The Wire: Jimmy McNulty

If you were hard pressed to name a "star" of The Wire, it would be Jimmy McNulty. McNulty bounces around working in the Homicide Division of the Baltimore Police Department to being a detective on a Major Case Squad to being assigned to the Marine Unit, then back to the Major Case Squad, then choosing to work in the Western District as an ordinary patrolman to back at the Homicide Division.

There's a reason for all of McNulty's moving around - McNulty is a real pain-in-the-ass. To put it bluntly, McNulty's attitude towards authority is one of disdain. In most dramas, this would set up McNulty to be the real hero, a situation in cop dramas which is now even parodied on The Simpsons, the "rebel cop against his stuck-up supervisors", a trope which traces its way all the way about to Dirty Harry and earlier.

However, The Wire makes sure that we do not see McNulty as someone completely admirable. McNulty is a borderline alcoholic (and crosses the border somewhat in Season Five) and he has already burned through one relationship. His wife has divorced him due to his lying, his catting around and his drinking and raises McNulty's two children on her own. McNulty has visitation rights but his wife does not want him to see the kids, which might have been a deliberate choice by David Simon in order to foster some sympathy for McNulty. Whenever McNulty's wife, Elena, makes an appearance it is either to serve McNulty papers, or to deny McNulty visitation on some weekend, or to bump into McNulty while she's at a baseball came with her boyfriend, a successful lawyer.

However, alcohol and sex were only a few of the reasons the relationship crashed. The other reason was McNulty's role as a detective. Simon doesn't make McNulty the noble detective - Simon stated that McNulty is a detective more for the individual thrill of solving a case than for any other higher goal. This is probably true about a lot of our jobs, we do them because they give us personal pleasure or solve some ulterior purpose rather than loving our jobs for some truly altruistic purpose. As a result, McNulty is prepared to chase a case to the ends of the earth, and God helps who gets in his ways.

In the beginning of the season, McNulty has already worn out his welcome with his current supervisor, William Rawls, who is glad to dump McNulty into the Major Case Unit being formed by Cedric Daniels. Daniels needs manpower, and several departments have availed themselves of the opportunity to "dump their humps", i. e. get rid of their least productive detectives. McNulty is dumped into the Unit but proves to be one of its most effective members....

...but at a cost. Lawrence J. Peter proposed that there were two types of competence in this world, "output" and "input". "Output" is simply doing what your job requires - a widget maker who can't make widgets will be out on the street. "Input" is preserving the hierarchy, or the institution - a widget major who makes widgets very well but who keeps his superiors in an uproar will find himself out on the street.

McNulty, simply, cannot make the compromises that one must make in order to get along at one's job. If there's something that needs to be done, he'll do it and he doesn't care what kind of relationship he has to run over to get there. We see this in McNulty's berating of Lieutenant Daniels - his superior - in the first season when Daniels can't move fast enough on something to suit McNulty. Daniels has to juggle several balls to keep the investigation moving and keep the Unit alive, but McNulty frankly doesn't care. His needs have to take precedence over everyone else's, he has a case to solve.

Definitely, McNulty is recognized as being good at what he does. In Season Five, he is recognized by Sergeant Jay Landsman - nobody's "best friend pal" -as "real murder police", the highest compliment that can be given to any officer, an informal accolade which states that McNulty is a true detective in every sense of the word. Despite that, Landsman and McNulty's relationship is largely adversarial. When McNulty begins his work on the Red Ribbon Killer - a serial killer ostensibly killing Baltimore's homeless - Landsman is sick of McNulty's whining for more resources and treats McNulty's requests with apathy.

McNulty, meanwhile, deliberately strikes back. In Season Two, as a Marine Unit officer he creates a file related to a "floater", or dead body in the water, and through painstaking work proves that the body was murdered in the part of the Cheseapeake that is within Baltimore city limits, shoving an unwanted and potentially unsolvable murder onto the Baltimore Police Department, hiking up its uncleared murder rate. There would be 13 more bodies he would add to Baltimore's murder rate simply by showing that they lay within the BPD's jurisdiction, making him no one's friend at the BPD, where the crime rate stats and clearance numbers are worshiped.

In Season Four - where actor Dominic West was unavailable for much of the season - McNulty seems happiest. He has returned to the simple life of a patrolman and is beginning a relationship with Officer Beadie Russell. He has stopped drinking and it looks like he can recreate his former life again, with Russell's two kids partially replacing his own.

But in Season Five, it all falls apart. After a long investigation with Major Crimes that yields no results, the unit is closed down and McNulty is back with homicide. By now, the city is facing a budget crisis that has extended into every department, including the police department and the lack of money makes it very difficult to do effective homicide work. He begins drinking again - even more heavily than before - and his new relationship is in jeopardy. This sets up McNulty's fall as he goes outside of the rules for what would be the final time.

Someone once wrote about saints, and that there is a difference between saints and priests as it were. A priest preserves the hierarchy; the saint defies it. Saints are venerated, but what is forgotten is that in their societies, the saints were actually rebels.

McNulty is the rebel saint. Like real saints, he disrupts the hierarchy and his demands on the institution proved to be those that the institution will not meet - institutions will never dissolve or change themselves on the demands of one person, no matter how persuasive or influential. In the end, he faces the same fate that every other saint in the world faces - persecution. It could be said that saints bring all the trouble on themselves, and if they could just bend a little....!

And McNulty is no saint. To McNulty, the end partially justifies the means. He's not out to become a version of Dirty Harry, and is not the kind of policeman that wants to be judge, jury, and executioner - he just can't see why all these details have to get in the way. At first, you think "well, at least he won't do anything truly dishonest" but in the end he even crosses that final barrier. His ends were the noblest, but they threatened the very heart of the institution he worked for and finally got the attention of powers even McNulty couldn't work his way around.

In the end, despite the fact that he might have been their best detective, the Baltimore Police Department could not compromise itself enough to work with Jimmy McNulty. But McNulty could also not compromise himself, could not "go along to get along". In the end, one institution remains and one detective is out on his ass. Such is the way of the world.

The Wire: The City of Baltimore

"The suspect is most likely a white male in his late twenties to late thirties, who is not a college graduate, but feels superior to those with advanced education, and is likely employed in a bureaucratic entity, possibly civil or public service. He has a problem with authority and a deep-seated resentment for those that have impeded his progress professionally. The sexual nature of the killings is thought to be a secondary motivation and the lack of DNA or saliva in the bite marks suggests possible postmortem staging. He may be struggling with lasting relationships and potentially a high functioning alcoholic with alcohol being used as a trigger in the crimes. The suspect’s apparent resentment of the homeless may indicate a previous personal relationship with a homeless person or the targeting may simply be an opportunity for the killer to assert his superiority and intellectual prowess."

-FBI profile on the (phony) "Red Ribbon Killer"


There are generally two kinds of television shows: those that you like, those that you respect, and both.

For example, I liked Star Trek in its various incarnations. It was enjoyable, and it had an extensive and complex backhistory. However, I never really respected Star Trek. Yes, I loved the show but I realized that Star Trek: Whatever required suspension of disbelief, very much so at times. There were several annoying tropes upon which the episodes rested, namely technobabble and the reset button being the worst of those. It became preachy when the quality of the episodes wasn't high enough to give the franchise the right to be preachy. It was entertaining television, and might have been decent science-fiction in its 1960s incarnation, but by the 2000s it had become a cartoon and was abandoned by its former audience. I used to watch every episode; now I have no use for the franchise.

There are also the shows you respect: most of them can be found on Masterpiece Theatre, usually a BBC production of one of the Jane Austen novels. You know that the show is probably quite good and the acting is superb. Watching shows like that, however, is something like eating the broccoli on your plate. It's good for you, but you realize that the investment you put in is going to be a difficult one. There's not a lot of entertainment to be found, you'll come away impressed with what you see but it's just a hard slog all the way through.

Then there are shows that are both. I'd like to think that Daria is one, although some of the episodes of Daria are quite week. I like Daria because in the late 1990s it was sort of a trope-busting show. Its protagonist was an intelligent female who wasn't at all "girly" but at the same time not a tomboy. Her life not only didn't revolve around the stuff of your typical teenage girl protagonist drama - dates and popularity - but the show's message was that the protagonist rejected the culture as shallow and insufficient. At the same time, the show was not really meant to be an adult show or a serious examination of the issues in teen life. (I think My So-Called Life got closer.) Daria is a show that I think about frequently. Was it one of the great unsung comedy-dramas or is it a massive waste of time?

The other show I want to write about is The Wire. Ostensibly, The Wire is your standard cops-and-robbers drama - the show gets its name from wiretaps on drug dealers. The main character of The Wire, however, isn't any one person but a city, the city of Baltimore. In particular, the main character is the institutions that shape the city and shape every hierarchy in the city, from the police department to the drug game to the unions to the schools to the mayor's office. The theme - if there is one - is that these institutions take on a life of their own, and instead of human beings bending the institutions to serve their purpose, the reverse is true. The institutions warp people to preserve themselves.

I believe Robert Pirsig in Lila wrote that the city might actually be a form of life in the way that a colony of ants is a form of a life - there are the needs of the ant, and then the needs of the colony. People like to believe that they're independent agents but their actions fulfill what the institution needs; if they do not, the institution strikes back to preserve itself. As Pirsig put it, we might believe we can function independently and do what we want in society but that would be like two white cells speaking with each other and one saying, "I can't imagine anything out there more complex than we are."

At the "white cell" level the show is about the many agents who play a role in the life of Baltimore. These agents include:

- the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department, in particular the "murder police" or the Homicide Division
- the chain of command of the BPD from its sergeants to its highest levels
- the Baltimore school system, particularly the inner city schools: both the teachers and the students are examined as agents
- the street, in particular the corner-level drug dealers, hustlers, and other figures
- the drug kingpins, both inside and outside Baltimore
- the mayor's office and the politicians who have power de jure and the ones who have power de facto
- those in the court system
- the union workers on the docks
- the journalists of the Baltimore Sun, from the beat reporters to the editorial staff

I believe it might have been UU who turned Scissors MacGillicutty on to The Wire. Snips, in the meantime, turned me on to it. So as a reward, I'm going to give my random thoughts about various wire characters over the next few months.
Stay tuned.

Our Friend Daria: "The Invitation"

About a month or so later, I picked up the Lawndale Sun-Herald. The previous owner of our home subscribed to it and the shrink-wrapped fodder for recycling showed up faithfully in our driveway every day even though neither of us had interest in it. Bored from studying, I picked up the paper and walked to the dining room table.

As usual, the Sun-Herald's reporting was strong on what I call "local color" - it was fifteen pages of "happy news". Reading the Lawndale entry on city-data.com, many local Lawndale residents were unhappy with the media coverage. The paper was big on local boosterism, reactionary politics and high school football. It reminded me of my hometown's paper...too much.

A bored man, however, will find his diversions wherever he can. I quickly glanced through the first five pages without a single article catching my eye. I finally caught something interesting:

Party Out of Bounds in Crewe Neck Crashed by Police

The writer must have been an old B-52s fan. I knew Crewe Neck quite well because it wasn't far from where we lived. Every time I drove by Crewe Neck I would see this sign.

Crewe Neck Estates

New Homes Available
Luxury Lots
From $750,000

I figured that I would soon be reading a tale of decadence that would rival Berlin in the 1920s. The truth was much more pedestrian:

"Police were called at 10:20 pm to the Crewe Neck Estates on a complaint of public disturbance caused by a raucous party. Three local high school students were charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. Several vehicles at the location were ticketed and the host was cited for violation of the Crewe Neck Estates noise ordinance."

"Security guard Rob Jesperen, who had left his gate station, was found by Lawndale police in attendance at the party. Jesperen claimed that two teenage girls had 'deceived' him into abandoning his post."

Ruth came to the kitchen to look for a snack. I reported my findings to her. "My quiz question: what is missing from this article?"

"Well, the who is missing. And the why. What are you reading?"

"The Lawndale Sun-Herald."

"Oh, it figures. How's Mallard Fillmore doing?"

"Ha ha. So what do you think the 'deceit' was? Blow job?"

"Probably free beer," said Ruth. "Those guys at the gate house don't get paid anything."

"You know," I said, "they bust the poor sap at the gate but I don't read the name of the 'host' or those kids anywhere in this article. I wonder why?"

"Well, it's Crewe Neck. Probably some politician or high school football player."

"Right." I folded the paper.

"Any coupons?" Ruth asked.

"No."

"Then put it in recycling," she said. Grumbling, I complied.

Our Friend Daria: "Esteemsters"

School had started. Whenever I took the subway, I would find myself surrounded by private and public school kids, all dressed alike in the standing-room only circumstances. Both cohorts were dressed identically. The difference was in the dress. Public school kids wore the same maroon-colored pullovers and private school kids wore blazers. You knew it was a Catholic school if all the girls were in skirts.

It didn't mean much to me, except for the fact that I'd have to slow down through school zones. Kids would be coming and going by foot on the little road to our house at approximately 7:30 am and 4 pm. Ruth and I lived a stone's throw away from Lawndale High School, so there was a lot of traffic.

As I was driving home on that first day of the fall semester, I passed Staring Girl. Staring Girl was walking with someone wearing a red jacket. The two chatted as they walked by.

I thought nothing of it. I assumed that the red jacketed girl was Staring Girl's sister. It wasn't worth sharing with Ruth, and Ruth wouldn't have shared it with me. We saw people walk down the street all the time.

(* * *)

That Friday would be Lawndale's version of Dragon Con. It was called "Alien-Con" for some reason - probably to drag in as many attendees as possible who weren't into comic books, collectibles, hard or soft science fiction, role playing games or other general weirdness. I learned from the website that even though there would be gaming tables and a "vendors area" that the speakers were all from UFOlogy. All unknown names.

I looked at the price for a one-day ticket. $10. Cheaper than Dragon Con. My friend Casey from Tennessee and his wife and their friends would be staying over for Labor Day to attend Atlanta's Dragon Con and I would sometimes go with them. A one-day ticket was fifty dollars. It was almost not worth it, but I liked seeing my friends and enjoying the things that they still enjoyed and that I used to enjoy.

Of course, I offered Ruth the chance to go. She skipped it. You couldn't have gotten Ruth into a comic-book convention under threat of death.

Really, Alien Con was nothing special. I simply saw it as a chance to do some shopping for items that I'd normally have to order online. I planned on skipping the speeches from the UFO observers. I had a lot of sympathy for them, and I thought it quite plausible to believe that intelligent life existed elsewhere. However, when the speakers opened their mouths, their credibility diminished with each word. At best they were eccentric; at worst they were downright half-crazy.

The shopping, however, was surprisingly good. I found some old tabletop wargames from a company called Avalon Hill. I loved these games but the games were now out of stock and Avalon Hill has gone bust. There was no sense in pushing paper chits across a printed map when you could just fire up your PC and shoot Nazis.

My goal was to find a nuclear war game called 1979. I had heard it was a great game and if there was some rotting copy somewhere, I wanted to have it as my own.

The games were stacked up in three shelves, forming an incomplete square with one side missing. The shelves were eight feet high and the games were stacked so tightly that no one would ever know you were inside this square unless they were looking from the missing side. It was like being inside a fort.

I continued to look. Was "1979" listed numerically or was it listed by number, like Nineteen Seventy-Nine? Could I find it in the "N"s? The games appeared to be shelved alphabetically, but the take-it-down-put-it-back system had jumbled the order. I called it "semi-betical order".

As I looked, someone entered my fort. I turned around. It was Staring Girl. She wore a green jacket and a black pleated skirt, with boots that almost came up to her knees. The only acknowledgment I got from her was a brief moment of paralysis on her part. Then, she began to search the games. She didn't seem to be looking for anything specific.

Having failed in my quest to find a nuclear war board game that was thirty years old, I began looking elsewhere. I found myself at the graphic novels section. These were shelved on low, four-foot-high shelves, which meant two things. I could stoop, or I could sit on the floor. Given my size and my hip bursitis, I decided the latter was better. The hard, concrete floor wasn't doing my feet any good.

Within five minutes, Staring Girl was back. She had made a bee line to the low shelf, and squatted down behind the barrier. This time, there was no acknowledgment that I was there, not even a brief interruption in her search. She looked at the graphic novels on the shelf with disinterest - they were old 1960s DC comic graphic novels.

This had been my second encounter with Staring Girl in the last ten minutes. This time, I got up almost immediately - not easy for me. I didn't know what was going on, but I found Staring Girl to be rather creepy. I felt like I was being stalked.

This time, I decided to leave the vendors area. The vendors area was being held in ballroom of Lawndale's biggest hotel, and there was a small reception area between where the vendors area began and where the lobby ended. Feeling tired, I sat down and tried to finish reading Journey to the End of the Night.

I had been there for ten minutes, and of course...Staring Girl was back. She walked through the area and looked out into the lobby. Sighing, she sat down in the reception area as well, violating my inner space.

I felt that I at least had to acknowledge her presence, if only to see what she wanted. "Hello," I said.

She had a quick answer. "Mommy taught me not to talk to strangers." Great. I had given off the vibe of the creepy older guy hitting on the younger girl.

The snotty response was too pissy for my tastes. "We're hardly strangers. You've been following me around all day."

"When?" she said, as a challenge.

"Near the games. And the graphic novels. And now, out here."

Staring Girl sighed. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that. Actually, I'm trying to hide from someone."

I looked around as people entered and exited the vendor's room about us. "Then this probably isn't the best place."

"Well," Starting Girl said, "I'm looking for someone, too. She's supposed to be here. I told her to meet me at the vendor's room. She has black hair and is wearing a red jacket."

"Oh. That's the girl you were walking home from school with."

"Huh?"

"There's a family that moved in a few blocks away called the Morgendorffers. My wife and I live just a couple of blocks away. You walked past our house on the way to Lawndale High."

"Right. We were going to hook up at Alien Con."

"Are you all right?" I said. "I mean you're trying to avoid someone."

"That's my family," she said.

"What are they here, then?"

"They’re here to improve my self-esteem."

"At $10 a pop?"

"No price is too dear for esteem," Staring Girl answered.

"Well, I'm James. My wife is Ruth. I'm sorry, but I don't know your name." Staring Girl answered that her name was Esmerelda.

"Well, Esmerelda, I'll try to help you out. If I see her at the convention, I'll tell you you were looking for her."

"Thanks." Esmerelda wasn't strong on conversation. I decided to look at the comic books. I'd get more conversation out of a Rob Liefield cover than I'd get out of Esmerelda.

(* * *)

I never saw Staring Girl or her red-jacketed friend. After looking at the vendor's area and checking out some of the exhibits, I went back home and reported to Ruth.

"Sorry the con sucked," Ruth said.

"Well, you know, a town like Lawndale - did you think the con was going to be any good? Now, if it were a high school football convention, it would be packed."

"That reminds me," said Ruth, "I can get Lawndale Leprechauns tickets for five dollars from the Death Star, cheap. Do you want to go?"

Sure. I loved baseball at the time. I mentioned Staring Girl to Ruth and recounted our conversation.

"She sounds weird," Ruth said.

"Yes. Definitely. I think the room with the bars was a good choice."

Our Friend Daria: "Prequel"

I would like to say that my wife and I lived "inside the perimeter" and that the housing market was doing quite well. My wife enjoyed reading the circulars sent by a popular real estate agent. "See how well these houses sold!" Our house, near to those recently sold, certainly had to be worth a lot of money.

I didn't much look forward to living in Lawndale, but my wife was desperate to get out of her telecommunications job in Nashville. At the time, I was a telephone nurse. I pretty much hated the job, hated everything about it, dreaded waking up to do it. My time off would be haunted by a clock which counted down to the time when I had to go back to work again.

In order for my wife to break free of Nashville, she had to promise me that I could go back to school and change careers. We signed the dirty deal, and we were off to Lawndale.

To be blunt, I never liked the inhabitants of Lawndale that much. It was a white-bread middle class community. If some sort of Marxist wanted to condemn the petty-mindedness of the bourgeoisie she couldn't have chosen a better example than Lawndale. Everyone here was keeping up with the Joneses, and Holden Caulfield would have screamed "phony" from the top of the tallest tree until his whiny little lungs caught pneumonia. My wife told some riotous stories about the bozos at her new job, or "bog" as she called it.

There was a media, of sorts. The big three television channels (not four or five, mind you) had Lawndale stations. There were sports - single A-baseball - but the big thing in town was high school football, particularly some charter school called Lawndale High School. (I made a note that it was not the public school, Carter County High.) "No one at the Death Star sends their kids to Carter County if they can afford it," Ruth said. Whenever there was a high school football game, everything in town would turn blue and gold, and every little shop changed color.

There were a couple of big malls. The only interesting place in town was an area called Dega Street, which seemed to be a holdover from the years before 1980s conservatism. "It smells like Otto's jacket," was what Ruth said when we drove by. There were head shops and a bunch of shifty (but interesting) people hanging around. Ruth had visited the thrift shops, but she said that she really didn't find much there. I think her high school days were over.

Oh well. I had the internet and books. I was fine.

However, a problem happened with our change of address. We were getting mail for someone called Helen Morgendorffer. Occasionally, we would get Jake Morgendorffer's mail. We contacted the post office, and stated, "Hey! We keep getting someone else's mail." They swore they would get around to it, sooner or later, but nothing came of it.

When we got our most recent real estate circular, Ruth noted that some nice two-story mini-mansion had just been sold, and we drove by to take a look. There was an SUV parked in the formerly empty driveway, and Ruth noted that whoever it was must have moved in at least a couple of weeks earlier. I happened to notice the name on the mailbox: "MORGENDORFFER".

"And the mystery...is solved," I said.

"I want to go in and let them know that we have their mail," Ruth said.

"You do that." I wasn't the most social person.

So I sat from the car and watched Ruth chat with someone from the Morgendorffer's front door. It was an adult woman that I assumed was Helen Morgendorffer. They chatted for about five minutes while I sat in the car and listened to music. When some Santana song assaulted my years, I got bored and started looking out of the car window.

I looked up. There was that strange half-barred window. We never knew how the window got that way; it had been that way before the Morgendorffers showed up. Now, there was a face looking down from it. Some girl wearing glasses – she was probably a daughter of one of the Morgendorffers.

I broke eye contact to mind my own business. After a safe interval, I looked back up. She was still looking at me. I grumbled.

Finally, Ruth stopped her socializing. "What did you think of the Morgendorffers?"

Ruth dished. "She's a lawyer. He's a consultant. He seemed really nice. I think you'd like him."

"Do tell." I thought not. I never liked it when Ruth tried to set me up on play dates.

"They have two daughters. Both of them are going to start at Lawndale High School. School starts on Monday."

"I'm sure they're screaming with glee. Did you meet either of those girls?"

"No."

"Well, there was one looking up at me from that weird window. You know the one."

"Yeah, I asked her about it. She said the previous owners had a schizophrenic aunt that had tried to escape out the window a few years back. They had the room padded and put bars on the windows. Helen said they were going to renovate the room, but they're feeling the budget crunch."

"I think they moved the weird daughter in there," I said. I told the story of Staring Girl.

"Well, you know, kids are weird. Let me tell you about teaching high school sometime."

"Maybe you could go teach Staring Girl at Lawndale High School."

"Ain't enough money in the world," Ruth said.

Web 2.No

Four things that can kill an interent connection:

1) Low bandwith.
2) Flash and Java bells and whistles that don't do much for content.
3) Ad-blocking software
4) Web 2.0 models that are absolutely determined to load your pages full of gifs of dancing chimpunks tell you about the great deal you can get on your car insurance and determined to fill your hard drive with cookies, even if they have to fight with the ad-blocking software 50 times to do it.

Impeachment Made Easy

Currently, we've been lucky enough not to have to deal with another presidential impeachment proceeding, although we all wonder when it is coming with Barack Obama.

Since Thomas Dewey assumed the presidency in 1945 with the death of President Roosevelt, each opposing party has tried to derail the administration in the hopes of getting their own man from the vice presidency in and the current president out. For foreign readers who don't understand this, they call it "The Sword over the President" due to the unique clause in the American constitution that gives the winner in electoral votes the presidency and the second place finisher the vice presidency.

With the Secretary of State succeeding to the vice-presidency under the old rules, Dewey ran through four vice-presidents- all Democrats - during his eight-year term of office. Having a Republican president and a Democratic vice-president - or vice versa - was considered a good system by the Founding Fathers. It assured that if the president died, his successor could at least lay claim to a mandate, a sizable number of Americans having previously voted for him for president.

Even though Democratic opposition to the Dewey presidency provoked a backlash that kept the Democrats out of power for 16 years, both parties have succumbed to the temptation to fuck with whomever is serving as president. We've been through six impeachment proceedings that have gone to the United States Senate since the Kennedy administration.

The first was after the almighty clusterfuck of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. Even though the Dems never managed to impeach Dewey - simply stonewalling every bit of legislation Dewey proposed made them happy - the Republicans managed to dust off the charge of "malfeasance of office" in Kennedy's case, a charge which basically means you should be fired for incompetency - a charge which technically doesn't mean anything. However, Vice-President Nixon really took the bully pulpit to new heights in 1961 and 1962, with the Chief Executive and the Vice President essentially continuing their 1960 battles.

When President Kennedy was assassinated, Nixon assumed the presidency. The Democrats were never going to let Nixon have any peace due to the way he went after Kennedy, and impeachment proceedings resumed immediately, with some stuff about Nixon fund raising hitting the floor of the Senate. Nixon knew that his chances of running as president in his own right should be put on hold until the heat died down and he sat out the 1964 election. Sure enough, when Landslide Lyndon Johnson won the presidency, the Republicans attempted proceedings under "malfeasance of office" all over again. (At least Vice-President Goldwater kept his hands off of everything.) Johnson had a lot of enemies in his own party - chief among them Robert F. Kennedy - and even though Johnson easily beat the rap, it was never quite certain if the Senate Dems would impeach Johnson using the Vietnam War as an excuse. Johnson's political career was over.

That put Nixon back in again after the 1968 election, this time under his own power. He won this time, but the Democrats came close to impeaching him in 1974. They found out some really nasty stuff about break-ins and illegal fundraising, this time stuff so solid it would stick. Hell, Nixon was even taping his crimes for posterity. The problem was that the Democrats overplayed their hand, and the article about Vice-President McGovern debating with aides about cabinet officers for his post-impeachment-of-Nixon presidential term stuck in the public's craw. The Republicans made the impeachment proceedings not so much about Nixon as about a Presidential "coup d'etat" by the McGovernites. Nixon escaped by the skin of his teeth and wound up completing two entire presidential terms in addition to the year he served from 1963-64.

Of course, when Jimmy Carter was president "malfeasance of office" came back again as an impeachment charge, this time due to the Iran fiasco and the botched hostage rescue. Carter had enough oomph in the Senate to avoid impeachment, but when the people are turning to your own Vice-President - Ronald Reagan - for hope and assurance, Carter knew that his presidency was crippled.

There wasn't another impeachment for almost two decades. The Republicans were popular enough - Reagan and Bush I - to avoid impeachment, although it was always threatened. Bill Clinton was hauled out for a Senate trial for lying in a civil deposition, but everyone really understood it was because of a blowjob. Vice-President Bob Dole could shake his head in disgust and make quotes that the press ate up, but no one was looking forward to a Bob Dole administration. Clinton had no problems.

When George W. Bush won the presidency, the timid Democrats were afraid to try to light an impeachment fire. Vice-President Gore had won the popular vote and they were afraid of "coup d'etat" charges. 9/11 took impeachment off the table, but it found its way back there again after Hurricane Katrina. It was the Democrats turn to use "malfeasance of office" and Bush II barely escaped with his presidency intact, ending his term as one of the most unpopular of presidents.

So the question remains: what kind of impeachment charges will Obama face? They come in every presidency, and I'm sure Vice-President McCain would love to slide into the big chair. No opposition party has ever pulled off a coup by impeachment, but the weird structure of the American Constitution where the second-place finisher in the Electoral College gets the vice-presidency makes the temptation too great to resist. Get the party nomination, finish second in the presidential race, be awarded the vice presidency, and then hope for an impeachment proceeding to give you what the voters didn't give you. Sooner or later, the Senate will actually impeach a president, and the temptation of presidency by impeachment will become overwhelming.

I hear that the Republicans want to start impeachment proceedings of fraud, trying to turn the claim that Obama wasn't born in this country into a legal case. We'll see what comes of it.

Grate Writing Made Eazee

One of the great things about being named what I was is that although there aren't that many Bowmans in the word, my name is still relatively common. Anyone trying to look me up on the internet is likely to find more famous people that have my name instead of finding me. (This is an advantage that Kara Wild doesn't have. The man who is currently known as The Angst Guy, however, has it even sweeter than I do.)

For example, you might find the conservative commentator, or the countertenor, or the head of the non-profit office instead of me. Which makes me wonder why I was named after my father, because the odds are great that neither of us would have become famous enough to need ordinal numerals to tell us apart. We wouldn't have even gotten a lousy "pere" or a "fils".

I'm currently busy writing part-time for a sports website. The great thing about it is that I get to go to games and mingle with the players, and I get to go to these games free to boot. It's a pain in the ass trying to arrange my work life and my sports life, but I've been enjoying it so far.

However, the old mental illness can play tricks on you. (A friend of mine, Rebecca, has a livejournal tag for this problem: "STFU brain".) I recently got a letter from the editor of the website saying, "I'd like to ask you some questions about the article you last posted."

One of my problems is catastrophization. It's part of what they call a cognitive disorder, or what they used to call "stinkin' thinkin'" in the old days. Briefly, it is the belief that all outcomes will be the worst possible ones. Therefore, I attempted to ameliorate the problem - if there was one - before it even presented itself as one. I sent the editor a 17MB .wav file which consisted of my interview. I suspect she's going to love listening to that thing, but hey, it's my anxiety that you're dealing with here.

That isn't the point of the post. The point of the post is that writing fanfiction does not prepare you for a life of journalism. It doesn't even prepare you for a life of pseudo-journalism. In fact, writing fanfiction could get about as close to not preparing you for a professional writing career as you can get while the volume of the words you produce on electric paper increases.

The first problem with fanfiction is that it is very easy to post a first draft as a completed work. I'm sure that guys like The Angst Guy sharpen and resharpen their work. Brother Grimace asks for betareading help - I know because he sends his stuff to me and I try to point out parts that are unclear, or gramatical errors, or the like. I generally don't use a beta-reader, and there's a reason. It's not that I think that my work is so great that it can't be improved; rather, it's that once I get through the painful process of putting words on paper I want the thing to be over and done with.

I think the only work for which I had multiple beta-readers was "Reclamation" and god-damn was it a painful process to have to sit and wait for the editing to get done. "What's wrong with you people? I sent it five minutes ago! Can't I have it back now?" (Whenever I get something to beta-read, I try to remember to send back a message that says, "Hey, I got this, but I can't beta-read it right away. I just wanted you to know that your story wasn't eaten by gremlins.")

However, writing pretend-journalism forces you to adopt new, unfamiliar, and painful ways of life. The first of these is to get used to having your work read by someone else, all the time. Why? Because when it is posted, it will be read by several someone elses, and if you suck as a writer, it means that the organization that is editing you sucks - they were the ones that posted your signed confession of literary incompetence on the web for all to see.

The second is that you must deal with maximum article length. With fanfiction, you can write a never-ending story. (See: Legion of Lawndale Heroes, The.) When writing for "press" you have to write something more than 450 words and less than 800. This forces me to do two things that I don't like doing:

a) getting to the point, and
b) shutting up when I'm done.

This is why people like fanfiction - because it lets you ramble on at will to a (mostly) uncritical audience. (Hell, you're doing the audience a favor for writing about their favorite characters!) In writing for press, the reader is doing you a favor - "interest me now, or I'm going to do crossword puzzles."

(People who write fanfiction tend to start blogs. It lets them indulge in their favorite activity, rambling incessantly about nothing.)

The third is the awful deadline. You can't just finish when you want to finish. You can't wait months between story segments. You can't write an unfinished story. I have to have my articles in within 24 hours of game on weekdays, and within 12 hours on weekends. If you think this is an unreasonable deadline, let me put it this way - I'm just pretending to be press and I receive no pay. The real journalists out there have to go to press the same day and they have to get their work in before the paper goes to press. This means that they're writing the story while they watch the game, sometimes before the game is even over. And if the game goes to overtime, they are doubly screwed, because they might have a grand total of five minutes to rework an article to reflect a different outcome before the paper goes to press. They are getting paid not so much for their literary excellence as they are getting paid to write a workable article within unreasonable time constraints.

Has this made me a better writer? I don't know. I look at my press work and it seems stilted, like my style has been shoved into a straitjacket. My wife says that it's "dry - just details". I'm trying to get more quotes, more human interest, but editors aren't like beta-readers. A beta-reader wants to help you get better; an editor just wants to fix the errors. An editor can improve an article on his own but likely won't have the time or inclination to help you improve it in the future.

In short, all that time I spent writing fanfiction did not help me that much. Although I can definitely say that writing fanfiction made me more comfortable with writing in general, and taught me a few tricks to avoid writer's block. Maybe that's all you need to be a good writer, or at least, to walk the path.

My Dear!

Today, I received an e-mail address with the heading "My Dear!" The author's name was Susan Patrick, which sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't put a face to the name.

Since it was a message from someone that I didn't know, here were my thoughts:

a) 40 percent chance that Susan wants to sell me Viagra or Ciali$
b) 40 percent chance that Susan wants to enact a business deal with me, and all she needs is my banking information
c) 20 percent chance that there is a real Susan Patrick out there, somewhere.

Unfortunately, the answer was "b", but I have to give "Susan" a thumbs-up. It's not often that a spammer manages to put together the right name and title on an e-mail to get the user to open it. (I moved the mail to Yahoo!'s SpamGuard and let SpamGuard increase its knowledge.)

My Google Mail account absolutely floods with spam. Spammers everywhere try to come up with a title to an e-mail message that will get the recipient to bite:

"I didn't get your e-mail"
"Robert just died"
"Obama has heart attack"
"I need a turnaround on this memo or there's trouble"

In any case, it was a good title for the spammer. "My Dear!" It isn't often that you're called "My Dear!" It made me feel warm inside.

Puppeteering

"Come in."

I entered what appeared to be a little-used room in a vacant Hollywood movie set. It was actually a vacant Toronto movie set, but if Toronto can replace New York on television, its sets can replace Hollywood ones.

The man sitting at the desk wore khaki. He looked half like Jeff Probst of Survivor and half used car salesman. He smiled, as if he were completely and absolutely satisfied with himself.

Sitting on a folding chair next to him was a very large, bald black man. His lips were lined with a thin mustache and something small at the bottom of his lower lip; a Hitler mustache from the bottom and not from the top. His look was the opposite of my host's, one conveying contempt for anything physically weaker than him - and I counted.

"Take a load off," said the man behind the desk. "Have a seat!"

I sat.

"So, Mr. -- uhm -- "

"You can just call me Chris," said the man with a smile. "So, CINCGREEN, I heard that you're interested in the little operation we have up here."

"Where did you hear that?" I replied, not even noticing that he called me by my old internet name. "This invitation was out of the blue. I didn't expect to see either of you here." Now that I had figured out who the two were - the fact that the black guy wasn't wearing his hat threw me - I was starting to enter panic territory.

"Come on! Duuuuuuuuude! I can see what's inside your head! We all can! And after you read 'Where's Mary Sue When You Need Her?' it gave both of us the opportunity to make that connection."

"Uh...okay. Curtiss can handle conversations with fictional characters. I can't. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my real real and my fiction fiction."

"Well," Chris said, "it might work that way where your from, but it doesn't work that way up here. We're go getters up here in the North! We have to take our opportunities when we can!"

"So," I said. "Uh...Chris...I'm willing to listen."

"Coool!" he said, half-skateboard dude. "I gotta tell you, dude. We're really struggling for some good fan fiction here."

"I'm more of a critic than a writer. 'Those that can't do....'"

"Yeah. But you could do a lot better than what I've been reading. We're getting a lot of tweens writing. Don't think I don't like the market share! But everything is what you'd call a 'relationshipper' or just resettings of the show in different circumstances. Or those awful Mary Sues with which I'm sure you're familiar. You know how 13 year olds write!"

"Go on."

"Let me tell you, CINCGREEN, we've got a lot of the stock characters that Daria has, and some more interesting ones. We have the Queen Bee and the Dumb Blonde, and the Daria. We even have the Cool Musician, whose name...get this...happens to be 'Trent'. But we have even more archetypes than Daria. Dude, you don't even have to import them! We have the Rage-a-Holic, we have the Psycho and the Loudmouth, and the Over-Achieving Prep! You'll never get the chance to explore those kinds of personalities as regular Daria characters. And there's virtually no canon for any of these kids. Open page, duuuude!"

"Furthermore," Chris continued. "You're always looking for conflict as a writer. The entire show is about conflict! Everyone wants money, so our characters are at each other's throats. They're split into teams, they compete, they argue, they fall in love. The conflict is always there to drive the narrative."

"Yeah...I tried writing a Daria/Survivor crossover. It sucked. I would rather not repeat that."

"But it doesn't have to be that way. You can put the characters in any situation you want. Look, dude, I know about the whole 'Legion of Lawndale Heroes' thing. You had to call it an 'alternate universe'. But the rules of this universe let me get away with a ton of horse-hockey. We've had our characters fight pirahnas, sharks, bears, and the dreaded purple Sasquatch! I actually revealed that the place they had been living at for weeks was nothing more than a giant movie set despite being surrounded by water for miles in all directions! And they accepted that!"

"How?"

"Because...I'm God. I can do anything I want to to them, and they accept it. If I don't like the parameters of the universe they're in, I just change it at whim. I've even changed the rules, told the characters that I was changing the rules...and no rebellion, just acceptance. If there's anything you want to do to them...just say the word, dude. I can make it happen."

I remained silent.

"He's right," said the Chef, a chef unlike the one from South Park. "He can make it happen. I've seen it."

"Well...I'm tempted," I said. And I was. But looking at Chris's eyes, I began to have second thoughts. He was a master manipulator, a man who had interns in the series, all of whom had died doing his bidding...except for Chef, who was a force of his own. This was a man who could manipulate circumstances easily and better, a man who could hide bodies. Hell, he had manipulated me into coming here. How was I to know that I wasn't just some pawn in a larger game? Some mental-mind-fuck he had planned for his unhappy competitors?"

He called himself "God". I began to suspect that he was someone else.

"I don't know. I've got into legitimate blogging. I don't want to be dragged into that fan fiction business any more. No one's even reading Daria fan fic, who is going to be reading this -- !"

"Come onnnnnn!" Chris was in his salesman persona, his eyes sparkling. "You know you want to. Just a taste!"

I tried not to lick my lips.

"What about the Goth Girl? Isn't she special? Tough, but sweet. Caring, but cynical. All of the best qualities of Daria and Jane in one character. Who could pass up writing a story about her? Dude, it would take a man with a heart of stone to -- "

"-- fine!" I said. "I'll think about it."

"Great! Then you're on board!"

"I said I'll think about it. No more."

"Whatever! Listen...I know you also follow those teens in the mall...."

"Good Lord," I said. "One coffin-nail at a time. What kind of incestuous universe do you have over here?" Even Satan ought to know when not to push it.

Water Over the Bridge

(Exterior: Dark, with small amounts of ambient light. There appears to be an audience assembled, murmuring anxiously to itself.

Suddenly, the house lights come up. We see what appears to the be the interior of Mr. DeMartino's classroom, converted to a stage set. A snippet of Splendora's "You're Standing on My Neck" cues up and the crowd shows its obvious enthusiasm.)


ANNOUNCER: Ladies and Gentlemen, live from the Los Angeles Ampitheatre, it's "Daria"!

(The crowd goes wild and stands up to applaud. When nothing happens on stage, they sit back down again, expectantly.)

Mr. DeMartino (off-stage): Those - DAMNED - students!

(DeMartino enters from the left to the applause of the crowd, which respond like they haven't seen him in years. (They haven't.) DeMartino looks like he's in his 80s, but despite the paunch and the stoop he still gives the crowd what they've been waiting for.)

Mr. DeMartino: Gah! Changing the lunch hour! Now everybody's late!

Kevin: We're not late, Mr. D!

(Kevin and Brittany enter from stage right. They now appear to be in their early 40s. Brittany is about 10 pounds heavier and slightly more heavily made up. Kevin's hair is slightly off - it is worn in straight bangs, but he is wearing his football uniform and still has his six-pack abdomen. The crowd greets their arrival with warm applause.)

Mr. DeMartino: Of COURSE you're not late, Kevin. I have to give you CREDIT for that. And it's the ONLY THING I can give you CREDIT for in this class!

Kevin (breezily): Gee, thanks!

Brittany (squeakily): Mr. D, thanks for the extra credit! I really need it to pull up my grades!

Kevin: Aw, babe. To me, you'll always be a "C" student!

(The two hug to the laughter of the audience.)

Mr. DeMartino: Someone save me before I KILL someone. (Audience laughs.)

Jodie: Sorry, we're late!

(Jodie and Mack arrive. Jodie does not look like a teenage girl anymore: her braids have been replaced with straight hair extensions and she can't convey teenage innocence anymore in her short skirt - she comes off as a hooker, but plays it straight. Mack now has a goatee and his hair is cut very close to his scalp; he looks like some serious adult actor wandered on to the set.)

Mr. DeMartino: I SEE. So...Jodie...what were the two of you DOING?

Mack (sotto voce): Don't tell him. (Jodie smiles and the audience chuckles.)

Mr. DeMartino: Why, during the time of the birds and the bees, must I be covered in BIRD POOP? (Audience laughter.)

Kevin: Surely, Mr. D, you were young once?

(Jodie and Mack shake their heads 'no' furiously, to the laughter of the audience.)

Brittany: Yeah, Mr. D.! Who was your girlfriend in high school?

Mr. DeMartino: Girlfriend? I had SEVERAL of them.

Upchuck: Rrrrrowwwww! Feisty!

(Upchuck enters. Time hasn't been kind to him. He's even thinner than his teenage years and his skin isn't in good condition.)

Mr. DeMartino: Yes, CHARLES? You just HAD to make a COMMENT?

Upchuck (a little throaty): I merely congratulate you, Mr. D. Clearly, we are both birds of a feather! (Upchuck walks over to Brittany.)

Brittany: Stand back, pipsqueak...or I'll pluck your chicken! (Audience does the OOOOOOOOO sound.)

Upchuck: Hmmm....kinky! (Audience laughs.)

Quinn (off-stage): Mr. DeMartino! Mr. Demartino!

(Quinn walks in. She is quite clearly wearing a long wig with straight red hair. She looks Hollywood fifty. The audience is very glad to see her.)

Mr. DeMartino: YOU'RE NOT supposed to be in here!

Quinn: I'm just looking for...Daria! (Quinn milks the pause, and the audience goes wild.)

Mr. DeMartino: I was hoping you wouldn't show up UNTIL FIFTH PERIOD! (Audience laughs.) Where is the rest of your BRAIN DEAD TRIO?

Tiffany: ....KwinnNNNNNNNNNNNNN?

(Tiffany walks in, followed by Stacy. Tiffany looks a lot healthier than her teenage years. Stacy follows behind and when the audience sees her...they go crazy. The show is stopped for about 20 seconds while they applaud this older woman with pigtails that has stepped out of their shared past.)

Stacy: Gee, Quinn....are we going to get in trouble? (Loud audience laughter.)

Quinn: Duh....NO! (Audience laughs.)

Mr. DeMartino: So where is the other one?

Quinn: Oh...Sandi will be here later!

(A pause. Some of the cast bow their heads slightly, sadly, and reverently. The audience is in on the message. They understand.)

Mr. DeMartino: And why, Quinn, have you VIOLATED the SANCTITY of my CLASSROOM!

Quinn: Ooo! Gross! Don't talk about violation!

(Tiffany covers Stacy's ears and the audience laughs. Stacy throws an "I'm puzzled" look for more laughter.)

Jodie: I saw Daria (AUDIENCE APPLAUSE) walking down the hall with Jane (MORE AUDIENCE APPLAUSE) just a few minutes ago. Now Mr. D. - tell us about your girlfriends.

Mr. DeMartino: Well, I had two girlfriends. The first of them was the ARTISTIC type...very FREE SPIRITED....

Jane (from offstage): Hey-OHHHHH!!

(Jane steps on to the stage and the audience is on its feet with a standing ovation. She has wavy, shoulder-length hair and does not possess the "helmet-haircut". She looks quite stylish, even in her red jacket and black hose.)

Jodie: I think your spirit was just invoked.

Jane: Funny. That usually involves a pentagram. (Audience laughter.)

Upchuck: I'm ready to cast a spell...of love! (Chuckles from audience.)

Jane: There was one word of that sentence I liked. Cast. (Jane punches Upchuck in the arm to the joy of the audience.)

Upchuck: Owwwwww! (The actors are taken aback for a second, then move forward.)

Mack: So Mr. D, who was your other girlfriend?

Mr. DeMartino: She was the STUDIOUS TYPE! Very smart...very witty...very OUTSPOKEN!

Daria (off stage): Will someone open this damn door!

(Jane rushes over to open the imaginary stage right door, and Daria walks in carrying about twenty textbooks in a stack. The audience applauds at the sight of Daria, despite the fact that she is not wearing her trademark glasses. The applause goes on as Daria ignores it, carrying the books to Mr. DeMartino's desk and dumping the load.)

Jane: So, Morgendorffer. How are your contacts?

Daria: They don't have enough pull to get me out of class. (Audience laughter.)

Upchuck (Leering at Daria): Daria, your eyes make it quite clear that you are quite attracted to me. Nice to see that you're not hiding behind those glasses anymore.

(Daria looks genuinely disgusted, the most honest display of emotion in this show so far.)

Daria: Right. I need my peripheral vision, so I can get a head start. (Audience laughter.)

Jane: Mr. D was telling us about his romantic exploits.

Daria: I have to sit down for this. And put this in my diary...and possibly, on the internet. (More laughter.)

Brittany: At least Mr. D has an exploit!

Jane: She's got a point.

Daria: One covered by blonde hair. (Audience laughter.)

Stacy: So, Daria...tell us about your romances!

Tom (off stage): Daria! DARIA!

(Tom enters to the applause of the crowd. He must weigh about 300 pounds, but he carries it well and he seems to be a genuininely charming man. He has a mustache.)

Tom: Daria! I need to talk to you.

Daria: Okay, just...wait, I mean. (Silence for eight seconds or more.) What the fuck is this?

(Some confusion among the cast. Stacy rolls her eyes. Everyone else looks unsettled.)

Daria: What the fuck is this? The first time that we get together in twenty years, Sloane, and you can't shave the goddamn mustache? You never had a mustache on the show! What's the audience supposed to think?

Tom (not breaking character): Heh. I...guess you're still mad at me for breaking up with you.

Daria: I mean, Jesus Christ, show some respect for your craft. Everyone else here is at least making a half-assed effort at getting it right. Why can't you?

Tom (finally breaking character, angrily): Oh yeah? Where are those glasses? Everyone here expects you to wear those glasses.

Daria: Tom, the show is called 'Daria', not 'Tom'. When they ever name a show after you, you can dress how you damned well please. And since that's not going to...oh fuck, let's just get on with it.

Mr. DeMartino (quietly): I'm too old for this bullshit. (He walks off the stage. The audience murmurs to itself, unsettled.

Jane (smiling but clearly furious): So...Daria...tell us about your romances.

Daria: Well...oh, forget it. This is going nowhere. So everyone...do you want to know what I've been up to these past couple of decades?

(The audience takes the opportunity to forget what just happened and applauds.)

Daria: Lower the lights a little bit. (The lights dim.) I've not been seen a lot in the last few years, but I want you to know that I'm still active.

(More applause.)

Daria: Not necessarily doing what I did twenty years ago, but I'm more into politics now. Ladies and gentlemen, there's going to be a new referendum on the state ballot, and I'd like you to support it. We're facing what might be the greatest problem in our nation's history. That problem is illegal immigration.

(Tiffany walks off the stage. Jane follows her.)

Daria: The same radical liberal campus speakers who support the child-murderers of radical Islam, who pump state money into hiring professors with clearly radical viewpoints on the survival of Israel - or should I say, rather, the negation of Israel - are attempting to overwhelm this country and bring us to the age of the hijab.

(There are some hisses from the audience. Daria seems unperturbed.)

Daria: The instigators of these anti-American ideas do not come from the United States. The enemy has never been homegrown, but come from the decadent Europeans, the terrorist Middle East, and their newest vanguard, the shiftless and crime-prone Mexicans.

(There is now obvious and loud booing.)

Daria: Mexicans! Who are taking jobs away from real Americans! Who only bring crime and abortion to this inner cities, and who seep into the inner cities currently held captive by the poverty pimps of the Al Sharptons and the -- !

Mack: -- God, you're the most ignorant woman I've ever met.

Daria: Hey, Mack, guess what gay stands for? "Got AIDS Yet?" What's your white cell count today?

(Everyone is shocked. Mack shrivels. Stacy picks up one of the textbooks and throws it at Daria, hitting her right in the head to the applause of some members of the angry crowd. (There are boos.)

In turn, Daria attacks Stacy, and the two grapple on the floor, as amphitheatre staff rush the scene. A shocked crowd watches as the curtain closes, for good.)

Lost Our Lease!

According to Yahoo!, they will be closing their Geocities services sometime this year.

I don't intend on doing the work to try to put The Green Sink on some other website. If anyone wants to mirror the site, fine. Else, The Green Sink will simply fade away as one of those unheard-of artifacts of Daria fandom. (I certainly hope that no one is waiting for updates.)

Old Man Yells At Cloud

Dear Whomever,

I wish to register a complaint. It appears that my television enjoyment was ruined on the night of Thursday, April 16, 2009 by the idiocy of the Gwinnett County Police Department and the fantastic Amber Alert System. I was asked to help out if I knew anything about the disappearance of two children, who, most likely, have been taken in a child custody battle and are in no danger whatsoever.

While watching The Office the dramatic moment of resolution of this particular episode was completely obliterated by an Amber Alert.

One: Why are these notices always five hours after the fact? Generally, if the child was actually in danger of being killed, the murder has happened in the first three hours after the abduction.

Two: How does the Gwinnett County Police expect me to find somebody from my house? In DeKalb County? What do you expect me to do? Do you think that I have a Rolodex that has the name of every pervert and fool in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area? Is there is a reason this useless information can't just scrawl across the bottom of the screen when I watch my show? Or have you concluded that the person who knows where these kids are cannot read? Is it really necessary to broadcast this information at 9:25 pm, when my favorite show is on the air knocking my cable out of commission? Do you really think that ruining my favorite programs are going to make me more sympathetic?

Three: Do you expect me to leave my basement and go searching for them?

Four: Do you think they are in my basement?

Five: Why does Comcast feel compelled to enable this idiocy? My only conclusion is that they only allow this to happen because they are compelled by law to do so.

Conclusion: You are idiots. I refer you to this article by Drake Bennett at the Boston Globe at:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/abducted/?page=1

which states that Amber Alerts are more theater than anything else. Most of the "successes" were from the recovery of kids who were never in danger in the first place. If the Gwinnett County Police Department really wanted to be the most productive in saving the lives of children, it would enforce seat-belt laws and school bus inspections.

I have nothing against a system that locates missing children. If those brainiacs behind Amber Alert want to limit their theater to highway signs and the bottom of the screen crawl, I have nothing against that either. However, when your theater seriously inconveniences me after a long day of work, I take offense to that.

You should be glad I live in DeKalb County. If there was an election for Sheriff and I lived in Gwinnett County, I know who I wouldn't be voting for.

Yours,

CINCGREEN

"A Board in a Plain Brown Wrapper" - The Solution to SFMB

"Poking a bear in front of an audience makes you a legend. Poking a bear in an empty room just makes you an idiot."

-Gus Mead





There are a few places I still visit in Daria fandom. One of them is Creative Writing, where I still write but just not as often as I used to. The other is the Daria Fandom Blog II, which is a good summary of what's being produced by the fandom - even though the social context is entirely absent. I have reached the fannish state known as GAFMOI - "getting away from most of it". Like one of Buddha's disciples, I still strive for GAFIA, to "get away from it all".

I suspect that the goal of visiting any message board should never be to make friends with the entire community and to become a legend in your own mind. That would be like going to a bar and trying to buy a round for the house every night. The goal should be to find a select few people and a good table. If you could meet those people in another setting that would be great, but some people are pretty private and they want to limit their interactions with you to a particular bar in a particular town. Which is fine. As for the bar called PPMB, I only go there to meet those very few people I can't meet anywhere else on the Web.

If those few people stopped showing up...I would no longer visit PPMB. What would be the point of going back? It would be like visiting a bar with a bunch of strangers in it. To stretch this tortuous analogy, I have started to visit...other bars. I spend about 90 percent of my time in those other bars now. I still drop by the old PPMB, attach a post to the message boards when necessary, go to the bartender and pick up any messages. That takes me about 10 minutes and I get on with the rest of the day. I still can't imagine not visiting the PPMB...but as George Harrison said, "All things must pass."

Someone at the bar pointed me in the direction of a decaying flyer on the bar. "Save the SFMB!" it said.

Ah yes. That bar. I would have thought the rats would have eaten it by now. Every now and then, I'll drive by it, just to see if it's still standing. It appears to still be there, but the place is virtually empty with a rapidly shrinking clientele. It got the reputation as being a dangerous bar.

"But CINCGREEN!" you wail. "Wasn't the old Scorched Remnants bar a dangerous bar?"

Well, yes it was. If you were an asshole. We threw a lot of assholes out of that place. (You just can't let certain people with a nasty attitude walk into your bar.) SFMB, however, not only couldn't tell the difference between a paying customer and a real prick, a bunch of their customers who were into rough trade would dry-gulch some innocent, beat the living shit out of him (or her) in the back room, rape him (or her) and then throw the bloody carcass into the back alley. And then brag about what bad-asses they were all night. Since the Night Crew were friends with the ownership, nothing happened.

The bar got the reputation of being one of those 19th century bars in old San Francisco. One second you were sipping your white wine spritzer; the next you found yourself on a steamboat bound for China and forced to pay off your passage with hard labor.

So what happened? People stopped going. Yeah, they might have not taken any part in what was going on there. But they knew it, and no longer wanted to bless the bar with their patronage. To quote the great American philosopher Yogi Berra - "If people don't want to go to the ball game...how are you going to stop them?"

This is a rule about message boards it took me about 10 years to learn, so I'll share it with you. There's a lot to be said about Dramatic Exits from Message Boards. Hey, even I've made a Dramatic Exit. Most of the people who make the Dramatic Exits are drama queens, and their exiting the message board is usually greeted with the appropriate scorn.

However, the other 95 percent of the public do not make dramatic exits. They just stop going. Remember that restaurant that you went to for five years? Remember when the quality of service collapsed and you begin to suspect that the hamburgers were no longer made of cow flesh? Did you get up on a chair, call for the attention of the remaining patrons, and scream "Let me tell you a few things about this shitty restaurant?"

No. You didn't do that. No one does that. You. Just. Stop. Going.

(* * *)

Messageboard Rule #1:

"People who come to a message board will be glad to tell you why they came, if you ask them. When they stop going, however, they won't bother to tell you why. They just don't show up anymore."

(* * *)

The management of SFMB has now noticed a disturbing lack of patronage. They're trying to figure out where the customers have gone. They have started to ask around. They went to the upscale bar up the street that has been around since forever, the one that makes you behave yourself. They see a lot of their customers over there.

A few customers have said, "Oh, I still like the SFMB! I still show up!" (They just never order drinks.) Some have said, "The PPMB has taken a trend towards silliness" or "Boy, at the PPMB we really miss the old bar fly who would harass the staff." (The management of the SFMB should by now know that their leg is being pulled.) The one customer who hinted at the real reasons is being ignored.

Like a bad restaurant (to stretch the other tortured analogy), cosmetic changes have been discussed. Maybe the old place just needs a new coat of paint. Maybe we need to remove some of the items from the menu that we haven't sold in years. This might fool a few people for a little while but doesn't address the two problems that face the SFMB.

The first is that only two things distinguish the SFMB from the PPMB. The first is the porn. (If you think about it, it was always the porn.) You could get Hot Daria Porn (Hot! Hot!) at the SFMB. Who doesn't like reading a little porn every now and then? Furthermore, the forum was hidden from public view, just as it should be. You had to register to see any of it.

The second was what I call the infamous "slam room". If you just wanted to dry gulch somebody that never did you a damn bit of harm, you could always go to "Flame Wars" and get your sociopathy off your chest. "A nasty place, populated by nasty people."

Unfortunately, the Philosophy of Flame Wars began to become the Philosophy of SFMB. It was never to be stated openly, of course. But since the major flamers were the friends of the management...even someone as dumb as a Daria fan could put two and two together. People started leaving. And what they didn't forsee is that among those people leaving...would be some of the porn writers. This caused fewer and fewer people to show up at SFMB.

So we have the first problem - the slam room killed the porn room, and if someone wants to go to a board known for its slamming, they can go to 4chan. What was the second problem?

The second problem was a complete change in the attitude towards moderation of a message board. Generally, Daria fans like to think of themselves as Independent People Just Like Our Heroine. And these independent mini-Darias never like the idea of a message board moderator telling them what they could and could not say. I didn't, and I said so quite loudly. One of the selling points of SFMB was that Our Moderators Will Never Be Like Those Asshole Moderators at PPMB.

After watching the fallout at the SFMB, however, Daria fandom drew another conclusion. "Yes, the PPMB moderators will always do things we don't like doing. But thank God the PPMB has moderators, because if we didn't we'd end up like the assholes at SFMB."

Even I had come to that conclusion. Kara Wild and Martin Pollard were on the right side of the Moderator Controversy. More painful for me to admit was that they had always been on the right side, way back since 1997-98. You might not like cops...but until humanity changes, without cops there is no civilization. Even CINCGREEN has to admit that. People voted with their feet. Given a choice between the heavily moderated PPMB and the moderator-free zone of SFMB (yes, SFMB has "moderators", but they are ghost figures) the fandom has chosen the PPMB.

As for now, the Moderator Wars are over. PPMB wins. SFMB loses. The SFMB is best illustrated by the history of the old Soviet Union from the 1980s on. Both the SFMB and the Soviet Union might have had the right ideas...but if you botch the implementation, history is singularly unforgiving.

This leaves the SFMB with a limited number of choices. None of them are good.

1. Admit defeat. The SFMB's time might just be...over. It has outlived its usefulness, and someone else will have to pick up the Banner of Porn and carry it as it rises slowly...slowly...ever higher....

2. Bring in PPMB style moderation. One of the reasons that people don't become moderators - aside from the fact that 'no one likes to be friends with a cop" - is that moderation is labor-intensive. A lot of shit will have to be rooted out at SFMB. The board's size will have to shrink. Flame Wars will have to be placed behind a second firewall, the same way that the old Mental Health Ward was - you'll need special permission to have access to Flame Wars even if you have ordinary board registration.

The awful part is that the New Police - if such beings can be found - will have to begin cracking heads almost immediately. Unfortunately, this will most likely involve a change in management that goes all the way up to the top.

3. Stop worrying about it. Hey, Crazy Nutso's Rubber Room never worried about such things! And look at how successful they were!




"Okay CINCGREEN, all and good," you might say, "but what would YOU do if you were SFMB's master?"

But first - I would never be SFMB's master. Let's make that clear. GAFMOI is now a way of life. I don't have optimistic prospects for Daria fandom in the long run.

The first thing I would do is tell people that even though I ran the board -- I would no longer pay for it. I would state that I would not pay the cost of running the board when time came to renew. This would see if there was a core remnant still dedicated to seeing the SFMB being a vital entity and not just a remnant dedicated to mooching off the good will of the management. If someone offered to pony up the cost of another year, I'd know that there was at least one person besides me who gave a damn. (The important thing is to get someone who will pay for it for that one year of revamping.)

The next thing: begin to close off virtually the entire board. Kill every section that hasn't pulled its weight. This means the Fan Fiction section, too. PPMB already does fan fiction better than SFMB, anyway, and SFMB just looks weak and worthless trying to compete.

All that would be left would be The Baa'd Sheep and Flame Wars. Flame Wars would become a By Approval of Management Only board - you wouldn't even see Flame Wars show up unless you specifically asked to see it at the user end. This way, the Exhibitionism of Flame Wars wouldn't infect the rest of the board.

(Actually, if it were me, I'd simply delete Flame Wars. But we are speaking in hypotheticals, so I offer a hypothetical way for Flame Wars to survive.)

After I had haxxord up the board, new members visiting the sfmb.gamerspage domain would see...well, nothing. Just the bare hint that there was a message board, somewhere, if only you had access to it. Right now, all new users see is a dead message board, and I'd rather have no message board than a dead one.

When a new user registered, he or she would see the only surviving forum, The Baa'd Sheep. If he or she asked for Flame Wars access, they'd see that forum as well. If the only things people come for are for porn and for slams, let's not pretend otherwise.

Now: we get a good moderator. Maybe one from the PPMB to work part-time. Flame Wars doesn't want a moderator anyway, and they only need one to kill spam. There won't be much to moderate in The Baa'd Sheep, because it is an "understanding place". However, it would be understood that The Moderators Carry Guns. They will shoot if provoked. Undoubtedly, someone will provoke the board members, and depending on how the moderator responds, we'll see if the SFMB is serious in turning things around.

Finally, we open up the Fan Fiction board. Only moderators may post there. And then SFMB's new management gets down on its knees and begs the really good writers - like The Angst Guy, or whomever - for the right to premiere fiction there for just one day before it gets released at the PPMB. (I'd even call it the "Premiere Forum".) The point is to get people to start visiting SFMB for reasons other than porn or slam. As soon as people begin coming for the fan fiction, drop the premiere function and open the forum up to all writers.



Now to me, all of the above seems to be like an Incredible Waste of Time. After all, if you wanted to do all of that, you don't even need SFMB. Anyone wanting to do the above can just create their own brand new message board.

As a matter of fact...that's just what I would do. Firestone became Bridgestone. Worldcom became MCI. Amway became Quixstar. I think the SFMB has now outlived its brand name power - the SFMB brand name is poison. Re-brand the board. Call it the MTMB, the "Mistress Thea Message Board". Call it something else. But don't call it SFMB. I think SFMB is dead, fer real.

--CINCGREEN, 11 April 2009

P. S.: The Fortress CINCGREEN blog has been moderated by me since Day One. If you comment and the comment doesn't show up in one or two days...well, you can figure it out.

Ain't and Cain't

My wife says that she notices something whenever I call my poor sweet mother still living in the Appalachian house where I grew up - my dialect begins to change. A drawl becomes more pronounced. Irregular sentence constructions seep in. A few words like 'shoot' as an interjection might pop out.

And yet, my speech is rather flat. Part of it is because I have overgrown adenoids, not so overgrown as to require surgery but enough to give my voice a flat nasal flavor, like that of an Indiana anchorman.

Another reason is that when I grew up, everybody "talked country". Your voice marked you as a member of your community. And one of the first things I could see what that my community wasn't going anywhere. Maybe it's part of being a self-hating Appalachian, but if that's the case I became a self-hating Appalachian at the age of five years old. I would watch TV - TV was my religion - and I noticed that all the cool people on TV don't talk like us. All the people that speak like us - "us" - are stuck living on dirt roads. All those other people speak differently.

(Notice: when I wrote this passage the first time, I wrote "all of those people that talk like us". And "are stuck down here living on dirt roads". See, it's starting to creep in already.)

So I began to speak differently. I must have figured that if I could speak like Lee Majors I'd become the Six Million Dollar Man.

However, there is one word that I hang onto religiously, or at least try to. The word is written "can't" - can not - but is pronounced to rhyme with "ain't" and is best spelled "cain't".

It seems natural to me that "cain't" is the obvious pronunciation of this word. All of the "good speakers" tried to teach me to prounce the word as "cAHHnt" to rhyme with, say, Immanuel Kant. But "caHHnt" sounds ridiculously hoity-toity. "Puttin' on airrrrs" they might say down in the holler, or better yet, "stuck up". I couldn't imagine tossing a "caHHNt" out of my mouth; I'd never live it down.

The only other alternative was "caaaaan't", with the "a" sound rhyming with "rasp" or "had". There's nothing wrong with a good caaaaan't. But my mind's first alternative to "can not" is "cain't".

"Cain't" just sounds right. I like "cain't".

So if you're reading this and are Appalachian, or southern, or black, or Hispanic, or whatever...locate a few words that you like for storage and use them at all opportunities. "Cain't" is my word of choice, a Jethro Bodine marching into the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, not knowing enough to be ashamed of itself and damned happy to boot.

Next Post

Now that Data Dump is out of the way, here are my ideas for posts:

1. LLH Gold Team: This would be sort of a one-shot mini adventure involving five members of the Legion of Lawndale Heroes. Most people, I'm sure, are sick to death of LLH, but BG asked me and really...how can I turn the nice man down?

2. A non-superpowered post (!!) that takes place at Lawndale High School. Daria is forced to try out for a sports team.

We'll have something along one of these lines shortly.

Data Dump XII

Jane looked at Daria. “Hi, kiddo. Long time no see.” She then absorbed the sight of Daria’s expansive house. “How has life been treating you?”

Daria smiled. “Good. Good.”

“I’m not convinced,” said Jane. “But I’ve come a long way and if you’d pour me a drink, I’d be delighted.”

(* * *)

Jane savored the bourbon. “Boy, that hits the spot.”

“So how did you find me?” Daria asked.

“Find you?” chuckled Jane. “You found me, Morgendorffer. I can’t believe that these psychos who are running the Australia Project actually ran through machine gun fire and military robots to try to find me in the ass end of Zagreb. But they did. It took them several months, but they found me and said that you wanted me to join you in the Australia project. Psychos.”

“But you showed up.”

“Yes, I did. Of course, I didn’t take the flight they offered me. I don’t want to end up in a prison.”

“Were you worried about being captured?” Daria asked.

“No. I was worried about ending up like you. In a prison.”

“I got out of prison months ago.”

“Think again, Morgendorffer. You’re still in a prison. You were in one those poverty pens, weren’t you? I figured that much if you stayed in the United States.”

Daria nodded, and Jane continued. “What did they do to you in the United States? They put you in free room and board, gave you a computer and some entertainment, and kept you alive. The room wasn’t very big and the board wasn’t fois gras, but it was good old fashion staple food. If you left, they tried to dart you. In Australia, they just got rid of the knockout darts. The robots give you more room and board, a fancier computer, all the entertainment you wanted, and the robots keep you alive for 300 years if you let them chop off your head. Good ol’ America uses the stick, and Australia uses the carrot, but the point is to same – to keep the mule on the straight and narrow.”

“I assume,” said Daria, “that you’ve rejected that.”

“You assume right,” said Jane. “There’s more than one kind of dope. I don’t want to be doped up. Not with a drug, not with food, not with money, not with a computer, not with a government to use either the carrot of the liberals or the stick of the conservatives. I won’t be bribed, and I won’t be beaten. I want to live with a clear mind.”

“Hmm,” said Daria, “your philosophy sounds interesting and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.” Daria made it plain that she regarded Jane’s words with a great deal of skepticism. “So what do you do with your life?”

“I create. I talk to people. I cry with them when it’s time to cry with them. We laugh when it’s time to laugh.”

“And you fight robots,” said Daria. “Don’t forget that you fight robots.”

“Oh, you heard about that?” said Jane.

Daria was taken aback. She had head – in rumors – that Europe had been war-torn for over a decade, as the United States and its client European governments had attempted to impose the US model of robot love on Europe. Unfortunately, the European citizenry in many places rebelled. Therefore, the stick had to be brought out.

“You mean you really fight robots?”

“Yeah. How do you think I got to Australia? I had to make my way across Asia. Having one of these” – Jane pulled out a small item the size of an old flash drive – “helped. It induces robot amnesia. I call it a robo-stopper.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” asked Daria.

“I have other ways” said Jane with complete seriousness.

“So why did you come all the way to Australia?” said Daria. “I don’t want to take you away from your raison d’etre.”

“Well – I was kind of curious to find out what happened to you. I do love you, you know.”

Daria had to digest the sentence. “What?” she mumbled.

“Oh! Sorry,” Jane said,” “I forgot how direct that was. I’m too used to speaking my mind. You guys only drag out ‘love’ when you want to bring out the heavy artillery. Let’s say that a different way – Daria, I valued our time together as friends. I was concerned about you and it hurt me to leave you. When I found out that you wanted me here in Australia – or even just wanted to find out about me – the call was just too strong.”

“Oh.”

“See why I say ‘I love you’? It’s a lot shorter,” said Jane. “So do you love me, Daria?”

Daria thought about it. “Yes. Yes, I’ll guess I’ll say it. If that’s the way you mean it, then I love you, Jane.”

“You really can’t mean it any other way…unless you want to get into my pants.”

“Oh, hell no!”

“I think the Greeks were right. They split romantic love from friend love. We need better words for love.”

“So have you become a Greek philosopher?” said Daria. “And what do you believe, anyway?”

“I don’t have an answer for that.”

“Funny,” said a suspicious Daria, “you were talking like a ten-cent preacher when you got here, and now you’re all out of answers.”

“And you want all of your answers, ready-made,” said Jane. “I can tell you this much. I don’t know. I’m glad to say that I don’t know. But I know what I don’t believe. I don’t believe in the alternatives the world is giving me. And I’m becoming my own programmer, to quote one of my friends. I guess I’m hacking my life, now. If you don’t like the program, you have to write one of your own.” Jane chuckled. “I guess I’m a shitty programmer.”

“So why don’t you come to Australia?” said Jane. “Make some art. Change the system from within.”

“You’ve got a nice rubber system here, well-insulated. I like that phrase, ‘change the system from within’. It’s a good idea, if you have an elastic system instead of a fossilized one. Reminds me of perestroika. Gorbachev tried to change the system from within, and was relatively committed to that. What he found out was the system didn’t work.”

“How do you know so much about perestroika?”

“You told me, Daria. Remember all those bullshit conversations we had? I wasn’t listening just to be polite. You were teaching me. Hell, half of American history I learned directly from your cynical lips. And Mr. DeMartino’s cynical lips.”

“So what’s your ultimate answer?” said Daria. “Why is your way of life better than mine?”
“I have one answer for you,” said Jane. “Are you happy?”

“So utilitarianism is your philosophy. What about the case where -- ?”

“Daria, shut the hell up,” said Jane. “I’m not into any ‘ism’. I just want to know the answer to one fucking question. One fucking question that I crossed an entire continent to find out the answer to. Daria, this might be a stab in the dark, but I’m going to ask it. ‘Are you happy?’”

“What do you mean by – “

“ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION, DARIA!” Jane screamed.

There was some silence as Daria shriveled up. “You’ve never been happy your entire life. I liked that about you. But when you get older, it just gets…tired. I got tired. If you really love me, Daria, you’ll answer that question. Are you happy?”

Daria was held speechless.

“I have my answer,” said Jane. “You reached your hand out to me. You still remembered me even after I left. So now, I have an answer for you. Join me. Get away. Come with me. Let’s live like one of those old lesbian couples, without the lesbianism. Let me give you a chance to be happy.”

“And what if I’m not happy with you?”

Jane smiled. “Then you’ve lost nothing at all. You’ve just changed your location. Why are you so afraid of a shot at happiness?”

Daria said nothing. Jane continued. “I’ll tell you the answer that it took me twenty years to find out. You’re afraid because happiness will demand something of you that you’re not willing to give. You’re afraid of what it will cost you to be happy.”

“And you know the answer?”

“No,” said Jane. “I guess for me that happiness comes in the searching and not in the finding. First I had artists for my heroes. Then I had you. And now, I guess I’ve decided to be my own hero, no matter where it takes me.”

“So are you happy?” Daria asked.

Jane nodded. “I’m happy enough. Definitely happier than before. So enough stalling, Morgendorffer. Are you going to come with or not?”

Daria thought about it for a few seconds. “I can’t do this alone.”

“No sweat,” said Jane. “What is today?”

“April 11th.”

“All right. I’ll come back here on May 13th and I’ll pick you up. I need to take care of a few things off continent, anyway.”

“I have a lot to tell you,” said Daria. “About Tom. Did you know I saw him again?”

“Cool,” Jane said rather flatly. “But that’s going to have to wait. I don’t want to be gathered for a long question-and-answer session by the robots here in Australia. You have robots in your home, and my “anti-robot shield” only works for so long.” Jane stood up. “I gotta go.”

“Jane, wait!”

Jane turned her head.

“I have a question,” said Daria. “How’s Trent?”

Jane frowned, and then smiled. “Well Trent…he turned out to be a real asshole. I gotta run. Remember, May 13th.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

And Jane disappeared.

(* * *)

Daria gathered everything of value that she had, or wanted to make. If she were going to live out in the wild with Jane (fighting robots!) she wanted to have an inventory of necessary but easy-to-carry items. Good boots. And toilet paper, her sole luxury item.

During her month-long wait for Jane, Daria read about Zagreb. The language, the geography, the history. She didn’t want to be too much of a burden to Jane, wherever they were going. Daria was like a child waiting for Christmas.

May 13th finally showed up on the calendar. Daria sat patiently, waiting for the arrival of Jane Lane. She waited from 6 am in the morning until 6 am the following morning.

No Jane.

Assuming that Jane had some sort of difficulty that was causing her to drag behind, Daria slept on the couch in the living room that May 14th to await the imminent, but late arrival of Jane Lane.

No Jane.

Daria fretted. She took long walks outside her home. She worried about the grasshopper-like robots that could launch themselves in the air like an old V2 rocket. She began to have a nightmare that she’d be walking along and find a corpse that looked all too familiar.

No Jane.

March turned to April. April turned to May, then June.

No Jane.

When July showed up, Daria broke down one afternoon and began to cry for over an hour. Where was Jane?

No Jane.

(* * *)

As desperate as a caged rat on crack, Daria dove into what she called “her stigmata”. She had the robots build workout machines and became obsessed with physical fitness. She began to run at first only a few yards, then a quarter mile, then a mile, then miles at a time.

She lifted weights. She ate only the right foods. The pounds fell off, changing Daria at least on the outside. She wrote, “I have sculpted a pretty cage to keep the demons inside.” She now wrote with the pen and paper, cursing her callouses but writing nonetheless.

Daria used her unspent credits to purchase a combat workout robot, a robot with long, padded arms, built out of firm and somewhat giving plastic, with padded pauldrons and a ferocious temper. It told her what to do and she did it. She took out all of her fury on the robot, and sometimes, combat sessions would become crying sessions, and Daria would fall of the wagon again and crawl right back into a bottle of bourbon.

The next May 13th came along. Daria sat down in front of the door at 6 am. She waited until the next 6 am.

No Jane.

The morning of May 15th, Daria set up on her couch. She thought she heard a voice in her head, or perhaps, the voice of your soul.

You should go get her.

She might not be alive.

What does that matter? You’re not alive, either. Your friend risked everything to find you. And now, if you really were her friend, you must do the same.

Daria remembered what Jane had told her about becoming her own hero. One of the stories that Daria remembered growing up was that of Damon and Pythias. When the king of Syracuse put Pythias to death, Pythias begged for the chance to put his affairs in order. The king of Syracuse refused, telling Pythias that he could not trust Pythias to return.

Damon, Pythias’s friend, offered to remain as a hostage. The King accepted…but told Pythias that if Pythias chose to escape, it would be Damon that would be executed.

Just moments before Damon was scheduled to be killed, Pythias returned to take his friend’s place.

Maybe it was you who should have sought out Jane. If she’s dead, it’s your fault. Because you should have taken her place.

It was a thought that not all the bourbon in the world could have washed away. A lesser drunk might have tried, but Daria was too smart not to see the futility in the attempt.

(* * *)

Daria made sure that she had everything that she needed.

Her journal. Some waterproof paper, if her journal was damaged and she needed writing paper. A Swiss army knife. A magnesium fire starter. Fishing hooks. Water purification tablets. Anti-diarrhea pills.

It was definitely a bright day. Daria trimmed the sail until the sail stopped waving. Whether she’d have to reef the sail – to reduce the size of the sail due to the increased wind speed – was something that she’d have to ask herself later.

She had moved to Darwin, Australia and taken up the hobby of sailing. Darwin was on Australia’s northern coast and she had the best chance of reaching Asia from there. Her goal was to one day sail past the robotic skimmers that floated on the water – she had the ordnance to take care of any of them – and then beat the weather all the way to Indonesia. She also had a robo-stopper that she had gotten from a hacker after she had threatened to beat him within an inch of his life. His broken foot was a testimony to her resolution.

There was only one word that Daria knew. Zagreb. That was where Jane used to live. Maybe Jane found that coming to Australia was too dangerous, and was forced to return home, in safety, to plan. It wasn’t a smart theory, but it was the only one that gave Daria comfort. She could not guarantee that she would find Jane, but she was determined never to tell herself that she had not done all that she could.

And now, after all of this time, after all she had endured, Daria Morgendorffer was a mere dot in the sea, sailing on to a future which was beyond prediction. The difference this time was that her small space – the few feet of a small sailboat – was no longer a prison. Nothing was a prison, not anymore. Daria pulled out the small deck of cards and prepared to play Mao with the world.

FINIS