T-shirt #307 - TPTA Corporate Olympics 1995

T-shirt #307 - TPTA Corporate Olympics 1995

Today's shirt is similar to ones you will see frequently in the hiatus, and I think this one is the best of the lot.

This shirt comes from my father's company, TPTA (Tower, Pinkster, Titus, and Associates) and its annual participation in a local corporate Olympics competition. I do not recall ever participating myself, but there were always extra T-shirts, and I got one (or sometimes two or three).

During the hiatus, I have decided to spread out what will be a longer essay on "Why T-shirts?" which is a topic that I have not really explored yet. I plan to start this exploration tomorrow with one item at a time.

As for today, I want to share one thing.

I started re-reading Stephen King's On Writing today as an audio book. This may be my third time through, maybe even fourth. I have lost track.

I am experiencing the book as an audio book, which is narrated by Stephen King. I like that he has done his own narration here. Not only is it a personal touch, since, after all, he wrote the book in first person, HIS voice, but also King has the chops to pull it off and make it work. Not all authors have the right voice, tone, inflection, and diction to make this kind of thing work. Neil Gaiman sounds good on audio as does Orson Scott Card. I am sure others do, too, but I have not heard too many.

I am not very far into the book yet, so I am likely to have some more observations to share before I am done with it. But one thing struck me. In his "Second Foreword," King claims that "most books about writing are filled with bullshit." He goes on to recommend Strunk and White's Elements of Style, which is never far from my desk, because "there is ... no detectable bullshit in that book." King tells his reader that he went with a shorter book for On Writing to strive for less bullshit (though not as short as Elements of Style).

As I revealed something in yesterday's blog entry that I have historically kept close to the vest if not outright lied about to cover my own shame and regret, I have a renewed determination and commitment to a "no bullshit" rule on this blog. I know I can go on at length and can be quite self-involved, but that's part of The Blog Journey. In fact, "no bullshit," which is my wife's number one motto, may take a place in the developing Rules of Chris.

As a side note, I have Rober McKee's Story in the bathroom and I am chipping away at it for the third time, too. Can you tell that I am gearing up for the actual "writing" (fiction) come the end of the blog year?

Yup.

No bullshit.

HIATUS TEXT: I am taking a short hiatus. A "hiatus" for the 365 T-shirts Blog does not mean that there will not be shirts or that I will skip posting on any forthcoming day. There will be shirts. But the shirts will not be exciting or the featured shirts will not require me to write a small novel to properly generate the content I feel is sufficient. I created a category for my hiatus so as to group together those "easy" shirts that I consider to be "hiatus shirts." The goal of the hiatus is to fill in many blog days with easy shirts in order to complete longer love letters to beloved popular culture icons on more special shirts and to write more complex entries AHEAD OF TIME. The daily grind is becoming too much and causing me to fall behind and to be forced to post incomplete entries. I am hoping that a series of hiatus shirts will allow me to catch up, get ahead, and stay ahead. Ideally, I would like to be writing the bulk of each entry three days ahead while always working on at least one other. I have a lot of great shirts to share before the end of my blog year (after all I was just given SIXTEEN shirts for my birthday). Stay tuned. I promise to post the more interesting and longer T-shirt entries as I finish them. Thanks for reading. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 58 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1401.22 - 21:26
final publication - 1401.23 - 7:52

T-shirt #288 - Underdog

T-shirt #288 - Underdog

Today's blog entry is dedicated to my best friend Tom Meyers who arrives today for a visit and a gaming orgy. Fifty year old men playing the same game they played in their youth. Though I started playing D&D at the age of fourteen, Tom discovered it in his twenties. Neither of us had the luxury of playing it in our childhood (as many others will reminisce that they did) since the game was not "invented" until 1974.
(Yeah, yeah, if you want to get TECHNICAL, oh geeky readers, the game of Dungeons and Dragons technically began in some form with the publication of the Chainmail rules for miniature play in 1971, but the first three booklet boxed set came out in 1974; I played it for the first time in 1976.)

But today is about UNDERDOG not Dungeons and Dragons (though Underdog would make a great character in D&D).

Underdog was possibly my first superhero. First seen on NBC in 1964, Underdog predates Atom Ant (1965) whom I wrote about in T-shirt #111, according to the Underdog Wikipedia. Though I did not have a blue cape, I did have a red blanket that my mother would pin on me, so I could run around as Underdog: "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" But my favorite battle cry is surely:

"When Polly's in trouble I am not slow, for it's hip-hip-hip and away I go!"

Though I did not have a blue cape, I did have a ring with a secret compartment in which to hide my "Underdog Super Energy Pill," which was often a vitamin supplied by my mother, though sometimes, since I may need many energy pills per day, a tiny candy that would fit inside the ring.

Okay, I am probably not being accurate. I just remembered that Mighty Mouse first appeared in the 1940s and was a staple of CBS Saturday morning cartoons from 1955 to 1967. And the mouse had a red cape like mine. I do recall crying out "Here I come to save the day!" (Mighty Mouse's battle cry) often, so surely I played at being Mighty Mouse, but I have more vivid memories of play as Underdog. And though I would like a Mighty Mouse shirt and toy, I do not own either, and given my recent binge-spending on T-shirts and such and sundry, I am cut off (by my own hand and choice).

Underdog ran for 124 episodes until 1967 but continued in syndication until 1973. This is important because I may not have seen all the episodes that began to air when I was two years old. However, with nine years of broadcasting, I surely managed to see them all at least once and usually all of them multiple times by the time I was eleven years old.

Underdog is a good example of how classic cartoons of yesteryear are kept alive. In the pictures, you see me with an Underdog plush toy, an Underdog PVC doll, and an Underdog T-shirt. The shirt is worn and old. It's one of my older shirts, and it's losing its thickness. I need a new one.

The toys demonstrate two very smart marketing ideas. Toy companies and others who hold copyright on the best cartoons of our childhoods have figured out that two things will happen with the release of Underdog gear: adults will buy the stuff for themselves (as I have done) and adults will buy the stuff for their kids. The Underdog PVC sits atop my TV in my office (as seen in the photo above), and though I have not found the perfect place for the Underdog plush, he's here, sitting nearby as seen in my office tour in T-shirt #268. Also, I have more Underdog gear that I did not have easy access to for the photos.


My friend Tom Meyers arrives for a visit today, as I mentioned, and he has bequeathed to me all sorts of Underdog stuff: a lunchbox, a storage bin, and a few other things that I cannot readily recall. And of course, DVDs. With streaming video, DVD, and YouTube, it's easier than ever before for a parent to say to a child, "Hey, do you wanna watch some Underdog with me?" And the love of this great cartoon continues, like  a virus, but a virus of love.

Wednesday, when I took my own Underdog, Satchel, for a walk, I stopped to chat with the neighbor across the street and his little boy, Caleb, who was wearing a Scooby Doo cap. Caleb explained that he is a massive Scooby Doo fan and began extolling the virtues of some movies he had seen. And so, the generation gap is bridged. The love of the old cartoons continues, though unlike Underdog I believe that new Scooby Doo material is currently being produced.

I have circled the subject of growing up and letting go quite a bit. I do not believe we must let go of all things dear to our hearts from childhood as we get older as some pathetic example of being "adult," which, in my mind, is simply a form of self-imposed misery and serves no purpose but producing misery and possibly resentment. Granted, I no longer put on my little red cape and run around taking energy pills from my secret compartment ring and crying out the rallying heroism of Underdog, though I surely would play such a game with a little boy or girl who was still afloat in the deep ocean of the imagination and the animistic universe if I had the chance. But I find it immensely comforting having my Underdog PVC figure watching over me as I work, and when I see Underdog perched on the TV next to the Mystery Machine clock and Robby the Robot, I am placated. I feel secure in knowing that though many things have changed in my life since I was that little boy playing at Underdog, many things have remained the same. With the modern world, we can keep these things from our past in our hearts, we can easily reconnect with these loves of yesteryear, and smart companies new and old market brand new products that we can purchase and enjoy anew and/or share them with the small children in our lives.

I removed the tag. Can you see it?

Great cartoons like Underdog live on in our hearts and in the hearts of those whom we inspire and to which we bequeath this brilliance, kindling a new flame.

I am an adult. I pay bills; I work for a living; I have a mortgage; I shoulder responsibility. But none of that excludes me from enjoying Underdog much as I did when I was two years old, and seven years old, and nine... and anyone who expects adults to divest themselves of childhood loves is an unpleasant and bitter Scrooge, which brings me to my next subject. Ah... streamy connections.

I just finished reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol via audio, narrated by Jim Dale, who brilliantly narrated the HARRY POTTER novels. Much in the same way that Scrooge learns to keep Christmas in his heart and practice goodwill toward his fellow men year around, so too, is this blog a journey of discovery of the things I wish to keep in my heart, those things that--like Christmas--embody the spirits of love, charity, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, compassion, and so much more. As I think about what I want to share in content for each shirt, I discover more and more about myself and the things that matter to me. There's more than an affection for popular culture icons here. There's a growing aspect of my greater spiritual connection to others and to the universe, which is a subject for another time. Stay tuned.

Underdog is surely a part of the milieu of my greater journey of identity, individuation, and spiritual awakening. For real. And so the Blog Journey continues...

UNDERDOG Cartoon Intro

Compare this opening intro trailer above for Underdog with the one for Mighty Mouse.

Mighty Mouse (The original cartoon theme intro)

And while I am at it, since I don't have a Mighty Heroes shirt either, I will share the Mighty Heroes theme for your edification, amusement, and as a blast from the past for those who remember.

The Mighty Heroes - theme

BTW, Why is Underdog called Underdog? What I mean is: what's he Under? Is this a reference to "underwear?" Is he down because he's a dog and he's little?

I know, I know: the underdog. The downtrodden. The unfavored. I don't think I got that connection when I was two or five or seven. Underdog was Underdog. Not because that's a comment on those who are the underdogs in our society but because that was his name.

Is Underdog a beagle? Definitely a hound of some kind.

He does look a lot like a beagle. Like my Beagle: Satchel. 

Sidenotes: I am not sure I knew this, at least I think I did, but Underdog's voice was supplied by one of my favorite actors: Wally Cox. It's good to remember what I may or may not have known and forgotten. This is part fo what my blog does for me, refreshes my memory, and what I hope it does for you.

Underdog's two main villains were voiced by Allen Swift. Simon Bar Sinister gets his name from the Bar Sinister, which is a diagonal line in medieval crests indicating a bastard birth. And Riff Raff is just a great name for a villain.

In working on this blog, I found an awesome resource: Don Markstein's Toonopedia: a vast repository of toonological knowledge.

Of course, there's an Underdog entry: UNDERDOG ON TOONOPEDIA.

CARTOON SUPERHEROES or RELATED - comic ones
Excluding traditional heroes like Superman and Spider-man, I am trying to make a list of either anthropomorphic heroes or comedy-focused cartoon heroes, which excludes favorites like Space Ghost or the Herculoids as per my list in T-shirt #101 - THE JETSONS and excluding Looney Tunes, which is an amazing category all of its own.

This is probably an incomplete list. I am always hoping with this work that someone will leave me a comment saying "Hey, you forgot.... blah blah." Like what was that one cartoon with the big robot that sort of looked like the Frankenstein monster but was giant sized and a little boy worked with him?

Mostly, I tried to keep the list to animals but that was very limiting, so there are some excursions, such as the Mighty Heroes Frankenstein, Jr., and Roger Ramjet, who are  awesome!!

THE TOP LIST

• Underdog
• Scooby Doo
• Atom Ant
• Mighty Mouse
• The Mighty Heroes
• Frankenstein, Jr.
• Sherman and Mr. Peabody!!
• Roger Ramjet
• Casper the Friendly Ghost
• Secret Squirrel
• Hong Kong Fooey
• Captain Caveman
• Popeye

THE OTHER BOTTOM LIST, not necessarily super but funny or favorite

• Gumby and Pokey
• Rocky and Bullwinkle
• Tenessee Tuxedo
• Huckleberry Hound
• Quickdraw McGraw
• Woody Woodpecker
• Heckle and Jeckle
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch ( I know she's not an animal but this was a favorite cartoon.)

MORE VIDEOS

I found episode one on You Tube but I cannot access it via Blogger. Check it out if you are interested. Meanwhile, here's two good ones (which ones are not good, after all, I mean, come on, man...).

First, "The Magnet Men" and then "Simon Says Be my Valentine."

The Underdog Show - Episode # 23 1965

The Underdog Show - Episode # 53 - 1966

My Facebook friend and neighbor
had this on his wall, so I copped it, as it seems
to fit the Underdog theme very well.

COVER GALLERY

And at the risk of making this even longer (and I was going to include comic book reviews - geez), I cannot resist including some comic book covers of Underdog Gold Key comics as well as some others I owned, like the one farther above for Frankenstein Jr.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 77 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.03 - 18:20

T-shirt #284 - Doctor Whisky!

T-shirt #284 - Doctor Whisky! via WarrenEllis.com


Nothing like whisky for breakfast.


Hey, isn't that the name of a local band and a song?


Our kitchen may look dark as night, and it was dark outside, but these photos were taken early this morning, December the 30th of 2013 by my dear wife Liesel, who also gifted me this shirt for Christmas as originally seen in T-shirt #278 - Three wise men? Be serious.

It is due to the morning hour that there's so little whisky in the glass. The picture was taken at 6:45 a.m. after all.

Today's blog post is about whisky but not all about whisky as I will exhaust the subject of this divine beverage rather quickly. I have a whisky category (see sidebar), though there are only four posts in it -- T-shirt #77, T-shirt #108, T-shirt #82, and today's -- there has been more whisky than that in my life these last nine months.

I plan to round out today's blog with a little blog recap and some reviews of books, movies, and comic books, though nothing like the extended and seriously overlong post on The Uncanny X-Force from Saturday's blog. I have a schedule to maintain after all.

In the post for T-shirt #82, you will find Warren Ellis Twitter diatribe on the excellence of single malt scotch and how it is "uisge beatha, the water of life." Find there the difference betwee "whisky" and "whiskey" as well as bourbon, which I like very much more than he seems to.


In the post for T-shirt #108, I share a toast for my Robert Burns scotch, gifted to me by my wife as I am named for the great Scottish poet: My dad is actually Robert Burns Tower and I am Christopher Burns Tower.

And lastly, in the post for T-shirt #77, in which I first revealed on these pages that I had prostate cancer and how this diagnosis prompted the blog into being, I shared a little of the Glenmorangie, seen in the photo above, which I bought immediately after my doctor's appointment in which I scheduled my surgery.

Those who know me via social media have seen me call in prescriptions from Doctor Whisky on many occasions. This is borrowed with credit from Warren Ellis, who coined the phrase, and thus has created and sells the shirt seen in the photos. I also have a Warren Ellis category as he's one of my favorite authors. He calls for prescriptions from Doctor Whisky all the time.

Wikipedia is not a bad place to start to educate yourself about whisky (or whiskey) if such is your desire.

The Whisky entry is valuable as is the Scotch Whisky entry and there are many more pages accessible from those two.

I have not been a lifelong whisky drinker. This is a relatively new thing. I preferred vodka and gin in my college days and for my period of drowning in my cups from around 2000 through 2005, a time during which I favored the flavored vodkas and 7Up or Sprite as a nightly beverage, something my doctor urged me to cease and desist when it seemed like I was destroying my liver.

this text appears on the
back of today's shirt
near the collar

Whisky hit my radar because of Warren Ellis and his frequent prescriptions from Doctor Whisky sent via Twitter and/or posted to his website, WARREN ELLIS. It is fitting that my wife gifts my whisky because there's history to our whisky sharing. In our first outing, after her then boyfriend John's improvisation group performance -- Some Kind of Pretty Woman -- we all set to drinking at Kalamazoo's London Grille pub. We shared a whisky flight, a sampler of several single malt scotches assembled by good friend Jeremiah "Miah" Newhouse, who was the manager at the time and a serious whisky connoisseur. This is not the first date for Liesel and me, but it was our first sharing of uisge beatha, the water of life. I began sampling scotch more often, and now it's my alcohol drink of choice along with Irish Whiskey and Bourbon.

Though I plan to share some reviews of movies, books, and comic books today, I am not going to share much in the way of whisky reviews. I do not feel qualified to write about the tastes, and even if I did, I am not home at the moment where I can sample them all. Plus, in the picture above, four of the bottles are finished: Glengoyne, Pig's Nose, McClelland's Lowland, and McClelland's Speyside. Of the scotches, I like the Glenmorangie the best. It was recommended to me by my friend and ultimate teammate Ian T. Smith just two days before I scheduled my surgery and then bought myself a bottle. It's smooth and delicious. I gifted a bottle to my father from Christmas as seen in T-shirt #280. My friend Ed Kenny recommended the Lagavulin, which I like, but its taste is sharper and more medicinal than the Glenmorangie. I bought the Isle of Sky at my father's suggestion, but I prefer the Robert Burns over it, though it is a blend, Of the finished bottles, the GlenGoyne is definitely my favorite, and I will have to get another bottle sometime. I did leave out my bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon, and some others, like Bulleit bourbon, I finished an recycled.



I feel like I am connecting with my Scottish ancestry by drinking scotch, and of course, the pure single malts are the very cream of the scotch crop.

I love that scotch whisky has a legal definition, which I think bears repeating from the Wiki entry.

Legal definition

As of 23 November 2009, the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 (SWR) define and regulate the production, labeling, packaging as well as the advertising of Scotch whisky in the United Kingdom. They replace previous regulations that focused solely on production. International trade agreements have the effect of making some provisions of the SWR apply in various other countries as well as in the UK. The SWR define "Scotch whisky" as whisky that is:

• Produced at a distillery in Scotland from water and malted barley (to which only whole grains of other cereals may be added) all of which have been:
• Processed at that distillery into a mash
• Converted at that distillery to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems
• Fermented at that distillery only by adding yeast
• Distilled at an alcoholic strength by volume of less than 94.8% (190 US proof)
• Wholly matured in an excise warehouse in Scotland in oak casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 litres (185 US gal; 154 imp gal) for at least three years
• Retaining the colour, aroma, and taste of the raw materials used in, and the method of, its production and maturation
• Containing no added substances, other than water and plain (E150A) caramel colouring
• Comprising a minimum alcoholic strength by volume of 40% (80 US proof)

Historically, Scotch whisky evolved from a Scottish drink called uisge beatha, which means "lively water" or "water of life." The earliest record of distillation in Scotland occurred as long ago as 1494. Distillation was well-established by the late 15th century (as cribbed from the Wiki entry).

These words are true.

Try scotch. Keep a bottle or twelve on hand. Sample frequently. Drinking scotch is health-smart. This advice would be an addition to the Rules of Chris. Heed the prescriptions of Doctor Whisky. DRINK SCOTCH.

A TASTY BIT OF BLOG RECAP

As a point of order, I wan to share with you my list of other Blogger blogs that I follow, soon to contain one more as a friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous until I have his permission to reveal his work, is creating his own blog and claims to be inspired by me, for which I am very honored. Here's the list of blogs I follow on Blogger in case you care to investigate:

adrian tomine news
Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!
DAMN Good Coffee...and HOT!
Diversions of the Groovy Kind
I Am Walter
lieseltower
life and opinions of andrew rilstone
Linda Dick's Inkblot365
Lit and Life
Maira's Books
No Hurry in J.C.
Pencil Ink comic book artists blog 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
Pulp Sunday
Retreat To Write - A Writer's Retreat
That'll Do
The Aquaman Shrine
To Read it? Or NOT!

As for my own blog, my page views have spiked near 100 or over three times in the last week. Thank you for your interest. The Hogwart's and thirtysomething posts are neck and neck for most popular this week followed by the posts from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the various Marvel heroes post (though so far no one has helped identify the heroes on the t-shirt). The volcano post continues to be the top post for the month, and though I copied similar content from the overview for Spamalot to see if I could replicate the results, the latter is not generating as many page hits. There's something in the volcano post, which I could identify it. The Spamalot post comes in second, followed by the Serenity/Firefly post, the Starman post, and just now, the Hogwart's post. The all time list remains the same since the last time I reported.

The Blog Journey goes ever onward as I discover new things about myself, reconnect with old things, and clarify those things that are important to me, like whisky, comic books, and the love of my wife and family. If the blog has done nothing else, and it has done a great deal and so many things, it has helped me to define who I am, who I have always been, who I was at different times and have given away those masks and identities, and who I will be going forward. There's still more work to do on my process of individuation, but with good whisky, good books, good comic books, and great love, I will figure it all out and report with WAY TOO MUCH text about on these pages. As always, thank you for reading.

REVIEWS

I always have such ambitions, and then I just cannot meet my own expectations. Still I want to jot down some quickie reviews, but there's more in my stack, and I won't get to everything, so check back throughout the week.

Pick and choose as you will because all my reviews contain spoilers. Beware and skip if you do not want plot surprises spoiled.

First up, my review of Dune Messiah. I read this long ago, while in high school, and I copied my entire page with the review from Good Reads (seen below). I re-read the book via the audio edition narrated By Scott Brick, Katherine Kellgren, Euan Morton, and Simon Vance and running a brief 8 hours and 57 minutes. I am now on the version of A Christmas Carol narrated by famed Harry Potter audio book narrator Jim Dale. I passed over many versions (Patrick Stewart, Tim Curry) for Jim Dale, who I find excellent but also familiar and comforting as I have listened to the Harry Potter books so many times. I will move on to the third Dune book, Children of Dune, some time soon, though I was not wholly enthusiastic about Dune Messiah.

MOVIES - Liesel and I did something unusual, for us at least, Friday and Saturday just passed (December 27th and 28th), we went to two movies, one each day, trying Kalamazoo's new Alamo Drafthouse. We saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and American Hustle. As movies go, despite my love for Tolkien, I think the latter is a better movie. I really enjoyed the Hobbit, and I am eager to see it again and see the first one again as well, but American Hustle is a better movie in terms of acting, directing, and as an organic whole. Or maybe I just think this because I did not know what was going to happen, where with the Hobbit, despite the additions, I knew the story very well.



I know that many geek purists do not like the changes to The Hobbit, but I do like them. Tauriel is a great character and a much needed female character. The use of the orcs in pursuit of the dwarven party is a good addition as are Legolas and Tauriel to aid the dwarves. The pursuing orcs, which were not pursuing in the novel, also tie in well with Gandalf's investigations of the Necromancer and Dol Goldur in the south, a story told in the Lord of the Rings as happening around the time The Hobbit takes place. So to see all of this dramatized is very gratifying for Tolkien fans or at least this one.

I expected this Hobbit movie to end before Smaug's death, saving the slaying of the dragon and the last big battle, which is resolved very quickly in the book, for the third movie.

American Hustle is a great story of con artists in the late 1970s disco era with excellent performances by a high octane cast as seen in the poster above and left. I did not even recognize Jennifer Lawrence until half way through the film. Fantastic story, fantastic acting, great directing, and a wonderful twist ending. The story is plausible and true to the time period. It is also suitably long clocking in at a little over two and a half hours.

It's also wonderful to see movies at the Alamo Drafthouse. Not only are we supporting local, downtown Kalamazoo business, but I like being able to eat and drink good food and beverages while watching a movie in relative comfort. I also like the attention to detail in the pre-film trailers and clips from vintage film and television as well as the obvious love of the ownership for movies as a genre. There's some nice paintings with homages to classic films in the lobby, some old movie posters, and a giant Barbarella display.

The next two reviews are from Good Reads.

EAST OF WEST volume one review

Once again, I fall prey to the recommendations of the employees of Fanfare. This one from Andrew Boehme. I really liked it, but I hesitate to give it five stars. It's good, but it's not great. There's something missing, and it will take more thought on my part to figure out what is missing. But it's very good stuff. Great writing (Hickman), great art (Dragotta/Martin). I highly recommend it for people who like apocalyptic, Judeo-Christian tweaked alternate histories. Back story. Character. Premise. There's elements missing in these aspects. In a comic book, like a novel, but more forgivable due to its genre, these completions and connections may be forthcoming in future issues. This is an enjoyable read, but I am left a teensy-bit dissatisfied.

NOTE: I was going to deliver an extended review of East of West here, explaining many of the comments I make in the text above, but my content is growing over long. Expect more on East of West, The Hive, and God is Dead in future blogs, possibly as soon as tomorrow.

THE HIVE REVIEW

Charles Burns is a genius. Black Hole ranks highly on my list of favorite comics. Apparently, I got a bit turned around as I just read this volume because Liesel gave it to me for Christmas without reading the first volume Xed Out. Still, Burns is amazing in his merging of story lines, fantasy and reality, creepy and sweet. If anything captures the spirit of a nightmare, which is more complex than being simply horrific, it's this volume.

I included a couple of pages below. ADULT MATERIAL! :-) But then I figure that most if not all of my readers are adults.

Burns' renderings of the girl, Sarah, are very lovely. But even in the "normal" sequences, there's a strange nightmarish quality. Notice the other pedestrians, especially panel #5 of the page below, which is an odd shot between other people with non-story characters in the foreground. This comic is very much worth reading as is Black Hole.

GOD IS DEAD

Read this last night and loved it. More to come in a future blog.

Jonathan Hickman Talks Infinity, Thanos And God Is Dead




COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 81 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.30 - 14:05

T-shirt #283 - Hogwart's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry

T-shirt #283 - Hogwart's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry
Subtitled: How Harry Potter books saved my life - dedicated to my mother, Marjorie (Delbridge) Tower

Harry Potter saved my life.

No kidding. There's a story here, but first some shirt background. When I started this blog, I did not own any Harry Potter T-shirts. Nor did I own any shirts featuring Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, or The Songs of Ice and Fire. I must confess that if I am listing favorite things, I am still without shirts featuring Lord of the Rings or anything Tolkien, Asteroids the arcade game, or Harry Houdini. However, I am proud to say I now own THREE Harry Potter shirts, two Star Wars shirts, one Planet of the Apes shirt, and two shirts for the Songs of Ice and Fire. So, since I have two more Harry Potter shirts to share, this post will be short on Harry Potter content. After the story of how Harry Potter saved my life and a few fun facts, I was going to share some more reviews of books, movies, and comic books, but I will save these for another day, spread them out throughout the week. Today's story will be content enough.

What else do I have to do to fill up my days? And it's (writing the blog) fun for me. I hope you find it fun for you, too.

Okay, onto my story of how Harry Potter saved my life.

Though Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published in 1997, I did not discover the books until March of 2000. I was visiting my friend Tom in Connecticut where he lived at the time, and we were in a mall. I saw a display of the Harry Potter books published so far, at that time, the first three, and I remarked on the elaborate window display for a book series I had not heard of. Tom emphasized that he and his family had found them delightful, and I should read them. It turns out that at the same time my mother bought all three of these books for my cousin Julieanna as a gift. When I returned home from my vacation, the books were sitting out in a neat stack on the big counter in our dining room, awaiting the time my mother would wrap, package, and mail them to my cousin.

Normal procrastination was not causing my mother's delay. She was ill. When I returned home from my vacation, my mother had recently been to the ER with intense pain in her head, not like a headache, but in the back of her skull. She was sent home with pain drugs and an appointment for an MRI. If we had only understood what was happening to her. If the doctors who had seen her originally had only run the right tests. We always knew my mother was sensitive to pain drugs, so when she started having trouble moving, so much so that the stairs from the first floor to the bedroom were too much for her and we set up a recliner in the dining room for her, we chalked it all up to sensitivity to pain medications. When she was unconscious for most of the day, I finally asked if this could be due to some other cause. In other words, as outside observers, what would be the different between a coma due to some other cause and a drug-induced coma?

By the time we called for an ambulance, it was almost too late. My mother stopped breathing on the way to the hospital, her heart stopped, and the ambulance had to pull over so she could be revived.

She had bacterial meningitis and it was killing her.

She was in a coma for 11 days. Eventually, we had doctors perform surgery to drain an abscess and to repair damage to her spine. She spent three months in Bronson's ICU and three months in Mary Free Bed before she returned home.

Her illness forever changed our lives. Those were dark days in March of 2000. We almost lost her. I saw my father cry for (until then) only the second time in my life.

So what does this have to do with Harry Potter?

Well, if my mom had been well and awake, she would not have let me read those Harry Potter books sitting out and awaiting shipment to my cousin. But she was in a coma. And I needed something to distract me from the worst family tragedy of our lives. So, I removed the dust jackets from the hard covers and read the books while holding our hospital vigil. I also spent a lot of time talking to other people holding vigil, such as the daughter of a man who is now a life (for the rest of it, that is) long friend of mine and especially my father's: Dallyn Hoffman. His daughter was also reading those books while holding vigil for her mother, whose Lupus finally caught up with her. I can only hope that the Harry Potter books brought her as much solace and enjoyment during that terrible time as they did for me. My mother survived; hers did not.

Though my mother regained the ability to walk in limited capacity and only with help, the bacterial meningitis mostly paralyzed her. She has needed total care since 2000. She cannot dress herself. She has an in dwelling catheter because she cannot go to the bathroom for herself. And the brain damage is slowly catching up with her. Mini-strokes, scar tissue, and advancing palsy conditions are slowly robbing her of her ability to speak clearly and to feed herself. We constantly fear urinary tract infections and aspirating Pneumonia. And yet, my mother is very tough. She has survived thirteen going on fourteen years post-meningitis. The illness forever changed our family, but if there is any silver lining, and there is not really, it's that my family is much closer than we had been before this happened to my mother. And though she lost the use of her left arm and mostly lost the use of her legs, and though her health is compromised, she has had a very good life in many ways since the illness, and she could live for many more years to come. My father has shown himself to be an incredible care giver. I am amazed at what he does. Truly incredible.

Since those dark days of 2000, I have read all the Harry Potter books at least twice each and listened to the fantastic audio books narrated by Jim Dale multiple times. My favorite book of those first three is The Prisoner of Azkaban, and my favorite book of the set is The Order of the Phoenix. I have not yet seen the second half of the Deathly Hallows. More on this in a future post.

To conclude, those who are interested, and to make it all public record, I will present an edited version of the story of my mother's illness communicated in email reports that I wrote to share with loved ones while she was hospitalized.

STORY OF MY MOTHER'S BACTERIAL MENINGITIS
Here's the story cribbed from those emails from 2000. I added various pictures from before and after the meningitis. There are also two pictures of me with my mom in t-shirts I have not yet featured. Can you spot them?

MARJORIE TOWER STATUS-ICU DAY 05 - We took her to the ER last Tuesday (3/7) after she had passed out. She stopped breathing on the way to the hospital and then shortly thereafter her heart stopped. They revived her. She had another major cardiac arrest on 3/8 and some "funny heart rhythms" the next day.

She has bacterial meningitis and bacterial pneumonia.

This all began on 2/26 while I was in Connecticut. She woke on 2/26 with extreme neck and back pain, which is not unusual for her given her chronic problems int hat area. She cried in pain all night on 2/26, Saturday. Sunday morning, my Dad and sister took her to ER and after x-rays the docs diagnosed her with a herniated disk, gave her some very heavy duty pain meds (Lortab 10s) and sent her home. After 21 Lortabs in 4 days my mother was in what our family calls "Zu Zu Land" -- hallucinating. This was no surprise to us as even Valium puts my mother practically in a coma.

They took her off the pain meds and slowly she became more and more lucid. But she was still too weak to move about the house without assistance and had double vision and motor control problems so severe that she had to be fed. We all believed this to be the residual effects of pain medication and her reaction to it. I am still in Connecticut. Trying to return her to normal, Lori and Dad start giving her the bazillion pills she takes each day for her bazillion health issues.  When I returned from CT, my mother still seemed REALLY out of it. She was falling asleep while eating or brushing her teeth or on the toilet and she still had severe motor control problems though her lucidity was all right. She seemed to fade in and out of Zu Zu Land now and confuse her dreams with reality, which again we figured to be the pain meds thing. While I was gone she had an MRI and saw her primary care physician.

Mom at Richland Art Fair

Monday (3/6) we gave her Norflex, a muscle relaxer she takes for arthritis. She returned to Zu Zu Land BIG TIME. So we took her off the Norflex and Monday night, really late, she insisted that we all be gathered together and gave us this speech about how sick she was and how we had to love each other and love her and how she needed our support, and how she was going to get better. She made it sound like she was worried that she was dying as she had been a lot with all sorts of questions about Lori's boyfriend and stuff that made it seem as if she was making sure everyone was all right in case she checked out. We still believed it was pain meds.

Tuesday (3/7) she seemed all right though still weak. We should have realized that how she was having trouble moving and using her left arm WAS NOT something that a reaction to pain meds would cause nor was her FEVER and a million other things. (Like I had to make a sign for her so she could remember what day it was.) Tuesday night while I was in class (6-ish), she passed out while on the toilet. My father carried her to the easy boy chair we had been using for her and she did not move for several hours. When I came home about 9:30, we began to discuss what to do. When we couldn't wake her, we called 911. The paramedics found her blood pressure to be normal. On the way to the hospital, she almost died and then she almost died again in the ER as I wrote initially etc. etc. Once they finally got her stabilized on Friday, after over 24 hours with no "funny heart rhythms," they felt they could disconnect her from the monitors, respirators, etc. long enough to do an MRI to learn all sorts of things. The MRI was normal. The blood vessels to the brain are all open. There is no sign of brain stem injury. No sign of stroke. etc. etc.

She should wake up. This may take many days as meningitis causes swelling to the brain and she may have had it since 2/26!! She started receiving antibiotics in the ER on 3/7 but none for bacterial meningitis specifically until spinal fluid analysis proved that's what it was on Thursday morning (3/9). Until she wakes up we will not know more. There still could be some brain damage. She still could be paralyzed. Some of the problems might only be temporary and "overcomeable." We just don't know. She has not made very many voluntary movements since she passed out on 3/7. She has some reflexive movements, though not enough.

 Apparently involuntary reflexive movements are not proof of no paralysis.
So we're waiting. Spending all sorts of time in the ICU waiting room. We are usually home by midnight and then leave by 8:30-10ish in the a.m.  It's a very very very difficult time. I have never been so scared in my entire life. I would trade places with her in a heartbeat. I just feel so helpless. Please do what you do in terms of prayer, good energy, whatever. I have been told that actually scientific studies have proven that the more prayers that are said for an ill person the quicker and better he/she heals. Doesn't matter who prays, to whom, how, whatever. Please, do what you do. love, chris

"if you lose your faith, babe, you can have mine
if you're lost, I am right behind
because we walk the same line."
-- Everything But the Girl "We Walk the Same Line" _Amplified Heart_

MARJORIE TOWER STATUS-ICU DAY 12

My mom is better and awake and improving.

Thursday the docs did an MRI and found two infected areas that they suspected were abscesses. If they were abscesses, they had to be drained surgically since they are walled off areas of infected stuff (pus) antibiotics would not reach them. However, if these areas were not abscesses but what one doc called "angry tissue" (IE. infected) then antibiotics would reduce their size and inflammation and so on. That's the best they can tell with the MRI. One was located in the throat, behind the pharynx, a retro-pharyngeal abscess (or not an abscess). The other is in the back of the neck in the top bones and vertebrae of the spine. The vertebrae disks and ligaments there are definitely infected and all but destroyed by infection, the bones are very very weakened.

The docs seemed pretty certain that the throat one was indeed an abscess, and so we okayed surgery for Thursday night. And yes, it was! An abscess full of pus. The doc drained it.

The next morning my mother woke up.

At first we did not know if she was 100% awake-aware. She still couldn't move. She mostly just had the left eye open and only opened the right once in a while and then only slightly. But later in the day and definitely Saturday, she was awake-aware, nodding in response to questions. She can't talk because of the breathing tube. Saturday, we were also concerned that she could not close her left eye because she still has some swelling because of all the fluids in her system.
Finally, last night, Saturday night, she managed to close both eyes and was obviously sleeping peacefully.

Today, Sunday, the neurologist saw her open and close both eyes voluntarily and wiggle toes voluntarily. Still no ability to squeeze hands with fingers or move arms, but these abilities may come back slowly. The neurologist was also pleased to see increased brain activity in an EEG they gave her Friday.

Part of her continued neurological problems could be caused by the infected area in the back of her neck. This infected area, be it tissue or abscess, is definitely putting pressure on her spinal cord and thus may be impairing her motor control from the neck down....though not the toes, for some reason. ;-)

My family has a giant decision to make. Surgery. An MRI yesterday showed whatever it is in her neck is not getting bigger or smaller. We had hoped that if an abscess, it was connected to the other abscess and would drain when that first one was drained. This is probably not happening. Taking pressure off the spine will help her to improve neurologically. And with the deterioration of bone and ligament and vertebrae there, she may need surgery eventually anyway to have any kind of control over her neck. But should she have it now or later? If that is an abscess back there, then she should have it now. If it's infected tissue, probably a little later, but not too much later. Tough choices. We will look at another MRI probably Tuesday and decide.

Still it's a long haul. We have to be happy with tiny little minor progress every day. We are keeping a constant vigil in the room and cheering my mother with stories and our love. But still it's a difficult time. Difficult to focus or work, though my father and I have managed to do some work...

Mom had the surgery Tuesday March 21st starting at about 2:30 p.m. I watched her fave soaps with her and then they took her down. First she was getting a trachea tube for the breathing machine to get the tubes out of her mouth, prevent further damage to the vocal cords, begin healing the sores on her lips, and to just make her more comfortable. When the ENT doc did the trach, he also drained her sinuses. All went fine. Then Hopkins did the neck surgery, taking off three and a half of the shell bones (2,3,4, and half of 5) in her back that protect the vertebrae and spinal cord. Two of these bones were "mushy," he said, from the infection. We've been trying to guess from that comment how long she many have had the infection, but it's hard to guess. There wasn't much pus in the abscess there, and so maybe most of it drained out the front. There was a lot of infected tissue, and so Hopkins cleaned out in there and sampled some for a culture. The whole process took several hours and Mom did not return to the ICU until 7:30-8-ish. Hopkins said the whole thing went swimmingly. She has stainless steel staples in the back of her very upper neck and had a drain for a while, but they took that out when no more pus drained. She now has a tube into her stomach and so has no tubes in her mouth. She woke right after the surgery and has been pretty awake and alert since then, except when too doped out on morphine or Benadryll, which they were giving her for a rash.

She can't nod to us anymore as she is in a halo collar, which she will have to wear for at least six weeks if not much longer. She may also require extra surgery to fuse cartilage (sp?) in her neck and to remove those bone spurs.

As of today, Sunday, 3/26, she started grimacing when Dad squeezed her hands, which is an EXCELLENT sign that feeling is returning to her arms and that she may move them soon. Rah rah!! ;-)

MARJORIE TOWER STATUS-ICU DAY 26

She continues to have feeling in her arms and has pain when you squeeze her too hard there. The blood pressure cuff that tightens hourly for a reading also causes her discomfort. But she's hanging in there. Still no voluntary movements in arms or legs but that will come in time, we hope and believe. Her vitals all look good. The feeling in her arms and legs makes us very hopeful that she will have fully restored movement and access to her limbs after much physical therapy. Her breaths have been reduced to four/minute and she's on 20-21% oxygen, which is room level, normal oxygen (what we breathe). We want her stepped down to two breaths/minute and thereafter none for an experimental time. That's what they do, I guess. They just shut off the breath machine and she breathes on her own without knowing that she's doing so. I mean, you don't have to be told to breathe. We had hoped they would do this yesterday, kind of a neat April Fool's trick. And if it was up to us or the respiratory therapists, it would have been done. The docs and nurses are FAR TOO cautious in this regard, IMHO. We plan to start making some noise if they have not stepped her down by Tuesday. The breath machine will not go away completely. So as not to stress her, they will keep it there and use it intermittently, work her back slowly to breathing on her own 24 hours a day. The good news is that she will be able to talk after her vocal cords heal (if they are swollen or bruised, we don't know). She may talk right away.

My sister's wedding.
There's my cousin whose Harry Potter
books helped me survive.
Yes, I sent them to her when I
was done with them.

Her other vitals, such blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar, electrolytes are all great. The swelling has all come down and she looks pretty much normal. The sores around her mouth are healing rapidly, and she had an enormous bowel movement Friday, her first for the week, I believe, or at least since Monday- Tuesday. She's on 30 CCs of the Impact Two food solution and they have stepped down her TPN, which is some kind of blood sugar- glucose type goop, I think. Forgive me for not knowing ALL the details. ;-)

I have theorized that up until maybe Tuesday or Wednesday of this last week she has not been 100% conscious. I think that before her surgery she was not all the way awake. She seemed to nod distantly and her eyes did not look very alert. She still had all that infected gunk in her system and her spinal cord was under pressure, so that's no surprise. But we think she is getting better and better. She usually hates it when we have to leave for the night. But we have started to read a book to her. This is a book by a fave author of hers and is a book she anxiously awaited for a year. She received it as a gift for Christmas but hadn't finished it yet since she never takes time for herself to do things like that, like reading, which she enjoys so much. We may end up reading it more than once, as we don't know if she is always conscious, but I don't care. Anything to cheer her up.

"if you lose your faith, babe, you can have mineif you're lost, I am right behindbecause we walk the same line."-- Everything But the Girl "We Walk the Same Line" _Amplified Heart_

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR  - 82 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.29 - 11:54