Bad Superheroes - a lengthy undertaking

Alia Shawkat as my vision of Wysteria

June 13th, 6:15 AM... I sat in front of my computer as I do several mornings, while drinking my tea and eating my toast, and I began to write about a dream I had earlier that morning.

In the dream, young Humans With Abilities (HWA) are on the rise and there is general concern about knowing who has abilities and what those abilities are. It’s a natural concern that one can see would literally take place in a real world scenario of this nature. So there is a branch of the government created that tries to monitor these HWA and furthermore make determinations on which of these are of a quality that is potentially dangerous.

In my dream there was a “superhero” named Wysteria (I don’t know why), who wanted to make more of these young “superheroes” active. There was this committee within the above mentioned branch of the government that determined whom among the people with special abilities qualified as a hero and who didn’t. One woman within the committee said “these young people with abilities aren’t superheroes, they are special and therefore have special needs. These are young people with special needs.”

Awake, but with that dream very much on my mind I thought to myself... In a world of superheroes, they can't all have amazing talents. I like the idea of lesser talented humans with abilities forming a superhero team, where they need to rely on each other in order to get the job done.

Because of the dream I started to create this list of “bad superheroes”, heroes that weren’t particularly useful, but had the desire to do good and when paired up with other superheroes of a similar caliber could actually make a difference.

For example:

Earlier today I was walking and talking with Annie and she told me a story about a mega hop scotch game she was setting up for the kids to play at her summer camp. I hear Hop Scotch and I think... Hop Scott, a human named Scott with the special ability to hop like nobody's business, and loves to draw with chalk on pavement. Side note, he was born with an unusual speech impediment that makes his letter Ts, especially at the end of words, sound like the letters "tch" so when he introduces himself as Scott it sounds like Scotch... "I'm Scotch and I like to hop, some people call me Hop Scotch."

Occasionally I come up with only part of an idea, the name but no well defined skill set.

Al Fresco - (nickname - Al) Not sure which way to go with this one. Is he a superhero who’s kryptonite is the indoors? And then what are his super powers? Or does he have an alter ego whose name has something to do with being indoors (Hank Hermit). Or is he a superhero whose powers specifically relate to being outdoors? And then are his powers contingent upon the conditions of his outdoor surroundings?

Sometimes I even have golden nuggets of pure genius.... at least in my own mind.

Naomi Naive - Her superpower is that her belief in things that probably just aren’t true and couldn’t possibly happen seem to be true or to actually happen simply because she believes it’s true. Often these things seem to be just coincidental happenings and highly improbable things that occur, but have nothing to do with Naomi. Still she always seems to be present when they happen, so no one can prove that it wasn’t her belief that enabled the very thing to occur. Dr. Void - Believed to be only a rumor, no one has ever seen Dr. Void and most (perhaps all) superheroes just don’t believe he even exists. But Naomi Naive is a true believer and sure enough, whenever she brings up his name, “Don’t worry… Dr Void is coming, he’ll save us.” something always seems to happen that saves the day.

These of course are just a few examples of some of my superheroes, and I've also created non superhero characters and villains. I've even created a timeline that begins in the 1970's and is currently up to 2041. In my timeline all of our real presidents are presidents in this universe and our current president is not only elected a second time, but during his second term he changes our system of presidential term limits so he can remain president until he either dies or decides to no longer be president and he holds the office until 2029. I haven't decided if he's defeated or killed off yet.

The thing is, while this started off as a goofy joke.. I'm kind of getting into it and the jokes are becoming less frequent and this is turning into something that I'm personally finding quite interesting. I've got twenty two different characters, one that's actually two characters and another that's actually five characters... so you could say I have twenty seven characters. On top of that I have six other characters who exist in theory, but have yet to be named and defined. And as I've mentioned, my time line begins with "Three Mile Island" in the 1970's and runs through 2041 before my main set of characters... a team of gals I refer to as Girl Team Six (GTS), begin their lives as superheroes.

Now if only I had the skill to draw comic book superheroes I'd be all set.

Pizza 101... an idea in the making... of pizza

The meet up to buy ingredients

Recently a friend had asked me to teach him and his girlfriend how to make pizza. Of course I had to do this, not because he was a friend but because I love to teach people anything that I know how to do. I've professionally taught AutoCAD at Wentworth Institute of Technology between 1998 and 2005 and briefly between 2009 & 2010 at both Wentworth and Whittier Vocational High School.  For many years of my career I've held the position of being the guy who knows all of the answers about AutoCAD and how to use it to do (enter any task here) as it relates to what we did at the myriad companies where I've worked.

Prep work

Also during our run of owning a Tea House, I hosted many educational events around making and drinking tea. And of course I have several years of parenting under my belt which often includes teaching my children random things that I know. There's joy in this kind of work because it's not work... it's purposeful socializing and the reward is never the money that I might get paid but the look in a person's eye when they feel a moment of success or perhaps because they just took a bite of some food that they made and didn't believe they could, as was the case with my friend and his girlfriend.

The socializing during the making of and the eating of the pizza included a conversation about teaching people to make pizza. And I'm sure this sounds a bit conceded but I don't mean for it to, the thing is, I've yet to find a pizza at any pizza shop or restaurant that's as good as the pizza I make. And while that might sound conceded, I know in fact that its part and parcel to the success in the pizzas that I make.

More prep

See... I heard myself saying to my students "the most important ingredient in making any good food is confidence." And that was the first time I ever made such a statement. Now confidence alone doesn't make a good pizza, but without it you're relying on pure luck to give you the thing you desire and if you get that once in three times that you try, that would be pretty impressive. But knowing the end result will be great if you apply yourself at this moment will greatly increase the odds that every time you make a pizza it will be at least decent.

Of course I told them the second ingredient was love, or actually they told me because I really said, "Do you know what the second most important ingredient is?" and they all answered including my daughter who was standing by watching and the one thing I know I've taught her is that when I cook for her the first ingredient is always love.

Getting started

So back to teaching people how to make pizza... I think this could be a brilliant idea. I just don't know if there would be any takers. So if you're local to me, want to know how to make a great pizza, and are willing to pay for the ingredients (I'll take care of the confidence but you'll need to meet me half way on the love) let me know. I need to try this a couple of times before I can decide if it's worth making a greater effort to make it an actual thing.

By the way... no one ever taught me to make pizza... I learned through several years of trial and error. My first pizza was made for my girlfriend Sandra when I was 18 years old as a means to not only feed us, but to impress her. It was made with a Pillsbury dough, jarred sauce, pre-grated cheese and some pepperoni. I've come a long way... and you'd be a fool to not take me up on this. To quote one of my students from the other night... "Oh my god, how come this tastes so good?" I told her it was the love.

Unfortunately, we were so busy eating that pizza, we forgot to take pictures of the finished product. If the students share theirs I'll update. (UPDATE: These next five pictures are courtesy of Kyle's GF Erika.)




A little dough tossing



Finishing the margherita pizza



Building the veggie pizza, the organized part



Building the veggie pizza, the sloppy part



The finished margherita pizza



The Students

Assembling ingredients

Pizza 101 with Annie about 8 years ago

The Promise

Promises...

Pocket change in the penny jar of life. Invitations to hold yourself to a level of trust or faith beyond the human condition. Temptations from the Faustian beasties that chase us all throughout our lives. Daughter of commitment, cousin to secret, nemesis to gossip. Loathsome promise. Catalyst of myriad a woeful tale.

I consider myself a cynical man, but I wasn't always. As a lad I found comfort in the ever present arms of my parents, safety in the watchful eye of my lord, companionship with the boys of my village. As a young man I became learned through the guidance of my teachers and found love in my own heart when I promised it to my betrothed.

But as a learned man I discovered truths and developed beliefs that differed from those of my father. I came to believe that my lord was nothing more than a tale taught to those weak of mind. I tried to share this belief with my family, but debate was not as welcome at home as it was in the hallways and auditoriums of my Alma mater.

Thrown to the wolves for my transgressions, I made plea to the families of my village chums for nourishment, but their sons made more than quarrel and left me broken and bruised and alone beyond our village walls.

Rage ran hot through my blood and poisoned my mind with resentment towards my teachers for their twisted truths that tore me from the bosom of all I had known as comfort, safety and companionship. But surely my lover would not fail me. She with whom I made commitment of my companionship. She would welcome the secrets of my knowledge. For I had made promise to share with her the comforts of my hearth, my bed, my kettle and my home.

Alas, bad news travels faster than a man with no horse. I spent too many days in search of a master to serve and too many cold nights without food or drink. Weak and disheveled, I had but a cup to fill with water from unsavory sources and with which I employed many a darkened doorway with outreached hand, reduced to beggar. Finally I arrived at the gilded entry to my lover's family home, but she did not recognize the man who stood before her, only the name she swore to her father that I must have stolen for I was not the man with whom she made promise.

Now wet, cold, unshaven, mud in my beard, cup in hand, in beggars clothes, all my promises broken at my feet and all my dreams beside them. I made one final promise and only to myself, to never put trust or faith in another again. Twenty-five years on and I am master of all that I see and nothing at all. I have two cups now, one for drink and one for tokens. But I stand here before you my dear, knowing your story parallels my own, that you too are broken. I see the mud in your hair and the missing tooth in your far too infrequent smile and break my own promise to myself as I offer you my second cup, this empty doorway and this torn blanket in exchange for the comfort of your arms, for you are the love I have waited for all of my days.