With a fresh Pepsi in hand, Absalom took a deep breath and began his tale.

“We’d been tryin’ to get home for ages, and we were all in rough shape. Beat-up. Hungover. Outta gas. And hungry, to boot! There wasn’t no way we’d be able to travel through the night. So I had to call in a favor to woman I’d’ve rather not ever seen again.”

“Waitta second,” interjected the Pie-Eyed intern, sole audience member of this performance, “whereyou says you comed from? Why’s you away inna furs-place?”

“Ah, yes. It’s a long story. But in short, this guy I knew – friend-of-a-friend sort of thing – was all sorts of salty `bout his ex-girlfriend bein’ with another man. So, he assembled a crew to travel `cross a bunch of states and win her back. With nothin’ to do but sit around drinkin’ beers and readin’ science fiction, I volunteered for what I’d assumed would be a grand adventure.”

“Wuzzit?”

“You’re goddamned right it was! I don’t think I’ll ever see nothin’ more glorious than a midnight fist-fight in a donut shop – everything blurrin’ together in a wash of neon light and black coffee and red blood!”

Absalom seized a moment to swish cola across his gums and crack his knuckles, like hitting the reset button on a broken-bodied Storyteller Machine. He flagged down the bartender and re-upped Pie-Eyed’s drink.

“Phanks man, but I dunno if I needa ‘nother.”

“Kid, it ain’t `bout need! Hell, ain’t no needs bein’ met in this entire bar! This place is `bout the Tapioca Populace foolin’ themselves into believin’ that they can even conjure up the notion of danger or excitement or novelty! So drink your drink!”

Pie-Eyed obeyed and Absalom continued.

“So anyways, after spillin’ teeth in the donut shop we attracted some attention, so we had to scram. Hightailin’ it out, we got ourselves into all sorts of trouble. Drinkin’ and fornicatin’ and fightin’. Glorious!  But before y’knew it, a three-day drive had mutated into two weeks. Two goddamn weeks.”

“Thazz,” Pie-Eyed slurred and sipped and slurred, “thazz crazy. Whattya do?”

“Well, with the gas-gauge on E, the backseat-keg on its last pint, and the paper absent from our wallets, I decided to rely on the generosity of Susy.”

“Who’s Susy?”

“Susy,” Absalom paused to take a rip of Pepsi and stare into the middle distance, “Susy’s a goddamn witch.”

—-

Come one, come all! This here’s the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! What’s that, you ask? Well, once a week Spaceship OL has to touch down on a nearby moon or satellite-weigh station for refueling purposes. During this time, I share the upcoming itinerary with the crew, detailing the means by which I’ll be navigating our rusty pop-culture mind-vessel through the Omniverse. After sharing my plans, the floor is opened up and everyone is encouraged to share their prospective space-maps.

In other words, we nerd out about the various ways we’ll be entertaining ourselves.

Let’s do the damn thing!

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Like OL magistrate and chief jester Caffeine Powered, 2013 was a bit of a banner year for me. Overwhelming change in my personal life — from a return to postgraduate education, to a complete re-invention of my career and life direction, to the advent of a serious, life-changing relationship — it’s been a year of serious upheaval for me, and one that I now realize deeply affected the entertainment I enjoyed.

I promise, I ain’t full of shit when I say this – what you do, and who you do it with has a huge effect on what you partake in and what you’re drawn to. My new career has me in Communications and Public Relations. It’s no coincidence then that my great fascination this year in the nerd sphere was the amazing PR landmarks and media fiascos that accompanied the console gaming space. E3 in particular was THE shitshow of 2013, a spectacularly-enjoyable ride for gamers everywhere, and one that meant so much more to me now that my mind was tuned to the Comm/PR-perspective on everything. The way a business conducts itself publicly, the way it announces its products, the way it does damage control – these things fascinate me. They rocked me. I loved every second, and this year more than any, was aware of my own consumer agency as I allowed myself to partake in the stories businesses were trying to weave and tell to their audiences.

Here’s what captured me this year:

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As 2013 comes to a close, I look back on a rather lackluster year for myself.  I feel like I’m standing still, stuck in the mud, and need a kick in the ass to move forward.  While I didn’t hate the year, it will soon be forgotten and added to the long list of unremarkable events that make up my back story when I become a hero lion tamer that moonlights as a vigilante.  Here’s a list of things I might remember from 2013.

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2013 was a bit of a benchmark year for me in the realm of my personal life. Over the course of the last twelve months I have: successfully not shit my pants (time left), moved into my first official apartment with my girlfriend (I was squatting in hers), spent hundreds of dollars on caffeinated products, proposed to said girlfriend and begun planning a wedding, played far too many hours of Borderlands 2, stared at far too many asses on Tumblr, taught my first classes (I love it), and hung with the Gang Omega far too little.

The drawback of a boomin’ personal life is that pop culture has flowed through my brain with far too little interaction this year. What I perceive, I half perceive. What I enjoy is fleeting. Worse still, I’ve ventured very little out of my comfort zone. Indie games, comics, movies, and fetish sites have been largely ignored due to want of time.

As a result, my list is a pedestrian collection of my favorites from a very sad little slice of what arrived onto the scene this past calendar year.

Excelsior.

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Hi kids.  Pull up a chair and grab a juice box, its story time.  I’ll be honest; I don’t really have much of an opinion for this week’s Opinions Vary article.  What I do have is my synopsis for a movie I wrote called Road to the Point.  Road to the Point is an ambitious tale that attempts to chronicle the obvious, but frustratingly untold, story that takes place between the movies Roadhouse and Point Break.   So hit the jump and get a towel ready, I’m about to blow your mind.

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Absalom Fabliaux was halfway done with a breakthrough paragraph when he was interrupted.

“Haythaire, old man! Haythaire! Whatturya doing? Writing a poetry? An’ wireyou dranking Pepsi?”

Although Fabliaux found creative solace in the white-noise of this particular bar, he also knew that it was inevitably accompanied by crescendos of human detritus. Oily Three-Pieces clamoring about the day’s acquisitions. Stock Pirates tryin’ to sandbag tear-floods with shot glasses. Little Black Dresses guffawing their ways into Designer Pants, hoping to find wallets in the process. In this case, a Pie-Eyed Intern intrigued by the sight of an obviously out of place Miscreant drinkin’ Pepsi and punchin’ at a word-processor.

“Searsly, man, whillyu read me a poetry?”

In his younger and more vulnerable years, Absalom might’ve responded with a left hook. He’d had no patience for drunken curiosities. Many a tooth’d been spilled because of some errant remark to which offense’d been taken. This was, most likely, a symptom of the disease known as Self-Loathing, as Señor Fabliaux himself was once known as the most unabashedly drunken, incorrigibly inquisitive writers of his generation.

But with age comes patience, and there ain’t no doubt that Absalom Fabliaux was old as fuck.

“Son, I’m not writing a poem, I’m writing a novel.”

A vapid gaze spread into a smile. Pie-Eyed was excited. “A novel? Like a book?!”

“Exactly.”

“Oh shit! I usedta read books all the time, when I was a liddle kid…I haven’t even thoughta readin’ a book in years.”

Absalom took a hearty rip of refreshing cola. “Well, you should – there ain’t no goddamn experience like sittin’ down with a good book.”

Pie-Eyed’s head lolled from shoulder to shoulder in equal parts intoxication and amazement. This old bastard – who appeared more suited for dock-work or trash-disposal than word-crafting – had reminded him of a lost love. An affinity suppressed. A lust relegated to dreams.

Unprompted, Pie-Eyed leaned forward, tapped Absalom’s temple, and asked, “So, do ya got a good book in there?”

“I don’t know.” After a beat, the writer tapped his left breast, “But in here, I’ve got ex-wives and dead friends and missed opportunities. And there ain’t no ground more fertile for stories than this sort of heaviness.”

“Will…will you tell me about a dead friend?”

“You’re goddamn right I will. Barkeep! I need another Pepsi over here!”

—-

Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! As the navigator of Spaceship OL, I’m goin’ to chart an itinerary through the Pop-Nonsense Territories. After you check out the destinations I’ll be steering us towards this week, it’s up to you to hit up the comments section — where’ll you be heading this week? Comic Book Station? The TV Armory? The Cinema Sand Dunes?

In other words, it’s a show-and-tell danceathon for the Digital Nerd Crew.

Let’s headspin!

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Admittedly, I don’t get out much.  More often than not I can be found in the bowels of Spaceship Omega, hiberbating in my nanotumblr chrysalis-tomb, forever scrolling through pictures of Kate Upton and 80’s pop-culture ephemera.  Time well spent, to be sure, but it also keeps me well behind the game – the game in this instance being knowledge of all the greatest media the current year in pop culture has to offer.  Oh sure, I know about the Sagas, Infinities, Prophets, and X-Menonites, they big guys, but what have I let slip through the cracks?  What great funnybooks have I failed to verse myself in, and in turn, failed bringing to you guys?  These past couple weeks I’ve shed the nano-skin, hopped in actual clothing and went outside to the local brick and mortar to find some of the best and brightest books I was missing out on in 2013.  Wanna know what I found?  Hit the jump and read on, kids!

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Seven days left, ya’ll!  You feelin’ it?  Merry X-Mens is right around the corner, and the search for gifts, trimming of trees, all that goofy shit is reaching a fever pitch.  Me?  No X-Mens Spirit yet, folks, I gotta be up front.  Ol’ Hotsauce is workin’ like crazy and is bone-weary.  But I’m getting there.  It helps when I get to kick back and relax, catch up on the tv I’ve had to ignore, and dive into the ever-growing “To Read” funnybook stack.  That stack grows considerably larger this week as a truckload of my very favorite books drop.  It’s like Kris Kringle, even knowing full damned well I’ve never been on the NICE list, is still looking out for me.  Hit the jump and see what books have caught my eye and belong in stockings across the globe (note:  do not actually put a comic book into a comic book fan’s stocking – don’t fuck up the CGC value plzzzzz), and make sure to tell us what books you want wrapped, bagged, and boarded under YOUR tree.  For those of you reading that don’t celebrate X-Mens, you should be ashamed.  Very un-American of you.  Xavier died for all of our sins, and his birthday should be kept holy.

On to the books!

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Absalom Fabliaux had drained fifteen Pepsi-Colas and he felt like a goddamn king.

Sitting in the bar for the better part of four hours, Absalom whittled away at a couple of chapters, clickety-clackin’ at his keyboard with little regard for his surroundings. Smarmy suits and slicked-back trustfunds poured shots into the fertile secretaries that’d someday be their suburban broodmares. Y’know, after accounts were conquered and four-oh-one-kays secured and dividends divided. The digital music lasered its way into their brains, encouraging the Vanilla Paste People to strut their stuff.

And still, Absalom forged ahead, undeterred.

His writer-comrades didn’t understand why he’d write in the midst of such chaos. Unlike him, they flocked to their studies and libraries and offices and espresso bars. But Absalom Fabliaux never found himself more distracted than when he tried to work in such venues. To him, these places were the domiciles of good — silence and thought and books, which contain no little amount of that stuff called the Incredible. And, of course, coffee.

Absalom Fabliaux could never count on making a deadline if he set up shop in a Den of Wonder.

His office? An upscale bar in the financial district. His workday? Happy hour until close. In the eye of the storm, Absalom Fabliaux knew he’d get work done. Zero temptation to talk to anyone. A consistent environment, day-in and day-out. With the rot in his periphery, he had just enough white noise to fuel his words. And to top it all off, the place served glass-bottle Pepsis.

As he requested another, Absalom chuckled to himself. “I’ll be goddamned if I’m not the only bastard who should’ve been cut off but ain’t.”

Absalom Fabliaux had drained sixteen Pepsi-Colas and he knew himself to be a goddamn king.

This is the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! First, I spew words at you in the form of a short story or vomit-essay. Then, I show you the entertainment-debris I’ll be rummaging through in the next days. Lastly, you hit up the comments section and tell everyone what you’ll be doin’ to get through the week.

Rock and roll, baby!

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Although it is oftentimes bogged down by its own insular squabbling on this planet, humankind has a fascinating propensity to be open-minded about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere. The unbelievable vastness of the universe coupled with the strangeness of our potentially singular existence within it seems to make many hesitant to commit to the conviction that we are alone. Rather, it’s more understandable to long for others to be with us. After all, if there’s a whole lot of life here, then surely it can conceivably happen somewhere else. And while some believe that here and elsewhere have already mixed and intelligent life forms have visited from afar to our pale blue dot, most supporters hold that there’s a better chance that aliens exist just outside our celestial periphery and will continue to do so until a future time when, with the assistance of technological and even social advancements, we might at last meet. But even without the realistic prospects of such a superior tomorrow in our sight, there remains a genuine willingness to take the necessary steps to get there, to reach out in the hope that we can commence a cosmic dialogue with anyone or anything that might be receptive to a human how-do-you-do.

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