Response to a screwball comment...

I normally do not comment on entertainment news stories in the comment section online, but I was compelled to do so today. I am a fan of Doctor who and the 3 spin off shows (Torchwood, The Sara Jane Adventures, and K-9) and I was reading an entertainment news article about the upcoming season of The Sara Jane Adventures.

I am came across a rather disturbing homophobic comment about the man (Russell T Davies) who brought back the Doctor Who TV Show and started the Torchwood and The Sara Jane Adventures. The person seemed to me to be unnecessarily hateful to an actress who smoked pot when she was younger and to Russell T Davies for being gay and his "destroying" of the shows he created and brought back. This person obviously watches them, and likes them enough to read entertainment news articles about them (the shows.) I just don't understand what is wrong with this person. He (i believe the poster is male) posted a comment to a news article about the new season having an episode starring Katy Manning, an alumnus of the old Doctor Who TV Show, reprising her role as Jo Grant, some 30+ years later, and Russell T Davies writing the episode. I've reprinted it here:

"Katy Manning is way past her best and is it really wise to introduce the SJA's child audience considering she is a self-confessed dope smoker? ESPECIALLY during her time as Jo Grant.

Go away Russell T.

Ok, you revived the series and we thank you but do us all a favour now and stay away.

Oh, and keep your grubby hands off Matt; you destroyed the new Series 1 -4 with your constant references to homosexuality. Keep your private life private"

I am probably making to big a deal about this and giving this person another forum for their hate and judgemental attitude. I guess I am writing about it to try and understand better why this person found their comments helpful, salient, or necessary. If anyone can help me see this in a different light, please, feel free.

My response was:

"Oh great! Comments from the lifestyle police? Get a grip. If you ran off every writer or actor that smoked dope or is realistic about the simple truth that homosexuality is a normal part of life, you wouldn't have anyone with any talent to be in the series or write the episodes. Do the rest of us a favor and stop being scared or threatened by other people living life the way they are, and live yours quietly and away from creative television programming. We all interact 'without harm' with people who have smoked dope and/or who are homosexual every day with and without knowing it. Both are victimless situations that you have decided to make an issue out of when there is no issue at all."

I hope I am not being self righteous by reprinting all this and writing about it, but it just keeps bothering me.

As always, thank you for reading this and putting up with my writing.

Yours Loquaciously,
D-Rail

Prologue: A Little Backstory


They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Who are they and why would they say such unprovable things? Because that is who they are and what they do. Let us just take the phrase as true for now, and blow holes in it later. This picture says that He, the man in black who isn't Johnny Cash, is young, a smoker, has friends (He is surrounded by others just off camera), is smiling (maybe he is happy), is unshaven, and has the patience to pose for a photo.

This young, friendly, happy, patient, smoker, who is not Johnny Cash, has not yet been married. He has not faced drug addiction and alcoholism. He is only vaguely aware he has problems with depression. In other words George W Bush has not yet taken the White House. This is pre 2000, when there was still a sense of goodness and hope in America. This is before planes became weapons of terrorists. This is before the 'Dark Ones' took control of the American dream and sold it to Haliburton. This is before the word ex-wife was frequent in his conversations. Finally, this is when 12 steps was merely a distance to walk, not a meeting topic for discussion and exploration.

Our 'Modern Man' whose rebirth you will read about here, had hope when this picture was taken. What went wrong that has given him the need to be reborn. Tune in next time for the beginning of the story.


Chapter 1: To Know A Man, Know His History...


In 1972, a blonde haired, blue eyed boy was born to an underage mother (14) and an 18 year old man. I don't know him, never met him, so I don't call him my faher. Sperm donor and poor pregnant girl will suffice. Other than the fact they were both children of Irish Catholic Immigrants, I know little else, and even this little tid bit I cannot prove.

This is the oral history I have been given and continue to pursue. This being all I was given, I choose to believe it as true. When I was 27, my adopted mother (the only mother I will ever want or need, truly a remarkable woman) gave me a letter, but we will get to that in a minute.

I have "always" known I was adopted. My parents lovingly told me from the minute they had me that I was special. They said that "they didn't just give birth to me, no they waited for and wanted me."

My mother was childless for several years into her marriage to my father. They tried countless times (work, work, work) and to no avail to conceive a child. Despite the desire they could not produce. I'm told endimetriosis was the culprit. So, these two eager "parents to be" living in Charleston, South Carolina, accepted the fact and registered with a Catholic adoption agency in hopes of being granted a yes and be blessed with a child.

Their prayers were answered in 1973, and a baby boy was added to the roles of the Family. No lie here, there is a very famous family I am related to on my Fathers Mothers side and my life is followed and printed about in this book, for the greater posterity; kind of cool and kind of creepy if you ask me.

Jerry and Lorraine, my Mother and Father, were given a child to call their very own and put on probation. Love this child and protect him, they were charged, and you may one day have him as your own. I was a prize to be had through meritous effort and something to be earned. Let me just say that this bit of knowledge can swell your head a bit. It has made me the ego-tastic man that I sometimes can be!

My parents named me Darrell Edward Collier and loved me as their own.

As to the protection part, well, somewhere between the delivery of their bundle of joy and the legal adoption I blackened my eye falling into the corner of the coffee table in the living room of our home. I must have cried like a baby (being a baby at the time seems to support this suggestion), but recovered with seemingly no permanent damage (except for the twitching and those pesky voices, blah-blah-blah take over the world blah-blah-blah do the dishes, anywho!)

To my parents horror, they were to present me before a judge and give a status report as to my well being, leading up to finalizing the adoption.

As my Mother tells it, there I was a healthy, happy, laughing baby boy on the judges bench, with the grandaddy of all shiners. My two parents to be nervously smiling up at his honor and the baby boy, felt a bit unsettled at asking for permanent custody.

I got lucky and the judge said yes. I wonder now at those sleepless nights my parents must have spent, wondering if the judge would have seen my black eye as abuse or neglect. Like my Mother says, I'm special, translation for our dear readers, trouble from the start. I blackened my own eye and made my prospective parents sweat. This is a trend I am noticing in my life when it comes to me and the people I love, a whole lot of nervous sweat!

I was given to them at thirteen months and this is something I didn't know until I was 27. Like I said my mother gave me a letter at 27. Why then? What prompted her to divulge this information? I honestly can say I don't know. Until now I haven't even thought to ask (note to self add this question to tomorrows to do list.)

A Not So Strange Time To Start Writing...

Well, at least not for me. I awoke this morning at 5:00 Am and started writing. It seems I'm bringing my alter ego Eddie out of mothballs once again. I have no Idea where it's going, but for now it's going good.

Today I'm headed to Biloxi, MS to gamble. It's my day off after working 25 hours in the last three days. I'm tired and my feet hurt, but the promise of alcohol and green felt has got me smiling and in a good mood. Wish me luck though, I'm going to need it.

A great book with better sequels

Years ago, a friend of mine gave me a book. His eyes burned with excitement and his hands trembled a little. "You must read this book, it is the greatest book I have ever read" he said almost out of breath. Now, whether the book affected him this greatly in truth, or it was his hypoglycemia acting up, I will never know. The outward signs of enthusiasm with which I was given the book coloured my reading of it and the book did not disappoint.
The name of the book is "Heroes Die" by Matthew Woodring Stover and the story, aside from being different than any I've ever read, contained more truth about the human condition than I have ever experienced collected in one place.
The one truth shining through others has gotten me to "that other shore" in many a seemingly hopeless situation. When something seems overwhelming, and there is no hope for victory or survival, just put your head down and inch toward daylight. You will either get there or you won't, but at least you will be doing something to stay alive.
Once you face the present storm, and see it through, I would say that is where the hard part begins. The hard part to me is the living in between the storms. Adversity doesn't scare me. In reality, it calms and focuses my will, but I grow tired of creating giant storms to give me purpose and feel alive.
I need that new and other truth to see me well amidst the lulls. What that is I am searching for now. I suspect it is wrapped up somehow in abiding love of some sort and creating things anew each day from inside.
Now, I could just be full of shit and complaining, because I only feel alive standing starkly against the rubble of what was moments before my life. I've been complicit in this occurence repeatedly. I'm changing my path and focus now. I'm goping to concentrate on living well versus survival through turmoil. It's something I can drink too, and I hope, you will also.

And a Story Idea Falls from Heaven

The working title is "Southern Fried" and it has come fully formed straight from my subconcious. Now I just need to fully realize it on paper.

I prefer writing by hand for the rough draft of any story. I get into a rythym with a pen and paper that seems more human than typing.

Don't get me wrong, I love the editing capabilities of a computer, but I started with pen and paper. I feel more connected to the process of writing than I do to the action of typing.

So, nothing to it, but to do it...

How can a song make it feel like fall?

One of the bands that defined my high school music experience was that wonderful band from Reading called The Sundays. So, I'm working on the computer and trying to figure out what I want to listen to (insert kid in candy store who can never recall what they sell) and I stumble from MC Frontalot to Mike Doughty (of that also wonderful band Soul Coughing) and fall upon the Sundays.

All of a sudden there are chills running down my spine and the goosepimples are marching up my extremities. I am 16 again and it feels like Fall. A beautiful melancholy overwhelms me and I sit there with a wistful smile on my face...

Just wanted to save the moment.