Shut Up And Listen 47 Chad Nevett, Prime Minister I have figured out a way to become Prime Minister without actually becoming officially involved with politics. It’s rather simple and ingenious, if I do say so myself. In Canada, we do not elect a person. You elect a Member of Parliament in your riding and whichever party gets the most MPs in the House of Commons is the party in government. The leader of that party is then made Prime Minister. A month or so ago, an MP from British Columbia switched from the Alliance party to the Liberal party. This gave the Liberals one more seat in parliament—not that they need it as they have an easy majority. There were some comments made that the MP should step down because he was elected not because of who he is, but the fact that he was the Alliance party’s candidate in that riding. He’s still up on parliament hill. Do you see where I’m taking this? What I do is unofficially start my own party, but get the members to join various other parties. Their jobs are to become MPs under the banner of whatever party they join. Once I have my people in the majority at parliament, they all quit their parties and then form together under my party, which they were really always members of. As leader of that party, I would become Prime Minister. I believe though that I would have to be an MP myself, but I think I could do that. That would really fuck with the people, eh. This Is Jack’s Column So last Friday night I saw Fight Club over at the Captain’s house. Good movie. Too bad I knew the ending, so sat through the entire thing waiting for him to realize the truth. Jump to Tuesday on the bus ride home. We have me in my seat, and next to me, the Loudmouth Blonde. I didn’t want her to sit with me, but believe it or not, I’m too nice to tell her to fuck off. She’s reading Fight Club (something I plan on doing someday when I need a book to read), and we get into an argument over whether or not what Tyler was trying to accomplished in it could work. I say no it wouldn’t. She seems to disagree. But let me just say something about the people I know and the beliefs they hold. Here we have people who see this, think “that is a great fucking lesson! Capitalism sucks!” And then do you know what they do? They go and eat at McDonald’s. They go out and buy some shoes that they don’t need. They buy a DVD. It’s hypocritical and I’m sick of it. Now me, I don’t like capitalism, but I don’t want to destroy it. I just want to change it so that people don’t, you know, starve to death. Just provide people with the basics and then continue with the way things are. But not them. No, they listen to shit like Rage Against The Machine and then start ranting about how horrible capitalism is, and then they buy another pair of jeans that are $50 more expensive where they buy them than at a less fashionable store. That, aside, we were arguing over whether or not Tyler’s plan to make people regress would work. It wouldn’t, for two reasons (and I’m thinking long-term, which is a BIG difference between me and the other side of the argument). One, no societal structure based on violence survives. Two, people will eventually just return back to where they are. All that this would do is devolve people back to what they were a few hundred years ago. Wait a few generations and they’ll be back on the road to where we are. It delays what is. Also, how is that society any better, really? The message I picked out from the movie is that people are infinitely malleable. I mean, one minute they’re all devoted to their careers and getting possessions, this guy says to do what he says instead, and they do it. Just. Like. That. Same robots, different programming. Interview With . . . Peter David! If you know me, then odds are you’ve heard me talk about Peter David. To put it mildly, I love his novels. I think the first book I read of his was his Hulk novel, and that was because it was comic related. Eventually, my love of Star Trek led me to start picking up some of those novels. I recognized David’s name from comics and such, so I read Q-Sqaured (the fact that I like Q didn’t hurt). It blew me away. It was a work of genius, so I quickly read everything else the library had to offer me of his, and I have been since. Me: Tell us a little about yourself. David: Peter David is a prolific author whose career, and continued popularity, spans nearly two decades. He has worked in every conceivable media: Television, film, books (fiction, non-fiction and audio), short stories, and comic books, and acquired followings in all of them. In the literary field, Peter has had over fifty novels published, including numerous appearances on the New York Times Bestsellers List. His novels include Sir Apropos of Nothing (A “fast, fun, heroic fantasy satire”--Publishers Weekly), Knight Life, Howling Mad, and the Psi-Man adventure series. He is the co-creator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books, and has also written such Trek novels as Q-Squared, The Siege, Q-in-Law, Vendetta, I, Q (with John de Lancie), A Rock and a Hard Place and Imzadi. He produced the three Babylon 5 Centauri Prime novels, and has also had his short fiction published in such collections as Shock Rock, Shock Rock II, and Otherwere, as well as Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Peter’s comic book resume includes an award-winning twelve-year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as Supergirl, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, X-Factor, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens, and many others. He has also written comic book related novels, such as The Hulk: What Savage Beast, and co-edited The Ultimate Hulk short story collection. Furthermore, his opinion column But I Digress has been running in the industry trade newspaper The Comic Buyers’ Guide for nearly a decade, and in that time has been the paper's consistently most popular feature and was also collected into a trade paperback edition. Peter is the co-creator, with popular science fiction icon Bill Mumy (of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame) of the Cable Ace Award-nominated science fiction series Space Cases, which ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon. He has written several scripts for the Hugo Award winning TV series Babylon 5, and the sequel series, Crusade. He has also written several films for Full Moon Entertainment and co-produced two of them, including two instalments in the popular Trancers series as well as the science fiction western spoof Oblivion, which won the Gold Award at the 1994 Houston International Film Festival for best Theatrical Feature Film, Fantasy/Horror category. Peter's awards and citations include: the Haxtur Award 1996 (Spain), Best Comic script; OZCon 1995 award (Australia), Favourite International Writer; Comic Buyers Guide 1995 Fan Awards, Favourite writer; Wizard Fan Award Winner 1993; Golden Duck Award for Young Adult Series (Starfleet Academy), 1994; UK Comic Art Award, 1993; Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, 1993. He lives in New York with his wife, Kathleen, and his three children, Shana, Gwen and Ariel. Me: What was your first big break of sorts in the writing field? David: Writing Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man. Me: What have you written? And try to keep it under a 1000 words ;) David: See #1. Me: What are you currently writing? David: Responses to this interview. Me: What do you think of Enterprise so far? David: Could be better, could be worse. Me: You ever notice how the ending to Q-Squared could be modified slightly so that all the problems with Brent Spiner and make-up not covering his age would no longer be an issue? David: Hadn't really given it much thought. Me: Boxers or briefs? David: Depends if you're fighting a pugilist or an attorney. Me: Summer or winter? David: Summer. Less clothing on women. Me: Cats or dogs? David: Cats. Me: Any cool stories involving a chick? David: I once stood at an incubator and watched a whole bunch hatch. That was cool. Me: I just gave you a 100 untraceable bullets, who or what do you use them on? David: The guy who thought of this question. Me: Who are some of your favourite writers? David: Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Robert Crais, David McCullough. Me: Who is your hero? David: My wife. Me: Who are some of the artists that you really want to work with? David: Alex Ross. That'd be cool. Dave McKean. Adam Hughes. Me: Did you design New Frontier as a possible TV series or was the use of pre-existing characters just because you thought them to be interesting? Not to mention the little one-liners about Morgan Lefler looking like Majel Barret Roddenbery . . . David: No, it was always designed to be a book series. Using some pre-existing characters was suggested by John Ordover. Me: Are you going to be doing any more B5 work? For novels, TV, movies, comics, anything? David: Dunno. Me: You've written numerous Q novels, do you find the way he's been portrayed to be contrary to the way that you view the character? David: Sometimes. Wasn't wild about any of his Voyager appearances. Me: Can you tell people, who won't listen to me, why they should read New Frontier? David: Nah. If they won't listen to you, who has no vested interest, why would they listen to me? Me: Who do you love? David: My wife and children. Me: Any final words? David: Well, no, what with not dying anytime soon. Chevett Poll Results--January Edition Here they are. Only a week late. Question 1: Do you want to write a column for me? Yes (well e-mail me then, moron! chevett13@yahoo.ca)--3 votes--16% Nah--16 votes--84% Question 2: Are you looking forward to my webcomic Villain Yes--4 votes--21% Not really. I mean, I'll read it, but I'm not counting the fucking days--8 votes--42% You suck!--4 votes--21% Webcomic?--3 votes--16% Question 3: Did you get nice and drunk to ring in the New Year? Yeah--2 votes--20% Nah--6 votes--60% Not so loud, please--2 votes--20% Question 4: Have you already broken your New Year resolutions? Of course not, I plan to keep them this year--0 votes--0% Of course not, I plan to keep them until at least the end of January--2 votes--20% *lowers head in shame*--1 vote--10% Don't make them, so don't break them--7 votes--70% Question 5: Do you wish it was the sixties and that you could be happy? Sure--0 votes--0% Not really--6 votes--60% I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen--4 votes--40% Question 6: Am I quite what you expected as far as appearances go? Yeah. Geek!--3 votes--30% Worse than my nightmares!--3 votes--30% I've seen you in real life, man, but it's still a shock each time.--4 votes--40% Question 7: Do you know that the FBI is watching me type this? Yeah--2 votes--20% You're paranoid--2 votes--20% Me too--6 votes--60% February’s poll is up, so go vote before your head explodes!