As if 2011 didn’t have enough notable deaths, Kim Jong Il kicked the proverbial bucket on Dec. 17, 2011. The enigmatic and charismatically bonkers world leader ruled North Korea for 17 years before dying of a heart attack at age 69. He took over the reins of the reclusive Asian country in 1994 from the country’s previous leader and Jong Il’s father, Kim Il Sung, who coincidentally also died of a heart attack (the elder Kim made it into his eighties, though).

Around the table on Christmas Eve, after a couple of glasses of wine, a relative showed me a YouTube video of North Koreans mourning the loss of their great leader. I’m painfully cordial at dinner tables, especially during the holidays. Death is not something that I find polite to discuss. The only thing less polite would be to converse about politics. But the video sure was striking. One image from the video particularly struck me. It was of a man crying—just bawling—on the steps of what I assumed was a government building.

“Can you believe it?” my relative asked.

Given the press Kim Jong Il has gotten on this side of the Pacific, it’d be difficult to believe that anyone would shed a tear over his passing. Yet, here this man was, sobbing so openly you’d think it was his wife or mother. It made me think about how relative everything is. Who knows? Perhaps this reaction was a calculated piece of propaganda to either show that Jong Il was beloved by his people; or, maybe it was a device wielded by those to prove the opposite—that the people of North Korea are so brainwashed that they thought the fruit bat who led them was someone likened to a god.

Even gods die, though. Just ask Zeus. The world wondered if the death of the country’s supreme leader would leave a power vacuum in North Korea. These thoughts were laid to rest on Dec. 29, 2011 as Kim Jong Un, Jong Il’s son, was named as his father’s successor. In fact, he was even dubbed “The Great Successor,” which may very well be the coolest title a world leader can have.

According to an article on SFGate.com, Kim Yong Nam, North Korean Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly (I’ll take it back, that is the coolest title a world leader can have) said of Jong Un, “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un is our party, military and country’s supreme leader who inherits great comrade Kim Jong Il’s ideology, leadership, character, virtues, grit and courage.”

So Yong Nam not only has a cool title, but he’s also not shy with the adjectives. I’ve always been fascinated by the North Korean supreme leader, simply because the stories you hear about the country seem so deliciously fictitious. It’s like something out of a surrealist novel, or maybe even an epic poem. When I first heard the news of his death, my knee-jerk reaction was that it was some kind of hoax. Really, I sort of hoped it was, because as crazy as he might have been, his image—the Elvis hair, stoic face and outlandish clothing—made the world more interesting. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Even as Jong Un was being named the new supreme leader, Kim Jong Il souvenir sales surged just across the North Korean border into China, according to an article published by the Agency France-Presse. One such vendor of these trinkets stated that she had sold “50 to 60 lapel pins every day during the 13-day mourning period” after Jong Il’s death. Any way you slice it, he certainly had an effect on people.

Who knows what legends will surround the new guy, but he certainly got his career off to a memorable start, one already clouded by conjecture. The Great Successor was unveiled at a massive memorial service for his father that saw hundreds of thousands of people converge upon Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang to pledge their fealty and support to the country’s new leader, according to SFGate.com. Strangely enough, CBS News reported that “Tens of thousands” attended the same memorial.

I guess the passing of Kim Jong Il and the tale of his successor are like many other things in life. It’s all about what you want to believe—like Santa Claus, or Balloon Boy, or that watching The Jersey Shore on a regular basis doesn’t make you a terrible person. I’d wager there’s probably a little bit of truth in everything, no matter how bizarre, vile or improbably wonderful, which is most likely why the world is such a fascinating place. Rest in peace, KJI, or some semblance thereof.

By James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

When we arrived near midnight, the big box store seemed almost serene and stoic. Its brick façade and bright logo sign implacable against the dark night. I parked as far away as possible, to alleviate the stress of trying to wind through the rows of cars, carts and frazzled shoppers with their wide eyes fixed on nothing but discounts. As we approached the store, we had to march past a group of employees taking in the last free drags from their cigarettes or simply just breathing in the cool night air before the holiday shopping season got off to its frantic beginning. I couldn’t look at them as we passed, but I felt their eyes on me.

“There’s another one,” I could imagine them thinking. “Another fucking asshole pulling me out of my home on a holiday night so he can save $20.” I kept my pace brisk. Still, I couldn’t see the line.

It wasn’t until we’d navigated around half the store that we got to the head of it. Folding chairs lined up, a woman huddled under blankets. I wondered how long they’d been sitting there. It must have been hours—perhaps a good portion of the day. I’d wondered if they even had anything to eat. I assumed—perhaps wrongly—that they were waiting in line so they could buy gifts for others, but if they were there for that reason, where were the people they were so eager to buy gifts for? Shouldn’t they have been together with them instead of sitting in a lonely parking lot with a bunch of strangers?

The line, hidden from much of the parking lot, wrapped around the side of the large store. It was a good five-minute walk before we’d reached the end of it. The people in front of us were huddled in a group. Two women—one a spunky go-getter named Rachel, the other a gorgeous young wife and mother with jet black, pin-straight hair, whose name I didn’t catch, wearing a diamond engagement ring so large that it could have been measured in inches as well as carats—and a third not affiliated with the other two who acted as our guru. She had the circular outlining all the deals. She’d been through this before. I was determined to follow her lead.

Contrary to the reports I’d heard from previous years throughout the country, it was remarkably civil. I’m not sure if I was disappointed or not. I was expecting glowering faces, determined scowls. I was fully prepared to punch a soccer mom (in self-defense, of course) if need be. Luckily, there was no repeat of the horrific trampling death of a Wal-Mart employee that occurred in Valley Stream, N.Y. in 2008. This year, a 61-year-old man shopping in a West Virginia Target became ill and collapsed while shopping. Witnesses reported that people ignored the man and even stepped over him as they went about their business. The Black Friday vet, the gorgeous woman with the ring, Rachel and I had a nice conversation as we waited for the line to move, but I couldn’t help but wonder, what would happen once those doors opened. Would the casual chit-chat we shared outside turn sour once the shit hit the fan? If I collapsed, would they walk over me? Would I do the same to them?

The line, now wrapped around the entirety of the store and with us more or less in the middle, began moving just before midnight. It moved pretty quickly, and within five to 10 minutes, we were inside. We bid farewell to the group of women in front of us and wished them luck as my shopping partner and I made a beeline for housewares. I was determined to just get the coffee maker—one of those single-cup jobs, like the one I’ve fallen in love with at my daytime office. Sure enough, we found it. Since it wasn’t a big-ticket item, the area was pretty clear. I tossed one in the shopping cart figuring I’d head straight for the register and leave this mess behind, but I didn’t.

People carting flatscreens of varying widths congested just about every aisle. The area by the toys was a supreme clusterfuck. Someone rammed me from behind with their shopping cart and I murmured something aweful without even looking to see who or what had hit me. I ended up finding two more gifts and a couple of cheap DVDs for myself. (The Dark Knight for $1.99 was too good to pass up.)

On the way out, we spotted the woman with the ring. She was just as cheerful as she was outside on line. Her arms were full of assorted knickknacks. “I lost Rachel!” she chirped as we parted ways for the final time. I wonder if she ever found her.

James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

It’s amazing what power can do to people, even to those who seem above reproach. You may or may not be a sports fan, but you’ve more than likely heard something about the scandal that has devastated one of the nation’s most respected college football teams and perhaps one of the most beloved men in collegiate sports. And it’s a shining example of how the things you don’t do are sometimes more important than the things you do.

For 61 years, Joe Paterno has been a familiar face on the sidelines (or in recent years, in the booth) at Penn State football games. It was largely in part to him why I followed the Nittany Lions. Short, lumpy and of Italian descent, he could just as easily have been one of my uncles as he was an iconic football coach. More than just a great coach, leading his team to many successes, he was a great molder of young men. Penn State has produced plenty of professional football players over the years—especially great linebackers—but more importantly than that, Paterno, or JoePa as he had become affectionately known in State College, Penn., seemed to be more concerned with preparing his athletes for life after football than his own prestige and accolades. Still, Paterno amassed 409 victories, the most in FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) history. When his Nittany Lions earned the coach his 400th victory in 2010, Big-10 commissioner Jim Delany said of Paterno, “When they write the history of college football in the second half of the 20th century—and maybe the first half of the 21st century—he will be regarded among the greats. I’m not talking about just football or just college. I’m talking about one of the great coaches in the history of American sports.”

Unfortunately, we’ve learned far too often that being great at what you do doesn’t mean you’re a great person. Now, Paterno and Penn State University are in the eye of a scandal involving sexual abuse of children and a cover-up that lasted almost a decade.

Jerry Sandusky, a similarly decorated defensive coach whose 23-year tenure under Paterno at Penn State ended in 1999, has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault that could put him behind bars for 460 years. One such incident is purported to have happened in 2002 in the Penn State shower room. Though he was gone for three years, Sandusky still had access to the university’s athletic facilities. According to the grand jury indictment, then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary walked in on Sandusky raping a boy believed to be around 10 years old. Instead of calling the police or, you know, tackling the asshole to the ground and beating the shit out of him, McQueary left the scene to call Paterno, who then called campus police. And that was that—until now.

After the story broke, people were fit to be tied, for obvious reasons, but those defending Paterno were equal in fervor. Students staged a demonstration in support of JoePa when he announced that he would retire his long-held position at the end of the football season. The next day, university officials finally removed their thumbs from their asses and fired Paterno, which set off a riot on campus. School president Graham Spanier has also been fired as a result of this horror story; however, McQueary somehow still has a job with the university and as of the writing of this article has only been placed on “administrative leave.” WOW.

I’ve been cursed with a strong sense of empathy. I can imagine Paterno and company’s side of the story here. He has stated that the incident wasn’t explained to him in the same excruciating detail as McQueary relayed to a grand jury, but even if that wasn’t the case, and God or whoever forgive me, I can still understand where Paterno was coming from. Getting news that a trusted colleague and companion has all along been a psychopathic monster had to have come as quite a shock; or, at the very least, sort of like the time you heard Santa Claus didn’t exist. Sure, you kind of suspected it, but how could you be sure. In any case, believing in the good far outweighed accepting the bad. I think if I were in Paterno’s shoes, my initial reaction might have been similar. Who would want to deal with that kind of news? Also, he didn’t witness it himself. But, I don’t know, after a couple of minutes, after the shock wore off, I believe I would have done what any other human being with half a heart would have done and, at the very least, notified the proper authorities. Instead, a simple decision, to pick up the phone or not to, has ballooned into more victims, lives torn apart for those directly affected—the victims and their families—right down to the young athletes donning the Plain Vanilla uniforms of the Nittany Lions who had hopes of fulfilling their dreams as pro football players one day.

This is a valuable lesson to those students rioting in defense of their once-great coach and the face of their beloved football team. People in power care about one thing. Hint: It ain’t you.

James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

I won’t go into the tragic details of the case. I wasn’t following it, so I don’t know them. I’m more fascinated by the reaction. You’re probably way more familiar with them than I am, anyway, considering the Casey Anthony case was a pretty hot ticket. In Orlando, Fla., the Orange County Courthouse was the place to be this past Memorial Day weekend. People arrived at 5:30 a.m. in the hopes that they’d land one of the coveted 50 seats to see the public trial firsthand. Outside of Florida, Anthony was the toast of the talk show circuit as misery profiteers couldn’t talk about it enough. According to a June 20 article in the New York Post, on-air personalities such as Nancy Grace and Dr. Drew Pinsky left their competitors in the dust by dedicating their shows to the trial. Grace saw her ratings spike a mammoth 150 percent! While a Dateline special two-hour recap of the trial (for those of us who missed out) was the most watched program of the night it aired.

Murder-shmurder… For the networks it’s a shame a trial like this only comes once a century. Why, we haven’t seen anything like this since… you know who. I have to admit, I was all over that one. I used to rush home from high school just to see what Cochran and the boys were up to. I understand why people are so into trial drama. There’s a reason that Law & Order has been on for a billion seasons and, thanks to syndication, can be watched pretty much 24 hours per day if you navigate basic cable correctly. It’s riveting, and when it’s real life, it’s even more so. Death, betrayal, shocking revelations, comic relief (if you have the right team of lawyers)—they’re all there. Unfortunately in the real world, there are no Sam McCoys. Sometimes the outcome isn’t wrapped up with a tidy bow (in roughly 60 minutes with commercials).

Maybe that’s why everyone is so upset. There’s a beautiful 2-year-old girl dead and no one to take the blame for it. Her mother, clearly the culprit, will walk. But, the public needs to point its finger at something, so the jury might get the brunt of it. But how about the justice system? First O.J., now this? The parallels between the two trials became meme fodder as soon as the verdict hit. I see the correlation: they’re both guilty but proven innocent, right? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.

Regardless of the outcome of this case, the justice system is just fine. It’s not infallible, but it’s the best system out there. Maybe after another era or two of social evolution, we’ll come up with something better. Maybe Apple will develop the infallible iJury. Until then, be thankful for what we got. Look at it this way, if we didn’t have the presumption of innocence, and it was on the defense to prove their client was not guilty, as opposed to the other way around, there’d be a whole lot of innocent people in prison. That would be a real crime.

But if you’re looking for a replacement, might I suggest Trial by Ordeal? This medieval form of justice was a real hoot, and most likely extremely effective. The accused would have to perform some dangerous task, believed to be under the supervision of God. “Passing” the test and proving your innocence might result in death, but that’s a small price to pay if you think about it. We could require those on trial to fetch a stone out of boiling water and check to see if they’re wounded, or how fast it heals; or, toss them in water to see if they float. The ones who do are guilty, and though the innocent may be drowned, at least they’ll have a finer reward in the hereafter. To modernize this wonderful tradition, we could hand the accused a revolver loaded with a single bullet and give the chamber a spin. God wouldn’t let an innocent man blow his brains out, but however it shakes out, think of Dr. Drew’s ratings boost.

By James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

A cursory look at the temperatures will tell you that we’re a long way from winter. But make no mistake about it: Winter IS coming. If you don’t know what I’m referencing, I’m sorry. You really should live life less and watch TV more. That’s what I do. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but the TV I do watch occupies much of my life. LOST was a prime example. I like to snicker at all the vampire drama blah blah blah on True Blood, but right now, I’m completely preoccupied with HBO’s latest time sucker, Game of Thrones, which is based on a series of novels I haven’t read. But after seeing the TV adaptation, I may not have the stomach to.

More accurately, I was hooked on Game of Thrones. It just had its first season finale, and it was quite a cliffhanger. I was going to try to break down the show in simple terms for our readers who haven’t seen it, but that’s a fool’s errand. There are so many names, nicknames and family/realm history thrown at you in each episode that it’s pointless to try to keep up with it all. For those of you out there who have heard about the show and are going to try to watch it en masse on demand or on your fancy portable device at a later date, my best advice to you is just squint really hard, concentrate all you can, then find some nerd on Twitter who can answer all your questions—just don’t get them too worked up because then they’ll never leave you alone.

Here’s the best I can do to summarize and still leave enough word count for my pithy commentary: There are these families who rule a fictional land called Westeros, which is broken up into seven kingdoms (I think), and there was this old king called “The Mad King,” but he also has another name. He was MAD, so this one dude, Jaime Lannister, who fucks his sister, killed him, which got this other guy Robert installed as king. Oh yeah, Robert is also married to Jaime’s Sister (the one he’s fucking). Robert has a buddy Ned who lives in the north. Ned’s cool as shit and ends up working for the king, but there are a whole lot of growing threats amassing outside the realm, like the Dothraki, a race of people who are really into horses (but not in that way). The Son of the Mad King sold his sister to the Dothraki Leader in exchange for an army of savage killers who could march into Westeros and reclaim the Iron Throne, which is where the king sits. The sister, Daenerys, is a total babe and doesn’t like being bossed around by her brother. She becomes queen of the Dothraki and doesn’t take his bullshit any more. But she’s such a babe that the Dothraki Leader decides he’ll charge into Westeros and rape and kill everyone in her name so she can have her Iron Throne back anyway.

Even worse than the horse dudes is that there’s this wall in the far north, and on the other side of the wall is all this crazy shit, like people who don’t bathe ever and White Walkers, who are on some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons type shit. People guard the wall and can never leave, including Jon Snow, Ned’s bastard son (we don’t know Jon’s momma because Maury hasn’t been born yet). There is also a lot of dragon talk—which gets me fucking stoked—and instead of using e-mail, people communicate via ravens. And there are wolves too, but not like the ones on True Blood.

It’s a really intricate story chock full of twists and turns, backstabbing and betrayal, beheadings and nudity and sex and incest and rape and pre-teens talking about getting each other pregnant.

But really it’s a quality program. I’m amped up for season two, which will air spring 2012 (luckily before the Mayan long count calendar ends). The thing that bothers me about the show, and this is the case with a lot of the shows I’ve seen on the premium cable networks I’ve been watching lately (True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Spartacus, etc.), is that the sex and violence are so extreme. I’m not sure if that makes me a prude or not, but if I want to watch porn (and I’m not a stranger to it), then I will, but if I want to sit down and watch a show because I like a story’s rich intrigue, I don’t really need to watch two prostitutes finger pop one another while a creepy dude rattles off a few paragraphs of expository monologue.

I get that these shows are “adult,” and that’s why I like them. At times, these shows have clever, nuanced plots and wonderful scripts. But it seems like they can’t go four minutes without someone getting their soft-core on or someone graphically getting their head lopped off (or in Game of Thrones’ case, both simultaneously). I’m just wondering if “mature content” necessarily means careless gratuity. Or maybe I should just shut the fuck up and go see Cars 2.

-James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Let’s see…what’s been happening in the news lately? Royal wedding? That was a pretty big deal. Oh, wait, Osama bin Laden’s dead (OR IS HE (lol j/k he is, assholes, they said so on television)). I guess I could write about that. I don’t know. It’s been a pretty slow couple of weeks. Or, Common is suddenly the most controversial hip-hop star in America. OK, fuck it, why not. Let’s go with that.

When I was a kid, I remember Ice-T came out with a song called “Cop Killer” for his rock band Body Count that got everyone all pissed off. Let’s be fair, here. The lyrics of the song are pretty vile: “I’m a cop killer, better you than me/Cop killer, fuck police brutality!/Cop killer, I know your family’s grieving, (fuck ‘em!)/Cop killer, but tonight we get even, ha ha.” My father wasn’t a cop, but he was a Bridge and Tunnel officer at the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island, N.Y. He carried a badge and is a member of the Fraternal Order of Police. When I first heard the song, I wasn’t a fan (I’ve heard better), but whatever. It’s not like you don’t see violence against cops all over the place in movies, books and television. For instance, The Godfather is one of the greatest movies of all time. One of my favorite scenes is when Michael Corleone steps out of the bathroom of the Italian restaurant, pistol in hand, and executes a rival kingpin and police officer while everyone else is eating spaghetti. I could be wrong, but no one vilified Francis Ford Coppola as condoning violence against the police (well, they probably would have if he were black (lol j/k…actually, that time I wasn’t kidding)). It’s art. It’s just expression.

It would be a different thing entirely if Ice-T had killed a cop, or anyone else for that matter. That’s a crime. Singing about a crime isn’t a crime. It might be in poor taste, but that’s something that’s up to listeners to decide, I guess, and they often do. Of course, that song came out years ago, when Ice-T was no doubt a brash young man striving to make a name for himself with his talent—or at least his ability to piss off/frighten white people. Nowadays, Ice-T is a lovable (practically cuddly) mainstream star. In fact, my mom regularly watches him as a star on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, a show on which he plays, of all things, a cop. “Cop Killer” is a distant memory, and that’s most likely for the best for all of us.

Now this Common thing is strange to me. He was invited to read some poetry at The White House. This didn’t surprise me at all, because my mental image of Common is a kindly, intelligent-looking man, rocking the bald head and beard a la Jimmy B. (because that’s my name for myself when I refer to myself in the third-person). In my mind, he’s the epitome of “conscious” rap, which again, in my mind, is a form of rap music loathe to refer to women as bitches or in any way measure a man’s worth by the size of his automobile’s rims. I have to plead some level of ignorance, because I’m not very familiar with Common and I’m not a fan of “conscious” rap. I like dumb shit like Flo Rida’s “Low” and strip club anthems like Fat Joe’s “Make It Rain.” Conscious rap makes me think about feelings, and it’s hard for Jimmy B. to sound tough in his car when he’s rapping about his feelings. So having Common recite some poetry at The White House seemed like a solid move.

I was actually shocked to hear that Common had “a pro cop-killing stance in two separate cases,” according to Bill O’Reilly on The Factor. Woah. Common wants Jimmy B. to kill a cop?

Well, maybe not. One of the “cases” O’Reilly is referring to is “A Song for Assata,” a song dedicated to Assata Shakur that was released on Common’s 2000 album, Like Water for Chocolate. Shakur was convicted of killing a police officer in a New Jersey Turnpike shoot-out in the late ‘70s. She escaped prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba on political asylum since 1984, and though the details of the case were a bit murky, she perhaps isn’t the most positive role model. The second case of Common’s pro cop-killing stance was speaking out on behalf of another convicted cop-killer, Mumia Abu-Jamal, but Common’s not alone in that regard. Everyone from Snoop Dogg to The Black Crowes have come out in support. Even Chumbawamba chanted “Free Mumia Abu-Jamal” on an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman in 1997.

So, wait, what does this all boil down to? Does this mean The White House condones Common’s condoning of cop killing? Does anyone really think that’s the case? You know, we were all pretty stoked when Osama bin Laden was killed. People were celebrating on the streets near Ground Zero. Maybe they were acting with a bit too much hubris, but I can understand it. I’m not going to miss bin Laden now that he’s gone. Good riddance. He was a bad guy. But it is nice to have bad guys—an enemy who’s clearly an enemy. Unfortunately things aren’t always so easily black and white; except, like in this case, when they clearly are.

James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

I tried my best to stay away from the Sheen Express this week, but it was impossible. He was everywhere. It was like a Sheen-meme-splosion on the Internet, and dude was giving interviews to everyone—Piers Morgan, 20/20, those trolls at Access Hollywood. I did my best to weather the storm, but it was useless. You can’t stand in front of a tornado and pretend it doesn’t exist. You either get out of its way or get sucked through the funnel. I opted for the latter.

I got sucked hard into the 20/20 interview. I just saw clips of the others, but it seemed like the same thing. What I enjoyed about Sheen’s 20/20 interview was that it was editorialized in such a manner that it laid out for me—in extremely simple terms—what I was supposed to think of the situation. Their verdict: Charlie Sheen is a fucking psycho. And they’re more than likely right about that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take something positive away from his existence.

Let’s strip away all the fantastical elements of his life. He’s the highest paid actor in television history, he lives in a mansion dubbed “Sober Valley Lodge” with his goddesses (porn star Bree Olson (nee Rachel Oberlin) and model Natalie Kenly) and he’s imbued with tiger’s blood and Adonis DNA. What you have left is still a man that the vast majority of us are completely unable to relate to. The sheer volume of drugs, alcohol and whoring he has done over the course of his lifetime has killed lesser men, yet he survives—nay, thrives. Though he may spout off crazy shit like, “Clearly I have defeated this earthworm with my words, imagine what I could have done with my fire-breathing fists… I am a warlock,” as if he were a dude who just rolled into town on the Greyhound after a three-week meth binge, Sheen clearly isn’t destitute. He is, as he suggests, winning.

It’s hard to argue with him. Sure, his escapades may have gotten Two and a Half Men canned (for the rest of the season anyway), which I imagine put a lot of normal folk out of work, but when Lindsay Lohan got all bonkers on goofballs or whatever the fuck cocktail of chemicals she was ingesting, she shot her career in the face; when Britney Spears shaved her head and flipped a lid in the most epic way imaginable, just about everyone lost whatever respect they had for her. Charlie Sheen does a bunch of coke and chokes out a porn star in a hotel room across the hall from where his ex-wife and kids are sleeping, and a lot of people praise him as a hero or pop culture icon. Hey, I didn’t make that part up. It’s reality.

But what do I know? All of this is probably some well-orchestrated stunt. William Shatner seems to think so. In an interview with Michael Medved on his syndicated radio program, Capt. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise said that despite what 20/20 wanted us to believe, Sheen isn’t crazy at all. Though Shatner acquiesced that Sheen used unconventional means, to the captain, the maligned actor has been “perfectly in the moment.”

“He’s not crazy—to my mind—he’s just jagged and putting the interviewers on,” Shatner concluded.

Words to the wise. But don’t stress yourself out about it. Like I said, you can drive yourself crazy over what’s real and what isn’t. Just relax. It’s not like, say, there were politicians in office at this very moment who are trying to strip workers of their rights, inching us perilously toward a class war or anything. Dude, wait, what?

By James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

There’s this really good show on the television. It’s called The Walking Dead, and it’s about zombies—sort of. I can’t recall there ever being a zombie-centric show, so it’s notable in that regard. And even though I’m sort of over zombies—I mean, come on, give it a rest—The Walking Dead has done for my love of zombie apocalypses what True Blood has done for my appreciation of vampire stories. Even more remarkable, The Walking Dead has done so without frequent Anna Paquin nude scenes—a true accomplishment.

I think about zombies a lot. They’re the most often showcased feature when I’m dreaming. I’ve had numerous zombie nightmares in my life. Sometimes I ponder how I’d handle a zombie plague (after I’m done screaming, crying and hyperventilating, of course). I’d like to think that if such an incident were to occur, I have a solid contingency plan in place. I’d tell you what it is, but how do I know I can trust you?

Honestly, I’m not sure how feasible a zombie apocalypse is, or even if the world would go to hell if some virus or whatever caused the bodies of the dead to reanimate and feast on the living. We’d be bummed if grandpa unexpectedly showed up for dinner, if you get what I’m saying, but with people’s short attention spans nowadays, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal after a while. Also, logistically, I’m not sure it would work. Zombies have to get all up in your business to spread the disease and with advances in weapon technology and military tactics, an undead insurgency would probably be butchered in short order. When you think about it, zombies wouldn’t pose a big a threat as vampires, unless they were like Twilight vampires.

Real danger or not, zombie lore is as alive (HA!) as ever. And since its beginnings in cinema, it’s remained largely unchanged. If you’re a zombie apocalypse aficionado, The Walking Dead isn’t really anything you haven’t seen before. The series throws us right in a world gone in the shitter. The undead have ravaged the civilized world, toppling humans from the top of the food chain. Chaos rules, but we meet a diverse group of survivors who are trying to keep it together. They have strength in numbers (though their numbers always seem to be dwindling), but they don’t only have to battle hordes of zombies, they must also conquer their own differences and yadda, yadda, yadda. This has been the formula since George Romero conjured Night of the Living Dead from the blackest recesses of his imagination, and has held true in just about every zombie movie ever. Why fuck with something that’s not broken?

So what makes The Walking Dead so special? Maybe it’s just that it’s bringing these decades-old conventions to a wider audience. More likely, it’s the dynamic between the characters that’s gotten everyone hooked. At the center of the emotional shit storm is a love triangle that’s well played between the three central characters: Rick Grimes, a cop who was in a coma when the outbreak occurred and awakes to find the world gone to hell; Shane Walsh, Grimes’ partner and the man responsible for saving Rick’s family; and Lori, Grimes’ wife, who has an affair with Walsh while she believes her husband is dead. Season 1 ran just six episodes, but that’s still four times as long as any zombie film, so the nuances in these relationships have room to flourish.

The Walking Dead, like most good zombie movies, is about the living as opposed to the dead. That’s for the best, because zombies are pretty boring, they just shamble around, groan and eat, kind of like your college roommate who nursed a bong all day. People, the living kind, have a lot more stuff going on. They might beat their wives or be racist pricks—not that these are good traits, but they are traits. Zombies don’t care if you’re young or old, white or black, Jewish or Muslim. As Grimes observes in The Walking Dead, none of that matters: “We’re all white meat or dark meat.” So even though the show features scenes of people driving pick axes through the heads of their fallen companions who got all chomped up on by a zombie, the underlying message of The Walking Dead is actually quite sweet: “Bro, we got to stick together.” Remember that this holiday season when your drunk uncle starts talking politics at you.

James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

That’s a lot of “cables” to pore through. When I first read the term “cables,” I immediately thought of an old man reading the feed from a telegraph machine. “President of Pakistan is a complete douchebag. Stop.” You know, something like that.

I haven’t been to the WikiLeaks website. Mostly because I don’t want my IP address to get flagged, or wake up one morning to find a “surprise” cache of child pornography on my hard drive and vanloads of feds at my door. I mean, it’s a free country, so that couldn’t happen, right? I’m not a character in The Bourne Identity. I’m not that good-looking.

I figured the best course of action was to just get a rundown on the WikiLeaks debacle by perusing real news sites and seeing what they had to say about it. Should be easy enough. If these cables were so damaging, the Internet should be abuzz with facts and punditry. But my first cursory search only revealed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was in deep shit—and not just for posting U.S. government secrets on his fancy blog. Apparently, he’s under suspicion for raping a couple of Swedish women—just like the last time he took a leak on the Internet.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. He supposedly raped one of them and only molested the other, but serial rapist is so much more exciting.

Currently, Assange’s whereabouts are unknown, but the most recent article I could find at the time of this writing on Reuters mentioned that he’s likely in the United Kingdom “but [British authorities] have refrained so far from acting on an international warrant for his arrest, a British newspaper said on Thursday [Dec. 2].” Earlier in the same week, Interpol (not that Interpol) issued a “red alert” to authorities to aid in Assange’s arrest. He is wanted under suspicion of sexual crimes, but no charges have been filed at this time. The alleged incident took place in August 2010 when Assange was visiting in Sweden, and he, of course, denies the allegations.

I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. I didn’t like the man, but I don’t think President Bush was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or that he knew about them in advance. I have a hard time believing Mr. Bush “knows” anything, but that’s another matter. And yes, I saw Loose Change, and yes, I did think it was fucked up. But it still wasn’t enough to make me barricade myself in an attic wearing a tinfoil hat.

However, am I the only one who finds the timing of this Interpol arrest warrant a little convenient? It doesn’t exactly take WikiLeaks out of the headlines, but it does deflect the focus of the reporting a little bit. If this isn’t merely coincidence (and what a coincidence!), I have to say rape charges are the way to go. Even murder—at times—can be rationalized. You could say, “Oh, but it was self defense,” or, “He slept with my wife, and I just snapped.” These murders may still be crimes, but fair-minded people could say, “Well, he was pushed to the breaking point. Who knows how any of us would react to that?” You can’t really go that way with rape. You can’t say, “Well, I raped her for her own good,” or, “There was no way to defend myself other than to rape her.” You could, I guess, but you wouldn’t find many sympathetic ears—except from other rapists.

Assange’s arrest warrant nabbed the top spot on Google News Wednesday, Dec. 1 as of this writing with upward of 4,000 related articles. Good thing for Assange (and the United States) that no one’s actually going to take the time to read all that.

By James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Lately, my infomercial viewing has found religion, and why not? Organized religion is probably humankind’s longest running and most successful infomercial. Religion has the best gimmicks at its disposal, be they supreme saviors rising from the dead or an afterlife filled with a billion virgins. Not even Ron Popeil could touch that, not with all the Pocket Fishermen or RonCo Food Dehydrators in the world.

Before I go any further, I should mention that I don’t have any problem with religion. I think religion, at its core, is a beautiful idea. It brings people together and makes the impossible to understand—i.e., “Why are we here?” “What does it all mean?” and “What happens when we die?”—far less daunting. You could throw all the science you want at these questions, and I bet everyone would fawn all over you for being a big ol’ smarty pants, but it wouldn’t provide anyone much in the way of comfort, understanding or community.

Religion’s a wonderful tool. When placed in the right hands, it can do wonderful things for a lot of people. So, this column isn’t targeted at you or your wonderful pastor, priest, rabbi, imam or shaman. What I’m talking about here is the snake-oil salesmen, or the wolves in sheep’s clothing, or, more specifically, Dr. Mike Murdock.

Dr. Murdock is everything you’d expect from a televangelist. He’s charismatic—even funny sometimes. His speech can go from soothing to fiery at the drop of a hat. He has great hair. My favorite feature, though, is his nearly invisible headset microphone; it’s so small and well concealed, it looks almost like a Tylenol capsule that hovers just above the corner of his mouth.

Murdock’s key gimmick, as far as I can tell, is his Law of the Seed. He advises on his program that if you sow seeds, God will grant you a harvest. The “seed,” of course, is a parable. He’s not asking his faithful to start a garden, though he doesn’t seem outright opposed to the idea. Have at it. Plant some tomatoes, but if you want to plant a seed with God and reap the benefits, according to Dr. Murdock, it’s best if you send cold, hard American Cash.

Tithing and religion have always gone hand in hand. The custom varies from sect to sect, denomination to denomination. God’s all-seeing and all-knowing, according to another great earthly prophet named George Carlin, but he’s just not good with money. He needs it, maybe; or more likely the church needs money to pay civilian employees, keep their cupboards stocked, and if they’re doing the right thing, for charitable programs in their community. But how much should you give, if you’re pious? Pocket change? Ten percent of your salary? It’s so ambigious. Dr. Murdock eliminates that tedious guess work—$1,000 will suffice.

He understands that the economy is bad. People are getting laid off, are losing or have lost their homes. They’re riddled with debt. But none of these things should be seen as obstacles in getting on the phone and dropping a grand (operators are standing by). If you’re buried under a pile of credit card debt, you surely don’t have anything to lose. You can charge your seed to your Master Card and hope it blooms before the bill comes.

Dr. Murdock doesn’t seem to be turning down the smaller donations. Those are fine. But if you want a big harvest, $1,000 really is the way to go. You get what you give and all that. He says, on his late-night, fake talk-show-style infosermonmercial that you can’t buy a miracle for $1,000. Heck, you couldn’t buy a miracle for $1 million, but if you sow a $1,000 seed, you can expect a “harvest.”

Did you see what he did there? It’s the kind of clever word play you’d expect from a doctor. I’m not sure why it’s different to try to buy a harvest from God instead of a miracle. If I’m forking over $1,000 to a supernatural being for something, I’d at the very least like to have some water turned into wine. I guess I’m just a man of little faith. Still, as with any infomercial, the more times I see it, the more it makes sense. Who knows? Maybe Dr. Murdock is on to something. Unfortunately, I am low on cash, so if anyone wants to go in on a $1,000 seed with me, let me know. I promise I’ll spread the harvest around.

James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine