Showing posts with label Environmentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environmentalism. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Greta Thunberg vs. Donald Trump, Jr.
Eating a bacon cheeseburger in support of Tony Weed: wow, that'll show 'em, Junior!
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Climate Change
Rain is sadness and thunder is anger
The sunshine is all yours to savor
Snow is magic and ice is dreadful
Tornadoes are the be-all and end-all
Earthquakes are Lovecraftian horror
Tsunamis bring chaos and disorder
Wildfires turn forests into ashes
Turn living treasures into trashes
Apocalyptic rage on the front page
Zombies walk the earth, newfound birth
You’ve heard it all before on your TV
You’ve got the classics on a DVD
It looks silly sitting on your shelf
Until the ice caps begin to melt
Water gets warm, rises over land
Washes away more than just sand
Knocks over buildings, wrecks homes
Destroys every single car you own
Murders families from all walks of life
Every last kid, your husband or wife
Politicians keep sitting on their asses
Ignoring cries for help from the masses
The top one percent has nothing to lose
Think they have the right to choose
Who lives, who dies, who benefits
We don’t get to hear the end of it
Wish the tide would eat these rich jerks
And every golf course, go fucking berserk
A redwood tree falling on a limousine
Wouldn’t be enough or so it seems
But a lightning bolt to the mansion
Would put their asses into action
A hurricane throwing fat cats around
Up into the skies, crash to the ground
Only an emergency when privilege is threatened
Now do I have your motherfucking attention?
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Lions
VERSE 1
Elmer Fudd is hunting for blood
He’s about to be peeled like a spud
Lion claws will rip out his intestines
Cockroaches will feast on the infection
You fuck with nature, you get the fangs
Your spine will snap with the loudest bang
Your ribs will crack like shattered glass
Vultures will devour your lifeless ass
CHORUS
Lions! X4
VERSE 2
The lion’s den is far off limits
You won’t last two fucking minutes
Bring your rifles, bring your buddies
Doesn’t mean shit, you goddamn dummy
A pile of bones picked squeaky clean
A trail of blood to decorate this scene
Splattered brains the size of green peas
Shredded skin blown away in the breeze
CHORUS
Lions! X4
VERSE 3
If you hunt for fun, your life is done
Rotting into shit underneath the sun
Mother Nature wants her planet back
The lions want to roll with the pack
A trophy doesn’t mean a damn thing
Who the fuck died and made you king?
I hope you brought your screaming voice
Fuck with animals and you’ve got no choice
EXTENDED CHORUS
Lions! Lions!
Gatekeepers to your burning hell!
Lions! Lions!
Dead humans leave a rancid smell!
Lions! Lions!
Don’t shit where the creatures dwell!
Lions! Lions!
Pray for your own necromantic spell!
Sunday, August 16, 2015
"Star Island" by Carl Hiaasen
BOOK TITLE: Star Island
AUTHOR: Carl Hiaasen
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Environmental Thriller
GRADE: Pass
In this deconstruction of celebrity culture, untalented pop singer Cherry Pye is on the brink of becoming a mega-star with the concert tour of her latest album Skantily Klad. She’s also a drug and alcohol nightmare for her parents, handlers, and paparazzi. Whenever she’s too toasted to go out in public to ruin her career, Ann DeLuisa, her identical imposter, goes out for her and behaves normally. A perverted paparazzo named Bang Abbott desperately wants a photo of Cherry Pye at her worst so that he can sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But when he kidnaps the stunt double, the plot to keep Ann’s name out of the press becomes a chaotic clusterfuck for Cherry’s parents.
I’ve been a fan of Carl Hiaasen’s for almost half a decade now, which I realize is a short period of time considering his lengthy and productive career, but “Star Island” is another reminder of why he’s one of the best in the business when it comes to fast-paced and comedic thrillers. The dialogue is witty, the action never slows down for a minute, and the whirlwind of chaos that ensues in this book is perfectly planned out from beginning to end.
It should also be known that two of Hiaasen’s most famous characters are reintroduced in this book: Skink (deranged ex-governor of Florida turned eco-warrior) and Chemo (flaky-skinned criminal with a weed whacker where his hand was supposed to be). Though they are on opposite alignments at first, the further you read into this book, the more you realize they have a lot in common. They have a disdain for spoiled brats, they don’t take shit from anybody, they’re both on the wrong side of the law, and they can be cunning when they need to be. Chemo prefers to be a hard-ass who trims his victims with his weed eater and Skink prefers more creative methods, such as, attaching a sea urchin to a scumbag banker’s testicles. Sooner or later these two longtime Hiaasen characters are going to meet. And when they do, you’d better batten down the hatches.
Pretty much every character in this book has something kooky going on with them. Aside from Skink’s craziness and Chemo’s intimidation, you also have the main character of the book, Cheryl Bunterman, aka Cherry Pye. This woman deserves no sympathy whatsoever. She’s an airhead, she lip-synchs her way to popularity, she’s spoiled, she’s shallow, and she’ll do any drug she can get her hands on. Chemo is already a loose cannon, so when he’s hired to protect Cherry and keep her out of trouble, even he’s driven to insanity.
Any other kooky characters who mesh well with a chaotic plot? How about the pedophilic CEO of Jailbait Records Maury Lykes? How about the deceptive banker and environmental hazard Jackie Sebago? Bang Abbott is no angel himself: he’s 300 plus pounds of sexual perversion and bottom feeding behavior, which is perfect for his paparazzo occupation. Ann DeLuisa might be one of the few people in the book with a sane head on her shoulders. How she keeps from going insane in the captivity of Bang Abbott is a mystery in itself. All of the characters mesh perfectly with each other whether they’re allies or driving each other nuts. There is not one hint of bad chemistry among these comedic forces.
In addition to playing to his usual strengths of chaotic comedy and environmental hammering, Carl Hiaasen is also a master at dissecting celebrity culture. There’s always this fascination with a celebrity couple doing something as simple as walking the streets together. There’s an even bigger fascination with pop stars who crash and burn under their own stupidity and weakness. We as civilians like to talk about celebrities like we know all about them. We put them on pedestals one minute, but when they fuck up just once, the media shit storm becomes too much to handle. Some celebrities deserve their privacy, while those in the same vein as Cherry Pye deserve to crash and burn and wind up in the shit house. The things people will do for fame and fortune, for better or worse, are all documented in Hiaasen’s novel. If you’ve ever wanted to put celebrities under a microscope instead of on a pedestal, by all means, pick up a copy of “Star Island”.
There’s a reason why Carl Hiaasen is one of Florida’s most widely recognized authors: it’s because he never disappoints when he releases a new novel. Sometimes I grab a Hiaasen novel whenever I’ve read something from another author that was awful. It’s the perfect cure for the one-star blues. A passing grade for a brilliant author and his book.
AUTHOR: Carl Hiaasen
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Environmental Thriller
GRADE: Pass
In this deconstruction of celebrity culture, untalented pop singer Cherry Pye is on the brink of becoming a mega-star with the concert tour of her latest album Skantily Klad. She’s also a drug and alcohol nightmare for her parents, handlers, and paparazzi. Whenever she’s too toasted to go out in public to ruin her career, Ann DeLuisa, her identical imposter, goes out for her and behaves normally. A perverted paparazzo named Bang Abbott desperately wants a photo of Cherry Pye at her worst so that he can sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But when he kidnaps the stunt double, the plot to keep Ann’s name out of the press becomes a chaotic clusterfuck for Cherry’s parents.
I’ve been a fan of Carl Hiaasen’s for almost half a decade now, which I realize is a short period of time considering his lengthy and productive career, but “Star Island” is another reminder of why he’s one of the best in the business when it comes to fast-paced and comedic thrillers. The dialogue is witty, the action never slows down for a minute, and the whirlwind of chaos that ensues in this book is perfectly planned out from beginning to end.
It should also be known that two of Hiaasen’s most famous characters are reintroduced in this book: Skink (deranged ex-governor of Florida turned eco-warrior) and Chemo (flaky-skinned criminal with a weed whacker where his hand was supposed to be). Though they are on opposite alignments at first, the further you read into this book, the more you realize they have a lot in common. They have a disdain for spoiled brats, they don’t take shit from anybody, they’re both on the wrong side of the law, and they can be cunning when they need to be. Chemo prefers to be a hard-ass who trims his victims with his weed eater and Skink prefers more creative methods, such as, attaching a sea urchin to a scumbag banker’s testicles. Sooner or later these two longtime Hiaasen characters are going to meet. And when they do, you’d better batten down the hatches.
Pretty much every character in this book has something kooky going on with them. Aside from Skink’s craziness and Chemo’s intimidation, you also have the main character of the book, Cheryl Bunterman, aka Cherry Pye. This woman deserves no sympathy whatsoever. She’s an airhead, she lip-synchs her way to popularity, she’s spoiled, she’s shallow, and she’ll do any drug she can get her hands on. Chemo is already a loose cannon, so when he’s hired to protect Cherry and keep her out of trouble, even he’s driven to insanity.
Any other kooky characters who mesh well with a chaotic plot? How about the pedophilic CEO of Jailbait Records Maury Lykes? How about the deceptive banker and environmental hazard Jackie Sebago? Bang Abbott is no angel himself: he’s 300 plus pounds of sexual perversion and bottom feeding behavior, which is perfect for his paparazzo occupation. Ann DeLuisa might be one of the few people in the book with a sane head on her shoulders. How she keeps from going insane in the captivity of Bang Abbott is a mystery in itself. All of the characters mesh perfectly with each other whether they’re allies or driving each other nuts. There is not one hint of bad chemistry among these comedic forces.
In addition to playing to his usual strengths of chaotic comedy and environmental hammering, Carl Hiaasen is also a master at dissecting celebrity culture. There’s always this fascination with a celebrity couple doing something as simple as walking the streets together. There’s an even bigger fascination with pop stars who crash and burn under their own stupidity and weakness. We as civilians like to talk about celebrities like we know all about them. We put them on pedestals one minute, but when they fuck up just once, the media shit storm becomes too much to handle. Some celebrities deserve their privacy, while those in the same vein as Cherry Pye deserve to crash and burn and wind up in the shit house. The things people will do for fame and fortune, for better or worse, are all documented in Hiaasen’s novel. If you’ve ever wanted to put celebrities under a microscope instead of on a pedestal, by all means, pick up a copy of “Star Island”.
There’s a reason why Carl Hiaasen is one of Florida’s most widely recognized authors: it’s because he never disappoints when he releases a new novel. Sometimes I grab a Hiaasen novel whenever I’ve read something from another author that was awful. It’s the perfect cure for the one-star blues. A passing grade for a brilliant author and his book.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Rachel Phoenix
NAME: Rachel Phoenix
AGE: 30
OCCUPATION: Elf Assassin
CANON: Tree Party Nation
With the way the 2010 D&D movie script Tree Party Nation was written, alignments were in multiple shades of gray instead of complete black and white. There were no good guys and bad guys and if there were, it would be hard to tell them apart. On one side of the battle, you have a group of environmentally conscious warriors called the Tree Party Nation, who have noble intentions of preserving their forest home, but go about it in a violent and sadistic way. The other side of the battle is Myles Blood’s Goliath Kingdom, where chopping down trees might seem cruel and unusual, but it does give his citizens good-paying jobs and develops his city. Two ambiguous forces of violence colliding and Rachel Phoenix happens to be on Myles Blood’s side.
But if you think this badass chick is a one-dimensional ass-kicker, think again. She also at one point had the capacity for love. In fact, she was the ex-fiance of the Tree Party Nation’s leader, half-elf ranger Barrett Croft. Rachel thought Barrett was too radical for her tastes, so she aligned herself with, in her mind, the voice of reason in Myles Blood, human cleric. However, just because she broke up with Barrett, it didn’t mean that she didn’t have any feelings for him remaining whatsoever. A very small part of Rachel wanted to be with him again.
By the movie’s end, she gets her wish. Barrett Croft broke out of a Goliath prison and held everyone hostage with a nail bomb detonator (yes, they have those in D&D somewhere). Barrett even had the device wrapped around Myles Blood’s chest to show the audience how serious he was. Brute force wasn’t going to put an end to such terrorism. Rachel’s love would. Both the Tree Party Nation and Goliath’s Army had lost a significant number of soldiers in this war.
Now Rachel must convince Barrett that it’s time to make love instead. She made him an offer he would never refuse: put down the bomb and run away to a faraway environmental paradise with her. They would never return to Goliath or have to deal with Myles Blood again. It’s just two love birds solidifying their romance. And it wasn’t an assassin’s prank either. This was true love. Barrett found it within his heart to put down the detonator and walk away in Rachel’s arms. That’s how the story ended.
Even as I write this plot down on a blank document, part of me is wondering why Tree Party Nation would be a dud of a creative project. There are three-dimensional characters everywhere, there’s plenty of fantasy violence to go around, and the ending is something everybody can be happy with whether you’re a diehard geek or a sucker for lovey-dovey ooey-gooey romance stories. I’d actually have to go back into my archives and reread Tree Party Nation to see why it would be a dud.
But then again, a part of me already knows why. First of all, it was written in the style of a movie script. Movie scripts matter…if you live in California. As I write this character profile, I currently live in Port Orchard, Washington, where the only things that matter are knitting, war stories, and loud vehicles. Secondly, the story was written in 2010, a time in my life where my writing was mediocre at best. In fact, I feel that way about anything I’ve written before mid-2013 when I joined the Weekly Short Story Contest and Company group on Good Reads.
It might be a prejudiced way of thinking, but that prejudice has oftentimes been completely justified. Canned dialogue, scattered story structure, undisruptive writing, these things make me afraid to reread Tree Party Nation. So if Rachel Phoenix is going to be used again, she will take part in yet another fantasy story whether it’s a novel I write or a D&D campaign I run. Where else would you find a woman named Rachel Phoenix who openly admits to being an elf assassin? There isn’t a whole lot of need for ninja stars and jagged daggers in a modern setting. Yeah, she’s definitely a fantasy kind of girl, in more ways than just the literary genre. Hehe!
***LITERARY QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“If Clue was played with Dungeons & Dragons rules, you could beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe and have sex with Miss Scarlet on the table of the conservatory.”
-David M. Ewalt, author of “Of Dice and Men”-
AGE: 30
OCCUPATION: Elf Assassin
CANON: Tree Party Nation
With the way the 2010 D&D movie script Tree Party Nation was written, alignments were in multiple shades of gray instead of complete black and white. There were no good guys and bad guys and if there were, it would be hard to tell them apart. On one side of the battle, you have a group of environmentally conscious warriors called the Tree Party Nation, who have noble intentions of preserving their forest home, but go about it in a violent and sadistic way. The other side of the battle is Myles Blood’s Goliath Kingdom, where chopping down trees might seem cruel and unusual, but it does give his citizens good-paying jobs and develops his city. Two ambiguous forces of violence colliding and Rachel Phoenix happens to be on Myles Blood’s side.
But if you think this badass chick is a one-dimensional ass-kicker, think again. She also at one point had the capacity for love. In fact, she was the ex-fiance of the Tree Party Nation’s leader, half-elf ranger Barrett Croft. Rachel thought Barrett was too radical for her tastes, so she aligned herself with, in her mind, the voice of reason in Myles Blood, human cleric. However, just because she broke up with Barrett, it didn’t mean that she didn’t have any feelings for him remaining whatsoever. A very small part of Rachel wanted to be with him again.
By the movie’s end, she gets her wish. Barrett Croft broke out of a Goliath prison and held everyone hostage with a nail bomb detonator (yes, they have those in D&D somewhere). Barrett even had the device wrapped around Myles Blood’s chest to show the audience how serious he was. Brute force wasn’t going to put an end to such terrorism. Rachel’s love would. Both the Tree Party Nation and Goliath’s Army had lost a significant number of soldiers in this war.
Now Rachel must convince Barrett that it’s time to make love instead. She made him an offer he would never refuse: put down the bomb and run away to a faraway environmental paradise with her. They would never return to Goliath or have to deal with Myles Blood again. It’s just two love birds solidifying their romance. And it wasn’t an assassin’s prank either. This was true love. Barrett found it within his heart to put down the detonator and walk away in Rachel’s arms. That’s how the story ended.
Even as I write this plot down on a blank document, part of me is wondering why Tree Party Nation would be a dud of a creative project. There are three-dimensional characters everywhere, there’s plenty of fantasy violence to go around, and the ending is something everybody can be happy with whether you’re a diehard geek or a sucker for lovey-dovey ooey-gooey romance stories. I’d actually have to go back into my archives and reread Tree Party Nation to see why it would be a dud.
But then again, a part of me already knows why. First of all, it was written in the style of a movie script. Movie scripts matter…if you live in California. As I write this character profile, I currently live in Port Orchard, Washington, where the only things that matter are knitting, war stories, and loud vehicles. Secondly, the story was written in 2010, a time in my life where my writing was mediocre at best. In fact, I feel that way about anything I’ve written before mid-2013 when I joined the Weekly Short Story Contest and Company group on Good Reads.
It might be a prejudiced way of thinking, but that prejudice has oftentimes been completely justified. Canned dialogue, scattered story structure, undisruptive writing, these things make me afraid to reread Tree Party Nation. So if Rachel Phoenix is going to be used again, she will take part in yet another fantasy story whether it’s a novel I write or a D&D campaign I run. Where else would you find a woman named Rachel Phoenix who openly admits to being an elf assassin? There isn’t a whole lot of need for ninja stars and jagged daggers in a modern setting. Yeah, she’s definitely a fantasy kind of girl, in more ways than just the literary genre. Hehe!
***LITERARY QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“If Clue was played with Dungeons & Dragons rules, you could beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe and have sex with Miss Scarlet on the table of the conservatory.”
-David M. Ewalt, author of “Of Dice and Men”-
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