October 2016 – Page 2 – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

In which I’m mobile again

October 26, 2016 Luther M. Siler

Curled up with a Percocet last night, and I’m able to stand and walk around normally now. No idea what the deal was.

I’m also a chapter away from finishing Ron Chernow’s 800+-page biography of Alexander Hamilton, which has me hugely excited; I’ve loved the book, but it’s taken me forever to read and I’ve been seriously jonesing for fiction again lately. I’ve not stopped buying books in the meantime and I have at least one novella to read so that I can interview the author about it. I mean, it would be kinda rude to write the interview questions without reading the book, y’know? I probably shouldn’t do that.

Also happening right now: there is baseball on my television. I’ve never been a Cubs fan– if I was forced at gunpoint to pick a favorite baseball team, it would be the White Sox or maybe the Pirates for irrelevant and ridiculous reasons, and while I’ve been to both Sox and Cubs games I have never been to Wrigley Field. But hey: Chicago’s still my city and always will be, so I probably ought to watch at least a few innings somewhere in there.

I kinda love the helmet that at least a couple of the Cubs are using, that curls around and covers the jaw and the mouth. I imagine you only have to have one 90 MPH pitch come near your face before wearing such a thing becomes a good idea. At any rate, the Cubs are up 4-0, so I’m choosing to believe that I’m lucky.

But yeah, back to the Hamilton biography: you should read it, if you’re partial to such things and the idea of reading a book you could easily beat a small rodent to death with appeals to you. Chernow is an engaging and talented writer, and that’s not with the curve adjusted for “historian.” Hamilton, of course, is an endlessly fascinating historical figure– while I agree that the musical is awesome, it would have had trouble being as cool as it is without someone of his caliber at the center of it.

On the TV, right now, the commentators are focusing a lot of attention on the length of someone’s pant legs, which strikes me as another reason why baseball may actually not be a sport. I don’t know why that guy needs a tailor as bad as he does or why it’s something I need to know about, but it’s happening right now. Also, it’s impressive but not particularly surprising how many Cubs fans are in attendance at this game. They’ve scored while I was writing this, and it sounds like a home game out there.

So take your pick, I guess: go Cubbies, or go read a book. You choose.

Let’s do this again

October 25, 2016October 25, 2016 Luther M. Siler1 Comment

hip-replacement-implants This is going to be another one of those posts where my mother and my aunt call me the next day to make sure I haven’t died since the last time I wrote anything. It happens about once a week, maybe. I don’t know what the hell the deal is, whether it’s the change in the weather or maybe I tweaked something while unloading the sofa truck this morning (I can recall one particular insanely heavy power sofa where I felt like I was hitting my knees pretty hard on way down the ramp) or what, but every attempt to stand up from a seated position today resulted in crippling fucking pain in my right hip and right leg. Like, sitting for a minute meant two minutes of standing before I was able to walk. Godfuckingawful. The weird thing is that so long as I’m still there’s no pain at all; I kind of want to take a thousand pain pills before I go to bed tonight but right now as I’m sitting on the couch typing this I’m fine. I’m going to have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming when I stand up in a bit, mind you, but right now I’m fine.

It would probably help if I wasn’t as heavy as I am. Then again, my knees have been screwed up my entire life– comparing my footprints to other people’s in the snow has always been funny, because mine are the ones at a much wider angle than anyone else’s– and sooner or later the fact is the fuckers are getting replaced. I just wish that was a surgery that could be done electively rather than in fifteen years when my patellas have ground to dust and my joints are in splinters.

But, hey. Something to look forward to.

I talked about this briefly last night, but at this point there’s no longer any doubt: I think I’m over The Walking Dead as a franchise. We’ve pretty much entirely bailed on Fear the Walking Dead, having not watched a single episode of the second season, and I watched the Season 7 of the main show premiere last night, and I think it probably should have kicked my ass. That show’s sent my heartrate through the roof on any number of occasions and not a single thing that happened in that episode did anything for me at all. The comic book hasn’t been interesting in months either. I’ll definitely finish out the current storyline just in case it gets better but I may have to be done after that.

I may write a longer post about this tomorrow or during my weekend sometime, but: I liked the Fox remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show quite a bit. I kind of feel like making that a longer post, though, so more on it later.

In which I’m watching Walking Dead, I suppose

October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 Luther M. Siler1 Comment

…but I’m not happy about it. I’m sure I will be very very angry about it really soon but I’ll probably be too tired tonight to rant properly.

‘Twas a good day at work, but I’ve only just gotten home and what with the immediate watching of horrifyingly violent television I’ve not had much of a chance to absorb the news of the day. What do we know, folks?

EDIT: Son of a bitch. Sheri Tepper died. Fuck 2016.

SECOND EDIT: Pretty sure I could be completely done with that show and be perfectly happy at this point.

It’s Sunday, and I’m sleepy

October 23, 2016 Luther M. Siler

Have a music video or two, y’all:

In which 2016 is an asshole yet again: RIP, Steve Dillon

October 22, 2016October 22, 2016 Luther M. Siler1 Comment

Goddamn, this one sucks. If you’re not a comic book person you’re unlikely to have heard of Steve Dillon, who passed away today (of as yet unannounced causes; if he was sick, his family kept it quiet, and he was working up to the end) at the disgustingly young age of 54. Dillon did a ton of work in a long career in comics but was known primarily for his work with writer Garth Ennis on titles like Punisher and Preacher. He also had a run on Hellblazer that I’m less familiar with.

Dillon was one of my favorite artists, despite having caught a fair amount of shit from me over the years. His greatest strength as an artist was tied in tightly with his greatest weakness: Steve Dillon could really only draw one face, when it came down to it, and most of his characters ended up being that same face with differences in hair, headgear, eyepatches, things like that. But the man could capture a range of expressions on that face that was flatly unparalleled among any artist I’m aware of. Absolutely goddamn nobody can capture shades of emotion in a comic book character’s look like Dillon could. He had a grounded, realistic style that made him perfect for the books he had long runs on and occasionally (and I say this with love, believe me) hilariously inappropriate for others:

That is, believe it or not, supposed to be the Hulk.

He’s also responsible for this moment, which will live forever:

If you have led the type of life that resulted in getting paid real money to draw the Punisher punching a polar bear in the face, you have won as a human being. Steve will be greatly, greatly missed. He was one of the good guys.