Author Archives: Tim Byrd

Malaprop 2: The Reckoning

NO! NO! PLEASE...PLEASE WRITE CORRECTLY!!!

Go to  Malaprop 1.

Last week, I shared some of my collection of malaprops, little bits of communications gone awry. I’ve been gathering this material for a while and am sharing it in doses so as not to fry too many of your brain cells all at once.

Time for some more.

One note: I had someone call me out on the tone of the first post, and upon reflection I overplayed the whole “idiot” thing. Some of these errors are from idiots, I’m sure, but many of them are not. They’re just mistakes in language perfectly intelligent folks have picked up without realizing. My rhetoric was meant in fun more than it was meant to antagonize or belittle.

Except when it comes to the real idiots. Screw them.

Now on with the show… Continue reading →

Good Memories of 2010, Day 7: Kick-Ass

I loved the movie Kick-Ass.

What, you didn’t? That’s fine. Hear me out.

I’ll be the first to admit that it sets up a scenario as its foundation that it ultimately blithely abandons, the whole “what would it be like if someone tried, in real life, to be a costumed superhero?” thing. As an exploration of that theme, it’s mostly a failure, though it does sort of tell us that if someone did that they’d get the shit beat out of them a lot and possibly die. Which may be all we need to know.

By giving us those answers early in the film, though, it does add to the vulnerability of its hero, Dave Lizewski aka Kick-Ass, and we never doubt that he is all too mortal. The old rule in writing is “Mistreat your protagonist,” and Dave really gets his share.

In a review at Comic Book Resources, comic writer Steven Grant made some interesting commentary on the movie’s thematic shift:

[Kick-Ass] cheats right and left on its premise. Once donning his goofy costume, a mish-mash of scuba gear and ski mask, Kick-Ass quickly demonstrates why people are generally disinclined to wear costumes and fight crime in the real world. Once that point is made, though, the intro premise is thrown away so quickly it’s like watching a stage magician make a prop vanish, and to the same effect: it draws the audience further into the show…

If the film cheats on practically every level, that’s why it works. That’s where much of the humor comes from…When characters try to anticipate how “real world” superheroes will or should act, they resort to their only frame of reference – comic books – despite no natural law requiring people to behave like comic book characters when they put on comic book costumes. But we say “but of course” because it’s also our only frame of reference and in the logic of the film it makes sense: if you’re trying to emulate comic book characters, you emulate comic book characters, and when the film finally makes the notion explicit we’re already so deep into the magician’s act that our instinct is to play along.

Kick-Ass is both one of the best and purest superhero films yet and mostly not a superhero movie at all. Continue reading →

This is Spider-Man?

A picture of the costume for the new Spider-Man reboot has made its way online.

It doesn’t make me giddy and optimistic.

Weeeeeeeeee!!!

Good Memories of 2010, Day 6: Red Dead Redemption

My son asks me periodically what my favorite videogame of all time is. In the past, Halo and God of War (both as trilogies) and Batman: Arkham Asylum have occupied the top spot, depending on my mood when he asked me. But the last time he asked, I said Red Dead Redemption.

RDR is ostensibly a distant sequel to Red Dead Revolver, which I reviewed a long time ago here, but it’s really a sequel only in titular branding. The earlier game was an arcadish shooter in a small world, with a whisper-thin story (and hideous voice acting). The new game is so much more. Continue reading →

Malaprop

I enjoy idiots, up to a point. Watching something like Fox & Friends can be as humorous as watching an old Three Stooges short, if less intellectually stimulating. But only up to a point.

(Hilariously, as I started writing this, Green Day’s song “American Idiot” started up on the random playlist I’m listening to).

But I wish the idiots weren’t so prevalent, particularly at the voting booth, but also on the Internet. As a writer, a reader, a person who values clear thought and knowledge, and an educated guy, I’m often appalled at what I see passing for communication among my fellow citizens.

A while back, I started collecting bits of idiocy I came across online. Now, I’m not talking about net-speak or texting shortcuts, or even persistent spelling stupidities like using “villian” instead of “villain.” I’m talking about people using words and phrases that don’t work the way they think they do.

I haven’t bothered sourcing these. My intent isn’t to embarrass anyone specifically. But my sources range from comments left on blog posts here and there all the way up to the Gray Lady herself, The New York Times.

I haven’t bothered with anything from the brain of George W. Bush, as the only torture he practiced that was more egregious than that he practiced on human beings was that he practiced on language. He’s in a class all by himself.

I’m going to break my collection up into serialized posts. I’m posting this stuff for two reasons: one, to laugh at the gaffes of those who can’t be bothered to make sure they’re saying what they think they’re saying, and two, to encourage anyone reading to please bother to make sure. Especially if you’re presenting your work as even semi-professional, much less professional, writing.

Now, onward to the flubs and gaffes. Can you identify them all? Continue reading →

Jaded (Song of the Week, 1/17/11)

I first saw the video for Aerosmith’s “Jaded” years ago, in the midst of a loveless marriage, overcome by my depression, feeling utterly cut off from the primal charge of life and from the world outside.

The video, which tells the tale of a young woman living an artificial life, similarly out of touch with the marrow of existence, moved me incredibly. Eyes might’ve gotten misty. I watched it repeatedly, seeing in it what I’d lost, and trying to use it to inspire me in finding it again.

It’s a well-crafted, beautiful video for a fun song, and as I renew my offensive against my depression today, and once more try to find that doorway into the world, it’s once again a rousing call to life.

Lissie Rocks “Bad Romance”

I love this awesome rock ‘n’ roll take on Gaga’s “Bad Romance” by Lissie.

My TMS Adventure [UPDATED]

I mentioned in a post yesterday that last year, trying desperate measures to deal with my lifelong chronic depression, I’d looked into ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), and while researching it, found out about a newer, less harsh treatment called Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

TMS seemed very promising. A sort of less powerful electro-shock which uses a targeted electromagnetic charge (about as strong as an MRI) to stimulate an area in the prefrontal lobe of the brain that controls mood, it lacked the potentially dire side effects of ECT, such as memory loss. It was a simple in-patient procedure that didn’t require anesthesia every time, as ECT does, so you don’t pay for an anesthesiologist and have to have someone drive you home every day because you’re so out of it. And the claims for its results, and the longevity of its effectiveness, sounded very appealing.

The biggest downside to trying it: insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s only been FDA-okayed for treatment of major depression since 2008 and insurance companies, always leery of paying for anything, haven’t accepted its use yet.

Still, it sounded promising, and nothing else had worked to any significant degree, and I was quite leery of ECT (which insurance does cover). So I decided to go for it.

There were a couple of places in Atlanta I could go, and I opted to be treated by Dr. Brian Teliho because he was the less expensive option. The course of treatment was a session every day Monday through Friday for 4-6 weeks, depending on how the patient responded.

Each session cost $300, so I was paying $1500 a week. This is a lot of fucking money for me, as it would be for most people.

But, I was desperate. Continue reading →

Walking Out Of The Darkness

I’ve been blogging a bit lately about my battles with depression and the impact it has had on my life. Now, leaving the wretched first decade of this millennium behind, I’m determined to turn this around and stop letting the monster control things.

Last year, I reached a point of near hopelessness. Therapy hadn’t helped much. Meds hadn’t helped much. And I was just getting worse. I decided extreme measures might be called for, and started looking into electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the modern version of ye olde electro-shock.

ECT is intense, and it has side effects (most notably memory loss, sometimes dire and permanent memory loss). But it also has the highest success rate of any depression treatment, and many people who’ve undergone it have had their lives not only significantly improved, but pretty much saved.

Still, it’s a big scary thing to do. And while reading up on it,  I found out about a newer treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a more controlled and allegedly highly effective therapy without ECT’s scary side effects. I decided to try it, even though it’s so new it’s not covered by insurance in this country, even though it cost me $9,000 for the course of treatment.

I’m going to blog in detail about my TMS adventure, but here’s the short version: it didn’t do shit for me. In fact, it cost me a huge amount of savings while not doing shit for me, so if anything it contributed deeply to my overall sense of hopelessness and despair. [UPDATE: the detailed post about TMS can be found here.]

Looking ahead to the beginning of this year, I’d pretty much decided that, if I didn’t manage to at least finish up Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull and deliver it to my editor by now, I’d go ahead with the ECT. The book’s not done yet. But ECT’s still pretty scary, and I figure I owe myself at least one final attempt at a Hail Mary pass before going with the electrodes.

In the past, I’ve made big plans to overcome the depression and to get back on track, and clearly that has never worked to any consistent degree. So this time, I’m taking my cue from Bill Murray’s character in What About Bob?

Baby steps. “Baby steps through the office…baby steps out the door…all I have to do is take one little step at a time and I can do anything…baby steps out of the office…baby steps to the hall…baby steps to the elevator…”

The two most important things I need to do every day are:

  1. Write
  2. Exercise

So my new plan begins there. Whatever else I have on my to-do list, whatever else I may or may not accomplish in a day, I need to at minimum get at least some of both those things done. Every damn day.

So my daily to-do list from now on forms around this:

  • Write 500 words
  • Do 20-30 minutes of cardio of some sort

That’s my minimum daily requirement now. I will often write more, and exercise more, but when the will is weak, I can at least force myself to do that much.

My plan will evolve, and I’ll blog as I go. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrangle the dark beast enough that I won’t have to ride the lightning.

I start officially on Monday. Stay tuned.

Good Memories of 2010, Day 5: 1978

In 2009, my ex and I established a Christmas tradition of sharing music from our youths with my son by giving him a representative sampling from the year we were his current age.

This year, he’s fourteen, and since I was fourteen in 1978, I went on a sonic archaeological dig of that year to decide what to share.

I had this on my wall in 1978

My approach is to buy him two albums from the time, and to burn a collection of various hits as well. The two CDs I chose were Van Halen’s Van Halen (their hellaciously strong debut with a bunch of classics like “Runnin’ With The Devil” and “You Really Got Me”) and Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell (“Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses…?”). Continue reading →

Cold World

This whole week has been about snow.

At one point, it was reported that snow was falling in forty-nine of the fifty states. Only Florida had none.

For global warming deniers it’s been a grand old time, as they can all chortle to each other and say, “My my my, it sure is cold…guess that puts that old ‘global warming’ bullshit to rest,” as if they have a clue what they’re talking about. (Hint: they don’t, and this extreme weather is, if anything, likely evidence that climate change theories are correct).

Here, we’ve been solidly snowed in. Inches of snow have over the course of the week solidified into a hard slick shell over everything. The kids have missed (or, more likely, not) school since Monday, and tomorrow (Friday) remains to be seen. We don’t have the infrastructure for snow that northern states have, and our drivers are imbeciles as a rule (distracted by their kvetching about that stupid Al Gore, perhaps), so weather like this rightly makes us cautious.

I’ve had a wonderful time, just hanging out with my son here at the Byrdcave, playing games, watching old Seinfelds, reading. Taking Boone, our two year old Point Bernard (English Pointer/St. Bernard mix) for walks and watching him spin out on slopes.

We also spent some time at my kid’s mom’s, where we established a pretty speedy sled path down the backyard hill, using a boogie board left from some beach vacation as a sled.

Traversing the landscape when it’s slippery and glacial always reminds us of an amusing incident from another snowfall a few years ago. My son, his mom, and I were carefully negotiating a snow-packed sidewalk in downtown Decatur, and she told him “Watch out for the black ice.”

Unfortunately, just as she did, a small group of black kids my son knew from school passed us, close enough to hear, and from their expressions, we were pretty sure what they thought they’d heard her say was, “Watch out for the black guys.”

So now, when it’s frozen underfoot, my son and I make sure to bring that up, and it never gets old.

Birds Falling From The Skies? Now We Know Why

Thanks to the Great Global Goon Patrol, we now know what’s causing these mass animal deaths, and it’s not pollution or sonic weapons testing or liberals from Betelgeuse.

Good Memories of 2010, Day 4: MR. SHIVERS

By the time the number nineteen crossed the Missouri state line the sun had crawled low in the sky and afternoon was fading into evening. The train had built up a wild head of steam over the last few miles. As Tennessee fell behind it began picking up speed, the wheels chanting and chuckling, the fields blurring into jaundice-yellow streaks by the track. A fresh gout of black smoke unfurled from the train’s crown and folded back to clutch the cars like a great black cloak.

I met Robert Jackson Bennett briefly at SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) in September 2009. When I did my signing for Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, he was signing at the next table, and we chatted briefly (I recall telling him his title was cool) and exchanged inscribed copies of our books.

Here’s his inscription:

Know what? When I finally picked the book up months later, I did enjoy it. A hell of a lot. Continue reading →

What’s Eating Your Head?

I only just became aware of the new fashion accessory called a SpiritHood, and while it appeals to me on a certain paganistic, carnal level (and I am generally quite paganistic and carnal myself), I have to say I have yet to see a picture of a guy wearing one in which said guy doesn’t look like a tool.

Women, on the other hand, can be pretty damn sexy in these things.

This picture sorta makes me want to start sleeping with a teddy bear again…

Snow Is Lightly Falling (Song of the Week, 1/10/11)

Someone dumped Alaska on Decatur last night. I half expect Sarah Palin to show up trying to slaughter our squirrels and steal medicine from our sick children.

Overnight we had a phenomenal snowfall here in Decatur, and at 7 am it’s still falling. It must be 5-6 inches deep out there.

Nathaniel and I took Boone for a walk in it last night, and it was incredible. By the time we returned to the apartment (and we were only out maybe 15 minutes), I had at least half an inch of snow layered on the brim of my fedora.

Boone, who is a big goofy St. Bernard/English Pointer mix (we call him a Point Bernard), was delighted, snorfeling about, leaping in the air, and wrestling with us.

In honor of this great, white, schoolless snow day, I present to you this song of the week, by Nightnoise.

Good Memories of 2010, Day 3: The Black Widow

Fifteen or more years back, some friends and I were talking and the question arose, “If you could write and direct a movie about any Marvel Comics character, who would it be?”

I didn’t even think about it. “The Black Widow.”

It wasn’t an answer I’d have predicted. I wasn’t an enormous Black Widow fan, and hadn’t really given her much consideration in any way when I wasn’t reading about her or admiring some George Perez portraiture. But when the question appeared, my mind was on the case, and the sultry sexiness, mystery, and espionage background of the heroine offered up exactly the sort of cool superheroic options I was in the mood for.

And there’s just never enough hot femme fatales in catsuits on the screen. Continue reading →

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 3): The Beard of Loneliness

When things never get better, when do you give up hope that they will?

I’m not there yet, but I’ve been on the edge of that chasm for a long time.

For most of my life, I’ve alternated between times when I have to struggle to get anything at all done, and times when I was on task, organized, and convinced I could make permanent change. Note that these have never been “manic” times, just times when I was operating closer to the norm, closer to what I should be, what I might have been had it not been ripped out of me as a child.

But those productive times are always followed by collapse. To-do lists curl and die like leaves in a fire. Lonely chapters gather virtual dust on the hard drive, awaiting fellows who’ll never show. The bed forgets what it’s like to be made. And my chin thickens with whiskers, a barometer of my efficacy in my own life because I do not want a beard.

I have one now. Continue reading →

More Great Gaga

This morning I posted one of my “Good Memories of 2010,” in which I praised the monstrous(ly talented) Lady Gaga.

I shared a couple of lesser-known acoustic performances of hers, since most folks have probably seen her official vids. There were others I was tempted to toss in, but didn’t wish to overload that blog entry.

So here’s the overflow. ;)

First up is another live take on “Pokerface,” different and possibly more wonderful than the one I shared earlier…(and unfortunately, due to embedding restrictions you have to click through each to watch on YouTube, but it’s worth it)… Continue reading →

Good Memories of 2010, Day 2: The Freak Bitch

Lady Gaga is a monster.

And I mean that in the very best way.

Early last year, I actually had the impulse to tweet “I have no idea who Lady Gaga is, and I’m glad.” Rarely listening to the radio, and never watching celebrity-fetish TV, I’d absorbed her name only through some collective unconscious osmosis, and I literally had no idea who she was other than the latest outré pop diva. Which made me reflexively dismiss her as just another turd floating in the bowl of MTV/Perez Hilton culture.

But I didn’t make the tweet, because I don’t like commenting on things I don’t actually know about, and because I didn’t want to be unfair to Gaga, whoever she was. I’m quirkily integrous like that.

Having resisted the impulse to blindly besmirch her, I found my curiosity roused. Did she deserve my scorn or not? I sat down with my good friend YouTube to find out.

She most definitely did not.

Continue reading →