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The Taste of Freedom - Just another Superhero weblog

Five Conceptual Abilities that Are Almost Superpowers

1. Knowing the right wine at the right time
If you understand the difficult pairings of wine and food you understand basically everything about human nature, physics and the astral plane. Should you be able to boldly and correctly combine a wine with fiery Indian food (hint: not Cabernet Sauvignon), a victual most often combined with lager, you may be eligible for some sort of Nobel Prize in gastronomy. Your friends will respect you, your enemies will fear you and your meals will always be delicious. How might you fight evil with it? The sharpened edges of a broken bottle of ‘59 Claret.

2. Ability to wear hats
Back in the day men wore hats. There weren’t just the ubiquitous baseball caps that I see when I’m attempting to dine at some lovely restaurant and I have to do everything in my power not to remove the offending local sports team booster by throwing him out the window.

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The Superhero Lifestyle




Author G. Xavier Robillard speaks about whatever he thinks he knows about the soi-disant Superhero Lifestyle, in a taped speech from Oakland’s Northern California Independent Booksellers Association meeting. He does have heroic sideburns, I’ll give him that.

Ask The Superhero - Rescuing Small Crap Countries

What’s the appeal of rescuing small, defenseless countries that nobody cares about?

Just Curious,

Barry O’ Bama
–sent from my Blackberry

I assume this is a thinly veiled reference to Kuwait. I haven’t been reading my news feeds today — did it get invaded again?

You have to dance with the one what brought you. If the giant casino called Monaco needed a rescue, I’d be the first one to put on a tux and save it. (Although according to copyright that job belongs to James Bond so perhaps not). But countries like that, sadly, don’t need saving, just like the cute girl on the other side of the gymnasium isn’t leaning against the wall waiting for you to ask her to dance. She’s already dancing. Most likely with me. Sooner or later you’re going to have to face facts and rescue some crap country.

Kuwait and others like it may not be big or glamorous but they’re easily liberated. You don’t need a large military coalition, although that doesn’t hurt. Costa Rica will always show up, but the problem is they don’t have a national army. Hint: say yes to their offer of free coffee.

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Shocking Truths About Taser Safety

As tasers become used more in daily lives, by everyone from parking lot attendants to perfume counter clerks and at staff meetings we need to outline their safe and effective use. This Instruction Page could be tacked up in every workplace, in between the sexual harassment poster and the federal employment guidelines poster, and covering the “workers must wash their hands before leaving the bathroom” reminder.

*Note: Taser is a trademarked name, but like the kleenex and xerox before it, I will use the word in lower case to piss off some copyright attorneys. I’ll even use it as a verb or gerund. Because that’s how I roll.*

For those about to use a Taser

1.Make sure nobody has a video camera.
This is priority one. You cannot use a taser safely, and by that I mean illegally and up to its full potential, if some budding Warhol Scorsese happens to have a small digital recorder, buried perhaps under a backpack, and who decides to ignore the inner city basketball documentary they were planning and films your brutality instead. Since you can’t pre-screen every Sally Backpack around, you might just subject everyone to a brief search as they are attempting to flee the scene, or at least empty the scene of witnesses before discharging.

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Why I Can’t Eat Burritos Anymore


Like you I’ve enjoyed burritos my entire life. They’re a tasty cheap food that you can get anywhere, even in foreign countries, like Mexico. They’re compact, great on the run, and if kept in foil they’ll stay warm for some time. But I can no longer eat them.

There’s something about the magical combination of flour, meat, bean, lard, cheese, sour cream and guacamole that takes out my digestive system. But it’s not just the combination, it’s the size. The modern burrito is too much food.

Many of you are perfectly happy to consume a whole burrito and idle away the day in a frijole-induced stupor, but not I. It’s a waste of crucial metabolic processes that could be spent thinking, exercising, socializing, working - living your life.

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When You Smile for the Camera

The Paparazzi have a new, fearsome weapon… the Tibetan Death Camera.

As a Superhero you can’t help but be photographed, and only 99% of the time do you wish to punch the cameraman in the face. It’s almost a twitch, a nervous reaction, as if you had an allergy, but instead of sneezing and itchy ears your hands formed into a fist and you just popped one off. As a side note, whenever I punch a paparazzo, my eyes close. Just like when I’m sneezing.

This pinhole camera was fashioned from the skull of a monk, and named Yama, after a Tibetan death god. Are you scared yet? You should be. Yama is made from several sets of jewels and other exotica, including titanium, copper, brass, bronze steel, silver, gold, mercury, four sapphires, three rubies, Asian and American turquoise, blood, and nine opals. Blood isn’t that exotic. Except when it’s part of a camera.

What makes this different from other cameras? Aside from the blood and skull: it’s been blessed by a Lama. Not the Lama. Not a llama, but a Lama. Who knew that there was more than one Lama, and one of them had the job to bless cameras made from skulls? I guess there’s no question that images from this thing will steal your soul. And sell it on the black market.

Ghostwriter Responds to Superhero Allegations




Smarmy little prick. I’ll make him a ghost-writer all right!

What Kind of Super Person Are You?

There are four separate parts to the Myers-Briggs Super Personality Test, determining what kind of hero, villain, or average schmo you are. Super Personality factors your origin, means of conveyance, your main super-power, and those non-super background characteristics that might explain how you would act around others while, say, robbing a bank of the crown jewels or saving the galaxy from a ravenous group of pirate mineral extractors.

Find out your Super Personality by taking the quiz on All Day Coffee or within Facebook. Whatever you do, keep your personality type well hidden. For if THEY find it they will exploit it.

Captain Freedom Vents About New Book



I received an advanced copy of my memoir and let me tell you, it has me a little peeved.

2009 will be the Year of the Free

Or I suppose I could call it the Year of Teh Free, like the young people. In either way, as our New Year progresses, I declare it to be a year of wondrous freedom. Last year we heard the thundering crash of my retirement account, but this year that sound will be the crashing of shackles everywhere. I can smell it in the air.

Freedom has a specific smell, and I’m not talking about the smell of my new Freedomware Cologne. Freedom smells like a Fourth of July BBQ, or the wind that rushes from the swift flapping wings of a bald eagle. Even more of a free scent is that bald eagle, its gutted inside filled with a can of PBR to increase its moisture, being grilled to perfection on that very same barbecue.

Let us hope that in 2009 people achieve Freedom: that the robotic overlords of Liechtenstein take pity on their human slaves and that beacon of darkness North Korea, whose people are enslaved by the magic hair of Kim Jong-il, might rise up against that tyrannical bouffant.

But mostly, the year of the Free is about me, Captain Freedom, for this year, my exclusive memoir will finally be received by a public whose drooling anticipation has manufactured enough slobber to be considered a weather event.

So Bring on the Free, 2009!