Bullets from the Bulletproof

I love Luke Cage. I came to it blind, having never read any of the comics in the past, and that was a feeling to revel in. I did the exact same thing for Jessica Jones and was not disappointed, so it felt right to do the same for Luke.

It's an odd feeling; the excitement of something new in a space that I have grown up in. All of a sudden I have this opportunity to have the rug pulled from me and look at something completely fresh. I was not disappointed.

This however is not a review of Luke Cage, nor Jessica Jones or anything to do with MCU or DC. This is about me. This is a call.

This year has been a shit show, in fact I'm going to leave it to a much funnier Brit than me to sum up this year:

That's about right Mr Oliver. In fact I could literally create an entire blog on every definition of 2016. 

I could use alot of sociological background to talk about it, but that in the words of Zoe Washburne would be "too much foofarah"

I got words, and I got them because of my husband. To explain, we were having a tense conversation and he said to me, tearfully, "Baby, we all thought you were bulletproof." Thus the seed was sewn. 

I have been in near constant pain in one way or another since Dec 2015. It was bad enough to put me in hospital in January 2016 and I still have no diagnosis. I've had surgery and along the way been treated with disdain, contempt, disinterest, vagueness which has become straight up rudeness in most of my interaction with the NHS. I can count on one hand those medical personnel who have actually treated me with kindness and sympathy. 

When your own GP is banging his head on the desk at the way you've been treated, you know that something is truly rotten in the state of Denmark. The main issue is that not only are they not sure what is wrong but I have committed the sin of being overweight, eating a balanced diet and up until this all kicked off was steadily losing weight through a regime of Shaun T and Chalean Johnson. My sin is that I don't have high blood pressure, am not diabetic, anaemic or have high cholesterol. I know this because I've been tested for this all over 15 times this year. At one point I was told that my bloods were "surprisingly good".

I've had surgery, which added new symptoms and was unsuccessful. I couldn't work for 3 months and that ol pain is still there. Icepick sharp, stomach first, then down. It bites, crawls insidiously and pulls at everything from my waist down. Sometimes, it burns...almost like a xenomorph dripping its' toxic blood on nerves and muscles. Then the fatigue, a wave that wants to envelop you and shut you down. The world slips away and sparkles with bright painful light. You know that if you give in, its lights out so you fight it, with the little you have. I'll spare you the description of my menstruation.

None of this takes into consideration the emotional toil, the side effects of drugs, the weight of isolation and the pressure on family.

I wish I was Luke Cage. I wish I was bulletproof. 

I know that there are people out there suffering more than me. But we do that now, we diminish our pain, we judge it against a societal expectation that it's not enough, so it doesn't count. BUT it does count and it doesn't abide.

As I thought about this blog and a bulletproof black man in 2016 and the desire as a black woman to also be bulletproof and impervious to pain, I realised that actually Luke Cage isn't bulletproof. A combination of events changes the elasticity in his skin so he receives the impact differently. In a rudimentary sense, it bends. Just like Wolverine, it still hurts.

That's why I'm moved to write. When you are strong, people depend on it, they build structures around that interpretation of the truth, like Luke Cage is bulletproof. The reality is that I feel that strong people are pliable because they have battled; they are callused in places, bending and pushing back further. But it still hurts.

I have experienced what it is like when people think you are strong and then you have to be weak. You have to rebuild, the new callused flesh must take hold and some folks become afraid because you have to challenge that idea. Emotionally that's as much as the physical pain and that was depressing enough.

So...here I stand. I am facing another invasive surgery in 4 days. My lips tremble, I'm frightened and I'm writing about a superhero. I am fighting the enclosing dark using my treasured weapons of words, sarcasm and nerdiness. I want to be bulletproof but even in this state there are others I wish were more bulletproof able to withstand all that is being thrown at them right now. My lesbian friends in the US, my people here, the people in Aleppo, Syria, everyone scared by the rise of the right.

What I am trying to say is that people are more than a phrase. More than ever, we must remember that and we must fight. We must challenge our own ideas and thoughts, now more than ever before. It's not about being bulletproof. It's about combining and being there more than ever so the bullets won't be fired. Maybe the strong person needs to be held. Maybe we need to just stop the bullshit and be there more than ever for those struggling. It's also self preservation...we cannot just depend on ideas, we need to put boot to ass.

So I'm sorry I haven't blogged loads this year, but I haven't been asleep at the wheel. I've been dealing and now I'm confessing that I'm not strong. I'm callused but hopefully, I'm getting back up to fight whatever is coming. These words are a way for me to remind myself that I've got me and a reminder that we should have each other.

Thanks for your time, much love xx

Fuck 2016

"Never backwards, Always Forward"

The Tricksy Eye of Nostalgia - Who you gonna call?

I've been a bit under the weather of late but finally, I have been ruffled from my daze and have a bit of insight to share. For me, I’m never too sure what will be the thing that will push the sacred muse to dump her leavings on my head and then conjure up something that I am happy enough to commit to these pages. The act of writing a thought and translating it into something that I want to share, and ultimately that engages you, can at times be a breeze and at the same time, an excruciating experience whose symptoms resemble some kind of hitherto undiscovered disease.

But as the Nun said to the Bishop, let’s put our mouths in the right places to start things off. The rebooted Ghostbusters movie trailer was released yesterday to the inevitable sound of outrage and alarm (this is the internet after all folks!) I gave it a cursory glance yesterday amid the requests on social media for pitch forks, axes, and crowds of people to join forces to decry this awful misery. All in all though, at about 6am this morning, I had a wee look…and it was….alright.

I watched it again and let the thoughts marinade. The image that floated into my head like Slimer at a buffet was a memory of me watching the original trailer in front of my Dad. His words which came after a kiss of the teeth was, “Looks like tupidness” (This only makes sense if said in a disdainful weary Jamaican patois) The point is my Dad wasn’t the target audience, I was along with my little brother and I wanted the special edition toys that would feature in Shreddies and as for the image that showed spectral globes floating across a New York skyline, followed by exploding apartment windows, I didn’t know what it was about but Goddamn! I wanted it! I lost my shit in the playground and when I saw it, I could barely take it in. 

Now fast forward. I'm older, much older. Ghostbusters has become a traditional watch and my brother, The Instant Classic and I were having one of our usual film rants when he made an very interesting point, “Why is it that in a lot of 80’s movies, the people who do the right thing are punished?” Light bulb moment.

So I rewatched it properly with my adult eyes on and I find myself getting wound up. As a kid, I adored Peter Venkman, I thought he was funny and great but as an adult, an adult who has a great affection for Bill Murray, Peter Venkman is a douche. He is only out douched by Schmidt in New Girl but at least he knows he’s a douche. Peter Venkman basically engages in unethical ‘experiments’ to get dates, manipulates his friend into bankruptcy on a rouse. Don’t believe me, watch it again. Egon and Ray believe as scientists from their evidence, Winston comes around to belief through experience, “I have seen shit that will turn you white!” But for Venkman, it’s just another hook because we are all marks in the con and some of us will pay through the nose for it. The reason the Ghostbusters end up arrested is failure to comply with the Environmental Protection Act, think about it. Firstly let’s agree that Walter Peck is an idiot but the he actually had a point. He believed that Venkman was a con and that the containment facilities to hold the ghosts were dangerous and could be emitting dangerous chemicals and hazards into the environment. While closing the containment unit is the stupidest way to prove the theory, his claim could stand and he’s definitely right about Venkman even though he has no dick.
Here’s the thing, there are some 80’s movies which are a battle cry to stick it to the man. The ‘pencil pusher’ is the enemy to the man living the American Dream. So because of that you get Top Gun, a film where essentially Tom Cruise is told that he may not have the emotional aptitude to fly jets but does it anyway because….he’s a Maverick (yep the clue is in the name). You get Ghostbusters and others that at some point will talk about a loose cannon, not playing by the rules…but this is going into another rant so let’s get back to busting ghosts.
My point is that with a different, non-nostalgic gaze I started to see Ghostbusters differently because it’s NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME! That’s the kicker. Our childhoods are not sacred spaces, free from violation or closer inspection. When I was a kid I loved Ghostbusters, but I am not a kid anymore. I’m a grown ass woman, my world view is very different now. I genuinely have a bigger love for Egon Spengler and this is not because of the death of Harold Ramis. I appreciate his candor and that in fact some of the best lines from Ghostbusters are spoken by Egon, “Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.” 

Ray Stantz is enthused with a passion of someone who has discovered the awesome in the thing they love and makes no apologies. The fact that Dan Ackroyd has a huge interest in the paranormal is evident and if anything shows the passion that can come when you stick to the thing you love regardless of whether it’s cool or not. The Winston Zeddemore character feels like what would happen if I found myself in this situation, wanting not to believe but along the way having to question what you have been told. It’s strange to realise that your childhood favourite has to be relegated to last place because…life happens. And that’s the point. 

There comes a time when we need to put down the rose tinted spectacles of the past. The more I see on social media leads me to believe that because we don’t want to put these down so easily, we are caught in this cycle of outrage and disdain. “Not my Ghostbusters!” No it’s not yours anymore; in fact truthfully it was never yours. The original concept was a very different beast, not funny, very serious and the property of one Dan Ackroyd. Along the way, life and death changed the outcome to what we have today.
Here’s the thing. I guess that a part of me loves Egon Spengler, because I have become an old unapologetic geek. I might see the new movie, I may not. But either way it’s not going to remove Ghostbusters from the Essential Festive Viewing List in my house (along with Die Hard, The Last Boy Scout, The first 3 Indiana Jones movies, National Lampoons Vacation – yes vacation not Christmas keep up! And Scrooged) or the love I had for it when I was 7 years old.
Watch some of those precious movies again but do me a favour and take off the rosy specs. I guarantee you will find some different things happening, than what you thought as a child. Believe me I did. The Fox and the Hound became even more depressing, Say Anything has such a sweeter deeper significance, 16 Candles….oh god it’s rapey, Dirty Dancing.....did not see such feminist context until now but damn! That’s the thing about films that I love, the ability to see so much more with each viewing, to bond, to laugh and get angry.
My Dad did watch Ghostbusters by the way….at the time he loved it. It’s amazing what happens when you open up and give something a chance, even when it looks tupid.

“Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…”

So this morning, I'm browsing through the headlines on my phone while debating how to spend my day off with my daughter and I come across a story that Chris Rock has filed for divorce from his wife of 18 years. After that were a few examples of some of the things that he had said about his marriage during the course of some of his most memorable shows. I look at these barbs and there is a splinter in my mind.

I put the phone down and after a few hours, here I am. Funnily enough this blog began life as a soliloquy to geek marriage but in the face of this news, I feel there is more to be said.

I am married. We've been married for 7 years and I was never the kid who wanted the Disney princess wedding dress…I was far more interested in the level of buffet to be honest. Coming from a background where my parents divorced painfully (TV Movie in the works kids!), my maternal grandparents divorced in spectacular fashion and the few who were married didn't seem to be having a good time, I was not the biggest fan of it.

Good marriages were on TV and when I looked around; my life bore no resemblance, so I settled into the idea of anything but. Until I met someone, not my husband but this guy actually opened me up to the idea of marriage as a possibility. That being with someone did not have to resemble something not dissimilar to Platoon or Apocalypse Now. Ironically this relationship burned bright and ultimately out but I am grateful for the fact that he challenged me and allowed me to see the good in marriage and not the shit that I was told about marriage.

One of my best memories as a child is listening to my parents and relatives listen to comedians. Drinks would flow and my cousins and I would be sent to bed whereupon we would sneak and sit on the stairs, high up so we couldn't be seen and listen to them cackle to Richard Pryor. As much as I loved Richard Pryor though, Millie Jackson was a legend to me. It was the idea that a woman could be as coarse as Richard Pryor, so candid and then give great voice, was mind blowing. I fully appreciate that in these formative years my taste towards the coarse was assured.

As I have grown naturally so have my tastes and my life experiences tend to reflect the people I like. Lately though, I began to wonder about the relationship between the reality and the product. If your export is misery and despair then where is the line, does entertainment feed into and thus create the reality? I think of this when I think of some of the comedians that I like now, Kevin Hart, Louis C.K, Bill Burr and Chris Rock. I have seen their recent shows and laughed like a loon for the most part. But when it comes to the parts about marriage, my laughter isn't as raucous.

With the exception of Bill Burr who recently got married, the other comedians have or are going through divorce. Chris Rock, especially in the last few years has spared no amount of vitriol about the institution, I mean the signs were there, the guy made a film called “Why did I get married?” so we can’t say that we didn't see if coming. However whilst watching Chris Rock and Kevin Hart perform, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of annoyance, this idea that they had been hunted down in the jungles of singledom and then been bound, gagged and fucked into ‘I Do’. The moans about the changes and mundane, the kids and the ‘time served’ plus the need to cut loose with the guys and remember the man they sacrificed in order to be married…I would find myself looking around thinking, “Are you all hearing this?” and the audience lap it up, some of the guys are nodding in that “Yeah bro, I know exactly what you mean!” While partners sit there smiling but confused, should I laugh at what I am, how you see me or how you see us is engraved on features. At least Louis CK and Bill Burr say upfront that they do not come into this arrangement perfect, Louis CK is one of the few comedians to say outright that men are the biggest threat to women.

I know that Chris and Kevin are not the only comedians to talk about marriage in this way. The light hearted antics of Michael McIntyre to Lee Evans are littered with the typical “Oh ain't married life a pile of wank fellas eh eh ain't it?!” I guess what I am saying is that there is an icky feeling surrounding marriage and some of these comedic routines have normalised bad ones as the norm. 

These are bad marriages for whatever reason. Somehow, this is what you are supposed to expect and this is the most apparent when you are out with your spouse. I have sat across from people in a pub as my husband hugs and kisses me, who are gobsmacked that a) we are married b) we have been married over 2 years c) we have a kid and d) most damning, we have sex. It is literally like we are a new species.

In my circle of friends, I am not alone. There are 6 married couples that we chill out, game and get drunk with, and at some point we have had the same conversation about the expectation of misery and the men of the piece seem pretty damn happy, bring on the munchies and it’s like a weird blissful bubble that we look at the world through.

These are not the ‘smug marrieds’ of Bridget Jones. The women that I know don’t want to change these guys. They are not the bitch queens, needing approval, the blood and veins and of course the freedom on their men. The guys are not pussy whipped dullards, coming out with their hands up, handing over the keys, the laptop, the money, the dignity and their balls. These wonderful people are just awesome and the big thing is that they tend to be friends, first and foremost.

They literally rage against the dying of the light and do not cater to this idea of marriage. They travel, have fun, build Death Stars out of Lego, play tabletop, bake mean cakes and cook like demons. They drink (a lot), party hard, are intelligent wise and so fucking funny and I love em to bits.

As for my husband, we once had a very serious walk out of the room argument about Keanu Reeves…no lie a literal shout match. He can be a right pain in the ass but guess who is just as much as a pain in the ass…that’s right folks. Yours truly.

I guess what I am saying is that I am sick of the alleged battlefield of marriage. I choose different comedy like Stephen Lynch, not a word about marriage but my god the horror about everything else. I do not subscribe that this is the way it has to be and I am choosing something different, living something different. Try being friends for a bit…if you cannot stand the person as a mate you would willingly have a drink, a pizza and watch a bad movie with then why the hell even bother?

Marriage is just not about that….it is so not what they tell you. Find the meaning for yourselves and for frell’s sake, be excellent to each other!

The Cruel Tutelage of Pai - Mei

I hang my head in shame because I see that it has been a long time since I have posted here. It's been a strange few months, in all honesty some of the things that I have seen have caused a great deal of despair and annoyance. In the midst of all of it, I genuinely wondered what the hell I could say on these pages to those who seek my words and take them in.

It seems that every time of late, that I go on-line, I see this wave of hatred in a place that I was once very comfortable in and a huge defender of. It is so hard to defend something you love when there are folks who just seem so damned determined to poison it. What am I talking about? Trolling.

I had the pleasure of seeing the immense Shane Koyczan over the Easter and was absolutely blown away. Shane was a triumph to behold but there was a point when the whole thing was about to be derailed. After 'The Impotence of Proofreading' by Taylor Mali, Shane began to recite, "To This Day", his well known poem about bullying. During the performance, a random drunken idiot shouted out. The dipshit in question had presumed that the Taylor Mali poem was an insult and then found it hypocritical to talk about bullying. 

The effect was awful, it froze Shane and at one point, he debated that he would end the night there. The audience responded with a standing ovation and what proceeded was a fantastic poem about Trolling. 

This was not supposed to be a tirade about trolling, about how it has become common place now to threaten rape to women over a difference of opinion about a comic or game, this is not that. This is just a call. We once said 'Do not feed the trolls' but in that, we left them beneath bridges to breed and manifest their filth, because they eventually leave the bridges and find their own food.

I just think that it is time for something else...a different mantra and deed as this monster has mutated into something so much more hideous...

One of my main takeaways from the night was the amazing effect of Spoken Word. I was blown away by some amazing talent that night and inspired.

I feel as if I have been collecting inspiration all around me and hoarding it for a rainy season. I see so much around that gets a reaction and then I sit in front of the keyboard or pick up the pen and the words don't flow or the images don't come or worse still they look like the demented scribblings of a thoroughly annoyed 5 year old.

So I have been struggling....yep flipping understatement. So how the hell to get out of it?! Well, I was raised on a steady diet of Kung-Fu movies...not Kick Boxer but the good stuff like Snake in the Eagle Shadow, Drunken Master the list continues on and on and I had a bit of a realization.

Some of the best bits of those movies is the infamous training montage...the bit where the hero is brow beaten and humiliated, their arrogance and anger laid before the feet of the master and then the real training kicks in. You know what I mean? The carrying stone buckets up a billion stairs, upside down push ups against boards, incense under your crotch while crouched, balancing bowls of water on your shoulders...the stuff that is probably the warm up for Shaun T's Insanity.

I love a good training montage, and grumpy trampy preferably drunken old dude with bamboo stick is an added bonus.

I recognised that my frustration is borne from a new level up and that I need to do more and train a bit harder.

So I am undertaking 2 30 day challenges, one for drawing and one for my writing. A mantra I can relate to is that the beginning of life is at the edge of your comfort zone, so I am going into these challenges with the aim to put the work on my creative muscles and focus on some things that genuinely bring me joy.

Time to stop hoarding inspirations and get to using it. 

There are loads and loads of these things out there. The 2 that I am starting from today are here courtesy of Tumblr and here courtesy of Pinterest.

I aim to have something exciting to show during the course of my challenges, so cue the music while I take a beating from Sam Seed and level up.

Review: Oculus Rift

Each year, new games are unleashed upon us. I’ve been a gamer for the majority of my life and despite a tempestuous beginning have settled into a great relationship with games. I am enjoying being at the point where I don’t need to own every new release under the sun (life takes priority ya know!) but most years, if I’m really frank about the whole thing, I can take or leave the majority. Then comes  the year where every game that makes you moist comes out at EXACTLY the same time!

Case in point: Bioshock Infinite…The Last of Us… Saints Row IV ….and of course Grand Theft Auto V …be still my beating heart. However, this is not a review of those games, but a review of a little gadget called Oculus Rift. A colleague of mine briefly introduced me to the idea some months ago, ending on the bombshell that he had lined himself up for a Developer Kit. Initially I struggled to get my head around the idea and was a bit concerned as what he showed me on screen looked amazingly like a cross between Jeff Fahey in Lawnmower man and Craig Charles as Lister in Red Dwarf ‘Gunmen of the Apocalypse.’

The concept for those not familiar is Virtual Reality but the specific focus of Rift is gaming. The thing that I love about Oculus Rift is the huge amount of backing on Kickstarter, it doesn’t seem to be a case of a bunch of developers telling the public to have the latest peripheral, but a case of people coming together and fans of the concept putting serious money behind it ($2,437,429) to get this off the ground and into production. It has been recently announced that on the back of this investment, a further $16,000,000  led by Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Founders Fund and Formation 8 has been given to fund development.

So, back to my fellow gamer dude who managed to acquire Oculus and call me over for a view and a quick play. First impressions is that the headset was nowhere near as cumbersome or heavy as the original Virtual Reality headsets of days gone by. To be honest with you, I didn’t know what to expect and I buckled up and turned everything on.

The set up is very straightforward and I closed my eyes as the Rift was put over my head. When I opened them again, I couldn’t help but gasp. Immersive is a word that is so often overused but bloody hell other words just fail me. I was looking at a very basic scene, a new build house with a door and I was standing outside, but it was when I looked up at the sky which was changing that I felt blown away. It was completely seamless, no pixelation, nothing to indicate that everything you see completely surrounds you.

Awe doesn’t quite cover it. I just wasn’t ready

It has been announced in the last few weeks that EVE:Valkyrie when released in 2014 will include the ability to play in  multiplayer dogfight mode with the Rift. To be honest, I know I’m gonna get blowed up to high heaven on a continuous basis as I will be too busy taking everything in to flip a switch or engage an enemy.

Games have improved in terms of quality, viewing pleasure and story over the years. Whilst attending a conversation with Joss Whedon one of the attendees asked about Joss venturing into gaming and then implied, in dismissive tone that he wouldn’t sink so low, because gaming wasn’t really up to standard. As I beat the audience member to a pulp with a handily stashed Xbox 360 controller, Joss did say that you couldn’t write off gaming as there is a wealth of games with excellent stories, some of which put movies to shame.
The point is that while I was there, Rift firmly attached to my head, trying to touch fireflies that flittered past my face and brush away falling leaves, my brain couldn’t wait to apply this to my game experience. The sheer idea that this could evolve enough for me to look through the eyes of a certain chief, call sign 117 and gaze across the landscape….chills down my spine does not quite cover it.

The interesting thing about Rift is about patience. Too many Companies set out to rush things out in time for the summer/Christmas rush. The beauty of the Rift is that time is being taken to get it perfect and the consumers are happy to wait. Who the hell wouldn’t? The child in you will want this now, yesterday, NOW! But the adult in you will be happy to wait for time to be taken to execute an excellent project.
As Team Fortress 2 is available to play using Oculus Rift, please enjoy my latest boozy contribution, via those wonderful folks from The Drunken Moogle

Jarate -Team Fortress 2 Cocktail – Courtesy of the foine folks at The Drunken Moogle
Ingredients
1 Litre of Cloudy lemonade
2 cups of Vodka
1 Cup of triple sec
1 can of twisted tea or 12 oz of another dark tea drink (Add or use less for desired darkness)

Directions: Mix all ingredients together and distribute in mason jars to properly gross out your friends and confuse them as you chug it down.

"Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might wanna look to that."

About a few years ago, I spotted my really talented and awesome friend Derek Bremner, who was sporting a “Joss Whedon is my Master now” T-shirt. Only the deep resounding love I have for Del (combined with the fact that the t-shirt would look a little bit like The Hulk on me), stopped me from ripping this from him and claiming the spoils as my own.

That was a few years ago. Fast forward to 12^th June 2013 and I am hot, bothered and fidgeting with anticipation at attending ‘A Conversation with Joss Whedon’ at the BFI Southbank.

Joss Whedon is someone whom I greatly respect. Back in the day, I came home one night from a very late gig to see the end of Buffy and watch as she finally had sex with Angel and then to my horror, watch him become Angelus….roll credits..Say what now?! I had initially avoided Buffy. The film was still fresh in my mind and I didn’t relish the idea of watching said cheerleader in varying degrees of live action Scooby Doo and the gang type adventures.

 

Talk about getting it wrong. One of the amazing things about Mr Whedon is having the ability to know what it is we want to see. We see that thing and then we need to see more. I wanted to hate Buffy but how the hell could I? Don’t get me wrong, there are episodes where I have been very tempted to find Mr Whedon and ask him what the hell he is playing at (see Season 4, Riley arc in particular, exception Hush) but then he comes up and delivers not only the things I need to see but forces me to watch the things I really didn’t want to. You have to be a stone cold sonofabitch not to melt at ‘The Body’.

So here I am and so it begins and I won’t go into a blow by blow about everything he said. What I can say is that being in his presence is inspiring. He talked about his despair about the lack of great females characters in television and movies. That for all the Buffy achieved, we still haven’t got there. He spoke of the fact that especially in the horror franchise, we just have characters that seem to be cannon fodder who we don’t engage with, we just watch them get hacked to bits. And then there was Firefly…

I initially was a huge sceptic about Firefly, probably not helped by my husband describing it as Space Cowboys by Whedon……not impressed. Then I saw the first episode, well the end of the episode where said villain is monologing and just when I was thinking, “Why does no-one ever just shoot these guys in the head or something?!” Captain Mal Reynolds blows said villain out of the airlock. This assured 2 things, firstly that I would have a penchant for Nathan Fillion (reconciling my fear of him from Buffy Season 7) and a swift reminder not to underestimate the power of the Whedon. I watched and loved it and was gutted when it was cancelled but with the help of my fellow geeks and Whedonites, I got to a happy place about the whole thing, assuring myself that at least it never stayed around to get shit. Then Joss went and ruined it all.

Hearing him talk about it, adding the emotion of this fully formed show that didn’t have to become something, because it was already there was just heart-breaking. It was like going thru the whole thing again as he charted the rise and fall of Firefly. I could not help but shake my fists at the world and ask, “Why God wwwwhhhhyyyyy!”

You could listen to Joss be insightful and self-deprecating and well, just pretty damn awesome for the entire night. It was a tremendous experience, which merely happened through a twist of fate but the best thing to come out of it was the answer to a question. The question was the typical, “How do I be a writer and get into the industry?” It’s a question that the world never stops asking of people like Joss, how did you do it? How come you got there? Gimme the guide, gimme anything?! And I once again had to bow to this man for what he said, “If you want to be a writer then why aren’t you writing? You have to do it. There are so many avenues now so just do it, write, get your stuff out there.” Just like that…BOOM! This is a guy who has had varying degrees of success. There are a lot of ‘couldn’t happens’ that come along with Joss. I remember hearing when he was originally touted as the director for Avengers the naysayers queued up in droves. For a second I held my breath because I knew that if he blew this then that would be it.

That night inspired me to keep going, to put my words out there because it’s something that I love to do and am pretty good at. The sheer tenacity of the man, made me fix the hell up, stop being afraid and put pen to paper for an audience. So here I am, my mind now fixed on watching some Firefly but mainly grateful for the experience of listening to the insights of a great writer.

Enjoy my latest alcoholic offering while remembering that I can kill you with my brain….so just to be safe look out for my next blog.

Sereni-Tea (Firefly/Serenity cocktail) – Courtesy of The Drunken Moogle

Ingredients:

1oz Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka

¾ oz Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced Rum

¾ oz silver tequila

¾ oz gin

1oz sour mix

Sweet Tea

Coca-cola

Lemon

Directions: Shake all ingredients, except for the sweet tea and cola, with ice and pour in a highball glass.  Top off with an even mix of cola and sweet tea and garnish with a lemon wedge. Toast to the Independents and drink up! This variation of the classic Long Island Iced Tea cocktail is also known as Browncoat Tea.

I Swear By My Pretty Floral Bonnet, I Will End You..

When I revamped and started writing this blog, I promised myself that this time I would not be overly concerned with sticking to one subject. I did myself a complete disservice by trying to keep my last blog strictly craft and food. Now that hasn’t disappeared and I have a few ideas on some craft and food ideas that I want to share, but I found the scope was just too limited. I feel better in writing from wherever and whatever feels best, so from Gaming to Geekdom, comics, food, craft, movies and all stops in between, I endeavour to put write about what feels good and maybe sometimes what doesn’t. That can only be a good thing.

So San Diego Comic Con has come to a close this week….and once again I feel wretched for not being there but at least this time as the doors close, I feel a glimmer of hope that I could actually get there in years to come. This initially started life as a way to vent the frustrations of being a woman who geeks, my annoyances and a list on all the things that suck and really get on my last nerve. But I have to say that maybe it’s the strange London heatwave mixed with some of the instagrams I have seen from #SDCC.

Maybe it’s Seth Green and Nathan Fillion and a brilliant Venture Brothers cosplay that I saw. Whatever it is, I just don’t have that vitriol in me right now…at least not this time.

Instead I find myself feeling hopeful and I am fully prepared to admit that this is purely down to seeing a poster of the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past movie, but I want to take the time to say a word of thanks.

Being a geek in whatever form that may take is a freedom. If you spent a lot of time in childhood and adolescence feeling like everything around you resembles a shoe that is 2 sizes too small, then climbing the mountain, getting to the cave and seeing someone huddled by the fire who just happens to hum the Firefly theme fills you up.

It still happens to me. I am 35 and when I meet someone who likes a selection of the things that I love, from the on-again-off-again of Katchoo and Francine to the mayhem of Preacher, it still feels like hot tea on a freezing cold day. In a world of folks going on about North West Kardash, it feels good to roll your eyes and look to see someone else thinking, “Wouldn’t you just kill for a Firefly rerun right now?”

We know that there are people out there who just don’t like women identifying themselves as Geeks. They think we are playing at it or just have seen Big Bang Theory too often. When you get to the professional level, there are still those that think we do not have enough to say or that for some reason, as eloquently pointed out by Joss Whedon a few months back when I saw him, Men are not interested in what women have to put on screen or in a comic, but then expect the same women to be interested in what men have to say and do. We know this. But sometimes I feel that in focussing on this, we miss the opportunity to say Thank you.

Thank you to those comic shop owners and workers who do what they can to make sure that a raft of people don’t feel even more awkward and ostracized. I know that I can cynically say that, of course it’s in that person’s interest to engage me as I have greasy pounds in my pocket that they want. However, I have walked into shops where the dipshit behind the counter couldn’t give a rat’s arse if I had £1,000 to spend, as far as he was concerned, “What do you want? We don’t sell Look-in!” or “The Archie comics are over there” without as much as a look up from the greasy pages of Fangoria. Luckily I found another shop that was more than happy to let me know what happened when Hardcase and the Harriers met the X-Men and in a twist of fate the other shop went out of business. Unfortunately, a few years later so did the nice one. So thank you, for every dumb bloody question you have to endure and every really ridiculous request, thank you…..you guys deserve a medal and a ceremony, a bit like the end of A New Hope would suffice.

 

A big thanks to the people who didn’t assume that on the way to finding the shoe shop, I just happened to walk into a comic shop and proceeded to while away the hours getting into a very heated discussion as to the wonders of Top 10 and Fables.

How clichéd is it to wheel out the old ‘With great power comes yadda yadda” but the clichés have this annoying thing of being true a lot of the time and I am aware of that more and more with younger folks around me. When I see them in shops, I do my best not to write them off as a collection of Lumpy Space Princesses. I do what I can, if the opportunity presents itself to show them to something different….try a little Authority perhaps, maybe in a few years you’ll be ready for Preacher and then there’s My Monkey’s Name is Jennifer…..

It is an odd and liberating thing to give yourself the geek title. It means so many different things to so many different corners of the world. Embrace and disdain go hand in hand because from that point on, the world and your place in it is changed. I guess that’s my two pence, a word of thanks to all of those out there combined with a word to visit a comic shop when you can. Ok it can be a bit strange and I cannot guarantee things won’t get a little odd before you leave, but I promise you, by my pretty floral bonnet, it really is worth a look see.

 

Now for that drink

Rampancy Cocktail – Courtesy of Clint Slowik

Ingredients

1 part Chambord
½ part Grenadine
2 parts Alize Wild Passion or Gold Passion
2 parts UV Pink Lemonade Vodka
1 splash Aftershock
Raspberry Ginger Ale (UK: methinks here add some fresh raspberries and ginger ale)
2       drops of red food colouring

Directions:

‒       Pour Chambord followed by Grenadine over ice in a hi-ball glass.

‒       Float the Alize then the UV pink vodka and lightly pour the Ginger Ale to fill the glass (adding the raspberries for the UK folks)

‒       Finally add the Aftershock and the drops of food colour

‒       Proceed to lapse into Rampancy