New post on Substack: about The Book of Boba Fett

 

Just a friendly note that I have posted another article on my Substack page.  This one is a "review" of sorts about the new Disney+ series The Book of Boba Fett.  Maybe others will read it and chime in and let me know: what am I missing from this series.  Because so far it seems to have wildly misplaced... something.

Maybe it's the fact that it has violated forty years of tradition by showing us Boba Fett without his helmet?

From the article:

Maybe it’s because The Book of Boba Fett doesn’t fully understand who it is that it’s being made for. Or maybe it does, but it has forgotten its roots. See, Boba Fett was my generation’s most iconic man of mystery. We had no idea who that was beneath the helmet. And we liked it that way. Heck, for all we knew that could have been a woman in the armor posing as a man (no offense meant to the memory of Jeremy Bulloch). The only thing that mattered is that Boba Fett was the most infamous of the bounty hunters who answered Darth Vader’s call, and he succeeded in his mission to capture Han Solo. Come to think of it, Fett was the only character in The Empire Strikes Back who accomplished his purpose.

 Mash down here for more.

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So, I got hit by COVID-19...

It was only a matter of time, I suppose.  And based on what those who were in close proximity to me have said, it seems like it's the omicron (anagram for "moronic") variant.  Which is the most wildly contagious as well as apparently being the least malign of the strains found so far.  Two friends and I were at a movie theater on Christmas Day, watching Spider-Man: No Way Home and one of them believes she picked it up during a trip to the restroom.  She tested positive two days later and our other friend got a positive result the next day.  My symptoms began a few hours later.  It hasn't been as severe as theirs, but still... this has been a pretty cruddy way to end 2021 on.  Or a fitting one.  Or something.

It's almost miraculous that it took this long to contract it, given my work as a health care professional involves interacting with the public on a constant basis.  Two years' keeping ahead of the Wuhan Flu is a pretty good record, all things considered.

I'm day four now into fighting this thing but happily I'm on the tail end of it.  Body temperature had been oscillating like an accordion but that seems to have ended last night.  There hasn't been as much mucous produced as I had originally thought.  My chest feels like there's a weight on it, even now.  I never lost the sense of smell, however there is a weird taste in my mouth.  But that's been happening lately anyway, because of iron infusions I've been receiving to offset anemia.

I still do not believe in COVID vaccine mandates: something I've expressed on numerous other forums.  The choice to be vaccinated should be a very personal one, for a lot of reasons.  I was vaccinated this past winter, but I have chosen to not receive boosters.  Indeed, I wonder about the efficacy of the vaccines, given the reports that have accumulated of people being severely injured and even dying after getting jabbed.  We should have been addressing this with medications like Ivermectin, which is what countries like India have been doing to counter COVID.  But I suppose "big pharma" couldn't make enough money on something they tout as a horse dewormer (and the drug companies have better paying lobbyists too).

In hindsight, I'm taking a perverse view on getting COVID-19.  Coming through like this, my body has been working overtime to cook up some all natural antibodies.  My chances of catching COVID again are significantly diminished.  I'm going to be able to head out the office door to meet my patients with much more confidence, and that's a good thing.

Until the next plague that our friends the ChiComs whip up in their laboratories...

 

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We saw GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE last night

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the movie we didn't know we needed right now, is better than we deserve, and blew away expectations.  It is a MAGNIFICENT tribute to the original film while standing on its own and setting the stage for more still to come.  Be sure to stick around until the end of the credits for two extra scenes.

And we had some fun with our going to see it:

Who you gonna call?

Some friends and I went to the theater wearing our finest Ghostbuster attire.  That's my bestie since college Ed in the center.  The whole thing was his idea :-)

Anyhoo, go see Ghostbusters: Afterlife.  It's the perfect motion picture and quite fitting for this Thanksgiving season.

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Remember my prediction from this past January?

 Here it is if you've forgotten: my most serious prediction ever...

 

Make a note of this.  January the Sixth, Two Thousand and Twenty-One.  Just before 1 p.m. EST.

If I'm wrong about this I'll eat my fedora.  No really, I will.

Here it is:

I do declare that four years from today, the United States will be in the WORST condition it has been in, in at least the past fifty years.

Hold me to this.  Do it.

I am dead-#@%$ serious.

 

 

 That was ten months ago.  Much less than the forty-eight I allocated to Biden.

Out of control inflation.  Soaring gas prices.  Less food.  Energy costs set to skyrocket.  A military more dedicated to being "woke" than defense readiness.  Americans still stranded in Afghanistan.  Supply chains strangled because of over-burdening regulation on truckers.  Vaccine mandates.  No effective counter to a China becoming more belligerent by the month if not quicker.  The list goes on...

But hey: no more mean tweets!!

"Let's go Brandon."

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I'm now on Substack

In trying to return to writing on a regular basis, I'm looking to broaden my reach.  So it is that I've just joined Substack, at christopherknight.substack.com.  Expect more serious commentary than what I usually have on this blog.  Like, the first post is about an ethical issue that has been on my mind the past several days.  Substack has the feature of letting authors charge a monthly subscription for their work.  I'm not going to  go that far.  I doubt my own humble page will get more than a hundred views a month.  But the idea is there, at least.  Anyhoo, see y'all on Substack!

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Medication mementos

So, it's been a few months since I last shared anything with all two of this blog's regular readers (actually it's more than two, and I am thankful for every visitor, including our friends in County Meath, Ireland).  Lots has happened since then... and relatively little of it much good.

Let me go back a bit to earlier this year.  I had been having some issues with the medications I take to manage my bipolar disorder.  It was so bad that I took two weeks off from work to address them, at a daytime outpatient facility.  It did enormous good in some aspects.  The involuntarily shaking of my body when certain memories arose, that has been remedied with the addition of one new med.  When I got back to work, things were pretty good... for awhile.

But then it seemed that other problems arose to take the trembling's place.  Serious lethargy, chronic headaches (especially in the morning), some weight gain, an increase in racing thoughts, elevated depressive episodes... these and more became the bane of my existence.  What did I do to counter them?

Yup.  More meds.  So many during these past ten months that I can't remember all of them by name.

In August I was prescribed another medication.  One I had taken already, mostly in the early years involving my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  This was going to make me less lethargic, it was thought.

I wish that I could tell you what happened after that, because I have no solid memory at all.

My neighbors have told me that they found me outside in the rain, dancing about barely clothed.  At one point I was trying to open other people's car doors.  There was other bizarre behavior also.  Some of it I only discovered later.  Like, how I found an oven mitt in the washing machine.  The mitt was filled with my dog Tammy's dry food.  The bottle of pink salt in a closet.  My toothbrush on the coffee table.  I have not one whit of memory about any of this but I trust my neighbors.  One of them said that he had seen this before in other people: a medication reaction.

Then came the next day, when I was found face-down and unconscious on the asphalt on the side of the road next to my house.

I don't remember the ride in the ambulance.  I remember my face hurting like hell though.  I also vaguely remember thinking that I had been attacked by someone.  Now, I'm not sure at all about it.  My face was beaten to a pulp.  It could have been somebody hitting me. It could also have been simply me falling forward face-first onto the side of the road.

At the hospital I had to have stitches in my left knee, and was given a CT scan.  I barely remember a sheriff's deputy taking me home that night.

My supervisor later showed me some of the texts I had sent her.  Something about a Dr. Pepper can "pulsing" and one about Perseus and Medusa.

It had all been a reaction to the new medication.  Thank God I didn't do anything else, or did something that would have harmed my dog.  It's an enormously disturbing thought, that I could have gotten behind the wheel and tried to drive off.

Well, I'm blessed to have some very good people in my life.  One of my best friends and her mother came to my house the next day and we agreed that I needed some time in an inpatient environment.  I called the same place where I had been earlier in the year as an outpatient, and arranged to voluntarily check myself in.

I was a patient for a little over a week.  That's the second time I've been voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility.  Involuntary?  Four or five.  Which is almost certainly what would have happened had I not gotten off the med.  That med was the only one of my regimen that I was not given during my stay.

And now?  After missing almost an entire month I'm back at work, as a peer support specialist for the local mental health center.  I'm trying to regain confidence in me, because this ordeal has caused me to no longer fully trust myself.  If I don't remember most of one month, what else don't I remember?  Were there times in the past where I was an entirely different person, but I have no memory of it?

I really could have ended my own life during that month, and not even know that I was doing it.  There have been times when I've had suicidal ideations.  Some of them, quite recently.  But there was always something stopping me from going too far.  I think that letting down my friends, and not being there for my dog, are what keep me from straying past the line.  But what if I lost my faculties completely, and did something to harm myself without my conscious mind knowing it was happening?

Suddenly, my world is a very different place.  One that I can no longer take for granted or believe that I can have complete control over.

And that's what's been happening these past few months, my friends.  Nothing more or less than trying to hold onto some shred of sanity.

Will have more to write again soon.

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My favorite movie hits forty years old

I had no idea that Raiders of the Lost Ark had returned to theaters for its fortieth anniversary until my iPhone suggested it from a list of movies playing nearby.  Whatever other plans I'd made last Sunday got dropped like a hot Sankara Stone as I headed to the big cinema the next town over.  And that's how, for only the second time in my life, I got to behold my all time favorite film on the big screen.

 

I was far from alone.  About forty-some others had shown up too.  Including the family of four that sat in front of me.  Two little girls, maybe seven and eight.  Just how old I was when I first saw Raiders.  I could tell this movie was giving them thrills and chills, just as it did me.

 

Maybe it made some of the same impact on them that watching Raiders had on me.  In the days and weeks following my first time seeing the movie, I was obsessed with finding out everything I could about the real life history behind the story.  Every encyclopedia volume must have been pulled off of our bookshelf as I read up about ancient Egypt, the Nazis, the Ark of the Covenant...  All of that and more was fodder for my young mind.

So it's safe to say that Raiders of the Lost Ark is not just my favorite movie of all time.  It's also the film that most affected my life.  Yes, the Star Wars saga was a wide-eyeing wonder of story and spectacle that imprinted onto my imagination.  But Raiders ignited the love of history that has followed and guided my life all along.  It taught me that academia and learning could be a very cool thing (though my own scholarship never involved wielding a bullwhip... though I rock in a fedora).

It was also the start of something special between Dad and I.  He loved this movie too.  And we never failed to catch an Indiana Jones movie together in the theater whenever one came out.  He was a real authority on the kinds of vehicles that moved about Indy's world, particularly the aircraft.  I think that from the very first moments of 1936 South America, Dad recognized this movie as being a homage to the Saturday serials of his childhood.  Raiders of the Lost Ark was like a meeting place between his generation and mine.  And for just that alone I will forever treasure this movie.

 

But what it is to all of us together is a kick-butt movie that, like any treasure in the desert, has become priceless with time.  It is also something that has never been replicated so perfectly.  Certainly its sequels tried, and sometimes approximated the success.  But Raiders of the Lost Ark was too much like lightning in a bottle.  It was the intersection of the era's most successful actor, its most successful director, its most successful creator of worlds, all come together with the edgiest of cutting edge special effects and a rollickin' score by John Williams.  Something like that just can't be done all over again like that first time.

Forty years later, and it still holds up.  As perhaps the most perfect motion picture spectacle ever committed to celluloid.  There was nothing like it before and there does not look to  be anything like it since then.

 

So let us raise a glass to Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Happy fortieth anniversary to Indiana Jones.  Remember: it's not the years, it's the mileage.

 

 

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A message to the Christians of Generation X

 

What I'm about to share, has been a long while percolating. It's not going to be taken well by too many people. Especially by those around my age and fellow Christians. But it's time that it be said. Maybe there can yet be some salvaging what has come of us.

A few weeks ago I came upon some music. It was a collection of MP3s. I was the one who made them, all the way back in 1999. They're MP3s of a night of singing from Elon's chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Real, home-grown and heart-felt praise and worship from a young people with their entire lives ahead of them.

 

I listened to them and wept tears of remembrance at how FRESH it sounded. I will never claim to have been fully immersed in the IV culture, it seems more like I was playing on the edges. That, despite my having become a Christian in no small part because of the ministries of friends there.

 

But I recognize the purity of the motivation for that singing well enough. I heard voices that to this day, I can recognize and put a name to. A friend from Florida. A quartet of ladies. My discipleship partner, who opened my eyes more than he knew and maybe someday I’ll get to tell him that.

 

I couldn’t help but listen to the singing, and wonder about what has become of us through the crucible of time. Many of us of course got married, had children of our own. Some didn’t. Some, like me, were married and then one day saw it come crashing down. Some of us crossed America to find a place where God might want us to be, and others held firm to their roots.

 

I envy those. It means that they found real love and affection without having to go searching for it. They had stability. Others, did not and may never know stability other than as some far-off dream. I think of all the wacky things that happened in my life. Some of them aroused a bit of notoriety. Those aren’t things that happen when you’re stable.

 

I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. They are instead what God calls for each of us as individuals. It is left to each of us to seek the path God would have for us to be on, and to adhere to that path, trusting in Him.

 

So, my old friends, I love them and always have and always will.

 

And I wonder where it was that we… that ALL of us… failed. And I mean as Christians.

 

To understand what I mean, we have to go back to another time. Roughly a quarter century. To the Christianity of America and the “civilized” west. I emphasize that because it’s been impressed upon me that the Christianity of our culture is far removed from that of other places. Such as North Korea. And communist China. And regions of Africa, where it seems not a week goes by that an atrocity against born-again Christians doesn’t transpire. Weirdly, we don’t seem to listen to news about that. We don’t stop to consider our brethren in distant lands where Christ is met with hostility and persecution.

 

If that had registered at all with us it was only in a peripheral sense. We were too busy doing “the God thing” in our own way.

 

We wore the scripture-festooned t-shirts. We tied on the “WWJD” bracelets. We listened to DC Talk and Audio Adrenaline and the other Christian music acts at events like Winter Jam. We patterned our relationships on I Kissed Dating Goodbye. We engorged ourselves on apocalyptic pulp fiction like the Left Behind series, so very sure that ours would be the generation swept up in the Rapture.

 

Well, here it is, well over twenty years later. There has been no Rapture. The books and clothing are food for rats and roaches. Relationships were destroyed by I Kissed Dating Goodbye, not built up. The music stopped.

 

And then there was “the prize”. What we wanted most: to lead others to Christ. To win even one person over to God. To give the angels of Heaven reason to rejoice.

 

I wonder now: how much was that for God, and how much was for ourselves. “Converting to Christ” to some became like a notch on the belt. Something to boast of, when boasting was the LAST thing we should have done. Rejoice, yes… but never to have pride in.

 

And what came of it? How many of those we led, still clung to Christ?

 

The “mighty generation of prayer warriors” we were told we were, ended up a generation as mundane as any other.

 

It seems that all that is left is an archive of MP3s, listened to by someone who tried to hold fast to his faith only to see it buckle and break and now is left wondering:

 

“What happened to me? Come to think of it: What happened to *us*?”

Granted, some escaped total blame. Again I sense envy in myself. But as an entire generation of young Christians… we messed up.

 

The world is no better for the enthusiasm we had. Indeed some will argue that the world is much worse. I don’t care to tick off in how many ways, that’s not what this essay is about. Except that the number of people in America claiming to be Christian has ebbed significantly.

 

I believe it can readily be said: things are not better compared to what they were two and three decades ago. Or perhaps I’m wistfully reminiscing about the way things were before we stopped looking to God and began gluing our pupils to all of those screens we surround ourselves with.

 

Our generation of Christians – at least the Christianity of the “civilized” world – had its chance to leave behind it a legacy like none other. With great abandon we threw our lot in with the cause of Christ. Ours was love for one another utterly. We were the edge of the sword of the Word. That is what we thought of ourselves.

 

But we failed.

 

Maybe it’s not entirely our fault. What most threw shade on our righteous ambitions was 9/11. That act rattled us to our core. It taught us that we were NOT invulnerable. Also too, we have come to acknowledge that from the top of mortal authority on down, there was a lack of real leadership. We put too much of our faith in “leaders” who glorified themselves, instead of truly serving others.

 

Our eyes were shaken off of the eternal, and made to rest on the things of this temporal realm. And that was one of the tests we had to endure. Can it sincerely be said that we passed it?

 

Because, we didn’t.

 

My work in the field of mental health involves interacting with a lot of different people. About a month ago one of my clients lent me a book about the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Reading it has brought back memories of watching its aftermath unfold.

 

The first victim was a seventeen-year old girl who with a gun aimed at her head answered “You know I do” when asked if she believed in God. And then someone else – it was unclear at the time who exactly – in the library told the assailants “yes” when she was asked if she was a Christian.

 

One thing that was reported in the book that has been lingering on the edges of my mind these last few weeks. It’s about how despite the tragedy, the Christian community of Littleton, Colorado coalesced and grew. The blood of Rachel Scott, Cassie Bernall, and others killed at Columbine were like seeds let to fall to the ground, bringing forth new spiritual life to a generation most in need of it.

 

That was the effect, for a while. The churches were packed, especially with young people. Commitments were made. Wavering hearts became more steadfast.

 

God had brought some of our own to the point of martyrdom. And what should have been a clarion call for us to abandon our pretenses and throw in that much more behind the Throne… well…

 

What happened to that? According to Dave Cullen’s Columbine ten years after the tragedy, the swelling of the churches in the Littleton area had subsided. More than an extra decade since then has likely not made the situation any better. It’s almost enough to ask: “What did they die for?”

 

The Christians of Generation X had everything going for them. We had our own culture and were making an impact on the larger world. We *mattered*.

 

But we blew it. And in doing so we let *them* – the ones who have come before and have come since – down.

 

We were proud. We were arrogant. We were the furthest thing from humble. And if there is any one thing that God will not abide, it is pride in our own works.

We could have still mattered. We really could have been the generation that God used in a mighty way. 

 

But we didn’t have humility enough.

 

We were going to change the world for Christ. Instead the world changed us. Our temerity and zeal for Christ was beaten upon and worn down.

 

In short: we were defeated, in great part.

 

I don’t believe that it necessarily must be a failure we are damned to.

 

Look, I’m NOT saying that we have to go back to “the way things were”. Those days are behind us. We have grown up. That’s not who we are anymore singing those songs in a fellowship group of college kids.

 

We have lost much of our innocence. But that doesn’t mean that all has been taken from us. The parts that matter most.

 

Because right now, there are few who are as poised to change things more than Generation X. We are still plenty young enough to have a spirit of fire. Wedded to that is a maturity that comes with age and experience.

 

Maybe we *had* to blow it. Perhaps the flaming metal of youth needed a tempering quench.

 

I have to believe that even the worst things in life, if given over to God, can bear precious fruit.

We can still be used by God. IF we let Him.

 

But if we do not learn from our missteps, our generation really *will* have failed. Failed those who have come after us especially.

 

It wasn’t “our time” then. But it certainly is now.

 

And it’s time we made good on what we promised God.

 

 

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