| Reflections After a Week |
[Feb. 28th, 2011|12:22 am]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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The end of the month is approaching, and with it I will try to muster the drive to write the next checkpoint for the "Project [Number I Decide to Take This to]" album and the first full month that I have will have experienced without my father. As such I feel I need to take this time to sit down and reflect and actually post this publicly rather than just hide it away in a notebook never to see the light of day as many of my recent writings have been ending up.
I am a very busy individual during the week between my work and social responsibilities. While I used to play video games at almost every moment of free time that time has been now overtaken by my more limited free time due to work and is typically spent with friends, exercising to compensate for my desk job's lack of physical movement, performing household duties, etc. During the week I am constantly on the go and never stopping. It is so bad that I have to force myself to schedule time to do the necessities such as put gas in the tank of my car. I've become a Monday to Friday worker what I went to college to become. I am now an IT analyst or an IT professional if I want to be quip capable of doing moderate troubleshooting on an application used in a business application. When the weekends come however my schedule is cleared and I am reminded of what I am and all I am able to leave on the back burner during the week.
I said in Dad's eulogy that I do not handle emotion very well. That's a lie of sorts. I know how to handle happiness, I know how to handle humor, and I know how to handle rage. I go out of my way to make those around me feel enlightened and lighthearted with my brand of sarcasm and general devil may care attitude about what is socially acceptable and what is not. But when it comes to myself, I am completely clueless. I do not know how to handle my own emotions or even understand them. When it comes to sadness, being lonely, feeling rejected, I am lost at sea.
These last few weekends I have written some of the truly most depressing and pathetic self-hatred rants I have ever produced in an attempt to find some ground to stand on during the periods that I am separated from my schedules and friends. I wrote in one such entry last weekend "I feel as if I am somehow caught in between what I think I should feel as a human being and my own "better than humanity" philosophies. I keep all others at arms length rather than truly let them know how I fee leither by become a character or by just pushing them away by saying everything's alright as if it can be when I do not know what it is I am SUPPOSED to feel."
I went on to say and I dare say that I disagree with part of it, "I am the one of the most fucked up in the head individuals I know. I am an impulsive arrogant snob who pretends he does not care what others think because I can so easily distance myself away from reality and the society I live in. And yet, as great as this ability 'to let go' may sound when it comes to things like dating, finding love, and even understanding loss, I am for lack of a better term, pathetic."
Pathetic sums up the state I was in rather nicely. I have after much meditation and reflection decided that while I do not care if people like or dislike me for refusing to change myself to become something I'm not, I do care how about I am interpretted by those I care about. I will be the first to admit, that I sometimes have difficulty in knowing when I've gone to far, and even more so when I know I have, pushing the limit as far as I can possibly take it just for a cheap laugh and the thrill that ensues. Not surprisingly the thought of people feeling sorry for me is something that is completely befuddling. I have felt a great deal of sympathy for others in my life and it has been a genuine emotion, but when others feel that for me I am confused and withdrawn, reluctant to accept their offers of kindness.
The problem I think with my current situation is that there is simply nothing in this world that can ever really equate to the loss I have experienced this month. Dad was always there not just for me, but for my entire family. He was the epicenter of knowledge and humor. When I was a preteen and teenager, it was he who aided me in recovering from what would likely be a criminal to what I am today by allowing me to see how comedy could be used as the cure to all wounds. Even if I didn't realize it at the time, he was my hero and inspiration on a level that those I did look up to and still do like George Carlin, Denis Leary, and Lewis Black cannot hold a candle to.
He is always, always on my mind, yet I do not feel the crippling sadness that one would think to associate with that or the numbness that you always here others mention at times like this. I suppose the closest thing I feel is empty...but even then that's not quite right. Returning to the note I wrote last Saturday, "I can count on one hand the number of times I've come to tears over the loss of my father and still have plenty of fingers to spare. One of the most important people of my life and arguably the most influential, and I'm just going on after the funeral like nothing's changed?" I'm choosing to omit the portion that followed that due to some very foul language and a bit of an emo melt down. "I think part of me doesn't quite understand that I will never be able to call him to ask for advice anymore, that I will enver be able to laugh with him anymore, that I can never talk to him just to bitch about my day or share stories of my life with him."
That is still how I feel I'm afraid. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. It's much like looking at a photograph of an ancient prominent figure who's philosophies you admire, but you know is no longer living in this world. I feel as if I'm staring into a mirror that shows my life as it once was rather than as it is now. The two are in many ways indiscernable as many things have not changed, life as they say must go on. But there are things in the reflection that are missing and things on my side of the mirror that are irrevocably changed for the rest of my life and those who are part of it.
Perhaps now you understand why this has been so hard for me to put into words and share?
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
Link to the photo album Project[Number I decide to Take this to]: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043065&id=220101074&l=f5a5c041ad |
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| Day One - The Passing - Feb. 8 2011 |
[Feb. 9th, 2011|11:11 am]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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Everyone deals with grief in their own way. I personally find that I shut myself off from others or find some activity to focus on instead of thinking of the loss in my life. However, neither of those is really inductive to healing. I have found that when it comes to me over coming grief and actually healing that comedy and writing are the two outlets that I have that allow me to progress and heal. I think I’ll be writing quite a lot during these next few days and I will share them with the public as a way of proving to myself that I am capable of moving on and getting outside of my own head even if it does cause me to break down and become somewhat emotional, something I have never been particularly comfortable being. Today I will share what I wrote last night while I sat in the ER’s waiting room after saying my final goodbye to the empty vessel that once contained the life of my father.
This has been the absolute worst day of my life.
Trauma is an event we cannot as humans entirely deal with. We must find mechanisms to allow us to cope. Need proof? I’m writing this from the lobby of a hospital emergency room.
There is a saying by Samuel Clemens that comes to mind. “The older I become the more I realize how wise my father was.”
Today I had to receive news that the man who raised me as his own is dead from a stomach aneurysm. He died almost immediately as my mother and younger brother tried to preserve his life as did the paramedics who arrived as quickly as possible. Everyone did all that they could, but there was nothing that could be done. My father, Noble Lee Proctor, the man I called Dad is no longer with us. Pronounced dead on February 8th, 2011.
I have gone on record for saying he is the smartest man I know, because he is. He has an encyclopedic knowledge, several PhDs in psychology, and a razor wit and sense of humor that I am glad he passed on to me.
He took me in when I was brainwashed to hate him by the biofather and even though I considered him my enemy for the many of my early years he played the role of the caring parent. He looked past my bullshit and bad behavior. And thanks to his patience, I am the man I am today. Something I’ve been told he is proud of.
The last time I spoke to him was earlier this week, and all we did was cut the shit on the phone to pass the time. He told me how much he was enjoying “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” that I lent him. I told him how much I was enjoying the Nook that they got me for Christmas and how I told him I needed to finish the Millennium series myself so he could read the other two books and how I promised to bring them a copy of Serenity on my next visit.
I do not doubt that he loved me and I loved him.
There is nothing in this world that can ever replace the influence he had in my life and I vow to continue to live my life in the manner that has to this day made him proud to call me his son.
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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| I made this... |
[Dec. 26th, 2010|03:51 pm]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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| "You don't talk to the Doctor like that!" |
[Dec. 26th, 2010|03:32 pm]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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| 15 Characters of Influence |
[Nov. 20th, 2010|06:28 pm]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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When given the challenge of coming up with fifteen inspirational characters for this latest note trend I jumped at the opportunity. Upon compiling my list on paper I found that I drew my inspiration from almost all mediums from classical literature to comics from movies to anime and even a few mentions from video games just to add some spice. I have compiled a list of fifteen (plus seven others that I came up with after the initial fifteen that came to mind). For the sake of this note I am only drawing on fictional characters, and their list order does not have anything to do with my own personal preferences; this is just the order that I came up with them or they are listed in a manner that I think works well in terms of flow or relation to one another. With this little introduction out of the way, let’s have some fun.
The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen fictional characters (television, films, plays, books) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what characters my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.) Feel free not to join in, this seemed fun.
1.) Dexter Morgan: Source of inspiration – Dexter, Television series, inspired by the book series “Darkly Daydreaming Dexter”
Dexter began the first trend I noticed when I started listing my characters, anti-heroes. I’ve always found that I’ve always preferred the antihero to the traditional knight in shining armor hero because the antihero has (in most cases) considerably more depth than the hero. The antihero has a tinge of darkness, a bit of insanity as they cling to their ever devolving shred of what comprises normal human behavior. Dexter is a middle aged serial killer (played by Michael C. Hall) who moonlights as a forensics specialist for the Miami police department. What makes Dexter unique as a serial killer is that he only hunts and kills those who take the lives of the innocent. He has a strict code that he follows taught to him by his adopted father, an ex-police officer/detective, who realized upon finding the toddler Dexter in a pool of his confidential informant mother’s own blood after she was dismembered by her chainsaw wielding drug dealer (if memory serves correctly) in a cargo shipping container. Did I mention that Dexter is not a show you’d want your small children watching? Dexter refuses to kill innocents, not because his conscience necessarily tells him it’s wrong, but because he knows that when you kill innocents, you affect people’s lives in a manner that would cause them to actually look for their loved ones and potentially lead them to find out about Dexter’s secret. Dexter knows he has a problem, and yet he tries to live the façade that he’s completely normal as his cover. The real draw to his character that separates him as your standard sociopath and an antihero is during his career as a successful serial killer and the image of a normal person the line is beginning to blur as he tries to live the best of both worlds as a father and husband. He is constantly at war with his two halves, and it is that kind of drama that earns my respect.
2.) V – V for Vendetta - graphic novel by Alan Moore/screenplay adapted by the Wachowski brothers
It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that V for Vendetta is one of my all around favorite movies of all time, but that’s a story that’s already been explained several times over and an additional explanation would only take up more space in this rather large note. However, let’s make sure one thing is known right off the bat, when it comes to writers of graphic novels/comics there is no one who compares to Alan Moore. The man is the master of creating characters with such depth and character that you cannot help but be amazed at how far he is willing to take each of his characters and as a result, extremely engaging stories. This is a man who is responsible for revolutionizing world of comics (and whether or not he intended to and often times fought against, the world of films). Just to give you an idea of what he is capable, he could be described as one of the leaders of the fan fiction genre. Need proof? Read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. No, not the lousy movie adaptation (although I found it entertaining for what it’s worth), but the actual graphic novel series in which he took classic literary figures and brought them together in a Justice League/Avengers-esque league out to protect the world.
Now that I’ve fully digressed from V, it’s time that I explain myself. V and the character that will be following him are each antiheros of a special category. They are unrelenting in their beliefs. In V’s case, it is the demand for both revenge and the liberation of a people against the tyranny of a wholly corrupt domineering, racist, and almost xenophobic government regime that has controlled the lives of its people out of manipulation and fear. V causes the cracks that break down their system that opens the eyes of the people, and in the final of scene of the film, causes the unanimous uprising that overthrows those in power at the cost of his own life. Wouldn’t this make him a perfect hero? Then let’s think of his methodology. V is the perfect antihero because he is just like those he is trying to defeat. They each believe entirely that the ends justify the means. V has no problem killing a few innocent lives if it gets him the results he craves. To make Evey, the girl who becomes his female companion, understand why he does what he does, he forces her against her will and prior knowledge go undergo the same tortuous treatment that caused him to become the way he is, leading her to believe that she is to be put to death and willing to accept that fate with her head held high before he lifted the veil and revealed his trick. He then demands that she not only forgive him for what he’s done, but understand why he did it. This is what we in the business of being an asshole refer to as the biggest DICK MOVE anyone can do to someone they care about.
3.) Rorschach – The Watchmen – graphic novel by Alan Moore/movie screenplay adapted by David Hayder (the voice of Solid Snake, one of the honorable mentions) and Alex Tse, directed by Zack Snyder; actor Jackie Earle Haley
Rorschach is a vigilante who sees the world in a very black and white view. There is good and bad nothing is gray, and he feels he’s the only one who can stop the evil in the world because everyone else is unwilling to do so themselves. He is wanted for countless murders, enjoys breaking people’s fingers when he needs to get information about one of his various conspiracies, and is in fact, insane. As I mentioned before, Rorschach falls under the same wing of V. Each was created by Alan Moore and each is slaves to their ideologies. The only difference between the two is Rorschach is completely unwilling to compromise in his beliefs while V (in the movie version) at least had limited compromise in his belief system (giving Evey the choice to bring about the symbolic defeat of the political power rather than making the choice himself). Rorschach takes his beliefs to the grave even after he fails to stop the “villain” of the story from killing millions of lives (all for the cause of preventing World War III and the millions more lives lost that a nuclear war would result in) he demands the only super powered super hero of the story to kill him because of his unwillingness to compromise and not try to expose the villain’s deceit.
4.) Vash the Stampede – Trigun (anime and manga)
That was a wonderfully dark and depressing start, but let’s continues with the trend of characters that follow an idea, belief, or code to the point it dominates their lives entirely. Vash however is the combo breaker. Vash is the first character in my list that truly encompasses what it means to be a hero. Vash is a hopeless romantic, accident prone gunslinger who refuses to kill or seriously injure in a wild west-cyberpunk version of the Wild West. He is responsible for the destruction of an entire city and all of its inhabitants and yet he is the world’s largest pacifist who has only WILLINGLY taken one life in his entire life even then it was in a case where he had no other choice where he had to choose to allow his friends to die or kill a villain who would gladly kill them if he did not kill him. Vash the Stampede is technically a super human who has remarkable skill and reflexes thanks to both his super human traits and his intensive training that he performs daily. He is a man who while doing target practice shoots through the bullet holes he creates in nonlethal areas of the bodies. His determination of peace in a world in which he has a bounty upon his head so large in a world so impoverished that claiming his bounty would be like giving a homeless person Bill Gate’s and Oprah’s combined fortunes, and yet he still refuses to fight back against those who would try to kill him, choosing only to fight back if it means that it would prevent others from being hurt themselves. His scarred body is a testament to his creed of “Love and Peace”
5.) Spike Spiegel – Cowboy Bebop (anime)
As far as anime’s go Cowboy Bebop remains the best I have even seen (and I’ve seen MORE than my fair share, and probably more than many of you who call yourselves anime fans have ever seen. If it sounds like I’m bragging you’re half right). Spike’s description will thankfully be a little less descriptive than the rest which will reduce this note by about a third of a page (we’re already over 1700 words at this point for those of you keeping track). Spike’s character is what I would consider to be the epitome of a “cool” male character. He’s laid back, but gets results. He’s tough, but doesn’t necessarily go out and strut his masculinity to all those around him. He goes with the flow and lives the life of an impoverished bounty hunter in a futuristic world where humanity’s conquered the stars, and apparently smoking does not cause the myriad of health problems it causes now because everyone chain smokes in the jazzy future, sign me up for that one by the way. Spike has a dark past, and one that he cannot forget no matter how hard he tries. Even at the end of the series, he is forced to confront his past at the cost of his own life* and in doing so put down a seriously evil person, all because of a woman he just couldn’t stop loving, no matter what she did to him. *(YES HE FUCKING DIES, PAY ATTENTION COWBOY BEBOP FANS, THAT STAR FADING OUT WAS SYMBOLIC DAMN IT AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO SAY THE MOVIE TOOK PLACE AFTER THE SERIES, THEN GO BACK AND READ INTERVIEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR/WRITER, THEY TOOK PLACE BEFORE THE FINAL 3-4 EPISODES) –Author’s rant
6.) The Joker – (Batman)
The Joker is a wildcard character for this list as over the decades there have been countless versions of the Joker because like all shared characters, they vary from author to author. To clarify, I prefer the type of Joker that was inspired by Alan Moore’s version of him in “The Killing Joke.” In this case, the Joker is the ultimate villain. He is the definition of a comic book psychopathic. He is the complete sociopath whose plans are always over the top and quite frankly don’t often make sense. This is a villain who crippled Batgirl, stripped her of her clothes, took photographs of her, captured her father Commissioner Gordon, hired a crew of carnival side show freaks, rented out an derelict carnival, and then forced Commissioner Gordon to look at the photo graphs of his shot daughter WHILE on a roller coaster IN WHICH he sang and danced to a merry tune of his own device about going insane. Crazy? Yes. Evil? Undoubtedly. Entertaining? You bet your ass he is. I like Batman, but what separates him from other super heroes, is that the most interesting part of his stories is his villains. Without him to quote Yahtzee Croshaw, is just a man wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants wearing a black cape.
7.) Aragorn/Strider – Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (novel)
I had just entered middle school when I first began reading the Lord of the Rings and the rest as they say is history. I’ve always been a fan of the fantasy genre ( just to give you an idea I was playing D&D and Magic the Gathering while I was in elementary school), and LOTR is what began it all. It has all been said before about the depth of this series and all that it inspired, so I’ll keep this brief as we haven’t even approached the half way point of these fifteen characters. LOTR is what almost everyone in the fantasy genre has had to compete with, and there has not been one yet who has been able of shaking the “like LOTR, but” category. Aragorn/Strider began the genre classic of the unexpected true leader. In the novel Strider meets the Hobbits shortly after they begin their journey and protects them from the Ring Wraiths after they ambush the party, taking on all nine (actually I believe in the novel it was just five at that moment) single handedly. He becomes the leader of the nine members, and through the course of the series, takes up his mantle of the true king of the humans acting as the diplomat of all the races. He is the only human in the course of the novel that was capable of standing up to Sauron’s power and not being overtaken by it.
MILE STONE! Ladies and gentlemen we’ve crossed the halfway point! Rejoice! Take a break, and come back if you think you think you’re good enough to continue. Don’t take too long because for number eight we have a double feature!
8.) Link – (Legend of Zelda) and Gordon Freeman - (Half-Life) – video games
And we’ve hit all the mediums at this point: TV, movies, comics, anime, and now video games, behold my knowledge of geekdom!
Calling Link and Gordon Freeman “characters” seems kind of out of place. Link and Gordon are avatars. They are in their world mutes, and they are meant to be more or less the medium in which you move through the story unfolding around them. On their own they have no depth at all; it is those around them who give them their depth (in addition to your own imagination and possible commitment to the character). However, in each of their cases they allow you, the player, to become the unstoppable hero capable of doing the impossible by stopping Ganondorf or being the figurehead in the fight against the Combine or leading the escape of Black Mesa.
9.) GLaDOS– Portal (video game)
GLaDOS is from easily one of my top video games ever made, Portal. Portal is one of the several accomplishments of Valve which have made them in my own personal opinion the greatest video game developers in the history of video games. As far as the game goes it does everything right from game play to writing to the amount of time it takes to complete, everything just feels right and completely without flaw. It is in the writing however that GLaDOS shines. She is your not-so-benevolent guide throughout the game at the same time cheerfully reassuring you while assuring you will not be able to pass the various tests you would go through and the slow gradual malice you begin to detect in her voice as you near the end of the test. Then you reach the end of your test, and the moment comes that her true intentions are revealed as you leave the pristine and clean test chambers and start navigating the run down and neglected guts of the facility as you attempt to escape while she pleads for you to stop your progress with the promise of cake. The humor simply does not stop the closer you get to escape as she begins to take more and more drastic measures to impede your progress right up until one of the greatest boss fights I have ever experienced for the dialogue alone. If you have not played Portal and consider yourself a fan of video games you are doing yourself a great disservice by not playing through it once. It is on the 360, PS3, and computer, in most cases you can get it as a direct download for a low cost and will take you at most four hours to beat from start to finish.
10.) Raz – Psychonauts (video game)
Again, this is an example that I have already explained pretty fully earlier in my life. Psychonauts is one of my favorite video games from the wonderfully off-beat mind of Tim Schafer. It is a video game about a psychic summer camp with some dark secrets in which the levels take place in the psyche of the character’s minds. Raz is the character that you control, a young gifted psychic who has ran from his family circus to join the summer camp so he can learn how to become a Psychonaut. Raz is just the type of character you’d expect to control from a Schafer video game. He’s wonderfully relatable while being just enough off the beaten path to be a fun fantasy based character. He becomes the hero of the story not out of personal gain, but because he (and his soon to be love interest) discover the insidious plot to remove the brains from the gifted child psychics and create an army of psychic tanks to take over the world, all thanks to a villain with Daddy issues that only rival Raz’s own, which come to a point at the very end of the game as the villain and Raz’s minds become entangled with one another where Raz is forced to confront both his own father issues as well as the villains in a world where a psychotic butcher shop meets a circus environment. Raz only succeeds when his own (real) father manages to enter the combined mind and donate his own psychic power to help his son defeat the two headed Dad monster (again, you need to play this game).
11.) Edmond Dantes/The Count of Monte Cristo – “The Count of Monte Cristo” (Novel)
If I had to choose a favorite book the Count of Monte Cristo would be one of the choices that I’d in the finals. The Count fits right in here with the type of character who commits himself to an idea. Much like V or as it would be more appropriate to say V is much like the Count; the Count is a result of a man wrongfully committed for a crime he didn’t commit and forced to undergo conditions no one should undergo. During his imprisonment he meets a priest, also imprisoned who teaches Edmond various languages, fighting styles, sciences, and etc as they attempt to escape their imprisonment. As time passes and the Priest’s health plummets he reveals to Edmond where he can find a vast treasure he had hidden before his imprisonment. Edmond escapes pretending the be the Priest’s body when the Priest passes away and then vows to avenge himself on those he considered his friends who framed him for crimes he did not commit. The Count becomes the larger than life figure capable of any physical feat, a man with a fortune that is incalculable, the person who is complete control, and the person who has his hands in every pot. As his plot for revenge falls into place, he is forced to slowly determine whether or not he wishes to retain some shred of his own humanity, ultimately he chooses to be the larger man and retain some degree of it.
Oh yeah, while I’m on this subject one other thing. To this date there has not been a TRUE adaptation of the novel so let’s get some things out of the way immediately. First off, the Count DOES NOT end up with Mercedes, they each go their own separate ways. Second, Albert IS NOT the Count’s son, he is in fact the son of Mercedes and Fernand. And lastly, the Count does not have a single physical confrontation with any of the characters who he has sworn vengeance against. There is no sword fight between the Count and his ex-best friend Fernand. The closest he comes to this is when one character attempts to break into his home in which he puts on a breast plate of armor and several braces of pistols before disarming the burglar.
12.) Sarge and Caboose – “Red vs Blue” – fan made Machinima by Rooster Teeth Productions
I love RvB and from it I have to choose the two extremes as my favorite characters to boast. What they share is each are completely out of touch with reality. One is the leading officer of the Reds, a life time soldier and one completely committed to the cause. He sees no reason to doubt that the chain of command could ever be wrong even in the presence of knowledge that clearly suggests other wise. He will always have a deep rooted hatred for the Blues and will always work as hard as he can to constantly defeat them. Caboose on the other hand is a lovable idiot. He is completely dependent on others and exists as the main comic relief in the series. Putting these characters into words is not an easy feat, so I have included a link to two of my favorite RvB episodes which show off just how great these two are.
13.) Sherlock Holmes – Various short stories and novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
What’s not to be said about Sherlock Holmes? Quite a bit actually. It’s well known that he’s regarded as the world’s greatest detective and the genius at it, but there is a bit more to his character than is known by the general public. Until recently with the latest Sherlock Holmes movie (starting Robert Downey, Jr. as the sleuth) there hasn’t been a particularly good film adaptation of Holmes’s true character. Holmes, aside from his significant detective genius, is a borderline misanthropic recluse. He only works on cases in which he feels will actually test his formidable skills. He can be quite childish and immature as his companion and friend Dr. Watson would soon discover as Holmes was prone to invade Watson’s own personal space when he so desired and had no problem firing off a firearm in doors for practice. And one more little known fact, he was also a cocaine addict who would inject cocaine directly into his blood stream when he felt he was not being challenged intellectually.
14.) Ash(ley) Simmons – “Evil Dead” – “Army of Darkness” (Movie, portrayed by Bruce Campbell)
There is no comparison to Bruce Campbell’s Ash. His title character which allowed him to become the B movie god and cult icon he is today is all thanks to Ash. Ash is the hero of the comical horror Evil Dead series, directed by Sam Raimi (Spiderman I – III, Drag Me to Hell, etc). He is a man who when he and his girlfriend were attacked by the forces of unspeakable evil they accidentally released was forced to kill his possessed girlfriend with a shovel. When he was attacked later by her headless corpse, he was then forced to cut her decapitated in half with a chainsaw. When the evil then corrupted and possessed his right hand he chopped it off with the chainsaw, and stowed it under a waste basket held down with several books, including “A Farewell to Arms.” He then attached the chainsaw to his right hand and wielding a double barreled shotgun was pulled into the past to fight the evil at its source in the Dark Ages Europe where he fought along side King Arthur after failing to properly seal the evil Necronomicon by failing to properly recite the counter curse “Klatu Barrada Nikto” as opposed to “Klatu Barrada Ni-*COUGH COUGH HACK*”. He was then forced to fight his own evil twin (Bad Ash as opposed to Goody Goody Two Shoes Ash) and through a series of great B movie fight scenes and memorable quotes became the king.
15.) Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent – “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams (novel, TV series, movie)
And why not close up the list of fifteen with another novel that is up there in the list of my favorites? I choose to end the list with another pair of characters because they play so well off one another. Arthur Dent is the perfectly normal average British man in a dead end job who gets shipped off to space as the Earth is beginning to be destroyed thanks to his friend, Ford Prefect, who is an intergalactic hitchhiker who Arthur saved after Ford mistook the dominant species on the planet as being cars as opposed to humans. Ford is the ever partier. A man who seems to run off adventure and booze, the complete opposite of the mild mannered Dent. I choose these two for a very special reason, I find that my own personality falls somewhere in the middle of each of these characters, but from what my friends and my own personal reflection has determined, I’m much closer to the Ford side as opposed to Arthurs.
And at 4,425 words, that’s the end of the list. But why stop there? That’s right, because I hate myself it’s time for an OVER ACHIEVER LIST!
16. Ripley – Aliens (movie)
-You want a strong female lead, look no further than Ripley in both Ridley Scott’s and James Cameron’s takes on the Alien franchise (first two films more than the others). In Aliens she is a scientist amongst testosterone fuelled space marines wearing bike armor and wielding bulky guns. She ends up finding a child who has survived the Xenomorph infestation on the overtaken colony and in the process becomes the motherly figure who ends up taking care of all surviving marines who claimed her position in sci-fi heroes as she ventures in to heart of the alien colony to take on the Alien Queen herself after creating the arguably most awesome jury rigged weapon known to man (and it’s all thanks to duct tape which even in the future proves itself to be the most usable tool in man’s arsenal).
17. The Bear Jew – Inglorious Basterds
- Would you like to know what really happened in World War II? Well go watch the absolutely true and completely nonmade up documentary Inglorious Basterds and you’ll understand why the Bear Jew made the list.
18. Robin Hood – (Take a guess)
- Call me a romantic, but I kind of like stories in which the rich and corrupt get their asses handed to them and their gold stolen and given back to the poor. I guess that makes me a socialist…
19. Marv – Sin City (Graphic Novel by Frank Miller, movie directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez, actor played by Mickey O’Rourke)
- Marv is the epitome of bad ass tough guy. In the process of the graphic novel “A Dame Worth Dying For” he is shot in the head, falls down several stories, cut to pieces, hit in the head with a sledge hammer, pistol whipped, jumps through the windshield of a speeding car, shot repeatedly, and shocked on the electric chair, TWICE. Oh yeah, there’s also a pretty damn good black comedy story about him hunting down a killer and uncovering a pretty insidious plot along the way…
20. Solid Snake – Metal Gear Solid (video game series)
- The only reason Solid Snake didn’t make the list is because Jon listed him on his own list. I’ve also already gone on about why Solid Snake is awesome, so you’re welcome to dig through my old notes if I haven’t provided the link to it on this one yet.
21. Scott Pilgrim – “Scott Pilgrim” graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley
- I fear I have a lot more in common with Scott Pilgrim than any other character when it comes to my love life and how I react around girls I’m attracted to. Yes I really am that awkward around girls I like.
Damn this list won’t stop…here’s a last few shout outs left out because they are just too well known and need no introduction:
Indiana Jones
Darth Vader
Boba Fett
Han Solo
Stephen Colbert
Is it time to end this? Let’s see, I just broke the ten pages mark and I’m just under five thousand words. That is longer than most of the term papers your average college student will write. So the question remains, shall I end it? At 5000 words, I think so!
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob |
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| Just a Phase |
[Sep. 27th, 2010|01:27 am]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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I don’t like to complain about the things that aren’t quite going right in my life in these notes, but at the moment, my life is not what most would call particularly great.
In this last week alone I’ve had my car in the shop twice for a grand total of over $500, one of which was the result of a belt shredding on me on the way home from a twelve hour night shift.
I have had the worst insomnia of my life over these last few weeks, even for an insomniac going forty-eight hours on a single hour of sleep is certainly pushing it.
My current job is going away soon…literally. I am one of ten people who must find a new job because those in power have decided that it would be more financially sound to deport the NOC to the Philippines. None of us are guaranteed jobs in Asurion, and we’ve all vying for a permanent position, yet so far only two of have had any luck.
But you know what?
It’s not all bad.
My time with Asurion may be coming to a close soon, but what it has accomplished is two things. The first, it has provided me with arguably the best entry level job available to a recent college graduate. It’s been quite the learning experience. The second, it’s shown me the environment I WANT to work for. I have worked with a group of extremely charming and intelligent coworkers. It has been an absolute honor working with everyone, and even if I cannot land a permanent job with Asurion before mid-November I can honestly say I will not stop trying to come back. As I was applying for jobs at the job fair that led to my employment with Asurion, one recruiter sternly told me when I told him the type of job I was looking for that I was going about it the wrong way. “Instead of looking for a job, you should look for the place you want to work.” Asurion is that place. I do not want to work anywhere else, I want to work for this company.
There’s even a silver lining in the car problems I had over those last few days. While having car problems is never a good thing, it can make you remember what is really important.
In my case it’s you guys. A close friend of mine, Chris, went above and beyond the line of duty in being a friend those last couple of days going so far as to even loan me his vehicle so I could make it to work.
Sure, my life might not be as manageable as I’d like, and it would certainly cause a lot of people untold amounts of stress, but I know it’s just a phase. I may not be able to see the future, but I can affect the direction it will go.
There’s nothing in this world strong enough to prevent me from overcoming and persevering with you, my friends, at my side.
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob |
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| Inception - Movie Review |
[Jul. 16th, 2010|09:07 pm]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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Inception is the latest suspense/thriller from Christopher Nolan, perhaps best known for his writing and direction of the most recent Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Just like the commercials for the movie I am going to attempt to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, though in the next paragraph will contain a few spoilers that are simply necessary to describe the plot of the movie so those of you who are trying to hear as little as possible about this movie, skip the following paragraph.
Inception follows a group of professional thieves who specialize in mind crime where they force their target into a dream and then invade that dream through the use of chemicals and special technology and then steal that person’s intellectual properties and ideas during the course of the dream. The problem behind this is that the thieves have little control over the dream world itself which is produced by their target’s subconscious mind which can drastically change the setting of the dream the criminals have invaded. The group of thieves is led by an experienced dream invader, Cobb, whose own personal demons are beginning to follow him in the dream worlds he’s invading.
This has been a dry summer for GOOD movies. We’re over halfway through summer and so far we’ve only had one movie that has even the slightest chance of receiving an Oscar, Pixar’s Toy Story 3 and as a general rule of thumb this movie will only take at most the best animated category. Instead this seems to have been a summer of remakes or adaptations (Karate Kid, A-Team, Avatar: The Last Airbender), completely uninspired cookie cutter action/comedies (Knight and Day, Get Him to the Greek, Jonah Hex), or just plain insulting to anyone with a brain or a sense of decency (Twilight: Eclipse). Hell last summer we at least had Inglorious Basterds and District 9 to keep us going, this summer we’ve had pretty much nothing to keep a film snob like myself feeling as if there has been anything original. Then along comes Inception and The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob is pleased.
There’s a trend for large summer movies similar to Inception to be at most an enjoyable movie, but hardly one that would win any awards relying more on their special effects to pull through the movie rather than its writing and acting. Sometimes this works other times it falls flat on its face but in each case (drawing from last year’s summer) a movie that relies entirely on action can never make it past the role of being a “fun” movie to see and yes that means you too Expendables. Inception breaks the formula by building a movie that relies upon a good well written script and talented actors which are complimented by special effects rather than the other way around thanks largely to the fact Nolan writes his own movies before he directs them. Come to think of it hasn’t this been the case with all of Nolan’s recent movies? Out of the ten movies he has directed he himself has written nine of them. These include the extremely successful Batman movies mentioned early, Memento, and The Prestige.
This is not to say that the special effects were not impressive. While the writing and directing were what held the movie together and made it so engaging to the viewer it was the special effects that made the audience feel as if they were within the dream. I cannot describe with words (at least without sounding like I’m trying to write a novel rather than a review) just how impressive the special effects were. Suffice to say I highly expect a certain fairly long scene where the gravity of the dream is turning or just absent entirely will be talked about for quite some time.
To bring this review to an end, this is not a movie for the type of attendee who feels that they might have to think to enjoy a movie. This is a movie designed to keep you guessing while not being too complicated you are incapable of getting into it (imagine the first Matrix for the best comparison). If you over-analyze movies like me you will pretty much figure out where the dream ends and reality begins without much trouble and still feel like you’ve enjoyed an intellectual delight. On the other hand if you simply go to a movie just to be entertained than Inception will do that for most viewers as well, so long as they are at least willing to pay some attention.
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob |
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| Update on Life |
[Jul. 16th, 2010|02:10 am]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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I've been receiving a lot of questions about my new job and several people who use these community sites or who have called me that I felt I've ignored unintentionally. To answer/respond to all of you guys, this is what's going on in my life.
About a year ago I was using these notes as a way of keeping people updated and sating my desire to create. Since then my life has lost almost all semblance of the free time required to make these notes on a regular basis due to work and (still) moving. I'll explain as much as I can on this site to the extent I feel that I'm not risking some type of violation at the new job since I've had to sign several non disclosure agreements for both it and my contractor as much of my job has very sensitive user data unlike Wal-Mart where all I had to do was basically avoid using people's names. Trade secrets, aren’t they fun? Oh yes, don't even think about trying to pry this information out of me. Torture will not work due to the fact that I am immune to torture because I'm a bad ass (it's a fact) and I'll be the cause of your death if you were to try. Secondly, although there are a few trade secrets that are part of my job, very little of it would be of any good to pretty much anyone.
My job title is Network Operations Center Analyst, abbreviated "NOC", where I work with one or two other NOCs each day monitoring alarms on the various infrastructure systems at Asurion and organizing experts on conference calls when a detrimental problem does arise so the problems can be solved as quickly as possible. It's a fairly challenging entry level position in the IT field, and one that I'm am greatly enjoying. These past three weeks I have worked ten hour shifts, four days a week. The shift times have changed on a weekly basis so I could be trained upon both days and nights leaving me with a terrible case of insomnia that has lasted for two weeks only for my body to finally begin resetting over the course of these last few days just to go back to a night shift schedule where I will work three twelve hour days for at least one week. Just to deal with the insomnia situation I’ve had to drink enough coffee to keep the every person in the entire country of Columbia employed and as Boj can attest when I’m not at work and thankfully not behind the wheel I’ve barely have the energy to walk.
My old coworkers are probably wondering do I regret leaving Wal-Mart, the few who have seen me since I’ve started at Asurion can probably tell you exactly what I am about to say, HELL NO. Trust me I treasure the good times we had at the store and the people who I met there who I now call my friends, but I did not go through all those years of college to stay at a grocery store. To those of you who are still in college, I urge you to never lose sight of your eventual goal. I’ve only been out for about two months, and it is already worth every second of anger, blood, despair, pain, and sweat I poured into those five years.
As for the moving situation I have pretty much completed my move in portion and have (this week more than others) been helping my other roommates, Boj and Robin, get their stuff in while they’ve been in town. I can finally say that I am done with moving tomorrow when HH Gregg delivers my new washer and dryer which will allow me to do something about the over flowing mountain of dirty laundry piled up in the corner of my closet overflowing the basket that would normally contain the mess. Or at the very least, offer a solution to the problem that would not involve me taking all my dirty laundry up to my parent’s house in Portland so I can use their washer and dryer.
So my friends, I have a request. If you want to go grab a beer, see a movie, or just plain hang out, let me know. Even if I cannot respond immediately to your messages, calls or emails, bear in mind that when I see it I will do everything in my power to get back with you and set up a date. I hate to repeat myself (another reason I haven’t made as many notes since I ran out of topics on my mind) but it was you guys who got me through college. You were the ones who gave me hope, who forced me to trudge on even in the darkest of times, and who gave me and continues to give me the strength I have to fight on and defeat any endeavor that has the audacity to stand in my way.
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob |
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| Leaving the Stores Behind |
[Jul. 3rd, 2010|09:06 pm]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
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This note was started a last Sunday which was my last day at Wal-Mart and sadly I did not have time to finish it until today due to a busy work schedule, complications with moving apartments, and lack of internet until yesterday. Enjoy.
I am sitting in my car enjoying my air conditioning to the fullest with my phone upon my lap. Its screen fades to black casting the reflection of the old name badges I created when I worked at Food Lion. The badges adorn my sun visor, simple ornaments, largely for the amusement of others as among these hanging are ones that have names such as “The Great Prophet Eric” and “Bazooka Bob.” Another augments the word “hello” to say “Hell NO!” while the last could be considered an almost normal name badge except it has modified the phrase “I’m here to help” with a sticker from the meat department for their sales to read “I’m SPECIAL.”
All of these name badges were created at Food Lion mostly out of mutual boredom one day when an overabundance of imagination from three creative individuals in addition to myself discovered a label maker laying around. That along with many other memories from me chasing coworkers on the mart carts, sing duets over the intercom system, playing on the intercom system while inhaling helium, throwing bags of garbage on dumpster divers, racing L-Carts, and in general just having fun with my friends and coworkers were the bright spots that I still treasure from my stay with Food Lion.
Unfortunately they were overshadowed by the few customers who could only be described as “white trash” most of whom we had to call upon the assistance of the local police force to escort out of the store, illegal pay polices, and incompetent even neglectful actions of a certain manager which caused me to leave my position as a frozen department manager and run to Wally World (Wal-Mart) my new home for three years. You know what, fuck it; Kevin Emerson, you are a worthless, lying, cheating (both to your associates and your multiple female companions), homophobic piece of shit unworthy to breathe the air you consume.
I met several people at Wally World who I now consider to be some of my best friends, among them the one who helped me create the nickname on my current (at the time of this point in the writing) name badge, Andy “Bad Andy” Ballman. Andy was and still is the one person I would consider to most likely be my mental clone. We are about seven years apart in age, have had radically different experiences growing up, and yet we each think almost exactly the same, have the same interests, and can play off one another like no one I have ever seen. Our tastes are almost exactly the same outside of music as I am known for being much more critical as to what counts as music, not so say his tastes and mine aren’t usually on the same level; he’s more accepting of a certain decade than I am – the eighties. He and I were a team to be reckoned in work ethic, speed, efficiency as well as our love for shenanigans some of which ended up becoming a nature documentary about aggressive milk cartons, amusing ourselves with ventriloquist dummies, drawing on our rocket carts, stacking milk crates all the way to the ceiling, and playing Magic the Gathering at every chance we could afford, and my personal favorite: kicking a stack of empty milk crates over while (literally) screaming the raider’s march as I leapt and swung from the flexible curtains on the cooler’s entrance.
Wally World was miles ahead of Food Lion when I first started. I was instantly making more than Food Lion could afford to pay me if they had actually wanted to, I had a full range of benefits, and I was in an environment I loved. Then I transferred to Murfreesboro and that all changed. Since I have worked for Wally World it has slowly morphed more and more into the bureaucracy that it is often exaggerated as being. The 90 day raise I received when I first started is gone, starting pay has been drastically reduced, managers are being forced to under-schedule their departments even though they have the hours to spare, and at the time of my leaving there is an increased push to make ALL tasks into a very strict schedule, something one should NEVER attempt to do to a job as need based as a sales position. The greatest blow yet, and the coup de grace that would have had me more than likely fervently looking for a new job had I not already been in the interview process (and accepted as an employee when I find out about this) management has decided that department managers no longer need to be dedicated to one department and instead on a weekly basis they would change departments. This is the worst idea I have ever heard in my entire time with grocery stores, you do not take a person from one position that they earned by working for that position and that position alone until they became the expert in that field and take that away from them and assume the department won’t suffer for it. I use the term “management” loosely. I realize that a few of my friends are now my old managers from Murfreesboro and I can honestly say that among those of you who might be reading this, I have no doubt that that rule is one that you guys would have generated on your own.
Despite my disgust with Wally World’s changing policies, I would still recommend someone who is in high school, college, or just in the need of a job to try Wally World. As bad as their latest stuff is, I know from experience there are a looooot worst places to work for and to the its credit, they do take very good care of their associates. I will stand by this statement that if Wal-Mart had more managers like Stephen Wright, one of those rare managers who has no problem working himself and goes out of his way to see to it that his associate’s needs are met, it would be a much better company to work for.
There are a great deal of people who I met at Wally World who use this site and it is you guys who kept me going for these last three years and who kept me holding my head high and even enjoy the work I did, even on the bad days.
Matt Loepke
Chris Stewart (Martin)
Chris Barnett
Luke Farris
Stephen Wright
and many more…
It was an honor to work with you guys and let’s try to keep in touch. I’m still in the area after all.
Now, I work at Asurion in Nashville as a Network Operations Center analyst (NOC). Instead of ensuring that milk and eggs are fully stocked, I am monitoring alarms that our data bases generates determining which are false alarms and which need some technical assistance to look at. Instead of assisting customers find an item; I am holding conference calls making sure I can get the proper experts on the call to attempt to solve a problem before it becomes a disaster. It is completely different from Wally World, but it is a welcome change. And my knees are thanking me for it because for the first time in five years I can know that my knees will no longer bear the brunt of the force of physical labor.
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob |
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| Grocery Stores, Your Time Has Come... |
[Jun. 16th, 2010|11:55 pm]
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
|
For as long as I can remember during my school career my peers and instructors would always talk about going through school to get a real job. But as far as I was concerned, I have always worked at a real job since my sophomore year of high school.
Sure working at grocery stores are not the job that I want to see myself doing for the rest of my working life, but to disregard them as a job is pure folly. They have been real jobs because I am doing real work, alongside real people, and earning real money. They are what have kept me fed with a roof over my head in addition to allowing me to pay off the various bills that one accrues while being an adult.
I have worked constantly since I first became a bagger with the Food Lion in Portland where I unexpectedly set a trend of working in grocery stores for seven years straight; moving from Food Swine to Wal-Mart in 07 when working conditions drove me to find a new (better paying) job.
I have worked since my sophomore year of high school, and I can count the weeks of vacation that I have taken on one hand.
These seven years have been both good and bad for me. On one hand I learned the value of the dollar (more often than not the hard way), I established a solid work ethic, have become more assertive and less tolerant for bullshit and laziness, and I am now more of a leader than a follower. On the other hand, my joints have developed athletic arthritis, most notably in my knees from the constant repetitive and often physically stressful work.
Now that I am out of college with a degree in hand, I began my search for a job that I can put my five years of college to use. About a month ago I went to a technology conference and gave my resume to several job recruiters, one called Apex, thought I was just the right fit for their client. It was for this opportunity that I sheared off my long hair. Thus began a month long process of interviews and waiting for results. As of 11 AM today the process has ended, and I will officially bid grocery stores a fond farewell at the conclusion of my final shift at Wally World on the 27th of this month. The next day I will begin my first “real” job as a Network Operations Analyst for Asurion.
Soon I will have to retire my work tools for they will no longer be necessary. Some of them like my box cutter have been with me for the majority of those last seven years. I have had this particular box cutter, along with several others, for six years now. It looks like I will have to find some way of transferring my reputation of being “Evil Eric” to the new job, because there’s no way I want that nickname on a name badge to wither away.
I have no idea what the future holds, but what I do know is this is just the beginning.
Cheers,
The Great Prophet Eric/Bazooka Bob
Yes, that is the really name badge that I wear at work. |
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