That promised new project for 2010 is starting... early. Um, not to let too much of the cat out of the bag, but a preview of sorts is up now, and the official home of the new project will be here:
http://batmancomesout.blogspot.com/
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Eulogy
Excerpted from the Daily Planet, December 21, written by Perry White:
This morning at 2:31 AM Eastern Standard Time Clark Kent, known to most of the world as Superman, passed away due to complications from cancer at Metropolis General Hospital. Kent is survived by his wife, Lois Lane-Kent, and mother, Martha. His loss will be felt for years.
Clark will be buried in an open funeral in Metropolis Gardens Cemetery at 11 AM on Saturday. He will be eulogized by Bruce Wayne, popularly known as the Batman, who will break ground on a “functional” monument to Superman, the country’s largest homeless and civic center, at the end of the ceremony. The text of his eulogy is posted below:
Not all of you knew Clark Kent. Some of you knew him only from his reporting, or as that man in the sky with the “S” on his chest, but those were just the tip of the spear. Clark was always more than the sum of his parts, more than a godlike alien, or a farmboy from Kansas, an urban reporter, a hero- even a husband, son and friend.
I’ve been privileged, more than perhaps any other human being, because I’ve known Clark in many of those capacities. I served with him proudly in the Justice League, and I’ll say it now that I was proud to call him my friend. I even had the opportunity, as owner of the Daily Planet, to see him work, and on a few occasions I was graced to dine with his family and his wife.
But the one thing everyone should know about Clark Kent: his most amazing ability was his humanity. A lot of people, and I would probably count myself among them, are better in adversity. But Clark was the opposite. When bad things happened, he was absolutely the person you wanted to have around, but it was in the down time that he thrived.
I remember we were in Jarhanpur, and buildings were collapsing. It’s true, when a building is falling over, Superman is invaluable, but Flash, Diana, J’onn, whatever Green Lantern you have in tow- they’re all good at pulling people out of falling buildings. But afterwards, when there were still people missing in the rubble, when we needed someone who could look at the survivors and say, “Don’t lose hope-” that was Clark. And there is no one who will ever be able to say it like he could, no one who can make even me believe.
And that’s just it. In the days, weeks and years that come, people will remember him for his strength, his speed, and his amazing abilities. But what we’ve lost here isn’t a superhuman, because there are many left who will fill that void; what we’ve lost is the most human person I’ve ever known.
There was a time or two I joked with him about that, how he always elevated the man above the super; I suggested he start wearing an “M” on his chest instead. He laughed, and said then people would start calling him Marvel Man, and there’d be another legal battle with Captain Marvel.
It’s okay to laugh; Clark would have wanted us to.
Clark loved all of us; I don’t say that with an ounce of hyperbole, and despite its messianic overtones. Perhaps because he was not literally human, he was granted perspective, on all of our faults, our failings; he loved humanity for all the potential we possessed, despite all the times we squander it.
I remember the first time I saw him cry. He was struggling with the totality of the responsibility he’d undertaken. He’d tried listening to the sounds of the city, all of the fights and petty bickering, the mistrust and lies; he was thinking about being more proactive, going after crime before it became violent, intervening before punches were thrown. And it overwhelmed him.
He asked, “Why can’t things- why can’t people- be better?” I remember I laughed at him, and thought he was naïve. But there were moments when those words came back to me, when I thought, “Why can’t they?” So I tried to be better. I tried to do more. To encourage more.
There were times when I wanted to be him. Not for the power, but because he had one ability I could never match, for all the cleverness of my engineers, for all the tricks I could pull there was one thing I could only encourage him to do because I couldn’t: inspire.
And he inspired a generation, a whole generation of people only some of whom were foolish enough to adopt his fashion sense and leap off rooftops, but a generation of people who work in soup kitchens and volunteer, who work to build a better world than the one they found. A generation who made him proud of his adoptive world.
Clark’s only super power that ever surprised me was his ability to be better every day. He raised the bar for excellence, and every day he surpassed it. And I know that Clark didn’t do it because he had abilities beyond what most people can fathom, but because of who he was. He excelled by being kinder, or more understanding, by consistently putting the needs of others before his own. The only time he’s let me down, the only time he truly disappointed me, was by dying; it’s hard to fathom the possibility of a world without a Superman, and I’m disappointed that we’ll all now have to try.
I didn’t come here to bury my friend, but to tell you who he was. But I think he has one last power, because I don’t think Clark Kent has died. I think what he accomplished will live in our memories far beyond mortal leaders. I believe in our next generation, our children won’t look to us and say they want to be President, because they’ve seen a better purpose and a better office than that. They’ll say, “I want to be Superman.”
And that world would very definitely be a better one than the one that Clark found. Lois, Martha, I speak for all of us when I say you’ll be in our hearts; we love you as surely as we loved him.
This morning at 2:31 AM Eastern Standard Time Clark Kent, known to most of the world as Superman, passed away due to complications from cancer at Metropolis General Hospital. Kent is survived by his wife, Lois Lane-Kent, and mother, Martha. His loss will be felt for years.
Clark will be buried in an open funeral in Metropolis Gardens Cemetery at 11 AM on Saturday. He will be eulogized by Bruce Wayne, popularly known as the Batman, who will break ground on a “functional” monument to Superman, the country’s largest homeless and civic center, at the end of the ceremony. The text of his eulogy is posted below:
Not all of you knew Clark Kent. Some of you knew him only from his reporting, or as that man in the sky with the “S” on his chest, but those were just the tip of the spear. Clark was always more than the sum of his parts, more than a godlike alien, or a farmboy from Kansas, an urban reporter, a hero- even a husband, son and friend.
I’ve been privileged, more than perhaps any other human being, because I’ve known Clark in many of those capacities. I served with him proudly in the Justice League, and I’ll say it now that I was proud to call him my friend. I even had the opportunity, as owner of the Daily Planet, to see him work, and on a few occasions I was graced to dine with his family and his wife.
But the one thing everyone should know about Clark Kent: his most amazing ability was his humanity. A lot of people, and I would probably count myself among them, are better in adversity. But Clark was the opposite. When bad things happened, he was absolutely the person you wanted to have around, but it was in the down time that he thrived.
I remember we were in Jarhanpur, and buildings were collapsing. It’s true, when a building is falling over, Superman is invaluable, but Flash, Diana, J’onn, whatever Green Lantern you have in tow- they’re all good at pulling people out of falling buildings. But afterwards, when there were still people missing in the rubble, when we needed someone who could look at the survivors and say, “Don’t lose hope-” that was Clark. And there is no one who will ever be able to say it like he could, no one who can make even me believe.
And that’s just it. In the days, weeks and years that come, people will remember him for his strength, his speed, and his amazing abilities. But what we’ve lost here isn’t a superhuman, because there are many left who will fill that void; what we’ve lost is the most human person I’ve ever known.
There was a time or two I joked with him about that, how he always elevated the man above the super; I suggested he start wearing an “M” on his chest instead. He laughed, and said then people would start calling him Marvel Man, and there’d be another legal battle with Captain Marvel.
It’s okay to laugh; Clark would have wanted us to.
Clark loved all of us; I don’t say that with an ounce of hyperbole, and despite its messianic overtones. Perhaps because he was not literally human, he was granted perspective, on all of our faults, our failings; he loved humanity for all the potential we possessed, despite all the times we squander it.
I remember the first time I saw him cry. He was struggling with the totality of the responsibility he’d undertaken. He’d tried listening to the sounds of the city, all of the fights and petty bickering, the mistrust and lies; he was thinking about being more proactive, going after crime before it became violent, intervening before punches were thrown. And it overwhelmed him.
He asked, “Why can’t things- why can’t people- be better?” I remember I laughed at him, and thought he was naïve. But there were moments when those words came back to me, when I thought, “Why can’t they?” So I tried to be better. I tried to do more. To encourage more.
There were times when I wanted to be him. Not for the power, but because he had one ability I could never match, for all the cleverness of my engineers, for all the tricks I could pull there was one thing I could only encourage him to do because I couldn’t: inspire.
And he inspired a generation, a whole generation of people only some of whom were foolish enough to adopt his fashion sense and leap off rooftops, but a generation of people who work in soup kitchens and volunteer, who work to build a better world than the one they found. A generation who made him proud of his adoptive world.
Clark’s only super power that ever surprised me was his ability to be better every day. He raised the bar for excellence, and every day he surpassed it. And I know that Clark didn’t do it because he had abilities beyond what most people can fathom, but because of who he was. He excelled by being kinder, or more understanding, by consistently putting the needs of others before his own. The only time he’s let me down, the only time he truly disappointed me, was by dying; it’s hard to fathom the possibility of a world without a Superman, and I’m disappointed that we’ll all now have to try.
I didn’t come here to bury my friend, but to tell you who he was. But I think he has one last power, because I don’t think Clark Kent has died. I think what he accomplished will live in our memories far beyond mortal leaders. I believe in our next generation, our children won’t look to us and say they want to be President, because they’ve seen a better purpose and a better office than that. They’ll say, “I want to be Superman.”
And that world would very definitely be a better one than the one that Clark found. Lois, Martha, I speak for all of us when I say you’ll be in our hearts; we love you as surely as we loved him.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Hospital
Impending Demise: You’re in a hospital room, one your doctors don’t seem optimistic you’ll walk out of.
Superman: Yes.
ID: What happened? A few weeks ago you didn’t look- you’re a shell of the man you were even a month ago.
S: The League. We did what we always do, stepped up to a challenge with everything we had, with sometimes unorthodox methodology.
ID: Care to elaborate?
S: Kryptonite radiation therapy. The thinking was, if normal radiation didn’t work on the cancer cells, maybe the kind of radiation I’m vulnerable to would work like normal radiation on a human being. Apparently Bruce has been trying to set it up for six months, now, tracking down anyone with even a passing experience with kryptonite, Metallo, the Kryptonite Man. The missing link, though, the one they needed to piece everything together was Conduit. He is able to project kryptonite radiation, so he was the one who really held the key. But from what we gather Lex Luthor had the same notion, and had taken Conduit and put him into a kind of supervillian witness protection program. Bruce has been harrowing Lex and his interests ever since, including a few hostile takeovers of his assets- he’d been hoping to make revenge too expensive for Lex. But he was also coordinating one of the most sophisticated man-hunts in the history of the League, involving the Birds of Prey as they like to be called, and the Martian Manhunter, to name only a few.
Eventually Bruce tracked Conduit back to Kansas. And I hope I’m not uh talking out of school, but I say back to Kansas because he and I grew up in the same home town. His real name is Ken Braverman. His parents were actually driving to the hospital for his birth when my rocket from Krypton arrived. A chunk of the ship broke off entering the atmosphere and landed in the road in front of the Braverman’s car, and caused his dad to put the car into a ditch. Ken was born in the backseat, and their proximity to the piece of the rocket meant that he absorbed a lot of kryptonite radiation.
We were both pretty close to the same age. Because of the radiation Ken had a lot of health problems growing up: he was small, and frail, got sick a lot. Because of that people picked on him. I tried to stand up for him, but, sometimes when you don’t feel strong enough the last thing in the world you want is for someone else to fight your battles. I think if Ken hadn’t been dosed with radiation, if he hadn’t been sick, I think we probably would have been friends.
Anyway, by high school, Ken’s health had reversed track, and rather than being weaker than most everybody, he was stronger, and faster. But he had a hell of a chip on his shoulder, too. He remembered every single person who put him down, every single person who ever laughed at his frailty. And he remembered every perceived slight, every time he felt I’d put him down trying to stand up for him.
Only he was still having side effects from the radiation, and he was in an increasing amount of pain. He got into contact with the CIA, who were interested in studying him and the positive effects of the radiation, in exchange for curing the negative side effects. Well, cure can be a relative term. Somehow, Ken’s body had become wholly radioactive, and was in a constant state of decay. Growing up that wasn’t much of an issue, since there was a steady creation of new cells, but as he was reaching adulthood, his body was producing fewer and fewer cells, but the rate of decay was the same, and the only thing they could do was mitigate his suffering. They designed a suit to contain the radiation, with a built in pain-relief system.
When he wasn't of any scientific interest anymore, his abilities became his only bargaining chip, so he started working as an operative. But pain makes people do stupid things. On a mission in France, Ken nearly killed a government attaché when his cover was blown, and the CIA decided to cut him loose.
Ken needed expertise to keep his containment suit operational, but since he didn’t have any money, he had to pay his way in trade. And the only people with the expertise to work on that kind of tech who wanted the services of a spook in trade were not the kinds of people you wanted to be indebted to. But for Ken it was a godsend, because one of them had enough experience with nuclear reactors that he recognized that a partial solution to Ken’s problem might be venting. For me, and people who ran into Conduit, however, it was a little less pleasant.
But over the years Ken and I had developed a bit of a rivalry. Once he got healthy we competed in sports. He asked Lana to prom, though she eventually went with me. It was a lot of little things that built up, like his verbally abusive father, who for some damn reason would talk me up in the same breath he’d talk his own son down. And once he was operating in the open as Conduit, often out of Metropolis, we came into conflict again. And because we knew each other, he figured out who I was, where I’d come from, and even made a half-hearted attempt at killing people he knew I was close with. I’m not absolving him of responsibility, but really, I think pain makes you do stupid things, emotional pain doubly so.
That was the beauty and simplicity of Lex’s plan, hiding him in plain sight, as it were, in my home town, but nothing stays hidden from Bruce forever, and eventually he found him. But then there was the issue of convincing Ken to help, and I have to give credit where it’s due. Bruce has a lot of speeds, philanthropist, entrepreneur, the bad cop that is Batman, a lot of ways to convince or threaten or bribe someone to do what he wants. But he’d figured enough out about Ken to know he wouldn’t cave to any of those. So he told him I was dying, that he was my last hope, that at the very least he should look me in the eye and tell me his decision face to face. It was one last chance to gloat, if he wanted it, or a chance to be the better man if he chose that instead. And Ken took him up on it, and to my surprise, once Ken was in the room with me, he couldn’t be angry any more. He actually, actually hugged me. I think, that, there are some times when you think you have forever to let something play out, that the fight you had with your parents or your friend or whoever, will be resolved at some point. But being faced with a definite conclusion, I don’t think Ken wanted me to die, all these years, because when it came down to it, Ken Braverman tried to save my life. It wasn’t something I saw coming.
ID: Tried?
S: Yeah. It didn’t work. The cancer’s more resistant to kryptonite radiation than the rest of my cells. It actually did a fair amount of damage to me, while the cancer was hardly touched.
ID: I’m sorry.
S: Thank you.
ID: The prognosis isn't good.
S: No. But that symbol I wore on my chest all these years, my family crest, it represents hope. I don't think at this point that I'm hoping for my own survival, but I do hope that the world will still thrive when I'm gone.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: Yes.
ID: What happened? A few weeks ago you didn’t look- you’re a shell of the man you were even a month ago.
S: The League. We did what we always do, stepped up to a challenge with everything we had, with sometimes unorthodox methodology.
ID: Care to elaborate?
S: Kryptonite radiation therapy. The thinking was, if normal radiation didn’t work on the cancer cells, maybe the kind of radiation I’m vulnerable to would work like normal radiation on a human being. Apparently Bruce has been trying to set it up for six months, now, tracking down anyone with even a passing experience with kryptonite, Metallo, the Kryptonite Man. The missing link, though, the one they needed to piece everything together was Conduit. He is able to project kryptonite radiation, so he was the one who really held the key. But from what we gather Lex Luthor had the same notion, and had taken Conduit and put him into a kind of supervillian witness protection program. Bruce has been harrowing Lex and his interests ever since, including a few hostile takeovers of his assets- he’d been hoping to make revenge too expensive for Lex. But he was also coordinating one of the most sophisticated man-hunts in the history of the League, involving the Birds of Prey as they like to be called, and the Martian Manhunter, to name only a few.
Eventually Bruce tracked Conduit back to Kansas. And I hope I’m not uh talking out of school, but I say back to Kansas because he and I grew up in the same home town. His real name is Ken Braverman. His parents were actually driving to the hospital for his birth when my rocket from Krypton arrived. A chunk of the ship broke off entering the atmosphere and landed in the road in front of the Braverman’s car, and caused his dad to put the car into a ditch. Ken was born in the backseat, and their proximity to the piece of the rocket meant that he absorbed a lot of kryptonite radiation.
We were both pretty close to the same age. Because of the radiation Ken had a lot of health problems growing up: he was small, and frail, got sick a lot. Because of that people picked on him. I tried to stand up for him, but, sometimes when you don’t feel strong enough the last thing in the world you want is for someone else to fight your battles. I think if Ken hadn’t been dosed with radiation, if he hadn’t been sick, I think we probably would have been friends.
Anyway, by high school, Ken’s health had reversed track, and rather than being weaker than most everybody, he was stronger, and faster. But he had a hell of a chip on his shoulder, too. He remembered every single person who put him down, every single person who ever laughed at his frailty. And he remembered every perceived slight, every time he felt I’d put him down trying to stand up for him.
Only he was still having side effects from the radiation, and he was in an increasing amount of pain. He got into contact with the CIA, who were interested in studying him and the positive effects of the radiation, in exchange for curing the negative side effects. Well, cure can be a relative term. Somehow, Ken’s body had become wholly radioactive, and was in a constant state of decay. Growing up that wasn’t much of an issue, since there was a steady creation of new cells, but as he was reaching adulthood, his body was producing fewer and fewer cells, but the rate of decay was the same, and the only thing they could do was mitigate his suffering. They designed a suit to contain the radiation, with a built in pain-relief system.
When he wasn't of any scientific interest anymore, his abilities became his only bargaining chip, so he started working as an operative. But pain makes people do stupid things. On a mission in France, Ken nearly killed a government attaché when his cover was blown, and the CIA decided to cut him loose.
Ken needed expertise to keep his containment suit operational, but since he didn’t have any money, he had to pay his way in trade. And the only people with the expertise to work on that kind of tech who wanted the services of a spook in trade were not the kinds of people you wanted to be indebted to. But for Ken it was a godsend, because one of them had enough experience with nuclear reactors that he recognized that a partial solution to Ken’s problem might be venting. For me, and people who ran into Conduit, however, it was a little less pleasant.
But over the years Ken and I had developed a bit of a rivalry. Once he got healthy we competed in sports. He asked Lana to prom, though she eventually went with me. It was a lot of little things that built up, like his verbally abusive father, who for some damn reason would talk me up in the same breath he’d talk his own son down. And once he was operating in the open as Conduit, often out of Metropolis, we came into conflict again. And because we knew each other, he figured out who I was, where I’d come from, and even made a half-hearted attempt at killing people he knew I was close with. I’m not absolving him of responsibility, but really, I think pain makes you do stupid things, emotional pain doubly so.
That was the beauty and simplicity of Lex’s plan, hiding him in plain sight, as it were, in my home town, but nothing stays hidden from Bruce forever, and eventually he found him. But then there was the issue of convincing Ken to help, and I have to give credit where it’s due. Bruce has a lot of speeds, philanthropist, entrepreneur, the bad cop that is Batman, a lot of ways to convince or threaten or bribe someone to do what he wants. But he’d figured enough out about Ken to know he wouldn’t cave to any of those. So he told him I was dying, that he was my last hope, that at the very least he should look me in the eye and tell me his decision face to face. It was one last chance to gloat, if he wanted it, or a chance to be the better man if he chose that instead. And Ken took him up on it, and to my surprise, once Ken was in the room with me, he couldn’t be angry any more. He actually, actually hugged me. I think, that, there are some times when you think you have forever to let something play out, that the fight you had with your parents or your friend or whoever, will be resolved at some point. But being faced with a definite conclusion, I don’t think Ken wanted me to die, all these years, because when it came down to it, Ken Braverman tried to save my life. It wasn’t something I saw coming.
ID: Tried?
S: Yeah. It didn’t work. The cancer’s more resistant to kryptonite radiation than the rest of my cells. It actually did a fair amount of damage to me, while the cancer was hardly touched.
ID: I’m sorry.
S: Thank you.
ID: The prognosis isn't good.
S: No. But that symbol I wore on my chest all these years, my family crest, it represents hope. I don't think at this point that I'm hoping for my own survival, but I do hope that the world will still thrive when I'm gone.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Snowfall
Superman: We had the first snow of the, well, I guess not year and not quite winter yet, but of this cold season; that doesn’t sound right, either, because it’s not that cold season, the illness kind, but the temperature one.
Irreconcilable Dictions: It snowed, we got it.
S: Right. But that point, the one I’m still groping for, is that I was cold. Not just that seeing your breath, maybe I should have put on a hoodie cold, but the feel it in your bones cold, the way my great aunt used to say she was cold, no matter how many blankets you put on her, she couldn’t stay warm, because the cold was in her bones.
I’m not, I’m not thinking clearly right now; I’ve had a headache the better part of the week, though it’s a bit more acute right now.
ID: So you decided to finally come record this week’s segment when you were at your absolute least useful.
S: Hmm. That actually annoys you. You put up a good front of affrontation, but very little actually irritates you. But this, you take this interview seriously, don’t you?
ID: All evidence to the contrary?
S: I know, now that I’ve called you on it, it’s natural to want to pull back, to become even more evasive and cold. I don’t think, you don’t just spend hours on end week after week talking and discussing with someone without growing attached to them. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t, I don’t know, friends might be much, since I have trouble seeing you holding my hand in a hospital room, but I think there’s some kind of a respect and affection there. Hell, I wouldn’t have approached you in the first place if I didn’t hold some respect for you on a professional level
ID: Respect which I have tried, systematically, to undermine since you introduced yourself to me.
S: You both have and you haven’t. I think for all the world you wanted to play it both ways, give me my Frost/Nixon grilling while giving me a forum to express myself; I think at times you willfully denigrated yourself, personally and professionally, to make sure I came out the cleaner of the two of us.
ID: To level with you? The work is important; this is, for parts of the public, your last will and testament. Given everything you’ve done in your life, it’s a responsibility for both of us to do this right.
And I never thought you’d go fishing for it, but of course I respect you- in the same vein I respect soldiers and firemen and police. I know you work and you sacrifice for the good of a lot of people. And I know that I’m a writer, that there’s some sacrifice but that mostly I’ve chosen to do what I love, and the fact that the stories I tell and the light I shed is a byproduct of that fairly selfish decision, it’s ancillary and even unintended.
So yes, coming into the interview, of course I respected you, and of course, by virtue of who you are, of course I bore some residual affection for you. But I think you give me too much of a pass, that I have a bit too much of that wholly American sense of iconoclasm: we love our stars, our celebrities, or heroes- but we love their destruction more.
And journalistically, I’ve never set out to treat you any differently than any of my other interview subjects. I have; I’m still objective enough to recognize my bias, at least some of the time, but I hope on balance that I’ve shot as straight down the middle as possible.
S: I notice you sidestepped the important point: namely, that over the course of this last year, I’ve grown fond of you. And you don’t have to say you reciprocate, and I wouldn’t take it personally if you didn’t.
You have been a pain, in my backside and elsewhere, a perpetual thorn in my palm and my side. But I’ll miss you.
ID: Do you think it’s time for that? Time to say goodbye?
S: It’s never too early to say goodbye. I just always hope that it’s not for the last time.
ID: And I’d like to end there, it’s, too pretty not to, but I have to ask, I have to know. Has something changed? A new test result, do you feel differently?
S: No. And I think that’s the problem. Nothing has changed. I continue to decline at a predictable rate. I’m cold. And I’m tired. And I don’t want my last thoughts to be about how my pride prevented me from saying goodbye one last time. So goodbye.
ID: Goodbye.
(pause)
Wait. I’ll see you next week.
S: I sincerely hope so.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Irreconcilable Dictions: It snowed, we got it.
S: Right. But that point, the one I’m still groping for, is that I was cold. Not just that seeing your breath, maybe I should have put on a hoodie cold, but the feel it in your bones cold, the way my great aunt used to say she was cold, no matter how many blankets you put on her, she couldn’t stay warm, because the cold was in her bones.
I’m not, I’m not thinking clearly right now; I’ve had a headache the better part of the week, though it’s a bit more acute right now.
ID: So you decided to finally come record this week’s segment when you were at your absolute least useful.
S: Hmm. That actually annoys you. You put up a good front of affrontation, but very little actually irritates you. But this, you take this interview seriously, don’t you?
ID: All evidence to the contrary?
S: I know, now that I’ve called you on it, it’s natural to want to pull back, to become even more evasive and cold. I don’t think, you don’t just spend hours on end week after week talking and discussing with someone without growing attached to them. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t, I don’t know, friends might be much, since I have trouble seeing you holding my hand in a hospital room, but I think there’s some kind of a respect and affection there. Hell, I wouldn’t have approached you in the first place if I didn’t hold some respect for you on a professional level
ID: Respect which I have tried, systematically, to undermine since you introduced yourself to me.
S: You both have and you haven’t. I think for all the world you wanted to play it both ways, give me my Frost/Nixon grilling while giving me a forum to express myself; I think at times you willfully denigrated yourself, personally and professionally, to make sure I came out the cleaner of the two of us.
ID: To level with you? The work is important; this is, for parts of the public, your last will and testament. Given everything you’ve done in your life, it’s a responsibility for both of us to do this right.
And I never thought you’d go fishing for it, but of course I respect you- in the same vein I respect soldiers and firemen and police. I know you work and you sacrifice for the good of a lot of people. And I know that I’m a writer, that there’s some sacrifice but that mostly I’ve chosen to do what I love, and the fact that the stories I tell and the light I shed is a byproduct of that fairly selfish decision, it’s ancillary and even unintended.
So yes, coming into the interview, of course I respected you, and of course, by virtue of who you are, of course I bore some residual affection for you. But I think you give me too much of a pass, that I have a bit too much of that wholly American sense of iconoclasm: we love our stars, our celebrities, or heroes- but we love their destruction more.
And journalistically, I’ve never set out to treat you any differently than any of my other interview subjects. I have; I’m still objective enough to recognize my bias, at least some of the time, but I hope on balance that I’ve shot as straight down the middle as possible.
S: I notice you sidestepped the important point: namely, that over the course of this last year, I’ve grown fond of you. And you don’t have to say you reciprocate, and I wouldn’t take it personally if you didn’t.
You have been a pain, in my backside and elsewhere, a perpetual thorn in my palm and my side. But I’ll miss you.
ID: Do you think it’s time for that? Time to say goodbye?
S: It’s never too early to say goodbye. I just always hope that it’s not for the last time.
ID: And I’d like to end there, it’s, too pretty not to, but I have to ask, I have to know. Has something changed? A new test result, do you feel differently?
S: No. And I think that’s the problem. Nothing has changed. I continue to decline at a predictable rate. I’m cold. And I’m tired. And I don’t want my last thoughts to be about how my pride prevented me from saying goodbye one last time. So goodbye.
ID: Goodbye.
(pause)
Wait. I’ll see you next week.
S: I sincerely hope so.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Thanksgiving
Superman: At this time of year, and specifically at what may very well be the end of my life, I think it’s important to take stock of the things that I have, the things I’m thankful for.
ID: I may just nap through this, listen to it later. Don’t be offended. I was probably at an all-night orgy last night or something.
S: The depths of your empathy never cease to amaze me. But that’s a good place to start. I’m thankful for empathy. And so many people have empathized. Ever since I admitted to being Clark Kent and having cancer, people have sent really touching letters to my office at the Daily Planet. And people who see me in the streets when I get recognized, they’ll nod and smile, a few of them hug me. So many people have expended so much empathy on my behalf… and as much of a jerk as you try to be, I know that, deep down, you’ve actually behaved yourself for my benefit. Mostly.
ID: (snoring- possibly fake- though I’ll never tell).
S: Should have seen that coming.
ID: Why, do you have some kind of seeing things coming power you’d never divulged; no, wait, you couldn’t, or you wouldn’t have picked me to conduct this interview.
S: And, he’s back to pretending to be asleep. Wonderful. Some of this feels odd, like this isn’t a conversation I should be having in front of an audience, but I think it’s one thing to appreciate people in a small, personal way, and I think it’s entirely another to state, in public and on the record, that you care about and appreciate someone in your life.
So of course, I’m thankful for Lois. I shudder to think of the man I’d be without her. I mean that.
I’m thankful for my mother and father. Between them, the three of them, they account for ninety percent of what I think people have admired me for.
I’m thankful for true friends; and that includes those still too proud to admit it, and those who recently have come to terms with it. I’ve really been lucky; I’ve had a lot of love in my life. I know I haven’t always deserved it, but I’ve tried my whole life to earn it.
Mostly, though, I’m thankful for people, and maybe I’m rehashing empathy, here, but people really have restored my faith in humanity. Like after September 11th, everyone’s just proven the innate capacity for good, for kindness. I just hope, I hope someday there’s a world good enough for people to lower their guard, lay down their defenses, and just be that kind to everyone. To know that I was even alive during a part of that, or the build up to that, thinking that, hoping that, I could die happy tomorrow.
ID: Um, I’ll try to broach this carefully, but you spent the holiday in a bed.
S: Yeah. I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse, but I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital. I collapsed. I don’t think it was anything, and I tried to tell my mom to just give me a rain check; but instead she flew a bunch of the family out to Metropolis. They took over the apartment on Thanksgiving, driving Lois up onto the ceiling, and brought everything into my room, a big, plump turkey, creamy mashed potatoes with gravey, stuffing, biscuits, salad, deviled eggs... just talking about all that food actually makes my stomach feel full.
But I wasn’t, I’m not trying to pull for sympathy. My point is after food, and festivities, the conversation, since we were in a hospital room, turned political. We started discussing the health reform bill. And I was struck by the ignorance and fear; and I don’t say that to disparage my friends or my family, because I think they are all thoughtful and intelligent people. But the rhetoric is so pervasive out there that it’s hard to know what’s actually going on. And these were people I loved, so I didn’t try to correct everything, but the more egregious things- but it was probably our last Thanksgiving, and I didn’t want things to turn petty or ugly, as politics so often can.
I’m not asking for politicians not to frame issues in a sympathetic light, or not to promote their agendas; but I am saying that politicians of all stripes should honor the service they do for their country by telling the people, their citizenry, the truth. If you want smaller government and lower taxes, say that. If you think that a more robust government that does more for the people that might not otherwise get done- well, say that. These decisions we’re making are important, life-changing ones, and it’s important we look at them soberly and sincerely, that we act in genuine good faith for every American.
ID: You sound like you’re running for office.
S: If I weren’t dying and an alien- maybe I would.
ID: Okay, well, I know that’s a shorter session than usual, but your nursewife has been giving me the evil eye from your kitchen ever since I hit “record.”
S: Oh, she does that. There’ve been several times over the years when I’ve wondered if she’s got some kind of telepathic ability, but she can get me to do anything if she glares long and hard enough.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
ID: I may just nap through this, listen to it later. Don’t be offended. I was probably at an all-night orgy last night or something.
S: The depths of your empathy never cease to amaze me. But that’s a good place to start. I’m thankful for empathy. And so many people have empathized. Ever since I admitted to being Clark Kent and having cancer, people have sent really touching letters to my office at the Daily Planet. And people who see me in the streets when I get recognized, they’ll nod and smile, a few of them hug me. So many people have expended so much empathy on my behalf… and as much of a jerk as you try to be, I know that, deep down, you’ve actually behaved yourself for my benefit. Mostly.
ID: (snoring- possibly fake- though I’ll never tell).
S: Should have seen that coming.
ID: Why, do you have some kind of seeing things coming power you’d never divulged; no, wait, you couldn’t, or you wouldn’t have picked me to conduct this interview.
S: And, he’s back to pretending to be asleep. Wonderful. Some of this feels odd, like this isn’t a conversation I should be having in front of an audience, but I think it’s one thing to appreciate people in a small, personal way, and I think it’s entirely another to state, in public and on the record, that you care about and appreciate someone in your life.
So of course, I’m thankful for Lois. I shudder to think of the man I’d be without her. I mean that.
I’m thankful for my mother and father. Between them, the three of them, they account for ninety percent of what I think people have admired me for.
I’m thankful for true friends; and that includes those still too proud to admit it, and those who recently have come to terms with it. I’ve really been lucky; I’ve had a lot of love in my life. I know I haven’t always deserved it, but I’ve tried my whole life to earn it.
Mostly, though, I’m thankful for people, and maybe I’m rehashing empathy, here, but people really have restored my faith in humanity. Like after September 11th, everyone’s just proven the innate capacity for good, for kindness. I just hope, I hope someday there’s a world good enough for people to lower their guard, lay down their defenses, and just be that kind to everyone. To know that I was even alive during a part of that, or the build up to that, thinking that, hoping that, I could die happy tomorrow.
ID: Um, I’ll try to broach this carefully, but you spent the holiday in a bed.
S: Yeah. I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse, but I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital. I collapsed. I don’t think it was anything, and I tried to tell my mom to just give me a rain check; but instead she flew a bunch of the family out to Metropolis. They took over the apartment on Thanksgiving, driving Lois up onto the ceiling, and brought everything into my room, a big, plump turkey, creamy mashed potatoes with gravey, stuffing, biscuits, salad, deviled eggs... just talking about all that food actually makes my stomach feel full.
But I wasn’t, I’m not trying to pull for sympathy. My point is after food, and festivities, the conversation, since we were in a hospital room, turned political. We started discussing the health reform bill. And I was struck by the ignorance and fear; and I don’t say that to disparage my friends or my family, because I think they are all thoughtful and intelligent people. But the rhetoric is so pervasive out there that it’s hard to know what’s actually going on. And these were people I loved, so I didn’t try to correct everything, but the more egregious things- but it was probably our last Thanksgiving, and I didn’t want things to turn petty or ugly, as politics so often can.
I’m not asking for politicians not to frame issues in a sympathetic light, or not to promote their agendas; but I am saying that politicians of all stripes should honor the service they do for their country by telling the people, their citizenry, the truth. If you want smaller government and lower taxes, say that. If you think that a more robust government that does more for the people that might not otherwise get done- well, say that. These decisions we’re making are important, life-changing ones, and it’s important we look at them soberly and sincerely, that we act in genuine good faith for every American.
ID: You sound like you’re running for office.
S: If I weren’t dying and an alien- maybe I would.
ID: Okay, well, I know that’s a shorter session than usual, but your nursewife has been giving me the evil eye from your kitchen ever since I hit “record.”
S: Oh, she does that. There’ve been several times over the years when I’ve wondered if she’s got some kind of telepathic ability, but she can get me to do anything if she glares long and hard enough.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Liberal Bias
Superman: I’ve taken some flack after last week’s interview.
Ignoble Dignitary: Of course. Please tell me that doesn’t surprise you.
S: No, but what did surprise me is how many people seemed to think I crossed a line, when after rereading my comments I think I struck a good balance, frankly. I was pissed off, and it certainly showed, but I don’t think I said anything I’d regret saying to an elected official of either stripe. Republicans have been relying on fear-based politics since at least September 11th; Democrats seem to adhere to the idea of politics as a gentleman’s game that effectively castrates their ability to govern barring supermajorities.
To put it into terms I’m perhaps more expert in: I’ve read a lot of speculation about what motivates a vigilante. And I’ll admit it can all be hard to reconcile. The idea of going it your own way, bucking the system, including the government-operated police force, that’s a very conservative action; especially when you’re protecting the status quo. But when you then take that and do it for a large swath of people, sharing with people the strengths and abilities you possess when they may not have been able to help themselves out of the situation, that’s a very progressive action. Personally, I’ve never had any problem with these two sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary ideas, because I’m a moderate. But I also know liberal and conservative vigilantes as well, and I don’t think very many of them struggle with what is a background ideological question: they want to make a difference, and everything else is secondary.
But I think it also underscores an important dichotomy in this country, something that in the current polarized climate we lose. The struggle between certain aspects of our political poles is good. Our government and our nation works best when there’s a tug-of-war between big ideas and fiscal responsibility.
One of the big issues I take with the modern Republican party is they’re no longer for fiscal responsibility. They’ve become the party of tax cuts. If we want to pay less in taxes and have a smaller government, that’s a conversation we as a nation can have, but their plan lately has been to cut taxes without cutting expenses and let future generations pick up the tab. That’s why when they complain about a bailout they helped engineer, and a stimulus package they refused to participate in, both of which economists of all political stripes agree have helped soften the current economic crisis, I have trouble taking them seriously.
I have legitimate concerns about the way that the bailout and stimulus were carried out, but if Republicans wanted things done differently, they could have- no, they should have, participated in the process and done what they could to steer either in a direction they wanted.
ID: Like they’re doing with the health reform debate now?
S: No. I don’t mean screaming at the top of their lungs about half-truths and made-up concerns, nor making a half-hearted offer at an alternative bill, I mean actually legislating. Republicans say they’d rather have an incremental bill rather than the one Reid has written. If they were willing to bargain in good faith, they could very well get concessions from the Democratic majority; realistically, the Democrats don’t want to be hung out on a limb for this: it’s already slow to implement, and half of them could very well be out of office by the time Americans feel the effects of the bill. Of course, assuming the Republicans were willing to play ball, the problem with incrementalism is that tomorrow never comes.
ID: That was either deep or you were speaking like a politician.
S: Somewhere in between, I think. But just like cuts to Medicare doctors that are postponed every year by Congress without fail, painful but necessary reforms to the rest of healthcare could just be postponed indefinitely.
Um, on the subject of things I got chewed out over, there were also some women, my wife included, who took issue with me on the revised mammogram and pap smear guidelines. I wasn’t endorsing the findings, and I might even say we should get a second opinion, because I understand, as someone whose mother was diagnosed early with cervical cancer and survived, how important early screening can be; all I was trying to say is we don’t want politicians deciding who gets what treatment based on what criteria. That decision should be left to doctors and scientists who are experts in their fields, and use the best of their professional judgment to set guidelines; I don’t want to make that call any more than I think politicians should.
And I hate to turn this interview into a blog, but I have a quote I’d like to throw in there, from somebody who’s actually read the bill: “This year’s health reform legislation has often been criticized for being health insurance reform rather than health care reform, and for not doing enough to control the cost of health care. Those who offer these criticisms have obviously not read the bills or even tried to understand them.” And that’s my problem with the current Republican party in a nutshell: they criticize without understanding, to the sole purpose of elevating themselves.
And I want to clarify that I mean the Republican party leadership, and those who claim to speak for conservatives in the country. I don’t doubt the good will of a third of the American people, more if you count conservative-leaning independents; but their leadership have lost their way, or as I suspect, have forsaken their way for a road more politically advantageous.
I have no real love for the Democratic Party; the Democrats fail me as often as they make me happy, but at least sometimes they have the courage to stand up and say, often to people who would buy and pay for them, that there is an injustice that they want to right. I think healthcare reform is one of those fights, and I’m not endorsing every action they’ve taken, I’m not endorsing their outcome, but just the fact that they stood up to do something that matters for the American people, at the quite real cost of their power- that takes a kind of bravery. My disgust with some of the opposition’s rhetoric notwithstanding, supporting and applauding that bravery was the point I was trying to make.
ID: You claim to be a moderate, but everyone knows you’re a reporter. That makes you a socialist, by definition.
I assume you’re talking about the supposed liberal bias in the media. Look, I’ll admit I have a slight liberal leaning, and most reporters I know do, too. But we also have journalistic ethics, and believe in trying to tell the story the truest way possible. We take our role in society, that of informing our fellow citizens, very seriously. But for all of the talk of liberal bias, the fact of the matter is, most media owners and management have a conservative bias. The end result isn’t a perfect balance, but rather a mish-mash of competing biases and influences, self-censorship and subjects that never get fully fleshed out. But it’s wholly dishonest to say the media is liberally biased, because it’s much, much more complicated than that.
Besides, the most pervasive bias in the media has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with that other “P” word: profit. Media outlets usually have parent companies, and those parent companies don’t want their affiliates, or companies they work for, shown in a bad light. And since most of their competitors own media outlets, there’s the added worry of starting a media shooting war. And that says nothing of the dread of offending advertisers and sponsors. Bias in our media by reporters acting in good faith has much more to do with removing potentially offending reportage than adding controversial material.
Care to note any of those journalists not acting in good faith?
I wasn’t looking to, actually; I don’t want this to become a partisan eye-poking match. But the most recent example, and I don’t want to claim Sean Hannity is a journalist, because I think it’s fairly clear that he’s a commentator, but that’s the distinction. True bias usually comes from commentators, not journalists. But Hannity used several month old footage of a rally spliced in with footage of a rally that took place a few weeks ago, and claimed that 40,000 rather than 10,000 people showed up. That’s certainly an extreme example, but partisan reporting is very destructive, because it undermines trust, not just in the media, but in our fellow man. When we start doubting each other, we start devolving into paranoia.
That’s one of the reasons I really like NPR and Public Broadcasting. NPR is one of the more unbiased places to find information in the country. One of their smartest political analysts is Juan Williams, who also comments for Fox News, but you’d hardly know that from his reporting, because he’s a pretty consummate professional. I’m sure everyone at NPR has their own ideas, but NPR really does the best job I’ve seen of keeping its allegiances close to the vest.
Another useful news source is the BBC. They’re certainly a bit more liberally-biased than, say, CNN, but they’re also less US-biased, so you really get to see how the rest of the world looks at us. Not in the “Death to America” fanatical circles, but how steadfast but honest allies view the actions we take. I think it’s an important, indispensable perspective.
So you’re saying we should export all of our reporting jobs oversees, then?
Of course not. I’m saying that independent voices are invaluable. And in the current climate it’s difficult to have truly independent voices in a professional context. That’s why we’re on the internet now, and on an independent blog, because no matter where we went, whether it was Fox News or the Huggington Post, there were going to be editorial and advertising concerns trying to dictate content, and format, maybe even deciding what we could say and where.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Ignoble Dignitary: Of course. Please tell me that doesn’t surprise you.
S: No, but what did surprise me is how many people seemed to think I crossed a line, when after rereading my comments I think I struck a good balance, frankly. I was pissed off, and it certainly showed, but I don’t think I said anything I’d regret saying to an elected official of either stripe. Republicans have been relying on fear-based politics since at least September 11th; Democrats seem to adhere to the idea of politics as a gentleman’s game that effectively castrates their ability to govern barring supermajorities.
To put it into terms I’m perhaps more expert in: I’ve read a lot of speculation about what motivates a vigilante. And I’ll admit it can all be hard to reconcile. The idea of going it your own way, bucking the system, including the government-operated police force, that’s a very conservative action; especially when you’re protecting the status quo. But when you then take that and do it for a large swath of people, sharing with people the strengths and abilities you possess when they may not have been able to help themselves out of the situation, that’s a very progressive action. Personally, I’ve never had any problem with these two sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary ideas, because I’m a moderate. But I also know liberal and conservative vigilantes as well, and I don’t think very many of them struggle with what is a background ideological question: they want to make a difference, and everything else is secondary.
But I think it also underscores an important dichotomy in this country, something that in the current polarized climate we lose. The struggle between certain aspects of our political poles is good. Our government and our nation works best when there’s a tug-of-war between big ideas and fiscal responsibility.
One of the big issues I take with the modern Republican party is they’re no longer for fiscal responsibility. They’ve become the party of tax cuts. If we want to pay less in taxes and have a smaller government, that’s a conversation we as a nation can have, but their plan lately has been to cut taxes without cutting expenses and let future generations pick up the tab. That’s why when they complain about a bailout they helped engineer, and a stimulus package they refused to participate in, both of which economists of all political stripes agree have helped soften the current economic crisis, I have trouble taking them seriously.
I have legitimate concerns about the way that the bailout and stimulus were carried out, but if Republicans wanted things done differently, they could have- no, they should have, participated in the process and done what they could to steer either in a direction they wanted.
ID: Like they’re doing with the health reform debate now?
S: No. I don’t mean screaming at the top of their lungs about half-truths and made-up concerns, nor making a half-hearted offer at an alternative bill, I mean actually legislating. Republicans say they’d rather have an incremental bill rather than the one Reid has written. If they were willing to bargain in good faith, they could very well get concessions from the Democratic majority; realistically, the Democrats don’t want to be hung out on a limb for this: it’s already slow to implement, and half of them could very well be out of office by the time Americans feel the effects of the bill. Of course, assuming the Republicans were willing to play ball, the problem with incrementalism is that tomorrow never comes.
ID: That was either deep or you were speaking like a politician.
S: Somewhere in between, I think. But just like cuts to Medicare doctors that are postponed every year by Congress without fail, painful but necessary reforms to the rest of healthcare could just be postponed indefinitely.
Um, on the subject of things I got chewed out over, there were also some women, my wife included, who took issue with me on the revised mammogram and pap smear guidelines. I wasn’t endorsing the findings, and I might even say we should get a second opinion, because I understand, as someone whose mother was diagnosed early with cervical cancer and survived, how important early screening can be; all I was trying to say is we don’t want politicians deciding who gets what treatment based on what criteria. That decision should be left to doctors and scientists who are experts in their fields, and use the best of their professional judgment to set guidelines; I don’t want to make that call any more than I think politicians should.
And I hate to turn this interview into a blog, but I have a quote I’d like to throw in there, from somebody who’s actually read the bill: “This year’s health reform legislation has often been criticized for being health insurance reform rather than health care reform, and for not doing enough to control the cost of health care. Those who offer these criticisms have obviously not read the bills or even tried to understand them.” And that’s my problem with the current Republican party in a nutshell: they criticize without understanding, to the sole purpose of elevating themselves.
And I want to clarify that I mean the Republican party leadership, and those who claim to speak for conservatives in the country. I don’t doubt the good will of a third of the American people, more if you count conservative-leaning independents; but their leadership have lost their way, or as I suspect, have forsaken their way for a road more politically advantageous.
I have no real love for the Democratic Party; the Democrats fail me as often as they make me happy, but at least sometimes they have the courage to stand up and say, often to people who would buy and pay for them, that there is an injustice that they want to right. I think healthcare reform is one of those fights, and I’m not endorsing every action they’ve taken, I’m not endorsing their outcome, but just the fact that they stood up to do something that matters for the American people, at the quite real cost of their power- that takes a kind of bravery. My disgust with some of the opposition’s rhetoric notwithstanding, supporting and applauding that bravery was the point I was trying to make.
ID: You claim to be a moderate, but everyone knows you’re a reporter. That makes you a socialist, by definition.
I assume you’re talking about the supposed liberal bias in the media. Look, I’ll admit I have a slight liberal leaning, and most reporters I know do, too. But we also have journalistic ethics, and believe in trying to tell the story the truest way possible. We take our role in society, that of informing our fellow citizens, very seriously. But for all of the talk of liberal bias, the fact of the matter is, most media owners and management have a conservative bias. The end result isn’t a perfect balance, but rather a mish-mash of competing biases and influences, self-censorship and subjects that never get fully fleshed out. But it’s wholly dishonest to say the media is liberally biased, because it’s much, much more complicated than that.
Besides, the most pervasive bias in the media has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with that other “P” word: profit. Media outlets usually have parent companies, and those parent companies don’t want their affiliates, or companies they work for, shown in a bad light. And since most of their competitors own media outlets, there’s the added worry of starting a media shooting war. And that says nothing of the dread of offending advertisers and sponsors. Bias in our media by reporters acting in good faith has much more to do with removing potentially offending reportage than adding controversial material.
Care to note any of those journalists not acting in good faith?
I wasn’t looking to, actually; I don’t want this to become a partisan eye-poking match. But the most recent example, and I don’t want to claim Sean Hannity is a journalist, because I think it’s fairly clear that he’s a commentator, but that’s the distinction. True bias usually comes from commentators, not journalists. But Hannity used several month old footage of a rally spliced in with footage of a rally that took place a few weeks ago, and claimed that 40,000 rather than 10,000 people showed up. That’s certainly an extreme example, but partisan reporting is very destructive, because it undermines trust, not just in the media, but in our fellow man. When we start doubting each other, we start devolving into paranoia.
That’s one of the reasons I really like NPR and Public Broadcasting. NPR is one of the more unbiased places to find information in the country. One of their smartest political analysts is Juan Williams, who also comments for Fox News, but you’d hardly know that from his reporting, because he’s a pretty consummate professional. I’m sure everyone at NPR has their own ideas, but NPR really does the best job I’ve seen of keeping its allegiances close to the vest.
Another useful news source is the BBC. They’re certainly a bit more liberally-biased than, say, CNN, but they’re also less US-biased, so you really get to see how the rest of the world looks at us. Not in the “Death to America” fanatical circles, but how steadfast but honest allies view the actions we take. I think it’s an important, indispensable perspective.
So you’re saying we should export all of our reporting jobs oversees, then?
Of course not. I’m saying that independent voices are invaluable. And in the current climate it’s difficult to have truly independent voices in a professional context. That’s why we’re on the internet now, and on an independent blog, because no matter where we went, whether it was Fox News or the Huggington Post, there were going to be editorial and advertising concerns trying to dictate content, and format, maybe even deciding what we could say and where.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Boobs
Superman: I’m a Democrat.
Impractical Dirigibles: Usually I have to poke you with questions, badger and threaten and once blackmail, to get you to reveal potentially aliening information. What gives?
S: I’ve always tried to retain a balanced, independent view of American politics; even when that failed, I always tried not to let my own thoughts or even leanings leak out. I know that certain people respect me, but I didn’t want to try to capitalize on that. I think, and maybe this comes from my parents, but that America is at its strongest when all of its citizens are thinking clearly for themselves.
ID: Pretty. But might I point out that that’s never actually happened.
S: Maybe not. But I didn’t want to become a part of the noise that’s corrupting independent thought, that parrots talking points as if they actually meant anything, that misuses statistics and science and weaves together misinformation and lies to manipulate people.
ID: So you were afraid of being somebody’s Sammy Davis, Jr.
S: In a nutshell, yeah. He voted democrat most of his life, but one back-scratching endorsement of Nixon later and he’s suddenly the poster-child for the Republican’s minority constituency.
ID: So you were worried about being the Democrat’s token alien, part of their big-tent strategy to go after extraterrestrials? Or were you just worried about them parlaying that into all aliens, such as illegal Mexican immigrants?
S: All joking aside, I don’t like politicking. I think politics is supremely important, but I don’t like how either party panders, how fast and loose they play with the truth. Even when I fully agree with a politician I often find myself disgusted with their methods.
ID: So why are you disgusted but fully agreeing with the Democrats now?
S: This particular week, you mean? Because of two cancer-screening suggestions that have come out recently. First, the United States Preventive Services Task Force revised guidelines for mammography, saying regular checks should begin at 50 rather than 40y, and should be done biannually rather than annually. Second, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists changed the recommendation for pap smears from annually to biannually.
The appropriate response for both parties should have been that they welcome any scientific evidence that will help American healthcare become more efficient and positively effect their constituents’ health and well-being. That’s it. They don’t need to endorse or deny the suggestions, because we do not want politicians battling scientists and doctors over control of our healthcare.
Instead, the fear-based, eternally-campaigning Republicans went on the offensive, and I mean that in both senses of the word, and used the nonbinding advice to drum up more fear about “rationing.” The embattled Democrats were of course forced to respond by saying that they disagree with the science, and won’t let it affect healthcare coverage. Both sides are acting like children, but in this case, the Republicans started it.
And they usually start it. The Republicans are consummate politicians, constantly on the attack, constantly fighting to preserve party unity and stamp out independent thought.
But rationing healthcare is a special case. Because healthcare is a limited commodity, it will always be rationed. We’ve been fortunate, in that our relative economic plenty has meant that the rationing isn’t always visible, but it exists, and at current it is controlled by insurance companies. It’s flatly stupid to complain about government rationing when corporate rationing is the status quo. If that’s the only opposition you have, then you effectively have no grounds for opposition at all; you’re simply obstructing for the sake of political posturing.
Now if my choices are between Democrats who don’t always have the courage of their convictions, or Republicans whose only convictions seem to be the preservation of their own power, well, that’s a pretty easy choice to make.
ID: This all reminds me a bit of Jon Stewart’s interview with Lou Dobbs on the Daily Show.
S: I love Lou Dobbs. He’s Wrong, with a capital “W” on many if not most things, but he’s reasonable, rational. He’ll discuss with you why he’s Wrong, and why he thinks you’re wrong. I think his ideas are at this point coming from a slightly bent to the right curve, and thus don’t always conform to the strict by the facts ideology he sets out for himself, but at least you can follow his line of reasoning.
And it’s a shame to see him leaving CNN. I sincerely hope he doesn’t end up some place like Fox News, because while I think he’s sort of left the reservation, I think Fox, rather than letting him be the voice of reason, would encourage his fringer leanings, and we’d lose what’s useful of his voice in the national conversation.
ID: Could I get you to agree that Republicans are acting like boobs? It would actually help synthesize the two subjects under one title.
S: (sigh). Yes. Republicans are acting like boobs. So that would make you a Republican, right?
ID: Ooh, soiled by my own hubris.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Impractical Dirigibles: Usually I have to poke you with questions, badger and threaten and once blackmail, to get you to reveal potentially aliening information. What gives?
S: I’ve always tried to retain a balanced, independent view of American politics; even when that failed, I always tried not to let my own thoughts or even leanings leak out. I know that certain people respect me, but I didn’t want to try to capitalize on that. I think, and maybe this comes from my parents, but that America is at its strongest when all of its citizens are thinking clearly for themselves.
ID: Pretty. But might I point out that that’s never actually happened.
S: Maybe not. But I didn’t want to become a part of the noise that’s corrupting independent thought, that parrots talking points as if they actually meant anything, that misuses statistics and science and weaves together misinformation and lies to manipulate people.
ID: So you were afraid of being somebody’s Sammy Davis, Jr.
S: In a nutshell, yeah. He voted democrat most of his life, but one back-scratching endorsement of Nixon later and he’s suddenly the poster-child for the Republican’s minority constituency.
ID: So you were worried about being the Democrat’s token alien, part of their big-tent strategy to go after extraterrestrials? Or were you just worried about them parlaying that into all aliens, such as illegal Mexican immigrants?
S: All joking aside, I don’t like politicking. I think politics is supremely important, but I don’t like how either party panders, how fast and loose they play with the truth. Even when I fully agree with a politician I often find myself disgusted with their methods.
ID: So why are you disgusted but fully agreeing with the Democrats now?
S: This particular week, you mean? Because of two cancer-screening suggestions that have come out recently. First, the United States Preventive Services Task Force revised guidelines for mammography, saying regular checks should begin at 50 rather than 40y, and should be done biannually rather than annually. Second, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists changed the recommendation for pap smears from annually to biannually.
The appropriate response for both parties should have been that they welcome any scientific evidence that will help American healthcare become more efficient and positively effect their constituents’ health and well-being. That’s it. They don’t need to endorse or deny the suggestions, because we do not want politicians battling scientists and doctors over control of our healthcare.
Instead, the fear-based, eternally-campaigning Republicans went on the offensive, and I mean that in both senses of the word, and used the nonbinding advice to drum up more fear about “rationing.” The embattled Democrats were of course forced to respond by saying that they disagree with the science, and won’t let it affect healthcare coverage. Both sides are acting like children, but in this case, the Republicans started it.
And they usually start it. The Republicans are consummate politicians, constantly on the attack, constantly fighting to preserve party unity and stamp out independent thought.
But rationing healthcare is a special case. Because healthcare is a limited commodity, it will always be rationed. We’ve been fortunate, in that our relative economic plenty has meant that the rationing isn’t always visible, but it exists, and at current it is controlled by insurance companies. It’s flatly stupid to complain about government rationing when corporate rationing is the status quo. If that’s the only opposition you have, then you effectively have no grounds for opposition at all; you’re simply obstructing for the sake of political posturing.
Now if my choices are between Democrats who don’t always have the courage of their convictions, or Republicans whose only convictions seem to be the preservation of their own power, well, that’s a pretty easy choice to make.
ID: This all reminds me a bit of Jon Stewart’s interview with Lou Dobbs on the Daily Show.
S: I love Lou Dobbs. He’s Wrong, with a capital “W” on many if not most things, but he’s reasonable, rational. He’ll discuss with you why he’s Wrong, and why he thinks you’re wrong. I think his ideas are at this point coming from a slightly bent to the right curve, and thus don’t always conform to the strict by the facts ideology he sets out for himself, but at least you can follow his line of reasoning.
And it’s a shame to see him leaving CNN. I sincerely hope he doesn’t end up some place like Fox News, because while I think he’s sort of left the reservation, I think Fox, rather than letting him be the voice of reason, would encourage his fringer leanings, and we’d lose what’s useful of his voice in the national conversation.
ID: Could I get you to agree that Republicans are acting like boobs? It would actually help synthesize the two subjects under one title.
S: (sigh). Yes. Republicans are acting like boobs. So that would make you a Republican, right?
ID: Ooh, soiled by my own hubris.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Veterans
Infiltrating Deltas: I’d heard talk of Congress contemplating the creation of a Superman Day, recently. They were thinking of using the day you originally succumbed to your injuries fighting Doomsday, to honor heroes like yourself, those who fell in the line of duty and those who served, and those who fell. And I also hear you delivered a statement, in writing for obvious reasons, about why you thought that was a bad idea. Why?
Superman: Okay, my argument was two-pronged, actually. First, I wouldn’t want it called Superman Day, or to celebrate my death. I’m, as a symbol, too small for something like that. If anything, it could be called Justice Day, and celebrate the founding date of the League- or use some other day, because really, it isn’t and shouldn’t be about me.
Second, we already have a day. Granted, our observance isn’t far-reaching, and the implications are, well, I’ll stop padding it. We celebrate Veterans Day as ours, or ours with traditional military veterans, anyway. I think it’s appropriate to look at the people who do what we do in that same light.
ID: That’s… interesting. Because, knowing how you feel about war, I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about veterans.
S: Really? I didn’t think my position was all that gray. Veterans, at least in principal, lay their lives at the feet of the altar of freedom. Some are chosen as sacrifices, others walk away whole; most are damaged in ways that are hard to recognize or qualify, but bear wounds as deep as those who died. I have the utmost awe and respect for veterans, military or otherwise.
ID: Okay, see, it’s that, that caveat: “at least in principal.” What the hell does that mean?
S: You really don’t care about the big picture if you think someone’s stepped in dog crap, do you? It’s a niggling complaint I have with the way we use our military. We treat them like mercenaries; hell, in Iraq, we’ve had them fighting side by side with mercenaries. And our military, our servicemen and women, they deserve better than that. They ought to be above reproach, but when we tarnish the work they do, it lessens the value of their very real sacrifices. My qualms are with the administration of our military, not with our soldiers.
ID: That makes a degree of sense. But do you think it’s appropriate elevating vigilantes to the levels of sanctioned military veterans?
S: I think it would be inappropriate to ghettoize their sacrifice into a separate day simply because they gave their lives independent of a martial authority.
ID: So you don’t think there’s a difference? That the fact that vigilantes are breaking the law doesn’t make them unworthy of being honored side-by-side with servicepeople?
S: No. And I’m surprised to hear you even implying that line of reasoning, which is virtually the same as people who argue against gay marriage, as if the granting of civil rights to one group has ever detrimentally impacted the rights of others.
ID: Of course, you can make the argument that the loss of privilege for a favored group is understandably resisted, but that’s an argument that rhetorically is equivalent to asking “So what?” in the face of iniquity. So no separate but equal for superheroes?
S: Separate is never equal. It can’t be.
ID: I’ll forego my usual bit of race-baiting, even though there’s a part of me that’s a bit curious whether a Kansas farm boy maybe picked up any good ole boyness.
S: My father was very tolerant. And a veteran, I think you’re forgetting.
ID: That’s right, he was drafted. But do you think if your dad hadn’t been drafted, hadn’t been a
S: But he was. Drafted and a veteran. I don’t think he would have chosen to be a soldier, but that doesn’t change the fact that he recognized the sacrifice for what it was, or that he wouldn’t have sought to instill that wisdom in his son. There’s a reason they call it military service, because it is, they’re doing a service for each and every one of us.
Though I think there is sometimes a disconnect when we talk about soldiers, particularly in the modern, all-volunteer-force variety. I have all the respect in the world for the profession, but it is a profession. And the reasons people take the job are many and varied, having as much to do with lack of opportunity as a desire to do good work for a nation. And I don’t think that acknowledging that aspect, and particularly the dynamic skew it creates, with larger percentages of the poor and minorities serving, takes anything away from that service, or the sacrifice some of those soldiers end up making.
And that’s why I’m really very comfortable holding up people who do what I do on that same pedestal: because we are an all volunteer force, because few if any people get into this for any kind of personal gain, let alone financial. Most of us outlay large sums of money, for tailors, gadgets, whatever.
So more than anything, I hold both groups in extremely high regard. I wouldn’t put either ahead of the other. And I’m guilty as much as anyone for forgetting every day how important that work is, how safe I am, and my family is, because of what they do.
And on days like Veterans Day, I try to make that effort to let them know just how much that service means to me, how truly and deeply I respect them. I try to honor them; it’s the least I could conscionably do.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: Okay, my argument was two-pronged, actually. First, I wouldn’t want it called Superman Day, or to celebrate my death. I’m, as a symbol, too small for something like that. If anything, it could be called Justice Day, and celebrate the founding date of the League- or use some other day, because really, it isn’t and shouldn’t be about me.
Second, we already have a day. Granted, our observance isn’t far-reaching, and the implications are, well, I’ll stop padding it. We celebrate Veterans Day as ours, or ours with traditional military veterans, anyway. I think it’s appropriate to look at the people who do what we do in that same light.
ID: That’s… interesting. Because, knowing how you feel about war, I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about veterans.
S: Really? I didn’t think my position was all that gray. Veterans, at least in principal, lay their lives at the feet of the altar of freedom. Some are chosen as sacrifices, others walk away whole; most are damaged in ways that are hard to recognize or qualify, but bear wounds as deep as those who died. I have the utmost awe and respect for veterans, military or otherwise.
ID: Okay, see, it’s that, that caveat: “at least in principal.” What the hell does that mean?
S: You really don’t care about the big picture if you think someone’s stepped in dog crap, do you? It’s a niggling complaint I have with the way we use our military. We treat them like mercenaries; hell, in Iraq, we’ve had them fighting side by side with mercenaries. And our military, our servicemen and women, they deserve better than that. They ought to be above reproach, but when we tarnish the work they do, it lessens the value of their very real sacrifices. My qualms are with the administration of our military, not with our soldiers.
ID: That makes a degree of sense. But do you think it’s appropriate elevating vigilantes to the levels of sanctioned military veterans?
S: I think it would be inappropriate to ghettoize their sacrifice into a separate day simply because they gave their lives independent of a martial authority.
ID: So you don’t think there’s a difference? That the fact that vigilantes are breaking the law doesn’t make them unworthy of being honored side-by-side with servicepeople?
S: No. And I’m surprised to hear you even implying that line of reasoning, which is virtually the same as people who argue against gay marriage, as if the granting of civil rights to one group has ever detrimentally impacted the rights of others.
ID: Of course, you can make the argument that the loss of privilege for a favored group is understandably resisted, but that’s an argument that rhetorically is equivalent to asking “So what?” in the face of iniquity. So no separate but equal for superheroes?
S: Separate is never equal. It can’t be.
ID: I’ll forego my usual bit of race-baiting, even though there’s a part of me that’s a bit curious whether a Kansas farm boy maybe picked up any good ole boyness.
S: My father was very tolerant. And a veteran, I think you’re forgetting.
ID: That’s right, he was drafted. But do you think if your dad hadn’t been drafted, hadn’t been a
S: But he was. Drafted and a veteran. I don’t think he would have chosen to be a soldier, but that doesn’t change the fact that he recognized the sacrifice for what it was, or that he wouldn’t have sought to instill that wisdom in his son. There’s a reason they call it military service, because it is, they’re doing a service for each and every one of us.
Though I think there is sometimes a disconnect when we talk about soldiers, particularly in the modern, all-volunteer-force variety. I have all the respect in the world for the profession, but it is a profession. And the reasons people take the job are many and varied, having as much to do with lack of opportunity as a desire to do good work for a nation. And I don’t think that acknowledging that aspect, and particularly the dynamic skew it creates, with larger percentages of the poor and minorities serving, takes anything away from that service, or the sacrifice some of those soldiers end up making.
And that’s why I’m really very comfortable holding up people who do what I do on that same pedestal: because we are an all volunteer force, because few if any people get into this for any kind of personal gain, let alone financial. Most of us outlay large sums of money, for tailors, gadgets, whatever.
So more than anything, I hold both groups in extremely high regard. I wouldn’t put either ahead of the other. And I’m guilty as much as anyone for forgetting every day how important that work is, how safe I am, and my family is, because of what they do.
And on days like Veterans Day, I try to make that effort to let them know just how much that service means to me, how truly and deeply I respect them. I try to honor them; it’s the least I could conscionably do.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Halloween
ID: Okay, Halloween is a big time for people in costume, so what were you up to this year?
S: Lois actually had a Batwoman costume custom-made this year.
ID: Batwoman? Now that is kinky.
S: I don’t follow.
ID: Well, on the one hand, the current Batwoman is, I believe, a lesbian, so it plays into that straight man with a curvy woman fantasy, and it also means next time you see Bruce you’ll have a weird imprint of disrobing the feminine version of his namesake in your brain. Man, a Superman/Batwoman sextape would sell like hot hot hot cakes. If you want, I could produce- I mean, I’m no Sleez but I do happen to know my way around an HD camera.
S: You think I wore my own costume for Halloween?
ID: You didn’t?
S: Nope. I went as Deadman. I figured, since you can see my ribs poking out, and my skins taken on this pale hue- I figured I could pull it off. Plus there’s the whole macabre joke about me being a dead man.
ID: That is dark. Did Lois laugh?
S: Not at first. But I kept doing my Boston Brand imitation all night long, and frankly, it sounds a bit like Warwick Davis from the Leprechaun movies, and by the end of the night I’d just started rolling with that and introducing myself by saying, “I’m the Leprechaun.”
ID: That’s, um, that’s actually not much like Warwick Davis at all. That’s a bad Mike Myers impression doing a bad Warwick Davis impression in Wayne’s World. And I’m actually not entirely sure what to think about the fact that you A) have seen that movie, and B) apparently quote it when drinking.
S: Hey, I was still moderately young and hip in the early nineties… or maybe Jimmy made me watch it- I don’t really know.
But I wanted to comment upon a phenomenon. I think it was last year that Plastic Man said to me that you could tell how highly regarded (or at least reviled) you were by the amount of people dressed as you at Halloween. Last year, Bruce “accidentally” forwarded a sales report on licensed costumes, detailing that Batman had outsold Superman costumes nearly 2 to 1. Granted, my survey this year isn't scientific, but judging from the sample that came to my door, it seemed I'd overtaken him by a slim margin- and that's despite not having a follow up movie last year (like he did). So yeah... I'm a little happy.
Granted, neither one of us were anywhere near the Harry Potter numbers- and I'm also a bit weirded out by the number of Harry Potter women in drag, with too-short skirts and shirts and expressions that were less-than-wholesome.
Oh, but that made me remember something I forgot last week, and you know I’ve been forgetting things more, but I remembered part of why I wanted to talk about Harry Potter. You know, I wrote a book, once. And I don’t mean Under A Yellow Sun- that barely qualifies as a novella (or literature, for that matter). I remember thinking greedily at the time that that was it, my big break, my chance to escape my own mediocrity- as Clark Kent, anyway. I mean, in the other personae, wearing the costume and being that other person who is smarter and more confident and just better than me in every way, I could do all kinds of things. But as Clark Kent, there were, and sometimes still are, days when I really did feel like the dumb, naïve hick son of a farmer out of Kansas.
ID: You’ve won a Pulitzer.
S: I know, but that doesn’t mean I felt I deserved it, or that even if I sometimes do that I don’t have moments of insecurity. But we’re not talking about that, or at least I wasn’t meaning to, my point, and you know how hard it’s getting for me to focus, is that I wrote something fictional. Maybe even literary. I’d written a novel about a teenager who one day finds out he has abilities, and then joins up with superheroes. It was very much a Harry Potter for the tights set- in fact, there’s a pretty good chance I was writing it around the same time as Rowling was writing her first Potter. But then Ja- one of the Robins passed away. And at that point I couldn’t stomach the idea of encouraging children to think about what we did in a positive light. I mean, if even one kid had got themselves hurt… I haven’t even thought about publishing it, honestly, until just now. I put it out of my mind, because the alternative, it’s too much to even think about.
I mean, I fail, regularly. There’s people I should be nicer to, some I can’t save, even problems I can’t tackle, like Perry smoking cigars, but I recognized that I would be creating failure. That it was an inevitability that children would read that book and think, “Hey, heroes are real, I should do this-” it was only a question of when something would go wrong and not if.
ID: I’m not sure what to say to any of that.
S: You don’t have to. I’m not changing my mind about the book- I’m not saying it should be published posthumously. If anything I’m saying it shouldn’t. But a small part of me just wanted it out there in the world, that the book exists. I think there’s a small part of writing that’s about being heard- not even heard clearly or understood, those are separate from it- I just wanted its existence, and maybe by extension mine, to be known. It seems stupid to say it out loud. But a story about an awkward kid with glasses, and competence no one knows about- that idea hits pretty close to home with me. I guess putting it away all this time, without acknowledging it, it was kind of like trapping that person in his awkward stage, shuttered away and unable to grow into the impressive person he was supposed to emerge as by story’s end. I guess, in a way, that’s what Halloween’s about: we all want to be something, something funnier or scarier or more heroic or even sexier, but we all want to be someone better.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
S: Lois actually had a Batwoman costume custom-made this year.
ID: Batwoman? Now that is kinky.
S: I don’t follow.
ID: Well, on the one hand, the current Batwoman is, I believe, a lesbian, so it plays into that straight man with a curvy woman fantasy, and it also means next time you see Bruce you’ll have a weird imprint of disrobing the feminine version of his namesake in your brain. Man, a Superman/Batwoman sextape would sell like hot hot hot cakes. If you want, I could produce- I mean, I’m no Sleez but I do happen to know my way around an HD camera.
S: You think I wore my own costume for Halloween?
ID: You didn’t?
S: Nope. I went as Deadman. I figured, since you can see my ribs poking out, and my skins taken on this pale hue- I figured I could pull it off. Plus there’s the whole macabre joke about me being a dead man.
ID: That is dark. Did Lois laugh?
S: Not at first. But I kept doing my Boston Brand imitation all night long, and frankly, it sounds a bit like Warwick Davis from the Leprechaun movies, and by the end of the night I’d just started rolling with that and introducing myself by saying, “I’m the Leprechaun.”
ID: That’s, um, that’s actually not much like Warwick Davis at all. That’s a bad Mike Myers impression doing a bad Warwick Davis impression in Wayne’s World. And I’m actually not entirely sure what to think about the fact that you A) have seen that movie, and B) apparently quote it when drinking.
S: Hey, I was still moderately young and hip in the early nineties… or maybe Jimmy made me watch it- I don’t really know.
But I wanted to comment upon a phenomenon. I think it was last year that Plastic Man said to me that you could tell how highly regarded (or at least reviled) you were by the amount of people dressed as you at Halloween. Last year, Bruce “accidentally” forwarded a sales report on licensed costumes, detailing that Batman had outsold Superman costumes nearly 2 to 1. Granted, my survey this year isn't scientific, but judging from the sample that came to my door, it seemed I'd overtaken him by a slim margin- and that's despite not having a follow up movie last year (like he did). So yeah... I'm a little happy.
Granted, neither one of us were anywhere near the Harry Potter numbers- and I'm also a bit weirded out by the number of Harry Potter women in drag, with too-short skirts and shirts and expressions that were less-than-wholesome.
Oh, but that made me remember something I forgot last week, and you know I’ve been forgetting things more, but I remembered part of why I wanted to talk about Harry Potter. You know, I wrote a book, once. And I don’t mean Under A Yellow Sun- that barely qualifies as a novella (or literature, for that matter). I remember thinking greedily at the time that that was it, my big break, my chance to escape my own mediocrity- as Clark Kent, anyway. I mean, in the other personae, wearing the costume and being that other person who is smarter and more confident and just better than me in every way, I could do all kinds of things. But as Clark Kent, there were, and sometimes still are, days when I really did feel like the dumb, naïve hick son of a farmer out of Kansas.
ID: You’ve won a Pulitzer.
S: I know, but that doesn’t mean I felt I deserved it, or that even if I sometimes do that I don’t have moments of insecurity. But we’re not talking about that, or at least I wasn’t meaning to, my point, and you know how hard it’s getting for me to focus, is that I wrote something fictional. Maybe even literary. I’d written a novel about a teenager who one day finds out he has abilities, and then joins up with superheroes. It was very much a Harry Potter for the tights set- in fact, there’s a pretty good chance I was writing it around the same time as Rowling was writing her first Potter. But then Ja- one of the Robins passed away. And at that point I couldn’t stomach the idea of encouraging children to think about what we did in a positive light. I mean, if even one kid had got themselves hurt… I haven’t even thought about publishing it, honestly, until just now. I put it out of my mind, because the alternative, it’s too much to even think about.
I mean, I fail, regularly. There’s people I should be nicer to, some I can’t save, even problems I can’t tackle, like Perry smoking cigars, but I recognized that I would be creating failure. That it was an inevitability that children would read that book and think, “Hey, heroes are real, I should do this-” it was only a question of when something would go wrong and not if.
ID: I’m not sure what to say to any of that.
S: You don’t have to. I’m not changing my mind about the book- I’m not saying it should be published posthumously. If anything I’m saying it shouldn’t. But a small part of me just wanted it out there in the world, that the book exists. I think there’s a small part of writing that’s about being heard- not even heard clearly or understood, those are separate from it- I just wanted its existence, and maybe by extension mine, to be known. It seems stupid to say it out loud. But a story about an awkward kid with glasses, and competence no one knows about- that idea hits pretty close to home with me. I guess putting it away all this time, without acknowledging it, it was kind of like trapping that person in his awkward stage, shuttered away and unable to grow into the impressive person he was supposed to emerge as by story’s end. I guess, in a way, that’s what Halloween’s about: we all want to be something, something funnier or scarier or more heroic or even sexier, but we all want to be someone better.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Clark Kent and the Novelist’s Pen
ID NOTE: This update discusses quite a few storylines from current and ongoing movies and TV, including (but not necessarily limited to): Harry Potter, Madmen, Scrubs, House; this is the only spoiler warning you’re getting.
Inscrutable Diarist: Okay, so you left a message on my answering machine- something you wanted to talk about.
Superman: I realized something. Well wait- I’m getting ahead of myself. I finally went to see the new Harry Potter- I know, I’m stupidly late, but I’ve been busy. Anyway, it felt like a Halloweenish movie, with the witches and everything, and we finally had a moment to ourselves. And after the movie I asked Lois, who’s a huge fan of the books, about what comes next. Which of course opened a whole can of deaths and things that sound close to insanity when splashed out over the course of twenty seconds. And, intrigued, I asked how long until the last movie came out.
And that’s when Lois went white as a sheet. She managed to mumble that they’d split the last book into two movies, one in 2010 and the other in 2011. “Oh,” was all I could manage. See, I’d sort of forgotten myself; I’ve internalized my mortality enough that I thought I might be able to “wait” for a sequel next year- but at that moment I realized I couldn’t delude myself into believing that I’d see the end of the series.
Which is a roundabout way of saying I’ve finally started reading the books. Ollie and Lois have been on me about reading them since just after the first movie- but they both hated the films, and I liked them- and I wanted to continue liking them.
And I might not have come to it on my own, but I was talking to Ollie, because he’s been wanting to discuss Half-Blood Prince since he saw it at the midnight opening (really, I suppose he’d been waiting since he’d been at the midnight book opening). And it shouldn’t surprise me, because his exuberance has precedent, but he jumped on it, said, “If you want to know the ending now you’ll have to finally read the books.”
Of course, I could have always just read the Wikipedia synopsis, but I figured he was right. I thought since I can read pretty quick, and both he and Lois insisted that they’d cut out a lot from the movies, that I should start over from the beginning. And I’ve only just started, just a few pages into the first book, but so far I’m not blown away. I guess there’s just been so much hype, I mean, at least six years of it, now, that I think it would have taken something Shakespearean to really impress me like I’ve been told it would. And I’m not taking anything away from Rowling, not at all. I mean, Harry Potter, particularly that first book, from what I’ve heard, is meant as a children’s story, or at least something accessible to children. And there’s certainly something very British about the book, too, even more British even than the all-British/Irish/Scottish-cast movies.
Anyway, I’m tangentially off, um, what I was getting at is there’s all kinds of things I realized I’m going to miss out on. Lois and I have been addicted to Madmen- though admittedly for different reasons. I think she just likes staring at Jon Hamm.
ID: You know, there is more than a passing resemblance between the two of you- you know, before you lost all the weight.
S: Lost the weight? Clever. Anyway. I hate the show, and the fact that virtually all of the characters no the show are predatory and inhuman, and even at the best of times all of them are eagerly self-serving; it’s basically a misanthropic fairy tale, but there’s something about Don’s back story that, I guess because of its rural setting, it just hits close to home. I guess I can’t help but think that with a little less luck that could have been me, stuck in a home where I wasn’t wanted or even liked, and I guess every episode I go in hoping that he’ll rise above his lousy upbringing and
ID: Be you?
S: Be him. I mean, we get it in fits and spurts- the character’s got a strong base morality above and beyond what seems to be the norm for the show, but oftentimes he ignores his better instincts because he’d rather have sex with whoever’s guesting that episode.
ID: Okay. But what else are you anticipating, what else are you missing out on?
S: I’m glad I got to see House get out of the asylum. I’m not a huge fan of his character, and the show can be formulaic, but the mysteries… I guess I’m glad, too, I got to see the beginnings of post-asylum, moderately more human and gentle House. I’ve always gotten the sense that House is what would have happened to Bruce if there never was a Batman- that he would have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, and that he’d still be brilliant, but just as he does now, he’d use that brilliance to push people away. And I’m glad I got to see the “end” of Scrubs- at least to the point where JD stops being the main character, and really, that’s the end as far as anybody’s really concerned.
But it isn’t just movie and TV- although those kinds of things are always a little easier to predict. But Lana’s pregnant, which I don’t think is a secret- at least I hope not- and I found myself the other day counting up the time she has left, and thinking, “I’m not going to get to see her baby.” And it’s stupid, but when she first got pregnant, I know she talked about making me the baby’s godfather, and…
And in the League, there are a lot of engagements and wedding dates floating around. And I’m man enough to admit- maybe because for me mine was such a long time coming- but I like weddings. Seeing two people who really care about one another making that social commitment.
ID: Which brings up something, and I forget, hell, we may have talked about it at some point, but not having my notes on all previous forty-some odd conversations we’ve had, we’ll just roll with it, but I hear that there are a few gay superhero weddings in the mix- I think Question/Batwoman for one has been rumored. What are your thoughts?
S: That’s the easiest divisive question you’ve ever asked. If two people really care about one another enough to want to make that social commitment, then absolutely I want them to have that freedom. More than that, I want to stand with them when they make that declaration. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of. And I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could want to stand in its way.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Inscrutable Diarist: Okay, so you left a message on my answering machine- something you wanted to talk about.
Superman: I realized something. Well wait- I’m getting ahead of myself. I finally went to see the new Harry Potter- I know, I’m stupidly late, but I’ve been busy. Anyway, it felt like a Halloweenish movie, with the witches and everything, and we finally had a moment to ourselves. And after the movie I asked Lois, who’s a huge fan of the books, about what comes next. Which of course opened a whole can of deaths and things that sound close to insanity when splashed out over the course of twenty seconds. And, intrigued, I asked how long until the last movie came out.
And that’s when Lois went white as a sheet. She managed to mumble that they’d split the last book into two movies, one in 2010 and the other in 2011. “Oh,” was all I could manage. See, I’d sort of forgotten myself; I’ve internalized my mortality enough that I thought I might be able to “wait” for a sequel next year- but at that moment I realized I couldn’t delude myself into believing that I’d see the end of the series.
Which is a roundabout way of saying I’ve finally started reading the books. Ollie and Lois have been on me about reading them since just after the first movie- but they both hated the films, and I liked them- and I wanted to continue liking them.
And I might not have come to it on my own, but I was talking to Ollie, because he’s been wanting to discuss Half-Blood Prince since he saw it at the midnight opening (really, I suppose he’d been waiting since he’d been at the midnight book opening). And it shouldn’t surprise me, because his exuberance has precedent, but he jumped on it, said, “If you want to know the ending now you’ll have to finally read the books.”
Of course, I could have always just read the Wikipedia synopsis, but I figured he was right. I thought since I can read pretty quick, and both he and Lois insisted that they’d cut out a lot from the movies, that I should start over from the beginning. And I’ve only just started, just a few pages into the first book, but so far I’m not blown away. I guess there’s just been so much hype, I mean, at least six years of it, now, that I think it would have taken something Shakespearean to really impress me like I’ve been told it would. And I’m not taking anything away from Rowling, not at all. I mean, Harry Potter, particularly that first book, from what I’ve heard, is meant as a children’s story, or at least something accessible to children. And there’s certainly something very British about the book, too, even more British even than the all-British/Irish/Scottish-cast movies.
Anyway, I’m tangentially off, um, what I was getting at is there’s all kinds of things I realized I’m going to miss out on. Lois and I have been addicted to Madmen- though admittedly for different reasons. I think she just likes staring at Jon Hamm.
ID: You know, there is more than a passing resemblance between the two of you- you know, before you lost all the weight.
S: Lost the weight? Clever. Anyway. I hate the show, and the fact that virtually all of the characters no the show are predatory and inhuman, and even at the best of times all of them are eagerly self-serving; it’s basically a misanthropic fairy tale, but there’s something about Don’s back story that, I guess because of its rural setting, it just hits close to home. I guess I can’t help but think that with a little less luck that could have been me, stuck in a home where I wasn’t wanted or even liked, and I guess every episode I go in hoping that he’ll rise above his lousy upbringing and
ID: Be you?
S: Be him. I mean, we get it in fits and spurts- the character’s got a strong base morality above and beyond what seems to be the norm for the show, but oftentimes he ignores his better instincts because he’d rather have sex with whoever’s guesting that episode.
ID: Okay. But what else are you anticipating, what else are you missing out on?
S: I’m glad I got to see House get out of the asylum. I’m not a huge fan of his character, and the show can be formulaic, but the mysteries… I guess I’m glad, too, I got to see the beginnings of post-asylum, moderately more human and gentle House. I’ve always gotten the sense that House is what would have happened to Bruce if there never was a Batman- that he would have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, and that he’d still be brilliant, but just as he does now, he’d use that brilliance to push people away. And I’m glad I got to see the “end” of Scrubs- at least to the point where JD stops being the main character, and really, that’s the end as far as anybody’s really concerned.
But it isn’t just movie and TV- although those kinds of things are always a little easier to predict. But Lana’s pregnant, which I don’t think is a secret- at least I hope not- and I found myself the other day counting up the time she has left, and thinking, “I’m not going to get to see her baby.” And it’s stupid, but when she first got pregnant, I know she talked about making me the baby’s godfather, and…
And in the League, there are a lot of engagements and wedding dates floating around. And I’m man enough to admit- maybe because for me mine was such a long time coming- but I like weddings. Seeing two people who really care about one another making that social commitment.
ID: Which brings up something, and I forget, hell, we may have talked about it at some point, but not having my notes on all previous forty-some odd conversations we’ve had, we’ll just roll with it, but I hear that there are a few gay superhero weddings in the mix- I think Question/Batwoman for one has been rumored. What are your thoughts?
S: That’s the easiest divisive question you’ve ever asked. If two people really care about one another enough to want to make that social commitment, then absolutely I want them to have that freedom. More than that, I want to stand with them when they make that declaration. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of. And I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could want to stand in its way.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Wonder Woman Day
Superman: My wife isn’t very happy with you.
Innocent Dilemma: And why’s that?
S: I don’t know if you remember it, but a while back, you chided me about my lack of charity work.
ID: So that’s why you cancelled our usual session?
S: No… though I suppose the two are related. I’ve been working a lot on promoting Wonder Woman Day. It was founded in part by Diana and some charitable minded folks to promote awareness of women’s issues and raise money for domestic violence centers and hotlines. My wife says I’ve been overworking myself. I cancelled our usual taping because I… I couldn’t get out of bed. I think- I’ve told Lois- it’s just fatigue flitting between Portland, Oregon and Flemington, New Jersey- which is at least close to home here in Metropolis.
ID: Okay, so you’ve told your wife it’s fatigue, but is it- do you honestly believe that’s what it is?
S: I don’t know. It’s all… experimental, really. Kryptonians on my planet were actually analogous to humans on this one- so there’s nothing on record like this. Maybe I had a bad day. Maybe I was just, depressive isn’t really the right word but there’s a, a weight to mortality- and I mean imminent, inescapable mortality. There’s an animal thing squirming inside you that does not want to go yet. And it can be exhausting. So, I think fatigue is probably right, though I think my wife had the cause, and more specifically the culprit, wrong.
But I’d sort of like to hijack the conversation. You know, I’ve only got so many words left, and I’d, I’d like them not to all be expended on navel-gazing; I’d like them to matter as much as they can.
So Wonder Woman Day. It hasn’t, uh, taken on the following yet that I might have liked, or that I think befits a person of Diana’s stature, frankly, but it does a lot of good. One of the main fundraisers is an art auction. The pieces are being shown at the Lara Sydney Framing Gallery, 1230 NW Hoyt St., Portland, Oregon until the 24th, and they’re being auctioned online at wonderwomanmuseum.com. If you want to help a good cause and get some original artwork, go there.
ID: Hmm… even though it’s for a good cause, I can’t help but feel like a shill.
S: You started this.
ID: Fair enough. But physically there isn’t a Wonder Woman museum, right?
S: Not yet.
ID: But that reminds me of something I’d wanted to talk about: the Super Museum. In Metropolis, Illinois. Located in Superman Square.
S: Yes.
ID: And I assume you’ve met the curator.
S: Yep.
ID: And how did he strike you?
S: As an ardent and particularly devoted fan.
ID: To be clear, you didn’t mean peculiarly devoted fan?
S: He’s a fan. Perhaps sometimes bordering on fanatical, but that’s where the word comes from. Honestly, to me he’s never been anything but kind, humble and genuine.
ID: So you’re saying you’ve had worse fans, then. Care to talk bad about them behind their backs?
S: I swear sometimes you’re a five year old scientifically aged by Lex Luthor to make me hate humanity.
ID: That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me. Ooh, they’ve got a George Reeves dummy dressed as you- but it looks like Richard Nixon out trick-or-treating.
S: Just had to get in the holiday reference?
ID: Hey, if you can shill for a good cause, I can shill for hits- which consequently gets your good cause more word-of-mouth.
S: Fair enough.
ID: So, for the record, do you think you’re going to be able to keep up with our regular taping schedules?
S: I don’t know. I- I hope so. I know I’m going to try.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Innocent Dilemma: And why’s that?
S: I don’t know if you remember it, but a while back, you chided me about my lack of charity work.
ID: So that’s why you cancelled our usual session?
S: No… though I suppose the two are related. I’ve been working a lot on promoting Wonder Woman Day. It was founded in part by Diana and some charitable minded folks to promote awareness of women’s issues and raise money for domestic violence centers and hotlines. My wife says I’ve been overworking myself. I cancelled our usual taping because I… I couldn’t get out of bed. I think- I’ve told Lois- it’s just fatigue flitting between Portland, Oregon and Flemington, New Jersey- which is at least close to home here in Metropolis.
ID: Okay, so you’ve told your wife it’s fatigue, but is it- do you honestly believe that’s what it is?
S: I don’t know. It’s all… experimental, really. Kryptonians on my planet were actually analogous to humans on this one- so there’s nothing on record like this. Maybe I had a bad day. Maybe I was just, depressive isn’t really the right word but there’s a, a weight to mortality- and I mean imminent, inescapable mortality. There’s an animal thing squirming inside you that does not want to go yet. And it can be exhausting. So, I think fatigue is probably right, though I think my wife had the cause, and more specifically the culprit, wrong.
But I’d sort of like to hijack the conversation. You know, I’ve only got so many words left, and I’d, I’d like them not to all be expended on navel-gazing; I’d like them to matter as much as they can.
So Wonder Woman Day. It hasn’t, uh, taken on the following yet that I might have liked, or that I think befits a person of Diana’s stature, frankly, but it does a lot of good. One of the main fundraisers is an art auction. The pieces are being shown at the Lara Sydney Framing Gallery, 1230 NW Hoyt St., Portland, Oregon until the 24th, and they’re being auctioned online at wonderwomanmuseum.com. If you want to help a good cause and get some original artwork, go there.
ID: Hmm… even though it’s for a good cause, I can’t help but feel like a shill.
S: You started this.
ID: Fair enough. But physically there isn’t a Wonder Woman museum, right?
S: Not yet.
ID: But that reminds me of something I’d wanted to talk about: the Super Museum. In Metropolis, Illinois. Located in Superman Square.
S: Yes.
ID: And I assume you’ve met the curator.
S: Yep.
ID: And how did he strike you?
S: As an ardent and particularly devoted fan.
ID: To be clear, you didn’t mean peculiarly devoted fan?
S: He’s a fan. Perhaps sometimes bordering on fanatical, but that’s where the word comes from. Honestly, to me he’s never been anything but kind, humble and genuine.
ID: So you’re saying you’ve had worse fans, then. Care to talk bad about them behind their backs?
S: I swear sometimes you’re a five year old scientifically aged by Lex Luthor to make me hate humanity.
ID: That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me. Ooh, they’ve got a George Reeves dummy dressed as you- but it looks like Richard Nixon out trick-or-treating.
S: Just had to get in the holiday reference?
ID: Hey, if you can shill for a good cause, I can shill for hits- which consequently gets your good cause more word-of-mouth.
S: Fair enough.
ID: So, for the record, do you think you’re going to be able to keep up with our regular taping schedules?
S: I don’t know. I- I hope so. I know I’m going to try.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Hawk and Dove
Innate Docility: President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Superman: I heard.
ID: Why do you think you, and the rest of the Justice League, have never won a peace prize?
S: Honestly? A few reasons spring to mind. The first, though probably the least, is most of us have had at least some contact with outsiders- people society at large would consider “other,” be they aliens or reclusive island nations. I think no matter how much people may look up to us, respect us, there’s a certain amount of unease with that.
Second, look at the history: Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, Kissinger- even giving it to Carter during Bush’s presidency. The Nobel Committee often uses the prize as a carrot, in the hopes of shaping international policy. In essence, the message was, “Keep up the diplomacy- and try not to bomb Cambodia.”
Third, we’re vigilantes. We are, under most national and international laws, operating unsanctioned. The Nobel Committee, under the auspices of the Norwegian government, could never be seen to official accept what we do. And there's a perception that we try to punch all our problems away.
Fourth- I’m actually surprised Diana doesn’t have one- as is Greg Rucka, apparently. She’s done extensive work for and with UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross & Crescent- both of which have won at least one prize. She doesn’t often get the credit she’s due, but Bruce once paid for a study, and for every punch she throws she gives three speeches about peace, and for every speech she throws or attends some kind of charity benefit. Around her there’s sprung up this mythology of an Amazonian warrior woman, and frankly, it’s a very small part of who she is.
ID: Hmm. So do you think Obama deserved one?
S: I honestly don’t think it was aimed at Obama specifically; his election, on the platform he articulated, was made possible by the American people. I think it was a high profile way of saying to America, “Welcome back.”
ID: So you think internationally we’ve been
S: Absent. Yes. Absolutely. Off the reservation, at a minimum.
ID: Okay, but even allowing for a moment that the award was for the people generally, do you think we’ve earned it?
S: I think the hope is that we will. The hope is that America is back to the country who first proposed the League of Nations to the world, who were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations, who only reluctantly entered the world wars- not the bickering, antagonistic state who refused to join the original League, who did everything politically possible to hobble the UN, whose leader- ostensibly the leader of the free world- thumbed his nose at unilateralism and who seemed to those abroad to be, if not war hungry, at least peace-aversive.
ID: I’m reminded of a pair of your fellow do-gooders who seem awfully apt to the conversation, Dawn and Hank Hall- Hawk and Dove, to the action-figure buying kiddies in the audience.
S: Don’t believe everything you read about them. For one, Dawn’s always been a woman- she was never "Don" and they were never siblings. In the fictions it was felt at the time, and maybe rightly so, that liberals, already caricatured as weak, would be ill-served having a woman, equally caricatured as weak, as their figurehead. It added all kinds of sexual politics, as did their at-the-time budding romance, that weren’t exactly appropriate for the funny pages of the day, or paramount to the issues they were discussing.
But honestly, Dawn and Hank were a little before my time. I’ve worked with them, sure, but by the time I donned my first pair of tights, they had already been married for years, and were looking to retire. I think what worked for them, and why I think I’m glad you brought them up, is they learned the beauty of combining their ideologies, their strengths, and their efforts. I remember talking to the both of them during the presidential campaign last year, and Hank was very big into “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran,” but Dawn, very coolly, said that the Iranian people would suffer disproportionately from that, that diplomacy and sanctions should be tried first, but that if the Iranians couldn’t be convinced from the brink- which they both believe the Iranians are when it comes to the inseparable issues of Iranian nuclear policy and Israeli security- then she’d help strap Hank into the bomber of his choice. I think, and I think I’ve lived, that you really need to work for peace, with almost everything you have in you- but that some problems can’t be sanctioned, talked, or legislated away- sometimes you have to use force.
ID: Hmm. I want to return to the idea that the prize was for Obama personally, and I want to read you, from Nobel’s will as according to wiki
S: Journalistic excellence at its zenith
ID: I’ll use a kryptonite gag on you; it should be awarded to the person who “during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That actually… sounds about right. Or maybe it was just a crappy year for peace.
S: I can’t believe you’d threaten the infirm during a conversation about “peace.”
ID: And I don’t believe you’re that naïve- or that infirm, either.
S: Bantering aside, I coughed blood yesterday; actually, I’ve been coughing blood. There were pieces of lung tissue in it this time- I guess, honestly, there’s been lung tissue in it all along, but for the first time Lois noticed, that it wasn’t just blood coming out.
ID: I’m sorry.
S: That wasn’t why I mentioned it. In fact, I don’t really know why I mentioned it- just came to mind, and tumbled out. I guess I’m, losing my filter.
ID: How does that make you feel?
S: Worried. I come from Kansas. It’s not that Kansas is oppressive, there’s just a, a certain way you’re allowed to express yourself. And I’ve spent a lot of time adhering to that, because it was polite, and human, and I stress over the fact that maybe I’m going to be too sick to remember to be human. I’m terrified that the last feeling my wife, my friends, will have with me, is that I’m alien. I mean, I am an alien, but it would break my heart for the last moment I get to be one where my loved ones feel they don’t know me.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: I heard.
ID: Why do you think you, and the rest of the Justice League, have never won a peace prize?
S: Honestly? A few reasons spring to mind. The first, though probably the least, is most of us have had at least some contact with outsiders- people society at large would consider “other,” be they aliens or reclusive island nations. I think no matter how much people may look up to us, respect us, there’s a certain amount of unease with that.
Second, look at the history: Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, Kissinger- even giving it to Carter during Bush’s presidency. The Nobel Committee often uses the prize as a carrot, in the hopes of shaping international policy. In essence, the message was, “Keep up the diplomacy- and try not to bomb Cambodia.”
Third, we’re vigilantes. We are, under most national and international laws, operating unsanctioned. The Nobel Committee, under the auspices of the Norwegian government, could never be seen to official accept what we do. And there's a perception that we try to punch all our problems away.
Fourth- I’m actually surprised Diana doesn’t have one- as is Greg Rucka, apparently. She’s done extensive work for and with UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross & Crescent- both of which have won at least one prize. She doesn’t often get the credit she’s due, but Bruce once paid for a study, and for every punch she throws she gives three speeches about peace, and for every speech she throws or attends some kind of charity benefit. Around her there’s sprung up this mythology of an Amazonian warrior woman, and frankly, it’s a very small part of who she is.
ID: Hmm. So do you think Obama deserved one?
S: I honestly don’t think it was aimed at Obama specifically; his election, on the platform he articulated, was made possible by the American people. I think it was a high profile way of saying to America, “Welcome back.”
ID: So you think internationally we’ve been
S: Absent. Yes. Absolutely. Off the reservation, at a minimum.
ID: Okay, but even allowing for a moment that the award was for the people generally, do you think we’ve earned it?
S: I think the hope is that we will. The hope is that America is back to the country who first proposed the League of Nations to the world, who were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations, who only reluctantly entered the world wars- not the bickering, antagonistic state who refused to join the original League, who did everything politically possible to hobble the UN, whose leader- ostensibly the leader of the free world- thumbed his nose at unilateralism and who seemed to those abroad to be, if not war hungry, at least peace-aversive.
ID: I’m reminded of a pair of your fellow do-gooders who seem awfully apt to the conversation, Dawn and Hank Hall- Hawk and Dove, to the action-figure buying kiddies in the audience.
S: Don’t believe everything you read about them. For one, Dawn’s always been a woman- she was never "Don" and they were never siblings. In the fictions it was felt at the time, and maybe rightly so, that liberals, already caricatured as weak, would be ill-served having a woman, equally caricatured as weak, as their figurehead. It added all kinds of sexual politics, as did their at-the-time budding romance, that weren’t exactly appropriate for the funny pages of the day, or paramount to the issues they were discussing.
But honestly, Dawn and Hank were a little before my time. I’ve worked with them, sure, but by the time I donned my first pair of tights, they had already been married for years, and were looking to retire. I think what worked for them, and why I think I’m glad you brought them up, is they learned the beauty of combining their ideologies, their strengths, and their efforts. I remember talking to the both of them during the presidential campaign last year, and Hank was very big into “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran,” but Dawn, very coolly, said that the Iranian people would suffer disproportionately from that, that diplomacy and sanctions should be tried first, but that if the Iranians couldn’t be convinced from the brink- which they both believe the Iranians are when it comes to the inseparable issues of Iranian nuclear policy and Israeli security- then she’d help strap Hank into the bomber of his choice. I think, and I think I’ve lived, that you really need to work for peace, with almost everything you have in you- but that some problems can’t be sanctioned, talked, or legislated away- sometimes you have to use force.
ID: Hmm. I want to return to the idea that the prize was for Obama personally, and I want to read you, from Nobel’s will as according to wiki
S: Journalistic excellence at its zenith
ID: I’ll use a kryptonite gag on you; it should be awarded to the person who “during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That actually… sounds about right. Or maybe it was just a crappy year for peace.
S: I can’t believe you’d threaten the infirm during a conversation about “peace.”
ID: And I don’t believe you’re that naïve- or that infirm, either.
S: Bantering aside, I coughed blood yesterday; actually, I’ve been coughing blood. There were pieces of lung tissue in it this time- I guess, honestly, there’s been lung tissue in it all along, but for the first time Lois noticed, that it wasn’t just blood coming out.
ID: I’m sorry.
S: That wasn’t why I mentioned it. In fact, I don’t really know why I mentioned it- just came to mind, and tumbled out. I guess I’m, losing my filter.
ID: How does that make you feel?
S: Worried. I come from Kansas. It’s not that Kansas is oppressive, there’s just a, a certain way you’re allowed to express yourself. And I’ve spent a lot of time adhering to that, because it was polite, and human, and I stress over the fact that maybe I’m going to be too sick to remember to be human. I’m terrified that the last feeling my wife, my friends, will have with me, is that I’m alien. I mean, I am an alien, but it would break my heart for the last moment I get to be one where my loved ones feel they don’t know me.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Death Penalty
Innocent Decapitation: I'd like to talk about the time you murdered three people.
Superman: You're an ass.
ID: I'm just going off of John Byrne's cue on this one.
S: Yeah, well he's a bit of an ass, too. You remember the incident with Barda- yeah, he hung that entirely around her neck- said something about her lacking the moral fortitude to resist, but for some reason gave me a pass.
ID: I’ll more than grant you that. But let's talk about the executions. Give me the background, because this is one of the subjects you and Lois haven't really written about to the extent you've discussed other, uh, events, for lack of a better term.
S: The story’s different than the one in the comic books. Zod, Ursula, and Non were originally leaders of a Kryptonian rebellion, and for their treason they were locked away. Ironically, because they were imprisoned, they were spared the fate of the rest of our race. But when they broke loose, they engaged in a campaign of genocide that spanned solar systems.
ID: I assume you’re not using the term “genocide” lightly.
S: I mean they destroyed entire planets teeming with life, including seven separate sentient species that had evolved to the point of written language. At least seven cultures- millions if not billions of intelligent lives- lost. And that was a single, small corner of the galaxy- and there are at least hundreds of similar nearby worlds that were in danger. I never invoke the term genocide lightly.
But to make a very long story shorter, I was eventually contacted by a group of Kryptonian colonists, and intervened. When I arrived, the colony had been massacred, women, children, the elderly- I didn’t see evidence that any of the colonists had even put up token resistance, let alone anything that would qualify them as combatants, but they were tortured, brutalized and worse.
And what happened then happened very fast. When I saw the damage, I immediately sped around the colony, looking for a survivor, someone I could still save- but there was no one. And Zod had seen me, and pointed me out to the others, and they rushed at me at a speed approaching light. The shockwave created by the collision nearly tore that planet in half- and that was just the beginning.
I fought them across worlds- across galaxies. The conflict destroyed dozens of uninhabited planets. And it became evident not only that as they gathered yellow solar radiation they would eventually eclipse my strength and win- but that their violence and fury would not end with me or the lives they’d already taken.
So I escaped and came up with a plan, a last, desperate gambit to use kryptonite. Specifically, I rigged powdered kryptonite to an explosive device, meant to scatter the element into the air. I set it off when they were all close enough for me to grab onto, and force them to stay, breathing it in. I think Zod realized it first, and screamed as the green dust enveloped him, tried to push off of me, tried to hold his breath; I jabbed him, hard, in the stomach, ground it in- and his reflex gasp brought in enough of the poison to kill him- albeit not immediately.
Ursula turned to me, and she understood from Zod what was happening, but understood, too, that fighting wouldn’t work. I was still stronger than them- though likely only for a few hours more. She touched my hand gently, and with tears in her eyes said, “Please, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Her mouth began to twitch, and she started to sob until her lungs were empty, but she held out, opened her eyes, pleading without being able to speak. But still I held her firm, and she collapsed to the ground; by that point I was too weak to hold her up, and I fell to my knee, and she started gasping in and sobbing.
And my hands were full, holding Zod in my right hand with Ursula in the left; I was certain if I let them go they’d try to run- and if they did I couldn’t be sure they’d die. I’d tried to wrap my legs around Non, but Non was larger, stronger- at least as strong as I was at that point. He’d pulled away- though I didn’t think he’d gotten out of the cloud.
Back on Krypton, Non had worked with my father, but unlike him, he had went against the council, and tried to warn people about the planet’s imminent destruction. For that “crime,” the council took away from him what had mattered most: his mind. My father told me that after his lobotomy he was barely functional, and the only part of his old friend he recognized in Non was his rage.
But I think there was more, maybe buried under his anger, and disappointment. Because Non came towards me in the cloud of green dust. I couldn’t have stopped him, couldn’t have even defended myself, but he nodded, and gave me a little smile, like he finally understood: why Zod’s rebellion had gone so wrong, how far from himself he must have been to go along, and crucially, how that lapsed judgment meant he could be compromised again- and the consequences of that. Then he took a deep breath in, and as he let it out he sat down on the ground, cross-legged, to wait to die.
And I honestly expected to die with them; I thought that was a fitting end. Except that I didn’t die. I laid there, on a desert planet’s surface, waiting for the dust to kill me, too. Even when the wind took the dust cloud away, I expected the kryptonite already in my lungs to kill me. And it hurt. In fact- I’ve felt that kind of pain, like breathing in glass, twice since- when Doomsday “killed” me, and now, with the cancer. But it didn’t kill me.
I passed into a, well, I think it was basically a coma. By the time I came to, the other three were dead. I decided to cremate them in one of that planet’s volcanoes, but they’re bodies had absorbed so much of the kryptonite that while carrying them I was virtually powerless. So I carried their bodies, one at a time, to the summit of the nearest volcano, which thankfully ended up being only a dozen kilometers away, and dropped them in. The kryptonite guaranteed that the chemical bonds in their cells were weak enough to break in the volcanic heat, and their bodies burned to ash.
ID: Were you at all concerned about the Kryptonians’ remains being used for something sinister?
S: The thought occurred to me. That’s why I kept the planet’s location a secret, up until I learned about the Green Lantern Corps. I took them to the planet, and they helped locate every last charred DNA molecule, so that it could be kept out of the wrong hands.
ID: And did all of this effect your stance on capital punishment?
S: I made the most difficult decision of my entire life that day, and it still haunts me. I took three lives, and it’s very little consolation that I did not take them lightly. Still, it was necessary, and it was right- and I hate that we live in a circumstance where that can be the case. But the reason it was necessary, and the reason it was right, was that there were no other viable options. There is no prison that would hold me-and once they’d absorbed yellow solar radiation, there was no prison that could hold them. There was no hope for peace, and no safety, not for anyone, while they still lived. Taking a life, it changes everything… and nothing.
When I got back to Earth, I wanted to quit. Retire. I told everyone who knew who I was that I was done. And I thought I was. Just thinking about what I’d done- what I’d had to do- it made me sick inside. And I was getting ready for work, I think I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I heard someone on the street whisper, “His bike won’t stop,” and a second later someone else say, “That bus is going to hit him.” And I could tell by the acoustics that it was coming from Southside, that long hill down towards the docks, and before I realized it I was flying there at full speed, my cape billowing behind me. There hadn’t even been a momentary thought, it just happened, I was doing it. And I scooped up the poor kid just before his bike went under one of those big city buses. Our trajectory took us a few hundred feet in the air, and he was terrified, scrambling like a cat to get out of my arms as his heart raced, so I asked, “What’s your name, son?” And that was when it hit him, that he hadn’t died and wouldn’t now, and he calmed immediately and told me: Jeremy Beckman. As I sat him back down on the sidewalk I said to him, “Jeremy Beckman, I think you saved my life today.”
ID: Are you okay? We can stop here if you’d like.
S: No, I… I really have been blessed with this life, I know that. Most people don’t get to, to see people express that kind of gratitude, and kindness. And every day is like that for me- has been like that for me- and I think that’s a special moment for me, because for that one brief moment, I realized that all this time, I hadn’t been saving other people- by giving me a purpose, they’d been saving me. I’ve had really dark times in my life, but every time I think I want to give up, something small and seemingly innocuous like that happens to make me realize life is worth it. And I’m going to miss it.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: You're an ass.
ID: I'm just going off of John Byrne's cue on this one.
S: Yeah, well he's a bit of an ass, too. You remember the incident with Barda- yeah, he hung that entirely around her neck- said something about her lacking the moral fortitude to resist, but for some reason gave me a pass.
ID: I’ll more than grant you that. But let's talk about the executions. Give me the background, because this is one of the subjects you and Lois haven't really written about to the extent you've discussed other, uh, events, for lack of a better term.
S: The story’s different than the one in the comic books. Zod, Ursula, and Non were originally leaders of a Kryptonian rebellion, and for their treason they were locked away. Ironically, because they were imprisoned, they were spared the fate of the rest of our race. But when they broke loose, they engaged in a campaign of genocide that spanned solar systems.
ID: I assume you’re not using the term “genocide” lightly.
S: I mean they destroyed entire planets teeming with life, including seven separate sentient species that had evolved to the point of written language. At least seven cultures- millions if not billions of intelligent lives- lost. And that was a single, small corner of the galaxy- and there are at least hundreds of similar nearby worlds that were in danger. I never invoke the term genocide lightly.
But to make a very long story shorter, I was eventually contacted by a group of Kryptonian colonists, and intervened. When I arrived, the colony had been massacred, women, children, the elderly- I didn’t see evidence that any of the colonists had even put up token resistance, let alone anything that would qualify them as combatants, but they were tortured, brutalized and worse.
And what happened then happened very fast. When I saw the damage, I immediately sped around the colony, looking for a survivor, someone I could still save- but there was no one. And Zod had seen me, and pointed me out to the others, and they rushed at me at a speed approaching light. The shockwave created by the collision nearly tore that planet in half- and that was just the beginning.
I fought them across worlds- across galaxies. The conflict destroyed dozens of uninhabited planets. And it became evident not only that as they gathered yellow solar radiation they would eventually eclipse my strength and win- but that their violence and fury would not end with me or the lives they’d already taken.
So I escaped and came up with a plan, a last, desperate gambit to use kryptonite. Specifically, I rigged powdered kryptonite to an explosive device, meant to scatter the element into the air. I set it off when they were all close enough for me to grab onto, and force them to stay, breathing it in. I think Zod realized it first, and screamed as the green dust enveloped him, tried to push off of me, tried to hold his breath; I jabbed him, hard, in the stomach, ground it in- and his reflex gasp brought in enough of the poison to kill him- albeit not immediately.
Ursula turned to me, and she understood from Zod what was happening, but understood, too, that fighting wouldn’t work. I was still stronger than them- though likely only for a few hours more. She touched my hand gently, and with tears in her eyes said, “Please, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Her mouth began to twitch, and she started to sob until her lungs were empty, but she held out, opened her eyes, pleading without being able to speak. But still I held her firm, and she collapsed to the ground; by that point I was too weak to hold her up, and I fell to my knee, and she started gasping in and sobbing.
And my hands were full, holding Zod in my right hand with Ursula in the left; I was certain if I let them go they’d try to run- and if they did I couldn’t be sure they’d die. I’d tried to wrap my legs around Non, but Non was larger, stronger- at least as strong as I was at that point. He’d pulled away- though I didn’t think he’d gotten out of the cloud.
Back on Krypton, Non had worked with my father, but unlike him, he had went against the council, and tried to warn people about the planet’s imminent destruction. For that “crime,” the council took away from him what had mattered most: his mind. My father told me that after his lobotomy he was barely functional, and the only part of his old friend he recognized in Non was his rage.
But I think there was more, maybe buried under his anger, and disappointment. Because Non came towards me in the cloud of green dust. I couldn’t have stopped him, couldn’t have even defended myself, but he nodded, and gave me a little smile, like he finally understood: why Zod’s rebellion had gone so wrong, how far from himself he must have been to go along, and crucially, how that lapsed judgment meant he could be compromised again- and the consequences of that. Then he took a deep breath in, and as he let it out he sat down on the ground, cross-legged, to wait to die.
And I honestly expected to die with them; I thought that was a fitting end. Except that I didn’t die. I laid there, on a desert planet’s surface, waiting for the dust to kill me, too. Even when the wind took the dust cloud away, I expected the kryptonite already in my lungs to kill me. And it hurt. In fact- I’ve felt that kind of pain, like breathing in glass, twice since- when Doomsday “killed” me, and now, with the cancer. But it didn’t kill me.
I passed into a, well, I think it was basically a coma. By the time I came to, the other three were dead. I decided to cremate them in one of that planet’s volcanoes, but they’re bodies had absorbed so much of the kryptonite that while carrying them I was virtually powerless. So I carried their bodies, one at a time, to the summit of the nearest volcano, which thankfully ended up being only a dozen kilometers away, and dropped them in. The kryptonite guaranteed that the chemical bonds in their cells were weak enough to break in the volcanic heat, and their bodies burned to ash.
ID: Were you at all concerned about the Kryptonians’ remains being used for something sinister?
S: The thought occurred to me. That’s why I kept the planet’s location a secret, up until I learned about the Green Lantern Corps. I took them to the planet, and they helped locate every last charred DNA molecule, so that it could be kept out of the wrong hands.
ID: And did all of this effect your stance on capital punishment?
S: I made the most difficult decision of my entire life that day, and it still haunts me. I took three lives, and it’s very little consolation that I did not take them lightly. Still, it was necessary, and it was right- and I hate that we live in a circumstance where that can be the case. But the reason it was necessary, and the reason it was right, was that there were no other viable options. There is no prison that would hold me-and once they’d absorbed yellow solar radiation, there was no prison that could hold them. There was no hope for peace, and no safety, not for anyone, while they still lived. Taking a life, it changes everything… and nothing.
When I got back to Earth, I wanted to quit. Retire. I told everyone who knew who I was that I was done. And I thought I was. Just thinking about what I’d done- what I’d had to do- it made me sick inside. And I was getting ready for work, I think I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I heard someone on the street whisper, “His bike won’t stop,” and a second later someone else say, “That bus is going to hit him.” And I could tell by the acoustics that it was coming from Southside, that long hill down towards the docks, and before I realized it I was flying there at full speed, my cape billowing behind me. There hadn’t even been a momentary thought, it just happened, I was doing it. And I scooped up the poor kid just before his bike went under one of those big city buses. Our trajectory took us a few hundred feet in the air, and he was terrified, scrambling like a cat to get out of my arms as his heart raced, so I asked, “What’s your name, son?” And that was when it hit him, that he hadn’t died and wouldn’t now, and he calmed immediately and told me: Jeremy Beckman. As I sat him back down on the sidewalk I said to him, “Jeremy Beckman, I think you saved my life today.”
ID: Are you okay? We can stop here if you’d like.
S: No, I… I really have been blessed with this life, I know that. Most people don’t get to, to see people express that kind of gratitude, and kindness. And every day is like that for me- has been like that for me- and I think that’s a special moment for me, because for that one brief moment, I realized that all this time, I hadn’t been saving other people- by giving me a purpose, they’d been saving me. I’ve had really dark times in my life, but every time I think I want to give up, something small and seemingly innocuous like that happens to make me realize life is worth it. And I’m going to miss it.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
S for Salacious
Indigo Ding-a-ling: Okay, so who’s your hero?
Superman: Um… you?
ID: No, but that’s a good guess. No, I’m told that Beneath the Cape will not be published. Ever. I’m told that the publishing house was bought out by a new company called Wayne Publishing, and also that a team of very rabid lawyers have descended upon the manuscript with claims of defamation, libel and slander. Now, last week you talked about your ability to sense lying, well try mine.
S: I… really didn’t know.
ID: Huh. You didn’t. Which actually does kind of make sense, seeing as I can still smell the pepto coming off your breath. Kidding, I can see the bottle sticking out of your bag, see the top isn’t zipped all the way.
But funnily enough, I came across Wayne Publishing’s parent company, Wayne Entertainment, the little we hiding under big WE, Wayne Enterprises', skirt. Their first division was Wayne Film, which you might recall popped up after yourself and, uh, “Big Barda”- God I hope that’s her proper name- made a “video.” It seems under the influence of someone called “Sleez” the two of you did some “acting.”
S: If you don’t stop doing air quotes I’ll take your fingers away.
ID: Heh. Your newfound ability to deadpan notwithstanding, I wasn’t finished. Apparently WE (the little WE) bought up the distribution rights as well as every extant print and proceeded to sit on them. I was speechless for like a day and a half; regardless of whatever influence you might have been under at the time- Spanish Fly, Barry White, maybe some hypnotic whatever- you did SuperPorn. We’re just going to take a moment, for you, myself, and the folks reading at home, to let that set in.
--------
And we’re back. But here’s the rub: I may have, in my search, discovered elements of the manuscript and/or movie that’s been rather unquietly swept under the table. Journalistic ethics dictate that I divulge this information, at least as far as it’s informative and not just salacious- though, because I am the man I am, that’s not a line I’m very good at sussing out. But I’ll offer a trade. You answer me truthfully about sex as part of today's interview segment, and I forget the things I know. Now I understand that a person’s sex life isn’t just their own, so, you don’t have to identify partners or their proclivities, but I want honesty, here. I’m more interested in the psychological implications than I am in the gooey details.
S: I think you’re lying.
ID: About the gooey details, a little, but I doubt the audience skews as pervy as I do personally.
S: I mean about having details. I think you’re bluffing.
ID: But you’re not sure- you can’t be sure. Because I may not know everything, but I know some things. So you’ll answer my questions. I’ll be gentle- after all, it’s your first time.
S: One caveat: you stop that.
ID: Fair enough. I think your history shows that you can have an imtimate relationship with a woman- so a far more interesting question is, given your physical differences- what’s sex like?
S: Are you asking about whether Kryptonian genitalia is analogous to human, or are you asking more generally?
ID: I can guess from the scornful way you said the first that it's a stupid question, so we'll go with option 2.
S: I can feel the ebb and flow of each oxygen and nitrogen atom across my skin as I cross a room. I can count the number of water molecules tumbling down my throat when I drink. When you see the world, you’re looking through a $30 children’s microscope; I see, feel, touch and experience everything at the magnification of an electron microscope. There’s really no way to express to you what it’s like, how it feels- you have no comparison that even parallels. I was curious once, myself, and J'onn showed me what being human was like telepathically, and the English language, even Kryptonese, fail to convey even in simplistic terms the gulf between our experiences.
ID: Okay. Given that, the fact that you look like a movie star- well, okay, Brandon Routh and Chris Reeves were both soap opera actors before they played you, but still, soap operas have pretty people on them, too- and the fact that you can leap small buildings with a single bound- how is it that you’re not a total whore?
S: I guess… my parents just raised me to believe in physical intimacy in a certain way. Growing up, I never even really imagined the idea of a carnal relationship outside the context of a romantic one. And really, by the time I reached an age and a point in my life where the thought could even really occur to me, I’d had other experiences that had taught me that I prefer romantic and physical monogamy.
ID: I’m going to give you a list. I’m not going to include any of the possibles I’ve come across, but we’ll keep it at the likelies: Lois obviously, Lana likely, Chloe definitely, Lori Lemaris- now that one you’re probably shocked I know about- Barda, Maxima, Cat Grant, Lyla Lerrol. I mean, you’re not a billionaire playboy, but still, respectable- especially since this is just the likelies. Care to deny?
S: No comment.
ID: And that is what we in the printed news industry call a non-denial. It’s like an admission, only more libelous. Still, you can usually print it so long as you mention the caveat. But on the subject of Maxima, why didn’t you ever just agree to give her a super baby?
S: It goes back to what I said about romantic relationships taking precedence over physical ones, because physically, Maxima and I were compatible, but personally- well, I don't even know about compatibility, because she never stopped dry-humping me and stood still long enough for us to have even a single meaningful conversation.
ID: And on the subject of super babies, you knocked up your wife a few years back. There are a lot of questions, really, so I'll let you just tell us how.
S: I'll skip the birds and bees part- that's pretty standard. Then there was, not getting too graphic, some “catch and release.” We talked about a turkey baster or getting help from a fertility clinic
ID: Wait, you intentionally got Lois pregnant?
S: Yeah. Absolutely. We were at a point where Lois wasn't fulfilled anymore as a reporter, and she was happy with our relationship, but she just wanted something else, too. Eventually she realized she wanted to be a mother. So we did a little research, and a little planning- and after just two tries, well- apparently we're both very fertile.
ID: Okay, so if you intended to get your wife pregnant, what happened to the baby?
S: Same thing that happened when you thought the pregnancy was unintended- Lois miscarried.
ID: Oh. And were there complications? Can she not have children now?
S: Nothing like that, no. She just... losing that first one. You know how that old saying goes, that it's better to try and fail than never to have tried at all? Well, for her at least, losing that first child was more horrible than anything she'd ever imagined. She told me it was like losing me, but worse, because she also lost a part of herself, too. And for the longest time she just felt empty inside. And I think she's come a long way since then, but I don't think it's a scar that ever really heals. I mean, maybe, if I'd lived a little longer, maybe we would have tried again sometime down the road.
ID: You're talking about yourself as if you were already dead.
S: Am I? Hmm. I guess in a way, I feel like I am. Lois and I finally had to go shopping. She was bursting into tears every time she saw me, and I finally got it out of her that she could handle watching me die, slowly withering away, but that my clothes, big and baggy like they were, they just reminded her too much of how far gone I already was. She just needed not to have it in front of her right now. And that was when it hit, when I was in a dressing room, trying on pants that wouldn't have fit me even in high school- that's when I realized that I don't think I'm getting out of this one- and I don't think I have that much time left. I'm actually scared by that.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: Um… you?
ID: No, but that’s a good guess. No, I’m told that Beneath the Cape will not be published. Ever. I’m told that the publishing house was bought out by a new company called Wayne Publishing, and also that a team of very rabid lawyers have descended upon the manuscript with claims of defamation, libel and slander. Now, last week you talked about your ability to sense lying, well try mine.
S: I… really didn’t know.
ID: Huh. You didn’t. Which actually does kind of make sense, seeing as I can still smell the pepto coming off your breath. Kidding, I can see the bottle sticking out of your bag, see the top isn’t zipped all the way.
But funnily enough, I came across Wayne Publishing’s parent company, Wayne Entertainment, the little we hiding under big WE, Wayne Enterprises', skirt. Their first division was Wayne Film, which you might recall popped up after yourself and, uh, “Big Barda”- God I hope that’s her proper name- made a “video.” It seems under the influence of someone called “Sleez” the two of you did some “acting.”
S: If you don’t stop doing air quotes I’ll take your fingers away.
ID: Heh. Your newfound ability to deadpan notwithstanding, I wasn’t finished. Apparently WE (the little WE) bought up the distribution rights as well as every extant print and proceeded to sit on them. I was speechless for like a day and a half; regardless of whatever influence you might have been under at the time- Spanish Fly, Barry White, maybe some hypnotic whatever- you did SuperPorn. We’re just going to take a moment, for you, myself, and the folks reading at home, to let that set in.
--------
And we’re back. But here’s the rub: I may have, in my search, discovered elements of the manuscript and/or movie that’s been rather unquietly swept under the table. Journalistic ethics dictate that I divulge this information, at least as far as it’s informative and not just salacious- though, because I am the man I am, that’s not a line I’m very good at sussing out. But I’ll offer a trade. You answer me truthfully about sex as part of today's interview segment, and I forget the things I know. Now I understand that a person’s sex life isn’t just their own, so, you don’t have to identify partners or their proclivities, but I want honesty, here. I’m more interested in the psychological implications than I am in the gooey details.
S: I think you’re lying.
ID: About the gooey details, a little, but I doubt the audience skews as pervy as I do personally.
S: I mean about having details. I think you’re bluffing.
ID: But you’re not sure- you can’t be sure. Because I may not know everything, but I know some things. So you’ll answer my questions. I’ll be gentle- after all, it’s your first time.
S: One caveat: you stop that.
ID: Fair enough. I think your history shows that you can have an imtimate relationship with a woman- so a far more interesting question is, given your physical differences- what’s sex like?
S: Are you asking about whether Kryptonian genitalia is analogous to human, or are you asking more generally?
ID: I can guess from the scornful way you said the first that it's a stupid question, so we'll go with option 2.
S: I can feel the ebb and flow of each oxygen and nitrogen atom across my skin as I cross a room. I can count the number of water molecules tumbling down my throat when I drink. When you see the world, you’re looking through a $30 children’s microscope; I see, feel, touch and experience everything at the magnification of an electron microscope. There’s really no way to express to you what it’s like, how it feels- you have no comparison that even parallels. I was curious once, myself, and J'onn showed me what being human was like telepathically, and the English language, even Kryptonese, fail to convey even in simplistic terms the gulf between our experiences.
ID: Okay. Given that, the fact that you look like a movie star- well, okay, Brandon Routh and Chris Reeves were both soap opera actors before they played you, but still, soap operas have pretty people on them, too- and the fact that you can leap small buildings with a single bound- how is it that you’re not a total whore?
S: I guess… my parents just raised me to believe in physical intimacy in a certain way. Growing up, I never even really imagined the idea of a carnal relationship outside the context of a romantic one. And really, by the time I reached an age and a point in my life where the thought could even really occur to me, I’d had other experiences that had taught me that I prefer romantic and physical monogamy.
ID: I’m going to give you a list. I’m not going to include any of the possibles I’ve come across, but we’ll keep it at the likelies: Lois obviously, Lana likely, Chloe definitely, Lori Lemaris- now that one you’re probably shocked I know about- Barda, Maxima, Cat Grant, Lyla Lerrol. I mean, you’re not a billionaire playboy, but still, respectable- especially since this is just the likelies. Care to deny?
S: No comment.
ID: And that is what we in the printed news industry call a non-denial. It’s like an admission, only more libelous. Still, you can usually print it so long as you mention the caveat. But on the subject of Maxima, why didn’t you ever just agree to give her a super baby?
S: It goes back to what I said about romantic relationships taking precedence over physical ones, because physically, Maxima and I were compatible, but personally- well, I don't even know about compatibility, because she never stopped dry-humping me and stood still long enough for us to have even a single meaningful conversation.
ID: And on the subject of super babies, you knocked up your wife a few years back. There are a lot of questions, really, so I'll let you just tell us how.
S: I'll skip the birds and bees part- that's pretty standard. Then there was, not getting too graphic, some “catch and release.” We talked about a turkey baster or getting help from a fertility clinic
ID: Wait, you intentionally got Lois pregnant?
S: Yeah. Absolutely. We were at a point where Lois wasn't fulfilled anymore as a reporter, and she was happy with our relationship, but she just wanted something else, too. Eventually she realized she wanted to be a mother. So we did a little research, and a little planning- and after just two tries, well- apparently we're both very fertile.
ID: Okay, so if you intended to get your wife pregnant, what happened to the baby?
S: Same thing that happened when you thought the pregnancy was unintended- Lois miscarried.
ID: Oh. And were there complications? Can she not have children now?
S: Nothing like that, no. She just... losing that first one. You know how that old saying goes, that it's better to try and fail than never to have tried at all? Well, for her at least, losing that first child was more horrible than anything she'd ever imagined. She told me it was like losing me, but worse, because she also lost a part of herself, too. And for the longest time she just felt empty inside. And I think she's come a long way since then, but I don't think it's a scar that ever really heals. I mean, maybe, if I'd lived a little longer, maybe we would have tried again sometime down the road.
ID: You're talking about yourself as if you were already dead.
S: Am I? Hmm. I guess in a way, I feel like I am. Lois and I finally had to go shopping. She was bursting into tears every time she saw me, and I finally got it out of her that she could handle watching me die, slowly withering away, but that my clothes, big and baggy like they were, they just reminded her too much of how far gone I already was. She just needed not to have it in front of her right now. And that was when it hit, when I was in a dressing room, trying on pants that wouldn't have fit me even in high school- that's when I realized that I don't think I'm getting out of this one- and I don't think I have that much time left. I'm actually scared by that.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Too Sexy For His S
Indiscreet Dialectic: I want to ask you about a new tell-all book I’ve heard about, called Beneath the Cape. Have you heard about it, have any idea what it’s about?
Superman: Yes.
ID: Okay, fine, if you prefer to play the stoic card, I’ll describe it for our Googling public: it’s about your sex life, techniques, quirks, endowments. Maybe a better question would be: is it true?
S: I suppose it would make sense to quote a former president: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
ID: That’s a passable Arkansas, actually, but as I understand it, the author isn’t claiming that you had sex with her per se, just that she’s privy to information about your, um, escapades. What about that?
S: It’s certainly possible. Look, it’s a strange world. I can fly, and survive being shot with- well, anything I’ve been shot with so far. One of my best friends can read minds and change his shape to anything he can think of this side of an M.C. Escher sketch. Bruce dated a woman who could do real, honest-to-God magic, including making Plastic Man spend a month as a chicken. Which is to say nothing of the various technological methods of spying. So I’m not prepared to categorically deny ever having sex ever- but I can state unequivocally that no one I’ve been intimate with has ever spoken with the author of the book.
ID: I can’t help but note you’re being coy about her name.
S: Oh, I know who she is, but because I think breaking her anonymity could potentially expose her to harm from some, uh, overly enthusiastic supporters, I’m not going to out her, not to you or anyone else.
ID: But is she someone you know, someone from your past?
S: You know, that’s not a terrible question. I’ve known a hell of a lot of reporters and writers in my time, but actually no, she’s not someone I’ve known- there’s no personal angle here, at least not that I’ve uncovered.
ID: So it’s not Chloe Sullivan?
S: Uh, no- I’d, uh, heard that rumor, too, actually. And before I found out who it really was, I talked to Chloe, and no- it isn’t her.
ID: And you believe her?
S: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this anywhere before, but I can hear extraordinarily well. Like, I can her your pulse increase when you’re worried about lying to me- or just pissing me off. I can hear the chemical reaction of neurons firing in the portion of the brain responsible for creative thought- as opposed to simple memory retrieval. So when Chloe said it wasn’t her, wasn’t anything to do with her, I believed her.
ID: And did the two of you talk about anything else?
S: We caught up a little. I think she’s doing better. Feeling happier. And I’m thankful for that. Being a part of my life hasn’t always been pleasant for Chloe, and I know more than anyone the price she’s sometimes paid for our association, but despite a lot of things, I still consider her one of my oldest friends.
ID: Isn’t the expression usually oldest and dearest?
S: I’d prefer not to air this here, but Chloe and I have had tension, and those who know know what I mean, and those who don’t have no reason or right to. I’ve forgiven her for the things she’s done against me, and I hope she’s forgiven me for the times I caused her pain. Our past has left some… trust issues, but I really, truly and honestly, wish her all the happiness in the world.
ID: You do realize that all of this spirited whispering about your checkered dalliances just means next week I’ll come back with harder questions, right?
S: Actually, no, I don’t think it will. There are a handful of people who know about this. My mother, myself, Chloe, Lois
ID: So you and your usual knitting circle
S: and none of them are going to say a word to you about it. Because it’s private. Because, really, it’s between Chloe and me- emotional spillover onto mom and my wife notwithstanding.
ID: Okay, this is beginning to bore me- due to the very g-rated content- the book. How much of it is true, and, more importantly, how long before lifetime (or maybe Playgirl) come out with their own direct to video version?
S: Try as I might, I haven’t been able to get an advanced copy, or even anything as to the specifics of what’s in it. I’m honestly a little disappointed that, at this stage in my life and career, I’m having to deal with it.
ID: That’s fair. But you said you were confident no one you’d been intimate with had spoken to the author. Now I remember you discussing a premarital relationship- that I previously theorized was with Lana Lang but could potentially have been with the aforementioned Ms. Sullivan- so not just the one with your wife that you’ve sort of tacitly acknowledged, but is there any chance you’d be willing to slip me the names, even off the record, so I could do some independent verification.
S: Sometimes you’re no better than a tabloid journalist. To clarify, I don’t mean the near respectability of British tabloid journalism, I mean the scummiest, “Did Anna Nicole Smith gain more weight?” kind of journalism, where they have fuzzy zoomed in pictures with big colorful circles pointing out cellulite.
ID: Hmm. Lot of misdirected anger, there (though my inner child is weeping openly). Did the bad paparazzi man touch you in your spandex-place?
S: Mostly, I think it’s that as a journalist, that kind of reportage disgusts me, and as someone who was raised to treat people with a certain base amount of respect- professional ethics shouldn’t even come into play, because it’s just morally wrong. But you’re right. This book is the culmination, actually, of something that’s been happening more lately- though I’ve been in my share of National Enquirers before. I was prepared for people reacting differently to me, I knew that revealing who I was and that I was dying, that that would affect people in a real way. But I wasn’t prepared for this, for the opportunists with cameras hiding in the bushes outside our apartment, the office, my doctor’s. I’m just trying to hold onto my dignity, at this point. And it’s hard, when there are people that insistent on wresting it away from you.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: Yes.
ID: Okay, fine, if you prefer to play the stoic card, I’ll describe it for our Googling public: it’s about your sex life, techniques, quirks, endowments. Maybe a better question would be: is it true?
S: I suppose it would make sense to quote a former president: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
ID: That’s a passable Arkansas, actually, but as I understand it, the author isn’t claiming that you had sex with her per se, just that she’s privy to information about your, um, escapades. What about that?
S: It’s certainly possible. Look, it’s a strange world. I can fly, and survive being shot with- well, anything I’ve been shot with so far. One of my best friends can read minds and change his shape to anything he can think of this side of an M.C. Escher sketch. Bruce dated a woman who could do real, honest-to-God magic, including making Plastic Man spend a month as a chicken. Which is to say nothing of the various technological methods of spying. So I’m not prepared to categorically deny ever having sex ever- but I can state unequivocally that no one I’ve been intimate with has ever spoken with the author of the book.
ID: I can’t help but note you’re being coy about her name.
S: Oh, I know who she is, but because I think breaking her anonymity could potentially expose her to harm from some, uh, overly enthusiastic supporters, I’m not going to out her, not to you or anyone else.
ID: But is she someone you know, someone from your past?
S: You know, that’s not a terrible question. I’ve known a hell of a lot of reporters and writers in my time, but actually no, she’s not someone I’ve known- there’s no personal angle here, at least not that I’ve uncovered.
ID: So it’s not Chloe Sullivan?
S: Uh, no- I’d, uh, heard that rumor, too, actually. And before I found out who it really was, I talked to Chloe, and no- it isn’t her.
ID: And you believe her?
S: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this anywhere before, but I can hear extraordinarily well. Like, I can her your pulse increase when you’re worried about lying to me- or just pissing me off. I can hear the chemical reaction of neurons firing in the portion of the brain responsible for creative thought- as opposed to simple memory retrieval. So when Chloe said it wasn’t her, wasn’t anything to do with her, I believed her.
ID: And did the two of you talk about anything else?
S: We caught up a little. I think she’s doing better. Feeling happier. And I’m thankful for that. Being a part of my life hasn’t always been pleasant for Chloe, and I know more than anyone the price she’s sometimes paid for our association, but despite a lot of things, I still consider her one of my oldest friends.
ID: Isn’t the expression usually oldest and dearest?
S: I’d prefer not to air this here, but Chloe and I have had tension, and those who know know what I mean, and those who don’t have no reason or right to. I’ve forgiven her for the things she’s done against me, and I hope she’s forgiven me for the times I caused her pain. Our past has left some… trust issues, but I really, truly and honestly, wish her all the happiness in the world.
ID: You do realize that all of this spirited whispering about your checkered dalliances just means next week I’ll come back with harder questions, right?
S: Actually, no, I don’t think it will. There are a handful of people who know about this. My mother, myself, Chloe, Lois
ID: So you and your usual knitting circle
S: and none of them are going to say a word to you about it. Because it’s private. Because, really, it’s between Chloe and me- emotional spillover onto mom and my wife notwithstanding.
ID: Okay, this is beginning to bore me- due to the very g-rated content- the book. How much of it is true, and, more importantly, how long before lifetime (or maybe Playgirl) come out with their own direct to video version?
S: Try as I might, I haven’t been able to get an advanced copy, or even anything as to the specifics of what’s in it. I’m honestly a little disappointed that, at this stage in my life and career, I’m having to deal with it.
ID: That’s fair. But you said you were confident no one you’d been intimate with had spoken to the author. Now I remember you discussing a premarital relationship- that I previously theorized was with Lana Lang but could potentially have been with the aforementioned Ms. Sullivan- so not just the one with your wife that you’ve sort of tacitly acknowledged, but is there any chance you’d be willing to slip me the names, even off the record, so I could do some independent verification.
S: Sometimes you’re no better than a tabloid journalist. To clarify, I don’t mean the near respectability of British tabloid journalism, I mean the scummiest, “Did Anna Nicole Smith gain more weight?” kind of journalism, where they have fuzzy zoomed in pictures with big colorful circles pointing out cellulite.
ID: Hmm. Lot of misdirected anger, there (though my inner child is weeping openly). Did the bad paparazzi man touch you in your spandex-place?
S: Mostly, I think it’s that as a journalist, that kind of reportage disgusts me, and as someone who was raised to treat people with a certain base amount of respect- professional ethics shouldn’t even come into play, because it’s just morally wrong. But you’re right. This book is the culmination, actually, of something that’s been happening more lately- though I’ve been in my share of National Enquirers before. I was prepared for people reacting differently to me, I knew that revealing who I was and that I was dying, that that would affect people in a real way. But I wasn’t prepared for this, for the opportunists with cameras hiding in the bushes outside our apartment, the office, my doctor’s. I’m just trying to hold onto my dignity, at this point. And it’s hard, when there are people that insistent on wresting it away from you.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Cancer Benefits
Indecent Dancing: Patrick Swayze’s dead.
Superman: I heard that. Um, my condolences to his family, friends, anyone hurt by his death.
ID: Of course. But does that scare you? Patrick Swayze, dead at 57. Of cancer- pancreatic, specifically.
S: I don’t know if I’m as, um, impressed by celebrity as you are. I guess as someone who has at least occasionally been lumped into the idea of celebrity, it doesn’t hold the same kind of mystique for me. There are thousands of cancer deaths a day; an American dies from cancer every minute. Ironically, I’ll be at my most ordinary- my most human- in dying, just another statistic.
ID: Hmm. So you don’t get an odd sense that you’re in a pond, and there’s ripples, and suddenly the ripples- his death- show you how very small and shallow that pond has always been?
S: I may not be articulating it well; I don’t mean to say his death doesn’t effect me, because it does. But every cancer death effects me, now hits close to home. I feel, and I think I’m quoting or paraphrasing here, “the icy breath of death at the nape of my neck” each time. But I remember watching him on Stand Up To Cancer last year, and one thing he said really did touch me, he said, “I’m just an individual living with cancer.” And I think that’s good- I think all of us that are dealing with this disease, we’re all just people. But I think his appearance at Stand Up To Cancer said something else, too, that we’re all of us just people, but that together, as a united humanity, maybe we’re more.
ID: Brings up a pointed, and probably loaded, question, though, doesn’t it. What have you done about cancer?
S: I suppose the honest answer to that is not enough. I think I spent a lot of time in denial, hoping that I could wait it out, that it wouldn’t be true forever, so if I could just hold out. But really anything I say would be an excuse. I’ve been selfish. I’ve spent time getting my affairs in order, talking to the people who are closer to me- trying to keep my day to day the same, so it doesn’t hurt the people around me.
ID: I don’t know if I’d exactly call it selfish. Those are all important things, too. And I don’t doubt that Patrick Swayze did all of those things; I mean, he still went to the trouble of completing his commitment on The Beast, for God’s sake. I don’t want it to get lost here, that I’m not condemning that side of your struggle with cancer, but I’m asking, as someone who has personally lost people to the disease, how have you, or maybe a better phrasing would be, how might you, use your elevated profile?
S: I’m not really one for speeches. And I’ve gone most of my life trying not to be recognized for who and what I am- for my circumstances, whether tragic or beneficial- but for what I do. But in this, I think you’re right, I’ve been lacking. For starters, if they want me for Stand Up ’09, I’ll be there, even if Lois has to wheel me in in a chair.
ID: You’re being hyperbolic about that, though, right? You’re not to the point where
S: No- not yet, at least. But I’ve been feeling weaker, lately. And sometimes it really can hurt to walk. It’s actually a funny thing; outwardly, I’m still strong enough to fall off The Planet building without it hurting too much, but inwardly, so many things that didn’t used to- that really shouldn’t- hurt do now.
ID: You’re not playing the pity card on me, are you?
S: Of course not. Over these interviews I’ve learned a lot about you- and pity, sympathy and whoever-forbid empathy… not exactly strengths of yours.
ID: You wound me, or you would, if it weren’t for your facetious tone, but you have a point. I play devil’s advocate a lot. I’ll be as liberal or conservative as it takes to get an interesting answer. But my heart bleeds nearly as much as Oliver Queen’s- though I don’t think I’ll ever have it in me to be as much of an ass about it as him.
S: Strong words, knowing he could split a hair at a hundred yards with his bow.
ID: Come on. It’s impossible for him not to know he’s an ass… right?
S: Actually I think Ollie’s blissfully unaware- but you’re not giving yourself due credit- I think you have it in you to be twice the ass he can be.
ID: Thanks.
S: Don’t mention it. But I think that can be an important skill for a reporter. Sometimes being nice means not telling people the truth, and a reporter’s job, inherently, is to tell people things they don’t want to hear. I think it’s good to hear from someone that you’ve been a jerk about something- it’s really the only way you know that you need to correct something- presuming if you’d known you were wrong in the first place you’d have never committed the error to begin with.
So I guess I’m saying thanks.
ID: For being an asshole. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. On that note, in the future, given our conversation or any other factors, do you see your focus changing from tights-wearer extraordinaire to a spokesperson?
S: I don’t know. It’s certainly not something I’d have ever really thought about on my own. But now that you’ve planted that seed in my head… I think I’ll have to do something. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself, for however long I may have left, if I didn’t.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: I heard that. Um, my condolences to his family, friends, anyone hurt by his death.
ID: Of course. But does that scare you? Patrick Swayze, dead at 57. Of cancer- pancreatic, specifically.
S: I don’t know if I’m as, um, impressed by celebrity as you are. I guess as someone who has at least occasionally been lumped into the idea of celebrity, it doesn’t hold the same kind of mystique for me. There are thousands of cancer deaths a day; an American dies from cancer every minute. Ironically, I’ll be at my most ordinary- my most human- in dying, just another statistic.
ID: Hmm. So you don’t get an odd sense that you’re in a pond, and there’s ripples, and suddenly the ripples- his death- show you how very small and shallow that pond has always been?
S: I may not be articulating it well; I don’t mean to say his death doesn’t effect me, because it does. But every cancer death effects me, now hits close to home. I feel, and I think I’m quoting or paraphrasing here, “the icy breath of death at the nape of my neck” each time. But I remember watching him on Stand Up To Cancer last year, and one thing he said really did touch me, he said, “I’m just an individual living with cancer.” And I think that’s good- I think all of us that are dealing with this disease, we’re all just people. But I think his appearance at Stand Up To Cancer said something else, too, that we’re all of us just people, but that together, as a united humanity, maybe we’re more.
ID: Brings up a pointed, and probably loaded, question, though, doesn’t it. What have you done about cancer?
S: I suppose the honest answer to that is not enough. I think I spent a lot of time in denial, hoping that I could wait it out, that it wouldn’t be true forever, so if I could just hold out. But really anything I say would be an excuse. I’ve been selfish. I’ve spent time getting my affairs in order, talking to the people who are closer to me- trying to keep my day to day the same, so it doesn’t hurt the people around me.
ID: I don’t know if I’d exactly call it selfish. Those are all important things, too. And I don’t doubt that Patrick Swayze did all of those things; I mean, he still went to the trouble of completing his commitment on The Beast, for God’s sake. I don’t want it to get lost here, that I’m not condemning that side of your struggle with cancer, but I’m asking, as someone who has personally lost people to the disease, how have you, or maybe a better phrasing would be, how might you, use your elevated profile?
S: I’m not really one for speeches. And I’ve gone most of my life trying not to be recognized for who and what I am- for my circumstances, whether tragic or beneficial- but for what I do. But in this, I think you’re right, I’ve been lacking. For starters, if they want me for Stand Up ’09, I’ll be there, even if Lois has to wheel me in in a chair.
ID: You’re being hyperbolic about that, though, right? You’re not to the point where
S: No- not yet, at least. But I’ve been feeling weaker, lately. And sometimes it really can hurt to walk. It’s actually a funny thing; outwardly, I’m still strong enough to fall off The Planet building without it hurting too much, but inwardly, so many things that didn’t used to- that really shouldn’t- hurt do now.
ID: You’re not playing the pity card on me, are you?
S: Of course not. Over these interviews I’ve learned a lot about you- and pity, sympathy and whoever-forbid empathy… not exactly strengths of yours.
ID: You wound me, or you would, if it weren’t for your facetious tone, but you have a point. I play devil’s advocate a lot. I’ll be as liberal or conservative as it takes to get an interesting answer. But my heart bleeds nearly as much as Oliver Queen’s- though I don’t think I’ll ever have it in me to be as much of an ass about it as him.
S: Strong words, knowing he could split a hair at a hundred yards with his bow.
ID: Come on. It’s impossible for him not to know he’s an ass… right?
S: Actually I think Ollie’s blissfully unaware- but you’re not giving yourself due credit- I think you have it in you to be twice the ass he can be.
ID: Thanks.
S: Don’t mention it. But I think that can be an important skill for a reporter. Sometimes being nice means not telling people the truth, and a reporter’s job, inherently, is to tell people things they don’t want to hear. I think it’s good to hear from someone that you’ve been a jerk about something- it’s really the only way you know that you need to correct something- presuming if you’d known you were wrong in the first place you’d have never committed the error to begin with.
So I guess I’m saying thanks.
ID: For being an asshole. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. On that note, in the future, given our conversation or any other factors, do you see your focus changing from tights-wearer extraordinaire to a spokesperson?
S: I don’t know. It’s certainly not something I’d have ever really thought about on my own. But now that you’ve planted that seed in my head… I think I’ll have to do something. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself, for however long I may have left, if I didn’t.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
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