Another side of a recent foreign incident.

I've read up on the fiery, tragic incident of the mosque slayings in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday.  They're calling it the worst mass murder in New Zealand's modern history.  It certainly seems  like it is, no argument from me there.
But among the tears they're shedding around the world, is the notion that the world itself has become such a dark and horrible place, and this shooting incident proves it, that the world just isn't worth living in anymore, New Zealand especially, compared to the absolutely ubiquitously mentioned "good old days."
Excuse me, but THAT is where my concurrence stops cold.
There is another way of looking at the essence of this incident.  However horrible this apparent genocide is—a genocide by New Zealand's standards, definitely, anyway—one has to factor that every national culture has to have its national tragedy in some age, sooner or later.  This proves it.  We had 9/11; Ukraine had Chernobyl; New Zealand has this mosque massacre.  I know it's bad.  But don't blame the rest of the world.  And don't blame the times.  At least show sensitivity for the victims and their families; it'll take quite a few tears to heal the wounds, and a bit of time.  However, there is something to be learned from this.
And that's a lesson about the gaps in religious culture, anywhere in the world.  The bastard who pulled the trigger, a white racist from Australia, had strong sentiments against Islam, so it's reported.  It seems as though parts of the globe are already forgetting to patch up wounds of faith since the age of popularized terrorism that went on during the 2000s has been fading into the ether.  Or maybe, to put it more fairly, there are those who don't understand that we should be entering a new age of peace, and there are certain ways to do that—one of them being not to hold anything against even religious cultures notorious for sponsoring acts against the West, at least so the West's loudmouth leaders implied years ago.
For another thing, no one ought to bring a holy war to their own neighborhood these days—least of all in a city in New Zealand, of all places.  We just needed to learn that lesson.  Let's meditate on these subjects in order to heal the wounds.  While the dozens of victims in the shootings can be paid tribute to with the flow of a few tears, we can improve between us all with a few thoughts about each other and our practices and what they mean these days.  I hope I'm being constructive and not shallow.  That's my exact intent.

A very appreciated episode of Ren & Stimpy.

There is this one cartoon on the "Ren & Stimpy Show" from a little over 25 years ago that I still remember as one of the funniest cartoons I ever saw.
Its title is "An Abe Divided." It starts out in a trash can where Ren and Stimpy are rooting through garbage to eat, and come across this ad for guardians to the President in a recent newspaper; the position sounds very lucrative.
So they go to Washington, and consult the hulking, hostile position supervisor: Sergeant Big Butt.  He grabs his lady's wig, turns around to face them in lipstick and a very pretty skirt, plus his military reg jacket and five-o'-clock shadow, and informs them that the job comes with definite responsibilities.  "You know what you get with the job?  You get...TOWELS!!!" Stimpy: "I like towels." So Sergeant Big Butt shows them what comes of that, presenting military men in only towels, who take them and snap them at Ren and Stimpy's behinds.  Their butts full of stinging, agonizing welts, Stimpy can't be brought down even now: "Gosh, I love military tradition!"
So the gruesome twosome are presented to the President, which we recognize as the Lincoln Memorial.  Sergeant Big Butt snarls at them to scrub away every single speck of dirt.  "AND...DON'T...SCREW...UP." Ren complains, but Stimpy, overjoyed at this sight, jumps in the Memorial's lap and starts asking for a bunch of toys.  When Ren informs him: "That's a memorial, stupid!" Stimpy bursts into tears: "I didn't know...Santa Claus was...DEAD!!!" But Ren whacks him in the face again.  "Don't ya know President Willard P. Fillmore when you see him?  Now get to work!"
Later, they act as tour guides when tourists come in to gaze at the President and take photos, etc.  But no sooner have they opened the doors when Ren overhears an elderly man say to his grandson: "I hear tell there's a treasure inside his head."  Ren's eyes widen...his mind fills with an image of driving out of Lincoln's ceramic head in a new car, filthy rich and surrounded with hot women...he loves the idea so much all of a sudden...he bursts out, "Closing time!" and herds all the tourists back out the way they came.  But Stimpy says, "I think you're mistaken, Ren.  We're supposed to stay open for another eighteen hours."  "Shut up and help me get into the President's head, you eediot."
But getting in through the nose doesn't work out.  So they try cutting off the head, and while they're sawing it off, Stimpy says he knows about the treasure: "It's pounds and pounds...of wonderful...golden...CARAMEL CORN!"  Ren is, of course, skeptical.  They get the head off, and Ren says, "Now get a grip on the head, and whatever you do, don't drop—" That's when the head tumbles to the floor and busts apart.  Stimpy, holding Ren by his head, says, "Oh...you meant the President's head."  They rush to find the treasure: Ren's shocked; Stimpy's delighted; it is indeed "Care-mully car-molly corny corn!  My FAVORITE."
They now try piecing the head back together, but Stimpy gets it wrong so many times, having to break it all over again so many times, it's reduced to dust.  They try all sorts of replacement heads, like a copper penny ("too small"); a sculpture of hot dogs, which some belligerent pigeons eat right up; the Statue of Liberty's head ("too big"); and a dumpster with the face drawn on.  Ultimately facing sure doom from Sergeant Big Butt, they nonetheless agree to keep the faith, because, so they say, the spirit of good old Honest Abe himself will see them through this.  That's when they get their butts kicked by Abe Lincoln's very ghost, carrying his severed head, who says, "Like heck I will."
The next day, Sergeant Big Butt is coming down upon them: "Do you have anything to say...BEFORE I KILL YOU?!?" Ren says: "Listen, let me try to explain.  You see"—he points at Stimpy—"it's all his fault!"  The sergeant grabs them.
That evening, all is well at the Memorial of the President.  The tourists are admiring him as usual; in particular they're admiring his new face—as which Ren and Stimpy themselves now serve.
That one was great.

A little barroom confidence.

(NOTE: I would advise that this post not be read by any who are offended by Polish jokes.)
A Pole is feeling dynamic and sporty one night in a tavern after a couple of drinks.  Seeing a pool table, he decides to challenge a fellow bar patron to a game of pool.  "The loser has to buy the winner a free drink," says the Pole.  The other patron agrees, wondering how good this Pole is at shooting pool.
So they play, and even though it's a close game, the patron manages to beat the Pole at pool.  But even so, the Pole is still pretty confident.  "You know what?" he says, keeping the smile on his face.  "Let's make it double or nothing."
The patron agrees, and so they play pool again.  And yet even though it's also kind of a close game, the other patron wins again, managing to beat the Pole a second time.  But the Pole is still smiling, still looking pretty sure of himself.
"Did I say double or nothing?" he says.  "I meant best two out of three."

On an admired Spongebob episode.

There's one episode of "Spongebob Squarepants" on Nickelodeon I remember as particularly amusing, specifically the first cartoon of the two (though I liked the second as well).  I'll relate the first cartoon of the episode here, entitled "Sailor Mouth."
Spongebob is taking out the trash at the Krusty Krab's closing time as usual, when he sees seedy graffiti (he doesn't recognize it as such) on the Dumpster; he reads it as "Krabs is a (dolphin vocal sound-effect)."  Patrick, the starfish, points the strange word out as one of those "sentence enhancers" to spice up one's vocabulary.  They try using it profusely.  You imagine the air out back there being fouled up with their language, even if it's just one word.
Then, unfortunately, next day at the Krusty Krab, Spongebob tries it out on the intercom.  "I hope you folks are (dolphin vocal sound-effect) well having a very (dolphin vocal effect) nice day.  Today's special is a really (dolphin vocal effect) tasty Krabby Patty with (dolphin vocal effect) sauce." This, of course, prompts all the customers, really offended, to cut and leave.
When Mr. Krabs gets to the bottom of this, Spongebob and Patrick tell him it's supposed to make speech fancy.  "There ain't nothing fancy about that word!" he tells them.  "It's Number Eleven on a list of thirteen words you're never supposed to say in polite company." Squidward interrupts: "Um, Mr. Krabs, aren't there only supposed to be seven such words?" He says, quietly: "Not if you're a sailor.  Ar, ar, ar, ar, ar."
So Spongebob and Patrick, feeling ashamed, make a promise they'll never use Word Number Eleven again.  Next day, they're playing Eels and Escalators, and Spongebob keeps trying to get ahead in the game, but Patrick is routing him.  On the last, unfortunate throw of the dice, Spongebob explodes: "Aw, (dolphin vocal sound-effect)!!!" Patrick is horribly aghast: "You said Number Eleven." He runs to go tell Mr. Krabs, with Spongebob in pursuit, insisting he apologizes, but Patrick says out loud to him that he's "telling Mr. Krabs you said (dolphin vocal effect)!" "Aha!  Now you said it!" So they're in a race to see who tells Mr. Krabs who said it first.
It's a draw; they both get there and say in unison: "He said (dolphin vocal effect)!!"
Needless to say, Mr. Krabs is outraged.  He decides to punish them by putting them to work, painting the Krusty Krab.  "If you're going to talk like sailors, you're going to work like sailors."  But as he's carrying out the paints, he stubs his foot on a rock, and in pain, he not only says "(dolphin vocal effect)" up into a blue streak, but indulges on the spot into all other words: "(lighthouse bell sound)," "(seagull call)," "(foghorn sound)," and so forth.  Spongebob counts them: "That's all thirteen.  Mr. Krabs, we're going to tell your mother!"
With Mr. Krabs pleading against it, they run and tell Mama Krabs about her son saying all the foul words, relating each one to her—practically verbatim.  "Oh, me poor old heart," she says, swooning.  "You should all be ashamed." And so she makes all three of them work, painting her house with a fresh coat of pink paint.
But then as she goes to reward their efforts later with lemonade, she stubs her own foot, cries in pain, and says, "Oh, me (ah-oo-ga horn sound) foot!" They're horrified, but she says: "What?  It's just Old Man Jenkins and his jalopy." Indeed it is; his car has an ah-oo-ga horn.  They all laugh it off.

Sharing a rough draft evaluation technique.

I've just finished the first draft of a novel, and decided on a particular evaluation method towards editing and polishing it up that I would like to relate.
The old scholastic method of "outlining," I've found, takes a bit long when you want a story to be gotten out relatively soon, so I'm doing a sort of compressed way of outlining the story on the rough draft of my new adventure story (about which you'll hear in a little while).  I reread each chapter, and then mark down, in a list, chapter by chapter over several days, primarily the "Main Point" each chapter focuses on, then, below the "Main Point," each of three "Secondary Points" of each chapter, besides.
As soon as this is done with the whole draft, I'm then going to use post-it notes to link points between chapters to hopefully tighten up the plot, make it sounder, more entertaining, a better story overall.  And, of course, I'm going to heavily edit the story itself accordingly.
It's simple, and yet I believe it could work.  I wonder if other writers have edited according to anything similar to the "Main Point"/"Secondary Points" method of outlining.

Some musings on the Age of the Music Video.

While I experienced only minimal exposure to the hit music videos of the 1980s as a kid (I can't recall if my parents thought MTV a good influence on me before I was a teenager or not), I caught up on many classic 80s videos about ten years too late, I'm slightly ashamed to say, on VH-1, before that channel became grossly obsolete in terms of any style.
It was fascinating to learn, for one thing, that the Austrian-born pop artist Falco was not necessarily a "one-hit wonder." His smash single, "Rock Me Amadeus," of '86 or so, was followed up with a second video hit, a cover version in German tongue of the actual one-hit wonders After The Fire's 1981 single "Der Kommissar."  (Thank God, Falco never opted for "Rock Me Josef Haydn.")
What's unbelievable in my case is that I was never familiar with the video hits of ZZ Top until I saw them on VH-1.  The so-called "Eliminator trilogy," featuring pop rock's eternal hairy-faced triumvirate and their stylin' hot rod, was fully introduced to me in names and concepts no earlier than in the early 90s, when I saw "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs," the last of which is the most famous classic, and which I now have on iTunes.  That one, I believe, tells a modern Cinderella story that has to be seen to be understood.  I would say seen to be believed, but how many of you can believe me right now?
Later on VH-1 came a 90s breakthrough series: Pop-Up Video.  I really loved that concept, with its "popping" windows during classic videos offering scientific factoids and trivia about the making of videos and the celebrities in them, etc.  It redefined the videos I saw all before on that channel, even if it hardly redeemed VH-1 itself in the long run; I would've loved to see a Pop-Up Video special called "Worst of the 80s." It could feature, as one stinker, the video for Journey's song "Separate Ways."  Remember that one?  Gee, I'm sorry to hear you do.  It's actually a pretty good song.  But as for the video they made, any more cheese in it, all you'd need is the dried hunks of bread and you'd have fondue.
I largely missed out on the Age of the Music Video.  I saw some in the early 90s on MTV, but didn't exactly binge before the Age faded to nothing, with the onset of reality-based programs dominating the market; "The Real World," premiering in 1992, came to spell the beginning of the end for music videos as we knew them.  It's just as well, I guess; novelties come and go, and I never was a guy who believed in "bringing back" jack squat.  These days, all I watch on TV is DVDs, anyhow.

Reviewing a classic "South Park" episode.

One of the TV shows I have in iTunes is a vintage episode of the animated series "South Park." It's entitled "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off The Fatty Foods."
It's an effective lampoon of the original "Star Trek" series throughout, as Mr. Garrison's entire third-grade class suddenly find themselves craving repeated field trips to an evil planetarium.  Well, not exactly Mr. Garrison's entire third-grade class: Eric Cartman, everyone's favorite overweight little bigot, is campaigning to be the next mascot for Cheesy Poofs snacks in a TV commercial.  And, as is to be expected, you wouldn't believe some of the things he does to get ahead.
This episode is a bit more cleverly crafted than some of the others, perhaps because of its thorough "Star Trek" lampoon.  The character of Dr. Adams and his Planetarium (he pronounces it "Planet,-arium," because of a rare bone disease) bring opportunities for references Trekkies get about mind control and how Starfleeters succumbed in certain episodes to diabolical uses of it, uses that only Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock could combat.  And speaking of Mr. Spock as applies to this episode, the school counselor, Mr. Mackey, pays direct homage to everyone's favorite Vulcan with the "mind probe" whose scene they lift practically word-for-word from "Trek," although with additional, hysterical dialogue thrown in.
Meanwhile, there's Cartman going straight to the top in Cheesy Poofdom, showing off unabashed, in fact, crazy-as-a-bug talents, such as singing the jingle ("III LOOOVE CHEEEESY POOOOFS, YOOOOU LOOOOVE CHEEEEESY POOOOOFS...IF WEEE DIDN'T EEEEAT CHEEEEESY POOOOOFS, WEEEE'D BEEEE...LAAAAAAAME!!!  I'M TALKIN' NIGHT COURT IN IT'S FIFTH SEASON LAAAAAAME....HHHH..."), and, well, you get the idea.
BTW, the title refers indirectly to a fake constellation pointed out at the Planet,-arium...I mean Planetarium.

What Pincus fabricated.

(Just a heads-up: this joke I once heard deals with religious sects and has a vulgar punchline.)
Two Hassidic Jews in the Castle Hill district were complaining to their tailor, Pincus, about the hue of their suits.  "Pincus," said one, "the last suits you made up for us just weren't of a black enough cloth to define our faith.  What we need is the blackest, darkest cloth a mensch can possibly come up with."
So Pincus presented them with a certain kind of cloth and said, "See how black this cloth here is in color?  This is the kind of cloth nuns use in their habits.  There ain't no blacker cloth."
So the two Hassidic men agreed, and had Pincus make up two fresh suits of that very black cloth for them for a specific price out of their budget.  Later, those two men were walking the New York street, feeling somewhat confident in their new, black suits, but also a bit curious about them.  And it was soon that they spied a pair of nuns walking the other way from nearby a local convent.  Needless to say, these two Jews' curiosity was piqued, and one of them stopped to measure the blackness of the new cloth against the nuns' habits.
After they had moved on, the one of the nuns against whom he hadn't measured was a bit confused.  She asked her friend, "What was that about?"
"I don't know," said the other nun.  "That gentleman just held his sleeve against my habit, said some Latin phrase to his friend and walked away."
"What Latin phrase was that?"
"I think it was, 'Pincus fuctus.'"

A New Year, with new hopes.

Well, folks, a whole New Year has started.  Two Thousand One Nine.  At least according to the Christian calendar the Western world follows; it's a different number in certain parts of the world, like Israel or China, but no need to get technical.  The endless cycle has started once more.
I'm bringing new hopes to this year as well; still working on the adventure story project I've got going, which I won't disclose anything about just yet.  My previous horror persona of Ross S. Simon, I'm still leaving more or less moribund, at least except for a couple of things, though too trivial to call innovative in horror on my part, really.
I will, however, say that I'm getting kind of into the home stretch of the adventure story's first draft, and throughout most of this year, I'll work on editing it.  Finally, after I (most likely) pick up a willing agent to represent it, I'll tell people all about the project and the rights I have to it.  And you can't share them.  Nyah, nyah.
Wish me good luck.  The part of waiting is indeed always the most difficult.  And the pain of waiting for my adventure saga (that's right, saga) to be discovered will probably be intense.  If this all sounds crassly egocentric, what can I say?  Things like blogs and Facebook, etc. were more or less designed as great places to showcase one's own self.  I'll keep in touch.