500 words into Chapter 23

I am writing about the night that I stormed out the door of our apartment without telling my wife where I was going, because not even I knew where I was going. And how I wound up in Raleigh at my best friend's door at 10 at night. God only knows how I made it to the highway without crashing the car at the high speed I was going at.

This is the part of bipolar disorder that I hate the most. Asking God why He let me have something like this when it destroyed my capacity to think clearly or to have empathy to others. When I know that's not the way I really am at all.

Hating the things that I've done to others, mental illness or not.

500 words into Chapter 23. I started it yesterday afternoon.

This is going to take awhile.

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Son of ex-slave and Union soldier passes away (you read that right)

It's stuff like this that never ceases to fascinate me.  These things impress upon us that so much of our history... isn't that long ago after all.

Luke Martin, Jr. passed away a few days ago in Raleigh (that's the capital of North Carolina for those who might not know that).  Mr. Martin was 97.

He died 179 years after his father was born.  His father, by the way, was a former slave who escaped to freedom and then fought in the Civil War as a soldier in the Union army.

Fox News has more about the life of Luke Martin, Jr. and his father.

It wasn't all that uncommon for soldiers on both sides of the conflict to, long years later, marry much younger women.  A lot of it was because of the considerable pensions that soldiers received.  But the general consensus is that there was never a lack of true love in such relationships.  Many of which produced offspring such as Mr. Martin.

He died the other day and he was one generation removed from the greatest and most trying  war in American history.  A war that ended 150 years ago this year.

Think about that.

Historian though I be, it honestly astounds me that we could have that kind of connection to the past in our own day and age.

I'm reminded of something else in this kind of vein: Samuel Seymour, who at age 96 appeared on television (along such notables at the time as Lucille Ball) in 1956 to describe how he witnessed John Wilkes Booth assassinate Abraham Lincoln...



Gotta appreciate the pronounced presence of Winston cigarettes and the can of Prince Albert pipe tobacco in that segment, aye?  That's something nobody could get away with on television today.

It's been suggested that some people living today, perhaps even born in the 1960s, could live to ages approaching 200 years old. Can you imagine someone old enough (like myself) telling his great-great-great-great grandchildren about watching on television the destruction of the Challenger (which was 29 years ago yesterday)?

I suppose that anything is possible.

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Newly-discovered planet has rings TWO HUNDRED TIMES BIGGER than those of Saturn

I won't apologize for the all-caps there.  I mean, we are talking about something of monstrous proportions here...

Four hundred-some light years away is the recently-discovered exoplanet J1407b.  Its parent star kept blinking in and out of view.  Astro-boffins went to work on the case, doing analysis of light patterns and spectroscopy and all kinds of stuff like that.

What they found is that J1407b, a young planet with about 40-50 Jupiter masses, boasts a massive, MASSIVE ring system.  One that is more than 200 times larger than the one Saturn has.

Here's what it might look like...

See that teeny dot?  That's meant to be J1407b.  Mind you, this is a planet already with 40 times more mass than Jupiter.  See those rings?  They're spread out over 120 million kilometers of diameter's worth of disk.

If J1407b was located where Saturn is in our solar system, not only would the ring system be very easily visible from the Earth, it would be significantly larger than the full Moon.

And yet, it's been calculated that this system of rings is made up of about the same amount of material as the Earth has.  Which is comparably small in the cosmic scheme of things.

Just when you think you can't imagine anything else, here is something confirming that, yes... there are things that we could not have imagined out there.

Mash here for more about J1407b, how it was discovered and all that jazz.

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I finally beat Zaxxon!

You might have heard about the Internet Arcade that Internet Archive fired up a few months ago.  All of those arcade games that we (or at least some of us) used to feed quarters into?  Well, almost 700 of them - as in the originals, not home console ports - are available to play for free in your web browser!  Which is a great thing because these games are a considerable part of computer technology history and Internet Archive is preserving them for posterity.

Well anyhoo, last week I visited Internet Arcade for the first time.  And something occurred to me: that maybe I could see if Zaxxon was in the collection.

Bit of info: Zaxxon was a game that Sega came out with in the early Eighties, and it's arguably the first video game to attempt a 3-D feel for the player.  As you fly your fighter jet/spaceship/thingy you can adjust the altitude, which you're gonna have to do because otherwise you'll smash into walls, energy barriers, homing missiles and the like.  The object of the game was to fly across one big space fortress loaded with obstacles, then a segment in space as you take on enemy planes, and then another fortress.  At the end of which is a robot that you have to destroy before it destroys you.

This is what Chris has been obsessed with
for more than thirty years.
The boy needs to get outside more.

That is Zaxxon.  And I had been trying to take out that @%#$ robot since 1983.  Except that I haven't even been able to approach the droid, much less shoot his missile-arm to make him self-destruct.

Well, Zaxxon wasn't very hard to find at all.  After going through the instructions on how to play through the emulator, and a few mis-steps that required restarting the game, I was finally off again.  It's been at least fifteen years since I've found a Zaxxon machine to play on, so I was a little rusty...

...but on my third try, I got through to the robot.  For the first time in my life I got to see it after getting to it with my own efforts.

He destroyed me.  I played through again.  Still got to him, this time he retreated off the screen.

It was on my fourth trip through the fortresses that I blew up the missile before he could fire it.

It had taken more than 31 years but at long last, I beat Zaxxon.

The game re-started after that, with more difficult fortresses to fly through.  More aggressive obstacles like rockets and turrets aiming at me.  But by that point, I didn't care.  I had destroyed the robot and that's all that mattered.

(There was a sequel, Super Zaxxon, that was much more difficult and had the robot replaced with a dragon.  I never found that game anywhere, much less played it.  The original classic is more than enough.)

Maybe this is a sign or an omen.  You remember how Mister Miyagi told Daniel in The Karate Kid that a man who can catch flies with chopsticks can do anything?  Well, that's what Zaxxon has been to me: a fly that I've been doing my darndest to snatch out of the air for more than three decades.  And now I've done it.  Perhaps it's an indicator of things to come.

Or perhaps it just means that I've been sadly obsessed with a video game for all this time...

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Book update for mid-January

I think I'm getting back into the full swing of writing my book, at last.

I've completely re-written Chapter 1.  And I seriously hope that I'm not just seeing things but the more I read over it and how it flows into the rest of the manuscript, the better and better it's looking.  It sets up a much better tone for the book that follows.  It's more gripping.  It's more "me" than the original version was.  And that is what this project is about, isn't it?  Reaching deep down and translating my heart and soul and mind onto the printed page.  Being true to myself.  Sometimes that is going to hurt.  But there is also going to be a lot of humor too.

So the new first chapter is something I'm really stoked about more than I had become about the original.

The prologue has been somewhat re-written, but not drastically so.  I'm also looking for quotations to begin each chapter.  That... has proven to be a challenge.  With 21 chapters thus far however and only two of them lacking quotes, I've made progress but I'm also on the lookout for better ones.  Last night I did come across a quote that's perfect: it's a line from the classic novel A Canticle for Leibowitz.  Which is neat because that's one of my all-time favorite works of science-fiction.

Despite the lack of work on the narrative manuscript, I have still been writing the "interludes" as events pertaining to my manic-depression have warranted.  Last weekend was one such situation.  The interlude which resulted from it, if I'm allowed to keep it in the book, will probably disgust some people.  For what it's worth, it disgusted me.  This is a psychiatric illness, and it's not going to be pleasant no matter how much I might try to paint over it.  One of the reasons why I'm doing this book is so that it might evoke understanding about mental illness.  There are things which are extraordinarily rare in being discussed, and I'm going to delve into those.  Anyway, just going to let y'all know that there will be some harsh material in this, if it gets published.

I'm feeling better now.  The past two and a half months have been an experience which I would not wish on anybody.  There is still pain, still grief.  This weekend it was like I felt Dad's presence, encouraging me to continue with the book just as he cheered me on to begin it.  I'm not rushing into this: so many friends have discouraged me from charging headlong into writing it again.  I'm just letting things proceed as they should.  But it really does feel great to be back behind the keyboard again and writing something, for my book.

Last night I wrote two sentences for Chapter 22.  So it's off and running.  I'll try to write more today...

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Reidsville's $30,000 monument to madness

So my hometown of Reidsville, North Carolina has decided to ultimately remove a nationally-recognized statue with more than a hundred years of history, and let it instead be replaced with a horror straight out of H.P. Lovecraft...

"We'll tear your soul apart!"

Brief recap: almost four years ago the Confederate monument in downtown Reidsville was toppled and smashed by an errant driver.  The statue of the Confederate soldier atop the monument fell and broke into pieces.  The damage wasn't irreversible however, and it was determined that the statue and the monument could be repaired and restored to normal.

Reidsville's Confederate Monument
at it's original location

That's how things should have worked in a sane world.

But former dictator mayor James Festerman would have none of that.  On his own, Festerman decreed that the monument would never go back up.  That, despite a huge outpouring of support from the community for the Confederate statue to be repaired and returned to its rightful place.  Hizzoner Festerman declared that the monument was "controversial", nevermind that it had occupied the location sine 1910 and there had been no opposition to it in all of that time.  Festerman was just pulling that out of his [REDACTED].

So the "leadership" of the City of Reidsville had its way, and though the Confederate monument was eventually repaired it was relocated to a nearby cemetery.  In its place at the roundabout on Scales Street the city installed a wretchedly ugly planter and then for the past two years or so it's been a Christmas tree.

And now in place of the Confederate monument, the City of Reidsville has decided it will erect the eldritch abomination that you see above.  Allegedly a water fountain, the creator of which has titled it "The Bud".

More often than not it's being called "The Thing".  Local writers are describing it as something out of the Alien movie franchise (it definitely has that open-egg look going for it).  Or like a prop from a Clive Barker "Hellraiser" film.  I can't print what one person told me it looked like (it's that obscene).  I should recite incantations around it when it goes up and try to summon Cthulhu with it.

Incidentally, this "work of art" which looks like third-rate H.R. Giger is going to cost at least $30,000.

Generations to come should remember it as "Festerman's Fountain": a monument to the most indolent, apathetic, indifferent and tyrannical city government in Reidsville history (and that's saying something).

Seriously: twenty years from now people will be looking at that eyesore and wondering "what the #&@$ were they thinking?!"

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Watch it now: the legendary CNN "end of the world" video

One of the things I've always wanted to do with this blog is post interesting stuff.  Or at least those things that are intriguing to me.  Admittedly, that has slacked off a lot in the past several months.  Between writing my book (a project that devoured most of 2014) and then Dad's passing a month and a half ago, this hasn't  been the best of times to even look for neat/odd material, much less post about it.  Maybe I can do better about that in the coming year.

And fortunately good friend Scott Kelly has come to the rescue with something to kick it off with:

Cue James Earl Jones voiceover: "THIS... was CNN."

I first heard weird stories about "the CNN doomsday tape" around the time of the Gulf War in 1991.  Allegedly, CNN founder Ted Turner has made a video that would be the very last thing that his cable news network would broadcast before the end of the world engulfed all of mankind in hellfire, brimstone, plague or zombie apocalypse.  The plan was that when the very last CNN employee was left alive in the building, the "play" button would be hit and this would be the final thing that whatever viewers were left would witness on CNN.

Turns out it's not so much a legend.  And CNN employees have known about it for years.  However, this is the first time that the video itself has found its way into public purview.

Jalopnik has a great write-up about Ted Turner's end-times CNN tape, which is still within the network's video archive listed as "TURNER DOOMSDAY VIDEO" under strictest orders that it not be broadcast "till end of the world confirmed".  Included in the article is the video itself: of a military band playing "Nearer My God To Thee".

In a really odd way it reminds me of the night of 9/11.  My best friend was working in the CNN Building in Atlanta at the time, and all evening we were talking back and forth on AOL Instant Messenger.  It was really something to be hearing directly from the bowels of what was almost certainly the most-watched news network in the world at that moment.  I've still got the log of that IM session somewhere.

I once heard that Orson Welles had recorded a radio broadcast meant for the end of the world.  But I haven't been able to find anything about that.  Perhaps some reader of this blog will be able to enlighten me more about that.

Anyway, it's a good article.  Well worth reading if you're into matters of technological history.  Which is curious in this matter in that the video is still in 4:3 aspect ratio at standard definition, so if you don't have a high-def set you can still watch CNN cover Armageddon.

EDIT 6:47 p.m. EST:   I've watched this video a few more times and the more I think about it, the less funny it seems.

Consider: this tape was made in 1981.  Kids today don't realize how SCARY things were back then, at the height of the Cold War and the fear that any moment there would be nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviets.  1983 seems especially vivid: when the Russians shot down the South Korean airliner and then not long after when the TV movie The Day After aired.  The policy of mutually-assured destruction meant that both sides understood that an attack by one superpower would mean the destruction of each nation and with that it would almost certainly be the end of all civilization, everywhere.

We lived.  We laughed.  We had babies.  But above it all there was a lingering fear that somehow or another, The Button would be pressed by one side or the other and the biblical end times would be upon us just like that.  I was at a Christian school at the time and with few exceptions there was an air of paranoia among the faculty: as if it had to be drilled into our heads that Russia was the tool of Satan eagerly waiting to unleash an unholy salvo against America so we'd better "get right" with God before it was too late.

That was years before I came to understand that we enter into a relationship with God because we want to, not because we are forced into it by others.  But I digress...

So yeah: we went about our lives.  All the while knowing that nuclear war could erupt and that would be the end of everything.

Bearing that in mind, I could easily envision a scenario where before the bombs hit, a CNN employee might actually get confirmation that the nukes were inbound and that the network really was "signing off" for good.

So that said, this really is a fascinating and legitimate artifact of the 1980s.

EDIT 7:07 p.m. EST:  Maybe I should do something like that for this blog.  Like, have a YouTube video embedded in a post ready to be deployed for when the nukes fall or the undead overwhelm us all.  Or at least a "final post" that friends will unload upon my demise.  What do y'all think?

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A joyful Christmas despite myself

Here I am, the day after Christmas 2014.  And I'm only writing this because a lot of people were praying for me yesterday, that I might get through this holiday.

Grief is hard enough already.  It's especially heartbreaking when it comes so close to the holiday season and you see that empty chair at the table.  It's not something that I haven't experienced already.  Mom passed away three days after Christmas three years ago, and because of that there was already a shadow cast over Christmas and New Year's.  On my 26th birthday we buried my grandmother: something that I'm always reminded of on that day of the year.

This year has been more excruciating than anything I was prepared for.  Because it's so fresh.  Because it's only now sinking in that Dad is gone and is not coming back, no matter how many times I keep expecting him to come through that door every morning, or whenever I see his truck parked at home and find myself thinking that he's inside playing with our dog.

For the several days and maybe a week and a half before Christmas, I was doing pretty well.  Our theatre guild was in the midst of its production of It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical and being around so many people - people who I have worked with before and people who I only now have had the pleasure of making friendships with - was a pick-me-up that I sorely needed more than I'd realized.  And then the show ended this past Sunday and just like that the joy began leaving me.

Let me be more succinct: I knew what was coming and I did not want to have to go through it.  But Christmas was coming, and I had to bear it.  I'm not the only one going through this either: two very dear friends and their family are also going through this holiday season without their mother, a wonderful woman who passed away a month before Dad did.

Tuesday was hell.  Christmas Eve I was assaulted with a lot of thoughts that I cried to God to please take away.  Thoughts about Dad.  Thoughts about being alone, not in the "no friendships" way.  It has been my dream to be a husband and a father for so very long and only now have I been able to reach a state of mind that could let me have that... but I've missed a decade and a half of life because of mental illness and having that happiness seems further away than ever.

It has been a hard thing to be without Dad in other ways too, because he really was supporting me as I wrote my book.  I lost a lot of dependable work this past spring because of an extended bout of severe depression - enough to keep me from writing a word for a major project - and I've been struggling ever since to make up for it.  For now, let's just say that I'm scraping by.  But in a very weird way, I'm thankful for where I am at the moment.  It has re-taught me about the things that do matter most in life.  I am realizing more than before that for all of my circumstance right now, that I am better off than a lot of people who suffer from mental illness.  I may not be where I want to be, but God is providing for me and I'm not having to go hungry.  It is teaching me to rely on God more than I ever have before, and I am thankful for that.

I had no idea that poverty could be so much fun!

(Okay, forget I said that.  It's NOT exactly "poverty".  A tremendous lack of previous resources perhaps, yes... but I'm eating and get to stay warm at night and have a roof over my head: something that too many people in this world can't get to say that they have.)

All of those regrets and more came upon me on Christmas Eve and I desperately wanted to flee them.  I took my medication early that night and tried to go to sleep.  It only lasted until 1 in the morning, at which point I took MORE medication and tried to let it work.  By 8 it was clear that nothing had worked.  Only breakfast at my aunt and uncle's place at 9 brought direly-welcomed respite from the sadness and despair.  I got to have a little Christmas after all.  In fact, it was a Christmas that will go down as one of the most memorable of my life.

Then I came home and took even more medicine and crawled into bed and curled up in the fetal position and waited for the day to end.

I don't know what made me wake up at 4 in the afternoon.  Maybe it was Tammy - my dog - scratching at the door to go out for "relief".  I took her out and when I came back the urge to talk to someone... to anyone... overwhelmed me.

I went on Facebook and asked people to please hold me up in prayer right then, because I was needing it.  And then I spent the next three and a half hours on the phone talking to some especially close friends.

And after that, I came away feeling the most uplifted, encouraged and spiritually renewed than I have been since well before Dad died.

One friend, someone who is as close to me as a sister, told me something that I hadn't thought of: that Dad and Mom were having their first Christmas together in three years.  And that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus and that now Mom and Dad get to celebrate Christmas in the presence of Christ Himself.  She also told me something else: that Heaven really is closer to us than we realize.  We just can't see it with eyes on this earthly shore.  But our loved ones are there, they really are.  Which is funny, because a second friend shared that same thought with me just as many weeks ago.

During a conversation with another friend, he shared an essay with me, about grief during Christmas time, and a reminder that though we may grief, our grief is not that of this world.  Still another friend reminded me that I am unbelievably blessed with friends and family... and friends who are close as any family can be.  As Clarence Oddbody told George Bailey: a person with friends is far richer than anything that money can provide on this earth.

That's something too.  I had found myself asking God to please show me that my life did have purpose and meaning, that despite how things have gone that I might have a wonderful life.  I had secretly hoped for some direct message from Him.  In the end God didn't send a "second class angel" at all.  He sent people who are so very dear and precious to my heart, and in their own way they each helped to convey the precisely right message that I needed to hear.

Yesterday evening I ended up feeling joy and contentment and peace that I had not thought possible.  I felt cheered-up enough to spent the rest of the night comforted by the peace of God, that surpasses all understanding.

I even felt cheered-up enough to do something that earlier in the day I did not have any interest in at all: watching this year's Doctor Who Christmas special.  I'm glad that I did.  "Last Christmas" was like John Carpenter's The Thing meets Inception meets Miracle on 34th Street with a little dash of Alien.  Solid entertainment courtesy of the Doctor Who franchise.  I needed that too.

I let the rest of the night go on as I let the feeling of Christmas joy wash over me, and linger past midnight.  Then I went to bed, but not before thanking God for bringing me through the grief and letting me have joy on this holiday: joy that I hadn't ever expected and will remember for the rest of my life.

Let me put it this way: this Christmas was a Christmas of miracles for me.  I couldn't have gotten through it without the prayers of a lot of amazing people.  And I could not have come through it without God providing friendships and family who lifted me up exactly as I needed for them to do.  There have been a lot of instances this past month and more that I have seen timing happen in ways that can only be described as perfect.  Some of those involved loss.  This time, it was timing that led to me gaining something.  Something that aroused a greater faith in God than I had been prepared for.  That it came just in time for Christmas was the proverbial cherry on top.

Dad would want me to have been happy this holiday, even without his presence at the breakfast table yesterday morning.  He would want me to go on with my life, and to be happy and to keep finding happiness.  My friends encouraged me to know that there is still plenty of time to have the happiness that I have dreamed of having for so long... and I believe them.  One of these years, in the not too distant future, I hope that will be me sharing photos on Facebook of my children having Christmas morning.  I long to see Christmas through their eyes, just as Dad saw it through those of my sister and I.

This, was a far better Christmas than I was ready to be blessed with.  I don't think that would have been possible without some of the despair and depression that I went through on the way to it.  Maybe that is God's timing too: that I might have a lot of sadness before I could appreciate the joy.

I like to believe so.

This was one of the best Christmases that I've ever had.  I don't know how those in years to come will compare, but this Christmas is forever going to be part of me that I will take with me always.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go.  There is a handsomely-endowed gift card for Barnes & Noble in my possession that is screaming to be put to good use this afternoon :-)

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It's a very Dalek Christmas!

Okay, that's it.  I give up.  I didn't know how having a Christmas this year was going to be at all possible.  In light of everything that's happened in the past nearly two months, yuletide joy was something that seemed way past feasibility.  Although, I haven't begrudged anyone from having that.  Just feels like I'm on the outside looking in this year, is all.

But then before tonight's performance of It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical two young ladies who I've been working backstage with surprised me with a little something.  And as I told Joy and Makia, this has to be the sweetest thing that has happened to me since Lord knows when.

Look!  Dalek action figures from Doctor Who!

Joy and Makia spotted these in a nearby store and... well, words cannot possibly convey how touched I am to be given these by two such wonderful people.  As you can see that's the classic Dalek seen in "Genesis of the Daleks" from 1975 during the Tom Baker era.  Along with one of the utterly insane variants witnessed two years ago in "Asylum of the Daleks" from the midst of Matt Smith's reign as the Doctor.

I can't help but feel some Christmas cheer now.  It's A Wonderful Life is a story about how every life has meaning.  Your own life too.  Even if you can't see on your own how it could be.  In the end George Bailey discovered that he had riches that he never imagined, and right now - in the midst of where life has led me these past few months - being given these Dalek figures by two friends I've made through this production has let me feel much like George Bailey.

Incidentally, these are the very first anything of the Daleks that I've ever owned.  I've been a fan of them for almost as long as I've been watching Doctor Who (more than thirty years now) but for whatever reason I've never had any to call my own.  They now have a very special place of honor: on my "motivational table" on my computer desk, sitting next to the monitor.  It has things on it that I sometimes look at while I'm writing my book.  Already on it are Emmet and Wyldstyle minifigs from The LEGO Movie, and three expansion packs for the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures game (which will remain unopened and unplayed-with until my work on the book is finished).  Two Daleks in the fore of it all is going to be the cherry on top, 'cuz hey: it's tough getting more motivational than having two Daleks aiming their guns at you, right?

Thanks again to Joy and Makia for giving me a lot to smile about this holiday season :-)

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Currently going through a bout of depression...

Actually, it's a rapid-cycling episode that's been going on for the past two days.  I woke up yesterday morning, remembered that Dad was gone, went into sadness that suddenly plummeted into clinical depression (something that lacks any emotion whatsoever) and then got catapulted into a bout of mania where the sadness returned, got escalated beyond my ready grasp of things, and threw me into a somewhat paranoid state of mind.

This has been going on and off for the past 36 hours now.

So I'm looking forward to working backstage during tonight's performance of Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical.  Three more performances this weekend: tonight, tomorrow night also at 7:30 and then Sunday afternoon at 2:30.  Being involved in something like community theatre helps immensely, whether I'm on-stage or behind the scenes.  That's a really special group of people I get to collaborate with and it means a lot to have so much depending on me and on each other.

Speaking of the theatre guild, I'm planning on auditioning for a few more shows coming up.  It'll be the first time in four years that I would be on the stage.  One certain show has a particular role that I've got my eyes on bigtime, and everyone I've told it to have said: "Chris, that role fits you perfectly."  Let's just say that this character has issues and I've got issues and figure it out from there :-)

Okay well, in addition to the theatre the past few weeks (I don't know what's gonna happen when the production ends on Sunday, it's been so much fun!) there's been Tammy the Pup.  And I haven't posted nearly enough photos of her lately so here she is, my little girl...

I was lucky to catch her in one of her calmer moments :-)

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Classic SESAME STREET: Bert and Ernie's "The Gift of the Magi"

Good googeley moogely... it's been ages since I posted any Sesame Street clips!!  I think maybe at least two years, maybe longer than that.  How in the world did I overlook such timeless material?  Shame on me!

Time to make up for it.  And boy howdy, do I get to make up for it...

I was waaaay young when this aired but I vividly remember it.  It was part of a Sesame Street Christmas special from... I think it was 1980?  The other part of it that's still in my head is Big Bird sitting on top of the apartment building waiting for Santa, and wondering how in the world would the big guy get into those tiny little chimneys.

But this is the real highlight of the show: Bert and Ernie in an adaptation of O. Henry's classic holiday tale "The Gift of the Magi", as only Bert and Ernie can.  And poignantly, it also features Mr. Hooper.  Played by Will Lee, who sadly passed away later on in 1982 and subsequently became the subject of a very moving episode where Big Bird tries to come to grips with Hooper's death.

So here it is: Bert and Ernie and Mr. Hooper, reminding us that the beauty of Christmas is not in the getting, but in the giving.  I present to you, dear readers, with a most wonderful take on "The Gift of the Magi":

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The book: Moving ahead...

It was three weeks ago today that Dad passed away.  I'm still in a great state of grief, more than that even, about it.  There's a real shock that comes with seeing someone so close to you suddenly leaving you like that.  But I still believe that there was something of God's hand in how things played out.  If the circumstances had been slightly different in any of a thousand different ways, my family would not have had those sixteen days to be with him.  In the end, if God had to take him after so long a bountiful, fulfilling and loving life, it came about in what I can only call the best of all possible outcomes.

That said, I still grieve.  There is no small measure of confusion about certain matters.  And I would be remiss if I did not mention that there have been a number of times during these past three weeks that clinical depression has hit and coincided with that profound sadness.  I was going to visit a church this past Sunday morning but couldn't muster myself to get out of bed, much less be aroused to shave and shower.  That did eventually come, but by then it was too late to attend a service.

I don't think these things are really avoidable.  They're part of the process, and it can't be rushed through.  I don't think God intended them to be rushed through.  This is pain, and it cannot be averted.  But it will pass, and I know that Dad would want me to move on with my life and take everything good that he gave me with me along the journey.

It hasn't happened yet, not enough that I can really do it, but I'm coming to a place where I can begin work again on the book.  Maybe next week it will happen.  I haven't written anything serious for it since a few days before Halloween, five days before Dad had his stroke.  He had told me to take a break for awhile.  Here it is more than a month and a half later and the only thing I've done in the intervening period is re-write the prologue in a different tense and compose one very brief "interlude" meant for between the chapters.  And I did those mostly to get my mind off of things, for however brief a time I had.

Next week, I'm going to start tackling this again.  I'm pretty sure of it.

Like I said, this is a process and it can't be hurried through for my own sake.  But I do see the signs of healing.  The sessions with my counselor have become weekly, and in them I see markers along the way.  I have been learning some Christmas songs during my dulcimer lessons.  Last week I was asked to help backstage with the local theatre guild's production of It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical.  Tonight is opening night, and it has been a good thing for me to be around such a great bunch of people and working with them to pull off such an amazing production.  It has been a good thing for me to be around people in general, rather than cooped-up with nothing but my dog and the depression.  Okay, Tammy has been a great presence in my life during all this time and she's definitely someone who has shown me an amazing amount of love and understanding but, well... it helps to hear a real human voice too, ya understand...

This isn't going to be much of a Christmas season for me.  I think that's okay.  I was becoming too burned-out on Christmas becoming so over-commercialized anyway.  The previous six weeks have left my entire family exhausted, truth be told.  We are going to have a small get-together on Christmas morning and I will be watching the Doctor Who Christmas special that night and that will be it.  No giving gifts and I ask to not be given any.  All I ask of my friends and family is to hold each other close and thank God for being in each others' lives and be grateful for having things better than any of us could possibly deserve.  I won't be celebrating Christmas, for the most part.  And right now, that's fine.

This is a process.  Like life itself.  It hurts to go through this right now, but I am trusting God that this will be something that in the end will make me a stronger person.  I see it already.  And I believe that eventually I will see that this period of my life will have been not only for my own benefit, but for that of those close to me and for the sake of things like the book.

Speaking of which: my book now has a new title.

The idea for it hit me during the past few days, I think maybe Tuesday morning.  At first I thought it was too... I dunno... small, perhaps?  But the more I thought about it the more I realized that there is not only power in its brevity, but that it encapsulates a tremendous deal about the nature of bipolar disorder.  It also reflects a passage from the Bible that was invoked during Dad's funeral service: something pertaining to the nature of his handiwork.

I think it's the perfect title.  And I think Dad would like it too.

Dad wouldn't want me to linger in grief.  He would want me to move forward.  To "always think positive" as he was fond of saying often.  I still have hopes of marrying and having children, maybe someday I will get to see many a Christmas through their eyes.  If I can finish writing this book, perhaps there will be more.  My bipolar is becoming more manageable, I can see it held at bay by the medications and the counseling more than ever.

Dad got to see that, before he left us.  I like to believe that even if he didn't see it happen, that he knew that I would be okay.  That he got to see me come to the place where God has been leading me toward for all of this time.

And now it's time to honor him by living my life to its fullest as it's never been possible to do before.

Starting with finishing writing my book.

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You voted Republican last month? Why?

I'm going to say something right now, and I don't care if it offends ANY body.  If it happens to offend you, good: maybe you NEED offending to open your eyes...

There is NO difference at all between the Democrat and Republican parties and anyone who puts the SLIGHTEST amount of trust in one party or the other... and I'm going to single out those who support the Republican party especially... are worse than fools and idiots.

For the past few days I've watched the Republicans, AKA the party that was just elected to "fix things" in the House and Senate, PISS AWAY their alleged ideals and principles by caving-in to Obama and everything he's demanded, especially in the way of the "amnesty" for the ILLEGAL aliens who have BROKEN THE LAW and are STILL breaking the law in being here.

The elections last month mean NOTHING.  Think I'm wrong?  Watch the incoming class of freshman representatives: by and large they already support John Boehner: by far the most useless Speaker of the House in American history.  He has foiled efforts to reign-in the government at every turn.  In a sane country there would have been a vote of no-confidence in this a$$hole's "leadership".  And now the "conservative" leaders of the Republican party have given their alleged enemy Obama all the money he needs to fund shamnesty.  Boehner and his fellow "Republicans" have done NOTHING to end Obamacare.  And they never will.

To those of you who voted for the Republican party last month and seriously, seriously thought you were doing something to change the country for the better: what ARE you smoking?

You aren't doing a damn thing to turn around America by still voting for the Republican party.  Or for the Democrat party.  Or for ANY party.  We are in this mess because too many people... and yes some of YOU reading this... haven't engaged the brains that GOD Himself gave you and trusted you to use.  You thought that you could let a party of all things think for you... and this is where it has brought us.

You thought that voting Republican was your "Christian duty"?!  People who are that way are worse than useless.  De-friend me on Facebook if that honks you off too much.  I'm dealing with realities, not illusions.  There is no escaping from realities.

The reality is, too many of us have put faith in a thing of man, and not put a faith in God.  And then claimed that they are serving God by supporting something so corrupt as temporal politics.

Tonight I saw the "conservative" Republicans let this nation slide even further into turmoil and decay.  All that they care about is their position, is their power.  The elections last month mean nothing now and they will mean even less a few months from now.

This country is run by idiots who really think that they're doing something meaningful by throwing their trust and faith behind political parties who do nothing but sell out the American people at every step of the way.

God help us.

In so many words: we have been BETRAYED.  And we will consistently be betrayed, by those who are supposedly appointed to serve us.  By those who ASKED to serve us in the first place.

If THAT doesn't piss you off more than all of what I've written above, then you have significant issues as an American citizen.

Yeah, stop visiting this blog if you like.  Deem me your enemy if you wish.  I would rather that you not. But I also happen to appreciate more the company of those who refuse attempting to exist without the responsibilities of conscience.

And unfortunately, it seems there are too damn few of us left.

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Memorial video for Dad

On the night after Dad's passing, Anita (my sister), my aunt and uncle and I went through a ton of old photographs to use in the video that the funeral home would put together for the tribute that would play during visitation on the following night. Wilkerson Funeral did a very solid job in doing so and I wanted to share it on my blog.



I don't want to say which one, but there is one photo in here that seriously broke my heart to include. It was Dad's favorite photograph. It hung on the wall of his knife shop. Heck, it was the knife shop, the heart and soul of it. We knew we wanted it in the video, but it honestly hurt me to take it down on the morning before the visitation that night. It was like taking out the last lingering vestige of Dad's presence from his beloved shop.

Sometime soon, I'm going to have that photo framed and place it back where it belongs.

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The FORCERY Four, together again!

I don't know how else to put it, but there are some things that happened at Dad's funeral that despite the occasion were an amazing delight.  And I truly believe that Dad would have had no small measure of pride if he could somehow know that this celebration of his life brought so many wonderful people together to celebrate not only his own life, but also of the most precious things in all our lives.

During the service I spoke a few words about Dad and since the other ministers were sharing stories from his life, I did likewise and related some tales of how forgiving and relenting - even if he didn't understand what the heck I was doing - of the many stunts that I pulled during the life that we shared.  One of them was during the filming of Forcery: my first (and Lord willing still the first of many more to come) film project.  So there was Dad watching as we did things like setting fire to the living room floor of his house, having sledgehammers flying all over the place, "breaking" my best friend's legs etc.  Dad saw this one day and he started to leave.

"Are you headed out Dad?" I asked him.

"Uh-huh, way out," was his reply.  That got a good laugh from the very many who came to the service.

Well, as it turned out, Dad's funeral turned out to be the occasion of a reunion of sorts.  Because among those who came were Chad Austin, Ed Woody, and though it was a long drive for them Melody Hallman Daniel and her mother attended... and boy was my heart jumping for joy to see each of them!  Ten years ago we were all making Forcery.  And as things would have it, we wound up all together once again.

It hadn't been planned, but I really believe that it was something God let happen: the reunion of the Forcery Four.

So here - from left to right - are Ed, myself, Chad, and Melody (with her service dog Sasha) ten years later, just after Dad's funeral:

We don't look all that different than we did when we were making that movie, do we? :-)

And here they are, the stars of our show: Chad and Melody, AKA George Lucas and Frannie Filks:

For such a low-budget project, it is absolutely amazing where our little film has gone and has accomplished since then.  Melody shared how many of her former drama students and fellow faculty members come up to her to tell her they saw her in the Forcery footage that was featured in The People vs. George Lucas.  Chad and Melody were seen on the screens at Cannes.  Forcery was mentioned in Time and The Village Voice and a lot of other publications, and made a whole bunch of bigtime filmmaking-related websites.

I won't say that I myself am proud of Forcery.  Instead, I will say that I am proud of what we accomplished together.  We didn't become only friends because of Forcery: the four of us and others became a real family.  Chad and Ed, have long been my brothers.  Melody became as beloved to me as any sister.  And all of them brought amazing consolation to me when I needed it most.

That is what makes Forcery so special in my life... and it always will be.

But it better not be another ten years before we come together again!  We've already planned to reunite again and watch Forcery once more.  No doubt next time we will have even more family to share it with :-)

EDIT 11-27-2014 3 a.m. EST:  After attempting it multiple times and failing, I finally got Forcery, the entire movie, to upload as a single YouTube video!  No more having to jump to parts.  Here it is.  Enjoy!

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Taking Dad to the edge of the Jordan

Yesterday was supposed to have be one of the saddest days of my entire life. Yet here I am after Dad's funeral and I cannot help but feel like the most blessed, most overwhelmed with joy, most hopeful man in the world.

Mom and Dad's grave site,
the morning after Dad's funeral

This entire time, I believe Dad would have felt honored by every aspect of it. Anita and I had Dad dressed in his denim bib overalls, with a red plaid flannel workshirt beneath and in his right hand, just as it was often poised in life, his smoking pipe. He had often told Anita that if she had him wearing a tie he would come back to haunt her, LOL. Last night during the visitation we had a table set up displaying some of the many knives that he hand-made over the years. That was my aunt's idea, and it was a good one. A lot of people got to see some really amazing examples of his handiwork.

The service was, well... spot-on perfect. It was a time rife with tales from the life of Robert Rankin Knight. One of the officiating ministers was particularly fond of the time two and a half years ago when Dad (during his and Uncle Frank's epic/crazy cross-country drive to Arizona) was pulled over for speeding in west Texas. We still don't know what he was clocked doing, except that the speed limit was 80 MPH. Somehow Dad got off with a warning after chatting with the patrolman about his knifemaking. That was Dad awright: a peaceful demeanor and cheerful talking can go far.

As I said, the service could not have been better. Everything about it was a true testament to his memory. Something about having two Methodist ministers and a Holiness-turned-Baptist-turned-Presbyterian pastor officiating made it so right, somehow. Dad always said he wanted "Go Rest High On That Mountain" by Vince Gill played at his funeral, and Anita's two friends from her church did an amazing rendition of that song. I'm also glad that before the service, those who came got to see the memorial video that Wilkerson Funeral assembled. So many moments from such a beautifully-lived life.

But it was what came after the service, as we were on the way to the graveside ceremony, that impressed my heart with how much God blessed our lives with Dad, and how He is continuing to bless our lives, and my own especially. Even when I spoke a few words about Dad during the service, somehow I didn't see ALL of the people who were packed inside the church. That came later, when our family was in the limo and watching everyone file out of the church, and then as we met in the fellowship hall following the interment.  Words fail to convey how much my heart jumped to see Melody Hallman Daniel - AKA "Frannie Filks" from our movie Forcery - and her mother.  Denise, I am so very moved that you and Nick could come and join the celebration of Dad's life.  Ed Woody and Chad Austin: my brothers... Dad loved you as if you were his own sons.

To each of you and more who came to the funeral, who came to the visitation, who came to visit with us at the home during the past few days, who kept my family in their prayers thank you for honoring him with your presence: on behalf of my family, you haven no idea how exceedingly grateful we are for taking the time to be with us.

I will confess something: I am scared. I don't know what I'm doing, it seems like. But in the past several days God has been showing me that just as much as He blessed me with the greatest father that anyone could ever have, He has also blessed me... and is STILL blessing me... with the most wonderful friends and family that anyone could have in this world. We are told to lean not on our own understanding, to trust God with all our heart instead. We are also told that we don't have to see the entire road ahead: that His word is a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our path. In these past three weeks and in the last several days, God has demonstrated in too many ways to count that He IS with us. That He is with me, no matter how far I have felt from Him. He has brought me this far. Maybe He will bring me a little further still.

Yesterday, we said farewell to Dad. But this was not goodbye, not really. This was a celebration of his life. Indeed, this was a celebration of what it means to HAVE life, and life abundantly. I am always going to miss Dad. As I sit in this house that is now suddenly my own, only now is his absence beginning to impress itself upon me. But I also know that Dad would want me to keep moving forward, to always be thankful for what God has given me, to "think positive" (as he often told me), and to cherish those who God has placed into my life.

Just as Dad was all of those things and more.

To all of those who have held up my family in their thoughts and prayers during these very trying past 19 days, to those who offered words of encouragement and edification, to those who have consoled our family and helped us in so many ways for the past three days, to those who came to honor the memory of Dad last night and this afternoon, to all of those and many, many more...

Thank you.

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Dad's page on the funeral home site

The thought this morning was that I would post Dad's obituary on my blog after it had been published on the Wilkerson Funeral Home website.  But the staff at Wilkerson has rendered such an astounding service during this time of our need... well, that and the page they did for Dad is so spot-on perfect (and totally in keeping with his character)... that their tribute to Dad sincerely and earnestly does merit a visit to its link.

There will be a video slideshow uploaded later.  Anita and I spent most of yesterday evening and some of this morning combing through hundreds of photos of Dad, finding a select few to represent his very varied and wonderful life.  There were some that I hadn't even seen before, including a couple of he and I when I was only one year old.  Anyway, the video slideshow will be up soon.  And as I did with Mom's a few years ago I'll be posting an embedded YouTube of it here also.

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