Fantasy Smantasy

The last really good book I read was 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. It was a horrifying book, but I could not put it down. I ended up reading the whole thing front to back in less than a day right as I was headed down to Victoria for Christmas. It was so good, in fact, that when I arrived to Victoria, I didn't talk to my brother or his wife until I was done the book.

My friend got me started on 'The Malazan Book of the Fallen' series, a ten book mega-novel that spans three continents (maybe more), more characters than I have appendages, and god knows how many wizards, assassins, thieves, ghosts, demons, gods, races, species and animals that have been made up.

It is ok.

It's cheesy. Shit, one of the character's name is 'WhiskeyJack'. The author came up with the name by looking at the bottle of Jack Daniels he was obviously drinking for breakfast. Or the classic 'throw in a bunch of apostrophes' names such as 'Dhul'Lik'Ko'Meh', as if I'm going to announce that every time this asshole walks into a room.

The Fantasy Writer's Axe of Creativity.

I like books. I like to read. I think everyone does if they're given the right books. Not to long before I started this Malazan series, the very same friend gave me a book called 'Bolo!' (yes, there was in fact an exclamation at the end of the title). That book was about sentient tanks in the future. It was cheesy as sin and not exactly well written. But I ate it up! I couldn't put the stupid book down. What I noticed between the cheesy sci-fi novel and the cheesy fantasy novel has been one reoccurring theme between the two genres. Sci-fi novels are most often pretty tongue and cheek, and the sci-fi that doesn't tends to be grounded in a fair amount of reality. Fantasy almost always takes itself too seriously, and well....

Look dude, or dudette, or in-between, whatever, if you're going to have fucking orcs and dragons and flying beetles the size of volkswagens in your stories, I'm gonna have a hard time taking anything else seriously. Ooooooo, a large battle between warring nations is looming on the horizon? Better hop on your flying cat-snake and find the amulet of 'Who'gives'a'shit', 'cause apparently a magic talisman is the only thing that will win the war. Somehow the winged ferret made the social overtones of your story harder to take seriously.

Need a fantasy creature? Just add wings!

Fantasy is not a serious subject that some people take way too seriously. I'm not a fan of the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series, also known to people who only watch TV as 'Game of Thrones'. The show is alright. I tried to read the first novel in the book series years ago and I couldn't even get half way through. How many goddamn things have to 'glisten', George RR Martin? Everything in your universe glistens. That whole goddamn world is breathing heavily and sweating, It's like your fatass decided to take the stairs for once. An entire, way-too-long, pulsating, heaving series.

And that's my biggest gripe with the whole fantasy genre. Everything is a series, this mega-novel garbage. I hear this bullshit all the time, "The first book or two, he's just warming up and finding his voice. It gets REALLY good after that". Really? I have to read over a thousand pages of mediocre crap to get to the good part? That is the very definition of a shit sandwich. If I have to chow down on poop just so I can get to the really good part of the sandwich, why the fuck don't I just go and buy a sandwich that isn't half poop?

No poop on my clubhouse, thank you

I'm going to throw a little advice to writers out there regarding the mega-novel. If you are going to create a world full of characters, you can't spend the first novel giving out exposition. You're not going to be able to build that world in a book, Exposition is boring as all hell, and I'll be damned if I'll crunch through seven hundred pages of ass-flavored explanation. Also, it couldn't hurt to write a goddamn outline. A beginning, middle and an end. Don't sit here and wax the 'I'm surprised and shocked by where my characters lead me' schtick. If your characters surprise you, then you don't know your characters well enough. You know who got surprised by their characters? The writers of Lost. Look how that turned out.

The only series I've read that I thought was really well done was the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I've only read one book of the MaddAddam series by Margaret Atwood, and I hear the rest is as good as the first book, Oryx and Crake. I've also got a mind to read the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett, the few I've read are hilarious. If someone thinks that they can recommend me a book series, I'll sit down and read it. Keep in mind though, I'm a notorious asshole, so much so that French people have been put off regarding my criticism.

I'm not against fantasy, nor am I against the mega-novel. I've yet to read a fantasy book besides Terry Pratchett's stuff that didn't have it's head up it's ass, though (I'm looking at you, Terry Goodkind). I've yet to read a mega-novel that wasn't boring as fuck for the first novel or two and a goddamn mess of loose ends by the seventh or eighth book. BUT, if you have some suggestions, send 'em my way. I can burn through a book pretty quickly.

Every piece of media these days is a series, whether it's books, movies, television, or video games. I think all of it could benefit from the 'True Detective' model, the acclaimed television series. If you're going to have a brand, there is nothing wrong with a self-contained story that takes up a single season. I thought that entire production was phenomenally done. I think the mega-novels could learn from that. But hey, if you want to write a dozen novels or have nine movies that all carry the same characters and converge on the same plot, be my guest. Keep and mind that trying to weave a pattern with hundreds of strings is difficult even if you have an idea of the tapestry your creating. If you don't have an idea, don't be surprise if your blanket looks like trash.

TL;DR: If you're writing a series of novels, have a goddamn point. They call it 'theming'. And don't take yourself so goddamn seriously. Also, The Lord of the Ring series was racist.

Middle Earth was a great neighborhood before these guys moved in.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Seriously though, I'll read anything. Send some ideas this way.

p.s.s. And writers, stay the fuck away from adverbs. No one 'closes the door firmly'.

p.s.s.s. You see any black elves or hobbits or wizards in LOTR? I didn't.

Avengers 2: An Irrelevant Review

So I went and saw the new Avengers movie, Avengers 2: Age of Ultron. Now, I'm about to give my opinion about this film, as well as the Marvel Franchise as a whole. If you're the kind of person who gives a shit about spoilers, then I'd go read something else.

Spoiler; Avengers 2: Age of Ultron sucks.

Two and a half hours reduced to one picture

I liked the first Avenger movie, I thought it was entertaining. It was fun to see a whole bunch of superheroes on the screen. To say it was some sort of masterpiece would be a stretch, but it was a good movie, at least I thought. It was a stand alone movie; if you hadn't seen the other Marvel movies like Iron Man or Captain America, you could still follow along and have it make sense. For the most part.

Unfortunately, it taken the 'comic book' part of the comic book movie to heart. And I'm hear to tell you that comic books are stupid.

Star Wars comics are twice as stupid

This isn't an opinion, it's a fact. It's the same reason why Star Wars is stupid. The same reason I really don't have an interest in watching the fifth season of Game of Thrones. It's a trend that has been rising in the last decade especially. It's the mega-novel problem.

Right now we're clamoring for huge worlds, bigger stories, more characters. We're not satisfied with a stand alone movie, a novel that has no sequel, or anything that isn't a franchise. Comic books have had this problems for decades. Numerous reboots with dozens of different writers have created this bizarre world of multiple universes. This is fine for comics, because firstly, they're idiotic and secondly, they're designed this way because you need a new story every month. That's the format. You're expected to read the entire story arc. A single comic by itself rarely makes any sense whatsoever.

That's where the Avengers 2 fails. If you haven't seen Iron Man, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Hulk (the 2008 version, not the 2003 version), Iron Man 2, Thor 2:The Dark World, Iron Man 3, Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier, well, then the Avengers 2 isn't going to make any sense. If you've missed any of these films, then the chemistry between the characters isn't always going to make sense. Shucks, you might not even recognize some of the characters (who the fuck is War Machine?).

I'm a firm believer that in order for a film to succeed as a movie, it needs to be able to stand on it's own. I shouldn't have to sit and watch fifteen hours of back story in order to grasp what's happening in a film. I can't really blame the screenwriting either. How the hell do you juggle ten different characters? Television can kind of get away with this, Game of Thrones does alright with multiple characters, but even that is starting to get pretty thin. It also has the luxury of the new television format. Ten folks in a two and a half hour span is starting to stretch the limits of a narrative.

Avengers 2 was the exact same movie as the first. The stakes weren't raised (they have to save the world, again!), the plot was the same (team gets together, falls apart, gets together again), and the action was the same (Crazy epic superhero battles!). Aside from the slightly clever little arc with Hawkeye and the lame love story between the Hulk and Black Widow that took up 3% of screen time between the action porn, it was the same movie.

I'll be honest, I was bored to tears through most of it, waiting for it to be over. The whole Marvel franchise was sort of refreshing at first, but has gotten stale. It's the cinematic version of Olive Garden. It loved it when I was a teen, but as I got older I realized it's the same lousy Italian food every time I go. I don't go to Olive Garden anymore, and I doubt I'll go watch another Marvel film.

But hey, Marvel is putting out the new 'Ant-Man' movie this summer. I'm sure that'll be great, right?

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Seriously, Ant-Man? I wonder if it'll be two hours of Stan Lee scraping the barrel.

p.s.s. I really only wrote this review because I'm going to shit all over the rise of the mega novels in the next post. Fuck George RR Martin.

The Dad Bod Craze

Jesus Fuck. I can't believe I'm writing about this. The fact I have to explain some things to grown adults is startling, I'd like everyone to put on some boots and some rubber gloves, 'cause we're about to go wading in some shit.

A month and a half ago, a young woman by the name Mackenzie Pearson wrote an article titled "Why Girls Love the Dad Bod". It was a harmless little article that, summed up, stated that Mackenzie was attracted to guys who weren't in top physical condition. She wasn't into dudes who use words like 'shredded' or 'severe body-dysmorphia' to describe themselves. Cool, whatever. Personally, I've resigned to the idea that I like being skinny and limber, but, you know, whatever. Unfortunately, the internet decided to build a brick house by collectively shitting one out.

The Internet's Poop House (1)

Numerous articles starting popping up, either praising the new movement as a godsend, or denouncing it as some sort of Jihad against gym rats. When I say blow up, this article exploded into articles, podcasts and was talked about on air, covered by major news channels such as CNN and FOX. Here, I did a search for you.

Now, I've got a bit of news for you, dad bod dudes. Even though it's hard to believe, women around the world who read this article didn't lobotomize themselves into finding this sexy. It's tough to fathom, but there's no switch on the backside of women that has an 'on/off' switch for dudes rocking a gut. That's not how it works. Our friend Mackenzie was stating a preference that's pretty well known in the world of people who have the slightest shred of perception on human sexuality. People have a preference that varies among person to person. Some women dig the dad bod! Some women love guys with washboard abs and veiny arms. It was like that before the article and it will continue to be like that well after the article is forgotten about.

I'm not surprised that a bunch of lazy guys got up to pat themselves on the back after this article was released. I'm a little more surprised at the fitness side of the line, though. The amount of whining that came from that camp was deafening. It seems that every motivational image that shouted 'I get in shape for ME!' of 'The only thing I'm trying to be better than is myself from YESTERDAY!' was the load of bullshit most of us thought it out to be. Most fit dudes aren't doing it for themselves, and have now gotten themselves into a frothy mess now that they've realised that not every woman on the planet wants to have sex with them.

I WORKED SO HARD

Look, meat heads. I get it, you're upset. You've worked really hard, and have now realized that not everybody wants to bang a human version of a Lamborghini. Welcome back to reality. Dad bods, kudos to you. You've now been presented with information confirming that, even though you don't look like Brad Pitt, someone may actually find you attractive. Crazy, I know. Just keep in mind that the number one cause of premature deaths to males is heart disease. You may want to put down the pizza and take the goddamn stairs every once and a while.

So yay, we can now celebrate all sorts of different body shapes. For men. Sorry ladies, we'd still like you to maintain the figure of an eighteen year old stripper. This body acceptance thing is a boys only club, 'cause the only thing that accessorizes a double chin is a double standard.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Just so everyone is aware, my calves look like granite wrapped in silk. Don't skip leg day.

p.s.s. Leg day? What I actually meant is that my calves are big because I walk around the house on the balls of my feet like a ninja.

p.s.s.s. Probably more like a ballerina, to be honest.

p.s.s.s.s. The prettiest ballerina, I might add.

(1) - Brick building by Henry Mühlpfordt

Why the NDP was a Bad Choice

If you would have told me a month ago that the NDP in Alberta would be holding a solid majority, I would have politely told you 'When Hell Freezes Over'. Well, it's been snowing in Edmonton today, so close enough. It looks like Sata....I mean Jim Prentice, will have to find new digs, as from the looks of his speech last night I'm certain he's about to go pout somewhere down in Phoenix, Arizona.

I kid.

Right now all of my friends who worked hard campaigning for the NDP are nursing well deserved hangovers, my journalist friends are busy typing away at twitter and getting the message out, my teacher friends are happy they might actually get the funding they need to make sure the next generation doesn't grow up to be absolute fuckheads, and finally my conservative friends who work in the oil and gas industry are currently making that noise that a dog makes when you spray it in the face with a water hose.

WHARRGARBL

The PCs have been in power forty four years here in Alberta. Like all parties who hold the throne for that long, they got complacent, lazy, and arrogant. Our coffers are dry. The PCs sucked resources away from education, health care, and social programs in exchange for tax cuts for incredibly wealthy corporations. Alberta is an oil province, for sure, and that isn't going to change in the next four years, I can guarantee you that. But the idea that foreign companies get a pass while the citizens of the province have to carry the tax burden is something that obviously wasn't sitting well for the people who went out and cast their votes yesterday.

The big observation I want to make is that the NDP earned this one, if only for the fact they seemed to be the only ones who were campaigning. All my conservative friends, well, didn't. It proves something radical is happening in Alberta, and that's the triumph of a grass roots movement. It happened when Naheed Nenshi got voted in as Mayor of Calgary, It happened to Don Iverson when he got voted in as Mayor of Edmonton. Last night it happened again with the NDP with Rachel Notley at the helm. As a citizen of a democratic society, you are involved in politics whether you want to be or not. If you want change, get out on the streets and make change. Voting is the absolute bare minimum.

Or, you know, put up some signs or something

As for my opinion, I'm cautiously optimistic. They're rookies, for sure, but change can be a good thing, and I'm the kind of guy who gets excited when the pot is stirred. A good friend of mine once said "Not knowing the future is cool" and I have to agree. I'm not sure what the next four years will hold for Alberta, but one thing is certain. It has proven that the little people can make a difference.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. The Title? Total Clickbait. But hey, you clicked, didn't you?

May the Fourth be With You

Today is May fourth, and that's an incredibly special day for most people. It's international Firefighters day, so we should should all be glad there's a section of the population crazy enough to run into buildings that happen to be on fire. I keep arguing that maybe we shouldn't be building our structures out of wood and paper mache, but I digress.... Hold on a moment, that's not what you're celebrating today, is it? So what exactly are you celebrating?

News flash, people. Star Wars sucks.

Search your feelings

I don't use the word sucks very often anymore. I prefer to use lame, or shitty, or a host of other words to describe something I'm not particularly fond of. In this case, sucks works perfectly, because that's the sound of the gaping vacuum that this abomination of a cultural phenomenon has created. Star Wars is a slurping, ugly, hot mess of a franchise.

Now, given, the first three films released a few decades ago are pretty good. The special effects were mind blowing at the time, they had an interesting new story and have held up pretty well since then. The acting is lousy, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the late seventies/early eighties was so high on cocaine that they had to be reminded that still they teeth in their mouths. But those three films are just a slice into the Star Wars universe, and most of that Universe is absolutely ridiculous.

Referred to on-set as the Force

There aren't just movies about Star Wars. There are books, games, toys, costumes, dinner ware, spin-offs, bed sheets, action figures (which are NOT toys, apparently), Iphone apps, party themes, wedding themes, and a Christmas special that George Lucas would like you to pretend never actually existed in the first place. That is a sliver of the amount of stuff that Star Wars has licensed. It is not a universe of space fantasy, so much as it's a cash cow that lactates golden milk.

I thought people would have learned after the Phantom Menace, but they kept making movies, and games, and books. People kept buying them. And my Darth Lord, there is a new Star Wars movie coming out, and I can hear people frothing at the mouth already. Sit down for a second. I hate to break it to you, but this new movie will never live up to anyone's expectations. It can't. The fan base has become so rabid we actually have a day of the year now dedicated to it. All across the world, people are calling in sick, so that they can sit down and watch all six films back to back, spending their mornings trying to fast forward to the good parts of the prequels.

Please don't make me fast forward through 80% of the movie, JJ

The worst lot is the Star Wars books. Ever read one? Don't. Do you want to know how many people have authored Star Wars books in the last three and a half decades? Seventy Five. That isn't novelisation at that point anymore. That is slash fan-fiction at it's best. I would complain, but truthfully the longest peace of fiction ever written isn't War and Peace, but a slash fan-fiction piece about Super Smash Brothers that contains over 3,500,000 words. That would be slash fan-fiction at it's best.

It still doesn't compare to my Pokemon Fan-Fiction

What it boils down to is this; I don't like Star Wars because when it started it was a space adventure that was shot on a budget of eleven million dollars. George Lucas was once a rebellious young film maker who took chances and now he's the head of a vast empire of knock-offs, merchandise and what borders on a lifestyle brand. George Lucas was seduced by the dark side.

Darth Schlock

 If you find yourself getting worked up over this, then heed your own words. There is no passion, only serenity. Jedi code mother bitches.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p,s. Help us JJ Abrams, you're our only hope.

p.s.s. Star Trek is for real nerds.

p.s.s.s. Not that Action balderdash with the JJ Abrams (although the casting was pretty fantastic)

p.s.s.s.s. Actually, with JJ Abrams, the only thing I can hope for is to walk away from the theatres not blinded by lens flares.

Floyd vs. Manny

Last night, Floyd 'Money' Mayweather Jr. faced Manny 'The Pac-Man' Pacquiao in one of the most anticipated fights of the last two decades, and the former won by unanimous decision at the end of the night. Some would say that the fight came too late, as both fighters were past their prime, but it didn't matter to fight fans, as the fight was billed at a half billion dollars, which Floyd pocketed roughly two hundred million.

I'm not here to talk about who won or who lost, who was the better boxer. I heard speculation that Manny had torn his rotator cuff before the fight and that's why he wasn't coming in as strong as some would have liked. I don't know shit about boxing, and the little I do know comes from a friend of mine who's a huge boxing fanatic. What I do know is that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is an abusive piece of shit and is known to use his fast hands to batter women. So why aren't more people talking about it?

Except for this guy.

Wait, also this person.

And this person.

Damnit, you guys are making me look bad.

Okay, okay, okay, plenty of people know that while he wins most of his fights by decision, he has no problem K.Oing his loved one at home. That Floyd kicks the crap out of women is well known and documented. The big argument here is why are we condoning his actions so he can continue to box in the ring. The answer is incredibly simple, and it also happens to be Floyd's monicker.

Money.

Money Money Money!

A half billion dollars is what the fight cost, not what the fight generated, and no one in the boxing world does anything for free. Between HBO, the MGM Grand, the casinos, the hotels, the restaurants, the airlines, everyone is going to get a little slice of that boxing pie. If you're wondering why Floyd has been charged numerous times for instances of violence against women, and so far has only had do spend sixty days in jail because of it, well, there's your answer. Money talks. But is money the real driving force here?

Let's roll back the tape to February 2014, when Ray Rice was caught on tape knocking his then fiancee out in an elevator, then dragging her back to his room. Jail time? None. Hell, they got married not too long later.

But shucks folks, let's go all the way back to 2007, and bring in Micheal Vick. Now, Micheal has done some shady deals in the past, but battering women didn't seem to pop up. Drug use, theft and the notorious dog fighting scandal came up, but nothing about battering women. I'm not sure if you remember 2007 all that well, but people were pissed, I mean really pissed that Micheal was breeding dogs to fight. People were calling for his head. People on my feed who aren't even interested in sports were up in arms.

A Pack of Blood Thirsty Wiener Dogs (1)

When you compare how people reacted to Floyd and Ray, with a 'That's guy is a piece of shit, why does anyone watch their sports anyways' compared to Micheal's 'That guy fought dogs? INNOCENT PUPPIES BLARGRGRAGR!!!!!!! CUT OFF HIS HEAD!!!!!'
\
Spousal abuse doesn't just happen in sports. It happens everywhere. Some abusers are engineers, or lawyers, or doctors. There's plenty of spousal abuse in the entertainment industry. Even women have been known to abuse men in relationships as well. Violence is shitty any which way you cut it, and I'd say that sports and entertainment get a bad rap simply because they're in the spotlight. I'm almost certain that if you were to compare the statistics of sposal abuse between regular jobs and vanity jobs like football players and thespians, you'd find that they're on even ground.

I'm not condoning the actions of Micheal Vick here, what he did was atrocious. It did open up my eyes about how we view the abuse of women. They may be mothers, they may daughters, hell, women might actually be people who walk the planet with hopes, desires, and dreams like the rest of us 'cough'. And we might continue to turn a blind eye towards the abuse of women, in favor of entertainment, money, and the ability to sleep a little bit better at night.

But if you ever fuck with man's best friend, we will cut your sack off and feed it to the goddamn sharks.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I had a dog once. It was delicious.

(1) - "Dachshund-puppies" by Alex Khimich - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dachshund-puppies.jpg#/media/File:Dachshund-puppies.jpg

Baltimore - I'm Not Racist, But....

Baltimore. Located in Maryland, It's the twenty-sixth largest city in the United States. It's home to the Oriels and the Ravens. The Wire, one of the most acclaimed television series ever to grace the tubes takes place there. Both the famous singer Billie Holiday and the baseball legend Babe Ruth hail from Baltimore. And unless you've been under a rock or on the moon for the last few weeks, you would know that the city is in chaos over the death of Freddie Grey, a man of twenty five who died of spinal cord injuries while in police custody.

I'll break down what happened, but we're not going to spend a lot of time on it. Freddie made eye contact with police officer, then proceeded to flee. The officers took chase, pinned him down and processed him for carrying a switchblade. They threw him in the back of a van. When Freddie told the officers he had sustained injuries, they ignored his pleas. You can read about the whole thing here. They found out his switchblade was actually a folding knife, which is not illegal. As for running from the police, the supreme court has determined this action is not a crime a while ago. Technically, Freddie Grey was illegally detained.

Now, you didn't come to Mr. Charlton to hear the facts. No, you came here for an opinion and I'm going to give you one. There is a race problem and it's mostly white people.

Ouch.

Now, it doesn't have to do so much with the pigment of white people. If white people were neon green, then we'd have a neon green people problem. You could argue history has documented numerous accounts of white people committing atrocities against other white people, and you would be right. You could also argue that history has documented numerous accounts of not-white people committing atrocities against other not-white people, and you would also be right. Again, it doesn't have as much to do with pigment as people would have us believe.

It has more to do with what I like to call 'White-Washing'. The term white-washing is an old one, and it meant other ethnicities were encouraged to act white, to be more palatable to a broader audience. I like to use the term differently, in which history is down played or forgotten to make the history more palatable to white people. It stems from what I hear all the time from white people. “Well, all of that is in the past, why can't we just get along now?”

This is how I was raised when I was younger. I remember learning in school that racism is bad, and we should be nice to everyone, no matter what their skin colour was. People used to mistreat others based on their ethnicity, and that was bad. I moved to the big city, big ol' small town heart, and I then I learned that I was actually pretty racist. Coming to that conclusion was an eye opener, and actually made me more racist in the process.

All of the shit white people did, I never really learned about. The enslavement of black people in America, the genocide of aboriginals in Canada, residential schools, forced sterilization. Christ, it used to be illegal for black and white people to get married. This all fell under 'mistreatment'. Long story short, the cruel history of murder, rape and enslavement was a very long story made short.

Again, this kinda shit has been happening for almost as long as human beings have been humans. The issue today is, again, what I term White-Washing. We've made it look as this part of our past and history isn't that big of deal, or we pretend it never happened at all. The truth is, it has shaped the current state of how we view the deaths of young black Americans in the United States. We don't get upset or pay attention when one of these people die in the hands of law enforcement, we get upset when they start to riot because of that death. That's when the cameras turn to those impoverished communities. Maybe that's a large part of the reason of why people riot in the first place. If you can't get attention with a peaceful protest or by pursuing legal action, then maybe the only way left is the violent approach.

I'm not condoning the riots. What I am going to say is this sort of thing is going to continue to happen unless we start having a frank and honest discussion about race, and what that means to everyone. As white people, we might have to start being more honest about our own history. I think that kind of discussion is already taking place, due to the large leaps in technology in both photography and distribution. It won't happen over night, but even in the midst of all the chaos, I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I'll live long enough to step into it.

I don't know what it's like to be black. But if you want to know what it's like to be white, I call tell you that aside from the homicidal urges and the compulsive need to devour human flesh at the end of the month, it's pretty damn sweet.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. The human flesh eating. You guys all get that too, right?

p.s.s. Seriously, I'm in Golden right now and the selection of of human meat is pretty weak.