MarkMurrayBooks

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Supergirl trailer. Crash and burn. So, now we retcon Superman's history to show that it took a longer time for Krypton to be destroyed. Uh, if so, then a lot of people could have escaped. If you retcon that, you can retcon people escaping. Then, when Superman says he's worried she'll won't find her people. She replies, "I" have no people. Not we. "I". Ugh. Toss in Superman for the attention then, Girl-Boss him right out of the picture. Goes on to John Wick the movie. Let's use a dog to make her fight for something. Terrible. There's no empathy at all for Supergirl in the trailers. None. drunk, narcissistic frat girl. Who wants to cheer for that? Lobo was more interesting but even then, they neutered him. He appears like he's second fiddle to Supergirl. Can't have a guy be an equal in a movie. Girl-boss must rule. Hollywood just can't make good movies anymore, let alone great ones.

@_DavidMorrell @blasmalop Wow. That goes along with the info Elle Griffin posted two years ago. Well, at least a couple of my titles sold more than 100 copies. I cracked the top 20. lol. Good thing it's not my day job. elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-…

@MarkMurrayBooks @blasmalop Here are pages from a recent Author's Guild magazine.

Dear mr @_DavidMorrell . About the readers, do you think the act of reading has changed/ evolved for worse in recent years? Would writers like you, por Larry McMurtry, achieve same success now? I wonder. McMurtry was a genius, but very few readers know of him today in Spain.

@KT_Carlisle Where did you buy they ads?

Not to brag, but I’m 🤏🏻this🤏🏻 close to being a three-figure author. And I only had to spend five times as much as what I earned in ads to achieve this small feat. 🥲

American Culture Yes, we have one. Even though we're a mishmash of a lot of different people, America has cultures that we don't really share with other countries. Reply and add those that I might have missed. BBQ. It's a tradition. From local families out there in the back yard to camping to famous ones. Western Days. From exploring the frontier to quick drawing a gun. Silver and Gold mining towns. Ghost towns. Cowboys. Indians. There were a lot of Native American tribes with their own subculture. Rodeos. Cattle drives. Guns. No other country has such a deep rooted culture around guns. Freedom. Sorry, but no other country has such an underpinning of Freedom built into it. It is part and parcel of American culture.

From a guy's perspective: You have to adapt in bed. No, I don't mean sex. Where before she cuddled up with you, now you're at the very edge of the bed as far away from her as you can get. The nuclear reactor that she's become is hot. Before you think that's all of it. Nope. One side of you will burn to crisp while the other side will be frozen. Yep, she's got two air conditioners running - the house one and the window one - and several fans. It swirls the artic air around. It's still not enough. You turn often so that one part doesn't burn too much and the other part doesn't freeze. Before where she lovingly styled her hair in various ways, means, and manners, now she's looking at you with a couple strands of hair in her hand. You look at it and think it's just normal fall out. Nope. She's stretching her hand out in a fit of fear, near the point of tears, saying all her hair is falling out. Look, just look. You do. Wisely, you say she looks beautiful and her hair looks just as nice as ever. It won't help. She'll give you a look that says she knows you're lying and that she knows you know all her hair is falling out. You're looking at her like she's some strange alien who sees something very different in the mirror. In some way, she is. Welcome to the new world order. Sleep. Forget it. You will get some, more than her, but nowhere near enough. She'll be tossing and turning, getting out of bed, not able to fall asleep. She'll come to bed late because she can't sleep. You're silently thankful because the nuclear reactor isn't in the room and you can actually get comfortable before the fallout begins. Buy a really good mattress that doesn't shake the whole bed when one person gets in/out of it. You'll thank me later. Go to bed early so you can get some uninterrupted sleep. When she finally does come to bed, well, get used to being woken up often. Mood swings. No one can prepare you for those. You'll have to be like the military. Adapt, improvise, adjust, be wary, and at all times, be ready. Just when you thought things were going smoothly and bright, wham, a cat 5 twister sets off an earthquake to knock you off your feet. Remember, this is all temporary, your loving SO/wife is still in there somewhere, and the best option is to always be supportive even if her head twirls around several times.

@nickimoraa Hi. Tell me things.

Dear Millennial Little Sisters, As you approach perimenopause, please reach out to us because our moms didn’t tell us shit either but we’ve been yelling at doctors for 15 years and found out some stuff. xoxo - Gen X

@Haunt_Fox I like Alan Dean Foster's writings. Since I never really got into ST books, I didn't know he wrote some. I'll check. Thanks!

@MarkMurrayBooks If it's the James Blish novelizations of TOS or the Alsn Dean Foster stuff, go for it

So, I have an opportunity to pick up a lot of Star Trek books for cheap. Hopefully. Never read any of them. Are they worth having and reading?

@LuckyMcGee I have no doubt that you'll be okay. It'll be a bit up and down, but you'll make it through with flying colors. Change is always tough. You're tougher. Best wishes to you.

After having a really terrible day, and a complete meltdown, tears and all, I decided to go ahead and cook my first home cooked meal in my new house tonight. And it was divine. 😌👌🏼 I had intended to wait until I’d achieved a significant goal in my unpacking and organizing, but after the day I had, I decided just packing up my whole life and moving across the country was enough of a goal to celebrate. I made a beautiful filet, spicy maple bourbon Brussels, and garlic butter Orzo. I *needed* the nourishment. It pains me to say this, but one cannot live on Taco Bell alone. I’m certain I will have a few more melt downs in the coming weeks, but I’m thankful the hardest parts are over, and if I can just power through to the good parts, I’m gonna be okay. 🥲 Feeling so much gratitude right now. 🙏🏼 Now back to work! 💪🏼

If you're a writer and can't take criticism, learn to program. If you're a guild writer and are hiding behind it to escape valid criticism, learn to program. The majority of people saw STA as a truly horrible show with really bad writing. Those people need to own up to their crap. Accept the criticism from the world and learn to write better. Or learn to program. Andy Weir had no need to apologize. Everyone involved in STA does.

.@andyweirauthor Congrats on the success of Project Hail Mary+The Martian. I'm a real fan. But when you have your moment don't use it to crap on other writers work. For the record, @Alex_Kurtzman is a visionary writer+creator+producer&you owe him an apology...writer to writer.

Sadly, true. In America, we used to have a lot of book stores. New book stores and used book stores. Most of them are gone now. The Millennial generation didn't really read. With computers in school, ipads for homework, and the Internet, most of them were turned away from reading. The attention span of a Millennial is pretty well known. It's short. That's why Manga picked up over books. Manga was both pictures and shorter sentences along with good stories. (Comics declined because the stories went downhill or they may have had similar success.) It's a niche market now. If an author is doing well enough, there's a base that buys the books. It's not often that it expands by a lot. We seem to be headed the way of the cassette, 8-track, record, and CD.

@blasmalop Yes, the reading world has changed since I started my career decades ago. Mass market paperbacks are gone. Fewer books are sold. Attention spans are short. Readers' fondness for particular authors tends to change from one generation to the next.

@MarindaVannoy1 Just to clarify. Are you talking about Folgers/Maxwell House/Starbucks? The dregs of coffee? Because it's horrible. It's like going to Burger King, ordering their BBQ brisket sandwich, not liking it, and telling Texans that you hate BBQ. 😆

This might be a very unpopular opinion, but I hate the way coffee tastes.

@horrormuseum Not sure if anyone remembers, but some years ago, a group (most were white liberals of non-Latino descent) of people tried their best to get Speedy Gonzales cancelled. It was the Latino community that told them all to shut up. lol

Even though Warner Bros is terrified to release any cartoons with Speedy Gonzales, we have never met anyone, including Latino, Mexican, Brazilian or anyone, that has found him offensive. In fact they say how much they loved him.

@BowTiedBroke Yeah, looks good. Perfect view for when the bear comes up on the deck looking for the chainsaw it once had. lol

Now I’m back focusing on the retreat center this week. Grand opening soon. This is the renovation of the existing cabin at the property. Do you all like the new floor to ceiling windows?

@Nerdcognito No. I want to crush them. See their DEI woketards driven before me and to hear the lamentations of their xe/xim/woemyn/snowflakes.

After years of Gygaxwashing, the Dan Ayoub / WotC apology video for how they treated original D&D founder Gary Gygax is getting roasted. All this proves is that the company is still trying to rewrite history. Does this apology change anything or is it just PR?

@jondelarroz Absolutely not. America is not a democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. So, no, Elon did not save democracy.

People complain about the algorithm but without X we would be in a complete communist 1984 hellhole. Elon Musk saved democracy. Do you agree?

This is a really good article for those training in Aikido or Daito ryu. Not everyone was taught the secrets. trueaiki.com/sagawa-yukiyos…

One of the best songs ever. I'm sure John Denver would be proud of them.

@sow413 Eloquently said. I have studied Aikido and TSKSR. We are stronger together, as equals from our shared history. Best to you in your journeys.

To my American friends, I want to speak from the heart, because this moment truly moved me as a Japanese citizen. When President Trump made that Pearl Harbor joke, it wasn’t just humor to us. It felt like a weight I’d carried my whole life was suddenly lifted. My chest tightened, and honestly, tears came close. For 80 long years, we Japanese have lived under a heavy shadow — the constant expectation to apologize, to reflect, to stay in “guilt mode.” Even though we’re the closest of allies, that old wound never fully healed. We felt bound by the past, by the Constitution America helped write for us, always a little smaller, always needing to prove we were sorry enough. But in that single joke, Trump did something powerful. He turned a painful history into a shared laugh between equals. It was like he was saying: “Hey, it was a long time ago. We’re good. Let’s move forward — as brothers.” No more endless atonement. No more living in the shadow of being the “former enemy.” The curse broke. Japan feels free to stand tall again. Right now, cherry blossoms are blooming beautifully all across Japan. 🌸 This spring, the sakura feels like a perfect symbol — a fresh beginning. Not two nations stuck in old roles, but true equals, proud brothers, shoulder to shoulder, ready to build the future together. To the American people: We don’t want to be subordinates forever. We want to be your real partners — strong, proud, and loyal. The kind of allies who ride or die together. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, America. The strongest alliance in the world is rising again — as equals, as brothers, forever. #PhoenixRising 🇯🇵🤝🇺🇸🌸

One of the stupidest things tv shows are doing is to use foreign language in the show. We all get the people are from some other country, but it's America. Have them speak English for the TV show. It's just stupid to have five minutes of foreign language that you have to have subtitles for. Then twenty minutes of English. Another five of some foreign language. Stop. Just stop. Make TVShows English Again.

I'll take your Texas history and raise you West Virginia history. Battle of Blair Mountain started a war that forced the US Gov't to send in the air force. Hatfields vs McCoys. John Brown Harpers Ferry. State that broke from Virginia in the Civil War. Whisky Rebellion. Moonshiners. If Texas had a twin brother, it'd be West Virginia.

@TracesofTexas There is NOTHING like Texas history!😍💕😻

Texas history is filled with all kinds of colorful characters, including the amazing Mollie Bailey, shown here in a 1906 photo sent in by TOT reader Beverly Crossnoe. Mollie and her circus came to Lockney, Texas back then and the event was documented by one of Beverly's ancestors. Mollie, who some folks called the "Circus Queen of the Southwest," was born on a plantation near Mobile, Alabama, to William and Mary Arline Kirkland. Her exact birth year is a bit fuzzy. Her headstone says 1841, and her daughter-in-law Olga backed that up. Other sources claim November 2, 1844, while her obituary said she was eighty-two when she died, which would push her birth back into the mid-1830s. I can't rightly say and it probably doesn't matter all that much. As a young woman, Mollie eloped with a fellow named James A. "Gus" Bailey. Gus played the cornet in his daddy’s circus band, and they got married in March of 1858. Along with Mollie’s sister Fanny and Gus’s brother Alfred, the four of them formed the Bailey Family Troupe. They traveled through Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, putting on shows—acting, dancing, and singing wherever they could draw a crowd. When the Civil War broke out, Gus enlisted first in the 44th Infantry at Selma, Alabama, but later got transferred to Hood’s Texas Brigade, where he served as bandmaster. Mollie left their baby daughter Dixie (the first of their nine children) with friends in Richmond, Virginia, and followed the brigade. She worked as a nurse, and according to some stories, she even did a little spying for Generals John Bell Hood and Jubal Early. She’d disguise herself as an old woman, slip through Federal camps pretending to sell cookies, and once smuggled quinine through enemy lines by hiding the packets in her hair. Meanwhile, she and Gus performed together in Hood’s Minstrels. On one occasion in April 1864, they put on a musical and dancing show near Zillicoffer. During that time, Gus even wrote the words to the song “The Old Gray Mare” after watching a horse nearly die from eating green corn, then bounce back after getting some medicine. A friend set it to music, and it became a popular marching song for the regiment. Years later, it was played at the Democratic National Convention in 1928, and the West Texas Chamber of Commerce even named their band after it. After the war, Mollie and Gus traveled all over the South and then ran the Bailey Concert Company on a riverboat. Their Texas story really kicked off in 1879. That’s when they traded their showboat for a small circus. It took off right away and became known as the Bailey Circus—“A Texas Show for Texas People.” When Gus’s health started failing, he retired to their winter quarters in Blum, Texas, and the show was renamed the Mollie A. Bailey Show. That’s when folks started calling her “Aunt Mollie.”Her circus was known for flying both the American flag and the Lone Star flag over the big top. She also had a soft spot for Civil War veterans—didn’t matter if they’d fought for the Union or the Confederacy; they always got in free. At its peak, the one-ring circus had thirty-one wagons and around 200 animals. In 1902, they even added elephant and camel acts. Gus passed away on November 10, 1900. Mollie kept the show going strong. She got smart and started buying lots of land in the towns where they performed so she wouldn’t have to pay those steep “occupation” taxes every time the circus rolled in. Once the circus moved on, she’d let the locals use the lots for baseball games, camp meetings, and such. Eventually, she let a lot of the property go back to the towns. She was known for her generosity—donating to churches and letting poor kids in to see the show for free. In 1906, when the circus switched to traveling by railroad, she had a fancy parlor car where she entertained big shots like Governors James Stephen Hogg and Oscar Branch Colquitt, Senators Joseph Weldon Bailey and Morris Sheppard, and veterans from Hood’s Brigade. She was even said to have been friends with famed Comanche leader Quanah Parker. That same year, on April 16, 1906, Mollie married a much younger man named A. H. “Blackie” Hardesty. He handled the circus gas lights and afterward went by Blackie Bailey. Some folks say Mollie was the first to show motion pictures in Texas—right inside a circus tent—including a one-reel film of the sinking of the USS Maine. After her youngest daughter Birda died in 1917, Mollie started running the circus from home, staying in touch with the show by telegram and letters. She passed away on October 2, 1918, in Houston and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery there. Her husband Blackie outlived her by nineteen years. He ended up driving a jitney between Houston and Goose Creek and lived out his days in Baytown. Quite a life, wasn’t it? From eloping with a circus musician to becoming the beloved Circus Queen of the Southwest—Aunt Mollie lived life on her own terms and, up until Beverly sent this in, I'd never heard of her. Thank you, Beverly. Truly a fabulous shot and I love the fact that it led me down a Texas history rabbit hole!