Congratulations to Brian and Betsi!

I've been asked not to post any pictures. Which I can understand and will respect but seriously: she is beautiful!!! I can only hope and pray that if the Lord might let me be a father someday, that I could be as blessed as my friends have become :-)

My friends Brian and Betsi welcomed their first child, the more-beautiful-than-words-can-convey Clara a few days ago! And Clara is a doll! Just a sweet tiny astonishingly cute bundle of joy. I'm so glad for Brian and Betsi: they really are going to be great parents. Heck, they already are: Brian sings Clara to sleep with the Star Wars theme and he reports that it works great :-P

Again, congrats to Brian and Betsi and welcome little Clara!

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 4: Hyper-Manic Episode #1a

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A request to this blog's readers

Dear friends that I have known and friends that I look forward to making in God's time:

I have never asked anything like this in my life. But tonight, I am needing this more than anything else...

I only ask that you please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 3

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

-- Maya Angelou

Edit 02/14/2011 2:18 pm EST: A friend let me borrow a book not long ago. It's called When God Winks At You. It's filled with stories of many people - including a number of celebrities - who experienced extraordinary coincidences and twists of fate that made them realize something: that God is watching over us. It's a very good book, and it written in a style that reads pretty quickly.

Ever since reading it, I have been praying that God might wink at me, too. And give me that personal assurance that "Chris, I know you are going through a very dark and difficult time. But I love you! I won't quit on you or abandon you. You are My child and I love you more than you could ever know and I will bring you through this."

I wish God would wink at me, and let me know that He didn't allow me to have this condition for naught, when it did lead to me hurting too many people.

Today, I am feeling... like damaged goods. Alone. Abandoned. Rejected.

I was a good person. I'm still a good person. I didn't ask for my condition or do anything to invite it to happen.

Mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder are diseases of the mind. Not the soul.

There was someone who was very precious to me, and I wanted nothing more in this world than to spend the rest of my life cherishing her, serving her, loving her... and having a relationship with her that put Christ at the center of it all. That's what I prayed for, for the longest time. God had to know that, wouldn't He?

But now, there is nothing. Because of a condition that hurt so many who were near and dear to my heart.

Is God punishing me for something? Is there something I missed in my pursuit of Christ and the life He would have me live?

This is the worst part of bipolar: that you are hurting and that you hurt others. You never mean to, but you do.

I have to be reminded that there was nothing that I could have done to have prevented this from happening to others and myself. But even on my best days, I harbor heart-wrenching regret for the pain that I caused.

That is something that I will never forgive myself for. And especially, I can never forgive myself for hurting her.

So I keep asking God to wink at me.

Maybe someday He will...

Edit 02/14/2011 4:45 p.m. EST: One person who has seen the video wrote this to me...

Chris, some of us have been on the other side of bipolar and other illness and apparently you don't know what that is like. You have hurt people, there is no denying that, and you need to stop putting the blame on God for 'letting you have the disease'.

I tend to not post when you say things like this because I believe you mean well. However, I do not agree with about 95% of what you say on the subject. I definitely agree that it is a struggle and that you will slip, heck we all do, but I don't agree that the blame should be on anything other than yourself. Now, with that said, once you realize it IS your fault then forgive yourself and move on with life. We all make mistakes.

Yes, we do. I do, especially. I'm not perfect and have never claimed to be perfect. I can only follow Christ, the only One who is perfect. The One who I must cling to and rely on to carry me and my heavy burdens. Burdens that I would not want any person to have to feel crushed beneath.

But here is the problem with what this person is saying...

Suppose that I had been drinking heavily. And I get into my car while intoxicated and drive off and then I hit another car because of my condition and the other driver is killed as a result.

Would that have been my fault? Absolutely. The condition was my own. I would have been the only party that could possibly be blamed. The bottle of liquor did not grab hold of my mouth and make me drink it. That would have been my choice... and I would have to suffer the due consequences and gone to prison. Because it would have been my fault.

However much cheap booze can rob a person of his or her faculties, judgment and sound mind, mental illness such as bipolar disorder do much, MUCH worse.

And there is no choice. It's in the cards that a person is dealt from the moment their chromosomes come together in a mother's womb.

I didn't have to get drunk. As a matter of fact, I've never been drunk in my entire life. Neither have I done illegal drugs. A person isn't born with the desire for drugs and alcohol.

I was born with this. I will die with this. I am trying as best God will let me, to make the moments between now and the time I leave this world mean something.

I do hurt and feel guilty about the things that I did when my bipolar was unable to be managed. I wish people would see that and understand it and not see me as some kind of a freak, or a pariah.

You wanna know something? I'm not suicidal, even though I know what it's like to be suicidal. But all the same: I can't fear death anymore like I used to. And you wanna know why?

Because Heaven is the place where nobody says "goodbye" to you, ever again. And it's the place where the people that you love do know that you really did love them and would have done anything for them and that you didn't mean to hurt them.

I don't know if I'll ever again in this life see the girl who I do still love as my wife. Knowing that I will get to see her again someday, in the presence of God, is the most precious bit of hope that I have.

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part 4: A Darklier Abyss

This is the fourth installment of an ongoing series exploring what it means to live with bipolar disorder. Reading the previous essays is recommended, but not absolutely required for understanding this one, which deals with depression associated with bipolar and how it differs from normal depression. But if you choose to take the time to read the other posts in this series, I for one would be grateful :-)

It took a very long time for me to go outside after Granny died.

It was the last Saturday in March of 2000. Our Boy Scout troop was camping for the weekend in some woods east of Reidsville. The winter that year had been harsh. Worse than anything we've had in recent seasons. After too many weeks snowed-in we were all ready for some fresh air and wide open space.

It was green. Very green. And so warm outside. All full of life. That is what I remember most from that day.

Just before I drove to the church that we would be meeting at and leaving from, the phone rang. It was my aunt. Telling me that my grandmother had fallen and an ambulance was coming to take her to the hospital. That's all that I would have known until we came back the following afternoon, had I not volunteered to make a quick trip into town to pick up some supplies that we discovered we needed (you can crack jokes about "Being prepared" if you like). And on the way back I stopped at the hospital to check on Granny's condition and was told that she had a severe heart attack and had to be taken to Moses Cone.

That's the main hospital in Greensboro. The one that you get transported to if Annie Penn in Reidsville isn't enough to help you.

I can't remember the drive back into the woods to our campsite. Well, not all of it. Not like I can remember most things. More than ten years later I still can't think of anything else but the green of the trees and the grass surrounding me on all sides as I drove to where we'd pitched our tents.

Green. Warmth. Life.

All wrong.

Would those memories have been less haunting if the next week transpired different? I don't know. I think, I knew then what was going to happen. And it made the world I saw around me all the more hostile and mocking.

Granny was the person in my life who I was closest to most of all. She was the personification of everything that I had come to know of what love and sweetness and Christ-like spirit was supposed to be. She was the focal point of our entire family.

Three days later, on March 28th, she passed away.

We had her funeral that Friday. I was one of the pallbearers: carrying the casket to the place of final rest. And there was green and warmth and life all around us at the cemetery...

...and it was my birthday.

And I could no longer stand the green and the warmth and the life.

After leaving Granny's house where our family had congregated after the funeral, I went home. And showered. And put on clothes that didn't have the scent of floral arrangements permeating them. And cried hard into my pillow. And wanted it all to just go away.

I think the number of times that I did manage to go outside between then and June could probably be numbered on both hands. It became genuinely painful to be outdoors. To even look outside...

...because wherever I saw life, I saw death waiting to happen. What rose and flourished would inevitably crumble and decay.

Before very long, I could not look a person in the face without seeing a rotting corpse staring back at me.

I knew this had to be wrong. But I did not know at the time that this was the beginning of my first severe bout with clinical depression.

I managed one trip to visit friends on campus at Elon a month after the funeral and by that point I was so messed-up that they took me to the nearby hospital to see if I could be helped. That turned into a trip in the dead of night to John Umstead Hospital all the way in Butner (on the outskirts of Raleigh) with me handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser "for protection". With my family not knowing where I was. Oh yeah, all of this because of a paperwork mistake at Alamance Regional...

It was the first time that I had been in a psychiatric hospital, but it wouldn't be the last. My five days at Umstead did nothing to make me feel better. The doctors – once they got around to seeing me – agreed that I had problems but nothing so desperate as to land me in their facility. If anything, being there worsened my depression. After Dad came to take me home from what I had come to call "the Mad Dog Ward" (first person to say where that name comes from without Google-ing for it can buy a candy bar and pretend I got it for them) I went into the house and showered and shaved and went into another room and made sure all the windows were covered so no sunlight could get in.

And that's where I stayed, for the most part, for the next month. In darkness. Away from light. Away from green and warmth and life. Because I couldn't stand it.

(It might give some of my two faithful readers a chuckle when I mention that while I was at Umstead I did what I could to keep myself together. F'rinstance, I drew a picture of the cartoon character The Tick, telling me "You're not going crazy. You're going SANE in a crazy world!" and taped that to the wall next to my bed as encouragement. Hey, whatever gets ya through the night, y'know?)

I am writing about this because I know what having severe clinical depression is like. I have been there and I would not wish my worst enemy to have to go through that. And I know that it can be overcome. Maybe not as soon as you would like, but... I did eventually come out of that seeing that even in the blackest depths of despair, God did have me in the cup of His hand. And He always had been holding me.

I see now in retrospect how He was working to bring me out of that and toward... something better. Because I didn't stay locked away inside forever. Before long a friend – a lady who I had only known from the Internet – told me of a job opportunity in Asheville and that she had a place to rent to me if I decided to take it.

And that is how I wound up a newspaper reporter for awhile in one of the most interesting cities that anyone can live in. God took me out of my "comfort zone" and into a place that, for the time I was there became one of the greatest periods of personal growth that I have ever enjoyed. That friend from the Internet became my landlady, and she and her sisters took me in and made me feel like family. My tiny apartment looked over the French Broad River on one side and had Mount Pisgah beyond my kitchen window on the other. I worked in what must have been one of the last of the old-school newspapers: the kind of place where the editor and publisher would be screaming profanities at each other in heated argument before going out the door together for lunch like preachers at a Sunday potluck.

And in the time that I was a reporter I wound up having... well, a lot of interesting things happen. Like, going on a ghost hunt (and maybe snapping a photo of F. Scott Fitzgerald's apparition... maybe). Being shot at. Covering a rally of witches and warlocks. Meeting Bill Cosby and hearing him crack a joke about me: I told him he was an inspiration for me to study to be a teacher. He looked at me and said "And here you are a reporter. I must not have been that big an inspiration for you, huh boy?!"

It was a great time.

It's funny though. I wouldn't wish what I had gone through with depression on anybody. But I would not take anything for my experience with depression. That kind of pain... prepared me. Made me stronger. It helped me to get to a place that I wouldn't have reached otherwise. And again, I have to thank God for that. Even though for much of that stretch of my life I couldn't see how He was with me.
God brought me through depression then. He even used it to make me a better person.
And just so, I know that He will bring me through bipolar depression now... and that He will make me all the more the Chris Knight that He needs me to be.

Bipolar, Depression, and Bipolar Depression

I had thought that Part 4 of this series would be covering a different subject pertaining to my experience and struggle with bipolar disorder. When I first began plotting this I came up with a rough outline going six or seven chapters out. And then like the previous installment, Part 3: "The Hell Curve", I was led away from my initial plans and instead strayed toward something else entirely.
So my original scheme is now thoroughly kaput! But that's okay. As I said in Part 3, this is something that I'm always going to be fighting against but also a condition that I'll forever be learning something new from. And as I ponder my illness further and further, it's only natural that I'll be sharing new observations and insights about my condition with you, Dear Reader.

Since posting Part 3 I began something a bit experimental with Being Bipolar: video supplements. And in the second and most recent of these I documented for the camera an episode of bipolar depression. That is what most led to the chapter you are reading this moment. Because I have had depression and I have had bipolar depression... and after this latest bout with the latter I felt it was time to address that.

Regular run-o'-the-mill clinical depression is as different from bipolar depression as Curious George is from King Kong. To a lot of people – maybe even most people – they are practically the same, with little to discern one from the other.

I am here to tell you otherwise, because I do know better. Having gone through both clinical depression and manic depression from bipolar, I possess more understanding of the qualities of each than I would have probably ever cared to have.

If you have time, go back to the first part of this installment and re-read the account of my first bout with depression. See if anything "jumps out" at you from it.

Go on, I'll wait for you.

Back already? You read awful fast!

Okay, let's continue...

A few things about that period of depression that I went through that you might have noticed. First of all: I did get better with enough time. I went to a psychiatrist once after I got out of the hospital and received a prescription for a medication to calm myself. That's it so far as drugs went. There was no counseling and nothing like the medication that I am currently taking for bipolar... because at the time it was the severe depression that was hitting me hardest.

I was able to work through the depression. By that I mean that as far down "in the valley" as I was, there was enough feeling and strength left to me that I could inch forward and before I knew it I was relocating to another city so that I could take a job that I really enjoyed doing. Was I still feeling depressed? Yes. It would be a long time before I could fully shake off the dread of being outside again... but I was able to go outdoors again in spite of that.

But here's what I'm hoping you might have caught from re-reading about my depression: when I was in the hospital, I kept up my sense of humor!

However dire (and ridiculous) my circumstance was, I was able to laugh at it instead of completely giving in to despair and hopelessness. The "Mad Dog Ward"? That was taken from a story arc in the Spider-Man comics. The drawing of The Tick that I did? And when I was asked during admittance who was President of the United States and without missing a beat I answered "Hillary Clinton"?

That was the real Chris Knight making light of his situation in spite of his depression! That is... what I do. It's something deep down in my nature that, when I'm in a place that I don't like, this near-primal instinct kicks in and won't let me stop until I've done one thing: gone back home. I first discovered that aspect of my character when I was 11 years old at this crappy summer church camp (it was nothing like it advertised itself to be). It was my first time away from home and I began feeling homesick. But I let that feeling overtake me for just a few hours before I chose to not let it destroy me. My resolve fired up. I decided this camp was not going to break me.

The night before we left, I was already packed. I slept in the clothes that I was going to wear on the bus for home. It's a custom that I still keep to this day whenever I'm about to escape from a place that I don't want to be anymore.

(We were promised a waterslide, darnnit! They didn't tell us that the waterslide had been broken for going on two years and counting!)

On my own, I can fare pretty well against clinical depression. It's still not something that I would want anyone to have to personally deal with. But it is far more manageable than I first realized.

However, bipolar depression, or manic depression, is a whole 'nother monster...

I could not have been joking and making light of so much if that had been bipolar depression that I was going through during that time of my life. And there would have been no chance of me "snapping out of it" on my own. Had that been bipolar depression, it would have to run its course or I would have to stave it off with more medication and counseling, or... I would have stood a great chance of taking my own life.

Thoughts of suicide never entered my mind during "normal" depression. Not even once. Did I feel like I wanted to die? Admittedly, yes. But that is not the same thing as actively considering killing myself in a bid to leave the pain behind.
Bipolar depression at its worst is an absence of pain as most people know it. It is also the absence of passion, of interest, of laughter, of... even indifference. Clinical depression is remarkable for the overwhelming sadness it fosters. Bipolar depression drains the mind of even that feeling.

The only thing you can feel from manic depression is how unendurable the emptiness is. It is existence without meaning. It is being here with no rationality or philosophy to cling to or that might explain the vacuous bubble that your flesh envelops by chance or malice of God.

Time becomes stretched and warped during manic depression. The bouts themselves can last days, or weeks, or even months. For every hour in bipolar-induced depression, it can feel like months or years.
I would lay on the bed or on a sofa, immobile. My mind debilitated and locked in a recursive loop of absent emotion. Nothing could faze me, nothing at all. There were times that the telephone would ring and I couldn't care enough to pick it up. It became a frustrating struggle just to get up enough motivation to go to the kitchen and find something to eat when I became hungry. As a result of that I inevitably came to lose considerable weight because of bipolar.

Trying to sleep is even something that is difficult to do. Maybe it's because dreaming becomes a thing so tantalizing and so maddeningly beyond reach of fulfillment, that the respite of a few hours sleep loses its appeal.

Manic depression takes a toll on the mind, on the body, and on everything and everyone you have in your life. All that you know becomes agony to endure, and invariably you become unendurable to those that love you. It's as if your very existence drains the mood and the energy from the ones closest to you. And then that becomes too great a burden to bear.

For me, one of the very worst things to happen because of bipolar was that its associated depression put the brakes on my brain's creative impulse. And... okay, I'm gonna try my best to explain this. Me, the "real me", was trapped inside my own mind and could want to be creative and productive. But my mind wouldn't budge. My mind became an immovable void that arrested my imagination, and stopped dead in its tracks my drive to produce a tangible product from that creativity.

I know: it sounds too much like the stereotypical "tortured artist". But think about it: for a person who deeply cherishes his ability to engage his imagination, his own mind revolting against him to the point that creativity becomes maddeningly out of reach is a cruel trick on the part of his neurobiology.

Bipolar depression... is life without life. It is an abominable dim shade of mere being. It is... hell. And I do know how and why it would drive a person to commit suicide. It's not an escape from the pain, because there is no "pain" in the routine sense to speak of. In a very sick and twisted way, the ability to feel pain sometimes becomes desirable for a person in the throes of manic depression. Because that would be something normal to cling hold to.

And so it is that too many people who suffer from manic depression, choose to leave it all behind them.

Once upon a time, I would have thought that those people were committing a grievous sin. But now, having gone through the same torment that wore them down to the end of their rope, I have sympathy and understanding. Suicide isn't the "coward's way out" that I had come to believe. These were people just like me and... yes, just like you. They didn't deserve that kind of pain any more than any of us would deserve it. They didn't choose to be afflicted by bipolar, or by any other kind of mental illness.

And the only reason why I'm writing these words today is because I was way more fortunate than I possibly deserve to be, in that I had friends and family, and doctors and counselors, and many others who did keep me from plunging too late into that darkness.

Ever Upward

I don't see myself contemplating suicide again, the one caveat being that affirming such depends on my bipolar disorder remaining as manageable as it is today. And I do intend to keep managing it. However, as my most recent video supplement demonstrated, I will never be completely rid of the depression that comes from bipolar.

But I also know that bipolar depression isn't reflective at all of the person I truly am. And there is great strength to be gained from that confidence.

I felt led to write this installment for several reasons. To help my readers discern between clinical depression and bipolar depression, obviously. But also: for anyone who may find this who is also going through manic depression...

Stay strong. This, too, shall pass.

I can say that because I have been where you are. At the bottom of the abyss, straining my eyes to see any glimpse of light and hope. Wondering if God was hearing me at all.

There is light. There is hope. And God is hearing you.

Don't give in to the emptiness. That isn't what you are, either. It's only the disease – something you didn't invite into your life – dragging you down. It can't and won't last forever.
Don't you dare believe that this is something to be ashamed of, or that you are "crazy" or "lazy" or anything else that others might have told you. They don't understand and they should be thankful that they don't have to understand. That's another reason why I'm writing this: so that those blessed to be free of bipolar might gain even a shred of wisdom about mental illness.

What can I offer up for advice, to those suffering from bipolar depression?

I'm going to write more about this in another chapter of Being Bipolar soon: one of the things that kept me from totally losing myself into the abyss is that if there is anything at all that you can keep an interest in, to grab hold of it and don't let go! In my own case this has been any number of things over the years, depending on what my mind could latch onto. Sometimes it was my love of all things Star Wars (oh man, that has gotta sound totally whacked: "Star Wars kept me from killing myself..." but in my case it's almost certainly true). During one point two years ago it was re-reading The Lord of the Rings. My own bipolar depression didn't become readily apparent until about 2003 or 2004 (though I now recognize episodes from much earlier in my life) and since then there have been numerous strategies that I have discovered which can keep me from falling down again. But one way or another they each have as the common factor grasping onto something – and it can be ludicrously simple, even – that you do take interest and enjoyment from, and use that as a safety handle until the depressive episode is over.

That doesn't mean that you should eschew real treatment like medication and counseling, though. And that also is going to be a topic for an upcoming Being Bipolar post: the responsibilities that come with having bipolar disorder (and there are plenty). And again: I'm not a professional physician or therapist. I'm just a guy with a blog, who happens to have bipolar. I can only talk about what I know.

But I do know that bipolar disorder and its associated depression does not mean that I can't have a productive, fulfilling life. I understand this condition better than I ever could have before, and that understanding just keeps getting deeper and more profound with each passing day.

It's like I said: God brought me through one depression. And He is going to bring me through this depression.

And if you have bipolar depression, I know He is going to bring you through it, too!

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Final score: UNC 73, Duke 79

Now...

..."Can't we all just get along?"

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Song's over: Activision cancels Guitar Hero series

The big news coming out of the video game industry today is Activision shutting down the Guitar Hero series: once one of the most insanely popular set of video games in recent history. The company cited declining sales as being the biggest factor in the decision to bring the "music 'n rhythm" series to a halt.

This reminds me a lot... a whole lot even... of the "video game crash" that took place between 1983 and 1985. This might come as a shock to the younger readers of this blog (ooh-boy am I dating myself here :-P) but once upon a time, video games were not "hip" at all. Ya see, in 1982 the Atari 2600 was the king of home video gaming. It seemed nigh-invulnerable. But within a year or two the home video game industry hit rock-bottom hard.

What happened? Mostly it was a market way over-saturated with games that were, well... crap. Turkeys like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (a title now infamous for how Atari paid the mob to bury millions of unsold E.T. cartridges in a New Mexico landfill) and Pac-Man (HOW did Atari mess that one up?!) did plenty enough damage, but so too did M*A*S*H and Porky's and Custer's Revenge (I refuse to even begin to describe what that game was like, it's so unbelievably... wrong).

Same thing has happened to the music game genre. Between Guitar Hero and Rock Band and seemingly "new" titles for those series every few months - not to mention the over-abundance of the gaming peripherals - there is simply too much music video gaming on the market right now.

I don't think the genre is ever going to disappear completely. But today's announcement from Activision is certainly gonna obligate the studios to re-assess where music gaming goes from here. Personally, I think it'll prove to be a good thing. It has mandated an obligation to be innovative. I've little doubt that music games will not only continue to be produced, but will also become better in the long run.

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Congratulations to Denise and Nick...

...on the birth of their new son Olin!

What a beautiful little baby! God has certainly blessed them :-)

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My prayer for this afternoon

My Heavenly Father,

This afternoon I ask for peace and comfort for those who need it most.

And for myself, I ask only for a peace of mind that I have been unable to know for so very long.

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YOU GO GRANNY!! 75-year old woman stops SIX jewelry thieves with her handbag!

"I was not going to stand by and watch somebody take a beating or worse so I tried to intervene," said the sweet little lady in the red coat and white tights. The 75-year old retiree, who declined to give her name, witnessed a gang of six punks on motorbikes trying to smash their way into a jewelry store in Northampton, England with sledgehammers.

With store employees looking terrified from within as the droogs began pounding their way to the goods, "Super Granny" came running up the street and began beating the hoodlums with her handbag! She even knocked at least one of them off of his moped. Four of the six were arrested.

Witness heroism in action, dear readers!

Click here to read more about the "handbag heroine".

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 2: Depressive Episode #1, "I Want To Live"

I was wondering over the weekend if this might happen. And unfortunately, it has now. I am writing and posting this video during a bipolar depressive episode.

I need to reiterate something: managing bipolar disorder doesn't mean that I'm going to be totally free of its effects. There will be times when I go through episodes of severe bipolar. But I am thankful that it doesn't have to ruin my life as it has before.

I said last week in the first Being Bipolar video supplement that I intended to document a bipolar episode if and when it happened. This is the first bipolar depressive episode that I have been able to record. I don't think there's anything in this clip that most people would at all consider "disturbing" but, I wanted to give a heads-up about all the same...

And Part 4 of Being Bipolar should be up later this week! :-)

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Two upcoming new features on The Knight Shift

As if the Being Bipolar series wasn't enough: I'm about to put even more on this blog on a regular basis!

(Maybe it has something to do with the recent redesign of this place, that it's just demanding lots of new content...? :-)

The first is something that I've had in mind since Christmas, and is coming out of some necessity but also I think it'll be a lot of fun: Movies I've Never Seen! It's like this: my DVR is fast filling up with stuff that I've recorded from TCM and some other channels. And I haven't seen them yet. Like, not ever. Even though most of these are movies that I've heard of all my life! Well, I'm going to begin watching them, and posting reviews of them here. Expect that to start up sometime this week.

And then, there is something that... is going to be quite different.

It's like this: for awhile now I have been wondering if, well... I should perhaps consider going into ministry.

(Feel free to laugh at that. I don't mind. I find myself chuckling a little at it myself :-)

I could literally write thousands of words expounding upon that notion and why it is in my head and why I am entertaining both doubt and un-doubt about it.

Well, it occurred to me over the weekend that... maybe I should "try out" a bit what that would mean.

So beginning this coming Sunday... and I don't know what this will be about, 'cuz I really am just waiting for God to show me... there will be A Sermon A Week. And each Sunday for the next year, Lord willing, I will be posting a "sermon" (actually just a glorified essay) for anyone who might come across it.

To me anyway, that is gonna be much more interesting than Movies I've Never Seen. And hey, who knows: God might lead me to write a message based in some part on one of the films that I'm about to watch.

Well, like I said: Lord willing, this will be going on for the next year. And if I stumble and fall and fail to measure up to that goal well... I'll have tried. And I'll no doubt have learned something along the way (which itself will make this worth doing). But I really am going to aspire to go the whole way.

So then, expect the first chapter of Movies I've Never Seen in a few days and A Sermon A Week this coming Sunday! :-)

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GYPSY: Halfway through and more still coming!

One of the audience members was overheard today saying that this production of Gypsy by Theatre Guild of Rockingham County is one of the best musicals she has ever seen around here. And apparently she wasn't alone.

Last night's performance played to an almost solidly sold-out house! And normally there's a much smaller crowd for Sunday. Well, considering that this is a Super Bowl Sunday at that, I'd say it was about three-quarters full... which was impressive business.

It wouldn't surprise me if Gypsy sold out for this coming Friday and Saturday. And who knows: maybe even the final performance next Sunday. 'Twould be sweet!

So if this might be your first time enjoying the tale of the legendary Gypsy Rose Lee and her outrageous mother, or if you've seen the show many times (I met a lady today who saw the original Broadway run with Ethel Merman) you are in for a crazy good time! Gypsy runs for three more performances. Click here for more information.

(And I must say: I am exuberantly relishing the fact that I have the best line of the entire show :-P)

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Today would have been the one hundredth birthday...

...of the last real President that the United States has had, and probably will have for a very long time to come (if ever again).

During the past week I've read a lot of "analysis" about the life and career of Ronald Reagan. Much of it done in the name of "demythologizing" the man: looking for the "true" Reagan, as it were. Most of it having to do with his actual record on taxes and the size of government (something that he was famously on record for wanting to dramatically reduce).

Ronald Reagan wasn't perfect. I don't know of any President that was (even George Washington gets demerits in my book for how he handled the Whiskey Rebellion). But, there is one thing, if nothing else, that will always make me consider Reagan to be the greatest President during my lifetime...

President Ronald Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a single shot or losing one life in combat on either side of the Cold War.

It didn't see fruition until the year after he left office. But it was the policies that Reagan began during his term that led to Russian communism bankrupting itself to the point that it could no longer be sustainable. Communism was going to fail regardless (it'll always look good on paper but in practice, well...). But its slow descent into ruin would have on its own most likely given the Soviet government enough desperation to conquer more territory... at terrible cost.

What happened to accelerate the Soviet Union's collapse? Three words: Strategic Defense Initiative. Yeah, the so-called "Star Wars" scheme. I'll never believe that Reagan seriously thought it was ever going to work. But the sheer idea of SDI was enough to drive the Soviet economy - already stretched thin 'cuz of its overwhelming military budget - to even worse levels of fiscal stress.

That might be the greatest stroke of statesmanship genius in any living memory. Certainly one of the finest in American history.

And if I need any more reason to think so highly of Reagan, it is this: sitting on a shelf just above my computer monitor, is a sizable chunk of the Berlin Wall. The wall that was going to last forever. The most tangible symbol of the Cold War. I'm looking at that stone-sized fragment of the wall even now: smeared in green and blue graffiti.

"Tear down this wall!", indeed.

So on this day, The Knight Shift raises a toast in memory of Ronald Reagan: All American.

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Opening Night of GYPSY was a riotous good time!

Just got back from Opening Night of Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Gypsy and it was a scream! The house had a good crowd and everyone was laughing harder than I've seen in this county in a way long time!

I must admit: I wasn't sure about being in this show at first. But now I'm glad that I'm doing it. This has been some of the most fun that I've had in quite awhile.

Well, can ya blame me?

Cigar (played by Yours Truly) and the talent of the Wichita House of Burlesque!
Left to Right: Tessie Tura (Ashley Pearson), Electra (Beverly Burke), and Mazeppa (Anne-Marie Castillo)

And here's me in my Cigar getup holding the real star of the show: Tebow Wasmund!

Now, I can't post any video from the show itself, 'cuz that would be some bigtime copyright violation (and in spite of my reputation that is something I have never approved of). But during rehearsal on Wednesday night we did make a few fun clips of myself in character as Cigar...

And here's the wildly talented Peggy Wasmund (yes, she's Tebow's owner) doing a completely surprise ad-libbed... performance.

I'm already looking forward to tomorrow night's show! Gypsy plays five more times between now and next Sunday. Click here for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's website for more information. Hope to see you there and... "let us entertain you!" :-)

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My prayer for this day

I have to try. I can't not try.

I have only ever fought hardest for that which was worth fighting for.

I no longer know whether to expect anyone else to believe that. But my Lord and Savior knows.

Dear Father, please let all that I do be to Your glory, and not for my own sake.

I only ask that in Your own way, that You remember Your servant who has failed more times than not, but has ever sought to put You first.

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 1

The idea hit a few days ago: as well as writing about having bipolar disorder as part of this blog's Being Bipolar series, that I could also do video entries as a supplement to the written material.

So today I went out and got a webcam and... well, here's the first one!

I intend to also record myself if/when a bipolar episode hits, and post the unedited footage of me talking about what it's like.

Expect more videos soon!

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It's Batman! It's Scooby-Doo! It's... "Weird Al" Yankovic?!?

"It's the holy trinity of pop culture!"

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My prayer tonight

My Lord,

Please help me to let go, and to let You.

Not my will, but Yours be done.

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For those following the BEING BIPOLAR series...

...and there are lots of you, apparently :-)

I am currently planning something of an experiment. If there are any questions - any at all, 'cuz there is very little that I have thought would be off-limits - that you have about bipolar disorder, e-mail them to me at theknightshift@gmail.com.

What I am particularly looking for are any questions that could be directed toward a person suffering bipolar, about what having bipolar is like.

Any question that you have about bipolar, shoot it to me. Y'all will be finding out sooner than later what this is for.

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Meet the proprietor of the Wichita House of Burlesque!

He's cheap! He's sleazy! He's loud!

He's... Cigar!

Just got back from another technical rehearsal for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Gypsy. This was my first in costume as Cigar: the owner of the burlesque joint that Louise and her crazy mother (and Herbie, can't forget poor Herbie) wind up at. And I am having a fantabulously great time in the role! Cigar is one of the most fun characters that I've played yet!

By the way, that entire costume is something that I put together. The fedora is one I've had for a few years now. And that bow-tie: I remembered that bow-tie very well 'cuz for this fourth grade program we did at Community Baptist School many years ago, Dad for whatever reason thought it would be classy if I wore a bow-tie. That thing was positively humungous when I was nine years old! Everyone in the sanctuary - students and teachers alike - were giggling at it. And that made me start giggling when it came time for me to speak my part! Ahhh, where do our fathers come up with such things...

Anyway, for some reason that tie just popped into mind and Dad found it sure 'nuff. And between that and the fedora and the cigar and all... yeah, that looks like a burlesque owner from the 1930s :-)

Gypsy opens this coming Friday night! Come if you can. This threatenspromises to be the most outrageous production in Rockingham County history!

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part 3: The Hell Curve

This is the third installment of an ongoing series exploring what it means to live with bipolar disorder. If you have not done so already it is highly recommended that you read Part 1: "The Tale of the Two Chris Knights" and then Part 2: "Sketching Uniquiet". Don't worry: this chapter will still be here waiting for you :-)

In Part 2 of this series, "Sketching Unquiet", I wrote about what bipolar disorder is as a medical condition, and then I attempted to roughly approximate what it’s like to live with it on a daily basis.

In the week and a half since publication I've re-read that installment of Being Bipolar at least a dozen times and the more that I do, the more I can't help but feel led to ponder and expound on it further. Now don't get me wrong: Part 2 was the best that I could have written... at that time. But the composition and publishing of "Sketching Uniquet" has not led cleanly to the Part 3 that I had originally planned.

Instead it has been like God is showing me "Chris, you wrote about your understanding of this and doing so has helped you to understand it even better... so write that this time."

See how this is working out, Dear Readers? Being Bipolar is not a series of retrospective reflections about living with a mental illness. Indeed, there cannot POSSIBLY be any "retrospective" at all. That would imply that I have completely conquered this disease and that it will never, ever again be something that I will be fighting against. That it will merely be something that I can look back upon and feel some measure of gloating about "Hey, I licked this!"

And that would be a lie. Because I am never going to completely lick this thing. Bipolar disorder has no cure. There is only a lifetime of controlling this as best I can this that I have to look forward to. And the more that I discover about my own condition the more I am learning how the struggle to manage bipolar disorder is as unavoidable as bipolar was at all.

Bipolar disorder was a disease that I was going to be hit with. I can see that now. It was a condition that I was born with as much as some are born with hemophilia or congenital heart defect. The only way that I would have known a life without bipolar disorder is if God Himself had allowed me to be mercifully free of it.

I've already written about how I have cried out to Him, especially during these past few months. What happened to precipitate that? Ironically it has been my own recovery from two years and more of the worst of bipolar that I have experienced (and Lord willing will always remain the worst that I have had to go through). Bipolar took away feeling from me. It took away sympathy and it took away empathy and it took away the capacity to fully love and feel remorse. As one good friend put it: I went through the past two years "numb" to most of the life around me. And then just before this past fall something finally "clicked" into the right place in my neurobiology and everything that I should have already been feeling on my conscience crashed down on me.

There is a thorn in my mind, that I have cried out to God to deliver me from. And still, He won't do it. "My grace is sufficient," He has told me just as He told the apostle Paul that His grace was enough to let that great apostle endure life with the thorn in his flesh. I do wish that God had never let me have this. Because I have to believe that I would have never have had to lose friendships, opportunities, and my marriage.

But, it was going to happen. Bipolar was set to strike me and there was nothing that I could have done about it...

...but there is plenty that I can choose to do about it now.

So, I can never be cured of bipolar disorder. But I also believe that God has a purpose for everything, and that for those who love Him that even the trials and tribulations of this life... no matter how painful and bitter they may be to go through... He can and will use not only to make manifest His wonder and majesty, but also to deliver us to greater things than we could possibly imagine.

The only "selfish" reason I have for doing Being Bipolar is because working on this series is helping me to explore and understand my own condition. Beyond that, I am doing this because I know what bipolar does to individuals and their loved ones... and I will do anything within my power and ability to spare others that unimaginably severe grief and suffering.

And, I am doing this for God. Not because I feel like I "have" to, but because I want to. If He has allowed me to have this condition, then I absolutely and sincerely do want to use this to give all the honor and praise to my Lord and Savior.

Isn't that what all of us who have chosen to follow Christ are meant to do, with the trials and tribulations in each of our lives?

We serve and follow a living God. He is shown to be great in our weakness and frailties. If I am strong for doing this series, it is only because He has brought me through worse than fire and fear.

And like every other trouble in life, this also is a means of growth and learning. So it is that I will never stop learning from being bipolar.

And I'll never stop sharing what I am learning from it.

And if I was always bound to have bipolar, well... I feel no small amount of gratitude that I am able to write about this.

Visual Aids

So in the past week since writing Part 2 a new model (well, new to me anyway) of what existence with bipolar disorder developed and coalesced together in my mind, and it immediately occurred to me that many people would find this of immensely more help toward understanding this disease than any amount of words that I could write with that goal in mind.

I call it "the Hell Curve". And yes it is meant to be a play on words with "the bell curve" (quick, get me to a punnery! :-)

Now, math ain't my strongest suit (in fact I had to get some advice from a way smarter person than I'll ever be in the realm of higher numerical operations) but regardless of that, I am going to put into graph form how most people experience mood and emotion. And then I'm going to present what it is like for a person with bipolar disorder.

Here is how I pray you and everyone else reading this blog experience – more or less – normal mood during the course of your life...

A nice, simple sine wave. You have ups and downs. Mountains and valleys. Peak moments of joy and thrill and rock-bottom periods of sadness and depression. But even when you have your "down" times, you almost certainly know to expect a rebound back up. And I am aware that real life isn't that clean and neat. That it would be really nice if our moods could be so perfectly rhythmic. But that said, you gotta admit: that is a graph that suits the needs of visualizing normal moods.

It's something so beautiful, that it almost makes me cry to know that I can't know what it must feel like to have that day after day, week after week, month after month...

And going from left to right, that is your cycle (I hope) of mood through time. Keep that in mind. You, good reader, if you are so blessed, have a good ol' fashioned two dimensional representation of your moods.

That graph is nothing like what a person with bipolar disorder can know on a routine basis. Oh sure, there can and thankfully are periods that I can have "ups and downs" like most people. And I am glad that at last those periods are becoming longer and longer as I learn how to better manage my condition. I wouldn't be able to document and chronicle my own personal journey with bipolar if I wasn't at last afforded that because of medication and counseling.

But that isn't something that I dare believe that I have the luxury of finding complete rest from and letting down of my guard again.

This is the Hell Curve. Here is the graph for bipolar disorder...

At the moment I am writing to you from what I call the "Productive Life Zone" (sounds like something out of Star Trek, doesn't it?). This is where most people spend their entire lives at, without ever knowing any different. That is where I wish that I could have spent my entire life at. But the best I can do is strive and work and pray that I can maintain a presence there, for however long I possibly can. Within that zone, that narrow band of sense and rational mind, I am completely as good a person as anyone is likely to be.

The problem though is that as a person with bipolar disorder, I can not be perfectly secure in that zone. Because my own mind – if I cease to manage my condition - will begin to tear me apart between the wildest extremities of heightened mood and uttermost depression. Trust me: if I could I WOULD stay nestled and safe in that zone... and never have to endure the pain of being yanked violently between those two realms of wild emotion and agonizing darkness of mere being.

THAT is a picture of bipolar disorder, ladies and gentlemen. THAT is where I and many, many others must live and contend with every day of our existence. And I am glad that I can know and appreciate this now. I wish that someone could have shown me this graph a long, long time ago. It might have saved me a lot of pain. It might have saved others in my life more pain than they should have ever had to go through.

It is called the "Hell Curve" for a reason. Because if I can't maintain myself within that very slim margin of mental clarity, my life can, will and does become a living Hell. It turns into Hell for those that are closest to me and who I care about most. It is because I was incapable of abiding in that zone that I lost... well, darn nearly everything that I held precious.

Knowing where I need to be, where I must persist in being, I can have a life as normal and wonderful as anyone. But I've got my work cut out for me. I can't see going without medication and counseling for as long as I live. But I know where I want to be. I know the life that I do still want. And that is worth doing what I can to stay "in the zone".

Notice that the curve doesn't cycle up and down. On one side it soars and on the other it plummets. There is no upper and lower limit to the Hell Curve. If I were ever unable to stop – or for someone to help me stop – my mind from climbing in mood intensity, it would doubtless take me to a very dark place that would end... well, it would end bad. And if I were to slip into a state of bipolar depression that could not be abated, I would perhaps inevitably commit suicide. That is, if I didn't understand bipolar as well as I do now, because I do understand that this is part of the medical condition. It's not a part of the real me. But bipolar and suicide is something that I'm gonna go into further in an upcoming chapter of Being Bipolar.

On the "normal" sine wave for most people, there is mood across time. I noted that it's two-dimensional for "regular" people, right? The Hell Curve adds in a Z-axis to the graph (remembering my eighth grade Pre-Algebra class, which I never failed to give poor Mr. Hill no small amount of frustration... but I'm glad that I get to acknowledge now that I did learn something useful from him after all :-). The Z-axis becomes time proceeding for the bipolar person, so that's then mood across three dimensions. I'm trying to keep within the Productive Life Zone while working to manage my bipolar across time. Doing what I can to keep my mind from deviating toward one mood pole or the other.

And if I can stay within that zone, no matter how much time goes by, I know that I can and will have at long last the life that I have been unable to most fully enjoy until now. My being here has become a work of art in multiple dimensions, across a span of time and will continue developing and growing into what God would have it become, for the rest of my life.

So in a way, having bipolar disorder has helped me come to appreciate how beautiful and precious life really is. I don't know if I could have come to the perspective that I have now, if I did not have this to overcome.

And as one friend put it over the weekend: God never lets anyone be an overcomer if there is nothing to overcome to begin with.

Rampancy Toward Apotheosis

But back to the Hell Curve. Again, I wish that I had been given this model years ago. It shows not only bipolar disorder and what it means to struggle with it, but it also has much to illustrate about how this can be an extremely difficult illness to give medical treatment to and to bring it under control.

The biggest example from my own life that I can think of was a time between late 2004 and around the middle of 2005. That was when I was working on my first film, Forcery. The one that spoofs Stephen King's Misery, but in our version it's George Lucas being held captive by an obsessed Star Wars fan. Forcery had been a personal dream of mine since getting the idea in 2001... even though I had no idea at all how to put a movie together.

Well, come summer of 2004 I had a script, a camera, and I had a great cast, including my lifelong best friend Chad Austin (who I persuaded or conned or something into playing George Lucas... and he did a terrific job in the part!). There were fits and misfires... not to mention how I nearly burned down my parents' house with some real fire... but come late fall of 2004, I had all the footage that I needed to assemble Forcery.

And then, my mind went from working at a hard creative high... to dropping like a stone without warning. It was as if as soon as the last bit of footage that we had shot was in the can, that I became totally drained. And not just of creative juice either: my mind rapidly and without any obvious reason became void and empty of all passion and desire.

It was a severe episode of bipolar depression. But I didn't understand that at all at the time. Or at least, I didn't completely understand what that meant. I didn't know what it was doing to me.

I struggled to find desire again. I struggled to find my energy and determination. Yeah, that is the word for it right there: my "determination". Where was it? To have that suddenly robbed from me was unendurable. Meanwhile the months were going by and creeping into 2005. I had set a goal for myself that Forcery would be finished in time for the premiere of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Why? Not just 'cuz I thought it would be great publicity for my own film, but because I really did want there to be as much attention as possible, while the "iron was hot" so to speak, on the efforts of the film's cast. Chad Austin, I have known all my life. Melody Hallman Daniel, the amazing actress who played Frannie: well, she became a great friend too and I was seriously hoping and praying that Forcery might somehow propel her onto the big screen where her talents deserve to be.

(And in a way, I did succeed. Forcery, including Chad and Melody's performances, became included in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas. Chad and Melody are being seen on real movie screens all over the world right now! And I've heard that a lot of people have been enjoying Forcery for the first time because of it :-)

Anyway, back to the story. Time was against me. But my mind was against me even worse. It was like a thick heavy steel door in my brain, shutting me away from the DETERMINATION that I needed to tap into. But, I just couldn't get to it no matter how hard I tried to focus my mind on it.

In early 2005 my psychiatrist prescribed a medication. We thought it would elevate me out of depression and get me to a point where I could be functioning and creative and able to work again. I was totally debilitated in mind and... well, we had to try something.

The medication turned out to be a horrible, horrible mistake.

Did it take me out of the depressive leg of the Hell Curve and propel me toward the Productive Life Zone? Yeah. Yeah, it did that, most certainly. But the medication wouldn't STOP there either.

My ability to compel myself with drive and desire went from a state of near-zero, and shot up like a rocket to a place that I never, ever want to be at again for as long as I live.

I know of no other way to put it than this: the medication, which was supposed to work on one extreme end of my bipolar, drove me crazily toward the other end.

The medication made me feel almost God-like. And that was very, very wrong and I even knew that it was wrong!

But the sense of euphoria, the feeling that I could accomplish anything, was so intoxicating and overwhelming, that my mind couldn't or wouldn't make the connection to the drug that I was prescribed.

The people who have known me for most of my life will tell you: I have always been an inquisitive, curious, scholarly kind of guy. I read the entire World Book Encyclopedia in the summer after my second grade year. Things like science and politics and history and religion were what I was "into" as a kid, more than sports or whatever (although I did pretty good on the swim team in high school, but anyway...)

A friend in college once told me that I had a very analytical mind. But that it was keeping me from really enjoying the grace of God: that I should just accept God and His ways instead of trying to understand it (and if you ever read this, please know that I did finally get to that place and I'm thankful for your telling me. But, I'm digressing again...)

You can't begin to imagine what a mind like the one I have turned into, when medication drove it into what I have come to call a state of rampancy.

If I couldn't do anything because of bipolar depression, then accelerated bipolar thinking was even more hideous in its ability to incapacitate. Nothing became beyond my ability to take apart and comprehend. Look, I know what I'm talking about, because my mind did things... things that I wrote down even... during those few months, that I could NOT and WOULD NOT have ever done if the "real" me had been able to be at the controls.

What kind of things? I now have an understanding of God and the physical universe, and how His laws and its laws are not exclusive of each other at all but rather complement each other beautifully, that I did not have before then and likely would never have arrived at where it not for my mind going places that Thomas Aquinas would never have dared. I could practically see space and time and matter and energy working in ways that I hadn't realized before. Instead of being overwhelmed by the scope of the universe my mind began to comprehend it as was not possible previously. I could zoom my attention from the scale of a subatomic particle on through where I was sitting in a room on through the void between the furthest galaxies...

Somewhere in there I began to feel the desire to die.

No, not in the "Goodbye cruel world" sense that I'm sure my words have just suggested.

How do I put this? Okay: instead of being driven to wonder about suicide because of depression and the absence of feeling, now I was seriously wondering if dying might free me of the confines of flesh and allow me to become a creature of pure mind. Death wasn't a measure to escape an unendurable life. For longer than I have the heart to admit, death became something to consider pursuing to free me to exist in a whole 'nother and greater state.

Delusions of god-hood? Or was I thinking that I was only trying to be what God wanted me to be, were it not for things like hunger for food and desire for intimacy holding me back?

It was the most powerful that my mind has ever been. And looking back, I do realize that there was no delusion involved: my mind reached a place of comprehension and ability and understanding that... we aren't meant for. That none of us are meant for. That I certainly will never be ready for on this side of Heaven.

It was the rarest of the rare air that has driven some of the greatest of geniuses and artists to madness even unto the bitter end.

Coming Back Down

Two things kept me from destroying myself one way or another in that time. The first was Forcery, and knowing that I needed to finish it. That I should get it done for Chad and Melody, and for Ed, and for everyone else who helped me make that movie. And in each their own way, Chad and Melody and Ed helped me to keep it together not just for Forcery, but for long afterward.

The second thing was my wife. Who I will never stop regretting the pain that I put her through and wishing that I could take it all back. I don't know if I will ever see her again, this ended up destroying our marriage so thoroughly. But, I have to thank her. She was always the best reason that I ever had to persevere. If it were not for her, I have no doubt that I would not be here at all to write about this.

Well, it was too long before we understood that it was the medication that was driving my mind toward the other length of that cruel geometry. I went off of it in June of 2005. But by then I had become addicted to that particular medication. I'm still addicted to the drug, even though I haven't taken any in about six and a half years. Just as recovering alcoholics can't drink alcohol, so I also now have a well-developed relationship with this drug. It was many months of "coming down" and "detoxing" it from my system and my psyche... and it only served to add even more pain and confusion to what I was already going through because of the bipolar. Part of the summer of 2005 I felt great sadness and sorrow for what I had done. I cried a lot. My wife told me that she was proud of me for working through it.

I want to believe that she would still be proud of me. I am always going to be grateful to God for the time we had. I am a much better person for her being in my life than if she had not. And I doubt there are many ex-husbands who will ever be able to say that.

I want to believe that everyone who I have been blessed to have had in my life would be proud of me for what I am doing now, that I am talking about having this illness. Praying that this will find its way to others who would need to read what one has gone through with bipolar. Praying that this will help steer others clear of the suffering that I and too many in my life had to experience.

I will always be living on the Hell Curve.

But I thank God and I thank the many people He has put into my life, that it's not a curve that I have to be graded on.

---

Part 4 of Being Bipolar will be published soon.

Very special thanks to Ashley Trent McHale for telling me that y=x^3 is the formula for the curve that I was trying to find :-)

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If you aren't watching STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS lately...

...then you are missing some of the best and most daring storytelling that the Star Wars saga has enjoyed in a heap many moon!

I found myself genuinely shocked at how much I enjoyed the three-part "Nightsisters" arc which concluded a week ago this past Friday. Written by Katie Lucas (daughter of The Flanneled One himself), the storyline showed that Lucasfilm does have the willpower to not play things safe... as well as bring on some bigtime "What the...?!" moments (which if you saw the final moments of "Witches of the Mist" you know what I'm talking about). That new villain Savage Oppress is voiced by Clancy Brown (who I still think should eventually provide the voice of Darth Bane) was the sprinkles on top of a fine dessert indeed.

And then there was this past week's episode, which featured the return of Liam Neeson as the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn, as well as Pernilla August doing the voice of Shmi Skywalker...

I think one of the bigger complaints that many fans have come to have about the saga is that Star Wars is being kept too risk-free and pristine. And there's some frustration about how Star Wars could, should be a toy that Lucasfilm plays with and plays hard.

"Overlords" - which is the beginning of a new three-part story - proved us all wrong. At last, this is some of the potential that Star Wars has always had... and it's being allowed to blossom forth brilliantly.

So to the cast and crew of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: my hat is tipped to you! These episodes have given me all new reason to not only watch this show but also DVR it for further enjoyment :-)

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Federal judge rules "Obamacare" UN-Constitutional!

But it shouldn't have been passed by the House and Senate to begin with!

Y'know, I am getting mighty fed up with the sorry lot of politicians in Washington... in both major parties mind ya... who have NO respect whatsoever for the Constitution.

Obama's "health care reform" was always unconstitutional. It was the most brazen violation of the commerce clause in perhaps all of United States history. Of course it was going to be struck down by somebody in the judiciary sooner or later.

That this was lost on too many members of the House and Senate, who persisted in advocating and then voting for Obamacare in spite of all sane understanding of constitutional law...

Grrrrrr...

Anyone else doubt that the political system of this country is hopelessly and irredeemably broken? I mean, if people like this are the only ones that we can expect to vote for... then what good is voting at all, for the person who sincerely strives in his or her stewardship as a citizen?

Seriously, seriously: this kind of thing makes me understand voter apathy.

Well anyhoo, it's some good news for a change. Read all about Federal Judge Roger Vinson's ruling here. And here's hoping it'll keep getting declared unconstitutional all the way to the Supreme Court.

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Tailgate365: A great site from another awesome friend!

Perhaps I'm being biased in saying this, but I've thought this for a long time: my high school (I'm a proud alum of Rockingham County Senior High) produced some really talented people. Last night I shared a link to the blog of one such person. And tonight I'm gonna share another...

I met T.J. Lee in the summer of 1988 during an enrichment program, so we've known each other for awhile. But I didn't learn of his website Tailgate365 until a few months ago...

Well, what can I say other than this site is pure-D T.J. Lee! It's got entertainment news (in fact Tailgate365 is where I first heard about Henry Caville being the next actor to play Superman), movie trailers, reviews of films and video games, all kinds of good stuff. It even has recipes! One of which, for Jack Daniels wings, I am getting sorely tempted to try for myself 'cuz they sound so good!

So if you want a good destination "for the stuff you like", give head on over to Tailgate365. Hey, you might find some great ideas for this year's Super Bowl "big game" party! :-)

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John Barry, epic movie score composer, has passed away

The baton behind some of the most iconic themes in motion picture history has fallen silent.

John Barry won Academy Awards for his scoring of Out Of Africa, Born Free, The Lion in Winter, and Dances With Wolves. He was responsible for many other soundtracks as well. But it was his work for something which didn't garner him any Oscar nods which he will be most remembered for: the legendary James Bond theme music, beginning with Dr. No in 1962. It was a film series that he was actively composing for until 1987's The Living Daylights.

My personal favorite John Barry score is from what is for me a "guilty pleasure" movie (but hey, it's a guilty pleasure for a lot of people): Walt Disney Picture's seductively disturbing 1979 science-fiction film The Black Hole. For whatever other... issues... that movie has, Barry perfectly captured the sinister brooding mystery of the U.S.S. Cygnus: a long-lost ghost ship teetering on the brink between reason and madness in a place where normal physics lose all meaning.

Here's the write-up at Entertainment Weekly's site about John Barry, his life and his long career. He will be missed.

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Out-Of-Season Bear Alert

I don't know if this warrants a 9-1-1 call or what, but to this blog's readers here in Rockingham County, North Carolina:

Be advised that a large black bear was spotted by Yours Truly on Vernon Road not far from Rockingham Community College earlier this evening.

Yeah, I'm certain it was a bear. At first I wondered if it might be a large black dog instead. Until I saw its face and muzzle. It's a bear all right.

It was acting a bit lethargic. Walking on all fours with its head going from side to side. Maybe he (or she) had just woken up from hibernation and was looking for a mid-winter snack?

Anyway, now y'all know. There's a bear somewhere around Vernon Road.

Ummm... don't tease it?

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My thoughts about the situation in Egypt

It's late. Had a way long day. I'm tired. So I'll make this quick. Or as quick as I'm apt to be with this sort of thing...

In a way Egypt is demonstrating why I was always against the Iraq War that began in 2003. And it's also demonstrating why the American government is never going to feel safe about pulling out of that country.

Because once we do, Iraq is going to very quickly turn into what Egypt is becoming now.

The uprising in Egypt began in large part to long-festering mistrust of Hosni Mubarak (who has been ruling Egypt since I was knee high to a grasshopper). That's thirty-some years. Way too long for anyone to be in power. I don't blame the Egyptian people for wanting to peaceably put an end to his regime.

But increasingly I'm seeing the efforts of the "nice 'n peaceable" Egyptians getting co-opted by radicals like the Muslim Brotherhood.

And in short: what's now happening in Egypt is looking insanely like what went down Iran way in 1979.

I can understand why the average Iranian was honked-off at the Shah. There was plenty enough of that to fuel the urge to overthrow his government in Iran at the time. The thing is, the average Iranian didn't care to be ruled over by wackos like Ayatollah Khomeini. The politics of the revolutionaries was immaterial. They just happened to have enough momentum to be the ones to topple the ruling order.

Sorta like what happened in Vietnam. Anyone seriously believe that the Vietcong were Communists purely because of its ideology? Feh! Communism was just a means to an end for what Ho Chi Minh and his gang were promising: an end to a thousand years of fighting for Vietnamese freedom.

My gut feeling: Egypt is going to wind up as another Iran. Maybe not as quickly as Iran turned into, but yeah: basically a bunch of good people who will realize too late that they are being ruled by a small band of nutcases. If you want me to use the words "radical Islamic state" then I suppose I've reason to.

And if we pull out of Iraq now or anytime in the foreseeable future, the same thing is going to happen there: people wanting freedom only to be co-opted by the radicals. And then we're looking at a bunch of Mid-East gone Islamic theocracy with a lot of shootin' irons and worse.

Awright, that's my analysis. G'nite!

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Michelle Bradsher enters the blogosphere!

In case anyone's wondering where the list of links went to: I haven't forgotten about it. In fact it'll probably reappear sometime this week if I can find time to put it together anew. It's just something that I made a secondary priority during this blog's recent redesign. And I'm looking forward to spinning some traffic toward friends and accomplices who also maintain blogsome presence on the Intertubes :-)

As it turns out, tonight I discovered another to add to the roll. I have known Michelle Bradsher for a long time (like, going back to seventh grade). And I am delighted that she has chosen to share her unique voice and her talent for conveying the stories of others on her new site, Bradsher's Blog.

Welcome to blogging, Michelle! I'm looking forward to reading your site and I am glad to spread the word about it with others :-)

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Busy week ahead

Look gang, the next few days I'm gonna be swamped with stuff. Especially with the lead-up to opening night for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Gypsy. I'm not gonna have much time to entertain you, enlighten you and otherwise play around with your heads like I usually do.

So here's something to tide you over until The Knight Shift resumes regular blogging. It's a YouTube clip that blurs the line between reality and imagination... well, more than most things that readily come to mind. From 1982's The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show, it's Tony Clifton!

Depending on how old you are, this video will either make you laugh... or confuse the heck out of you. Ironically it's the older viewers who are likely to be scratching their heads in wonder.

"If you believed they put a man on the moon..."

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Twenty-five years ago today...

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

-- John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

In memory of the crew of Mission STS 51-L of the Space Shuttle Challenger, who perished on this day a quarter century ago, January 28th, 1986.

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Let's conduct a weather experiment!

Just for fun (or maybe not)...

I have heard it said, since at least 1993, that if it thunders in the winter that it means snow is coming ten days later.

The first time I was told that, it was by Dad in February of that year. Exactly ten days later we had "the Storm of the Century" blizzard.

And every time since then that it has thundered during winter, we have had snow: if not precisely ten days later then very closely thenabouts.

Well, we had thunder this morning here in Reidsville, North Carolina. A lot of thunder.

So with this post as a benchmark, I'll check back in ten days from now Lord willing, and we'll see if there's any wintery preciptation :-)

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GYPSY: 10 days until Opening Night!

Y'know, it's incorrect to refer to this ethnic group as "Gypsy". The real term is "Romani". The reason they got tagged with the name "Gypsy" is 'cuz as they spread into Europe from their original home in the Indian subcontinent, the locals thought wrongly that they were Egyptian.

So don't you think that "Roma Rose Lee" has a better ring to it? Or is that just me?

Well anyhoo...

Next Friday night, February 4th, is Opening Night for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Gypsy! Rehearsals have been going great. Everyone was roaring with laughter last night during the run-through of "You Gotta Get A Gimmick". And I am having an absolute blast playing Cigar. He is completely sleazy and, well I just can't help but have fun with this character: he is the manager of a burlesque house, after all. Expect lots of yelling and waving my stogie around. And expect lots of other stuff that probably couldn't have been done in Rockingham County twenty years ago :-P

Gypsy runs for six shows from February 4th through the 13th. Hit here to go to the Theatre Guild website for ticket information.

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Message on a church sign that I saw this weekend...

"Following Christ means to be a witness, not be a prosecutor".

Very, very true. And the more that I've thought about it, the more I've appreciated how that is everything that it truly means to be a Christian.

It is not us that the world should be seeing, but Christ within us. We will always fail. But He never fails.

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Release trailer for DUKE NUKEM FOREVER. Yes, really.

On April 28th, 1997, video game studio 3D Realms announced that Duke Nukem Forever, the follow-up to its 1996 hit Duke Nukem 3-D, was in development.

Fourteen years, hundreds of thousands of wasted man-hours, numerous rendering engines long gone obsolete, two or more full generations of console technology and a bankruptcy later, Gearbox Software - which picked up the pieces last year to try to make some sense of this mess - will be releasing Duke Nukem Forever on May 6th.

Yes, as in: this year. 2011.

Look! Release trailer!

Here's the official synopsis:

Put on your shades and prepare to step into the boots of Duke Nukem,whose legend has reached epic proportions in the years since his last adventure. The alien hordes are invading and only Duke can save the world. Pig cops, alien shrink rays and enormous alien bosses can't stop our hero from accomplishing his one and only goal: to save the world, save the babes and to be a bad-ass while doing it. The King arrives with an arsenal of over-the-top weapons, non-stop action, and unprecedented levels of interactivity. This game puts the pedal to the metal and tongue firmly in cheek. Shoot hoops, lift weights, read adult magazines, draw crude messages on whiteboards or ogle the many hot women that occupy Duke's life - that is if you can pull yourself away long enough from destroying alien invaders. Duke Nukem was andwill forever be a gaming icon, and this is his legend.

I wonder if THIS guy is going to get his pre-order honored by GameStop.

I still can't believe this is seriously happening. All the jokes about "Duke Nukem Whenever", "Duke Nukem If Ever", "Duke Nukem Not Ever" are about to come to an end. When this game was first announced the Star Wars Special Editions were still in theaters. Bill Clinton had not yet done "that thing" with a cigar and Monica Lewinsky. Gas was ridiculously cheap. You could go to the airport without getting molested by government goons. "High-speed Internet" meant 57k baud...

I probably won't be buying it, but I'm planning on being at GameStop for the midnight release, just to see it with my own two eyes :-P

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