Indeed today is my birth day.

I’ve spent over 4 decades soaked in popular culture across every single medium: as such I would like to thank some of the special creators and wonderful things that enriched my life and probably made me too quirky to sit with at lunch in high school.

My deep and endless thanks go to…

Forrest J Ackerman, Roger Corman, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Stephen King, Lon Chaney, Mad Magazine, Ian Fleming and James Bond, Zorro, The Shadow, quicksand, The Batman, Bugs Bunny, Frank Sinatra, The Invisible Man, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, Quantum Leap, The Muppet Show, The Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man, Thriller, Ray Harryhausen, Wonder Woman and Lynda Carter, Carol Burnett, Edgar Allan Poe, Harry Houdini, The A-Team, SETI, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Jerry Lewis, Back to The Future, arcades and pinball machines (especially Indiana Jones!), Carl Sagan, The Lone Ranger, Knight Rider, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Richard Matheson, Flash Gordon, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Doctor Who, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Scooby-Doo, The Outer Limits, Invaders from Mars, secret passages triggered by pulling a dummy book, The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, James Dean, Mork and Mindy, Jules Verne, freak shows at the circus, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dean Koontz, The Iron Giant, The Rolling Stones, Alfred Hitchcock, The Three Investigators, Elvis, Errol Flynn, Ray Bradbury, NASA, David Copperfield, X-Men, The Six Million Dollar Man, Sean “Bond” Connery, Darth Vader and R2-D2, funhouses and haunted houses, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen, (the Dukes of Hazzard & the Fall Guy), Sue Grafton, Batman 66, death traps, Chuck D and Public Enemy, Super Friends, Fonzi, Spider-Man 67, Souls of Mischief, C.S. Lewis, Freddy Krueger, The Hardy Boys, Michael Jackson, The Black Museum, Orson Welles, Transformers, G.I. Joe, The Amazing Kreskin, X-Files, Bruce Springsteen, Rocket Robin Hood, Aliens, Defenders of the Earth, The Simpsons, Gilligan’s Island, Star Trek, Terminator, zombies and Halloween (the night…the movies less so.).

I have lived an astonishing life: I’ve travelled in time, saved the universe on numerous occasions, been to planets beyond our star system and encountered aliens: some friendly, many hostile…occasionally some are green and horny.

I’ve guarded secrets, foiled schemes, solved mysteries and seen more than my share of dead bodies. I’ve lost friends: good solid men and stoic women; not many of them have come back.

I don’t fear death and risks no longer intimidate me.

I know no matter how bad it gets; no matter how much darkness threatens me, no matter how big the monster is…no matter how outrageous the odds are…I know…I know…I know there is always a way and that’ll it work out. After I’ve been knocked down I don’t get up as quickly as I did in my youth but dammit I still get up. I have an obligation: I didn’t just hang out with these creators and these superheroes to just surrender the present and allow the triumph of catastrophe!

“I’ve watched my wild youth

Disappear in front of my eyes

Moments of magic and wonder

It seems so hard to find

Is it ever coming back again?

Is it ever coming back again?

Take me back to the feeling when

Everything was left to find…”

It has been and continues to be A Wonderful Life with so many Wonder Years. And as long as there are stars to maps and planets to catalog it’s irritating to live with gravity and all that keeps us down.

Now: where the cake at?

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My weekly collection of new and notable books for your pop culture pleasure and edification: #ReadMoreTweetLess.

Is this good?
Will this be good?
Every movie trailer answers or challenges those 2 questions. The ham-fisted rebuttal comes swiftly, however: no you don’t need to always see a movie to know it’s tank.

Do you really need to sit through a Michael Bay Transformers movie to know for sure? Tank is Tank. And Fresh…well Fresh is always Fresh. I’m down like I’m Brown for that.

All the inspirational fodder we blithely post and share to deeply support and encourage others for the common stressful and successful moments that make up our fantastic Western lives like going in for a job interview; having recently published a novel celebrations or attempting to plant nuclear bombs on a gigantic asteroid hurtling toward Earth:

Getting thoroughly slagged in the office for hating Bill Joel.

Confession: I like to read. Thankfully my subway is often delayed so I’m never on time for anything but I am well read when I finally get there.

Since 2011 I’ve been using a google spreadsheet to Fitbit my reading. (It’s one of those weird things where somebody’ll ask for a book recommendation and my brain goes I dunno. Real helpful…as such I started to write it all down.)

Starting in 2011 I’ve used my birth date (September 28) as Day 1 and I read for the year up to the day before (September 27).

I tend to knock out about 80 books in a year (plus a buttload of comics…about 400 or so single monthly issues and roughly 100 trades/graphic novels for the year).

This year I’m under slightly: at 76 books. (September 27 is Friday…I won’t start a new book; rest up instead since I just concluded 2 books today).

Which means since September 28, 2011 I’ve read a grand total of 518 books.

(Sports biographies, Stephen King novels, start-up memoirs, poetry collections and lots more.)

I don’t say this to be impressive; you know me well enough we’re way past trailers and first date manners. I’m cool with who I am; hopefully you are as well.

I share it because I often see people express the desire to read more. And what I’ve learned is that like everything else in life when I paid attention to something it improved.

If you wanna lose weight you hafta keep getting on the scale. I was startled that something as simple as pay attention would dramatically increase the amount of books I’d read. It worked so…I pass that on to those who long to read more.

Figure out what works for you…GoodReads, google spreadsheet, note thingie app on your phone…and go nuts: write it all down; track it like a focused hunter and in no time you’ll be devouring books whole like a python.

There’s so many incredible and astonishing books out there impatiently waiting to make your life better…to inject wonder into your imagination and to startle your set theories while refreshing your outdated facts.

It is a fantastic time to be an avid reader: especially if you pay attention.

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My Summer Lair Chapter #129: What If…Stan Lee Gave Us One More Amazing and Spectacular Universe Before He Passed Away?

Stan Lee transformed our lives and our pop culture by deftly asking What If…

What If…a bespectacled 15 year old nerd was bitten by a radioactive spider?

In one of his final projects?Lee passed away on November 12, 2018?Smiling Stan asks one more powerful What If…

What If…a budding YouTuber heads out on his boat when suddenly a storm appears and he’s struck by lightning and when he wakes up finds he’s become…cyberkinetic?

What If…Stan Lee created one more universe filled with aliens and characters who suddenly come in possession of superpowers. Lee’s final and fantastic universe is co-created with Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert while the first book A Trick of Light is co-written by Kat Rosenfield. (If you’re not familiar with Kat she is a most excellent writer…she writes for Playboy so yeah…I really do read the articles.)

A Trick of Light is the first installment in the Alliances series initially released on Audible (via Amazon Studios) as an audio book. If you listened to that you would have heard a friendly and familiar voice reciting this opening narration:

“Welcome, true believers. This is Stan Lee! We’re about to embark on the exploration of a fantastic new universe, and the best part is that you are gonna create it with me. You may know me as a storyteller, but hey, on this journey, consider me your guide. I’ll provide the witty and wonderful words, and you’ll create the sights, sounds and adventures. All you need to take part is your brain! So take a listen, and think big. No—BIGGER. We’re making an epic!”

What began as an epic audio book became a…book…book. Like paper and everything. (If you decide to go with the hardcover edition it features exclusive content, including bonus chapters and an afterword by Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert. Plus excellent writing by Kat Rosenfield!)

So…check it out: A Trick of Light, the burgeoning Alliances universe, Kat’s supa dupa writing and of course…My Summer Lair interview with Kat Rosenfield.

Kat Rosenfield @ W • T • F

Host by Sammy Younan (Photography by Stephanie Cole)

Recorded: Friday September 27, 2019 at 6:30pm (EST)

My weekly collection of new and notable books for your pop culture pleasure and edification: #ReadMoreTweetLess.

So…

Just had a horrible thought.