We were talking 'bout something
Seems like was funny
Then Steven got quiet
I think Steven was mad
Maybe he wasn't mad
But we felt really strange for a moment
Then the moment was gone
And forgotten...
-Ben Folds, "Steven's Last Night in Town"
"The Ultimate Flight South For the Winter"
I'm not going to lie. (This is patently untrue.) There was a hot second in which I was going to pitch it all in and give up on this blog. Delete the whole mess and start over again six months down the line under the assumed name Franklin L. Kralc -- my oldest alias -- with a fabricated blogger profile naming Pella, Iowa, as my place of residence.
During that six month absence, I was going to complete my first new stick-figure story in years, The Magnificent Duckling: An Ultimate Black Duck Tale Told in 12-Parts. Basically, it would have been a re-telling of those classic Little Black Duck stories (which again, I copied word for word from an obscure Jamaican children's book given to me by my Aunt Nancy) with a modern spin and crazy retroactive continuity. It would have been great!
I was going to write the Ultimate Black Duck as this no-holds-barred Buddhist warrior poet, and Tin was going to be re-envisioned as the Positron Robotic Energy Weapon of Integrated Titanium and Tin -- or P.R.E.W.I.T.T. for short -- this military doomsday device turned fully autonomous extraordinary machine with world domination plans who would have been both the Duck's greatest friend and worst enemy on any given day, kind of playing on that Lex Luthor vibe you used to get in Smallville's nascent seasons, creating this tension between them that simply explodes in Part 11, when we learn that P.R.E.W.I.T.T. actually was the Big Giant Bee that killed the Duck's father, the Penultimate Black Duck.
We would have turned the Turtle-Duck dynamic on its ear by writing her as completely and totally obsessed with the Ultimate Black Duck. She'd constantly be throwing herself at him in increasingly tawdry displays of wanton lust, but he'd rebuff her advances because he's taken a vow of celibacy in honor of his undying love for Daisy Sparks, who we only see in a series of beautifully rendered yet painfully poignant flashbacks.
Batman would have been replaced with Daredevil, opening the door for cool courtroom scenes in which the Man Without Fear -- in his civilian identity of Harvey Woodward, Attorney at Law -- would have tried off-the-beaten-track type of court cases out the old bowling alley, Wonderbowl. (In Part 7, it would have been revealed that Wonderbowl had long been a front for cocaine smuggling from Middle Earth, and when Daredevil learned the truth, he would have declared himself the new Kingpin of Crime. Get it? Kingpin... bowling... eh? eh?)
And, of course, Penny Lane would have been written out of continuity and replaced with a really cool vending machine on the third floor. Because Kate Hudson sucks.
This is all beside the point, however, because I've been given what Jeff Tweedy might lovingly refer to as a "shot in the arm". What was this magical something that now courses in my veins, bloodier than blood?
Shut up. I'll tell you.
"Bloodier than Blood"
Was it when Tuttle invoked that Joe Kelly chestnut to keep on writing them because they're the only thing that keep her going? Of course not, because she's clearly lying, and I get more and more embarrassed about this story with each passing year, and by all indications, Kelly himself has seemed to cease writing them, as he clearly doesn't care whether I keep going or not. Was it touching tributes from my nearest and dearest friends? Prewitt's support of my healthy venting? Erica indulging my fragile ego? Woodward's fond remembrances of our mock-tacular adventures? Kate's complaining of a misappropriation of her own comment system?
No, no, no, kinda, and no. You folks still aren't off the hook, because if you were really sorry, you'd go back and leave the comments you should have left on my too-damn-long triumphant return post! You guys suck!
No, what's reinvigorated my lust for life and blogging was something that Caleb brought to my attention. Something he describes -- and quite correctly, mind you -- as "hands down, the funniest thing that's ever happened as a result of your blog".
Lynn Dalsing's vehement rebuffing of a throwaway joke in my Fantastic Four essay naming her as the closest FARC cognate to the Mole Man.
"Give Those Mole People Hell, Son"
I'm not sure what did it, precisely.
The opening, in which she suggests that the simple act of accessing my blog alone may have "totally fucked" her computer certainly hooked me early on. Moreover, her assumptions of just what I meant when I said that she was most like the "mad monarch of a subterranean empire" composed of "a secret race of mole people living beneath the FARC mini-quad" -- which were clearly more about her idea of herself than it was about mine -- blew me away, sparking a resurgence of my nostalgia for the collegiate life.
I always get the feeling that people skim these long-winded comic oriented posts. I certainly never thought they took them seriously, but Lynn extrapolated untold implications out of a few scant lines. Sure, most of the conclusions she drew seemed a little out there -- Like I have some problem with emo or Russian Literature. I'm a Ben Folds loving comic geek! I ain't judging anybody for their tastes in good beats and great reads -- but when I consider the in-depth analysis of all my foibles that followed from my simply commenting on the entry, I can't help but think that maybe this blog matters after all -- even if Lynn herself might refute that point, as she's apparently under the impression that I'm all style over substance (fair enough, but, um, that's the whole point of blogging) and that my entire life might just be meaningless. I had some trouble with this supposition mostly because she made a very clever freeze tag analogy I couldn't buy into because as a youth, while I was never into freeze tag, I used to organize vast games of regular tag at Coleman Park in which there were no safe zones, tag backs were allowed, and my most common strategy in this game was to tag somebody and then make what I considered spectacular leaps from high vantages to make my escape. Hardly playing it safe, but I'm not sure whether or not that argues her rhetoric more than her actual point, and I get distracted trying to figure it out.
Despite what she seems to think, I don't have any real beef with Lynn. Nor did I ever assume she was weeping, or really want to wage "blog wars" with her. Hell, I'd kind of forgotten all about her, what with the two years of actual living I've gone through since we both left McDavid Hall and ceased to have anything at all to do with each other. I didn't really mean to make any explicit commentary about her as a person -- unlike, say, she apparently felt the need to do with me. All I really wanted to do was reference the Mole Man, and when I turned to the one guy who could have helped me parse the social environment of FARC in the Early Aughts through the filter of Stan and Jack's glorious creation, Caleb made the appropriate suggestion and I dropped it in there.
I once wrote about how it's the people who haven't been charmed by my powers that I have the most respect for, and when I did so, it was with Miss Dalsing in mind as my personal Tamara Easter. (Also Dylan Sullivan. I got the weirdest feeling he didn't like me.) I thought these people got me a little better than most, but clearly I was wrong.
I respect Lynn as an individual, to say nothing of her talent as a writer or the fact that I always envied her for her ability to sit by herself and read a book in the Twain. It never occurred to me that you could say "no" when someone asked if they could sit with you, but Lynn did so regularly, and you know what? The roof never caved in on her. I can't tell you how many meals with Hedrick I would have avoided if I did.
Am I sorry she saw the little joke as an insult? Eh, kind of. You know me. I'm still getting off on the attention, which I -- unlike some people -- have absolutely no problem admitting. I love "hate mail". Hell, it's the only reason I'm publicizing this whole thing -- unlike a similar incident that happened years ago springing from something I wrote about Colleen Rutten. I mean come on; this has got to be good for at least ten comments!
Am I sorry I made the comparison? No. No no no no. Because the Mole Man tends to strike en masse after years of obscurity in which you kind of wonder "Whatever happened to that guy?" and then the next thing you know, Times Square's overrun and it's bedlam in Manhattan. All things considered, it seems fitting. Plus, take a look at the comments on that particular post, and I do believe you'll spot a guest spot by the Black Panther, a well renown Fantastic Four ally of the highest order.
So thanks, Lynn. You gave this little black duck his wings back.
"Stories about Linda McCartney"
What really struck me about all this, however, is that I've been dared to say something "real" that I feel is truly worth standing by -- a task that I actually find quite daunting in a post-modern world. I've got to tell you, what with the whole "what is reality?" vibe in certain academic circles these days, I'm not sure if I can rise to this particular challenge.
Is it because I think taking yourself too seriously drives people koo-koo nuts, so I tend to adopt a worldview in which nothing is sacred while trying to adhere to F. Scott Fitzgerald's contention that "the mark of a first class intellect is the ability to keep two conflicting ideas in mind at the same time," or is it because Miss Dalsing's rhetorically brilliant argument that my entire life is basically "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" while unfair in places, is right on the money?
Gee, I'm not sure. Can't it be both?
Seems like was funny
Then Steven got quiet
I think Steven was mad
Maybe he wasn't mad
But we felt really strange for a moment
Then the moment was gone
And forgotten...
-Ben Folds, "Steven's Last Night in Town"
"The Ultimate Flight South For the Winter"
I'm not going to lie. (This is patently untrue.) There was a hot second in which I was going to pitch it all in and give up on this blog. Delete the whole mess and start over again six months down the line under the assumed name Franklin L. Kralc -- my oldest alias -- with a fabricated blogger profile naming Pella, Iowa, as my place of residence.
During that six month absence, I was going to complete my first new stick-figure story in years, The Magnificent Duckling: An Ultimate Black Duck Tale Told in 12-Parts. Basically, it would have been a re-telling of those classic Little Black Duck stories (which again, I copied word for word from an obscure Jamaican children's book given to me by my Aunt Nancy) with a modern spin and crazy retroactive continuity. It would have been great!
I was going to write the Ultimate Black Duck as this no-holds-barred Buddhist warrior poet, and Tin was going to be re-envisioned as the Positron Robotic Energy Weapon of Integrated Titanium and Tin -- or P.R.E.W.I.T.T. for short -- this military doomsday device turned fully autonomous extraordinary machine with world domination plans who would have been both the Duck's greatest friend and worst enemy on any given day, kind of playing on that Lex Luthor vibe you used to get in Smallville's nascent seasons, creating this tension between them that simply explodes in Part 11, when we learn that P.R.E.W.I.T.T. actually was the Big Giant Bee that killed the Duck's father, the Penultimate Black Duck.
We would have turned the Turtle-Duck dynamic on its ear by writing her as completely and totally obsessed with the Ultimate Black Duck. She'd constantly be throwing herself at him in increasingly tawdry displays of wanton lust, but he'd rebuff her advances because he's taken a vow of celibacy in honor of his undying love for Daisy Sparks, who we only see in a series of beautifully rendered yet painfully poignant flashbacks.
Batman would have been replaced with Daredevil, opening the door for cool courtroom scenes in which the Man Without Fear -- in his civilian identity of Harvey Woodward, Attorney at Law -- would have tried off-the-beaten-track type of court cases out the old bowling alley, Wonderbowl. (In Part 7, it would have been revealed that Wonderbowl had long been a front for cocaine smuggling from Middle Earth, and when Daredevil learned the truth, he would have declared himself the new Kingpin of Crime. Get it? Kingpin... bowling... eh? eh?)
And, of course, Penny Lane would have been written out of continuity and replaced with a really cool vending machine on the third floor. Because Kate Hudson sucks.
This is all beside the point, however, because I've been given what Jeff Tweedy might lovingly refer to as a "shot in the arm". What was this magical something that now courses in my veins, bloodier than blood?
Shut up. I'll tell you.
"Bloodier than Blood"
Was it when Tuttle invoked that Joe Kelly chestnut to keep on writing them because they're the only thing that keep her going? Of course not, because she's clearly lying, and I get more and more embarrassed about this story with each passing year, and by all indications, Kelly himself has seemed to cease writing them, as he clearly doesn't care whether I keep going or not. Was it touching tributes from my nearest and dearest friends? Prewitt's support of my healthy venting? Erica indulging my fragile ego? Woodward's fond remembrances of our mock-tacular adventures? Kate's complaining of a misappropriation of her own comment system?
No, no, no, kinda, and no. You folks still aren't off the hook, because if you were really sorry, you'd go back and leave the comments you should have left on my too-damn-long triumphant return post! You guys suck!
No, what's reinvigorated my lust for life and blogging was something that Caleb brought to my attention. Something he describes -- and quite correctly, mind you -- as "hands down, the funniest thing that's ever happened as a result of your blog".
Lynn Dalsing's vehement rebuffing of a throwaway joke in my Fantastic Four essay naming her as the closest FARC cognate to the Mole Man.
"Give Those Mole People Hell, Son"
I'm not sure what did it, precisely.
The opening, in which she suggests that the simple act of accessing my blog alone may have "totally fucked" her computer certainly hooked me early on. Moreover, her assumptions of just what I meant when I said that she was most like the "mad monarch of a subterranean empire" composed of "a secret race of mole people living beneath the FARC mini-quad" -- which were clearly more about her idea of herself than it was about mine -- blew me away, sparking a resurgence of my nostalgia for the collegiate life.
I always get the feeling that people skim these long-winded comic oriented posts. I certainly never thought they took them seriously, but Lynn extrapolated untold implications out of a few scant lines. Sure, most of the conclusions she drew seemed a little out there -- Like I have some problem with emo or Russian Literature. I'm a Ben Folds loving comic geek! I ain't judging anybody for their tastes in good beats and great reads -- but when I consider the in-depth analysis of all my foibles that followed from my simply commenting on the entry, I can't help but think that maybe this blog matters after all -- even if Lynn herself might refute that point, as she's apparently under the impression that I'm all style over substance (fair enough, but, um, that's the whole point of blogging) and that my entire life might just be meaningless. I had some trouble with this supposition mostly because she made a very clever freeze tag analogy I couldn't buy into because as a youth, while I was never into freeze tag, I used to organize vast games of regular tag at Coleman Park in which there were no safe zones, tag backs were allowed, and my most common strategy in this game was to tag somebody and then make what I considered spectacular leaps from high vantages to make my escape. Hardly playing it safe, but I'm not sure whether or not that argues her rhetoric more than her actual point, and I get distracted trying to figure it out.
Despite what she seems to think, I don't have any real beef with Lynn. Nor did I ever assume she was weeping, or really want to wage "blog wars" with her. Hell, I'd kind of forgotten all about her, what with the two years of actual living I've gone through since we both left McDavid Hall and ceased to have anything at all to do with each other. I didn't really mean to make any explicit commentary about her as a person -- unlike, say, she apparently felt the need to do with me. All I really wanted to do was reference the Mole Man, and when I turned to the one guy who could have helped me parse the social environment of FARC in the Early Aughts through the filter of Stan and Jack's glorious creation, Caleb made the appropriate suggestion and I dropped it in there.
I once wrote about how it's the people who haven't been charmed by my powers that I have the most respect for, and when I did so, it was with Miss Dalsing in mind as my personal Tamara Easter. (Also Dylan Sullivan. I got the weirdest feeling he didn't like me.) I thought these people got me a little better than most, but clearly I was wrong.
I respect Lynn as an individual, to say nothing of her talent as a writer or the fact that I always envied her for her ability to sit by herself and read a book in the Twain. It never occurred to me that you could say "no" when someone asked if they could sit with you, but Lynn did so regularly, and you know what? The roof never caved in on her. I can't tell you how many meals with Hedrick I would have avoided if I did.
Am I sorry she saw the little joke as an insult? Eh, kind of. You know me. I'm still getting off on the attention, which I -- unlike some people -- have absolutely no problem admitting. I love "hate mail". Hell, it's the only reason I'm publicizing this whole thing -- unlike a similar incident that happened years ago springing from something I wrote about Colleen Rutten. I mean come on; this has got to be good for at least ten comments!
Am I sorry I made the comparison? No. No no no no. Because the Mole Man tends to strike en masse after years of obscurity in which you kind of wonder "Whatever happened to that guy?" and then the next thing you know, Times Square's overrun and it's bedlam in Manhattan. All things considered, it seems fitting. Plus, take a look at the comments on that particular post, and I do believe you'll spot a guest spot by the Black Panther, a well renown Fantastic Four ally of the highest order.
So thanks, Lynn. You gave this little black duck his wings back.
"Stories about Linda McCartney"
What really struck me about all this, however, is that I've been dared to say something "real" that I feel is truly worth standing by -- a task that I actually find quite daunting in a post-modern world. I've got to tell you, what with the whole "what is reality?" vibe in certain academic circles these days, I'm not sure if I can rise to this particular challenge.
Is it because I think taking yourself too seriously drives people koo-koo nuts, so I tend to adopt a worldview in which nothing is sacred while trying to adhere to F. Scott Fitzgerald's contention that "the mark of a first class intellect is the ability to keep two conflicting ideas in mind at the same time," or is it because Miss Dalsing's rhetorically brilliant argument that my entire life is basically "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" while unfair in places, is right on the money?
Gee, I'm not sure. Can't it be both?
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