MARK: Perhaps, to start, you could tell us a little about how you came to launch the original Vault of Midnight? What made you decide to open a comic book shop in Ann Arbor? Was it just that you loved comics, and didn’t want to do anything else, or was there also a sense that there was a niche that wasn’t being filled? How much, in other words, was blind love, and how much was shrewd business acumen?

CURTIS: I was in the restaurant business about five years and had a fair amount of success. I was opening new locations and training staff for Morrison Restaurants, the company behind Ruby Tuesdays. I was also a lifelong comic book/action figure/video game/movie super nerd. So I knew a little bit about business and a lot about comics. I started thinking seriously about a store in 1993, after the repeated nudgings of several friends. I started putting together a notebook filled with logo ideas and drawings about what the store might look like, what comic books and toys we might sell. It’s important to mention that right from the beginning my lifelong friend Steve Fodale and my wife Elizabeth Sullivan were there helping/slaving away. After a year or so of talking with suppliers, and bumming a couple grand from friends and family, we were ready. (Sullivan laughs.) We found/lucked into a strange spot at 322 South Ashley, a couple of buildings down from the Fleetwood Diner. At the time, there were a few comic book shops in town. Dave’s was on the corner of State Street, by William, and Underworld was on South University. Fun-4-All, Hobby Town and Labyrinth comics have all come and gone in downtown Ann Arbor since then. That said, we thought we could offer comics and toys that other stores did not… more independent, lesser known items… and make our place that way. So, mostly blind love, and maybe the tiniest crumb of business acumen.

MARK: Did you know people who owned stores downtown? Had you worked in retail at all? If not, how in the hell did you learn how to run a store? Was it all trial and error, or did you get advice along the way, from other store owners in Ann Arbor, or from the owners of comic book stores in other parts of the country?

CURTIS: I’d spoken to other comic shop owners and managers about my desire to open my own store. Most blew me off, probably because I was 18. Joe, the manager at Dave’s Comics, told me to order what I really liked, and I took that to mean that I should let my tastes and personality set the tone. I’d never worked retail prior to having my own store. I totally learned how to run a store on the fly, but working 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week definitely helped.

MARK: Prior to opening Vault of Midnight, where did you go to buy comics?

CURTIS: The first comic shop I remember going into was the legendary Eye of Agamotto on State Street. Named after Doctor Strange’s amulet, and run by one of the coolest/smartest/nicest dudes I’ve ever met, Norm Harris. It’s highly likely that it’s his fault that Vault of Midnight is here at all. After the Eye closed in 1986… I think… I’d shop mostly at Dave’s Comics. Joe was the manager and knew his stuff, always making good recommendations. He put me up onto Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 – a real game changer.

MARK: Your mention of Eye of Agamotto, and the pivotal role it played in your life, makes me wonder if you give much thought to the fact that you could be playing a similar role for the young people who come into Vault of Midnight each day. Is that the best part of the job… turning young people onto stuff that they really connect with? And, I imagine, it’s also a lot of responsibility…

CURTIS: I think everyone can remember their first pivotal piece of fiction/pop-culture whether it was G.I Joe or Lord of the Rings, My Little Pony, Pac-Man or The X-Men. That stuff is a big deal and informs us as we grow up. Being part of that on any level is as gratifying as anything I’ve ever done. Recommending someone their first “Conan” is huge… It changed the course of my life I’m sure. As an example of this, I got a card recently from a patron of our first location, all the way back in 1996… a fellow by the name of Ming Chen… thanking me for the store. He now works at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, and is a co-host on Kevin Smith’s show Comic Book Men on AMC. So, yes, it’s quite cool to maybe have more of an impact than you might with another specialty niche retail business.

MARK: What was your first comic?

CURTIS: I got a big stack of “Savage Sword of Conan” comics from an uncle when I was maybe 7 years old, and have feverishly read comic books ever since. Batman is my all time favorite superhero.

MARK: Why Batman?

CURTIS: Despite his tragic origin, or perhaps because of it, he becomes a great force for good. Training himself to the peak of human ability, a great inventor possessed of keen intellect, a master detective, martial artist, spelunker, five star chef, marksmen, munitions expert, race car driver, pilot and so much more. Also he’s a billionaire with a secret Batcave and a kick ass Batmobile. And his costume is the best. Some people may ask, “Why have a cape?” I would ask, “Have you seen Batman?”

MARK: You mentioned raising the working capital to open the store from friends and family. Did you also make use of other sources? Did you secure a bank loan to purchase inventory? Did you somehow convince publishers to take a chance on you, and send you stuff without payment upfront?

CURTIS: I was able to scrape together maybe two grand in cash, maxed out a few credit cards, and took advantage of the fact that, quite often, checks take upwards of two weeks to clear. I also used my personal collection of comic books and toys, which were a large part of our starting inventory. No suppliers would give us terms, and no bank would loan us money.

MARK: You mentioned (at the Concentrate event), if I’m not mistaken, that you didn’t really have a formal business plan for the first ten years that you were in business. Is that something that you’d recommend to other would-be entrepreneurs?

CURTIS: Being really good at, and totally in love with, your thing; comic books, food, yoga, whatever your thing is, is the most important aspect of small business in my experience. But, yes, you should probably put together a business plan sooner rather than later.

MARK: What precipitated the big move to Main Street? I can see the appeal of quadrupling your square footage, and it’s beautiful space, but it also seems risky. It’s clearly expensive space, and I imagine you must have had some doubts as to whether the Main Street crowd, which, to a great extent, is an upscale dining crowd, would come in and spend money… I think, If I’d been in your shoes, given that you already had a large, loyal audience, I’d have considered going for less expensive space farther from the Chop House. What made you confident that this was the right move… which it clearly was, given your success?

CURTIS: The new owners of the building on Liberty, where we’d moved after South Ashley, wanted us to sign a new five year lease, and I wasn’t happy with the location. And we were quickly outgrowing the square footage. We also wanted to take it to the next level sales and statement wise. We learned that the 219 Main Street location had opened up, and we put our names in the hat as it were. Steve and Shelly Kelly, the owners of the building, took a chance and gave us a shot. I’ve lived and worked in Ann Arbor my whole life and thought we’d fit right in on Main Street. We wanted to have walk-by traffic as well as being a destination for fans and loyal customers. I felt we could bring our base along with us, and grow with the added visibility. We were also crapping our collective pants from all the added rent and space.

MARK: What can you tell us about the big award that you recently won.

CURTIS: In 2010, we received the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. That was huge. We had to write the history of the Vault and make a 5 minute video highlighting the shop, service and staff. (See video below.) It’s a global contest of the best comic book shops in the world, in which we all go toe-to-toe in a no-holds-barred death match… Not really, but it’s close… We were nominated by Jim Ottaviani, writer of a bunch of fine graphic novels, including: Feynman, Dignifying Science, and T-Minus… And, now that we’ve got the award, we’ve got to earn it. It’s a big deal.

MARK: And, now, you’re growing, right? I hear that you’re going to be opening a store in Grand Rapids, and making a push to grow your online presence…

CURTIS: Since opening in 1996 we’ve never had a down year, with 2012 being our best ever. Our web store just went live. New store scouting begins next week, and our first stop is Grand Rapids. We’ve done some homework and think we could fit in there. It’s time to road trip and see.

MARK: What is it that you like about Grand Rapids?

CURTIS: I’ve done some recon in the last few years as to where a second Vault could work. We’ve thought about opening another store for a while and even considered Chicago at one point. We had a change of heart about branching outside of Michigan, though, and starting looking at cities here, in hopes of finding one that we could be compatible with. Grands rapid is the right size, has a college campus, a diverse population, Art Prize is kicking butt, and the city is working hard to redevelop and stay progressive. Our good friend and lead comptroller of graphic design, Jeremy Wheeler, is a Grand Rapids native, and we’ve scheduled a tour of potential spots. It’s still conjecture at this point as to where it will be… maybe Grand Rapids, maybe somewhere else. But the hunt for Vault #2 is on. It’s still early in the process, but another store is a definite.

MARK: This is a bit of an aside, but I’m wondering if you’ve heard about this free online course being offered by Ball State University on gender roles in comics.

CURTIS: First I’ve heard of it, but it looks fantastic. Those are some of the top writers in comics that are involved.

MARK: While we’re on the subject, I’m curious as to your thoughts on girls and comics. Are things becoming a little less male-centric?

CURTIS: The idea that comics are a ‘boys only’ club is more myth than fact nowadays, in my opinion. Many decades ago, the case could be made that comic books featured primarily one genre – superheroes – and their appeal was limited to teenage boys. Modern comics are as diverse as any media, and attract readers of all kinds. Our customers/clients are at least 50/50 male/female, and span all age groups.

MARK: I’ve heard it said in the past that you consciously decided not to advertise, but, instead, to focus your spending on the sponsorship of those local initiatives that you believe in, like the Ann Arbor Skate Park. Can you talk a little about that?

CURTIS: Almost all of our advertising is done through donations to schools, charities and sponsorship of organizations and events because we can achieve the same level of exposure by supporting local groups and things that we think are awesome for Ann Arbor. Mott’s Children’s Hospital, 826 Michigan, Food Gatherers, Michigan Radio, Community High School, A2 Skate Park, an assortment of public libraries. Being a part of our community is important to us and this is a way we can do that.

MARK: What, in your opinion, does downtown Ann Arbor need? If you had the time, the money, and another space downtown, what would you be doing?

CURTIS: Stay cool and accessible, not too upscale. Good mix of retail, art, coffee and food. Rethink the Art Fair in a big way… If I had another space? Ner- themed restaurant with five-star bar food, stiff drinks and video games. Designer toy and low-brow art galleries.

MARK: Any chance you might ever branch into publishing?

CURTIS: Thought about it on and off over the years and the answer is, “Maybe.” If the right project came up? Oh, hell yes. We would love to do a DIY art platform at some point as well.

MARK: What are you envisioning when you say, “DIY art platform”?

CURTIS: “DIY art platforms” are kind of a burgeoning thing in the collector toy-art scene; they’re usually molded vinyl figures in various shapes that have been left totally white, and ready for a do-it-yourself art project. The figure I’ve been thinking about is a cartoonish human skull with a tiny body made of cast white vinyl, six to eight inches tall.

MARK: Can you talk at all about product mix? In addition to selling comics and graphic novels, you also sell games, toys, models and apparel. I’m curious as to how, over time, that mix might be changing… Clearly, when you came to Main Street, you knew that you needed to diversify, and pull in a broader audience… Was there anything that you didn’t expect? Did anything catch you off guard?

CURTIS: We’ve always had three main product lines, comic books (and graphic novels), board games (games), and Toys (action and vinyl styles). When we moved to Main Street, the added space allowed us to expand beyond the core and broaden our selection substantially. The thought was we’re good at what we do, so let’s expand that and get more sweet. Off Guard? Making sure we have enough inventory, we can’t sell what we don’t have.

MARK: I was just curious if there was anything that really surprised you, when you opened on Main Street. Were customers buying things that you hadn’t expected?

CURTIS: We’ve had to grow everything by leaps and bounds to keep up with what our customers are looking for. It turns out the citizens of Ann Arbor have a pretty crazy appetite for comics and board games, and maybe we were caught off guard by just how much. The amount of space dedicated to board games, for instance, has easily tripled since we opened, and we’re figuring out ways to accommodate still more. I think what’s really surprising is how popular the good stuff is, how ready our customers are for a good recommendation, and how they’ll take that recommendation and still be hungry for more. Historically, in our industry, the books that sold a gajillion copies weren’t always what you might call “good.” Nowadays, amazing titles from unknown writers and artists stand a chance on the merit of the books alone. So it’s a surprise when somebody comes in off the street and asks for Obscure Title X and we’re like, “What?? We love that book! We thought we were the only ones!”

MARK: Any advice for young entrepreneurs looking to go into retail in Ann Arbor?

CURTIS: Be really good at what you do, believe in it and it will work. Jump off the deep end, and use your powers of confidence to win.

MARK: Like a superhero?

CURTIS: Like a very confident superhero. Small-Business Man.

[note: I don’t generally like it when I read interviews that end on a cliche note like that. I think it sounds too contrived. But, since that’s really what we said, I’m leaving it... even though it sounds incredibly, and uncharacteristically, professional.]

Now here’s the Vault of Midnight video that I promised earlier:

So here’s my question of the day, if a “Shirley Temple” is two parts ginger ale, and a splash of grenadine, garnished with a maraschino cherry, what’s a “Shirley Hemphill”? I’m going to spend my evening watching back episodes of What’s Happening, and her guest spots on shows like the Love Boat, in search of inspiration, but, if you have thoughts, let me know. (I’m hoping that maybe she tells Isaac what her favorite liquor is, while attempting to give him a physical on the way to Puerto Vallarta.)

How can it be that no one has done this yet?

And, with that, here’s the Doobie Brothers episode of What’s Happening.

One last thing, I don’t know why it shocks me, but apparently Haywood Nelson, who played Dwayne on What’s Happening, is a Scientologist. I noticed that he quoted L. Ron Hubbard on a special “What’s Happening Reunion” episode of the Jenny Jones Show, and started to do some digging. It would seem that he’s been in the church for some time. One more thing… Speaking of black Scientologists, did you happen to catch the article in The New Republic on the convergence of the Nation of Islam and Scientology? Here’s a clip.

…The first large-scale introduction of Scientology to Nation members took place in August 2010, when hundreds of believers from around the country traveled to Rosemont, Illinois, near the Nation’s headquarters, for a seminar in Dianetics, a foundational belief system of Scientology. There, they were guided through auditing sessions—a kind of hybrid between hypnosis and confession—in which a Scientologist purges painful experiences from his subconscious in the presence of an “auditor.” At the end of the seminar, Farrakhan told the group he wanted everyone in attendance to become a certified auditor.

Jesse Muhammad, a 34-year-old writer and community organizer who joined the Nation of Islam as a teenager at the urging of an older brother, had driven overnight from Houston for the event. He took this goal seriously. “Those who follow Farrakhan, we trust his guidance, so we jump to it,” he told me. After three weeks of intensive training with Scientologists in Houston, he became certified. The Nation refused to comment for this story, but according to its newspaper, Final Call, as of this spring, more than 1,000 members have become certified auditors and another 4,000 were studying “some aspect of Scientology.”

Ishmael Bey, a former assistant Nation minister, told me that years ago he’d heard from a top official that headquarters was flirting with “a white church in L.A.” Initially, Farrakhan never mentioned Scientology in public. Instead, he cryptically alluded to the “study” of “a technology” that would help his people. His caution made sense: after all, the Nation was explicitly conceived as a black separatist organization and a repudiation of Christianity, which Nation leader and prophet Elijah Muhammad derided as “the slave master’s religion.” Farrakhan himself has called white people “a race of devils” and the Nation teaches that the apocalypse will involve a UFO, or “mother plane,” that will eradicate all Caucasians.

However, there are some striking theological overlaps that might help explain how Farrakhan came to adopt a religion invented by a white man. There is, of course, the attachment to science fiction: Scientologists believe in an alien dictator, Xenu; the Nation holds that the white race was created by a mad scientist named Yakub. More significantly, though, at the core of both religions is a never-ending pursuit of a better self. In the case of Scientology, that best self is “clear” of residual traumas buried in the subconscious. In the Nation, that self is free of the hang-ups of white culture that black people have internalized to their detriment. Scientology, Farrakhan seems to believe, provides a new path toward black empowerment. “I’ve found something in the teaching of Dianetics, of Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, that I saw could bring up from the depth of our subconscious mind things that we would prefer to lie dormant,” he said to his Chicago congregation in early summer. “How could I see something that valuable and know the hurt and sickness of my people and not offer it to them?”…

[note: I was in Detroit at Sugar House earlier this evening, and it occurred to me to ask them how they'd adultify the Shirley Temple, but I got scared, thinking that maybe they'd rip off my idea. The good ideas, you see, don't come to me as rapidly as they once did, and I need to be protective of them.]

Fearful that a significant number of you might take your lives while watching Ryan Seacrest usher in the new year, I decided to scrap the article that I’d been working on… which was an in-depth treatise on how little there is to live for in modern America… and instead write a vacuous little fluff piece about how, despite all the recent setbacks, things were finally beginning to turn in our favor. Good things, I said, are right around the corner.

Well, it looks like I may not have been that far off after all. I know it’s just an internet rumor at this point, but, according to an anonymous source, Twin Peaks might be coming back for a third season after a 20-year hiatus!

[A larger version of this anonymous post, written by someone who claims to have been in a meeting with David Lynch and NBC executives, can be found here.]

According to the source, the third season, which would be set in today’s Twin Peaks, and include most of the original characters, would center around a female news reporter trying to unravel the secrets of the town, and the events leading up to the arrest of the possessed Dale Cooper for murder.

I know it’s likely bullshit, but it’s good to have something to live for again.

I can understand not wanting to return subscription money, but it seems to me as though these companies could at least give a modicom of thought to the likely interests of their subscribers when coming up with alternatives, and not just pass along copies of the magazines they most want to force down the throat of America. But, they’re clearly not looking to satisfy their customers. That’s not the objective. If it were, they would have worked a deal with Rolling Stone, or some other comparable publication. (My guess is that Rolling Stone would have honored Spin subscriptions in hopes of later converting these folks to paid Rolling Stone subscribers.) This isn’t about treating people decently. This is about squeezing just a few more dollars out of a disappearing medium before print goes the way of the Dodo. By getting a few hundred thousand more copies of Car and Driver into circulation, they can, at least for the short-term, artificially boost their distribution numbers, and perhaps convince a few more car stereo companies to advertise. It’s a shell game. And that, my friends, is part of the reason the whole magazine industry is going down the tubes.

[note: SPIN was purchased by the online entertainment company BuzzMedia (the publisher of Buzznet, Celebuzz, Stereogum, TheSuperficial, and sites for the likes of Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian) in July of this year. I suspect that, from the start, the plan was to kill the print version, making Spin an online-only publication. And, as it's been reported that Hearst Media recently invested in BuzzFeed, it's not all that surprising to hear that Spin subscribers are being paid off in issues of Car and Driver, which is a Hearst publication. This, in the business world, is what they call synergy.]

Huckabee isn’t the only one using this tragedy to his advantage. Some in Michigan are using the events in Connecticut to illustrate, if you can believe it, the need for more guns in schools. They’re using this event to pressure Governor Rick Snyder into signing Senate Bill 59 into law. The bill, which was coincidentally passed by the Senate early Friday morning, just hours before the shootings in Connecticut, would allow for gun owners to carry weapons into schools, stadiums, and other areas where, up until now, they’d been outlawed. “This kind of tragedy is hard to process, but if one person – a faculty member or a parent – could legally carry, at least it could have limited some of the mayhem,” said Rob Harris, media director for Michigan Open Carry Inc., yesterday. “This legislation has to be passed to at least have a fighting chance against the evil in this world.” (Snyder has said that, in light of yesterday’s tragedy, he’ll hold off on signing the bill for the time being. If you have thoughts on the matter, you can contact the Governor here.)

As shameful and self-serving as this behavior is, however, it pales in comparison with what we’re seeing from member of the media, who wasted no time sticking their cameras in the faces of horrified children and hounding the families of the deceased, in hopes of capturing on tape the gut-wrenching howls of pain that would keep morbidly-fascinated viewers from switching channels. While it’s always been the case in the media that “what bleeds leads,” it seems as though people are finally starting to come to some consensus around the belief that, in cases like this one, restraint should be shown, as it’s not only the respectful thing to do, but could actually help prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future. Here with more on that, is a clip from Roger Ebert’s 2003 review of Gus Van Sant’s film about the deadly school shooting in Columbine, Colorado, Elephant.

…Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy…

For what it’s worth, The Chicago Sun Times has apprently changed policies. Today, not only is mention of this mass killing on their front page, but it’s all that’s on their front page.

As for Ebert’s comment, I think he goes a bit too far when he absolves the entertainment industry of all blame. While I suspect that the prevalence of murdertainment in film, television and video games does play something of a role, though, I think that he’s right that the news media, in cases like this, is probably the bigger culprit. (Ebert argues that The Basketball Diaries couldn’t possibly have played a role, as very few people saw it. As much as I like and respect Ebert, if that’s the only argument that he has as to why entertainment doesn’t influence acts such as these, it doesn’t hold up very well when you start to consider that first-person shooter games, for instance, are now pervasive throughout society. I’m not suggesting that these games, which sell in the millions, are responsible for the events of yesterday, but only that Ebert’s “very few people actually saw it” defense, doesn’t really hold much water in 2012, when murder has become so much a part of our shared popular culture. Speaking of which, I was watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade with my daughter a few weeks ago, and, during it, there was an ad for a new television series which prominently featured the lifeless body of a young murder victim. That, I think it’s pretty safe to say, wouldn’t have happened during the parade even a few years ago.)

Here, with more on the role and responsibility of the news media, is a short video essay by British cultural critic Charile Booker, who argues that we should make such coverage as boring as possible, and not mention the killers by name.

And, while I don’t really want to argue gun control at the moment, here’s a link to some facts on gun ownership and gun violence that I thought that you might find of interest. (I’m particularly drawn to the stats concerning the number of deaths attributable to firearms in the United States as opposed to in other so-called “developed” nations. While it’s certainly true that there are a number of factors at play, such as country size, and age of population, one has to wonder how countries like Japan can have a few dozen gun deaths per year to our over 10,000.)

Hopefully, in the days and weeks to come, we can come together, and, as the President has said, “take meaningful action.” And I don’t just think that means taking away people’s guns, although I do think that restrictions on assault rifles are long overdue. For instance, I think that we need to have a serious conversation on the availability of comprehensive mental health care in this country. And, I think that we need to demand that our national media act in the best interests of the people. Having them, on the day of an event like this, broadcasting false information and accosting children, is absolutely unacceptable. I understand the nature of the business, and that they need ratings to survive, but we can demand more of them, and we can do a better job of fighting the urge to participate when they go to far.

And, lastly, here’s hoping that, in the wake of this, we all treat our kids and our teachers a little better.

update: Obama addressed the community of Newtown last night. Here’s a clip from the transcript, in which he promises to take action. (It should also be noted that Diane Feinstein has promised to bring an assault weapons ban to a vote in the Senate.)

…Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?

I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer’s no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change. Since I’ve been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, fourth time we’ve hugged survivors, the fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.

And in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and in big cities all across America, victims whose — much of the time their only fault was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.

We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.

If there’s even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town from the grief that’s visited Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek and Newtown and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try.

In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine…

I was searching for footage of Debbie Stabenow on the first season of Temptation Island, but this is as close as I could come.

It hadn’t occurred to me how the two images might look when posted alongside one another. So, now, apparently some folks think that I’m crushing up pills in preparation for a wild night if sadistic assaults on young, Christian virgins. Let that be a lesson to all of you on Instagram.

It kind of reminds me of an idea I had a long time ago for a game in which a bunch of people would go to Wal-Mart together and each try to select three items that, when put together in front of a cashier, would be the most troubling… For instance, one might select the complete first season of Toddlers and Tiaras on DVD, a case of lube, and a giant American flag blanket. (Most of the best ideas, I find, incorporate lube and/or rat traps.) I called it, Walmarting. Unfortunately, I never took any effort to protect the idea, and I’m sure someone else has done it by now. There’s probably even a reality television show in production.

It looks to me like a reboot of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network. I’m generally against such things, but I’ve had a soft spot for Sorkin’s writing since Sports Night, and I think America could use another network news protagonist who takes it upon himself to speak truth to power. Here, as we haven’t run it in a while, is a link to Peter Finch’s epic “mad as hell” rant from Network, so that you can compare the two side by side.

Oh, and I love that Sorkin and company have cast Jane Fonda in the role of Ted Turner. It’s truly inspired. And it’ll be great to see her on the screen again…

Now I just have to make friends with someone who has HBO.