Friday 4 January 2019

The Fiction-Suit














“IT IS NOT TOO FAR-FETCHED TO PREDICT THAT SOME DAY OUR VERY OWN PLANET MAY BE PEOPLED ENTIRELY BY SUPERMEN!” Joe Shuster assured us back in 1938, but comic-book reality predicts developments in our own in many other ways. 

What we construct in our imaginations, we have a knack of building or discovering. We may not have flying men or invulnerable women racing among us, but we now have access to supertechnologies that once existed only in comic-book stories. “Mother Boxes,” empathic personal computers like the ones in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World story cycle, are already here in embryonic form. 

Is the soothing contact offered by the Mother Box so different from the instant connection that a cell phone provides? 

Twenty-four-hour access to friends, family, and the buzz of constant social exchange can make us feel cocooned and safe in a reportedly hostile world. 

In many cases, Mother herself can be summoned on the Box. 

Metron was Kirby’s avatar of ruthless, questing intellect, whose Mobius Chair twisted through time and space to make him the god of couch potatoes, surfing channels, gathering information, without ever leaving the comfort of his armchair. Metron’s magic furniture seems less a wonder of supertechnology than a fact of daily life. 

As Kirby tried to tell us in his book of the same name, we are the new gods, just as we are the old ones, too. There is already technology that allows people to drive remote-controlled cars with their minds. What’s to stop someone becoming Auto-Man, the Human Car? Secretly, he sits in his room, munching Maltesers at his computer screen, while he listlessly pilots his incredible RV supercar around town to save lives and fight the crime that ordinary police cars just aren’t fast enough to handle. In so many ways, we’re already superhuman. Being extraordinary is so much a part of our heritage as human beings that we often overlook what we’ve done and how very unique it all is. We have made machines to extend our physical reach and the reach of our senses, allowing us to peer into the depths of space and outer time. Our cameras and receivers allow us to see across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We can slow down, freeze, and accelerate time on our screens. We can study and manipulate microscopic worlds, print our names on single atoms, analyze soil on Mars, and observe the rings of Saturn at close range. Our voices and our photographic records of everything we’ve seen are carried at the speed of light on an expanding bubble of radio, into the infinite. Television broadcasts of the first moon landing are still traveling, growing fainter as the waves spread out. If you had a powerful enough receiver and a TV on a planet forty light-years from here, you could watch Neil Armstrong take his first step on mankind’s behalf and hear our silly, hopeful summer 1969 songs. Our space machines are the remote physical tendrils of our species launched across gulfs of nothing to land on other worlds or to travel, gathering data until the signal fades, or until there’s no one left to listen. These ultimate extensions of human senses thread our awareness into the absolute freezing dark 10.518 billion miles from where you’re sitting. As I write, that’s how far Voyager 1, humanity’s farthest-reaching finger, has extended. Launched in 1977, it remains connected to its home world by radio and by the silver thread of its passage through time from launchpad to interstellar void. Individual humans are not super, but the organism of which we are all tiny cellular parts is most certainly that. The life-form that’s so big we forget it’s there, that turns minerals on its planet into tools to touch the infinite black gap between stars or probe the obliterating pressures at the bottom of the oceans. We are already part of a superbeing, a monster, a god, a living process that is so all encompassing that it is to an individual life what water is to fish. We are cells in the body of a singular three-billion-year-old life-form whose roots are in the Precambrian oceans and whose genetic wiring extends through the living structures of everything on the planet, connecting everything that has ever lived in one immense nervous system. The superheroes may have their greatest value in a future where real superhuman beings are searching for role models. When the superhumans of tomorrow step dripping from their tanks, they could do much worse than to look to Superman for guidance. Superhero comics may yet find a purpose all along as the social realist fiction of tomorrow. Superhero science has taught me this: Entire universes fit comfortably inside our skulls. Not just one or two but endless universes can be packed into that dark, wet, and bony hollow without breaking it open from the inside. The space in our heads will stretch to accommodate them all. The real doorway to the fifth dimension was always right here. Inside. That infinite interior space contains all the divine, the alien, and the unworldly we’ll ever need. To find out what higher dimensions might look like, all we have to do is study the relationship between our 3-D world and the 2-D comics. A 4-D creature could look “down” on us through our walls, our clothes, even our skeletons. Our world would be a Cubist X-ray, and perhaps even our thoughts might be laid bare to their gaze. As comics readers gazing down from a higher dimension perpendicular to the page surface, we can actually peer inside characters’ thoughts with balloons or captions that provide running commentary. We can also control time in a comics universe. We can stop on page 12 and look back to page 5 to check a story point we missed. The characters themselves continue to act out their own dramas in the same linear sequence, oblivious to our shifting perspective. They can go back in time only with the help of supermachines, like the Flash’s cosmic treadmill, but we can look at 1938 Superman next to 1999 Superman without colliding the two stories anywhere but in our heads. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could send drawn versions of themselves into the created world of Fantastic Four, and those little drawings of Stan and Jack were like angels, UFOs, avatars from a higher universe, entering a world they’d made to interact with its inhabitants. 

They created, as I came to call them, “fiction suits,” like space suits for sending yourself into stories. 

The comics page depicted the flow of a different kind of digital time, expressed in discrete images, each of which captured a single visual moment and usually a snippet of audio time in the form of a balloon-dialogue exchange. The comics page, like the movie screen, took us through a story in a straight, linear progression from past read to present reading and future completion, but the comics page was a more personal and intimate interface than the cinema screen. It lacked the intimidating luster of the movies, and the images could be slowed down, rewound, fast-forwarded, and studied in detail. They could even be copied, traced, or improved upon, making this an ideal DIY medium for the imaginative and reasonably gifted. The pace of a film or television show was dictated by its director. The comics allowed its reader to direct his or her own experience of the story. And now there were two healthy universes living and growing inside our own. The DC universe was a series of islands separated for years, suddenly discovering one another and setting up trade routes. And there was Marvel’s beautifully orchestrated growth and development. Two living virtual worlds had been grown and nurtured inside conventional space-time. These were not like closed continua with beginnings, middles, and ends; the fictional “universe” ran on certain repeating rules but could essentially change and develop beyond the intention of its creators. It was an evolving, learning, cybernetic system that could reproduce itself into the future using new generations of creators who would be attracted like worker bees to serve and renew the universe. Just as generations of aboriginal artists have taken it upon themselves to repaint the totems, so too does the enchanted environment of the comic-book dreamtime replicate itself through time. A superhero universe will change in order to remain viable and stay alive. As long as the signs stay constant—the trademark S shields and spiderweb patterns, and the copyrighted hero names—everything else can bend and adapt to the tune of the times. These characters were like twelve-bar blues or other chord progressions. Given the basic parameters of Batman, different creators could play very different music. This meant interesting work could be done by writers and artists who knew what they were getting into and were happy to add their own little square to a vast patchwork quilt of stories that would outlast their lives. In return for higher page rates and royalties, of course. The parasitic relationship of universe to creator that saw the rebellions of people like Siegel and Shuster or Jack Kirby had become a little more symbiotic; following changes in the business in the eighties, creative people adding to the DC or Marvel universe would be ripped off with a little more reward on the back end. In this respect, a thriving fictional universe simulates the behavior of a “real” organism, but only as far as you wish to follow me down this path of conjecture. Nevertheless, human beings had built working parallel realities. Given market value as corporate trademarks, the inhabitants of these functioning microcosms could be self-sustaining and outlast their creators. New trademarks could be grown in the concept farms of fictional universes under the auspices of the corporate concerns that kept them under control, maintaining, trimming, and looking after their burgeoning gardens of newsprint and ink. Most important, they had acolytes: priests in the form of creative types such as artists who would grow up with a strange desire to draw Superman in motion and writers who would form early bonds that encouraged them to devote their talents to putting words in the mouths of characters they’d grown up with. These creative people would sustain the likes of Spider-Man, dripping their blood and sweat into the ink to give their lives to him. Batman could regularly feed on energy that kept him vital for another ten or fifteen years until the next transfusion of meaning. Emergence is a simple idea. The universe is the way it is because it grew that way. It emerged piece by piece, like a jigsaw solving itself over billions of years of trial and error. When atoms stuck together, they naturally formed molecules. Molecules naturally grouped into compounds. People naturally formed tribal associations that made them look much bigger to predators from a distance, and as a result of clumping together and swapping experiences, they naturally developed specialization and created a shared culture or collective higher intelligence. Everybody’s heard writers talk about a moment in the process of writing a novel or story when “it was as if the characters took over.” 

I can confirm from my own experience that immersion in stories and characters does reach a point where the fiction appears to take on a life of its own. 

When a character becomes sufficiently fleshed out and complex, he or she can often cause the author to abandon original well-laid plans in favor of new plotlines based on a better understanding of the character’s motivations. 

When I was halfway through the seven-year process of writing The Invisibles, I found several characters actively resisting directions I’d planned for them. 

It was a disorienting, fascinating experience, and I eventually had to give in and let the story lead me to places I might not have chosen to go. 

How could a story come to life? 


It seemed ridiculous, but it occurred to me that perhaps, like a beehive or a sponge colony, I’d put enough information into my model world to trigger emergent complexity. 

[ "Ray, the sponges migrated about a foot-and-a-half..." ]

I wondered if ficto-scientists of the future might finally locate this theoretical point where a story becomes sufficiently complex to begin its own form of calculation, and even to become in some way self-aware. 

[ There is Another Theory, 
Which States That ... ]


Perhaps that had already happened. 


If this was true of The Invisibles, then might it not apply more so to the truly epic, long-running superhero universes? 




Marvel and DC have roots that run seventy years deep. 

Could they actually have a kind of elementary awareness, a set of programs that define their rules and maintain their basic shapes while allowing for development, complexity, and, potentially, some kind of rudimentary consciousness? I imagined a sentient paper universe and decided I would try to contact it.


•••••••


One of the biggest and most significant achievements of the Green Lantern/ Green Arrow series was its introduction of race issues into the comics in an unprecedented way. A heavily praised scene from 1970’ s Green Lantern/ Green Arrow no. 76, the provocative opening chapter of the O’Neil and Adams run, drew the blood of the times with razor precision and was often cited as an example of a fresh willingness to engage with real-world issues in serial superhero fiction. 

After rescuing the tenants of a tenement block from a fire orchestrated by the unscrupulous landlord, Green Lantern, and by extension the whole Silver Age of superheroes, was called to account in no uncertain terms by an elderly black man who turned out to be less than impressed with our hero’s showy antics and had this to say: 

“I BEEN READIN’ ABOUT YOU … HOW YOU WORK FOR THE BLUE SKINS … AND HOW ON A PLANET SOMEPLACE YOU HELPED OUT THE ORANGE SKINS … AND YOU DONE CONSIDERABLE FOR THE PURPLE SKINS! ONLY THERE’S SKINS YOU NEVER BOTHERED WITH … THE BLACK SKINS! I WANT TO KNOW … HOW COME?! ANSWER ME THAT, GREEN LANTERN!” 

(For the first time in DC superhero comics, black people actually looked black and not like the traditional white men colored brown or loose-lipped caricatures that were more common. Adams’s photographic accuracy left no doubt as to the ethnicity of his characters. Italians, Orientals, Native Americans—all were given respect, dignity, and convincing bone structures by Adams’s talent and sense of inclusion.) 

In any real world where the laws of physics and some interstellar immortal judiciary permitted his existence, Green Lantern’s response would be all our responses to the same accusation: “I’VE BEEN SAVING THE ENTIRE PLANET EARTH AND EVERY LIVING THING ON IT, REGARDLESS OF RACE, COLOR, POLITICAL AFFILIATION OR SPECIES, SINCE GREEN LANTERN ISSUE NUMBER 1!” 

Instead he hung his head in shame as O’Neil subverted believability to hammer home his powerful indictment of the superhero’s role as weapon of the status quo and the ruling elite. 

Green Lantern’s sudden awareness of people suffering below the poverty line may seem almost farcical, but we can also choose to view the Lantern as a representation of the typical white-middle-class young reader and to see in the politically engaged Green Arrow a “fiction suit” for mouthpiece for O’Neil, using his art to open a few young eyes to some important facts of life. 


Changing values have lent a hollow ring to O’Neil’s sermonizing, but in May 1970, when the only nonwhite face in a DC comic belonged to the “glowing silhouette” character Negative Man, this felt like a challenging and provocative call to arms—a timely demand for the paper universes of DC and Marvel to acknowledge the human diversity of the real world in which they continued to grow and develop. 

The following issue was no less controversial, as O’Neal-Adams introduced a new substitute Green Lantern in the form of “Square” John Stewart, a black, inner-city architect with a chip on his shoulder, whose first mission was to protect a racist presidential candidate. 

This led to some slightly predictable but always amusing fun at the expense of “whitey.” The potential for tokenism was there, but Stewart was a strong character and has survived to the present day as a popular Green Lantern Corps member. 

As the acting Green Lantern in the turn-of-the-century Justice League animated shows, he reached a wider audience, on television, than any of his predecessors. Stewart was DC’s first out-and-proud African American superhero. 

Marvel, ahead of the curve on most things, had already introduced its Black Panther character in 1966, and by 1973 he was starring in his own title. 

Jungle Action, written by the radical Don McGregor (more about him later), and drawn by Billy Graham, a talented young black artist, became infamous for a controversial 1976–79 extended story line, “The Panther vs. the Clan,” which landed McGregor in hot water with the right wing. 

The undeniable dignity and majesty of the Panther (T’Challa, the proud king of Wakanda, a wealthy, culturally rich, and technologically advanced Marvel universe African nation that was as far from the stereotypical image of mud huts and scrawny goatherds as could be imagined in the sixties), was only marginally compromised by his failure to represent; T’Challa wore a full black body suit with a hood that covered his entire face. 

The completely masked black-hero trick was copied and improved upon to gruesome effect and great success decades later in Todd McFarlane’s Spawn comic and its associated transmedia spin-offs, but without the taboo-smashing impact of the Black Panther and John Stewart. 

Aiming a wink in the direction of the Black Panther’s modesty, John Stewart made a show of ditching his Green Lantern Corps domino mask in the panel after he received it: “I WON’T WEAR ANY MASK! THIS BLACK MAN LETS IT ALL HANG OUT! I GOT NOTHING TO HIDE!” 

After architect Stewart tore down the barriers, Marvel revved up the relevance bandwagon with its own next-level take on the Green Lantern/ Green Arrow formula, teaming Captain America with a flying Harlem social worker who fought injustice as the Falcon.


 June 1972’ s Hero for Hire introduced blaxploitation hero Luke Cage, aka Power Man, whose dialogue bowdlerized urban argot into Marvel universe–friendly oaths like “SWEET CHRISTMAS!” “MOTHER!” and “JIVE TURKEY!” Cage was a rough-and-tumble enforcer with steel-hard skin and the semipermanent grimace of the framed and wrongly accused. 

He wore a length of chain around his waist to remind us of history’s cruelties but soon outgrew his origins to develop as a rich and enduring character, still central to the ongoing Marvel story decades past Shaft and Jim Kelly.



••••••


I’d already contrived to meet Animal Man in his own environment, creating with the help of artist Chaz Truog what I came to call a “fiction suit.” 

This was a way of “descending,” as I saw it, into the 2-D world, where I could interact directly with the inhabitants of the DC universe on their own terms, in the form of a drawing. 

I wanted to take that direct contact idea further, to explore the interface between fact and fiction in a more personally involving way. 


I wondered if I could arrange an exchange that would affect my life and real world as profoundly as it would the paper world.


••••


Schrödinger's Bat - The Illusionist's Duel


Batman - The Dark Knight | The Joker Compilation (All Scenes)


A Cover is Not The Book




A Cover is Not The Book.

The Map is Not The Territory.

Big Data is Not Reality.


ADRIC: 
No! I don't want to play. 

HINDLE: 
Why not? 

ADRIC: 
Because I don't want to. 
It's childish. 


HINDLE: 
Oh, go on. 
It isn't a game, it's real
With measuring and everything!































Uncle Goodenberg was a bookworm
And he lived on Charring Cross
The memory of his volumes brings a smile
He would read me lots of stories
When he wasn't on the sauce

Now I'd like to share the wisdom
Of my favourite bibliophile
He said a
Cover is not the book
So open it up and take a look
'Cause under the cover one discovers
That the king maybe a crook
Chapter titles are like signs
And if you read between the lines
You'll find your first impression was mistook
For a cover is nice
But a cover is not the book

"Mary Poppins, could you give us an example?"

"Certainly"

Nelly Rebitta was made of wood
But what could not be seen was though
A trunk up top was barren
While her roots were lush and green
So in Spring when Mr. Hickery saw her blossoms blooming there
He took fruit despite her bark
And now there's seedlings everywhere
Which proves that
A cover is not the book
So open it up and take a look
'Cause under the cover one discovers
That the king maybe a crook

Chapter titles are like signs
And if you read between the lines
You'll find your first impression was mistook
For a cover is nice
But a cover is not the book

"Should we do the one about the wealthy widow?"

"Ooh, by all means"

"Always loved that one"

"Well, go on then"

Lady Highest of Macaw
Brought all her treasures to a reef
Where she only wore a smile
Plus two feathers, and a leaf
So no one tried to rob her
'Cause she barely wore a stitch
For when you're in your birthday suit
There ain't much there to show you're rich
Oh, a cover is not the book
So open it up and take a look
'Cause under the cover one discovers
That the king maybe a crook
Tarulalee, tarurala, tarulalee, tara-ta-ta
You'll find your first impression was mistook (ya-da-da-da)
For a cover is nice
But a cover is not the book

"Oh give us the one about that dirty rascal, why don't ya"
"Isn't that one a bit long?"
"Well the quicker you're into it, the quicker you're out of it"

Once upon a time
In a nursery rhyme
There was a castle with a king
Hiding in a wing
'Cause he never went to school to learn a single thing
He had scepters and swords
And a parliament of lords
But on the inside he was sad
Egad!
Because he never had a wisdom for numbers
A wisdom for words
Though his crown was quite immense
His brain was smaller that a bird's
So the queen of the nation
Made a royal proclamation
"To the Missus and the Messers
The more or lessers
Bring me all the land's professors"
Then she went to the hair dressers
And they came from the east
And they came from the south
From each college they poured knowledge
From their brains into his mouth
But the king couldn't learn
So each professor met their fate
For the queen had their heads removed
And placed upon the gate
And on that date
I state their wives all got a note
Their mate was now the late great
But then suddenly one day
A stranger started in to sing
He said "I'm the dirty rascal
And I'm here to teach the king"
And the queen clutched her jewels
For she hated royal fools
But this fool had some rules
They really ought to teach in schools
Like you'll be a happy king
If you enjoy the things you've got
You should never try to be
The kind of person that you're not
So they sang and they laughed
For the king had found a friend
And they ran onto a rainbow for
The story's perfect end
So the moral is you mustn't let
The outside be the guide
For it's not so cut and dried
Well unless it's Dr. Jekyll
Then you better hide
Petrified
No, the truth can't be denied
As I now have testified
All that really counts and matters
Is the special stuff inside
"He did it!"
Oh, a cover is not the book
So open it up and take a look
Cause under the cover one discovers
That the king maybe a crook
So please listen to what we've said
And open up a book tonight in bed
So one more time before we get the hook (sing it out strong!)
A cover is nice (Please take our advice)
A cover is nice (Or you'll pay the price)
A cover is nice
But a cover is not the book















Wind’s in The East...










Thursday 3 January 2019

Indeed



Indeed, You are Powerful
As The Emperor has foreseen






Mary Poppins paused for a moment to glance at her reflection in the hall mirror. 

“Oh, do come on, Mary Poppins! You look all right,” said Michael impatiently. 

She wheeled about. Her expression was angry, outraged and astonished all at once. 

All right, indeed! That was hardly the word. 

All right, in her blue jacket with the silver buttons! 
All right with her gold locket round her neck! 
All right with the parrot-headed umbrella under her arm! 

Mary Poppins sniffed. 

“That will be enough from you – and more! she said shortly. 

Though what she meant was that it wasn’t nearly sufficient.






(Romana has let her hair down and is brushing it.

ROMANA: 
You're sulking. 

DOCTOR: 
I'm not sulking. 

ROMANA: 
That's ridiculous for somebody as old as you are. 

DOCTOR: 
I'm not old. What? 

ROMANA: 
Seven hundred and fifty nine? 

DOCTOR: 
Seven hundred and fifty six. That's not old, that's just mature. 

ROMANA: 
You've lost count somewhere. 





DOCTOR: 
Well, I ought to know my own age. 

ROMANA: 
Yes, but after the first few centuries, I expect things get a little bit foggy, don't they. 

DOCTOR: 
Now, listen. It's no good, this isn't going to work. 

ROMANA: 
Doctor, you're not giving me a chance. 
It's funny, you know, but before I met you, I was even willing to be impressed. 

DOCTOR: 
Indeed

ROMANA: 
Oh yes. Of course, now I realise that your behaviour simply derives from a subtransitory experiential hypertoid induced condition, aggravated, I expect, by multi-encephalogical tensions. 

DOCTOR: 
What's that supposed to mean? 


ROMANA: 
Well, to put it very simply, Doctor, you're suffering from a 
massive compensation syndrome. 

DOCTOR: 
Is that the sort of rubbish they're pouring into your head at the Academy? 

ROMANA: 
Do you know, I might even use your case in my thesis when I'm back on Gallifrey. 

DOCTOR: 
I'll show you whether I'm suffering from a massive compensation syndrome. And you're not going back to Gallifrey, not for a long time yet, I regret to say. Read out those coordinates again.

ROMANA: 
Forty nine four zero, vector's unchanged. 

DOCTOR: 
Same as before. Distance? 

ROMANA: One hundred and sixteen parsecs. 

DOCTOR: 
One hundred and sixteen parsecs. 
Must be the planet of Ribos. 
If it changes again while we're in the vortex, we could lose it. 

On the other hand -

ROMANA: 
Oh, take a chance. 

DOCTOR: 
I'll make the decisions here! 

ROMANA: 
Well, what shall we do? 

DOCTOR: 
We'll take a chance.

Wednesday 2 January 2019

Richard Burton - The Greatest Poem in the English Language


I will Teach You Infinities -

I Will Say to You of 
The Greatest Poem in The English Language -

The Present Tense of The Verb "To Be".

Now, One Asks,
"What is the Present Tense of The Verb "To Be"...

Now - I shall speak it for You :-

I am


Thou art



She is...



...He is



We are



You are

They are




TIG: 
Sorry, brother. I should have stayed. 
Had your back. I mean, just turning in this SA tag-- 
I don't know, man-- was just kind of lost in this cartel sh1t. 

I love you, Clay. I do. 

I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around you stepping down. 

I don't know... 
I don't know what I'm gonna look like when that happens, you know? 
(door opens

GEMMA: 
This is not your fault, baby. Oh, honey. 
(Tig cries) 
It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay. 

(Tig sobbing) 
Oh. He knows you love him. 
It's okay, really. 
(Tig sniffles) 

TIG: 
Yeah. Thanks. 
Ah, sh1t. sh1t. 
How are you? 

GEMMA: 
I'm fine. 

GEMMA: 
Where's Jax? TIG: Oh, he's at the clubhouse. 
Uh... give me a minute, yeah? 

GEMMA: 
Okay. Sorry. 

JAX: 
I've been looking for you. Shut the door. What happened to Piney? 

GEMMA: 
Clay killed him. 
(Jax sighs

JAX: 
Look, I know Clay and Piney were beefing over this cartel sh1t... 

GEMMA: - 
It wasn't over the cartel. 
It was over these. 

Maureen Ashby put them in your bag before you left Belfast. They're letters from your father. 

-Tara found them before you did. 

JAX: 
Tara had these? 
Why didn't she tell me? 

GEMMA: 
She knew they would break your heart. 
Same way they did mine. 

When Thomas got sick, your dad stopped going to Belfast... 
started writing to Maureen. 

JAX: 
What does this have to do with Clay? 

GEMMA: 
JT and Kellan decided to get the MC out of guns, away from the IRA. 

Clay thought it was a mistake. 

He was afraid John would destroy the club. 
So he decided to kill him. 

The first time... he sent John into a Mayan ambush, unprotected. 

Your dad made it out. 
But he knew it was Clay who'd set it up. 
And he knew Clay would try again. 
He predicted it would be mechanical. 

He was right. 

JAX: 
The accident. 

GEMMA: 
The only person JT ever let work on his bike was Lowell Sr. Clay must have... paid him off or threatened him. 
He had to be the one who sabotaged the Panhead. 

JAX: 
Lowell Sr. was killed by the Mayans a week later. 

GEMMA: 
Yeah. Clay buried the secret. (sighs)

 JAX: 
How do you know all this? 

GEMMA: 
The letters. The speculation. The Mayan ambush. 
John knew Clay would kill him. 
And Clay knew those letters would prove it. 


Enough to get him voted out, undo everything he'd worked for. 

JAX: 
Piney got ahold of these. 

GEMMA: 
He must have threatened Clay. 

JAX (quietly): 
Oh, my God. 

GEMMA: 
That's not all. I found the cover letter Maureen wrote telling you to read them. It was in your house. I knew Tara was the one who'd found them. I... I panicked. I told Clay. 

JAX: 
Clay knew... that Tara had these? 

GEMMA: 
He tried to kill Tara. That thing that happened in the park, that wasn't the cartel. That was guys Clay hired to kill your wife, Jax. 

JAX: 
How did you get them? 

GEMMA: 
Tara gave them to me. Don't be upset with her. 
She didn't want you to read them. 
She didn't know what you might do. 

JAX: 
Why are you telling me this, Mom? Why now? 

GEMMA: 
Because I know how dangerous secrets can be. 
And it's time we all knew the truth. 

Clay Morrow killed your father. 

Stole that seat away from this family. 
Gunned down your father's best friend. 
And he tried to kill your wife. 

He's a murderous traitor. 
And there's only one thing to do now, Jackson. 

For your father, your family and your club. 
It's in you. It's who you are. 

Clay has to die. 

Read 'em. See him in your father's own hand. 
And then you kill him, Jax. 

You kill Clay before he's on his feet and strikes first. 
And when it's done... you take your place at the head of this table... 

Where a Teller belongs. 
Where you belong.

President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address



Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens:      

We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom--symbolizing an end as well as a beginning--signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.

     The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

     We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.     Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

     This much we pledge--and more.

     To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do--for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.     To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.


     To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.     To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge--to convert our good words into good deeds--in a new alliance for progress--to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

     To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support--to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective--to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak--and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

     Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. 

     We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. 

     But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course--both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war. 

     So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. 

     Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. 

     Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms--and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. 

     Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce. 

     Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah--to "undo the heavy burdens . . . (and) let the oppressed go free." 

     And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. 

     All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. 

     In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe. 

     Now the trumpet summons us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need--not as a call to battle, though embattled we are-- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"--a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. 

     Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort? 

     In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. 

     And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. 

     My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. 

     Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own. 

2.47 Billion


A Day Will Eventually Come for You, 

Perhaps Tomorrow,
Perhaps Many, Many Years From Now, 
Or, Perhaps Maybe Only Right at The Very End -

When All This Torment,
All of The Pain You Are Currently in, 
Has Become Useful

Tuesday 1 January 2019

Suffer Well - 'Cuz Ya Sure Can't Sing or Dance



Suffer Well, Rocky - Suffer Well.

Allow me jus' to remind you of one or two of a couple of Things You Already Know  -

You Don't Sing or Dance So Good, 
and
Since You Ain't Dyin' Here Today, 
Like, as in Right-Now, This Minute --
What Else Ya Gonna Do in the Meantime, whilst waitin' on The Reapear,  Rock-O ...?

Tic-Tock, Rock -
Y'still on The Clock

- REMEMBER THE NEIGHBOURHOOD -

I Din't Hear No Bell.

RUMBLE - Old Man - RUMBLE



Rocky, Each Night is His Dreaming :
I'm Not as Strong as You Were, Adrian...

I Never Was.


Adrian in Spirit and in Paradise, 
By The Grace of God :
No...

[ turns away, remembering herself to him, and the Powerful Warrior Image of Her in his head and half-smiles before walking on once more -]

You're Stronger.




The Penguin :
I wasn't sure you would come, Elwood.


Elwood Blues, Brother to Jake :
A letter from you is like a command, sister.
You know that.



Actually, it's Mother Mary now.
That's a promotion, isn't it?
I was sorry to hear about Jake.
Yeah, well I guess
he's in a much better place.
Where is Curtis?
Curtis has gone on as well, Elwood.
I'm sorry.
So that's why he stopped writing me.
He was very upset
when the orphanage closed.
Curtis was the closest thing to a dad
Jake and I ever had.
He gave us the music.
The Lord works in mysterious ways,
Elwood.
We must go on and fight the good fight.
The orphanage is gone, Jake's gone,
Curtis is gone.
I got no brother, no roots, no life.
I got nothing!
Young man...
...you were not taught and raised by me...
...to fold at the slightest whiff
of adverse circumstances.
Now quit your silly moping,
pull yourself together and snap out of it!
But...
But nothing! Wise up!
Turn your heart to the Creator.
You are so quick to despair.
You are not the only person in the world
who has had tragedy in their lives.
Did you know that Curtis had a son?
Curtis had a son?
Before Curtis came to us
at St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud...
...he had a musical group
that toured juke joints in the Midwest.
In one town, Curtis had an affair
with a married woman.
Go, Curtis.
I mean, that's terrible.
That's what I thought you meant.
The woman became pregnant
and decided to stay with her husband...
...never telling him
that the boy child wasn't his.
Curtis was devastated.
He came to us as a custodian...
...and spent the rest of his life
caring for little orphans like you.
That's a beautiful story.
Wait a minute. If Curtis had a son...
...that guy would be kind of like
my stepbrother.
I have a family.
Curtis stayed in touch
with the boy's mother.
He sent his paycheck every week.
Where is this boy now?
He's a grown man now,
and doing quite well.
He's in the city.
His name is Cabel Chamberlain.
Cabel Chamberlain.
He knows nothing about Curtis.
You are not to tell him.
I wouldn't say anything.
Do you know anything about mentoring?
No. What about it?
I'd like you to meet someone.
Sister, would you send Buster in here?
Wait a minute.
Thank you.
Come in, Buster, and sit down.
Elwood, say hello to Buster.
Hi. How ya doin'?
Buster, say hello to Elwood.
Hi. How ya doin'?
The kid's a wiseass.
Shit!
What did you say?
I said, what a sweet kid.
That's more like it.
Now, here's my proposal.
Buster is a ward of the State.
Due to lack of space, the archdiocese...
...is housing homeless children
here at the hospital.
What's that got to do with me?
I thought you could come
and spend time with Buster.
Why don't you take Buster to the library?
You know, I've been jacked around...
The library. No problem.
See you in two hours, boys.
Here's the deal. You wait here.
I'll come back for you with the car.
Do you have a car?
I'm working on it.