Hotel Transylvania: Transformania | Film Review

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Despite the growing recognition in the West that animation is not a medium made expressly for children, there is an expansive industry that revolves around productions that aim specifically for that audience. Ahem… Disney? Heard of ‘em? There are a number of outfits that play in that space these days. Warner, Illumination, Pixar, DreamWorks, Universal, and Sony Pictures Animation, in no particular order, are a smattering. Each studio has their own “voice” but Sony’s Hotel Transylvania franchise is a series of films that speaks in its own voice, and that voice is Genndy Tartakovsky.

And yet, Tartakovsky’s participation in the fourth entry in the tetralogy is limited to writing the story, co-penning the script, and acting as an executive producer. Instead, the helm was handed off to co-directors Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska, who are both first timers in the director’s chair (that’s a big chair.) Tartakovsky wasn’t the only one to decline participation in this latest, and reportedly final, installment, either. Most notably, Adam Sandler was replaced by Brian Hull as the voice of Count Dracula and Kevin James’ Frankenstein was replaced by Brad Abrell. Trust me when I say that you won’t miss them. The replacements are almost exact matches, indicating that star power just isn’t necessary to support feature-length animation. All it does it foster bloated production costs.

Sony describes Hotel Transylvania: Transformania as follows:

When Van Helsing’s mysterious invention, the “Monsterfication Ray”, goes haywire, Drac and his monster pals are all transformed into humans, and Johnny becomes a monster. In their new mismatched bodies, Drac, stripped of his powers, and an exuberant Johnny, loving life as a monster, must team up and race across the globe to find a cure before it’s too late, and before they drive each other crazy. With help from Mavis and the hilariously human Drac Pack, the heat is on to find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent. [SOURCE: IMDB.com]

At its core, Hotel Transylvaniais both an homage to classic luminaries of the Golden Age of animated shorts like Wily Coyote, Tom & Jerry, Popeye the Sailorman, and even more contemporary adherents to classic animated hijinks like Roger Rabbit and Ed, Edd, & Eddy (a meta turducken, if you will) and entirely its own thing, something like Rush is to rock music or Ben Folds Five is to alternative.

Nuts & Bolts

As the fourth entry, HT4 is a solid evolution of the defined art style, but it doesn’t stray from the franchises established parameters. This is no Spider-Verse and yet the color palette is rich and bright, lighting and luminance effects are excellent, and the correct application of bokeh and the lens effects bring believable depth to most scenes. It’s clear, that Sony has been working hard to refine their process. That said, some of the textures don’t look great (the rock slide in the opening musical number looks like crap) which is a big oversight on such a high-visibility production.

Character designs, on the other hand, are peak franchise, hewing closely to the immutable nature of classic cartoon character design that said characters are iconic and must remain recognizable. They only change in service of a gag and always return to their pristine base form when the gag is complete. This is the same basic rule that defines all character designs from all cartoon where these icons always wear the same clothes, et al. Imagine Fred Flintstone wearing actual pants or Jessica Rabbit wearing something other than her signature red, sequined dress… oh. Well, not that, but you get the idea. Thanks, Disney Whitewashing Division…

The story telling is solid, if a bit on the basic side, something I’d expect of Illumination’s work. It’s not bad, but it’s also not sophisticated. The comedy revolves almost entirely around the physical gags which, in turn, defines the entire film. In a film that is more a buddy adventure flick, ala the far superior Emperor’s New Groove, then another entry in the HT canon it works to a degree, but not entirely. There’s little to no meta humor that pleases both adults and kids alike, depending on your depth of knowledge. It comes down to the gag, and that gag is always a physical comedy bit. The approach takes away from the core conceit; two people coming to terms with each other by walking in each others shoes.

Unexpected hair loss syndrome…

If anything jumps out at me it’s that the film feels claustrophobic. We start in Drac’s house, then the hotel, the plane, the provincial town, the bus, the jungle, and the cave, then back to the hotel. While the story is about Johnny and Drac and their journey towards acceptance of their differences, and spending time in each others shoes, it pulls back from the more expansive world-building as exemplified in the Tartakovsky-helmed entries. Since each scene needs to serve the setup for the next visual gag, any potential avenues for additional, foundational scope and scale is ditched in favor of setting up for the next gag.

And that’s where it lies; at the intersection of storytelling and spectacle, with the visuals winning over the written by a long shot. It’s not a terrible movie, to be sure, but you won’t derive much but the most deconstructed joy, the kind that makes a little kid roll around in the dirt with the giggles but generally doesn’t survive the transition to higher modes of cognition that come with age.

It should be a hit for years to come as a go-to for quiet toddler mommy hours worldwide.


Are keyboard shortcuts really more efficient than a mouse?

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As a Mac user, there is one very specific admonition from Windows and Linux users I hear frequently; too much mouse! But I’m not just a Mac peep, I’m also a Windows and Linux guy. I started as an Tandy Radio Shack kid, became an Apple ][ kid, then a PC teen, and ultimately a Mac jerk (read: young adult.) In the mid-90’s, when the public internet was spun up, I was still a Mac guy sporting a PowerBook 145b emitting a veritable thatch of SCSI peripherals. But the story gets even more complicated.

When I met my wife and started my second phase of life as a writer, I was working on Windows books. Without any PCs at the time, I did all my work in Connectix Virtual PC. Later I would upgrade to a PowerMac 7300/200 and buy a cheap Packard Bell from Circuit City to act as a proxy server for our little dial-up network (and despite PB’s history of shit, it was a real workhorse for years.) Without going into more exhaustive detail, I would use Macs for many more years, then switch to Windows laptops for about a decade until the launch of Apple’s M1 Macs would draw me back in.

My Linux journey began in New Mexico with Caldera OpenLinux at a time when there were few niceties, and certainly no app stores. I had to compile my own apps, and in order to do that, I had to learn how to do it all from scratch. I’ve been using one form of Linux (called a distribution, or distro for short) ever since, primarily on a Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet. My current favorite is Linux Mint, and it is light years beyond Caldera OpenLinux, a distro that passed away a long time ago amidst a raft of controversies brought about by the SCO Group’s attempt to take “ownership” of Linux. tl;dr: they lost.

Over the years, working with macOS, Windows, and Linux, I have developed what I would think it a more than passing level of expertise in all three of the most important operating systems. I don’t think I’m a rare bird, but I doubt that my archetype is very common at all. What this extensive experience does grant me, however, is deep insight into the user experience of these desktop systems. I think that gives me the right to say the following:

Keeping your hands on your keyboard, or not having to reach for your input device, increases efficiency? It’s a stupid myth.

I hear it all the time from most all Linux and Windows power users. Taking your hand off your keyboard to manipulate your mouse/trackball/trackpad/etc, according to these naysayers, is an enormous waste of time. A killer of efficiency, if you will. Personally, I am a trackball user. My current device is an Elecom Huge (Japanese brand, funny names) and it’s marvelous, but I digress. I have, however, used mice for years, as well, primarily for gaming. I also have a lightly used Apple Magic Trackpad. For my keyboard, I switch between a Logitech MX Keys for Mac and an Apple Magic Keyboard.

I use keyboard shortcuts the least in Linux. The problem I’ve found myself facing is, that with each new epoch of Linux and with its built-in fragmentation, there is no unified set of them. GNOME and KDE have their own and some distros introduce their own, like System76’s Pop_OS!-flavored window tiling manager. And in Linux terminology the Windows/Command key is fluid, mostly due, I believe, to general saltiness over having to use the bespoke key of a proprietary OS. Unless I dedicated all of my time to Linux, I doubt I’ll ever develop real proficiency with its keyboard shortcuts. One thing that Linux nerds say all the time, however, is true; using the command line can be faster. I update all of my software by typing out a few commands. There is a learning curve, though.

I use keyboard shortcuts about half the time in Windows. The issue with Windows isn’t that the keyboard shortcuts are a chaotic mess, but that they traditionally use the CTRL key as the primary modifier, which is stupid since you have to manipulate it with your pinkie finger. We’ve had the Windows Key since 1994, and even to this day with Windows 11, it’s effectively useless. Cut, copy and paste all use the CTRL key, and switching windows is performed using ALT+TAB. There is a WINDOWS+W shortcut that will close “some” windows or tabs, but the default is ALT+F4. So, the world of Windows keyboard shortcuts is long established and yet it’s nearly as chaotic as the mess that are shortcuts in Linux.

You saw this coming a mile away but yes, I use keyboard shortcuts the most on macOS. Part of that is a direct result of Apple’s fully-integrated environment that presents a mostly standardized set of F-keys that perform functions like media control and accessing display and navigation features. The other part comes from Apple’s dedication to Command key placement and it acting as a central modifier for all basic shortcuts. There is always one Command key to the left of the spacebar, and often one to the right, depending on the keyboard. CMD+Q quits apps. CMD+W closes a window or tab. CMD+TAB switches apps. CMD+~ switches windows in an app. CMD+[ or CMD+LEFT is browser back. Cut, copy and paste are as expected. Moving around the Finder is a breeze, too. CMD+UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT lets you navigate all windows and files without ever touching the mouse, and using SHIFT instead of CMD selects files as expected. There are dozens more, and if you add the Control, Option, and Shift keys, there are hundreds. For instance, OPT+R gets you this: ®. And yes, I used CMD+SHIFT+4 to make this screenshot which shows more.

Just a selection of the most common keyboard shortcuts for macOS.

Now, I realize this is starting to sound like I’m cheerleading using the keyboard and not wasting time touching my filthy (not literal) trackball to do stupid mouse tricks that would be “easier” on the keyboard, but that wouldn’t be accurate. In reality, I use my trackball far more often where it matters to me; writing and editing.

Despite being able to OPT+LEFT/RIGHT to jump around with my cursor, one word at a time, I find it far more accurate to mouse to the edit insertion point. Think about it… a mouse pointer is an extension of your hand-to-eye coordination. When you are accustomed to your input device, the pointer goes to where you look. This combination is, as Steve Jobs predicted, is key to a fast and efficient user experience. There are no keyboard shortcuts to make the cursor jump to where you’re looking, at least not yet. Imagine spotting a typo two paragraphs above where you’re writing. Now, get to it with your keyboard, then with your mouse. How much time did you spend doing each?

I think the difference is stark, and clearly in favor of a mouse.

Ultimately your experience will be your own or, in internet parlance, your mileage may vary. It all comes down to how you use your computer and the level of proficiency you have developed in one or more operating systems. It’s quite clear that macOS is where I feel most comfortable, and I would argue that most people who haven’t already used a Mac would come to the same conclusion if you could transition seamlessly. But, we all know that’s not yet a thing, much like flying cars or setting up a new Android phone with the click of a button.

To the question of efficiency, I think the idea that keeping your hands on your keyboard is the single most efficient use case is bullshit. I’ll admit that I’m likely biased because I use a trackball. It’s always in the same place and never moves, making it a lot easier to get my hand on it. The very large track ball makes it easy to get the mouse pointer exactly where you want it (see the link to the Elecom Huge above), and I don’t think very many people believe clicking a mouse button is difficult (I’m not including people who actually do find it difficult and need accessibility tools to help them.) Even so, any mouse, trackpad, or trackball leverages hand-to-eye coordination, and I think that’s a hard combo to beat when it comes to general computer navigation.

So, to all you keyboard masters out there who can fly around a computer never touching a mouse, kudos to you, but I don’t think the vast majority of the billions of computer users have the same experience. The combination of familiarity in your operating system and a good quality input device is the way almost all of us interact with our systems. That’s all I have to say on that.

PS: Voting rights. Seriously, voting rights. Can’t hear me? VOTING RIGHTS.

PPS: What will you do when you’re not allowed to vote because you mailed in your ballot a little late and any buffer time was removed or you can’t vote by mail any more? Does voting still happen on a weekday and you don’t get that day off to go vote? When the polls close earlier than they used to or your state closed a lot of polling places? When you’ve stood in line for hours only to be turned away because the rules changed and polls no longer stay open long enough to let everyone in line vote?

PPPS: What voter fraud? Where’s the proof? Why doesn’t anyone ask for said proof and, when bullshit is tendered as “proof” why isn’t it raked over the coals like it should? Have a nice day. I love you all, even the people who don’t deserve it. We should all get the chance to live a life, not just the ones who falsely believe they’re superior to everyone else.


Using introspection to understand my own limitations

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I wrote up this draft in 2018 and (clearly, nerd) didn't post it. Here it is, mostly unedited, for your potential enjoyment/derision. -Ed.

I often tell this story when ferrying people around and the subject of jobs come up. A long time ago, I used to get really mad at people who didn't follow through on their commitments. In consulting and IT work, my targets would often be vendors and service providers. I would angrily tell them how they were violating the terms of their contract and, due to their incompetence, were costing my client money for every minute they continued to fail at their singular job.

Needless to say, most vendors didn't like me. Shocking, I know. 

As a child I'd heard, among many others, the old saw of not putting the horse before the cart. When you think of it literally, it makes functional sense. After all, the cart can't pull the horse. However, when you shift the perspective on the term "put", the axiom takes on a wholly different meaning. Don't think of "Put" as a positioning directive, but a values one. I had an epiphany one day where what I had been told by dozens, if not hundreds, of people all came crashing in on me to make sudden sense.

I suddenly understood that you put the horse's needs before the value of the products you have in the cart because, without the horse, you can't get the valuables to market.

We know what happens when horses are abused. Surprisingly, horses don't like being abused, but I wasn't putting the service providers horse in front of my client cart, I was abusing it. It was in that moment that I decided I would dramatically change how I dealt with vendors, which would lead me to a completely new way of dealing with people in general. It's called RESPECT.

I made myself hyper-self-conscious about how I would talk on the phone and started actively forcing myself to be nice, respectful, and patient. It wasn't easy. I was pushing my brain to behave in ways it was unaccustomed, but I recalled how I had taught myself to whistle very loudly with my fingers when I was nine. It took me three days and almost all of my free time, but I did it, and there was no skin in that game. I saw my schoolmates do it and badly wanted it myself. I applied the same focus to my new/old problem.

Unsurprisingly, I found that I got far more positive results almost immediately, and some queries regarding what I'd done with Tyler and could they expect that Tyler to be on hiatus permanently. These direct results were the spurs I needed to dive in more, and over a few weeks I was able to make it an easy part of my daily interactions. The process of respect became my daily driver. It took another year or two for it to seep into my life overall, but it did, with some exceptions. Suffice it to say, absolutes do not exist. One could even say that the absence of absolutes is the only true absolute.

Mind. Blown.


Dumpster Fire: The Bed!

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Despite being deep inside the artificially warmed folds of Holiday Happy-Ganda Season, I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st. If the image above wasn't enough to convince you of the sheer janky-ness of this "concept", check out the lede from the official press release:

A leading platform for fandoms and online communities has partnered with an independent bedmaker to create the ultimate ‘TV Binge Bed’. The ‘TV Binge Bed’ includes self-cleaning sheets, a ‘Netflix and Chill’ setting, and for those who don’t want to leave their bed at all, an optional built-in potty. The expected retail price of the bed is from $14,999 (£11,321). The unique product is being developed after the platform found that the amount of time individuals spend in bed bingeing their favourite shows has increased by almost a third (31%) since 2020*.

- The offending Press Release, 2021. Word for word...

My first question is, what is an "independent" bedmaker and why not name them? And it's not a stretch, knowing the website this is coming from, that 31% of the 1,000 respondents to their survey would want something like this as it was, I am sure, described. And yes, they are asking $15,000 for a product clearly designed by a teen in the throughs of puberty with enough experience in Adobe Photoshop to be dangerous and not enough sense to ask logical questions. Take this line from the body of the presser: 

[REDACTED] is offering the unrivalled bingeing experience with the luxurious four-poster king size bed that also includes a smart 32-inch flat screen TV, built-in surround sound speakers, folding trays, charging points, and places for storing food and ‘private things’.

- Mega Ultra LOLZ0rz
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This is simply ridiculous. How would anyone other than the obscenely wealthy justify purchasing such a ludicrous bed based solely on these hideous Photoshop mock-ups? How is it the makers think that a stupidly tiny 32” flat-panel smart TV would be attractive to anyone who binge watches enough television to warrant spending $15k on a bed with an (optional, mind you) toilet? They even know the dimensions of a King-size bed, for crying out loud, and even taking the four-poster configuration, they should easily be able to fit a 55”, or maybe even a 60” set in that space. 

Then there’s the starting price of $15k. That’s truly obscene. 55” OLEDs are going for about $1,500 on Amazon. So, where’s the $14,000 go? You can get four-poster bed frames for well under $1,000. All of the gizmos and cubbies are effectively nothing compared to the mattress, which can cost a few thousand alone. Decent surround soundbar systems are around $500, though you can spend more. Then there’s the toilet, which is completely beyond me why they would add this other than to have people like me talk about it, only costs a little over $100.

So, screw math and all that. This only works out to about $6,000-8,000, tops, and that’s with the fix for the shit TV they’re offering!

This sounds more like a capitalist's fever dream rather than a legitimate product. 

PS: I’m not mentioning the PR firm or company offering this because I don’t want to give them any PR, but merely point out the insanity of it all. I’m sure it won’t be hard to figure out what website is behind this, but I’m not going to contribute. 

PPS: Reading for the day, I’m Black but look white. Here are the horrible things white people feel safe telling me. Humanity is what you make of it, and America has a sizable population that makes it terrible for Black people. I imagine if white people had been enslaved and oppressed for hundreds of years, they’d likely feel differently. Instead, we continue to “allow” this to happen. ALL Americans who believe in equal rights need to stand together. Unfortunately, almost none of us stand for anything aside from the shade we post on social media. 

PPPS: Social media is not a replacement for social justice. -Ed.

Universal Basic Income in the Post Space Age

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I originally wrote this piece in 2017 and am reposting it now because I believe the idea is critically important to the future of humanity and the survival of Earth and humanity. -Ed. 

We should come to grips with the idea as soon as possible. We are, after all, heading for a rather dramatic shift in human thinking. We need to figure out how we humans are going to formulate our societies as soon as we have self-driving vehicles of all stripes, artificial intelligence running everything, smart grids that deliver all manner of clean energy, and robots that deal with all manner of work. We will be living in a version of the dystopian we’ve all seen in movies, but it won’t be quite so dystopian.

It will be a world without work.

Of course, that won’t happen overnight, and the way our future unfolds will come down to what we do as the human race in the next 20–30 years. Believe me, you, that’s not nearly as long as you might think. I turned around yesterday and was rather shocked to discover I’m 49! It seems only yesterday that I was watching Star Trek (well, it actually was yesterday, but that’s not what I’m getting at.) And it’s really Star Trek that forms the core of my ideas around what a world without work would look like.

A World Without Work, Not A World that Doesn’t Work

So, Star Trek. If you go back and watch all of The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, the theatrical films, you will… have watched a lot of media… but you will also have noticed something interesting. Every once in a while, there are discussions of money and jobs and values. Well, there’s a lot of talk about values, so mostly the rare bits about money and jobs are the important thing for this discussion, though it dovetails nicely into values.

You see, in the Star Trek future, Earth no longer has jobs or currency. Now, it’s important to note that there is no real discussion about how this arrangement operates (though such a discussion may exist in the books, which I haven’t read), so we really only have the glimmer of a wonderful future where everything is clean and safe and educated and includes space travel and science, and all manner of amazing things.

How?

It’s actually rather simple, which is why it’s surprising that there is no visual Trek canon (cannon?) that covers even the basic details. Now, this is where it gets a bit knotty, because it’s all about democratic socialism, and I mean that in its purest sense. The Trek future of the Federation and most things are really good is because everyone decides that life is best managed when everyone shares in the growth of that civilization.

No Jobs But Stuff Still Gets Done?

From a deeply philosophical place in the minds of people who think for a living comes the idea that people organize, make things, make scientific advances, run restaurants, clean up garbage, create art and music, work in office jobs, manage stuff, and build things big and small because they are good at it and it needs to get done.

Here’s a hint: Take the money out of it.

First, go listen to Yuval Harari over at TED. He’s a fascinating guy and what he has to say makes a load of sense. (If you make it to the end, which I really hope you do, just know that I don’t necessarily agree with his ideas about drugs and video games.)

Now that you’ve done that, do you see it?! I think you do. That’s because money is a wondrous, danger-filled myth that creates the entire scope of power and control in this world, and it only works that way because we let it. This fiction, like so many others we have created over thousands of years, is very, very powerful. Yes, we all believe in money, but it’s not like a religion. It’s more like the air we breathe. And, much like air, if you take money away, we die.

So, we work.

Since money is the core tenet of our global belief in its myth, we must trade our sweat in order to get some. This creates another fiction; power or, if you prefer, control. Those with the most money have the most control and, as we can see today, that control is a very destructive force, so we need to get rid of it, but if we do that, then there’s no more work. Right?

Not exactly. Humans are resourceful and we have a number of inherent traits that guide us towards the sense of safety, contentedness, and fulfillment we all desire. When we are hungry or thirsty, we eat and drink. When we want to explore some new place, we screw up the courage and we set out. When we need to get across a large body of water to find what’s on the other side, we build boats. When we want to get from one continent to another, we build planes. When we want to find out what’s in that inky black over our heads, we build space ships.

We are, as a large group of like beings, insanely inventive and resourceful, and that is the key to a work without work. That former work will become desires, and there will always be people who will want to fill the roles we need to make society operate as a whole. You want a salad bowl? Someone will make one for you our of wood or pottery or glass. You want to design a new kind of space craft to get to Mars? Someone will learn everything it takes to do that for you, if you let them learn how without restriction.

It’s The Values, Stupid

The foundation of our success in a post-work global society will be values. We all need to get on the same page when it comes to how we will organize to produce everything we do now, and more, but without currency being the driving force. That brings us back to Star Trek. How do they do it, in this fictional universe of the future? They just do it. I know that sounds simplistic, but it’s really at the core of this entire argument.

There will always be people willing to do something, anything, to not be stuck at home watching TV or playing video games or taking drugs all day long. In universal basic income studies in more forward thinking countries that ours they are finding that the preponderance of participants who have all of their basic needs met, go out and get a job or volunteer instead of just sitting on their asses. So, yes, it’s true that some people will choose to do nothing, but even the smallest samples have shown that most people cannot.

That is a core value.

The shape of our societies won’t really change all that much. There are those fictions that are quite successful because they work, are inclusive of all people, and don’t rest on the idea that power is the only thing of value in this world. Universal healthcare is one such result, and it is common in most first-world countries on Earth, and even most second-world countries float some kind of healthcare-for-all.

But what do we do with people who make things? That’s also surprisingly easy. Let’s say Julia is an forklift operator at an appliance plant just outside of Riverside, CA. She gets up at 7AM every, Monday through Friday, and heads in to the plant to start her shift at 8:30. She works until Noon, takes lunch with some co-workers at a local sandwich shop, and gets back to work at 1PM to move around more large palettes of sheet metal. She wraps up her day at 5:30 PM, stops at the grocery to pick up her food order, and goes home.

At no point during the day did Julia ever pay anyone for anything and she wasn’t paid a dime for her work. Yet, that evening, she can go on a date with her fiance to a nice restaurant and go see a movie. How is this possible? It is possible through a sharing economy that involves zero money anywhere. Everyone she meets during her day has a nice home to live in, access to all the food they want, and no limitations on the kinds of recreation they can consume. There is no ownership, per se. Yes, Julia “owns” her home, but that’s because she selected the home she wanted to live in and it was available. She can keep the home as long as she likes, or choose to move somewhere else and live there.

No, It’s Not Communism

At its root, Communism is based entirely around money. In the old CCCP (that’s Communist Russia, to you Millennials), the government owned everything and “evenly” distributed it to the citizens. The reality was that there was no equality and there was an enormous amount of paranoia instilled in the populace in the name of control and fear, but that’s beside the point. A world without work where people do what they choose to do, learn as much as they want, and contribute to the betterment of society as a whole is not the same thing.

For our new society, we’d need to get rid of a few things for it to work. Here are some of those things:

  • Homelessness
  • Inequality of all kinds
  • War
  • Famine
  • The lack of access to healthcare for many, many millions
  • Oppression
  • Dictatorships and monarchy
  • Genocide
  • Ethnic cleansing

No, that doesn’t mean that we get rid of homelessness by getting rid of the homeless. We put them in homes. Voila! No more homelessness. Some of the other things will, of course, require more complex solutions, and there’s a lot of work to be done to start moving in this direction, but if we all just believe, we can make it happen.

So, now that I’ve realized I’m starting to ramble and this is my first essay on this new blog, I’m going to wrap it up here. What are some of the things we can start doing now that will lead us in the right direction for a more positive, inclusive, and constructive future where we follow our dreams and can actually have them come true? What are some of the six billion things I left out because I’m a monkey in a tree who only desires a banana?

Let me know, and share this around. It would be nice to see some of the ideas presented here start to infect more people :)

iPhone cases & an important charity for Peruvian children

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Phone cases are a dime a dozen. 

Well, not literally. They cost real money, but they’re available everywhere for all kinds of mobiles and at every conceivable price point. When it comes down to it, consumers will select the style and price that fits their circumstances and financial wherewithal. Hell, a lot of Chinese phone makers include a (cheap) case in the box that I’m sure a handful of people around the globe actually use.

When I received a press release from Illusion Photograph offering me a review sample of one of their phone cases, I told them up front that they should focus on getting samples to more visible outlets. They insisted, so I did some research and, after learning their story, acquiesced.  They sent me a Route 66 case for my iPhone 12 mini, and this, in a way, is a review. So, here it is…

The case comes in a zipper lock sleeve, has a lovely print applied, is glossy, and fits snugly onto my phone. It has cutouts on the top and bottom edges to better facilitate edge swiping, and the button cutouts prevent unintended button mashing while retaining easy access. In other words, it’s a lovely, but otherwise unremarkable case. 

Not exactly enough for a full post, but that’s not really the point. Here’s the email I sent Beatrice, the owner of Illusion Photograph and co-founder of the LivingHeart.co charity that illustrates the actual point:

Beatrice,

Tell you what, you can send me a case, but a case is a case. I’d prefer to profile you and your efforts to raise funds for Living Heart. Your words on your website are moving. I fear for the future and my heartache is endless as I worry for our most vulnerable, no matter where they live, how they live, or what they look like. A human is a human. Full stop. And yet we struggle to make any real head-way in human rights around the world.

So, sure. You can send me a case and I’ll give it a nod, but the piece will be about you and your work and your ongoing efforts to find yourself. I fight daily for the same thing, so I feel you. 

Sincerely,

Tyler

As I believe I’ve made transparent (see what I did there?), they sent me a case for free and I was planning on posting a piece about their charity. What I would also like to make clear is that I’m doing this for the charity. My only hope is that people either buy cases or donate to the charity. 

This seems like a good time to talk about the charity itself. This video, produced in 2012, pretty much covers everything you need to know about how your generous donations are spent. 

Most charities focus on much larger targets with narrow goals, but what I believe are the core strengths of Living Heart are its tight focus on a small region of Peru, the education and nutrition of the children of those remote communities, the care to honor and promote local traditions (read: NOT colonialism), and the teaching of sustainable skills instead of just dropping off supplies. By not expanding outward in an attempt to serve more and more communities, the charity can focus its efforts and realize real change in these impoverished regions. Note in the video when they talk about donations of warm clothing they say can be worn underneath the culture’s traditional garb. There’s a level of detail and cultural sensitivity in that you don’t see a lot of. 

I urge that you give, or buy a case or five, and/or tell your friends and family to give what they can. I’ll be donating the value of the case I received once I’ve got the spare cash because I think that’s not only fair, but a responsibility I have to my fellow humans on this ever-increasingly miserable rock.  

No one has ever asked to be born who they are. We just get the luck of the draw, and these kids aren’t at fault for living in poverty, and by extension their parents. Society has a long, dark history of discrimination and segregation and classism in the extremes, and these Peruvian communities high in the Andes are an example of that. 

I think Living Heart is doing something very important here. We should all pitch in. 

Happy New Year…

Where’s the rage? | Pandemic Edition

" “>

Sandy Hook gun lawsuit moves forward in Connecticut Supreme Court - CNN

Where is it, the rage? We should all be really, quite upset. Why aren't we marching in the streets, demanding accountability for the endless stream of corruption and criminality that has been unveiled on an almost daily basis for quite a few years? The French? Fuck, they're out in the street if anyone, anywhere sneezes on their rights! The Yellow Vests? You might have heard of them? 

The criminality of all involved is simply astonishing...

Today as I am writing these words... the Nassar child rape case that alleges this one asshole raped potentially hundreds of young gymnasts for decades with the apparent support of the Olympics committee people, U.S. gymnastics, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. 

What about the January 6th insurrection of the Capitol? Why, when we've seen clear evidence of deeply concerning activity from sitting Federal representatives of American people, are these people still making (or more precisely, stopping) laws? 

How about The Big Lie? The lie, initially floated by Trump, that he won in 2020 and that the Presidency was stolen from him? Really? Larry Elder and the California GOP tried spinning the Big Lie into the recall attempt of state Governor Gavin Newsom that just ended last night in a complete rout. Apparently, Californians are mostly on-board with the mask mandates, Larry. 

Oooh. Here's one. How about the rape kits? How many haven't been processed for 1-20 years? Everyone loves statistics. Here's some about this terrible crime from the Natasha Justice Project:

Sexual Assault in the United States

  • Every 2 minutes, another person is sexually assaulted.
  • 97% of rapists will never spend a day behind bars.
  • 15% of all victims of rape and sexual assault are children under the age of 12.
  • Rapists don’t just strike once. They are often serial criminals, and DNA is the single-most effective rape prevention tool we have.
  • Victims of sexual assault are, according to the World Health Organization, three times more likely to suffer from depression; 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, and 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.

The Rape-Kit Backlog

  • The Department of Justice estimates there are about 100,000 rape kits at public crime labs awaiting testing.
  • Media reports suggest there may be as many as 300,000 additional kits sitting in law enforcement storage, awaiting to reach labs for testing (the so-called “hidden backlog”).
  • On average, it currently costs $1,000 to test a single rape kit.
  • Apprehending serial offenders early in their careers can prevent crimes, thereby saving approximately $12.9 billion a year in avoided medical costs, lost wages, and other tangible harms to victims and society.
Backlogged rape kits in property storageJust some of the unprocessed rape kits being stored somewhere... Doing nothing... While more get raped...

Let's go back a few years to the Sandy Hook massacre... yes, massacre. Scroll back to the top of this post and look at the pictures of the victims of Adam Lanza [Source: Wikipedia]. The idea that these children were fabricated in an effort to take away people's guns is patently absurd. The Alt-Right has become obsessed with spinning lies to win since fewer people give a shit about their increasingly terrible ideological stances. Crisis actors? Insane.

List of victims Killed:

  • Perpetrator's mother
    • Nancy Lanza, 52 (shot at home)[32]
  • School personnel
    • Rachel D'Avino, 29, behavior therapist[33]
    • Dawn Hochsprung, 47, principal
    • Anne Marie Murphy, 52, special education teacher[34]
    • Lauren Rousseau, 30, teacher
    • Mary Sherlach, 56, school psychologist
    • Victoria Leigh Soto, 27, teacher
  • Students
    • Charlotte Bacon, 6[35]
    • Daniel Barden, 7
    • Olivia Engel, 6
    • Josephine Gay, 7
    • Dylan Hockley, 6
    • Madeleine Hsu, 6
    • Catherine Hubbard, 6
    • Chase Kowalski, 7
    • Jesse Lewis, 6
    • Ana Márquez-Greene, 6
    • James Mattioli, 6
    • Grace McDonnell, 7
    • Emilie Parker, 6
    • Jack Pinto, 6
    • Noah Pozner, 6
    • Caroline Previdi, 6[36]
    • Jessica Rekos, 6
    • Avielle Richman, 6
    • Benjamin Wheeler, 6
    • Allison Wyatt, 6
  • Perpetrator
    • Adam Lanza, 20 (suicide)

Wounded:

  • Natalie Hammond, 40, lead teacher
  • Deborah Pisani[37]

Just look at those children, all six or seven years old. Imagine what would be going through your mind if you and nineteen of your classmates were all lined up, staring down the barrel of a Bushmaster XM15-E2S assault rifle. Then it points at a friend down the line, perhaps Jessica or Noah. There's an impossibly loud crack, a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and one or more of those friends are lying on the floor, dead, blood pouring out of their tiny bodies. 

CRACK!!

CRACK!!!

CRACK!!!!!

Then the barrel points at you. The last sounds you hear are the screams of those who will also be dead soon. Then silence. Step into those shoes, you foul, despicable Sandy Hook deniers. You are the negative drain. You extract and give nothing in return, but I digress...

How much of a monster must you be to understand what happened at Sandy Hook and think to yourself that someone must have concocted the entire tale and spun it up like some fake, made-up Hollywood production to trick gun-toting Americans into giving up their guns? It is utterly in-FUCKING-human to treat these murders as anything but what they were. 

TWENTY SIX & SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILDREN WERE GUNNED DOWN IN COLD BLOOD INSIDE THEIR CLASSROOM IN 2012... PERIOD. COMMENTS CLOSED.

That shouldn't require a lot of brain power to understand. 

Need even more child abuse? When are we going to start getting answers about the Jeffrey Epstein case? What about the very, very long list of very, very important people who have been associated with Epstein and have travelled on his private 727 or ventured to his private island? When do they get questioned? 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/business/dealbook/jeffrey-epstein-resignations.html

Please, someone tell me, what does it take to get the people in America who have a few brain cells to rub together and don't believe all the lies to stand up for themselves and fight? I'd seriously like to know. I mean, FUCK!! What are we doing here? Are we legit going to give fascists and racists equal standing in America when the only demanding work they've EVER done is figure out how the FUCK to subjugate People of Color and extract as much wealth from the land as possible. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/pieufo/at_least_seven_gopcontrolled_states_look_to_mimic/ Five members of the SCOTUS essentially ignored the Constitution through a technicality that allowed Texas to essentially criminalize an enshrined right by doing an end-run around the law. You know, that thing we count on to keep us as safe as we thought we were... before the pandemic and Trump changed everything.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeSpeech/comments/oxqane/boris_johnsons_war_on_journalism_could_see/ If you think things are getting scary in the US, take a look at what's going on in the UK!! Anything, anywhere can give some asshole an idea, so don't think this can't come here. Jesus H., we thought Trump would never be elected, and we've ended up with the slowest, stupidest coup of all time. American Exceptionalism at work! STAND BACK, PEOPLE!!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/newsbotbot/comments/poexo6/reuters_britain_was_setting_out_its_coronavirus/ Just a note, they aren't doing well with the virus, either. 

Look, you can be that American. You know, the one who thinks the world owes you, and that you owe the world nothing in return because, 'MERICA, FUK YEH, but the sad reality is that you've done little, if anything, to make America "Great", like ever. You couldn't be bothered to find your own place and carve it out with your own hands. Instead, you made a bunch of other people do it all for you, you know; the slaves, and that's just pathetic. I hope, however, that you choose a different path, one that involves marching with a load of like-minded peeps and letting our elected state and federal government officials know that we know they aren't doing it right. 

I certainly don't want people to suffer, regardless of the reason (no matter how much I might desire it for some... ahem, people), and that's precisely what we are doing when we don't stop our leaders from doing terrible things as our proxy. We do that in several ways, but some of the most effective are: 

  • Call your CongressPeeps - Get on the phone. Tell them how you feel. Finding the number is easy. Just use this fancy new Internet thingy...
  • You can send them letters, too! - Did you know that, despite being hobbled by Trump appointee Louis DeJoy, the USPS still delivers letters? Try writing one... on paper. 
  • March - If you hear about a protest in your area, head over. Talk to people who seem to know what's going on and ask if it's not obvious. Help out. Work phones as needed. Get your friends and family involved. BE A PART OF SOCIETY. Shockingly, most of that isn't done on the internet, but in person. Also, don't be a Chad or Karen and WEAR A FUCKING MASK. 
  • Volunteer - Lend a hand to some group or organization that needs a hand. There are loads of homeless shelters and soup kitchens, or if you like tech there are lots of places like Free Geek. 
  • VOTE - Don't let anyone stop you, any rule silence your voice, any crass attempt to remove your status as an American with the Right to Vote bestowed upon each citizen of this land by our Constitution be quietly stripped from you in the dead of night. Yeah! It says it right in there, too! Words. Aren't they just neato?

If we do nothing, we'll lose this country to those who have no qualms lying, cheating, stealing, killing and raping to get there. Over 650,000 Americans dead from Covid because Trump lied. America in a war with the Taliban for twenty years because Bush lied. I'm sure there are more lies that have been told by more presidents, but I'm exhausted and can't be bothered to look them up. 

In the end, I'm not entirely sure what this post is. I'll post more. Maybe.

PS: Please don't get mad if I left an issue out. There are many. COUNTLESS. I can't remember what I had for breakfast, much less the endless march of atrocities against human lives. Sorry.

Greenland (2020) | Film Review

" “>

Good GOD, what a pig. Sure, Gerard Butler was a staple in mid-budget action flicks, but this dumpster fire isn’t one of his better ones, and it’s not going to inject any enthusiasm into prospects for his ongoing career.

BUDGET: $35 million BOX OFFICE: $47.5 million (worldwide)

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Chris Sparling, this schlocky disaster flick wannabe already instills a sense of dread before you cue it up after seeing that the movie poster proudly proclaims the movie is from “the” producer of the John Wick franchise, The Town, and Clash of The Titans (that monster hit… get it.)

When was the last time you were excited to see the latest film from your favorite producer?

Look, I’ve tried to write a simple summary of the plot, but it doesn’t make any sense. Gerard Butler’s insipid delivery as structural engineer John Garrity fares as well as expected when joined by the phoned in crap from Morena Baccarin (wife Allison) and Scott Glenn (Allison’s father Dale) and the obligatory kid, played by Roger Dale Floyd. There’s nobody else of note in the film. I’m rather surprised that these three agreed to sign on, but such is the lack of quality in Hollywood these days.

The basic rundown is as follows: John and Allison are in a bad way, but it’s not made clear why. We also learn that a comet is going to just barely miss Earth, then some of it’s going to hit, then all of it’s going to hit. That’s when John gets a call from the government that tells him he’s been selected to survive if he can get his family to a nearby military base before the end of the day. A lot of stupid shenanigans ensue, they get separated, and they get back together, and they survive. The end.

Big whoop.

Simply put, it’s a waste of time. The pacing is acceptable, but there are a lot of story elements that just feel slapped on, like generic tropes strung together to approximate an actual story. There’s zero recognizable character development, especially for Gerard Butler’s role. He’s not developed as a real, feeling, engaging, desperate human. His life circumstances bring no stakes. He’s not redeemed in the end. He doesn’t learn any harsh lessons. He’s just an unadorned avatar. The same applies to Baccarin and Glenn’s characters.

Multiple planes in the sky are clearly copy-pasted. The fires in the neighborhoods are way too big. The compositing is sloppy. Shots throughout are amateurish. All of it lacks any real energy, something I’m pretty sure is necessary for a disaster film. Hell, I’d bet real money that the Greenland shots are stock.

The Takeaway: Don’t bother.


How To Be The Most Amazing Person Ever

" “>

So, you want to be the most amazing person ever. The good news is that, through the power of positive thinking, you can have anything* you want, as long as you know the secret.

What is the secret?

Well, it wouldn’t be much of a secret if I didn’t drag this unnecessarily hyperbolic exposition out for as long as humanly possible only to tell you something ludicrously obvious at the end, would it? In order for the secret to actually work, you’ll need to tolerate a lot of extraneous narrative that leads you to the very narrow conclusions I, the author, want you to “discover” for yourself. So, how am I going to do that? Easy. We start at the beginning…

The Problem

You’re stuck in a rut. You’re spinning your wheels. You can’t get a grip? You’re running out of gas? Running on empty? Any other car related metaphors I might have missed?

We eventually all get there. (Don’t worry teenagers, you’ll get you chance.) We hit a wall and feel like we’re going nowhere, especially during a pandemic with everything shut down. Now we’re working at home, dealing with the kids 24/7, finding it difficult to focus, missing deadlines, or just knocking off altogether. It’s especially difficult if, like me, you are old and don’t work.

As a (not) celebrated author, I’ve had my share of slumps. You would too over twenty years and a hundred books. Now that that industry is dead, I’ve moved on to… other engagements. I worked in IT for a number of years, my wife and I consulted for many years, I worked with a few firms in and around LA, and I sold my interesting skill set to anyone who would spare $25 an hour after the Great Recession.

Now, at 52, after five years of soul-crushing rideshare driving. now in the middle of a global pandemic, at the (hopefully) end of the reign of an American Idiot, at the top of a new year that’s starting off with a bang, after what was already the Year from Hell, I’m on… sabbatical.

And on that sabbatical, I’m trying to write. I have the perfect project that has the potential to go on for years, but I’m having trouble getting started. It all feels way too big and I can’t settle on an organization tool and there are too many new videos to catch up with on YouTube and whatever else bullshit excuse I can concoct to distract me from getting started. I’ve got the domain and the website and everything ready to go, I just need to write the content.

So, since I was too lazy to do that, I came up with a plan to fix it, and this is it.

Step 1: Personal Assessment

The first step in any self-improvement process is to assess yourself. Let’s take a quick little test. For every “YES” answer below give yourself one point. Let’s see how many points you have at the end and what that means?

  1. Give yourself a point if you are breathing.
  2. Give yourself a point if you have a pulse.
  3. Give yourself a point if you know or can determine the time and date.
  4. Give yourself a point if you can move one or more of your limbs.
  5. Give yourself a point if you can see, touch, or smell anything on or around you.
  6. Give yourself a point if you are reading this.
  7. Give yourself a point for every language you can use to communicate with others.
  8. Give yourself a point for taking this quiz.

So, what did your total come to? Check the chart to see your starting point:

Now, things start to get exciting as we get a sense of who you are going to be as you advance through the program. Don’t get too excited, though, as this first result is merely a baseline; the starting line that will help you form the foundation of your exciting new life.

Step 2: Recognizing Your Talents

Now that you’ve established that you are, at the very least, a human being, you can move on to Step 2 where we’ll work on identifying the skills you already possess. These skills, once recognized, will be crucial elements on your path to discovering the secret, which you can then apply in your life to achieve unknowable results.**

Isn’t it thrilling to be unaware of what the future holds?

What skills, then, will you bring to the table? How will you participate in daily human life? How will you contribute? Select at least two skills from the following list of common traits that best apply to you:

  • You can see/touch/smell/taste at least one thing on or around your body.
  • You can move from one place to another within a frame of time.
  • If you make an audible noise around other people, some of them may react.
  • At various times during any given day, you consume food and/or fluids…
  • …and your body takes in nutrients and ejects waste as needed.
  • You are aware of your self and acknowledge it in this space and time.

You may be surprised to discover that all of these traits are all found in amazing people. You might also be surprised to find that you relate to all the listed traits. That’s normal and merely indicates that you are well on your way to mastering being an amazing person! Better yet, it indicates that you are well equipped for your journey

Chance favors the prepared mind.
- Louis Pasteur

Step 3: Finding Your Center

This will be the least concrete segment of the overall process. You can’t just point to it, your center. It doesn’t exist in physical space. It’s the one thing that makes you the happiest, whether you’re able to do it now or ever have before. It’s the fulfillment of who you believe you are in and of that moment.

Have no fears. This isn’t permanent.

Dreams can change, and yours likely will over your lifetime. Though some settle into their dreams rather easily and with little fuss, most of us have the wrestle around a bit to find a good fit. The good news is that this can happen at any age AND you’re already on your way towards becoming an amazing person, so…

  1. Look deep inside yourself.
  2. Find that one thing that makes you the most happy.
  3. Focus on it until it becomes clear.
  4. Do it.

That’s right…

Step 4: Do It

Yes. There’s nothing more. Just do it. Do the thing you love. Now, I grant that, during a pandemic, not everyone will be able to just do whatever it is they love. I get that. In those cases, do the first thing you love that won’t get someone else killed.

Once you’re satisfied that you’ve done that thing you love to the greatest extent possible, move on to the next dream. In fact, keep coming up with new dreams. There’s nothing and nobody stopping you. And, one fantastic feature is that you aren’t limited in any way on how you can make your dreams come true.

That’s right! YOU decide when and where your dreams come true. Funny that.

Just be mindful that, somewhere nearby, someone else is making their dreams come true. The last thing you’d want is some asshole barging in on your dream. Why do the same to someone else? And who knows, maybe your dream involves helping someone else with their dream. This would be an awesome opportunity to house two birds with one nest.

What qualifies as a dream? Anything, really. How many things make you happy? I can think of quite a few, but only one gives me ultimate joy; bringing joy to a reader through the written word. You could build a bookshelf. Write some letters to people who are important to you. Craft a new business plan. Fly a radio controller airplane. Sew masks for your family, neighbors, and friends. Feed hungry families. Sleep in a hammock. Hang your fresh laundry out to dry on a breezy Fall afternoon. Can some peaches. Gild a lily. Knit a sweater. Write a rock song. Battle some orcs. Tie ribbons on porcelain dolls. Hunt for old video game gear at local thrift shops. Paint religious scenes on match heads. Go fishing. Lobby for human rights. Arrange flowers. Re-pack the read-end on an old Ford truck. I don’t know. You’d know better than I.

Seriously. It’s not rocket science.

Step 5: What Happened To Becoming Amazing?

If, and I stress IF, you followed the steps precisely, you will have already transformed yourself into an amazing person. You’ll know when. If you haven’t done anything yet and skipped ahead, you’ll only find the disappointment of the reality that there is no simple solution to this problem.

It’s not someone else’s problem to fix. This is all on you.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t have help or support from anyone. Happiness isn’t a solo endeavor, it’s a team sport. Humans thrive best in social climes. So, yes, it’s on our shoulders to work on our problems, but we’re not alone. We can leverage any resources necessary (and legal) to achieve happiness. Hell, it’s even enshrined in the Constitution of The United States of America as a key human pursuit.

In the end, whoever you are most comfortable being is the most amazing you there is, and you should strive to be that you as much as possible. And the easiest way to do that, is to do you.

That’s all anyone should ever ask of you. Everything else is gravy.

Oh, and the secret is you.

* by “anything” I mean anything (i.e., factor, value, trait, etc…) you already have but don’t yet acknowledge in yourself.

** Unknowable results, by there very nature, are unknowable. Therefore, we cannot predict the outcomes of any efforts to find your amazing self. We do, however, know that, in the end, you’ll be an amazing person! You already ARE!!


My father died today.

" “>

My father being arrested for protesting, something he was quite happy to do. He was staunchly anti-war and would always stand up for the little guy. Well, mostly always…

My sister summed it up best.

“I haven’t seen him in so long, he’s already been dead to me,” she said, or something like it. You get the point.

I was watching a video on YouTube about the new Anbernic RG351M when it paused itself. Then my phone rang. I could see it was my sister from the image that appeared on the display. I knew at that moment that she was calling me to tell me dad had died. She had texted me the day before letting me know that he was in hospice at home.

This was a marked change from years past. When my older sister died in the early 2000’s, I learned two weeks later, by letter from my father. Years later, when my mother had moved back to Southern California from Knoxville and would subsequently die of dementia, I was told about that a week late. When I figured out that my father had a degenerative brain disease and was likely going to die from it, I figured the same would happen when he did.

You see, our step-mother has been keeping us away from our father. Why, I couldn’t tell you. My sister and I agree that they likely planned it together, but I’d need more information before I were to make an educated judgement. There are loopholes in some of the timing elements that I’ll need to look into.

This, however, should illustrate the issue. I’m not sad my father has passed. No, I’m more concerned about the apparent shady behavior of our step-mother. Like my sister said, it’s like he’s been dead, but it’s taken everyone else a few years to figure out.

We expected it.

Like I knew that seeing my sister on my caller ID meant that he had passed. Like knowing my mother’s dementia would lead to her eventual death. This got me reflecting on familial relationships.

In a letter I wrote to our step-mother over Christmas, I likened our family to a diaspora of micro families that don’t frequently interact with each other, and when we do, it’s all through a veneer of casual, apathetic complacency. Happy enough with things to not be concerned about anything in particular. Pleasantries passed about like business cards.

This is no way for a family to act, so I’ve decided that I’m going to reconnect with my sister and her family and our terminally acidic brother. And maybe even our estranged brother-in-law, our older sister’s widow. My sister has already agreed, which makes me endlessly happy, but I have yet to speak to either of my brothers. I believe they will be saltier to deal with, but I shall make the effort.

I have lots of issues to deal with, personally, within my family, and among my distributed family, that I think it’s far better to at least work on positive communications with your family, despite the hard pasts. It’s so much better to work together as a team, leveraging our strengths and forgiving the weaknesses in ourselves and others, to achieve a goal. But it seems so very hard to muster the courage to work with some people. I’ll remind you of this, though:

We’ve all got our demons.

We could compare scars all day long, but in the end our pains our ours alone and we can neither share nor compare them with others. These burdens are ours to bear, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to share the load across many shoulders.

It’s never an easy row to hoe, change. Think of the metaphor. Dirt. On the top, it’s old and crusty and drained of nutrients. Underneath, however, the sustenance-rich, moist, life-giving soil has been spending years growing on the food of the past, and is now getting churned into the crusty, old topsoil, blending the two into an amalgam of old and new, each fighting for prominence. The old, running out of resources, desperately clutching at authority for validation, to keep mattering.

But they do matter. They need to move into teaching roles to feed the new soil being readied for the next tilling, and so on, and so forth… As each season fades into glorious reds and oranges before falling to the ground to feed the soil that feeds the tree that feeds so many, making room for the new leaves to stretch out and reach for the Sun.

My father fought for that ideal in Apartheid South Africa alongside Bishop Desmond Tutu. He fought for the souls of human beings to be recognized as such, in a society where racial segregation and hatred had become indoctrinated into law. With the help of many others, my father did his part to bring about freedom in South Africa.

You’d think that kind of deep human empathy would translate to a loving home life, but you’d be wrong. It wasn’t ripped from the pages of a horror anthology. It was my otherization because I was adopted. Likewise, it was dad focusing on my fuckups more than he focused on his blood children’s authentic issues.

He wasn’t a dad as much as he was an event.

But I’m not here to denigrate my father. I know that he loved us all, and we loved him. When I asked to go to Disneyland for my birthday every year, we went. I wasn’t abused, at least not in obvious ways. I was, however, sent off to boarding schools, anything to keep my away from home and out of anyone’s hair. At the age of nine, after truly learning that I was adopted from my mother, that growing sense of abandonment continued to swell inside me.

The sense compounded after, upon evaluating my life at the nexus of my eighteenth birthday, I counted that I had been sent to no less than nine different schools since kindergarten. There’s no question I was a difficult child. I won’t apologize for that. Those were times past that I can no longer rectify directly. That work must be done retroactively.

But it’s still hard knowing that, as a child, you had appointments to meet with your father in his office.

There’s an emotional distancing to that. It sticks with me, that I dealt with dad’s secretary almost as much as I did him directly. But there’s something that hurts far more, and it didn’t have to happen this way. Choices were made, and we have to abide by them for now, but I make no guarantees that I won’t go after them in the near future. What is it that I’m talking about?

That my step-mother wouldn’t let me see my father before he died.

That, I’ll never forgive. Or forget.

In the meantime, however, I think I’ll get to writing that which I should have been writing for a very long time.

The TKN Media Empire


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