Year: 2016

I think it’s time that I addressed you as well. I need to make something clear:

I don’t give a dámņ why you’re not voting for Hillary.

So on this site, on Twitter, on Facebook: You can stop trying to explain it. It’s of no relevance to me. Don’t give me samples from the quarter century’s worth of dirt that the GOP has thrown at her. Don’t howl at me about money she makes from speeches (which she largely gives to charity). Don’t whine at me about how Bernie was screwed out of this, that and the other thing, something that I don’t recall Hillary fans declaring whenever Bernie won something.

Your explanations don’t matter. Your great rebellion doesn’t matter. Senate experience, Judaism and Socialism don’t matter. All that matters is this one simple truth:

Donald Trump must not be elected. Must not.

The simple, irrefutable fact is that Trump’s success is based upon the worst that this country has to offer. He appeals to racists, sexists, misogynists, and fascists. When someone is running for President and both North Korea and Russia endorse him, that alone should make you realize how utterly screwed up he is. Donald Trump may well be the least qualified person to be a major party nominee in the history of this country.

He must be stopped.

If you are not voting for Hillary, you are endorsing Donald Trump. It is just that simple. If you write in Bernie, that’s a vote for Trump. If you sit on your ášš at home, that is a vote for Trump.

If you sit there shrouded in obliviousness, unaware of just how much damage Donald Trump can do on a global scale, then you are quite simply an idiot. And yes, I know that Bernie supporters shriek and piss and moan when they’re insulted. That’s fair; on the other hand, calling you idiots isn’t an insult. It’s simply truth.

There’s a very old saying: you are either part of the solution or part of the problem. If you refuse to vote for Hillary, if you endorse Donald Trump, you are part of the problem, and I have zero interest in hearing you explain why.

PAD

Updated 9:30 PM: Read this. It’s what I said but said much better.

Dear Senator Sanders:

You’ve lost, okay? By every measure, including the popular vote, you have lost. Clinton got more votes than you did, period, end of story. Your determination to rest your hopes on turning around the Super-delegates makes no sense, because you would be asking them to vote against the wishes of the people…a tactic that, if Clinton were to use it, you would loudly and rightfully deride.

This is no longer an instance of a presidential candidate demanding justice. The last one who did that was Al Gore and that didn’t exactly turn out well. You remember Al Gore, right? The candidate whom many voters were disenchanted with, just as they’re disenchanted with Hillary. So they voted for Ralph Nader or just stayed home (much like your followers are declaring they’ll write in for you or just stay home.) As a result we got George W. Bush, who was demonstrably the worst president in American history. But you know who would be worse? Donald Trump. Far worse. Like, Moving To Canada Wouldn’t be Far Enough worse.

The simple truth is that you have the ability to stop that from occuring. You can rally your voters; they will still listen to you. You can transform them into a Stop Trump At All Costs corp of warriors who can help prevent that from happening. You said it yourself: Hillary Clinton on her worst day is better than Trump on his best day.

Or you can continue to do what you’re doing: Raving against the establishment, declaring you’re going to fight through to the convention, poison your followers against Hillary, and risk giving the White House to a racist maniac that the GOP refuses to stand against.

At some point, this stopped being about becoming President and became more about the attention. You are receiving more focus at this point in your life than you have in the preceding seven decades. Attention is addictive. It’s ego-swelling. You don’t want to be the also ran because the also ran doesn’t get the same love and stoking as the leader. I totally get it.

But now it’s time to grow beyond such needs and think of the future of this country that you will not lead. Okay? You need to come to grips with that: you are not going to lead this country. You are not going to be the nominee. What you need to do now is make sure that Trump is stopped.

Please. We need you to set your ego aside and step up.

PAD

So rumor has it that Disney has ordered reshoots on “Star Wars: Rogue One.” And naturally fans are up in arms about this.

I never understand why fans go bug nuts over such announcements. Whenever it’s learned that some film is undergoing reshoots, the declaration is that the film must be in trouble.

All it is is a rewrite, basically. If George R.R. Martin declared he was doing some rewrites on his next “Fire and Ice” book to improve it, would the fans declare, “Oh my God, it must be in trouble!!” (Yeah, probably some would.) But most would simply realize that rewrites and redos are just part of the creative process. It’s honestly no big deal. “But it’s going to be expensive!” headlines declare. Expensive. Hah. The average major motion picture spends more on food for the craft services table than most of you make in a year.

I say this so many times, but it bears repeating: Wait until the dámņëd film comes out before passing judgment.

PAD

I have to admit, when we went to see X-M:A yesterday, I was bracing myself for something really lousy. Like Batman vs. Superman lousy. Like Elektra or the Ang Lee Hulk movie or X-Men III lousy.

What I saw instead was a perfectly entertaining X-Men film that once again helped revitalize the series by bringing in new actors to play established characters, bring back some introduced in the previous film, and raise the stakes by introducing a villain who not only wanted to destroy every human being on the face of the Earth, but seemed eminently capable of doing it.

Continue Reading “Why in Hëll is Everyone Bìŧçhìņg About X-Men: Apocalypse?” →

So my ex-wife dropped me a message the other day: she asked if I was writing diet books.

I said, “No. Why?”

And she sent me this link:

The Mediterranean Diet

Much to my astonishment, the author is Peter David and, even more bizarrely, Amazon has my bio attached. Even better, when you click on his name, it sends you to my books.

This guy has written at least half a dozen books on weight loss and fitness. And he’s not me. Yes, I am dieting, but no, I’m not writing books about it. I tried to post about it to one of the comments sections and naturally Amazon bounced it because it believes I’m the author and authors can’t comment.

So please don’t bring these books up to me to sign at conventions, okay?

PAD

Fifteen years ago, plus a few months in addition, I proposed to my girlfriend, Kathleen, in the now late, lamented Adventurers Club in Disneyworld. That was, and is, one of the greatest nights of my life.

We were married on May 26th the following year, and I have never regretted it for a single day. The years have flown by. On the latest May 26th, we are heading back down to Orlando where it all started since, as it so happens, Megacon is going on down there. It won’t be the most romantic of days since it’s our travel day, but it doesn’t matter. We will be together, and that’s the only thing that’s important.

Happy anniversary, my love.

PAD

The most obvious statement to make is this: CIVIL WAR almost makes you feel sorry for BATMAN v. SUPERMAN. This is, quite simply, how you do a conflict between superheroes right. As opposed to having two individuals so similar in dark disposition that you cannot discern a difference between them, in CIVIL WAR the two main protagonists–Steve Rogers and Tony Stark–come at a situation looking at from two profoundly different directions, dictated by their opposing personalities and experiences. You can see both sides and find yourself sympathetic to both.

Continue Reading “Captain America: Civil War” →