Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Okay, here’s your chance to join the circus. Today, Wednesday, January 2, 2019 is the first broadcast of “Talking To Animals,” 2019 edition. I’m going to talk about how to stop your dog from eating poop (This is the new  Bud miracle), common training mistakes, and also how to get a dog that you can make happy and that will make you happy.

You can listen to the show live by streaming here, at WBTNAM1370 or by downloading a free radio app like  Simple Radio (available online or on the Apple App Store for free.)

In our world, every local broadcast is national, and we are a national broadcast already.

You can call the show by calling 866 406 -9286 or 802 402-1010. We are good to each other and I think the show may be helping animals, or at least that’s what some people are telling me, and isn’t that the point?

You can also e-mail me with your questions and comments – [email protected]. You can e- mail me anytime, or during the show and I’ll read your question and comment on the air.

I’m reasonably certain that a lot of people are listening. I get lots of e-mail after the show. I know it’s sometimes hard to call or get through – the station is a non-profit community radio station, they don’t have the most modern equipment.

But give it a shot, people are calling and getting through from as far away as California, Alaska, Kentucky, New Mexico, Virginia and Italy, so something is working.

But if not, e-mail will do fine, and I’ll answer your questions that way. The broadcast is on today, Wednesday, from one to three p.m. (and every Wednesday). WBTN Executive Director Thomas (“Maestro”) Toscano shares the two hours with me, we have a lot of fun.

I consider calls from beyond the studio the most essential component of this program’s success. I have a good feeling about the show, but if people can’t get through to talk to me, or aren’t calling, it won’t work for me, no matter  how many people might be listening.

I need that interaction, I need to hear the voices and their stories.

I love the broadcast and am committed to giving it a full and fair trail. We’re really just getting started.

The first thing to say about this movie is that it is amazing, warm and dazzling. I think this is a must see for most movie lovers, and for your kids or grandkids.

And if possible, it ought to be  seen on a big movie screen, not a pad or Iphone.

Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse is essentially a comic book reimagined for the the new contemporary  culture, it is part comic, part movie, part technical genius, over-the-top creativity, and part brilliantly designed video game.

It just radiates color and style, it breaks new ground, but always brings you back to earth.

I found it one of the most beautiful works of animation I have ever seen.  The critics said the visuals in this movie are thrilling. I think that’s a fair description.

This version of “Spiderman” is also surprisingly touching. The movie is very, very, visual, but it never forgets to be human and accessible.

Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse never loses touch with its comic book DNA.  It is intense without being menacing, it is adventurous without once being ponderous and self-important, as to many Super Hero movies have become.

Like it’s star, this movie has no pretense other than to have fun and entertain. And I have to say the animated stars were so expressive and humanistic they showed more emotion than many of the humans I see in movies.

You really forget they are not actual people.

Steve Jobs and Stan Lee are both dead now, but I was happy to see  Lee, the founder of Marvel comics and one of the creators of Spiderman,  pop up for a cameo in his latest Marvel story in a movie.

Jobs and Lee both understand that a lot of people out there were feeling alone, and different. They both remembered this experience and incorporated it into their work.

They set out to expand the reach of popular culture to include freaks and oddballs, and help them see that they were part of a tribe, they were not alone. Both were wildly successful and forged close, even timeless ties to their audiences.

Jobs made computers for people me, giving me access to this world, Lee made stories for people like me, giving me comfort and a sense of my culture.

I grew up in a world where a radio was the only access I had to any kind of culture, comic books were my window into the other world beyond my own narrow and suffocating existence. I lived in these stories, they shaped my world.

I loved the original Spiderman, and I  loved this latest iteration of the nicest and most vulnerable super hero ever, Peter Parker, an awkward teenager as embarrassed by his unexpected powers as he is reluctant to use them.

Here, he meets his successor (in his own dimension, at least) Miles Norales. And yes, he is a Spiderman of color.

Parker, and now Miles, are the  most ordinary of the superheroes, and the most non-ponderous and pompous. Miles, like Parker, is really is just a kid, in this case a working class kid from Brooklyn. He has absolutely no interest in being a hero of any kind.

Miles runs into Parker, and begs him to take him under his wing and show him the spider ropes.  Parker says no, he just wants to go home and make up with his beloved MJ.

Miles is a super hero with no ego, he was endowed with no natural powers. It could have been anyone of us bitten by that radioactive spider and horrified by the things that suddenly stick to our hands and the clothes that no longer fit.

In the end, he has to follow the force, yes the force, only it’s called the Leap Of Faith. Okay, the movie is not perfect.

This is the core of the Spiderman saga. This Superhero has always been just a kid who struggles to find his place in the world while suddenly endowed with powers he has no idea how to control.

This is why so many oddball kids love this story. We imagine feeling strong, while remaining ordinary.

There are two Peter Parkers in this movie, each caught up in different dimensions by a villain using the familiar “Collider,” familiar to Super Hero  fans as the weapon of choice by evil doers who wish to destroy the world for no coherent reason.

Morales is a Brooklyn-born and  raised Spidey with an African-American  New York City cop for a father and a Hispanic nurse for a mom.

There are many wonderful, even exhilarating things about the movie, one of them is that the race and background of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is not even mentioned in the plot, nor is it a factor in the story. It’s just who he is. Nobody says a mean or patronizing thing about it.

We have come far.

The plot is typical for a Superhero movie.

Some angry billionaire or greedy multi-national corporation or deranged ex General  or mad scientist is out to wreck the world, this time by disrupting the space-time continuum, whatever that is, with a powerful “collider,” whatever that is.

These villains know  the weak spots of our heroes, but they rarely can finish them off.

In this story, as the destruction of our world gets underway, we see that there is a key out there that looks suspiciously like a USB Hard Drive, it must be inserted into the collider in order to save the planet and everyone that Miles loves.

This fiddling with the universe has opened up the gates to several dimensions, bringing up a cast of heroes from other words. If they don’t get back to their own dimensions soon, they will all perish. The clock is ticking.

If you’re not following this, don’t worry. Nobody does.

I’ll leave it there, there are all of the usual Spiderman villains Green Goblin, King Pin), and lots of good guys:  two Parkers, a futuristic anime heroine, a robot spider, a cartoon pig, a black and white film noir avatar (Nicolas Cage) and thoughtful and tough Spider-Woman from another dimension-  Gwen Stacy.

Gwen is a fellow adolescent (and love interest for Miles) trying to hang onto a normal teen life after her spider-bite. Needless to say, she and Miles have a lot in common. With one another.

She’ll be back.

I thought this movie was enthralling and great fun, and Maria and I were blown  away by the color, attitude and razzle-dazzle.

Maria is no fan of Super Hero movies, but she loved this one, she was blown away by the color and energy and pace.

I don’t see how any artist could  fail to love it. This movie is perfectly suitable for families..

I loved it. Go see it if you can.

Maria and I have both been itching to get on with the scraping of three layers of wallpaper in our upstairs bedroom. The plan is to scrape the walls clean, repair some plaster holes and rough spots and then paint the bedroom a warm sage green.

It took us months to scrape the downstairs dining room and living room, this will take a couple of weeks. People complain loudly about scraping, but ours has been fun and not terribly hard.

We don’t use an iron or anything toxic.

I do the spraying and we both do some scraping. I love bringing this color and light to our farmhouse with Maria. She’s been muttering about painting the bedroom for a long time, and that is a sign it’s going to happen.

Next time we’ll scrap to music, I’ve ordered a portable speaker from Apple.

I have a spray water jug, I put in Downy Fabric Softener and hot water and  we score the wallpaper and then spray it again and again until the wall paper can be peeled off in large strips.

We started at 5 p.m. and got one wall done by 5:30. I’m not big on this kind of chore, but we have a lot of fun, good work for two obsessives. We’ll do it one wall at a time.

Maria works like a fiend on projects like this, and her artistry helps us to brighten up the house and choose interesting but very warm colors. That’s how we got a Frieda Kahlo bathroom.

There are three layers of wall paper, the room was once split in two, there is a cowboy/rodeo theme on the left, floral sketches on the right.

We’ll get another wall on Saturday or Sunday.

The year is starting out well for us, Mother Earth, who has every reason to dislike all of us, gave us a beautiful day, the sky opened up, we took a walk on a hill went to the moves (Spider Man, more later), scraped some wallpaper off of the bedroom wall.

Tomorrow is my radio show from one to three p.m.

Thursday a trip to the dentist, Friday I’m meeting an Albany Academy student who wants to partner with me to raise scholarship money for a gifted young refugee woman.

Tomorrow morning I talk with  my editor about a chapter I re-did for my next book, “Gus and Bud.”

Next week, on the 9th, I take my first acting class with the actor Christine Decker at the Old Castle Theater in Bennington, Vt. I’m excited about it, even though I have no ambition to act.

Tonight, I’m cooking a dinner: Spatzels, a new version of some light and delicious pasta mixed with grass fed hamburger neat and Kale.

Today was a gorgeous day, my camera was happy with the sky.

I’ve never been comfortable with New Year’s wishes, I’ve always preferred to come up with an annual New Year’s Fantasy, it seems more practical to me and less delusional.

Fantasies soothe the soul, but by definition they are not real. When I was a kid, my fantasies usually involved me being a cavalry officer on a big horse riding out to save people from danger. That didn’t happen, of course.

So because they are not real, fantasies are usually   safe. But this year I came up with one that could be real.

I got clear on this year’s fantasy during my Healing Hour yesterday afternoon, Bud was snoring in my lap, it was quiet and peaceful.  A good way to think.

In my fantasy, I got tired of all the arguing, so I decided to run for President. And I won, to everyone’s surprise. My fantasy skipped over the campaigning, the primaries, the Super Pacs, the reporters, the banal quotes.

I think I have the ego for the Presidency, but not the skills or temperament, although maybe none of that matters any more.

My fantasy skipped to my life in the White House. I had a Twitter following of more than 50 million people, a parting gift from my predecessor. In the morning, I woke up, had my breakfast in bed and then walked into a tiny office and turned on my computer. I use my smartphone a lot, but for this, I wanted the Mac desktop.

I signed on and went to work.

My first act was to ask my Twitter followers to agree to participating in one good deed a day, one small act of great kindness. My staff and I would locate one worthy and needy person or family or small business in troble. They would be in a different state each day, we would move across the country with our beam of light.

We would ask my 50 plus million followers to contribute to helping this person or cause. The only criterion was that the person be an American. Any color, any political leaning, left or right, male or female, young or old, white or brown or yellow or black.

They just had to be good people needing help urgently.

It might be a family whose house had burned down, a wife whose police officer husband was killed in the line of duty, the bereaved partner of a soldier killed in combat, the family of a sick child with staggering medical bills,  a young mom who needed a new car to get to work, a  refugee family in need of college tuition money for their bright daughter, a family stricken by gun violence in Chicago or anywhere else, a man seriously injured in a car crash and in great medical debt.

We could help a person caught in a real estate crash keep her home, or send abused or traumatized kids to Disney World for a couple of weeks. We could help an underfunded teacher get modern technology for her classroom, we could help an elderly man get new underwear and shoes.

It could be anything really.

There were these iron clad rules about my Twitter Feed: no arguing, no politics, no self-promotion, no whining or complaining, no insulting people. With that kind of audience, my Twitter Feed could instantly become an enormous engine for good. Think about it.

It could only be used for good. I could fight all day long elsewhere. The more I thought about this fantasy, the more I liked it.

Look what we’ve done off my blog and Facebook Page these past few years, just imagine what the Army Of Good could do with 50 million followers.

In fact, the Army Of Good, which is now in every state of the Union, could help nominate needy and worthy people for help. We have it all in place.

In my fantasy, I was delighted to see that my Twitter Feed was soaring in followers. People love to get up, as I did, and see this good news.  And get the chance to do good.

My idea was that this feed could be used to unite people, and never to divide them.

It would be a groundbreaking fusion of politics with compassion, and done properly, it could help unite people. Almost everyone wants to do some good. We didn’t do the left or right thing, we were all Americans on my feed.

We would be seeking or spending government money, people could contribute regularly or once in a while or never. No pressure.

We could make all these gifts tax-deductible within limits.

How wonderful to see how the people we help as Americans put their lives back together – we could follow-up – from the trauma and sickness and tragedy and difficulty that life can bring.

It would be profoundly exciting for me, and perhaps for many others to channel this powerful new tool for good. To be the source of good and nourishing news  rather than conflict and rage.

I like this fantasy, it works for me. And the odd thing about it, is that it could so easily be true. There is nothing in this fantasy that couldn’t happen in 15 minutes, and for free.