A Quick Thought…

So many Americans are currently concerned, fearful that we're headed into a Communist, Marxist, Socialist, or even Nazi like era in American History due to various reforms. I'm wondering, today, how many of those same people are okay with certain groups of people in Arizona being required to carry around identification papers everywhere they go simply because they are different?

Sure Signs that Your Date Isn't Going Well

Explanation: I used to write and produce these "comedy" books when I worked in fast food. They were usually a way of blowing off steam. I was young, single, angry… This is a highly edited excerpt from one of the pages. I know. It's sophomoric at best. My fast food friends used to enjoy them. I still laugh at some of this stuff, but as in the past, sometimes I'm the only one laughing. If you can't make yourself laugh…

Sure Signs that Your Date Isn't Going Well…

• Shortly after attempting to steal a kiss, your date begins to gag.
• It's no mystery to anyone that your date likes to throw rocks.
• Your dates asks to make a pit stop at the health department before dinner.
• Your date has prison stories.
• You realize the strange object in your date's waste band is a gun.
• You realize your date is easy, but not because they're having any kind of relations with you… yet…
• You gladly break the law by stealing a car just to get home.
• Multiple personalities are obvious.
• The subject of "how much money you have on you" keeps coming up.
• Part of your date takes place on a talk show.
• One of you keeps shouting the word "rash" for no apparent reason while in a very public place.

I don't miss the dating scene.

Random Things from My Weekend - April 26th

• How to Train Your Dragon was a great, fun movie. We took Owen Sunday morning.
• I think every movie should be designed with 3D in mind even if it isn't shown in 3D. We saw the Dragon cartoon in 2D, and the angles and action were really great. You could tell it was supposed to be viewed in 3D.
• On our way to Babies 'R Us, Owen asked why we were going there. I said, "To shop for a new baby of course." I eventually had him convinced that we were just looking at new babies today, but we were considering trading Gage in. That's when my wife became disapproving.
• While Heidi was shopping Babies… I took the boys into the neighboring Toys 'R Us thinking that would keep them more entertained. Every time I go in there, which isn't very often, they have about 4 employees for every customer. How do they keep that up? Perhaps toys are just that profitable.
• Avatar is out on DVD, and it's making me hate my ancient, small, standard television even more.
• Celebrated my father-in-law's 50th birthday at Sharky's Saturday. I don't really understand why they have so much security there. Probably better that I don't understand.
• Owen stayed at my parents' house last week for a few days. As we were leaving he asked my parents for hugs and kisses. My dad explained that grandpas don't kiss. Owen asked, "Why? Do you bite like a dog?"
• Our church currently shares a building with another church. Not sure who, but someone brought in some Matchbox/Hot Wheels type jets to keep in the preschool room. All the boys wanted to take them home yesterday. Anyone know where you can buy such things? Walmart and Meijer were a no go. Maybe Toys 'R Us has a better selection.
• Reading Lord, Save Us from Your Followers by Dan Merchant. It was on the clearance wrack at FCS. It's fun, but each chapter is a totally different format.
• I'm getting really good at making homemade Guacamole.

Peter Steele, Type O's front man, gone at age 48, Loved His Music

He-man Dorks of the World Unite! or By the Power of Grayskull!

I'm a dork. I know it, made peace with it a long time ago. I've taken some lumps for it, especially in junior high, when most of your lumps are doled out anyway.

When I was about eight years old, I received a boon for my birthday, what I perceived to be a crazy amount of money. We're talking at least thirty whole dollars here. More money than I had seen at one time in my entire life. The year was 1982.

The only time we'd ever drive all the way to Toys 'R Us in Flint back then was shortly after our birthdays. We lived in Lake Orion, and there were no freeways to get us there quickly. Star Wars was fully wound down at this point. My young, overactive imagination was in need of a new plastic outlet.

There, in all of his muscle bound plastic glory, was He-man and the Masters of the Universe. I'd seen a few commercials on Saturday mornings. I was intrigued. The cartoon wouldn't hit for about a year. There were similar toy lines out there. I didn't really understand the genre this series was coming from. Were they all barbarians? Were the bad guys magicians, monsters? I left the store with two heroes, two villains, and a large green, armored tiger that the heroes were supposed to ride.

Each figure came with a mini comic that gave you the first glimpse into their world. The problem was, the comics didn't seem to match up in every way. It was kind of like different people were asked to come up with different concepts. I loved it. My imagination went crazy. As the next year progressed, the series exploded in popularity. There were books, comics, and eventually the first cartoon series, and none of it meshed together very well.

Most of the mini comics were very mature, swords, dragons, violence. The characters were brutish. Skeletor was truly an evil overlord. Beast Man was the savage king of his own people. The cartoon was almost the complete opposite. Most of the villains were more comedic than scary. There was always a moral to the story.

Despite it's corniness, I had to watch the cartoon every day. I was addicted. I didn't like the stories and characterization as much. I preferred my own imagination, but I still had to watch. I had to see if the newest character would appear in animated form.

I had endless adventures with those action figures. I incorporated other similar toys and knock offs. I drew my own pictures of my favorite characters. My Christmas lists for years were heavy with Masters figures and accessories. My younger brother Bob got into collecting, and we often strategically planned birthday requests to increase our collection. I always liked the bad guys better. They were just cooler looking. The heroes were too human, ordinary.

At age nine, I met a guy that would become my best friend. I got him into He-man too. The fifth grade wasn't too harsh on our boyhood heroes. That was also the year of Gremlins, G.I.Joe, and Transformers. Lots of kids our age were still dorks for toys.

Now, for those of you that couldn't already guess, taking a big, metal He-man lunch box to the sixth grade is a bad idea. It gets you picked on more than you normally would. Let's just say I already had a bunch of strikes against me a this age (I weighed about 65 lbs. and had Coke bottle glasses). I toughed it out. I was my own person, proud of my individuality even if I did get heckled and brutalized more often. Of course I made sure to hide any hint that I might still be into such things in the seventh grade. One year of extreme outcast-ism was enough. I was happy to settle back into my normal level.

The series was one of Mattel's highest grossing lines for boys ever, to this date. They even had a spin off series that was supposed to appeal to girls involving He-man's sister, She-ra. On more than one occasion you'd catch boys in the pink aisle looking over the spin off merchandise.

In late 1985 and early 1986 the series died off. The newest set of villains they had introduced were kind of lame. A live action movie came out in 1987, and it was a totally different take on the characters. It was lame. Mattel tried to re-invent the main characters with a more space oriented theme, which made no sense. I grew up, and He-man disappeared.

Well, until 2002 when the most famous action figure sculptures, The Four Horsemen announced that they'd worked out a deal with Mattel to re-imagine the series with more modern designs. Mattel had released some special edition, rare re-issues a few years prior. They proved that there was still a market. They made the mistake of trying to market the line to kids though, and it didn't really go over. There was a new cartoon, which was okay.

They also tried to use modern collectible ideas in this line: multiple versions of popular characters, short packing others to make them rare. That really only angered the people collecting. It was a fun line, but short lived.

More recently, Mattel approached the Horsemen. This time they would re-design all of the characters with a more classic feel: lots of muscle, re-usable parts from character to character, but this line would be bigger than the previous lines. These figures also wouldn't be sold in retail stores. You can only buy them online, one character is sold one day of each month. They sell out in around thirty minutes, and you're lucky to even get on the website at that time. They've packaged this newest line as the Adult Collector, Masters of the Universe Classics line. Each figure is $20 before shipping costs.

I've already given up on trying to collect this newest line, but it's hard to fight off the nostalgia. It's probably a good thing I don't have a job right now. We did get our tax return back recently, and it was much larger than we expected. The tax breaks really came through for us. I broke down. I gave in. I bought this guy to the right here, Webstor - Evil master of escape, my favorite character when I was a kid. He'll likely be the only one I purchase.

Now, let me be clear, I don't play with this thing. But, just having it around takes me back to relive so many memories of Christmases, birthdays, lazy afternoons in my backyard, play time with my little brother. I know it makes me a dork, but the nostalgia… I'm so glad there's enough of us dorks left to make this worth a toy company's efforts.

My kids now watch the old cartoons, and the newer ones too, on DVD. Owen runs around saying he's He-man. I'm so proud.

What Do I Want to Be?

I've posted similar things before, but my wife is getting understandably anxious with me regarding my future career choices. I don't blame her, but I also don't feel like I have a clear path laid out before me.

She asked me this weekend to think about when I was a teenager. Her question was, "When someone would ask you what you want to be when you grow up, what did you answer?" My response is, I've already done all that.

When I was in first grade, my doodling hobby caught the eye of the art teacher. They entered a poster I drew into some contest, and it won. Ironically, it was draw a poster depicting what you want to be when you grow up. At that point, I could only imagine being a waiter. I don't know why. The attention I received from that one drawing convinced me that I wanted to be an artist.

Illustration as always my thing. I did tons of projects all throughout elementary and high school. My college portfolio was illustration heavy, but when I actually got into college, I saw that it would be easier to get into graphic design. Graphic design meant computers and pay checks. Illustration meant years of being a starving artist, struggling to make a name for myself.

A graphic artist can still make a name for himself, but that's never what it was about for me. I wanted to do my thing, be creative in whatever way appealed to me at the time. If I could get a creative job that paid the bills, allowed me to have a "normal" life with a wife, house and kids, that was my goal. Instructors would often warn against newspaper jobs. They said those types of jobs only allowed you to be someone else's hands in exchange for a steady paycheck. Seemed like a perfect fit for me.

I still had dreams and aspirations. Most of them were more personal (see wife, kids, house). I also wanted to work for a good company. If I was going to work in the newspaper field, I wanted to work for the best in this area, and that was The Flint Journal. I achieved all that. Before the company decided to drop all of it's current artists, I often thought that I had already lived and realized all my aspirations. It was something to be happy about.

That's kind of flipped on me now.

The print industry, in Michigan at least, has shrank. The companies that are still in the running are looking for people to do a ton of work, bend over backwards on scheduling at the drop of a hat, work in "catch all" departments, and do all of this for pay that isn't much higher than your average fast food job. I've worked in those situations before. That's usually how you get into the business. It's not an environment that lends itself well to family people. There's guaranteed stress, and few moments of happiness or even creativity.

I don't think it's a totally lost line of work. I just haven't come across many opportunities, even for worst case scenario jobs, in the past year. I'll never stop being a creative, artistic person, I'll always do my thing, but it just seems like this career path has come to an abrupt dead end. Maybe it's just taking me through some bad neighborhoods right now.

So my wife wants to know what I want to do now. What would make me happy? What would I want to do every day until I retire or beyond? I wish there were easy answers.

I think I can narrow it down to two choices. One would likely be difficult. It's not likely to go smoothly, but I'd be happy. The other would be relatively easy, it would probably hold a lot of security and an easy paycheck, but I wouldn't be in love with it. It would be something I slog through. I have no problem slogging if it means my kids get to eat and have a roof over their heads.

Quite frankly, the first option terrifies me. Not because I'd dislike it. I'm afraid of what certain people would think. I'm afraid there might not be a huge market for this career. It's a leap, you could say, that really doesn't have anything to do with my ability.

So, I'm in turmoil today. What do I want to be now that I've already grown up?

I welcome any advice.

Granny get your gun

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