The Beatles-The Early Years. [easyazon_link identifier=”1408704781″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years[/easyazon_link] follows in the footsteps of James A. Michener, we start the story of the Beatles in the 1840s or so. I’ve never been that into the whole Roots thing and have little interest in what John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s great grandparents were up to. I do like the idea that the Beatles are towering historic figures worthy of such treatment, but on the other hand, it seems a bit silly. As the Beatles themselves liked to say, they were just a band that got very…
Category: random thoughts
Between The World and Me
Morpheus: The body cannot live without the mind. [easyazon_link identifier=”0812993543″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Ta-Nehisi Coates[/easyazon_link] lays his book out as a letter to his son. He talks about race, life, death, and how the world he grew up in and the world where his son now lives are slightly different places. But still very dangerous places. If you happen to have dark skin in a world run by people who think they are white. He views the entirety of human history through the viewpoint of a black man who may have his body taken from him at any moment for no reason.…
Trump wants to be Hitler
“Make their hate your hate.” -He’s Alive, The Twilight Zone On the one hand Donald Trump is the best thing to happen to American politics in decades. A man who speaks his mind. A man who points to problems and offers solutions. A man who is personally successful, but doesn’t feel like a spoiled brat who had to sell stocks once to get by in college. On the other hand. Trump is a nutcase. Hitler was also a fringe lunatic that many rational people ignored. Until he inspired the murder of millions and came as close as anyone since Alexander…
The War of Northern Aggression
Take down that confederate flag. South Carolina to remove battle flag from the Capitol grounds. It’s a good start, and only a hundred and fifty years or so after the South lost the war. I grew up in Texas, one of those proud states that was on the side of the Confederacy. I must have been in my twenties before I met some Yankee who told me the Rebels were not the Good Guys. My mother and older sister read Gone With The Wind on a semi-annual basis, rebel flags were a common sight-and obviously still are, and everyone I knew seemed…
A Few Thoughts on Self Publishing
When I was in the 7th Grade my English Teacher gave me a paper bag filled with back issues of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Great magazine. Lots of great stories. And lots of crap stories as well. Those below par stories that helped to fill the magazine out inspired me to become a writer. For the next few years I would bang out bad short fiction and send it off to the three or four Science Fiction/Mystery magazines that published monthly digests. Then something happened, I got a handwritten rejection letter saying they were looking forward to my next story.…
The Matrix…Let JJ Abrams Have a Shot at It
Just look at the One Sheets. The Matrix has actual humans photographed. Reloaded has Neo and Trinity Photoshopped within an inch of their lives. Revolutions has photos turned into a digital illustration. This parallels the path of the films, The Matrix is a very good film. Reloaded is a not so good film. Revolutions sucks. Part of my feeling has to do with time. If you come to Matrix as a Trilogy, then you probably don’t see much of anything wrong with the sequels. A small aside. Easily the best ever episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation is Best of…
Teen Titans GO!
In 1980 George Perez rebooted an old DC title called New Teen Titans. This was one of my favorite comic books. Great story arcs, amazing artwork, and all kinds of cool stuff happening each and every issue. These were often stories about the end of the world, major problems with parents and guardians, and occasional conflicts with each other. This was right before the birth of the all powerful Graphic Novel and looking back now the artwork looks more like a comic book and less groundbreaking than it did at the time. So, flash forward about 35 years and the Teen…
The Last Train to Zona Verde
John McDonough, the narrator here, sounds like a man standing on a bridge, killing the last couple of hours before he jumps to his death. His deadpan delivery of Paul Theroux’s Last Train to Zona Verde seems a little morose. But then, there is little enough here to be happy about in this tale of overpopulation and massive poverty in Africa. Like most places on earth, people in Africa would be a bit better off if they had been left alone by Europeans. But just as Native Americans can’t go back to roaming the plains hunting buffalo, Africans can’t return…
Person of Interest:Samaritan, Good?
I wasn’t too impressed with this show when it first started. The story of a minor league Skynet and the man who created it/her/him/whatever. But over the past few episdoes it has changed into something a bit more interesting. The Machine has a rival known as Samaritan. The idea being that this new Artificial Intelligence is a good guy. But Samaratian is a good guy in the same sense that Nazi Germany and Eugenics are good guys. We can all agree that there are some people the world would be better off without, among them would be Nazi Germany and…
Jason-Stop The Presses Anita Blake Likes Rough Sex
I can see Laurell K Hamilton sitting at her desk. She arches her back and cracks her knuckles like Lurch getting ready to play the harpsicord. She smiles as she thinks to herself, what could I do that would be more boring than watching Anita Blake have sex for the umptempth time? Aha! Inspiration strikes. I could have Anita talk about having sex! The Anita Blake books used to be nice and predictable. She would go to work and raise a zombie or two. Word would come down about a Monster on the loose. She would track the Monster down…