I had the most cross-pollinated dream

I dreamed two of the TV shows I enjoy, Orange Is the New Black and Mad Men, joined forces in one wacky TV plot. Orange Is the New Black is ostensibly a comedy set in a women’s prison. Mad Men is a drama focusing on an advertising agency in the ‘60s. They couldn’t be more different but they recently cross-pollinated on the astral plane of my mind for one scintillating episode in a late-night time slot.

The dream sequence starred Orange’s Vee and Mad Men’s Peggy Olson. Vee is a charismatic, cold-blooded drug dealer who organizes a drug ring on the inside. Peggy is a rising creative director who shows great promise in her career but whose personal life is a bit of a mess. In my dream, Vee was recruiting Peggy to sell drugs.

I have no idea what white-collar crime Peggy committed to end up in Litchfield Prison. Embezzlement from Sterling Cooper? Stabbing another boyfriend with a bayonet? She seemed pretty subservient to Vee and was trying her best to please her. Vee was berating Peggy for something she screwed up during the drug trade. I don’t know what happened but maybe the problem is that these women simply come from two different worlds — not to mention two different time periods, given the 50 years that separate the two shows.

In the dream, I could vividly hear Peggy’s thoughts as a voice-over: “I had a good job at the ad agency. Why did I give that up to sell drugs in prison?”

And those, my friends, are words to live by. Cut to ending credits.

Does Doctor Doom actually have a doctorate?

If you’re choking in a restaurant, the Marvel Universe is the place to do this since it has so many doctors. There’s Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, Doctor Octopus and so many others. But how many of these actually hold an advanced degree? Are some of these characters only claiming to have an MD or PhD just to confer an unearned status on themselves? The following will be an in-depth investigation.

Doctor Doom is a brilliant, evil scientist who rules the fictional nation of Latveria with an iron fist. He certainly did do advanced studies at State University with his mortal enemy, Reed Richards. (Perhaps in an effort to be modest, the incomparably intelligent Richards adopted the code name Mister Fantastic rather than Doctor Fantastic.) Victor Von Doom scarred his face in an attempt to rescue his sorceress mother from hell, and forever blamed Richards for the disfiguration. However, even though Doom had no doubt advanced very far in his studies, it is unclear whether his medical emergency and rehab from the scarring prevented him from collecting his doctorate.

The code name Doctor Strange may just seem like a Silver Age attempt for a character to look authoritative and mysterious but it does have some basis in fact. Stephen Strange was a promising neurosurgeon who was injured in a car accident and the resulting damage to his hand left him unable to perform surgery. Under the tutelage of the Ancient One, Strange became earth’s sorcerer supreme.

The longtime Spider-Man villain Doctor Octopus also has a bona fide medical background. Otto Octavius was a brilliant nuclear scientist who developed a technology of extra arms to allow him to work with harmful isotopes. An accident allowed him to mentally control the extra arms but drove him insane. Still, he must have considerable scientific knowledge, as Reed Richards turned to Doc Ock for help when his wife Sue was miscarrying her baby due to radiation related issues. The attempt failed and Sue did miscarry, although the child later came back to life in a development I really didn’t think was necessary.

Doc Samson has a psychiatry degree as well as super powers. Many superheroes in need of counseling have turned to him, most notably the Hulk (who could reeeeeally use some kind of psychological help, for the good of the world). On the other side of the psychological spectrum is Doctor Faustus, who used his knowledge of the mind for evil. He’s the guy who manipulated Peggy/Sharon Carter (I cannot keep track of who is who amid all the de-aging and resurrection) into shooting Captain America.

Doctor Druid is an Avenger we will never, ever see in the movies. He joined the team in the late ‘80s when it was in a bit of a lost period and nobody, readers or teammates, liked him. His powers mostly relate to Celtic magic. He did study medicine at Harvard, according to my Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition so he’s a doctor. He’s dead now.

I had the most inept dream

I dreamed we had just arrived at the shore house in Fenwick Island, only it was actually some kind of high school gym we were hanging out at. Only half the people were there and the other half, including Steve, were on their way and would meet us later. So Veronica and I sat at the bar in the gym and had a beer and waited.

I tried to call Steve and kept having problems with my phone. I got some kind of replacement phone made of foam and dialing entailed using my fingernail to press an indentation into the numbers that were carved in the foam. A British man answered Steve’s phone and when I asked when he’d be coming to the house, he said he’d come down tomorrow. “I know you like skin on skin,” he said.

Maybe, but not from him. I didn’t marry this guy and wasn’t sure why he answered my husband’s phone. I called the number again from a landline and the same person answered. I checked that I was calling the right number and was pretty sure but with cell phones, nobody knows anybody’s number by heart anymore, so I may have been wrong.

This is a recurring theme in my dreams: I keep trying to operate a piece of technology like a phone or remote and it just doesn’t work. I will be too inept to turn off the TV despite spending hours trying and I’ll be late for something because I couldn’t turn off the TV. No idea what this means.

Meanwhile, “Express Yourself” was playing on the speakers at the house/gym and I realized it sounded just like the live version I’d heard on one of the tours. I discovered it actually was live because Madonna was performing it for us. I thought it was nice of her to stop by at our vacation house. The sound started to deteriorate so she stopped while technicians looked into the problem.

I still had to find out where Steve was and was starting to worry about when he’d get there. I thought of calling his sisters but worried that it was after 10 and I would wake up their kids. I don't know what they would have done anyway since they were hours away and would just call his number, which didn’t work for me.

Bummed out and unsure what to do, I started walking down the street. Who do I run into but Jim, upstairs in his house blocks away from our shore house. He came down and gave me some pills and we decided to find out where Steve was. I woke up.

That gay player sure is a distraction to the NFL this season, huh?

Maybe Tony Dungy was right. Maybe he was prophetic in saying he wouldn’t have wanted to deal with Michael Sam and the attendant controversy. Maybe everyone was right when they said the first gay player was going to be a distraction for the NFL because it’s only week three and he’s all anybody can talk about.

There have been so many controversies so far that it’s hard to remember them all. Football fans, and Americans in general, have had to deal with the distractions of the multiple reports of shower shenanigans and locker room leering involving Sam in the Rams’ and Cowboys’ locker room. Not only is all this a great distraction for people who just want to watch a little football, but the actions are morally dubious and provoking a firestorm of debate over the real harm the NFL may be enabling by its actions and inactions.

The worst of this whole circus in the past few weeks has to be the video. You know it. You may have seen it. It had been the subject of controversy for a long time and spectators had debated over whether the NFL and Roger Goodell had actually seen it. Then it leaked last week and the floodgates opened.

That video turned out to be worse than we thought: Michael Sam kissing his male boyfriend after getting drafted. Like, with tongue and everything. The NFL made the whole thing worse by its initial leniency toward this infraction, dissembling, cover-ups, tone-deaf statements and inconsistent treatment of other players involved in similar incidents.

Surely this was some of the worst off-field behavior of a professional football player ever caught on tape. Kids look up to athletes. How are parents supposed to explain this sort of thing to their children?

The whole Sam thing is a public relations disaster, the likes of which I have never seen in the National Football League. I just hope the endless distractions cease and we can get back to watching real football played by teams like the Vikings, Patriots, Redskins and Ravens.

How big of a jerk is Professor X?

Uncanny X-Men #168 famously opens with a full-page shot of Kitty Pryde looking at the reader and yelling “Professor Xavier is a jerk!” He had kicked the then-teen Kitty off the X-Men and consigned her to the junior New Mutants team, who were closer to her age. Feeling this was a demotion, Kitty protested but by the end of the issue, had proven her worth and was back on the X-Men.

That incidence of jerkishness was minor in the grand scheme of things. Over the years, in an effort to humanize Charles Xavier, often named the savior of mutantkind, many writers have shown a much darker side to the character.

The jerkishness started early. In the late ‘60s, Xavier faked his own death by convincing a shape-shifting mutant known as the Changeling to take his place and die in his stead. Xavier was in seclusion, preparing to thwart the invasion of Earth by the alien race the Z’Nox. The X-Men thought the deception was cruel. Professor X took poor Jean into his confidence but forced her to keep silent.

Something similar happened at the turn of the millennium. A shape-shifting Skrull had taken Wolverine’s place and infiltrated the team. To root out any further Skrulls in their midst, Xavier played mind games with the X-Men, forcing them into various fake scenarios to test their loyalties and getting several X-Men “killed” in the process. Nobody was happy.

There was some general shadiness during the “Onslaught” story in 1996, when the character Onslaught evolved out of the combined dark sides of Xavier and Magneto. The team also discovered the Xavier Protocols, which were Charles’ detailed files on how to defeat any X-Men who became evil and betrayed the team. In fairness, X-Men turn evil a lot, so maybe he was just being cautious.

The revelations of secrecy continued later. The X-Men discovered that their teacher once recruited a team of new X-Men to rescue the original five from the island Krakoa. The rescuers failed and died and Xavier mind-wiped the original team of any memories of the new team’s existence. The second group of rescuers (Storm, Wolverine, etc.) succeeded in rescuing the original team and also never knew they were the second group to try.

The X-Men even discovered there was a nefarious secret behind the Danger Room, which tested their mutant powers. The room supposedly used sophisticated alien Shi’ar technology to replicate any conceivable environment using a mix of reality and illusion. Behind this technology was the mutant Danger, whom Professor X kept prisoner for years, using her powers to train his team. The X-Men cast him out after that but his actions were mitigated by the fact that he had honestly tried to free Danger but could not.

Xavier was also a member of the secret council the Illuminati, basically a team of … well, assholes who are smart enough to know better but don’t. Xavier is no longer a member, on account of being dead and all, but the Illuminati recently decided, in their infinite wisdom, to destroy an alternate Earth and kill billions of people to save their own Earth. Heroes of old would have found another way to save their planet and the comics of old would not have presented them with that dark a scenario.

It was intended to be “for the greater good” stuff that would humanize Charles Xavier, who was once portrayed without many flaws. I think it’s tipped toward villainy in recent years and I liked Xavier better as a man who, at his heart, was a great teacher and mutant leader who occasionally made mistakes that we’re that much worse than any of us make. It’s another example of how comics have just become too dark recently. This is why I prefer to reread the old stuff.

A quick list of reasons why one might remain seated at a Kanye West concert

Wheelchair-bound

Prosthetic limb

Elderly

Just worked 12-hour shift

Foot fell asleep

Very drunk

Individual who doesn’t follow trends like you other sheep

Narcolepsy

Cultural differences preclude standing

Vertigo

Generally disenchanted

Pinned down by cat

Concert not very good

Please don't ram my sad little compact car with your big bad SUV

If I had to classify the feeling that arose in me when I saw your headlights flashing behind me, I would call it a mixture of awe and terror. Awe because the size of your SUV is a triumph of American engineering. Terror because of what your behemoth of a vehicle could do to my tiny, vulnerable Honda.

Your high beams flash and I offer a silent prayer that you have some mercy and don’t ram my compact car with your big, bad SUV. I squint to try to make out your hood ornament to tell if you’re driving a Yukon or Hummer or Ford F-1750 or whatever tank they sell. I see that it’s an Escalade and a shiver runs through my blood. And it’s white so that indicates that it’s a real badass driving. So, even though I’m already doing 75 mph, I move over and let you pass.

Because I know when to pick my battles. If you’d been driving some sad little Kia Rio or something, I would have laughed and not moved for you. What are you gonna do in that car, honk indignantly? That SUV, though — it could crush me like the bug that I am. It could sideswipe my matchbox car into a pancake and only a slight flake of red paint on your door would mark the fact that I ever existed.

And you know what they’d say at my (closed casket) funeral? They’d say, “He should have respected his betters.”

And they’d be right. I should learn a little respect and a healthy amount of fear for the person who would drive that white Escalade. Cadillac would never just sell or lease that magnificent vehicle to any schmoe who could leverage that amount of income on transportation. No, I can only assume you’re some sort of captain of industry and unlike the rest of us going for Sunday drives in our clown cars, you’re actually trying to get somewhere — somewhere important. So I respect you more than anybody driving a tiny Prius. We all do.

What must it be like driving that thing and knowing the Red Sea will part for you? Peons like me cannot imagine. I can only ask that you spare me your wrath and let me live. See, I’ve already moved out of your way. And you’re halfway to the horizon, leaving a trail of Badass in your wake.

Things to Remember 2014

Back to the salt mines after a week in Seatowne. To help ease your transition, here is my annual list of highlights.

Camping out around a table on a deck, laughing and chatting and drinking

Poach some eggs!

Shore Whore from “Everything Is Awesome” to “Videotape”

The Annie record showing up in the darndest places

Hey Asshole demerits

Watching the lightning on the horizon as the storm rolled in

Dollar store presents

Bible stickers

“It Takes Two” dance party

Category 5 menstrual hurricane

Grotto takeout

Spaghetti and meatball dinner

Dolphins arcing out of the ocean

The disco ball and Christmas lights

The Jesus and patriotic wetnap 9/11 memorial

Killing a rainy day at the outlets and Dogfish Head

Bitch, go eat another mozzarella stick. We’re done.

Waking up from a nap and thinking it’s Wednesday morning when it’s still Tuesday night

Subpar pizza from that place in Ocean City

A bowl of Halloween M&Ms sprinkled with 85-year-old whore juices

“You’re Doing It Wrong”

Playing Cards Against Humanity

Flipping through tabloids

Biking up and down Route 1

Pink cake

Waves over the shallow ocean

The wedding of Tina Farrell and Ryan Dougherty

South Park in the afternoon

Date-raped douchebag

Getting a workout while trying to open the sliding door

The rest of Seatowne being deserted

It’s a catastrophe!

Manti returns

Power walking around the development

Slaughter Beach: The Movie

Fridge magnets with vignettes of the week

Playing Rock Band

Getting all wet because of the motorcycles riding by

Ribs at Nick’s

The week of plagues, with the snake, wasps and spiders

Finally getting to the beach after days of rain

See you next year!

Let Summer Linger

After a summer of tanning under the fluorescent lights, I am ready to emerge into the actual sunshine of Seatowne tomorrow for another year.

We used to follow the natural order and vacation in July, when the ocean just across the street was still warming up and we could watch the sunset from the dock at about as late an hour as it could set. But cost and other considerations have surfaced and now we head to Fenwick Island the week after Labor Day, when traffic has dispersed, football season has already started and we can chow down on ribs without waiting in line. It is still summer for us.

Summer was supposed to have ended last Monday, of course. We were supposed to have put white shoes in storage for the fall and let the smell of sunscreen fade to be replaced by the smell of burning leaves. Ignore the calendar and look at the stars, which tell us summer doesn’t end until the Vernal Equinox in another few weeks. Ignore tradition and let summer linger as long as there’s a little heat left in the sky.

Summer ends when we say it does. The natural world doesn’t turn off the heat spigot on the first Tuesday in September. It’s different for kids of school age and their parents, of course, because the state does not recognize the weather when it tells kids to sit back down at those desks. I always felt weird going back to school the day after Labor Day on those years when it was still 90 degrees. It didn’t feel like autumn was beginning. It felt more like it was still summer and they were stealing some of my season. I remember hearing adults say things like “They’re ready to go back,” projecting their wishes onto me. I for one was never ready. I wasn’t bored and I didn’t need to go to school to let me see my friends because I saw them every day of the summer at the pool and that was a lot more pleasant than seeing them over some long division.

So now we wait a little longer and head south in early September. It’s a little cooler but pleasantly deserted, like everybody else left the party while it still had some life left in it. Even if we don’t luck out again and the weather turns to crap, we’ll always be lucky since we get to gather with friends on the deck and laugh about the old days, making more memories that we’ll be laughing about someday in the future.

Let summer linger a little longer. Duty will return again, whining for attention from the next room at 3 a.m. when you’re trying to sleep. In the meantime, I will wring every last drop of summer out, like a towel left on the beach that got soaked by the incoming tide. In life, you stay on the deck and laugh as long as you can until something chases you inside.

Who died and stayed dead in the Marvel Universe?

The joke used to be that in comics, only three major characters ever stayed dead: Uncle Ben, Bucky and Jason Todd (Robin). Now that Bucky is back in action as the Winter Soldier and Todd is doing whatever he’s doing at DC, Peter Parker’s late Uncle Ben is one of the few who can’t pass through Marvel’s revolving door of death.

Despite Marvel’s reputation for constant resurrections, I highly doubt Uncle Ben will ever be resurrected in any way. His death is just too integral to Spider-Man’s origin, which I think is Marvel’s most powerful superhero origin. The saying “With great power comes great responsibility” rings as true as it did in 1962 and is the purest distillation of what it means to be a hero. Bringing back Ben would invalidate that and be really cheap. They did kill off Aunt May at one point in a non-sensational, affecting story but then brought her back, which was pretty cheap.

There is another Spider-Man character who died and never really came back: Gwen Stacy. In 1973, the Green Goblin threw her off the Brooklyn Bridge (or George Washington Bridge; it’s disputed) and as Spider-Man spun out a web to catch her, Gwen’s neck snapped from the angle and physics of the fall. That one sound effect “snap” is credited as the symbolic transition from the goofy Silver Age to the more realistic Bronze Age. Prior to this story, it was very rare for a main character to die and this was a wake-up call. The death was too monumental to bring Gwen back and aside from a few alternate future stories, she has stayed dead. Norman Osborne, the original Green Goblin, also died in this story to come back decades later, which was stupid.

Poor Peter Parker. He has more motivational guilt in the form of dead characters than anybody else.

The original Captain Marvel, the Kree warrior Mar-Vell, is dead and staying dead. He died of cancer in the early ‘80s and maybe Marvel thinks it would be too insensitive to real-world people with cancer to blithely resurrect him. The Captain Marvel name has lived on, first through the Avenger Monica Rambeau and now through Carol Danvers, the former Ms. Marvel. Marvel Comics legally has to constantly publish a character named Captain Marvel or the rights to use the name for a series will revert to DC’s Captain Marvel, who can now only appear in comics titled Shazam and not his character’s name.

James “Bucky” Barnes had been dead for many decades after he was injured in the explosion that sent Captain America into suspended animation during World War II. His resurrection as Russian assassin the Winter Soldier was very well done and didn’t seem like a cheat. The revelation that despite his harmless façade, teen Bucky was a killer who did the dirty work during the war, was compelling.

Who else died and came back? Phoenix, twice. Same for Wonder Man: He died after his first appearance, returned years later as a zombie (or “zuvembie” because Marvel in the ‘70s was still forbidden from using the term zombie as a legacy of the backlash against the horror comics of the ‘50s), regained his personality, served as an Avenger, was seemingly killed and then the Scarlet Witch resurrected him. The Thing died but the Fantastic Four went to Heaven to bring him back (Jack Kirby played God). Pretty much the whole Alpha Flight team died and returned. Elektra had a very memorable death in Daredevil, appeared in the trippy masterpiece Elektra: Assassin miniseries in the ‘80s and is now alive again in the present. Nightcrawler died but is back now after making some sort of deal in the afterlife. Hell, all the X-Men died in 1987 but got resurrected immediately by some cosmic gatekeeper. That list doesn’t even count the heroes who were presumed dead but actually missing, like Captain America, the Wasp, Karma, the Human Torch, etc.

Around 2000, the editors at Marvel issued an edict that death would be permanent in the Marvel Universe so heroic sacrifices would have more meaning. The X-Men then killed off Colossus, who chose to sacrifice his life to cure the Legacy Virus, a mutant analogue for AIDS. (His sister, Illyana Rasputin, had already died of the disease after being reduced from teenager to infant. She has since returned to her former teenage self — loooooonnnggg story — meaning all three Rasputin siblings have died and returned). The edict didn’t last too long and death became a revolving door again. I’m not sure what I think of this policy but it did lead to a fantastic scene where Kitty Pryde discovered a resurrected Colossus as bullets phased through her body and bounced off his metal chest.

So in the Marvel Universe, there’s no point buying a nice head stone. Just wait a bit and they’ll be back.