...About 2023

It's been close to a year since my last podcast, and what a year it's been. I'm not good at keeping things brief, but I'll do my best in this "lightning round" of 2023 highlights (and some lowlights).

Here's the link to my homepage, where you can find links to each of my self-published ebooks on all eReader platforms: http://stephens.website/

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I'm Stephen Monteeth, and I'm hereto talk about twenty twenty three. You
didn't hear much from me in twentythree. I didn't publish any news stories.
I only had a few podcast episodes, all of which were at the
beginning of the year, and myprofessional social media presence was pretty low for

(00:27):
reasons, for all of which Iwill get into. But that doesn't mean
nothing happened in the last year orthat I have nothing to say about any
of it. I know I canget pretty long winded even when I say
I'm trying to keep things brief,but I'll do my best to be brief

(00:48):
right now about twenty twenty three.Some of these topics I'll be getting into
in more detail in future podcasts,and there will be future podcasts, but
for right now, let's just doa little lightning round of the last twelve

(01:10):
years twelve months or so. Firstof all, movies, I saw Spider
Man across the Spider Verse, andit reaffirmed for me a lot of reasons
why that I didn't even really realizeI think until recently why Spider Man is

(01:34):
one of my favorite superheroes. Ithad an element to it that that Frankly,
the Sam Raimie and Amazing Spider Manmovies couldn't even touch something that the
MCU Spider Man movies could get into, and something that the that the animated

(01:57):
series from the nineties got into.That I that I pretty much grew up
on the nineties animated series informed myview of Spider Man, and that's that
he is a He's sort of asolitary superhero, not in the way that

(02:23):
Batman is, because I mean,let's face it, Batman's not a solitary
superhero. He has sidekicks, hehas Alfred, he has the Justice League.
Spider Man he just sort of,I mean, he joins superhero teams,
but he goes from like team toteam to team, you know.

(02:45):
He goes from the Avengers to teamingup with the X Men every now and
then. He was even part ofthe Fantastic Four in the comics for a
while. That's just scraping the surface. But the thing is about Spider Man
is that he never really gets tofit in anywhere. I mean, that's

(03:09):
what really defines him. Some peoplethink that it's that he's a kid,
you know, but I think that'sannoying. First of all, everybody should
be allowed to grow up. Buteven when you grow up, you have
trouble fitting in. And as anautistic person, well, let's just say

(03:30):
I relate with that. So andI didn't even know I was autistic until,
you know, just a few yearsago. But I always knew that
I had trouble fitting in. AndSpider Man always has trouble fitting in,
even among other superheroes. That's whythe Sam Raimi movies couldn't really get into

(03:53):
that, because he was not partof part of a large or superhero universe.
I mean, he he was anoutcast of course because of j Jonah
Janison, and you know all thequestions that were raised about whether he's anyway.
But but even among allies, evenamong friends, Spider Man has trouble

(04:18):
fitting in with people. Yeah,so I'll get and across the Spider Verse
really touched that because it has him, It has Miles Morales, not Peter
Parker, but Miles Morales, SpiderMan wanting to be part of the larger

(04:40):
Spider Verse. In the movie intothe Spider Verse, he had all these
Spider Man friends, and then acrossthe Spider Verse he realizes that there are
Spider Men from and Spider women fromall over the place, and he just
really want wants to be part ofthat. He thinks that he'll have a

(05:02):
chance to fit in there, butspoiler alert, he has troubles with that
too. So so I really feelacross the Spider Verse taps into Spider Man's
real the issue that's really at theheart of his identity, and that's something

(05:27):
that I really love about that movie. I also watched The Marvels. I
really think that this that this phaseof the MCU is going in the right
direction. I just that's something thatI'm really going to have to get into

(05:53):
later though. I mean, II got into I got more into the
Spider Man thing, but I'm notgoing to get more into the Marvels in
this podcast. It's, you know, there's way too much to get into
there. But I really did enjoythe Marvels. I really, I really

(06:15):
think that it's it's the kind ofdirection that d MCU should be going,
and I will talk more about thatlater. I also saw The Little Mermaid,
the live action reboot of it,and I enjoyed it immensely. I'm
a big fan. I'm I saybig fan. I haven't even watched the

(06:39):
sequels to the animated movie, butI just love all the songs from the
first movie and I loved hearing themagain in this movie and seeing the characters
come to life on the screen.It wasn't it wasn't as extravagant, you

(07:01):
know. I mean, during underthe Sea, you're supposed to have all
these different types of fish, youknow, make appearances, but instead,
you know, we just get alittle sea turtle dance number. And I
really feel that. I mean,that's understandable, but it was also kind

(07:25):
of disappointing. But there were othergood things about it. I liked the
I liked the actors, and Iliked the jobs that they did. And
I've done a podcast about live actionDisney movies before. You can look it
up and you can listen to mythoughts on that. The big movie was

(07:47):
Rebel Moon. Now. I didn'tsee this in theaters because it's just on
Netflix right now. But Zack Snyder. I have done a few podcasts on
Zack Snyder and about the the crapthat he went through at Warner Brothers,
and I think he's going to finda much better home at Netflix because he's

(08:09):
already done Army of the Dead andnow Rebel Moon Part one and Rebel Moon
Part two is going to come outlater. And when Rebel Moon Part two
comes out, then I'll get muchmore into that because I really have a
lot to say about Rebel Moon.I think it's a great movie, you
know. I love I love theway it's bringing in characters, and I

(08:35):
can't wait to see more from allof them. Now let's move on to
TV. You know, Star Trek. Star Trek has had a number of
series this last year that made thatmade headlines, well, at least among

(09:00):
the Star Trek fandom. We hadStar Trek Picard's final season and it was
really great having a reunion of allthe different main characters from the from Star
Trek the Next Generation where the characterof Picard originated, and we got to

(09:22):
see them all come together and basicallyhave a new adventure. And it brought
in even more characters as well.That proved to be you know, pretty
pretty much fan favorites now. Andthen there was Star Trek Strange New Worlds.

(09:48):
It had. It had a numberof interesting episodes this season. It
had a musical episode for one,and and the characters got to have all
different kinds of development in their relationshipswith each other. Musicals episodes, I

(10:13):
think tend to take advantage of that. There's something about singing about your feelings
that really illustrates them much more ina much more straightforward way than talking about
them does. The Buffy musical episodetaught us that it's a thing about musicals.

(10:33):
They give you, They give youthat magical moment where you can just
make everybody understand everything. And asan autistic person, it's, you know,
really hard for me to make peopleunderstand how I feel. Sometimes maybe

(10:54):
I should just try singing or maybenot. But there was also the crossover
episode between Star Trek Strange New Worldsand Star Trek Lower Decks. Ah,
oh my gosh, that was amazing. But there's just so much going on

(11:16):
that and like I say, Idon't have a whole lot of time to
talk about it because I want togo through the whole year. But I
will say this about Star Trek Prodigy. Prodigy is the other animated series that
Star Trek was doing, and andit was airing on Paramount Plus. But

(11:43):
there was a whole mess with withthe show being canceled, and not just
canceled, but removed from the streamingservice. But now it's been picked up
again and now it's going to beuh by a different by Netflix, I
believe, and they're going to continuethe series. And this was due to

(12:09):
a letter writing campaign by the fans. You know that it's practically a Star
Trek tradition you have. You cango all the way back to the beginning
of the franchise for that. Atthe first Star Trek series, the original
series was saved at least for orone more season when it was going to

(12:33):
be canceled after the second season,a letter writing campaign kept it going for
another season. And then of coursethere was the letter writing campaign to name
NASA's Space Shuttle the Enterprise in theseventies and that and that was another example

(12:56):
of how this fandom can do greatthings when it comes together. On the
other hand, well, I'll getmore into fandoms later in a minute actually,
and also later when I do apodcast about fandoms. But like I
say, for now, let's talka little bit more about television. Let's

(13:20):
talk about Archer. It had itsfinal season and it had what I thought
was a pretty good finale special thatthat gave the characters all something to do
a and it it was a nicesend off for everyone. Frankly, Frankly,

(13:48):
I think ending the season now isthe right thing to do. You
know. It's not that I don'tthink they could do more or even have
spin offs, but but after afterJessica Walter died and the character Mallory was

(14:09):
taken away, it it was reallythe right thing to do to end the
series. They had one more seasonand they and they wrapped up as much
as they could and they gave usthe the final special and that was it.

(14:30):
It's just done, and I thinkit was the right decision to make.
Plus hopefully everyone involved with it willgo on to other things now with
their projects. You know, keepyour eyes open for that one more or
a couple more TV shows actually talkedabout Netflix a couple of times. Netflix

(14:52):
had the show The Fall of theHouse of Usher. Now this I don't
know much about horror TV shows,but I think this one really took things
in. If not a new direction, then certainly an interesting direction, because

(15:16):
not only are the main characters mostlyobjectively horrible people, but they all meet
objectively gruesome ends. Now, ifyou can't stand blood and guts and gore,
then you shouldn't watch this show.But if you can stand it,

(15:39):
and especially if you're a fan ofEdgar Allan Poe, then you should watch
this eight episode mini series that isa complete love letter to Edgar Allan Poe.
And if you are a fan,then you'll probably be able to guess
how each episode ends because each ofthe main characters is a member of the

(16:06):
House of Usher and they each meeta grisly fate inspired by one of ed
Growland Poe's stories, you know,like murders at the Room Morgue, or
The Pit and the Pendulum, justto name a couple. And every now

(16:29):
and then during an episode, you'llhear somebody quoting a poem of ed grouand
pose, or you'll hear them referencinga character from one of Poe's other stories.
Mark Hamill plays a character named Pim, and he's a character who's inspired

(16:56):
by Poe's novel The Narrative of ArthurGordon Pym of Nantucket. Now, Pim
is like a lawyer slash fixer forthe for the Usher family in the miniseries,
but I would like to see himhave his own spin off mini series,

(17:21):
or at least a Netflix movie devotedto his life in this universe,
because they make some very interesting allusionsto his adventures before coming to work for
the Ushers, and I would loveto see him, especially Mark Hamill,

(17:45):
bring some of those adventures to life. Okay, but I also have another
idea for another Mike Flanner can Fallof the House Busher is made by Mike
Flanigan. It's part of his Hauntingminiseries series. But I have another idea

(18:08):
for a project that I'd like himto tackle, but I will talk about
that in a future podcast. Rightnow, the last TV show I want
to talk about is Doctor who Ihave been a fan of the series for
a very long time now, andI was I admit I was a little

(18:36):
disappointed that they brought David Tennant back, not because I didn't want to see
him in the role again, butthe way they brought him back, it
felt like it felt like they weresaying they needed him because they were disappointed

(19:00):
with how things which went with JodyWhittaker's Doctor and they were trying to reset
the the series back to an earliertime, especially since they brought in Russell
T. Davies as the showrunner.Now and it really felt like they were

(19:21):
just trying to rewind the whole thing. That's something that Russell T. Davies
does. He hits the reset button. Yeah. If you notice at the
end of most of his most ofthe series, the seasons if you will,
of Doctor Who under his under hisshowrunnership, they usually saw things by

(19:48):
just hitting the reset button and thenboom, starting a news story that brings
up whole new stakes, and thenyou just hit the reset button again.
And now it feels like the entirefranchise has done that because they went through
all this great stuff, in myopinion, with Jody Whittaker, and they

(20:11):
have a chance to explore all ofit, and instead they just hit the
reset button with it by bringing usright back to where we were, rewinding
the franchise to where we left offwith David Tinnett and Catherine Tate, is
Don and Noble and Russell T.Davis as the showrunner. And I feel

(20:33):
that's kind of disrespectful, not justto Jody Whittaker, but to Peter Capaldi
and to Matt Smith. And maybeit's my imagination, maybe this is just
I'm sure this is just my personalexperience with it, but I feel that
the franchise deserves better than that,and I certainly hope that it does better.

(20:56):
With Shooti Gatwa as the next doctor. I'm I hope I'm pronouncing that
correctly, but I'm sure that he'llhave an opportunity to grow into the role
as well. But but well,let's but we'll just have to see where

(21:25):
that goes. Okay, Now,let's talk a little bit about anime because
I've really been getting back into animethis last year. Bleach is back in
a big way. You know,it wasn't just it didn't just start up

(21:47):
this last year. It actually cameback a couple of years ago now.
But but the original Bleach anime,I actually started watching that about the time
that it came out, and Iwas working at a Barnes and Noble at
the time, and I saw andI saw the characters on Adult Swim and

(22:10):
I thought, hmm, those lookfamiliar. So I went into work the
next day and I saw in themaga section their faces on the covers,
and I'm just like, oh,oh, that's where I've seen them before.
So I actually started reading the mangaand watching the anime at the same
time, and I sort of stoppedwatching the anime when it got to the

(22:33):
first filler arc, because you know, those characters weren't in the manga at
all, So at that point Ijust read the manga and I never actually
finished the anime. But when Ifound out that that Bleach was coming back
and that it was going to finishup the final manga arc, the thousand

(22:55):
Year Blood War arc, I wentback and I made sure that I watched
the whole series, you know,almost four hundred episodes worth, and I
really got caught up on everything,and I even watched the non canon Bleach
movies that were produced, and itreally got me back into everything. And

(23:26):
I'm glad because there are a lotof really good animes and mangas out there.
One of my favorites is it's thisnew anime that just came out called
I'm in Love with the Villainous Now. This is based on a series of
light novels that have been out foryears now, but the anime just came

(23:53):
out and it just it's twelve episodes. You can watch it on crunchy roll.
It covers the first major arc.And now that I've watched that,
I'm going to go back and readall the light novels while I'm waiting for
the next season to come out,because I really because actual fans, well,

(24:22):
I don't I don't like saying that, but fans of the Light novels
have been talking about this online fora while and there are a lot of
spoilers out there for I'm in Lovewith the Villainous. I'll give you a
little bit. I'll tell you alittle bit about the about the series.
It's about this woman named Ray whoshe's working herself to death basically in her

(24:51):
job. And every day she comeshome and she plays this video game and
it's a dating sim called Revolution,and it's set at a magical academy during
a time of revolution. And thecharacter is supposed to be romancing one of

(25:12):
the three princes who are students atthis academy, but she Ray would rather
romance the antagonist of the game,Miss Claire, and and she's and and

(25:34):
then one night, Ray finds herselfmagically transported into the world of the game.
She's at this magical academy. It'sduring a time of revolution. There's
a lot of really great magical duelsand action scenes and monsters and intrigue and

(25:56):
mystery and it's and there's a lotof really great worldling in to it,
but at its core, it's it'sa love story between Ray and Miss Claire
because Miss Claire's job as the villainousis to bully the protagonist of the game,

(26:18):
to bully Ray basically. But butRay loves it, and you know
that's it's one of the things sheloves about Miss Claire. She loves It's
not it's not like she's a doormator anything. She doesn't let people walk
all over her. She's perfectly capableof standing up for herself, even to

(26:41):
royals like the Three Princes and UHand other characters in the game. But
but Ray's just a little bit kinky. And you may think that because she's
a nasochist, and because you knowshe she loves Miss Claire's villainous side,

(27:03):
and because you know she's a lesbian, you might think that there's a lot
of fan service in this anime.There's really not, in fact, except
for a couple of uh except fora couple of scenes. It's probably the
least fan servicey anime I have everwatched. You know, Bleach has a

(27:27):
lot more fan service in it.I mean, heck, even even Pokemon
has uh has fan servicey outfits forsome of the female characters this anime,
they're all wearing uh, They're allwearing long skirts and button up jackets and

(27:51):
blouses. You know, you neverI mean, like I say, there
are a couple of scenes, butthey're very brief, and it's and it
has frank discussions among the students aboutorientation and about Ray being gay and going
after miss Claire. Even though missClaire doesn't think that she could ever fall

(28:21):
in love with a girl, youcan see that she's starting to fall for
Ray's. So there's elements of selfdiscovery in this as well. You know,
you've got Ray who's fully aware ofher own sexuality, and you've got
Miss Claire who's starting to learn thingsabout herself. And and like I say,

(28:45):
there there are some spoilers online forlater on in the series that make
that makes certain other Anyway, Idon't want to get into that right now.
Maybe I'll get into it later.Maybe I'll do a podcast about I'm

(29:07):
in Love with the Villainous. Itreally is one of my favorites, and
I just learned about it a coupleof months ago. So there are other
there are other animes that I've beendiscovering that I'm looking forward to getting into

(29:30):
in the future. I'll probably doa podcast about them as well, but
for right now, I'm going tomove on to something that's a little less
lighthearted. I know that that someof you would probably prefer that this stay

(29:53):
and entertainment podcast, and I wouldprefer it to stay that way too,
But I just take what's going onin the world far too seriously to not
talk about it. First of all, let's talk about Israel, the Israelis

(30:18):
and the Palestinians. I'm not goingto get too deep into this for now.
I mean, I'll probably do apodcast about it later, a full
podcast about it, but for rightnow, I just want to say this.

(30:40):
There is a difference between Hamas,the terrorist organization that is effectively in
charge of the Palestinians. There's adifference between them and the Palestinian people themselves.

(31:00):
I also believe that there's a differencebetween the people who are in power
amongst the Israelis and the Israeli citizensthemselves. There was an episode of mash
where where Alan Alda's character Hawkeye istalking about how about how war is worse

(31:30):
than hell, because everybody who's inhell deserves to be there. But for
the most part, everybody who getshurt in a war doesn't deserve to get
hurt. There are plenty of innocentbystanders in war, and in fact,

(31:51):
in Hawkeye's view, the only peoplein war who deserve to be in hell
are the people who are running thewar. That's basically That's basically my view
of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. You'vegot Hamas who are terrorists and who commit

(32:16):
terrorist attacks against Israelis, and you'vegot the Palestinian people who are just trying
to live their lives and who deserveto live peaceful lives. On the other
side, you've got the Israelis andthe people who are running the war.

(32:42):
For the Israelis who are acting liketerrorists. They have killed I don't know
how many thousands at this point ofPalestinian civilians, including men, women,
and absolutely children. I don't generallylike to do the whole both sides thing,

(33:19):
but right now both sides are beingrun by terrorists. And as regards
all the protests that are taking placeat least here in America, but I'm
sure in other parts of the worldas well. People just can't seem to

(33:44):
understand that when it comes to thisconflict over there, we shouldn't be making
their conflict our conflict. We shouldn'tbe fighting each other over what's taking place

(34:06):
on the other side of the world. You can show support for the Israeli
people, and you can show supportfor the Palestinian people. You can be
against the Israeli leadership, and youcan be against Hamas. It's very simple.

(34:28):
If you're on the side of humanity, if you're on the side of
people being treated the way they're supposedto be treated, then you really should
want the Israelis and the Palestinians bothto live in peace, and you should
want the leaders of both to bepunished for their war crimes and their terrorism.

(34:59):
It's that SIMP. I've got alittle bit less than ten minutes to
go in this podcast. I'm goingto devote at least some of it to
politics here in the United States.First of all, it is now twenty
twenty four, which means it isquote unquote officially the election season really just

(35:27):
keeps getting earlier and earlier in thiscountry, though, I mean here in
Virginia we have an election literally everyyear, every November there is an election
here in Virginia, and this comingyear is the presidential election. This coming
November will be voting for a president, and we'll be voting for new members

(35:51):
of Congress. Let's talk about Congressfirst. In twenty twenty three, this
time last year, a new anew House of Representatives was convened, Except
it wasn't really convened quite yet,because it took them fifteen tries just to

(36:16):
elect a Speaker of the House.Now, without a speaker, you cannot
do anything in the House of Representatives. Kevin McCarthy had a very small majority
of Republicans in Congress, and ittook him fifteen tries to get enough of

(36:37):
those Republicans to vote for him tobe speaker. That is an unprecedented level
of pettiness from Republicans. They wrungso many concessions out of him, and
one of those concessions was that anyone member of Congress could at any point

(37:01):
vote call for a vote rather tohave the speaker removed from office. Now,
I don't know if Kevin McCarthy wasjust hoping that none of the the
Republicans in Congress would call for avote to remove him. But if he

(37:24):
did, then he was an idiot, because later on in twenty twenty three,
one of them did call for avote to remove him from the speakership,
and again there were just enough Republicandefectors to have him removed from his

(37:44):
position as speaker. And again,without a speaker, the House of Representatives
can do nothing. It took anentire month for them to find a new
speaker. And why did they votKevin McCarthy out of his speakership because he
dared to make a deal with Democratsto keep the government running, to fund

(38:10):
the government. I mean, hewas going to have to make a deal
with Democrats anyway, there's a democraticpresident, the Senate is controlled by Democrats.
At some point, Kevin McCarthy wasgoing to have to make a deal
with Democrats on funding the government.But as soon as he did, Republicans

(38:31):
called to remove him from office.And then what happened when they finally did
get a new speaker, he alsomade a deal with Democrats to keep the
government running. So they wasted anentire month and they switched out speakers and
they got exactly the same thing thatthey had before. And now the new

(38:58):
Speaker Mike Johnson is going to haveto make yet another deal with Democrats to
keep the government running. And whatdo you think is gonna happen when he
does that. It's where Republicans havedone nothing but waste time. In fact,
two of their most vocal members inthe House, Chip Roy and Andy

(39:19):
Biggs have both complained that they've donethat. They've got nothing to campaign on.
Nothing they can go home to theirdistricts and say, hey, look
this is what we got done,because they got nothing done this last year.
I certainly hope everybody keeps that inmind this coming November. Don't vote
Republican or we're just going to getmore of this, and certainly don't vote

(39:45):
for Donald Trump. I will begetting more into Donald Trump in a future
podcast, but for right now,I'm just going to say it is unconscious.
It is unconscionable that someone as vileand criminal as he is could be

(40:10):
the front runner for the GOP nomination. And it's impractical. It makes no
sense on any level, not ina practical way, not in a moral
way, not in an ethical way, for him to be in such position,
in such a position, to becomethe official Republican nominee, because he

(40:36):
has four separate criminal indictments, atotal of ninety one separate felonies in four
separate jurisdictions, one in New York, one in DC, one in Florida,
and one in Georgia. And evenif his current strategy of keep put

(41:00):
pushing the trials down the road untilhe can become president again works, he
can't actually pardon himself, not forall of these crimes, because in Georgia
they are state crimes, and inNew York there are state crimes, and
the president can't pardon somebody who's beenconvicted of state level crimes. But again,

(41:24):
his strategy is to just keep pushingeverything down the road and hope that
his prosecutions fall apart when he becomespresident again. Well, like I said,
I'll get more into that later.But even if that weren't the case,

(41:47):
we watched him whip up a moband point them at the United States
Capital and for three hours while theywere breaking down windows and busting through doors
and hunting for congressmen that they could, who knows what the hell their plan

(42:14):
was if they ever actually got theirhands on any of them. Trump did
nothing. It took him three hoursto do anything. The Colorado Supreme Court

(42:37):
determined that his lack of action amountedto participation and in the insurrection, and
it is an insurrection. So he'sbeen kicked off the ballot there, and
the Secretary of State in Maine hasfol followed suit. Now, in one

(43:01):
month, the United States Supreme Courtis going to determine whether those actions will
stand, whether Trump can be kickedoff the ballot for insurrection. And I
will definitely be talking about that inthe future, but right now, that's

(43:23):
but right now, that's pretty muchit for twenty twenty three. There's a
lot of There's a lot of otherstuff I didn't get to, like the
Writer's strike, the the actors Guildstrike I didn't talk about. I didn't

(43:44):
talk about a lot of other stuff. But you know, like I say,
I've got other podcasts coming. Ihonestly for a while thought that I
might not be coming back to thispodcast. But I am coming back to
it, and I am coming backto my writing. I am going to
write more and get more books publishedself published. Of course, in the

(44:08):
meantime, you can read the shortstories and novellas that I already have up
the links to all of them onAll e Readers are on my homepage the
links in the description. Be sureto leave a rating and a review on
whatever you read, and a ratingand a review on this podcast as well.

(44:32):
And thank you for listening. Iwill talk to you more later