Forcery turns twenty!

Things like this usually doesn't go past my notice.  Guess I've been so occupied with other stuff lately.  But yesterday was the anniversary of something very special and I need to make a note of it...

May 25th, 2025 is the twentieth anniversary of my... or rather I should say our... first motion picture, Forcery.  An almost hour-long parody of Rob Reiner's film adaption of the Stephen King novel Misery.  Forcery depicts Star Wars creator George Lucas, hot off of finishing the script for Episode III, being rescued from certain death by his "number one fan" Frannie Filks.  It's not long before Lucas, who used to create Star Wars for a living, is now making it to stay alive.

This was an idea that hit me about a week and a half before 9/11.  Indeed, I started writing the screenplay (though I had no idea HOW to really go about doing that) on the night before the attacks.  I knew nothing about filmmaking at all.  But I began learning everything that I could about it.  I read, studied, watched how-to videos, got really good at scriptwriting and lighting and editing and whatnot.  Most of all I learned anew how to work with people and collaborate with them on a project.  It's amazing how so many good people came together to work on this.  Forcery is a monument to them and their sacrifices toward making this dream into a reality, and I'll forever be thankful to them.

In the end, our movie was finished, just in time for Revenge of the Sith being out in theaters.  And it's gotten some appreciation over the years.  "Weird Al" Yankovic saw it and told us "Nice job!"  Then it wounded up being featured a lot in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas.  But I'm especially fond of all the good word that has come from Star Wars fans who've watched and enjoyed it.  I think Melody Daniel - who plays Frannie in Forcery - is quite fond of all the guys who have said they  like her especially.  I'm going to be forever indebted to Melody.  She brought a LOT of knowledge and wisdom (and patience) to the set and it would have been a far lesser film without her being there.  Ed Woody, my college roomie from Elon, came up with the portable greenscreen and the "nine dollar dolly" and a lot of other inventions used in production.  And of course there is Chad Austin, my best friend since third grade, who absolutely rocked it as George Lucas.  I told him he could do this and he delivered magnificently.  And there were many others also, who believed in this project and helped it come into being.

Well, you can read more about it on the Forcery page that's on this site.  If you've never watched it before you can click on that link and then watch the original on Google Drive.  Or you can watch it here courtesy of YouTube.

Thank you to everyone who in the past two decades has watched Forcery and took the time to tell us that they enjoyed it.  We had fun making it for you :-)

(And to George Lucas, Stephen King, Rob Reiner, and the estate of Slim Whitman: thank you for not suing us!!)

Note: The top image was made by feeding the original poster for Forcery - which did not depict anyone - into ChatGPT and instructing the artificial intelligence to simply produce a cartoon rendering.  And that is what it came up with.  I am STUNNED.  That looks exactly like cartoon versions of Chad and Melody in costume.  I've no idea how the AI knew to do that... but ChatGPT did it!

Dream report: Early morning hours of May 23, 2025

Had a very vivid dream last night.  It's stuck with me all day.  I can't get it out of my head.  Maybe sharing it will let me be free of it.

In my dream, I was in a toy store, a large one like the old Toys R Us.  And I found my way to the aisle that had the Star Wars toys.  I've actually dreamed of that a number of times.  What I do most when I dream of that is look through the massive wall of Star Wars action figures, seeing if there are any that I don't have.  And that's what I did this time, too.

But this time, as I was looking through the pegs holding the figures, I spotted something I'd never seen before.  It was a Star Wars figure totally new to me.  I pulled the figures of the peg that were between me and this new figure.

When I finally had it in my hand, it was a carded action figure of someone who I had loved dearly, and have been unable to stop loving even now.

It looked exactly like her, precisely imitated in plastic and paint.  She looked as she did on Christmas Day many years ago, when I got to her parents' house after I drove fast and got there from Reidsville in five hours, not the usual seven.

It was a Star Wars figure of one of the very few women who God ever brought into my life and I could barely stop looking at it.

It was suddenly the most wonderful, most amazing action figure that I had ever seen and I had to have it.  I was gentle with the carded figure, I wanted it in mint condition.  It was going to get a place of highest honor in my collection.

I took it to the checkout at the front of the store.  I got to the register.  And that's when the cashier told me how much it was and I knew that I didn't have that much.  I had to give it back.  I wasn't able to afford the most precious action figure that I had ever seen.

It went back to the aisle, hanging with the other figures, and I knew it was going to be found by someone who could not only afford her, but was probably better than I could ever be.

I started crying in my dream.  And then I woke up.  And buried my face in my pillow and had to hold back what could have been real tears if the meds I take for manic depression could allow for actual weeping.  I felt sad and a little angry, at myself and at God.  I kept thinking of how broken I am.  Broken in mind, in spirit, and too many times in faith.

It seems that my dreams are all broken too, in all the ways that they can be.

So much symbolism in that dream that I'm realizing since having it, about 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time this morning.  And none of it less than haunting.

Well, that's what it was.  A nice dream about a pleasure from childhood and much of the rest of my life even.  That turned into a heartbreaker that has plagued my waking hours all day.

Maybe with it out of my head, it can not have any further power over me.  I'd like to salvage something better out of this afternoon and evening.

Putting Tammy into AI

Yesterday a couple of dachshunds I follow on Facebook (the inimitable Barney and Fred) posted some pics of themselves that their "pawrents" had rendered by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence system.  It made me curious about how my own little girl Tammy would do.

If you use the free version of ChatGPT it limits you to three renderings a day.  Here is what it generated this morning...

I have no idea why the AI put a glass of iced tea into that last one.  It does make Tammy look like a proper southern lady though :-)

EDIT 05/24/2025: Here's another cartoon rendering of Tammy:

Just hitting the Intertubes: Trailers for Superman and second season of Fallout!

A couple of things went online today that I've watch a few times.  I've got a good feeling about both of these.

First, it's the first trailer for the second season of Amazon's  Fallout series.  As a die-hard fan of the Fallout games I absolutely loved the first season.  They completely nailed the look and feel of the franchise.  It was an astounding surprise that throughly delighted me.  Season two debuts in December, which may be a busy month for streaming if the final volume of Stranger Things comes out then also (as many are speculating).

So here's the trailer for Fallout season two:

And then there's this: the new (and probably final) trailer for Superman.  This is a project that has gotten me increasingly intrigued with each new spot that's been released.  I think David Corenswet is going to do much as the great Christopher Reeve did in the role: making Superman and Clark Kent two entirely separate personas in the eyes of the world.  Reeve's portrayal is the platinum standard of that and Corenswet seems poised to tap into that also.

More than that though, I can't help but believe that this is going to be a movie we need right now.  The idea of Superman being good and upright and moral in a world that has grown cold and jaded and cruel, like ours has become... there is something uplifting about that.  It seems that there are few absolutes on this earth anymore.  A Superman who can inspire us to be our best should be one of them.

I could say a lot more about that, but anyhoo here's the trailer:

Superman flies into theaters on July 11.

The night I tried to call John Paul II

This may or may not be a fun time to share this.  But there's been a lot of good humor about the papacy in the past couple of days (I think the best joke I've heard is that Chicago's NBA team is changing its name to the Papal Bulls) so why not?

Inspired by Steve Jobs (who had tried impersonating Henry Kissinger), in the spring of 1996 I attempted to telephone Pope John Paul the Second.  I had managed to find the number to the Vatican switchboard and so I called it.  I disguised my voice to sound like that of President Bill Clinton.  I told the operator who "I" was and that I had to speak with His Holiness.

Several minutes after being put on hold a gruff-sounding man picked up the line.  He said something in a thick accent and then demanded "Who is this??"

"Sir, I am President Bill Clinton of the United States, and I need to speak with the pope."

"You do not sound like President Clinton.  You should be much ashamed young man!"

The line went dead.

I'll never know how close I was to talking with John Paul II but I like to think that I wasn't too far off 😛

Congratulations to Leo XIV

Cardinal Robert Prevost was announced a little while ago to be the next pope, Leo XIV. 

He's the first American to become pope.  He is also likely the very first person from Chicago elected to office who will end his term without going to jail.

(Oh come on, nothing wrong with a little humor!)

Although I am not a Catholic, I will be praying that Pope Leo XIV will lead his church with wisdom, humbleness, and courage to do right in all things.

May the Fourth be with you!

The past several years have seen my love for the Star Wars saga take some brutal hits, but my love for the original film will forever endure.

Over the decades I've gotten to meet a lot of people from this movie.  Maybe too many than can be readily counted.  For some reason the ones who most come to mind are Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca, and Paul Blake who was Greedo.  A week and a half before 9/11 I had a VERY wild barbecue ribs dinner with Blake.  Quite an interesting chap.  I asked him about what he thought regarding the changes that George Lucas had made to A New Hope with the 1997 "Special Edition", particularly making it so that Greedo opened fire first on Han Solo.  Blake's response was awesome: "I think it's absolutely BOLLOCKS what George did to Greedo!  Why did he do that?!?  Han was perfectly right to shoot Greedo first.  I was holding a gun on him after all.  I just can't understand why George did that!" 

Well, however it is that you choose to celebrate the occasion, May the Fourth be with you :-) 

The power of five words

It's ironic that this pertains to Elon University: the place where my real spiritual journey began while a student there almost thirty years ago.  At the time there was a considerable presence of evangelical Christians there.  There was InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and maybe a hundred people or more came together on Tuesday nights for that.  There were the small groups that met for Bible study and prayer throughout the campus during the week.  Associations like Baptist Student Union flourished.  And if you were a student who was looking for a place of earnest worship there was a church service called Elon Celebration that took place every Sunday morning at Whitley Auditorium.

It's been a long time since I've visited the Elon campus, but I've heard stories.  About how the Christian presence is gone.  Oh, there is some marginal representation, but nothing that gets official recognition from the administration.  For that to happen an organization has to agree to take stances that run fully counter to the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic.  The organizations have to be "affirming": code-talk for "you must be inclusive and endorse the homosexual lifestyle as being compatible with Christianity."

Which is something that no legitimate Christian could possibly ascribe to.

It's been that way at Elon for a long time.  The once-fertile ground for real vigor and diversity and conversation is now spent.  The weeds have chocked off the wheat from taking root.  Until now a school that had once been a place of vibrant exchange of ideas, where we could boldly share about our faiths with abandon, has become a den of radical thought that actively quashes traditional Christianity in every corner it is found on campus.

But I like to think that even in such places, God's word holds power.

Case in point: a little drama that has happened during the past few days on Facebook.  Elon News Network - the conglomeration of Elon's various media, like the newspaper The Pendulum that I wrote for while a student - posted something about a "pride event" honoring the school's commitment to apparently being first and foremost known for harboring fringe sexuality.

I saw the post and casually left a comment.  Five little words.  Verse 18 of chapter 16 of the Book of Proverbs, to be precise.  Here is what I shared:

"Pride goeth before the fall."

That's all that I did.  I merely quoted one of the smaller verses of scripture from the Bible.

That was probably forty hours ago, give or take.  And if I had known before that such a tiny verse would pack that much of a wallop, I would have employed it a long time ago.  As of this writing that verse has evoked almost a hundred comments, mostly from people who find it offensive.

Emboldened by the responses, I've shared other thoughts about the matter of "LGBTQwhatever pride".  Mainly, that it might be the most self-destructive behavior that a person can do to himself or herself.  The damage to mind, heart, soul and especially body are horrific.  As I have said at various times on the thread I have seen what that lifestyle does to men and women, whether as a healthcare professional or just someone trying to be a decent human being.  And it's something I never want to have to look at again.

The feedback generated would almost be hilarious, if it not for the fact that the people responding actually believe what they do.  One former classmate automatically posted that I'm a homophobe, racist, hate-spewing, etc.  He pretty much comes across as a parody of a parody of what a leftist homosexual whacko is supposed to be like.  Another person made a thinly-veiled threat of violence.

All of this and more, stemming from five words.

If only these people had any grasp whatsoever of the wisdom and validity of that verse.  They are demonstrating it well enough.

This past week at least two colleges went bankrupt and had to close down.  They were small-ish campuses, much like Elon.  They couldn't afford to remain in business as educational institutions.

Once upon a time, I wouldn't think that such a thing could possibly happen to my alma mater.  But that time is long past.  Elon has abandoned its intellectual and spiritual vibrancy and put something far more dark in its place.  There will come to be consequences of that.  Maybe not today or next year, but there will be a price to be paid for running off potential students whose consciences dictate that they cannot subscribe to a radical agenda.

My advice to any young Christian man or woman who is considering colleges: avoid Elon University.  And it absolutely breaks my heart to have to say that about a place that I made so many happy memories at.  You won't find your faith welcome there anymore.  You will be expected to yield your minds to fringe ideology.  It is the kind of place where any sincere faith in God will be sniffed out and put on display for public ridicule.

I only shared five words of scripture on a Facebook page.  Lord only knows what will happen when... not if, when... the spirit might move a sincere Christian to share more than that in a classroom discussion.

But as one who majored in history at Elon, and among other things represented the school at a national research conference, I have confidence.  The people who have been riled up against my quoting scripture aren't doing anything new.  Theirs is not "new wisdom" but old foolishness.  VERY old foolishness.  And the tide is turning against them.  This past election signified that.

They have a sick fantasy on their side.  I and enough others have reality.  I believe I know who will prevail.