5 Page Essay Detailing Why Tommy Wiseau shouldn’t direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

First off, being a person who has at least one friend who is a huge fan of Tommy Wiseau and enjoys the cult classic film The Room unironically, I am not consciously trying to degrade the man or his talents. This essay, which I’m doing as a response to another friend who jokingly suggested I do this when another friend posted an image suggesting Mr. Wiseau direct the film, is only a means to point out the that this, in my opinion as a GotG fan, both film, and comic books, would be a terrible combination. Once again this is my opinion. So, if you think Mr. Wiseau would be a great director for this film, comment below and I would love to discuss it with you.

“The Room is a drama that is also a comedy that is also an existential cry for help that is finally a testament to human endurance.” – Greg Sestero, The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made

So, I haven’t seen The Room, I’ve read the plot summary and watched The Disaster Artist, but being a person who doesn’t enjoy watching bad films on purpose, I have yet to see the film. I also haven’t seen Best F(r)iends, but I’m going to focus solely on Mr. Wiseau’s biggest success, The Room. I will also be focusing on the misconception that the Guardians of the Galaxy films are funny adventure joke fests instead of the humorous and beautifully crafted films that they are.

Here’s what some people think they’ll get if Tommy Wisaeu directs Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Another silly space adventure for kids that’s gimmicky and silly and weird. What we’d actually get is a poorly made smorgasbord of scenes that don’t make sense in a story or in real life. The Room is a movie that was meant to be a serious drama but was admittedly labeled a comedy when people started laughing at it, and that’s a movie with ordinary people. If we put Tommy Wiseau in space that would be an intricately terrible madhouse which would be the worst superhero movie ever made. That may be the movie you want, you may enjoy a Tommy Wisaue monstrosity for this film, but that’s not the film we need.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the best Marvel Cinematic Universe film because it was the least likely to exist. When I went to see The Avengers film in 2012 I saw all my favorite childhood characters come together in a film that nine-year-old me thought couldn’t happen, and those were the most popular Marvel characters. Never in my life did I think Guardians of the Galaxy would be made. Nobody knew who Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Groot, and Rocket were while Iron Man at least had a classic rock song, but not only did we get a great movie with true to the source material characters, we got a director who was actually a fan of the comic books in James Gunn.

Meanwhile, to my knowledge, Tommy Wiseau has shown interest in appearing in a Marvel Cinematic Universe and World of DC film as an actor, but never in any way that he wants to direct. So, if he were to do so this would probably be to appease fans and that would be Tommy Wiseau not working at his full potential. He had no interest, he is not a fan, and these characters deserve better.

I was crying at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as Yondu died. This is a movie with a scene where giant Pac-Man running into an ancient space god but was able to tell a story about family, feeling alone, and accepting people for who they are while forgiving them for who they’ve been. These are characters with a flourishing history in the comics that have depth and understanding that Mr. Wisaeu could not comprehend adequately.

Honestly, this is my roundabout way of saying I’m mad James Gunn was fired from directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Yes, he said terrible things about rape and pedophilia on twitter, horrendous things that weren’t funny and he said those things to shock people for no other reason than curiosity. He was a horrible person, but he had changed. He became a better person in those nine years while making the Guardians of the Galaxy films. He was fired by a company that definitely already knew about these tweets because he shared political opinions an Alt-Right group didn’t agree with. He didn’t delete the tweets and he didn’t apologize, but he had changed, we could see that we should’ve respected that.

“I was a tall, sandy-blond Northern California kid. Tommy, meanwhile, appeared to have been grown somewhere dark and moist.” – Greg Sestero, The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made

At least James Gunn has a history while Tommy Wiseau is a mysterious rich man that something terrible happened too. What happened? I do now know, I want to know? Where did he get the money to make The Room? Seriously, where is he from, how old is he, where did the money come from? We don’t know. Disney won’t hire a person they don’t know.

So, James Gunn was fired and Tommy Wiseau is a terrible choice. Who should direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 if they decide to still do the film? My first choice is Taika Waititi, being a big fan of the mixed reviewed, but financially successful, Thor: Ragnarok, but the Russo brothers, J.J. Abrams, and Garth Edwards could also do a great job. Even if they don’t do the third film I still hope Adam Warlock shows up in the MCU eventually.

In case you missed it here’s Gunn’s entire response to the jokes being brought up on Twitter. It’s worth seeing.

“Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo. As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor.

It’s not to say I’m better, but I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger.  My days saying something just because it’s shocking and trying to get a reaction are over.

In the past, I have apologized for humor of mine that hurt people. I truly felt sorry and meant every word of my apologies.

For the record, when I made these shocking jokes, I wasn’t living them out. I know this is a weird statement to make, and seems obvious, but, still, here I am, saying it.

Anyway, that’s the completely honest truth: I used to make a lot of offensive jokes. I don’t anymore. I don’t blame my past self for this, but I like myself more and feel like a more full human being and creator today.  Love you to you all.” – James Gunn on Twitter 2018.

Well, I wasn’t able to reach five pages, not that you can tell on here, but if I add more it would be ingenuine. So, I think I’ve made my point. Also, I know I spelled Tommy’s last name wrong, I didn’t care to fix it.

Sherlock Asperger

This is a paper I wrote for a Victorian Literature class last semester that I enjoyed writing and thought came out fairly well, granted it’s mostly me explaining random quotes from articles I found online that made my point better than I could. That point being that the classic detective Sherlock Holmes is closer to a character with Asperger’s than a sociopath as popularized by the hit BBC television show. Well that’s part of it, but it’s mostly about how the character is definitely on the spectrum.

An Essay: Sherlock Holmes Asperger Syndrome

When Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes in 1887, the author brought to life an eccentrically logical man that solves mysteries via his deductive worldview for years to come. Despite being a genius with his deductive skills, the great detective had some quirks that a devout reader of his adventures could not go without noticing; in fact, the first description of Sherlock Holmes’s odd personality, as told by young Stamford to John Watson, at the beginning of A Study in Scarlet, the first of many Sherlock Holmes stories, was, “Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.” The definition of queer at the time was strange or odd and Sherlock Holmes, despite being a confident deductive genius in most aspects of his stories Holmes was a strangely odd mess of a person in other aspects of his character. In The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson describes the contrast between his deductive mind and the way he lives as,

Although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind … [he] keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece … He had a horror of destroying documents … Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner.

People with Asperger Syndrome are also known to lack in the steady hygienic living ways of life and are prone to odd differences. This reason, among other reasons, including Holmes’s peculiarities in his habits, his inability or lack of desire, to understand certain social standards and bluntness of speech, his reason for deducing certain things, how Holmes gets bored when he loses interest, and that he is not a sociopath (which is the common other option for Sherlock Holmes). Therefore, the question of “Does Sherlock Holmes have Asperger Syndrome?” must be asked. To which the answer is yes, Sherlock Holmes is on the Autism Spectrum, with a case of Asperger Syndrome though at an undefinable extent.

The reason that the level of Asperger Syndrome is unable to be defined for Holmes not because he is a fiction, for fictional characters are diagnosed with a form of Asperger Syndrome all the time:  Mister Fantastic, Abed Nadir, Maurice Moss, Mr. Spock, etcetera. The reason is because Hans Asperger did not perform his research into the Autism spectrum until the 1940s with the publishing of Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood in 1944 and the modern DSM-5 test (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) did not get published until 2013. Since Sherlock Holmes is a character that has existed since 1887, the great detective of 221B Baker Street could not be defined by Asperger Syndrome and was instead thought to be simply an odd genius, but to look back at the character and his many adventures there is no doubt he had some form of ASD.

Other peculiar habits that are also symptoms of Asperger Syndrome, which were often pointed out by Watson or whichever character is oddly interested in Holmes depending on the story include a lack of cleanliness, as stated before, an inability to multitask, and in the way he would starve himself until he solved a case or found a crucial part, as Watson states in The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, “[Holmes] had no breakfast for himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him to presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from pure inanition.”

Maria Konnikova, a Sherlock Holmes expert, points out in an interview with D. J. Grothe that Holmes practices what is now called mindfulness, concentrating on one thing at a time, and almost never multitasks. She adds that in this he predates the science showing how helpful this is to the brain. As Holmes states in The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone “I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.”

Another odd thing for Holmes is how he would take certain mistrust to everyday facts because of the way he saw the world. This is possibly due to the fact that as a character with Asperger Syndrome he sees the world differently. People with Asperger Syndrome often have their own way of relating to the world, a special focus, or anchor, as some like to describe. Their autistic worldview in which they… view the world. In The Adventure of the Speckled Band in which Miss Helen Stoner’s twin sister Julia Stoner has died a baffling death, with an even more baffling final gasp, the enigmatic “Oh, my God! Helen! I was the band. The speckled band!” Everyone, including Helen, attributes this last gasp to delusional death-throes babbling, but Holmes has other ideas. Due to Holmes’s deductive skills, which is how he sees the world, he figures out that the victim meant a snake, which no one else could connect, because he sees the world through his deductive special focus.

For an example when Watson first meets Holmes, he perceives him thusly: “‘How are you?’ he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. ‘You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.’” Sherlock, based on the doctor’s appearance and attire alone, deduced where Watson had come from in seconds. Then Holmes continues to deduce the rest of the facts about Watson’s life: being a doctor, his injury, and needing lodging just as quickly. This shows Sherlock’s special focus in the first meeting. As Neil Gaiman describes in his own Holmes story The Case of Death and Honey in Trigger Warnings: Short Fictions and Disturbances when he describes Holmes’s worldview, “I loved the rationalism, the idea that an intelligent, observant person could take a handful of clues and build them up into the world.”

People that live with Asperger Syndrome must deal with being bored on an average basis. They have trouble being interested in anything outside their worldview. The weight of not finding anything interesting to do can be crippling to a person with ASD, and Holmes deals with that every time he does not have a case that he thinks is worth solving. Look at the beginning of almost every Sherlock Holmes story; there is always a scene where he states that he finds a case interesting or that he has been bored with the recent cases he has been working on, because they are too easy or just uninteresting cases to him. In Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the character, when stricken of Watson’s interesting companionship and stalled on his case with Professor Moriarty, he becomes so bored that when Watson visits him he is drinking embalming fluid.

A lot of fans of the Sherlock television show have grown to believe that Sherlock Holmes is a sociopath. This has been a boosted since the character literally said, “I’m not a psychopath, Anderson, I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research” in the first episode of the series “A Study in Pink.” Despite the success of the BBC drama, they got this part of the character wrong. Maria Konnikova, a certified Sherlock Holmes expert who literally wrote the book on the detective, that book being, has said,

I’d like to get something off my chest. It’s been bugging me for a very, very long time. Sherlock Holmes is not a sociopath. He is not even a “high-functioning sociopath,” as the otherwise truly excellent BBC Sherlock has styled him (I take the words straight from Benedict Cumberbatch’s mouth). There. I’ve said it. When Cumberbatch calls himself a sociopath, he is responding to a taunt from a police officer: Psychopath! “Do your research,” his Holmes urges. “Don’t call a person a psychopath when what he really is a sociopath… First of all, psychopaths and sociopaths are the exact same thing. There is no difference. Whatsoever. Psychopathy is the term used in modern clinical literature… In “The Sign of Four,” recall Holmes’s reaction to Mary Morstan: “I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met.” He does find her charming, then. But that’s not all he says. “But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things,” Holmes continues. Were Sherlock a psychopath, none of those statements would make any sense whatsoever. Not only would he fail to recognize both Mary’s charm and its potential emotional effect, but he wouldn’t be able to draw the distinction he does between cold reason and hot emotion… But the most compelling evidence is simply this. Sherlock Holmes is not a cold, calculating, self-gratifying machine. He cares for Watson. He cares for Mrs. Hudson… So let me say it one more time, just to get it out of my system: Sherlock Holmes is not any kind of sociopath. Not even close.

            As Maria Konnikova states, Sherlock Holmes is not a psychopath or sociopath, but that coldness and lack of empathy, or more likely understanding empathy or any emotion in a non-logical way, is a text-book worthy case of Asperger Syndrome.

Sherlock is often considered rude, like at the beginning of Hound of the Baskervilles when he corrects Watson, “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.” People with Asperger Syndrome are often mistaken for being rude but are just bluntly honest. Sherlock, to an extent, does not understand how people can see the world the same way he does and this bothers him or eludes his consciousness.

If the question were if Sherlock Holmes is a good representation of Asperger Syndrome the answer would be no. Though he is without a doubt on the Autistic Spectrum, narrowed down to Asperger Syndrome, he is a rare almost non-existent case. The stereotype that people with ASD are geniuses that has been perpetuated by pop culture films like Rain Man and The Accountant, could exist, but are unlikely. Having ASD does not make you a genius if anything the social disorder makes brings every social interaction the Aspie, as the modern colloquialism is used people with ASD, to question every joke, flirtation, and the, like, few Temple Grandin: Tim Burton, Dan Harmon, and the historically theorized Mozart, Andy Warhol, and Abraham Lincoln, who all grew to accept their social differences, like Sherlock Holmes and operate in modern society.

In conclusion, Sherlock Holmes has Asperger Syndrome, though to an undefinable extent and cannot be truly diagnosed with ASD due to existing before the discovery of the social disorder and being a fictional character. Holmes has odd quirks resulting from a different social understanding, like a person with ASD. Holmes has his very own unique deductive view of seeing the world, like people with ASD have their own special views of the world. Holmes is not a psychopath or a sociopath, and neither are people with ASD, though that is a common misconception. Though, Holmes is not a great example of a person with Asperger Syndrome in the sense that he is perpetuating the rare genius stereotype, he is in the Autistic Spectrum. Sherlock Holmes has Asperger Syndrome and, though high-functioning, deals with that in every story, every interaction, every case is his way of understanding the world and when he loses interest or is bored that leads him to making bad decisions with addiction and depression until another case comes along when things become interesting again. Though Sherlock Holmes has an interesting life with interesting stories, but ASD is hard. He is cynical and rude and sees the world in cases because he needs a way to relate to the world. That is why he has Watson because he is interesting too and his companionship helps him survive in a world of people who do not have Asperger Syndrome.

Journey Essay

Finding ChurchBy Kade Battles

In Alabama two things matter above all else, religion and sports. You could probably say that about all of the south, but I didn’t start in all of the south I started in Alabama. They worshipped both almost equally. In my optimistic perspective I would say they praised God a little more than their sports team, but sadly the football stadiums had better attendance than most churches. Growing up I had those two idols pre-decided for me, I was Baptist Christian and an Alabama fan. Then I was Methodist, then Presbyterian, then non-denominational, and maybe Jewish as far as I know, my parents never stayed at one church for too long. I do like Christianity, being a Christian, but I wish it didn’t have so many labels. Around the age of seven the rest of my family became Auburn fans, but I remained true to my Roll Tide heritage because of my Great Aunts, also my favorite color is red. I honestly hated football, but being in the family I was in I had to play a sport, so I could be a normal kid. I played basketball for six years, a good in-between sport, in one of my many attempts to be socially accepted. Later I realized my experiences in Church were also just me, and probably my parents, trying to be socially accepted instead of just worshipping God.   

 Strength is not a word I would use to describe my father蜉. I would use wise, clever, blunt, manipulative, loving, or even superfluous even though I’m not one hundred percent sure what that means. I don’t use the word strength because he doesn’t use strength like others. I remember one time in sixth grade he came in to watch me during basketball practice. I was just a towel boy for the varsity team at the time, but we stayed to help the older kids with their practices. Dad walked in while Coach Wise was making the team run suicides, also known as ladders to sound less offensive, but if you’ve ever run them you would feel like you’re killing yourself. The key to suicides is you run to the first line on the basketball court then back, then to the next line, and over and over again until you reach the other side of the court and back. Once you reach the other side of the court and come back you have completed one suicide. The team would commit at least ten Suicides a practice. 

Dad decided to boost the morale of the team and do the last set of Suicides with them, I watched as he ran and felt his pain. Up and down the court, panting like the out of shape English teacher that he was and kept running, where he got the energy I’ll never know. My appendix-less father with latent diabetes ran those suicides with sweat on his brow and ache in his everywhere else. He did this next to young fit boys that have done this a thousand times, and he kept up, for two out of ten, then vomited in the corner trash can. As we drove home Dad stopped at a church we were frequenting at the time and passed out. My sister and I ran inside to ask for help, thank God it wasn’t empty, then an ambulance came, then my Mom and we went to the hospital. Dad was fine in an hour, but they kept him in overnight. The moment he was conscious I went in that hospital room and he asked me if I was okay. Strength is not a word I associate with my Dad, but love is.

 I wonder if God lead us back to the Church that night, to let me, and my older sister who was in the car, that everything would be okay. Everything is in his mighty plan. That was a nice Church, but we left due to some argument the youth minister had with my parents a couple weeks later. That wasn’t the first church I went to and it will possibly not be the last. Honestly though I hate Church, or at least man’s church. Many times I have gone to the Lord’s temple in the search of a place to be a Christian only to find people trying to make me a Judge. Many pastors under the guise of saving the world will give you permission to judge sinners, judge terrorists, judge Muslims, judge Chinese, judge every other minority, judge gays, judge your friends, judge your family, and judge yourself because you’re a sinner too. If only it was another verb like help or care then I could believe in the Church again. I could go to Mt. View Baptist and sing the Hymns while I tried not to fall asleep in the pew and eat the buffet in the worship hall afterwards, but sadly I see the inside of those holy walls and they disgust me more than a thousand Holocausts. 

 Mt. View Baptist was my first Church and one note of its instability is that the pastor was different every week. One week brother Paul the next Pastor Steve, and on and on. My four Great Aunts Ruth, Francis, Sarah, and Shirley ran that Church like a German train schedule. The four Baptist nuns, especially Shirley, flowed through every aspect of the building. Other patrons would try to writhe their “good Christian” claws into it, but Shirley had a fresh pen and crowbar to pry them off and write down the minutes. Then she died and those claws tore through that building as if the Church was made of butter. The judges trampled on the place my caretaking Aunt devoted her life too.

 I remember May 21, 2010 like it was yesterday. My family was headed to our cousin Ashly’s graduation in the opposite direction when my Gran Gran called my Dad. While Dad was talking turned in and parked in a drive through of a nearby church. Despite my Mom’s dismissal, he got her to leave the car to tell the news. For seven minutes my Mom knew what I didn’t as she flailed and cried outside of the car. Then it began to rain, hard. My sisters next to me started crying, but I was fine I was used to death and I saw it on my Mother’s face; Aunt Ruth died. Ruth is the oldest and it was her time I understand that. I hate that I thought of this so calmly, but I accepted the fact. I watched the silent opera under the thunder and lightning as my Dad held my still flailing mother. Then our parents brought us out under the church drive through and they told us who died. Ruth McKerley is still alive today.    

 Before Shirley’s death my family and I would go to several other Churches two of which my Mother three of which my Mother worked at. I always kind of saw this as her trying to be Shirley. She was fired from all three. The first time because they wouldn’t pay for her maternity leave, the second because they wanted to hire a younger cheaper model, and the third because of a bipolar hell-wench pastor named Paula. I’ve blocked out the first two assholes that screwed over my Mom, but that Paula lady was a real cult leader kind of crazy. To this day female preachers scare me more than most serial killers or horror films.  

 A day hasn’t gone by when I don’t think of my Aunt Shirley and that day under the Church drive through in the rain. Of all the places to turn into it was a Church, I don’t know it it was Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Now I want you to know I love God, I just hate churches, but that Church was there and the day my Dad passed out the Presbyterian Church was there. Is this because of God, definitely, but it would be because of God anyway so… I think these incidents are because of irony. Fate twisted irony by God, the greatest comedian ever. 

 Honestly I’ve experienced practically every bad thing that could happen in a Church, from a friend killing themselves over the elder church members opinions to a youth minister being a sex offender. The last time I went to Mt. View after Shirley’s death everyone was upset because one of the teenage girls was dating a black boy, like we’re in the damn civil rights era. Some of the older patrons at that once decent place probably think the Civil War was still going on. Every time I go into a church I remember two scenes from the bible, when Jesus destroyed the temple and Samson tearing down the building on his enemies. Both men sacrificed themselves and decimated a building of ill-content. Jesus saw that these places weren’t the lord’s house anymore, and that’s how I feel when I go to church these days. I look at these “holy places” and want to pull them down from the pillars, maybe then they’ll understand.  

When Dad passed out there was a Church there. When Aunt Shirley died a Church was there. At least three times our car broke down and a Church was there. My best friend Thomas and I were talking in his car about death and funerals when we hydroplaned, unharmed, right next to a Church. So here I am a Christian theist hating Church, but I keep being brought back to the place. So am I subconsciously looking for Church or maybe Church is looking for me? Maybe Church isn’t something you can just find, but has to happen naturally. It’s like a spiritual adventure from church to church and pastor to pastor and denomination to denomination in search of a place on earth where I can finally love my neighbor like I’m supposed to. One day maybe I’ll find a place where I can praise God and be myself without judging others or worrying about being socially accepted. Hopefully that day is before I go to Heaven, until then I’ll just wait until Church finds me or I find Church.  

     

Three First Names and a Last

Three First Names and a Last

By Kade-Mica David Battles

Part One: Battles-born

People have always told Kade that he has an awesome last name: Battles, derived from the name Battersbee,蜉 the name his ancestors before they left the motherland and changed the name for a brand new American dream, or manifest destiny, or both. The name-envy of his peers confused Kade because when he was little,蜉 he thought violence was a bad thing. Kade believed these compliments would lead to violent encounters, drugs, gangs, bad grades, hell, and everything else Southern Baptists are taught to fear. Being tall didn’t help either because there’s nothing more awkward than being the tallest guy in first grade, especially the second time around. He did not get in fights though, at least not at school. Kade had the helpful hand of older cousins for his daily dose of rough housing. Nevertheless Kade loved his name, possibly more than anything else. His father, who had problems with his side of the family, would occasionally start the conversation, “How would you feel if we changed our names?”

 “I’m Kade-Mica Battles,” the lad said, speaking more words than he usually did all week.

 “I know,” his father solemnly acknowledged, driving down the road in one of the cars that started out as Just Mom’s then became the family vehicle. “I thought maybe we could change our last name to something like Warner or Smith, maybe?”

 “No,” Kade said, on the edge of tears. “I’m Kade.”

 Kade’s parents named him after the place they were married, Cade’s Cove in Tennessee. The place is named after an Indian Chief named Kade, but some official changed the name to Cade, to go with the C in Cove. Kade has always wished they would change the park’s name to the original spelling.

 His Dad half-frowned. “Wouldn’t it be really cool to pick your own last name?”

   “I’m Kade-Mica Battles,” Kade repeated. The “Mica” was technically biblical despite not having the “H” at the end. Later Mr. and Mrs. Battles had the gall to add David during Kade’s junior year of high school. 

 “There isn’t a single name you would rather have?” Mr. Battles asked.

 Kade frowned. “I like the one you gave me.”
Part Two: Champion of the Oppressed

 Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster grew up during the 1930s and the Great Depression. Kade grew up in the 1990s and 2000s during the Recession. Siegel and Shuster were Jewish and lived in the state of New York. Kade was raised Baptist in the modern state of Alabama. They created Superman in Action Comics number one蜉 while Kade exhaled and wrote a blog. His first encounter with the Man of Steel was at the age of five in a reprint of the Superman’s first appearance. Then his parents gave him the story of Superman’s demise at the hands of Doomsday蜉. Afterwards, Kade would abstain from Superman stories until he purchased the first volume of All-Star Superman. 

Kade loved comic books and illustrated panels of flying supermen and women for him to idealize and relate to. These would be his first real introduction to the written word, with clever stories about Spider-Man fighting the Sinister Six, Kyle Rayner being the last Green Lantern, Captain America defending more than just America, or Superman dying of cancer蜉. Where others saw children’s picture books, Kade saw Art in these monthly magazines, art made by people who put their souls into characters they might not even have created. When Kade read something like Scott Snyder’s Batman, he saw clever crime mysteries. Then Grant Morrison’s Batman and experiences over the top adventures. Then, there’s Neal Adams and Dennis O’Neil and Peter J. Tomasi and Judd Winnick and on and on all the way back to the creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger. There are so many different personalities, hopes, and dreams, but still Batman. If that isn’t Art, then Kade to this day is a blind idiot who wants to draw superheroes for the rest of his life.   

Kade would later grew from these stories into what others considered “real books” like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, then the stories of Mark Twain and Shakespeare, etcetera, etcetera. Kade read, wrote, and drew until his hands would cramp. Then he would watch TV. Meanwhile, Kade dealt with stuff like moving at least every two years, Asperger’s Syndrome, sisters, Val Kilmer’s Batman, and many other life issues. None of this bothered him though, Kade was either above or oblivious to all of his problems. As a kid he was too stubborn to read actual books for idiotic reasons like: books are boring or they don’t have pictures. Maybe Kade did this because he was tired of how his Parents, older Sister, classmates, and others would disrespect what he thought was Art.

Kade thought he could make a difference, like Superman, with his Art. Kade drew everything he could think of, from robots to wedding dresses. Sadly, after participating in Art Club, during his senior year of high school in Tennessee, Kade realized he enjoyed the creative writing class better. So, he stopped trying to be like Shuster (the artist) and decided to be Siegel (the writer).

 

Part Three: Four Old Women Live in his Head

 In his childhood, Kade didn’t form many friendships that lasted more than two years, at least not with people his own age or who were not related to him. Four of his friends were elderly women from Wellington, Alabama, who never married anyone except maybe God, being the Baptist equivalent of nuns. They were on his Mom’s side: Ruth, Frances, Sarah, and Shirley McKerley. His Great Aunts, the oldest at least sixty and youngest at least forty-five, were the only people he used full sentences with or filibusters concerning whatever cartoon or comic book he was interested in back then.

 Since his parents were always busy finishing college and working, and his older sister was, well, an older sister. His Dad worked at WALMART for thirteen years while his Mom had many an odd job ranging from Dollar Tree to hair salons. While his older sister was a child prodigy, she was also too mature and overprotective of her socially disordered little brother. His home or at least the most consistent one was that house in Wellington, Alabama. Not that Kade didn’t love his parents, he just had some extra ones.  

 Each helped form a significant part of Kade’s personality in those early years. Ruth was always curious, so Kade was curious. Francis was stubborn, so Kade was stubborn. Sarah was kind, so Kade was caring. Shirley was strict, so Kade was disciplined. Tragically, in 2010 Aunt Shirley died. Kade had experienced a death in his family before: his Grany, Grandpa Buddy, Granddad, Grandma, a cousin named Michael, a brother who died in a miscarriage. However, until May 21, 2010, Kade hadn’t lost part of his mind.   

Part Four: The Sky

 One annoying question that everyone asks, and which bothers Kade greatly, is, “What’s up?” In response, Kade says, “The Sky.” He says this honestly, like a blunt bloodied candlestick in the hands of Colonel Custard from the game of Clue, which is a strong example of Kade’s moral beliefs. He used to say “God” as the response, but that didn’t make sense to him or anyone else, so he changed it to “The Sky.” Like some religious ritual, Kade says “The Sky.” Honestly though. Thankfully the Sky is always up there, just like God. In Egypt, the goddess of the Sky is called Nut. Maybe because God’s crazy? He did make us mad, beautiful artists along with average accountants and baristas. Why?

 On September 15, 2003, the Battles family had a miraculous addition: a little sister. Kade was jealous at first because he wasn’t the baby anymore. The day she was born, Kade woke up early to an empty house, except for his still sleeping older sister. He ran through the house three times looking for his parents, only to be shocked to see his Paw Paw sleeping on the living room couch. His parents were already at the hospital. Paw Paw took his sister to school and Kade to the hospital. He was there when the little one came. Before he saw her, he sat in an empty hospital room surrounded by his four Aunts and grandparents. Shirley stood smiling calmly in the corner. Then the nurse brought the baby in. When Kade held this little replacement, he saw the insanely beautiful work of the Sky right in front of him. He was a big brother now.

  

Part Five: The Point, Maybe?

 Kade, or at least a speck of him, sees the world through upside down glasses. He looks through prescription lenses at an inverted place where everyone hates him. He knows no one actually hates him, because you have to really know someone to really hate him. Nevertheless, Kade looks at others and sees hatred toward him that usually isn’t there. Under that thin layer of hatred he sees friendship, love, comedy, tragedy, and all that other normal people stuff,like a thin layer of grey haze that showed through all the black and white of the world. Thankfully, Kade doesn’t have a hateful bone in his body, usually. 

 The boy known as Kade isn’t a pessimist. Quite the contrary, he believes in the world, in the monotheistic Christian God, in movies, in stories, and most of all in Faith. Faith is the only way Kade gets through the day, by a belief in what’s not there or can’t be proven by obvious means. The world is upside down, but Kade still believes it will turn tomorrow, and the next day. People will smile. Nazis will die. Babies will be born. Taxes will be filed accurately and on time. Kade just is himself in upside down glasses, an artist, four old women, a big brother, a writer, a champion of the oppressed, a little brother, the battles-born, and every other label you, or I, could add. To break third person for a moment, “I’m Kade.”