Summer rains recently broke the festering blister of heat that turned North Texas into a kiln for the past week, and everyone here at the bunker, with the exception of the mascot, welcomed the rain with open arms. The mascot felt that she is being punished and took to hiding under my chair.
Now that aerated wound has scabbed over and the heat returned with a vengeance. In fact, last week, at the North Texas bunker’s secret location in Vernon, Texas, it was the hottest place on Earth. You heard me. Out of every place on the planet where people dwell, Vernon, Texas was the approximate temperature of Satan’s asshole. To make matters even more intolerable, our Esteemed Governor—your political hero—has made the pitch to the citizens of Texas that, instead of spending money on the Infrastructure of the Power Grid that we opted out of on a federal level, that we turn our thermostats up to 78 degrees when we’re home and set the thermostat on 85 when we’re not at home. He’s also signed a bill that mandates a yearly inspection of the grid and up to $1 million dollar fines for failure to maintain it.
This was the same governor who insisted that alternative energy sources “didn’t work” when the state shut down due to freezing temperatures a few years back, resulting in a number of deaths. Ironically, do you know what’s kept the grid online this year so far? Wind and solar power have generated enough supplemental energy to keep the system from crashing. Make of that what you will.
Submarine Memes
Perhaps the heat is to blame for the entire country having so many loud, strident, and public opinions about the submarine tragedy that has dominated several recent news cycles. This is understandable, given that, as we are all online to the point of having a “presence” and maybe even a “platform” that we are all lulled into the mistaken notion that everyone will want to know what we think about X or Y or Z.
Also, there’s this need within the rugby scrum of social media to count digital coup, and get our pithy meme or snarky aside or cutting Tweet out as soon as possible, ostensibly to beat everyone else to the punch, or in this case, to be the first to kick the carcass and see what kind of farting noise it makes.
We here at the bunker feel that situations like this are not only complex but also nuanced, and require absolutely no input nor public statements from any of the bunker department heads. Our opinions are just that—our opinions, and frankly, they are not worth sharing because they are ill-formed, knee-jerk reactions based on facts not in evidence; a textbook kangaroo court.
To the point: I don’t feel like saying anything I might have to walk back later. I know some people online take great pride in being the most brightly colored asshole in the jungle, but I would rather not weigh in until some point in time that more information has come to light and we have a better picture of what happened and when and who is to blame and why—if at all.
Feeling Stronger Every Day
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the ordeal of the past few years, mostly because I’ve been busy living my life and in all other ways getting on with it. I’ve been happy with this new—let’s not call it a chapter, but rather a new volume—and look forward to what is to come. Janice and I continue to make room for each other in our new life together and I look forward to every day, wondering what we’re going to do, what we’re going to laugh about, and what kind of shenanigans we’re going to get up to.
That’s why, when I get hit with something from the past, it’s more of a sneak attack than anything and it always manages to garrote me from behind. I don’t quite know what’s happening, except that I’m having some truly awful flashbacks, and it’s hitting me when I’m not prepared for it. When I wrote all of this down and was sharing it on my former blog, it was out of necessity—I had to put all of those feelings, those images, those emotions somewhere and I remain grateful that so many of you were a witness to my anguish and let me vent in that way.
I don’t want to do that, now, because we’re all down the road a piece and I don’t think revisiting old wounds and battle sites is helpful to anyone. I don’t believe in memorializing pain. And re-reading the old blog was no help, either—those entries were some of the most emotionally charged writing I ever wrote. No help, there.
Janice has been great at getting me out of my head and into a more productive frame of mind. She’s letting me have the room to either cry or rage or fume as needed. I still have palpable and substantial anger over Cathy’s death, and it’s evidently not going away. Janice pointed out that it doesn’t subside so much as it grows distant. I’m glad she’s here for me. She’s not letting me spiral or freefall.
Part of what I’ve been trying to do for the last years is to get healthy and take better care of myself. Evidently, that includes going back to the basics from time to time. There is no "fixed." I'm not done. I don’t know if I will ever been done. Even when I know what my problem is, and how to treat it, I’ve still got to actually do it. Otherwise, what’s the point, right?
Some of this is coming out of a concern for the dog. I know that, and I am doing what I can to work through it. She’s doing much better now; her appetite is back, as is her spirit. I wish I could bounce back as easily. But for now, she’s happy in the grass, and I’m happy that she’s happy. The rest of it is part of my ongoing journey to feel good, get healthy, and try to be a better person all around. Thankfully, I’ve got a bunch of people rooting for me and helping me to stay on track, encourage me, and celebrate my little victories.
Community Outreach
One of the things that Bunker Ops has masterminded has been a campaign of extended community outreach from the N.T.A.B. to other entities and institutions impacted by the Apocalypse. These little visits to family, friends, and appearances at gatherings have been good for both the visitors and the visitees. Anything to keep me from hanging around on the street corners, singing Doo-Wop with the hooligans, is a positive thing and to be encouraged by all parties.
This holiday Weekend has found the bunker swarming with various nieces and nephews and other adjacent relatives of the above. A recent excursion to a local ceramic store called Paint Your Peace resulted in quiet children industriously making art for 45 minutes, shattering the previous record of 38 minutes (Toy Story on Disney Plus) handily.
The weekend also found the bunker staff in Norman, Oklahoma, at a fan gathering called SoonerCon, whereupon we reconnected with other local and regional guests, creatives, and fans, and even got some face time with delightful guest of honor, John Scalzi, whose busy schedule intersected with mine for a panel discussion of Literary Tropes that Friend of the Bunker Larry Young would have felt right at home with. As it turns out, people who write for a living and/or professionally have a very different opinion/relationship with “tropes” or “conventions” or “cliches” or “tenets” than people who just consumed media, sometimes indiscriminately. Furthermore, we were all in agreement that not every element of a plot or a story is, in fact, a trope. It was quite refreshing to feel seen and heard. As you can see, the panel was well-attended, and reaffirms my belief that Small- and Medium-sized regional conventions are the place where fandom will find itself again.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (in theaters)
It’s 1969 and Dr. Henry Jones is retiring from academic life, after a series of personal tragedies. But his goddaughter (not Marcus Brody’s daughter, by the way) shows up on the trail of a tantalizing artifact from Indy’s past. Unfortunately, she also brought trouble to his doorstep, and this propels the aged hero into one final adventure...
I am always terrified when I see Harrison Ford return to some role that he made famous. Everyone has heard the story how he begged Lucas to kill Han Solo (heroically, of course) in Return of the Jedi. One of their tenets for Indy in Raiders was that he was never going to lose his hat—Lucas and Spielberg both hated it when the hero in the cliffhangers would get punched and lose his hat, only to have it miraculously re-appear on his head at the end of the fight. So they vowed that Indy’s hat would never come off in an action scene. Then, in the third movie, when Indy sees the German tank he’s on is about to go over a cliff, we see his hat bend and then fly right off of his head, and I nearly started crying in the theater, because I was sure that this was the signal that Indy was going to buy the farm.
I’m tired of them tricking me. I’m going to tell you right now, Indy doesn’t die at the end. It is his final adventure, but he’s alive to recount it. If you were worried, and that was keeping you from the theaters, don’t let it be a deterrent.
Also: when was the last time someone made 60 million dollars in three days and everyone calls them a failure? Only in Hollywood, and only in Variety, does that math equal ‘disappointing.’ Please.
You’ll notice I’m not talking about the movie, and the reason for this is because I can’t give you any indicators or clues or steer you in one direction or the other. Do you like the Indiana Jones movies? Have you accepted that Raiders of the Lost Ark won’t ever be duplicated and everything that comes after it will have stand in comparison to the other sequels? If you said yes to the above, then odds are, you’re like most people I know and will enjoy the movie, placing somewhere South of The Last Crusade and somewhere way north of The Crystal Skull.
As we have gone over many times, Raiders of the Lost Ark is responsible for huge chunks of my creative DNA; it’s my Rosetta Stone, the thing you can watch and know so much about me and my likes and what I’m into and all of that. Let me just say this to everyone: you already know if you’re going to like it or not. Don’t try to be convinced otherwise, or you’ll wind up miserable for nigh onto three hours. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t like digital de-ageing effects, then this will only piss you off. If you love to take apart green screen cgi compositing and remark on how shoddy it looks, then stay the hell away from this movie. There’s nothing here for you.
If, however, you like pulp fiction, cliffhangers, various feats of derring do, and the familiar musical cue whenever Indy runs across the top a large vehicle he’s not supposed to be on, then yeah, come get the movie into your eye holes as fast as you can. It’s not vintage Indiana Jones—what is, anymore? It’s 2023. But it’s got enough in it to trigger a nostalgic response, if that’s what you were looking for, repurposed into a victory lap for all of the principle players, before the inevitable rebooting of intellectual property in 3-5 years.
Happy to see the mascot happy! Wish you weren't wrestling with the past, and /really/ wish I had something magical & pithy to say here that would make it evaporate. Someone rooting for you from Flyover country will have to do for now.
I've been leery of seeing the Indy movie because, well, Crystal Skull. But almost everyone says it's great, so I'm on it.
P.S. A little doo-wop couldn't hurt, could it?
The community outreach is awesome! Some if the critters will be more thankful than you'll ever know in many years to come.
About the garrotte - grief is like that. It's not like a 12 step plan, which you can follow point by point, and then you're done. Part of it stays with you. What you're doing now is encapsulating it with good memories, and that'll help you bounce back when it hits you.
Take care, the both of you. Or the three of you, pooch included.