And then the rest of the story

Remind me not to Blog when I've been drinking.

The rest of the story.

The theme I described in my previous post is consistent with the beginning
of the 20th century. First World War. Good Monarchists vs Bad
Monarchists. The Freaks from Left Field, the Democrats, march in and save
the day. Most of the best of both flavors of Monarchists are slaughtered,
and the Good Monarchists win, but they're broken, and the Freaks are rich
and powerful and hated. Eventually all the good guys are broken, and the
Evil Monarchists make a massive comeback, and nobody wants to listen,
because the Good Guys won last time.

And then when the boys are up against it and the game is on the line,
along comes the Gipper, in this case embodied by Franklin Roosevelt, in
fiction the crippled prince of the forgotten royal family, and so on.

Same old damn story.

Back in the real world, the royalists on both sides are dead, the old
enemies are dead, and the enemies are totally different. And we can't face
reality because it's not the story we know anymore, and we don't know
anymore that the good guys win.

And worse yet, maybe we're the bad guys. The other guys aren't good, but
we aren't good either.

So let's drop all the old-school crap of the fantasy era, and if there is
such a thing, let's find a new story. Where we're not sure who the good
guys are, or who the bad guys are, and maybe we're the bad guys -- not
just that we're corrupted by external bad guys, but maybe our objectives
are wrong.

It's been done a few times in books I've read. I'm terrible about
remembering authors or specific stories -- which is why this is a personal
blog and not a review column. News this ain't.

I read a series a while back, though, that embodied what I was talking
about. The underlying melieu was Law versus Chaos, and in several volumes
Law was presented as the be-all and end-all, and at the end, Law won.

Then, in later stories, the reality of the Chaos side was presented, warts
and all, but with Chaos as the good guys, and Law as reactionary
extremists. And the good guys won, only with a Balance being achieved
between Law and Chaos.

Not the same old theme, but much the same theme, in a sense. All Law and
Chaos. Fantasy inherently really sucks at dealing with reality, it's all
about extremes. And real life is not about extremes.

So fantasy doesn't work at all in the real world. Which is all right with
me, because I don't read fantasy for real world. The real world kinda
sucks. I wanna see the good guys win in fiction, and I wanna believe the
good guys are going to win in the real world. So give me more fantasy.

Just, since fantasy is all about imagination, let us be more imaginative,
shall we?

--
Grizzly <grizzly at grizzly.podzone.org>
Podcast:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/grizzlysgrowls>
A minor local celebrity's fifteen minutes of
fame

Everything old is...

New again.

I was just now struck by the common theme in so much Fantasy fiction. The
forces of Good fight the forces of Evil, and both forces are mostly
destroyed, but the good triumphs, for a while.

In the intervening period, the heir or heirs of the old order rise again,
assemble overwhelming force and crush evil.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the forces of the theoretically good
fought the forces of the hereditarily evil, democracy fighting along side
monarchists against the other monarchists, the ones defined as evil.

Many of the best were slaughtered on both sides, and both sides were
weakened, but the forces of evil were able to recover faster.

Then the forces of good rose up again and smote the evil. And good
reigned triumphant, and then alla that other stuff happened, and whatnot.

Looking back on that, I reflected on essentially all the Fantasy fiction
ever written. And it's the same damned story.

Can we please see another story? Fantasy fiction is getting as bad as
Gothic Romances. Same damn story over and over again. Sometimes well
written, sometimes badly written, always the same damn story, only the
spells have changed.

I mean, hey, get over it already.

--
Grizzly <grizzly at grizzly.podzone.org>
Podcast:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/grizzlysgrowls>
A minor local celebrity's fifteen minutes of
fame

A little bit of understanding

There's a saying from the bible, "A prophet is without honor in his own
country." While my own troubles are not quite of biblical importance, I
can understand the above. And those in my country, my commmunity, my
friends, don't understand.

I told a group of people I'd known for a couple of decades that I'd
started podcasting, and they attacked me as someone evil who would invade
their privacy. Their privacy has resulted in lots of people leaving, and
no new people coming in. They're welcome to their privacy -- I'm on the
verge of making it more private, by one person.

Since my long-time friends didn't understand podcasting, I asked my
podcasting friends about my troubles, and they attacked me for even
asking. Never mind, they have other things to do, I guess.

My technical friends don't care about my technical troubles, and my ASD
friends don't care to hear about the spectrum-related aspects. My
drinking buddies don't care to do more than drink with me, and the woman
who tells me she loves me loves someone she thinks I am, and doesn't
understand I'm someone else.

I haven't even heard from my best friend in a month or two. And my family
is still my family.

I begin to think I'm better off talking to total strangers. So, how have
you been?

--
Grizzly <grizzly at grizzly.podzone.org>
Podcast:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/grizzlysgrowls>
A minor local celebrity's fifteen minutes of
fame

My Next Podcast topic

I'm kinda hanging fire on my next podcast topic. I've been doing a series
of shows about me, and there really isn't that much to tell, and I ran
out.

So now I have to get another idea or another theme or topic or whatever.

One topic that keeps coming to mind for me is, what is it really like to
be beautiful? I have been told from time to time I'm pretty good-looking.
Since I'm told that by people who would know, it must be true. But I'm
not the sort who takes that as a given because somebody says so. I'm
still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I have been absurdly lucky in meeting and (sometimes) getting to know
beautiful women. And I am certainly affected by meeting some women who
are beautiful. It is mind-boggling that a guy like me would have met as
many gorgeous women as I have. And I know how I react to that, so much so
that I'm reasonably able to behave like a gentleman about it -- I know a
few gentlemen, so I know how they act.

But, what is it like to -be- beautiful? There comes some point where you
realize that you are good-looking, and then what? "Yeah, okay, so I'm
beautiful. And now what?" What is that like? Is your life different?
If you're good looking without being a world celebrity and what-not, how
does that feel? What is it really like to be good-looking, or beautiful?

What assumptions do you think people make about you? What experiences do
you have that back up your assumptions? Have you ever had those
assumptions proved entirely wrong?

And what assumptions do you make about the behavior of others toward you?
Do you tend to assume that -all- behavior is about your looks? Are you
ever able to accept that anyone is able to get past that?

So, that would be an interesting topic to pursue on the show. But I can't
see a way to do that show without it being assumed as a way to pick up
women. Not that I'd -mind- picking up women. But the subject intrigues
me, and I can't figure out a way to get to an honest answer to the
question.

So that's a show I'd like to do, that I'll never get to do. And I think
it's a question worth asking. Oh, well.

--
Grizzly <grizzly at grizzly.podzone.org>
Podcast:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/grizzlysgrowls>
A minor local celebrity's fifteen minutes of
fame

What words mean

I've been doing a podcast for a while now. I enjoy it, and I've been
reasonably proud of it.

Recently I did a Google search to see if anyone other than me was posting
comments to the web about what I had to say. Well. Seems the word
"grizzly" has already been co-opted by the gay community. So no one will
find my podcast, or even bother to look for my podcast, because they're
not looking for gay content. Thanks, guys.

I got the nickname "Grizzly Adams" from cabdrivers in southeast Michigan,
because I have a habit of not trimming my beard or cutting my hair. I'm
not gay. But because the term grizzly is already owned by the gay people,
I can look forward to my content to being ignored and my message, should I
ever have one, being misunderstood or kicked aside by folks who aren't
interested in gay messages.

But I'm not gay.

And that doesn't matter, because "grizzly" is a gay term.

So now I'm pretty much decided to kick the whole podcast to the curb.
Because nobody's ever going to find me, or listen to me, because I'm
buried beneath a deluge of content focused on a particular subgroup of the
Gay community. Not That There's Anything Wrong With That.
Doesn't seem fair to me, but what do I matter.

Ain't free speech grand.

--
Grizzly <grizzly at grizzly.podzone.org>
Podcast:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/grizzlysgrowls>
A minor local celebrity's fifteen minutes of
fame