I still need my heroes

Let me start by saying that it really bothers me that I don't have many women heroes.
What I mean to say is my mother was my first female hero (I don't have a video to show you)
I have a niece who I would call a hero, but I don't want to embarrass her more than she will be if she ends up reading this.

I will start with Catherine Asaro. She's multi talented and writes a great Sci Fi Book.

What makes her my hero is her champion the more realistic side of her genre and still being able to sing a good song and argue theoretical physics like imaginary numbers and be right about all of it without the need to teabag her opponents. Grace under fire.

Ursula K. le Guin (might have her name wrong) who is still the most awesome writer in my experience because she gave me Ged and the Earthsea which is one of the very few books that have remained my favorite through out my entire life. She is and will always be my hero.

I have actually met this hero, back when he was just some guy writing Sandman and before I would hold him up as someone I wanted to be more like for his views on life and fiction and all the things and imaginings and outlook that would shape me as a writer. He is both the humor and amazing imagination that I find loving in my own fictions.

Bill Nye didn't start out as my favorite Science guy but after he retired as the Science Guy, I found that I really had liked him and science and then when he resurfaced under the Planetary Society and endorsed my brother- he became forever elevated as the voice of reasonable reason in this wild and unscientific world.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is by far the coolest smart guy in the universe and I like that I agree with him on most things about science and fiction and doing a good job at whatever he sets his mind and effort too. I love that he never forgets what is really important to him (astronomy) and that Space Zombie Aliens could happen.

And Carl Sagan who would transform the small universe of my mind into the limitless hope and ambition that would change how I wrote about the universe and introduce the idea that Hard Science should always be the first choice over space fantasy unless you need to breathe in space to tell the story and then by golly go beyond our limited knowledge of physics to a galaxy far away enough to make it sound reasonable. In the meantime, I live in his dreams of hope for this cosmos and his word guide me as I ride this planet through the stars.

Is it any wonder that my heroes are almost always comedians or writers or scientists or all three.

Jon Stewart is my hero, not only is he the quintessential wit but also he is the hero in the face of this insanity that fills our media and minds with unnamed fears and unrealized lies. I need my voice in the darkness, I need my sense of irony in the sea of hypocrisy where people who are needlessly self important blather and blunder on with their own egos that they have lost the ability to stop and see how stupid and mortal they truly are.  

John Oliver is just over the top and down to earth hilarious in his pursuit of finding reason or at least reasonability in the face of such madness as we find not only in this country but also the rest of the world. Where do I find my news? Where do i look for honesty and the truth, from the mouths of men all too often dismissed as comedians and fools.

Which brings me to Stephen Colbert. The Fool of Fools who was actually anything but.

He is the Deadpool of the media world, if you don't understand that look up breaking the fourth wall and speaking the truth with a lie. He was/is the super geek that I can turn to in order to question authority and mock the rich and self important.

and that's the word.

I still need my heroes.
I want to have people I can quote as often as Shakespeare and Pope and still be amazed by most of what they do and write and say. Heroes who are true to themselves and don't waffle in the face of fear and the world. So I leave you know with Neil and Amanda (also a hero) makin' whoopie.
and that is Heroism according to Mike

Snow and Ice and Flu and Life without You, Blue.

So I had the flu. I haven't had the flu in such a long time that I am almost sure I had a dog named Blue when I last had the Flu....
No, this is not the poetry blog.

Insert a song about a dog named blue

So it snowed, well actually it rained ice. Yes, it rained ice.
It does that kind of thing around here in East Tennessee.
I am serious- well no I am never serious but it still rained ice.
then it kind of snowed basically in order to make the ice look like snow.
Oh unscrupulous ice! Like Ice in snow's clothing sneaking in to kill your kid's best friend in a seemingly legit snowball fight!

Insert video about a dog named blue.

anyway being sick sucks almost as being cold and sick and blue.

I often stop and wonder what life would have been like if you had stuck around.
I mean, I have to be honest. I know my humor can be trying and playing that song over and over again probably wore you down and the door to wherever was the only place for you to flee Jesse.

no wait, that was a song...
One the benefits of being alone, is that no one is around to see how crazy you have become.
so there you have it.
I still have the flu or something like it
There is ice with deceptive snow on it.
OH unscrupulous Snow!
I never actually had a dog named blue
I probably never really had you, either.
and that is life according to the crazy man sitting at the corner of the round table blowing the steam off his cold potato....