Excitement’s a word that describes my mood the last few months. The reason, a couple of things have happened in the past year that has made this season, as I move into 2017, thrilling. I’ve reached a goal that I set at the end of last year. I’ll share that with you at the end of this post. Now let’s dive into what’s going to happen with my blog in the new year.
As my writing journey continues, I’ve decided to keep my bigger writing projects separate from the Deadwood Writers Voices. I know at the end of last month’s blog I said that the first chapter of Hot Turns, the sequel to Hot Blacktop, was scheduled to drop in January, but I’ve decided to keep that to myself until finishing the novel. With the monthly blog post, I want to be able to bring something fresh every month to my readers, and I’ve chosen to write new meet-cutes. If you recall, I did a blog post in April 2015 called Undressed where I defined, before the story started, a meet-cute. It will be interesting to see if I use any of these new characters’ first meetings in any of the new work. You never know.
Now, the major news! I am so excited to present…
Hot Blacktop
The only thing Sienna Appleton’s good at is making jewelry and being a loyal best friend, it’s not making her love life work when she knows she’s unlovable. Case in point, her most recent relationship disaster, finding her current boyfriend doing the mattress mambo with another woman. To get her out of her never- ending bad mood, her best friend demands a girl’s night out.
Focused on Paulson Speedway’s continued success, Stewart ‘Saint’ Paulson doesn’t have time to deal with a relationship he doesn’t even think he deserves. That is until he’s forced to dance with a tall, leggy blond that looks more likely to throw up on him than continue dancing. But after only a night of being with her, he’s convinced she’s the woman he’ll spend the rest of his life with, but only if he can convince her that she’s worth loving. The only problem is, trouble from Sienna’s past comes calling reminding her why she’s no good for him.
Will Sienna let Saint lead her into a better future or will her past tear them apart?
You can pre-order Hot Blacktop now for only $.99, on:
Westminster Church serves and delivers turkey dinners to the hungry. On Thanksgiving morning, Detroit police, mostly older and maybe even retired, load large quantities of food into the trunks of their police cruisers. Beyond the curbside cars, two lines form–one to eat and one to serve. I join the serving line and notice a hunger for reading served with two Little Free Libraries by the sidewalk. Inside the church, orange table clothes, festive center pieces and individual Thanksgiving cards drawn by children adorn tables decorated for today.
My Just Deserts
Volunteers are directed to the kitchen, meal delivery or wait staff. My son and I are assigned to packaging desserts and must wear plastic trash bag-like aprons. We stand in the doorway to the unheated dessert room and inhale the scents of the season–cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and chocolate. This room houses thousands of single-serving Styrofoam containers stacked on trays in carts towering from floor to ceiling and front to back–more Styrofoam than I’ve ever seen in one place. Our work today is the culmination of days of preparation.
Is There an APP for This?
Our first orders are for quantities of 218, 63, 42, 28, several threes and several twos. Notes taped to each cart indicate the quantity–196 on this one and 360 on another with some trays already removed or partially emptied. We multiply and find a standard thirty-six per tray. Several pre-packed boxes bare labels for fifty-four, eighteen and then varying amounts of whatever number fit into whatever random box was available. We pack eight desserts in plastic bags and combine boxes with bags to fill the orders. Who knew there would be so much math? Then, we lose track of our count and have to start over. On holiday, our brains weren’t caffeinated enough for mental work. We resort to staging our orders–gather the quantity, pack the nearest cardboard box and label before we forget. It would be terrible to short change an order and accidentally leave out dessert.
An Accidental Milkshake
During our shift, we witness many dinners served–most bundled for delivery to the homebound. We are a tiny piece of a big operation at Westminster Church of Detroit. On our way home, we pass several open restaurants before deciding to stop for a hamburger. This is the coincidence, KARMA or “one good turn deserves another” part of the story. As our order is bagged, an employee sets a milkshake next to the tray and says it was made by mistake. “Do you want it?” My son and I–who spent the entire morning surrounded by desserts–realize we forgot to order dessert. The accidental milkshake feels much bigger than an accidental dessert and more symbolic of “just deserts.” My son rolls his eyes at my speculations and changes the topic. It is all connected. We find cause in coincidence, correlation in chaos and hope in desperation. When hungry and tired, as many are, accidental is welcome, and charitable is divine.
In 1958, Richard Loving drove his fiancé Mildred Jeter from their home in rural Central Point, Virginia to Washington, D.C. to get married. Then they returned to Virginia to live. A few weeks later, the county sheriff arrived in the middle of the night to arrest the couple for breaking the miscegenation laws.
Miscegenation, which is marriage or cohabitation between two people from different racial groups, was illegal in 24 states in 1958. Richard was white and Mildred was black. They were jailed even though Mildred was pregnant at the time. When brought to trial, they were given the option of spending one to five years in jail or accepting banishment from the state of Virginia for 25 years. They weren’t allowed to be in Virginia at the same time for the entire length of the banishment. They pled guilty and opted to leave for Washington, D.C. But when it was time for Mildred to have her baby, she returned to Virginia to be near her family for the delivery. Although it was illegal, Richard also returned with her.
Caught together in Virginia, they were arrested. The Lovings pled guilty to miscegenation and again were forced to leave town. They moved back to Washington, D.C. where they lived for several years and had two more children. But in 1963, Mildred wanting to return to Virginia, wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy telling him of their situation. The soft-spoken couple was referred to the ACLU which led to Virginia court cases and appeals to decriminalize interracial marriage.
On March 18, 1966, the love story, not the court case, of Richard and Mildred Loving was depicted in Life Magazine in a photo essay titled, “The Crime of Being Married.”
After losing in Virginia, their case was brought before the United States Supreme Court. The couple opted not to attend the proceedings.
On April 10, 1967, their attorney, Bernard S. Cohen, presented the case to the Supreme Court adding Richard Loving’s statement, “Tell the judge that I love my wife.”
At that time there were still 16 states, all in the southeast quadrant of the United States, which prohibited marriage between a black person and a white person.
On June 12, 1967, the Court unanimously ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute violated the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warren’s opinion held that “Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man fundamental to our very existence and survival.” This landmark case permanently changed the history of the United States. Now marriage between members of any ethnic group can no longer be prohibited.
In spite of the vitriol over a 2013 Cheerios commercial depicting an interracial couple and their adorable biracial daughter, 87% of Americans approve of interracial marriages. Only 4% approved in 1958.
https://youtu.be/pbWeH9cztHw
Demographer, William Frey of the Brookings Institution said, “We’re becoming much more of an integrated, multiracial society.”
The documentary, “Loving Story,” depicting the lives of the Loving family, won the WGA Screenplay Award AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs in 2011. Now the highly rated, poignant film, “Loving,” brings their love story to the big screen. The film recreated some of the scenes pictured in the Life Magazine article.
I give thanks to Richard and Mildred Loving for fighting so hard for their right to live as a married couple in their home state. Their selfless act changed our country in numerous ways and made it legal for me to enjoy the life I do with the man I love.
I’ve played dozens of different video games in my lifetime and have come to count hundreds of different characters as endearing. But there are also a handful that particularly stand out and whom I count as the most memorable. What follows is my list of the top ten characters who make me smile or laugh whenever they come to mind.
10) The Meeps (Quest for Glory)
Of the many quirky characters present in the first Quest for Glory game, these furry subterranean creatures are, in my opinion, the funniest. The player needs only to obtain a patch of green fur from them for a potion, but the game designers threw in a red herring on how to get the fur. The player has the option to try and attack them. But any attempt to do so bears a striking resemblance to a poorly-played game of Whack-A-Mole.
9) Kinzie Kensington (Saints Row 3 and 4; Saints Row: Gat out of Hell) – (spoiler alert) Saints Row is a franchise revolving around a street gang that started off serious, but each new installment has since gotten more silly and over-the-top in a good way. I never played the first two games and am not even sure what drew me to the third one. But it is a series I have grown to love due to its many colorful characters. The one I found the most quirky — at least until the fourth game was released — was paranoid cyberhacker Kinzie Kensington. Of all the characters in Saints Row 3, I find her the most eccentric and interesting. What makes her stand out the most is her dual personality. At times, she comes off sweet and someone you just want to give a hug. And on the other hand, she is feisty and has one wicked mean streak. For instance, after Kinzie delivers a vicious beating to one of the antagonists in the fourth game, she rolls off him, adopts a serene Indian-style pose, and in a bubbly tone tells her friends, “I’m done.”
8) Special Agent Tanya Adams (Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2)
What I really enjoy about the Red Alert series is it takes place in an alternate history where Hitler was assassinated, the Holocaust never happened, and Soviet Russia became a more dangerous force to be reckoned with. What I love even more is the spunky female commando Tanya Adams (portrayed in the second game’s cinematics by actress Kari Wuhrer) who acts as a frontrunner and one-woman army against Soviet soldiers. She adds a unique energy to the roleplaying strategy game, and her gleeful battle cry of “Yeah, baby!” when she prepares to take out enemy infantry or take down nuclear silos is one of the main reasons I adore this game as much as I do.
7) Simon the Killer Ewok (Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds) – (spoiler alert)
Cheat codes have been included in video games ever since the early days in the seventies and eighties, and serve as a way to win with minimal effort. But I don’t know of very many games that feature a character who is only generated through use of a cheat code. Pressing enter and typing “SimonSays” in the game, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds will give the player control of a single Ewok called Simon who can decimate any enemy army, soldiers and vehicles alike, all by himself. Call me crazy, but the majority of my time playing this game was spent delightedly watching Simon go to town against Imperial or Rebel forces.
Clockwise from top left – the Meeps, Paul, John Smethells, Yes Man (photo credits at end)
6) Conrad Verner (the Mass Effect trilogy)
Behind every great hero is a wannabe who strives to live up to the hero’s ideals. I’ve seen that formula used in countless stories, but the Mass Effect series puts an interesting spin on it by giving the wannabe delusions of grandeur. Conrad Verner’s antics, ranging from asking for inclusion in an elitist military unit to unwittingly promoting a terrorist organization as the “good” guys, and Shepherd’s reactions to those antics get me chuckling every time. As with many of the characters in the trilogy, his survival at certain points throughout the three games hinges on choices made by the lead protagonist, Commander Shepherd. The sci-fi video game trilogy has tons of interesting characters to interact with, but there is something about lovable loser Conrad that adds an extra special element to the overall story.
5) Potato-Glados (Portal 2) – (spoiler alert)
The basic premise of the Portal games is that you’re playing as a character being used as a proverbial guinea pig in a science facility and made to solve logistical puzzles as you wander from one testing chamber to the next. And all the while, an insane artificial intelligence (A.I.) is monitoring and trying to dictate your every move. Through all of the first game and half of the second one, that A.I. is Glados, until another A.I. called Wheatley conspires to take her place as the governing source of the facility. Though Wheatley turns evil once he has ultimate power in his grasp, he still turns the tables on Glados in a very amusing way – by attaching her CPU and voice modulator to a common potato. Potato Glados’ lack of mobility and desire to regain control causes her to team up with the protagonist she previously tried to kill. What I find most hysterical about Portal 2 is that you literally have a root vegetable as an ally for half of the game.
4) John Smethells, the “omniscient” steward (Titanic: Adventure out of Time)
I’ve seen many games offer a tutorial to give the player a sense of what buttons to use. But the way the period-piece mystery game, Titanic: Adventure out of Time, presents it is very comical. Minutes into the game, your protagonist is greeted by a steward named John Smethells inside a nicely rendered replica of one of the ship’s deluxe rooms. Answering yes to his question on whether you need help finding your way around causes him to break character and start talking about which buttons on the keyboard are needed to move, interact with other characters, or pick up important objects. What further shatters the immersive experience is he also gives you instructions on how to register the game online. The fact that all this info about computers and the Internet comes from a guy dressed like a 1912 ship steward couldn’t be more hysterical.
3) Yes Man (Fallout: New Vegas)
Of the four characters to ally with when it comes to seizing control of the casino strip in Fallout: New Vegas, Yes Man is by far my favorite. Though he is a dangerous robot called a Securitron who has been reprogrammed by the duplicitous casino kingpin Benny to stage a coup, Yes Man’s allegiance is prone to shift to anyone who interacts with him. As Yes Man cheerfully puts it when first met by the main protagonist, “I was programmed to be helpful and answer any questions I was asked. I guess no one bothered to restrict who I answer questions for. That was probably pretty dumb, huh?” The fact that he’s stuck with a permanent smiley face and sounds so cheery even when he says something particularly dark really cracks me up.
2) Muggy (Fallout: New Vegas – Old World Blues)
When the player ventures to an area called Big Mountain in the Old World Blues expansion pack, he or she find the main hub of a science facility at its core houses a number of everyday appliances given artificial intelligence and unique personalities. While other A.I.s in the hub, such as the toaster or jukebox, are entertaining, the mobile obsessive-compulsive little robot called Muggy steals the show. Like Yes Man, Muggy is a Securitron, but is much smaller than any other one found in the game. In addition to his small stature, Muggy has a permanent cartoonish teacup displayed on his face monitor. He was deliberately programmed to be obsessed with cleaning the ceramic cups and occasionally curses the scientist who made him this way. Much as he might hate his compulsion, he is doomed to drone on and on about it. Best quote: “Mugs, Mugs, Mugs. Mugs, Mugs. Mug-a-mug. Mug-a-mug. Mugs! God, why can’t I stop singing this f***ing song?!”
Last but not least, here is my all-time favorite quirkiest video game character:
1) Paul (Saints Row 4)
Much of the plot for Saints Row 4 entails the systematic destruction of a virtual world built to enslave humanity. This task falls into the hands of the leader of a street gang. Step one: the leader must rescue his or her teammates from each one’s individual simulated hell. Of all the virtual “nightmares” encountered, the one built for Pierce Washington takes the cake. This particular simulation kicks off with a battle against human-sized energy drinks – or rather humans dressed up as purple aluminum cans. And just when you think it can’t get any crazier, in comes Paul, a gargantuan soda can that roars and has the ability to shoot laser beams from his eyes… It’s hard to find the words to do this character or battle justice, so here is a YouTube video of that, courtesy of one of my favorite gamers out there, RadBrad.
If you enjoyed this list, feel free to leave a comment below. And be sure to tune in next month for “My Top Ten Favorite Badass Video Game Characters.”
