Atomic dawg

I have a passing, semi-academic interest in fetishes that I don't happen to share, perhaps because they shed light on the dynamic behind the stuff that does turn me on. Rubber dog masks (brought to my attention by a potential Robin-in-training) aren't entirely my cup of tea, fetishwise, but I admit there's something hot about these, especially when modelled by a tasty treat like this guy:



If you're interested, check out the "RubberDawg.com" site.

Woof, as they say.

Question of the day

"Beginnings" begins again (tentatively)

Unlike the characters in my on-again-off-again saga "Beginnings" (which is on again as of this morning), I've been a very busy bat/man lately--so much so that I haven't had time to write here nearly as often as I'd like. I'm hoping (yet again) to change that, so stay tuned. It's been a very full fall, full in terms of both activity and creative potential. When I don't write here for a while, it usually means I'm spending all my time actually doing things instead of writing about them, which is certainly the case this time, but I want to make more room for blog entries again, because reflecting on one's activities can be just as important as having the adventures in the first place. The challenge is carving out the time to do a bit of both. Never easy for me, even in the best of circumstances.

Sweet dreams, indeed

Time for yet another apology for not posting here or on my "Beginnings" blog more often, but I really see no reason to write every single day when there's nothing of substance to say; I'd rather spend that time fighting crime or pretending to do so. I'm a quality-over-quantity blogger. Trust me, I do have lots more to write about, but time is at a premium once again.

But here's a lovely music video I just discovered on YouTube this morning. Nothing more than a montage of B:TAS footage recut around a Marilyn Manson cover of a Eurhythmics song, but it works quite nicely if you ask me:



Much more to come in the days ahead, so stay tuned, batfan-fans!

PS. Thanks for all the recent compliments about this blog. Always nice to know your thoughts are heard and your fantasies are shared. Keep 'em comin'!

The Knight After 11: Travels in inner space

Most of these "Knightfall"/"Knight After" entries have dealt with my adventures in cyberspace, but an equally important, and far older, dimension of my batlife happens offline. The boundaries between roleplay with online friends/enemies and solo batplay have always been a little blurry for me, so I thought I'd devote this entry to some resources and experiences that don't necessarily involve outside players. (Yes, faithful reader, this is the link-filled post I've been promising for some time now.) This time around I'm just gonna present a few of the active and potential tools in my virtual utility belt, in the hopes that eventually I'll say more about how I've actually been using them lately.

1. I've been looking for an opportunity to write about Daniel Pinchbeck's book Breaking Open the Head here ever since I first started reading it about a year ago. I finished it several months ago and moved on to other subjects in this blog before I had a chance to discuss it, but this recent profile of Pinchbeck in Rolling Stone gives me a handy excuse to bring him up at last. (Clicking the last two links will tell you much more about his work than I could possibly accomplish in any paraphrase.)

I first heard the guy in a late-night broadcast of the UFO/ESP/conspiracy-theory radio wonderland which is Coast to Coast with George Noory (successor to Art Bell's show) a few years back. I happened to be in the midst of a solo bat-adventure at the time, and Pinchbeck's tales of drug-induced conversations with the universe struck a chord with me. It took me quite a while to track down his book in a store (though I could easily have ordered it here), and when I did, I was fascinated by what I found. Also a little horrified, since most of his adventures involve travelling to remote rainforests, near-psychotic breaks, and lots of puking, none of which has ever appealed to me. But the core of his story is remarkable for how closely it mirrors my own much tamer explorations with expanded consciousness. (A magic brownie is about as far as I'm willing to go, and that, combined with my active imagination, takes me plennnnnnnty far for my purposes.)

I realize I should probably quote a relevant passage or two, but that would require more effort than I should probably exert if I'm ever to get this long-delayed entry posted. Maybe I'll track down a few key lines for a future post. For now, instead, here are four lengthy excerpts from the book plus one outtake I haven't read yet which should give you a representative taste. The RS article also tipped me off to Pinchbeck's followup book and his forthcoming magazine/business endeavor. Oh, and here's a link to the writer's own blog on Amazon.com, which includes his thoughts on the RS story.

1a. Sooner or later I'm gonna have to follow Pinchbeck's recommendation to learn more about Terence McKenna's writings on similar concerns. When I do, this page of audio clips is sure to come in handy. Even more enticing: this collection of "Psychedelic Salon" podcasts, featuring talks by Pinchbeck, McKenna, and a dozen or so fellow travellers.

2. The subject of lucid dreaming is another one I've been meaning to introduce here for quite a while. In a sense, solo (and even group) batplay is, for me, something very like a lucid dream, in that it is a fantasy state I can enter and find myself collaborating with ... something or other: my own subconscious? the great beyond? One of my first introductions to the phenomenon came through a CD I picked up used a while back, a spoken-word-and-ambient-electronic project on the always-interesting em:t label called em:t 0096: lucid dreams. The speaker is Celia Green, a British writer who was one of the first to address the topic way back in 1968. There are a few audio clips (and another Coast-to-Coast sighting, no surprise) on this page, in conjunction with this documentary I just learned about. More recently, I've explored some of the how-to advice offered along with much more info on LD at this site. I found the advice so helpful that I decided to order webmaster Marc VanDeKeere's self-published manual, though I haven't started reading it yet. (It's in digital form only, and that doesn't sound like much fun to wade through.)

3. I'm finding tremendous parallels between the material above and various Buddhist lectures from the Insight Meditation Center in California, archived as podcasts at the amazing site Audio Dharma, a real treasure trove of information. I found the site while searching for information on Vipassana meditation, and I'm slowly making my way through the nearly 200 lectures available for free thus far.

4. Grant Morrison's website contains his wild, tongue-in-cheek treatise on "Pop Magic", the premise of which is essentially that the way to go beyond the surface layers of reality is to "Declare yourself a magician, behave like a magician, practise magic every day." The author of Batman: Arkham Asylum then provides you with brief lessons on focus, meditation, and the construction of sigils, among other things. It's fun and funny, and maybe some day I'll actually try some of the exercises Morrison proposes. (BTW, if Morrison's site doesn't keep you busy enough, head over to fellow comics writer Warren Ellis's blog--another must-read, as my links list to the right suggests.)

Holy Hullaballoo!

A tip o' the cowl to AdventureMan for creating a "Batman Film Festival" on his blog. Here are two highlights I'd never seen before (though the blog also contains snippets from fan films and the animated series, plus links to lots of consumable goodies). First, the never-aired pilot to a proposed Batgirl spinoff series:



What's most exciting to me about ths one, needless to say, is the existence of a whole new battrap I never knew existed. It's almost like stumbling upon a lost episode of the '66 series!

Next, a dance treat that's doubly nostalgic for me, even though I've never seen it before (as far as I know):



You really don't see dancing like that anymore, and I for one lament the loss.

Thanks again, AdventureMan! Keep fighting the good fight!

Back in action at last (sort of)

I know, I know: I disappear for weeks, and then come back with nothing more than this:



Sort like Thomas Pynchon, only it's no Vineland and I didn't even write it.

But it's still kinda funny.

The Knight After 10: Circle game

Robin has turned in his resignation. Superman claims he, too, is ready to switch sides. And Batman--yours truly--has willingly composed a loyalty oath to his former archenemy and hunts down his longtime allies with abandon.

As radical as the events of DC's latest Crisis and Marvel's Wars may be (and I still haven't read either one), I don't think they involve quite as fundamental a shakeup as this. In the nearly four months since my "enlightenment," everything has changed. The old divisions of my Yahoo buddy list--Heroes/Villains--no longer apply. Most of the men in those two categories have been redesignated Friends or Enemies (and most of the old "heroes" are now "enemies"), while the Monk, with whom my relationship is infinitely more complicated, gets a category of his own. I myself have been labelled a fool, a traitor, a puppet, and far worse--and I love it all.

My personal Extreme Makeover (which, admittedly, still probably looks a lot like classic Stockholm Syndrome to the naked eye) dovetails beautifully with the premise of a book I found in a used book sale at a local church around the same time I returned to the Monk's welcoming embrace. I picked up Carol Pearson's The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By for its title, of course, and was hooked by the brief explanation of its "six heroic archetypes" on the back cover:

the Innocent, who learns to trust; the Orphan, to mourn; the Wanderer, to find and name personal truth; the Warrior, to assert that truth in order to change the world; the Martyr, to love, to commit, to let go; and, finally, the Magician, who learns to recognize and receive the abundance of the universe.

Having read roughly half the book by now (it's only 176 pages, but it's been a very busy summer), I wouldn't say those are the clearest capsule descriptions of the six stages for my purposes here, but they give you a rough idea. And perhaps, like me, you can immediately sense how accurately they capture the trajectory of the comic book Batman (as well as many other mythic superheroes): from Innocent to trust-seeking Orphan to clarity-oriented Wanderer to power-ful Warrior. (That is, of course, the trajectory of Batman Begins, while Superman Returns focuses on role 5, the Martyr, which accounts for its much-discussed similarity to the Christ story.)

Pearson's book came out in 1986, and its opening chapters are a little heavy on New Age jibberjabber, but if you can look past that stuff, she's really on to something. If I quoted every passage that resonated for me, this entry would be at least ten times longer than it already is. Perhaps I'll devote another post to some key passages, but what I really want to call attention to for the time being is her insistence that life is not a linear progression from Innocent to Magician, and that the Magician phase is not meant to be the final or highest form of existence. Rather, we repeat the journey over and over throughout various dimensions of our lives, learning new lessons each time, and we can exist simultaneously at different points on "the Hero's Wheel." For example, one might be a Wanderer in one's career path while working out Martyr issues in a relationship and feeling like an Orphan on the spiritual front. And so on. You may find all of this a little too tidy, but Pearson does a convincing job of laying out the journey.

Parallels to my Bat-life are crystal clear to me: like many people my age, I first encountered the character as a pre-teen, enchanted by good-guy Adam West and his bad-guy adversaries on the tv show and in the relatively simple DC comics of the early-to-mid-1960s. My innocence was shattered in 1970 when my older brother (a clear father figure and the Batman to my Robin) died and various other awful things happened. leaving me to feel like an orphan for a good two decades or so, until I adopted the mantle of the Bat myself, embracing in adult life the central myth of my childhood. During this Wanderer phase (amply documented in this blog, along with the online conquests of my Warrior period), I came to see how immersing myself in superhero fantasy was not only sexually exciting but a valuable tool of spiritual exploration. Then I met the Monk--the villain that every myth requires, battled him, was defeated and caged by him (thus becoming a Martyr), then escaped his clutches and wandered a bit more, only to conclude that perhaps he was not a villain after all but a teacher, one I could gladly serve. Enter the Magician phase, in which, to use more of Pearson's handy oversimplifications, the hero "takes responsibility for his life" (ie, for the actions I performed as Ratman, when I was still a captive) and "confronts the Shadow." That pretty much sums up where I think I'm at these days, at least on the Bat-front. (My Bruce Wayne life is a whole 'nother story, believe me--but then, I've long been able to use the lessons I've learned in Bat-fantasy as a template for my work as a teacher, an artist, and a member of a longterm couple.)

There is much, much more I'd like to say about all this, and I know I promised plenty more links last time (because in addition to Pearson I've been encountering lots of other material that helps shed light on the saga, too), but this will have to do for now. Life has calmed down ever so slightly for a wee bit, so I will try to write here more often. The Monk saga doesn't move as quickly these days, now that I'm a willing student of magic rather than a captive warrior struggling to free myself, so I'd like to devote more time to the lessons I'm learning from all this rather than simply recapping plot developments.

Stay tuned for more thrilling adventures, dear reader--and best wishes on your own journeys around the Hero's Wheel.

PS. The "soul-stealing" tagline above comes from this bizarre 1973 Brave and the Bold story I came across at Dial B for Blog. Check it out!

Still still here

Heading out for a week in the woods (sort of) with the Hub, which I'm hoping will include a little batsex. Reports on this or rather other matters to follow. Check back soon.

Still here, sort of

Apologies for not posting more often lately. Between work and travel, there hasn't been much opportunity to do so, though my schedule does seem to be easing off in the near future, at least for a little while. (So much for summer being the slow time of the year.)

To try and ease back into the blogosphere, I just posted a couple of new chapters of my ongoing bat-serial, beginning with this one. Expect more in the days ahead.

Rest assured I continue to report to and learn from the Monk, much to my great joy; I'll have more to say on that in the near future as well.

Finally, a couple of bat-sightings you might enjoy as much as I have. First, an elaborate chalk drawing drawing by a street artist in action:



(I hope you can make out Bats' handsome mug to the artist's right; he's working on a Batman Beyond drawing in this shot.)

And here's a poster in a comic book store window I've been passing nearly every day lately:



Admittedly I've cropped it a bit in this image, but tell me that thing is not all about the crotch.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you.

No reality in sight

Recorded the Adam West episode of the, ahem, "reality" show Living in TV Land months ago. Finally watched it tonight.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. (Forgive me for belaboring the obvious. I had low expectations, and they still proved unreachable.) I'll spare you my beef with how contrived the whole damn thing feels, and skip right to the idiotic premise that West has not worn the cowl in 40 years, and thus being forced to do so if he loses a fly fishing contest with a radio DJ/batfan will be a major event in his life. Funny, but I always thought the guy spent the last four decades donning that oh-so-sexy headgear every weekend at a car show (which is where I saw him in it about 20 years ago), the opening of a gas station, or on a tv show much like this one.

I won't ruin the ending (the whole thing is pre-ruined, when you get right down to it), but I can guarantee that the thrilling conclusion is nowhere as nice as this:

Quote of the day

"If I was doing the Batman comic, there would be a lot more kissing and hairy-chest activity."

--Grant Morrison, from a fairly old interview (I'm sure you can guess the search words I used to find this one)

By which he is referring to this (apologies if I've posted this image before... oh, hell, I'm not gonna apologize for giving you what you know you want so very, very badly) :




Okay, so how come we have Morrison doing Superman and Frank Miller doing Batman, and (as far as I can tell) everybody's shirt stays on? Not fair!

Cue Smiths reference...

Believe me, that's only a tiny part of "the single gayest comic ever printed" as detailed here (a discovery I owe, like so many others, to Beaucoup Kevin).

Speaking of hands and gloves (a longstanding fetish fave of mine), I'm gonna have to agree with Dorian/PostModern Barney that this is a damn fine cover:



That's from the new Batman / Mad Monk miniseries, BTW, and if you know me at all you will be shocked to learn I haven't picked this up yet.

Stamp out crime

Come July 20, I'll be watching the mail a lot more carefully, in hopes of catching some of these:



Thank you, U.S. Postal Service!

(A part of me is troubled by how comfortable a government agency like the post office is with striking up deals with commercial concerns like DC/Waner, but that's been going on for years. And hey, I'm looking forward to seeing PlasticMan & co. on my stamps way more than TeflonMan.)

The Knight After 9: Fear no evil

It's been far too long since my last update on batlife since my "enlightenment," thanks in part to a busy daylight-world schedule and in part to my not really wanting to take the time to flesh out all the links I've been accumulating lately (as in, for months) to include here. Think I'll save those for some other time and just catch you up on what's been going on lately--not much in terms of plot, plenty in terms of deeper insight. Character development, you might say.

in a nutshell, bizarre as this may sound to some of you who have followed the saga from its earliest days, things are great now on the bat-front. I look forward to my near-daily chats with the Monk with a passion that knows no bounds. All the energy I once invested in trying to escape him now goes into helping him with what he euphemistically calls "the mission." And I've never been happier as a masked crimefighter than helping him commit what many would probably (erroneously) consider crimes.

I have heard from a handful of self-styled heroes lately who call me a coward and accuse me of being weak for allowing myself to be defeated by my archenemy. But I tell them, in all sincerity: I've never felt stronger or more powerful in my bat-career! For starters, all those terms--"hero," "weak," "defeat," "archenemy"--must be placed solidly within quotes, because they no longer apply. The tables have been turned so thoroughly by now that it's almost hard for me to remember a time when those words ever fit without several layers of irony.

There is also a power in the fact that I no longer fear villains of any stripe, because there's nothing any one of them could do to me at this point that the Monk hasn't already done, and surely done far more effectively than anyone else possibly could. (Once again, that last line suggests an adversarial relationship between us that no longer exists. I refer, of course, strictly to the old days before my escape attempt and subsequent awakening.) I've had my mask removed, replaced, and restored by an absolute Master, and anything beyond that seems anticlimactic.

As for those so-called "heroes," I understand now that my true role is not to fight them (though I'll gladly do that, or help them against a lesser foe if the situation calls for it) but to assist in their education as I have been educated. My own transformation has been a difficult one in part because there are so few templates for it--I can't think of any comic book scenario in which Batman or someone like him freely chooses to embrace the symbiotic aspects of his relationship with his ultimate nemesis--and that struggle to find precedents has inspired me to offer my services as a role model to my peers. I can set an example for them: fully Batman, yet fully mindful of my debt to the Monk, eager to learn from and help him any way I can.

(I have a feeling this must all sound like crazy talk to a reader who has not followed the "Knight" entries leading up to this one. Oh, well--if it registers, good, and if it doesn't, so be it. My goal in recording this saga isn't really to convince anyone to think a certain way about me or my adventures, only to describe and contemplate what I'm experiencing as I experience it. The Monk saga is essentially a two-year-and-counting roleplay/collaborative improvisation, and this latest totally unexpected development has been thrilling beyond words. Yet I continue to search for words with which to describe it, celebrate it, share it.)

That's the update. The next installment of this chronicle will be packed with links. You have my word!

Traps, traps, traps

Ah, if only every issue could make such promises:



(For the record, I found this issue at random while testing out ComicSeeker.com, a tool for pricing old comics. Found that via Johnny Bacardi.)

Superfag?

I feel so out of it.

I had no idea before checking in on the last week's worth of PostModern Barney that America is busy talking about Superman being gay. Apparently it all stems from this recent cover story in The Advocate.



Having just read the story, I want to point out two things:
1. Alonso Duralde's original article barely mentions the new movie; it's really about a gay reader's affection for comics, and the reasons behind it. (Two of his three theories are patently obvious: alter egos=metaphors for the double life of a closeted teen, and men in tights are sexy. The third--that long-running comics function like soap operas--is less trite; at first I was gonna say that I never really got into soaps that much, but I admit I do appreciate them as a form of storytelling, and I get Duralde's point about the rewards of obsessive reading being the ability to appreciate the footnotes in comics.)

2. Superman remains one of the least "gay" comics heroes out there, at least in my book. Plenty of gay guys (like the Hub) find him hot, but he's ... well, he's no Masked Manhunter, my friends. Love the muscles and the tights, but I miss the angst.

First Batwoman, now this. It's been a busy month for op-ed writers.

No need for comment

20 versions of Neal Hefti's "Batman" theme song.

Homophobes are a cowardly and superstitious lot

I feel obliged to acknowledge the recent Batwoman-is-a-lesbian media/blogosphere frenzy, but I just don't have the energy to say anything about it beyond pointing out that this BBC story about "the rise of multi-culturalism in the comics" is incredibly simplistic and just plain wrong on so many levels I can't even begin to count. (Learned about the dumbass story from this short item posted by an ailing BeaucoupKevin.)

I've got a sneaking suspicion the people who write stories like this in mainstream newspapers are confusing Batgirl with Batwoman, for starters. As with Pluto/Goofy and Donald/Daffy, I'm sure it happens all the time. It's just that BatGIRL is surely waaaaaaaaay more well known among noncomicsgeeks than her adult counterpart.

Oh, and Dorian/postmodernbarney has posted these hilarious scans from a comic explaining "the real reason there aren't more gay or lesbian superheroes." A laff riot.

Moving right along.

The Scarecrow walks at midnight

Discovered this short-lived blog by a self-styled "real life superhero in training" by accident tonight. It's a shame the thing only lasted for 4 entries (the final post nearly a year ago), because the concept is interesting, and I would have liked to have seen where this young man's journey took him. I enjoyed reading his thoughts on faith, evil, time, and sundry other matters.

It's hard to tell how seriously the guy is taking his project of transforming himself into a vigilante, facing danger, and so on; I just hope he's okay. In the absence of actual superpowers, these things are best left to the realm of fantasy--where they can still be every bit as real, in a certain way, only a good deal safer.