Super Personnel Person's Universe

Super Personnel Person is similar to my other cartoon, Commuter Notes and Parables. Both deal with the anxieties of urban middle class professionals who find themselves in a world where their elite skill is only sometimes useful. Meanwhile, there are other hostile and indifferent forces to reckon with like: crime, magic, the military, disease, nature, aliens, ghosts, and robots. More to the point, all of the superpowers are surrealistic; none of the superheros do traditional comic book superhero stuff like... fly, turn invisible, or erupt into flame.

Just to review and flesh out the characters thus far mentioned, we have:

Super Personnel Person: Tremendous force of HR competence, and the hero protagonist.  His most impressive power has to do with never forgetting, misspelling, or mispronouncing anyone's name -- ever.*
Bad News Monsters: Nickname for the shock troops and space craft crew of an alien extra-terrestrial invasion force.
Good News Guys: Nickname for a USAF unit of interceptor fighters whose mission is to shoot down extra-terrestrial invasion craft. The interceptor fighter aircraft have a very very high altitude limit
Michaels Dipetrillios - Works in IT. Is excellent at "Halo". Until Super Personnel Person fixes the situation, he is constantly getting both correspondence and other documents intended for Michelles DiPetrelleous.
Michelles DiPetrelleous - Works as a purchasing agent at a molybdenum solube recovery facility, was recently promoted to be the commodities family manager for solvents.  Secretly huffs ammonia. As an added joke, he has shaved and waxed his head. For whatever reason, is never mistaken for Michaels Dipetrillious, but did know a person named Creighton who worked at the Crate and Barrel.
Captain Bombastic - Foreman of a private security subcontractor assigned to protect a corn processing plant that produces high-protein feed for cattle, microwave popcorn, and a biofuel slurry.  Wears a cape all the time, has an absenteeism problem because he dreams that he is off "fighting crime."
Dr. Obvioüs - Provocative college professor forced to take a sabbatical after his derision of Lakoff & Johnson gets too personal.  Tends to insult people with ironic euphemisms.
Unnamed companion to Super Personnel Person, an attractive female with little or no dialog, and whose relationship to Super Personnel Person is never explained.
Colm Meaney. "I'd have to license the name and likeness rights. Anyone know his agent?"
The Joke Ex-plainer.  A cable news commentator who ruins the plots of a "gallows humor"-based criminal terrorist through painfully dull explanations of why particular jokes are funny.
*Crabby Aunt Whatshername.  Neutralizes Super Personnel Person's powers.
Likely Supreme Court Justice Nominee.  A jurist so concerned about avoiding controversy in her expected Supreme Court nomination that for years she has hidden behind erudition and circumlocutions.  "Eschew obfuscation!" she proclaims with unintended irony during an oral argument .
Isomniac - when you don't sleep, its always "me time"
The Sudukoan. A super-villain whose schemes combine the elements of the portmanteau after which he is named.
Hackney Cliche aka The Arch-nemesis An enduring stereotype of the former super hero turned criminal mastermind
Jargonizer. A robust, proactive, results-driven, facilitator-challenger with an outside the box vision of incentivizing productive synergies by task-orientatating best practices from lessons learned and gap analysissies to achieve total quality in a collaborative workflow without borders! I find this villain to be especially horrible.
Morris Bergeron aka Bergeron Morris aka Cartaphilus .  From Houma, was visiting New Orleans when Hurrican Rita struck.  Was mistakenly relocated to Wasilla by Red Cross hurricane relief workers after FEMA transposed his first and last name.  He has been trying unsuccessfully to get back home. Morris Bergeron, it turns out, has been relocated a lot, and has changed his name many times.  The oldest name he can remember is Cartaphilus, he had "like, maybe 20 other names before that."  He was "the man carrying a jar of water" outside Jerusalem and essentially was the caterer of the Last Supper. Like many caterers, the significance of the dinner and the diners is totally lost on him. When the Romans rounded everybody up for arrest, he truthfully said, "Jesus? I can't seem to recall anyone by that name" because his only direct interactions were with Peter and James.  As the buzz went around Jerusalem, he ultimately is able to put 2 & 2 together, such that he realizes who Jesus is, and actually ends up the on the Via Dolorosa with his water jug, trying apologize to Jesus. Jesus, who at this point is really tired (and had just fallen), drinks some water from the jug, and realizes that he hasn't been listening to the apology. But because he's Jesus, he's catches the general drift (Jesus is a sharp guy) and says, "Listen, I forgot your name, too. Its not important. Anyway, its not a problem, and I am certain that people will forget all about this." Cartaphilus makes an anxious face, so Jesus says to him "Look, I really have to finish up what I'm doing here.  I can see that you are anxious, so just to give you some perspective, by the end of the day, you'll come out of all this with eternal life, how does that sound?" "Good, I guess", Cartaphilus replies with some confusion.  Then, handing the jug back and patting him on the shoulder, Jesus adds in a rare show of biblical sardonic pique, "You guess? Ok, Great! Thanks for the drink. I'll see ya at the end of the world..."  [take that, Dan Brown, you two-bit hack]  Super Personnel Person unfolds this story over many episodes.  Aspects of this story which are not critical to human resources work are not uncovered through Super Personnel Person's superpower. So for example, when Super Personnel Person looks at Morris Bergeron's personal information form and knows that the Red Cross messed up by transposing the surname and family name, or that Bergeron is mispronouncing his own name... that's superpower. But when Unnamed Companion realizes that Morris converted from Judaism to Christianity "a long time ago", and asks why Super Personnel Person didn't know that, Super Personnel Person replies, "I don't see how that's important. Oh... am I being culturally insensitive?"

Super Personnel Person works for the business services division of a company that makes Mecha. Like all people in the business services division of a company that makes hardware (e.g. HP), his mission is ambiguous.  Some episodes find him managing HR for an external client, sometimes he resolves labor or employee problems for an internal business unit, and sometimes he finds himself in a non-HR function but applying his HR superpowers; Basically anything to put Super Personnel Person into an absurd business setting where absurd people work and absurd problems are only fixable through absurd solutions.

My inspiration for this comes from The Flinstones and The Jetsons. I watched these shows a lot before I was in 2nd grade and was subsequently disappointed to find that no cartoons since have taken on the workplace so often or in such a loony way. I even like some of the later junk, like that Flintstones movie where Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are preparing for their baby ("Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby"). That's the one where Bamm-Bamm is under pressure to give up being a screenwriter and to instead go back to his old job in construction. Meanwhile, Pebbles must prevent the office sycophant from stealing her position (as the VP of an advertising agency) while she is on maternity leave. Seriously, that's the plot.

Although The Simpsons and King of the Hill take on workplace humor (sort of), I find them both to be deficient as workplace cartoons. The obvious contemporary standard-bearer of workplace humor is Dilbert. However, Dilbert is often deeply and deliberately unfunny; I don't like that.

The Mecha thing is because I like fighting robots. Although not just used for fighting in Super Personnel Person's universe, that's their plurality use. I admit that I have a certain amount of "disarmament agenda" here. In the story universe, a triumph of free-market capitalism has enabled very affordable personal robotics, but mainly because of mass production.  As a consequence, the Mecha industry requires there to also be a big the consumer demand for robots. This drives a lot of corporate and cultural ideology. This "robot consumer" mentality is coupled with a culturally conservative civil-rights perception of Mecha as a hybrid of personal property and firearms (i.e. an important and inalienable individual freedom). As such, the proliferation of armed Mecha is an unstoppable social force that has resulted in a diffusion of geopolitical influence that has severely disrupted and eroded the ability of the traditional "superpower" nations to project force or impact economic markets. Rich individuals become recognized as de facto nation states based on a combination of the their Mecha-created wealth, the sheer military strength of their Mecha armies, and their ability to produce more Mecha. The protect their supply chains and production capabilities, there are ongoing private wars between the Mecha industry players. Like all wars, this causes much collateral damage and general misery.

I haven't tried to draw this comic. After the disappointing failure of "The Inside Joke" I would rather write it.

And of course, I can't think of any series or episode main-line plots, which is why I've only done characters, subplots, settings, and general premise.

Dermabond, America

It is 11 PM. The kids and I are at the 59 Diner on Kirkwood. Dakota and Jason split a plate of Mac n'Cheese, and a vanilla shake. I had a Buffalo Burger -- all the way Texas style, and a black&white shake. We all split my fries.
Jason is talking to me. I can't focus on what he is saying because I am looking at the purple sparkly Dermabond that has sealed his Harry Potter scar. Earlier this evening, I had the idea to have the kids actually help me clean the house, so that they'd be tired before bed. That lasted about 3 minutes before Jason managed to lacerate his forehead on the kitchen counter like Leland Palmer possessed by evil Bob at the end of season 1 of Twin Peaks. My smallbig boy was crying and holding his forehead. When I pulled his hands away to inspect the cut, he started screaming from the blood on his hands, but I was calm. At least I was in the house. Driving through the inky blackness of 99 at night, the humidity and the darkness just feels like uncertainty. Somehow I got to thinking about past medical bills and about the mendacity of the insurance system. Nevertheless, my anguish and trepidation dissipated as I pulled up to the ER entrance.
When I was just a bit more than Jason's age, I cut my chin on the water slide at Sprain Ridge pool. They shot me a local and gave me a stitch that took several weeks to heal. I have a sweet scar; still visible. I was calm in the kitchen because using a butterfly closure to staunch the dripping from the fresh roast beef sandwich on my son's forehead brought back familiar memories. But medical technology has improved a lot in 29 years. Dermabond is essentially a skin glue with scar-preventing properties, and that's all they needed.
Jason looks at me and smiles "This shake is so yummy!" He rubs his belly through his "Woodsie the Owl" t-shirt (give a hoot don't pollute) and laughs because he is tickling himself.
Dakota is coloring in Disney princesses. When we got to the ER, she drilled the intake personnel with the facts (thisisjasonheismybrother. thatsfirstnamejasonlastnamelispelled "L-I" andhehithisheadonthekitchenisland AND I AM REALLY WORRIED!) And truly, she was trembling. Her eyes were wide like saucers; becoming moist as she fought to maintain her composure. The hospital staff seemed genuinely touched by this sincere and sincerely smart big sister. So they gave her some crayons, some pages to color, and they reassured her.

"Daddy, may I be excused to play the jukebox?"

"Knock yourself out, princess. It's free"

After selecting "the big bopper" she comes back and neatly finishes Cinderella's ball gown. The other dining patrons are diggin' the tune, too. All around us are high school kids, these are the clean cut ones who don't drink and who went to the football game. Apparently some of the high school games are also on saturday night. They are also enjoying burgers fries and shakes.
We could only be in America.
When I was young, I would watch "Happy Days" and dream about an America that cynical adults said never was and didn't exist. Here it is, though. An actualization in the present of a past that never was. And I am living it.
Its not a place without its problems. Behind Dakota's touching concern for her brother are the beginnings of the unhealthy anxieties of a divorced kid. This phenomon is now decades old here and I would have recognized even if I wasn't myself a divorced kid, but as I am, it's quite plain. And speaking of unhealthy, if the cholesterol in my food, speeds a fatal heart disease, apparently I will be part of the plurality. All of which inevitability points me to the class tensions and racial tensions lurking in the background; a legacy of ancestral evil that stubbornly refused to be extricated from heritage and thusly endures.
But these problems are also somewhat evidentiary of the conclusion that, ultimately, this really is a good place. Not because America is perfect but because of how it aspires to be all the right kinds of better. Cynics can rightly observe that many of the measures enacted to realize improvements are baby steps or two steps forward mixed with one step back, but I'll take that.
The kids see both their parents almost every day, the menu boasts "no trans-fats!", delicious moderately priced food is egalitarian, and tonight in this simulacrum of a late 1950's diner, there is mosiac of different races and ethnicities co-existing thanks to a veneer of friendliness and hospitality which forces an indifference to whatever tensions still exist today. All of this combines to make this place that never was, much better than any place that actually could have been in 1959.
As I share a meal with my family, and appreciate America, these patriotic lyrics play in my head:

These days are all, happy and free.
These days are all, share them with me.

Dermabond.

Eulogy revisted

Dear Mom,
Its been a month and I miss you. I listened to my old voicemail at work and there was one from you. I listened to it over and over again.
In our time together, I complained to you about my circumstances a whole lot. In listening, you never really offered me any good advice; though not for a lack of having something to say. It was amazing. To summarize, you had great confidence that I would somehow figure it out, you were more worried about how hard I took things, and you felt that I needed to laugh it off more. "Find the feather!", you'd say.
I'm working on it. You should see my facebook status updates; funniest material in years. You know how much Grandma loved those sad scary clowns! Are you and she together? I hope you two understand each other better now. I know how much you and she loved each other.
If souls _are_ reunited in the hereafter, I am sure you are happy to see Granpa again. It is not lost on me that he died when you were the same age that I am now. I had his books shipped to me, they are a fascinating collection. I thought I had something else to say about that. I guess not.
You did a great job, Mom. I feel prepared for this time in my life. I understand the sort of strength it took for you to persevere; balancing parenthood and career on your own. I am amazed at the determination that you showed to face your own mortality: your physical strength shattered from illness, and even your faculties began to betray you, but you did not waiver. Nor did you shy away from the humanity of it all, there was no false stoicism. You stated matter-of-factly that "all things break down" and that sometimes you can't help crying about it. You warned me that people spend too much time being afraid that they will feel sad and trying to avoid it. Then you said "boo-hoo hoo!" to mock those people; classic.
But, I take your point: Sorrow is appropriate now, and grief is a state of being that is necessary in the fullness of life. It hurts, but I can complain. Here's my complaint: my grief, hurts. Brilliant, right?
Or our other great strategy; changing the topic. The passage from scripture that I chose for your eulogy, Phil 1:9-11, really was based on a memory. You often seemed to be impressed by my recall. In candor, Google certaintly helps out with the precision. But it isn't a trick or a put-on. Nor was it a random connection, just a circuitious one. How appropriate for you and I!
I wonder if you ever really believed me about becoming a Christian. I think most people who know me find it to be something of a puzzle: They can't quite place their finger on what (if anything) is different about me. I never said that I appreciate how you were encouraging me to find a church home as a means of re-rooting my life after my divorce. In fact, my response to your suggestion was sarcastic and far less than appreciative. I'm sorry. I also appreciate that you were, nevertheless, uncritically accepting of my assessment that being a member of some congregation somewhere (with ceremonies, and the coffee hour, and the pancake suppers, etc.) was neither the most important part of being a Christian nor of getting my life re-rooted. "Ok," you said, "You'll figure it out."
But anyway, it wasn't random that I chose this scripture.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

First of all, its a prayer. Prayers are always a good way to go. Superficially, its a prayer about leveraging knowledge in order to live a sincere and righteous life. Meh.
The larger theme of the prayer (only gleaned from reading the whole epistle, but nevermind) is about living a life full of Joy. In fact, the only reason I was even sensistived to the topic was that we did as a Sunday School class at Southminster, and I found it struck a chord with me. The study was somebody's home brew, not a Cokesbury series (or Zondervian or whatever is the brand name)and so it was more of the sort of personal testament that you always found moving; me too. The main point from the study leader was that Joy was neither the fullfilment of pleasure-seeking nor the unrealistic expectation that God's role in your life was to make you happy all the time. It was more like a relief; a comfort in the knowledge that no matter what, God still loves us. A love stronger than anything, stronger than illness or misunderstanding or tragedy or fear or death. Stronger than a dangling participle.
I know that you always loved me, no matter what. And that you love me now. And I love you too. I closed with these words:
"...there were adventures, there were hardships, but mixed with laughter and togetherness made all the difference. May God bless the soul of my Mom"
Love,
William

Time Verge Love Triangle Plot Matrix (click on post title to view better)

. Alex Bob Caroline Dead Alex . 1950 Born Born . 1970 Exverges from 2010 Gets engaged to Bob . 1971 Meets Bob Meets Alex Falls in love with Alex . 1972 Sleeps with Caroline the night before her wedding to Bob. Leaves Caroline at the alter after catching her and Alex in flagrante Sleeps with Alex, is left at altar. . 1975 Transverges his birth and the obvergent period since his advergence to 1970 to 2015. Birth Heartbroken and freaked out when Alex transverges before her eyes. . 1980 Rejects Caroline's effort to reconcile. Gain time travel insight Spurned by Bob . 2000 Commits suicide. . 2001 Kills Alex . 2010 Adverges to 1970 Dead Alex doesn't adverge to 1970 . 2011 Loses memory of meeting Alex Suicide Caroline does not call in love with Alex Dead Alex doesn't meet Bob. . 2012 Loses memory of Caroline's infidelity, but retains memory of remembering and wanting revenge. Remembers marrying Caroline. So here it can be said that from 1972 to 2012, Bob and Caroline were not marries but from 2012 on, Bob and Caroline have been married since 1972. Suicide Caroline does not sleep with Alex, marries Bob. Remembers memories from 1972 to 2000, but those memories start to disappear at present-time. Memories from 2000 to 2012 start to re-appear at present-time pace Dead Alex doesn't prevent Bob's wedding. . 2015 Exverges from 1975 . 2016 Tries to reconcile Caroline Caroline cannot remember Alex but remembers her memories of Alex after 1976 and is confused, rejects Alex. . 2040 Loses memory of suicide but has all memories of 2000 to 2040 both with and without memory confusion . 2041 Has a nightmare, doesn't know about what. Loses memory of killing Alex, but remembers memories of killing Alex Dead Alex not killed . 2049 Tries to reconcile with Bob Bob forgives Alex, but is confused. . 2050 Remembers being killed in 2001 and dies. Loses all memory and gains it all back. Has heart attack. Remembers commiting suicide in 2000 and dies Dead Alex reverges with Alex to 1970 .

Two Songs By Jason

Jason composed two songs. I made a video of one and I figured out the chords for the other. I wrote down the lyrics for both. They are as good as anything I have ever written. I mean, maybe not as "clever" but certainly every bit as expressive as I try to be and a whole lot less cautious about exposing emotional vunerability. In short, I love these songs, like I love my son.

Without further ado:

A year with packpack
Last night
they drop stuff in packpack
And packpack is for me
And I go to school
And I put packpack on school table
And play
and play and play and play and play and play and play and play
and play and play and play


Go
To
And go and go to
And go to sleep
And its snowing
And Santa puts presents
everywhere
and go back to the moon


One day there was stuff in
packpack
it was under 'puter and 'kota play games
'kota play tool game
and car fix

One day there was stuff in packpack and
Go
To
party -- dance party
I mean, it was his birthday
and his present was
a funny bear and 'inosaurs
and stuff
and throw 'way present paper
presents for trashcan

GOOD NIGHT!


====================
Bad Monkey Dragon (chords in italics)
C
there once was a monkey dragon
em
he's destroying houses
F
and destroying pictures
C

and destroying shirt
em
and destroying tv's
F
because tv are not turned on
C
monkey dragon wants to turn tvs on
em
but he wants this song ending even more
F
so he destroyed some toys
F
and stepped on them
em
and that's a bad
F
monkey
c
dragon

and goodnight!

ENTJ

It's incredible. I have never scored anything but this since I first took this test at 15. What's incredible about that is I feel very different about life now than I did then. I also scored ENTJ before I got married.

What's especially weird is that I always think I am answering the questions very differently from last time, but the preference levels have been the same too.

Some rules for time travel (for a fictional universe, not based on physics)

First: You can't be in two places at once. More precisely, you can only be in one place at one time. If you are already somewhere somewhen, then you can't go there.
Second: When you leave for another time, you stop traveling through the present. In other words, while you are out in the past or in the future, time marches on.
Third: You have to travel through space to travel through time.
Fourth: How you travel through space is how you travel through time. A trip from time "a" to time "b" requires traveling between two corresponding points in space at a specifc velocity and angular
momentum.
Fifth: Time travel trips move you a relative time distance. So going from the entry point to the exit point at the correct speed with the correct spin will always exit you the same amount of time delta,
unless you are already in that space, in which case you will just continue to travel through the present.
Six: Do you need some sort of special vehicle? Strictly speaking, the proverbial "time machine" is not necessary. Your vehicle merely needs to be precise with respect to coordinate, vector, and spin. In fact, you don't need a vehicle at all,  just precision. Occasionally someone just disappears because they were
walking around a corner at the right speed for that starting and exit place and »BOOP!«
Seven: Occassionally a time traveller tries to visit those intersitial periods between when he left and when he came back. One of three things happens when they come to a time when they already will be there
either they go to the immediate time there after so if they enter at 1PM CST and will already be at 2PM CST for 38 minutes, they may jump ahead 38 minutes after an hour. OR they may snap back to their entry
time. OR they may end up in at a time relative to the entry time plus the length of time spent in another time. Its not clear what determines what will happen.

Some more notes:

"vergere tempus" is the latin phrase for time travel under these rules. It captures the bending, inclined nature of diverge or converge or just being on the verge of something just around the corner. Neither "jump" nor "go" really cut it for me. I want time travellers to adverge from their current trajectory in present time and exverge in another time, only to transverge over a time where they already are, but when they exverge again, they find that the obvergent time from where they already is skipped.

I have a whole love triangle plot worked out based on this.

Epilogue

I started this blog before I started law school but after I knew I was going. I have passed the bar and am practicing law. You will notice that I never talk about work. I don't even say who I work for, it doesn't matter. I have nothing else to say about that.

Kurt Vonnegut had something to say about people living out the epilogue of their lives. I should really know his works better because I did my term paper for Uncle Joe (11th Grade) on the (then) complete works of Kurt Vonnegut. But I don't have more than a vague idea about a series of books that I read 20 years ago, other than to say that this is not the epilogue of my life, but its definitely reached the end of a story arc of some sort.

I spent much of my life loving to be a student and being good at it. And I never want to go back to school ever again if I can possibly help it. I have other things to say about that.

I never thought I would be single again. I assumed that I would die tragically in my 60s and leave behind a rich, grieving widow. That might still happen, but it won't be my first choice. Much could be said about my divorce. Not much of it interesting, and if you read this blog, you've probably heard it anyway (in private, where its appropriate to discuss such things). To the extent that I have used this format to expressed myself on this topic, it has been in through what I've chosen not to say about it; on purpose. If you go back for the last few years and read what I haven't written, and you'll see what I mean.

Does facebook compete?
Not for good content, at least.
no haiku over there!



I didn't want to end 3 of 4 on the death of my mother. Besides, my blog has left a few lose ends that I wanted to clear up. For the sake of irony, I will say that if you have been reading this blog since the beginning ,and are looking for a series of posts that will explain all the non sequiturs, and let you in on all the inside jokes, then you should read these epilogue posts.

I want to start with a segue about what I learned about my Mom from her books and papers. My mom used to write me emails, and then not send them. But instead, she'd transfer them to ClarisWorks, change around the fonts, then print the letter out, and then color some of the letters in some of the words. The text itself was always full of elipitical statements, vague allusions, and dangling participles. They read like love letters from a reformed ransom note artist.

I discovered these crazy letters were not the result of a random thought followed by a craft project. No. Mom started out with some ideas that she'd jot down on a yellow legal pad. Then she'd write a draft and edit it for grammar. At some point she'd have a lucid message. But unhappy with her tone, she'd start to self-censor: obscuring things that made her uncomfortable by trying to be clever or eccentric. She loved me very much, but she was embarassed to feel so strongly.

When we spoke on the phone, our conversations were like the tea-cup ride at DisneyWorld: a carousel with little carousels inside, madness decorated with frenetic civility and imprecise historical references. The shared experience of taking an idea and talking it round and round--- that was what put her in such a good mood. And putting her in a good mood put me in a good mood. Nobody has ever really enjoyed turning ideas on their head as much as her. But it can be hard on the people who love you when you insist on being outside the box all the time.

So... What do I do with these late night confessions of seeing myself reflected in my impressions of her?

...

There is nothing to do. And it is a mistake to assume that one must do something with insight. Trying to wrap it all up into a proverb or kohan