First Memory: A Prologue to Twin Peaks

Van Gogh was Crazy, Too, You Know

According to a study published Monday in Nature Neuroscience, a genetic link can be found between creativity and the cray-cray. The full study is behind a paywall, so I can't parse it for you myself. However, Science Alert has a rundown of the study, and The Verge makes some fair points in criticizing it. Basically, the study looked at people with genetic markers for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and then looked at people working in "creative" industries, such as art, acting, music, dance, and writing. It found that people working in these industries were more likely to carry these genetic variants than people in other types of jobs.

Greeeeeat, I thought as I looked at these articles. More pressure to be brilliant.

I'm the only child of an exceptionally talented artist. My father paints, plays music, and is an internationally published poet. One of my aunts was a professional dancer. Another is a TV editor. Another of my aunts and my cousin are both graphic artists. My uncle is a musician and an actor. I come from a family of "creatives." From the day I was born, there was pressure on me to have some sort of artistic talent.

When it became clear that I was also mentally ill, the pressure mounted.

We've always known there was a link between creativity and insanity. Vincent van Gogh is the first person who usually comes to mind (he's even the cover image on the Science Alert article), but the link has been noted throughout human history. It's a well-worn cliche that if you're crazy, you're brilliant in some fashion.

And I'm just... not. Sure, I write, and cut up tee-shirts, and make videos. Occasionally I can be found absolutely killing the Karaoke party with my rendition of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" (I also kill 'em with "Rehab," but that's because it's hilarious). But I'm nowhere near the level that I've observed is expected of me based on my genetics, and now, apparently, more genetics.

"Van Gogh was crazy, too, you know." Yes, I know! Everybody knows.

Not everybody with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia is a van Gogh. We can't all be. The National Alliance on Mental Illness states that about 13.6 million adults in the United States alone "live with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder." There are not 13.6 million van Goghs anywhere. There was only one, and we're not him.

But I think that's okay. It has to be okay. I can do my fun projects, and you can do yours, and maybe one or two of our 13.6 million-plus brothers and sisters will be at Vincent level. It will never be me, but at least I'm doing my best and having a pretty good time of it.

"I Feel Fine!"

When you first begin taking medication for bipolar disorder, people will tell you a lot of things. They will tell you that you might start to feel like a guinea pig or a lab rat, constantly being experimented on with different dosages and different medications and combinations of medications. They will tell you that the side effects can be pretty severe, but that you can mitigate these with further treatments. They will tell you that at some point you will start to feel better, and will be tempted to go off the medication, but that you must never ever do so without first consulting your doctor.

What they don't say about this last bit is that it's not merely temptation. It's not as simple as feeling fine and thinking you probably don't need the meds anymore. Your brain may actively fight you on this. It knows all of the rationalizations. It reminds you of how much easier it was to deal with yourself when you knew the rabble-rabble rage and the deathy-deathy despair were right around the corner. And don't you miss the euphoria of a manic episode, when you're fifty feet tall and can repel bullets, and the world-- no, the universe-- exists solely for your pleasure?

You can't be creative unless you feel too much, your brain informs you. Until you are utterly stupefied with emotional overload, you cannot truly create brilliant work. You feel fine, but are you fine? Are you really? Those side effects aren't particularly mitigated, are they? Why, your panic attacks are even more frequent now you've gone on these pills. You only used to have one every few months. Now you have at least three per week, if not more. And you look fat. You're probably gaining weight again.

The meds are not really helping you. It's you doing the things, not the pills. All you have to do is go off them, and keep doing as you're doing, but doing it better because you are yourself. You're not yourself without the mood swings and the destructive behavior. You're not yourself without seventeen elaborate scenarios in your head about how this day will go wrong. You're definitely not yourself without a death fantasy for everything that does go wrong.

You don't need the pills anymore, says your brain. You never needed them in the first place.

These are the lies and half-truths you will tell yourself after a month on crazy pills, and no one ever said a word of warning to me about it. Don't listen to your jerkbrain. Stay on your meds. Adjust them if necessary. Talk to your people. Your people are there to help you, and they want you to be well. Your brain is fighting you because it's terrified. Keep fighting back. Show it that a pill or two isn't going to best you; it's going to better you.

I'm telling you this because I need to be told this. Maybe you do, too. Maybe when it gets to that dark place, we can tell each other.

Spider-Gwen and the Cho Incident: When Feminism Erases the Hourglass

Trawling the internet earlier last month, as is my daily habit, I found so many furious posts about Frank Cho's Spider-Gwen sketch. If I hadn't seen all of those posts, I never would have known there was a Spider-Gwen comic that existed in the world.

I'm going to be honest with you. When I first saw the sketch, I was tickled. Absolutely giddy. My meat name is Gwen, and when I was a kid, I climbed on things and pretended to be "Spider-Gwen," your friendly neighborhood wall-crawling badass seven-year-old. Now I'm in my late thirties, and I'm sexy as hell, and I still love superheroes.

Not realizing that Spider-Gwen was a real thing, I believed that Cho was making a cheeky joke that coincidentally tapped into everything I needed to see at the time. I made the image my avatar on facebook. I defended the image on comment boards. And once I became aware that she had her own comic, I became Spider-Gwen's fan, vehemently, enthusiastically, and for life.

Now, I understand why people were upset. They have every reason and every right to be. Women have been sexualized in comics to a ridiculous degree. Websites like The Hawkeye Initiative and Escher Girls have hundreds of posts illustrating this point, and it's both hilarious and sad. The Mary Sue made the point that the comic’s intended audience is teen girls, and that Gwen Stacy herself is a teenager in that universe. Spider-Gwen co-creator Robbi Rodriguez was unhappy with the drawing as well, and to a certain degree, I’m always going to empathize with an artist’s feelings about responses to his work.

At the same time, I still feel good about Cho's drawing. I've got big boobs and a big ass, and I want to feel sexy, and beautiful, and powerful. Cho’s drawing gave that to me at a time when I needed an ego boost. While I agree much of the time with what feminists have to say, this sort of thing kicks me right in the nethers.

There's a deeply scary thread running through some versions of feminism. This point of view assumes the male gaze is the all-important, ever-present villain. The hourglass figure must never be portrayed, lest it give the menfolk a boner. Anita Sarkeesian criticizes female video game characters with my body type almost exclusively. As Liana Kerzner put it:

There are women like me all over the world who have found ways to be proud of our flawed, unique bodies, and we refuse to accept that breasts or hips over a certain size indicate anything inherently immoral. This puts us in direct opposition with Feminist Frequency, since they call out characters in the Tropes vs. Women videos just for having large breasts.

The Cho drawing with my childhood alter-ego as a sexy bad bitch showed up right at the moment I was thinking about this. Spider-Gwen becomes almost tangential when looking at the larger picture. I’m reminded of the weird time when the right-wingers and certain feminists were united in the cause against women’s sexuality in the 1980’s.

Man, was that a drag. Just when I was learning about what it was to be a girl, when I was learning about politics, when I was absorbing concepts of the world that would be sure to stick with me throughout my life, the people who said I could be anything said I couldn't be sexy.

Today, it’s the same. Pearl-clutchers fall against the fainting couch because women have tits, love sex, and use their hard-won agency to flaunt it. Next time, we’re going to talk about Black Widow, and how a great many of the people in the media who were complaining about supposed sexism in Age of Ultron were men.

For now I will close with this: we still need feminism to battle against perniciously right-wing forms of feminism. The hourglass exists, and will not be erased. And Spider-Gwen is fucking awesome.

B

Did you notice that all of the programs mentioned in the previous post start with the letter B (Blacklist, the)? Two of the three titles alliterate with the venerable second letter. That is probably a coincidence, but I wonder what you could find if you looked at the first letters of show titles during certain periods of time.

Would certain letters be more popular than others overall? What's the fashionable summer letter these days? What was it in 1964?

"Black Box" Is a Reference to the Protagonist's Enormous Vagina

Does the Other Woman on Black Box (who was also the Other Woman on The Blacklist) have to be a psycho stalker? Ali Larter and Idris Elba did this shtick better. Why can't she just be cool?

I'm glad there are bipolar women on television now, but Carrie Mathison and Catherine Black have some things in common with each other that they might not have in common with some of their mentally ill viewers. Both have high-stress jobs, and they have to keep their disorder a secret.

What about a bipolar bowling lane attendant whose boss is like a sensei to her? The Bowling Boss knows about the disorder and understands she has to manage as best she can. He helps by teaching his protege to bowl. I guess they could also solve mysteries, but who the fuck do you know that solves mysteries?

I'm just not sure I care about any of these totally unprofessional people on Black Box. Everybody's fucking each other in every crevice of the hospital all the time. They always do this on hospital shows. If the staffs of real hospitals got up to as much fucking on the premises as they do on television it would cease to be a titillating taboo. Hospital shows wouldn't have to use this tired old device anymore.

They'd use it anyway because now it would be "true to life."

Not-Larter is Not-Elba's subordinate at work. If the show has said whether they fucked in the restaurant or someplace else, I cannot remember.

The acting is really broad and the dialogue is not often clever. Lydia from Breaking Bad is doing her best. Good Lydia is high-strung like Bad Lydia, but she's not a liaison for an international meth cartel. What does Good Lydia do for a living? Did the show say? Anyway, she's lovely to look at, but I kind of want the zombies to eat everyone on this program.

If it does not step up its game in the next week, this show will not be a priority.

Damseling Amy Acker

Am I the only person who thought "the Cellist" would end up some Level 11 S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, or CIA or something? When I heard Amy Acker was playing her I was sure of it. And they fucking damseled her. A better actor than all the actors on the show combined (and that includes you, Paxton. Please do chew scenery in every mediocre series on television, because you are a joy to behold, but we both know Acker is a rare and glorious specimen) and they damseled her.

This woman does Shakespeare! This woman can play anyone. And you, Jed Whedon and Marissa Tancharoen, fucking damseled her. Write more musicals and fuck off with this shit. I am disappointed in you.

Next week Adrian Pasdar will return with his ridiculous lip caterpillar. I hope there's a scene where he rips it off while cocking his brow and saying something hilarious. This will not happen because Whedon the Younger and Tancharoen fucking suck right now.

How could you waste Amy Acker like that? God damn it.

The Walk-Back

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro.”

Around the United States, hard right sphincters snapped shut. The backlash against the backlash will come soon, as it did when Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson made similar comments about the happiness of African-Americans in days gone by, but for now, the conservative media and the politicians they unquestioningly support dance a little two-step called the Walk-Back.

The Walk-Back is a time tested method of disavowing a person whose views or cause one previously buttressed. In very rare cases, one also can use the Walk-Back to admit that a person’s views were not as horrible and radical as one had assumed, but that never happens anymore. Typically, and with increasing frequency, hyper-partisans shake a leg to the Walk-Back when the subject of their adoration espouses views so extreme that it will hurt their party’s election prospects.

Here is the part where I mention that this is not strictly a conservative problem. Liberals do it, too, although most of us are more interested in tearing down outdated rightwing dogma than lifting up progressive “heroes.” We can talk about Obama’s drone program or about government spying on citizens all day if you like. Most liberals of my acquaintance will condemn the current administration for continuing Republican policies in these areas, but the liberals of my acquaintance are far more leftist than any Democratic politician has been in decades. It is difficult to discern whether or not the average Democratic voter actually agrees with most of these policies or is holding his or her nose while voting for the best of a ridiculously conservative bunch. The Overton Window is a bitch mistress.

Politicians, the media, and just regular people need to still themselves for a moment. Take deep breaths. Look at the people with whom you ally yourself.

Bundy’s fans marched into a community of 12,000 people with their rifles and shotguns, ready to use women as human shields to prove a point about property rights. Property rights. Is this not one of the conservative stalwart points? Land can belong to someone, is the conservative cry, and should someone violate those rights, it is within the owner’s purview to use any means necessary to protect that land.

But this is not about Cliven Bundy, conservative ideology, or even the rule of law. This is about the media and politicians blindly and gleefully idolizing people who will eventually prove themselves lees than heroes.

Do your homework. Pay attention. Stop pretending that because someone votes the same way as you they are your ally. Cliven Bundy is in this for himself and so are those who now dance the Walk-Back. To do a better job, we all must remember that sometimes the enemy is living in our campground rather than the other.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro.”

Were you really surprised?

Hello, Blog!

Two years since I looked at you. You seem well. No comments on old posts. Forever alone, are we? Poor, neglected thing. Like a devoted house frau whose husband no longer notices her. Not as if you've been trying. Girl, you need to realize you can't just let yourself go like that. You have to keep him interested. What a fickle beast is man.

 I can touch you, if you want.

Blahg

I guess I took January off from blogging. Whatever. If anybody read this thing, maybe they would have reminded me to post every once in a while. That's right, Nonexistent Reader, it is YOUR fault.

Maybe one of these days I'll give a fuck again and post something of substance.

All Your Hitch Are Belong to Us

Christopher Hitchens is six days gone, and his corpse has decayed just enough for the ghouls to find irresistible. As they devour him, they compare him to C.S. Lewis and G.K. Bloody Chesterton, those eloquent old godders, to whom, it should be noted, no one compared Hitch when he was alive. As the hungry foragers dig their fingers into Hitchens’s desiccating body they chirp that perhaps the man who wrote God is Not Great changed his mind about the whole Jesus thing at the very last minute, and if not before death, he certainly did when he turned up in Hell, what what? God is LURVE.

Please piss on his grave. Hitchens was a notorious grave pisser. This was my favorite of his qualities. The world needs talented grave pissers to continue that tradition. Talk about how 9/11 brought out his inner warmongering douchebag. Arch your eyebrow and try to replace him*.



Please do not pretend he came around to Jesus in the very end. The only deathbed conversion having to do with Hitchens was his conversion from a living person into a cadaver. Hitch predicted the vultures would feast, not because he was clairvoyant but because the scavengers for the Holy Ghost are so fucking predictable.

Stop lying for your meat, hyenas. Hitchens was a godless Horseman, not a Christian soldier. He was neither a secret nor an honorary Christian just because his name had the word Christ in it or because militant Islam seriously freaked him out. About the resurrection of Jesus, Hitchens said the following:

“Having no reliable or consistent witnesses, in anything like the time period needed to certify such an extraordinary claim, we are finally entitled to say that we have a right, if not an obligation, to respect ourselves enough to disbelieve the whole thing.” (God is Not Great, p. 143)

Hitch was a war pig, but he was our war pig. You don’t get to claim him, Ross Douthat, now that he’s too deceased to tell you to fuck yourself. A lie about a dead infidel is still a lie.



Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

*Try hard, won’t you? My heart aches for a Hitchens obit of Kim Jong Il.

Morgancest

SPOILERS throughout for shows featuring incest tropes.

The budding incest subplot on Dexter is making this TV addict a little grumpy. I thought about leaving the show if they follow this through, but you know I won’t because we’ve been together so long, baby. Maybe you think my visceral reaction is attributable to cultural taboos and my own squicks and hang-ups, as at first I thought it was. But then I examined it a little deeper and realized that this irritation is not about incest. After all, I did not mind Octavia and Octavian in Rome or Cersei and Jaime in Game of Thrones. Jimmy and Gillian in Boardwalk Empire freaked me out for a minute but that was just because I didn’t think the show would go there until a bit later.

So, what is the problem? The problem is two things. The first thing is that the incest trope has been done on each of those HBO programs I just mentioned. On True Blood as well, when Vampire Beel banged the bejeezus out of his great-great granddaughter. Did the big men at Showtime notice a correlation between HBO’s incest subplots and its Emmy nominations and issue an order to Scott Buck? 100 percent more sister-fucking than that damn vampire show, or it’s curtains for you, Buckaroo! The decision seems tacked on, a conclusion to an emotional arc that never existed before twenty seconds ago.

Which brings us to thing number two: this development is not a logical progression for these characters. Octavian was always into Octavia, and her seduction of him made sense in the context of their story. Cersei and Jaime were fucking from day one; their sexual relationship is an important part of their characters, and it ties into the larger narrative. The implication that Jimmy and Gillian had such a relationship came early in their series, so when the setup got knocked down, it was inevitable and meaningful to Jimmy’s character and to the story.

When, in Dexter’s five previous seasons, has Debra’s behavior ever indicated sexy feelings for her brother? Debra justifies the delusion that she has always been into him with the men in her life, whom she says are either just like Dexter or nothing like him at all. So, either your boyfriends have stuff in common with your brother, or they don’t, and that’s your case for brother-fucking? Let’s see if this adds up.

Biney the Mad Prosthetist is Dexter’s biological brother, and the two of them lived through the same trauma, the chainsaw murder of their mother. They have a lot in common, and I’m positive that this will be the writers’ primary piece of evidence in their defense. There was that dude she met at the gym, who IIRC was just a nice guy. Deb sabotaged that relationship because she was still fucked up from the Biney thing, and who could blame her?

Lundy, I think, is the great love of Deb’s life, and it is he who disproves the case for brother-love. Sure, Lundy had things in common with Dexter—an eye for detail, intense curiosity, passionate drive—but the old man was his own man, a lion for justice. Debra, Lundy, and Dexter had one thing in common: they hunted murderers obsessively. Deb likes men who have the job in common with her because it is convenient to get the nookie this way; this does not make a case for brotherly love. If anything, Lundy is a better example for daddy issues (another post altogether).

Then there was Anton, who was another nice rebound dude. I guess the writers will say that Anton has nothing in common with Dexter and that’s why she dated him, because brother-fucking! But seriously, you can’t have it both ways. Deb likes to rebound with the teddy bears, who salve her wounds until she is well enough to fuck up the relationship. After Lundy died, Deb ended up with Quinn, who satisfied part of the teddy bear thing and part of the convenient partner nookie thing. Quinn and Deb were good for each other; they brought out the best in one another. That the show runners decided to break them up so Deb could feel sexy feelings at Dexter is a betrayal of her character.

It seems to me that, for five years, the writers were very careful to not imply incestuous emotions between the siblings. Even when Jennifer Carpenter and Michael C. Hall were a real-life couple, there was zero sexual chemistry between them onscreen as these characters. Their relationship was something I really loved, because it illustrated how an adoptive relationship can be the same as a blood relationship. Now the show runners seek to undermine that idea, and for what? Isn’t the revelation that her brother is a murderer enough to propel Debra’s character through the next couple seasons?

You made a bad decision here, Buck. I hope you realize that before next season, and Brother Chuck the psychiatrist and her subplot posthaste.

It Gets Worse

Last month, professional atheist JT Eberhard gave a much-touted talk at Skepticon IV about mental illness, and called for people with mental disorders to share their stories. This is one of mine.

Since I was a little kid I have wanted to die, but I first understood I could kill myself when I was twelve. That year, an acquaintance of my dad’s shot himself in the head. I realized I did not need to beg imaginary beings to get me out of this life when there was a way out right there in the medicine cabinet (we didn’t have a gun). It seemed so obvious, to do it my damn self. Right in my face the whole time, and I never saw it until Dad’s friend blew his own brains out. I thought it was genius.

22 years later, I still think that guy had the right idea. College is going well enough, and I love my husband and family, but none of it matters to my brain. At least once a day, I seriously consider suicide as an alternative to spending one more conscious minute on this ridiculous piece of shit planet.

Sometimes crazy people neglect hygiene and various ailments. My upper teeth have rotted away so that when I smile, I look like a zombie. This is a little bit cool on Halloween or on a movie set, but not so fantastic at a job interview. The bleeding and pain are never even a little bit cool. I have trouble leaving the house a lot of the time, because I cannot bear people looking at me. It will cost over $4000 to extract the teeth and over $1700 to get dentures put in. I am 34 years old and I have to get dentures because I am batshit.

Two weeks ago, I had a five-day-long panic attack. I could not sleep, I barely ate, and what I did eat I vomited soon after. My husband tried to help by dragging me out of the house, but there was no shutting up the noise in my head. I did not know what to do, and so I considered eating my husband’s entire bottle of Xanax to make it stop. Instead, I took three pills and passed out.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I felt much calmer after I got some sleep.

Living with mental illness sucks, but skepticism saves the day almost every day. I can’t reason myself out of a panic attack, but I can determine that, indeed, the Wendy’s has not disappeared or ceased to exist, that my brain is being a douchebag once again, and that I should pull over until it quits doing that. There is comfort in having a framework to better distinguish reality from delusion. Skepticism does not always alleviate the guilt I feel for being crazy, but it helps me to understand that the guilt is irrational, unhelpful, and perfectly understandable given society’s views on the mentally unstable.

The ability to question my own assumptions has kept me ticking. Maybe on dark days that disappoints me, but what do I know? I’m crazy.

Fundies Piss Me Off

In a nation with as diverse a population as the United States, where all races, creeds, religious beliefs, genders, etc. come together in the public space, how the fuck is it that I ended up the only atheist among a horde of Christian fundamentalists in my philosophy class?

First, there is the fellow who answered a discussion question about ethical relativism with an incoherent screed about the immorality of men who lie with men, quoted the bit in Leviticus about such men being "put to death," and something about how the government says "God bless America" all the time. This was all in one post. He backed off a bit when I asked him what he was trying to say; should the U.S. government put men who lie with men to death? But that is what happens when you confront fundies with the implications of what they believe. They back off so they don't appear to be the monsters that their words imply them to be.

Being gay, BTW, is totally more abominable than eating shellfish because Jesus said so.

Then there is the young lady who claimed she was "very upset" because other people did not believe the same things that she believed, that she did not even realize it was possible. Really, lady? You never met a Jew? Hell, you never met a Christian of a different denomination than yours? She never spoke to me, but I know my disproof of the stupid stupid STUPID ontological argument the week before was probably one source of her discomfort.

Anyway, it is almost over, and soon I will enter Intro to Film. This is a class where maybe, for once, the Godders will talk about something other than how awesome their god is. Like movies, for instance. Hopefully not the Left Behind movies, but fuck it. Kirk Cameron at least is good for a laugh.

Internet Shitstorm Highlights Fact That "Nature" Publishes Fiction

So. Womanspace. A lot of folks are pretty pissed about it, for various reasons. The short story, published recently in the science journal Nature's fiction section, is a lighthearted look at the differences between men and women, using hackneyed old stereotypes that were not especially funny back in the '50's when they were slightly fresher. Menz be shopping like this, but wimminz, y'all, they be shopping like this.

But I am not here to rip on Mr. Rybicki. Much. The Internet, cruel creature that it is, has not been kind to the author, and anyway, most of us who write have written some really dumb shit. Rybicki got luckier than most of us, though. He got paid for it. And that is what I want to talk about today.

Some of the commentariat wonders why a science journal would contain a fiction section in the first place, and calls for its elimination. By all means, Internet, use your power to get the editor fired, and to bring in someone who knows what they're doing. That second bit is the key, though. You see, back in the days of Bradbury and Ellison, there existed a good number of outlets for short fiction. A writer could, if properly motivated, earn much of a living wage writing speculative fiction and tales of the weird for periodicals.

No longer. The decline of the magazine has been well-documented. Writers must fight each other for a spot in one of the few publications left that pay for fiction. Another outlet for short science fiction, particularly in a well-respected journal, is good for the genre, its creators, and its fans. While it is unfortunate that Nature's editorial staff chose to publish a sub-par bit of controversy generation instead of high-quality speculative art, the upside is that readers and writers alike are all now aware that this journal publishes short fiction. This opens up the possibility for Nature to nurture the next Bradbury or Ellison.

So, let us not be so hasty, dear Internet, to throw out a good idea because it was executed poorly. Fresh eyes and ideas can turn this thing around.

Dead Island Goes On Forever

Seriously. I'm still playing it. The game becomes tiresome because I keep dying and then re-spawning in the middle of a horde of flesh-hungry walkers. Ever since I lost my shock-modded machete--accidentally throwing it at a punk on a roof, and then dying before I retrieved it from his body--it has been difficult to maintain a decent weapon. I do have a super sweet sickle that I've fully upgraded, but it never lasts very long out on the streets. My Death Penalty is only reduced by fifteen percent, so I don't always have money for repairs.

Moresby City is a real shithole. I miss the Resort. Maybe I'll go back there and see if I overlooked any side missions.

Gaslight!

No, you're not crazy. I did remove the previous post. I am going to work on it and re-post it in a few days. The blog format makes it tempting just to put things out there without thinking them through. The post needs tweaking, and I should not have published it as it was.

I Have No Fandom, But I Must Squee

Since LOST and Heroes went off the air, I have been without a TV boyfriend. Sure, there are plenty of good-looking gentlemen populating Television Land, but it takes more than nice abs and a pretty face for a character to win my heart. Sawyer had sarcastic quips to go along with his adorable dimples, and Sylar could flip trucks with his mind while raising a gorgeous eyebrow. In addition to being ridiculously beautiful, Sayid and Mohinder were rational thinkers with deep inner conflicts and a yearning to be accepted and loved. These characters had depth and soul, so that even when they did terrible things (looking at you, Sy), I could not help but love them.

With the premiere of American Horror Story, I had hoped that a new TV boyfriend would present himself in Dylan McDermott's character Ben Harmon. The problem is that Ben is such an insufferable enema bag that I just can't muster up any sympathy for him, his shapely derriere notwithstanding. Allow me to illustrate how fiercely this character turns me off. In the pilot, there is a scene in which Ben furiously masturbates while weeping. If Sylar were doing this in a fanfic, it would feel like home to me. However, at this scene, rather than a quickening of the breath and a tingle in the nethers, I felt something very different bubbling up inside me: laughter. Peals and peals of side-splitting laughter. "What the fuck?" I giggled. "That was awesome!"

Awesome, indeed, in its hilarity. Rapey Gimp Ghost is orders of magnitude sexier than Weepy Wanky Ben.

So, it has been lovely to enjoy the glorious presence of one Mr. Zachary Quinto (Code name: Sugarplum) on AHS these last two weeks. His character Chad, being an angry gay ghost, is not really an ideal TV boyfriend for me, but that doesn't matter. We could be really great friends, Chad and I. We could sledgehammer Jack-O-Lanterns together, and then later, over a bottle of wine, commiserate about our respective relationship troubles. Then we could chase interlopers out of the Murder House and go bobbing for Granny Smiths. No, that is not a euphemism.

Please, Ryan Murphy, in the interest of keeping your show the craziest, campiest thing on TV, give my Sugarplum plenty more to do. You will not regret this.

No Nanowrimo This Year

As you may have noticed, this blog started out several years ago as a Nanowrimo blog. However, I have managed to fail every attempt I have made at this event, and have determined that I am no good at it. So, no Nano this year. My self-esteem just can't take another failure.

Lying for Xenu

Earlier this week, former Scientology bigwig Marty Rathbun leaked documents on his blog describing the church's efforts to plant a mole inside South Park Studios. Everybody saw "Trapped in the Closet," and everyone with half a brain looked that shit up after the episode aired to confirm the truth of its claims.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone exposed Scientology's wacky intergalactic secrets to millions of viewers around the world at a time when the church's membership (and thereby its revenue) was ever-expanding. These secrets were supposed to be kept behind a pay wall. Who thought the COS was just going to let this go? Fact is, you fuck with Miscavige's bottom line, the best you can hope for is a mole in your workplace. I can't wait to see more documents, to find out exactly how far they got in this ill-advised Super Adventure.

Until then, I'd like to discuss something about the documents that disturbs me intensely. Apparently, the church used Lloyd Kaufman's old "Yale buddy" Eric Sherman to pump Kaufman for information about Parker and Stone. Kaufman, of course, is the founder of Troma Studios, and one of my favorite human beings on the planet. Top ten, for real. I love this man. Here I am with him a few years ago at a convention (I'm next to Sgt. Kabukiman).

I show you this for full disclosure. When Lloyd Kaufman says that he had no idea Eric Sherman was a Scientologist, I believe him. When he says he would never intentionally do anything to harm Parker and Stone, I know this to be true. It angers me to my core that someone purporting to be his friend would lie to him just to get information that could hurt other people. In what universe is this moral?

It is moral in the universe where society affords privilege to the religious liar--in other words, the universe we currently occupy. We have no way of determining whether or not there was a moment when Sherman said to himself, "Gee, it's kind of shitty to use my friends this way." Regardless, it's clear that Sherman determined any reservations he had were less important than doing as his religious leaders told him to do.

And Sherman's religious leaders declared that Parker and Stone needed to go down for having the temerity not only to mock Scientology's ridiculous ideas, but also to point out what those ideas actually are (which circumvents the revenue stream). Sherman decided that this crime--the crime of producing a cartoon that his religion did not like--was a worse offense than betraying the trust of his old college friend to get gossip, and presenting a mole for formal introduction, that said mole might sabotage people's lives.

In a culture that encouraged people to question religious authority, would Sherman still have made this decision? Possibly. The authoritarians will be with us always. But in such a culture, a mendacious organization like the Church of Scientology (amongst many others) would be less likely to flourish.

More thoughts on this later.