The Popculturalist

Mad Joan

2010-04-12T08:49:00.001-07:00

Mad Joan
By David Atchison

I've heard what they say about Joan McLean. I've listened to the snickers and seen how people cut their eyes when she gets worked up. They look at her like she's crazy.

As I've known her all my life, I'd like to lay to rest any assumptions about Joan McLean:

Joan is NOT crazy... She's mad.

Seriously, "Mad Joan" is positively out of her mind and I have proof.

While still in high school, Mad Joan got pregnant with her first child. Being young and with little family, she and her boyfriend got married and moved into housing projects where they proceeded to have three more children. By 21, Mad Joan's husband was gone, leaving her with four children and no high school diploma.

In the 1950s, Mad Joan sat in the middle of the projects with four hungry children and no substantial means of providing for them. Any rational person could see that Joan had lost before the fight had started. Her decisions had relegated her to a life of government assistance, low income housing and low expectations for her children. But Mad Joan isn't rational. Mad Joan is mad.

Between mothering her four children and work, she threw herself into school, first earning her high school diploma and then nursing license. Mad Joan was a strict disciplinarian, stressing to her children the importance of education, morals and God. While she had little, she did her best to expose them to higher culture through music lessons, libraries and museums. She impressed upon them the value of education and how hard work was an equalizer. It didn't matter where they came from, what mattered was what they did when they got where they were going. While most say these things, Mad Joan lived them. She eventually moved her children out of the projects and into a home of their own. A two story home in Jamaica Plain, Boston, that SHE purchased.

Mad Joan, the pregnant teen. Mad Joan, the single mother of four. Mad Joan, the Nurse. Mad Joan, the home owner.

Any rational person would have thought that was enough. Mad Joan had pulled herself out of abject poverty, bought her own home and insured each of her children had graduated from high school and went on to pursue higher eduction. But Mad Joan isn't rational. Mad Joan is mad.

When her kids had moved out, she opened her own nursing home and pursued a degree in the clergy, eventually becoming an ordained minister. Mad Joan, the entrepreneur. Mad Joan, Deaconess.

Teen Pregnancy Statistic. Single Mother. Nurse. Business Owner. Deaconess.

Mad Joan raised a teacher, a veteran, a grant writer and a doctor.

What she accomplished was not rational. What she did, most sane persons would find impossible, but Mad Joan isn't sane or rational. Joan McLean was driven mad with love years ago and she's been "Mad Joan" ever since. Sometimes she's hard to reason with, often times she won't listen and stubborn doesn't even begin to describe her resolve.

Sitting there in the projects with her children, surrounded by poverty and adversity, Joan McLean snapped. She lost "it." "It" being everything that told her to accept her circumstance. "It" being everything rational people use to make excuses for why they don't have what they want. Sure she made mistakes along the way, but my life and the life of my brothers and cousins are testaments that she was right more times than she was wrong.

A mad woman in a sane world, mad with love for her children, herself and future generations who benefit from her sacrifices and example.

I know this to be true because I grew up in a middle class, two parent household due to Joan McLean's madness. My upbringing was vastly better than my mother's because of the influence Mad Joan had in her daughter's life.

When I decided I would create a comic book and sell the film rights, I was told by "rational" people I was crazy. When I decided to run a marathon, I was told by "rational" people I was out of my mind. I wasn't crazy, I was mad, just like Mad Joan. I'll keep striving and each time some "rational" person will be there to tell me I'm crazy, but I'll correct them. I'm not crazy. I'm mad, just like my Grand Mother Joan McLean

You see, "madness" runs in the family.

Long after she's gone and I'm gone, her memory will live on. Her sacrifice and achievements will be retold for generations to come, driving future members of our family to "madness." They'll tell stories of Mad Joan, who looked at a sane world with odds stacked against her and did the craziest thing of all: she succeeded.

“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”

Mark Twain

I learned from Jim Royal

2009-03-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

In my time of knowing Jim Royal he was one of the most accepting individuals I've ever met. There was almost a childlike quality about the way he cared for people. It wasn't naiveté or innocence, but a lack of pretension and societal constraint. Jim didn't really care about the value others placed on people like that. He loved people because he loved them. He loved to his own personal "Jim Limit" and there aren't many of us who can say they do the same. He didn't need qualifiers to accept someone.

Growing up, my father often told me "you can learn something from everyone: you can learn how to do something or how not to something." Sadly, Jim's life taught me a little of both.

Jim was a free spirit. In his passing I've seen the profound effect he's had on his friends and family by just being himself. At his wake I saw old grudges being cast away, people who often never speak to each other finally opening up to one another and a lot of fun being had. That's Jim. That's what he would have wanted for us. That's what his “will.” He left us good will. But there's an irony to all that.

Jim loved everyone more than he loved himself. I don't know the man well enough to articulate his demons, but it was apparent there was something eating at him that he couldn't let go of. Watching the way he cared for others and the way he cared for himself was odd. If Jim were his own friend, he would have never allowed the things he did to be done to that friend. That's the other thing I've learned from Jim. You've got to be a friend to yourself. You’ve' got to love yourself as much as you love other people.

Jim, we always loved you man. We always will and I don't think you had a problem seeing that. I only hope that those you loved so much will begin to love themselves as much as you loved them too. In the end, that's all you ever wanted for any of us and really, that's all any of us ever wanted for you.

Jim's friends were protective of him and that can be attributed to the level of friendship he put out. If anyone finds my words offensive, I apologize in advance. I thought the world of Jim and don't think he would take offense to what I've written.

Why Canada is safer than your nation

2009-02-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

No one ever has an accident in Canada. Why? They have horrific PSAs to remind them not to mess up. It's like Final Destination for TV:

http://www.prevent-it.ca/

Taking the Hulk apart

2009-02-13T11:13:00.001-08:00

he Hulk is an examination of repression and expression.

Bruce Banner represents the timid, shy person we can all be at times who conflicts with the loud, uncaring industrialized modern world. The Hulk represents that breaking point where we've all had enough and we snap.

The Hulk's "child like mind" is a a metaphor for the shunning of social graces, because the action of losing one's temper isn't perceived as mature. When you lose you temper you don't think about societal convention and political correctness. You explode and say what you really feel and sometimes act without forethought. That's the Hulk to the nth degree. He's what happens when a man let's go fueled by a scientific radioactive phenomenon.

As for why he's so strong? It probably has less to do directly with the gamma radiation and more to do with the auspices under which he was created. Remember- Bruce Banner is a mixture of Dr. Jekyll (repressed Scientist/ mad beast-man), Einstein (quiet, timid scientist who wore the same clothes every day while working on the atom bomb- like Bruce used to with the tacky purple suits) and Robert Oppenheimer (built the hydrogen bomb in the dessert and it was tested there like Banner's Gamma Bomb).

When Oppenheimer's bomb went off people say there was a "crack" in the sky. Like reality itself had been broken open. Bombs of large magnitudes do crazy things. It's my thinking that the Hulk is so vastly powerful because of a mixture of three things that could have created three separate mutations in one person.

1. Exposure to vast amounts of gamma radiation. This mutated his cellular structure. He instinctively wanted to survive and therefore tapped into the energies unleashed by the explosion.

2. Said energies which do not normally exist on this plane were channeled through his body in the form of mass, strength, and healing properties. His body is able to withstand this change because of the mutative properties of the radiation.

3. The phenomenon or mutation also allows him to tap into the rest of his brain power. Not necessarily to make him smarter, but to channel the energies in the rift.

It's probably like a valve. The mutation is triggered, he taps a bit of this power and becomes bigger and stronger. As he gets angrier- he instinctively taps more and more thus making his strength go up. Kind of like how the body releases adrenalin when a person experiences extreme emotions. As his rage begins to subside, the valve closes and he mutates back to his original state.

Two halves of the same coin.

2009-02-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

And just so we're all on the same page. It's been shown numerous times that Bruce Wayne is the mask Batman wears. "Bruce Wayne" actually died along with his parents and his innocence. Batman was born from that. He has no life outside of the Batman persona. He can't even maintain a network of friends together because he's never been socialized. He can diffuse a bomb but can't make a cheese sandwich. Bats would die w/o Alfred or Robin to keep him sane.

Batman has the mind of a god in the body of a man. He was raised away from regular people, isolated and allowed to fully indulge his obsession with vengeance.

Supes is a man in the body of a god. Raised by regular folks, socialized and later found out he wasn't normal.

If anything they would probably be jealous of one another and resent the each other because they each possess what the other wants. And ironically enough, they both Superman and Batman maintain certain moral codes that stop them from getting what the other has.

People commonly make the argumentSuperman should have five beautiful girlfriends and lots of money and rule the planet, etc, but by that same logic, why wouldn't Batman invest his vast fortune into more sci fi gadgetry or even super powers to make his job as Batman easier?

Batman's line he won't cross is using his money to augment himself to a place where his pursuits as a hero aren't "fair". Superman has the same line about using his powers to enhance his normal life.

Being Clark is the real challenge for Superman. That IS him. All the super powers are superficial and it makes life easy. As Clark he has to really make an effort because he's in the real world. Moving a mountain is great, but it doesn't speed up the line at the DMV. Sometimes working with an asshole boss can be just as strenuous as battling Metallo. Clark Ken illustrates that.

At the end of the day, Clark wishes he could have the life that Bruce has if Bruce were to retire. Bruce could be normal in a heartbeat and lead a great life as a family man. On the flip side, Bruce resents Clark for not shedding his Clark identity and not serving mankind full time. Bruce's only limit is his physical and Clark doesn't have that.

Clark's limitation is his need for emotional intimacy and Bruce doesn't have as much of a need.

Alan Moore's Advice for Young Artists

2008-09-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

Good talk from one of the best to ever make comics and arguably one of the greatest artists in current popculture.

List o' Links #1

2008-08-31T20:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of links I've been checking out:
Bionic Six - "A family, brought together by faith and given super powers through the miracles of modern science" eps. 1-65

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-334776037034540837&emb=1

Real Cutting Edge Prosthetics: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid452319854?bctid=1576332530

John David Garcia founder of the Society for Evolutionary Ethics (SEE), taught an enlightened vision of ethics and human purpose via four books, dozens of articles, lectures, seminars and attempts to found schools based on his ideas. He did these things mainly in the US, then in Chile and Mexico.

A self-described moral protagonist and scientific generalist, he sought to advance human evolution through increased moral awareness and creativity. (Creativity = Intelligence * ethics). He viewed the evolutionary ethic as a "rational alternative to death" and devoted his life to learning, teaching and creating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_creativity

Gumby seems weird when you're a adult http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjCXWocjA7I

All the South Park Eps. http://www.southparkstudios.com

The Marine Water Survival Manual is attached. You never know. If something happens and you end up in a large body of water... you're covered.

Head explosion time: New Kids on the Block and New Edition did a song together: http://www.zshare.net/audio/177607522c8d2f62/

Have You Fallen for these 7 Negative Attitudes Pushed by the Media? http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/commentary/negativemedia/HaveYouFallen.htm

How to dial straight to someone's voice mail w/o calling: http://www.slydial.com/
You dont even have to register.
1. Dial 267-SLYDIAL (267-759-3425) from any landline or mobile phone.
2. At the voice prompt, enter the U.S. mobile phone number of the person you want to slydial.
3. You will be directly connected to their voicemail. Leave them a voicemail, sit back and relax.

The Beauty of Capoeira http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xxgFpK-NM

Foreign Big Budget Super Her Films:
Mercury Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1YUAtYcVYE

Cicack Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CySBADqyapk

Comic Book Wisdom # 1

2008-08-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Every now and then there's a bit of wisdom in comic books:

"Mistakes you make can always be worked out. The mistakes you don't make because you do nothing, because you don't try, you don't risk, those are the ones that haunt you when you get old."

- written by J. M. Straczynski, in Thor #10

Only for the Brave : 2

2008-07-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

Remember that seemingly innocent thing your parents forced you to do as a kid that scared you witless and scarred you for life?

Mine was sitting on Ernie's shoulders after Sesame Street on Ice. They thought it would be cute. From an adult perspective it makes sense. BUT not to a kid. On the Sesame Street show, Ernie was the same size as four year old me. On the Sesame Street on Ice, Ernie was the same size as Big Foot. His big face was dead and expressionless. I can still see my parents happily surrendering me over while I pleaded for my life....

If you've got kids, it's time to share the love with trauma. Next time you throw them a party rent this guy:BUFFO the Clown Bozo with the intensity of Hulk Hogan. He serves no other purpose than to traumatize children. In a strange way it's kind of brilliant. He'll be remembered by an entire generation of adults who will ponder why their parents thought a clown on steroids performing weird feats of strength would be funny to an eight year old.

Ready for San Diego Comic Con

2008-07-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

So many great online resources. Before taking off for the San Diego Comic Con I thought it might be a good idea to check my Crunk Levels. Apparently I'm still at 61% Crunk-icity.

Crunkness

Whew. Thought I might be slipping.

If you're looking for me at the Show check the 12 Gauge Booth 2547, Sci Fi Channel Booth 3829 or Hachette Book Group Booth 1118. There's also a signing for the Method Man Graphic Novel on Saturday and a panel on Friday.

Only for the Brave: 1

2008-07-23T04:54:00.000-07:00

If you buy one of these they should give you a video camera with the purchase.

I would never think of combining waterskiiig with a rockem, sockem bopper. This is ingenuity at it's finest. While such a device scares most people, I suspect a few viewing this entry are strangely intrigued by this thing. They don't care about the rocks or branches protruding out of the water they could smash into at escape velocity or the leaping aquatic life their faces might collide with.

No, they're only thinking of the unparalleled fun they'll have before that crash collision with a dolphin makes them a Youtube star.

You've got to commend those people. There's a great symbiosis between the fun they have doing these kinds of things and the enjoyment the rest of us get viewing the recorded ramifications of it.

see this film: REDBELT

2008-07-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Redbelt is a martial arts film written and directed by David Mamet. The film concerns Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and self-defense instructor who imparts upon his students the skills to survive on the street, rather than prevail in sports combat. A series of circumstances brings Terry in contact with popular movie hero Chet Frank (Tim Allen) and a legion of Hollywood movers and shakers. Terry soon finds himself the victim of a con and, combined with a destitute financial situation, is pressed to enter the ring for pride and profit.

Mamet's take on a samurai story starring one of today's best actors. What else do you want?

Interview, Schminterview

2008-07-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

Creative Loafing Editor-In- Chief Carlton Hargro and I chat about comics, movies and life. If you've got the time, check it out here

Peep more cool interviews with cool people at the Audio Floss Site

You couldn't be him...

2008-07-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

Faster than a speeding bullet

More powerful than a locomotive

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...

These are the powers of Superman and I contend even if most people had those abilities and more: they could not be Superman.

To the superficial, superheroes can easily be written off as silly stories of men in tights. But if you look just below their costumed surfaces, you'll see it isn't the garish clothing, super powers or even muscles that truly separate characters like Superman from the rest of us. It's something far greater. Something we all could possess if we truly wanted to.

Superman possesses great character.

If Superman didn't have his great powers he would still help people. He would find a way to do something for people in need with whatever resources he had at his disposal. Can the rest of us say the same?

Super powers come in many forms. It's all relative to the situations find ourselves in. The ability to fly would be fantastic and could be used to save a great number of people, but to a person who's in dire financial straits any extra money you could spare would be just as fantastic of a superpower.

My father is a mechanic by trade. As a kid I would sweep the floor our family shop while my dad talked to the customers. I would see mothers in the dead of winter explain to my father how their cars didn't have heat and their kids had to wrap themselves in blankets to keep warm. They would go on about how they didn't have the money to get the heater fixed. I would then watch my dad tell them it would be ok and fix the heater for whatever they could pay him. My father may not have been Superman to the world, but he was Superman to that Mother and her kids in that instance.

I have no doubt in my mind if my father had the powers of Superman he would help the world. Not because of the powers, but because of the man he is. My father has character. In a world where daily technological breakthroughs make the rift between what is science fiction and science fact smaller, we will soon live in a world of super-powered men, but sadly, we won't live in a world of superheroes. It won't be because men won't possess the great powers, but because too few of them won't possess the character to use those abilities to help their fellow man.

Sadly, it's not the powers and the costumes of superheroes people find incredulous. What they find unbelievable is that a person possessed of such great abilities would actually have the social conscious and character to use those abilities to better the lives of everyone else for no tangible compensation.

Most people have super powers. They have stations in life, physical abilities and financial clout to "save" somebody. They simply choose not to. They routinely miss their opportunities to be Superman and save the life of someone in need. Most people are too self absorbed to see the good they could do for others or they use their "powers" for personal gain at the expense of other people.

There are too few superheroes in the world, but we're teeming with super villains.