The Troll Who Loved Ice Cream

Trey’s school has been doing a thing where parents come up and read short stories to the class. The student picks the story. The parent reads the story. Sounds pretty simple, right? Right. Unless your child is Trey and the parent is Me. Instead of picking a story, my child decided that we should write a story. After many days of brainstorming, he finally comes up with, “A story about a grumpy, messy Troll that always eats too much food, and a kid that’s a Scientist who brings the Troll and a beautiful Fairy together so she can take care of him and they can be a family.” So basically, it is The Story Of Us and, while I’m deeply impressed that’s he’s already speaking in metaphor at 7 years old, I’m also slightly hurt that some part of him sees me as a grumpy, messy troll with an eating disorder. But oh well, you can’t have everything. He came up with the story idea, then plotted most of the individual elements. At the last minute, we added a change to the end (mostly for the sake of nuking a few “chapters” and keeping the length down, since I’ve got to read this out loud to his class within a 15-20 minute window), and he did the illustrations. And that, as they say, is that. We just finished it up just now, so it’s probably riddled with spelling, grammar and typographical errors, so shut up. The Troll Who Loved Ice Cream

Googalaga was a troll. He wasn’t a very good troll, because as a rule, to be a good troll meant you had to be bad. But Googalaga didn’t care about doing mean things like hiding under bridges and scaring humans, and he had no taste for eating the sheep that good trolls liked to steal from the nice shepherds in the village. Instead, he preferred to keep to himself in his hut, and was quite content to pass his days doing nothing more than eating ice cream, which was the only thing he ever really loved. And he did love ice cream. Every flavor. He loved chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream, and even ice cream that had gone melty and dribbled onto the ground. He was a troll, after all, so he didn’t mind mixing a little dirt with his ice cream. In fact, one of his favorite flavor combinations was one scoop of vanilla, one scoop of strawberry, three scoops of chocolate and five tablespoons of dirt and rocks and sand. (Sometimes rabbit poop, if he was really lucky. But, like most sensible creatures, rabbits tended to stay away from trolls, fearing that they were very likely to be eaten if they got too close. And, with most trolls, this would be true – but not with Googalaga. He loved his forest friends, even if they kept their distance.) There was, however, a terrible problem with a troll loving ice cream, and Googalaga was all too familiar with it. In fact, it was a problem that he was determined to solve, one day. Some day. Maybe. If he ever figured out how to read and managed to get a little smarter. (Trolls, by nature, aren’t very bright, which doesn’t usually matter when coupled with a bad temper because being angry and stupid never hurt a troll. But being nice and not too bright? That could be a problem.) Not being a very bright troll himself, Googalaga never learned that trolls should not eat ice cream. They can’t digest it properly, since their natural diet consists mostly of rocks and sheep, and of anything nasty and squishy and squirmy that they can dig out of the ground with their big, fat fingers. But ice cream? Ice cream was tricky. The digestive tract of a troll was used to handling all things nasty, so any old troll could eat just about any old icky thing and continue on with its day like nothing ever happened. But when a troll ate something as sweet and as wonderful as ice cream…well, something different happened… Googalaga was sitting at the table of his dirty hut, having just finished a very large meal with a double serving of chalk rock with obsidian sprinkles, along with a side of nightcrawler worms and scorpion soup. He still had desert to eat, and he was trying to decide which flavor of ice cream he’d eat tonight, since he always ate ice cream after every meal. “Better go check the freezer,” he said as he pushed himself up from the table and knocking over the pile of dirty dishes sitting beside him that he meant to wash a few weeks ago, but just never got around to it. He shoved some old trash out of the way and kicked aside the empty ice cream buckets that littered the floor. Slowly, he carved a path from his chair to his freezer, where he kept his ice cream. “Ah,” he said to himself, opening the lid a bit to peek inside. “What shall I have tonight?” He dug around the freezer, pushing aside the frozen mudbug snack cakes and iced barnacle pops until he found the ice cream. He was running low. “Looks like it’ll be chocolate stinkbug surprise,” he said, hauling the giant bucket out of the freezer. “And I’m down to my last ten scoops!” Googalaga carried the bucket back to the table, where he sat down and pulled a large, dirty spoon from his back pocket. “Mmmmm,” he said as jabbed the spoon into the ice cream. “Extra stinkbugs!” It didn’t take him long to finish the bucket, since there were only ten scoops left. But ten scoops was enough. He pushed himself back from the table, and gently patted his enormous stomach with his big, fat hand. “That was delicious!” he exclaimed. He sat back in his chair, let out a long, satisfied sigh and smiled. And then, he exploded. *****

From down the hill and around the bend, up the stream and through the woods, a little boy in a long white coat heard a loud *POP* and immediately took cover under his chair. After a few minutes had passed and he realized he hadn’t been blown up into tiny bits, he stood back up and looked around. “Hrmmmm,” he pondered. “Everything looks ok, I guess. Nothing exploded, anyway.” He dusted himself off and pushed his chair underneath a long, black table. Different flasks and vials with long, swirly bits of glass were set along the table. Some were bubbling, others were smoking, and a few were making very peculiar gurgling noises. “Well, that was a little scary, wasn’t it, Atlas?” asked the boy, to no one in particular. “It sure was, Atlas,” he replied, again to no one in particular. “Oh well, no harm done, I think. Now, where’d we put that TNT?” Atlas was a very interesting little boy, no older than seven or eight, with short brown hair that shot out in all directions from the sides of his head, and big, blue eyes that darted back and forth just fast enough that they only made him look a little bit crazy. He lived alone, here, in a little cottage that had once belonged to his parents. They had gone away to hunt for food in the forest one day, and had never come back. That was three years ago. He was used to being alone now. And he talked to himself a lot. “Oh, never mind about the TNT, Atlas,” he said to himself. “Let’s finish the experiment tomorrow. I don’t think anything will explode tonight, anyway.” “OK,” he said back to himself again. “See you in the morning, then!” “Goodnight, Atlas.” “Sleep tight, Atlas.” He took off his long, white coat and tossed it over a hook by the stairs, which he then climbed up to make his way into a tiny crawl space that had no exit. He reached out his right hand and pushed hard against the solid stone wall, which began to grind and twist and spin open into a tiny room in his little cottage. His father had been a scientist, and he’d built himself a secret laboratory underground in a little cave Atlas had discovered when he was only three years old. Atlas used it himself now that he was old enough and on his own. He spent almost every waking moment down in the lab, doing experiments and coming up with inventions to keep his mind busy so he didn’t ever spend too long thinking about how much he missed his family. It helped that he talked to himself the whole time, too. He enjoyed his company. Stepping out of the crawl space and into his tiny room, he spun the wall back around and heard it click back into place. On this side of the wall was a bookcase, and the large red book that opened the secret passage slid back into its place on the shelf. If you didn’t know any better, it looked like an ordinary book on an ordinary shelf in an ordinary cottage. “Time for bed,” he told himself, as he shuffled over to his little mattress on the floor. He’d outgrown his baby bed a long time ago, but sleeping in his parents’ bed didn’t feel right. So, one night, he took the mattress out of the bed he could no longer fit in, and set it on the floor. His feet dangled off the end of it, but that was ok by him. He didn’t sleep very much, anyway. He yawned and stretched and closed his eyes, and had just begun to drift off to sleep when there was a very loud knock on his door. He sat straight up in bed, eyes wide and hair shooting off in all directions. “Er, is you home, little scientist?” asked a voice on the other side of the door. Atlas sat very still and very quiet on his tiny mattress on the floor. There was another knock. “Aw, come on. I’s knows yer in der. I can smells your bits of bubbly things and such likes.” Atlas pulled his tiny blanket up to his chest. “Wh-wha,” he stammered. “Wha-what do you want?” “I’s needs your help,” said the voice. “With what?” asked Atlas. “Er, it’s personal. Let me in.” “No.” “Why not?” “Because I don’t know you, and I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.” “Eh, I’m no stranger, boy. I’s knewed yer Papa.” Atlas’ eyes grew a little wider. “What?” he asked. “Yeah, and yer’s Mama, too. We’s was good friends, all things considered.” “What do you mean, ‘all things considered’?” “Er, it’s complicated. Open the door and you’ll see.” Atlas thought about it for a minute, then remembered one of his inventions and smiled. “Hang on a minute,” he said. “Could you just look up for a second, please?” “What?” said the voice. “Why?” Atlas stood up and began rummaging around a pile of papers by the door. “Just do it, please,” he said. “Fine,” said the voice. “I’s looking up. Can you open the door now?” “Just a moment,” said Atlas. He smiled as his fingers found the little metal contraption buried in the paper pile. “Got it!” he shouted. “Gots what?” asked the voice. “Nothing,” replied Atlas. “Now, hold still.” Atlas clicked something on the side of the little metal contraption and from under the door came a bright flash of light. “OW! ME EYES!” shouted the voice. “Oh,” said Atlas, “sorry about that.” A few seconds later, a little square piece of paper shot out from a little slot next to the door. On it, was a little picture of what was on the other side of the door. “Oh my,” he gasped. “You’re a troll!” “What?” asked the voice. “How’d you’d knewed that?” “Because of my Insta-Draw-O-Matic,” answered Atlas. “See, I have an electric eel in a tank above the door here, and when I push this button on my Insta-Light-Inator, it drops a little pebble against the side of the tank that scares the eel and makes him let out a shock, which then travels over to my Electro-Lumino-Interocitor and causes a bright flash that —“ “Yeah, yeah,” interrupted the troll. “You’s is yer father’s boy, alright. He was always makin’ up crazy contraptions. He made me a freezer once, you know.” “A what?” asked Atlas. “A freezer. You know, something what keeps things frozen.” “I’ve never heard of a freezer before. It sounds fascinating.” “Oh, it is,” said the troll. “But can you please let me in now?” “Ah,” stammered Atlas. “Sorry about that. Promise you won’t eat me?” he asked. “Of course I won’t eats you. I’s a nice troll. And besides, it’s eating what done made me need to come see yer Papa. If’n he was still around, that is. But yer’s the next best thing, I figure.” Atlas thought about it for a minute, then cautiously opened the door. A giant, hairy beast of a troll grinned at him from the other side. “Hull-oh,” it said, extending a massive arm out toward Atlas. “Name’s Googalaga. Nice to meet you!” And with that, Atlas fainted. When he came to, he and Googalaga had a nice long talk about his parents and the special friendship they shared with Googalaga. The troll had agreed to protect the cottage, while Atlas’ parents had agreed to not call the Town Watch on Googalaga. It was a mutually beneficial relationship, and over the years, they became the best of friends. When Atlas’ parents went missing, Googalaga decided to stay and keep an eye on the boy, to make sure no harm ever came to him. “So you see, that’s why’s I’s needs yer help, young master,” said Googalaga. “I’s has an eating disorder.” “More like an exploding disorder,” Atlas retorted. “Yeah. That, too,” said the troll. “But at least I always come back together again, what with being a troll and all. So does you thinks you’s can help me?” Atlas sat back and thought about the problem. “Maybe,” he said. “Not with the exploding, really, but with the eating.” “What you’s mean?” “I mean, I can’t keep you from exploding after you eat ice cream, but I can keep you from wanting to eat ice cream.” “But I’s loves ice cream!” “Yes,” said Atlas. “But do you love exploding?” “Well,” shrugged Googalaga, “not really.” “It’s settled, then. Just wait here. Shouldn’t take but a minute.” Atlas walked over to the perfectly ordinary bookcase, found the perfectly ordinary red book, and gave it a gentle tug. The wall spun around, and Atlas was back in his lab. Googalaga waited. And waited. And he waited some more. *BANG* *CLANK* *WHOOSH* *TINGLE* *TINKLE* *THWINK* Atlas emerged from the other side of the bookcase, and closed the wall behind him. “Here you go,” he said. “This oughta do the trick!” Googalaga opened his big, fat hand, and Atlas set a small, green pill into his palm. “What dis do?” he asked. Atlas smiled. “I call it Ice-Cream-Craving-B-Gone-Icillin. All you need to do is swallow it, and you won’t want any more ice cream ever again.” “Oh. Seems sad,” said the troll. “Small price to pay for not exploding, my friend!” Googalga smiled and thanked Atlas for his work, then tucked the small, green pill into his pocket, left the tiny cottage and headed back through the woods and down the stream, around the bend and up the hill. And that’s when he started getting hungry… *****

Googalaga was almost home, when his stomach began rumbling. He was hungry, and he wanted more ice cream. He thought about taking the Ice-Cream-Craving-B-Gone- Icillin, but he wasn’t ready to commit to a life without ice cream just yet. He’d just have to think of something else. He was stomping through the forest, growing hungrier and grumpier the more he thought about how much food he wasn’t eating, when he heard a gentle singing on the breeze. It was faint, at first. Tiny and probably inaudible to humans, but he could hear it with his big troll ears. And it was beautiful. He followed the sound as it grew louder and more beautiful the closer he got to it, until, eventually, it could get no louder or more beautiful. But all he found was a tree. It was a very large tree, sure, and pretty enough as far as trees go, but at the end of the day, it was still just a tree. And trees don’t sing. Except this one was. It was singling loudly and beautifully, and all Googalaga wanted to do was listen to its song. But his stomach was grumbling louder and louder, and he knew it would eventually grumble and grow so loudly that he wouldn’t be able to hear the singing anymore. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the small, green pill that Atlas had given him, and stared at it. “Well,” he said. “I guess I’s gotsta do it. Might as well get it overs with.” Just as he was about to toss the pill into his mouth and swallow it, the singing stopped. A moment later, he heard the same beautiful voice again, but this time it was talking to him instead of singing at him. “What are you doing, silly troll?” asked the voice. “Wha? Who dat dere?” “Look up,” said the voice. Googalaga looked up. “Oooooh,” he said, quite by accident. He didn’t mean to say it, but out it came, anyway. “Ooooooh,” he said again. Descending slowly from high above the forest floor was a brilliant golden light. As it grew closer to Googalaga, it started to take shape. First, there were wings. Then legs. Arms. A body and a head. And long, glowing golden hair. It was a fairy. But not just any fairy. This was the most beautiful fairy Googalaga had ever seen, and he had seen a few in his time…usually just as they were flying away in terror of a troll having seen them, but still. He’d seen other fairies, and this one had them all beat. Her name was Sharlene, and she was the most beautiful creature Googalaga had ever seen. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Sharlene.” “I’m Googalaga,” said Googalaga. “And you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Sharlene blushed. “Oh, that’s very sweet of you to say. You’re very handsome yourself.” Now Googalaga blushed, or at least what passed for blushing with trolls. Not many people went around complimenting them, so it was hard to tell. His stomach began to rumble again. “Um,” he stammered. “Excuse me a minute.” Googalaga turned around and tossed the Ice-Cream-Craving-B-Gone- Icillin into his mouth and gulped it down. He didn’t want his stomach making embarrassing noises in front of a lady. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Now where were we?” Sharlene fluttered over beside him. “We were right here, silly. Just where we are now.” “Ah, yeah. I knowed that. I means, what was we talking about?” “Oh, nothing in particular,” said Sharlene. “Just getting acquainted, I suppose.” At that moment, a feeling rushed over Googalaga that he had never felt before, except in the presence of ice cream. What was in that pill, he wondered. I think I’m in love. (And he was, it turned out, very much in love. Because inventing new pills and potions for fairytale creatures is not an exact science, Atlas had been forced to guess at the ingredients for his Ice-Cream-Craving-B- Gone-Icillin. And he hadn’t got it quite right. Had he known better, he would had realized his mistake after learning that his recipe actually called for two carrots, rather than one two carat diamond. But he hadn’t discovered homonyms yet, because he was only a kid and mistakes happen. And this mistake had created a Love Pill, because sometimes that’s what happens in stories.) Googalaga didn’t know why he felt this way, but he knew that he wanted to spend more time with Sharlene. As much time as possible, really. All the times, if he could. But he should probably start with just a little time. Like, with a date. Start small, he told himself. See where it goes. He looked at Sharlene and smiled. “Um,” he started, nervous and shaking. “Would you’s…uh…um…woulds yer…ah, well…um…” Sharlene smiled back at him and finished his thought. “Like to go out on a date with you?” Googalaga was stunned into silence. He just looked at her and nodded his big, giant head. “Ok, then,” she said. “Sounds like fun.” Googalaga just smiled and shook his head some more. “Are you hungry?” she asked. More head shaking. “Would you like to go to the tavern in the village?” Googalaga stopped shaking his head. “NO!” he shouted. “Humans hate trolls. They’s would kills me!” Sharlene flashed a sly smile, narrowed her eyes and said, “Oh, I don’t know about that…” There was a brilliant flash of light, and for the second time in the same night, Googalaga was blinded. “OW! ME EYES!” he shouted. “Oh,” said Sharlene. “Sorry about that. Should clear up in a second, though. Look down.” “Huh?” asked Googalaga. “At your hands, silly. Look down at your hands.” Googalaga looked at his hands. They weren’t big. They weren’t fat. They weren’t hairy. They were just…hands. Human hands. Normal, human- sized hands. “Whaaaaaaaaaa?” was all he could manage to say. “It’s just a little magic, so you’ll look like a human. It only works for a little while, though. So we best be off.” With that, Sharlene smiled her little sly grin once more, and there was another, smaller flash of light, and she stopped glowing. And floating. Her wings were gone, and she looked like a perfectly ordinary, perfectly beautiful human lady. And Googalaga was still in love. ***** Dinner did not go well. The humans were nice enough, as humans go, and none of them in the tavern realized they were dining alongside a fairy and a troll, but Googalaga still had to make conversation. And he wasn’t very good with words. “Um, so, uh…” he stammered. “What’s yer favorite food?” “Oh,” said Sharlene, “I’ve always been partial to ice cream, myself.” Googalaga gulped. “What about you?” she asked. “Ice cream. Good. Yeah. Ice cream.” “You’re a very silly troll, you know that?” Googalaga smiled. “If you’s says so. I’s not too used to being around peoples.” “I bet you’re smarter than you let on.” “Ya think?” he asked. “Sure,” said Sharlene. “Why, I bet you’ve got a heart of gold, too.” “No,” he said. “Just normal troll heart. Mades of mud rocks, I thinks.” Sharlene smiled again. “Hrmmmm, I’m not so sure about that.” The food came, and it was good. At least by human standards, anyway. By troll standards, it was tiny and lacked the good crunch of hard rocks or the delicate texture of squishy grub worms. As for what fairies ate was anybody’s guess. For all Googalaga knew, Sharlene ate rainbows and dewdrops. But if she didn’t like the food, she didn’t complain. She ate and he ate, and she talked and he talked, and eventually, the meal was over. Except for dessert. “Ice cream!” proclaimed Sharlene, when the waiter took her order. “I’ll have a big bowl of vanilla ice cream, and my friend here will have a big bowl of…” she trailed off and looked at Googalaga. “What’s your favorite flavor?” “Um,” he sighed as his eyes darted around the room, “Vanilla. Good. Yeah.” “Two bowls of vanilla then, please.” The waiter smiled, wrote down the order and walked away into the kitchen. “Er, there’s somethin’ yer should knows abouts me and ice cream,” said Googalaga. “What, that you love it more than anything else?” “How’d you know?” “Oh, I just have a knack for people, I guess.” “Yeah, but really. You’s needs to knows that -“ The waiter was back, carrying two large bowls of vanilla ice cream on his tray. He set one down in front of Sharlene, and the other in front of Googalaga. “That was fast,” said Googalaga. “We aim for speed here at the Rusty Flagon, sir,” replied the waiter. “I’ll say.” Sharlene picked up her spoon and dipped it delicately into her ice cream. She lifted it to her mouth, closed her eyes, and said, “Mmmmmmmm.” Googalaga couldn’t resist it any more. He didn’t know why the Ice- Cream-Craving-B-Gone-Icillin wasn’t working, but he didn’t care anymore. All he wanted was a little ice cream. So he grabbed his spoon, then threw it on the floor and grabbed his bowl with both hands. He lifted it to his mouth, tilted his head back, and gobbled up every scoop of the delicious ice cream in one giant gulp. Sharlene giggled. “See? I told you that you were silly!” Googalaga flashed a sheepish grin. “Sorry,” he said. “Don’t be silly, silly!” But then, from deep within Googalaga’s belly, came a rumbling. Then, from his mouth, a tiny burp. Then a not so tiny burp. Then more rumbling. Then grumbling. Then growling. “Uh-oh,” he said, and looked up at Sharlene. “I’s sorry, miss.” And then, he exploded. ***** The owner of the Rusty Flagon was none too pleased with having to clean exploded troll bits out of his tavern for the next several hours, but at least he thought they were human bits. So that probably helped a little. Or not. Sharlene stayed the whole time, and helped with the clean up. She was careful to quietly slip the different exploded bits of Googalaga into her purse without anyone noticing, which was a very nice thing for her to do, considering he’d need all of his bits to come back together again later. That was the thing about trolls: they’re very hard to kill. Apart from getting caught out in the sunlight (which turns them to stone), there’s not much punishment they can’t take. To a troll, even exploding isn’t anything more than a messy inconvenience. After the tavern had been cleaned up, Sharlene thanked the owner and the waiter, apologized for the mess, and left out the back door. She thought it best to slip out of the village as quickly as possible, in case the Town Watch started getting suspicious about exploding people and whatnot. It was probably a smart move. Once she was safely away from the village, Sharlene opened up her purse and dumped all the messy, sticky Googalaga bits onto the ground. She turned around to let him have his privacy, and waited. A few minutes and several unpleasant sounds later, Googalaga was back. “Um,” he said. “Sorry about that.” “It’s ok,” said Sharlene. “I really didn’t mind.” “Seriously?” he asked. “Yes. I actually thought it was kind of funny.” Googalaga slumped his shoulders. “Oh,” he said. “Not the exploding part, of course,” said Sharlene. “I mean, just before, when you were trying to tell me about your problem.” “Oh?” he said again, reminding himself of how good with words he wasn’t. “Well, maybe not funny. But cute, I mean. You were cute.” “Really?” asked Googalaga. “Yous think so?” “Of course I do, silly. But, you do have a problem. And it needs taking care of right away.” “I know,” he said. “After all, I can’t have my boyfriend just exploding all over town every time we go out.” Googalaga just stood there, stunned into silence. “B-b-buh…boyfriend?” Sharlene bit her bottom lip and smiled. “Maybe. But first, your problem. Come with me. I know someone who might be able to help you.” They walked through the forest for a while, not saying anything. Googalaga didn’t talk because he was scared of what stupid bit of stammering nonsense might come out of his mouth next, and Sharlene didn’t talk because Googalaga didn’t know why. Girls are just mysterious that way. After a long time walking down hills and around bends, up streams and through the woods, they came to a little clearing where there stood a very small, very ordinary cottage… *****

Despite it being very late when Sharlene and Googalaga came knocking on his door, Atlas wasn’t asleep. He didn’t sleep much to begin with, but after discovering that his parents had once made friends with a troll who was now his friend, there was no way he would be sleeping tonight. He recognized Googalaga’s deep, gravelly voice at once, and threw open the door the instant he heard it. “Googalaga!” he shouted. “How’d that Ice-Cream-Craving-B-Gone- Icillin work for you? No more nasty exploding?” Googalaga sighed. “A little bit.” “What? But that’s not possible! I’m quite sure I followed the recipe exactly.” “It’s ok, though,” said Googalaga. “I made a new friend.” Atlas looked past Googalaga for the first time, and saw Sharlene. She was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Sharlene.” “Hi,” replied Atlas. “I’m Atlas. And you are the most beautiful lady I have ever seen.” Sharlene blushed. “Aww, you’re sweet. Now, about Googie’s little problem.” Atlas and Googalaga looked at each other, then both said, “Googie?” at the same time. “I think it’s cute,” said Sharlene. Googalaga shrugged. “Me too,” he said. Atlas blinked a few times and shook his head. “Oh…kay….then. So how can I help you?” “Actually,” said Sharlene, “I think we can help each other.” Then, she looked Atlas right in the eye, and in the sweetest voice he’d ever heard, she said, “But maybe you should sit down first.” She glanced over at Googalaga. “You too, Googie.” “Yes, ma’m,” they both replied, in unison. Sharlene stood before them, stretched out one arm to each of them and said, “Now, take my hand. This could get a little rough.” No one outside of the little cottage knows exactly what happened next that night, or if anything actually happened at all. For all anyone else knew, a happy family had just always lived in the small cottage in the little clearing deep in the woods. But inside the cottage, this happened: “Now take my hand,” said Sharlene. “This could get a little rough.” Light began to pour out of Sharlene’s body. It spilled down her arms and over her hands, slowly flowing over Atlas and Googalaga, before filling the whole room. It burst through the tiny windows of the cottage, exploded out of the door and shot up into the heavens from the chimney. Dishes rattled in the sink, books shook on their shelves. The floorboards began to vibrate and hum and shake. Things fell off of shelves and off walls, and went crashing to the ground. And then, much more suddenly than it had started, everything stopped. The light receded and the room went dark, except for the light from a few candles and the fireplace. The dishes stopped rattling in the sink, the books stayed put on their shelves, and the floor stopped moving, too. Everything was still. Even the three people in the middle of the room. “Woah,” said Atlas. “Woah,” said Googie. “I know,” said Sharlene. “That was your bestest spell yet, Mama! Papa was a fat old troll!” “I’m not fat,” interrupted Googie. “And you were a fairy, and I had a secret lab and everything! Let’s do it again!” shouted Atlas. “Not tonight, young man. You need your rest. And just look what you’ve done to your bed!” Atlas giggled, “But you made me eight years old and I didn’t fit in it anymore! I was too big!” Googie laughed. “Yeah, well you fit in it now, mister. And it’s off to bed with you.” Atlas smiled and stood up, then walked over to Sharlene. “Goonight, Mama,” he said, as best he could. Googie held out his arms, and Atlas gave him a hug. “Goonight, Papa,” he said, again struggling with the words. “Goodnight, baby,” said Mama and Papa. “Now you go straight to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.” “I know!” shouted Atlas, who was now five years old and happy again. He blew kisses to his Mama and his Papa, and crawled into bed. Googie looked at Sharlene, and smiled. “That,” he said, “was one of the best games we’ve ever played.” Sharlene grinned back at Googie. “Do you think so? I didn’t like that whole bit where Atlas was all alone. Maybe next time, I won’t make us disappear in the woods.” “And maybe not make me fat.” “Ok, dear.” “Or a troll.” “Yes, dear. I just hope Atlas enjoyed it.” “I’m sure he did,” said Googie. And if he didn’t, then there’s always tomorrow.” “Or the day after that,” said Sharlene. “Or the day after that,” said Googie. “Or the day after that…” The villagers from down the hill and around the bend, up the stream and through the woods couldn’t remember a time when a family hadn’t lived in that small cottage in the little clearing deep in the forest. And they certainly didn’t remember anything having to do with magical fairies and exploding trolls or scientist children. But they did remember that they couldn’t remember, which is a very odd feeling to have. Something was different about that house, and that family, but no one could ever figure out exactly what it was. There was just always a mother, always a father, and always a little boy. And they had always just been there. Forever. THE END And just in case that wasn’t enough for you, here’s me, reading the story to his class at school because, tragically, Neil Gaiman wasn’t available. LOOK UPON MY MUMBLING NARRATION, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR!

Morality vs Ethics: FIGHT!

Facebook, always the great facilitator of respectful dialog between dissenting parties (in much the same way that Alexander dealt with the Gordian Knot, in that it usually devolves into trying to verbally slice each other into tiny pieces with word swords), has recently been abuzz with news about a transgender substitute teacher in my area being suspended from Lumberton ISD because of reasons involving her having a pee-pee where her hoo-hoo should be. (This is how people talk in the South. Except hoo- hoo is the polite way of saying cooter, which is a more common, if more vulgar, way of describing the lady garden of a woman’s love tunnel. Or something. The South is a silly place. Just roll with it.)

As these things tend to go, there has been a lot of moral outrage about this from people who cling to things like morals. From other people, who deal with life through reason and logic, it was no big deal. Until people started talking about it on Facebook, of course, at which point everything becomes a divisive issue where People Take A Stand. For what it’s worth, I have no use for morality, and consider it nothing more than a malignant tumor upon the freedom of man. Morality, to my way of thinking, is tricky because it is typically handed down by supernatural authority, and what laws you follow for whichever deity you obey depends mostly upon where and when you were born. The problem with basing law on morality is that it’s such a mercurial thing, shifting wildly from one culture to the next, depending on the teachings of their respective religious convictions. Come squishing out of a vagina in the middle of Afghanistan, and you’re probably going to be a Muslim. Get cut out of an American uterus in the middle of a Nebraskan hospital during a Pitocin-induced C-Section, and you’re probably going to be a Christian. Either way, I don’t want the crazy chocolate of your religious morality mixing with my delicious ethical peanut butter, no matter how tasty it might sound. Because it always goes badly.

Laura Jane Klug, Transgender Teacher

It’s why we have separation of Church and State in America. Secular laws based off of pragmatic reality are what guarantee the freedoms we all enjoy: freedom to worship whatever God we choose, in whatever way we want, freedom to not worship, freedom to piss people off and freedom to win people over. Freedom is messy and dangerous and offensive. But it’s important. Being tolerant of people you disagree with is extremely important in a free society, as long as they’re not hurting anyone, because the very nature of freedom means people will disagree with you, they will say and do things you find objectionable, and they might even be in positions of authority to enact legislation that you find morally repugnant. But without tolerating their right to exist and to be as vocal or authoritative as people with whom you agree, then you cease to live in a free society and are heading in a direction where lay burqas and all the religious intolerance you want. It might not be your particular brand of religious intolerance, but it’s the other side of the coin. And I’ll have no part of it. Ethics, on the other hand, are derived from the practical application of pragmatic reality, and so tend to be more tolerant and accepting of differences, because they neither value nor condemn one’s own personal morality. They’re secular because secularism in law is what allows the concept of freedom to exist, and freedom is something America places quite a lot of value on. Or at least it pretends to. Especially around the 4th of July. Fireworks are involved and everything. It’s a whole deal.

Anyway, with all this in mind, I tend to shun morality and form my basis for judgment on how to live from simple ethics: Live free, and don’t be a dick. (Ok, so I borrowed that last bit from the Church Of Wheaton. It’s non-denominational and the sacrificial altar is covered with 20-sided dice though, so everything’s cool. Don’t worry about it.) This approach can also be defined as Ethical Hedonism, which is probably the best basis for a free society, in that it encourages individuals to pursue their own happiness, but only while observing certain standards of conduct when their own freedom might encroach upon someone else’s. Here’s what video game designer, collector, private astronaut and all around groovy dude Richard Garriott had to say on the subject, way back in the Year of the Rabbit, Nineteen Hundred And Ninety Nine (reprinted with permission):

Hedonism: Life is to be lived to the fullest. Who does not hope that at their own end, they can smile knowing that they have enjoyed the journey. To each, enjoyed will be different. Some will want to have achieved greatness. Others will want to have left this world better than when they arrived. Some will just want to sit back and enjoy what life brings them.

If one lived alone on an otherwise lifeless deserted planet, one would feel free to do whatever one wished to pursue one’s own happiness. If you wanted to poison all the waters or chop off your own arm, whatever made you happy should be okay. A life of unbridled Hedonism would be yours. It would be a lonely Hedonistic life, but it would be yours to do with as you and only you choose to make it. Ethics: Most people choose to live in the company of other people. We gather together in communities for many reasons. A community of people has many social, survival and economic advantages. If we want these advantages, we must restrict our Hedonism and avoid doing things that would otherwise make others push us out of their community. We must not interfere with others’ basic rights to pursue their own Hedonism. Thus while living alone, we could have poisoned the worlds waters, living among the masses that we do, we must refrain from this type of activity. I will call these restraints Ethics. I will define Ethics to be logically derived restrictions on Hedonism. I will avoid the term Morals as it is often used to describe rules of conduct derived in other ways, for example because a deity has said so.

Richard’s the one wearing the crown. Duh.

The short version (of that already short version of another, longer piece that Richard wrote independent of its inclusion in Ultima IX ) is that ethical hedonism is what thinking people should aspire to. It’s a worldview based on logic and reason, rather than outmoded religious dogma handed down for thousands of years until we just start ignoring most of it, anyway. (Unless a lot of unreported stonings are still going on in America. Outside of Oklahoma, I mean. That place is whack.) So that’s where I stand, which naturally puts me on the side of the teacher in this particular social media Crusade. As you can imagine, this also puts me in the minority of my local friends, who all tend to be infected with Southern Southernness, which is a valid medical condition recognized mostly by Northern doctors. Where my friends and I will never agree is on there being some universal concept of right and wrong, of the inherent value of things, of objective truth in all things. I disagree with the ever popular C. S. Lewis in this regard, as one’s perception of reality is entirely subjective. Charles Addams wrote, “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” – He was right.

Let’s jump to the apocalypse for a minute, since it’s always an exciting topic for people on both sides of the religion fence. There’s one family, and they’re out of food. Then there’s the “evil” family that has been pillaging the neighborhood and is hoarding supplies. Family A’s kid will die if he doesn’t eat soon, but Family B’s not giving up their Vienna Sausages any time soon. So where’s the objective value now? Who is right, and who is wrong? The family that has scraped together enough food to see them through the winter, or the family that will starve if they don’t raid the other family’s camp and steal their Spam? Or, less dramatically, where’s the objective truth in beauty? Sure, a culture as a whole can determine an objective standard of beauty, but the fact that those standards vary widely from culture to culture and through time says that the concept of beauty is entirely subjective, and any objective determinations we make depend entirely on having grown up in our specific environments. Pink used to be a boy’s color, now it’s a girl’s. Pants used to be for men, now women can wear them, too. Voluptuous bodies used to be beautiful, now they have a weight problem. Tattoos are taboo, except in cultures where they’re essential to one’s identity. Alcohol is the devil’s drink, except that Jesus drank wine. Eating shellfish used to be how the devil got inside you, now we have Red Lobster. Things change. There is no objective truth in the universe outside of what you impose on upon it. End of story. Hardline religious folks like to say that Humanism leads to “survival of the fittest”, and often point to eugenics and Nazi Germany because of course they do. They cite the relativism of morality as the chief reason that the world is crappy, but Humanists don’t adopt relativism in a laissez-faire attitude toward what’s right and wrong. Rather, they simply acknowledge the relativism inherent in morality itself, and choose to eschew it. Humanists believe mankind itself is the best Lawgiver, and so they have no need of stone tablets and Charlton Heston. They don’t use circular logic to say that something is right or wrong simply because, “The Bible says so, and what it says in the Bible is true because it’s in the Bible.” Religious people feel that humanity is incapable of being good and decent and kind, without the imposition of morality by a higher power. Which, of course, is just bunk. I tried to think of a nicer way to phrase that, but that’s the best I could come up with. It’s just nonsense. In reality, Humanists are often kinder, more decent and basically gooder (that’s a word; don’t bother looking it up) than a lot of their more religious counterparts. Humanists don’t believe in a grand reward or terrible punishment in an afterlife, or if they do believe in it, they often just don’t care. They believe that all that matters is what we do here and now, not what comes afterwards. There’s a great quote from Angel (a television series from secular humanist Joss Whedon) that I like to trot out from time to time whenever this subject comes up, so I’ll end this little tarradiddle with it (because it shows that secular humanists do good for the purpose of making the world a better place in the here and now, not out of fear of divine retribution if they don’t, or out of hope for life everlasting if they do, but simply because they do good for goodness’ sake): “If there’s no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters…, then all that matters is what we do. ‘Cause that’s all there is. What we do. Now. Today.”

Word.

Because Texas...

I got involved in one of the wackiest, most bizarre Facebook comment wars I’ve ever seen, so I thought I’d share it. You know, for posterity. (Note: One of the crazies blocked me early on, so the very beginning might be a little scatterbrained with half of the conversation missing, but keep going. Your patience will be rewarded.) As you read this bit of insanity regarding poor people, food stamps and bigotry (Oh, my!), keep in mind that without the continued support of The Lone Star State, all the nation’s crazy would have to be siphoned off by Oklahoma and Florida, and I’m afraid they just couldn’t contain it all. This is why you need Texas…otherwise, you might find your state suddenly filled with bitter, loathsome people like these miserable old coots. They have to go somewhere, you know. Anyway…enjoy! (No, I didn’t black out any names to protect the not innocent. You can see by the little globe for the privacy settings that this was a public post, and people were commenting on it publicly. If anyone gets butthurt about his or her name being here, then next time think twice before publicly commenting on something in public. Also, if you don’t want people to find out you say horrible things, then try not saying horrible things.) *In a minor tragedy, it seems I overlooked the fact that one of my last comments, which was pretty much my favorite, was truncated by Facebook’s “See More…” link, which I forgot to click before capturing the thread. When you get to that part, just assume that I said something brilliant. **Never mind. The poster put the thread back up for a minute, so I could grab the full thing. But you can still assume that what I said was brilliant, if you want.

Facebook Madness

THE END

Married Valentines

I’ve been seeing a lot of Valentine’s Day lists like, “Candy Hearts Written By Men” and “Candy Hearts For Married Couples” and…well, basically anything to do with those candy hearts that taste like they were formulated with equal parts chalk and desperation. Does anyone even eat those things? They’re basically the Valentine’s Day version of getting orange marshmallow Circus Peanuts at Halloween.

Anyway, I decided to come up with my own Valentine’s Day cards. And so, I present to you…

Married Valentines For Married Couples Who Are Married On Valentine’s Day*

(*I suck at titles.) Better out than in

The dangers of spooning

Sometimes, I man’s just gotta eat

Yes. Yes, it does.

Business time

This is a real thing that really happens, single people.

April 15, 2014

Date night!

Let’s talk about how much we miss the kids

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

Broken Age Top 10

Go buy Broken Age . It is your civic duty as a citizen of whatever noble country you’re from, and a fundamental obligation of all human beings living on this planet. Or maybe it’s not. Sometimes I’m prone to hyperbole. But the world definitely needs more of Tim Schafer and Double Fine. Or maybe just the gaming world, which is like the real world, only better.

Hear me out, though. And when I’m done, maybe you’ll feel inclined to go purchase a copy of the game for reasons. So without further verbal ado, I present to you… Top Ten Reasons To Buy Broken Age

1. Double Fine kicked down Kickstarter’s door with a spiky black death metal boot, and paved the way for many great games that would never have received funding through pre-Kickstarter means. So if you’ve played any game from a Kickstarter campaign post-Broken Age, then you owe Tim and the Double Fine gang. Go now and tithe at the Altar Of Imparting, so that they may eat of the fruit of their labors.

2. Art. Say what you will about any Double Fine game, but the one thing you have to admit is that all of them have distinctive art styles. Whether it’s the fever dream Saturday morning cartoons on acid style of Psychonauts, or the cute, cell-shaded whimsy of Costume Quest or the zoetrope charm of Stacking, the one thing Double Fine doesn’t do is photorealistic, bump-mapped, high poly real world boring. They do arty things with, like, lines and colors and stuff. We need more color and style in games. Photorealism has its place, but so does a flying two-headed baby monster. 3. Tim Schafer is made of magic. 4. Yeah, everybody hates the Meat Circus, but the rest of Psychonauts was brilliant. Sure, its platforming was a little rough and the graphics have a considerable lack of excessive normal mapping and barely any overly abundant ubiquitous shades of brown and urban camo seen in the biggest AAA titles of today, but what it lacks in plastic, creepy valley terrorist rag dolls, it more than makes up for with having actual art. Distinctive design, memorable characters, a unique story, clever dialog, etc… If you think games should sometimes be about something more than just running down a hallway and spraying your friends with high caliber ejaculate from your shootporn gun, then you need to support people who make games that offer ejaculate-free alternatives.

5. Two words: Grim Fandango. We’ll never be able to repay Tim for that one. Not only is it one of the best, most loved adventure games of all time, but playing it actually makes you a better person. Probably. If something feels like it’s missing in your life, like somewhere deep in the dark recesses of your soul there’s a little hidey hole filled with all the nothing you’ve never managed to put into it, then it’s probably because you’ve never played Grim Fandango. Go track down a copy and save yourself. Then, after you’ve become whole again as a person, go buy Broken Age. 6. Music. Specifically, iMuse…or whatever Double Fine could decide to call it after they recruit Michael Land and get him working with Peter McConnell again to create a new, modern version of the classic MIDI-based, interactive music system that LucasArts probably still holds the exclusive rights to. Not that anybody is using it, or anything. MIDI fell out of favor well before iMuse could realize its full potential as digital orchestrations took over. But it’s due for a comeback. Buying Broken Age could help make that happen.

7. Broken Age needs to outsell expectations. I have no doubts that Double Fine will make a decent profit from the game, but it needs to do more. It needs to sell beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, simply because the gaming industry needs to see that there’s not only a market for point and click adventure games, but for all kinds of games that don’t fit the shootporn/sportsball/team arena/MMO/GTA mold. How much more money and how many more man hours were needed to create Grand Theft Auto 5 than it took to make Psychonauts? The answer is, a helluva lot more than it took to make Psychonauts. And Grim Fandango and Day Of The Tentacle and Full Throttle, and even the entire Monkey Island series combined. Probably several times over. But does that make GTA5 the best game of the lot? Nope. GTA might offer a different kind of fun than Psychonauts, but that doesn’t mean it’s more fun than Psychonauts. If anything, both games have the same amount of funs. It’s just that GTA’s funs go in a different direction, usually involving whichever direction requires driving on the sidewalk and mowing down pedestrians.

8. The classic Lucasfilm/LucasArts lineup. Maybe you’re old enough to remember the LucasArts days . Maybe you’re not. Either way, how cool would it be if Double Fine had enough capital on hand from Broken Age sales to buy the rights to the classic LucasArts franchises that Disney’s newest victim is never going to do anything with? Sure, it’s not likely to ever happen, but imagine what it would be like if Ron Gilbert finally told us the secret of Monkey Island. Maybe Bernard and Dr. Edison would get into one more wacky adventure. Heck, even Pipe Dreams could get a sequel! Well, I mean other than its cameo in Bioshock. 9. Humor. We need more of it, and it’s not easy to do. Humor is one of the hardest things to pull off in a game, which is why so few games even bother trying. But for whatever reason, probably because Tim could tell you that you only have three weeks to live and somehow make you laugh about it, Double Fine nails it every time. Whether its an overt joke or subtle satire, they’ve mastered the fine art of making us giggle. And scientists have used advanced scientific techniques to scientifically prove that laughing makes you live longer. So buy Broken Age. Do it for Science! 10. Because I asked nicely. Still not convinced? Go read my Broken Age NottaReview to find out more about the game itself, why it’s good, and why you should buy it. I mean, with totally different reasons in addition to the 10 reasons I listed here. That’s like, at least 50% more reasons right there! It’s unreasonable to expect that you could reasonably avoid all these reasons I’m throwing at you. So just stop trying. Close your browser, launch Steam and GO BUY BROKEN AGE .

Broken Age NottaReview “You ever wish you were born earlier, when the adventures were real?“

“Like, the 90s?” “No. Earlier. Like…the early 90s.“ (If you read this earlier and are looking for the second half of this NottaReview, then click here to jump straight to the update.) Broken Age is a beautiful, funny and surprisingly touching game. But in a good way. No bad touching. As a parent, it reaches one hand through your eye holes and the other through your ear tunnels and they meet in the middle of your chest, where your feelings live. And then they squeeze I’ve only played through Shay’s (the boy) part of the story so far, but as a stepdad to the most awesome 7-year-old that has ever trod upon this earthen rock, I can say without hesitation that, somewhere between playing with the squeaky toy control panel and visiting the Hall Of Heroes for the first time, the game hits you right in the feels. Hard. Turns out, it’s a game about letting go as much as it’s about growing up, which is something I didn’t expect. You see, Shay was put onto a spaceship when he was very young, as a sort of lifeboat to keep him safe when something horrible (I assume) happened to his parents’ homeworld. Don’t expect any superpowers though; this isn’t that kind of baby-in-a- basket story. It’s about a boy who had parents who loved him and wanted him to have everything he could ever want or need, but who didn’t count on him ever actually growing up. So the “Mom” of the spaceship is overprotective and over-proud and everything a doting mother could be, while supplying Shay with all of the fun and excitement a boy could ever want. As long as he never hits puberty and all he ever wants is train rides, yarn friends and ice cream avalanches, that is. The father is there, too…but not in the same way. He’s not exactly distant, but he’s not exactly present, either. I expect we’ll hear more from him in Part Two. Oh, and there’s also a wolf that isn’t a wolf, a navigational crochetier that makes scarves to traverse the galaxy with, and…well, it’s Tim Schafer. It’s crazy, but in all the best ways. Trust me on this.

I’m just starting Vella’s (the girl) story, so I can’t comment much on it, yet. I’ll update this post after I finish her half of Part One, but I wanted to get my thoughts down about the game so far, while they were still fresh in my mind. As a review, this isn’t much of a review. But as an endorsement, consider this one to be of the ringing variety. So far, it’s everything I’d hoped the game would be when I backed it on Kickstarter, and perhaps a little more. As an adventure game, it’s on the easy side, which is not at all a bad thing. Nobody plays adventure games for the inventory puzzles, or at least I never have. Not the best games, anyway. I’ve always played them for the stories and the characters and, in the case of a Tim Schafer (or Ron Gilbert) game, I play them for the writing. Double Fine wisely chose to eschew the goofy puzzle logic that plagues the point and click genre, instead opting for simple puzzles that might make you think for a minute or two, but aren’t likely to send anyone running off to the Internet for a walkthrough. You won’t get stuck playing Broken Age, at least not for very long. Instead, you’ll get to progress smoothly through the story while still getting to interact with it on just the right level. Nothing is ever tedious or overplayed. It’s just…smooth. I confess, I had to warm up to the art style. Well, not the style so much as the animation. I’m not normally a big fan of the jointed-paper-doll approach to animation (which I’m sure has some sort of actual artsy sounding name, probably French), but the animations are impressively detailed and yet somehow still minimalist at the same time. It’s a sort of magic, I guess. And it works. The voice cast is great, obviously. The always talented Khris Brown turns in another stellar performance as the game’s voice director (and, folks, if you don’t think a game’s voice director is giving a performance when he or she guides the voice talent, then you’re just not paying attention), and her direction of Elijah Wood as Shay is spot on. For his part, Elijah (we’re on a first name basis, apparently) gives a solid performance, with just enough pitch in his voice to sound younger than he is without it coming off as trying too hard. Every line is delivered in the way in should be delivered in the context of the situation, which is something that eludes most voice talent in adventure games. But Khris (also with the first name, apparently) has a long track record of showing that she fully understands the medium, and manages to get perfect performances out of her cast every time. Jennifer Hale does a marvelous job as the computer Mom on the spaceship, never coming across as being too nagging, even when the character is clearly nagging too much. It’s just…great. Like everything else. If I had one complaint, it would be that it’s taken this damn long for Tim (hey, first names again, whaddyaknow?) to get off his butt and jump back into the point and click ocean. It’s been almost 20 years since Full Throttle, Tim. (And yes, Grim Fandango is sublime, but it isn’t point and click, so it doesn’t

count. Except that it does, I guess. Because it’s Grim Freakin’ Fandango.) But however long it’s been, it’s been too long. Psychonauts was great, Brütal Legend was epic, Costume Quest and Stacking and The Cave and Everything Else have all been terrific games, but YOU (and Ron. Hey, Ron!) are the point and click adventure. You define it. It needs you. It’s needed you for 20 years. We’ve needed you for 20 years. So thanks for coming back, but damn you if you think you’re going to make us wait another 20 years for the next one. So don’t get any ideas. UPDATE: I’ve now finished Vella’s part of the story, and therefore the entirety of Part One. Vella’s half of the game makes up slightly more than half of the game, and feels a lot more fleshed out than Shay’s bit. That’s not to discount Shay’s contribution, but Vella just has more characters to interact with, a greater variety of locations to explore, more puzzles, that sort of thing. It feels more like an old school adventure game too, with a couple of oddball puzzle solutions, but nothing too crazy. Vella’s story is as less about growing up and more about empowering yourself and taking charge of your situation, even when (almost) everyone else is telling you what a

bad idea that is. (Which is a message I deeply support, and about which I’ve babbled before .) It also contains 100% more Wil Wheaton and Jack Black, with the former playing the role of a hipster lumberjack and the latter delivering an uncharacteristically subtle performance. Wheaton is great, as expected with all of his previous experience , and there’s even a hint of self-parody in some of his lines. Black, on the other hand, reins in his Jack Blackness ever so slightly, giving an understated performance that is still somehow every bit as filled with his usual bravado, but it’s not in your face. You can still tell it’s there, of course, lurking just beneath the surface. Probably leering, too. With a smile on its face, a twinkle in its eye…and a knife behind its back. But hey, he’s playing a cult leader who sits in a nest and poops out the sort of thing that would make Veruca Salt very happy around Easter. So it works. Story-wise, I don’t want to give too much away with Vella, other than to say that maidens in villages across the land enjoy being selected for The Maiden’s Feast, which involves dressing up in ridiculous costumes and vying for the attention of the great Mog Chothra. And by attention, I mean “being chosen as food by an antediluvian elder god from the deep”. Yet, Vella is somehow alone in thinking this is a Bad Idea, so she sets off to do something about it. And that’s all you’re getting out of me. The two stories come together quite nicely, in the end, and make a perfect joint for the second act. You might see it coming, and you might not. Or, more likely, you’ll mostly see it coming, but get thrown off a bit just before everything comes together. However it goes down for you, it’ll be satisfying. Vella is a sharp girl, perfectly voiced by Masasa Moyo. Every now and then, I could’ve sworn she was played by Jane Jacobs (who performed the role of Laverne in 1993’s Day of the Tentacle), but alas, it wasn’t her. Still, she delivers a strong, confident performance with just a nuanced underpinning of self- doubt that fits the character well. TL;DR: Go buy Broken Age! It’ll make you smile, make you laugh, and touch your heart in the same way that Pixar enjoys ripping it out in the Toy Story movies. It’s a game about children growing up and parents letting go. It’s sweet and it’s sad, and it’s everything that a game should be. It could be longer. There could be more puzzles. There could be more dialog and interactions and animations and…ok, there could just be more. Always more, because no matter how much there is…when something is this good, there’s just never enough of it. I’ll be back later with an update for Valla’s side of the story. Probably. If I don’t end up crying in the shower and biting a washcloth to muffle the sound of my tears.

Pew Pew Texas

Texas: Where walking through the mall with a switchblade in your pocket is illegal, but strapping an AR15 on your back is a God-given right. I tweeted that the other day, in response to this . In short, this guy Derek Poe owned (past tense) a store in the local shopping mall called Golden Triangle Tactical and decided to drum up some publicity, stir up some controversy, come up with a way to break his lease, exercise his 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms by strapping an AR15 on his back and strolling into the mall’s GameStop. Depending on who you ask, Texas is or isn’t an open carry state for “long arms,” aka rifles. The law is ambiguous by not ever actually mentioning long arms, but it’s generally accepted that Texas allows you to openly carry a rifle in certain situations. Like when you’re hunting, or driving to go hunt and have a gun rack mounted on the back of your pick ’em up truck, and that sort of thing. Patrolling for varmints and such. But it’s also generally accepted that this freedom does not translate well to urban environments, and certainly not to the environment of a shopping mall. Except that it’s not so generally accepted, at least by people who refuse to accept it.

So anyway, this guy strolls around the mall and wanders into a GameStop, then eventually the police get wind of it and charge him with disorderly conduct, which is what’s used in cases like this. Later, the cops refuse to return his rifle, citing it as evidence in an ongoing investigation. So naturally, we have an open carry rally coming up next week at the nearest Gander Mountain. Because that’ll make everything better. First, my thoughts on gun control. They’re pretty simple. We need to be able to track firearm sales. We need to enforce existing laws that are rigged to be unenforceable (and therefore remain a safe chant for the NRA to constantly cite), and we need to use some common sense. A shopping mall is no place to carry a rifle slung on your back. Not in today’s world, with mass shootings happening only slightly less frequently than political sex scandals. I’ll tell you this: it’s a good thing no do-gooder, concealed carry gun advocate saw this guy before the police caught up with him. It doesn’t take a big leap to imagine how quickly that situation could have gone downhill. Do we have a right to keep and bear arms? Of course we do. Is Obama coming for our guns? Of course he isn’t. He didn’t come for them in 2008, back when everyone started screaming it. He didn’t come for them in 2009. Or 2010. Or 2011. Or 2012. And he’s not coming for them now. Stop being crazy. But while we’re on the subject of crazy, please stop thinking that you could realistically challenge the federal government if it ever decided to become openly hostile to American citizens. Your handguns and shotguns and scary, look-at-how-badass-I-am “assault” rifles ain’t gonna do much against a targeted attack from a drone you never even see before it kills you. Think we’re going to have another American Revolution? Good luck with that, unless you have a Navy I don’t know about. (And don’t count on France coming to our rescue this time, not after that whole Freedom Fries incident.) Or, you know, an Air Force. Or artillery. Or any of the countless technological and armament superiority currently enjoyed by the largest and most heavily funded military force the world has ever known. Stop watching so many movies. They lie to you. Pick up some books on military tactics and war strategy, and you’ll quickly understand that you can’t secure and hold a coastal area without a navy. You can’t secure and hold an inland area without air support and artillery. You can’t secure and hold anything with your pea shooters when the “enemy” has smart bombs and remote-controlled aerial drones and fleets of warships and tactical nuclear weapons. Stop being crazy. And stop being stupid. You wanted this military. You wanted to fund it at insane levels. You wanted it to be strong. You wanted the biggest gun in the world, and you got it. So don’t act all butthurt when you finally stop to consider that it could ever be swiveled around and aimed at you. You paid for it. You bought it. Congratulations.

So anyway, enough with the armed revolt nonsense. It’s just not gonna happen, pilgrim. And if it did, it’ll be shut down so quickly and decisively that it’ll likely help secure the tyrannical rule of whoever’s in power at the time, because nobody else will be dumb enough to try taking on the world’s meanest military force a second time, not after what happened to those poor people who tried it first. They’re still picking bits of them out of the Appalachians. But back to gun control. No, I don’t want the government to take our guns. Yes, I believe we all have a right to own them. No, I don’t think they make you any safer. Yes, I believe they exist in large part to make people feel safer (not to mention, more badass) than they do to actually provide additional security, but I’ll concede that knowledge and expertise with firearms could conceivably save your life in certain situations. No, I don’t think those situations are nearly as common as other people seem to think they are. You’re still about a billion times more likely to die in a car accident than to ever be in a situation where shooting someone else in the face would be helpful, but I understand the need to feel safe. Yes, we need regulations and enforcement. No, it’s not the wild west. Now let’s get back to this yahoo with the AR15. What he did does nothing for gun advocacy groups. It hurts the pro-gun cause. Anyone with any common sense at all knows that you shouldn’t go strutting around a shopping mall with a rifle strapped to your back, and the idea that he was somehow wronged by being cited and having his gun temporarily taken away is just insane. He knew what he was doing, even if he didn’t expect that there would actually be consequences for being an asshole. However, instead of seeing what this guy did for the cause-damaging publicity stunt it was, tons of people are set to rally around him and protest on behalf of his rights. But I ask you, where are my rights as a sword-owning American? I can’t carry a Roman gladius through the mall, so why does this jerk get to carry an AR15? Heck, I can’t even carry a knife that’s over 5.5, or that is spring- loaded, or under 5.5 if it’s a butterfly knife, etc… Why is having it be illegal to carry a much less lethal weapon than a semi-automatic rifle not an issue for these people? I just want to keep and bear my brand of arms, so where’s my 2nd amendment right to open carry a katana on my hip? Oh, that’s right. There’s no National Melee Association shoving millions down the pants of politicians and media pundits. Look, I know this is Texas. And southeast Texas is more Texas than a lot of Texas in the whole gun/red state/God-fearing/Constitution/Tea Partying regard, but let’s at least try to have a little perspective on this. Remember, if you get your rights, then everyone else gets their rights. That’s why they’re called rights. Now, just sit back and ponder that, you largely Angry Doughy White Dude demographic. Imagine a group of heavily armed black men walking near you in the mall. You can’t just casually roll up your windows and lock your doors in that situation, can you? It’s not like southeast Texas has some of the most inflammatory, backwater racial tensions in the country that would be incalculably worsened by adding open carry firearms to the mix or anything, right? Oh, wait… Imagine rival gang members, both within their legal rights to openly carry assault rifles in public places. What could possibly go wrong? Imagine Longhorns fans and Aggies passing by each other in the aisles of Academy, fresh from buying new boxes of ammunition on game day. Or just imagine a world where everyone walking around with rifles is no big deal. Then imagine hundreds of Charles Whitmans causally strolling into thousands of bell towers across the nation. Imagine Lee Harvey Oswald and the book depository. Imagine Columbine. Sandy Hook. Virginia Tech. The Washington Navy Yard. Aurora, Colorado. The list, sadly, goes on and on and on… Now imagine more of those, except now imagine them with a bunch of other armed people. Particularly, imagine the shooting at the Batman movie in Aurora, and try to guess how many more people would’ve been injured or killed by a theater filled with would-be heroes all shooting their guns at random targets in the dark. You are not as good of a shot as you think you are. You are not trained to point your gun and not shoot. You are not a police officer. (Unless you are; in which case, I’m not talking about you.) And stop crying about your freedoms. We don’t live in a free society. Never have. I can’t go all Katniss and carry a bow and arrow with me when I’m browsing the grocery store aisles for snack cakes, so why should you get to carry a gun? Besides, we live in a country that actively tells people what they can and can’t do to their own bodies, which is the one thing that should be wholly yours to do with as you see fit. You know, if you’re actually free. But nope. Get sick? Go to the doctor if you want medicine. You can’t be trusted to diagnose and treat yourself. Depressed? Here, have some healthy alcohol, but stay away from drugs. Enjoy soda? Ok, but not too much. You can’t be trusted to make your own decisions about the Extra Super Giant Big Gulp. Raped and want an abortion? Oooooooh, let’s not even open that can of worms. The point is, you don’t care about freedom. Not really. You care about this one issue, and how it affects your fragile sense of empowerment. You think owning a firearm is essential to protect yourself from a phantom menace that only you can see. (Well, you and Alex Jones. Maybe David Icke.) You think owning a gun is the key to freedom. It isn’t. It’s a weapon. It shoots small bits of metal at things. Its only purpose is to hurt and kill. At least I can use a sword to help trim the back forty, if I needed to. If I had a back forty, that is. Or even knew what the hell the proverbial back forty is that everyone is always plowing, but that’s neither here nor there. TL; DR: Yes, you have a right to keep and bear arms. No, you don’t need to be a douche about it. Not A #Beauliever

I am old. This should come as no surprise to anyone, since I’m always angry about something. This is a trait common to us elderly. And by elderly, I mean those in our late 30s, which is pretty much knocking on death’s door where twenty-somethings are concerned. And that’s probably how it should be.

Still, the annoying thing about youth is it always thinks it’s doing something new and that it got there first. But it didn’t. It’s just making newer versions of older mistakes and thinking itself clever in the process. And it hates old people, because they just don’t get it. Which is also probably how it should be. But it still annoys me. Heck, twenty-somethings bothered me when I was a twenty-something. I’m just wired for annoyance. It’s in my blood. Or possibly my spleen. Maybe the pancreas. I don’t know; I’m not a doctor. I just know people piss me off, and I can’t ever keep my mouth shut about it. And that’s just how it is. The latest bee in my bonnet, if I wore bonnets and had a habit of letting bees infest my headwear, is this little number calling me out personally, over on Cat 5, the local paper’s local blog of the local paper’s local free paper about local culture. And by culture, I mean bars, nightclubs, and food trucks. With some “fashion” thrown in, for good measure. It’s the Hearst Corporation’s Beaumont version of the Los Angeles FREEP or New York’s Village Voice, only with less (read: any at all) news of interest or items of importance, and more OMG! TOATS HASHTAG THOSE SHOES, BECKY! But it’s not really trying to be an edgy underground paper, with alternative news and information to engage a young adult readership. It’s a corporate glad rag, where every bartender is a shiny, happy person. Every food truck offers unique local flavors, usually with the word “fusion” thrown in somewhere for reasons. Every local band should be headlining at the hottest venues across the country if only someone would recognize their talent. That sort of thing. Fluff. It’s a free handout paper along the lines of the Thrifty Nickel, if the Nickel was less concerned with helping people sell sofas and more obsessed with whatever hip hipster fad is fashionable at the moment. Craft beers, the aforementioned food trucks, local art, etc…

And all of that is fine. Nothing wrong with it. It helps local businesses and lends some semblance of an air of culture to Southeast Texas that is very much welcome. I have no problem with Cat 5. (The name comes from…well, they’ll tell you it comes from cleverly evoking a Category 5 hurricane. However, it’s actually just the result of copying Houston. Specifically, another Hearst paper, The Houston Chronicle. Because Beaumont desperately wants to be Houston, even if it’ll never talk to it at parties.) The Chron has (or had; I can’t keep up with the rise and fall of blogs) a similar blog called, 29-95, which the Powers That Be in Corporate Cleverness Land devised after whatever the last big hurricane was, being as Houston lies at 29° North / 95° West, which was apparently on the news a lot back when people did weird things with maps and tracking charts and pencils. They thought it was catchy. But anyway, that’s the point. Beaumont hates Houston. Always has, always will. But it desperately wants to be Houston. It hates Houston in the same way that you hate that one girl in middle school you really wish would go out with you. But she won’t, so you make fun of her. Same sort of thing here, really. Beaumont wants to be a big metropolis like Houston, filled with commerce and art and culture and industry, instead of what it actually is and always will be: a mid-sized city based on the petrochemical industry. That means lots of refineries, air that smells (and feels, thanks to the humidity) like wet fart, and a lot of old money in the hands of a few powerful families. It’s kind of like what the mafia would be if they were less concerned with whacking people and running drugs, and more worried about things like the Neches River Festival and Cotillion.

So that’s Beaumont. And the youth of Beaumont have always hated that they live in Beaumont, which is why every generation has always tried its best to make it better. But they always try in the wrong ways, only worrying about things that matter to them. Namely, that they’re bored. There’s very little to do in Southeast Texas, so they come up with things to do. And they always think they’re the first ones who have been clever enough to do so. They think they’re doing something new. It’s cute, really. But the thing is, bars aren’t new. Art isn’t new. Nightclubs aren’t new. Food trucks are kind of new, but only in the sense that they’re called Food Trucks now and not Creepy Dude Selling Wieners Out Of His Trailer, which is what we used to call them. They’re trendy. Beaumont loves trendy. But trends don’t last. The craft beer craze will die down, and people will go back to drinking whatever fermented crap they were drinking before the fad exploded. Food trucks are trendy, and they’ll go back to being non-existent as soon as the new wears off and the trend winds have changed course. That’s just how things go. No, Beaumont has real problems that need real solutions. There’s a reason it’s next to impossible to sell a home in this city, and it has nothing at all to do with how many thrift stores and art shows we have. The biggest issue killing the city right now, for example, is the corruption of the local school district . Thanks to the efforts of a bunch of old boring old people who are old (like me) who have been working on this problem for years now, it looks like it might finally be about to improve. From Texas Education Agency investigations to FBI seizures, things are finally coming to a head. With a little luck and a bit more time, the boil will be lanced and fully drained, and we can start healing the wound left by the BISD corruption. But twenty-somethings don’t think about things like schools and mortgage rates and tax appraisals. They think about getting drunk and getting laid, and pretending to understand things they don’t really know much about. Because that’s what youth does. It’s inexperienced because it lacks the experience of not having experienced very much. But even all of that doesn’t matter. I don’t fault young people for not thinking far enough ahead to understand that the cosmetic bandages they’re slapping on to festering wounds won’t do anything to actually improve this city, and that all of their efforts are destined for failure, like all the efforts of all the young people that have come before them. That’s just how the world works. What I do have a problem with, however, is something like the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau coming up with a painfully forced bit of social media manipulating nonsense, and then attacking anyone who sees it for what it really is: a justification of their own paychecks. They want us to think that this #Beaulivers hashtag business just sprang up out of the great well of pride young people have for our city, but really it was just something stupid concocted by someone who gets paid to come up with stupid ideas for a living. And they want you to think it’s actually working. It’s not. The blog post I linked to earlier mentions tagboard.com, but fails to provide a link (probably in the hope that nobody will actually check the site). From the post:

Tagboard.com/Beaulievers, which assembles hashtags posted across every social media platform, is filled with Beaulievers proudly showing off their food photos, sunset shots, their pictures from concerts and crawfish boils and Neches River outings.

Well, sure. That sounds dandy! Except that “filled with Beaulivers” seems to mean a small handful of people, most of whom are either directly involved with the CVB or Cat 5, or who have some connection to it. The same few people incessantly tweeting a hashtag does not a trend make. And even then, there have only been about 15 or so tweets collected in past week. I’m not sure “filled” means what local journalist Beth Rankin thinks it means. But don’t take my word for it. Here, go check it out for yourself. I’ll actually give you the link (just as I actually linked to Beth’s blog post after mentioning it. It’s just common web courtesy any hip new media journalist should know about.) Oh, and then there’s this, which follows mention of my initial comment about the silliness of the #Beaulievers hashtag on Twitter:

When I tried to explain that the hashtag — and the corresponding creative Renaissance that’s currently sweeping Beaumont — is indeed happening, the whole exchange devolved into the kind of social media fight we all promise ourselves we’ll never get into (and then instigate anyway). Except that she didn’t try to explain anything, and the entire “social media fight” was all of two @replies on Twitter. Hardly the stuff of apocalyptic legend, but hey. I get it. She’s got an audience to pander to. So do I. Of course we’re both going to frame things how we think they should hang. But, just in case you’re wondering, here’s the actual exchange in its entirety:

Look, I’m a dad. I worry about dad things now, like the quality of my kid’s education and the long term sustainability of the area. I worry about property values and attracting new businesses, and I fret about tax rates and unemployment levels and the minimum wage. I care about politics and local governance and accountability. That’s what old people do. Young people have the luxury (and, I think, the right, really) to not have to worry about this stuff while they’re young. Let them worry about where they’re going to go and what or who they’re going to do on a Friday night. The horrible shackles of boring responsibility will hit them soon enough, so I say enjoy youth while you’re young. You don’t get to go back and try again. But leave the stupid hashtags out of it. And if you’re going to try to paint me as a reality teevee loving, fast food fattie who is obviously too stupid and brainwashed by the all the whatever food poisons I’m eating or mind- numbing propaganda I’m absorbing through the warm glow of the glass teat from which I so voraciously suckle, then you’re just not paying attention. That’s what I think you are, hipster scum. I’m just a bitter old curmudgeon who has forgotten more than you’ve learned so far in your wild about town life. I already did all the things you think you’re just discovering now, and I’ve earned the right to point at you and make fun. And you have the right to call me a cranky old bastard. I guess. Just don’t try and convince me that a tired play on a particular bit of Justin Bieber foolishness is anything more than what it is: Just Plain Sad.

Dashing Through The Dogma In A One Horse Open Sleigh Today’s essay is a little different from what I’ve been writing as of late, and I hope that my faith in my readers is not misplaced when I tell you that I think you can handle this. It’s nothing new or revolutionary, or even unique. It’s just a few of my personal reflections on Christmas and religion, and a few things in- between. It’s a little long and a little messy, but it’s what came out when I sat down to start writing. Still, I know that many of you will take immediate offense as soon you start reading anything that may contradict your own beliefs, and I apologize in advance for making any of you uncomfortable. For those among you that are so easily offended, I ask only that you hear me out. It gets better after it gets worse, and I think it all comes together in the end. Then again, I’ve been known to completely adore myself, so I might be a bit biased when I assure you that I do, in fact, have a point – a point I suspect you may not disagree with quite so much as you might think. So, read on adventurer. Your quest awaits!

As any reader of this blog already knows, I am no great fan of religion or of the blind adherence to the ancient and debatable doctrines from which all structured belief systems originate. That said, I’ve no qualms with personal beliefs gained through the inquiries and insights of each individual person. In fact, all I’ve ever demanded of anyone is that they think for themselves. If you wish to read up on all of the world’s many religions and decide to follow one over all others (or none at all), that is your educated choice to make. If, however, you’ve simply been indoctrinated into one belief system since childhood without ever pausing to contemplate either its credibility or applicability towards your own life, then it is with you that I do take umbrage.

I don’t begrudge or discourage informed opinions based on hard-earned knowledge wrested from endless hours of research and contemplation, regardless of what those opinions may be. I am certainly not obligated to agree with those conclusions, but I fully recognize and support your right to have and to share them. The only problem – the only problem – I have with religion in general is that, for as much as any given church claims to encourage its members to independently study its teachings, there is most often very little latitude granted towards any such lofty endeavors. Instead, most study is guided either by the groupthink of the congregation (Bible study groups) or by the bias of the church leaders (goatee sportin’ Youth Pastors) rather than by simply allowing the student’s ideas and beliefs to grow organically from his or her own studies of the church’s sacred texts. No, the common order of the day is merely dogmatic and unyielding reverence for the church’s existing outlook towards theology, and for the sacred and unquestionable doctrines to which it so passionately cleaves. Therefore, it should come as no great surprise that I, being more a Humanist than anything else, have grown to reflect upon the structured institutions of religious thought and have come to the regrettable and odious conclusion that they are, all of them, complete bullshit. I know that sounds inflammatory, probably because I intended it to. I want nothing more than to inflame, ignite and destroy slavish devotion wherever I find it – and it’s hard to not find it everywhere at this time of year. For example, good little Christians celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25 through pageantry and festivals expressly forbidden in the Bible, but glossed over and accepted by their church leaders. On the one hand, you have the sacred text itself specifically banning the practice of cutting down and decorating a tree from the forest (Jeremiah 10: 1-4) while, on the opposite hand, you have Christian churches erecting massive Christmas trees in church sanctuaries from sea to shining sea. It’s the modus operandi of any belief system that encourages obedience rather than introspection to simply say, ‘This is the way it is done, this is the way is has always been done, and this is the way it will always be, for we have told ye this and ye shall believeth it, or ye shall goeth straight to Hellith.’ Or something like that, anyway. You get the idea.

Christmas, as so many other things in Christianity, is a grossly misunderstood observance of an even more greatly misunderstood event. Jesus, the man from whom Christianity sprang, was not born on December 25th. The date was chosen after much fighting and bickering and debating amongst the Powers That Be, before finally settling on the familiar date we all know and love. Strangely, the knowledge that Christ’s birth is celebrated on an arbitrary day is not a little-known fact – yet the knowledge does almost nothing to impact Christian observations of the holiday. People may not know the specifics about why December 25th was chosen, and many certainly know little or nothing about Saturnalia or the feast of Sol Invictus, but it would hardly matter if they did. What people know is that the church chooses to observe the date, and so it must be Holy. They may know that it’s not in the Bible, and they may understand that the date was chosen to coincide with popular Pagan holidays, but all that matters is that the church tells them to honor it, and so they do. Fastidiously. Obediently. Blindly. But this was not always the case… In fact, in the more extreme views of Christian theology held by the Puritans (from which nearly all Protestant churches in America originate), holidays such as Christmas and Easter were entirely forbidden because such non-biblical holidays lacked a scriptural foundation and could be easily likened to the idolatry and nature-worship of Paganism. As if that weren’t enough, let’s not forget that one of the stronger contentions against Catholicism by the Protestant Reformation was the observation of Mass. And, given that Christmas is a compounding of the words Christ and Mass, it shouldn’t take a great leap in understanding to see that earlier Protestants held rather a different view of the holiday. In fact, Charles Spurgeon – the so-called “Prince of Preachers” himself – once said, during a sermon on Christmas Eve, “We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or English; and secondly, because we find no scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority.”

The questioning believer might see the contradiction and decide whether to be a part of observing Christmas, or to adopt a more hardline Reformist view of the Bible by abstaining and thereby saving his mortal soul, should his beliefs steer him in that direction. Then again, even rigid Calvinists often fail to note that John Calvin observed the holiday, or that Martin Luther himself is attributed to popularizing the Christmas tree. Of course, when the rule of law in any religion is to blindly accept and believe only that which you are told, it isn’t surprising that even someone like Martin Luther would eventually have his teaching distorted and reinterpreted to the point of obscenity, were he to witness their degradation today. After all, it was his aversion to the belief that Saint Nicholas distributed presents in December (but not on Christmas) that led him to popularize the notion of the Christkindl (Christ Child) in an effort to put the focus back on the birth of Christ, where he felt it belonged. However, after the tradition was transplanted to the New World and observed by English settlers, Christkindl became Kris Kringle, who became synonymous with Santa Claus, who had himself replaced Saint Nicholas as the mythical force du jour of the holiday season. A little research, a bit of reading, and all of this is clear to anyone who wishes to look – but far too many people would rather just accept doctrine rather than think and decide for themselves. Curiously, Protestants seem completely oblivious to irony around this time of year. Each Christmas season brings with it the inevitable battle cry from the Religious Right claiming that the holiday is being stolen from the people. Ineffective protests demanding boycotts of stores that insist on wishing patrons a Happy Holiday rather than a Merry Christmas commence and dissipate with a whimper, often going ignored even by the people posturing themselves as supporters of the initiative. (It’s tough to be righteous when faced with the overwhelming temptation of Always Low Prices, after all. Not that the hand-wringing left wingers are any better, mind you. Not with their bleeding heart mentality motivating them to legislate everything good in this world out of existence through a policy of offending no one by equally offending everyone. Happy Christmakwanzukkah, everybody!) Yet, these very same right wing, evangelical zealots fail to recognize that they themselves stole the holiday from the Catholics. In fact, Protestants have done more to insult the sanctity of the religious observance by entirely removing Mass from the Christ Mass – yet they have no hesitations when it comes to complaining about seculars removing the Christ part by shortening the holiday to the simple and brief ‘X-mas’ (nevermind that the abbreviation doesn’t ‘remove Christ from Christmas’, but the X actually puts Christ right in there, as anyone with even a cursory understanding of history knows). No, instead today’s Protestants blissfully ignore (or fail to ever learn) the fact that the original Puritanical settlers of this country steadfastly opposed celebrating anything to do with the birth of Jesus, and that the original doctrines of what eventually blossomed into the varied American denominations we have today are growing ever more distant from their source material. Heck, even the comparatively open denomination in which I was raised (Presbyterian) didn’t formally observe Christmas until the late 1940s, and today my church observes Advent, has multiple worship services, and even sings Christmas Carols by candlelight on Christmas Eve. Now, all that said – I personally enjoy Christmas. I know that all of my preceding bibblebabble seems to contradict the idea that I’d love the holiday, but I promise it’s true. I love exchanging gifts with friends and loved ones, I enjoy spending time with friends old and new, and I encourage the spirit of charity that permeates the air. Even if it’s mostly in the form of lip-service and one-time donations, a lot of charities receive the bulk of their yearly donations at Christmas, and it’s hard to argue against being charitable (but in a few sentences, I’ll try). I do, however, deeply resent the forced jubilance and faux merry-making that comes with the Christmas season. I don’t enjoy being unwillingly recruited into participating in the reindeer games of people I neither like nor respect, simply because it is Christmas and certain obligations are expected. I dislike being completely inundated with the ‘Christmas spirit’ by every last retail outlet on the planet trying to separate me from my cash. I hate things like restrictive and often embarrassing work parties, or socially required obligations such as enduring the insidious pain that comes from having to pretend to genuinely enjoy the suspicious tasting concoction some associate brings to a pot luck Christmas dinner. I dislike the social and professional demands requests to donate to Cause X, contribute to Cause Y, and to supply toys for one organization or another that has the word Tots in. But mostly – mostly – I despise having to endure the inescapable annoyance that comes from being constantly assaulted by offensively happy people incessantly ringing handbells located at the entrances and exits of every public building in the 48 contiguous states from Lubeck, Maine to Ozette, Washington. They are omnipresent forces during the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and I hate being made to feel guilty about not tossing change into a bright red pot each and every time I make an emergency run to the store for ice packs and Band-Aids. (Or chocolate, depending on the emotional state of my wife and whatever I may or may not have done or not done at any given moment.) For me, Christmas is not about what the church tells me I should be doing, or what friends and family choose to believe. It’s not about trees and presents and retail Hell. And, while growing up I always insisted upon decorating a sugar cookie with the words, ‘Happy Birthday, Jesus!’, Christmas isn’t just about His birthday. In truth, what Christmas means to me is an entirely personal thing (as is everything else in my life), and I refuse to allow outside interests to pervade my thoughts and dictate my behavior at this time of year…although my refusal is rendered moot by my proclivity towards tradition, a tenacious force against which even I am powerless. The traditions I enjoyed in my childhood translate to wistful nostalgia today that I always seek to recapture each and every time the holidays come around. I have no will against it, and therefore seek out all of the Christmas joy that I can possibly find.

I want the Christmas tree, even though I know it is a silly and potentially hideous thing that starts out beautiful but that eventually transforms into an inappropriately festive dead thing that tends to linger in my living long after I’ve abandoned my New Year’s resolutions. I want to go to church on Christmas Eve and listen to the sermon, watch the children badly act in a badly directed play, and cap the whole thing off by singing carols by candlelight while either sweating or shivering outside on the church lawn in the notoriously uncooperative southeast Texas weather. I want to hang stockings and eat cookies, to rip apart the beautiful paper on packages meticulously wrapped by loving family members, and then to watch in fiendish delight as they try to penetrate the ball of ineptly wadded paper and invincible tape that I’ve handed them in exchange. I want to stay up late on Christmas Eve, pretending to be Santa Claus and stomping around on the roof. I want to drive around and look at Christmas lights, eat turkey and unidentifiable casseroles at family gatherings, then sit together in silence with my wife beside me, staring at the twinkling lights of our tree while Christmas music drifts softly across the room. Strangely, though I want all of these things from Christmas this year just as I’ve always wanted them, I find myself wanting one thing more than any other, although I’ve yet to mention it. This year, I want something that I already have. Something I hope to always have. Something that makes each miserable morning tolerable through the hope and promise it brings with it in the evening. Something that makes the bad days less bad, and the good days worth remembering. Something that means the same thing whether it’s spelled kazoku, rodzina, familia – or just plain Family. What I want for Christmas this year is simple: I want my family. Always, my family.

I encourage everyone to believe exactly what it is in this life that they need to believe, no more and no less. I simply want everyone to do their own thinking, come to their own conclusions, and form that mysterious ‘personal relationship with God’ that eludes so many of the Faithful. For my part, I will reveal that I refuse to believe in a Creator who plays the role of a disciplinarian father busily overseeing children he never wants to grow up. This is the typical view of God in Christianity, the stern and loving father who watches over his children and, in exchange, demands their devotion, their loyalty, and their unwavering love at the threat of punishment, should they believe the Wrong Things. Instead, I take the atypical view and elect to believe in God as an image of my own interpretation, as a father who loves his children, but who does not want them to stay in a perpetual state of childhood. As any parent, He wants his children to grow up, to become independent, strong, and wise. He is a father who wants his children to find their own way, to make their own decisions and make something better out of what He has given them in this world, rather than simply accept that life is a temporary misery to fret over whilst awaiting an afterlife filled with shiny, happy things and lots and lots of singing. (And harps. Always harps.) More than anything though, He wants his children to simply love Him out of love itself, rather than idly worshiping Him out of the intrinsic fear of consequence that angering Him would bring. So, whether Jesus was born on December 25th or April 17th, it doesn’t really matter to me. In fact, none of it truly matters, not really. In the end, religious thought is only what those in power want it to be, what the people of the world need it to be, and what each of us ultimately chooses to believe it actually is. All of us, together and apart as individuals, whole and complete and thinking. Above all, thinking. Then again, if Jesus really was born on December 25th and I on January 18th, then we’re both Capricorns and I have something in common with the Son of God Himself. Awesome!

*Originally published on December 8, 2009.

Ridiculous Baby Headbands

Look. Babies are more or less bald and, unless you’re a parent, they’re kinda goofy looking. That’s just how it is. Why can’t we, as a nation, accept this simple fact? And by nation, I mean STOP IT, MOMS. Your baby is a baby. Let it be a baby. Stop making it a fashion accessory upon which to project your own hideous tastes for all the world to see. Because the rest of us are tired of looking at that thing on your child’s head. Seriously. Just stop it.

I’m speaking, of course, about ridiculous baby headbands – and let me say up front that when I say, “ridiculous baby headbands,” I mean ALL baby headbands. I don’t care if it’s just a simple Flashdance headband because your baby is dancing for her life, or if it’s one of those monstrous flower bands that look like little nightmarish floral explosions bursting out of your child’s skull. They’re all horrible. Cute headband or terrifying exit wound? You decide.

Aside from how horrible they look, you’re probably squishing your child’s brain. Think about that. It’s got to be some level of child abuse, except scientists haven’t bothered to do any science that proves the physical damage caused by headband abuse. I won’t lie; it really bothers me that one derpy “scientist” can publish false information that leads to a nationwide, Jenny McCarthy-fueled vaccination panic, but not a single one of them can be bothered to publish a paper on the dangers of ridiculous baby headbands. It’s like science isn’t even trying to be beneficial to mankind anymore. It’s bigger than her head. Bigger. Than. Her. Entire. Head.

I know you want your kid to be pretty and, let’s face it, boy babies aren’t really subjected to the headband horror. It’s almost exclusively reserved for girls, because gosh darnit, the most important thing for a vagina- bearer is to be pretty first, and anything else second. So I guess we need to start conditioning them as early as possible. You know, before they even understand what the hell is going on. Sure, your daughter might not understand or care why her mother insists upon strapping a bit of elastic itch torture to the top of her braincase, but there’s bound to be a good reason for it. Mom knows best, right? Don’t set her down inside a Cracker Barrel, lest someone mistake your precious wonder for a piece of Official Country Store Merchandise.

Wrong. If you do this to your child, all you’re doing is casting a spotlight on your own insecurities (that you’ll probably pass on along to your special snowflake, by the way). Babies, while a little goofy looking, are all adorable in their own way. No one outside of a few scramble-brained creepballs is ever going to look at a baby and think that the situation could be greatly improved with the addition of some elastic, hot glue and a criminal overuse of tulle. The fistful of pearls in the mouth are a nice touch, because everyone knows that babies are really into the 1920s flapper look of OMG, SOMEBODY CALL 9-1- 1! SHE’S CHOKING!

If people think your baby girl is a boy, then so what? Babies are pretty gender-neutral, or at least they should be. However, if you’re terrified of mistaken gender reassignment, then by all means, dress your little darling up in pink puffy princess petticoats to let the world know that it doesn’t have a penis. But nobody really cares. Except you, maybe. Either way, she doesn’t need the headband. What is this I don’t even?

To the rest of us, if we bother to comment on your baby, it’s almost certainly going to be intended as a compliment. If we mistake a boy for a girl or a girl for a boy while we’re telling you how adorable your baby is, then just take the compliment, say thanks or whatever, and don’t quietly seethe inside while your curse yourself for forgetting to apply the skull- strap wedgie to your child’s cranium before you left the house this morning. And that’s all I have to say about that. Her headband says she’s fun and flirty. But her eyes say she’s plotting her revenge.

Well, except for one more thing. While boys tend to escape the ridiculous headband nonsense, they’re often victims of the Parental Mohawk. It’s the same thing as the headbands, really, just less brain-squishy and more temporarily permanent while you wait for the hair to grow back. No child should be forced to have a mohawk if they’re under the age of being able to say things like, “I really hate looking like a tiny douchebag, Daddy.” Now, if your kid is old enough to articulate his desire to look like someone just shot the tires off of his home, then by all means, go ahead and let him have the mohawk. It’ll make him look hip and cool and edgy…a veritable prepubescent Billy Bad Ass, I’m sure. Yeah, it’ll still say more about the parent than the child, but isn’t that pretty much the goal, anyway? ‘MURICA!

Now Everybody Hates Me

This post isn’t going to win me any friends, and will likely create more than a few new enemies. I should probably know better than to write this, but I’m me. And I never did learn.

If you’re familiar with my ongoing coverage of the tragedy that is the Beaumont Independent School District , then chances are you know what I’m about to write, and what you’re about to read. But you’re wrong. I promise. With that out of the way, let’s begin… *************** The great problem with unity is that you’re lumped together with people you have no more in common with than a like-minded goal of Accomplishing Something bigger than yourselves, which sounds great in theory, but in practice it amounts to nothing more than lingering too long in close quarters with a guy who smells like feet just because you share a similar interest in politics but have totally opposing views on personal hygiene. Such may be the nature of most any cause that unites people to come together in opposition to a common foe, but one has to draw the line somewhere. Just how willing are you to stand shoulder to shoulder with people who are not who they present themselves to be, who practice the same dictatorial thought policing of your enemy and who, despite all claims to the contrary, are very likely no different from the very people you’re fighting against?

We see this all the time with revolutions: a charismatic leader emerges to unite the people and overthrow an evil dictator, only to install himself in the throne he just spilled the blood of the people to empty. The problem, says Sir Terry Pratchett, with revolutions is that they always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. And he’s right. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. Until another new one comes along… I do want to note here that I am not referring to any of the specific opponents trying to replace sitting board members. I don’t know any of them personally, and have encountered them only on the most cursory of levels. Instead, I’m talking about their supporters. Or some of them, at least. A lot of them. The thing is – and this is the first bit that isn’t going to win me any friends – BISD is right. They always have been, at least to a point. This all started with race, and it continues to play a strong role in the unending drama. You see, the group now known as Beaumont Board Watch came from a citizen’s group called B.E.T.T.E.R. which stood for…something I can’t remember because I hate acronyms. (In response, BISD supporters formed a group called B.E.S.T. which also stood for something I can’t be bothered to remember.) Anyway, the B.E.T.T.E.R. group grew out of the whole South Park fiasco (r ead my take on that here ), and deep down at the chewy center of that particular gobstopper lies the bitter nougat of racism. (And this is the first bit that will make new enemies.)

I’m not saying everyone involved in opposing the destruction of South Park did so directly out of racist intent, but race is in there, mixed up in the swampy soup of disdain some area residents have for the current school board. It’s a very old wound that goes back to forced desegregation and the state forcing the two area districts (the wealthier South Park district and the less wealthy Beaumont ISD) to combine. And while that alone might not motivate someone out of racist hatred, the element of race cannot be overlooked. People are still butthurt over desegregation. The BISD board is still getting back at the white folks from so long ago. Race is a big part of all of this – on both sides – and to dismiss it is to shy away from a contradiction that might hurt your argument. Which brings me to my second friend-losing bit. Many of the people on BBW are not who they present themselves to be. This isn’t surprising, as people generally aren’t who they want the world to think they are, but this goes beyond the superficial. I had an exchange with a BBW member tonight on a totally unrelated topic to BISD, which ended in this person deleting any presence of information that contradicted his point. He didn’t counter any of the points; he didn’t make an argument against the veracity of the contradictory comments. Instead, he simply deleted them and pretended they never existed. This avoidance of fact and an evasiveness to address even the simplest of contradictions is exactly the behavior I’ve come to expect from the BISD school board, not one of the more prominent BBW members who routinely cries out for justice and transparency. It was shocking to see this sort of thing from this particular person, who is normally very cordial and level-headed…as long as you’re agreeing with him, I guess. My third and final bit involves politics and how I hate them. I hate national politics, I hate state politics, I hate local and city and group politics. I will not like them on a train, I will not like them on a plane. I will not like them here or there. I will not like them anywhere. And BBW is nothing but politics.

The group is filled with the sort of staunch “I don’t know why I’m a Conservative but I just am, dammit and guns and Jesus!” type of right-wing fanatic that’s typical of this area, so it’s no great shock to find them gathered together en masse. Because this is Texas. Any time you get five Texans together, chances are six of them will be radical conservatives and at least one will be bad at math. What is shocking, although that’s probably not the best word for it, is the amazing disregard many members have for anyone who doesn’t align perfectly with their world view. And they post their world view constantly, eagerly soaking up the Like clicks from an army of symbiotic sycophants who all go around Liking each other’s paranoid tirades in a giant circle jerk of electronic validation. They hate Obama, and they post about him regularly. They hate liberals, and they post about them regularly. They hate Muslims, and they post about them regularly. They hate the federal government, and they post about it regularly. They hate so many things, it’s a wonder they can squeeze in enough time between Obamacare Raging and TEA Party Fellating to even remember that they’re supposed to be fighting the corruption of a local school board rather than taking on all the ills of the nation from the confines of a small, 1,600 person Facebook group. What happened with BBW is that its cause attracted people not motivated by race or seizing power, but out of a desire to put an end to corruption and heal a dysfunctional school district to improve the lives of all the children it’s failing to educate. These people then got stirred up in the big pot of goopy stew and every single member now has bits of everyone else floating around them. The group actively drives out people with differing world views on certain topics and encourages a hive-minded groupthink in place of reasonable discourse. If you want to be accepted by the group, you say the things they want you to say, not just about BISD but about everything else. Ever. On the planet. If you know me, or even if you just read this blog from time to time, you know that I don’t give a crap about political affiliations. I’m a Libertarian at my core, but I lean left on some topics and right on others. I believe in the power and responsibility of the individual, but I also believe in…well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, I don’t fit their mold. Neither do many others, most of whom eventually choose to leave the group altogether rather than associate with people who routinely insult and belittle anyone who isn’t a hardline, ultra right-wing neocon TEA party whatever.

The only way this whole BISD situation is ever going to get any better is if the Texas Education Agency comes in, dissolves the board and appoints a conservator for the district. Clean house, get things back in shape, then hold city-wide elections for new trustees. If the three potential board members had won their court case today to win their seats, I was ready to make the request that their first act be to resign and ask the TEA to come in and take over. But I don’t think that would happen, because I don’t think power ever surrenders power. Even when it’s the only way to achieve the goals everyone claims they’re fighting for. So anyway, what you have now is a group with a whole bunch of really great people who joined it to try and make Beaumont a better place mixed in together with people who want to seize power, who can’t even see their own racism, who won’t even acknowledge contradictory facts when they emerge and/or who are just there for attention and ego-stroking. It’s just a mess. And I’m walking away from it. I’ll probably continue covering BISD here, and I’ll probably still go to the meetings and live blog them, for whatever dwindling audience might still care. After this post, I don’t expect to have many friends left on either side of the fence, but I told you before. I never did learn.

The Nottapocalypse

As I write this, it’s September 12, 2013 and I’m in Texas, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt where you can’t throw a rock without hitting someone who thinks th e current situation in Syria was foretold in the Bible and we’re entering the End Times.

But, considering that someone, somewhere has been preaching that all the signs of the end of days prophecies are being fulfilled for as long as we’ve had end of days prophecies, I think we’re probably safe. UPDATE: Now it’s April, 2014 and people are freaking out over the BLOOD MOON tetrad. For some reason. Apparently, whenever this happens, it always (except not always) signifies something “traumatic and world changing” happening to Jews. Funny how there was one in 1948 to “signify” the modern state of Israel being born, though, because that event doesn’t seem particularly traumatic. Now, if it had happened a few years earlier, that might be more convincing, what with that whole Holocaust thing that was going on. Blah. Stop being stupid, people. Still, a stopped clock is bound to be right eventually, so who knows? But I’ll take my chances. Don’t believe me about all the failed prophecies? Fine. Please stand still while I smite thee with the Hammer Of History. A Brief History Of Nottapocalypses

AD 30 Jesus. According to Matthew 16:28, Jesus himself predicted his second coming and the end of the world within the lifetime of his contemporaries. AD 156 A man named Montanus declared himself to be the “Spirit of Truth,” the personification of the Holy Spirit, mentioned in the Gospel of John, who was to reveal all truth. Montanus quickly gathered followers, including a pair of far-seeing “prophetesses”, who claimed to have visions and ecstatic experiences supposedly from God. They began to spread what they called “The Third Testament, a series of revelatory messages which foretold of the soon-coming Kingdom of God and “The New Jerusalem,” which was about to descend from heaven to land in Montanus’ city of Pepuza, in Phrygia (modern-day Turkey), where it would be home for all “true” believers. The word was spread, and all were urged to come to Phrygia to await the Second Coming. The movement divided Christians into two camps, even after the New Jerusalem didn’t appear. Whole communities were fragmented, and continuous discord resulted. Finally, in AD 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Chiliasm, or belief in the Millennium, as a dangerous superstition, and Montanus was declared to be a heretic. Despite the failure of the prediction, the cult survived several centuries until it was ordered exterminated by Pope Leo I. –SSA pg 54 AD 247, Christian prophets declare that the persecutions by the Romans are a sign of the impending return of Jesus. AD 300 Lactantius Firmianus (AD c260 – AD c340), called the “Christian Cicero”, from his Divinae Institutiones: “The fall and ruin of the world will soon take place, but it seems that nothing of the kind is to be feared as the city of Rome stands intact.” Rome would fall in AD 410. –TEOTW pg 27 AD 365, Hilary of Poitiers predicted the world would end in 365. AD 380, The Donatists, a North African Christian sect, predicted the world would end in 380. AD 387 St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, identified the Goths with Ezekial’s Gog. The Goths had just destroyed the Imperial army at Adrianople, prompting Ambrose to say, “…the end of the world is coming upon us.” –TEOTW pg 27 AD 300 St. Martin, Bishop of Tours: “Non est dubium, quin antichristus…There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established already in his early years, he will, after reaching maturity, achieve supreme power.” –TEOTW pg 27 AD 410 When Rome was sacked, some proclaimed, (as reported by St. Augustine of Hippo) “Behold, from Adam all the years have passed, and behold, the 6,000 years are completed.” This alludes to the Great Week theory, held by many millennialists, that the God-alloted time of man on earth was 6,000 years, to be followed by a thousand years of peace under the earthly reign of Christ. –TIME pg 30 AD 500 At the mid-fifth century, Vandal invasions recalled calculations that the world would end in the year 500, 6000 years after Creation, and spurred new calculations to show that the name of the Vandal king Genseric represented 666: the number of the Beast. –Apoc pg 34 AD 500 Hippolytus of Rome, a third-century theologian supported the oft-accepted (for the day) view of the end of the world occuring sometime around the year AD 500. He used a mass of scriptural evidence, including the dimensions of the ark of the covenant. –TIME pg 31 AD 500 Roman theologian Sextus Julius Africanus (ca. 160-240) predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500. AD 500 The theologian Irenaeus predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500. AD 590 Bishop Gregory of Tours, who died in AD 594, calculated the Time of the End for sometime between 799 and 806. –Apoc pg 48 AD 793 Elipand, bishop of Toledo, accused Beatus, abbot of Liebana, of having prophesied the end of the world. Beatus made the prediction on Easter Eve, predicting the end of the world that very night, spraking a riot. –Apoc 49-50 AD 800 Sextus Julius Africanus predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 800. AD 800 Beatus of Liébana, not having learned anything from the riot he started in 793, wrote in his Commentary on the Apocalypse that the world would end in the year 800 at the latest. AD 806 Bishop Gregory of Tours predicted the world would end between 799 and 806. Ad 848 The Christian prophetess Thiota predicted the world would end in 848. AD 900 Adso of Montier-en-lDer, a celbrated 10th-century apocalyptic writer, a Frankish emperor of Rome who was ‘the last and greates of rulers’ would, after governing his empire, go to Jerusalem and put off his sceptre and crown at the Mount of Olives; this would be the end and consummation of the Christian empire and the beginning of the reign of Antichrist. –TIME pg 53 AD 970 Lotharingian computists foresaw the End on Friday, March 25, 970, when the Annunciation and Good Friday fell on the same day. They believed that it was on this day that Adam was created, Isaac was sacrificed, the Red Sea was parted, Jesus was conceived, and Jesus was crucified. AD 992 A rumour that the end would come when the feast of the Annunciation coincided with Good Friday. This happened in 992, when Easter fell on March 22, and eager calculators established that the world would end before three years had passed. –Apoc pg 50-51 AD 1000 Christian authority all over the known world predicted the second coming in the year 1000. AD 1033 When the world did not end in 1000, the same Christian authorities claimed they had forgotten to add in the length of Jesus’ life and revised the prediction to 1033. The writings of the Burgundian monk Radulfus Glaber described a rash of mass hysterias during the period from 1000-1033. AD 1033 The roads to Jerusalem fill up with an unprecedented number of pilgrims. Asked why this is happening, the ‘more truthful of that time…cautiously responded that it presaged nothing else but the coming of the Lost One, the Antichrist, who, according to divine authority, stands ready to come at the end of the age.” –TIME pg 47 AD 1100 Guibert of Nagent (1064-1125) informed would-be crusaders that they should seize Jerusalem as a necessary prelude to its eventual capture by Antichrist. “The end of the world is already near!,” he explained. –TIME pg 61-62 AD 1184 Various Christian prophets predicted the end of the world in the year 1184. Nobody seems to remember just why. AD 1186 Certain prophecies, during the time of the Third Crusade, began circulating in 1184, telling of a “new world order.” These were believed to have been written by astrologers in Spain, and one of them, the “Letter of Toledo,” appearing in 1186, urged everyone to flee to caves and other remote places, because the world was soon to be devastated by terrible storms, famine, earthquakes, and more. Only a few true belivers would be spared. –SSA pg 55 AD 1260 The year, according to Joachim of Flores'(c1145-1202) prophecies, when the world was supposed to pass throught the reign of Antichrist and enter the Age of the Holy Spirit. Joachim was an Italian mystic theologian who wrote, in his Expositio in Apocalypsia, that history was to be divided into three ages: The Age of the Law (the Father), The Age of the Gospel (the Son), and the final Age of the Spirit. He had indicated at the end of the 12th Century that the Antichrist was already born in Rome. –DOOM pg 87, TEOTW pg 125 AD 1260 A Dominican monk named Brother Arnold gained a following when he wrote that the end was about to take place. According to his scenario, he would call upon Christ, in the name of the poor, to judge the Church leaders, including the Pope. Christ would then appear in judgement, revealing the Pope to be the heralded Antichrist. –SSA pg 56 AD 1297 Writing in 1297, the friar Petrus Olivi predicted Antichrist’s coming between 1300 and 1340, after which the world would enter the Age of the Holy Spirit, which itself would end around the year 2000 with Gog and the Last Judgement. –Apoc pg 54 AD 1284 Pope Innocent III predicted the end of the world in the year 1284, 666 years after the founding of Islam. Ad 1290 When Joachim of Fiore’s predicted end of the world had not happened by 1260, members of his order (the Joachites) simply re- scheduled the end another 30 years later to 1290. AD 1300 A Frenchman, Jean de Roquetaillade, published a guide to the tribulation. Imprisoned for most of his adult life, he predicted Antichrist in 1366, to be followed in 1369 or 1370 by a millennial Sabbath. Jerusalem, under a Jewish king, would become the center of the world. –Apoc pg 55 AD 1300 Many Germans were living in fearful expectation of the return of the Emperor Frederick II, who had been considered a century earlier as the Antichrist, the terrible ruler who was to chastise the Church before the return of Christ. AD 1306 Gerard of Poehlde, believing that Christ’s Millennium actually began when the emperor Constantine came to power, predicts the end of the world 1000 years after the start of Constantine’s reign, in 1306. AD 1307 fra Dolcino founds a society, the Apostolic Bretheren, in 1260. He preached that authority had passed from the Roman Church to themselves. The Pope and clergy would soon be exterminated by the forces of the Last Empoeror in a tremendous battle leading to the age of the spirit. Dolcino and his followers perished in a battle at Monte Rebello in 1307. –TIME pg 68 AD 1335 The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1335. AD 1348 Agnolo di Tura, called “the Fat,” writing during the time of the Black Death: “And I…buried my five children with my own hands, and so did many others likewise…And nobody wept no matter what his loss because almost everyone expected death… People said and believed, ‘This is the end of the world.'” –TEOTW pg 115 AD 1349 The group known as the Flagellants claimed that their movement must last thirty-three and a half years, culminating in the Second Coming. They persuaded many people that their assertions were true. One chronicle states: “Many persons, and even young children, were soon bidding farewell to the world, some with prayers, others with praises on their lips.” –TEOTW 125-129 AD 1366 Jean de Roquetaillade, a French ascetic, predicted the Antichrist was to come in 1366, with the end of the world a few years after that. AD 1367 Czech archdeacon Militz of Kromeriz claimed the Antichrist was alive and well and would show up no later than 1367, bringing the end of the world with him. AD 1378 The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1378. AD 1420 Martinek Hauska, near Prague, led a following of priests to announce the soon Second Coming of Christ. They warned everyone to flee to the mountains because between February 1 and February 14, 1420, god was to destroy every town with Holy Fire, thus beginning the Millennium. Hauska’s band then went on a rampage to “purify the earth”, ridding the world of, in their eyes, false clergymen in the Church. They occupied an abandoned fortress which was named Tabor, and defied the religious powers of the day, ultimately succumbing to the Bohemians in 1452 –SSA pg 56, TIME pg 75-77 AD 1476 Hans Bohm was burnt at the stake for heresy, after proclaiming the village of Nikleshausen the center of imminent world salvation. –Apoc pg 151 AD 1490 Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican visionary, attracted large crowds with his prophecies of Antichrist. He began preaching that his city of Florence would soon be “The reformation of all Italy…” and that its people would take on the mantle of God’s elect, saved from destruction to play a glorious new role. This would only be accomplished, however, if Florence submitted peacefully to the invading Charles VIII of France. They did so, and for a short time became what has been called a ‘proto- Messianic republic.’ But when the corrupt Pope Alexander VI regained Florence, Savanarola was publicly executed in May, 1498. –TIME pg 79- 81 AD 1496 Several 15th Century prophets predict the end of the world for the year 1496. AD 1499 A mathemetician in Tubingen, Germany, had foretold of a coming alignment of the planets in 1524, which would bring a disastrous world-wide flood. This was generally rejected because such would violate God’s covenant with Noah. the uneasiness, though, did not pass, and in 1523, printing presses in Germany churned out 51 pamphlets which added fuel to the speculative fire. AD 1500 Martin Luther, Protestant reformer, stated: “I persuade myself verily, that the day of judgement will not be absent full three hundred years. God will not, cannot, suffer this world much longer… the great day is drawing near in which the kingdom of abominations shall be overthrown.” AD 1500 The Italian artist Botticelli captioned his painting, “The Mystical Nativity” with a message warning that the end of the world would occur within three years, based on the predictions of Girolamo Savonarola. AD 1526 Anabaptists in St. Gallen, Switzerland, excited by various leaders and events, began running through the streets and shouting that the Last Day would arrive in exactly one week. Many were baptized, stopped work, abandoned their homes and set off into the hills, singing and praying in expectant furvor. After a week had passed with no sign of their returning Lord, they returned to their homes. –TEOTW pg 145-153 AD 1520 Nicholas Storch was a former weaver who was a self- proclaimed expert on the Bible. He began warning groups of workers that all of Christendom was about to be annihilated by the Turks. Not only did he quote from the Scriptures, but insisted that God spoke to him directly through dreams and visions. Ultimately rejected by reformer Martin Luther, Storch vanishes from history at the end of 1522. –TEOTW pg 155 AD 1520 Thomas Muntzer, another self-appointed prophet in Germany, who made bold predictions based upon the book of Daniel, and called for the overthrow by the peasantry of those in power. “The time of the harvest is at hand,” he declared. “…I have sharpened my sickle.” Muntzer proclaimed that is was the Last Days, and whoever resisted his preaching would be, “..slain by the Turks when they come next year.” He was executed in 1525, after leading a peasant army in rebellion. TEOTW pg 153-158 AD 1520 Melchior Hoffman (c1498-1543/4) was one of the most influential of the self-appointed prophets. A Swabian furrier by trade, Hoffman had converted to Lutheranism in 1522 and became a wandering preacher. In 1526 Hoffman published a detailed pamphlet on the twelfth chapter of Daniel which proclaimed that the world would end in seven years, at Easter fo 1533. The seven year period was to be divided into two parts. The first part would see the appearance of Elijah and Enoch, who would overthrow the Pope. They would, however, be martyred and all the saints would then be persecuted. After forty-two months of tribulation, Christ would appear. Hoffman referred to himself as Elijah, and embarked on the fulfillment of his vision. He was imprisoned for his views, however, in Strasburg, later dying in the 1540s. –TEOTW pg 160- 162 AD 1524 Prophets in England predicted a flood on February 1, 1524 (Julian) to strike at London. 20,000 people abandoned their homes in fear. Yet another prophet, citing an alignment of planets in the constellation Pisces, set the date for the flood for February 20th. Both days turned out to be sunny with not even a drop of rain. AD 1525 Anabaptist Thomas Müntzer, thinking that he was living at the “end of all ages,” in 1525, incited a spectacularly unsuccessful revolt of the peasantry. AD 1527 A German bookbinder named Hans Nut said that he was a prophet of God sent by Christ to herald the Second Coming. This would occur exactly three and a half years after the start of the Peasant’s War, in 1527. The Lord’s arrival would be followed, according to Nut, by a thousand years of free food, love, and free sex. He amassed some followers, but was killed during an attempted prison escape in 1527. –SSA pg 56 AD 1528 Hans Romer insisted that Christ was coming within the year, so he organized his own rebellion to attack the city of Erfurt on New Year’s Day of 1528. He was betrayed, however, and arrested. –TEOTW 159 AD 1528 Prophets in England, having failed in their February 20th, 1524 prediction for a massive flood, reschedule the prediction to 1528. AD 1528 Reformer Hans Hut predicted the end would occur on Pentecost (May 27, Julian calendar) 1528. AD 1532 Bishop Frederick Nausea (yes, that is his name), predicted that the world would end in 1532 after hearing a single report of bloody crosses appearing in the sky alongside a comet. AD 1533 Anabaptist prophet Melchior Hoffman predicted the end of the world in 1533. he also predicted that Jesus would reappear in Strasbourg, to save 144,000 people from the world’s end. AD 1533 Mathematician Michael Stifel, a devout Christian, calculated that the Day of Judgement would begin at exactly 8:00am on October 19, 1533. AD 1534 A message out of the besieged city of Munster, where fanatic Anabaptists, originally led by one Jan Matthys, self-proclaimed Enoch, second witness (after Hoffman’s Elijah) to the coming end of all things, read: “God has made known to us that all should get ready to go to the New Jerusalem (Munster), the city of saints, because he is going to punish the world…flee out of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul…for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance.” Matthys had also fancied himself a second Gideon, leading 30 followers out in an attack on the city’s besiegers. He and his band of thirty were annhilated. The movement’s new leader, Jan Beukels, or Bockholdt, known to history as John of Leyden, had declared himself King of the World, a position he would hold until Christ’s return. Berhardt Rothmann published two pamphlets proclaiming the triumph of the saints at Munster, but the Catholic bishop whose town was held, eventually retook it, executing most of the rebels. –SSA pg 57, TEOTW pg 163-175 AD 1532 Michael Stiefel, mathematician and follower of Luther, published Apocalypse on the Apocalypse: A Little Book of Arithmetic about the Antichristwhich computed the Day of Judgement for 8AM on October 9, 1533. when nothing happened on that day, the local peasants siezed the minister and tookhim to nearby Wittenburg, where some sued him for damages. Stiefel survived this misadventure and, twenty years later, published a “recalculation.” –Apoc pg 91-92 AD 1537 French astrologer Pierre Turrel, a devout Christian, wanting to avoid the Jaochites’ embarrassment, hedges his bets and predicts the end of the world in 1537, 1544, 1801 or 1814. AD 1555 French theologian Pierre d’Ailly predicted the end of the world in 1555. Christopher Columbus’ own apocolyptic views were based on this prediction. AD 1556 Rumors of the end of the world swept through the churches of Switzerland on Magdalene’s Day in 1556, source unknown. AD 1583 Several astrologers and clergy cite a conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn as a sign that the second coming of Jesus will occur in London at noon on Apr 28, 1583. AD 1584 Above prophecy is revised one year later. AD 1588 Philip Melanchthon, ally of Martin Luther, claimed that a divine numerical cycle, chiefly utilizing the numbers 7 and 10, would culminate in 1588, which was 10×7, years from Luther’s 1518 defiance of the Pope. It was then that the seventh seal would be opened, Antichrist be would be overthrown, and the Last Judgement would occur. –The Armada pg 175 AD 1588 The sage Johann Müller (aka Regiomontanus) predicts the second comiong of Christ in 1588. AD 1594 John Napier, mathemetician extraordinaire, published A Plaine Discoverie of the Whole Revelation of St. John, in which he predicted the Last Judgement either for 1688, according to Revelation, or 1700, according to Daniel. –Apoc pg 92 AD 1600 The Fifth Monarchy Men, an extreme Puritan sect in England, believed that the time of the monarchy which would succeed the Biblical Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman monarchies was at hand. During this time Christ would appear to reign on earth with his saints for 1000 years. After the fall of the Commonwealth, the sect first supported Oliver Cromwell, but later were at odds with the Lord Protector. Their extreme violence led to the arrest of their leaders. Despite attempted uprisings, the movement eventually died out. –Brit 1957, vol 9, pg 227 AD 1600 Martin Luther predicted that the world would end no later than the year 1600. AD 1603 Dominican monk Tomasso Campanella wrote that the sun would collide with the Earth in 1603. AD 1623 Eustachius Poyssel used numerology to pinpoint 1623 as the year of the end of the world. AD 1624 The same astrologers who failed in predicting a great flood in 1524, finally moved their predictions safely beyond their own deaths, to 1624. AD 1648 Sabbatai Zevi, a rabbi from Smyrna, Turkey, predicted that the Messiah would come in 1648. When 1648 arrived, Zevi announced thet he was the Messiah. AD 1651 The date selected for the end of the world by fifteenth century “prophet” Johann Hilten. –TIME pg 89 AD 1654 In 1578, physician Helisaeus Roeslin of Alsace, basing his prediction on a nova that occurred in 1572, predicted the world ending in 1654 in a blaze of fire. AD 1656 The date the world would end, according to predictions put forth by Christopher Columbus in his “Book of Prophecies”. Columbus held that his explorations were fulfillment of prophecy. he was to have led a Christian army in a great final crusade that would eventually convert the entire world to Christendom. The date weas chosen because supposedly 1656 years passed between the time of the creation and Noah’s flood. –99R pg 13 AD 1657 The Fifth Monarchy Men, a group of radical Christians intending to force the British Parliament to base all laws on the Bible (much like Christians are trying to do to the United States) predicted the world would end in 1657. AD 1660 Joseph Mede, whose writings influenced James Ussher and Isaac Newton, claimed that the Antichrist appeared way back in 456, and the end of the world would come in 1660. AD 1666 During a period of strife, English clergy announce that the year 1666 will bring the end of the world, a prediction thought to be coming true when a great fire strikes London. AD 1666 Few believe Rabi Sabbatai Zevi is the Messiah, so he changes his prediction for the appearence of the Messiah to 1666. He is arrested for disturbing the peace with his prophecies, and when given the choice between execution and conversion to Islam, eagerly converts. AD 1673 Deacon William Aspinwall, a leader of the Fifth Monarchy movement, predicts the end of the world for 1673. AD 1680 The supposed founder of Rosicrucianism, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, told in his Proper Exposition of the Aspects of the Book of Revelation of the fall of the idolatrous Roman church and the establishement of Christ’s Millennium in 1860. –Apoc pg 122 AD 1686 Frenchman Pierre Jurieu published his work L’Accomplissement des propheties, in which he predicted the end of the persecution of the Protestant Huguenots, and the fall of Babylon (the Roman Catholic Church, according to Jurieu) for 1689. AD 1688 John Napier, the mathematician who discovered logarithms, applies his new mathematics to the Book of Revelations and predicts the end of the world for 1688. AD 1689 Pierre Jurieu, a Camisard prophet, predicted that Judgement Day would occur in 1689. The Camisards were Huguenots of the Languedoc region of southern France. AD 1694 Anglican rector John Mason and German theologian Johann Alsted both predict the end of the world for 1694. Another German prophet Johann Jacob Zimmerman, predicted that Jesus would reappear in America and organized an expedition of Christians to sail across the Atlantic and welcome their savior when he reappeared. Although Zimmerman himself died on the day of departure, his followers completed the journey and remained encamped in the wilderness of North America until it became obvious that Jesus had stood them up. AD 1697 Anglican rector Thomas Beverly predicts the end of the world for 1697. AD 1697 Notorious witch chaser Cotton Mather predicts the end of the world for 1697. AD 1697 Napier tries again, predicts the end of the world for 1697. AD 1697 Henry Archer, a Fifth Monarchy Manpredicts the end of the world for 1697. AD 1700 The Camisards were a radical movement of French peasantry that engaged in organised military resistance to the renunciation of the Edict of Nantes. They were supposedly accompanied by miracles, such as lights in the sky which guided them, and resistance to wounding. They also purportedly spoke in tongues and prophesied in ecstatic trances, foretelling the soon destruction of the Roman Catholic Church, the supposed Satan and Babylon. Due to pressures they fled to England where they became known as the “French Prophets,” forcasting doom and a new world ahead. They gained large numbers of followers, and much attention. Their prophecies failed to materialize, however, and their numbers soon dwindled. Their movement influenced many later groups, though, including the Shakers. –SSA pg 57 AD 1701 The prophetic writer Mory Cary, writing in 1647, expected the conversion of theJews in 1656 and the Millennium in 1701, and thought that there would be a prophetic outpouring before then. “Not only men, but women shall prophesy…Not only superiors but inferiors; not only those that have university learning but those that have it not, even servants and handmaids.” –TIME pg 90 AD 1700 Immanuel Swedenborg, though never claiming the desire to found a sect, said that dreams, visions, and direct communications from God had led him to believe he had been given a new, divine, interpretation of Scripture. Swedenborg claimed to have witnessed the Second Advent, which was manifested in the inauguration of his “New Church.” –HOD pg 236-238, Brit 1957, vol 21 AD 1755 A sea captain witnessing the disaster of the Lisbon quake wrote: “…if one went through the broad places of squares, nothing to be met with but people wringing their hands, and crying ‘the world is at an end.'” –TEOTW pg 179-189 AD 1700 Jonathan Edwards, premier evangelist, was fascinated by the Apocalypse, noted all signs of the times, and calculated and recalculated its coming. He concluded that Antichrist’s rule would end when the papacy ended in 1866, and that old serpent, the Devil, would finally be vanquished in the year 2000, when the Millennium would begin. –Apoc pg 171 AD 1700 Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist, was himself not immune to misprophecy. He developed a carefully constructed grand scenario which predicted that the Jews would return to reclaim Jerusalem in 1899, and that the second coming of Christ would occur precisely forty-nine years later. AD 1785 Jean-Baptiste Ruere, a professed descendant of King David, claimed that heavenly sources assured him he was destined to rule as king in Jerusalem, and likewise foretold of revolution, kingdoms overthrown, the Jews returning to the Holy Land, and Jesus returning to launch the Third Age. –Apoc pg 107 AD 1789 The forecast year for the end of the world, or at least of Christendom, by Cardinal Pierre d-Ailly, Canon Roussart, Dijon Academy rector Pierre Turel, and the Londoner Peter Pearson. –Apoc pg 109 AD 1799 Esther Thrale Piozzi recorded how many found the First Consul of France, Napoleon Buonaparte to be “the Devil Incarnate,” the Appolyon mentioned in Scripture. The name of Antichrist had become clear, and it was (in the Corsican dialect) N’Apollione, the Destroyer “coming forwards followed by a cloud of locusts from ye bottomless Pit.” –Apoc pg 114-115 AD 1800 Mother Ann Lee, leader of the “Shaker” movement, claimed that in her the female principle of Christ was manifested, and the promise of the Second Coming fulfilled. Christ’s kingdom on earth, according to Lee, began with the establishment of the Shaker Church. AD 1800 The Rev Edward Bishop Elliot, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, provided a massive work in four volumes, wherein he stated that the French Revolution had been the “pouring out of the 1st vial (of Revelation)” There was to be a short time, he warned, before the end of all things. –TSOR pg 11 AD 1820 In England, Edward Irving preached on the imminent appearance of Christ as witnessed by the apparent revival of “apostolic gifts”, and Irving’s own intense study of prophetical books, especially Revelation. AD 1832 Mormon founder Joseph Smith prophesied under “divine revelation” the gathering of the saints and the coming of the New Jerusalem, the temple of which would be built in Missouri and “reared in this generation.” Smith added “Pestilence, hail, famine, and earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation from off the face of the land, to open and prepare the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel from the north country….there are those now living upon the earth whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they see all these things which I have spoken, fulfilled.” –99R pg 120 AD 1840 Dr. John Cumming, eloquent preacher of apocalypse, drew audiences of many thousands to his lectures. Cumming, while preparing for the publications of these lectures, warned that the seventh and final vial of God’s wrath was now being poured out. “We are about to enter on the Last Woe…and to hear the nearly-spent reverberations of the Last Trumpet.” –TSOR pg 84 AD 1843 People stared in wonder and unneasiness at the parahelia, a great halo that circled the sun. They also looked with fear at the night sky where a giant comet with a fiery tail rushed through the darkness. Some said that the comet was racing toward mankind, bringing “the end of the world.” –Thief pg 1 AD 1844 William Miller, a Massachussetts farmer, after a years-long study of the Bible, chiefly Revelation and Daniel, concurred that the Second Coming of Christ would take place between 21 March, 1843, and 21 March, 1844. When this time passed, Miller and his followers set up new dates, again with failure. Eventually the movement collapsed, but gave birth to Seventh Day Adventism, while also influencing the formation of several others, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses. –SSA pg 58, TSOR pg 16, Doom pg 92-111 AD 1847 Joseph Wolff, a converted Jew living in Palestine, predicted the Advent for 1847. –Thief pg 1 AD 1850 Chinese schoolteacher Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, failing a government job examination for the thrid time, suffered an emotional collapse during which he professed to have had visions of an old man in a golden beard, as well as a younger man. These two told Hung that the world was overrun by demons and that he, Hung, was to be the intrument in their eradication. Later, after returning to his home village, Hung reread a Chines Christian missionary’s book and discovered the meaning for the vision which he had experienced. The old man had been God, and the younger man, Jesus. Hung further understood that he was the second Son of God, sent to save China. Eventually his charisma and teachings began to gather a following and he became the leader of a group known as the Pai Shang-ti Hui (God Worshipper’s Society). By 1850 the movement had grown into open rebellion. In 1851 Hung proclaimed the new dynasty the T’ai-p’ing T’ien-kun (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace), and assumed the title of Heavenly King. His ragtag group of thousands grew into a disciplined army of over a million. Full scale war erupted across the Chinese countryside. Chinese imperial troups were defeated in pitched battle on more than one occassion. Hung captured the city of Nanking, making it his capital. Eventually he fell ill, and committed suicide in 1864. Chinese forces lay seige to Nanking, and in taking it inflicted a terrible slaughter of over 100,000 people. The rebellion gradually faded across China. As many as 20,000,000 people died as a result of this, the T’ai-p’ing Rebellion, and Hung Hsiu-ch’uan’s misprophetic delusions. –Brit 1977, vol 8 AD 1858 The Rev Richard Shimeall of New York identified Napolean III as the Beast of the Apocalypse. –TSOR pg 78 AD 1870 Cyrus Read Teed, a former corporal in the Union medical corps, said that he was the “seventh messenger of God”, and adopted “Koresh” as his new surname. Teed claimed that an angel had visited him, giving him new spiritual awareness. He was now the reincarnated Messiah, and it was his job to gather the 144,000 faithful to await the Last Judgement. Teed’s legacy would bear bitter fruit in the 1990s, with the rise of another Koresh, David, who would lead his followers into an apocalyptic death near Waco, Texas. AD 1874 Charles Taze Russell, founder of what would become the Jehovah’s Witnesses, first announced that the Last Days had definitely begun in 1874, then that the end would come in 1914. Succeeding Witnesses placed the date in 1925, 1936, 1953, 1973… –99R pg 20 AD 1881 A prophecy in rhyme by Mother Shipton: “The world to an end shall come,/in Eighteen hundred and eighty one.” Purportedly written by a 15th century witch, it was actually penned by Charles Hindley of Brighton, who profitted greatly from the double false prediction. –TSOR pg 99 AD 1890 A native American known as Kicking Bear claimed to have received a certain divine revelation. Christ had returned to earth, given his followers a new spiritual magic, the “Ghost Dance”, which they were to engage in until Christ came again to “take them up into the air,” eventually to be set down among the ghosts of their ancestors on the new earth, where only Indians would live. The movement spread quickly among the various tribes on and off the reservations, especially among the Sioux. –Bury pg 431-435 AD 1897 Brazil — Antonio Conselheiro (The Counsellor), a sixty-year old, half crazy ascetic, became spiritual leader of Canudos, a “New Jerusalem” of tumbledown shacks in the remote state of Bahia. The residents were largely peasants who fled the decline of the northeast coffee and sugar economies. They practiced a mixture of Catholicism, Indian rites, and witchcraft. conselheiro had seen the overthrow of the Emperor Pedro II as an act of disobedience to God, and a shattering of the patriarchal order so wicked that it must foreshadow the apocalypse. After several violent encounters with local police and government soldiers, in which the Canudos zealots inflicted severe defeats on their foes, an army of 10,000 men surrounded Canudos, and on October 5, 1897 took by force the last smoking huts. The defenders had died by enemy bullets and by fire, the latter set by their own hands. AD 1900 Paris priest Pierre Lacheze published several apocalyptic works, and predicted the restoration of the Jerusalem temple for 1892 and Doomsday in 1900. –Apoc pg 136 AD 1900 Philosopher Vladimir Solovyev, eminent Russian theologian, foretold in his work, War, Progress, and the End of History, of a war with the Japanese in which the Japanese would win, conquering much of the world, but eventually being driven back by the Europeans. Then there would arise a brilliant writer and thinker who would unite the world and decree everlasting peace, ultimately summoning all religious leaders of the world, promising them everything they wanted if they would bow down and accept his sovereignty. The Jews would accept him as the Messiah, until they learn that he is not a Jew. Then would begin the revolt that would lead to the final battle north of Jerusalem, as well as the eruption of a volcano from the bottom of the Dead Sea. Said Solovyev: “The approaching end of the world strikes me like some obvious but quite subtle scent — just as a traveller nearing the sea feels the sea breeze before he sees the sea.” –TEOTW pg 221-227 AD 1901 In 1889, the Rev. Michael Baxter, editor of the London Christian Herald, announced in a book called The End of This Age about the End of This Century that 1896 would witness the Rapture of 144,000 devout Christians, and that the world would end in 1901. –TIME pg 120- 121 AD 1901 Sergei Nilus, Russian magistrate, in a book titled The Great in the Small, prophesied “the coming of the Antichrist and the rule of Satan on earth.” He later stated in 1905, “The king born of the blood of Zion — the Antichrist is near to the throne of universal power.” –TEOTW pg 234- 237 AD 1906 H.G.Wells shows that apocalyptic fever was prevalent in his day: “Like most people of my generation…I was launched into life with Millennial expectations…it might be in my lifetime or a little after it, there would be trumpets and shoutings and celestial phenomena, a battle of Armageddon and the judgement.” –TSOR pg 177 AD 1908 When a terrible explosion rocked Siberia, a newspaper correspondent present reported…”All the inhabitants of the village ran out into the streets in panic. The old women wept. Everyone thought the end of the world was approaching.” –TEOTW pg 274 AD 1910 In Pittsburgh, a clergyman announced that the arrival of Haley’s Comet would herald Armageddon and the Second Coming. AD 1918 Clarence Larkin, in his book Dispensational Truth, writes, “…at no time in the history of the Christian Church have the conditions neccessary to the Lord’s return been so completely fulfilled as at the present time, therefore his coming is imminent, and will not probably be long delayed…If the Millennium is to be ushered in in AD 2000, then the “Rapture” must take place at least 7 years before that…It may have been 4075 years, instead of 4004 (as generally given) from Adam to Christ. In that case we are living in the year 5993 from the creation of Adam, or on the eve of the Rapture.” –Disp AD 1940 William Marrion Branham, a pentecostal faith healer declared himself to be God’s end-time prophet, and urged all Christians to come out of their corrupt denominations before the Lord’s return. –99R pg 115- 116 AD 1945 A Protestant minister in Hiroshima upon the dropping of the first atomic bomb: “The feeling I had was that everyone was dead. The whole city was destroyed…I thought all of my family must be dead — it doesnt matter if I die…I thought that this was the end of Hiroshima, of Japan, of humankind…This was God’s judgement on man.” –TEOTW pg 337 AD 1973 The “Children of God” cult claimed that its leader, David Berg, was “God’s end-time prophet to the world.” They fled America in 1973 due to Berg’s prediction that Comet Kohoutek would destroy the country. –99R pg 117 AD 1976 Prophecy teacher Doug Clark announced that President Jimmy Carter would be “the president who will meet Mr. 666 (the Antichrist) SOON!” A flier announcing Clark’s new book that year claimed, “The Death of the United States and the Birth of One World Government under President Carter.” –SSA pg 24 (Personal note: I was working at a TV station in Orange County California whose manager believed the Clark prediction, and transformed the station’s output into 24 hour a day warnings of the end of the Earth, even to the point of abandoning the commercials rotation. The Earth did not end but the TV station went out of business. ) AD 1980 North Carolina prophecy teacher Colin Deal has set dates for the return of Christ for 1982 or 1983, 1988, 1989, and in a March 17, 1989 radio broadcast, “about eleven years away.” If at first you don’t succeed… –SSA pg 38 AD 1980 Prophecy promoter Charles Taylor predicted a 1988 rapture: “This new book (Watch 1988 – The Year of Climax) is being written with the expectation that it will be the last book I will ever write …with the millennial reign of Christ due to begin in 1995, the rapture must surely occcur in 1988 to coordinate with many other prophecies!” Not surprisingly, Taylor also made similar predictions for 1975, 1976, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, and, of course, 1989. –SSA pg 134-142 AD 1981 May 25. About fifty members of a group called the Assembly of Yahweh gathered at Coney Island, NY, in white robes, awaiting their “Rapture” from a world about to be destroyed between 3PM and sundown. A small crowd of onlookers watched and waited for something to happen. The members chanted prayers to the beat of bongo drums until sunset. The end did not come. AD 1982 Full-page advertisements in many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982, announced: “The Christ is Now Here!” and predicted that he was to make himself known “within the next two months.” That date passed, but the Tara Centers that placed the ad said that the dalay was only because the “consciousness of the human race was not quite right…” –99R pg 154-155 AD 1980 Psychic Jeanne Dixon predicted a world holocaust for the 1980s, and the rise of a powerful world leader, born in the Middle-East in 1962. –99R pg 120-122 AD 1988 Edgar C. Whisenant, in his book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, gave a three day period in September for the saints to be “caught up with the Lord.” When this failed, he issued another book claiming that he was a year off, and urging everyone to be ready in 1989. –SSA pg 28-33, DOOM pg 134 AD 1991 Reginald Dunlop, end-times author, stated that “The Antichrist would be revealed” around the year 1989 or 1990, perhaps sooner.” The Rapture he predicted for 1991. Says dunlop, God verified this “through many prayers…I am MORE than positive that this is THE YEAR that the Rapture will occur.” –SSA pg 36 AD 1990 Southwest Radio Church’s David Webber and Hoah Hutching’s book, “Prophecy in Stone” contained a chart which set dates for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in 1974-1978, and the Great Tribulation for sometime between 1981 and 1992. A later book, “New Light on the Great Pyramid,” had another chart which revised these figures, tentatively setting dates of 1988, 1992, and 1996, for the Tribulation, the abomination of desolation, and Christ’s return, respectively. –SSA pg 37 AD 1990 Elizabeth Clare Prophet predicted the end of the world by nuclear war in 1990. Her church has since seen a decline in membership. AD 1992 “Rapture, October 28, 1992, Jesus is coming in the Air.” Full page add in the October 20, 1991, issue of USA Today, placed by followers of the Hyoo-go (Rapture) movement, a loose collection of Korean “end-times” sects. When the prophesied events failed to pass, much turmoil broke out among the sects. Some believers were distraught, while others tried to attack their doomsday preachers with knives. The founder of one church was later charged with swindling four million dollars from his parishoners. –99R pg 11, 168-169 AD 1993 David Koresh, self-proclaimed little lamb of Isaiah 16, and the Second Coming of Christ, dies in a fiery conflagration with some 80 of his followers. These members of the Branch Dividians, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists had faced a botched ATF raid on their compound near Waco, Texas, and a subsequent 51-day siege by the FBI. A devastating fire broke out when the FBI attempted to fire gas into the group’s buildings. –99R pg 122-124 AD 1994 Arab Christian prophet Om Saleem claimed that the antichrist was born November 23, 1933, that his unveiling would come in 1993 and the rapture in 1994. –99R pg 149 AD 1994 Harold Camping, a radio evangelist, wrote a book entitled “1994?” In it, Camping says, “if this study is accurate, and I believe with all my heart that it is, there will be no extensions of time. There will be no time for second guessing. When September 6, 1994, arrives, no one else can be saved, the end has come.” Thousands believed Camping’s distorted biblical teachings, but again, the end did not come as Camping had wished. –99R pg 12, 48-50 AD 1997 Mary Stewart Relfe wrote in 1983 that she had been praying to ” know the year” of the Lord’s coming, and that subsequently she receied detailed “divine revelations” from God. She relaeased a chart showing World War III beginning in 1989, the Great Tribulation starting in 1990, and that Jesus Christ will come back in 1997, just after Armaggeddon.” –SSA pg 35 AD 1998 Larry Wilson, a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor, predicted four massive global earthquakes beginning around 1994 and ending in 1998 with the Second Coming. –99R pg 77

Thief = Thief in the Night by William Sears, George Ronald press, 1977 99R = 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return by B.J. Oropeza, InterVarsity Press, 1994 SSA = Soothsayers of the Second Advent by William M. Alnor, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1989 Doom = Doomsday Delusions by C. Marvin Pate and Calvin B Haines, Jr., InterVarsity Press, 1995 TEOT = The End of Time by Damian Thompson, University Press of New England, 1996 Armada = The Armada by Garrett Mattingly, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959 DISP = Dispensational Truth by Clarence Larkin, Rev. Clarence Larkin Est – publisher, 1918 Apoc = Apocalypses by Eugen Weber, Harvard University Press, 1999 Bury = Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970 TSOR = The Sleep of Reason by Derek Jarrett, Harper and Row, 1989 TEOTW = The End of the World by Otto Friedrich, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982 Hand = Handbook of Denominations in the United States – New Eighth Edition by Frank S. Mead, Abingdon Press, 1985 Brit = Encyclopaedia Brittanica So, next time you’re thinking about making or believing or forwarding or in any way acting upon someone’s (or your own) End Of Days prophecy, just take a moment. Hold your breath. Count to 10, and…

[ armageddononline.org ]

Remembering Lucasfilm. Arts. Whatever.

The closing of LucasArts this week has affected me far more than it should have. After all, it’s just a game studio…and one that hasn’t produced anything of note in years. Still, the impact that Lucasfilm Games (later to become LucasArts) had on me in my formative years is not something I can easily dismiss. In fact, it even touched my grown-up years, when Monkey Island became something of a shared bond between my wife and I. Heck, I even used it to propose to my wife. But let’s back up from my geek proposal and wind the clock back to 1987. Or hop in a Chron-O-John. Whichever you prefer. I was in seventh grade, a geek in ’80s neon and Coca-Cola shirts with a Swatch on my wrist and Converse on my feet. And in my bedroom, I had an Apple ][. Well, technically I had a Franklin Ace 1000, which was one of the approximately ten gigazillion Apple clones floating around at the time. I spent my free time alternating between playing games and hopping on Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) with my fancy 300 baud modem. For you kids not around in the ’80s, BBSs were kind of like localized versions of the Internet and a 300 baud modem was a dude on a pony that rode your bits of data from one town to the next. It was really slow. And really awesome. Lucasfilm Games had been around for a few years at that point, but the only game I’d ever played that was remotely connected to them was The Empire Strikes Back on my Atari 2600. The entire game consisted of taking down chunky AT-AT shaped rectangles with minus signs fired from your block Snowspeeder. It was fun, but not exactly enthralling. But in 1987, Lucasfilm released a game that would change everything.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Of course, I had to wait until Christmas of the next year before I finally got an 8088 IBM clone with an EGA monitor and a 1200 baud modem. (Think stagecoaches instead of ponies.) And that’s when I discovered Maniac Mansion. Created by Ron Gilbert – the man who I credit as having built LucasArts – it was one of the first graphic adventures I’d ever played. Sure, I’d toyed around with a couple of King’s Quest games on the Apple ][, and I’d spent many, many hours questing around Brittania (well, Sosaria and Earth in different time periods, but eventually Britannia) in the Ultima series, but I’d never experienced anything like Maniac Mansion. It was point-and-click. You chose from multiple characters to play through the story with three of them. And everyone always picked Bernard. (Because nerds stick together.) After that, I was hooked. It didn’t hurt that I basically idolized George Lucas at the time, either. I played everything from Lucasfilm in those early years. And I do mean everything. I considered it my duty to support the studio, because it was a way to support Lucas himself – as if he needed the steady influx of my chores allowance. I tangled with alien mindbenders in Zak McKracken. I fought Nazi pilots in Battlehawks 1942, and later in Their Finest Hour and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. I built action figures in Night Shift, and I became an expert hacker years before Bioshock by playing Pipe Dream. I even played the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade action game…and it was pretty awful. I even watched the brief run of the Maniac Mansion television series, which was its own kind of awful. But in a good way. Sort of.

Hamster + Microwave. That’s all you need to know.

The history of Lucasfilm Games is the history of my adolescence. I saved all my money to buy a Sound Blaster specifically for The Secret Of Monkey Island, and later I saved again to buy a VGA monitor for Monkey Island 2. I annoyed the crap out of my local WaldenSoftware with endless phone calls when they still didn’t have the talkie version of Day Of The Tentacle, even though I knew it was out. And when I finally got it (in the triangle box, which I kept for years, but eventually lost in Hurricane Rita), I was enraged that they didn’t bother to buffer the sound effects for my single-speed CD-ROM drive. Each time purple tentacle hopped, the game stuttered as the pathetic drive I’d spent all my money on struggled to keep up. So I saved up again and bought a double-speed drive, and all was right with the world. And that’s how it went, for years. It’s safe to say I was a dedicated fan. I remember being sad when Ron Gilbert left to start Humongous Entertainment. I was crushed when Tim Schafer left after Grim Fandango. And my heart broke when I read the news that Disney had shut down LucasArts altogether.

If you’ve never played this game, shut up and go do it. Now.

So it’s with equal parts nostalgia and melancholy that I write this now. So many memories are flooding back, that I doubt I can cram them all in, but one that sticks out the most was from the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade graphic adventure (not the action game…this is an important point). I have a very distinct memory of sitting in my room at my computer and loading the game. The Lucasfilm logo came up and did a little sparkly thing as the Indiana Jones theme began to play. I was a freshman in high school at the time, and I decided right then that I would work for Lucasfilm one day, either on games or on movies. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to be part of that world and work with the people in it. But I never did. Look at you, hacker…

I did eventually write an impassioned letter to LucasArts at one point, letting them know that I was coming to work for them as soon as I got out of high school. I’m not sure what I said exactly, but I’m fairly certain it was awful. And pretentious. And probably unintentionally hilarious. To my surprise, I actually got a reply. And it wasn’t a form letter, either. It was, basically, the nicest brush-off letter anyone has even written. I don’t remember what it said, but I do remember that it was kind and reassuring and supportive. And I remember who wrote it, and I still follow her to this day. Her name was Khris Brown, and she went on to become a fantastic voice director, but who was in Product Support at the time. (I think. Correct me if I’m wrong, Khris.) I remember her letter not only because it was so kind, but because she spelled her name as oddly as I spell mine. (Kristian for me, Kris for short.) It was another connection to this world I so desperately wanted to be a part of. And it wasn’t a blow off letter, either. My pleas weren’t ignored as I’m sure they would’ve been had I written to any other company. It was encouraging and thoughtful and upbeat, and even a little inspiring. I’ll never forget it.

Khris’ cameo in Monkey Island 2. I also wrote to George Lucas himself once, after hitting a BBS friend of mine up for inside info on how to make sure my letter got to his office. I was writing my senior thesis paper on religion and the Force, and I had some questions for him. And, again to my surprise, he actually responded. And he answered every single question I asked. Now, I don’t know if it was actually George himself that wrote me back or if his secretary just signed his name at the end of the letter, but I kept it with me for years.

I never did go to work at Lucasfilm, though. And now I never will. Its era has passed, the sale to Disney the final nail in its coffin. I doubt its magic will ever be reproduced, although companies like Double Fine give me hope, along with non-publishing publishers like Kickstarter helping to fund projects that would otherwise never see the light of day. And people like Steven Dengler, who is probably the nicest, most faith-in-humanity restoring gazillionaire who has ever walked the Earth. (He funds games and all sorts of projects, and he has a gravy-making space laser.) The magic of the Lucasfilm days may never again come together under one roof, but the sparks are still out there. Ron Gilbert is still making games. Tim Schafer is still making games. Other veterans of the studio are still making games. There’s still hope, but part of the wonder is gone now. Even though LucasArts hadn’t really made a good game in years, as long as they were around, there was still hope that they could somehow get the magic back. And now that hope is lost.

More pew! Pew! Pew!

But maybe someone will get the money together to license Star Wars and make another X-Wing or TIE Fighter. Maybe Ron can rob a few banks and get enough money to buy the rights to Monkey Island, since he’ll never pay to license a property he created. Perhaps Tim can revive a genre with his Kickstarter-funded Broken Age graphic adventure. The future holds a lot more promise today than it did a few years ago, despite the shuttering of LucasArts. We’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll always regret never having had a chance to work in the environment that produced such amazing games and encouraged such zany creativity, though. My own career path has meandered from working in IT to becoming a web designer, to a brief stint as a journalist and back around again to technology where I now work for the Black Mesa/Aperture Science/Umbrella Corporation of the real world. It’s a good gig and I enjoy the work, but if I had a chance to drop everything and leave the good salary behind to go sweep the floors at Double Fine just so I could occasionally have coffee with Tim Schafer, I’d probably do it. And I hate coffee.

Lucasfilm / LucasArts 1982 – 2013

And that’s it. So long, LucasArts. I was there with you when you were Lucasfilm Games, and I was there with you when you changed your name. And I’ll always be with you. Like the Force, only less mystical. Or maybe more. Like I said, it was a magical place and the world won’t soon see anything like it again.