Hello, friends! Today I’m proud as all get out to share links to my book, “Coming of Rage.” It comes available in paperback and e-book from Raw Earth Ink. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did putting them together. Much love and thanks for your support!
I recently reconnected with an old writer friend from my college newspaper days, and we had such a refreshing catch-up leading to a discussion about my book, “Coming of Rage,” coming out soon through Raw Earth Ink. In my time interviewing bands and film directors, I was fortunate to be on the other end a few times, and now comes this fun opportunity to chat up my work. Credited to “Terry A.,” this was a total blast and I thank her for her courtesy in letting me gab about “Coming of Rage.”
Where did you come up with the title, “Coming of Rage?” It kind of gives me the shivers, though the way you describe the collection of short stories, it’s a far different thing altogether.
Right. The title story, “Coming of Rage,” was the root of the book’s concept and it’s an accurate depiction of an event which happened to me the summer before 7th grade. I lived in a rough neighborhood where drugs, bullies and vandalism were the norm, and this was the early 1980s. It wasn’t inner-city, but a suburb that had all the illusions back in 1981 and ’82 of being a desirable middle class townhouse development. Back then, it was hardly the case.
I went through a lot back then, and after many months of getting bullied and beat up in sixth and seventh grades, I’d hit the point where enough was enough. The day I trashed five boys at school in response to this long-escalating abuse revealed the ugliest, most violent side of myself I don’t ever care to see again. For this story’s purposes, “Coming of Rage” is a prequel of sorts, when I was betrayed by a friend I had a crush on and though no fighting occurred against the antagonists involved in the story and for real, it marked my beginning of a point of no return. The way the story ends in comedic fashion is likewise the way it happened. It was cathartic and felt every bit as much when I wrote it.
You told me earlier “Coming of Rage” is not a violent book, that the stories within are more concerned with handling adversity. How so?
Exactly. The way the world is right now, especially with the younger generations, we’re seeing unprecedented levels of violence, killing, shooting, theft, destruction, reckless driving, hatred, racism, homophobia, keyboard warring, just belligerent disrespect for one another. This is the most divided our country has been since the American Civil War. I’ll stop the analogy there, but my purpose to writing my stories here had more to do with challenging my protagonists to see what they’re made of. To see if they can live by a moral fiber modern society is seriously devoid of. A lack of empathy for one another is the undoing of our culture.
In one of these stories, “Watching Me Fall,” I have a young woman who’s been raped by a drummer from a high profile rock band who was put away then released later when he’s needed for a cash grab reunion tour. How does a violated woman react accordingly? This is what I was most concerned with, and I can say I had no interest in doing “I Spit on Your Grave 18.”
In “B.L.M.” I wanted to explore the Black Lives Matter movement, but from a different angle. Many of my stories in this collection are set in my hometown of Baltimore, and with the Freddie Gray case, we saw the horrific fallout which followed. Protests turning to looting and destruction, racism and strict partisanship amping up around here as much as the rest of our country. I quietly observed and listened to people’s disparate takes on “B.L.M.” as parties of different races and ideologies began to take an interest. Does a white person have the right to join the cause if coming from a pure place of support? That’s my approach to this story.
“Dad’s Notebook” is another personal purge story, only I sent it down a different track when my protagonist, Scott, finds a handwritten journal left to him by his deceased father, whom he’s been at odds with for most of his life. The secret contained inside the notebook will upend Scott’s life entirely. I had a delicious time writing Scott and Kate’s playful romance and hope it resonates with people. “In Search of Dave the Wave” also gave me joy to write and the only way I can describe it without dropping a spoiler is that many people aren’t what they seem, but they can evolve and find new meaning, even when their shady past comes calling.
So what does the flaming guitar on the cover represent if all the stories aren’t about music, per-se?
Well, I can offer that two of my stories, “Chasing the Moon” and “Watching Me Fall” came about through my experiences as a music journalist. “Chasing the Moon” is a direct tale of one of my nights covering live music, though I send it down an added tube of temptation. The former part happened, the latter is fiction. The underlying current is frustration at a failing life exacerbated by mishap. A number of times I ran into slipshod moments covering bands at a live venue where a tour manager missed putting in my credentials or outright blew me off. Ask any of my peers who have written about music, they’ll tell you the same. It challenges your mettle, that’s for sure.
Of course, “Watching Me Fall” is affected by my time in the scene, at least from the point-of-view I present of the rapist drummer and how he’s looking to rebuild a life after his stint in the house of correction. This, not knowing who and what’s waiting to thwart his re-emergence.
Each story, however, has a theme of music in some fashion or another. It’s direct or indirect, but even in the final story, “Comic Con,” about the trials of an independent comic book writer trying to push his work into the scene, there’s a whiff of music. My editor and cover artist, Tara Caribou, really gets who I am when it comes to my love of music and what I did in the industry back then. She came up with an engaging cover design which did my heart good. Sometimes I miss being in the music industry, and this was one way to stay connected.
Is “Coming of Rage” your first published book?
Actually, no. Many moons ago I wrote a novel I kind of disown, mostly because of the shady publisher which no longer exists. Also because of the gaudy cover art and hell, I’m not the same guy who wrote it. It’s called “Mentor.” I was proud of it then. I even went down to Savannah, Georgia to start my promotion when I dropped a coin onto the U.S. map to see where it fell. I was 30 then. You do goofy stuff between ages 20 and 40. I was writing in the music and horror industries for 16 years after “Mentor” came out. I pretty much reinvented myself and moved on from it, you know?
Would you ever consider sending it elsewhere to publish or even rewrite it if you’re unsatisfied with it? Seems like a lot of time to invest in a body of work you distance yourself from.
True, Terry, you have a point. My fiancée, TJ, has suggested a few times that I revisit “Mentor” and rewrite it. Maybe, but not right now. I have a lot of other projects going on and future works I’m fleshing out. As the song goes, I have higggghhhh hopes…
Tell me about these other projects.
I appreciate you asking. I am on the fifth draft of a novel I wrote titled “Revolution Calling.” It’s largely autobiographical with some elaboration here and there and it reaches a point of destruction that’s all fiction. I call it an Outsiders for Gen X, heavy metal style. It’s deeply personal for the most part, and since Netflix has seemed to have taken a liking toward metal culture these days with the “Metal Lords” film and Eddie from Stranger Things Season 4 becoming an immediate pop icon already, now’s the time for this.
You’re right about Eddie and The Hellfire Club. What do you make of all this love for Eddie? I knew you back when you still had all that metal gear on you. The guy I see now…
Is now an old man jock-nerd, ha! Yeah, I mean, wow, right as the first block of Season 4 of Stranger Things episodes came, my son kept telling me on our drives to school that metal wasn’t cool and metalheads in middle school were persecuted as much as they were in my day. Granted, in high school, I managed to overcome the heckling and harassment and it was a combination of taking weightlifting for three years and branching out to kids from all walks of life. I consider myself an exception to the metal true norm, though I certainly have my scruples when it comes to the music itself.
Look, headbangers are people too, which is my founding principle to “Revolution Calling.” Eddie in Stranger Things just gave metal an “it” factor we never had back then. We were “grits” unless we fawned over our style to lure the ladies like Jon Bon Jovi. When I first saw Eddie’s character on the show, I thought he was a bit over-the-top and controlling as the Hellfire Club Dungeon Master. I didn’t see much other than looks to bridge him to my generation of metal. However, as the show progressed, he turned into this underdog you couldn’t help but root for, and once he summoned his personal strength to stand up for what’s right, how can you not like the guy? Kudos, Netflix, well-played. Funny how it all turns out, though. My son is now Eddie-obsessed and he even plays “Master of Puppets” to impress me and TJ. Win!
What was the last thing you ate?
Funny enough, I finished a bowl of Mediterranean from Mezeh before we spoke. Mezah’s my jam. Chicken shawarma with arugula, spinach, Turkish salad, Lebanese tabbouleh, spicy hummus, couscous, feta, cranberries, baba ganoush, sumac cucumbers, lemon mint carrots with tzatziki and s’hug. It’s bank.
Are you a drinker? If so, are you a beer, whiskey or wine guy?
Umm, yes, please?
You told me you’d like to write for comic books. If you could write any character, which one would it be?
Just to be asked to write any comic book would be an honor and I might go have a private cry if that happens. Given my recent parody I wrote for my site, “Roads Lesser Traveled” titled “When Moon Knight Cheated on Khonshu With Sekhmet,” and given my pantheon is heavily Egyptian, Moon Knight would be de facto.
What do you like to do outside of writing?
Fitness is my biggest passion outside of writing and reading. I hit the gym 3 to 4 days a week, though that’s down from 5 when I was pretty gym obsessed. From last December through April of this year, I had multiple injuries which I had to overcome and gnaw through. Happily, my chiropractor and massage therapist put me right for a Spartan event I recently completed. Never give up on yourself, but as you get older, listen to what you’re body’s telling you! I do a lot of hiking, especially with TJ, one of our many common interests.
I love sports, particularly baseball, football and hockey. I did NHL game analysis for a year back in 1999, but don’t put me on a pair of skates these days; it’d be a complete train wreck! Comic books, yeah. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a total comic dweeb and have been immersed in them since 1978. Music, that goes without saying. I love the beach, art galleries, history, horror, sci-fi, movies, traveling. Yeah, traveling and meeting friends in different states. 2018 was an absolute blast as I took many trips by myself and met so many of my comrades and pals in the music industry, a lot being first time face-to-face. Oh, and coming up with obscure cartoon references and impersonations with TJ. She is more than my match there.
You’ve had a lot of interesting experiences over the years based on our conversation earlier. Is there anything you regret at this point in your life?
I try not to push negative energy in that direction since life is challenging enough without dwelling on any past regrets or wishes for do-overs. My life has changed greatly in the past couple years and almost all of it’s to the good. I’m blessed to have a woman who loves me enough to do all she’s done to bring me and my son into her life, and to give me complete happiness. If I do regret anything, it’s any and all mistakes I’ve made which may have hurt others, even when it was for the good. I wish I’d stuck with drumming since I was mediocre at best and twice sold my Gretsch kits. I kinda wish I’d gotten started with Spartan earlier than I did, since I’m not sure I’ll ever complete a Trifecta. I take what my body gives me. We’ll see.
I’m more thankful than the opposite for the way my life has gone. It’s been valleys and peaks and I’ve enjoyed varying degrees of success. Nothing gives you more of a strut in your instep than collecting your credentials at Will Call and hearing “Blabbermouth’s in the house!” make its way through the venue. Writing for them was a summit. I’ll never undercut or oversell how that feels, but it is a rush, for certain. Mostly, I’m grateful to all my friends, family and readers of my work. The valleys are fewer than before and I see a lot of mountains in my view ready to ascend.
Coming of Rage will be released August 1, 2022 through Raw Earth Ink.
I’m a lifelong lover of comic books, having started my infatuation with them in 1978. Following their exploits for decades, two characters burned in my mind as deserving of a broader audience beyond their cult fan status. Working in a comic book shop in the 1990s and through the mainstream hijacking of superhero films, I’ve said time and again how Black Panther and Moon Knight were worthy of comeuppance. Not merely because they are connected through a mutual goddess, Bast.
It took all the way until 2018 for Black Panther to shake the world as Stan Lee envisioned his gravity back in the 1960s. Rest in power, Chadwick Boseman. Meanwhile, Moon Knight has long been relegated to a minor tier fan favorite. Call him a deep cut of the Marvel U. The Fist of Khonshu has only recently broken through this year with Oscar Isaacs pulling off the unthinkable in a triumphant depiction of not one, but multiple lead characters in Moon Knight’s Disney Plus miniseries.
Comics-speaking, Moon Knight is the bipolar earthly avatar of the Egyptian moon god, Khonsu–written as Khonshu in the comics and t.v. show. The struggles of central human host, Marc Spector, wrestling with his dissociative personality disorder while fighting crime, has ushered some emotively compelling storytelling in recent years.
To really know Moon Knight is to understand his nuances. Marc Spector is a man of the Jewish faith fighting on behalf of Egypt. All eyes on you, Rameses II. Worse, he’s fighting his violent deeds as a mercenary forced to share head space with a proverbial cab driver (Jake Lockley), a rich socialite (Steven Grant), a masked, bruising Dapper Dan (Mr. Knight) and the shadow warrior himself.
I had a burst of inspiration after reading the latest issue of Jed Mackay’s run of Moon Knight, then chatting with my pantheon after drawing a tarot reading on myself. It was my patron warrior and healer goddess, Sekhmet, and a writer’s best buddy, Thoth, who nudged me to generate a tongue-in-cheek piece, thrusting Marc Spector into an even weirder “What if?” scenario than usually comes out of The House of Ideas…
When Moon Knight Cheated on Khonshu with Sekhmet…
THE SCENE: In the Manhattan apartment of Marc Spector, aka Moon Knight, aka Mr. Knight, aka Steven Grant, aka Jake Lockley. Spector and his various personae are leafing through a photo album of Spector’s childhood years. Spector is drinking a glass of deep red and holding his head like he has the mother of all hangovers. It’s only 1:36 a.m. His fists are raw and already scabbing from the night’s activities when his patron lunar god, Khonshu makes an unexpected appearance…
Khonshu: “My son…”
Marc Spector: “Yeah? Oh, great, it’s you.”
Moon Knight: “What is your bidding, my Lord?”
Jake Lockley: “Yo!”
Mr. Knight: “Shit, I have a wine stain on my tie. What, is it Mercury Retrograde again already? You would have to pick tonight for one of your edification sessions, Khonshu.”
Jake Lockley: “That’s what you get for wearing an entire suit of white all the time, Snowball.”
Steven Grant: “Don’t sweat the small stuff. I’m a regular at Lemire’s Cleaners down on Pinehurst and 54th. Tell them I said to take care of you and put it on my account.”
Khonshu: “Sigh…Thoth help me… My son, I had a disturbing chat with Sekhmet moments ago…”
Mr. Knight: “2015 vintage cabernet, no less.”
Steven Grant: “How topical. I just bought a few bottles of Cabernet Franc from this vineyard outside of Cooperstown last week. I’d swear upon Ani’s writings the blackcurrants were blessed by Renenutet herself.”
Mr. Knight: “I’d bet my ruby-crusted ankh we’re talking about the same place.”
Steven Grant: “We’ve traveled the same circles, obviously.”
Jake Lockley: “Did someone mention alcohol? I’m a little dry.”
Marc Spector: “Can it, guys, I’ve got this.”
Moon Knight: “Quit posing, Spector. I do all the dirty work around here. I am the chosen one, after all.”
Mr. Knight: “Running a few merc ops without getting yourself killed will give anyone a superiority complex. Doesn’t do a Goddess-damned thing for my predicament, though. I wonder if Brioni has 24-7 customer service.”
Jake Lockley: “Primadonna.”
Khonshu: “Grrrr, and I thought the Fifth Dynasty were full of themselves… Getting to the matter at-hand, I am informed you may have been colluding with the cat goddess…”
Mr. Knight: “Bastet has the most exquisite tailoring, and she gives hella good cat scratch fever.”
Jake Lockley: “You wish, Desmond Merrion.”
Khonshu: “Quiet! Again, I am referring to Sekhmet. A tryst is said to have occurred only hours ago.”
Jake Lockley: “Don’t look at me, man. I was taking a fare to the Gaga show at the Garden. Some fat cat high roller who tips like crap. Which is to say, not all.”
Stephen Grant: “That was me, you idiot! And Misty Knight, whom you had the gall to blow her cover bringing up that Daughters of Liberty gig anyone in our racket knows is on the down low. Also on the no-discuss list, she’s been clipping the wings of Captain America lately. Not Rogers, the Wilson guy. Both my Cap, for the record. Yes, I’m rambling.”
Mr. Knight: “Of all the… Misty was supposed to be my date. Well, if you consider a night of binging Ancient Aliens with my famous lime-drizzled fish tacos and guac loaded with ghost peppers an actual date. Here I thought we had a connection with the name thing…”
Khonshu: “Enough of this confounded prattling! This is what I get for taking on a five-for-one avatar. Horus, take me now. Anywhere.”
Jake Lockley: “The Deftones are playing the Stone Pony in Asbury tomorrow. Just saying.”
Moon Knight: “My Lord, the details are cloudy, but I do recall running into Sekhmet on the astral plane. I was summoned by Anubis to meditate after I knocked the teeth out of this worm dung trying to jump an old lady down in the Garment District. Anubis advised I may have used a bit of excessive force. That’s when I seem to remember Sekhmet interjecting.”
Khonshu: “You mean exchanging energies, the polite way of putting things, my once-loyal embodiment. Sekhmet is not easily appeased, fair warning.”
Moon Knight: “I don’t know what you’re getting at, my Lord, but Sekhmet approved of the brutalizing. In fact, she offered to sanction me to the Council. We have chimera to thwart, plus vampires, renegade griffin, those K’un-Lun rejects calling themselves the Red Right Hands, skin walkers dressed like Amazon Prime drivers, even unholy Apep once a week.”
Jake Lockley: “Apep’s become such a slacker.”
Marc Spector: “So that’s why I wanted a steak so bad tonight. I’m not usually a cravings kind of guy and I take my meat cooked medium. This one was done rare, and I ate it in minutes, even without A-1. I never eat a steak without A-1. Something’s shady.”
Moon Knight: “Yes, Sekhmet mentioned the steak. She was offended you never gave her an offering, Spector. It was bone-in ribeye, what were you thinking? Sekhmet says it’s possible to stay in her graces by leaving a pint of Guinness milk stout at her ka statue in Migdol. Her consort, Lord Ptah, also requests an homage paid in beer, though he prefers an IPA. Or a summer wheat. He’s less picky.”
Jake Lockley: “IPA? There’s just no accounting for taste, even amongst the gods.”
Marc Spector: “In Egypt? Are you insane, Moon Knight?”
Steven Grant: “That’s speculative.”
Mr. Knight: “Define insane.”
Jake Lockley: “Insane is drinking IPA.”
Moon Knight: “My ba and my akh need serious modification before the Maat Kheru ever takes place. Ammit the Devourer will eat me before the scales ever pass judgment at this point.”
Khonshu: “Need I remind you, Spector, with great power comes…”
Steven Grant: “Careful, great Lord, I smell infringement.”
Marc Spector: “I heard the same spiel from that Parker kid a year ago. You see where ethics gets him in this city.”
Khonshu: “Sigh…there’s hardly enough opium in Saqqara to put up with… Tread carefully, Marc Spector. I can take that which I have given.”
Marc Spector: “Why is this always about me, for Christ’s sake?”
Jake Lockley: “Aww, now you’ve done it, bringing up His name… Get me my yarmulke, quick. Is tomorrow Saturday, by chance?”
Mr. Knight: “Now am I right to insinuate that you…or, rather, we, were shaking sheets with The Mistress of Dread earlier tonight? If so, one, I wish I remembered it. Two, is Ptah pissed off? I’m in the middle of building a wooden bird feeder for all the robins which keep showing up. They pound seed like Lockley does a rum runner…or six.”
Jake Lockley: “Eff you, Snowball.”
Mr. Knight: “Three, if you’re doing it with something that’s human in body and a lioness in the head, is that still considered bestiality?”
Khonshu: “Set, I just know this is your doing…”
Moon Knight and all his images and various personae are owned by Marvel Comics.
This farce is written with longtime love and respect for the multifaceted world of Marc Spector, along with his chroniclers and devotion to an Egyptian pantheon which prodded Ray Van Horn, Jr. to roast at their expense. Blessed be…
Walking barefoot over a bed of hot coals at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit takes a steely resolve seldom few of us have. Another 1200 statistic would be when the practice is said to have originated in B.C. era India.
Firewalking is considered a rite of passage. So too for many people pushing their physical limits through 5K, 10K and longer obstacle course races like Spartan, Rugged Maniac, Civilian Military Combine, Tough Mudder, GORUCK Challenge, The Murph and the defunct Warrior Dash.
Over the past handful of years, I’ve enjoyed running many of these obstacle races, though the most recent two I’ve taken on is the obstacle-devoid Spartan Trail 10K runs. I can say without a doubt each one of these fitness endurance events has been a game changer for me, including this past weekend at Palmerton, Pennsylvania in the Pocono Mountains.
Spartan Trail will test you, regardless of your cardio and strength levels, namely the two kilometers worth of punishing uphill through the ascending woods up the ski slope at Blue Mountain. Entrants heave, gasp and grunt in this section particularly. Consider myself inclusive of that both times I’ve run this event. It’s brutal.
Yet the payoff for all of that grueling work is an exhilarating downhill blast where you can make up some of your time if you’re concerned about competing against the open field. The true reward comes at the final drop toward the finish line where you’re expected to jump an elongated fire pit as your proverbial rite of passage through sweat, pain and stamina. All Spartan racers (with the exception of Stadion event competitors), will jump fire. It’s as prerequisite as spear throwing, monkey bars and burpees in the obstacle races.
As intimidating as the prospect of a torched ankle or worse, a face-first tumble into blazing embers may be, run one of these events and whether you’re gassed or still revved at the end, the recompense is that glorious fire jump.
The fire jump is symbolic of triumph over adversity, of overcoming fear with resilience. That transcendence with heat broiling beneath your legs and torso before the completion medal is earned…that, my friends, is the reason to do the whole daggone thing.
I scoffed at it. I resisted it. I’ve worked comic book retail before. I know what this is. It’s festering shtick played for cheap. If you can finger snap beloved characters gone, you can expect most, if not all of them to return once the profit margin begs for it.
Granted, for sheer curiosity, I opened the blazoned summoning to “Death of the Justice League” a couple times two different Wednesdays on new book day. I even made the rare faux pas of lingering on the end pages because I just know better.
The generous bundle of copies remaining on the shelves two months after the book’s release was a strong indicator. Albeit, they were the standard cover copies, and not the variants and certainly not the glossy acetate packaging. The latter hung about the comic book shop I frequent for a few weeks before selling out. Out of nowhere, though, perhaps from a closed down pull box or another customer unable to clear out weekly held books in suitable fashion, an acetate cover copy manifested.
Add to my conundrum of being baited a Father’s Day gift certificate from my loving fiancée, and with it the freedom to try books I’ve passed on in the interest of saving money. Well… To the good, I was able to score the first three issues of Keiron Gillen’s brilliant Immortal X-Men plus the riotous and gory hijacking of Wolverine # 20-22 by Logan’s smart-assed, likewise indestructible foil, Deadpool. Best ‘pool writing I’ve seen in the past few years.
Damnation, I wasn’t going to play ball, but that acetate cover of Justice League # 75 was coming down the line at me like a routine groundout at first, the ninth inning with the winning run on third. By the time I read the thing, it’s exactly the way I felt about it. Good contact, sharply driven, but in the end, a blasé out to flub a game-ending rally. No walk-off. Extra innings toward an indecisive outcome.
Yes, I know all the marketing gimmicks and presentation tricks from comic book publishers. When I worked in a comic shop in the early 1990s called Alternate Worlds, we sold tons of books cased in sealed polymer bags, along with special covers done in gatefolds, tri-folds, prism 3-D designs, holograms, a plastic diamond angle (looking at and from you, Eclipso), die-cut embossing, chrome plating, you name it. Ask collectors who were there; the smoke and mirrors work favored by the publishers were masking mediocre to miserable material inside.
From this time period, I’m currently writing a fiction story based on my experiences in comics retail. Specifically, the notorious Death of Superman (or “Doomsday”) and Funeral for a Friend saga spanning from 1992 to 1993. If anything reeked of cash grab in the comics industry, it was this bald-faced ploy to knock off The Man of Steel, who had me and maybe 30 other readers nationwide at the time. To be a part of that shocking and momentous occasion was to understand public duping at its best. Most of the people who bought Superman # 75 and the entire Doomsday story arc, as it was largely sold to consumers plunking down a deposit toward the entire run over Supes’ four titles (and Justice League of America # 69) at the time, weren’t even comic book readers. They were investors looking to nab a slice of history it seemed would never repeat itself, save for the four print runs of the pivotal “death” issue.
As their rival imprint’s “distinguished competition,” DC Comics have been no strangers to running the death gambit with their flagship characters. What was originally mortifying and tragic in 1985 when the original Flash, Barry Allen, and Supergirl, were purportedly snuffed in the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, has now become more of an asterisk instead of an exclamation point. DC and Marvel have killed and resurrected their stable so many times now it’s not even liberally covered under a pervading “multiverse” clause. It’s become Mandolorian-esque: This is the way.
Marvel has ingeniously staked a godhead factor within its still-building Krakoa era of their X-Men titles. The mutant sovereignty has discovered the method toward regenerating their entire population as needs and Quiet Council decrees must. As if Wolverine hasn’t died enough times, or lest we’ve suffered the perversion of resurrecting decades-dead Gwen Stacy, rebranded as hybrid avatars of Marvel’s long-standing cast (i.e. Gwenpool and Spider-Gwen). Marvel can now slaughter mutants at wholesale and bring them back within a single issue. Skip the emotive funeral aftermath tie-in.
For all my blustering, you can bet that acetate covered Justice League # 75 came along with me. All of my knowledge and background in marketing, yep, I still caved when I saw an acetate version of the book re-emerge on the shelf and I had a gift cert to burn. Yes, the confounded acetate cover is cool-looking. You got me this time, DC, drat it.
The book’s been out a while, and everyone who cares about this stuff knows what you see with the comic carny huckstering is what you get with Justice League # 75. Is it any surprise this comes at an issue numbered 75, for all intents and purposes, Superman’s new kryptonite?
Save for Green Arrow’s part in it, however, this is the most pedestrian fall of comic titans I’ve ever read. I’ve been at comics reading for more than four decades, and I have a strong suspicion what Joshua Williamson and DC is up to by creating a minimalist finale to the title’s current run. We all do, considering it’s all precursor to the publisher’s upcoming Dark Crisis crossover. I can make a prediction what this has all been for, which, on the face isn’t much other than to see The Spectre swing sides and Jon Stewart’s valiant stint as lead Green Lantern nearly save the day.
In the end, oblivion rules over Justice League # 75 in the same shredding fashion as the heroes died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which is my main gripe to the whole thing. Wonder Woman only just recently cheated death a few months ago for what, the fourth time? Now this? Not even Krakoa’s cloning prowess, assuming it could be loaned ad hoc across competitor lines, can handle this in-and-out genetic reassembly like Sylvester McMonkey McBean’s star brands on (and off) thars. Alfred Pennyworth’s death being the only in comics to have any reticence and gravity, much less sticking power these days.
Which is what this constant die-in, die-out motif in comics feels like: a sham unfurled with just one suckering lever pull. Pointless variant covers and wearying reboots of comic series back to Issue 1 ad infinitum being enough excuse to just let the super bodies hit the floor.
You read a lot of retrospectives over woebegone discontinued sweets and treats from generations past. One candy bar not just reliably makes the list, it stands out like a mythical beacon of nostalgia not even the gobstopping Willie Wonka or Hubba Bubba chewing gum can outshine.
I’m talking about the ephemeral Reggie! bar, which crazed and glazed sweet teeth from the mid-1970s through the early Eighties. Named after the iconic New York Yankees slugger, Reggie Jackson (the Aaron Judge of his time), Curtiss Candy introduced the baseball-themed cluster bar in 1977. Comparable to the manufacturers’ Baby Ruth (featuring the namesake of Grover Cleveland’s daughter), the Reggie! bar struck many candy connoisseurs’ fancies, at least until its original demise in 1982.
Let me give you an abbreviated tale of two baseball cities, Baltimore and New York. One blue collar, the other a mash of working class and Wall Street. Baltimore has always been considered minor league compared to the pinstriped Metropolis (or slate gray and orange if you’re a Mets backer). This inferiority complex which has long plagued the city used to give Baltimore citizens, much less their sports teams, a collective chip on their shoulders. The swagger has returned, planted square upon the backs of the Ravens in the NFL. In the past couple decades especially, it’s no secret the Orioles have been the Yankees’ whipping boys. A current historical record of the two teams’ series over the years has the Yankees overpowering the O’s in a lopsided 1301-888 drubbing.
Granted, Baltimore’s rebuilding roster has finally shown sparks of competitiveness and they’ve managed to gnash at the Bronx Bombers’ heels here and there the past few years. During the 1970s and 80s, however, both cities boasted two of the top contending teams in Major League Baseball. Their slugfests back then were the stuff of the game’s canon, though incomparable to eons-worth of Yankees-Red Sox diamond duels. I was there to see some of those O’s-Yanks epics as a kid in the Orioles’ original home, Memorial Stadium. Seems way too long and just like yesterday I was cheering on my baseball idol, Eddie Murray, along with O’s legends, Al Bumbry, Lee May, Doug DeCinces, Don Stanhouse, Mark Belanger, Ken Singleton, Gary Roenicke, Rick Dempsey, Sammy Stewart and all the harbingers of Orioles Magic back then.
Reggie Jackson once played for the Oakland Athletics and, for a single season in 1976, with the Baltimore Orioles before migrating to the Big Apple and finding superstardom. Legend had it during his time as an Oriole that Reggie claimed if he could land a spot with the Yankees, he would have a candy named after him.
So it came to pass. Jackson turned Yankee and in New York’s home opener for the 1978 season, the Reggie! bar was offered as a promotional giveaway to the fans. After pounding out a home run in his first at-bat of the season against the Chicago White Sox (this feat following his four dinger romp in the 1977 World Series), fans threw the candy bars onto the field in celebration, delaying the game by five minutes for clean-up. Consider it a precursor to uber-hockey fans throwing their caps onto the ice when a home team player nabs a three netter hat trick.
Though it made a short-lived rebrand with a swap of peanut butter from caramel in the Nineties, the Reggie! bar was more phenomenon than novelty. If you lived the times, you no doubt had a go with a Reggie! bar at least once. Most compared the cluster candy of milk chocolate, peanuts and caramel to a Baby Ruth bar (easy cheat, considering the Yankees tie), but I liken it more to a Nashville-proud Goo Goo bar.
Despite the Yankees being considered nefarious enemies of the Baltimore Orioles back in the day, we had a soft spot for Reggie Jackson. Most baseball fans at-large did. Like Aaron Judge or even Shohei Ohtani in today’s league, Reggie was a spectacle, much like his predecessors, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. A Reggie Jackson at-bat was something to veer your eyes to, either at the stadium or on t.v. It made selling his candy bar all too easy back then. Like the man himself, people couldn’t get enough of the Reggie! bar when it first came out for a quarter. It was advertised as heavily as Budweiser and Old Spice pitches of the day.
Where I lived as a child for a few years in the mid 1970s, we couldn’t get a proper snow plow in the winter, but we could get a Reggie! bar at the tiny Winfield Market in Woodbine, a rural beyond rural hamlet in Carroll County, Maryland. A solid hour away from Memorial Stadium.
I used to get a dollar a week allowance for doing chores and with that buck, I could pester my folks on a Saturday to take me to the Winfield Market, where I could get a comic book, a pack of baseball (or Star Wars) trading cards, a Frosty root beer and a Reggie! bar. Can you stand it? All that swag for a single dollar! Ponder that a moment in this hellish bull market we’ve been thrust into.
Today, the Reggie! bar is a time capsule slab of chocolaty remembrance you have a feeling may surface as a rebooted good times throwback in the gift shop at your local Cracker Barrel. Fifties kids can still score Necco wafers, Sky Bars and Moon Pies to get their evocative sugar kicks in their golden years. Now would be a great time for sentimentality and a Reggie! resurface while there are still generations alive to plunk down for it. So long as it’s not an inflated $3.89 thrill seek.
Then again, we’re not far off some seeing a Judge Jaw Buster or his countenance replacing the hand-drawn homer king on a pack of Big League Chew. The Reggie! bar hung around during a period of economic flounder, gas shortages, American hostages overseas and political imbalance in the United States. New York City was then called “The Rotten Apple” from all-around negligence. Escapism works where it will.
I’m thrilled to announce the upcoming publication of my short story collection, Coming of Rage, through Raw Earth Ink, to be released later this summer.
It’s been an absolute pleasure working with press editor, Tara Caribou, as hands-on and attentive a professional an aspiring author could hope to work with. I look forward to sharing these stories of differing themes linked by a concept of pushing my protagonists toward the edge to see their reactions to adversity. As the book’s cover implies, music has underlying shades throughout each story, including a fictionalized slice of my former life in music journalism. I will share the official release date for Coming of Rage when it’s set.
Visit Raw Earth Ink to discover the many authors and poets who have published with the imprint: https://taracaribou.com/
We recently took a trip to Disney World with the primary intent of getting lost inside the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge experience in the Hollywood Studios park. My fiancée and I are longtime Star Wars buffs, to the point of publishing Darth Maul fan fiction together in 1999. Galaxy’s Edge was something we vowed to each other when we started dating last year. Now having been, we’d both offer a mixed review of the replica spaceport dropped into a deep corner of a mouse cult far, far away.
Much of Galaxy’s Edge is breathtaking to behold with its creation of a craggy landing zone on the attraction-named planet Batuu. We wandered about the Black Spire Outpost, intimidated more by the prices for swag and refreshment and the excruciating wait times for the damned spectacular Rise of the Resistance and Smugglers Run rides than we were by the random appearances of Kylo Ren and his First Order stormtroopers. TJ had a playful verbal scrum with Kylo, who came no further than his stage as we partook the famous “blue milk,” which you can have laced with rum. A whopping $15.00 a pop each (rum version), we plunked the money like chumps for the sheer novelty of it.
Truth be told, Galaxy’s Edge is more fun in theory than in execution. The designers provided a wonderful sense of escapism with a Star Wars-true feel to it all. The first day we went into Galaxy’s Edge was disturbingly quiet, however. It wasn’t until we hit it again the following day on a Saturday, when the sounds of turbines, whirring motors, steam compression and port authority voiceovers chimed around us, giving it a more viable feel.
If you’re so inclined, you can shell out a couple hundred to build your own prop lightsaber or you’ll drop a single Benjamin to construct a fully-operational droid. You can read all the recent articles online about the price gouging running rampant all over Disney, and there’s full merit to the claims. Case in point, I was daffy enough to lay out $6.00 for the alien scrawled, globe-shaped Coke bottle made something a mini-rage amongst Star Wars collectors. Considering we rarely drink soda, I had to have one. It was the go-to souvenir (frankly, the only souvenir) we settled on at Galaxy’s Edge, since the heavy lean on merch is stuffed plush characters, Rebel pilot helmets and First Order battle gear, all geared for children.
The true reason for the season to Galaxy’s Edge, however, is its rides. I’m not going to lie; whatever your wait time is for Rise of the Resistance, whether you have a Lightning Lane or you slug through the poor schmo standby queue, do it. It’s a required element that can’t be spoken too much about, because it’s not a mere ride; it’s an experience. It’s a four-level trip from Resistance recruitment to full-on detainment on a Star Destroyer before you’re sent on a free roaming spiral through Hell itself with Kylo Ren hot on your tail.
Then there’s Smugglers Run, also a must-do for your chance to be either pilots or gunners inside the Millennium Falcon. TJ and I were pilots and we wrecked the snot out of Han’s trusty space bird. We brag on it, actually. Here’s a pro tip given to us by the park cast members… Wait until 2:00-3:00 as people are either eating or park hopping, or at the end of the day when visitors are chasing after the fireworks shows and you’ll have far less time to wait.
With all of this hoopla of Galaxy’s Edge comes a bit of a sacrifice, depending on how you look at it. I’m talking about Star Tours, built first for Disneyland in 1987, then added to the Florida hub in 2011. It’s been around a long while with interruptions in service, most notably during the COVID breakout.
picture from the public domain
Compared to the new thrill rides Galaxy’s Edge serves up, it’s sadly last-gen, even if it’s still a great time. They’ve even updated the theme to Star Tours to reflect the concluding trilogy of films and it’s a total hoot. Again, I’ll keep a tight lip, but just everyone who’s ridden Star Tours will tell you it’s a bumpy, raggedy 3-D adventure that can ding your hips or lower back a little bit. Still worth it.
The biggest point to be made about Star Tours, at least the Disney World version, is how easy it is to get on. The average time we saw for the standby wait on Rise of Resistance was two hours, getting as bad as two-and-a-half. Smugglers Run, the worst case scenario was an hour-and-half. Our waits were 75 and 55 minutes respectively, going by the suggestions of the Disney staff.
Star Tours, the longest wait time we saw either day we were at Hollywood Studios was 25 minutes. It’s a misnomer. The line flies, and we were on in 10. Now, anything Star Wars related is bound to draw serious crowds, unless you’re talking a nostalgic theatrical run of Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. Yet you get a flavor of Endor in the approach to Star Tours, including a badass AT-AT towering over Ewok Village. It’s a tasty display that whets the appetite for a ride that once took up to three hours’ wait and at one time, reserved riding times. When it first opened, it was as eye-popping as the new rides and the Avatar: Flight of Passage ride at Animal Kingdom.
I don’t know about you, but to me a road lesser traveled related to anything Star Wars seems funkier than Bespin-mined tibana gas at Cloud City.
Spirituality comes to us as it will, whether it’s taught or directed to us through family or conventional public teaching or we discover our own path of enlightenment through open-minded revelation. A couple years ago, I found myself questioning whether the concept of the singular divine could be subject to revisionism. Specifically, whether or not “God” was actually androgynous. It made perfect sense to me. How can we have male and female species without attributes of both in terms of creationism?
When it became clear to me I was on a clouded path of spirituality, I found my suspicions about divinity to be true. “God” is a man and a woman. Moreover, a collective of both. Of all the gods and goddesses I’ve honored and worked with since taking a new path, the Egyptian pantheon has claimed me. Isis, Ra, Nephthys, Anubis, Thoth, Osiris, Bast and Horus scratch the surface of the vast number of mostly forgotten Egyptian deities and each have come to me in visualization, meditation and through self-pulled oracle and tarot. That being said, one goddess has really pulled to my side as a healer and motivator and in communing with her, a sharing of energy I never saw coming.
Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of war, healing and fertility. What a true badass of the esoteric realm. I give her offerings of steak, beer and red wine and I light red candles for her as a continuing presence in my life. You might say her manifestation to me was pre-ordained seven years ago in these photos I took of lionesses at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC. The pictures show precisely what they reveal. Both of these lionesses watched me with intent and smiles. I stood there transfixed by them and they never took their eyes off of me until we parted ways. Maybe I might’ve been considered chuck steak if they could get their teeth in me, but I like to think Sekhmet had made her intentions known to me at an early onset. Blessed be, Sekhmet…
Roads Lesser Traveled 