Got a busy day ahead of me and I'm looking for ways to procrastinate. Then I thought, blogging! Ah Ha!

Recently I had a chance to organize a writing panel at Rose State College that consisted of, well, writers who gathered to discuss how others might also see their own work in print. I stacked the deck with people who know more about the subject than I do, including Mel Odom - whose work spans more than 150 books including those set in the BUFFY: THE
VAMPIRE SLAYER universe, as well as the APOCALYPSE trilogy for Tyndale House Publishers, which was a spin-off of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' popular LEFT BEHIND series. Also in attendance was Merline Lovelace, who has written a number of books in the romance market, including the CODE NAME DANGER series, as well Carl Sennhenn, former Oklahoma Poet Laureate, and Rose State College professors Gary T. King, author of AN AUTUMN REMEMBERED: BUD WILKINSON'S LEGENDARY '56 SOONERS and Tim Tharp, author of KNIGHTS OF HILL COUNTRY. Joining
me as the "first-time novelist" was Pamela K. Jackson, author of BLUE ICE: DESTINY.

Pictured above is Mel Odom, left, and myself, right. Mel was full of good information that many in the audience will no doubt me able to use. Me? I was full of Xanax because of my aversion to public speaking. Pictured below, from left, is Carl Sennhenn, Tim Tharp, Gary T. King, Pamela K. Jackson, Merline Loveless, Mel Odom, me, and moderator Jessica Alcorn, who, despite having only been presented with the forum topics 20 minutes before the event began (my fault), still managed to effectively moderate the event in a professional manner. Remember her name. I'm almost certain you'll be able to vote for her for something at some point in your life. Or watch her on TV. One or the other.

On my list of chores today, among other things, is attempting to write a synopsis for a 500-page unfinished novel that I'd like to eventually sell. This will prove to be challenging because I was watching a lot of LOST at the time and I fell in love with the ambiguous story structure of it, and, thus, experimented with that form of storytelling as well. Now I've got to explain what I was trying to do to a potential publisher.

Here's an excerpt:

She was beautiful once – years ago and a lifetime away – and it isn’t hard to imagine what that beauty must have looked like, which is how she stays in business at all. For others, they can only see what she is now; a shell of the person she once was; a husk that continues to dry out in the harsh conditions of her life, as her parasitical profession drains her soul like a spider feeds.

She has spent her life in its web. The more she pulls, the more she is caught.

There is no part of her body that does not profess hardship. Her hair is red and dry. Her eyes are green and bloodshot. Her nose was broken last winter by a man who smelled of Vodka and impotence. There is a scar across her cheek that taints her face like a serpent with a tale.

She is just one of the hundreds of prostitutes that walk the Moscow streets. And when she is gone, no one will notice.

Actually, that's kind of a downer. I might have to write a comedy next.

Yesterday I was reading a story about how kids from around the world are hanging themselves after seeing how much fun Saddam Hussein had doing it. (I’m told that you couldn’t really hear it because the sound was muted, but I have it on good authority that the noise he made when the floor dropped off from beneath him was, WEEEEEE!!! Whoo Hoo!) The kids who saw the video weren’t fooled by muting the sound. They knew this would offer the kind of fun they’d been waiting for, and they had a chance to find out firsthand when they repeated what they saw ON THEMSELVES. I saw the video too, and though I’ve been known to love a good time, I decided against trying it myself because I lacked the lifetime commitment that killing myself would require.

Now, this might seem callous, but why are we treating this like it’s unexpected or we should feel bad about it? Anyone who’s ever read a warning label on ANYTHING would know there’re some stupid people out there doing stupid things. I figure it’s only a matter of time before I lift up my toaster, read the label and find a warning that suggest I not operate my toaster around water, jam metal utensils into the electrical components, or attempt to, under ANY circumstances, have sex with this appliance. And how pointless is that? One would think anyone that stupid couldn’t possibly read the warning label in the first place.

But this isn’t really a comment on stupidity. This is more about me wondering if celebrity worship has finally gone too far.

To the left we see Angelina Jolie, in deity form, hovering above a Wal-Mart checkout line, which seems to be the most honest representation of how we view our celebrities that I have ever seen. The work, dubbed “Blessed Art Thou,” was created by North Carolina artist Kate Kretz and is available for a meager $50,000.

Though most critics seem unimpressed, it did garner media attention for obvious reasons, and those obvious reasons are this: It gives us a chance to talk about Angelina Jolie some more, and you know we’re really into that. It’s like a national pastime.

I like the painting because it has that, “hey, let’s just admit it” quality about it. We worship at the altar of celebrity and let’s not pretend we don’t.

Even I know just about everything there is to know about the personal lives of Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruse and Jessica Simpson, and I know all of it AGAINST MY WILL. When I visit my family, the dentist or the doctor, there’s always a television playing nearby that’s primed and ready to give me updates about what each of these people are wearing, dating, or adopting. Then the celebrities offer their insights about what I should be watching, wearing and believing, either spiritually or politically, and I’m often left in the awkward position of having to consider changing my beliefs (if I happen to already agree with them) just to keep a sense of individuality in tact.

In one way or another, I’m convinced that our celebrities are some form of idolized manifestation of how we would like to see ourselves, and considering how blighted and soulless some of them seem, that’s scary. The asteroid’s coming, baby. And we deserve it.

Inspired by science and armed with access to a former criminal investigator who not only likes spy novels but is also a borderline genus, I’ve decided to temporally abandon all other projects in favor of writing my own spy novel. I’d like to outline the plot, but in true spy fashion, it’s TOP SECRET.

So instead, I offer this as a means to explain why I’m not posting additional story material, but I will offer these clues that I read recently, which started the whole creative ball rolling.

Fun with science:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3243

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/061229_nonkill_bacteria.html

Saint Nicholas

It was a cold, windless world of endless night in which he rode.
It was a still world, suspended under stars that did not shimmer, beneath thick,
black clouds that hung like dark smudges of brushstroke ink. His life was spent
from one home to the next, from quiet bedroom to bedchamber, visiting all the
world’s pale, porcelain children.
Their breath hung above their heads like crystal shard blossoms. They did not
stir from their slumber, or wake, or dream.
Or age.
But he did.
His beard was long and silver. His hands trembled on the reigns. The color was
flushed from his cheeks.
He would never see the sun rise again.

I’m going to adorn all of my Christmas cards with this next year. I wrote it after I read Professor Larry Silverberg’s belief that a “relatively cloud” could, theoretically, surround Santa, which explains how he could deliver toys to all the world’s children in just one night. In case you’re wondering, Silverberg is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

Japanese racists! Join in the hate!

I was reading a news article about how Japanese nationalism is gradually moving more into the mainstream, thanks to various forms of entertainment with racist overtones – books, comics, animation – and I was thinking that this method of swaying public opinion is nothing new. If you want to control the hearts and minds of the people, you control the media – just ask Citizen Kane.

What I am surprised about is that this notion has been around so long, I can't believe anyone could still fall for it. (But then again, after just now glancing at my TV set where I can clearly see the Jerry Springer Show, where it appears several women are engaging in the act of beating the shit out of each other in front of an applauding audience, I'm reminded that people will fall for pretty much anything.)

The counter argument to the media swaying the public isn't so much that people are being led to believe something, but entertainment is more of a reflection of what people are already thinking.

What worries me is that, in this day and age, one would be hard-pressed to find a dominant philosophy that teaches tolerance and everybody seems to be out to get everybody else – whether it's the Japanese hating both the Americans and the Chinese, the Muslims hating the Jews and the West, or the Americans hating pretty much everyone, including the Jews, Muslims, the Mexicans, and, in many cases, other Americans who may or may not be black, gay or poverty stricken. I'd worry more, but I'm a little distracted with trying to find a poor black homosexual Muslim of Hispanic decent to feel superior to. (Because I like to fit in, that's why.)

Of particular interest, the article also mentions an opinion that states the "concepts of freedom and democracy" aren't really geared to work in Japan, and in fact, aren't really working in America either. My initial reaction was, bullshit! But then, I saw another article where Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets was fined $20,000 by the NBA after he called three officials "three blind mice" because he didn't agree with a call they made following a game.

That comment didn't strike me as anything other than his own opinion, and yet he was fined for saying something that somebody else didn't like.

Okay, touché Japanese racists. Touché.

Holiday blues? Looks like a job for Superman

Christmas is a special time of year for me, although it takes a little work to remind myself of that. Perhaps it's because each and every year begins in much the same way that a mugging does. It sneaks up behind me while I'm minding my own business, whacks me over the head, and makes off with my wallet. Or at least my bankcards.

Also every year I'm asked by my family to attend church with them, and every year I resist, except for last year, when I caved and was rewarded for my weakness with a special holiday sermon from Pastor Grinch.

Did he discuss the child in the manager who was sent to the world to bring hope? No.

Instead he brought forth a fiery sermon, wrought with examples of how arch-villains, the government and Santa Clause, had teamed to take Jesus out of the Christmas equation. This was not quite what I was expecting, though perhaps I should've since this was also the same church that once outlined the moral responsibilities of every Christian, which included, but was limited to, hating gays and Harry Potter.

Afterward I pointed out to various members of my family that, in reality, it isn't the government that's removing the holiday nativity scenes from town squares around the country but, in fact, it's the ACLU who are suing municipal governments to accomplish this fiendish plot. If I were the government, I wouldn't even bother to try and defend my position on this, especially at the cost of having to hire an attorney because people get confused and blame the government anyway, which is just stupid since there's so many better reasons for somebody to hate the government.

Plus, as we all know, some people are duty-bound to launch into a blind rage when they're reminded that other people believe in Jesus, especially when they're strolling through town squares, so why shouldn't they sue to remove the very catalyst that can send even the sanest dickhead into a frenzy? If there's one thing that people ABSOULELY SHOULD NOT BE REMINDED OF it's that all kinds of people think all kinds of different things, speak all kinds of different languages, and worship all kinds of ceramic babies in mangers so, by all means, lets get the courts busy with outlawing those reminders.

THIS year, I chose to abandon all of the things that require me to get upset and, instead, chose to head back in time. Sort of. A few years ago for Christmas, my mother bought me a copy of the old Superman radio serials that used to play in the 1940s, and every year since then, I pop them in and get whisked away to a simpler time when most every problem in the world could either be solved by Superman or breakfast cereal. (That's P-E-P, Pep! From Kellogg's of Battle Creek!) This was a world of Nazi spies, mad scientists and secret decoder rings, and it's a world that ignites imagination in much the same way a book does: It takes your mind to fill in the gaps. Sort of like push-ups for the imagination.

But for me it's a little more than that. I'm a news junkie, and, let's face it, the news isn't getting any brighter, what with the war(s), rampant extremism, declarations of jihad every other day, government corruption and, add to that, people getting pissed off right around Christmas time.

It took me a while but I finally realized that the reason I caved and went to church with my family that year wasn't necessarily the same reason that people will stare at the scene of an accident as they drive by – morbid curiosity – but because I was looking for something that I didn't find: At least not there.

That something was hope.

I wanted a story, and I wanted to believe in that story – the child in the manager, sent to Earth to do good, and to inspire that good within us so we can reflect it to others in some small way. It wasn't until later that I realized the really enduring stories like this – whether they happened or not – all have a little truth in them when they convey, through moral, myth or metaphor, that when good verses evil, sometimes good actually wins, and this a sound basis for hope.

In my opinion, the most enduring stories convey this concept best when they are simple, pure and childlike.

Looks like a job for Superman. Hmmm. A baby that's sent rocketing to Earth to bring hope to the world. Not quite the child in the manger. But for me, at Christmas, it's close enough.