I know I should have done this earlier but I spent the last day and a half not  getting the data from my last phone loaded up onto my new phone...and then a lot of TV watching.

     I’m right now starting season four of The Flash, having a snack, and then making pies.  It’s become tradition now for thanksgiving that I make Peanut Butter Cup Pies.  The recipe for which I got from thatmeanswegetpie.com about eight or nine years ago.

     I’m behind on my writing so I don’t have my Fantasy Football Update yet.  I’ll work on it for my regular weekly post for this week.  This one was supposed to be shorter.  There will be an episode this week I just have to get started on these pies. 

     This week has been rough so far.  It started solemnly with Veterans’ Day here in the US, and then one of great creatives died on Monday morning.  Stan “The Man” Lee was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was later pronounced.  I wrote my peace on all this that night.  If you’d like to read it, it was the piece just previous of this article.  Suffice to say: you will be missed, Stan.

     That said, back to work.  I’m about to record my intro and upload the new episode.  I’ve recently gotten into Pluto TV.  I’m diggin’ it.  I’ve been watching poker all day and lamenting how much I miss playing it regularly.  And of course, I can’t host my game this Saturday because I’ll be going to An Evening With Neil Gaiman.  Perhaps the weekend of thanksgiving, we’ll see.  It seemed almost harder to write today.  I’ve been sitting here in my underpants AND smoking a pipe.  I thought that would help.  well, here’s this week’s fantasy unpdate.

Fantasy Football Update Week Nine

     The Dragons, reinvigorated by their victory over the previous week, plans to carry forth their momentum onto this battlefield.  Both sides are anxious albeit cautious.  The first day is quiet.  Neither side moving to attack.  Waiting for just the moment....

     The Dragons pull out to lead early.  They witness the might of Kareem of Hunters and they find once more their ferocity.  Striking swift and hard the Dragons lose ground, although, never so much that the Dragons hobble themselves into disadvantage.  The battle rages, the Dragons push back their foes all theghout the second day.  As dawn breaks upon the third day the Dragons are spent.  Their opponent having one chance to survive the conflict.  Their defending Minotaurs stepping out upon the field are anticipated to clench victory.  Alas, the oracles on this day were mistaken.

     The Level 20 Red Dragons defeated Kolby’s Name Changers 160.67-153.4.  It was close for a moment but with the Cowboys’ weakened defense they drastically underproduced for Kolby.

     It took me perhaps too long to get all this written today.  So that’s it today.  Listen to the new episode tomorrow and keep an eye out on our twitter, instagram, and Facebook pages.  My plan is to have an early release link up around midnight. 

      When I was a child, my dad taught me many important things.  How to fix things.  How to know when things needed to be fixed.  The difference between cost and value.  How to recognize what is right and to do that.  He not only taught that I shouldn’t be afraid but rather how to NOT  be afraid.  Through his example I saw that it wasn’t enough to be better than everyone else but that I had to be Good.  Many of these things I didn’t understand until after he died.  I was twelve then.  Many more of these things I didn’t understand until recently, twenty years after he died.

     I didn’t know how to cope at first.  The first few years were difficult.  Arguably, they rest since then weren’t easier.  I’ve given up many, many times.  I tried to kill myself some of those times.  It didn’t work.  I had only a few people I could turn to for help.  My “mother” was never one of them.  I was talented, intelligent, attractive, and perpetually alone.  I was expelled from multiple high schools.  I had attended the funerals of family members and mentors, and chief among them, my dad.  Who was the utmost of both.  And by my “mother”, I was robbed of money and opportunities.  Beaten and degraded on a daily basis.  And as far as I can tell made an accessory to at least a minimum of a dozen counts of various frauds through her theft of my identity.

     In August of 1962, a comic book was released for purchase.  Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of The Amazing Spider-man!  A young boy was bitten by a radioactive spider and given the amazing powers of the creature.  His first acts with these incredible new abilities was to make money.  Become rich and famous.  And of course somebody else tried to take advantage of him.  He chose not to do the right thing because the wrong thing hurt the person who hurt him.  Later on because of his choice his Uncle Ben was murdered.  Peter Parker then started to understand the simple truth his uncle had always told him.  “With great power must come great responsibility.”  Peter Parker was talented, intelligent, attractive, and often times alone.  This seemed familiar.

     In 1962 a comic book portrayed the story of a child experiencing some the hardest lessons of life that even today few truly comprehend, and thirty-four years later almost word for word told my own story.  The times when I had no will to continue living, the times when I had so little strength I physically could not lift myself up off the floor, nights when I sat in the dark weeping because I had nothing else I could do, I would look at Spider-man and see myself.

     Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created a super hero who failed, was flawed, and gave up when he failed because he was flawed.  Peter Parker quit being Spider-man.  Many times.  And then he stepped up did what he needed to do.  F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “You show me a hero and I’ll write you tragedy.”  I learned that from an episode of Spider-man.  This comic book character showed me that my pain, my tragedy was important perhaps necessary to be better than I was.  To be good.  And that it would keep going.  Fitzgerald said nothing about writing the end of any hero.  I kept going, despite myself.  Spider-Man persisted for many decades now and so have I. 

     Steve Ditko passed away this last June [2018] and Stan Lee passed away today, 12 November 2018.  I missed many opportunities to thank them in person for what they’ve done over the years so, I’m doing this now.  I couldn’t be who I am now, I probably wouldn’t be alive right now if not for the motivation I gleaned from this cartoon.  Thanks, Stan and Steve!  EXCELSIOR!

     Here’s the video finally.  Enjoy!

     I got held up in production so, this week’s episode will be released tomorrow.  Apologies for the inconvenience.  I did figure out some more of the YouTube stuff so, you can listen to some episodes on there and I’m finally posting the video of our interviews from FanX last September.  Later.