I'm Going to Miss the Green Beer

I'd like to say that my past few days have been fun, but (and isn't there always a 'but?') they haven't been. I worked everyday this week (surprisingly exciting in the current climate) and injured my knee playing basketball (again, and again 'surprise.') All that really means is I can't go out on St. Patty's day, which may or may not be the worst thing ever. If I just go to sleep it won't be a "thing," however if I stay up reading all the inevitable drunk "I'm now here" facebook posts for the rest of the night, I may want to kill myself by midnight--or all of the people posting said posts. With their damn smartphones in one hand and their beautiful green beers in the other.

Depression always gets more severe when people inadvertently rub their stupid happiness in your face. My neighbor, bless her heart, invited me to the beach (with her hot friend--of !@#$ing course) as soon as I got into my car to go to work. My friend met these three smokin' hot girls that are into...stuff (yeah, we'll go with stuff)...just as soon as I got into a relationship. ROBIN RETIRES AND BATMAN IS IN THE MARKET FOR A NEW ROBIN, NO, IT'S COOL BATS, I JUST STARTED WORKING FOR THE GREEN ARROW, THE GREEN !@#$ING ARROW...(For those non-comic lovers among you who read my blog, the Green Arrow pretty much sucks, he's like the shiny green opposite of the Dark Gothic Badass that is Batman.)

I think you see where I'm going with this. I'm upset that I'm not Robin (you may see this is an awkward thing, that is to say: not wanting to be Batman, but rather his sidekick. I don't know if you know this but, Batman is barely mortal, he sleeps like two hours a day (yeah, not happening) and has collected more scars than Jay Leno has collected motorcycles (and chin surgeries--that thing can't possible be real.) His job kind of sucks. But Robin? Occasional kick-asser take-namer, gets his own sweet ride, a room in the manor, and access to a massive fortune, yeah, sign me up.)

My mother, taking pity on my gimpiness decided that today would be a good day to go see Battle: Los Angeles. Or as I like to call it Independence Day 2: Lose the Airforce, THROW IN THE MARINES, HOOAH. it's a long tagline, I know. I'm not going to deny it's awesomeness--or really break down the movie for anyone (just in case)but, come on. We all knew what was going to happen. I'm especially pissed with the previews. All of the heartbreaking, eye opening scenes were in the previews. Way to let us all know ahead of time who was dying.

Which brings me to my closing point.

Batman should be in Independence Day 2. Come on Will, make this happen for me.

Batman Makes it Better

I've been thinking about this really hard. I've gone over the facts. Hell, I've checked them twice. I even psychically looked in on all the leading literary minds, and they too, subconsciously agree: No story wouldn't be better with Batman.

I came to this realization in the middle of a Star Wars comic I was reading while aggressively sucking down a frozen cappuccino (thank you for the plug Books-A-Million? No thank you for the coffee.) I was watching (reading, what do you call reading a graphic novel these days?) Cade Skywalker (Luke's grandson? Great Grandson?) open a can of jaded-Jedi whoopass when it struck me that, if instead of his predictably blue friend fighting alongside him, Batman filled the role of "ass-kicking teammate," that this book would be at least 163% better. Scientifically speaking, of course.

Epic space battle? Yeah, he has a jet for that.

Hard core action mystery thriller? His cape is made of shadow.

The Great Gatsby? Come on, Bruce could get him all the invites he needed. Why didn't Nick look him up?

Romantic Comedy? Relieve some tension with a mugging and subsequent Batman throwdown. Add Batgirl and or Batwoman to relieve the tension that would inevitably follow when the lead female role falls irrevocably in love with the Caped Crusader (who for some horrible reason, no longer wants to be called that. Bad decisions.)

Documentary Film? Finally. A narrator you can trust. Batman not only doesn't kill, he doesn't lie. And homeboy has gadgets, he'll get to the bottom of whatever it is we're interested in. Want to know if Bigfoot exists? Well, if he does, Bats has him on speed dial. He probably bought him the damn phone.

The real problem is making sure that the Batman insert isn't too grandiose. Half the great novels would never have happened it Batman was around. The Kite Runner would have actually been about running kites and Caesar would have missed his last words.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be a challenge, just that it needs to be done.

Tell me Alderaan gets destroyed if Batman lived in that Galaxy?

No. Hell no. Batman knew Palpatine was going to do his Sith thing before he did. Sorry Anakin, you're still a Jedi in my world.

The point of this post is that I'm a huge Batman fan. And recently read the 'Return of Bruce Wayne." Loosely titled so because Bruce Wayne is Batman, and has returned. Through time.

If you're thinking about asking me, "Hey, Dave, do we get to see Batman as a pirate?"

The answer is yes, yes we do.

The "I WANT TO DO THAT" Syndrome and a Few Common Mistakes

I go through this crap every time I read, see or hear something new. I call it the I WANT TO DO THAT syndrome. Some people may know it as the "I COULD totally DO THAT" syndrome, (I get that one whenever I look at something written by James Patterson--no matter how unrealistic I'm being) or even the, "OKAY SO I HAVE THIS IDEA--IT'S LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN FAMILY GUY AND BATMAN (Not the circa 1960's Adam West one--but like Nolan--you know...serious) syndrome.

What's worse is the fact that I'm a socially dependent creature. I can't do anything alone.

Friend: So what are you doing?

Me: Uh, just sitting around. Thinking about stuff. Just a normal day over here with Dave--definitely not pooping.

You might ask, what about the blog, Dave? Yeah. I've pitched quite a few new ideas to various friends who are always completely under-enthused about the entire process. An average conversation might go something like this:

Me: So, I have this idea for a blog. It's like a dueling blog, see?

Friend: No.

Me: Oh well, it's like a humor blog, or something like that, where we both talk about whatever, and just refute each other and there's this whole back and forth--

Friend: I meant "no." As in "I don't want to do it."

Sometimes I actually manage to get a friend on board for a project and we intend to work on it, we really do. But we make a continuous series of mistakes from the time we decide to partner up, until the time of our inevitable self-defeat.

Common Mistake Number One:

Friend: So, where are we meeting to work on random project.

Me: I was thinking random coffee shop?

Friend: Sounds great.

No. No it's not great. It's a coffee shop, damn it. What are we thinking? Let's list the ways we're wrong to do this:
1) Coffee shops have people.
2) Coffee shops therefore have girls.
3) Coffee shops normally have coffee.
4) Coffee often leads to a desire to get up and do other things.

Like drinking alcohol, sometimes with girls. Which leads me to our second most common mistake.

Common Mistake Number Two:

Talking about ideas at bars.

Who are we kidding here? I realize that alcoholism and depression are the two leading causes of successful writing, but no one is ever depressed when drinking socially with a buddy. You can try, but inevitably the buzz overtakes you, you begin to lose hold of whatever idea it was you were so desperately clinging to. Maybe it's the girl on the other side of the bar with the drooping v-neck and "hug me" chest. Maybe it's the bartender, giving you completely undeserved extra rounds "on the house" (parenthesis: she wants a big tip.) Maybe you're just sitting next to some really cool dudes and a game is on.

Who knows? The point? You aren't talking about working, how to begin working, or even the idea that set you off in this work related comedy of errors in the first place.

Common Mistake Number Three:

Going into the project with an unclear idea of what you actually want to do.

We all want to do something. Something big, creative. Something with pizazz. Mainly, something that will get you rich.

This is not enough to go on. Outline first, collaborate later.

It's like my father always says, "David, if the buddy system worked, you wouldn't still be fat."

He didn't really say that. But, if the buddy system worked?
I wouldn't still be fat. Hell, I might even be rich.

But probably not.

The Power Chair and a Dead Battery

Surprise, I'm behind on my blog again. I have this idea for a larger blog project (on this blog,) but the amount of drawing it involves is frankly, quite daunting. On top of that I've spent the past two weeks working and working. Which is troubling and outside of my normal routine. Normally I just pretend to work and drink coffee--imagine my surprise when the coffee was gone--and I was still working. Mainly I've just been applying to jobs and writing letters and emails to people, essentially begging for jobs or further education. Of course my problem turns into a whole new monster of actually knowing what I want to do, and all the things I'm applying for not being that. I suppose money, to a certain degree, outweighs happiness, I just don't know when I became this person. Probably when I realized I was turning 25 soon and had real life to attend to. I'm not trying to start a pity party off here, nor am I making excuses. I'm writing my excuses out for you--they pretty much made themselves. (Self-coalescing excuses, they're possible, I swear it.)

My goals for today were exceedingly simple, I made them that way in some vain hope of actually getting them done. Write a blog (check,) write a few emails to various editors to maybe get some freelance work (check,) write a reference letter for...

And that's how it actually happened. My computer shut off in my face. Of course it did. Because technology, against commonly held beliefs and petty things such as logic, is actually zealously against the idea of progress. Anything I own works fitfully at best. It doesn't even have to be advanced technology for this problem to come into play. For example, my shower very rarely, if ever, hits that Goldilocksian sweet spot. Instead it seems to have two settings:

"Holy sh*t that's cold."

And "Aaaah what the mother !@#$--"

Both of which just end up being painful.

So needless to say (but I will, oh I will) my computer shut off again. So there I was, alone in a cafe, staring at two men as they typed away furiously on their fully powered, plugged in laptops. And I hated them. I hated them so much. But they had the Power Chairs, and I was just a man at a cafe table. Weak and without working, powered, technology.

I think the term "power chair" may confuse some people. It's not exactly a throne, nor is it one of those scooters that promised old people independence and fulfilled life long dreams.

No, it's a simple chair, near a power outlet. So I can do work. Like an adult.

As you can see by this blog actually being finished and posted, I eventually got the power chair. Maybe it was because he was finished with whatever he was doing, or maybe it was because I was staring at him angrily from a few feet away. Who knows, but he left, and I, with Gollum like speed, placed my ass in the best seat in the building.

I won't lie. It's not that comfortable of a chair.