I’ve always been fascinated with new technologies. In grade school in the 1960s, I had a transistor radio. AM only and it was about the size of a paperback book. Yes, I know, now you can get a iShuffle that holds how many gigabyte of data and it’s the size of a postage stamp. Who’s telling this story, anyway? Now sit down and shut up.

This was the beginning of miniaturization. The transistor was only 20 years old and we won’t go into the bitter details of how America focused on military uses leaving Japan to virtually create the home entertainment field with Sony leading the way with the first transistorized radio.

And I had one in grade school. Later, in high school, I was the first to have an LED watch. It had those red square numbers and glowed. Well, here’s a picture:

First LED watch

After that, I moved quickly to the LCD watch. Then I was the first to have a calculator watch, complete with this game where numbers would descend and you’d have to “shoot” them down by pushing the corresponding number on the keyboard. It even had some cool beeps.

Cascio calculator watch

OK. Enough with the watches already. I was also into music and aside from the transistor radio, later I had a handheld cassette player (sort of an early boombox) that I carried around in High School and blasted Hawkwind from. Later, when I could afford it, I started buying stereos. I had a Yamaha receiver and some of the first speakers from a start-up company called Polk Audio.

I was one of the first to have the Sony Walkman. This was 1979 and the world was never the same again. Sure, it was the same size as the transistor radio I had had back in grade school, but I could play cassettes! Through headphones! And get this, those headphones weren’t the huge Koss hardshell things that weighed 5 pounds and dented your head with continued use, these were tiny little headphones — the precursor to the earbud, believe it or not.

1979 Sony Walkman

I think we’ve established I’m a techie at this point. I had an Atari 400, one of the first game systems. I had a thermal print typewriter that had one line of text it held on a small display until it was ready to type. When I could afford it, I had one of the first 286 computers. It had a massive 20 megabyte hard drive. So big MS-DOS couldn’t support it and it had to be partitioned into two hard drives! Now, I have games on my smartphone that wouldn’t fit on that hard drive! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

In college, I learned MS-DOS and how to use programs on it. the C:/ prompt was my friend and I knew all the special codes you needed to know to get your computer to do it’s work. And here’s the point I want to make, I was learning how to desktop publish using MS-DOS and the associated programs. Becoming skilled at it. And then Apple introduced the Macintosh. You didn’t need to know computers. It had this graphical user interface and now anyone without any knowledge could do what I did. You didn’t need to learn some archaic computer language to get it to work.

I hated it. Hated Apple and it was a hatred to last the next 27 years.

Anyway, I evolved (or stagnated, take your pick) with the MS-DOS computer. Windows 1! Windows 2! Windows 3! (Truth be told there were other, better examples of GUIs those days. I had a favorite, but forget it’s name now. Faster, more versatile, and hell, more stable than Windows ever would be. But it didn’t have Microsoft’s marketing muscle. Maybe it was GEOS.) Of course, everything Microsoft tried to do was merely a pale imitation of what Macintosh was already doing.

But I still hated Macintosh. I even worked at my job with Macintosh. Shared a desk with a Macintosh. But I preferred the PC.

And technology marched on. We were the first home in our neighborhood to be wired for cable. Then comes the cellphone. Each one more advanced then the previous. I had one of the first touchscreen phones. No, not the iPhone, an LG. But yes, it was the same year the iPhone had been released. I hated Apple, remember? Well, let me tell you. That touchscreen LG sucked! I mean, it was cool at first. Look! I touch the screen and it opens my music. Opens my camera. Opens my photo gallery. Oh, look. It’s slow. It’s not very sensitive. I’m touching you, dammit! Feel me!

So then I moved on to a smartphone. The iPhone you ask? NO! Dammit! What part of hate Apple don’t you get? No. Just last year I picked up an Android phone. One of the latest. Samsung’s hot new Galaxy S. It was amazing. Apps! It was responsive. It was a wonderful device. Until it started hanging. And I’d have to pull the battery to get it to work. Then I’d have to pull the battery to make a phone call. And I’d have to pull the battery to … no, that didn’t help.

So I went to the Verizon store. What’s wrong with my Android? It’s now running slow. It hangs. Freezes. Makes me pull the battery. “Oh,” he says. “Sometimes if the Android software updates, or an app updates, for whatever reason, they become incompatible and it causes those issues.” So, we just take out that one app, right? “No. We can’t know what app it is.” How do we fix it? “We’ll have to do a factory reset. You’ll lose all your apps and have to start again.” Oh. Great. Something about that just doesn’t seem right. But now I had to factory reset it. Some app was causing problems and no one knew which one. I could either delete them one at a time or just do the refresh. I’ve refreshed it 3 or 4 times now. So now, I just keep the basic apps on it. I used to have a ton of wonderful apps. A yoga app for bad backs. Arm exercises. Leg exercises. A walk/run app. Google maps. Google sky. Moon phases app. Along with Netflix. Uverse. Facebook. Twitter. All the social media apps. A cool Captain America shield background. And games for me, for the kids. Stupid zombies. Angry birds. Angry zombies. Stupid birds. Shooters. Puzzles. Fart sounds. Chess. On and on.

But now, I just have the basics. Facebook. Twitter. Because I’m afraid to add new apps. What’s the fun in having a cool smartphone that’s too stupid to know what app is causing problems?

In the meantime my wife had a Blackberry that sucked. Returned it. Got another Blackberry. It sucked. Returned it. Got a Droid 2. It was ok. But then it sucked. So she got a new one (read: refurbished). That sucked almost immediately, but then the kicker, one day it just wouldn’t turn on any more. It was a paperweight. So she needed a new phone, but what? She was sick of Crackberry. Sick of Android. And honestly, who would want a Windows phone? Really? So I can carry the Blue Screen of Death around in my pocket? What? So she went to the dark side. She got a … a … dammit. She went and got an iPhone 4.

And you know what? It hasn’t given her any trouble at all. Everything works smoothly. It’s responsive. Apps launch immediately. And I’ve played with it. It’s addicting. And I started to research it. Why was it so much more stable than my Android?

Why? Because of everything I hated about Apple, that’s why. Instead of being open-sourced, instead of letting anyone make a clone, instead of letting anyone make an app, they kept strong control over everything. Their proprietaryness (is that a word) was their strength! Only Apple created the hardware. Only Apple created the operating system. And the apps, they were stringently tested to make sure they’d work. And since, they only had one hardware manufacturer (whereas Android has Motorola, Samsung, HTC, LG, and so on and so forth, so if an app works on Droid, it won’t necessarily work exactly the same on an HTC) they were assured of universal software/hardware happiness.

And that business model finally made sense. They were creating a smartphone, or tablet, or computer that worked predictably day in and day out, for you, for me, for everyone. No blue screen of death or red ring of death. No pulling your hair out trying to get a new printer to shake hands with the old computer. No more reading the fine print on the software box to see if it fits your memory requirements, your system requirements, your particular edition and iteration. Apple makes technology the way it should be: Easy to use. Easy to set-up. Always reliable.

And now, I’m looking to trade-up my Android for an iPhone. Because I want my technology to work. I want to have apps that are stable. I’ve grown tired of having to troubleshoot something every time I add a new program, a new accessory, or a new whatever. Technology should work first time, every time, predictably and reliably. And I can finally admit, I wasn’t getting that with Microsoft. I wasn’t getting that with my Android.

Now I no longer hate Apple. Say! I do like Apple, and I would use it in a box, and I would use it with a fox, and I would use it in a house, and I would use it with a mouse, and I would use it here or there, I would use Apple anywhere!

But I still hate Bose.

But that’s another blog post for another time.

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The next actor to portray Tarzan was Jock Mahoney. Mahoney was a stunt man and actor and had auditioned for the part of Tarzan when Weissmuller left the series. He lost out to Lex Barker. Mahoney would next appear in a Tarzan movie as a villain, battling Gordon Scott in “Tarzan the Magnificent.” Producer Sy Weintraub liked his look and signed him on to be the fourth Tarzan in the franchise.

Mahoney did only two Tarzan movies, “Tarzan Goes to India” (1962), and “Tarzan’s Three Challenges” (1963) Both were rather forgettable and notable only because they started a trend to take Tarzan out of his home jungles of Africa and put him into jungles around the world, in these instances India and then Thailand.

My father took me to see “Tarzan’s Three Challenges” in the theater. I was an early Tarzan fan, as most young boys were, introduced to him by all the weekend matinee showings on television. But Mahoney was a shock to even my six-year-old sensibilities. He was old! At 44, Mahoney was the oldest actor to play the Ape Man and it showed. How was I supposed to believe someone older than even my father could swing through the jungles and fight muscular villains? I couldn’t.

Health problems brought on by filming in Thailand (dysentery and Dengue fever), as well as his age led to Weintraub to go with a younger actor.

That actor was Mike Henry, former NFL linebacker. Henry had the physical look of Gordon Scott, bringing muscularity back to the Ape Man. Despite the fact that Henry was being groomed to be the long term Tarzan, even being considered in the upcoming series, he only lasted three movies, “Tarzan and the Valley of Gold” (1966), “Tarzan and the Great River” (1967), and “Tarzan and the Jungle Boy” (1968).

The main reason for that was, Henry brought a lawsuit against Weintraub for “maltreatment, abuse, and working conditions detrimental to my health and welfare.” While filming, one of the chimps bit him on the chin which required 20 stitches. He also suffered food poisoning and infections while on location in Mexico and Brazil.

He wasn’t a bad Tarzan, of the five in this series, he held his own, but one doesn’t go about suing people inside Hollywood and expect it not to be detrimental to your career. After Tarzan, he was relegated to supporting roles on television and is best known now as Jackie Gleason’s simple-minded son Junior in “Smokey and the Bandit” (1977) and later as the equally simple-minded Lt. Col. Donald Penobscot, the fiance of Hot Lips on the television series M*A*S*H.

Sure, I guess one can’t blame Henry for suing, if he was in fact mistreated instead of just being subjected to the things most actors on location are subjected to, but I still do if only because he left us stuck with Ron Ely in the television series of Tarzan, which by rights could have been Henry’s.

So where who will the Tarzan movie franchise turn to next? I don’t know. Turner Classic Movies still has one more of the Mike Henry movies to show, “Tarzan and the Jungle Boy.” After that airs this coming weekend, we’ll see.

But the real truth is, they are attacking the actual watchdogs, the true defenders of writers’ rights. Just take a look at their “Author Boycott List.” Every name on there is an active voice in bringing publishing scams to light. These names are really watching out for you against unscrupulous literary agents and fly-by-night publishers.

This is their list: Author Boycott List (Revised 10/08/11).

Read through a few of those names:

Ann “A.C.” Crispin and Victoria Strauss are best known for their work exposing the scammers. They host the site, Writer Beware. It is the best resource for authors to learn how to avoid being screwed by the unscrupulous.

David L. Kuzminski is the man behind Preditors & Editors. One of the best guides to publishing and publishing services available for the aspiring and serious writer. listing businesses it recommends and those that should be avoided at all costs.

James D. MacDonald is a professional author, who is well-known for educating aspiring writers. He coined what has come to be known as Yog’s Law: “Money should flow toward the author.”

P.N. Elrod is a professional author and editor and is also very vocal in educating writers against publishing scams.

John Scalzi is the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. I’ll say that again. He’s the President of SFWA, which is “a professional organization for authors of science fiction, fantasy and related genres.” Basically, he’s the head guy at one of the most respected writers sites evah. And he hates scams.

What we have here is a veritable who’s who of some of the most respected names in protecting writers’ rights. These are our defenders, not the rogue’s gallery The Write Agenda would have us believe.

Why would “The Write Agenda,” who claims to be watching out for you make a boycott list of the very people who have actually been watching out for writers? There can only be one explanation. The Write Agenda must be working for the very people who will do you, the writer, the most harm: the scam publishers and unscrupulous agents. Nothing else makes any sense.

Remember, no matter how these people try to debate it, “Money flows toward the author.”

So next time you’re out at a bookstore, remember that boycott list and use it as your Christmas list for good reads. You won’t be disappointed and you’ll be showing support for these fine people.

In the meantime, here are some more sites to visit that are great sources for writers:

Absolute Write, a comprehensive informational Website for writers of all levels.

Absolute Write Water Cooler, a place to chat and learn with writers of all experience levels.

Making Light, an informative blog by Teresa & Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

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So I’ve watched Johnny. His movies always seemed so simple, part of that age, I guess. And the stories were pretty much derivative of each other. White hunters come to Tarzan’s jungle either poach or to find treasure. As I had said, his Tarzan was illiterate and monosyllabic, and if you had read the books, you knew what a travesty it was to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ creation. Which is why Burroughs subsidized the Bruce Bennett serials that appeared in the 30s. Even he was appalled. I won’t discuss those since they weren’t shown on TCM. Oddly enough Bruce Bennett (Herman Brix) was supposed to be THE Tarzan, but he broke his shoulder filming another movie and the role went to Weissmuller.

After Weissmuller came Lex Barker. Not bad as an actor, and his Tarzan character seemed a little more intelligent than Weissmuller’s ever did, except producer Sol Lesser (who had produced the series since it went to RKO) wanted him to continue the monosyllabic dialog. Barker’s physique was a little more refined, too. The stories continued to offer more of the same beloved Tarzan saving his jungle from intruders while Cheta the chimp provided all the laughs. But unlike Weissmuller who lasted 16 years and 12 films, Barker only did 5 movies.

After Barker, came Gordon Scott. The first Tarzan to be BUILT. He was a body builder and looked the part of Tarzan much more than any other actor before or after. But the first four Scott films continued the “Me Tarzan, You Jane,” kind of image started by Weissmuller. That is until 1959′s “Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure.” Gone was the previous producer Sol Lesser and in came Sy Wientraub. Scott was finally able to portray Tarzan as intelligent and he spoke in full sentences.

But more importantly for the franchise itself, the story was head and shoulders above any that had come before. Much of Tarzan had a light-hearted, almost childlike, quality to the stories, almost as though they were aimed more at children (although this wasn’t true). But this story had an adult hard edge to it. It was a gritty story about four Englishmen, disguised as natives, who steal some explosives and in the process have to kill two people. Enter Tarzan to avenge the deaths, discovering that the killers were white men led by a man named Slade, who Tarzan knew from a previous encounter. The story becomes a chase along the river and through the jungle.

It’s an action tale of murder, revenge, and treachery. Tarzan stalks them with bows and arrows while they have modern weapons, and the stolen explosives, with which they manage to injure Tarzan. But as they soon find out, an injured Tarzan is still dangerous.

It’s a complete departure from what came before and it sets the tone for the Tarzan movies that follow and even the television show with Ron Ely.

Here is a trailer for the film:

Look for a young Sean Connery in a role just before he went on to fame as James Bond.

After months of watching Tarzan movies, and waxing nostalgic about my childhood when Channel 18 would show Tarzan theater every Sunday and I’d see these movies over and over to the point of boredom, this movie surprised me with it’s near 180 degree turn in tone.

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Growing up, I only played baseball a few times. I remember one time I was out in left field. Man, that was boring. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. And nothing happening. So I sat down in the outfield. Pulled out a pack of Bazooka Joe bubble gum, and started reading the comic that came with it. It was about that time that a ball rolled past me. Not sure if I ever got up to get it or not. All I know is I embarrassed the hell of my dad and he made me feel somehow inferior for not having an interest in the game.

Fast-forward to adulthood and undiagnosed ADHD. Going to live games has always been a chore for me. Not enough action on the field and too much action off the field. Even if I wanted to pay attention, take last night for instance, I just couldn’t. The batter would be up, I’d watch for a few seconds, then I’d hear something in the stands and I’d look around: there’s a group of guys all wearing the same bright green shirt, there’s some girl falling out of her halter, there’s the beer vender yelling “Beer here!” and oh, they’re starting the wave over there. What’s that? Someone brought a beach ball and the crowd is hitting it around while a stadium attendant is trying to catch it. There’s a digital LCD scroll around the stadium’s second deck advertising Miller Lite. Wait, no, now they’re advertising an Frontier Airline. Now there’s a… and the crowd goes wild and I have to turn to my wife and go, “What happened?”

Do that for nine innings and it gets rather tedious and tiring. I want to follow the game, but I’ve never been able to. There are just too many distractions at a live game. I can watch it just fine on TV, but that’s because there are people –announcers — keeping me informed of what’s going on. There’s usually an overlay showing you the score: how many outs, what bases are occupied, and the pitch count. Not to mention that they show replays of important plays that I might have missed, along with my own ability to use the DVR to go back and see what happened.

Do I still get distracted during a television broadcast of a game? Sure. I’m writing this for instance. My son, the other ADHD member of our household, is making as much noise as possible rattling clay balls in a canister, despite the number of times I’ve yelled that I’m writing and he should be quiet. But, as I said, I can compensate for my distraction with all of the helpful aspects of television I mentioned.

At a live game I get none of that. There are no announcers. Sure, there’s a scoreboard, but it’s usually in a different direction of the play on the field. And there’s just too much information there. For someone with ADHD, there’s a lot of noise on that screen. I can read all the players names. I can figure out who’s at bat. Who’s pitching. It gives a picture and some brief stats of the batter. It shows his average for the year, his average against this pitcher, what he’s done at each previous at-bat. And the crowd goes wild again and I turn to my wife, “What happened?”

So I spend the game wondering what the hell is going on and how everyone else is able to follow the play on the field without any difficulty and feeling just a little depressed because I’m always missing the plays everyone else is cheering for.

No, a day at the ballpark is anything but relaxing to someone with ADHD.

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My father? Well, a story my aunt used to tell me was my father was taking care of me as a baby and she stopped in and found me crawling around with a full diaper, my ass flaming red with diaper rash. He just couldn’t be bothered.

There was a time when I was very young where my stomach was very sensitive (basically I was lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant, starch intolerant, intolerant intolerant), and nearly the only thing I could eat that didn’t react negatively was Jello. My dad and his brother thought it would be funny if they gave me some — well, let me take this time to explain that we had some old German relatives still alive at this time and at get-togethers they would bring some of those Old World German dishes to pass. I don’t recall what the dish was called, sült or sülze or something. Basically, it was some kind of jellied meat dish; the meat, often the parts nobody eats anyway, was boiled until it all coagulated into a horrifying greyish gelatin, then it was served chilled in a casserole dish. So my dad and his asshole brother thought it would be a hoot to give me some of that toxic meat mixture and tell me it was Jello.

To this day, some fifty years later, I still do not eat Jello.

Other fun things my dad did, if I had the hiccups, he’d tell me to hold my breath, then he’d help me hold my breath by placing his hand over my nose and mouth until I was struggling in a panic as he slowly suffocated me. The really scary part was I think he enjoyed doing it.

I could go on and on and on about the things he did, or the cruel things he said (explaining why I never go barefoot in public), that have left a lasting impression upon me and made me into the quirky, psychologically scarred individual I am today.

I don’t really recall him doing anything with me, either. I don’t think we ever played catch. When I was about seven or so, he had his own mid-life crisis, realizing he had no skills or future, so he went back to school. At night. I can’t criticize him for wanting to better himself, but he did it at our expense. He was never home. He was always either at school or the library and when he was home he acted like we were bothering him.

The last twenty years of his life, I think I saw him twice, despite the fact that he lived downtown. He came to my wedding and once he called after my first son was born, but the conversation changed from congratulating me on fatherhood to all about him. The other time we saw him was when he was in the hospital. We stopped in to visit. It was the only time he ever saw his grandchildren.

He passed away several years later, in 2007, never getting to know his grandchildren, leaving a lot of feelings between us unresolved. His wish was to be cremated, so I don’t even have a grave site to visit.

I guess the reason why he was that way was because he had felt abandoned by his own father. Maybe he felt that was how fathers were. Aloof, distant, cruel. I don’t know.

I do know that I don’t want to be that way with my own children. So if my father taught me anything useful during my lifetime, it was how NOT to be a dad.

Thanks for that, dad. May you rest in peace.

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In 1902 they called it “Morbid Defect of Moral Control.” It was renamed Post-encephalitic Behavior Disorders in 1922. In 1960 it was called Minimal Brain Dysfunction and in 1968 it got another name change to Hyperkinetic Reaction. And finally in 1980 they settled on the more familiar name of Attention Deficit Disorder +/- Hyperactivity. Today, you’re probably familiar with the initials ADHD.

It was in the 1930s that amphetamines were first prescribed to treat hyperactive children, and Ritalin, still widely used today, was introduced in 1956. And it wasn’t until 1996 that Adderal, a second drug to treat ADHD, was introduced. Today there are several drugs prescribed, including Strattera, the first non-stimulant, approved in 2002.

The American Medical Association has called ADHD the most widely researched behavioral disorder, and yet it is still the most widely misunderstood, and often misunderstood on purpose.

Far too many people still think it’s “all in their mind,” still living in the ignorance of 1902 that it’s a moral defect. “Why can’t they just control themselves?” Others think that it’s an overused (read: unnecessary) diagnosis made to appease parents who can’t handle active children, that somehow these children are normal and it’s the parents who push drugs on their kids simply to calm them down. Much of this disinformation came from a religious group in the 1980s that ignorantly refused to believe in Attention Deficit Disorder and demonized the use of Ritalin. Something like 20% of Americans think ADHD is a bogus disease.

As a child of the 1960s, most of us with ADHD were thought to be “impulsive,” and “hyperactive.” It was a moral deficiency, a character flaw, and since research was still pretty much in its infancy, not given the serious diagnosis or treatment is should have.

My grades weren’t the best. I’d get bored easily. I was unfocused in class. If I had to sharpen my pencil, I’d walk around the entire room, disturbing all the other children. My report cards often said things like: “Does not use his time wisely in class,” “needs to pay attention in class,” “has difficulty following directions,” “is too easily distracted,” and “is disruptive,” to name a few.

My parents wanted to find out why so my mom took me to Chicago to see a psychologist. I guess back then they didn’t have any in Milwaukee. I was fascinated by the tall buildings and his office was high up in a downtown building with a fairly impressive view. Or I assume it was. It was 40+ years ago.

What do I remember of the visit? Not much really. I’m sure he asked me a lot of questions. I think he gave me that “put the round peg in the square hole” test. The one thing I do remember was he had an electric letter opener and I was drawn to it. So much so that in order to keep me focused on what he was asking, he had to give me several envelopes to run through the letter opener.

Then he made his diagnosis. I did not suffer from hyperactivity. Or Minimal Brain Dysfunction or Hyperkinetic Reaction. Or whatever they referred to it at the time. I’m not sure how he came to that diagnosis. Considering all I remember of his place was his big mahogany desk. And the letter opener and nothing of the actual testing, I’d say myself that I was something.

My mom many years later told me that psychologist didn’t believe in hyperactivity as a disorder anyway.

So what was the point of taking me there? To ensure you’d get a diagnosis that there was nothing wrong with me? Seems not only a waste of money, but a horrible disservice.

And I remember having to take these tiny, bitter pills. My mom, years later, finally admitted they did try Ritalin on me, but it had made me worse. I wonder. Looking at the side effects, one of them is nervousness. Another is “mania.” Maybe the dosage had been too high. Maybe if they had regulated the dosage, it might have worked.

Maybe if they’d taken me to a competent psychologist instead of a quack, one who actually studied and understood the disorder instead of dismissing it out of hand, if they had tried different dosages of the medication instead of giving up, maybe my life wouldn’t have been one long disordered struggle.

Maybe. I understand the inherent pitfall of woulda-shoulda-coulda and that second guessing your life probably isn’t healthy, but sometimes you can’t help but wonder — what if?

end of part 1

Edited June 15, 2011 to Add: After discussing the matter with my mother I learned that it wasn’t the Chicago psychologist who didn’t believe in the disorder. He did. He came to the conclusion I had it. He subscribed Ritalin. It was my pediatrician who did not believe. So when I had a reaction to the Ritalin, became “more hyper” as my mom tells me, he decided to just take me off the drug and do nothing further, coming to the conclusion that I couldn’t possibly have a disorder that he didn’t believe in.

Thanks, Doctor Thompson.

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As an example, I can read pretty much any book, watch any movie or television show and I’ll be entertained. Doesn’t matter if its critically acclaimed and award winning or sci-fi channel schlock, if the topic at least interests me, I’ll be entertained.

In other words, I have trouble distinguishing good from bad from great. I can enjoy it all equally in some regard.

Which worries me no end when it comes to my own writing and the hopes of having even a modicum of success.

If I can’t distinguish good from bad in other works how can I then distinguish good from bad in my own work?

It’s like not having a sense if taste and being unable to tell the difference between McDonald’s fare and that of a 4 star restaurant.

That person certainly couldn’t make it as a restaurant critic, therefore how can I ever hope to make it as a writer?

It’s a conundrum and one I’ve been faced with all my life. All I can do is keep on keeping on, and keep submitting in a scattergun approach — sending out everything I write in the hopes That at least something will hit its mark.

There.  Got that morose thought off my chest. Back to writing!

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The Others consisted of several companies such as Dell, Western, Gold Key, Carlton, and Harvey. While Marvel and DC dominated the market with superhero offerings, along with war and horror comics, The Others published things like Casper the Friendly Ghost, Little Lulu, Richie Rich, characters from Disney, movie and television adaptations, such as Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, among others, and a few second-rate superheroes.

Now I’ve written before about how superheroes, particularly Captain America, were my obsession growing up, but there was one comic not about a costumed hero, nor was it a war comic. It was a somewhat offbeat comic that was published for 28 years, from 1954 to 1982, until it finally faltered.

That comic was Turok, Son of Stone. A story about a pair of pre-Columbian Navajo warriors that somehow end up in a sort of land of the lost, complete with dinosaurs, giant mammals, and the occasional monster spider.

The stories were generally intelligently written and action-packed, and to a kid who loved dinosaurs, pure excitement. The artwork was pretty good, too, worthy of even DC or Marvel and the covers were probably some of the most interesting of the era. I mean, two Navajos, armed with nothing more than stone knives, bows and arrows, facing dinosaurs, how could it get any better than that?

I was out of comics for many years, from the late 1970s until just a few years ago, so I didn’t realize there was a revival of sorts in the 1990s put out by Valiant and Acclaim comics.

Today, however, I was at the comic book store after a hiatus of nearly two years (unemployment makes certain things expendable). It was Free Comic Book Day and I thought I’d go see what the offerings were. I picked up a few free ones and then browsed the new ones.

Color me surprised when I was Turok, Son of Stone staring at me. Well, I had to pick it up. I found issue #1, that was published back in October 2010, and brought it home. Now I wished I’d picked up a few more issues. That first one made me want more. The publisher is Dark Horse, which I’m really beginning to like as a publisher. They have the rights to most of Robert E. Howard’s characters and do a pretty decent job of it. So it comes as no surprise that Turok, too, is a professional effort.

Turok is written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Edwardo Francisco. They both did, I think, a good job of it, rebooting Turok’s origin story. The first issue also has a special reprint of Turok’s original appearance back in 1954.

I’m looking forward to more of it.

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I felt relief, I felt closure. All those lives lost can’t be brought back, but they can now rest in peace. Then I watched as the news which showed Americans outside the White House fences, gathering at the place where the Twin Towers once stood, cheering and chanting “USA! USA!”

And I felt embarrassed.

It was creepy. It was like watching those mobs that gather in those foreign countries that hate us after one of our leaders dies, or who declare us “The Great Satan” and burn the American flag or our leaders in effigy. They chant and cheer at our pain, our tragedy, and our deaths. And here we were doing the same thing.

I was proud of our military forces for what they accomplished, but not of the public’s reaction afterwards. By cheering and chanting like we’d just won an Olympic competition, we were no better than our enemies, no better than those who cheered after 9/11. We had stooped to their level and lost whatever moral high ground we might once have claimed.

I’m ashamed of our reaction. I thought we were better than that.

To quote the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

-30-