Chapter Fourteen: Closing for Rennovation
          
          It's official: Objectivism is now "hate speech."
          I had been half-ignoring the Dockworkers strike on the west coast, until I learned that it would mean a delay in delivery of my action figures! The bastards!

          I want to make it clear from the get-go that I am a first amendment absolutist. I had to keep reminding myself of that important fact this week as I realized that I agreed with not one but two calls (mostly from conservatives) to curtail television content. I am not used to being in this position. It's very weird.    
          The first involves the media coverage of the beltway sniper, which has been an utterly embarrassing clusterfuck. Between the telescopic images of evidence-gathering, the leaking of law enforcement leads, the pre-emptive publishing of suspects names and addresses, and the fact that there are now over a thousand people on site covering the story, the media's acts of irreponsibility just keep piling up. I have yet to hear why the news organizations haven't been charged with hindering a police investigation. Anyone who believes that television news has a shread of integrity or honor left needs to take a hard look. Has anyone got an accurate count of how many experts have come on TV to tell us at length that the killer is doing this for attention?
          I feel especially sorry for Police Chief Charles Moose. If this poor guy has to come out and say "we know nothing!" on national TV to assuage the reporters one more time I fear he will snap and discharge his standard-issue ordinance into every camera crew currently camped in Montgomery County.

          The second and deeply more offensive issue is VH1's scheduled airing of Music Behind Bars, featuring convicted killers performing with their bands in prison. Aside from the unspeakable obscenity of a prison system that allows inmates to form rock bands,
let alone rehearse and perform on TV...and I realize that's a pretty big "aside"...the music network's controversial airing of this show should be blocked. And I mean legally. This would not be censorship. Several of the inmates featured received sentences that stipulated that they could not profit from their crimes. Well, noteriety is a form of profit. The promotional department of VH1 is fully aware that that Q-ratings and focus group feedback will revolve around which of these murderers plays best with the target audience. I give it a week before a headbanging killer's image appears on a teenager's t-shirt with a VH1 logo on the back. In the world of showbiz a high level of buzz and recognition is a tangible, marketable asset. Anything short of their dying alone and forgotten in a dank prison cell constitutes profit. At the least, being the star of a TV special should rate them an extra carton of cigarettes.
          And I have no great empathy with the victims' families here. Every survivor who has popped up on TV sobbing about how heartless and inappropriate the special is should be nailing the network for facilitating the fame of a criminal. Instead they, accompanied by their lawyer, take up airtime plucking heartstrings. Pathetic. They should demand that the offending criminals be housed with some born-again throat-slitters who don't care much for the devil's music. Even better: get their biggest, most unstable family member and have them challenge the inmate to a bout on Celebrity Boxing.
          Meanwhile Charles Manson must be screaming for his guitar back.

          It was my friend Bob Gelinas, sitting across from me at the last Make-A-Wish clambake, who said, "you really need to update your column more often."
          "Hmmmmmm," I thought.
          So I did.
          After close to three months of doing a new Gravity Lens almost weekly, I'm going to take some time off. I have several reasons for doing this, whether or not any of those reasons are valid remains to be seen.
          First and foremost, I want to change the format. I may just give in and turn Gravity Lens into a proper blog that I can update whenever I feel like it, hopefully daily, as opposed to letting stuff accumulate for a weekly purge. Warren Ellis' Die Puny Humans is a good example of what I'd like to do: compiling links to articles, images and other nuggets of minutia that catch my interest, and hopefully yours. I love those kind of cultural catchbins and have been moving towards that slowly.
          Not that I don't like writing commentary. I have enjoyed setting and meeting a weekly deadline for myself, and take some pride in the fact that the word count on each column actual went up as the weeks passed by. It was a challenge to make time for these column-inches regardless of whatever else was on my plate. Occasional glances at my site stats showed me that the number of people reading this is increasing, so I think it's a good idea to investigate new formats before I run out of steam.
          Time is another factor. Many of those items over in the Eager Anticipations column are coming up in the next month, and some require preperation. I've also got November Sweeps at work to worry about. My plan is to take a portion of the time I spend on this column and use it to finish all the other projects I have slated for this site. Every keystroke spend here is one not spent on a new story or drawing and it adds up after a while. I've been dragging my heels on new content and I need to get it off my drawing board. After that I want to whip up some promotional material for the winter conventions, do a book fornext year's Free Comic Book Day, and make a dent in the pile of unread novels and comics piled next to my couch.
          One other factor triggered this rethink: looking back at the last six or seven columns I find that I complain a lot, and I've got a really low tolerance for people who complain a lot. It's a very easy thing to find fault with all the madness and idiocy these days, but if I've learned anything from all my web browsing it is that there are people
infinitely more qualified to complain about it than I. My first intent for this column was to scribe pithy and laconic homilies about life in general, and yet I almost instantly fell into the pattern of pretentious ranting, bitching, and throwing light on the overall nescience of most people (albeit in my own elegantly profane way, thank you very much). Don't get me wrong, it's not that I find that flavor of vitriol infra dig or better suited to more caustic voices, but among many people I know I have the nickname "prince of darkness" and I'd rather not lend any more credence to that label than is necessary. Hell, I'm 40 years old. One can only do the dark-hearted poet-warrior thing for so long... 
          Plus, I think actually trying to do some small good in the world carries with it an iota of, I don't know, let's call it "noble karma." My second intent with Gravity Lens was to point y'all towards fun and interesting things on the web and (more importantly) in the real world. In this endeavor I know I've found success. I've gotten calls and emails from people thanking me for showing them something new, proving that being a manic
infovore does have positive rammifications in everyday life.
          I spend a lot of time looking for neat things to experience, in fact the original purpose of the Links Page was so that I could easily and efficiency look up what bands were coming around, what conventions were happening, what exhibits were opening, etc. I am of the fierce opinion that once I've put work and my bills and other chores behind me, there is no reason for me not to spend the totality of my free time enjoying myself. Well, that's the plan, anyway. I've been through enough depression to know the importance of taking time to calibrate the soul.
          So watch this space for a stripped-down, concentrated, high-octane "version two" of Gravity Lens. Coming soon.          
          
          New Stuff: I've had the My Favorite Women column up on the Links Page for over a year and it was only this week that I added Carol Clevelend. My penance for this naughty omission has yet to be determined, but I am open to suggestions. A spanking, perhaps?
          The Independant News has an interview with Philip Roth about the tackiness of  America's 9/11 industry.
          Sherlock Holmes (fictional) has been given an honorary degree in chemistry (real).
          Dean Esmay has written an interesting piece about liberals and how they are perceived in politics.
          PBS is bringing back the Forsyth Saga with new episodes.
          And the award for best halloween movie line-up goes to AMC.
          Acid Logic has a nice bio of Ray Harryhausen.
          This is the coolest site for Space Toys I've ever seen
          Somebody has finally posted a transcript for Alan Moore's The Highbury Working: A Beat Seance. In related news Mile High Comics has an interview with Top Ten artist Zander Cannon.
          And speaking of mile high, if you've never had any inclination towards having sex on an airplane, how about in zero gee?
          The incorrigible boys at Retrocrush have posted a pictorial history of Vampirella and yet somehow they were overlooked by the Nobel Prize Committee. Damn shame.
                    
          Ciao for now.                    
          
          JP


Eager Anticipations:


Renoir Exhibit at Clark Art Museum


Harryhausen's Tortoise & The Hare

Publication of Jess Nevin's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations

Degas exhibit at Yale Art Center





Dita Von Teese in Playboy





Egyptian Exhibit at Boston Science

Warren Ellis' Global Frequency

A new Nancy Kress novel


A new Jonathan Carroll novel.

New Discs by:

Tours by:


The Super Mega Fest in Boston


Alan Moore's Magic Words

Another Line of Todd McFarlane/Clive Barker Tortured Souls figures.

The SFX Expo in Boston


DaVinci Drawings at The MET



Conventions 2003:


Currently in My Various Stereos:
King Crimson
Happy With What You have To Be Happy With
Binary System Invention Box
Dark Aether Project Gentle Art of Firewalking
Steve Howe Turbulence
Legendary Pink Dots All The Kings Horses
Lorenza Ponce The Instrumentals
Gerard Sighs on the Water
Lycia A Day in This Stark Corner
Jate Foucher Contagious Grooves
Geils Monkey Island
Steve Hackett Please Don't Touch
Thinking Plague Early Plague Years
Suzanne Vega 99.9
Alan Parsons Try Anything Once


Eager Anticipations:


Renoir Exhibit at Clark Art Museum


Harryhausen's Tortoise & The Hare

Publication of Jess Nevin's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations

Degas exhibit at Yale Art Center





Dita Von Teese in Playboy





Egyptian Exhibit at Boston Science

Warren Ellis' Global Frequency

A new Nancy Kress novel


A new Jonathan Carroll novel.

New Discs by:

Tours by:


The Super Mega Fest in Boston


Alan Moore's Magic Words

Another Line of Todd McFarlane/Clive Barker Tortured Souls figures.

The SFX Expo in Boston


DaVinci Drawings at The MET



Conventions 2003:


Currently in My Various Stereos:
King Crimson
Happy With What You have To Be Happy With
Binary System Invention Box
Dark Aether Project Gentle Art of Firewalking
Steve Howe Turbulence
Legendary Pink Dots All The Kings Horses
Lorenza Ponce The Instrumentals
Gerard Sighs on the Water
Lycia A Day in This Stark Corner
Jate Foucher Contagious Grooves
Geils Monkey Island
Steve Hackett Please Don't Touch
Thinking Plague Early Plague Years
Suzanne Vega 99.9
Alan Parsons Try Anything Once
Chapter Fourteen: Closing for Rennovation
          
          It's official: Objectivism is now "hate speech."
          I had been half-ignoring the Dockworkers strike on the west coast, until I learned that it would mean a delay in delivery of my action figures! The bastards!

          I want to make it clear from the get-go that I am a first amendment absolutist. I had to keep reminding myself of that important fact this week as I realized that I agreed with not one but two calls (mostly from conservatives) to curtail television content. I am not used to being in this position. It's very weird.    
          The first involves the media coverage of the beltway sniper, which has been an utterly embarrassing clusterfuck. Between the telescopic images of evidence-gathering, the leaking of law enforcement leads, the pre-emptive publishing of suspects names and addresses, and the fact that there are now over a thousand people on site covering the story, the media's acts of irreponsibility just keep piling up. I have yet to hear why the news organizations haven't been charged with hindering a police investigation. Anyone who believes that television news has a shread of integrity or honor left needs to take a hard look. Has anyone got an accurate count of how many experts have come on TV to tell us at length that the killer is doing this for attention?
          I feel especially sorry for Police Chief Charles Moose. If this poor guy has to come out and say "we know nothing!" on national TV to assuage the reporters one more time I fear he will snap and discharge his standard-issue ordinance into every camera crew currently camped in Montgomery County.

          The second and deeply more offensive issue is VH1's scheduled airing of Music Behind Bars, featuring convicted killers performing with their bands in prison. Aside from the unspeakable obscenity of a prison system that allows inmates to form rock bands,
let alone rehearse and perform on TV...and I realize that's a pretty big "aside"...the music network's controversial airing of this show should be blocked. And I mean legally. This would not be censorship. Several of the inmates featured received sentences that stipulated that they could not profit from their crimes. Well, noteriety is a form of profit. The promotional department of VH1 is fully aware that that Q-ratings and focus group feedback will revolve around which of these murderers plays best with the target audience. I give it a week before a headbanging killer's image appears on a teenager's t-shirt with a VH1 logo on the back. In the world of showbiz a high level of buzz and recognition is a tangible, marketable asset. Anything short of their dying alone and forgotten in a dank prison cell constitutes profit. At the least, being the star of a TV special should rate them an extra carton of cigarettes.
          And I have no great empathy with the victims' families here. Every survivor who has popped up on TV sobbing about how heartless and inappropriate the special is should be nailing the network for facilitating the fame of a criminal. Instead they, accompanied by their lawyer, take up airtime plucking heartstrings. Pathetic. They should demand that the offending criminals be housed with some born-again throat-slitters who don't care much for the devil's music. Even better: get their biggest, most unstable family member and have them challenge the inmate to a bout on Celebrity Boxing.
          Meanwhile Charles Manson must be screaming for his guitar back.

          It was my friend Bob Gelinas, sitting across from me at the last Make-A-Wish clambake, who said, "you really need to update your column more often."
          "Hmmmmmm," I thought.
          So I did.
          After close to three months of doing a new Gravity Lens almost weekly, I'm going to take some time off. I have several reasons for doing this, whether or not any of those reasons are valid remains to be seen.
          First and foremost, I want to change the format. I may just give in and turn Gravity Lens into a proper blog that I can update whenever I feel like it, hopefully daily, as opposed to letting stuff accumulate for a weekly purge. Warren Ellis' Die Puny Humans is a good example of what I'd like to do: compiling links to articles, images and other nuggets of minutia that catch my interest, and hopefully yours. I love those kind of cultural catchbins and have been moving towards that slowly.
          Not that I don't like writing commentary. I have enjoyed setting and meeting a weekly deadline for myself, and take some pride in the fact that the word count on each column actual went up as the weeks passed by. It was a challenge to make time for these column-inches regardless of whatever else was on my plate. Occasional glances at my site stats showed me that the number of people reading this is increasing, so I think it's a good idea to investigate new formats before I run out of steam.
          Time is another factor. Many of those items over in the Eager Anticipations column are coming up in the next month, and some require preperation. I've also got November Sweeps at work to worry about. My plan is to take a portion of the time I spend on this column and use it to finish all the other projects I have slated for this site. Every keystroke spend here is one not spent on a new story or drawing and it adds up after a while. I've been dragging my heels on new content and I need to get it off my drawing board. After that I want to whip up some promotional material for the winter conventions, do a book fornext year's Free Comic Book Day, and make a dent in the pile of unread novels and comics piled next to my couch.
          One other factor triggered this rethink: looking back at the last six or seven columns I find that I complain a lot, and I've got a really low tolerance for people who complain a lot. It's a very easy thing to find fault with all the madness and idiocy these days, but if I've learned anything from all my web browsing it is that there are people
infinitely more qualified to complain about it than I. My first intent for this column was to scribe pithy and laconic homilies about life in general, and yet I almost instantly fell into the pattern of pretentious ranting, bitching, and throwing light on the overall nescience of most people (albeit in my own elegantly profane way, thank you very much). Don't get me wrong, it's not that I find that flavor of vitriol infra dig or better suited to more caustic voices, but among many people I know I have the nickname "prince of darkness" and I'd rather not lend any more credence to that label than is necessary. Hell, I'm 40 years old. One can only do the dark-hearted poet-warrior thing for so long... 
          Plus, I think actually trying to do some small good in the world carries with it an iota of, I don't know, let's call it "noble karma." My second intent with Gravity Lens was to point y'all towards fun and interesting things on the web and (more importantly) in the real world. In this endeavor I know I've found success. I've gotten calls and emails from people thanking me for showing them something new, proving that being a manic
infovore does have positive rammifications in everyday life.
          I spend a lot of time looking for neat things to experience, in fact the original purpose of the Links Page was so that I could easily and efficiency look up what bands were coming around, what conventions were happening, what exhibits were opening, etc. I am of the fierce opinion that once I've put work and my bills and other chores behind me, there is no reason for me not to spend the totality of my free time enjoying myself. Well, that's the plan, anyway. I've been through enough depression to know the importance of taking time to calibrate the soul.
          So watch this space for a stripped-down, concentrated, high-octane "version two" of Gravity Lens. Coming soon.          
          
          New Stuff: I've had the My Favorite Women column up on the Links Page for over a year and it was only this week that I added Carol Clevelend. My penance for this naughty omission has yet to be determined, but I am open to suggestions. A spanking, perhaps?
          The Independant News has an interview with Philip Roth about the tackiness of  America's 9/11 industry.
          Sherlock Holmes (fictional) has been given an honorary degree in chemistry (real).
          Dean Esmay has written an interesting piece about liberals and how they are perceived in politics.
          PBS is bringing back the Forsyth Saga with new episodes.
          And the award for best halloween movie line-up goes to AMC.
          Acid Logic has a nice bio of Ray Harryhausen.
          This is the coolest site for Space Toys I've ever seen
          Somebody has finally posted a transcript for Alan Moore's The Highbury Working: A Beat Seance. In related news Mile High Comics has an interview with Top Ten artist Zander Cannon.
          And speaking of mile high, if you've never had any inclination towards having sex on an airplane, how about in zero gee?
          The incorrigible boys at Retrocrush have posted a pictorial history of Vampirella and yet somehow they were overlooked by the Nobel Prize Committee. Damn shame.
                    
          Ciao for now.                    
          
          JP