Shit that Pissed me off – 7/10
I was at CONvergence having a wonderful time last week so I apologize that I didn’t post my regular column. Today, I shall play catch up on a bunch of stupid shit stretching as far back as three weeks.
Football Fans Tell a Player He Shouldn’t Talk about Anything but Football
This happens a lot. People tell someone they aren’t allowed to have informed opinions about anything except that for which they are most well-known.
In this instance, a white fan from Lacey, Washington, complained that a black football player from Charleston, South Carolina should not have an opinion about racism in the south. I mean sure, that makes sense. A white guy in Washington knows a lot more about racism.
He only lives – like – ten states away from South Carolina! He obviously knows better!
He certainly shouldn’t be subjected the opinion of a black guy from the south. Unless it’s about football.
The football player in question, Byron Maxwell, was responding to the recent massacre in his home town. His home town!
How entitled do you have to be to look at comments like that and think “I don’t want to hear the opinions of that guy because I know what’s going on way better than he does?”
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/10
Police Officer Shot a Man in the Back and was Caught Lying About it
If you click through to the link, there is video of a man being shot to death. That’s important to know because you might not want to watch such a thing.
Early reports about this incident indicated that the victim tried to take the officer’s taser and the officer shot him in self-defense. That was the story the officer repeated over and over again. And it was a lie.
If I said I didn’t like ice cream, it would also be a lie. A harmless lie. So when the officer lied to save his skin, it’s kind of like that, right?
Even if the victim had tried to take a taser before the video starts, it is obvious he posed no threat to the officer when he was running away and eight bullets were fired at his back.
Without that video, the officer would not be facing murder charges. Thousands of people would be telling us that we weren’t there so we couldn’t know what really happened. We should take the word of the police officer because why would he lie?
I don’t know. Maybe for the same reasons as anyone else?
Kickstarting into High Gear
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m the head writer on a new web series called “Vermin.”
Well, I’ll be the head writer if we can reach our Kickstarter goal and with 16 days left, we haven’t even reached the 25% mark yet. I still think we can make it but we are going to need help. Whose help?
If you are reading this, yours!
I’m going to put this into perspective for you. Over the last week, a pizza restaurant in Indiana publicly announced they would never cater same-sex weddings. As a result of their public declaration, they found themselves attacked and threatened by gay rights advocates who were pretty angry.
Threats, by the way, are never OK. The people who did that should rightfully be called out for their hateful behavior.
Because of the threats, the pizzeria chose to close their doors for a short time and a GoFundMe campaign was initiated to help support their gay unfriendly business. In short order, they raised over $800,000 from 1700 individual donors.
Putting it Together – Vermin
I’ve been involved in a new project that is slowly becoming an actual thing so I think it’s time to start being a bit more public about what we’re doing.
Gordon Smuder, who produced Transylvania Television, came to me last year and asked if I was interested in being head writer on a new project called “Vermin.” I was in the midst of looking to increase my work as a writer so of course I said yes.
Vermin is about a bunch of lab rats. One rat, Ralph, is a bit smarter than the rest so what happens? He has gotten promoted to management.
That’s the basic idea. A bunch of rats in a lab. And one of them is in charge.
Where me and the other writers have gone from that starting point is getting very exciting and very silly. We explore the various experiments the rats are part of, the challenge of being the rat in charge, and there are ninjas. Rat ninjas. Also a whole lot of bagels.
Being a head writer is a different experience for me. I’m not writing the whole thing. I’m just the guy who drives the conversation and sometimes says “hey – maybe we should change this part.”
I don’t know if I’m doing it right. I have to trust the other writers to do their jobs and still be willing to step in to make decisions that keep the whole thing moving the right direction. At least I think that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m kind of making the whole thing up as I go.
Geeks Without God Talks About Puppets
This week’s guest on Geeks Without God is Gordon Smuder. I’ve known Gordon for years as we were both teenagers at the Renaissance Festival together. More recently, he has gained notoriety as a puppeteer as well as a puppet maker. Many local friends will know Gordon from Transylvania Television but he has a lot of new projects going on right now and we got to talk about them all.
Not only did Gordon talk to us about puppets, he gave us puppets! That makes him only the second guest who has bribed us with individual swag!
I’m head writer on a new project Gordon is working on and we talked about it a lot on the podcast. There isn’t a website or anything for it but there will be something fairly soon. At least I hope so because the whole project is pretty cool.
Listen to the episode to hear more about it!
Grail Diary 