A lot of people dread job interviews. I haven’t been on one in years. This made last night’s job fair for Chesapeake Public Schools a lot of fun. Here’s some shenanigans from last night.
*Interviewer: “Why should we hire you?”
Me adjusting my posture and leaning back in the seat like I own the building: “Because I’m awesome.”
*Interviewer: “Um... you included a comic book you made with your resumé?”
Me: “Yep!”
Interviewer: “Can I keep it?”
Me: “Absolutely!”
Interviewer: “Cool.”
*Me chatting with a woman in the hallway before heading in a room to interview for the same school: “So, what’s your certification in?”
Her: “English. How about you?”
Me: “English.”
Her: “...”
Me: “...”
Her: “...”
Me: “There can be only one.”
*Interviewer: “What can we expect to see if we come into your classroom during a lesson.”
Me: “Excellence in action.”
Interviewer: “I’m writing that down.”
Me: “You should.”
*Interviewer: “Any questions for me about the school?”
Me: “Yes, I subbed there one Friday and there were doughnuts for all the teachers. How often does that happen?”
*Ladies in the cafeteria (which served as a lobby of sorts during the event) after the interviews: “It’s harder than you think it would be having to talk about yourself like that.”
Me: “Yeah. It’s really a matter of being able to sell yourself. I’m just glad I don’t have to do it on street corners anymore.”
It's a bittersweet thing. Your hero goes on to his reward, and you're sad about it, but then you think about the life he lived and the legacy he left behind. He is immortal through his creations and his work, and known the world over through them.
I never met him. In the many comic conventions I've been to, we never crossed paths. Still, I remember fondly him narrating Spider-man and his Amazing Friends on Saturday mornings. My interests were evolving not just from enjoying the characters to appreciating and following those who created the comics.
He was one of the greatest influencers of popular culture of the 20th century. I'd argue he's top of the list, but Walt Disney has a pretty good claim to the title. He served in the Army as a "playwright", a designation that only seven men ever held. (Dr. Suess was another of them, so there's some trivia for you.) Despite working in comics since he was 17, he greatest creations were created as he neared 40. He was ready to quit the business but was urged to give it one more shot and try things the way he wanted to. The rest was history.
He influenced a lot of people on personal levels. He gave us the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility". He took on topics like drug abuse and bigotry in the pages of his books.
To call him a giant in entertainment is understating things grossly.
This afternoon as the news broke, I got phone calls and texts from friends and family offering condolences and asking if I was OK.
Baldrick's cunning plan will have to wait as Blackadder and his troops go over the top in a poignant and powerful finale to the series. Subscribe to Comedy G...
On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, the conflict ended. While this show is one of the finest comedies every to grace television, the final scene of the season gives a moving and somber tribute to the soldiers of World War I.
Historically speaking, the democrats should win big. I say this because the Republican have the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. When that happens, we are supposed to see voters push back restore balance giving the Congress to the other side of the aisle. Look at 2010. The Democrats had a super majority. Obama was enjoying a lot of power and popularity. It was supposed to be a walk. Instead, the Democrats got brutally hammered in the mid-terms, and the Republicans took Congress.
Things are different now. Obama used the power of the majority to push through the Affordable Care Act, which did not deliver what it promised. He added a great deal to the national debt. He went of what was deemed “the apology tour” in which he went around to many countries and tried to express that things were going to be much different under him, than things were under George W Bush. The economy was trying to make a comeback after the housing bubble burst, but it was sluggish.
Under Trump, the economy is booming. Unemployment is at lows that we haven’t seen in decades. There has been great advancements for peace between North Korea and the rest of the world. Trump is not perfect, by any means, but he has had a very good first two years.
That does not mean that the mid-terms will go well for the Republicans.
The biggest thing I that is going to determine this is how the people have reacted to the President. Under Obama, the TEA Party rose and held rallies and organized to make their voices heard. Under Trump, Antifa rose and caused riots and property damage. People are being assaulted for not being liberal and supporting a sitting President. Elected officials are encouraging people to harass those who disagree with them. We’ve also seen a full blown witch hunt on a Supreme Court nominee.
The Democrats have not been doing themselves any favors.
So, how will this translate into votes?
The Republicans will keep the Senate.
The Democrats will make gains in the House, but not enough to take control over it.
How will the population react?
The media will cast blame. Russia will likely get blamed for it. The hard left will rail about the “system being broken”, and some will advocate for open revolution. Expect violence in major cities. The migrant caravan will likely disperse. The Stock Market will start rising again, as recent worries about Democrats gaining power have caused dips.
There will be demands of voting reform from those who declare voter ID laws to be racist.
People will say they’re going to move to Canada, but none will say they’re going to move to Mexico.
The people who have been insulting those who don’t agree with them will not be able to fathom the fact that you can’t insult people into agreeing with them.
Evidence appears to support a criminal conspiracy between Julie Swetnick and Mr. Avenatti.
And all other allegations were found to be unverifiable or patent lies.
An investigation into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh found no witnesses who could provide evidence
I don’t know how many more shoes could drop. You’d think the Democrat party was an octopus with tap shoes and a top hat, holding a baton while dancing in a three ring circus that’s on fire. I’m fearful of a popcorn shortage. I stopped eating popcorn and switched to celery, carrots and broccoli with peanut butter and ranch dip. Much healthier.
BUT, OH MY GOD!
Not only can Avenatti get disbarred, he could go to Federal prison! He just lost a multi-million dollar case against a former partner. It also throws a cold bath of water on the stalled Stormy Daniels storyline. It even crushes the DNC.
Meanwhile, the current storyline by Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and the hard liberal left, is that the Republicans are Nazis; it’s the tired lie of antisemitism, racism, hatreds against anything and everything pure and beautiful in the world… and yet Obama’s riff is that Republicans are fearmongering. And frankly, only idiots, the ignorant, and the people who don’t bother to see past their own isms, believe it.
You have to be certain that yes, there are bad people. Yes, there are many who have hated for many reasons. The people with so much hate in their hearts, they:
Yell at people they hate
Destroy private property if they don’t get their way
Assault and batter people they hate
Justify their hate with dogma
Demonize those they hate, to dehumanize them before others, to convince them it’s true
Harass the people they hate in public
Ridicule those they hate with single-sided, black and white arguments
Threaten the lives and families of the targets of their hatred
Seek to destroy the lives of their targets of hate
They promote intolerance of anything against their views
They’re called Liberal Extremists.
Essentially, any extremism is inherently the issue that leads to this behavior. In the 50s, this was very prominent in Americans against people of different skin colors, women, Jews… but it had been that way for a few hundred years or more. Not everyone felt that way.
If you put on red glasses and looked at the world, everything is red. To a historian, you know that there were many people more so uncomfortable but used to segregation, thinking that any of their friends and family may disagree and attack them, that they kept their heads down and didn’t speak up. We know this, because it’s a pattern.
Just like we’re aware that only a few cops are bad, it’s simply probably that a percentage are bad. I forget my earlier math last year, but it’s roughly 1 cop per 50 people, but 1 in 23 are cops (current and former). Don’t hold me to that, but stay with me here. 1:50, and roughly 2.5 million officers to police 450 million people (including children, elderly, military, public and civil service, retired, infants, and the infirm). So even if 1 in 25 cops are bad, just for the sake of argument, that’s not more than 100,000 bad apples spread across 50 states and major metropolitan areas. Best part, is that statistics don’t account for clustering and chain of command versus blindly following orders, or just plain incompetence or errors in judgment, lapses of thought. Police officers are only human. They make mistakes too.
In the same, I’m sure there are some people on both sides, Democrat and Republican, who are bad apples. I’m sure there are socialists who like capitalism, who are Christian, but think socialist political structures following a purge of the wealthy elitists would make America better, while contemplating whether to wear the Louboutin with the white Chantel cardigan, or the black shirt from etsy with the feminist empowerment word “Vagina” in real silver glitter for their next vlog from West Hollywood. Just as I’m sure there’s a neo-Nazi skinhead wearing a MAGA hat, beating off to a poster of President Trump from the 80s, imagining he’s sodomizing a Central American caravan man, waving an American flag and shooting his load across the room.
That doesn’t mean everyone of a particular group is like that!
They’re called stereotypes. They’re applied to larger groups of people to generalize and paint everyone within using the same brushstroke. Some generalities have to be true in order for the less likely to be equally true. That’s flawed logic, but it makes for great political soundbites.
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Once upon a time... in a video arcade... the year was 1983...
Amid the glow of the neon lights and flicking screens, he saw her. Her hand moved frantically over the track ball as the other pressed the fired button rapidly. He placed his quarter on the rail on the Centipede machine and watched her.
Her movements were rhythmic as she played, a steady sway to the music of the machines collected there. If she was aware of his presence next to her, she did not betray it. Her focus was purely on the destruction of the glowing, animated insects on the screen before her.
Another level cleared, her green eyes, shining with electric reflection, darted up to the score. The top score was within striking distance. "You got this." He offered to encourage her. She said nothing as she opened fire on the next wave of creatures.
A crowd had begun to form around the machine as the collective consciousness within the arcade sensed a high score in danger. He had a front row view of her spitting profanity and giving the finger to a virtual spider that cost her a valuable life. She earned another soon after.
"Come on" she muttered to herself as the score drew near. His gaze drifted from the screen to the desperation twisting her alluring features.
The score fell to her skills to the cheer of the assembled crowd. "YES!" She cried out in a tone that burned into his mind and which he would forever use as the gauge to measure the true satisfaction of a woman.
Her focus wavered for a moment costing her another life. The assault of sprites was relentless, but she was determined to put an exclamation point on her victory. Her breathing was labored and her legs shook a bit. Her run finally came to an end.
The adrenaline high of victory was already subsiding as she entered her initials on the leader board, "QTX". She turned from the machine to the applause of the crowd. His quarter on the rail deemed his turn was next by arcade etiquette. But she was walking away.
He snatched his quarter off the rail and pursued her. He lost her briefly in the flickering lights and flow of gamers moving through the arcade. He found her sitting at a table with her plush lips pursed around a straw as she slowly sipped a Tab Cola.
He paused for a moment, unsure of how to approach her. The TV mounted on the wall next to the snack bar provided a soundtrack of MTV videos. He hoped for a song to give him just the right music to make his attempt.
"Hold me now" by the Thompson Twins came on and he knew there would not be a better time. He walked over to her. "Great game." He managed to make audible over the music and the background noise of the arcade. "I know." She replied with a knowing smile, looking him over.
He asked if he could join her. She pushed the chair across from her out without saying a word. He sat down and struggled to think of what to say hoping to not sound stupid. "You only come up to me because of my Centipede skills?" She asked baiting the hook? "Yes."
He couldn't bring himself to tell her how pretty she thought she was. He could barely manage to tell her anything. So, she asked the questions. She handled him as she had handled the trackball, smoothly and putting him in all the positions she wanted him in.
He forgot about the quarters in his pocket. He forgot about getting home before his parent's curfew. He forgot to tell her he was a junior high school student and was tall for his age. She forgot to ask.
Eventually, she asked him about classes. The truth came out. She was leaving soon for college. She smiled at him again knowing she would have to crush his infatuation. But he was sweet. And he seemed kind. She stood up and told him to do likewise.
He stood nervously before her. Her green eyes pierced his young soul. She moved to him. Leaning in, her soft lips pressed to his cheek. In his utter shock, he barely felt her soft hand expertly slipping into his pocket.
She pulled back and smiled. Her hand slid smoothly out of his pocket and she held a shiny quarter between her fingertips in front of her lips. "Consider this on my rail. You'll be ready to play one day."
She left, and he returned to that arcade every weekend afterwards.
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