While I was on the air with Matt Clark during his WAAM radio broadcast recently he wanted me to talk a bit about my latest Curse of Fort Seven Mile series. However, time ran out and we couldn’t get into the details. Actually, I don’t think I could cover all the details in an hour show, or a 10 hour show. For me, what started as a simple pulp fiction series has evolved into something I would term as a philosophy for the 22nd century. The below videos will help with the context but essentially what I’m doing is this: over the next one hundred years we are going to discover that we are not alone in the solar system, let alone the galaxy. We will learn to defy death. We will unlock all the potentials of a Type 1 civilization and that will require us to completely revisit our current political and religious philosophies—because the present ones just won’t be sufficient. That’s not a knock on anybody, but the discoveries of the next century will just unlock a massive amount of potential that isn’t even forecasted on the horizon as of yet—and people will need some means of thinking about those things if they want to survive.
I have been pretty adamant about my hobbies and positions. I essentially grew up studying mythologies and religious cultures, but I like to make money, so I chose professional endeavors that I could raise a family on—but there is a lot about me that is very sympathetic to the Nathan Drake video game character. The people I most admire these days are people like Josh Gates and his friend Erin Ryder. If I did not love family as much as I do, I would have loved to live the life that they have—and believe me I have no regrets. But I do read and watch a lot of what those fantastic people have put out as far as discovery over the years. When they tackle some crypto mystery much of it comes out to nothing, but it’s the asking of the questions that I find absolutely amazing. There are a lot of people, many whom are featured in these videos who have committed enormous amounts of time and resources to asking hard questions about mankind’s origins—and I’ll be honest—I love each and every one of them. When I listen to their lectures and read their books I think in the best case scenarios, they may be getting 50% of any given idea correct. But even 1% of what these people are saying they are major game changers for the entire human race and the world at large.
Lately, there has been an explosion, likely because of the Internet, of conspiracy theories and examinations into a hidden past that does not agree with the Leaky evolutionary theories. The latest revisions are probably driven more by Jurassic Park’s DNA examples and the popular Lord of the Rings movies about Middle Earth—art has helped our society ask new questions from a fresh perspective—and the answers to those questions might just be explosive. If only 1% is true, mankind is in for some startling revelations. The best movies and books are the ones that make you ask, “what if,” and as the videos included here surmise, there are some very smart people who are asking lots of questions tainted by their personal backgrounds. But it is what they agree on that has stimulated my thinking and focused my mind on the hard evidence that is rapidly pouring in.
I wanted to write another Cliffhanger novel but I wanted it to be relevant to the world 100 years from now the way I read Jules Verne, Ayn Rand, H.P. Lovecraft or even Shakespeare. My favorite play of his is Titus Andronicus. His use of extreme violence to tell the moral story of love and loss—as well as dedication are the kinds of things I find infinitely fascinating and it doesn’t matter when in history we read such a story—they still communicate a truth which is valuable. Having these kinds of interests I couldn’t just write some average piece of fiction reviewers of today would like—I wanted to write something that people a century from now would marvel at and would still draw inspiration from. Yet I also wanted to make the argument that the values America had from around 1870 to about 1900 were the best the world had ever seen, and that those values should be captured in a bottle and examined in actually a scientific way—as having merit on culture building itself. The economic means of the country was explosive during that period, morality was respectable, and collectivism was being defeated wherever it was encountered—namely during westward expansion.
For about forty years I have had in my mind a really terrible antagonist and a concept for painting it into a story against the ultimate protagonist—but I needed to collect a lot of information to tell that story. Finally, I feel like I’m there. Once I had all the details worked out, I went to work writing it—and as I thought, it has turned out to be the byproduct of a hyperactive imagination, a technical background, legitimate scientific investigation and all the life experience learned in every hard way imaginable.
Knowing that over the next couple decades history will have to reflect what we are learning now—and that we will learn that not only are we not alone, but that we are currently in a relationship with thinking beings not from earth’s origin story and that the essential ingredient to a successful society resides within individual behavior as opposed to collective salvation—and that once that process begins—where democracies run by a mob take over the individual input of actual leaders—that all civilizations stop functioning and regress back to their beginnings.
Even as my protagonist, Cliffhanger fights bad guys with flaming bullwhips all in the name of justice—it is important these days to define the merits of that justice. It is not enough to simply show bad and good—it has to be defined by actual universal rules of engagement as defined by the observable conditions of our cosmos. To do that we have to step beyond our veil of politics and modern philosophy and take the next step. Taking that step is what and why I’m committing so much time to this new Cliffhanger story. Similarly to that Cannibals of Cahokia story—this Curse of Fort Seven Mile has the benefit of an additional twenty years of hard living and earned observation. Like H.P. Lovecraft I have a love for pulp fiction written in a romantic fashion—and on the surface that is what these new Cliffhanger stories are. But, my protagonist, Fletcher Finnegan in The Curse of Fort Seven Mile is actually named after one of my favorite literary figures of all time, the giant in Finnegan’s Wake from the James Joyce classic. My goals with the work are not to reach the New York Best Seller’s list, or even to get reviews from Publisher’s Weekly. It is to offer a useful philosophy for people grappling with real significant challenges to everything they believed was true for over 10,000 years and to provide them a softer landing philosophically—so to maybe for the first time in human history to provoke a change in mankind’s propensity to always revert back to the Vico cycle. Thus SpokeCliffhanger.
If you want a preview of this work they are available on the sidebar. But the real meat is yet to come and why I am dedicating some specific time and resources to completing it. To get a sense of it, just watch all these videos and you’ll get your mind ready to read what I’m putting into a story intended for readers of the next century. I’m not giving up on politics. But rather it is too small of a shoe for me now. The next obvious evolution is exopolitical theater and the vast changes it will bring. Currently it is a bit on the fringe side, but that will change rapidly—and when it does–well, people will want a point of reference and fiction is a good place to begin—by bridging what we know with what we will come to understand.
I don’t say things until I’ve considered the evidence intently and one of the reasons I’ve been most insistent to write The Curse of Fort Seven Mile with an emphasis of late is because of a realization that I’ve discovered through quite a lot of research. These rumors of some type of life on the Moon of our earth have some weight to them. From the 1976 book written by George Leonard Somebody Else Is on the Moon (linked below) compelling evidence from actual NASA photographs open the topic profoundly. It’s an expensive book to get, but well worth it. Additionally I think it is the remarks of the astronauts who have actually walked on the moon, people like Edger Mitchell and Buzz Aldren who have provided such virtuous testimony—some intentionally, some not so much so. The evidence points more to the fact that there are constructions on the moon that shouldn’t be there and that there is presently, or has been, an alien race active on its surface. If you can’t afford the old Leonard book feel free to watch these following videos for some supportive evidence to the fact.
One of my first big memories as a kid was visiting the Neal Armstrong museum at Wapakoneta, Ohio while my family went on a trip to Put-in-Bay—I was around four years old. Years after that, my class went on a field trip to the museum there while in grade school and I oddly enough remembered most everything because I had been there before. I was the kid who always read the literature on the exhibits, so I felt very much at home compared to the other kids who had seen the place for the first time. Armstrong was a professor at the University of Cincinnati—which was in my hometown and his life occurred very much around me—and I was aware of that growing up. Aviation was born around me as well, so I’ve always taken some pride in the Wright Brothers and old test pilots like Neal Armstrong who was obviously the first person to walk on the moon—at least that we know of. What always bothered me about Armstrong was that he had turned inward after the experience. He wasn’t like Buzz Aldren—Armstrong didn’t relish the celebrity of being the first man on the moon—he had a secret which he avoided talking about and obviously took to his death.
Given Armstrong’s Midwestern roots, I think the guy didn’t like lying to people about what he saw on the moon when NASA switched to a private broadcast while he and Buzz were standing on the surface in July of 1969. I was one year old at the time and my parents were standing me up in front of the television to see the event. All I remember of the occurrence was the shape of the ship and the sounds of the transmissions which I recognized at the museum years later in Wapakoneta. I didn’t understand the context at the time, but the layers of memory solidified it in my thinking for years to come. While everyone was impressed that mankind was standing on the moon, Armstrong had confirmed much of what NASA wanted to see, which wasn’t filmed with cameras that were made public. We were not alone—not by a long shot—and it haunted him for the rest of his life—apparently.
Given all that evidence, it’s just a matter of time before we have to go to the moon and discover what NASA has been avoiding to tell us. Private space companies are headed to the moon and within just a few years of now, there will be hotels on the surface—and by then we’ll learn the hard truth—it won’t be a secret any longer. There is a presence of some life other than our own on the moon right now and they watch us from there for reasons that we’ll discover. I would propose that it’s a kind of interplanetary base camp and they find our civilization interesting and likely some kind of social experiment that they check up on frequently. Just yesterday I drove by the Serpent Mound site in eastern, Ohio and scientists are no closer to figuring out the reason for that strange mound than they were twenty years ago. In fact, they have more questions now than answers. If our science cannot figure out the meaning of things in our own back yards, then they surely aren’t prepared to deal with what’s on the surface of the moon—an entire celestial body that has not had any of its history covered yet by modern development. It’s an open text-book of mankind’s past and whoever was a part of helping to shape it from inception. And it floats there above our heads—all the answers we seek—yet we do not dare to uncover. Actually, you and I might dear reader—but our governments want to hold onto their power for just a while longer. The evidence is there for us to investigate and when we do we have a lot of hard questions to answer about ourselves. Of course the first step will be in returning—and I can’t wait for that to occur. I’d rather know the truth than live with illusions.
Europeans did not discover America–the giants in the Ohio mounds prove that. They were in North America before there was ever an Indian or a Christopher Columbus voyage. And we did not first walk on the moon. Someone was there before us and they are still there. ………………………………
There are plenty of modern things to write about—however, most of them have been covered here and are predictions previously submitted simply manifesting before our eyes. Every day feels like an “I told you so moment” so I no longer feel inclined to provide warnings—because they are before us. Personally, I am about to embark on the most intense, and difficult year so far in my life, and for those who know me—there have been some really difficult years leading up to this one. Also for those who know me, they by now know that I deal with difficulties through intellectual expansion. In much the way that a fighter trains for a big match, so to must the intellectual who will have to move mountains of passive aggressive opposition hell-bent on mediocrity to punch through to the other side. So for that I seek lots of literature to help push my mind to the point where it can deal with anything. In the past, I have found that novels like Finnegan’s Wake does that for me. I have read it before, I have it even on a book to tape that I have listened to many times. It is likely the most difficult book of literature ever created. I love the book and I love the primordial giant at the start of the book named Finnegan who dies and is buried by his wife Annie (Anna Livia Plurabelle) who puts out his body for the mourners to eat. But before they can feast on his body, he vanishes only to rise again by the end of the first chapter bawling for whiskey. His mourners put him back to rest convincing him that death is better and so he dreams through death that he awakens into the modern family man and pub owner H.C.E. H.C.E. stands for “Here Comes Everyone” meaning all of mankind. So in essence the giant Finnegan in Finnegan’s Wake dies and is born again as all of mankind and the content of the book is primarily a dream that takes place in the wake of his life.
There aren’t many sentences in Finnegan’s Wake that sound even remotely like the normal dialogue of a novel. The book is written in reference to over 60 different languages and none of them seem to string together in a coherent way—yet they do. They are meant to transport the reader beyond the conscious mind into the primordial ooze of a dreamlike existence and to actually peer into the possibly of life beyond death as mankind is but a resurrection of thought—exclusively.
For years many have pondered over the meaning of the novel. It is one of the great puzzles of literature. Personally I came to the work by the lectures of Joseph Campbell and read the novel knowing that Campbell was obsessed with it. My teacher was so obsessed with Finnegan’s Wake that he spent over four years attempting to translate line by line the entire 600 page novel with another novelist by the name of Henry Morton Robinson. The result of that collaboration became A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake. It was a book that promised to unlock the mysteries of James Joyce’s masterpiece Finnegan’s Wake.
However, since Finnegan’s Wake is such difficult literature to read, there isn’t much of a market for it even among the most serious intellectuals. Some people spend their entire lives contemplating Finnegan’s Wake—so it is intimidating to even start the book, let alone trying to figure out what it all means. As I’ve said before I am a big fan of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and all the great work they do there. I have virtually everything Joseph Campbell ever wrote—except one thing—his Skeleton Key. The infamous book first went to print in 1944 then again in 1961 but died on the vine for many, many years until the JCF picked up the copyright in 2005. The book was finally republished by the Foundation at the New World Library in March of 2013. Well, at the time I was enormously busy with politics and business—which I still am—and couldn’t find the time to jump back into Finnegan’s Wake through the Skeleton Key. But standing here at the end of 2014 looking into a very, very difficult 2015 the time is now to capture Campbell’s classic wonder about the very elusive Wake before it goes out of print once again. So for Christmas this year I gave myself the book and the time to read it so that I could use the expanded intellectual muscle to deal with an ominous set of obstacles lined up to defend complacency with raised swords and curses from another world.
It is one thing to struggle through Finnegan’s Wake it’s another to seek out its meanings line by line—which is what Campbell was the first to do not long after the first printing in 1939. James Joyce spent nearly twenty years writing the Wake—exclusively. It was a work of obsession to say the least and is a revolutionary masterpiece that more or less killed the author with exhaustion. But thank God he did the work, and even more so, thankfully Joseph Campbell was the first to attempt to unlock its secrets.
My personal obsession with the Wake is that it taps into the ancient mythology of the Hill of Tara in Meath Ireland—the ancient high seat of the Ardri, the High Kings of Erin. The Hill itself is an item of archaeological concern as it is said to have ties to the Lost Tribes of Israel and the ancient Ark of the Covenant. The thoughts of some are that the Tribe then took the Ark to America and settled into the Midwest to establish the mound building cultures found there. It is also thought that among these lost tribes were the Biblical Nephillim whose gigantic stature has been found in the mounds of Ohio, Indiana, and the entire Mississippi Valley. This certainly lends credence to the possibility of how the mound building cultures in Ohio had such advanced mathematics and science. The Hill of Tara is a massive mound structure along the lines of those in Newark, Ohio so there is a connection to the two styles—and intentions.
Joyce essentially wrote Finnegan’s Wake to recreate the illegal Dark Tongue for the Teamhur Feis which took place on the Hill of Tara which had been made illegal after the victory and Christian conquest there by Saint Patrick. So obviously, there is much, much more to the Finnegan’s Wake than just an unintelligible book meant to frustrate readers. It is a coded connection to the illegal language of Dark Tongue. Finnegan’s Wake holds a key literally to understanding the long, deep past of humanity which was deliberately erased by Christian crusaders during 433 AD directly leading into the Dark Ages of Europe.
As if all that wasn’t enough, the main character in my novel The Symposium of Justice and all the subsequent stories coming out starting in 2015 involving the trails and tribulations of Fletcher Finnegan is a direct tip of the hat—literally—to the giant leader from the Teamhur Feis rituals which took place at the Hill of Tara. Fletcher Finnegan for me is the resurrection of that giant who steps into the world of mankind and carries it beyond the limits of the tavern owner H.C.E.
Understandably, many books have been written after Joseph Campbell’s Skeleton Key. But for me, his work is the best because he was the first and many after him were able to take his work and extrapolate further—and deeper than he was able to do with just a few years of puzzling through Joyce’s bizarre work just prior to World War II. When the topic is the resurrection of an ancient language connected to the Druids—made illegal by Christian orthodoxy that wanted Ireland to unite behind English rule—under careful regulation by the church—Joyce wrote in code to preserve an aspect of human life that has long since descended into the recesses of morality. And to truly understand who we are, and where we really come from—the truth is locked up in works of art like those of Joyce. Campbell was the first to offer a key. So for Christmas this year—I finally put my hands on the book so that I can use what I find there to solve the many riddles coming quick and under ominous intent. Like an encroaching army it takes more than muscle to defeat the swarms’ amassing to keep history erased and protect their grip on revision. It takes great intellect and the best way to give intellect a boost is with the mysterious work of Finnegan’s Wake. For me, my Finnegan—Fletcher Finnegan is what begins again after the sentence “A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and the Environs.”
In Finnegan’s Wake it begins with the end of the last sentence of the book, the one described in the previous paragraph. All the events that occur between the beginning and end of that sentence which folds over on itself by the end is reflective of all humanity which is always beginning again after perpetual death. It is in this immortality that the eye must focus—and the keys to most everything reside. And it is in that realm that Fletcher Finnegan lives. And to all those who I’m about to piss off in a grand and epic way—you have it coming for being content to sit in the pub of H.C.E. and sip at the contents of mortality when in all reality you are but the dreams of a giant.
My family had a good laugh when the lunatic feminists in my home school district addicted to tax money accused me of being sexist. The terminology clearly didn’t fit. I raised two daughters and never gave them the indication of submission to anybody for any reason under any circumstances. They are more technically liberated women than even the most rabid progressive feminist and it is quite a joy to watch them grow up and flower into everything that they feel inclined to develop about themselves. However, it was very rewarding to see how one of them who is a professional photographer viewed a day we recently spent together. She is pictured below on the bow of the Cincinnati Ghost Ship and can read her point of view at the following link.
She has been an adult for long enough now to display her skills many times over and I haven’t been disappointed. She is first and foremost an artist that wishes to embody all the elements I introduced to her as a child and it is wonderful to see all those elements come together into the person she is. As I was raising her I never directly tried to shape her personality into something I would approve of, but simply removed the social shackles that often prevent the development of a mind properly. My interest has never been social roles as society defined them, but as an individual does—so my parenting style was always focused on allowing my children to be exactly who they uniquely are—even in spite of my wishes—which I always made sure to contain. When someone decides to become an artist of some type they leave themselves vulnerable to interpretation as their efforts are impossible to disguise. What an artist produces becomes the culmination of their internal philosophy, which in my daughter’s case can be seen in the video below.
The day was not intended to be so monumental. She and I have done that kind of thing many times. As a little girl she trudged through many denser places, caves, trees, lakes and even confronted sometimes hostile inhabitants. The standard equipment has always been a part of our life, satchels, loose clothing for easy climbing, hats to keep spiders and small rodents out of our hair, and my whips for climbing and diverting away hostile encounters. Oddly enough on this trip to the Cincinnati Ghost Ship as an artist her natural focus was on most of those things which I take for granted as just part of everyday life. As a photographer she brought them to the surface in a way that told me much of how she sees me—which is more beneficial to me than her.
Videography is a new skill she is adding to her arsenal. She has been to film festivals with me several times and has met professionals who make movies—and has seen many artistic efforts from behind a lens. So she has seen all the tricks and knows that there isn’t any way to hide her soul. The way a camera operator and video director lights their subject, the focal point, the movement of the camera, and the way a piece is edited together ultimately reveals everything that there is to know about the artist behind the effort. So her shot selection and ability to tell a story with moving pictures was very revealing regarding the kind of young woman she has become, and was a real treasure. I didn’t know that at the beginning of our little adventure that I would come away with more than she did.
As the video was shot, we typically did not stop and pose for pictures. We just did our thing and turned on the camera to capture footage as we were doing it. The adventure always comes first; the attempt to document it is second which makes the job of a filmmaker more difficult. Some things that show up in the video that were actually not filmed was the nice lunch she and I had at McDonald’s just prior to visiting the Ghost Ship. Usually when she and I get together the rest of the family is with us, so she has been deprived of craved personal time with me. Upon hitting the exit that would take us to the Ghost Ship off the highway the fuel light came on indicating that we were about to run out of gas. So I turned around and got some gas down in Lawrenceburg before getting back into the hills of Northern Kentucky on an empty tank. We were in the right area so I felt confident that time was on our side. Getting gas was a little bit of an adventure so we decided to go ahead and grab a bite to eat before getting back into the woods. The two of us had a Sausage McMuffin with Egg each—which the last time she had breakfast at McDonald’s with me was during a trip back from Florida the previous year so that breakfast tasted much better on the cusp of such an adventure.
As we sat and ate, and caught up on all the things we typically talk about, we looked over topographical maps of the area and contemplated strategies for getting there. It turned out to be much easier than I anticipated which was nice considering that we had some really expensive camera equipment. We were dressed to wade into the water and board the vessel if need be. I typically carry with me a 12’ bull whip for those types of occasions. I also typically have my rope bag that has 150’ of rope along with climbing gear, but that wouldn’t be needed for this. The whip will get a person up small climbs most effectively. I always have on my hip a whip holster that my friend Gery Deer designed especially for me. I use it each year in the bull whip fast draw competition and when I walk around the house practicing. It is designed for smaller whips but the 12’ whip can fit in it. So that is what appeared in the video. I didn’t know my daughter focused some of her shots on things like my whip and satchel, but they were nice bits of context from the adventure that surprised me.
When she was old enough to sit still I raised her on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and each night when she went to sleep, she played the Raiders of the Lost Ark soundtrack and let it go on repeat throughout the night. She had a healthy childhood filled with the yearning for adventure, likely due to the kind of material she had from her first conscious moments. Our interest didn’t stop there; we actually expected to live that life to a certain degree and she has so far her entire life. So our outing to the Ghost Ship was simply a reflection of who we were. But watching her video of it, it was clear that there was some Indiana Jones in there—which makes sense. Indiana Jones to me is one of the most wonderful characters ever created for film. He can get dirty with the best of them then turn around and be among the most scholarly. He reads, he’s smart, and he’s fearless—but better yet, he’s tenacious. I knew what I wanted to be as a man when I saw Indiana Jones swing into the Temple of Doom and steal the Shankara Stones from the skull on the sacrificial altar. To a large degree I do live that life as a man. The film was a fun movie filled with comic book antics, but the substance of the story is something that both my daughter and I have carried with us every day of my life and hers.
After we explored the vessel, dripping with sweet, I was pulling bugs off my hat and we decided to go back to McDonald’s for lunch to cool off. We looked at our footage and talked about what we saw and as we were sitting there I thought about the many times that I had shown her the Temple of Doom movie and realized that we were living that life. One moment we were knee-deep in adventure, the next integrating the boon of our discoveries with the civilized world—sitting in the corner with my cut up cloths and sweat soaked shirt, with cobwebs still hanging from my hat. More than a few people looked my way wondering what we had been doing. Most of them had no idea that just across the river was a treasure that had been there for many years right under their noses yet they were blissfully ignorant. The only trace of anything out of the ordinary was my daughter and I who had just stepped out of some story book adventure sitting in the corner eating ice cream. But that was part of the fun for us.
It was those little moments from the adventure that filled her mind which ended up in her cut of the video and framed the way she photographed the day’s events. It made me very happy and confirmed why I raised her the way I did—it was to nurture that spark of hopeful optimism that can always be present—even when the circumstances are quite scary. There is a hope in the way my daughter photographs that is a liberating pleasure unmatched by anything else for me. As an artist, the mind of the creator cannot hide so cynicism shows behind every attempt if it is present. Adventure isn’t always about things “out there” but what’s really inside–the adventure of a Ghost Ship in our back yard, or a simple trip to McDonald’s, or running out of gas at a highway interchange with no stations in sight. Adventure starts in the heart, not in the extraordinary and the best of those events happen when a parent and their child get together for the fun of it—and joy, and lack of pretense just to live life and capture what comes as future memories. A temple is a place of worship and our lives come together driven by mutual interest. It is not the Temple of Doom that we share as a lifelong focus–but a Temple of Hope captured by photos for time to benefit.
Horror to be relevant as an art form must have some hook of reality to it before it can be considered effective. The best horror writers avoid topics that are so fantastic that they extend beyond belief. Among the best of the horror writers was a creation that John Keel would later term more scientifically as “ultraterrestrials” and that would be H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. This is a dominating creature that lives outside of human time and space pushing against a cosmicism of projected reality driven by limited human senses to manipulate the actions of the technically defined living being. In theory those who attempt to reach beyond their senses into that world of Cthulhu run the extremely high possibility of insanity as minds often fold over on themselves once they leave the boundaries of four dimensions. Cthulhu was a fictional creation by a writer who lost both of his parents to an insane asylum and had himself suffered tormenting dreams by strange creatures from a very young child. But like all great horror writers, Lovecraft’s Cthulhu has its roots into a reality we all understand—but fear to comprehend for many reasons. The mythology of Cthulhu allows human beings to explore those strange possibilities from the safety of their senses without plummeting over the edge of sanity into a realm they clearly are not ready for. It is in that realm however that my own eyes have always looked as the cause of much misery and defaults in living as the primary source of superstition and religion—and a barrier to the truth.
When talking about such things I prefer the term ultraterrestrial to reference the type of creatures that Lovecraft wrote about in his Cthulhu mythos which has taken on a life of its own since his death in 1937. The stories Lovecraft wrote were well ahead of their time as it has only recently been proven that there are more than 10 dimensional realities known to mathematics—and probably more. Lovecraft’s stories explored the possibilities of beings from those other dimensions visiting from their realms in ways humans could not—which was a terrifying prospect. It still is, and is why even nearly a century after his death there is a cult following of H.P. Lovecraft. The reporter John Keel seemed particularly obsessed with this type of reality and reported about it in The Mothman Prophesies. In that book Keel was very level-headed and factually based even though the subject matter was extraordinary—UFOs interacting with people, strange monsters appearing out of nowhere, Men in Black walking about dressed as government agents not quite appearing human—being slightly off to those who spoke to them. Keel in that book was knocking on the door to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu and it could be said that the Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, or the “Bird Man” of ancient Cahokia or the many thousands of gargoyles poised from the buildings of gothic structures—particularly the Budweiser brewery in St Louis—were there to appease the demons who come into our world to terrorize and manipulate our reality. Keel’s other books, Strange Creatures From Time and Space, Our Haunted Planet, Operation Trojan Horse, The Eighth Tower, The Cosmic Question, and Disneyland of the Gods are all works obsessed with this realm of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. Keel had been opened to the possibilities before his investigations into the strange creature in Point Pleasant during 1967 and once there had everything confirmed as though it was tailor-made for him by what he would later call ultraterrestrials—or tricksters. Because of their power and influence he would spend much of the rest of his life all the way to age 79 when he died in 2009 avoiding any kind of electronic device such as computers, phones, televisions etc., because Keel believed that the “tricksters” used those devices to control and manipulate the world of human beings with impunity to counteraction.
As time went on Keel’s books became more and more paranoid, and his subjectivity diminished for a time as he appeared to have gone too far down the rabbit hole of sanity for a time. Perhaps not as far as Lovecraft’s parents did—but the rope to reality which Keel held on to was slipping. Toward the end of his life he regained some of his grip on reality. The 2002 film adaptation of his book The Mothman Prophecies appears to have helped him and he spent the rest of his days giving lectures as the film brought his ultraterrestrials with the help of Richard Gere into the mainstream.
I have personally noticed this manipulation of these ultraterrestrials by Keel’s definition for a long time. The lazy relegate their definition of ultraterrestrials as angels and demons but that has never suited me. I have never been comfortable handing over my fate to beings that just flash in and out of my life with some advice—or appear in a dream to leave an imprint of instruction for me to execute. If I had been Noah and God appeared to me in a dream telling me to build an Ark, I would have woke up the next morning and told him—“dude, I don’t have the time to build you a stupid boat.” And I would have ignored the command. When the floods came, I would have survived somehow regardless of the advice. My opinion is that unless the motives of such individuals from other worlds is known, there is no way to attribute value to them leaving you to play the part of a pawn. Without knowing those beings personally there is no way to validate if the sources are good or evil. My assumption is that they are almost always evil posing as good. So to properly serve the good in the context of universal merit, those beings should be ignored. In this way for years I have poked and prodded into their world without the usual fear of insanity because I simply don’t trust any of them even though they have constantly tried to throw me off the trail.
One night on New Year’s Eve my family was playing a late night game of Piratesthe Constructable Strategy Game. We were between rounds so as everyone got up and stretched I resumed to my living room chair to read another quick chapter of The Mothman Prophecies which I had taken an interest in after seeing the movie. In the book there was a surprising amount of coverage of UFO lore and as I was reading it I couldn’t help but wonder if Steven Spielberg had read this very same book to inspire him to write Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Poltergeist because this was the subject matter by the very fact based reporting of John Keel. I found the book terrifying refreshing and a key piece into a lifetime puzzle I had been assembling most of my life which attempted to define the world of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. As I had conceived that very thought outside my front window clearly over the golf course was a UFO floating freely over the tree line. My first rational thought was that it was a helicopter picking up a crash victim, or maybe even some kind of pyrotechnic display celebrating the New Year. But it was just floating there enticing me like a seductive siren attempting to lure me into the hidden rocks in the choppy waters of the ocean. My children were in the kitchen so I calmly grabbed their attention and directed their sight asking them to identity what was there. They went through the same process I did, helicopter, fireworks—UFO. Once we realized that the strobe displays on the vessel did not look like anything Wright Patterson Air Force Base nearby could have put out—it was too large for a drone—and too lit up to be stealthy we put on our shoes to rush out and meet it. We piled into our car and raced down the road to intercept it as it was now moving slowly. We turned left onto a road about a hundred yards north of our home and saw the vessel floating over a home valued near a million dollars and the strobe lights flashed down upon it. I blinked to make sure my vision was not faulty and when I opened my eyes it was gone. I stopped the car, got out and looked to the north. The entire sky was filled with a blacked out vessel roaming northeast. The moonlight had been showing the outlines of clouds, but this vessel concealed them all. My kids saw it too and we watched as it was there moving toward downtown Trenton one moment covering the entire sky from our home, over the Miller Brewery all the way to Trenton. It appeared to be about 7 or 8 miles wide. Then within the blink of an eye, it too was gone. If my kids hadn’t seen it with me, I would have thought it to be an illusion, but it was actually much more sophisticated as other minds witnessed it simultaneously. Within 30 seconds of the encounter we were left wondering if we actually saw what we saw. I got out of the car and walked up to the house where the vessel had loomed over and they had lost power. Nobody appeared to be home at the time, but their internal lights had flicked back on and a computer in the living room that had been on was in a reboot phase. So something material had been there and it caused the power to drop then come back on.
We had seen our first UFO as a family and it was exciting—it certainly wasn’t our imagination. However, I was skeptical and not so sure that little green men came down from E.T.’s home planet to pick some flowers. Rather, I was thinking of Keel’s ultraterrestrials—or even more cynically something like Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. It was more than a coincidence that I was studying The Mothman Prophecies and reading about those exact occurrences at that particular moment. And out of all the years I had been alive I had never seen a UFO until that moment. I didn’t even have to leave my home to see it, the thing practically landed in my front yard to get my attention. But as soon as we could chase it down for confirmation and get our cameras turned on and toward the object—it was gone. My intentions as it was happening was to find a way to get on the vessel and pull one of the pilots off and capture it so I could conduct a proper investigation. I doubt that was the intention by the perpetrators—but that’s what was going to happen.
I did the same thing as I spent some time hunting for a Mothman one summer in the regions where sightings had occurred. I was determined to capture the creature and put it in a zoo dispelling any folklore about it with scientific fact. But the more I looked, the more obvious it was that I was not going to find it—it would have to find me because those things only appear in our dimensional plane of reality when they want to. Over time I concluded that the UFO at our home, like the Mothman hunting, was a creation by ultraterrestrials to bait me into insanity by feeding my curiosity and thus directing my thoughts on the matter into a direction they desired. The circumstances were just too perfect to be real in the context presented. After that event I had a lot more respect for John Keel—he was certainly on to something. And without question H.P. Lovecraft was as well. The reason his Cthulhu mythos is so terrifying and is still very much alive after a century of development is that deep down inside we know there is some truth to it. The fictional creation of Cthulhu is an attempt to put into mythology a reality that is difficult to otherwise deal with.
To a writer like Lovecraft who had been tormented by ultraterrestrial monsters in his dreams from a child to an adult constantly and lost both parents to insanity his philosophy of cosmicism is understandable. The philosophy of cosmicism states that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos, ever susceptible to being wiped from existence at any moment. This also suggested that the majority of undiscerning humanity are creatures with the same significance as insects and plants, who, in their small, visionless and unimportant nature, do not recognize a much greater struggle between greater forces.
John Keel had come to many of the same conclusions as Lovecraft when he said at the end of his book The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings, “there are entities on this planet, and around it, that are far beyond all efforts to translate them into understandable cellular creatures. They are not real in the sense that we are animals motivated by sex and emotions. They are part of the energies that were scattered into space billions of years ago. Their intelligence is so vast and so ruthlessly inhuman there is no way for us to comprehend it or communicate with it as we talk to dolphins.” Keel would then propose twice in that same book, “Someone within two hundred miles of your home, no matter where you live on this earth, has had a direct, often terrifying, personal confrontation with a shape-shifting, unbelievable. (ultraterrestrial) Our world has always been occupied by these things. We are just passing through. Belief or disbelief will come onto you from another direction.” What Keel was talking about was essentially Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.
Charles Fort said in his 1931 book Lo! during the time of Lovecraft, “There may be occult things, beings and events, and there may be something of the nature of an occult police force, which operates to divert human suspicions, and to supply explanations that are good enough, for whatever (minds) human beings have—or that, if there be occult mishiefmakers and occult ravagers, they may be of a world also of other beings that are acting to check them, and to explain them not benevolently, but to divert suspicion from themselves because they, too, may be exploiting life upon this earth, but in ways more subtle, and orderly or organized fashion. In “The Call of Cthulhu”, H. P. Lovecraft describes the fictional Cthulhu as “A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.”[5] Cthulhu has been described as a mix between a giant human, an octopus, and a dragon, and is depicted as being hundreds of meters tall, with human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back.[5]Cthulhu’s head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a giant octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth. Cthulhu is described as being able to change the shape of its body at will, extending and retracting limbs and tentacles as it sees fit.” This description is remarkably like the Mothman and is a creature of imagination brought to life through the reality of some ultraterrestrial shape shifter which is a trick as old as time.
Many of the cultures of times past as in the present which call for sacrifice to bring about something desired must point their superstitions toward these creatures. Not surprising those who attempt to map out that realm of the ultraterrestricals even in a fictional sense—such as the Cthulhu end up dead. Lovecraft died by the age of 46 and many who go down a similar path end up in the same state. Looking into that other world brings upon the cells of the human body an undoing which prevents living. I too have seen this as most notably reflected in my personal UFO story. There have been many times when shape shifting entities made their entrance onto the stages of existence and did just as Charles Fort stated—“policed” the explanations of reality to suit their desires. But if an inquiry into the other realms goes too deeply, then death is soon to follow. Sometimes it’s not even by deliberate attempt. Every year, roughly 15,000 people vanish under the most incredible circumstances, again according to John Keel’s studies into the matter. “A family man steps into his backyard to mow the lawn. He is never seen again. A waitress steps out of a restaurant to put a dime in the parking meter and disappears forever. A family of five in a suburb melt into nothingness, leaving behind all their cloths, bank accounts, the family car. We have dozens of puzzling cases in our files.” (Keel’s files) These Cthulhu stories by Lovecraft are terrifying—because they are grounded in a reality we are aware of but dare not probe.
Most people are happy to carry a lucky rabbit’s foot, avoid unlucky associations, or pray to a deity to navigate through the minefield of the ultraterrestrial traps. I have seen the attempt firsthand to divert my own attention obviously when doing an investigation by having those same beings throw me a bone as a UFO flew outside my front window to take me in a direction of inquiry they approved of—a classic case of misdirection. Entire societies have adopted the notion of sacrifice in substitution for productivity to essentially satisfy their unconscious appeasement of these metaphorical Cthulhu’s which loom like gargoyles over charity events and suck off the vanity of opulent socialites and the perfume bathed on to cover the smell of their decaying flesh. From the darkness of other dimensional realities our world is observed and manipulated to suit the needs of the ultraterrestrial, not our own as the strings of many living marionettes are tied to the fingers of an actual Cthulhu.
But unlike Keel and Lovecraft I do not believe the human race is destined to be meager insects in comparison to the cosmos. I believe in the thin veil of cosmicism but do not believe that the Cthulhu type creatures residing there are superior to the human being. If they were, there would not be all these elaborate tricks, like UFO’s landing in our front yards, or strange stories to captivate the tabloid lover in all of us—to keep us distracted and thus sacrificing to these gods of the unseen. Their tricks only have power of the one way mirror for if they enter our reality with us, they discover they have no real strength—only the ability to scheme for their own ends as a competing organism. And that goes for any entity in the universe—if they were so bold and audacious, they would not avoid direct contact and hide behind curtains of dimensional reality. So there is nothing really to fear from them once it is understood that they gain all their power and terror from dwelling in the unknown. But science is taking human beings into their realm whether they like it or not—and once we are there—there won’t be anywhere for them to hide any longer. They are not to be feared, but to be conquered and the way to beat them is to remove the concept of sacrifice from the human landscape. They obtain their sustenance off the emotional energy of the human race by a means not yet discovered and require misery, fear, and death to fuel their own existence.
Good horror touches these known truths—these deep suspicions we all have that just walking out to the mailbox may be the last time our bodies inhabit the earth. We all know someone who has suffered from paranormal experiences yet nobody discusses it because we feel the breath of the Cthulhu on the back of our necks. We try to counsel ourselves that the breath we feel is God and we seek to appease him with more sacrifice at churches, or financial donations and our prayers, but deep down inside we suspect that God is really a Lovecraftian monster ready to yank our lives from our bodies and consume it like a snack on Superbowl Sunday. So we don’t name the evil for fear that it has power over us, we don’t talk about it with others for fear that we might be discovered betraying our overlords. But those beasts have no real power—only the ability to operate from concealment. Cellular attacks can be countered, diseases overcome, and mental breakdowns—alleviated by a strong—well-read mind. If one is playing the Arkham Horror game which is a Lovecraftian journey I said weeks ago that I would take because of the nature of it, the characters of Harvey Walters and Sister Mary who both have a sanity of 7 would be the type of examples I’m refereeing to. I like Harvey and would like to teach everyone to be more like him so that they could have a proper defense against the Cthulhu terrorists of inter-dimensional sacrifice. But man’s fate is not destined to yield to these creatures, rather the other way around—which is the big secret they don’t want you to know about dear reader. The human mind has the power to create these Cthulhu monsters—but it can also destroy them. The reality of the horror of the Cthulhu is that they cannot match the productive enterprise of human imagination and effort. With those efforts the driving force of humanity, the Cthulhu has no defense leaving the ultraterrestrial empire without armament in a war that is as old as time. It would be my position to teach people how to make those Cthulhu into pets instead of Gods and the horror of their imprint into a children’s story.
You could smell it in the air on Friday. My wife and I went to an early showing of Godzilla after having a nice lunch at Chick-fil-A and already the Showcase Cinema in Springdale, Ohio was cranked up in anticipation of what turned out to be a fabulous movie. READ MY REVIEW HERE. It was simply a jaw-dropping experience and the buzz was already percolating into what would become a $32 million dollar evening after a $9 million dollar Thursday night of special showings. The theater was buzzing with excitement the likes of which I had not seen in years and the film hadn’t even thought of hitting Saturday yet. Projections had the film only doing $65 million dollars over the weekend, but by Saturday morning, it was obvious that Godzilla would crush the opening of Spiderman 2, from two weeks earlier of $91 million. My wife and I bought our Imax ticket and quickly discovered on a gigantic poster that we would be treated to a free popcorn just for buying the Imax ticket, so we picked up some wonderfully buttered popcorn and stepped into history as the best monster movie ever to be filmed played before our eyes. During the climax my wife was so excited she almost leapt at the screen laughing, pointing, and was ready to punch something.
At the conclusion a few of the employees who came in to clean up asked me how the movie was, and stated that they couldn’t wait to get off work so they could see it. My wife and I were the last to leave the theater and I told them that they needed to clock out right now, and get up in those seats and watch this movie right now. It was that incredible, history making awe inspiring—and the ramifications of it would manifest long after what would turn out to be a monumental opening weekend. I knew as the credits stopped rolling that this movie was going to explode with global business that would topple $1 billion dollars and launch new life into a film genre that will ignite the imaginations of millions of young people and I enjoyed the reverence. Unlike The Amazing Spiderman 2 which saw a major drop in business during its second week of release, Godzilla would likely see even more business over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend as word of mouth will spread like wildfire about how good the movie is.
So what does this mean? Why is the box office of Godzilla so important? Well, I have been writing a lot lately about the importance of mythology in our culture. It shapes everything from philosophy to politics and is likely the most important attribute to any human society. There are a lot of elements in our present world that makes human beings feel powerless, and subjected to abuses, so when their imaginations are stimulated with thought, there is a sense of freedom in the exchange. When a movie is as exciting as Godzilla is, and inspires so many people to go to a theater to experience it, a unifying philosophy is being painted across the canvas of human society and it is a wonderful thing to witness. When a movie does that kind of business, other studios are forced to copy, and that means that films that are losers, like Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi, and other progressive films must adapt and compete against traditional films that a majority of the world population yearns for.
There is no group hugging going on in Godzilla. The hero is Godzilla who stands as a solitary savior of mankind and the main protagonist who is on his own adventure is also the last man standing to save mankind from disaster. The rest of the characters can only watch everything happening with passive helplessness. It is in this attribute that once again traditional films destroy the box office business of collective message stories attempting to sell progressive storylines. When a traditional old-fashioned film like Godzilla does such good business the public is voting, and the votes favor tradition because other studios—due to capitalism are forced to compete or go out of business.
Japan’s Tolo studios have had the rights to Godzilla for years, and they have nurtured it along. But they knew that if they wanted to take Godzilla into the realm of international—mainstream sensation, they needed Legendary Pictures to pull off the task. Legendary Pictures put up 75% of the nearly $200 million dollar budget and hired relative newcomer Gareth Edwards to direct the film. There weren’t any film studios in France able to perform such a task, not in England, not in Germany, certainly not in China and Japan was obviously limited in their abilities. It took an American production company to achieve the objective of spreading the Godzilla message and did they ever pull it off. The risk of Gareth Edwards not only paid off, but the film will evolve into a sensation that will not be forgotten any time soon. It is a benchmark film that will take the world by storm.
This is yet another example of many themes discussed here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom day in and day out over a number of years now and it was quite refreshing to see the early wave of Godzilla before everything became much noisier. I was not surprised to see such a ruckus, human beings are starving from substance, and Godzilla delivers it. If Godzilla were simply about destruction, it wouldn’t do such good box office numbers, and the buildup of the character over the last 60 years has not prepared people for this kind of market desire. The old films were fun films, but not good ones. It is for the unspoken themes for which Godzilla is so popular, the one against the many, the mysteries of our own past unrealized, the protection of man’s creations over the creations of nature, the futility of those same creations against the scale of nature at times, and individual will. It’s also about hopes, dreams, and the importance of family. The scene where the main protagonist helps a little boy find his parents is just another reiteration of that main family theme found throughout the film.
History has been made and it was a fun weekend watching the events come together as the box office numbers of Godzilla came in. It felt like victory for all those who support classic elements in movies which builds the mythology not just of our nation, but now of the world. These days, it’s no longer cars that America exports that are so prized throughout the world, or the aviation industry, or even food—it is mythology which can only come from the imaginations of free people. Only in America could a movie like Godzilla be made, and that was obvious as I left the theater ahead of a box office wave which consumed the world and brought a smile to my face for more reasons than that the movie was a great one. Mythology has the answers to many of our contemporary problems and hidden within the Godzilla film is the skeleton key to healing human civilization. And the key has now been turned.
By the way, Lengendary Pictures is now working with Universal Studios and their next big monster movie after Godzilla is Jurassic World. And they love the script so much, they are already talking sequels. I am very happy! And really looking forward to it!
What would you get if Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and Akira Kurosawa all made a movie—it would be Gareth Edwards new Godzilla film. That is not to say for a second that Edwards is a copy-cat filmmaker paying homage to his boyhood heroes. The 2014 Godzilla film released by Legendary Pictures is simply that good, and is sincere in its tip of the hat to those great filmmakers. While watching I kept thinking of films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Birds, Ran, Dreams without attempting for a second to show its superiority to the classic Godzilla movies—but rather being very respectful of them. If there is a tight rope of movie marketing, authenticity to a beloved character, and the necessity to navigate the needs of the movie industry, Gareth Edwards just propelled himself into one of the top filmmakers in the world forever by walking it cleanly. The new Godzilla film is simply astonishing. I have read the reviews and spoken to several people who had seen the movie and I have come to realize that the movie is so vast in its scale that most viewers can only grip one of the many plot lines of the film. Being spoiled spoon fed movie goers for so many years; they have forgotten the old Hitchcock films and likely didn’t bother with Kurosawa due to the subtitles. Well, Edwards didn’t have that problem and has simply made a masterpiece that will have a major impact on film history. I know good when I see it and this Godzilla film is great, incredible, astonishingly beautiful, captivating in virtually every way, and is simply a benchmark film redefining the genre of monster movies. This Godzilla movie is what Cloverfield wanted to be. It is simply jaw-dropping grand. It will take several viewings for everything to settle in and history will study this movie as a masterpiece of modern film.
While waiting in line to see the movie I wrote yesterday’s article about Godzilla. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. So I am already a fan of the 60-year-old monster. I had to take a few hours after watching the movie to calm down and check my emotions to ensure that I wasn’t just being inflammatory with my enthusiasm. After rolling around in bed for about 10 hours unable to sleep still excited about this Godzilla film I have concluded that perhaps I haven’t been excited enough. Four key scenes will explain why without giving away the movie. The first is the birthday metaphor so carefully weaved into the Bryan Cranston portion of the story. It was remarkably powerful, and so subtle that most viewers appear to have missed it upon their first viewing. It was a touch of Steven Spielberg that I haven’t seen from a filmmaker since the film Always. Then there was the flaming train engine coming out of an intense fog at night across a railroad bridge. The film quality looked as though it belonged on the pages of National Geographic. The cinematic effort of that shot was simply mind-blowing. Then there was the airport scene where the power had gone out across an Hawaiian city then came back on to reveal a giant monster destroying everything—with the main characters rushing toward the devastation. There has been nothing like that done in movie since Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was over-the-top exciting, but never so much that it came out campy. Godzilla pays tribute to these beloved old films without insulting them with direct mimicry. Then there is the airdrop into the city of San Francisco during the monster fight. The only filmmaker who ever attempted portions of these kinds of visuals is Akira Kurosawa. The colors, the atmospheric conditions, the ceremonial aspect of the scene, the immensity of the whole enterprise culminated in that portion of the movie and was simply magnificent. Edwards was well aware of his geography during the entire film. The film went from extreme long shots of a storm over the city with the tiny troops falling toward their apparent doom with swirling cumulus nimbus clouds reaching into the upper atmosphere. Then there are the hand-held shots as they fall through the cloud layer and into the destruction of the city while Godzilla is fighting with the monsters. All these were cut together with the same level of continuity and it was seamless. The long view of existence right along with the human perspective was astonishing. I can’t say it has ever been done more effectively than what Edwards did in this movie. There was a scene from Close Encounters years ago where the shadow of the mother ship was cast against the ground at night over the unaware human drivers of a truck. That shot was incredibly difficult to pull off and came from the mind of a very young Steven Spielberg before he got old and stuffy. I can’t recall another filmmaker trying such a thing since then—until this Godzilla movie. It is hard to do such atmospheric scenes and Spielberg has given up on trying now that he is in his “mature” years. But the ambition of Edwards deserves recognition as film schools will study this scene for years attempting to break down its effectiveness.
Speaking of geography it was impressive to tie in events happening halfway around the globe in simultaneous bits of story. For instance, Las Vegas gets attacked by a monster as Godzilla is hunting the beast from the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Hawaii. The extra attention to little details like proximity of terrain to each other in a world shrunk by Google Earth was so refreshing that even smart people seeing the movie will be impressed that Edwards thought of them while staging scenes. The characters in this Godzilla film were intelligent, and cared about the circumstances around them. That was refreshing.
Then there was the soundtrack which was equally remarkable. I had never knowingly heard any of Alexandre Desplat’s work until this film, but it was quite powerful. Desplat certainly tapped into great film scores by John Williams, particularly Jaws because it was evident in the film score. The resemblance to that classic piece was unmistakable. I have listened to the soundtracks of Jurassic Park and The Lost World countless times, and the notes and cues from Godzilla are right in line with those pieces. It was yet another circumstance of welcomed surprise in a film full of them. There was a raw majestic energy included with the music that was as big as Godzilla and the story line itself.
Godzilla is movie making at its absolute best. There isn’t anything better out now and hasn’t been in many years. Even the epic nature of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films can’t hold a candle to Godzilla. This monster film is a benchmark for these types of things that will set the bar very high. Many reviewers continue to compare Godzilla 2014 to Pacific Rim, but the two aren’t even close. The only thing they have in common is that both films deal with large creatures. Godzilla is about so much more. It’s a movie that needs to be seen many times to understand, and even more times for just the sheer entertainment value of it. The cost of seeing the movie is worth the climax of the film itself. They simply don’t get better than that and will still be fun after the 100th viewing. Godzilla 2014 will become the next favorite film of many little boys desperately seeking something meaningful in their young lives. But for the adults who grew up with the old versions, this Edwards film is a sheer work of art that will be difficult for any filmmaker to surpass for many, many years. It is a treasure onto itself and a gift to every creature with eyes, ears and an imagination. I give Godzilla an enthusiastic thumb up with both hands and both big toes and a smile from ear to ear. It is movie making at its absolute best and then some and will never be forgotten in my household likely being played continuously forever once it hits Blue Ray. In the meantime, I will go see it again.
Most young people are not paying attention to the current events in the Ukraine, or the unrest in Venezuela, or the posturing of China against Japan. They don’t know that President Obama’s administration is attempting to use the FCC to control news content, or that the IRS has been involved in corrupt activity. The sum of all these events are clashing with the teachings that young people are getting from government schools leaving them unsure who to trust or what to believe. So they aren’t participating, and are focused on the events of pop culture. They are not reading books, going to Tea Party rallies, or even searching for a way to save the world. They just want to get by and enjoy their life to some small degree. This has opened up the entertainment market to an explosion of comic book sales, movies, and fantasy driven entertainment. The world of fantasy is far better, and easier to understand than the deceitful world of the present—so it is there where many of the contemporary minds of youth reside.
When I was a kid the very first cartoon I enjoyed watching was Popeye the Sailor, followed closely by Speed Racer. Over the years, I enjoyed Starblazers,Spiderman, Looney Toons, and Godzilla as some of my favorites and I took the messages of those simple stories into my adult life unfiltered. To this day the thing I enjoy doing most is the “right thing.” I learned this from Popeye at age 3 and still remember vividly those early cartoon moments. Those cartoons had tremendous influence and many people my age and younger share this enthusiasm with me. Not everyone has preserved their love of those early cartoons to the extent that I have, but most people hold reverence for the cartoons of their youth. These cartoons have the power to either build up a mind or destroy it. For instance, Bevis and Butthead on MTV did a great deal to destroy culture while the same animator tried to redeem himself with the Fox cartoon King of the Hill. Currently Family Guy, the Simpsons, and American Dad—all laced with deep progressive philosophy–are the current trend which is writing upon the minds of countless young people the thought processes they will carry throughout their life. Teachers want to believe that they are what shape a child’s mind, and politicians caress themselves hoping that Common Core will unite the nation’s children to a government-run message of productivity. But in reality, cartoons are shaping young people and giving them the foundation thoughts which take them into adulthood.
This is why I am currently ecstatic over the new Disney production of the Star Wars: Rebels animated series coming to the Disney XD channel this fall. Shown within the videos on these pages are the main characters and the content. I think the show will be unlike anything ever done on television since Disney produced Zorro, and Davy Crockett for a generation who now attends Tea Party rallies. When I talk to Tea Party types and really get down to the nitty-gritty with them what they want is justice as defined for them by the temperament created by those old shows from the 50s and 60s. It’s more complicated than that of course, but the foundations of their thoughts are rooted in the values of those old Disney productions–having a mom and a dad at the dinner table with them, and church on Sundays. They find the behavior of the current political trend reprehensible, and this leads to a desire for rebellion. This is the primary cause of most discontent discourse throughout the world—specifically in the Ukraine, in Syria, even on college campuses.
Star Wars: Rebels has the ability to explore the nature of rebellion without it being explicitly investigated by earthly reference. The creators at Lucasfilm have the ability to explore the deep anxieties of the individual spirit to crave freedom without being political. They don’t have to deal with race relations, political parties, economic philosophy, or any polarizing trait—they can simply tell the story of how a rebellion formed to overthrow an empire. It’s a deep human craving that transcends party politics and because of that, I think this is the most important story that will be told in my life time. I’m sure it will be fun, and entertaining, but more than that—it is giving to a new generation of young people a sense of value—a value that is not presently available to them.
I think often about Popeye the Sailor and some of his messages which were “I am what I am and that’s all that I am,” and Wimpy’s statements about, “I’ll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” These basic values I have taken with me throughout my life. Wimpy’s comments taught me a great deal about debt, while Popeye was always very proud of who he was—flaws and all. I know how much those simple stories meant to me, and I can only imagine how much impact the new Star Wars: Rebels will have on a new generation of young people. The previous Star Wars cartoon; The Clone Wars on The Cartoon Network after five seasons is just now starting to have an impact on a very skeptical viewing audience. I watched every single episode many times. My wife and I watch them together on Saturday mornings and love them dearly. But in many ways, Rebels will be a lot better. Clone Wars for me always felt like a modern commentary on our current situation. I’m sure the film makers had no intention of doing such a thing—these things have happened over human history many times and aren’t specific to our time. But there is always a little sadness in knowing that all the heroics performed in Clone Wars will result in the creation of the Empire. In Rebels, the Empire is already in control. Now it is up to heroes to save their society from the control of tyrants and that is an important distinction.
Millions of young people are going to watch Star Wars: Rebels and it will become their favorite television show. They will grow up and take those messages, and values with them into their adult lives just as modern-day older people revere the good ol’ days of Disney shows like Davey Crockett and Zorro. As simple as that sounds, it really is the foundation principles behind most thought processes. Just as people from my generation think differently because of the static patterns given to them from their entertainment culture—particularly cartoons, new cartoons like Star Wars: Rebels will have a far greater impact. I would say that it is the most important contemporary work of art currently being done anywhere in the world because it brings with it through story value.
For many, they will dismiss Star Wars: Rebels as just another cartoon designed to sell action figures at Target and Wal-Mart. But it’s more than that, and will show the real impact on television this fall. Needless to say I’m excited about it because there will be dramatic change ushered in behind this simple cartoon. With the distribution power of Disney, they are uniquely positioned to do great good in the world and Rebels is just the start. When George Lucas sat down to close the Star Wars deal at the Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios in Florida he knew what he was doing. His Skywalker Ranch had been set up specifically for the purpose of creating such wonderful shows like Star Wars: Rebels. Lucas knows that education is the most important thing you can give young people, and he knows that public education is failing. That’s why he has spent a considerable amount of his fortune on education. Much of that money has been wasted on the current education system, like tossing a cup of water into the ocean and expecting to see the waters rise in proportion. Real education comes from foundation patterns, and in our society, cartoons are the origin. This is why millions of people flock to Disney World to retouch the stories of their youth and bring renewed appreciation to lives otherwise plagued by cynicism. Star Wars: Rebels will mean a great deal to a large number of young and old minds, and the sum of that value will be a benefit to us all.
Obviously, I have lived a colorful life. I have something to say about just about anything and everything and that ability was carved out of my life experience. Hey, it’s the Superbowl time of year—I love watching that game and the ceremonial nature that America dedicates to the event, so let’s have a little fun. I loved several commercials during the game but I particularly enjoyed the new Bud Light commercial “Ian Up for Whatever.” I knew from the moment that the young lady asked Ian–just a normal guy sitting in a sportsbar–that if she gave him a free Bud Light would be up for anything that followed–she was playing the role of the mythic goddess figures of the past and that Ian was in for an adventure. There have been many times when life has asked similar questions, and my typical reaction is “YES,” because you never know what kind of adventure comes next—but to get there you always have to say “YES.”
That’s the gist of things in Bud Light’s new “Ian Up For Whatever” Super Bowl commercial—a star-studded spectacle involving hidden cameras and wave after wave of celebrity cameos.
The true star of the commercial, however, is a man named “Ian” who finds himself swept up in a sequence of wild events bordering on the unimaginable, but not quite as crazy as the uninitiated might believe.
Things begin with Ian sitting alone at a bar. He’s approached by a pretty girl named Kelly, who introduces herself and takes a seat. Within moments, Ian’s new friend holds up a Bud Light and asks a single, somewhat ominous question.
“If I give this to you, are you up for whatever happens next?” Kelly asks.
“Uh, I think so,” Ian responds, obviously thinking that Kelly was coming on to him.
That’s how it starts—a night of limousines, twin parties and more Arnold Schwarzenegger ping-pong than ever conceived possible. Actually, that was my favorite part.
Ian receives a new jacket, courtesy of Friday Night Lightsstar Minka Kelly.
He also finds himself with comedian-musician Reggie Watts, who has been stuffed into a DJ booth inside the Hummer stretch limo designated to chauffeur Ian about New York for the evening.
The one prevailing tie in the commercial is the presence of Bud Light bottles, which Ian and company constantly have in hand. There’s also the omnipresent eye of the commercial’s directors and coordinators, who have the entire experience planned down to the moment and wired for video and sound.
In all, “Ian Up For Whatever” is an impressive feat of planning and videography. Any number of mishaps could’ve turned this commercial into a nightmare, but judging by the final product, things went rather swimmingly.
I could tell a number of stories where similar things have happened to me. It is often surprising how a willingness for adventure can pave the way for the unfathomable. Those events may not happen quite in the same way as Ian’s experience—and they may not involve such New York cultural pleasure, but they are often as outrageous and cryptically elusive to the mind of a planned individual. The human spirit often carries events beyond conception, and the real magic of life is often beyond those borders. I have been to such places many times—so much that nothing would shock me now. Where Ian was amazed, I would have been much more flat lined. The limo would not have surprised me, playing “baby tennis” with Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t have been strange or finding oneself onstage with a major music group, relative to my personal life. Crazy things do happen, and they often start with the word “Yes.”
A good lesson from that commercial is to say “yes,” a bit more often. When your boss places before you a tough challenge……………..say, “yes.” You’d be surprised what might happen. When your car starts sputtering because you are almost out of gas, say “yes” and keep the petal depressed. See what happens when you run out of fuel a mile short of a gas station. Many adventures are likely to transpire. When you pass by a restaurant that strikes your interest, say “yes” and pull in and try it out. Stepping out of a routine can be very exciting. Say “yes” more often and let adventure into your life, and you will discover that Ian’s experience is not that unique.
Good things don’t always happen, but I still say yes to many things, because I love adventure. It is adventure that has filled my mind with so many opinions, and given voice to so many topics. I have a story for everything when I talk to younger people because in my past I have said “yes” to many outrageous adventures even the ones that appeared to be kamikaze runs. I always figured I was cleaver enough to avoid death, and I have been right more times than chance can take credit for.
Because of those adventures I love my life. I love every day of it and I don’t have regrets. Even bad decisions were part of the “saying yes” process, and the adventures that followed have led to tremendous amounts of experience which translates to personal wisdom. In this life, wisdom is capital—more powerful capital than gold, or the perceived values of finance. Wisdom can gain finances, but finances cannot gain wisdom. Wisdom is by far more valuable, and wisdom can only be obtained by living life—and to live life, you have to “say yes,” to things.
A guy who reads here a lot will recognize this story immediately but I remember a trip to Panama City with him which nearly mirrored this Bud Light commercial. It started by “saying yes” to a cold March evening, a complicated engineering problem, and a political stalemate that needed to be broken loose. It ended hours later over a thousand miles away with me playing football on a beach after jumping off a pier from about 25 feet and breaking my ankle in the sand. I wrapped the ankle and continued playing football anyway under the moonlight next to the ocean. We slept with a tent half constructed next to a harbor, and solved our problem over breakfast at a Burger King. We returned to Cincinnati within 48 hours of leaving for our next meeting and solved all our problems with a fresh perspective. Adventure is good for building wisdom.
There are hundreds of those types of stories, but most don’t involve the kind of elements seen in that Bud Light commercial. The Panama City one did, which is the reason for the reference. But all such adventures lead to the ability to have wisdom—something young people don’t have until it is developed. At the end of his adventure in the Bud Light commercial Ian was wiser than was when he simply agreed to a girl in a bar to accept whatever happened next. Adventure happens all the time to many people, and adventure builds wisdom—but before either can be obtained a person has to be willing to “say yes.” Lucky for Ian, he did. But you too Dear Reader can experience adventure in the strangest places and times. All you have to do is, “say yes.
The Overmanwarrior 