I just remembered that it’s been awhile since I wrote anything here.  I’m still in the pretty much the same boat right now.  Working one job, looking more work, looking for the work I want to be doing.  I have been recording again, though.  Except last week, I’d been doing well.  recording each week for almost a month.  I’m getting back into it.  I’m getting ready for LA Comic Con.  This show is sizing up to be a lot of fun!  Last week they announced Christopher Lloyd!  I shook his hand once but maybe I’ll have a chance to chat with him a little more this go.  I’m planning to record tomorrow morning after work.  It looks like I missed out on a couple of screenings this week so, I’ll get done more of this stuff instead.

     I’ve been seeing ads on PlutoTV about Burn Notice being available on there so I started watching that series the other day.  I’m in season two right now.  I knew Michael Shanks was in this show but I forgot it was this soon.  And hot damn!  He is so much fun to watch in this show!  You can tell that he’s having a lot of fun with this one.  Also, I’ve always enjoyed this show but I’d forgotten just how much.  It truly is an extraordinarily well executed conceptual successor to MacGyver.  Seriously, this whole series was so well crafted.  I need to do a little research and check air dates to see how it lined up with writers’ strikes and all but thinking back and watching again so far, the weakest part of the writing seems to be the procedural formula which is intrinsic to this particular genre of storytelling however, even to that point, they managed to just work against the formula enough to avoid getting stale as many police procedurals seem to over the years.  I was just looking though season numbers in IMDB and many seasons had thirteen to sixteen episodes with some seasons going eighteen episodes.  Looking at that to start, they never needed to ‘fill’.  Each episode served the greater whole.  The individual A stories of each episode are all engaging and well written.  The B stories building the ongoing arc of each season struck a damn near if not perfect balance of advancing the story while positing still more questions to entice us onto the next episode.  It looks like I forgot just how much I love this show.

     Well, I need a nap and I’m just about to my goal.  So, tomorrow I’ll be chatting about the recent guest announcements for LA Comic Con.  I’m really excited for this show!  The guest list is looking solid already and they haven’t started scheduling the panels yet.  There’s no telling just how much nor what all specifically I’m looking forward to in this show.  I can’t wait!

The other night I took my somewhat regular pilgrimage.  As a child, from about thirteen to seventeen, I had this regular practice that I did almost every night.  My “mother’s” ‘parenting in practice’ was in no small part “You eat with the family or you don’t eat.”  I opted to not eat with “the family”.  I would then wait until around eleven:thirty or twelve o’clock at night, take five dollars from her purse(which it turns out was in fact my money, as I learned years later.), I would walk a very familiar two miles of Van Nuys Boulevard to In-N-Out Burger, and I would sit alone eating my Double-Double, fries, and a large chocolate shake trying to not break down weeping while they close.  I would then walk back home often less successful in my efforts to not break down weeping.  Next to the 101 is the LA River.  Many of those nights I’d look over rail at the twenty or so foot drop, landing on very dry concrete, there was a lot less water there twenty-five years ago.  Looking over that guardrail, I thought about jumping.  So often in my life I’ve looked over ledges and rails and more easily than anything else, see the ground rising up to meet me as I jump down to it.  I don’t think drowning will work on my anymore, otherwise, I’d have been more likely to jump the other night.

     It’s possible I’ve been suicidal my entire life, to one extent or another, especially since I’ve been thirteen.  It’s no secret among those closest to me…and now you lot, it’s been ignored and disregarded by those who think they’re close to me.  One thing most people don’t understand about suicidal ideation is how common it really is and exactly what counts as a ‘suicidal thought’.  I can’t recall where I heard this but if you there were one hundred people walking across a bridge over a thousand foot drop, looking over the edge only ten of them would think “I hope I don’t fall.”  Eighty-nine of them would think “I hope I don’t jump.”  That’s an important distinction to keep in mind there.  The intent denotes a suicidal thought.  Oh, yeah, that last one.  That’s where I fit into the scenario.  The last one out of the hundred thinks “I’m gonna do a flip!”  I’ve been going through a rough time lately.  The work and money situation has not been good.  And in turn, everything dependent upon the money and work situation has not been good.  I started a job but of course it doesn’t pay what I need let alone allow sufficient freedom for my other projects.  Less so when I get another job to just barely not be getting by still.

     Admittedly, the biggest issue here is my motivation.  I lost about five pounds between plasma donations this week.  Logically that’s about what a will-to-live weighs.

I finally get to put this out!  I’ve been biting my tongue on this one since December!  And I’m so excited I can finally post this!  First I want to point out that back then I mentioned how excited I was for this movie and that it was going to trigger the ‘neeeeEEeEEeErrRrrRrRRRrds’ and sure enough.  As of writing this, five days before release, those whiny-ass, know-nothing, bitch cunts have been whining and bitching about Milly Alcock.  All the blather, based entirely on a handful of trailers, is focused on jackass bullshit like “she’s bullet proof, how’d her ears get pierced?” and “she doesn’t sexually stimulate me enough to be a Supergirl!”  And I should point out that I scaled up the language.  Mostly because it physically pains me to write such ignorant and low thoughts.  Now then, for the real conversation because I don’t want to give anymore energy to those sister-kissing, brain dead incel twats.

     In short, I FUCKING love this movie!  I know many people believe that a fictional character HAS to have the skin color and genitals for anyone to relate to them.  Yes, myself and the people likely to read this are smarter than that.  Watching Kara go through her experience in this film was profoundly powerful.  They did a fantastic job of portraying among other things that there isn’t a clock one can punch in and out of grieving.  And that there’s no good time just get it done and out of the way.  This in particular is something I’ve been dealing with for at least three decades.  Even now, in my forties, I hear shit from assholes whining that “you’re not an abused child now, get over it!” and then I have to explain to them how stand-up works.  Point is, the greater theme of this film is grief and working through it.  And yes, there’s some super hero fighting and action and Momoa as Lobo but the big part is the grief thing.  Alcock did a phenomenal job portraying a fairly specific vulnerability in this film.  Watching someone spiral can be hard, being someone spiraling is painful too but fortunately the numbing helps with that a little.  Of course it doesn’t last as long as we’d like.  I know, numbing isn’t great in my personal experience it’s just part of the process and the trick is to not stop on that step.  All in all, this is a fairly accurate portrayal of the grieving process and that in and of itself is important to portray with ‘super’ people.  Even if you can fly or run at supersonic speed, you can’t outrun yourself.

     Beyond that, it’s a fun super hero movie!  What I saw was a rough cut so, I didn’t get to see all the final SFX and such but everything is done superbly well.  The performances, sets, costumes, everything is phenomenal!  And Milly Alcock does a fantastic job portraying a young woman coping with the loss of a world, who would’ve been ‘just friends’ with me in high school.  I just hope they kept Cheek to Cheek in that one scene, I can’t imagine a better use of that song.  This probably isn’t one you should take younger kids but it’s definitely worthwhile for teenagers and up.  I’m hoping to go watch it again soon now that it’s out but I need to figure out some things first.

     That said, GO WATCH IT!  WATCH IT NOW!

Coming soon.  I can finally post my Supergirl review in a couple days.  I’m going to start podcasting again.  I really miss doing all that and I need to get going with it.  I recently started testing some of the Stargate material I’ve been working out for the Marvel Multiverse RPG.  When we get the podcast back into full swing, that’s the game we’ll playing for a bit.  I’ve got one player on board so far.  When I get at least two more players we’ll just need to deal with a few technical issues like video and streaming things, and my cleaning up my hovel.  So far so good.  The little bit we played the other day went well.  I ran the game with three players, two of them are not familiar with Stargate and none of them played D616 before.  Character creation always takes longer than one anticipates but we still got going pretty quick.  I don’t know when we’ll play next but after we played I finally sat down and finished some prep for it.  I’m looking forward to the next game.  Maybe after we get a few episodes out I can use them to demonstrate how Stargate should be handled.  I guess we’ll see.

     Anyway, I’m super excited for Supergirl to come out this week.  I got to go to preview screening back in December and watched a rough cut.  I’ve always loved watching the behind the scenes features on everything so, I really enjoy watching movies when they aren’t a hundred percent finished.  I’ve lucked out and scored passes to six or seven movies over the last year and a half and they’ve all been great!  A few like Supergirl are bigger franchise movies that I most definitely would’ve watched in any circumstance but it’s of course super fun to see them so early and not-so-much polished yet.  I don’t think I can say specifically which ones but they’re going to be fun!  Most of the movies I’ve caught doing this have been some original and pseudo-indie flicks.  I’m pretty sure I still can’t say names but there have been some uniquely interesting stories and fantastic execution.  I can’t wait until I can post those reviews.

     Well, I need to get going with some things.  Among others I’m still looking for more substantial work.  I’m thinking I’m going to record something today.  I’m not sure yet what but something.  I’ve noticed that I have considerably less to bitch about now that I’m not having to deal with utah drivers anymore.  Maybe I’ll record a one-sided conversation about one of my first bits I wrote, about traffic in utah versus traffic in LA.  It’s one of my favorite bits in no small part because of how close to my heart it is.

I’m starting my first shift at the new job tonight.  I’m planning to swing by the open mic at small pub nearby on my way into work.  I love walking around the valley at night.  So much of my youth was spent walking up and down Van Nuys Blvd. most nights, going to In-N-Out to feed myself because Artie refused to.  Enjoying the cool air in contrast to the stagnate, hot, wafting steam during the day.  God damn it, I could use a Double-Double right now.  If anyone wants to buy me some cheeseburgers, there are now mortal words to portray just how swelled my soul to accept them.  Seriously, though, that’d be a huge help!  Honestly, if I could be legitimately just paid in cheeseburgers for doing these fun, creative things I want to start doing regularly again, I’d love that!  I would make an account for this, my fans send me whatever money they want, and I would only use that money for cheeseburgers.  I’d figure out how to pay for everything with day jobs and the money that comes in here would be entirely and solely for cheeseburgers.  Snacks for our games on podcast days, cheeseburgers!  Also, fries and shakes.  essentially, the card for that account would only be used for In-N-Out, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr., and a few smaller hole-in-the-wall type places.  That sounds reasonable to me.  Honestly, my garbage diet subsists principally of cheeseburgers anyhow.  And just having my food perpetually taken care of would be a huge help with shit going on right now.

     Speaking of podcasts, I’m putting together a game modeled on the Stargate franchise and using the D616 system.  I’ve been making assets and crafting characters while tweaking the system accordingly so, once I clean up my shit hole apartment, and straighten out some tech issues, I can get some people coming over to play games.  I have one player for sure.  Another tabletop player I met through friends playing tabletop games, and he happens to an almost equally huge Stargate nerd.  Then when I’m closer to relaunching I have a couple conversations pending.  When I have two more solid confirmations on players and ideally someone in the Producer’s chair, we can get this thing going again.  I can’t wait to start up again.  I miss doing all the behind the scenes stuff like editing and working with the video and audio, setting up the studio, especially when it all comes together and works exactly how it’s supposed to.  It’s a beautiful thing pulling off a live performance of anything, but tabletop role playing games like this with the video resources we’ve got here, the tabletop apps I use for these games, and then having fun people around to play, it’s going to be great!  I can’t wait.

     Yeah, I’m still not feeling great about the Stargate news but I’m thinking that the new podcast game we’re about to start playing, I’ll use to write and play out at least some of the things I’ve been thinking about while trying out writing my first screenplay.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see…