HIgh Praise from a Former Editor

The quarantine has been a time of rediscovery both in the physical world and the online one. I have found several older short stories and nearly completed novels while cleaning up a long neglected room in my house, but I have also found interesting things in my email history while searching for newer unpublished stories to submit to publishers. One such forgotten treasure comes from the sad conclusion of my film journalism days in the form of a recommendation letter below:

To Whom It May Concern,

I had the pleasure of editing Christopher’s work from August 2014 thru January 2015.

Christopher is a very talented and dependable writer. His work was of the highest quality and always represented  his passion for film journalism. Christopher exuded professionalism. He was committed to surpassing my very high standards and rigid deadlines.

Unfortunately, for economic reasons not related to Christopher’s performance, we were forced to eliminate his position as well as most of his co-workers. I would gladly rehire him if the opportunity were to present itself.

I hold Christoper in the highest regard and would gladly leverage my reputation for his benefit. I encourage you to offer Christopher a position in your company. He will surely surpass your expectations.

Please feel free to contact me personally with any further questions.

Sincerely,

Joel Renzenbrink

Managing Editor

The Movie Network

Dispatches from the Coronavirus Days#14- Rain & Marches on Inconvenience

Photo credit: Associated Press

"The highest form of intelligence… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”  -Bill Bullard

It should be clear to anyone who's been paying attention that individuals such as the ones pictured above have either a total misunderstanding of or a profound lack of regard for the above quote. These are, simply put, people whose time spent reveling in juvenalia never ended and has now manifested itself as something well beyond tragic or even amusing.

The concept of freedom to the protestors of mild inconvenience, the weak-willed sadsacks who shamelessly moan about their First World problems, is one of doing whatever the hell one wants without regard for or responsibility to anyone else. Coupled with good old-fashioned doses of racism, sexism, religious fundamentalism, anti-science rhetoric, and impotent rage, mild inconvenience becomes raison d'etre.

The irony that most of these Michigan marches against safety from a currently incurable virus have been rained out is not lost on me. While not a believer, I am certainly open to the possibility that the God they claim supports every moronic utterance from their misinformed mouths has had enough. I mean, what God worth its long white beard would find so-called "haircut protests" in the midst of a global pandemic worthy? I'll tell ya what kind: One that understands how much it sucks to not be able to get your roots done!

Praise the Lawd and pass the hair dye!

Will these people, assuming they survive all the interacting with potentially infected like-minded types, ever have the presence of mind to look back on their actions and realize how stupidly they were acting? Let's not hold our breath...unless they're walking past us, because those idiots are walking petrie dishes.

On the Western side of Michigan, where I'm convinced there must be some type of radiation leak or brainwashing facility, the virus spread has increased because, surprise-surprise, that's where a lot of the protestors live! Can you imagine if something like this catches on? Protest an unstoppable virus by congregating with people and then going home. Why, with that type of dedication, we could wipe out half of humanity in a matter of years.

But let's not dwell on the people who are upset because they can't get haircuts and eat inside restaurants that are still providing curbside carryout. We're in Idiocracy Phase Two now. Governor Whitmer is slowly reopening the state, a move no doubt brought on by pressures from the militia-minded Northern Michiganders who refused to accept her authority because she's an uppity female Democrat. The places that have remained opened all along, the essential stores, are requiring that their customers wear masks, so naturally these Nobel Laureates have taken that little factoid and turned it into some demented crusade against fear and being told what to do.

Apparently there's no braver way to stand up for one's freedumbs than to square off against a virus (it helps if you believe it's a conspiracy to keep Donald Trump from getting reelected even though Trump himself admits the virus is real) by telling it you ain't a'scared of nothin'. I remember once when a tornado ripped through Michigan, I stood on a rooftop and said, "Bitch, please." You best believe it backed off!

So now these would be Rosa Parks's are attacking store employees for enforcing the "mask it or casket" rule. In the interest of fairness, it isn't just steretypical flag-waving so-called "Rednecks" acting this way either. Take a look at what happened in Flint. But that incident, repugant as it was, seems to be an outlier. Most of the perpetators are white males and females with grossly exaggerrated senses of their importance.

It isn't always resulting in violence, however. Take "Flat-Earther Karen" as an example. Her clearly rehearsed, sad gambit to strike a blow for the unmasked is just one example. Another is this jerk.

What's fascinating about this situation is how these same people, drooling along with Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News pundits, supported the Citizens United Supreme Court Decisin to grant corporatins personhood. That makes them private, sovereign citizens with rights equal to (although any thinking person knows they're more equal than we are) any walking, talking, gun-totin' 'Murican. Private entities can require us to do whatever they deem necessary. They're not infringing on our rights, they're exercising theirs. I would urge all of the protestors to think long and hard about that.

And next time we'll deal with the dual issues of you believing nobody is an expert while accepting anecdotal evidence and how you keep confusing illegality with executive orders. In the meantime, I'd tell you to be safe but you won't, so stay the hell away from those of us who are~

MY DIPLOMA FINALLY ARRIVED!!!

Now I can speak and write with authority!

*FREE SHORT STORY FOR MY FELLOW COVID SHUT-INS*

Originally published in this now defunct magazine, this is me taking Lovecraft and doing my own thing with it. Feel free to provide your honest opinion even if, especially if it is not positive. How else can I tell you you're an idiot who doesn't get my genius if you don't tell me you hated it?

Hint: It's flash fiction, so it's over before you know it!

From Out the Abyss Within

by
Christopher Nadeau

They were crawling out of his eyes, his ears, his nose.  Long, slender tendrils coated in viscous, dripping fluids, shining in the light as they wiggled free and onto the floor.  From there, they congregated, hissing, writhing, merging into newer, larger versions of their former selves.  And they spoke. They spoke to him.

“No god but us,” they said.

“Please,” he said, lower lip quivering, “Let me go home.”

“You are home,” the creatures said.  “So are we.”

His body went limp, obeying their command/assurance.

Still able to move his eyes, he glanced to his left and saw the portal still shimmering.  One word, the word, and it would close forever.  No more slithering, controlling monsters.

“There will be order,” they said. “No more enslavement to passions, desires, impulses.”

Sweat rained down his face from his hairline, filling his widened eyes with water and salt.  At his feet, the creatures kept merging, growing, becoming.

He needed to move.  Stop them.  Close the portal.  They’re only the beginning. They’ve waited forever and now they’re back!

“Please, God,” he muttered.

 “We came first,” the unified voices said. “We are your god.”

Somewhere out of his range of sight, lay the body of Johnny, his partner-in-crime.  They’d devoured him the moment of their arrival, declaring him unworthy. And who were they to make such a determination?

Evil. Primeval. Ancient Ones. His words from earlier today played over and over in his head: It’ll be so cool. Let’s rock the foundations.

They won’t rock.  They’ll cease to exist.  Reality is made of rubber and it will bend and take on new shapes.

The human race would die in its sleep.

“You are holy,” they said. “You are the Temple.”

Blinking, he glanced once more at the portal.  Close off, he thought. Seal!

“The Path to Salvation begins with you,” they said.

He paused, mouth opening and closing without sound.  Me? He thought. But I’m nothing. No one.

How could anything important involve him?  His father called him the useless one.  The disappointment.  A mistake.

“Me?” he asked.

The creatures stopped and turned to look at him, one mind, many bodies, unmoving.

He smiled.  “Me.”

From deep inside the portal came a chorus of inhuman voices singing of the Coming Change, hailing the Return of the True Gods, marching onward, marching, marching…

And he let them come, into him, through him.  The Temple. Not useless. Holy.

Let the world bend like rubber.

They were back.

There was time enough for him to say, “Hallelujah,” before the Old Ones bridged the gap between the portal and the Temple and his vision was filled with glorious oblivion.

The Other Pandemic: Facebook Group Moderators and Their Out of Control Egos.

Okay, I admit that title is filled with hyperbole but hopefully it grabbed your attention enough to make you want to read further. To be honest, I am burned out on Covid 19 posts and this is one that has been demanding equal time in my head for about a week. Simply put, there are some truly messed up control freaks functioning as moderators on Facebook group pages. And when combined with an already toxic fanbase, what often results is a recipe for disaster.

Case in point: A group purporting to be a Star Wars fanpage that encourages positive commentary on the movies. On paper, its existence makes sense. Star Wars fandom has become rife with trolling, mysognistic, racist, hate-filled assholes who seem utterly clueless about George Lucas' intent. So, creating a safehaven for fans who legitemately love the movies sounded super keen and outta sight. And for a while, it was. Sadly, two things happened to change that.

First, a bunch of trolling, mysognistic, racist, hate-filled assholes started insulting and threatening a female moderator over something unsurprisingly benign, forcing her to threaten a page shutdown because she couldn't handle the attacks. A small group of moderators then stepped in and started bringing down the virtual hammer, banning and blocking jerk-asses until they'd been pretty much weeded out. Things were good for a little while, then the second thing happened.

At some point, at least one moderator, possibly more, began displaying signs of power consumption. Every perceived criticism of their flawless moderating activities resulted in swift retaliation, up to and including banning. One of the main complaints seemed to be due to a lack of consistency and clarity when it comes to the rules they seem so willing to use at their discretion. I wrongly assumed I would actually have to do something notable before I got banned, but as it turned out, all it took was GIF.

Before I show you the offending image, some perspective is in order. In the midst of a bit of a fuckarow regarding members posting things advertising their wares, a moderator attempted to justify her decision to remove posts and ban someone. Another member raised a mild objection while still praising the page overall, pointing out that maybe during a global pandemic, when people are losing money and not working, some leeway might be acceptable. To paraphrase that moderator's response, although our hearts go out to those people, nuh-uh. My response was below:



 Some hours later, I clicked on an alert where someone had liked my comment and it was nowhere to be found. I then realized the page wasn't either. I had been dropped and blocked. That was literally all it took...an opinion on what I still consider a shittily expressed decision that was neither insulting nor especially critical.

So, I started my own group. The conceit is similar: People Who Love Them Some Damn Star Wars but with one major caveat: The Admin and Moderators aren't control-hungry wackjobs. Also, at our discretion, we will allow some advertsing from members who have artwork and written material or even music that is somehow related. My moderators aren't going to be banning people because they had their fwagile widdle feewings hurted by someone finding a decision cold-hearted.

If you're interested, feel free to click here and get to joinin':

https://www.facebook.com/groups/starwarslovesanemoderators/

Dispatches From the Coronavirus Days #13- Welcome to the End

Wait till they find out how many executive orders Trump has signed!

It's been ten days since I last posted on this blog and the world has some become an even crazier, more tragic place than it was then. On April 20th, there was still gallows humor to be found in the reality of so-called "Operation Gridlock" protests cropping up around the nation. As it turns out, however, that was really little more than a dry run for a much darker agenda, namely rightwing extremists seizing on any opportunity to play paramilitary dressup and scream at actual accomplished people because of their own feelings of inadequacy.

"Look, Daddy! Am I a man now?"

In Michigan, where the idiocy has reached near godlike proportions, we got to watch our state capitol of Lansing beset upon by these gun-wielding ignoramuses. These Constitutional scholars stood above the legislators and hurled verbal insults and demanded their way, all while not observing social distancing (which was supposed to result in a ticket after one warning) and making sure their proxy penises were visible. 

One is forced to wonder how this exact same scenario would have played out had the protestors been African American, Hispanic or, God forbid, Native American. But it's okay, because everybody knows that only white conservatives respect the "Man in Blue."

OOPS!!!

Well, we can at least assume they have their priorities straight, right? It's not difficult to understand why people who already go through life with massive persecution complexes on their shoulders would feel that way when Facebook removed their event pages. How else do you get the dozens of people needed to embarrass an entire state? Naturally the spin is that Facebook is censoring them when in reality the pages were removed because the organziers weren't encouraging and requiring social distancing.

Governor Whitmer, speaking as I write this, referred to the demonstrations as "disturbing" while citing the Nazi and Confederate flags on display. She also nicely mentioned mental health help for people who may not be handling this pendemic well. The inference was impossible to ignore.