VARK WARS: WALT'S EMPIRE STRIKES BACK ________________
Recorded by Matt Dow and Dave Sim, transcribed by Jesse Lee Herndon:
Dave:
Okay.
Matt: How’s
it goin’, Dave?
Dave: Uhh, it’s uhh… what is today? Thursday, so it’s like day 4 of I think it’s just a head cold, but it’s been a fearsome thing to behold. Just the amount of, not to gross everybody out, but nasal mucus just pouring out of me, literally like a faucet. I have never seen the like of it before. I suspect it’s God’s way of telling me that if I won’t take days off, he’s gonna make me sick for three or four days every couple of months. So it’s up to me, cause flat on my back not doing anything is a kind of vacation.
Dave: Uhh, it’s uhh… what is today? Thursday, so it’s like day 4 of I think it’s just a head cold, but it’s been a fearsome thing to behold. Just the amount of, not to gross everybody out, but nasal mucus just pouring out of me, literally like a faucet. I have never seen the like of it before. I suspect it’s God’s way of telling me that if I won’t take days off, he’s gonna make me sick for three or four days every couple of months. So it’s up to me, cause flat on my back not doing anything is a kind of vacation.
Matt:
(laughs) I can see tha…
Dave: So,
the first question you had here was about the “Howard the Duck”. Did I know
about the collection? No, I didn’t know about the collection, and was I paid a
royalty? No. It was, both of those was work made for hire, so those are 100%
owned by Marvel Comics.
Matt:
Okay. Cause I know that sometimes they pay royalties on stuff, but usually when
it’s makin’ money.
Dave:
…What’s that?
Matt: I
know that they sometimes will pay royalties on stuff but it’s usually when
they’re makin’ money on it and they have extra money and, “Okay, you made
Thanos, we’ll give you some money.”
Dave:
Right. Right. I mean, it was a risk on my part, because, ya know, I could be
buying a ticket to the Bulky Duck movie premiere and, ya know, having absolutely
no cut out of the 18 billion dollars that the Bulky Duck movie was gonna make,
but that’s the risk you take with work made for hire.
Matt:
Okay. So you don’t have a copy?
Dave: Uhh,
no.
Matt:
Okay.
Dave: It
does seem like a weird kind of mix that they would still have “Dave Simms:
frontispiece” on the title page, but also know that I did a Howard page for…
whatever comic book that was.
Matt: The
“Marvel Fanfare” whatever issue, yeah.
Dave:
“Marvel Fanfare”, yeah. Cause it’s like, well, if you know that Dave Sim did 2
Howard pieces for you, why don’t you know how to spell his last name?
Matt:
Well… it… it’s misspelled in the actual Howard #8, where it was first printed,
but it’s correct in the collection title page.
Dave: Oh
it is?!
Matt: Your
listed like 3 or 4 times, as penciler, inker, letterer, I think maybe even
colorist?
Dave:
(laughs) Okay, alright. No, this is the first that I’ve heard of this. It’s
interesting this many years later on. I thought it was, you were saying the
“Dave Sims: frontispiece” still read that way in the reprint.
Matt:
Well, they reprint that front piece, and it’s… they reprint the title page for
Howard #8. The collection is the whole magazine, except for ads. So in the
original magazine where they misspelled it, it’s still misspelled in the
collection, but the front piece, or the credit page for the actual collection
has it listed as “writers: Steve Gerber, with Dave Sim” and all the other
writers. “Pencilers: Gene Colan, Marshall Rodgers, Alan Kupperberg, Paul Smith,
Val Mayerick, Bryan Hitch, James Frye, Pat Broderick, with Dave Sim, Ned
Sonntag, Marie Severin, Jim Reddington, and Jim Lee.” And the same with
the inkers, ya know, it’s “with Dave Sim”.
Dave:
Okay.
Matt: I’m
kinda like, that’s just a weird way of doin’ it. But…
Dave: I
suppose. So they’re just being authentic…
Matt:
Yeah.
Dave:
…reprinting the title page with the misspelling.
Matt:
Yeah. Towards the end of the collection, they have, there was a She-Hulk issue
where Howard guest starred and was supposed to have a cover by I forget who,
but the cover was delayed, so they used a filler. Well, it was solicited as
having a cover by, I think, Bryan Hitch. So in the letter’s page there’s a two
page spread, with Howard, and they’re explaining what happened, and they
reprint that because it’s got Howard in it.
Dave:
Right.
Matt: When
they say “complete collection”, they mean, “COMPLETE collection.”
Dave:
Right. Gotcha. Okay, well, yeah, however they keep track of things over there,
and they’ve got such a volume of material to keep track of at this point,
that’s very impressive that they even knew there were two Dave Sim Howard the
Duck pieces to reprint. Cause they’re very different environments that they
appeared in.
Matt:
Yeah. Well, that’s… my friend lent me the collection and I’m like, okay, and I
open it up, and I’m like, oh, it’s got Howard #8, and then I’m flippin’ through
it and I’m like at the back it’s got the pin-up from “Marvel Fanfare” and I’m
like, “they weren’t kiddin’.” Complete collection, Volume 4.
Dave:
Unless we’re forgetting something.
Matt:
(stammers) Ahh, I don’t…
Dave:
“Dave, you did three Howard the Ducks for Marv…” no, I’m just making that up.
Matt: And
now everyone’s gonna start searching for… you just gotta say, “Oh yeah, I did a
fill in on some random issue where Howard showed up”, and everybody will dig
into long boxes and it’ll shoot up in the Overstreet Guide.
Dave:
Right. Or, I ghosted a page for Bill Mantlo.
Matt:
(laughs)
Dave: Have
everybody try and figure out which page did Dave Sim write for Bill Mantlo.
Uhh, Steve’s question, where he was asking about “I wondered if anything Dave
would have to add to the archive apart from original art pages?” Yeah, that
would definitely be something that I would be interested in, but I don’t know
if that’s going to be possible in the future, during the Eddie Khanna
administration or his successor’s administration. I think one of the things
that would interest me, because… this is an ongoing history, for me… it’s in
which the Cerebus fans are definitely becoming a contextual centerpiece. I
don’t want to make the last 92 Cerebus fans really, really self-conscience, but
I don’t think there’s any way to avoid making the last 92 Cerebus fans really,
really self-conscience. I think you will be of interest to future generations
as to how you managed to resist the lynch mob mentality that said, “this is a
guy and his work that you definitely need to abandon if you don’t want to
become pariahs yourself”. So part of me is interested in finding out how many
of the last 92 Cerebus fans think that they will be… assuming that the group is
just gonna keep getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Now that we’re down
to double digits, who thinks that they’re going to be one of the last single
digit Cerebus fans, somewhere up ahead? And can you write a one or two page
biography of yourself, sort of focusing on that? What is it about you that is
so odd that you just, no matter how much pressure there is to abandon this guy
and to abandon his work, you won’t abandon him and you won’t abandon his work?
I mean, if you were trying to do that for Michael Jackson, you’re talking
about, I dunno, how many Michael Jackson fans are there, still? I imagine they
number in the millions, or at least the hundreds of thousand or however many
there is. And it would just be no way to store that much information, but with
the latest Kickstarter, I think there’s like 92 backers. That would my
criteria, these are the people who continue to be front and center, Dave Sim’s
asking for 9 bucks from me, Dave Sim’s gonna get my 9 bucks. Are you just
natural contrarians? Or is there something else to it, and if there’s something
else to it, what is that something else for you as an individual Dave Sim fan and
a Cerebus fan?
Matt: For
me, part of it is cause when Tim said, “hey! does anybody want to take this
job?” I said, “okay.” So I’m in for the long haul, but why I still like Cerebus
is… I mean, the whole series is great, but the four page “death of Death” every
time I read it takes me to this special happy place that just makes me giggle.
When Death dies in “Flight”, every time I read it I get to the, “well, fuck
me”, and I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve had that day!”
Dave:
(laughs)
Matt: And
it just makes me laugh, every single time.
Dave: I
think maybe that’s part of it. I don’t know if that would be everybody’s
experience with different parts of Cerebus. That somebody who wrote that and
somebody who created that and I always have this invariable positive reaction
to it. Like, you can’t really fake laughter, you either find it funny or you
don’t find it funny, and if you do find it funny, ya know, that’s the problem
they’ve got in Red China. If people are laughing, it’s very difficult to
explain to them that they don’t find that funny. “No, I’m laughing, so I find
that funny.” Anyway, that’s… if anybody has any available time who is on that
last 92 Cerebus fans… I don’t know what’s going on out in actual comic book
stores. Ya know, the 1700 is that just 500 stores who are buying 3 copies each
that they’ve never been able to sell a copy? Or what is the actual
sell-through? That’s another kind of loyalty that I wouldn’t ask a store owner
to put their neck on the chopping block by saying, “Yeah, that’s what I’m
doing. Dave Sim helped me pay my rent for 20 years or whatever it was, so this
is the least that I can do” but it wouldn’t surprise if that was the situation.
Absolutely nobody is buying Dave Sim or Cerebuses…. Dave Sim’s work, or
Cerebus. But there was still loyal…
END PART FIRST
NON-END SECOND PART
Dave: Onto
the Jesse Lee Herndon question, “here’s a random question I wanted to ask Dave
during the last Kickstarter but chickened out, why an aardvark? Not Cerebus,
but Suenteus Po? When did Dave know he was going to be one, and Cirin the
other? Both are first mentioned in the book about the same time, if I recall,
both in issue 20, so was it there from the outset or was it just serendipitous
fortitude.” Uhh… I’m not sure that the three aardvarks thing was fully developed
at that point. I did… when Suenteus Po was first introduced, there was only one
Suenteus Po and then I came up with the idea that the Illusionists, being
Illusionists, it’s very common for them to call themselves, “Suenteus Po”,
because that’s a very Illusionist kind of thing to do. Who is the real Suenteus
Po? Oh, well, we’re all Suenteus Po. I think… and Cirin, I definitely decided
was going to be the third aardvark along about the time I was talking more
about the Cirinists as a matriarchy, that was a matter of… the Cirinists and
Kevillists thing. Which I saw as being the next big societal schism that we’re
all going to have to live through, is when the daughters make war on the
mothers and the mothers make war on the daughters. We haven’t gotten to that
point yet, but I do think that’s inevitable up ahead. How far up ahead? I have
no idea, could be the next ten years, could be 50 years after I’m dead. It’s
not… I don’t think it’s going to be pleasant. I think probably one of the more
interesting questions is, nobody has asked me were Suenteus Po and Cirin
hermaphrodites? That is, is hermaphroditism an idiosyncratic quality of
aardvark? And I never got asked that, and if I had been asked that, the answer
would have been, Cirin didn’t want to refer to that, Whether she was or whether
she wasn’t. And Suenteus Po, I think, was in the same category. If he was a
hermaphrodite, that was a besides-the-point thing to him, aside from his own
pursuit of truth and the most authentic way of living that he could come up
with, with complete non-interference, non-participation, trying to attain to a
state of beneficence through that. I think a character, having those qualities,
is… their genitalia are really completely beside the point. Genitalia are not
going to figure prominently in that. It does color the whole 6000 pages several
different colors depending on whether Cerebus was the whole hermaphroditic
aardvark or Suenteus Po and Cirin and Cerebus were all hermaphrodites, or
Suenteus Po and Cerebus were hermaphrodites and Cirin wasn’t, or Cerebus and
Cirin were hermaphrodites and Suenteus Po wasn’t. And that’s one of those
situations where, (laughs) particularly in this day and age where there seems
to be no such thing as privacy, everything is TMI. I will respect the privacy
of Suenteus Po and Cirin and say, “I’m not going to decide that. I’m Dave Sim,
the writer of Cerebus, but I’m not God.” And the fact it was Astoria that outed
Cerebus. That’s one of those [PHONE RINGS] Astoria has her good qualities and
her bad qualities, but her malignant TMI nature is really, really not something
that I personally find admirable, and certainly something that I find
problematic in our society. “We have to expose everyone and splash it all over
the internet, because as soon as we know everything about everyone, then we’ll
know who we’re supposed to hate and how much we’re supposed to hate them. And
we could all do our fair share to destroy their lives.” It’s like, uhhh. I
don’t think that’s what our grandfathers fought in World War II to achieve. And
I think that they would be appalled to find out that that is the most popular
viewpoint of what freedom is all about in 2019. I find it appalling, but…
anyway, that was my answer to Jesse Lee Herndon’s question. I gotta tell you,
I’ve had a head-full of cotton wool the last couple of days, so it’s very, very
difficult to think, and very very difficult to convey ideas. I apologize in
advance for the next two weekly updates, the one that’ll be going up tomorrow
and the one that will be going up next Friday. I have no idea what I said in
either of them, I was just getting it done, trying to get back to bed.
Matt: One
of the surprise questions I got, cause I got it last night, Dion Turner on the
Facebook group asked about the Green Dante/Green Virgil auction, are they
supposed to bid on the Youtube comments or on the A Moment of Cerebus comments?
Dave: Uhh…
I imagine both. We’ll just say whichever has the highest amount.
Matt: Okay
cause the follow-up is, John Christian. I bid $68, Jeff Seiler bid $100, and
now John Christian has bid $200 US.
Dave: Oh,
alright! Thank you, John Christian, I appreciate that. There’s some footage of
me doing the logo and pasting up the front cover. I think that’s next week, I
don’t think that’s this week. But yeah you could bid in either spot, and it’s
not as if they’re inaccessible. If somebody bids $250 on Youtube, then we’re
going to say it’s $250.
Matt:
Okay. I’m kinda keepin’ track of both, and when I post the link to the initial
video, I say, “this is where the bidding’s at, with whoever’s the top bidder.”
So right now it’s gonna be John.
Dave:
Okay. Alright.
Matt: I
try to keep track of that. I mean, I’m not just lettin’ it hang out in the
wind. But I know that some people only go to the Youtube and some people don’t.
It’s just a headache for everybody but we can figure this out. This isn’t
rocket surgery.
Dave:
Right, right. I want to say a thanks to Dion Turner, too, that… you want to
talk about the core group of the core group of the core group of Cerebus fans,
only 3 people watched CerebusTV every week and I know that because you can’t
download it without paying your 88 cents and that’s Eddie Khanna in Vancouver,
Michael R in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Dion Turner in Australia. We don’t have a
large viewership, but we have a very widespread viewership.
Matt:
Okay. I freely admit, I haven’t been doing it just because Paypal gets goofy
with me when I want to pay the 88 cents and finding time to watch CerebusTV
with two kids who are 8 and 3.
Dave: No,
no, I’m not asking for (laughs)
Matt: I’m
just… I freely admit, I…
Dave: I
just find it funny that, it was the same thing as Benjamin Hobbs said, ya know,
“Have you ever recorded yourself drawing, because that seems to be really
popular on Youtube is artists recording themselves drawing” and I went, “well,
I recorded myself drawing on several of the 118 CerebusTV that I did, but
there’s only 3 viewers of CerebusTV”. It’s like, ya know, I’m hoping we’re at
least getting to the point where we understand that Cerebus and Dave Sim have
basically been almost completely destroyed? But not completely destroyed, and
that’s now the most interesting thing about it. What does it take to absolutely
destroy Cerebus so that it’s never referred to and never talked about, and just
completely ceases to exist? I think it could be done temporarily, I think it
could be done in my lifetime, but I’m not sure if it will actually survive all
of the Eddie Khanna administration. It’s like one of those trick birthday
candles that you can’t blow out.
Matt:
Well, that’s, uhh, Oliver Simon…
Dave: I
was gonna ask you. Eddie Khanna said in his fax, that the reaction of the
solicitation of “LGBTQ, Etc.” was he wasn’t sure where it was on the Richter
scale but it was definitely on the Richter scale. Is that still going on?
Matt: I
haven’t heard anything, I’m off Twitter for the next few years. As I posted
something about and I typed, “the Twitters”, and I put a link to the Alec
Guiness bit from the first “Star Wars” movie where he says, “You’ll never find
a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”. And that’s pretty much how I feel
about Twitter, so I don’t dip my toe in as much if I can help it.
Dave:
Okay.
Matt: I
know Oliver Simonsen on the Facebook group will post links to various tweets
and he’ll post something like, “somebody drew Cerebus”, and comments on it with
other links to Twitter where other people talking about Cerebus. And he usually
gets at least a dozen every time he does this. Where somebody writes, “Cerebus
is one of the greatest graphic novels of all time”. One guy said, if you’d go back
in time and do anything he’d buy a Cerebus #1.
Dave:
(laughs)
Matt: I’m
trying to think… It’s always… it’s… there’s a podcast where they’re going
through old issues of Wizard and they do a podcast of, ya know, “This is issue
17 and there’s a big Cerebus reference in issue 17, so he posts the link to
that.” I’m on the Facebook group, and I’m goin’, “I could steal this, and then
I wouldn’t have to do a post today! But then I’m a skiving little thief, and I
don’t want to be a skiving little thief. I’ll come up with something else.”
Dave: One
of the things you faxed me through the LGBTQ Nation piece…
Matt:
Yeah, Oliver found that.
Dave:
Right. I’ve asked Eddie Khanna to work with George Gatsis, who does Cerebus
Downloads, and figure out a way to offer “Melmoth” to LGBTQ Nation as a free
download. And I’ll come up with some sort of special code that only LGBTQ
Nation viewers, readers, whatever they’re called, will be able to download
“Melmoth” just as a “I don’t think of myself as a homophobe”, I don’t want to
get ahead of myself here, I’ve got some stuff that I’ve wrote down, but,
definitely, ya know, 1990/1991, doing a graphic novel version of the
last days of Oscar Wilde, (laughs) is not the cagiest career move that you
could make in the comic book field at the time. And I think I get credit for
that with some gays, but not from a lot of gays, and I could understand that. I
mean, if you’re an absolutist about celebrating homosexuality, homosexuality is
just a complete societal virtue and there’s absolutely no downside to it. Well,
okay, that’s the way you’re gonna look at it. But anyway, Eddie sent me three
pages of emails going back and forth with George and it sounds like they’ve got
it figured it out? But I’ve got a head full of cotton wool, so I’m not sure I’m
just not understanding what they’re talking to each other about because it’s
all internet stuff, or if they’re still having to work out how it’s going to be
done. But, ya know, if this is the only gay website that picked up on the
story, okay, well, here’s maybe something that you don’t know about Dave Sim,
particularly interesting with “Jaka’s Story” with Oscar Wilde’s appearance in
it is being remastered right now and is getting ready to go to press, that
Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, is a huge, huge fan of “Melmoth” and
Oscar Wilde in Cerebus and wanted the Louvre to include my material with their
Oscar Wilde retrospective and they…
PART 2 QUITS
PART 3 APPEARS
Dave: This
leads into some notes that I did type out because, like I say, my brain isn’t
particularly well the last couple of days. I have to emphasize that I have no
personal experience in this. All I know is that Eddie said in a fax last Friday
that the blowup was on Richter scale. So Eddie is filling the role that Bill
Willingham filled in 1994. My phone number is 519-576-0610. My fax number is
519-576-0955. I haven’t heard anything from anyone. If it’ll make you feel
better to yell at my answering machine, it’s 24/7. The ringer is always turned
off. And I’ll be happy to listen to your message when it comes in. Yelling at
me where I’m not, the internet, is lynch mob cowardice. Okay, “LGBTQ, Etc.”
Benjamin Hobbs came up with the cover. This is how we do Cerebus In Hell? Is
the guys come up with cover ideas, and I look at them, and I put them in order
of “this is the one that I want to do next. I think this one’s a very funny
idea.” I thought I assumed that the idea that Benjamin Hobbs was coming up with
was the “Etc”, the “how many genders are there going to end up being?” You’d
have to ask Benjamin if that’s what he was driving at, but Sandeep did two or
three strips about it back in the original run. It’s not a made-up thing. The
City of New York issued a directive that there were however many genders that
there were, that you weren’t allowed to discriminate against. My questions
would be, “is there now one definitive list of genders? And two, how many are
there? Or is LGBTQ it? Is this still under discussion?” It’s like, it’s not a
discussion that particularly interests me, so I’m not following it, but I think
that’s a relevant question. I think it’s self-evident that genders are genders,
and sexual preferences are sexual preferences. It’s apples and oranges, it’s
two different things. There are only two genders. There are multiple sexual
preferences. I’m not a homophobe. I don’t hate gays, and I’m not afraid of
gays. I don’t hate anyone, and I’m not afraid of anyone. As with everything
else to do with God, I think it comes down to innermost motivation. Why are you
having sex? If you’re just masturbating using someone else’s body, I infer
that’s morally wrong, and you will suffer the moral consequences in this world
or the next. Gay, straight, or other. If you have innermost motivations that
are beneficent. That are well-minded. That are good-natured toward the person
that you’re having sex with, then I don’t think you’ve got a problem. I think
it comes down to innermost motivation. But innermost motivation I think is only
known to God. Everyone else is just effing based on their personal prejudices.
I think the key part of LGBTQ, transsexual, is a bridge too far. If you pump a
man full of estrogen, he will manifest female characteristics. But I don’t
believe that makes him a woman. The same as if you pump a woman full of
testosterone, she will manifest male characteristics. But I don’t believe that makes
her a man. When you extend that to underage adolescents, championing adolescent
transsexuality ideation, over parental jurisdiction, I think that’s a toxic
political stance. If you can get the votes for it, congratulations. But right
now it’s looking like liberalism’s Achilles heel. If you won’t let go of that,
and you force all liberals to believe in it, I think it’ll poison the entire
liberal body of politic. Which I think is already happening, and I don’t think
that we can afford to have that happen. I think we need liberalism, and we need
a strong reality-based liberalism. Even if medical science gets to the point
where it’s able to do a full penis and testicle transplant, and a full womb and
vagina transplant. I don’t think the result will be a man who used to be a
woman, or woman who used to be a man. It’s just Frankenstein science. I’m
willing to go to prison to defend my right to believe that, and to express that
view. Living in Canada that seems the most likely outcome. What’s needed in
society and what I think the internet has effectively destroyed is tolerance.
Genuine tolerance, as opposed to fake tolerance, is measured by your ability to
tolerate that which you fundamentally oppose. Best example I can give, is how
tolerant are gays of President Trump, as an example? Barely, if at all, would
be my guess. Parody is protected in civilized society. If I find your politic
views funny, and I find a funny way to exaggerate them, which I have with
“LGBTQ, Etc. People”, that’s as protected as what Alec Baldwin does with
President Trump on “Saturday Night Live”. President Trump and his supporters
tolerate that. Barely. They don’t celebrate it and they don’t champion it, but
genuine tolerance isn’t about celebration and championing. It’s about
tolerance. I acknowledge that you exist, as a citizen of the democracy. I hold
it to be self-evident that your life and fundamental liberties are to be
protected that same as mine are. I don’t have any special liberty, and neither do
you. If there are things in people you barely tolerate, then you can’t be
surprised that the reaction to you is that you are barely tolerated. If you
have zero tolerance for things and people, which and with whom you disagree,
you can’t be surprised if you elicit zero tolerance in others. If you
self-righteously participate in online lynch mob, destroying lives and careers,
you can’t be too surprised when your own life and career are destroyed. Karma
and hubris exist, and I believe were created by God for that reason. Do unto
others and it will be done unto you, to paraphrase the Golden Rule. You won’t
see it coming, and it will come from an unexpected quarter, but it will come.
Matt:
…Okay. (coughs) ….
Dave: A
deafening silence fell over the crowd.
Matt:
Well, I’m giving you a pause. I agreed pretty much wholeheartedly. I work with
a bunch of people that, ya know, they’re internet reactionaries. They read
somethin’ online and immediately go off on a tangent about how horrible
whatever it is. And I’m like, “Okay, but let’s look at the context.” The one
example that sticks in my mind, and this happened probably a year ago, is a
woman at work, looking at her phone and there was a mass shooting and President
Trump was responding to the mass shooting, and somebody commented about, “hey
you should just ban guns completely”. Well the name sounded really foreign, so
she went, “Oh, that’s a terrorist”, and I’m like, “what’s the name?” and she
told me, and I’m like, “where is this guy located?” and she said India. And I’m
like, I doubt he’s a terrorist, I think he’s an Indian.
Dave:
Right.
Matt: Ya
know, and… he’s, ya know, and if you’re in America, gun violence is gun
violence. If you’re in Australia gun violence is a completely different thing.
And if you’re in India, ya know, it’s common sense in India of, “well hey if
everybody is shooting somebody, why don’t you take the guns away?” Ya know, and
I’m looking at the perspective of here, okay… but in her mind, ya know, he’s a
Muslim terrorist cause he’s got a funny sounding name. And I’m like, “India is
majority Hindu, I think if anything he’d be a Hindu terrorist and I don’t think
they have those.”
Dave: Or
Sikh. I mean, that’s one of those, I think it’s… we should probably acknowledge
as a society in general, exactly how detrimental 9/11 was to Hindus and Sikhs,
particularly. Because… ya know, “anybody who looks like that has gotta be a
Muslim” is a default setting for the uninformed, but at the same time, as
someone who prays five times a day and fasts in Ramadan and acknowledges God’s
sovereignty, it’s… I still understand, and I’m still very tolerant of people’s
attitudes towards Islam. If you’re a Christian, the mere fact of this religion
existing where one of its centerpiece philosophies is that “God does not have a
son and it’s blasphemous to suggest that God has a son”, that’s very difficult
not to take as threatening from a Christian perspective. For me, it’s a matter
of, “over here when I’m doing my Christian observance, when I’m reading John’s
Gospel, yes, it seems very very definitive that God has a son, and later in the
afternoon when I’m reading from the Koran, it’s very very definitive that God
does not have a son.” My conclusion is, well, how would I know? I’m not God. I
assume that, as it says in the Bible, as it says in the Koran, all of these
things will be settled on Judgement Day. Here, here’s what you didn’t
understand and here’s what was being said. It’s not that God was implying this
or God was implying that, we were inferring incorrectly as God’s creations.
Matt:
Which goes back to the classic bit from “High Society” between Astoria and
Cerebus. The speaker implies, the listener infers.
Dave:
Right, right. And also the thing that we were talking about in the last time
that we had this chat, that people seem to be having a great deal of difficulty
realizing what is an opinion and what is a fact. The pressure to not say
things. You can’t say this and you can’t hold these opinions out loud in our
society. It’s like, the hell I can’t. I live in a democracy. None of us are
completely informed on anything. Walk into the public library and look at all
of those books. How much of the information on those books do you know? And
yet, you still have opinions about all of these different things. But know the
difference between an opinion and, ya know, Newton’s laws of motion. You don’t
have to pass laws prohibiting people from dissenting from Newton’s laws of
motion. It’s not in that category. Ya know, most of Canada is cold in the
winter. Saying that doesn’t make me a coldist, it’s a fact! Most of Canada is
cold in the winter. It’s April and most of Canada is still cold.
Matt:
That’s, uhh… I’m tryin’ to think, there’s a TV show where somebody’s like, “I
don’t believe in gravity”, and one of the other characters is like, “Well, how
can you say that?” “Well lately I don’t feel like I’m being pulled, I feel like
I’m being pushed.”
Dave:
There you go!
Matt: It’s
one of those, it’s a funny joke but, then you start thinking, “are we being
pushed?” and then you get, ya know, it’s just a theory. The theory of special
relativity. Well, yeah, it’s a really sound theory, that’s why it’s taught as,
yes, it’s still just a theory but we’re pretty sure we got this one in the bag
and we know what we’re talkin’ about.
Dave:
Well, we’re certainly seeing a lot of incidents of that in society. The vaxers
and the anti-vaxers. That would’ve been inconceivable, I mean, those vaccines
started when I was a baby. I’ll take the blame for it if you want, but ya know,
the latest newspaper headlines are about teenagers who are the children of
anti-vaxers but who believe in vaccinations and should you vaccinate them
behind the parents’ backs? That’s a very interesting question. It’s like, I
dunno, if we’re talking about herd immunity, then we sort of accept the fact
that when you drop below a specific threshold then you’re talking about, ya
know, having regionalized measles outbreaks where there are just too many
people that haven’t had the vaccine, yeah you probably do want to do it behind
the parents’ backs. But, as a civil liberty aspect, I think you definitely want
to have parents having jurisdiction over their children. The same problem, like
I say, that I’ve got with this transgender thing. A 13 year old boy who says
he’s actually a girl, I don’t think that you can override the parents’
jurisdiction and say, “Okay, this is a transgendered girl and we have to treat
her as a girl from now on, and if you won’t treat her as a girl, then we’re
gonna take your son/daughter away from you and rear her over here in this LGBTQ
environment.”
Matt:
That’s… that’s one of those things, I mean, the vaccinations thing is one of
those, I’m pro-vaccination just because, ya know, my wife’s in the health care
field. I’m into science and the science says we used to have polio and now we
don’t, and this is why. And I’m… I understand that yes, as a parent, you’re
going to stick what in my kid?! But at the same time, I don’t want my kid to,
ya know, have polio. So that’s why I’m pro-vaccination. And as far as, ya know,
if I were anti-vax and my kids were to do it behind my back, well hey, it’s
done, what can you do?
Dave:
Right.
Matt: On
the one hand, yo… the cow has left the field at that point. Or the horse is out
of the barn. I mean, once it’s gone, it’s gone. There’s no do-overs here,
where, okay we’re gonna suck the vaccine out. And I can see, ya know, if it’s a
true… if a parent truly has objections that, ya know, “well, I didn’t want my
kid to…” well, okay, sorry, we won’t do it with your next kid if you have a
next kid. But as far as the transgender thing, that’s… a guy at work who’s
really conservative I’ll jokingly say on bad days, “is it 30 years from now yet
so that I can retire?” and he’s like, “Well, people can make up their gender,
why can’t you make up your age? Just tell them you’re old enough to retire.”
And I’m like, I don’t think they’re gonna give me my social security check,
Casey, I really don’t think so.
Dave:
Right. Right. Yeah, it’s an interesting time period. I don’t think… I think
that’s really a slippery slope. If you say, “you have to treat people as they
perceive of themselves”, then you get into a very dicey area. It’s interesting,
but at the same time, the left is putting together this “one right way to
think. Here is a list of things you have to believe, and if you don’t believe
these then you are expelled from society.” at the same time as everybody is individualizing
so radically. I don’t talk to too many people in the course of a given day or a
given week or a given month, but I can’t go three sentences into a conversation
without finding something that I fundamentally disagree with them about. But I
think everybody’s in that situation. I think that’s why I’m advocating for
tolerance. Train yourself to be tolerant by contemplating what ever it is that
you think is the complete opposite of good. “This is what I think is evil, or
this is what I think is completely wrongheaded” and realize that there are
people who think that way. And if there are people who think that way, they
have to be allowed to think that way. You can’t advocate physical harm, but in
terms of “this is what somebody thinks”, this is what somebody thinks. I don’t
think that there is a danger of this wildfire kind of Hitler Nazism, I don’t
think we’re in any danger of that, we’re all individualizing too dramatically
as it is. I think what we have to do is come up with a baseline, “this is what
constitutes an education” and no longer teach opinions in school. Anything that
is in doubt, you don’t teach that. Strictly factual things. Which I think could
be beneficial. This is what a sentence is. This is what the subject of a
sentence is. This is what a noun is. This is what a verb is. It doesn’t matter
what you feel about a verb, it’s either a verb or it’s not a verb. If it’s a
verb, it’s a verb; if’s it’s a noun, it’s a noun. Let’s teach stuff like that,
instead of, “here’s what the latest craze is for whatever political faction is
dominating the education system”. It’s like, no, let’s just teach pure facts
and avoid opinions, because there are just too many opinions too teach. And if
you want special days or special classes where you do share opinions, well,
let’s share all opinions. What I think we want to avoid is anybody
self-appointing themselves the arbiter of what you’re allowed to think and what
you’re not allowed to think. Okay, Matt, I’m going back to bed before I have a
relapse.
Matt: Okay!
Well, thanks for callin’.
Dave:
Okay!
Matt:
We’ll do this again in a month but hopefully everybody’s feelin’ better.
Dave: I
hope so! I hope so. Thank you very much for faxing me the picture of you with
Janis and Natasha, and it’s like I’m sittin’ there looking at it and going,
“they got their birthday cards! They actually got their birthday cards. They’re
holding them.” Cause the birthday cards are just, “don’t forget whoever it is
today, cause if it doesn’t go out today…” I’ve got one that’s gotta go out
today or it’s not gonna get there for the 11th. I think it’s
probably going out tomorrow, anyway.
Matt: I
got home and I saw the envelope from you, and I’m like, “Uh-oh”. My Mom was
like, “whoa, you got a package, how is that an uh-oh?” and I’m like, “I’m not
expecting anything this big from Dave. This could be good, this could be bad.”
I open it up, and I’m like, “ahh, this is really neat.” So thank you for the
“Super Cerebus” #1
Dave: No
problem! No problem. Thank you for being one of the last 92 people.
Matt:
Well, I’m definitely going to be in the teens when we get to the teens. Unless
something bad happens to me between now and then.
Dave:
Alright. Say hi to Paula, and Janis, and Natasha for me.
Matt: Will
do. Take care! Get back to bed.
Dave:
Thanks. Buh-bye.
Matt: Bye.
________________________________
Thank you, as always, to Jesse Lee Herndon for transcribing this. Thanks Jesse!
Next Time: Oliver makes me go all a-Twitter...
