the displays. That made me feel good. I felt like I had achieved something. Mostly because they didn’t fall apart. I like to create things. I’ve dabbled in some things. I made a set of runes for X and Cootie. I’ve made some chain maille jewelry. I’ve worked with metal, I’ve worked with wood. I enjoy it. I can’t wait to go to another fair, one that has a bigger and more diverse crowd. Maybe I’ll be inspired to create things too. If not, I’ll just help set stuff up, create displays, whatever is needed. Maybe I can get Haley to start on her awesome project of creating hand painted tiki torches out of old bottles. We could have a booth right next to X and Cootie. Nothing would make me happier. I love my friends, I love my girl and I love my family. I can’t wait for the next chapter of my life, I’m sure as fuck gonna try to make it more successful.

North Carolina – Amendment 1

So here’s a quick thought on this. I’m not going to spend much time on it, because I don’t think that the state of North Carolina is to blame. I’m sure that there are plenty of people that don’t support this. It’s once again the will of the government that were placed into power by the people, not for the people. To use your position of power to strip rights from others is the most heinous political bigotry that can be done. The worst part of this, aside from the pure, unadulterated hate that you’re spewing into the universe, is the horrible rush and poorly structured wording. If your constituents want this into place, that’s their right. Of course their right is completely infringing upon the rights of others, but we’ll over look that for now.

The wording reads: ”Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.” 

Ok, so you’re anti-gay marriage. But you’re not only denying the rights of your residents but you’re also stripping the rights of those in a domestic partnership. And before you think that a “domestic partnership” is just a gay marriage without a license, let me correct you. A domestic partnership also includes an unmarried HETEROSEXUAL couple or individuals that have a child together. It includes people who have lived together to the point of “common-law”. Neither of these situations are a “recognized MARRIAGE” and since the wording of the Amendment uses the word MARRIAGE expressively, it nullifies any sort of engagement that these groups would have.

Scenario: Let’s take a man, we’ll call him Bob. Bob has no family. No parents still alive, no siblings, no Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, etc. Bob is in good health and has never thought about a will. Bob lives with Sue. They’ve been together for 10 years. they’ve never gotten married. They’ve just “lived in sin” as the government views them. If Bob were to get into an auto accident and die, Sue would be distraught, no doubt. She would also be LEGALLY void of any sort of collection of Bob’s life insurance policy (even if she was named his beneficiary, and no, this isn’t a contract), she would not be able to sign for the release of Bob’s body for burial. She would not be able to have any details of his death. If the house was in Bob’s name, she’d be homeless. The house would be forfeit to the bank to collect any due mortgage.  Bob’s property would be rendered to the company that is settling his accounts. 

Sue would lose everything. Her love, her home, her stability, EVERYTHING. You know, unless she and Bob had a “contract”. Because that’s what normal people do. They either get married and breed or they have contracts. There’s no in-between, is there North Carolina? There’s not any gray area. They don’t have a government issued license to wed each other and they didn’t have a contract. Sue is fucked, because they never went through a process that has been taken over by Christianity even though the “institute of marriage” is not of Christian origins. The act of marriage predates recorded history and was only required to have the “Church’s consent” after the 16th century.

Oh and remember all, our country was founded on the separation of Church and State. The founders of the country were fleeing oppressive religious ruling. They weren’t just making another England across the ocean. 

So to sum it up. North Carolina – WHAT. THE. FUCK. ARE. YOU. DOING? 

Your backwards ruling will be deemed unconstitutional and overruled, but you’ll spend many tax payers money fighting your hick-ass ways. So I guess North Carolina has 100% perfect roads, schools, job rate and 0% crime, homelessness or poverty? No? Oh. Well I guess that this is more important.

You know, just like your last amendment for marriage which made interracial marriage illegal. How’d that work out for you?

Skinwalkers and Heinz 57 Sauce

So I had a steak last night. It was pretty rare. Yum. I slathered it in Heinz 57 and ate it down. I’m not sure if that mixture was the reason for my night of sleeplessness and a continuing nightmare or not. I say continuing because every time I woke up, then fell back asleep, I was right back in it. It was like that fuckin Freddy movie.

I was in a hospital. More of an asylum. Think Arkham but with less Crocs and more drooling people. I was talking to a dirty looking nurse. And I don’t mean dirty as in she’d be down for a dp on her smoke break. I mean grungy. Like she hadn’t had a chance to wash her clothes in a month. We were standing at the foot of a bed. In the bed was a small framed woman, wrapped in bandages like a mummy. She was thrashing around, her arms and legs bound with leather straps. The nurse kept saying “you have to make a decision.”

I was apparently not ready to make the decision, because I woke up. After a quick readjustments of the blankets I was back asleep and instantly back in the corridors of the hospital. It was all dark grey stone and musty. I could hear intelligible shouting. I was outside of the woman in the bed’s room. She was still thrashing. I began to ponder my options. Although never spoken, I knew that I was deciding if she lived or died. I walked the corridor to compose my thoughts. Before long, I noticed that I was in a part of the hospital that I had never seen before. It was even more dark and imposing than my previous entry. I walked past a door and heard a soft “Pssst” like air coming out of a tire. I looked in the room and there was a woman with straw like grey hair. She looked at me with crooked eyes and gently rocked herself. I bent down in the doorway and looked at her. She was really dirty. Long fingernails were caked in some sort of grime. She had sores on her body. She looked as if she had been clawing at herself. I got a swelling in my chest. I shouldn’t be here. Something wasn’t right.

And I woke up. This time, Charlie woke up too. I guess I was thrashing because my blankets were gone onto the floor. Charlie jumped down, pissed on his pad and got a drink of water. I picked my blankets up and went back to sleep, assured that my dream was done.

I was still in the doorway. At this point I got the sense that I was dreaming. I knew I was dreaming, but I felt as if I had to see it finished. The dirty woman was chuckling, her very emaciated frame shaking gently. Of course, I made the mistake that has been made in hundreds of horror movies. I reached out for her. And she was on me. She leapt at me with such speed that I didn’t even react. She barreled into me and we both went down. She was screaming, but it wasn’t a horror movie scream. It was a long drawn out keening, like a tea kettle that has been forgotten. I grabbed her wrists by instinct and she leaned toward me to bite me. I kept pushing her away, my dream self knowing I needed help. She was strong and I actually felt scared. I felt like she was going to hurt me. I pushed and pushed and pushed. But she kept coming. Then out of nowhere, arms wrapped around her and pulled her off of me. The dirty nurse was standing with her back toward me, looking at the old lady. Two large orderlies in crisp white uniforms where holding the old woman against the wall. She was bucking, kicking and still screaming. “You shouldn’t be here” the nurse said.

And I woke up. In the floor. Charlie was standing on the bed looking down at me like “What the fuck is wrong with you?” The blankets were balled up and laying next to me. I fought my tired body back up onto the bed, tucked Charles under his blanket and went back to sleep. Surely that was it.

The old woman is still screaming, but now I see that her jaw separates like an Xenomorph. Really really distended. There’s red around her mouth, but it’s not blood. More like a light. On her head is a void. Meaning it wasn’t a black spot, it was an empty spot. And in her stomach was a vertical mouth lined with razor sharp teeth. The orderlies let her go and she began tearing herself in two. Out from the mouth came a skeleton. It was like a cartoon, the skeleton was clean. No blood, no tissue, it was just clean. Then it jumped on me. I took it’s full weight and it felt like steel. I fell back into a room, it on top of me. I reached up and hooked my hands in the rib cage and rolled it off of me. The nurse was screaming. The skeleton began clacking it’s jaw. Like it was trying to talk. I looked into the doorway and the skin of the old woman was pulling itself toward me. Like it was completely invertebrate. I jumped up and began stomping on the red light. I stomped and stomped and stomped. Finally, the skeleton put his hand on my shoulder and I stopped. He. And I don’t know why I thought “he”. He picked up the skin and shrugged into it like a coat or a bathrobe. He touched my forehead and I got a picture of a girl with a huge nose. I don’t mean like just a big nose, I mean like her nose was most of her face and head. No hair. No eyes. No mouth. I felt that I needed to find her. What I was “told” in that touch was that they (the girl, the skeleton and the skin) were all part of one being and the girl was the mind. She had gotten separated and without the mind, the skeleton and the skin could not communicate. They were placed here because the old lady was deemed a “crazy person”. The red light was rage. The skin’s rage at being unable to communicate. To find its whole. Calmed now, by my attack, it was asking for help. Help it find it’s whole self.

I woke up. I looked at my phone and it read 7:29. Less than 5 seconds later, the alarm went off. I don’t know if the dream will continue tonight. But I’m telling you what, I’m not going to eat any fuckin Heinz 57 sauce and chance it.

Love. And weirdness.

The Snooze Button and Nightmares.

I don’t like nightmares. I’m not saying that anyone really does, but bear with me. Every since I was little I have had a very vivid imagination. Whole worlds sprang into being in my head. I planned invasions with my toys. There were more plot twists in an afternoon of G.I. Joes than in most M. Night Shyamalan flicks.
This wild imagination led to some pretty eventful dreams. These dreams could be good or bad, my mind was not biased.
This has continued through my adult life. I frequently (usually once a week) have a zombie dream where I’m fighting off hordes of the undead. I haven’t had a good nightmare in a long time.
Until today.
I hit my snooze button for 10 more minutes I’d blissful sleep before I got up and tried to hump this Tuesday into submission. Instead of sleep I got terror. Follow me through this dream.

X, Cootie, Haley and myself were in my house. My house was old though. Dark wood everywhere. Rich tapestries and carpets. Like a manor house. We were all getting some coffee and I remembered that X and Cooties’ daughter and her 2 friends were in the RV parked on the property. I asked if they may want some coffee and after a confirmation from Cootie, began filling a thermus. One Keurig at a time.
I know, right?
So my thermus full, I begin to exit the house to go to the RV. X says “Don’t let me forget to tell you about the 10th director of The Exorcist he only directed a 3 minute scene, but it was amazing.” I agreed to remind him and stepped out into the pre-dawn / post-dusk gloom of a thunderstorm. As lighting flashed and thunder boomed, I noticed a man and a woman talking. She expressed her intent to leave and then began moving toward a near-by high walled garden. He looked longingly after her and I though I should follow her. As I rounded the corner of the house, I heard a disembodied voice say “BEWARE OF X’S MOTHER!”

What the fuck.

I glanced up the lawn and saw a blue push-mower coming toward me, with no one pushing it. Immediately thinking of Maximum Overdrive I dodged out of the way. The Damn thing turned around and came at me again. “You’ve got to he fuckin kidding me” I exclaimed as I dodged out of the way a second time. As it turned for another attempt to make me shorter, lightning flashed and I suddenly there was a woman there pushing it. It was this woman, to be specific:

spooky shit, eh?

She was wearing a flowered dress and house shoes. Her eyes were vacant. Like she didn’t see me at all, but I could tell that she wanted to hurt me. As she came toward me with the mower, the Voice again chimed in, “You must placate her.”
So naturally I began to apologize for being in her way, for intruding on her thunderstorm mowing, for being here. I promised to not do it again and then to top it off I hit her with the Sign of the Cross. She stopped. So I took that as an indication that I had placated her. As I walked down the side of the house, I passed by a large, single panes glass window. When I looked into the darkened room, there she was pressed near the window. I stumbled back as thunder boomed and then the glass broke.

I woke up in a startled panic. It was very real and very fuckin weird.

So any idea what that would mean? If anything? Give it your best interpretations in the comments below.

Love.

Life is Funtastic

Well, its been a couple of days since my last post. Things are going great. My love and I are gooey in love. I have great friends and family. Life is pretty damn good. I’m trying to liquidate some old car parts and got a text today about a guy who is interested in the biggest piece. We’ll see how that turns out. Hope to test drive my car as soon as next weekend. Fingers crossed.
That’s it lovelies. How are you doing?

Love

Batman, Sailor and some Apples

Had a grand time Saturday. For the first time in a few months, my cousin came over to hang out. X and Cootie were in house and the Mogwai was asleep with a bum ankle. We started the night out with myself trying to cook something new and delicious in a wheat free world. X has a wheat allergy. My love Haley has a wheat allergy. She gets sniffles and X stops breathing. Two very important people in my life with the same allergy, albeit at varying degrees of severity. So I’ve been trying to help in any way I can. People know this, peanut allergies, milk allergies and pepper allergies don’t hold a candle to living with a wheat allergy. Name your 3 favorite foods.

Ok, now lets say that you said Pizza, beer, Hamburgers, Biscuits and Gravy, Lasagna, cookies, spaghetti, candy bars, thai food, chicken lo mein, or a nice big sandwich.

Now imagine that you can’t eat those things as they come, as they are served by every restaurant and every house in the nation. Wheat is in everything.  It binds things together that you would never think would have wheat in them.

Haley had a pack of SUCKERS. Caution: Contains Wheat. What the fuck for?

I’m a big eater, if you couldn’t tell by my stature… So the pure shock of thinking about not being able to stop at McDonalds and get a burger on the run. To not have a normal birthday cake. So hell yeah, I will go out of my way to try to help in any way I can. So to these ends, I attempted to make some ground chicken sausage balls for a snack.

Yeah, after grinding it up and realizing that chicken doesn’t have the consistency that pork or beef does, I changed mid-stroke and went with a chicken meatloaf. I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before, I’m sure it has. I’m not trying to blaze new paths in food, but I was pretty proud of the finished product. It was moist, but heavy. I needed a little more spices, salt mainly, because I wasn’t sure of the level of salt in the gluten-free cornbread mix that I used. I love cooking though, so I was happy.

By this time, the drinks were flowing and I was missing my girl pretty bad. When we wrapped dinner, poured some more drinks and gathered around the table to introduce Drew to Apples to Apples, I was feeling melancholy. I don’t like being away from Haley. I am madly in love with this woman. I feel empty when she’s not with me. But I was surrounded by people I love and who love me, so I couldn’t complain about the company. After the first round, my face was already hurting from laughing. Drew’s sick mind fit in well in our group and fun was had by all. When we finally called it a night and I retrieved a blanket for Drew to crash on the couch with, I went right to sleep.

I woke up at 10 and immediately got a text from Haley, like she could sense that I was part of the waking world again. It said simply “Good morning! Been up since 545, almost done with laundry. I have homemade waffles waiting for you whenever you get up. Love you!” What a wonderful good morning. I promptly made Drewcifer and myself a cup of coffee and took off to Haley’s. I got greeted with a hug, a kiss and a “I missed you” which fills me with so much joy it’s probably sickening to people that haven’t experienced it.

I haven’t had a good track-record with relationships. I’m not 30 yet (for a couple months) but I’ve already been married and divorced. I am a statistic. Regardless what you’ve seen in the news, Facebook was not to blame for my divorce. I rushed in. I ignored signs that I shouldn’t have. I made a mistake. But it hurt me. It burned me and made me bitter. I’ve swore that I will never marry again since then. I’m not saying that I’m ready for that right at this moment, but when I think about my future, I can’t think about Haley not being in it. I love this woman. She has opened my heart and my eyes. I now know what it’s like to have someone that you truly care about and can expect the same thing from in return. Is she my soulmate? I dunno if I believe in that mumbo-jumbo, but I’m saying this: I’ve let her go once and she came back. I’ll not make that mistake again. It’s 1 o’clock in the morning now.

I am not in bed yet, because I miss the thought of being able to put my arm around her and have her snuggle up to my chest. She’s my lobster.

Have a good rest of the weekend, everyone. I am off for MLK Day and I will spend it doing laundry, playing Batman and missing my girl.

 

Love.

A Dirty 4 Lettered Word

Love.

That’s right, love. Love and myself haven’t always gotten along. Usually I rush in, more for the idea behind love than for the actual emotion. The idea of being in love and the benefits that come with it entice more than whores on the steps of a temple.

Formally my thoughts on love were simple and juvenile. Love meant having someone care about you. Love meant getting things from someone “just because”. It meant sex. It meant that you had someone to do things with, you were never alone. Love was a MySpace update.

What I have learned is that Love, true Love is none of that.

True love is knowing that your wife is sick and determining to make her life as easy and full as possible. True love is taking in and raising 3 kids and making them excel at school when they had no support from the birth mother. True love is changing your entire diet because you husband has a severe allergy to a VERY common food source.

Love is sacrifice.
Love is worshiping your partner.
Love is kissing like no one is watching.
Love is not monetary. It cannot be bought.

True love cannot be forced.

I am lucky that I have finally figured this out. I am also lucky to have fallen in love with a wonderful woman who loves me as purely as I love her.

I love you, Haley. Sorry it took me so long to figure out.

~Sco

Bigger and Better

So my creative juices got severely dampened by my pseudo-vacation. I didn’t do much except lay around and watch movies and tv. Sure we can blame the pain pills, but the truth is that I felt myself running dry. I began to have moments of writers block that lasted for days. When finally I could create again, I had so much built up that it came pouring out like word diarrhea. I wasn’t happy with much that I did in those times.

So, I changed tactics. I went back to my original love, drawing. I hadn’t put pen-to-paper in a long time aside from tattoo ideas for other people. So I created some things that had been floating in my head for awhile. I also took up a new hobby. I self-taught myself to make chainmail jewelry. What tedious, mind numbing work. But I was proud of that first piece. It was nice to hold something tangible in my hands and think “I made this out of nothing.”

How creationist of me, eh?

The world needs more beauty in it. We are barraged, as a society, by images of war, violence, civil unrest and poverty. Daily I have to suffer through an ASPCA commercial showcasing beaten and neglected animals. The news never shows “feel good” stories anymore. No Zippy, the water skiing squirrel. No puppies or lolcats. No, instead I have to hear someone is being mistreated, another baby was killed by an enraged or deranged parent, the president/congress/state representatives aren’t doing their jobs.

I get it.

We live in a fucked up world. We are too concerned with shiny trinkets, celebrity marriages and what else gives you cancer. People have forgot how to enjoy life. A powerful phrase that I read years ago still sticks with me.

“Life isn’t forever”

That’s right people. You, I, our lived ones, our pets, even that asshole neighbor that let’s his dog shit in your yard are all going to die. Life DOESN’T last forever. There’s only one certainty in life. Death. One day its all over.

I’ll be 30 this year. If the Mayan Doomsayers are wrong, (they are) I will probably live for 40-45 more years. I’m not going to be a 90 year old man. It’s not in my genes. I am overweight, I smoke, I drink, I drive too fast and I don’t wear my seat belt. I’ll be lucky to hit 70. So almost half of my life is over. You know what I have learned recently? I haven’t began to live yet. My life has been relatively normal, but I have always held myself back. I’ve worried about money, I’ve worried about the future. You know that saying “can’t see the forest for the trees”?

That’s me in a nutshell.

So I am saying fuck new years resolutions. I’m making new life resolutions.

1.) Inspire myself and others. It’s too easy to be grumpy and plod along daily. I will take a moment every day and try to make myself or someone else better.

2.) Leave an impact on the world. Now I’m not saying I will discover the cure to a disease or solve a great mystery, but dammit when I die, someone will miss me on more than an emotional level.

3.) Love and be loved. I am blessed to have a beautiful woman in my life who makes me stupid happy. I am going to try my damnedness to keep her. I will strive to never take her for granted.

4.) Don’t sweat the small stuff. Simple enough. Live to the fullest. Don’t let shit drag me down.

So there you have it. Will I succeed every day? Fuck no, I’m only human, but I’m going to try really hard.

So throw all the bad news and 90s folk music-backed puppies you want at me, world. I’m going to weather your storm. I’m going to thrive. I will not let the next 30 years pass as meekly by.

As Wheezy would say, I’m gonna make life my bitch and put my hand up her skirt.

Love.

Life Got In The Way

So… It’s been over a year since I blogged. Yeah, sorry about that. A bunch has happened since my last post. Let’s recap, shall we?

I didn’t stop writing. I just stopped writing here. If you feel like it, head over to www.bettergeekthannever.com. I’ve wrote tons. I’ve done podcasts. I was a machine. My brother from another mother, Professor X was kind enough to let me get my nerd rage on about movies, comics and much more. It has been some of the most fun I’ve had on the internet that didn’t involve boobs. Well, that’s not true, there are boobs on the site. They’re probably just covered by blood. SO, there’s that.

I remained single for the better part of last year. I didn’t feel like I wanted to spend time and energy trying to get to know more people. The ones that I do know weren’t interested in dating or letting me see them naked. This changed recently when I agreed to round two with an ex. But here’s the thing, before you cringe like I do when people scratch their forks on plates, she’s the best Ex ever. I am not even sure you can call her an ex. She and I began just hanging out. That progressed into more, but it was never really official. This is mostly due to my expression of disgust at all things “love” early into our relationship. I know, right? What a perfect thing to say to a woman who you are crazy about. Well, our schedules conflicted a lot and so we amicably split. I wasn’t in the mindset to progress myself as a person, let alone a relationship with another human. We are now together and happily, we’ve both admitted our love. She is my perfect match. She’s a smartass, like me, she’s independent, which I need. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she gets me, she loves me for me and doesn’t express desires to change me in anyway. She’ll watch stuff that I wanna watch, she’ll listen to me nerd-out about the shitty Captain America movie. She watches wrestling with me. I love her. Immensely. I love her like I never thought I would love someone again. I miss her dearly when I’m not with her. So that’s definitely a good thing that happened in 2011.

The bad? Well, whilst trying to dodge some relatively nasty weather in our fluctuating climate of East Tennessee, I was taking shelter in my basement. Being the dutiful owner that I am, I carried Charlie Von Doom down the stairs with me and fell. I rolled my body, so not to crush my 12 pound dog and cried out as I heard my leg snap. I broke the fibula clean through and tore the main tendon that holds the fibula and tibia together at the bottom. Thus destroying my ankle and scattering it like Scrabble tiles after a drunken rage-quit. I could put no pressure on my leg for 10 weeks. I slept on my couch, leg propped up in an itchy fuckin cast. I watched Netflix. I am pretty sure that I googled everything that one could possibly google. I didn’t leave the house except to go to the doctor or for surgeries. My constant and loyal dog stayed with me, never batting an eye at the fact that I didn’t move all day. For over 2 months. But you know what? I needed it. I did a lot of thinking in those months. I reevaluated my life. I thought about what I needed to do to get to where I wanna be. I’m not saying that there have been drastic changes in my life because of this, but I know more about myself now. I know my goals. And so I guess technically that was a good thing.

This fall I began to work on my car again. I bought this car 7 years ago. I drove it for a couple months and then put it down due to a rear main seal being out. It was decided, while it was down to do a complete rebuild and turbo it. This is a first for my dad and myself. Then I got offered the chance to build a house. Then I met a girl that I thought I would love forever. Then we got married. Then we moved into our new house. Then we didn’t talk much. Then we separated and finally we divorced. Then I began to drink. A lot. At that point, the car was back-burnered. With all intentions of going back and finishing it. Well, today, it fired and ran at idle for the first time in nearly 7 years. I am ECSTATIC about this. Today, I decided that I don’t even want to make it flashy with the body kit that I have, instead, I’m going to make it a sleeper. You’ll never know what I have under the hood, but you’ll know my license plate number. Hopefully.

I am lucky enough to be in the position to offer some very, very dear friends the ability to stay with me while they evolve onto a path that is better for them. It has been almost 3 months and not once have I thought “Great, they’re home…” in my usual sarcastic tone. They make my house feel like a home. It’s lonely as fuck living by yourself. The ability to come home to an awesome home cooked meal, play games, have some drinks and cut up about shit on TV was very much needed in my life. I need these people around me. I need people that I can depend on and know that they love me as much as I love them. I am happy.

So that’s it. There was definitely some shit in 2011 that I would rather do without, but all in all I can’t complain about the year past. It brought me a woman that completes me, it brought me a mind free of clutter and darkness and it brought me a family, regardless of blood, that make me smile and happy. 2011 brought me happiness. I can’t hate it.

So what’s next? Who knows. Life can be bumpy sometimes, but I know that through my amazing family, my beautiful love and my smile-so-much-your-face-hurts friends, I can’t take it all on and come out with my head above water.

And my little dog too…

 

Love people. Love is very important to the body, mind and soul. I hope everyone that reads this gets to experience true love in the year I have dubbed the Twenty Dozen.

All Your Heroes Are Gone…

I grew up reading comic books. Specifically Marvel and Image. Marvel had my standard favorites, Spider-Man, The X-Men, Wolverine, Daredevil, and Deadpool. Image was a small company created in 1992 by 8 creators who were tired of doing the work and “The Man” (Marvel, DC) owning the copyrights to their creations. So Image was founded as a creator-owned company where these artists/writers would solely retain the rights to these creator-owned properties. Seven illustrators (Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Whilce Portacio, and Jim Valentino) and one writer (Chris Claremont) created Image to work on things that they wanted to work on with complete control. Now 5 of these guys came from X-books (X-men, X-Force, Wolverine), Valentino came from Guardians of the Galaxy, while Larsen and McFarlane came from Spider-Man. Talk about a fuckin upheaval of the normal. Image as a company was founded as purely a licensing company, owning only the logo and its name. The property was formed under two principals, the first being that the creator is sole owner of their own work; the second is no company partner can interfere either financially or creatively with another partners work. To guarantee this, 6 of the creators made their own studios that would own the rights, but then still publish under Image. These studios were Extreme Studios (Liefeld), ShadowLine (Valentino), Todd McFarlane Productions (McFarlane), Wildstorm (Lee), Highbrow Entertainment (Erik Larsen), and Top Cow Productions (Silvestri). The first books released were Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.s, and Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon. These successful books, along with a few less successful endeavors, were sub-published under Malibu Comics. Image took off like a ROCKET. In less than a year, Image was publishing their own books and owning more of the market than DC with less than half of the number of titles. Next thing you know these industry leading creators that were fighting the good fight were leasing out work to freelancers. They were obtaining the rights to all of the works, but they also allowed the publishing of some other non-partner created and owned licenses, such as Bone, The Maxx, and Astro City. I stuck with them on a couple of their books. Spawn and Youngblood were great, I also loved Cyberforce and Shadowhawk. The point here is that the little guys were doing it. They were winning the good fight. They were doing what they wanted and were doing it successfully. Then they got too big. They had too much going on and all of a sudden there were delays in monthly books. Then there was in-fighting, claims of stealing talent, and eventual departure. Silvestri left Image, taking Top Cow with him because of the shady, underhanded tactics. Lee even sold Wildstorm to DC!!! How are you going to sell your “creator-owned property” to one of the most creative stifling companies out there. Valentino became the publisher and manager of Image and started a new practice of publishing creator-owned books but charging a fixed fee upon publication. Erik Larsen took over the publisher title and saw the #3 spot that Image held fall to number 5. Larsen was replaced by Eric Stephenson and Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead / Invincible).

So why this trip down Image Blvd? Well I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, as both a comic writer and as a novel writer. My first introduction to Gaiman was my friend Dustin’s big brothers collection of Sandman comics. Sandman was a DC character and it stands to this day as one of the few DC/Vertigo titles that I adore. His books Good Omens, American Gods, and Anansi Boys are phenomenal. He was already an established name in the comics game back in 1993 when he was asked by Todd McFarlane to write an issue of Spawn. The issue (#9, and one of the highest valued of the first run) introduced Angela, a Hellspawn hunting, angel. Basically the opposite of Spawn. Medieval Spawn, the dark ages version of a the Hellspawn that shows that not all Hellspawn are “evil”, whom is destroyed by Angela, and Cogliostro, a mentor to Hellspawn, who turns out to be a former Hellspawn, and the original murderer Cain. These characters were agreed upon as 50/50  co-owned properties between the two men (the founding principle of Image, remember?), until McFarlane continued to use the characters as main players in the series, spin-offs, toys, movies, clothing, etc. The problem? Well now McFarlane says that these are solely his owned property as he hired Neil to do the work as a work-for-hire freelancer and therefore McFarlane owned everything that Gaiman had created for him. Todd McFarlane proved at that time, in my opinion, that he is a back-stabbing, money-grubbing, two-faced, asshole. The entire purpose of why he left Marvel was because they wouldn’t release rights to him for characters he created. SUPPORTING CHARACTERS (remember that), as he didn’t create Spider-Man, only drew one of the most memorable supporting characters ever, Eddie Brock / Venom. Now this is an entirely different debate as to the creator(s) of Venom, as the suit was just an adaption from Spider-Man’s symbiote suit. There are people going back 10 years before the creation of Venom that claim they have some part in the character. This contention was one of the main reasons McFarlane left Marvel, because even though Eddie Brock/Venom was wrote by David Michelinie and drawn by Todd McFarlane, the character was created as a work-for-hire project and is solely owned by Marvel (sound familiar?). So ultimately Gaiman had to sue McFarlane and Image to be paid for re-issues and revenue generated from the 3 created characters of the Spawn universe. Gaiman had to return to court over the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina, and Tiffany which were OBVIOUSLY rip-offs of the Medieval Spawn and Angela characters, an attempt to utilize the characters and still not pay the due monies to Neil. The characters are slightly re-drawn and include small cue changes like hair cut/color, etc.

So now this is to where we currently are. Erik Larsen, is utilizing a social network (Twitter) to spout off bullshit about how “Neil Gaiman could not have created Angela elsewhere. Her existence is dependent on Spawn and Todd McFarlane.” (via Twitter @ErikJLarsen) but the same can be said about Venom. With no Spider-Man, there would be no Venom. No Venom, no controversy. No controversy, no “Forging a new path” with Image’s principles. Ultimately Marvel made Todd McFarlane a recognizable name, he used that fame and the controversy revolving around the creation of these characters to headline Image (100% true statement, as Spawn outsold all of the other books combined) and then tried to screw Gaiman out of the rightly deserved claims. It’s not as if Gaiman attempted to use the created characters outside of the works they were shown in, but he still deserves to be paid. McFarlane has now went so far as to not include the #9 issue of Spawn, as well as the #10 issue containing the copyrighted character Cerebus, from the 1-12 reprint collection. McFarlane was also sued by hockey player Tony Twist after he used his likeness and name for a mob-based character. Seems McFarlane wants to make his own rules, but not play by anyone else’s.

The long-winded point I am making here is this. I looked up to Todd McFarlane, I used to doodle my spider webs just like he drew in the Spider-Man comics, I have 1-100 of Spawn including many off-shoots, I have many of the Spawn toys, I went and saw the Spawn movie TWICE, even though it sucked horribly, I bought the fuckin SOUNDTRACK and a T-Shirt, I snuck out to watch the cartoon on HBO, and I even picked up the return issue of McFarlane coming back to Spawn. Unfortunately, heroes that you think are diamonds can turn out to be made of glass. I looked up to this man, I didn’t even question him paying that ungodly amount of money for the purchases of (from Wikipedia) “Sosa’s 33rd, 61st and 66th home run balls, and McGwire’s first, 63rd, 67th, 68th, 69th and 70th. (McGwire’s 61st was the ball which tied Roger Maris‘ then-record, while McGwire’s 70th, bought by McFarlane at auction for US $3 million, set a new record at the time — broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds.) He later purchased Bonds’ record breaking 73rd home run ball for $450,000. ” He owns half of the Edmonton Oilers, he bought Green Monster Games with Kurt Schilling and changing it to 38 Studios, they are currently working on MMORPG games. All of this money flying around and he tries to SCREW another artist out of due payment for rights. It’s a fuckin shame.

I know this is kinda off topic for me, but I couldn’t help it, some of the shit being said on Twitter by some of the less savory characters involved (or believing themselves to be involved) in this ordeal really pisses me off. I am glad that the judicial system stood up for the very rights that McFarlane himself was so adamant about protecting.

If you have some money to donate to a worthwhile organization, please visit http://cbldf.org/ and help protect people who deserve to not have their art stolen, to be paid for work created, or not cited for obscenity by selling comics when anyone can purchase “Maxim” or the “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition” and see real people in more obscene positions and states of undress.