• … I will probably eat some chili today. Have a nice day! #
• … I will probably eat a sandwich. Have a nice day! #
• … My creativity well has completely dried up. No focus, no drive, lots of hazy fog in the head. I will therefore paint my bathroom. #

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• It's almost Father's Day. #
• @fredhicks oh, that sounds awesome. Yum. in reply to fredhicks #
• I put a silver lion statue in my back yard this morning. For my dad. One thing we shared was Detroit Lions football. I'll blog later w/more. #
• @sambearpoet … thanks for remembering, dude. And right back at ya. in reply to sambearpoet #
• @MDrandom … Man, that IS harsh. Have a Guinness later and we'll cyber-toast them. in reply to MDrandom #
• @SeanPatFan @sambearpoet @mdrandom @Highmoon … a glass of the good stuff shall be raised in honor of all your fathers today. #
• @Highmoon … I'm inclined to play this first S7S run fairly straight so that we can taste its natural flavor. But some day … who knows? in reply to Highmoon #
• Eww, I forgot about the bit where Doc Savage captures badguys and erases their memories to make them "upright citizens" http://bit.ly/CQFn5 #
• … I've recently returned from an invigorating 5-day secret trip to Argentina. #
• @Highmoon … we will play next week. Hopefully with you. in reply to Highmoon #
• … I just got butt-dialed by Jerry Grayson, who I'm pretty sure was contemplating pizza with @MDrandom and @vandermore at #Origins2009. #
• @planetx … wow. Mind blown. in reply to planetx #
• I'm ashamed to live in a culture where the death of one wacko so easily diverts attention from all the important stuff going on worldwide. #
• That last thing I tweeted was harsh. If I were in Columbus at #origins2009 right now, I wouldn't have had time to think harsh thoughts. #
• @blindgeek I have no issue with mourning him and praising his work – my harshness was about how the coverage is all Jacko and nothing else in reply to blindgeek #
• I would love to find that mythical space between misanthropic asshat and wimpy-passive doormat, and find some way to linger there. #

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I found something pretty nifty earlier at Half Price Books that seems like something many of you might dig – the pulp adventure lovers among you, anyway. My local HPB has a bunch of brand-new copies of several pulp novel reprints from an outfit called Nostalgia Ventures, and among the titles they have several volumes of Doc Savage stories as well as several volumes of The Shadow. I used to read Doc Savage stories as a kid (no, not in their original editions) and I love the Spirit of the Century RPG of course, (and I’m currently playing it with my face-to-face gang) so I picked one up. Here’s the volume I bought:

Doc Savage Volume 6: Pirate of the Pacific and The Polar Treasure

The volumes available at my HPB were all new and available in multiple copies, so I’m guessing that they are an overstock item sent from a warehouse and not something that was sold to the store by a walk-in. Thus, if you’ve got an HPB near you and you’d like to pick one or more of these up for $6, go take a look, because they might just have some.

There are two full stories in each volume, reprinted in their original texts with only typographical errors corrected – so the writing comes with all its warts including cultural and ethnic stereotyping, which the editors acknowledge up front – I think that was a classy move. It also contains a couple of feature essays for pulp enthusiasts. The cover price is $12.95 and I don’t know if I’d pay that, but for the $6 I spent, it is a very good find.

I knew I was going to get immersed in some interesting pulpy story action when the very first paragraph of the first story read, “Something terrible impended.”

Oh, yes indeed.

So. Father’s Day.

It’s cool being a father. My boys are amazingly smart and funny and surprising and wonderful. They keep me sane even when they’re driving me crazy. Being a father on Father’s Day is pretty nifty.

But I’ve spent a lot more years being a son on Father’s Day than I have being a father. And that part of this particular holiday has – more often than not – been less than cool.

You may recall that my father died last December. Here’s the post I wrote the day I found out. Now, I haven’t seen or talked to my father on Father’s Day for several years, although we sent cards up until a couple years ago when they started coming back ‘address unknown’. So I’m used to not connecting with him on the holiday, but this is the first year where, as I put it in my post back in December, “the way it seemed like has become the way it is.”

Robert Bradley, Age 41 (1987)

It has been seven months since the death of Robert Bradley, and although his ashes are now resting in an urn somewhere in my Grandmother’s house in Michigan, we have still not been able to agree on a “convenient” date for our family diaspora to get together and have a memorial service for him. Seven months, and no memorial. My dad was a jackass, but really, his memory deserves better than that. And also, we deserve to have whatever measure of catharsis comes from the ritual of a memorial service. I’ve been wrangling with my aunt and grandmother for awhile over trying to schedule one, and earlier this week it got especially stressful – and we STILL have no date scheduled.

Anyhow, not really what I came here to write about. You don’t need to hear the messy stuff about scheduling a memorial.

The thing I want to share about all this is that a couple days ago my lovely wife Leah came up with the perfect idea for how I can get at least a little catharsis and some closure. Like with so many other things I’ve done in my misfit life, when the standard/typical/mainstream rituals of life don’t suit my needs, I make up my own rituals – and this is what Leah suggested we do today.

We went to get a small two-foot high resin statue. I chose a lion, because the one thing my father and I always enjoyed together in good times and bad was rooting for the Detroit Lions. The lion has been set on a pedestal in our backyard under a tree, and later I will go out there, put some notes, pictures, and a few symbolic bits of memory-fodder into the bottom of this statue, and I’ll think about my dad for awhile. And I’ll tell him that in the past few months, I’ve actually come to understand how incredibly easy it is to let depression and bitterness and stress overwhelm a person, and how someone in that situation might easily lose sight of the blessings of life and become a drunken violent bastard who cuts himself off from everyone who tries to care about him.

I will tell him that I choose not to become that person. I refuse to become that person. But yes, I will admit that I am beginning to understand how easy it would be to do so. I have danced with that temptation a couple of times recently. But I’m not going to hang out in that particular dance hall, thank you very much. I’ve got too many people who love me and too many blessings to count. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

And because I may not get the chance to stand up in front of my family at a memorial service and say anything like what I just wrote, I choose to share it with you – anyone who is reading this and those of you who have contributed to giving me the resolve not to become what my father became. And many of you have contributed mightily, make no mistake.

Now, for the next few hours, I’m going to focus on being a great father to my boys and great husband to my wife, and we’re going to go have a fun afternoon. Later, at twilight or so, I’ll become Robert Bradley’s son again for a short while, and I’ll raise a glass to him, and to the fathers of several of my friends whose fathers have died. Then, hopefully, I’ll move on.

Thanks for being my witnesses and my friends.

See you tomorrow.

• Because of this http://bit.ly/TAvNX from @Judd_of_Kryos, @rdonoghue and a bunch of others, for the first time I want a Monster Manual. #
• I'm watching the Gene Kelly-Van Heflin version of The Three Musketeers. Gene better not start singing and dancing, that's all I'm sayin'. #
• Hey! Canon Puncture ep 71 is up… http://bit.ly/14xs93 #
• @pdrussel – The park fight was cool due to Gene's choreography – now I understand good choreo is good, whether it's soft-shoe or fencing. in reply to pdrussel #
• @Highmoon … No. in reply to Highmoon #
• I am done now. #
• It gets better, they say. If it ain't better, it ain't over. Okay then. Meanwhile, I will build a Lincoln Log fort with WildLion. #
• Lincoln Logs with WildLion = better. Yep. #
• John's Background Switcher http://bit.ly/13WtI + @jrblackwell 's Flickr feed also = better. Yep. #
• What if you had a 17th-Century world of pirates, swashbucklers, and musketeers, and then it is invaded by a spacefaring empire? Just Sayin'. #
• Okay, I suspect i'm missing something – are a bunch of you turning your profile pics green in honor of Iran, and I overlooked the memo? #
• @Highmoon don't worry it's not for S7S. It's true the idea came up via my prep work for S7S, but no space invaders will appear in our saga. in reply to Highmoon #

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Paul Tevis has created a story-game, and it is finally published and in several peoples’ hands, and I want to give him a big WOOT for getting it done.

A Penny For My Thoughts »paultevis.com.

This game’s official launch is an odd kind of moment for me. I’m planning to buy it as soon as I can get the scratch to do so, and I want to play it. Actually, it’s more that I NEED to play it. You see, I’ve long thought of this game as a dragon that I need to slay. Although I am pretty sure I don’t feel quite that way anymore, Paul’s game has nevertheless had an unmistakable effect on my roleplay over the past two years.

I shall elaborate…

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