Remembering Debby D. DeFee (1952-2021)
My stepmother, Debby DeFee, passed away early this morning, after a brief battle with a very aggressive form of cancer.
Debby was not an emotional person, but she was a good person, and we had developed a healthy adult relationship over the past 30 years, despite living under difficult circumstances when I was a kid.
Debby basically raised me from the age of 8 to the age of 18. I’ll just say we had a difficult relationship, and Debby was under incredible stress trying to manage me and my father and half a dozen small businesses at the same time.
After I left the house, Debby found purpose and satisfaction in her work. She got her doctorate in Nutrition/Food Service Management, assisted by a number of tremendous mentors at Texas Tech and Texas Woman’s University.
This work, and the education she was able to achieve, helped her rise above the difficult domestic circumstances she had lived in and liberated her to be the generous, hard-working person she really was.
She became department chair for the department of Food Service & Culinary Arts at Texas State Technical College and taught RHIM at a variety of colleges and state institutions in Houston and Waco.
She also met the great love of her life, a man named Jerry Gerhardt, whose gentle nature and endless patience gave her a home as he took her into his family.
Jerry’s daughter was with Debby in her final days and I will never be able to properly thank her for her kindness or the help she provided to my mother.
It took a while for her lessons to “kick in,” but Debby taught me the value of hard work and the importance of treating people with respect. She taught me manners and proper behavior and helped me rise above a trailer park background so I could be comfortable in a room with any group of people from any background.
Debby had a tremendous sense of duty. Duty to God, duty to her community, and duty to the institutions that she was part of. Her mother and father were deeply committed to Texas Tech, and the time Debby spent there, learning and working, were some of the happiest times in her life.
Debby specified no memorial and no obituary, so I hope everyone will forgive me for providing this one informally, for everyone who knew and loved her.
I only know a few of her friends from her time in Lubbock, so if you know someone who knew her, please pass this along.
Michael Duff says goodbye
Wrote a final column for the A-J, but it looks like they’re not gonna run it. Here it is anyway:
This will be my last column for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
In June 2008, I tried to brand this as an “Internet culture” column and explain how this space would be different from the cacophony of technology columns that were here before me.
The media was already full of people doing industry profiles and product reviews. I wanted to focus on the big picture, to take a moment each week and appreciate things that were threatening to pass us by.
New products are changing the way we communicate and the way we treat each other, but it’s all happening so fast, nobody has time to think about it. We’re so busy using these new toys, we haven’t stopped to consider the benefits of instant communication or the dangers of overexposure.
The A-J gave me the opportunity to do that, week after week, in a format that gave me tremendous freedom. It helped me prove myself as a writer and create a voice that I’ll be using for the rest of my professional life.
I have to take a moment and thank Terry Greenberg for launching a series of new feature columns in 2007. I have to thank Shelly Gonzales for helping me navigate the treacherous legal and ethical waters of modern journalism. And I have to thank Bill Kerns for pleading my case and treating me like a human being when I walked up to his desk with a manuscript in my hand.
I want to thank Beth Pratt and Karen Brehm for their consistent encouragement and feedback, and most of all I have to thank the copy editors who learned when to save me from myself and when to leave me alone. Special thanks to Leanda, and Glenys, and Leesha, and James for fixing my unquoted movie titles and removing a thousand Oxford commas.
The Avalanche-Journal has been very good to me. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunities I had and the friends I made here.
I didn’t slaughter as many sacred cows as I wanted to, but I was always able to poke them with sticks. I was trying to think back to my “proudest moment” in these pages but all I can remember is the fun stuff.
I remember abusing senior citizens in Grand Theft Auto and requesting help from Batman when my phone got stolen. I remember taking shots at Nick Denton and interviewing a Peggy Olson impersonator on Twitter.
I once described my job as “explaining the Internet to people who hate the Internet,” but I hope that description isn’t as true as it used to be. I hope the technophobes in the audience were able to read this column every week and come away with a bit more respect for technology and the people who use it.
I hope you read this column and decided to be nicer to people on blogs and forums. I hope you read this column and felt a little bit smarter each week, even when I was writing about things you never heard of before.
I hope you gained a bit more respect for video games and video gamers. I hope you learned to be a bit more careful with what you shared on Facebook, and I hope you learned to forgive people who shared too much.
I hope the people conducting job interviews learned to forgive candidates who left inappropriate stuff on their public profiles, and I hope a few grandparents learned to use Facebook to get closer to their kids.
I can’t say where I’m headed next, but keep your eyes on www.michaelduff.net and feel free to follow me on Facebook or Google Plus.
I’d like to leave you with one last thought, to sum up what I’ve been trying to say for the past four years.
The Internet is the real world. The people are real, the commenters are real, the emotions are real, and the consequences are real.
Every comment, every blog post, and every video game avatar represents a real person, with their own set of quirks and vulnerabilities. We’re getting better at this whole “online communication” thing but we all have blind spots, and not everyone can express themselves well in this medium.
When in doubt, be nice. Don’t assume the worst about people, and don’t rise to the bait when people try to provoke you. Something about the Internet can make rational adults behave like spoiled children. Don’t let them get to you, and don’t let them drive you away.
The Internet is the future, and the future belongs to everyone.
Thank you for your attention and your feedback. I may not be in print anymore, but I’ll be around.
Hidden subtext…
The market is so bad today, I think Glenn Reynolds just told me to buy a helmet.
Google joins battle for soul of the Internet with Google Plus
Google launched a limited beta of their new social networking service last week, and was quickly overwhelmed with traffic as eager alpha geeks rushed to find something, anything that would liberate them from Facebook.
Love it or hate it, Facebook has now become the Internet. It’s the most popular site in the world, a one-stop shop for personal messaging, public discussion, political activism and link swapping worldwide.
Google’s new service is called Google Plus, and if you followed Google’s previous attempts at social networking, I won’t blame you for being skeptical. Google Buzz was a disaster and Google Wave broke my heart. Google Plus is starting with a better design philosophy than Facebook did, but even if they do everything right, it’s going to be an uphill battle all the way.
The Internet is basically entering its third evolution now, as expectations become more complex and the last few stragglers make it part of their daily lives.
Phase One was just about finding stuff. In the early days, Yahoo could fit the whole Internet in a series of link lists. Early users jumped on the Internet to find news, trade tech articles, and fight with a self-selected group of early adopters on Usenet.
Phase Two was about sharing stuff. Google made search engines reliable and fast, so the Internet became more about connecting with people and sharing links with friends.
Google won the battle for Phase One and Facebook won the battle for Phase Two.
Now we come to Phase Three. We know how to search and we know how to share, but now we’ve got so much crap coming at us 24 hours a day, even moderate users are drowning in status updates. We’ve got so many “friends” interacting with us in so many different contexts, we can’t just lump them all into one stream anymore.
Phase Two was about making connections. Phase Three will be about managing them.
Google Plus is built around the concept of Circles. Every friend you add to the service must be added to a circle. Plus starts with a set of recommended categories: Friends, Family and Acquaintances. Most people will immediately add a circle for work, then they’ll make a circle for “Super Friends” – the eight or nine people in the world they can share everything with.
This is the function I’ve been waiting for, the function I’ve been screaming about in this column for the past two years.
Facebook is great but modern people don’t just have one face. I follow about 300 people on Facebook and each one of those people follows me for a different reason. Some of them like the columns, some of them like my political rants, some of them knew me in high school, and some of them have known me all my life.
But the people who like the columns don’t necessarily care about politics, and the people who knew me in high school don’t necessarily like what I write. I always feel a little guilty when I post to Facebook because I know any post that appeals to ten people is likely to annoy ten others.
With Google Plus I get to make the choice, and since everybody else is free to make their own categories, too, they can choose what box to put me in. This concept is so simple, I can’t believe Facebook has botched it so badly. Facebook has lists and sharing restrictions but they’re almost impossible to use.
Human interaction occurs in context, but Facebook’s one-stream-fits-all approach encourages people to ignore that context, leading to embarrassing, even disastrous consequences. The people who follow my column are nice, but they don’t need to see status updates when I go on vacation.
My friends love me, but they don’t all agree with my politics. A link that would be catnip for economics nerds might seem boring or even insulting to them. Forcing your political opinions on strangers isn’t just rude; it’s dangerous.
Interactions in the workplace occur in a very specific social context. It was bad enough when all we had to worry about was offending people, but now the things you share at work may be a violation of federal law. In this climate you’re not just protecting yourself when you segregate your social networks, you’re protecting your boss and your co-workers from things they really don’t want to know.
Google and Facebook have just entered into a steel-cage death match for the soul of the Internet. Can Google Plus gain market share before Facebook copies their best feature? My instincts say no. I think it will be easier for Facebook to add Circles than it will be for Google to steal its users.
I think we’re up against the Grandma Factor. Facebook has become so ubiquitous, even Grandma is using it. Will parents and grandparents be willing to follow their kids to a new platform?
I’m guessing no, but maybe that’s a Plus for you.
Rainn Wilson turns manboy avenger in “Super”
My generation is obsessed with the idea of bringing comic book heroes into the adult world, forever trying to mix childhood power fantasies with adult realism.
GenX moviegoers are themselves a curious mix of light and dark. On one hand, we long to lose ourselves in fantasy, immersing ourselves in films like “Avatar” and “Lord of the Rings.” While on the other, we revel in darkness and depravity, struggling to redeem dark themes and anti-heroes with touches of absurdity and humor.
I’d say Quentin Tarantino is the ultimate GenX filmmaker. “Pulp Fiction” is a perfect mix of light and dark — adult sleaze delivered in a candy coating of pop culture and noir clichés.
“Super” is another attempt to mix comic book idealism with real world angst. When Frank D’Arbo’s wife leaves him for a smooth-talking drug dealer, he decides to find a comic book solution to his real world problem.
Inspired by a TV hero named “The Holy Avenger” (played by an awkward, dreamlike Nathan Fillion) Frank decides to sew a costume and become “The Crimson Bolt.”
Anyone who tried this in real life would quickly become The Crimson Stain, but this isn’t a genre tribute like “Kick Ass.” This is a surreal fairy tale about loss and desperation, told through the eyes of an emotionally-shattered beta male.
The film is hard to love because it can never quite decide what kind of film it is. It’s too serious to be funny and too funny to be taken seriously.
“Kick Ass” tried the same trick and succeeded only because it abandoned realism in the third act and went full comic book for the finale.
“Super” never goes full-on superhero, it’s just mildly improbable throughout. Frank suffers random beatings and gunshot wounds, only becoming bulletproof for the triumphant (and disturbing) finale.
The film has its own kind of integrity because Frank really is mentally ill. He spends the whole movie walking the line between heroism and sociopathy, proving that every Batman must have a little Joker in him as well.
This is particularly well done in the film’s finale, when Frank does “the right thing” in a very bad guy way. A tonal failure if you’re trying to appeal to a GenX audience, but wicked fun if you’re trying to provoke them.
“Super” is constantly pushing and pulling on our expectations, veering wildly between slapstick comedy and buzzkilling gore. Most superhero films pander to the audience. This one seems calculated to provoke them.
The most provocative element for me was how the film used Ellen Page. Libby starts out as a screenwriter’s fantasy, an emotionally-retarded geek girl who works in a comic book store. If they’d cast a plainer actress it might have worked, but Page is way too hot for the role.
This is a shame because her performance was amazing. Libby is exactly the kind of thrill-seeking comic book geek who would fall for Frank, but Page is so pretty her looks seemed to be fighting against her dialog.
Wilson hits a dozen strong emotional notes in the film, but his treatment of Libby was my favorite bit. He insisted on treating her like a kid sidekick, while the audience was seeing a young woman.
In this sense, Frank’s mental illness gives him a kind of purity. He’s not merely pretending or lying to himself. He’s so in love with his wife, so blinded by religious conviction, so committed to his own insane course of action, he can’t see Libby as an adult, even when she forces the issue.
“Super” gives us one of the hottest cosplay seduction scenes ever filmed and then ruins it, almost immediately, with a terrible scene of realistic violence.
The scenes are framed so you can’t remember one without the other, so your brain gets stuck in a quantum state, constantly switching back and forth between brutal realism and sexy costumed fun.
I think this is the real point of “Super.” The film isn’t trying to teach us or entertain us; it’s trying to confuse us, to screw with our expectations and intentionally dredge up conflicting emotions.
This isn’t a dark morality tale or a costumed romp. It’s a little bit of both, swirled in a bowl but never quite mixing together.
I can’t say I enjoyed “Super” but I’m going to remember it. I’ll remember the sharp cuts between fantasy and realism, and I’ll remember the angry, queasy feeling it left me with, as I tried to fit the story into a clean narrative box.
“Super” was funny, dark, violent and confusing. With any other film those shifts in tone would be a kind of failure, but with “Super” I think they were the whole point.
A Tribute to James Royal Berry (1967-1999)
Royal Berry should have turned 44 yesterday, but we lost him at 31.
I can’t say we were close friends, but he left such an impression on me, I feel like there should be something on the Internet to mark his passing, something more than a formal obituary.
An obituary can’t capture the best things about Royal because Royal was a geek — one of the most brilliant, creative, hardworking examples of geekdom I have ever seen.
Royal was a whirling dervish of creative energy. He had that indefinable “thing” that turns men into entrepreneurs and captains of industry. He had the essential courage of a small businessman, the fierce desire to try new things and make money on his own terms.
In the late ’80s he made a BBS game called “The Pit” — one of the first BBS games to feature color graphics and PVP combat. In Lubbock I believe it was THE first, based on a highly addictive gladiatorial arena model. I did some writing for Royal, back in the day, and I frequently wish I could go back and do it better.
I was a bit in awe of Royal back then, but I didn’t really understand him, and I didn’t know enough about video games to really understand what he needed.
The world had just discovered “Doom” and “Castle Wolfenstein.” Royal was experimenting with 3-D graphics, grappling with concepts that were a decade away from mainstream popularity.
Royal was always a bit ahead of his time, and we lost him right before the world got interesting. I can only imagine what he would have done with iPads, smart phones and an app store full of mobile games.
Royal was also my first Game Master — the guy who took me through my first dungeon crawls and taught me the unique mix of discipline and storytelling that makes a good DM.
That’s what I remember most — the incredible wit and energy that Royal brought to gaming. He brought characters to life and ruled the table with an iron fist. As Dungeon Master he was wicked and merciless and terrifying. I liked to run soft, cooperative games that coddled players and fudged things in their favor.
Royal was my opposite — random, heartless and utterly unpredictable. He never cheated, he never fudged, and he was never blatantly cruel, but he was as impartial and uncaring as the big bad world itself.
He inspired genuine respect and genuine fear as we huddled around the table, knowing our characters could die at any moment, at the mercy of rules and dice.
I admired Royal as a programmer and an entrepreneur, but looking back, what I miss most is having him at the head of that table, performing for a crowd of happy gamers — juggling six different kinds of intrigue, intercepting secret notes, and unleashing plot twists that kept us all on the edge of our seats.
One of my favorite memories from high school was a roleplaying “duel” we fought to settle a bet between two groups of rival gamers. We built it up like the Superbowl and spent weeks trash talking each other beforehand.
We planned an epic battle between a dozen characters and “hired” Royal to adjudicate. This is my favorite memory of Royal because we really did treat him like a Judge. This was a fight between two camps of mortal enemies but there was one thing we could all agree on — we knew we could trust Royal Berry to handle it right.
We didn’t use the word “integrity” back then, but we knew even in this silly context that James R. Berry was a man of honor.
I wish I had known him better. If I’d been a little less intimated by him, we could have been better friends.
The world will remember James Berry as a programmer, an entrepreneur and an online gaming pioneer, but I miss Royal the trickster, Royal the storyteller, Royal the entertainer — cracking jokes and rolling dice with a twinkle in his eye.
Happy birthday, Royal. We miss you.
Kevin Smith uses podcasts, Twitter to prosper in the age of niche marketing
I’ve never really been a Kevin Smith fan.
Kevin Smith is a director, responsible for some of the most influential films from my youth. “Clerks“,”Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma” – his Jay and Silent Bob characters are cultural icons, but I never really drank the Kool-Aid.
Smith is a stoner icon, and while I’m cheerfully libertarian on paper, I’m incredibly conservative in my private life. I was born a 50-year-old man, so now that I’m 40, I feel like I’m finally growing into my age.
So yeah, I’m not his target audience, but I’ve heard Kevin on a couple podcasts lately, and I can’t help but admire his honesty.
Kevin Smith has no illusions about who he is or what he’s here for. He makes no apologies and wears no masks. He’s been incredibly forthright about his successes and failures, and he doesn’t hide from his mistakes.
He wears his mistakes like NASCAR racing endorsements, plastered in plain sight, as if he’s daring the world to notice them.
I admire this because Smith is not your standard bulletproof celebrity, divinely aloof from all criticism. He’s naturally touchy and oversensitive, but he confronts critics head-on, effectively leading with his chin.
He’s got one of the most popular Twitter feeds on the Internet – 1.8 million followers at the moment – and he posts to it constantly, presiding over an army of rabid fans.
Smith made news last year when a major airline declared him “too fat to fly” and forced him off a plane after he was (comfortably) in place with his seatbelt on.
Smith told the story on Marc Maron’s podcast back in January. He got bumped from the plane and begged the airline management for help. When they were condescending and unhelpful, he basically said, “This is your last chance to do the right thing. If I walk away now, in 30 minutes you’re gonna come looking for me.”
Smith was already a “Twitter millionaire” by that time, and he decided to put his fans to good use. He began tweeting like a madman from the airport waiting area, liberally copying messages to the airline’s public relations address.
Thirty minutes later, the manager tracked him down and offered him anything in the airline’s power to give, if he would just stop tweeting.
Don’t you wish you had 1 million Twitter followers?
A cautionary tale about customer service in the Internet age, but there’s a bigger point here, too. When the entertainment press turned on Smith for “bullying” the airline, he realized that a man with a million Twitter followers doesn’t really need the entertainment press anymore.
These days Kevin Smith is truly a “citizen of the Internet.” He’s on tour now, promoting his film “Red State,” but the core of his business is the close relationship he’s built with his fans.
He’s never going to make a Michael Bay blockbuster, but he’s not trying to. I think Kevin Smith is the first of many artists who are going to triumph in the age of niche marketing.
Kevin Smith isn’t making films for “everybody.” He’s found a core audience of fans who love his work and they generate enough revenue to keep him working. In 20 years the whole industry will be like this.
We’ll always have blockbusters, but increasingly, the Internet and alternative media will allow artists to create things cheaply and distribute them directly, bypassing traditional gatekeepers — forcing distributors to come chasing after them.
You don’t need a contract. You don’t need an agent. Just start throwing stuff on YouTube and see what sticks. You won’t get rich overnight, but you’ll be working. You’ll be making art for people who “get you” and that audience will grow every day.
Kevin Smith is exactly the kind of artist who will succeed in the new model. He’s brash with critics and humble with fans. He’s working on a personal level, telling stories that come from his life. He’s a one-man marketing machine who engages with his fans on a level that would terrify a traditional director.
But there’s one more thing that makes Kevin Smith special. Since 1994, he’s been working with Jason Mewes, a self-confessed drug addict who’s using the power of podcasts and public confession to stay sober.
Mewes works with Smith on the podcast “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old,” where he regales the audience with hilarious (and harrowing) tales of drug abuse and recovery. Oversharing as rehab? Not a treatment for the shy or faint of heart, but it’s working, and when you’re playing on the edge like this, results are all that matter.
I’ll never be a Kevin Smith fan, but I think he’s a good person, and the Internet rewards people who tell the truth and play it straight. I think Kevin Smith has stumbled onto a business model for the new millennium, and that a thousand directors will follow in his wake.
Once upon a time in the Bandit Kingdoms…
Many years ago, there was a giant Dungeons and Dragons campaign called Living Greyhawk, where the organizers carved up this giant fictional world and matched them up with states and countries in the real world.
Each state in the union (and quite a few foreign provinces) were matched up with countries in the world of Greyhawk.
Texas was given the Bandit Kingdoms, a group of lawless frontier kingdoms full of thieves and criminals.
Then, as part of the overall plot development in the world, an evil king named Iuz moved in next door and started turning everybody into undead slaves.
Each region in the Living Greyhawk campaign had a web site to keep their particular group organized. The Bandit Kingdoms site was my favorite. It featured a list of t-shirt slogans that I regard as a masterpiece of dark humor and game geekery.
If you ever played Dungeons and Dragons, if you ever rolled a character in Greyhawk, this list should be good for a smile at least.
=====
T-shirt design debate
Being co-ordinated by Pat.
List gathered by Marcia: Please thank her.
Wanted, Demonslayers with HP’s, AC’s, GMW’s and a better healer.
“We came. We fought. He kicked our asses!”
“You can serve me just as well dead as alive!”
“We keep planting the paladins but the population never seems to grow.”
A friend in need is just another opportunity for profit.
According to the campaign rules, you can play any non-evil alignment, so you can choose anything neutral or suicidal.
All our heroes work in Hallorn.
All you need for speak with dead is the head, right?
An average of 2 lost characters per player and growing.
Anything that is not nailed down is mine. Anything I can pry loose is NOT nailed down.
Anything that is not nailed down is ours. Anything we can pry loose is NOT nailed down.
As a matter of fact I DO detect as evil
Bandit Kingdoms Underground – Resistance or Death!
Bandit Kingdoms: Good is only skin deep. Evil goes all the way to the bone.
Bandit Kingdoms: The Original Rogue State
Bandit Kingdoms: Where the plot hook rarely catches you in the mouth.
Bandits R’ Us
Been there, done that, got the whip scars.
Brains, its what makes a body good.
Can someone give me a hand with the paladin? He tried to detect evil again.
Can’t we all just get along?
Children go hungry, demons walk the streets, and an evil demi-god rules over the land…looks like everything is back to normal.
Conga line of death starts here.
Dead adventurers are the biggest portion of our economy.
Death: it does a body good
Dishonor before death.
Don’t antagonize the Demon. He’s dating your sister.
Don’t antagonize the Demons! They run the tax office.
Don’t cut off their heads it ruins the resale value!
Don’t get excited — it’s just another demon.
Don’t oppress me, I get plenty of that back home.
Everything’s worth something to somebody.
Evil schmeevil
Free Lords Forever! (Time to kick Iuz’s butt)
Free Lords Forever, viva la Revolution!
Give me every thing you got. Yes even the boots.
GM: “You hear screaming at the end of the hall.” PC (40′ from the end of the hall): “I take 10 searching the square in front of me.”
Greyhawk the bodies!
How many evil acts does it take to be removed from the campaign?
How much do you think we can get for this?
I *AM* the lesser evil.
I came, I saw, I lost some levels!
I don’t have to outrun HIM; I just have to outrun YOU!
I exemplify all the BK virtues: Jaded, cynical, and amoral.
I gave my soul to Neroth and all I got was this stinking T-Shirt
I kill him and take his shoes.
If the bounty gets high enough, I’ll turn myself in!
If you’re reading this, RUN! The forces of IUZ are right behind me!
I’m not touching that.
I’m right behind you.
In the BK no one can hear you scream.
In the BK we don’t believe in evil, we believe in opportunities.
It’s a dead body; let’s just shoot it from here.
It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye… then it’s down right hilarious!
It’s no use killing the city watch. They’re already undead.
It’s not an evil act if it hurts Iuz in any way.
It’s not theft if he’s dead.
Its only meta-gaming if you haven’t actually encountered Osyluth’s and Cornugon’s before.
IUZ is offering 500gp for my head… I wonder how much he’d give for the rest of me?
Iuz’s Conscription Center: We Want You Dead or Alive
I’ve been to the Old One’s silver mines, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.
I’ve got your back.
Jaded, cynical, amoral, but not bitter. Never bitter. No.
Just say ‘No’ to Paladins.
Looting and pillaging contribute over 66% of our GDP.
Mercy is for the weak.
Morality may be relative, but all my relatives have moved to Furyondy.
Must be nice to have ruler who doesn’t eat human flesh.
My region can kick your region’s butt!
Never surrender; never give up
Never trust a doublin.
Nice kingdom you’ve got here. Be a real shame if something were to ‘happen’ to it…
No mission too dangerous, no fee too high!
Of course we get to keep anything we find. Now, let’s discuss our *fee*.
One man’s medusa victim is another man’s lawn art.
Our cops are demons and undead. Our ruler eats souls for breakfast.
Our Zombies could kick your Zombies’ asses.
Over 10 billion souls reaped.
Paladin. It’s what’s for dinner.
Pick a direction and let’s go kill something.
Possession is 10 tenths of the law.
Providing charitable services at reasonable prices since CY 591.
Relax, they just drain levels.
Remember the Steelbone Meadows
Resistance is futile
Scream once for ‘Run away’, twice for ‘Help’.
Selling out our grandmothers since CY 591.
Serving the lesser god of evil since CY 591.
So, we get to keep *anything* we find in the mine other than the gems, right? Great. We’re gonna need a few mules.
Somebody tell that Lawful Good Bozo to keep his mouth shut!”
Soul, I don’t need no steenking soul!
Squeeze the little gnomes and watch their heads pop off.
The Bandit Kingdoms – Home of the Good, the Bad, and Old Ugly
The Bandit Kingdoms – Resistance even if Dead
The Bandit Kingdoms – Where every step may be your last!
The Bandit Kingdoms – Where the only ones you CAN trust are the bandits!
The Bandit Kingdoms – You’ll be screaming for your mommy.
The few, the proud, the Bonehearts!
The few, the proud, the undead
The Good, the Bad, and Old Ugly
The Good, the Bad, and the BK
The Good, the Bad, and the Undead
The Old One – out of sight, but never out of mind!
The Quick and the Dead
The Quick and the Undead.
The reward’s too low and they didn’t spell my name right.
The town has been destroyed by fire? We search the place for any valuables that might have survived.
There is no lesser evil. There is no greater evil. There is only Iuz.
Trust me.
Uncle Iuz wants YOU in the Bonehearts!
Undead, Demons, and Betrayal. It’s nice to be home!
Under the heel of the Old One
Wanted by Assassins of the Temple Grimacing
Wanted for Questioning by the Forces of Iuz
We BK the bodies.
We didn’t start out like this
We need more paladins! It’s almost lunchtime!
We strip-search the corpses and take everything with us.
Welcome to the BK. While you’re reading this, my partner has picked your pocket. Thank you.
We’ve got two kinds of heroes: the dead ones and… Never mind. It’s just one kind of hero.
What are YOU looking at?
What are you talking about? We *are* the wrong hands.
What the heck is a doubling?
What’s in it for me?
Where the good men are dead and the smart ones don’t eat jerky
Where ya get that huge frickin badger?
Who cares about thing that go bump in the night. I care about the ones that go wooooohooooo!
Yeah, I’ll hold that for ya.
Yeah, show’em your holy symbol, that will go over REAL big!”
Yes, that IS brimstone you smell.
You go first.
You may HATE him, but WE have to live with him!
You’ll want to choose me. I’m the lesser evil.
Your money or your life? What kind of pansy bandit are you, giving people a choice?
You’ve got three options: quick, smart, and dead. Choose two.
“The Bandit Kingdoms: Where the good men are dead, and the smart ones don’t eat the jerky”.
The Bandit Kingdoms… where ALL (live) bards have fighter or barbarian levels….
Is America still good enough for Superman?
D.C. Comics stirred up controversy all over the Net last week when Superman promised to renounce his American citizenship.
It happened in Action Comics #900, in a story written by David S. Goyer. In it, Superman joins a group of pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran, creating an international incident. Iran claims he’s acting as an official representative of the U.S. government and calls it an act of war.
The story opens with Superman getting scolded by the president’s National Security Advisor. Superman accepts the rebuke and says he can no longer tolerate having his actions associated with the U.S. government. He declares his intention to appear before the U.N. and renounce his citizenship.
Superman reminds us that he’s an alien and should therefore look at the “bigger picture.” He says, “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy.”
This story can be interpreted in two ways. The first (most charitable) interpretation is that Superman is giving up his citizenship for our own good. He wants to protect America from the consequences of his actions. Viewed in this light, renouncing his citizenship can be seen as Superman acting in America’s best interests.
But most comic readers, and most people who hear the news, are not going to interpret it that way.
There is a very ugly subtext in this story. Superman is essentially “getting in trouble” for doing the right thing. The U.S. is ready to declare him an enemy of the state. When he first lands at Camp David, a Marine sniper is pointing a Kryptonite bullet at his head.
This is not a pro-America story. People are reacting to it emotionally because Superman is a powerful symbol – a distinctly American symbol, carried forward into another time.
There are a lot of cultural forces in conflict here. I’m fascinated by this story because it’s a great example of how our culture has changed since Superman was introduced.
There are two big trends driving this story. First, my generation is obsessed with the idea of bringing comic book heroes into the adult world. Comic book films are a billion-dollar industry, and modern comic books aren’t really aimed at kids anymore.
The second trend is more cultural. Superman is a Modern Age hero, but we’re living in a postmodern century. Superman came from a world of sharp contrasts and clear lines, when good was good and evil was evil – a four-color hero making black and white choices.
But that world is long gone. Even in childhood, our national fairy tales have been replaced by lessons about moral ambiguity. Our kids are trained to accept all cultures equally, to consider all perspectives and feel sympathy for underdogs.
Our parents and grandparents were taught to worship America. Modern kids are trained to question America – to look for chinks in our national armor and focus on America’s mistakes.
But Superman wasn’t made for this world. He was made for an older, simpler world where America was always right and its enemies were always wrong.
Modern storytellers have done amazing work, redefining old-fashioned heroes for a postmodern world. The shelves are full of outstanding books based on this contrast, from Mark Waid’s “Kingdom Come” to Brad Meltzer’s “Identity Crisis.”
But Goyer’s story doesn’t strike the same note with me. It feels ham-handed and coarse – turning Superman into a political creature in a way he was never meant to be.
Goyer’s presentation of Superman as an alien isn’t just a postmodern conceit, it’s a betrayal of the character. Superman’s story is an immigrant’s story – an old-fashioned immigrant story lifted straight from the ’20s and ’30s.
He came to America as a child and adopted our values. In those days, that’s what America was – a set of values that anyone could adopt. It didn’t matter where you came from; if you were willing to work hard, play fair and deal honorably with your fellow man, you could wear the label “American” and be part of something that was bigger than any national identity.
Superman was the ultimate symbol of this transformation, proof that anyone could come from tragedy and ascend to greatness. But now America has changed. Our perception of America has changed.
Modern children don’t see America as a set of values anymore. Today America is just another nation on the map — no better, and often much worse, than the others. Superman is an unambiguous symbol of good, and a good hero can’t represent an evil country.
That’s the statement I think Goyer is making in Action Comics 900. America isn’t good enough for Superman anymore. How can he stand for “Truth, justice and the American Way” when we can’t even define what the American Way is?
The concept of an American Way has been swept aside, replaced by a postmodern muddle of guilt and shame. I understand the temptation to throw stones at DC Comics, but I would rather use this as the springboard for a larger discussion.
Does superhero morality really belong in the adult world? Can we see America in context and still be proud of it? Can we admit our mistakes and still celebrate our virtues? Is patriotism a feeling we must “grow out of” as we study history?
I think there’s still room for an American Way in the 21st century. I think we can celebrate America without ignoring history, and I think there’s still room for patriotism in the American heart – not the blind, childish patriotism of our youth, but a mature, adult patriotism that keeps America in context and takes honest pride in what we’ve done.
Meet Scott Johnson, the Orson Welles of Podcasting
So, how do I describe Scott Johnson to people who aren’t already listening to his podcasts?
Is he the Nick Denton of podcasting? The Henry Ford of podcasting? I think history will remember him as the Orson Welles of podcasting. Right now Scott is in his Mercury Theatre phase – testing the waters, inventing new techniques, trying a hundred little experiments as he refines his style and learns what audiences want.
Even now Scott produces more podcasts in a week than most people have time to listen to. With strong support from advertisers, FrogPants Studios has been Scott’s full-time job since 2009. The FrogPants network produces podcasts on a wide range of geek-friendly topics — from The Instance, a show about the World of Warcraft to Coverville, a music podcast dedicated to weird and wonderful covers of popular songs, FrogPants Studios produces shows on a dozen niche topics, all done in a format that sounds like your favorite morning show.
I started out as an Instance fan and have recently branched out, following Scott’s projects as he started The Creep, a podcast about Starcraft II, and The Morning Stream, a true morning show format where Scott and his co-host Brian Ibbott riff about politics, news and pop culture.
Of all these projects, The Morning Stream is Scott’s baby now.
“I feel like everything that I have done over the years has led up to The Morning Stream,” Scott said. “I am SOOO happy with [that] show so far, and it’s only a couple of months old. It just feels like the culmination of a lot of hard work, trial and error, and experience with this stuff for the last 5 or 6 years. It is something that I wish I would have done sooner, and the listeners seem to agree.”
Scott casts such a wide net, producing so many podcasts on so many topics, it’s hard to describe them all. If you’re looking for something fun and free to load on your iPod, Google “frog pants” and check out Scott’s master list of podcasts.
I subscribed to the FrogPants Ultra Feed and found a couple hidden gems – a couple great podcasts that don’t get as much attention as Scott’s big three. I particularly enjoyed the FourCast, basically a group of geeks predicting the future – not just riffing about what the next iPad will look like, but a discussion about what the human race will look like, once technology gives us the power to redefine what “human” means.
Heavy stuff, but still handled with humor and wit, perfect for fans of Alastair Reynolds and Iain M. Banks.
I’ve noticed a pattern in these podcasts. Scott acts as moderator and provocateur, throwing out questions when things get slow, but slipping quietly into the background when his guests are on a roll. I think it’s that producer mentality, that lack of ego that has allowed Scott to succeed when so many others have faded.
I saw it first on The Instance, when Scott brought in Randy Jordan to provide some much-needed crunch and attention to detail. Scott became the jester to Randy’s straight man, keeping the tone light while Randy dug into the nuts and bolts of the game. Their chemistry took the show to a whole new level, turning it into one of the indispensable geek podcasts, even for people who are tired of the game.
Randy recently left the podcast, citing a conflict of interest with his mysterious new dream job. It could have been the end of the show, but Scott brought in a couple of fast-talking guild mates and turned the whole thing around.
Scott is rocking the house with his new co-hosts Turpster and Dills and the tone of the show has completely changed. Nothing could replace the chemistry of Scott and Randy, so they didn’t try.
The Instance is a completely new show now, and I was struck by how quickly Scott himself was able to switch gears. He doesn’t have to be the funniest guy in the room anymore, so he’s content to step back and let the others take center stage.
It’s this quality more than anything else that makes me take Scott seriously. It’s the same quality that put Nick Denton on top of a worldwide blog empire – the same quality that all great producers and directors have. These guys provide the creative juice and push things forward, but ultimately it’s not “about” them. It’s about finding the best talent for the job and getting out of their way.
Scott was modest when I asked him about it. I don’t think he spends a lot of time thinking about his role in all this. When I asked him to share his advice for new podcasters, he made it sound easy.
Scott said, “Simple: Start making shows, don’t worry about selling shirts the first day, be consistent, and do it because you love it. All of that will add up to greater things later.”
Michael B. Duff 
