In Defense of Brian Williams

Did you know that John Adams defended the British soldiers who were on trial for the Boston Massacre? This isn't as historic, but it is definitely something. I'm going to defend Brian Williams. Not because he's innocent. He obviously isn't. And not because he shouldn't be shamed and ridiculed for this. He obviously should be. But because there is a larger problem here than the misremberings of television news personality.

In what will be my first of two points, I find it rather ridiculous that news has evolved to the point that newscasters, reporters and news personalities have become a piece of every story. Not just the firebrand talking heads who make a lot noise for a cause or a side and then play off of that. I'm talking about the fact that these people go to war zones and disaster areas and involve themselves. What was Brian Williams doing in Iraq that could not have been covered by someone else? What did he add to the coverage of Iraq? He added Brian Williams. The story wasn't Iraq, it was Brian Williams in Iraq. So why would anyone be surprised that he would interject himself into something bigger and more fascinating?

These men and women make themselves the story. They need to. It is how they justify their positions and their salaries. But when did this start? When did we start giving a shit about who covers the item? It doesn't really matter. Does it? Not to me. But anyone on television has a fan base. That's how they exist. And even the "non-fictional" world of news has "characters" that attract fans that keep their television programs going. So this need to create characters to satisfy our need for entertainment comes from where? Obviously the ease of information. We can have information in seconds. Straight into our hands. Why do we need Brian Williams? Apparently we need him so chicanery can happen and he can report on it.

My second point in defense of Brian Williams. Who the fuck believe that story?

That's it. That's my second point. Who the fuck believed that?

In closing I will reiterate the same things you've heard and thought. He's a tool and liar and his excuse was lame as hell. Blah blah blah.

Who is Billy Pilgrim? Because He is Not Kurt Vonnegut; Or, Who is Kurt Vonnegut? Because He is Not (Only) Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim is the protagonist of Slaughterhouse Five, but who is he? Billy’s war time experience is taken from Kurt Vonnegut’s. But is he truly Kurt Vonnegut? Most have classified the novel as being semi-autobiographical and while the war experiences of Vonnegut have characterized Pilgrim, he is not really Vonnegut as we think of him. Billy’s life is unfortunate, pathetic and at times horrifically funny. It could be that Vonnegut is simply writing about himself in a self-deprecating way. Or, it could be that Billy Pilgrim is only a piece of Kurt Vonnegut. It could be that Billy Pilgrim is the ego. It could be that Edgar Derby is the super-ego. And it could be that Paul Lazzaro is the id. How you say? Very simply. Billy Pilgrim rationalizes the futility of life to please the id (i.e. Billy resigning himself to death at the hands of Lazzaro), Derby is the strong-willed character who acts on societal principles (i.e. heading to war despite his age because of his students going) and Lazzaro is the instinctual, primal facet (i.e. preoccupation with revenge and death).  These character are all soldiers, all POWs and all at the bombing of Dresden. If I were to pontificate briefly, I would say the bombing split Vonnegut’s literary representation into Pligrim, Derby and Lazzaro. And they are all necessary for Slaughterhouse Five.


Billy Pilgrim lives a depressing life. Between his wife, his daughter and son, his job and his brushes with death and the knowledge the Traflamadorians give him about time, he lives a fantastic, but terrifyingly sad existence. Yet, he rationalizes his life and accepts it. Why? Because death is coming. And he knows it. Billy Pilgrim knows when he is going to die. So he satisfies the id (more on that later), by accepting his life and allowing everything to move forward until his inevitable death. Despite what the novel says about time travel and the lack of free will (So it goes), he does not acknowledge or rile against the eventually quenching of the id’s thirst for vengeance.


Edgar Derby lives with the knowledge that his high school students were being sent to war, so he gets himself into the war because he did not want to sit back in the States while they fought. This supremely moral decision, though maybe ill-advised, is the type of principle that had to be deeply engrained in Derby. He puts himself in danger to protect his idea of what is right and wrong. When Derby dies, the novel makes more sense. Killed over a stolen teapot, his moral decision wasted on a meaningless death (even the novel does not call much attention to the death of the strongest moral character). The lifeless feeling of the novel and the lack of ethics come from the fact that Derby is dead and died with little to show for his strong values


Paul Lazzaro is obsessed with primal, baser instincts, vengeance and violence. He kills Billy Pilgrim in 1976 after being convinced by Roland Weary that he was responsible for Weary’s death. He is the coming death and the end of Billy Pilgrim. The destruction of the rational mind that works to please the id and thus this closes the circle. Derby is dead, Billy Pilgrim is dead and the id, the instinctual, ends everything, which in and of itself is an instinctual motivation.


This entire argument hinges on believing Freud (which I personally don’t) and ignoring the fact Vonnegut is just simply the narrator of the story. “Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time” (29) comes after a first chapter where Vonnegut talks about writing the book. So most of this has to be disregarded in order to accept this principle. But just because facets of Derby and Lazzaro are based off of people Vonnegut knew does not negate the possibility of the characters being fractured pieces of Vonnegut.

The Slow Death of the Book Store; The Evolution of Buying Books

As well as know, book stores are dying a slow death. And one of the groups that bemoans this fact are the denizens of academia. College students, instructors and the like are the ones that are killing off the book store. I suppose the question is how, but it's rather simple.

College students read a lot and have to buy books for classes. But because they're students they do not have limitless resources to spend upon books. So options like Amazon and eBay and used book sources are better alternatives. With a reduced revenue stream, book stores are forced to look at other methods of bringing in business. So they cater to the more casual forms of literature. Cookbooks, self-help, pop culture biographies and then main stream garbage like Fifty Shades of Grey.

As students like to think that they want to support book stores, they head out to these stores every now and again and find the book stores loaded with cookbooks, self-help, pop culture biographies and Fifty fucking Shades of Shit. It then creates this circle that gets tighter and tighter and literature of merit are less in demand. For example, at a recent visit to the book store, the Shakespeare section was one case and then the Romance section had six cases. Granted, there are far more Romance novels than works by Shakespeare (even counting Cliff Notes about his plays, sonnets and things and stuff). But still.

I mean, what's the appeal of Romance novels? Why can't people just watch porno? And why do people look down their nose at porno, but people don't look down at Romance novels. I mean, hypocrisy of the highest order here. We're all sexual beings, I don't judge how people like to get their rocks off, yet, c'mon. Porno is more believable than Romance novels too. Porn really dropped all the pretenses now and Romance novels have continued to be filled with crappy nonsense. These mystical meetings of people and all that yakkity yak.

In any event, this cycle has created the death of book stores and the evolution of buying books. Things are cheaper, more accessible and we have a better selection. Moreover, we have electronic texts and dodads to read them on. So in short, we miss what book stores were and not what they are and when they finally die we'll all be better off.

Lies. Dirty Rotten Flighty Lies.

So the Boston Red Sox are playing the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays in the playoffs. Brief aside, Devil Rays is a terrible team name that was only made worse by calling them the Rays. Though in all fairness the Tampa Bay area is terrible. But there have been a rash of social media outbursts about thing perpetrated by Red Sox fans against the various contingents of Rays' players, fans and what not.

Firstly, David Price's girlfriend, known colloquially in Massachusetts as "A Fucking Liar" made various claims about fans throwing trash and generally being assholes. Well being an asshole is every baseball fans' god given right. But what defines an asshole baseball fan? Swearing, drinking, all that fun stuff? Maybe. I think the term asshole can only be applied to fans who go out of their way to bother people. But even still. It's playoff baseball. She called Sox fans "pieces of shit". Right, because it was Sox fans who killed that guy in California. Oh wait, no.

Another salacious story was that a Sox fan stole a sting ray out of the horribly misguided aquarium thing they have there. Who the fuck steals a sting ray? Who saw him stealing a fucking sting ray and didn't stop him? These items inspire such skepticism.

Now, the point of this post is, who the fuck believes these lies? These two stories are ridiculous. But why do they get so much traction?

Social media?

It's a way to lie.

Attention seeking dopes?

They do lie. But it is a way for them to seek attention.

So what then?

People. People lie because other people believe their lies and that makes people lie more and more.

So what's the solution?

Well, there really isn't one obvious solution. If you're stupid that is. But for the people who have a quarter of a brain cell left in their heads the solution is obvious, though somewhat painful. We need to start calling people out on their bullshit. Or even better, ignore them. Don't acknowledge that they even exist.

We all have bullshit meters in our heads. Some better calibrated than others. But when we hear these things that set off those little imaginary meters in our heads, we need to call people out. Sitting idly by and letting people lie is how they lie more.

Let's take a hypothetical situation. The girlfriend of an athlete is probably going to be an attractive woman in most cases. So she's pretty and what not. Who tells pretty people to shut up? Who tells them they're liars? No one. Attractive people sometimes get a carte blanche to say whatever rattles into their dumb heads. Not all attractive people of course. But a vapid dunce who dates an athlete, who I'm sure built their relationship on a deep personal connection, probably hasn't heard or acknowledged any negativity in her life.

So that's why lies multiply and exist as they do.

The Full Circle of Ben Affleck as Batman

I'm rooting for Ben Affleck as Batman. I wasn't before he got cast. I wasn't when I heard. But now, now I want him to excel and shine as Batman. I want people (who probably were a lot like me) to eat crow about this. Not because he's the best choice. Not because I have a vested interest in him as the character. But because the backlash on social media and among the groups with which I speak of such matters has been so ridiculous that I've turned sides. Which is actually quite logical for several reasons.

The fact that Ben Affleck is now Batman doesn't discourage me from seeing the new film. It didn't before. My initial anger about his casting was because of the missed opportunity I perceived. The films that had been floated out were so tempting and so exciting to me that it was like getting a bicycle instead of new ice skates for Christmas. In all honesty there's nothing wrong with a  bike, but ice skates would've been better. Jon Hamm and Josh Brolin had so much potential to be the Robert Downey Jr. that DC and Warner Brothers were looking for. Even though logistically it may have not been possible for either actor. Affleck fit the suit and that's why he's the Caped Crusader.

Thinking about his prowess as an actor is unnecessary. Because quite simply he is playing Batman. No one is ever picked to play Bruce Wayne. And that's the problem with Batman actors. Nearly every actor has a detractor who has played Batman. The ongoing debate about Christian Bale's acting abilities is, plainly put, fucking stupid. The guy can act and act well. The thing is, every time an actor puts on the cape and cowl, they become Batman. Their abilities as an actor are almost dwarfed by how iconic the suit is, how iconic the emblem is. They become Batman. The real challenge for an actor is to play Bruce Wayne well. And too many people forget how important Bruce Wayne is to the dynamic of any Batman film. And make no mistake, this is not Man of Steel 2: Kryptonian Bugaloo this is Batman. Batman as a character is more popular and any of the actors whose names were bandied about for Batman were bigger than Henry Cavill. No disrespect to him. In short, we don't have to worry about Affleck as Batman. His suit won't have nipples, his chin is fine for the movie, he'll look cool, he'll look buff and the action sequences will be fun. And if he brings his A game to be Bruce Wayne, not Batman, then he will and we will be just fine.

The final part of my turn around is how awful the backlash was. I mean people are just fucking morons. If your issue is he doesn't have the look or he isn't a good actor, those are predicated upon opinion and don't have to change. If your problem is based on non-factors or ill researched ideas, well then you suck. I've heard that Affleck won't be big enough for the role. He is six foot four. Henry Cavill is six foot one. In case you didn't know, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is six foot four. Hugh Jackman is six foot two. Size isn't a problem. There's also the deluge of shittastic jokes that aren't funny and were hacky about ninety seconds after he was cast.

"Does this mean Matt Damon/Casey Affleck/Jennifer Gardner is going to be Robin/The Joker/Catwoman?"

No. Your joke is stupid and the mouth that made those sounds to form the joke is a waste of flesh.

"Ben Affleck is going to be the DAHK KNAGHT"

First off, Ben Affleck doesn't have an accent. He can do one. I'm not sure he even actually ever had one. The stigma of Hollywood where the Boston accent is poisonous, but cud-chewing Southerners and New Yorkers and random people of British descent are keen as kale might contribute to that. Secondly no one on the planet earth has an accent like that.

In short, the jokes have sucked, the arguments against him that aren't predicated on ability or look suck and I am fully behind my new bicycle while I hold out hope for ice skates next time. Affleck is Batman. Make the shirts, I'm wearing one.

The Dark Knight Returns And Strikes Back and Returns Again

Superman is trying to enjoy his box office success. However, the pointy-eared cowl of the Batman has speared away any individual triumph the Man of Steel wants to attain.  Simply put, a combination of Marvel's success with The Avengers and their characters' films coupled with the overwhelming popularity of the Caped Crusader, has castrated Kal-El. And I'm pleased as punch. But I have an undying love of Batman going back to The Animated Series and the one true Batman Kevin Conroy. But he is the new reality of DC. He is the atom bomb, the first strike and the last resort. Batman Begins brought back big budget box office (ALLITERATION! TOASTY!) superhero success (AGAIN ALLITERATION!). And now he's the go to weapon. The phaser, the lightsaber, the Jonny Hendricks' God Hand. He is the character Warner Brothers wants and needs. 

It's no wonder Batman is going to show up in Supes' movie (and steal the goddamn thunder if the casting rumors are true). And it's also no wonder they're using a Batman centric arc to model the film. The Dark Knight Rises and the animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns have been big pieces of DC's film output the past two years. The story, by Frank Miller, is balls to the wall. Show the world without Batman. Show the world what happens when he comes back. Show the world how Bruce Wayne can die and the Batman can still live. It's one of the greatest arcs of all time. And DC knows this. 

Because it's such a gem, the names being throw out are big time. The top two being Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling. I know I'm late to the party on this. But these are two "fuck yeah!" choices for Batman. Brolin more so than Gosling in my opinion. He's got the age, the voice, the chin and the size. Not to mention the acting chops. In any event, these aren't small potatoes or lunkheads. These are two experienced thespians who can take this film by the balls. And all due respect to Henry Cavill, I rather enjoy him as Superman, but either of these two (or Jon Hamm, FINGERS CROSSED!) plus the mystique the cape and cowl bring will overshadow him. And DC knows in this. And Warner Brothers knows this. And Zach Snyder knows this. And Christopher (No wonder the first six letters of his first name spell Christ) Nolan knows this. 

So? So what? Well, this just shows that all those rumors after TDKR came out about what's next had some ground to stand on. They were just looking for the right way to bring him back. Batman is the doorway superhero. He's a man. Not a mutant, alien, magical being. But his stories have featured mutants, aliens and magical beings. He is a gateway drug so to speak. Get the public on Bats, get them to buy he and Superman together, get them to believe in the Speed Force, the Green Lantern Corps and Atlantis. Then from there Martian Manhunter and Power Girl (can't tell which one is more unrealistic, shape shifting Martian or a ginormous bust) are just a film away. Could Thor have stood alone without Iron Man before it and the knowledge of the Avengers coming? Probably not. This is the same strategy. Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man or Zatanna (oh I hope) and Animal Man. Not that far of a stretch. 

Comic Con Checks and Balances

I went to Boston Comic Con. A girl dressed like Jessica Rabbit wrapped her leg around me for a photo. This was awesome. Who was she? Who knows? Why was she there? Who cares? All I know is that Comic Con represents the best in people. You've got an amply developed woman dressing like a cartoon character. For my amusement? For hers? Maybe she gets off on it. Maybe I do (did). Either way, interests collided into a form fitting red sequined dress. But that same type of collision also causes friction in people. 

My friends at Omega-Level.net had a booth at Comic Con and were selling some fantastic t-shirts. Namely the "Fuck Lucas" shirts done in the Star Wars font. Tasteful, elegant active wear to say the least. And a young man, presumably a Star Wars fan, definitely a fan of George Lucas, asked "what's the meaning of this?" in reference to the shirt. When it was explained to him it was due to how awful the prequels were, he stormed off in a huff. And that is no different than Jessica Rabbit and I. 

Interests bring us together. Sometimes they fall under a wide umbrella that brings more people together. However, ideas conflict with each other. Is it that they hate what George Lucas has done? Not all of it. Is it that the guy loved everything Lucas has ever done? Maybe. But they both love Star Wars Episodes 4-6. And yet they ended their conversation on a less than favorable note. Well the guy did. He looked angry and depressed. Ang-pressed. Which is what I was after seeing Ang Lee's Hulk. Hi-Yoooooo! In any event, Jessica was there to be her character, I was there to spy on Billy West. Yet, we both love tight form fitting dresses. Her wearing, me looking/ogling/touching/removing. And that brought us together. This lends itself to a greater idea. 

Comic Con, as well as other cons (not Con Air, whoa! 2 for 2) are about similar interests and the cohesion and conflicts they cause. I'm sure tattoo, car, gun, porn (the rest of the Big Five) conventions have the same interactions. 

Man: (Sees "Fuck Tribal/Chevy/Glock/Sunny Leone" shirt) "what's the meaning of this?"

Guy at Table: "I love old Tribal/Chevys/Glocks/Sunny Leone. But their/her new shit is awful"

Man: (storms off)

Now aside from the Sunny Leone shirt doubling as a positive message, those conversations can and probably have happened. But also, across the convention floor, someone met someone cool and took a picture. Checks and balances.