Tom the Dog's You Know What I Like?

Closing Time

2009-06-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, today is the 5th anniversary of this blog. And it's high time to admit to myself that after five years, the blog has run its course. Not that this is a big surprise to anyone. I mean, it's been over four months since I last updated. Even Frank Miller keeps to a tighter schedule than that! (Ah, my final gratuitous comic book joke.)

I have to say, I'm more than a little disappointed in myself. This blog was a great deal of fun for a great deal of time. I don't know exactly how I lost my last bit of interest in updating, but I know it had been a long time coming. Looking back through my archives, I can't help but notice how many times I abandoned updating here for weeks at a time. With real life intruding so often on my internet time, updating became a chore rather than a pleasure.

But as I said, it was fun for a long time. I got a real kick out of talking about all my pop culture obsessions. By examining my favorite TV shows, movies, books, etc., I think I even learned a few things about just why I like what I like, and how to articulate and share my enjoyment with others. And I even shed some light on why I hate Whoopi Goldberg so very very much. (Hint: she sucks.)

I especially enjoyed the running features -- the Abecedarian Lists, the Unfair Previews, the Minute-By-Minute liveblogging of awards shows, and of course the Object of My Affection (all of which remain archived for easy access on the sidebar). In fact, why don't I pick one final OoMA, for old time's sake:

Can't believe I never picked Sarah Chalke as OoMA before. I think she's lovely as the day is long, and damn funny, to boot. I hope she gets herself into a good project post-Scrubs (yes, she'll be back on Scrubs for a few episodes next year... but after that, I mean).

I'm not going to say that I'll never blog again. Every once in a while I find myself wishing I could share my thoughts on some pop culture item, like how kick-ass I thought the finale of Lost was, or how tremendously I enjoyed seeing Star Trek in IMAX (real IMAX, not that bogus small-screen "IMAX" they're foisting on unsuspecting filmgoers these days) and Up in 3-D (the first time I've ever been wowed by 3-D in a film; the fact that the movie was another Pixar instant classic didn't hurt), or how essential it is for you to see Richard Cheese in concert if you haven't yet had the chance. Or, thinking ahead to next week, telling you how my tryout for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in Houston goes.

Regarding that: hey, I'm going to audition for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in Houston next week! I'll be letting you know how it turns out on my Twitter page, if you feel like following along there. I update frequently, with both info on my daily life and irrelevant nonsense. So... kind of like this blog, 140 characters at a time.

Maybe one day I'll create a new blog, or even revive this one, but for now, Twitter satisfies in full what little blogging urges remain in me. I'll be leaving this blog intact in the meanwhile -- if only because it has an easy-to-use list of links to my favorite webcomics and bloggers on the sidebar.

Speaking of other bloggers, a big thank you to my California weblogging friends Mike, Dorian, and Ian, all of whom inspired my efforts on this blog. And thank you to all the people who read this silly thing over the years, and especially the ones who engaged me in the comments, and even became friends.

And that'll do it for me, and for this blog, for now.

Push the button, Frank.

This is not an update

2009-02-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

I am updating today because Jeffrey Rowland updated his Wigu webcomic today. The last time he ran a new comic was the same day I last posted here, February 3. I am not a good blogger, but apparently I would make an excellent webcomic artist.

I have nothing else to add, despite the Oscars having occurred last night. I said I was not a good blogger.

You're the Great One, I'm Marty McSorley

2009-02-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

I appear to have lost all interest in updating this blog. Why don't you enjoy this video of one of my favorite songs from last year while I decide if I'm ever going to get back to posting here again.

TV Update: 3 Season Premieres

2009-01-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

Spoilers ahead.

Battlestar Galactica: I'm tremendously glad to see the return of one of my favorite shows, but the first two episodes, while they haven't been bad, have just kind of been... there. There have been a few shocker moments, mostly in the first episode: Starbuck finding her crashed ship containing what appears to be her own charred corpse inside; Dee blowing her brains out; Ellen Tigh being revealed as the final Cylon (maybe -- I'm not sure I'm ready to swallow that one yet); Tyrol learning he's not the father of his child. And, to the delight of shippers everywhere, Adama and Roslin finally did the nasty. But there hasn't been much real forward progress. The political machinations of the Council just don't grab me, and Gaeta's fomenting mutiny rings false (though I certainly wouldn't blame him if he put a bullet in the back of Starbuck's head). In all fairness, after the letdown of Earth, it's realistic that the fleet would be reeling in bitterness and depression, and mostly spinning its wheels. But I'd like to see a little movement next episode, please. Hell, at least let us see what the Cylons are up to!

Lost: Another returning show I'm thrilled about. The two-hour premiere was packed with action and dizzying revelations. The island is skipping around in time? Neat. Sayid kicks a bunch of ass? Super. Sun totally rubs Kate's face in the fact that she basically let Jin die? Cold. Ana-Lucia appears to Hurley, and lets him know "Libby says hi"? Whoa. There were a couple of bits that I didn't even understand until doing some internet research. I had forgotten about Miles' ability to see/hear ghosts, so I didn't initially get how he found the dead boar in the jungle. And I didn't recognize Ms. Hawking, played by Fionnula Flanagan; I had forgotten her original appearance, when she laid out Desmond's destiny for him in season 3. I assumed she was Faraday's mother when she appeared at the end of the episode, talking to Ben. (And who knows, maybe she is.) But, despite all the cool things that happened, I was slightly disappointed. There was forward momentum, there were great character moments. I just never really felt utterly blown away, as I always am following Lost premieres and finales. I think my expectations were a bit high, because really, these were two great hours of television. I'm being greedy, asking for anything more. And yet, here we are.

The United States of Tara: Toni Collette is absolutely amazing in this new Showtime series as Tara, a suburban housewife with multiple personalities. (I don't even want to get into what the proper technical term for her disorder is; you know what I mean.) It's truly an incredible performance -- performances. She's utterly different as each personality she inhabits; her facial expressions, the cadence of her speech, her walk and body language. It's more than enough to make up for the several forcibly quirky Diablo Cody-isms peppered throughout the script (Collette can even sell a line as absurd as "I hate you for not fucking me" with an immature pout and a petulant exit). I loved Cody's Juno, but her dialogue can definitely be a hindrance to connecting with her characters. To her credit, both in that film and on this show, her characters are strong enough to transcend the occasional gibberish line, and to sell their emotional reality. What I especially love about Tara, beyond Collette, is the way her family accepts and supports her, even when they're frightened or confused by her (especially her "Buck" persona, a belligerent redneck who derides Tara's son with homophobic name-calling, yet also leads a standing ovation for Tara's daughter's ballet recital). It's a compelling familial dynamic, one not often seen on TV, where even in family sitcoms the characters do nothing but sling put-downs back and forth. Tara's family is completely messed-up, yet fully functional. I loved the first episode of this show, and can't wait for the new episode tomorrow.

Hottie or nottie?

2009-01-22T22:53:00.000-08:00

I think we all know which side I take in the big debate on The Office tonight:

HOT.

Everything's fixed now, right?

2009-01-21T19:08:00.000-08:00

The two lines that stood out as perhaps most significant in Obama's Inaugural Address (emphasis mine):

1. "We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost."

I adored how a majority of the speech was a big "screw you" to Dubya (who, as Jon Stewart pointed out to Obama on The Daily Show, is "sitting right behind you!"). But above rejecting Bush's partisan politics, the politics of fear, the exclusive favoring of the wealthy, and the explicit authorization of torture we suffered under Bush's dictatorship... above even all that, I was made hopeful by the idea of a President and his administration once again embracing science over religious dogma. Intelligent Design is not science, folks. It's bullshit. As is willful ignorance in the face of global warming. As is banning stem cell research. You get the idea. Yay, science!

2. "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers."

Is this the first time a standing President has even acknowledged atheism/agnosticism in a public address, let alone embraced atheists/agnostics as an important part of the American fabric? Jaw-dropping. Now, if he'd only stop peppering phrases like "God-given promise" and "God calls on us" and "God's grace" throughout his speeches... though I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath for that.

Congratulations! Now get working!

2009-01-20T09:00:00.004-08:00

And... zero.

I almost forgot what being proud of my country feels like, and I had completely forgotten what it's like to have confidence in a President. Today is the most hopeful day for America in the 21st Century thus far. And, with one gigantic, eight-year mistake rectified, and so many, many others hopefully soon to be addressed, it can only get better.

A TOAST: Here's to a new day.

GrimJack: "Blood Sport"

2009-01-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last GrimJack update. And I know how much you all have been missing them. Not a day goes by that I don't receive three or four hundred emails demanding the return of this incredibly popular feature. Well, your wait is over, you lucky ducks! Cover date: September, 1984. Written by John Ostrander, drawn by Timothy Truman. From GrimJack #2, this is the 20-page story, "Blood Sport."

We begin our tale, as we so often do, in Munden's Bar, with John Gaunt getting good and liquored up, in the company of the equally liquored-up watchlizard Bob.

An adorable little urchin braves the dangers of Munden's to track down Gaunt and enlist his aid.

In issue #1, we saw the harder side of John Gaunt -- the cruel streak that feeds his loneliness and drives people away. Here, we get a look at his softer side, as the kid's sorry tale (and meager funds) win him over.

The child is Seth Bailer, and his family is in a bad way. His mother is sick, and his father has lost his job. They've had to relocate to the Pit to scrape by. And the Pit, as you'll recall, is not a nice place (click to Biggie Size):

I love that double-page panel. Truman packs a lot of grime and despair in there. (And Ostrander makes first mention of John's brothers, Nick, Jake and Joe.) He also throws in a few little jokes. Here's a street sign/personal greeting:

Here's a shout-out to Matt Feazell, master of the stick figure:

And here, next to graffiti reading "Howlin' Wolf lives!" is what seems to be the first appearance of Feetus, Gaunt's most reliable informant in the Pit. Kind of his Huggy Bear. We'll get to know him better in issue #7.

Anyway, Gaunt pays a visit to Seth's mom, who fills him in a bit more on why Seth came looking for him: Seth's dad, Doug, has left to do something foolish, and most likely fatal.

Doug is no fighter, and in a match like this, he's likely to get killed. The situation brings up some unpleasant memories for Gaunt.

Gaunt did not have a good childhood, is the point he's trying to make here, I think. We'll eventually learn that his aforementioned brothers had a lot to do with his misery. And we first hear about the Dancer, the greatest fighter in the history of the Arena. GrimJack only rated as number two.

Also, notice the picture of Bruce Lee on the flyer, with the text, "Kato vs. Butcherboy." Man, if Kato didn't beat Butcherboy, Doug is screwed.

Gaunt treks to the deepest, nastiest part of the Pit to locate the Blood Sport matches. And he gets a big surprise when he finally arrives -- the ringmaster is Mac Cabre, right hand man to the Dancer during his ill-fated rebellion, and a man who should be dead.

Gaunt intercepts Doug just before he's about to enter the ring, and takes his place. Click to enlarge:

Not sure why Butcherboy is a different color here than on the cover, but once you accept an eight foot genetic mutant with giant nipple rings, I guess color is irrelevant.

Gaunt spends the next three pages getting his ass thoroughly kicked. Names from the Arena float into his mind as he reels: Blacjacmac, the Dancer, the Wolfpack, Uncle Willy. We'll discover more about those names in due time.

Just as Butcherboy is about to deliver the killing blow, Gaunt turns the tables as he so often does: he fights dirty.

"Gertch!" indeed. With Gaunt back in control, he delivers an ultimatum to Mac Cabre.

"Your choice." Classic Gaunt.

Mac Cabre caves, and pays up. And he lets Gaunt know that he's not the only one who should be dead that's still alive and kicking: the Dancer is back.

Gaunt walks Doug back home, and settles up with him, again revealing his soft heart:

But Gaunt is troubled by Dancer's return, and puzzled by his motivations: why the Blood Sport matches? What was he planning? Maybe we'll get some clues next issue. For now, we take our leave of GrimJack for the week.

Oh, but not before a final phone call to good buddy Blacjacmac:

Dun dun dunnnn!!

I

2009-01-19T09:00:00.001-08:00

Sidebar Update, '09 Style!

2009-01-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

It's the first Sidebar Update of '09, on the cusp of a new and brighter era. Love it!

The current Object of My Affection is Rosario Dawson. That's right: Rosario Dawson! I'm calling her my own! As she is apparently the official Object of Affection of every hetero male on the internet (and a significant number of females as well), I fully expect war over this declaration. Bring it, bitches! She's mine!!

I am now Reading David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster, having finished David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. I sense a pattern. If you are curious about DFW and are a bit intimidated by a 1,000+ page novel, you should probably take a shot at Lobster. It's a fantastic collection of essays, featuring the full array of DFW's literary quirks (primarily multiple footnotes). And the first essay is all about the Adult Video News Awards, which is awesome.

Watching the second season of Venture Bros. on DVD, having recently completed the first season. This is one of the smartest, weirdest, funniest cartoons ever created. Even if you don't like cartoons, I suspect you might like this one, if only for its clever references to a vast array of pop culture (for example, David Bowie and Iggy Pop are significant characters in the final two episodes).

Listening to R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People. Aside from it being a flat-out incredible album, I will always have a particular personal fondness for Automatic due to its serving as my European soundtrack. Over Christmas/New Year's 1992-93, I spent a month in Europe, visiting my sister (who was spending a year studying abroad in Barcelona). I went to Ireland, Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, and much more, with Automatic as almost the only music I listened to on my Walkman; it eventually became inextricably linked to Europe in my mind. (Though the night club in Brussels, in which the entire bar sang along to Ice-T's "Cop Killer" on the radio, was another peculiar musical highlight.) I haven't owned the CD for ages now, and when Amazon offered the album as an mp3 download for only $1.99 yesterday, I jumped at the chance to own it again. It makes me very happy (even while listening to "Everybody Hurts").

Hating: Dubya. Still. Less than 48 hours left!

And the Lyric of the Moment is one final illustration of the failure of the Bush years, from "Everybody Wants To Rule the World," by Tears for Fears. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, 43.

II

2009-01-18T09:00:00.001-08:00

Part hope. Part change. All cop.

2009-01-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

I promise this is the last one for tonight.

Hope works here. Change works there. Swords work everywhere.

2009-01-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

One more GrimJack picture, courtesy of Obamiconme:

I would've voted for him.

Guns work here. Magic works there. Sketches work everywhere.

2009-01-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Johnny Bacardi, who recently took requests for a sketch meme on his blog, here is the finished product of my request: GrimJack (of course!).

Very, very cool. Thanks, JB!

III

2009-01-17T09:00:00.001-08:00

TV: Top Ten of 2008

2009-01-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

Used to be a tradition here at You Know What I Like? to sum up, at year's end, exactly what I did like in the preceding year, in the form of various Top Ten lists. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to absorb a lot of pop culture in 2008. I couldn't possibly write a Top Ten list for music. I maybe bought three or four new albums, tops. I can't attempt a Top Ten list of comics; I haven't collected regularly for years now. I could take a stab at movies, though I'm not entirely sure I've seen more than ten movies in the theater this year. I may have to double check that.

What I can do, though, is a Top Ten list of TV. Ah, good ol' TV. Always there, always reliable. Oh, except for 2008 kind of sucked for TV, overall, what with coming off the writer's strike, all kinds of shows being forced into hiatus at the beginning of the year, just when they were getting interesting. The strike also helped result in a pretty damn lackluster Fall premiere season. Not a lot of keepers out of that mangy lot.

Still, when TV was good in 2008, it was very very good. (And when it was bad, which was more often than not, it was horrid.) So here are my picks, only a few weeks late, for the ten best shows of 2008.

1. The Shield
How could it be anything else? The final season of this landmark drama started out a little slow for me, with a little too much emphasis on the "Blackmail Box" MacGuffin. But it built to the most emotionally powerful and rewarding final two episodes in television history. Shane didn't exit the way I expected him to, but it was all the more achingly devastating for not seeing it coming. Walton Goggins richly deserves Emmy consideration. Speaking of earning that Emmy: I don't know which was more riveting, Michael "Vic Mackey" Chiklis's chilling testimony in the penultimate episode, or his condemnation to the hell of his own making in the finale. When he pulls the gun out of his file cabinet at the end, what do you think is going on? Is it an empty reminder of the man he used to be? Or is it a promise that he plans to go out on his own terms? Not suicide -- never suicide, for Vic. He is the ultimate survivor. No, I mean: is he going to go fuck shit up any way he can, within the confines of his cubicle prison, in a neverending game of raising stakes? Because it never seems to be about the win, for Mackey; it always seems to be about the gamble. As despicable as Mackey proved himself to be -- I hope it's the latter. I hope that shark keeps swimming.

2. 30 Rock
The third season has been a little overstuffed with guest stars that don't quite work (how can Steve Martin not be an automatic home run?), but with Tracy's pornographic video game and his gold shoes and money suit, Jack's romance with C.C. (Edie Falco) and his battles with Devon Banks (Will Arnett), Liz's ill-advised reunion with the Beeper King turned Subway Hero and her struggles to adopt, Kenneth's... well, everything Kenneth does, ever, but especially his engineering of a Night Court reunion, and the insanely uproarious finale to the second season (featuring a guest star who did live up to his full potential, and more, Matthew Broderick as "Cooter"), 2008 was an incredible year for the funniest show on TV.

3. How I Met Your Mother
I think 2008 is the year when it became common wisdom that Neil Patrick Harris is completely awesome as Barney (and HIMYM began to be taken seriously as a quality sitcom), and I think it's just a matter of time before he starts winning scads of awards like David Hyde Pierce. (Can't you so easily picture NPH as Niles, by the way?) The rest of the cast is very strong as well, especially my fave Cobie Smulders, whose chemistry with NPH is the highlight of the show, and the writing and direction are always clever and inventive. Best sitcom you're probably still turning your nose up at. (Don't end a sentence with a preposition? I end mine with two, suckas.)

4. Lost
The flash forwards, The Constant, the island disappearing -- this was a season for a lot of wow moments. The predetermined number of remaining episodes gave the fourth season direction and momentum it has often lacked in previous seasons, and the show hasn't been more consistently thrilling since the first four episodes. Can't wait for the fifth season to begin next week.

5. The Office
2008's first episode of The Office was one of the year's -- and the entire series' -- highlights: "Dinner Party," in which the spectacularly dysfunctional relationship between Michael and Jan was revealed in all its hideous glory. One of the best half hours of 2008 on any TV show. And the Fall season began with the beautifully bizarre mating of Michael and Holly, whose doomed relationship generated some genuine pathos amidst the hilarity. Throw in Ryan's coke-fueled downfall, Dwight and Angela's affair, and the show's success in keeping Pam and Jim both together and still interesting, and The Office showed no signs of slowing down.

6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Much of the season built on the familiar formula of picking a topic, and having the Gang react like idiots to it (the gas crisis, home makeovers, healthcare) -- and don't get me wrong, I love that formula. Charlie in a green suit hitting someone in the balls never gets old. But this season also featured two unusually ambitious, and tremendously rewarding, departures: "The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell," a Revolutionary War period piece in which the Gang gets to call the British "dicks" a lot, and "The Nightman Cometh," the disastrous staging of Charlie's rock opera (which most of the rest of the Gang misinterprets as having a lot of man-boy rape). Always funny, in the crudest way possible.

7. Corner Gas
Either you like it or you don't. Me, I love this low-key comedy about a bunch of colorful eccentrics living life in the slow lane in Dog River, Saskatchewan. And I'm dying for WGN to begin broadcasting the final season in America (nine episodes of which have already aired in Canada).

8. House
This show falls too often into rote formula, but I enjoy House's new team a great deal (especially Kal Penn as Kutner, and let us not forget the recent OoMA, Olivia Wilde as Thirteen), as well as the tentative steps toward romance between House and Cuddy (though I am sorry private detective Lucas, Cuddy's seeming alternative romantic interest, was written out so quickly). And the heartbreaking storyline bridging seasons four and five, in which Wilson's beloved Amber died, basically as a direct result of coming to House's aid, was a thrilling and agonizing break from that familiar formula.

9. Battlestar Galactica
It was an uneven season (or first half of a season, with the second half set to commence tonight!), with way too much time spent on Starbuck's side quest. But, as usual, the beginning and ending of the arc were terrific; the climax, involving the abduction of Laura Roslin, the revelation of four of the final five to one and all, Baltar's messiah cult, the eventual truce between humans and Cylons, a beautiful 'shipper moment between Roslin and Admiral Adama, and the discovery of a nuclear war-ravaged Earth, was especially powerful.

10. Pushing Daisies
Often a little too whimsical for my taste, the show nonetheless boasted a truly original vision, from the color scheme to the oh-so-proper narration to the random outbursts of song (and cleavage) from Kristin Chenoweth. And it had a touching central romance between Chuck and the Piemaker. Plus Chi McBride as Emerson Cod was a total badass. Too bad it got the ax.

Honorable mentions:

The Sarah Silverman Program
Vulgar, stupid, offensive, filled with fart and balls jokes. Which is hilarious.

The Rachel Maddow Show
Vulgar, stupid... oh, wrong show. Sharp, funny, insightful. A new bright spot in cable news.

The Big Bang Theory
It makes me laugh. So there.

A Colbert Christmas
I rarely get the chance to watch Colbert's regular show anymore, but his Christmas special was ingenious, highlighted by a surprisingly sublime rendition of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding" as performed by Colbert, Toby Keith, Willie Nelson, Feist, John Legend, and Elvis Costello in a bear costume.

Allegedly great stuff that I didn't watch, though I swear I will catch up on most or all of it on DVD some day:

1. The Wire
Yes, yes, YES, I know it's the greatest TV show of all time (according to a lot of you). I'll get to it. Now lay off!

2. Mad Men
Watched the first couple-three episodes of the first season of this show, and I thought it was damn fine. Then... I don't know. I fell out of the habit. I missed an episode somehow, and didn't want to watch the next episode without seeing the previous one, and... now I haven't watched it since the beginning. That's my bad, and I know it.

3. Breaking Bad
I caught the first few episodes of the first season, and I thought it was brilliant. Bryan Cranston was an absolute revelation in his role as a cancer-ridden high school science teacher-turned-meth producer. But... same thing with Mad Men. I let it slip away from me. I will catch up!

4. Saving Grace
I watched the first couple episodes of the first season (starting to sound familiar?), and... eh. I love Holly Hunter, and I admired her work in this show, especially the parts where she kept getting drunk and naked, but the show as a whole didn't grab me. I know a lot of people have heaped a lot of praise on the show. But you gotta really, really sell me on any "angel" business you're gonna throw into my TV viewing, and Saving Grace fell short on that count. I found the supernatural aspects just laughable, which spoiled the whole thing for me.

And there you go. What about you? Any of your favorites I didn't watch? Anything I did watch that you hate? Comment away!

IV

2009-01-16T09:00:00.001-08:00

V

2009-01-15T09:00:00.002-08:00

VI

2009-01-14T09:00:00.001-08:00

VII

2009-01-13T09:00:00.001-08:00

VIII

2009-01-12T09:00:00.001-08:00

1: Serve the public trust. 2: Protect the innocent. 3: Consume fried chicken.

2009-01-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

In lieu of actual content, here is a Japanese fried chicken commercial starring RoboCop.

IX

2009-01-11T09:00:00.002-08:00

X

2009-01-10T09:00:00.002-08:00

Photobucket is a piece of shit

2009-01-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

Bear with me as I try to figure out how to fix the picture links on this blog, because Photobucket, as you may have heard, is a piece of shit.

Infinite Jest

2009-01-07T23:56:00.000-08:00

Well, so much for posting more in the New Year. Not that I made any official resolution or anything, but still. Not off to a great start on the ol' blog here. Aside from that, 2009 already feels better than 2008, I have to say. Hooray!

One thing I've accomplished in the New Year: I have finally finished David Foster Wallace's masterpiece, Infinite Jest. I began reading it back on September 17. (At 1 AM, as I noted in the comments to that post.) 112 days, to read 979 pages of text and 388 footnotes comprising an additional 97 pages. That's less than ten pages a day. Not very impressive. I blame society. But still -- I finished it!

My immediate impression on concluding Infinite Jest: brilliant, brilliant book; disappointing ending. It feels like it ends too soon, unbelievably enough for a tome of this size; it feels like there are several missing chapters (even though the book isn't strictly broken down by chapters). As petty as it is, I want greater and more explicit detail on what became of Hal, Orin, and the rest of the Incandenzas, Don Gately, Joelle van Dyne, Michael Pemulis, Remy Marathe, Ortho Stice, John Wayne, and more in between the end of the novel and the beginning (the book wraps back on itself, with a chronological gap in between).

Like I say, though, that's petty, and simplistic. I need a little time, now that I've finished, to absorb the book. (And do a little research online, a little clue-hunting, some of which has already been particularly rewarding.) I also feel a strong impulse to immediately reread it. Maybe that's part of the circular nature of the story (the whole book is packed with circular, or "annular," as DFW puts it, allusions and references -- annular: "shaped like a ring"). After all, the titular entertainment, the "Infinite Jest" of the text, is an Entertainment cartridge so powerfully seductive it is impossible to stop watching; it seems DFW intentionally structured his novel in a similar fashion, so that the reader conceivably could keep reading it in an infinite loop.

I really hope those of you who have read Infinite Jest feel like leaving some of your impressions and interpretations in the comments. I don't want to spoil any major twists or conjectures in this main entry, in case some of you plan on reading the book yourselves (and you really, really should; it is a remarkable achievement in literature, and, as dense and lengthy as it is, remarkably accessible). I'll start things off in the comments with a couple of my own observations (some of which I admittedly have gleaned from elsewhere on the internet).

One more thing: I have been struck all over again by what a dreadful shame David Foster Wallace's suicide is. The world is genuinely diminished by the absence of the manuscripts Wallace had yet to write. At least I have the next book on my reading list to anticipate: DFW's Consider the Lobster.

And days of Auld Lang Syne

2009-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Don't let me down, 2009.

Drop the ball already

2008-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Go to hell, 2008.

Dave Campbell is neither a camp nor a bell. Discuss.

2008-12-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

Please join me in welcoming back to the world of non-profit blogging Mr. Dave Campbell, whose new blog is called, modestly enough, The Society for the Advancement of Dave.

To give you a quick f'rinstance of what you might expect to find there, one of his first posts declares the Greatest Christmas Song Of All Time to be a tie between Andy Williams and the Pogues. Enjoy!

Sidebar Update!

2008-12-29T15:50:00.000-08:00

Hey all! I'm back from Christmas vacation just in time for the final Sidebar Update of the year. Hoopla! Let's jump right in.

The current Object of My Affection is Anne Hathaway, and I'm a bit surprised she's never been featured on the Sidebar before. She's lovely as all git-out, with gorgeous brown eyes and an adorable smile, not to mention: she's stacked. That's right, I said it! I'm only human! Sue me. She also happens to be pretty damn talented, equally adept at comedy and drama. Rachel Getting Married is one of my few remaining must-sees of the year in film (along with Gran Torino, Wendy and Lucy, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). And her Saturday Night Live was one of the very few non-Tina Fey/Sarah Palin episodes this year that didn't totally suck from start to finish.

Still reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, but I'm in the home stretch: page 857 (out of 981) (not counting footnotes). I should have it finished by New Year's, just in time to start on my favorite Christmas gift this year: DFW's Consider the Lobster. Damn it's rotten this guy isn't around to write more.

Watching: The Venture Bros. Season 1 DVD. What an endlessly hilarious show! And such a wide range, from elaborate parodies of Walt Disney or Easy Rider to fart and pee jokes. Sharp, funny stuff.

Listening to The Gaslight Anthem's latest album, The '59 Sound (as recommended by Noel Murray -- thanks!), which is kind of a punkier take on early Springsteen story-songs. I almost want to put punk in quote-marks, since the self-described punk band doesn't sound especially "punk" to me, though they do indeed rock hard behind some evocative lyrics. Biggest drawback to me is that the songs start to blend together a bit, with a dearth of big hooks to distinguish between them. But maybe that's just me.

Hating: same monkey. Only 21 more days, praise Jeebus!

And the Lyric of the Moment is from the Refreshments' "Good Year." "It's been a good year for bad days, or a bad year for good days." Indeed it has, folks. 2008 has been the worst year of my life, for various none-of-your-business reasons, and I heartily welcome its demise in a few short days. Here's to 2009 (motto: "It can't possibly be any worse").

Merry Whatever Your Bag Is!

2008-12-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, as is kind of the norm around here these days, I'm taking a little pause from blogging, what with shopping and holiday travel plans and such and so. Sadly, that means a delay on my Monday GrimJack post as well. Look for the next one to appear in the New Year, as well as, oh, so very much I've been trying to get to and haven't (such as Golden Globe nominee reactions and my TV year-end wrap-up). Doesn't mean I definitely won't post again until 2009, but it's not looking good right now.

Apologies to those few of you still following this blog for my lackadaisical approach to blogging of late. Please be assured that I continue to love and cherish you all. In a manner of speaking.

Music Quiz Answers

2008-12-20T20:03:00.000-08:00

And now the answers to my latest Music Quiz! Not a lot of particpants in this one, so a big thank you to those of you who did join in. But that left a lot of unanswered lyrics. Frowny face! Well, here are all the answers (and the names of those who got them right). And hopefully I can narrow this list down to make a nice mix CD for my sister's kids to enjoy.

1. "I'd take the seasick crocodile" Whirling Dervishes, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" (Ian)

2. "He's embedded in the ground" The Who, "Boris the Spider"

3. "With a bit of rock music, everything is fine" Abba, "Dancing Queen"

4. "And who shall wear the starry crown?" Alison Krauss, "Down in the River To Pray" (Nicholas)

5. "For I'm bound to ride that Northern railroad" Soggy Bottom Boys, "Man of Constant Sorrow" (Nicholas)

6. "Trying to smile but the air is so heavy and dry" Bananarama, "Cruel Summer"

7. "But it never really mattered, I will always feel the same" The Beatles, "I Will" (Nicholas)

8. "When the day that lies ahead of me seems impossible to face" Bill Withers, "Lovely Day"

9. "You gotta take a lesson from Mother Nature and if you do you'll know" The Brady Bunch, "Time To Change"

10. "Everything I want the world to be is now coming true especially for me" The Carpenters, "On Top of the World"

11. "But when I get back home you're always there to rub my back" Fountains of Wayne, "Hey Julie"

12. "He can't dance, he can't sing, but he will eat most anything" (No one will get this one. Even Google only returns a single working result. Don't use Google, cheater.) Hoyt Axton, "Fearless the Wonder Dog"

13. "And he loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees" (I forgot about that line. That's not kid friendly! Better toss it, I guess.) Joni Mitchell, "River"

14. "Well, he fought with the goblins, he battled a troll" Leonard Nimoy, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"

15. "Forget about your worries and your strife" Louis Armstrong, "Bare Necessities" (Ian)

16. "But jumping queues and making haste just ain't my cup of meat" Manfred Mann, "The Mighty Quinn" (Johnny Bacardi)

17. "I stick out my chin and grin and say" Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, "Tomorrow" (Nicholas)

18. "If you need a companion well just go right by the pound and find yourself a hound" Nellie McKay, "The Dog Song" (Franko)

19. "When Big Larry came 'round just to put him down, Spongebob turned into a clown" SpongeBob Squarepants, "I Ripped My Pants"

20. "That's nobody's business but the Turks" They Might Be Giants, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople" (Nicholas)

21. "It is you (oh yeah), it is you, you (oh yeah), it is you, you (oh yeah yeah yeah)" Toots and the Maytals, "Pressure Drop"

22. "And you know I'm so wired up, don't need no coffee in my cup" Van Morrison, "Jackie Wilson Said" (Johnny Bacardi)

"Because I Got Depression"

2008-12-19T01:12:00.000-08:00

Once again, Achewood strikes an uncomfortably resonant chord:

Hey, did I tell you about meeting Chris Onstad at the book signing for The Great Outdoor Fight at Austin Books? I didn't? Well: it was sweet. That's the second book signing I've attended in Austin at which the author could not have been a nicer, friendlier, funnier, humbler, more appreciative dude. Also, it's the second book signing at which beer has been available for free. I'm sensing a pattern, and I dig it.

Onstad was very understanding and apologetic about the long wait (it took me, I shit you not, three hours to get to the front of a line of about fifty people), and he volunteered a character sketch to everyone with a book (I got Roast Beef, naturally). He even tolerated my banter about college rivalries (he went to Stanford -- BOO! HISS! -- and I went to Cal -- YAY! HOORAY!). The publishing schedule for Achewood has been spotty at best over the past month or so while Onstad's been on this book tour; hopefully, now that he's finished, it'll get back to regular updates. Which would be nice, since Achewood is not only my favorite webcomic, it's one of my favorite comic strips of all time (up there with Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, and Doonesbury).

P.S. Keep guessing at my music quiz! Still a lot of unidentified songs!

Music Quiz

2008-12-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

I need to post something, but I can't get inspired to create an actual thought-out entry. So instead, here's a music quiz.

I'm making my sister a mix CD that she can play for her kids, since they (especially The Cutest Niece In The World) really love the last one I made for them. I've got a couple dozen songs I'm trying to choose between -- mostly bouncy and cheerful, some just because they're pretty; silly words are a plus. I'm listing a random lyric from each song below. You guess the title of the song and the artist. Winner gets to cheat on their New Year's resolutions with impunity.

1. "I'd take the seasick crocodile"

2. "He's embedded in the ground"

3. "With a bit of rock music, everything is fine"

4. "And who shall wear the starry crown?"

5. "For I'm bound to ride that Northern railroad"

6. "Trying to smile but the air is so heavy and dry"

7. "But it never really mattered, I will always feel the same"

8. "When the day that lies ahead of me seems impossible to face"

9. "You gotta take a lesson from Mother Nature and if you do you'll know"

10. "Everything I want the world to be is now coming true especially for me"

11. "But when I get back home you're always there to rub my back"

12. "He can't dance, he can't sing, but he will eat most anything" (No one will get this one. Even Google only returns a single working result. Don't use Google, cheater.)

13. "And he loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees" (I forgot about that line. That's not kid friendly! Better toss it, I guess.)

14. "Well, he fought with the goblins, he battled a troll"

15. "Forget about your worries and your strife"

16. "But jumping queues and making haste just ain't my cup of meat"

17. "I stick out my chin and grin and say"

18. "If you need a companion well just go right by the pound and find yourself a hound"

19. "When Big Larry came 'round just to put him down, Spongebob turned into a clown"

20. "That's nobody's business but the Turks"

21. "It is you (oh yeah), it is you, you (oh yeah), it is you, you (oh yeah yeah yeah)"

22. "And you know I'm so wired up, don't need no coffee in my cup"

RoboCop Rap

2008-12-16T23:44:00.000-08:00

All right, fine. I can't resist. Here it is, even though you've probably seen it by now. It's the RoboCop Rap. And it's awesome.

NOTE: Thanks to DTC for being the first to point this out to me in a comment.

GrimJack: "A Shade of Truth"

2008-12-15T23:58:00.000-08:00

At long last, after a brief run as a back-up series, and a major crossover event, we have reached it. Cover date: August, 1984. Cover price: $1.00. (Those were the days.) Published by First Comics. Written by John Ostrander, drawn by Timothy Truman, co-created by both. I give you the 26-page tale "A Shade of Truth": GrimJack issue #1.

I apologize if this post tries your patience by running even longer (a lot longer) than the generous length I have established with previous GrimJack posts. But this happens to be one of my favorite single issues of any comic, ever -- in fact, it may be the most valued treasure of my collection. And I own Action Comics #1! (Note: no I don't.)

We open with a young woman scribbling in a diary, while John Gaunt muses narratively about the nature of truth. The woman finishes her writing, steps onto the ledge of her window, and plunges several stories to her death. And then the splash page, which frankly, given my history with and love of this character, gives me goosebumps:

"Call me a mercenary. Call me an assassin. Call me a villain. I am all that and more." That he is, that he is. One of my favorite comic book quotations of all time. And surprisingly useful in real life, too.

For the newcomers, who may have missed the Starslayer stories, Gaunt re-establishes his hang-out of choice (Munden's Bar), and his location (the Pit, the ghetto of Cynosure, which is the intersection of the multiverse). And he once again displays his method of assuring he drinks alone: shot glass in one hand, loaded pistol in the other. Take my word: it works.

In walks a posh older woman, distinctly out of place in a dive like Munden's. Which immediately attracts some bad attention.

Hearsehead and Toque would become semi-recurring if not especially important characters, again underlining the strong continuity of GrimJack's world.

Anything for which Gaunt's tolerance level has plummeted, I do not envy (even if Gaunt doesn't know how to spell "tolerance"). Gaunt now illustrates the consequences of his low tolerance:

Gaunt makes a couple of new enemies while wearing his trademark grin. As always, wouldn't be GrimJack without some totally necessary gratuitous violence. Hope Hearsehead has dental!

At last, the posh woman has the chance to plead her case to Gaunt, in a composition I really dig:

Mrs. Sondra Grant's first husband was William Honesworth, now Cynosure's Minister of Finance. And since Cynosure's one overriding impetus is money, that's a damned important position. William and Sondra had a baby girl, Marcie, who grew up to commit suicide in the opening pages of this issue. When Sondra went to collect Marcie's belonging from her university apartment, she found the ghost (some might say "shade" -- see title, see title) of her daughter reenacting her final moments over and over again, all through the night.

Gaunt is not unfamiliar with ghosts -- in fact, they're a common occurrence in certain parts of Cynosure. Ghosts act out the remorse of their previous life, until said remorse is relieved. Sondra is convinced the key lies in her daughter's diary, which she wants Gaunt to locate.

Gaunt tries to protect Sondra from the dirty details of his job, but Sondra demands to know the whole truth. She insists on accompanying Gaunt through every step of his investigation. He admires her for her determination, while she will come to regret it.

Marcie had written home about her boyfriend at the university, a jock named Mitch Sewell, who seems a likely first subject to interview. And thus Gaunt has to pay a visit to the University of Cynosure, the only artificially created dimension in the city, in which all rules of every dimension work -- science, magic, alien technologies, etc.

The U of Cyn. Don't forget: "Cyn" rhymes with "Sin."

Gaunt tracks down Mitch, who claims never to have heard of Marcie. Gaunt begs to differ.

Nice POV.

Gaunt doesn't take kindly to Mitch's reluctance to share, and things get ugly quickly.

That's always been one of my favorite threats: "You're gonna wear your ass as a hat." Does that mean he's going to rip off his ass and place it on his head, or he's going to bend his head backward until his ass perches atop it? Either way: disturbing, and hilarious.

Mitch cockily confronts Gaunt with the knowledge that he is much younger and stronger than his opponent. Shame Gaunt doesn't play by the Marquess of Queensberry's rules.

If you try to tell me you don't get a kick out of a big dumb jock getting punched in the nuts ("BLAMP!"), you are lying.

Mitch, persuaded to talk by Gaunt's charm and finesse, insists that he broke up with Marcie a few weeks back because of Marcie's involvement with drugs. When Gaunt presses him, Mitch swears he has no idea what kind of drugs, nor where she got them -- his scholarship would've been at risk had he gotten involved. Gaunt suspects he's not getting the whole truth, but leaves it for now.

After leaving Mitch crammed in a locker in the gym, Gaunt and Sondra argue over Gaunt's rough modus operandi.

He makes a good point.

Gaunt's next visit is to Sondra's ex, Marcie's father: William Honesworth.

A Trade War, you say? That sounds destructive. It also sounds like ominous foreshadowing. I'm not sure why.

Honesworth greets Sondra coolly, but cordially. She asks if he has any idea why their daughter would have killed herself.

Here we meet Heinrich Krupp, Honesworth's giant, monocle-wearing, Iron Cross-brandishing, right hand bird creature.

While Honesworth and Sondra commiserate, Gaunt snoops, eventually running into Honesworth's current wife, Vinula.

She's kind of a freak, and she appears to be clothed only in her own hair, but she imparts this advice to Gaunt: "Seek the Candyman. Beware Krupp."

Gaunt knows Candyman: he's a small-time dealer in the Pit. But why, he wonders, should he be wary of Krupp? And just as he is wondering this, he turns and bumps, slapstick-style, directly into Krupp's massive frame.

Krupp doesn't care to laugh, I guess. Although he does have his own prop comedy routine, which he performs for Gaunt, using Gaunt as the prop.

Ah, but as the old saying goes, "He who laughs last, gets a steel-toed boot to the face." Or something like that. My point is: GrimJack kicks Krupp in the face.

After they vacate the premises, Gaunt confers with Sondra as to what he's learned. And Sondra confides in Gaunt that her daughter had always been lonely, looking for approval from her father that never came. She also tells him of her own loneliness, first as the wife of the cold, work-obsessed Honesworth, then with her current husband, who is incapacitated and dying.

She frets that she is being silly, telling Gaunt these things.

Next morning, Gaunt and Sondra visit Candyman, who has recently acquired some new, well-armed muscle. Candyman, puffed-up and feeling he has nothing to fear, deigns to answers Gaunt's inquiries:

Gaunt translates:

The reality gets uglier and uglier for Sondra. She angrily denies Candyman's assertion, but Gaunt begins piecing things together. They leave, but not before Gaunt taunts Candyman with the existence of Marcie's diary, as yet undiscovered.

The Alpha Centauri (spelled differently in the panel above) commercial empire provided soldiers to the low-level thug Candyman, hoping to get hold of Candyman's client, Marcie Honesworth, and through her get their claws into Finance Minister William Honesworth, whose coerced influence could net them untold profits. But should this manipulation by the Alpha Centauri become known to the other corporate giants, a Trade War would be inevitable.

Gaunt spells this out to Sondra. She becomes convinced her daughter is as bad as Candyman claims, maybe worse. Her memories of her daughter are being destroyed. She asks Gaunt to drop the case.

That's not who John Gaunt is. Gaunt will always want the truth, no matter whom it hurts, nor how much. Even if it's himself he's hurting. As it is here. In tears, Sondra vows to continue rooting out the truth with Gaunt -- but the emotional connection between them, their mutual recourse from loneliness, is dead and gone. That's the kind of price Gaunt is always willing to pay, when he's got his mind set on something, but it's a price that also continually takes its toll on his soul.

Gaunt and Sondra return to the U of Cyn to talk to Mitch again, suspecting he was the one who got Marcie hooked on the drugs in the first place, but Mitch is dead, and his killer is not hard to find.

Krupp explains himself: Mitch indeed got Marcie addicted to some vicious drugs, at the behest of his boss, Candyman, for whom he had been selling on campus. Candyman's Alpha Centauri bosses tried to use her addiction to control her father. Krupp confronted Marcie, and persuaded her that the only honorable way out, the only way to preserve her father's name, was suicide. She accepted that fate, but first she wrote down her confession in her diary -- which also could be used to blackmail Honesworth. Mitch found the diary and kept it for himself, thinking to sell it to the highest bidder. Which naturally led to Krupp tracking him down and killing the hell out of him.

Krupp wraps up his story by sharing how fiercely Mitch fought him:

Gaunt is surprised to find Candyman has followed him, along with one of his Alpha Centauri gunmen.

Candyman wants the diary. Gaunt is reticent to comply.

Gaunt makes his move, but, as everyone keeps reminding him, he's lost some of his game in his later years. He takes out the Alpha Centauri hired gun, but Candyman shoots him in the shoulder and sends him reeling. Candyman and his lone remaining henchman close in on Gaunt for the kill.

Krupp, the stubborn bastard, keeps coming for Gaunt, even with a bullet in his brain. Gaunt grabs a metal javelin from a pile of gym equipment and makes sure Krupp stays down for good.

That just about wraps things up, save for a final act of redemption which releases Marcie's ghost...

...as well as Sondra's final recriminations directed toward Gaunt's painful use of truth as a weapon.

And Gaunt is left with his flawed but unwavering moral code, which sets him up on a high ground that always seems to leave him alone in the end.

Next week: the return of Blacjacmac!

'Tis the season to be naked

2008-12-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

And R.I.P. Bettie Page.

Click picture for full, NSFW goodness! You're welcome.

20 Favorite Actresses

2008-12-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by SamuraiFrog at Electronic Cerebrectomy with the following meme: pick your 20 favorite actresses. While I hate memes with such difficult rules, I decided to play along with this one anyway.

I would've posted this sooner, but SamuraiFrog made this cool collage of the 20 actresses he picked, so I wanted to do it too. I think it turned out very nice. You don't have to leave me a compliment in the comments but it wouldn't hurt, what with Santa watching and all.

After the super-keen collage, I've listed all 20 actresses, and my two favorites of their films. In most cases, these aren't going to be their most iconic film appearances, nor even arguably their best performances; these are just the films closest to my heart for whatever reason. Also, I've probably accidentally left out one or more of my favorites due to faulty wiring in my puzzler. I reserve the right not to get too worked up about it.

Feel free to add your two cents, either in the comments or on your own blog, since I'm old and tired and can't be bothered to officially tag anyone else with this meme.

Cate Blanchett -- The Lord of the Rings, The Aviator
Hope Davis -- Mumford, American Splendor
Zooey Deschanel -- Almost Famous, Elf
Minnie Driver -- Grosse Pointe Blank, Good Will Hunting
Faye Dunaway -- Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown
Jodie Foster -- Taxi Driver, The Accused
Audrey Hepburn -- Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany's
Katharine Hepburn -- The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen
Holly Hunter -- Raising Arizona, Broadcast News
Grace Kelly -- Rear Window, To Catch a Thief
Laura Linney -- The Truman Show, You Can Count on Me
Myrna Loy -- The Thin Man, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Marilyn Monroe -- Some Like It Hot, The Misfits
Julianne Moore -- Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski
Parker Posey -- Kicking and Screaming, Henry Fool
Susan Sarandon -- Bull Durham, Dead Man Walking
Meryl Streep -- The Deer Hunter, Silkwood
Lili Taylor -- Say Anything..., I Shot Andy Warhol
Uma Thurman -- Dangerous Liaisons, Pulp Fiction
Sigourney Weaver -- Aliens, Death and the Maiden

The AV Club's Best Music of 2008

2008-12-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

The AV Club has released their annual list of the best in music, which means it is once again time for me to break that list down into an expose of my staggering ignorance of modern music. This is my fourth year of doing this, believe it or not, and it just keeps getting sadder.

This year, the AV Club has listed their top 30 albums, as voted on by their 19 (!) music critics. And it's a great crop, as far as illustrating my massive lack of musical awareness goes.

Literally, Swear To God, Never Heard Of Them (Unless They Maybe Appeared On A Previous AV Club List And Made Zero Impression On Me)

Beach House, Devotion
The Helio Sequence, Keep Your Eyes Ahead
Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
Department of Eagles, In Ear Park
Flying Lotus, Los Angeles
Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer
The Cool Kids, The Bake Sale
Black Mountain, In the Future
Frightened Rabbit, The Midnight Organ Fight
Mates of State, Re-arrange Us
Hercules and Love Affair, Hercules and Love Affair
The Gaslight Anthem, The '59 Sound
Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
The Walkmen, You & Me
Fucked Up, The Chemistry of Common Life

Heard Of Them, Never Listened To Them

Sigur Ros, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
American Music Club, The Golden Age
Sun Kil Moon, April
Lupe Fiasco, The Cool
Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
Portishead, Third
Los Campesinos, Hold On Now, Youngster...

Heard Of Them, Heard Their Music, Don't Care For Them

Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs
Erykah Badu, New Amerykah, Part One: 4th World War

Heard Of Them, Heard Their Music, Secretly Believe People Who Claim To Like Them Are Just Pretending In Order To Fuck With Me Personally, That's How Much I Can't Stand Them

TV on the Radio, Dear Science

Heard Of Them, Heard Some Of Their Music, Still Undecided

Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
The Hold Steady, Stay Positive

Heard Of Them, Heard Their Music, Favorably Disposed Toward Them, Don't Own The Album

Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords
Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation's Dark

Own The Album

And there you have it: Tom's Musical Ignorance, 2008. As far as what I actually did listen to this year, well, I liked the latest Weezer album, which probably means I totally suck.

Anything above you want to recommend? And keep in mind, I mostly like good old fashioned rock and roll. Loud and fast. If you're going to suggest something that could be described as "sadcore," or "Icelandic," for Christ's sake don't bother. But if there's an actual gem in there I'm missing out on, please let me know!

GrimJack: "Blood and Thunder"

2008-12-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

Hey folks. Sorry GrimJack Monday is falling on a Tuesday this week, but as you may have noticed, this blog has entered (once again) a bit of a low-content mode over the past couple weeks. I'm trying to rectify that, but darn it if life doesn't keep happening. I tell you what, anyone wants to put me on salary, I can promise you I'll be more than happy to devote my full time to blogging. Until that happens, well, we'll all have to make do.

As we learned last issue, the back-up feature GrimJack was primed to make a crossover with the lead story, Starslayer. Here, presented in fairly to-the-point fashion, because I don't think it's very good, is that "BOOKLENGTH THRILLER" of a crossover. From Starslayer #18, featuring the final appearance of John Gaunt within its pages, written by John Ostrander and drawn by Timothy Truman, this is "Blood and Thunder."

This, as the caption above notes, is indeed one Torin MacQuillon, the Starslayer himself. He is an ancient Celtic warrior, plucked from his own time by Tamara, captain of the good spaceship Jolly Roger, and descendant of MacQuillon's wife (who I guess remarried after his disappearance). I don't want to get too much into the backstory of Starslayer, so that's going to have to be enough to get you up to speed. Oh, but you should also know, his headband acts as both an attractive cover for his missing eye, and as a psionic link between himself and Sam, the monkey-like droid who helps him to function in the unfamiliar future. Plus, he's been captured by Count Ariosto, an aristocrat and hunter whom MacQuillon recently bested, and was imprisoned in Ariosto's dungeons, from which he has now escaped, leading a ragtag crew of assorted other prisoners in an attempt to gain their freedom.

Oy! You can see why I didn't want to get into too much backstory!

Here we see that John Gaunt is narrating the tale, which is part of the main reason I have a problem with this comic. Gaunt completely dominates the proceedings, thoroughly overshadowing the regular characters, right down to being the one who tells the story. In all fairness, John Gaunt is far cooler and more interesting than Torin MacQuillon, and I prefer him leading the way. But, from the POV of a comics fan in general, it pains me to read this issue. A comic book guest star should be just that: a guest, serving to accentuate the action and add some flavor here and there, not illustrate how weak the actual stars of the book are. I mean, come on: if the Thing fights the Hulk, you know the Thing's going to triumph if it's in Fantastic Four, and the Hulk will win if it's in The Incredible Hulk. You don't have the Hulk visit FF, and then pants the Thing, shove him in a locker and make him cry. Which is essentially what Gaunt does to MacQuillon here. Ostrander is undermining the comic's main characters at the expense of a crossover guest, and I don't think that's good storytelling.

That's how I see it, anyway.

As we saw last time, John Gaunt has run across the Starslayer gang because he's been hunting down Crayne, a scoundrel, coward, and con artist, and a tenuous member of MacQuillon's alliance. Crayne owes Gaunt a substantial amount of money. Problem is, he doesn't have it, nor do the rest of the group (which consists of Tamara, Sam, and Chris Heyman, the Free Marine whose name has previously appeared in a GrimJack backup story).

That's Chris. And the statuette Gaunt mentions is of course the Manx Cat, the grand MacGuffin of Cynosure, which Gaunt was chasing down in his very first appearance. Again, that's one of the things I love so much about GrimJack: the rich and consistent continuity.

Ostrander has Chris drop a little bit of an in-joke here. She calls Count Ariosto "the Rude Baron," which is a shout-out to Mike Baron and Steve Rude, co-creators of another one of the greatest comic books ever, Nexus.

Heyman and Tamara attempt to enlist Gaunt's aid in helping them spring MacQuillon from Ariosto's clutches. But Gaunt drives a hard bargain.

Tamara is crushed, but she agrees to give up her ship in return for Gaunt's help. As Gaunt and the rest storm Ariosto's fortress, we get an idea of how Sam works, and why he's been unable to contact MacQuillon: MacQuillon's high emotions tamper with their mental link.

Tamara and Heyman create a diversion with explosions and gunfire, allowing Gaunt to slip in the back and make contact with MacQuillon, who is battle-enraged and unreasonable, lashing out at Gaunt. Isn't that always the way with crossovers?

While it amuses me how Ostrander acknowledges the comic book tradition of heroes fighting each other before realizing they're actually on the same side, then subverts it by having the battle between Gaunt and MacQuillon last exactly one panel, again it pains me to see the star of his own comic so easily dominated by Gaunt. MacQuillon has proven himself again and again to be a mighty warrior, and Gaunt deflects a vicious punch from him by catching it in his open palm. Makes MacQuillon look like a total puss, frankly.

"By the way, nice scar." Ha!

Sam receives an S.O.S. from Tamara -- she and Heyman have been captured. Gaunt is ready to bail on them, arguing that he only made a deal to rescue MacQuillon. MacQuillon of course refuses to leave without rescuing them, and his fellow escapees refuse to leave MacQuillon's side. This combination of nobility and stubborness strikes a chord in Gaunt.

He agrees to stay and fight as well. But see, there it is again: the way Gaunt patronizingly regards MacQuillon as a less evolved version of himself is another slight from Ostrander to the comic's actual main character. Constant undermining. Maybe it doesn't bug you the way it bugs me, but you can at least see why it bugs me, I hope.

And now, the final battle is joined. I really dig this image, with Ariosto top left and his wizard ally Sphinx bottom left:

MacQuillon goes sword-to-sword with Ariosto, the escapees rescue Tamara and Heyman, a bunch of people fight a bunch of other people, and GrimJack faces the wizard Sphinx.

Sphinx works in silence, casting a monster of a whammy at Gaunt. Gaunt deflects it with the help of a little trinket called the St. Elvis vial (ha!), and sends the energy back at Sphinx, destroying him. Or almost:

There's that continuity again: Sphinx would indeed become a recurring member of GrimJack's Rogues Gallery.

Gaunt's final line to Sphinx -- "Count on it!" -- was the slogan of First Comics at the time this was written. I wonder if that was intentional.

Meanwhile, all the other good guys win. Hooray!

Now, as to the matter of Gaunt's payment. Tamara doesn't want to give up her ship, and demands to know what MacQuillon is going to do about it. His answer:

And Gaunt's final salute to Torin MacQuillon (after making him look like a bit of a chump for the preceding 24 pages):

Gaunt's noble nature shines through here; it's not always discernible, but it's most often brought to the fore by recognzing the quality in others. So that's two cases in a row now on which Gaunt has gotten stiffed! Nobility doesn't pay the rent, John.

MacQuillon (since he is noble) offers to share the Jolly Roger's captain's chair with Tamara (though, if he were really noble, he'd probably just give it back to her with no strings attached). His fellow escapees become the Jolly Roger's crew. And as for the last member of the group, Crayne, he skipped out on the battle and on his debt to Gaunt.

He's gone from the pages of Starslayer, but he's not gone from John Gaunt's life. Elections, you say? Hmmm....

Next time: the debut issue of John Gaunt's own title, GrimJack!

GrimJack: "Night of the Killer Bunnies"

2008-12-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome again to my weekly recaps of GrimJack, the best comic book ever. Sorry for missing last week's update. I was too busy throwing up everything I ever ate in my life. Stomach flu is unpleasant.

This week sees a bit of a right angle in the progression of the character of John Gaunt. Thus far we've seen writer John Ostrander and artist Timothy Truman go dark, then darker, then a little bit darker after that. Grime, graphic violence, and emotional and psychological devastation: this is what we've already come to expect from GrimJack. GrimJack invented "grim and gritty."

So where do we go from there? Why, talking animals, of course! From Starslayer #17, I give you the one-part, ten page back-up story: "Night of the Killer Bunnies."

And so begins the silliest, most hilarious GrimJack adventure this side of bowling with Judah the Hammer. (Who's Judah the Hammer? If you don't already know: never mind. That's getting way, way ahead of ourselves.)

John Gaunt has been hired by Gen'l Arn R. Khee, an adorable talking dog from the planet Ch'ukee, to help his people defend themselves from the lupoos -- or, as Gaunt translates for Gordon, "killer rabbits."

Gaunt's having second thoughts, perhaps prompted by the cutesy, Pogoesque malapropisms to which Arn R. Khee is prone ("GrimGaunt," "abominaboble," "excellentpertise"). The animals beg him to reconsider in the most pathetically obnoxious way possible:

That panel cracks me up every time, especially the line, "An' two hard-boiled eggs!" -- a sly if random tribute to the Marx Brothers and the famous stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera.

(Fast-forward to 4:21 for the hard-boiled eggs line.)

Gaunt takes the case, and rockets off to Ch'ukee, where he discovers, much to his chagrin, that everything there talks -- the trees, the flowers, even the sun, which is named Poot.

Gaunt disarms the Ch'ukee troops of their squirt guns, snowballs, and pillows, and begins training them in the use of real weapons. There are mishaps, naturally.

Gaunt has only a few days for training before the lupoos arrive. He leads his troops on an ambush, with one last piece of advice:

Unfortunately, the lupoos are nothing like the cute Ch'ukants. They are a bunch of savage thugs and killers. With pointy ears.

They kind of remind me of Jaxxon, from Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin's classic Star Wars comics:

When Gaunt sees what he and his gang of incompetents are up against, he signals the retreat. But of course it's not that easy.

The lupoos attack, and Gaunt and his team barely escape. Gaunt decides he needs reinforcements, and sends Bob back to Munden's via temporary dimensional portal (don't leave home without it!) to fetch help.

Remember what I said in my first GrimJack recap, about John Ostrander having a penchant for putting the word "Black" in the names of new black characters?

Meet Blacjacmac.

Blacjac is one of Gaunt's oldest and closest friends, and will come to be the most important member of GrimJack's supporting cast. He's a bit of a caricature here in his introduction, and never really sheds that jive accent, but trust me, he's a total badass, and a great character.

Gaunt briefs Blacjac on the situation:

Gaunt threatens to tell Goddess, Blacjac's girl, that he's been stepping out on her, so Blacjac reluctantly stays. Though he just can't get over the whole "bunnies" thing. Not without reason:

When the lupoos return, Gaunt, Blacjac, and the rest of the crew are prepared to meet them, and the fight begins with one last battle cry:

Of course, it wouldn't be GrimJack without some ultra-violence, so here is a picture of talking animals killing each other.

In the middle of all the carnage, Blacjac still can't get over the whole "bunnies" thing.

At last, the shooting is over, and the bunnies are all dead. Gaunt and his crew are victorious. It's time for Gen'l Arn R. Khee to settle up. Perhaps you can tell where this is going:

Yes, even the money talks on Ch'ukee. And it's very clingy. And completely worthless. All Gaunt can do is hitch a ride back to Cynosure with Blacjac, having learned a very important, very expensive lesson: never work with talking animals.

Two interesting announcements about GrimJack's near future are found in this issue. First, on the back cover:

GrimJack gets his own comic! Huzzah!

And announcement #2 comes at the close of the "Killer Bunnies" story:

Yes, GrimJack is about to crossover with Starslayer. What are the odds that a back-up feature written by John Ostrander and drawn by Timothy Truman would cross over with a main feature written by John Ostrander and drawn by Timothy Truman? Uh... pretty good, actually.

There are a couple of tidbits throughout the Starslayer story in this issue laying the groundwork for Gaunt's impending appearance. First we have Crayne, who is basically a con artist and a weasel, getting a warning from Tamara, captain of the Jolly Roger spaceship.

His name was... what? Oh, I wonder. If only she had completed that sentence.

Next, Crayne tells about how he accidentally on purpose led Torin MacQuillon (hero of the series) into a trap in the Pit.

Which one guy? Oh, if only they would complete their thoughts!

All this culminates with that one guy finally locating Crayne, in a big last page reveal.

Next week: we'll see how that turns out.

Also: Go Cowboys

2008-11-27T10:16:00.000-08:00

HAPPY TURKEY DAY, AMERICA!

Happy Thursday, everywhere less awesome!

Good Cop and Bad Cop left for the day. I'm a different kind of cop.

2008-11-25T19:53:00.000-08:00

What am I doing tonight? I'm getting ready to watch the 90 105-minute finale of one of the greatest television series of all time.

I assume you are doing the same.

Thanksgiving preparations may prevent me from writing about The Shield's finale in a timely manner, but rest assured I'll be reading all of your posts on the matter, and will eventually pitch in my own two cents as well. Now, go! Watch!

Hella ill, yo

2008-11-24T16:27:00.000-08:00

No GrimJack Monday this week on account of I am sick as hell. Sorry. It will return next week.

And they all lived happily ever after.

2008-11-22T19:45:00.000-08:00

CAL DEFEATS STANFORD IN 111TH BIG GAME, 37-16.

This pleases me. Flagons of the heartiest ales and joints of the finest meats for all!

Awesome Comics A to Z: The Answers

2008-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this answer key a little earlier than I thought I would, since you smart readers of this blog have already nailed all 26 letters in my Awesome Comics A to Z quiz. Well played!

Nobody took the email challenge and tried to name 20 or more comics, but I appreciate that you limited your individual responses in the comments in order to let as many people as possible play along before the quiz was entirely solved. Maybe I'll do this again and only take email answers, to make a real contest out of it! Then again, maybe not. I'm fickle.

EDIT: Two people emailed me after I set this entry up to auto-post. So kudos to Jeff Kulisek, who got 17 correct, and Satyajit C, who got a very impressive 20 correct! Both of those scores are probably better than I would've done if I hadn't designed the quiz myself!

Oh, and looking backward for a moment, when I gave you the answers to the Awesome Movies A to Z quiz, you were clear on the fact that you could click on the letters to see the original movie posters, right? I didn't give you the answers to L and S, since nobody had guessed them, but if you clicked on the L and S in the answer key, you'd have seen the posters for Lawrence of Arabia and Sunset Boulevard. Just wanted to make sure that loose end was tied up for everybody.

Same thing here: if you want to see the original comic covers from which I took the letters, click on A through Z below. And thanks for playing!

Animal Man

Badger

Cerebus

Doom Patrol

Elektra: Assassin

Fish Police

GrimJack

Hitman

The Invisibles

Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such

Kid Eternity

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Megaton Man

Nexus

Omaha the Cat Dancer

Preacher

The Question

Reid Fleming: World's Toughest Milkman

Sandman

The Tick

Usagi Yojimbo

Void Indigo

We3

X-Factor

Y: The Last Man

Zot!

Awesome Comics A to Z: The Quiz

2008-11-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

As promised last week, here is a new quiz for you. The first letters of 26 comic book logos, from A through Z, are displayed below. You guess which comic each letter comes from. And fun is had by all!

PLEASE NOTE: I don't doubt that there are many among you for whom this quiz is a total slamdunk. So I ask that you limit your guesses in the comments to FIVE TITLES ONLY, to give others a chance to play along. If you want to show off and prove how much you really know about comics, feel free to email me at tomthedog [at] gmail [dot] com, and give me as many answers as you possibly can. I will make special note in tomorrow's entry of those who can guess 20 or more correct!

Now, on with the show:

GrimJack: "Buried Past"

2008-11-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to my ongoing series on my favorite comic book character ever, GrimJack. Today we look at the second GrimJack storyline, published as a backup in Starslayer #12-16, the five-part, 46-page mini-epic "Buried Past," brought to you by John Ostrander and Timothy Truman.

It begins with the introduction of Munden's Bar, the greatest dive in comic book history, and soon-to-be location of many of the greatest writers and artists in comic book history. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

For now, just know that Gordon Munden is the bartender, Bob the gatorlizard is the mascot, John Gaunt is the owner (though we don't discover that for a while -- shh!), a bottle of Old Mink is the mind-eraser of choice, and no goddam Tourbots are allowed.

The story opens with Mick Crocker, aka Cracker, hunting down his old acquaintance John Gaunt at Munden's. Cracker's been turned into a vampire, and he wants Gaunt to hunt down the vamp who turned him.

Seems Cracker was hired by one Lucien Mastenbrook to find his daughter, Miranda, a poor little rich girl who likes to goth it up, vampire-style. Cracker tracks her to Wolfingham's, a club with a bunch of other monster- and demon-emulating weirdos. But as Cracker discovers to his dismay after grabbing her, Miranda isn't faking it like the others: she's really a vampire, and after his blood. Cracker stakes her but good, only to be cold-cocked from behind by an unknown assailant.

Cracker sums up his story:

The name "Grinner" catches Gaunt's attention: he used to go by that street name about twenty years earlier. He agrees to take Cracker's case, but time is of the essence. Cracker warns him, "I ain't had a drink yet... but I'm gettin' thirsty."

And now we get a proper introduction to Gordon, one of the major supporting chracter's in GrimJack's world, as well as faithful gatorlizard Bob.

Gordon's intro is a little rough. Ostrander didn't quite have a handle on the character yet, and his dialogue is laughably bad. "Just gotta play he-ro, doncha?" Nowhere near the stone-faced, tight-lipped, level-headed problem-solver into which he would evolve.

In addition to the items Gaunt requests above, he also takes a brace of silver "St. John knives." Thus equipped, Gaunt begins the case by checking out Wolfingham's club. He is met at the door by Wolfingham, who is costumed as a werewolf (complete with zipper on the front of the costume). He asks what Gaunt has come dressed as.

Wolfingham references the dread Demon Wars, which occurred twenty years earlier -- say, weren't we just talking about something from twenty years ago? We will eventually come to understand the Demon Wars as the most important event in John Gaunt's life. In addition to providing him with friends, enemies, weapons, and assorted other accoutrements (such as his signature star badge) he would keep with him for the rest of his days, it was the final forge of his personality. In many ways, GrimJack was born from the Demon Wars.

Inside Wolfingham's club, Gaunt finds Miranda Mastenbrook, undead and well. Guess Cracker's stake didn't quite do the job! Gaunt doses her with the vamp dust -- garlic powder -- and chases her outside, hoping she will lead him to her boyfriend, Grinner. Instead he is surrounded by a group of thugs who get the drop on him. Thus ends part 1.

Part 2 opens with Gaunt giving a recap to the reader, which amuses me:

You can get a better look at his star badge (aka the Demonstar) here.

A little piece of background detail is of interest on this page:

"CHRIS HEYMAN CAPTURED," it says. Chris Heyman was a character in Starslayer, the main book to which GrimJack was a backup. With Ostrander writing both Starslayer and GrimJack, and Truman taking over the art chores for Starslayer as of issue #14, little details began slipping back and forth between the two properties, culminating in a full-blown crossover. But again, that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Anyway, Gaunt takes down the thugs with a little bit of precision knife-throwing:

...and a little bit of dirty pool:

After he wipes them all out, he is left to reflect on why they attacked him. He can identify them as a Harlequin Squad, employed by the covert action agency known as Cadre. But there seems to be no reason why they involved themselves with his case.

Gaunt shelves the question and activates the Miller Medallion, another relic of the Demon Wars.

The Miller Medallion tracks down demonic energies. Such as, say, that of vampires. It leads Gaunt to his least favorite place in all of Cynosure:

The Medallion takes Gaunt to the home of Lucien Mastenbrook, whose daughter, Miranda, appears to be your average happy care-free teenager. But then, as Gaunt dramatically narrates, "Why was the Medallion glowing like a green eye in hell?"

We find out why in part 3. Miranda's been keeping her father in thrall, and feeding off him without his knowledge at regular intervals. When she disappeared with her boyfriend Grinner, Lucien hired Cracker to track her down. She returned on her own, playing the innocent, though we see Lucien may have subconsciously suspected she was a vampire the whole time. Lucien and Gaunt goad Miranda into vamping out and attacking, and Gaunt stabs her with the silver St. John knives (silver is lethal to vampires as well as werewolves in Cynosure, apparently).

But the job isn't done. Lest she come back -- as she did after Cracker staked her -- Gaunt has to take a few extra measures.

You get the feeling a lot of GrimJack's cases involve decapitation.

Gaunt's job is a dirty one, often resulting in unhappiness, even just plain horror, for all involved. His clients (or in this case, the client he adopted from Cracker) often feel like they've come out worse than they began.

Gaunt leaves, vowing to get the vampire responsible for turning Miranda. But he is soon struck unconscious from behind, presumably by Grinner, and appears likely to suffer Cracker's fate. End part 3.

Part 4 opens with Gaunt lost in a dream, reliving the horrors of his life.

He awakes to find Cracker standing near him. Grinner has fled, leaving Gaunt alive and unbitten for some reason. Cracker again urges haste, warning that he won't be able to keep himself from taking his first victim for much longer.

Gaunt's next target is Cadre HQ, a forty story fortress which, as Gaunt notes, is "supposedly impregnable." Cadre was established to protect Cynosure from threats, by whatever means necessary. But Gaunt observes: "Eventually, inevitably, the means became ends unto themselves. That's when I quit." Another piece of GrimJack's backstory falls into place: he's an ex-Cadre agent himself.

Cadre is run by the monocle-wearing Mayfair, who gets an unpleasant surprise on entering his office:

Gaunt questions Mayfair, demanding to know if the peace treaty between himself and Cadre has been terminated. Mayfair insists that is not the case, and, pressured by Gaunt, admits that the Harlequin Squad that attacked him had not been after him in the first place. They had been looking to grab Miranda Mastenbrook, and only turned on Gaunt when he blundered between them and her.

And why did they want Miranda? They were looking to recruit a vampire (or, as Mayfair pretentiously says it, "vampyr") for Cadre, as an agent or as an assassin. Grinner (before turning Cracker and Miranda) was the last vampire in Cynosure. Mayfair theorizes that he's the last enemy survivor of the Demon Wars, and has been in hiding in Cynosure ever since. Grinner had been Cadre's original target, but now they don't care which vampire they get.

Having gotten the info he was looking for, and after a tussle with Cadre security guards, Gaunt escapes the fortress, leaving Mayfair to assemble another Harlequin Squad to track him down. Mayfair puts Wolfingham in charge of the hunt -- Agent Wolfingham.

Suspecting Mayfair was wrong about the vampire having been inside the city for the past twenty years, Gaunt goes to a reliable source to dig up some more intel: Roscoe, his former partner in the TDP -- the TransDimensional Police. Another piece of Gaunt's backstory! That's two old jobs revealed in the space of six pages. Maybe he used to deliver for Domino's, too?

Roscoe's still working at the 13th Precinct, and he greets Gaunt with the hacking cough that would become a catchphrase for him:

Gaunt has Roscoe search the computer records for a "floater" dimension -- one that floats in and out of phase with Cynosure -- that is magic compatible, was last in phase during the Demon Wars, and which phased back in over the past month. You gotta love that hi-tech computer with its ticker paper printout:

The "public defender named Joyce" crack is a nod to Hill Street Blues, for those of you too young to catch that hip contemporary 1983 reference.

Only one dimension comes up in Roscoe's search: Pdwyr. Gaunt had been expecting that answer. He's more than a little familiar with the place. "I spent the best years and worst hours of my life in Pdwyr. Now I knew who 'Grinner' really was and I knew why he hadn't killed me when he had the chance."

Roscoe warns that the dimension is unstable, and could slip out of phase again at any time, trapping anyone inside it for who knows how long. But that doesn't mean a thing to Gaunt. He knows he has to go to Pdwyr to bury his past.

Part 5, the finale, begins with Gaunt standing in Pdwyr, looking at a place he had thought lost forever -- the only place he had ever thought of as a true home.

And here we first learn of two of the most important people in Gaunt's life, both long, long dead.

Gaunt, a reckless youth, had vowed to protect Pdwyr and those he loved, most of all Rhian, whom he was engaged to marry. But when the Demon Wars came, all of Pdwyr was destroyed, and every one of its inhabitants slaughtered. And Gaunt was not there to save them -- or die with them. As he recalls, "When I finally returned, I found Kaer Mathon a charnel house. The demons had ripped everyone apart. I buried what I could find and then went mad."

But he had missed one body. A young boy, killed by a vampire. One who returned to Cynosure when Pdwyr slipped back in phase, who took Gaunt's old street name, Grinner. Son of Maethe, sibling to Rhian: Gdeon, whom John Gaunt loved as a brother.

Gaunt expresses his sorrow for what became of Pdwyr, but Gdeon forgives him easily. After all, he had spared Gaunt's life earlier for old times' sake. He asks if now Gaunt intends to kill him.

Before he can answer, Cracker appears, swearing to take vengeance on Gdeon himself. Before Cracker can attack, Gaunt reminds him there were two parts to his contract.

Cracker attacks, and he and Gdeon battle in the ruins of Kaer Mathon while Gaunt stands by. Just then Cadre's Harlequin Squad arrives, led by Wolfingham. They don't care who wins between the two vampires; they just want to grab the victor.

Gaunt doesn't much care for that plan, and takes them down, leaving Wolfingham to tie up a few loose ends. Gdeon had shown up at Wolfingham's club, and Wolfingham had alerted Mayfair. Mayfair made a deal with Gdeon, and Wolfingham even fed Miranda to him, to sweeten the deal. But Gdeon reneged, which is when Cadre went after Miranda instead.

Gaunt takes out Wolfingham, then intervenes in the vampire fight, which Cracker is winning. Cracker pleads for his life, telling Gaunt that he thought they were friends.

Gaunt takes Cracker's head with one quick chop. That leaves Gdeon, the boy who had become brother to him. But he swore to Miranda's father to get the vampire responsible for turning her. And he swore to bury the ghosts of his past.

He burns their bodies and scatters their ashes, and returns to Cynosure and Munden's bearing the knowledge that he has failed Pdwyr and those he loved one final time. The final panel is devastating in its bleakness and despair. It always reminds me of the haunted eyes of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, demanding that Sam play that song one more time.

In "Buried Past," in these five short backup pieces, John Gaunt has become more fleshed-out and tragically human than many characters do over the course of 100 issues. This second GrimJack storyline remains one of the most significant to the character, and one of the best.

Next time: some laughs!

I've lost my voice, and my faith in humanity

2008-11-15T18:11:00.000-08:00

Here is the rollercoaster of emotions I have just experienced over the last few minutes, as filtered through Twitter:

--Here is why you're glad you're not my neighbor: the PROFANITY-LADEN SCREAMS OF FURY I just emitted watching Cal lose to Oregon St.

--Cal is down by a TD, backed up to their own goal line, less than a minute left. Cal's QB throws a pick, returned for a touchdown by Ore. St.

--BUT WAIT! Cal was called for a false start before the play began! They get the ball back and a fresh start. And what do they do?

--THEY IMMEDIATELY THROW ANOTHER PICK FOR A TOUCHDOWN. Game over, man, game over.

--Fuck my alma mater. I'm a USC fan now.

Yes, this was a sports post. Deal with it.

Far up! Far out! Far more! James Bond 007 is back!

2008-11-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

In celebration of today's much-anticipated (by me, at least) debut of the new Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, I'm throwing my two cents in for the James Blog-a-thon at Lazy Eye Theatre (which I found out about via Electronic Cerebrectomy).

This is a reposting of an entry from August 13, 2004 (which is why there is no mention of Daniel Craig or the new Casino Royale). It's my defense of perhaps the most-maligned entry in the Bond series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Enjoy!

Not only do I disagree with the apparent majority opinion that OHMSS is the worst James Bond film, I actually think it's one of the best -- top three, at least. (And how anyone can think this is the worst when A View to a Kill exists is beyond me.) If Sean Connery had stuck around to star in it, I think everyone would agree it was the very best.

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: George Lazenby is no Sean Connery. I know that. He's not my favorite actor, either. In fact, he's almost certainly the worst actor of the five to have played Bond in the series (the "official" series; I'm not counting the Bond spoof Casino Royale). I personally liked Roger Moore less in the role than Lazenby, but judging purely on acting skills, Moore was better. Lazenby was a novice actor in a high profile gig taking over from an incredibly popular predecessor, under a great deal of pressure to fill an iconic role. He couldn't possibly meet such expectations, even from those who bothered to give him a chance. That said, Lazenby wasn't terrible. He actually wasn't half bad -- certainly not as bad as some people want to believe he was. He definitely had the look, and, though wooden at times, he musters enough charm and competence to get by.

The Bond girl, on the other hand, was excellent. Diana Rigg had already made her name on The Avengers, and she's great in this film, playing a similarly strong, smart, dangerous, beautiful woman. Who eventually caves to Bond's seduction, sure, but what kind of a Bond film would it be without that? The fact that Bond actually gets married to her sets a milestone in Bond's character development, and the development of the series as a whole. No other Bond film has had such an emotional core to it.

Blofeld is the ultimate Bond villain, and he exacts the ultimate vengeance against Bond -- by killing his wife, Blofeld takes away the only thing Bond has ever loved. James Bond, for all the women he's gone through, has never cared for any of them. He's at heart a cruel and selfish man. The fact that he allows himself to fall in love in this film marks a real change in the character, which makes her death all the more powerful. And Telly Savalas is great as Blofeld.

The film's snow chase is also one of the most spectacular stunt scenes in any Bond film -- which makes it one of the best stunt scenes ever filmed. Ah, for a return to the days when actual people performed stunts, rather than computerized images!

The film has its faults: Blofeld's evil plan is kind of dopey, but then, so are the plans of most of the Bond villains. And Lazenby's looking at the camera at the beginning of the film and muttering a complaint about "the other guy" (meaning Connery) was a jarring, awkward, integrity-breaking way to get things started. But the film makes up for it in so many ways, from the scenery and music (yes, even the music is great) on up. If you like the Bond films, but have always had something against this one, I say give it another chance -- this time, without thinking every other second, "Connery was better". Of course he was. But thinking like that keeps you from enjoying a great film.

50 Best Horror Films

2008-11-13T16:39:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Johnny Bacardi (and also because lists are easy and fun and tend to generate a lot of comments), I'm going to take a stab (HA!) at the 50 Best Horror Films list that's been going around.

Let me say right off the bat: I think the list, which comes from a Metro.co.uk poll, is questionable. Saw, the fifth best horror film ever? Kindly remove your heads from your asses, good sirs and madames of Metro.co.uk.

But as many omissions and odd rankings as there are on this list, there are also a lot of good choices. I love horror, and I love lists, and I love bolding the items I have seen/heard/read/consumed on any given list, so here we go!

1.The Exorcist. William Friedkin (1973)
2.The Shining. Stanley Kubrick (1980)
3.Alien. Ridley Scott (1979)
4.The Silence of the Lambs. Jonathan Demme (1991)
5.Saw. James Wan (2004)
6.Halloween. John Carpenter (1978)
7.A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven (1984)
8.Ring (Ringu). Hideo Nakata (1998)
As Johnny B. did, I have to insert the caveat that I've only seen the American version. He didn't count it, but I am! Close enough, says I! Ha! Take that, purists!
9.The Wicker Man. Robin Hardy (1973)
10.The Omen. Richard Donner (1976)
11.The Birds. Alfred Hitchcock (1963)
12.The Thing. John Carpenter (1982)
13.Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher (1987)
14.Dawn of the Dead. George A Romero (1978)
15.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Tobe Hooper (1974)
16.Jaws. Steven Spielberg (1975)
17.The Blair Witch Project. Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez (1999)
18.An American Werewolf in London. John Landis (1981)
19.Se7en. David Fincher (1995)
20.Poltergeist. Tobe Hooper (1982)
21.The Amityville Horror. Stuart Rosenberg (1979)
Wow, all the way to 21 before we get to a film I haven't seen! And it's a surprising one -- to me, at least. I was going to bold it before I actually stopped and thought about it. Somehow, I never have seen this one. Weird. I will, though, I will: late '70s - early '80s is my favorite era of horror films.
22.Candyman. Bernard Rose (1992)
23.Scream. Wes Craven (1996)
24.Carrie. Brian De Palma (1976)
25.Friday the 13th. Sean S Cunningham (1980)
26.Final Destination. James Wong (2000)
27.The Evil Dead. Sam Raimi (1981)
28.Hellraiser. Clive Barker (1987)
29.Hostel. Eli Roth (2005)
30.Salem's Lot. Mikael Salomon (2004)
Oops. I was counting this one at first, thinking it was the 1979 Tobe Hooper version. But no, it's the recent Rob Lowe version. Dang!
31.The Descent. Neil Marshall (2005)
32.The Hills Have Eyes. Wes Craven (1977)
33.Wolf Creek. Greg McLean (2005)
I started watching this one on cable a while ago, and got bored and changed channels. I guess all the good stuff takes a while to get to.
34.Misery. Rob Reiner (1991)
35.Rosemary's Baby. Roman Polanski (1968)
36.Child's Play. Tom Holland (1989)
37.The Orphanage. Juan Antonio Bayona (2008)
I've heard of this film recently, and that it's supposed to be scary as hell. It's going on Netflix!
38.The Entity. Sidney J Furie (1981)
I almost forgot I had seen this movie. This is the one where Barbara Hershey gets felt up by a ghost, right?
39.Nosferatu. FW Murnau (1922)
40.Night of the Living Dead. George A. Romero (1968)
41.House on Haunted Hill. William Malone (2000)
42.The Haunting. Robert Wise (1963)
I watched part of it on Turner Classic Movies the week of Halloween. Still haven't seen all of it, but I liked what I did see.
43.It. Tommy Lee Wallace (1990)
Great book, but that mini-series looked cheesy as hell. Was it actually any good?
44.Audition. Takashi Miike (1999)
Amazingly, still haven't seen it! Must correct that.
45.The Changeling. Peter Medak (1980)
46.The Mist. Frank Darabont (2008)
And wow, that's five in a row I haven't seen. I'm a little surprised and disappointed in myself.
47.Suspiria. Dario Argento (1977)
48.The Vanishing. George Sluizer (1993)
I know that I have to see this one. Just haven't gotten to it yet.
49.Shutter. Masayuki Ochiai (2008)
Never even heard of this one. And it stars Joshua Jackson? Wait, are they fucking with me? They're fucking with me. This can't actually be any good, can it?
50.Planet Terror. Robert Rodriguez (2007)

So that's 39 I've seen on this list. (Okay, 38 if you want to disqualify the Ring remake.) Not bad!

So what's missing that should be on here? Johnny B. suggested Bride of Frankenstein, which is a big yes. How about any of the classic Universal horror pictures? And why The Birds but not Psycho? I might throw in a couple more zombie flicks, like 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead. Oh, and I'd swap Evil Dead with Evil Dead 2. What else? Maybe Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer? Last House on the Left? Re-Animator? And where the hell is Cronenberg's The Fly? Or Peter Jackson's Dead Alive?

Anything else I'm missing? Or do you just want to brag that you've seen more than I have? Comment away!

Awesome Movies A to Z: The Answers

2008-11-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to those of you who took a shot at yesterday's quiz. I'm declaring Gordon the winner, as he was the first to respond and came up with 14 correct answers. Congratulations! You win a sense of accomplishment. Richard Marcej got 15, but he responded after Gordon and duplicated (not intentionally, I'm sure) many of his answers, so very nice runner-up effort there.

Below are the letters with the movies they correspond to. Click on the letters to see the full movie posters from which I copied them (and sometimes primitively edited them to disguise their origin). Since no one guessed L or S, you'll just have to click on those letters to see the answers for yourselves (and probably also see why nobody guessed them, due to my sub-par primitive disguising).

Thanks for playing along! I've got a similar comic book logo quiz planned for next week, so don't miss it.

Apocalypse Now

Blazing Saddles

Chinatown

Deliverance

The Exorcist

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Ghostbusters

Halloween

The Incredibles

Jaws

Kill Bill

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

No Country for Old Men

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The Philadelphia Story

The Quiet Man

RoboCop

Taxi Driver

Unforgiven

Vertigo

The Wild Bunch

The X Files: Fight the Future

Young Frankenstein

Zelig

[Insert Jeopardy! Countdown Theme here]

2008-11-12T09:48:00.000-08:00

There's still time to play yesterday's A-Z movie poster quiz. ~~Five~~ Four letters have yet to be guessed, and they're toughies (and frankly, I may have altered L and S too much in my attempt to disguise them):

D
I
L
S
W

Answers will be posted later today. Play while you can!

Awesome Movies A to Z: The Quiz

2008-11-11T13:33:00.000-08:00

Tagged by Electronic Cerebrectomy, I now give you the Alphabet Meme.

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title.

3. EDIT: Rule 3 is a bunch of rambling about Star Wars and Lord of the Rings with which I won't waste your time.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of said number.

5. EDIT: Rule 5 is essentially a long-winded request for a link back to meme-originator Blog Cabins.

6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

Really, I could've skipped everything after Rule 1, and we all would've been the better for it. Oh well.

Since I already have a history of Abecedarian Fun (as linked on my trusty sidebar!), I'm renaming the meme to match those other posts: Awesome Movies A to Z. It's my blog, so there.

And: I'm going to make a game out of it! For the movies A-Z, I'm going to give you the initial letter as it appeared on the original movie poster. You guess which movies go with which letters. Whoever guesses the most gets, I don't know, a million dollars. Or nothing. Or something in between. Like a ham sandwich. Probably nothing.

Here we go!

As for the five people I tag to do the meme next: hell, just do it if you want.

GrimJack: "Mortal Gods"

2008-11-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

I've been reading comics since I was a kid, and seriously collecting them since I was 18. I've read literally thousands of comic books in my lifetime. (I am avoiding both pride and shame in that statement, merely expressing a fact.) And my favorite comics creation, by far, is John Ostrander and Timothy Truman's sword-wielding, hard-drinking, dark-brooding, scar-faced mercenary John Gaunt, better known as GrimJack.

GrimJack was a cornerstone of what I consider to be, pound for pound, the best creative run of a comics company during my lifetime: the heady heyday of First Comics. There was a stretch during the '80s, if I'm not messing up the timeline, and I don't think I am, when in the span of one month First Comics would deliver to you the gift of Ostrander and Truman's GrimJack, Jim Starlin's Dreadstar, Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, Mike Baron and Steve Rude's Nexus, and Baron's Badger. Holy hell, you try to tell me that is not one ass-kicking of a line-up, and I will give you such a pinch.

GrimJack is the noir-flavored story of hard-living, nearly over-the-hill gun (or sword or mystical relic) for hire John Gaunt. Gaunt goes by the street name of GrimJack, and the street he works is located in the pan-dimensional city of Cynosure ("Cyn" rhymes with sin), in which every reality meets at one time or another. He's well-versed in the ways of violence, but lives by a strict if flawed and at times even dangerous personal moral code. He wears a floppy beret with feathers on it, giant shoulder pads, big hoop earrings, a cape, index-fingerless gloves, one knee guard, and jodhpurs. And he will totally kick your ass.

Once a week (optimistically speaking), ideally on Mondays, for the foreseeable future, I plan on bringing you the stories of GrimJack, sharing my love of these comics with you. These will probably all be very long, image-packed posts. I hope you will bear with me. Maybe none of you will care. Maybe this is a labor of love that no one else will recognize. But maybe some of the more devoted comic fans among you will be intrigued enough to follow along with these posts, maybe even enough to try to find the back issues in your local comic shop, or pick up the deluxe paperback repackagings currently being printed by IDW Publishing. Or maybe (and I tip my hat to you if this is the case) you will want to dig out the copies you already own and rediscover this fantastic series along with me.

We begin at the beginning, at First Comics' Starslayer. Starslayer was originated by writer/artist Mike Grell (who went on to create Jon Sable Freelance for First), but turned over to Ostrander and artist Lenin Delsol with issue #9. Issue #10, cover dated November 1983, is pictured below. You can see the cover raises two questions:

#1: Why did John Ostrander have such a penchant for including the word "Black" in the names of new black characters? And #2: who is this GrimJack?

GrimJack began as a back-up series to Starslayer, by neophyte comics writer Ostrander and neophyte comics artist Truman. They both had a lot to learn, and a long way to grow, when they co-created their finest work together, but that's not to say GrimJack started out weak. It started out immediately with the hard-boiled narration and lush-but-filthy visuals for which the series would come to be celebrated, and it started out immediately laying the groundwork for John Gaunt's deep, dark backstory, a biography which would become more assiduously chronicled and emotionally detailed than most any other comic character you can name, whether 70-year-old four-color superhero or quarter-century-old b&w indie superstars.

Here we have the first page of the very first GrimJack story, called "Mortal Gods" (Part 1):

Cool artwork! But, uh, not exactly representative of what was to come. I include it here for its historical value. Which is priceless.

Anyway: there's this four-armed, lamprey-faced desert god named, as you may have surmised, Zago. His bloodthirsty minions are intent on destroying the peace-loving worshippers of forest god Manwyyes. The tree-huggers cast a spell which sends one of their own to Cynosure, to locate their god, who is MIA at a fairly crucial juncture (what with all the slaughtering and suchlike). GrimJack is the man who can help them track their god down. But he's a little busy just this second.

Those are the first words GrimJack ever speaks, and I love them. You already get a taste of exactly what Ostrander's going for here: the cynicism and world-weariness of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett anti-hero in a sci-fi/fantasy milieu.

GrimJack is running down the Manx Cat, the grand MacGuffin of Cynosure. As we will see throughout the run of the series, it's always getting stolen, and Gaunt is always retreiving it.

And here we meet the man for the first time:

Dig those pinpoint eyes in the first panel! Nice.

Even without the extra-gray eyebrows in the second panel (which get darker in subsequent appearances -- must've used Just For Men: Touch Of Gray), we can see that this is no spring chicken, no wet-behind-the-ears young punk. Gaunt has had a hard life, and it shows in his face.

And we get a sample of his moral code here. Gaunt is all about choices, and living with the responsibility of the ones you make. Frequently, he presents certain black and white choices to his adversaries. I suggest choosing wisely.

And, as Gaunt escapes the fire by leaping out a window, we get another recurring aspect of his character: not only is he old, but he feels it. Time is closing in on this guy, and it's not treating him well.

If that narration is a little too on-the-nose for you, at least rest assured that Gaunt never says, "I'm getting too old for this shit." GrimJack predates Lethal Weapon by four years, thank goodness.

Gaunt wraps up his business with the Manx Cat, then runs into the tree-hugging priestess, Elvanna, who suddenly appears to have been light boxed. I like how Truman throws in these highly rendered artistic variations every once in a while; kind of reminds me of John Totleben, though I think Totleben was more a contemporary of Truman's than an influence. (And please note I am not suggesting that what either of those gentlemen do is anything like the liberties Greg Land takes.)

They invoked... the Rite of Llues, in case you were wondering. It was supposed to lead her to her god's abode; it brought her to Cynosure, where a local told her to get help from Gaunt. It turns out Gaunt knows exactly where she needs to go, and leads her there, taking the scenic route through the Pit.

We get a nice look here at how exactly the pan-dimensional city works. Cross a street, you might cross a dimension! In fairness, the creation of sweet, cynical Cynosure can't be credited to Ostrander. It was created for First Comics' Warp Special #1. It was supposed to be destroyed in that issue, but Ostrander thought he could find a use for it in his writing, and asked that it be saved. Good call. Oh, also: the name "John Gaunt" was cribbed from Shakespeare. From the character John of Gaunt, in Richard II. If you're gonna steal, steal from the best!

Gaunt's narration here always makes me smile: "Some called it Nirvana. Some called it Hell. One poor mook thought it Tanelorn." Tanelorn, FYI, is the Eternal City in Michael Moorcock's fantasy novels, a city which is accessible from all dimensions. As opposed to Cynosure, though, it is not comprised of all dimensions.

And I love Truman's depiction of Cynosure -- more specifically, the Pit, Gaunt's home. Fantastical and filthy at the same time -- garbage-strewn, claustrophobic, plastered with graffiti and band posters. You can't really read the graffiti in this scan, but there's a reference to a "Dash Hammet" (sic), and also an ad for "Tourbot Rental." Tourbots are a concept Ostrander will expand upon in later issues, but I get a kick out of how early he is establishing the depth of Cynosure. And of John Gaunt's place in it: his birth and early life in the cesspool of the Pit are a huge part of his backstory.

Gaunt gets where he's going, prompting this exchange, which cracks me up:

And here GrimJack crushes Elvanna's heart by revealing to her the object of her search:

That wacky Cynosure!

We pick up with Part 2 in issue #11 of Starslayer, where Elvanna is less than pleased with Gaunt's revelation:

As Manny Weese, aka Weevil, aka the god Manwyyes, explains to Elvanna shortly, he wandered into her dimension by mistake and discovered he had powers, godlike powers which prompted the locals to worship him as a deity. But the overwhelming responsibility was too much for him to bear, and he retreated to Cynosure, and the bottle.

Cue Zago, who has also tracked down Manwyyes:

While Elvanna has been gone from her dimension, Zago and his cult have destroyed every single one of Manwyyes's worshippers, and he's come to Cynosure to finish the job. Drunken, powerless Manny is no match for Zago, but Zago's powers are also greatly diminished in Cynosure, meaning it's time for GrimJack to kick some god ass.

Another classic GrimJack trait: the man almost never smiles, except for when he is about to deal out some ultra-violence. Then he can't help but smile. We will later learn this earned him the nickname "Grinner" in his younger days.

As tough as Gaunt is, and as weakened as Zago is, Zago is still a giant four-armed monstrosity, and he proceeds to beat the holy crap out of GrimJack. Gaunt's guns don't work, his swords don't work. He is beaten to the ground. Manny pleads for Gaunt to stand aside, to save himself and let Zago finish Manny off. But Gaunt lays down for him the unbreakable foundation of his moral code:

"I stand by my friends." The main rule by which Gaunt strives to live his life. His greatest tragedy, though, is how often he falls short. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Gaunt takes Manny's staff, on the theory that something from Zago's own dimension may be able to hurt him. And using the staff, he is able to strike one of the swords from Zago's grip, and recover it for himself. Now armed with Zago's own weapon, Gaunt offers Zago a choice:

And here we get a sweet, sweet sample of GrimJack's savage badassery:

Dude just performed a quadruple amputation on a god. And trash-talked him to boot. GrimJack is awesome.

"I gave you a choice, Zago. Now you're gonna have to live with it."

Looks like he lived with it for a whole second and a half, there. How's that for accelerating the relative hardcore nature of your character: having him, on page 15 of his existence, slay a god. Beat that, Spider-Man.

Denouement: Elvanna decides to stay with Manny. Her world is ruined, so there's nothing to return to. Also, as she tells Gaunt: "I dedicated my life to the service of Manwyyes. Should I abandon my vows because he needs me?" This is another theme we will see recurring throughout the run of GrimJack: everybody, even the most miserable of SOBs, needs somebody. Sometimes, even if it is as a nemesis rather than an ally.

This first GrimJack story, the two-part "Mortal Gods," wraps up with such a wonderfully cynical exchange that I want to let it speak for itself.

And there we have the 16-page introduction of my favorite comic book character ever. Hope you liked it, because I'll be back next week with the five-part epic, "Buried Past."

Herschell Gordon Lewis double feature

2008-11-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

Late Halloween night Turner Classic Movies ran the two earliest "gore" films from Herschell Gordon Lewis, which I TiVoed. I've seen a couple of Lewis's films, but never these: Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs!. I finally got around to watching them yesterday. Well, not watching so much as fast forwarding to the gruesome parts.

Blood Feast, the first and most infamous of Lewis's gorefests, is about an Egyptian caterer who hacks off an assortment of body parts from various women so that he can eat them and make sacrifice to his Egyptian goddess... well, something like that. The script doesn't make a damn bit of sense. It's completely incompetent, as are the acting and directing; the whole film is difficult to enjoy, or even sit through, even from a campy, ironic POV. But the gore: oh my!

The brutal, explicit violence in this film is every bit as shocking and disturbing as what you might see in one of the so-called "torture porn" releases of the past few years, such as the Saw or Hostel franchises. In fact, it's more disturbing, for a couple of reasons. For one, it was released in 1963, a full forty-five years ago, and has the look of its era, a look which I associate with a more innocent brand of filmmaking, a look similar to, for example, early color episodes of Dragnet, a look in which it is jarringly incongruous to see a man rip a woman's tongue out by the root. And two, due to the incompetence of the script and direction, there is next to no suspense, characterization, or any other attempt to disguise the fact that the film exists purely for the exploitation of grisly violence perpetrated against women. The movie opens with a woman coming home and getting ready to take a bath. She has no dialogue; she interacts with no one. A radio report warns of a criminal on the loose in the area, which suffices entirely for the build-up. And then all of a sudden a dude is cutting out her eyeball and chopping off her leg in the bathtub. The blood is copious; bone and gristle are luridly on display. And it is on display purely for the sake of being on display, serving no purpose other than to titillate, as did the nudity in Lewis's earlier "nudie-cuties."

Now, don't think I'm complaining or judging. At least, I'm not judging the violence or titillation. More titillating violence, that's what I always say! It's the overwhelming ineptitude of the entire film's production that is more offensive to me. If you're a fan of horror, this is a milestone you'll probably want to see at some point. But you might want to see it the way I did: finger on the fast forward button, skipping long stretches of static and poorly-framed shots, painfuly bad acting, and agonizingly dull and ludicrous writing.

Two Thousand Maniacs! at least has going for it a clever story: the Southern town of Pleasant Valley (pop. 2,000, of course) was destroyed by Union soldiers during the Civil War. On the centennial of that massacre, the locals divert unsuspecting Northerners into town, and the entire population exacts their gruesome revenge. At the end, the town disappears, with the promise that it will return to do the same in another 100 years.

The violence is once again copious and explicit, but this time there is a modicum of character development and set-up before the blood begins flowing. The acting and directing, sadly, both remain atrocious. Also, there's an acoustic folk trio, for some reason. I kept my thumb on fast forward through most of this film, too.

Were these films worth seeing? No. They're very bad, of interest only for their place in horror history. As a horror buff, I had that interest. If you don't: man oh man, avoid these movies.

While I would indeed buy that for a dollar, I suspect it will cost considerably more than that.

2008-11-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

Yet another reason why Austin is so frickin' awesome.

Coming December 7 to the Alamo Drafthouse, the initial offering in their Big Screen Sci-Fi Classics series, for which I will be front row center all four days it is playing:

MUTHAHUMPIN' ROBOCOP.

Okay, enough of that.

2008-11-05T07:16:00.000-08:00

Boy, what a great big sore winner jerk I am! No more of that from me, okay? Hooray for Obama. Now: moving on.

No more political stuff here for a while, I promise. Maybe I'll talk about comics or TV or fluffy bunnies tomorrow.

Halle-fuckin-lujah

2008-11-04T01:34:00.000-08:00

Apparently Twitter finally crashed, but not before I could share with the many following along with me the triumphant news that Barack Obama had become President Elect of the United States by a landslide victory.

I've been close to tears for almost two hours now. This is an incredible, unbelievable leap forward for our nation. Our horrific nightmare of the past eight years is over. Logic, morality, and sanity have finally won out. We will once again have a good, smart person as our leader -- which is the least we should expect as a nation, yet sadly has become for the most part a liability rather than an asset this past decade.

I almost want to feel sorry for McCain and his crushing loss. He made a wonderful concession speech, in which he said many kind things about Obama, the Democrats, and working as a united front to solve this nation's problems. But fuck him. Fuck him and damn him to hell. McCain has worked unswervingly to destroy America and its Constitution over the past eight years. He is a prisoner of war and subject of torture who voted to sanction torture by his own government. He is a disgraceful, pandering tool. Fuck him, and good riddance, and thrice that to that fucking moron Sarah Palin.

I am not graceful in victory, as Dubya and his ilk were never graceful in victory. The good guys won, and the bad guys lost, and they deserved to lose, and I hate them. Tomorrow, we can work to right this country's wrongs, to heal our political divides. Tonight: fuck you, enemies of freedom. You lose, and you will never again be allowed to wreak such devastation on our great nation.

The Future of Law Enforcement, and Magic

2008-11-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

Obviously I was just kidding in that last post. Here is the actual ticket I'm supporting:

Vote Early, Vote Well

2008-11-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

Look, I never get political on this site.

HA! I totally get political all the time. Look at my Bush Countdown Timer on the sidebar. Look at this statement: George W. Bush is unquestionably the worst thing to happen to the United States since the Civil War. He's the Great Depression and Vietnam combined.

And look at this endorsement:

VOTE OBAMA
A lot of sites will tell you: it doesn't matter who you vote for, just vote! I say: horseshit. If you vote for McCain, you are voting for the continuing destruction of this country, its freedoms, and everything that has ever made America great. If you vote for McCain, you are wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Not that that means I don't want to be your friend anymore. It just means: don't fucking talk to me on Tuesday.

'Sack Fest '08

2008-11-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

I would like to announce the commencement of 'Sack Fest '08, a two-day film festival celebrating all things John Cusack!

Tentatively scheduled for viewing today:

And, subject to last minute changes, here's what's on tomorrow's docket:

Suggested topic of discussion between films: COO-SACK or CYOO-ZACK?

Happy 'Sack Fest to all!

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

So much for being back to blogging on Wednesday. Here it is Friday, and Halloween to boot, and I got nothin. Sorry.

I'm going to shop for my costume now (Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, have I mentioned that yet?). I also buy gifts on Christmas Eve. I am not a plan-ahead holiday kind of guy.

Have some good clean shenanigans tonight, folks. Make sure you eat so much candy you get sick, because how else will you know you had fun?

Sidebar Update

2008-10-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

Before I leave for a few days to visit family in Colorado, I thought I'd leave you with one of my much anticipated Sidebar Updates, which you all know and love so well.

Speaking of Olivia Wilde (which I was last post), she is the current Object of My Affection, because why not? She is lovely as the day is long. Plus she totally kissed a girl in the last episode of House. Sweet!

Still reading Infinite Jest, of course. Page 369. Glad I have a plane trip today to get more uninterrupted reading time.

Watching a lot of Countdown with Keith Olbermann lately. I don't watch much "real" news on TV, mostly I just get it online and watch The Daily Show. But Olbermann's been doing some great stuff leading up to the election. His Special Comments are always essential viewing. Slanted to the left? Of course! But when every other TV news outlet is slanted to the right -- when even CNN can't be bothered to do much more than parrot White House press briefings -- it's a breath of fresh air.

Listening to Unknown Hinson's The Future Is Unknown. Great psychobilly music with a comedic twist, featuring songs such as "Peace, Love and Hard Liquor," "I Ain't Afraid of Your Husband," and "I Cleaned Out a Room (In My Trailer For You)." He's still the best live act I've seen in Austin, and that's saying something.

Hating: same doofus, different picture.

And the Lyric of the Moment, in honor of my impending flight to Colorado, is from Warren Zevon's "Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead."

Time to pack, folks. See you again Wednesday!

More TV Rundown

2008-10-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I said that the new season of The Shield has been a little weak so far. Then I finally got around to watching this week's episode on TiVo.

Holy hell. Now that was what I was looking for! Talk about gut-wrenching. I barely took a breath from beginning (with Shane setting his plan to murder Ronnie and Vic into motion) to end (with Shane and family on the run, and every sin the Strike Team has ever committed on the verge of spilling out). How's that for raising the stakes? Brilliant, brilliant episode, highlighted by Shane's wild-eyed caged animal routine, punctuated by his flight from the Barn, and his evil wife Lady Macbeth -- I mean Maya -- confronting Vic's ex-wife.

What else am I watching?

--I've settled into regular viewing of House, which I used to watch sporadically at best, and it's been very enjoyable this year. I have to admit, I like the new team better than the old one -- in fact, I'd prefer Chase and Cameron just disappear entirely, rather than popping up in a random scene once an episode to remind us they still exist. I always love seeing Kal Penn, so his role as Kutner on the new team is much appreciated, and I like Taub a great deal as well. And as for Thirteen -- well, Olivia Wilde is just damn easy on the eyes, folks. Not that Cameron isn't, as well, but I feel like her character has been run into the ground. I'd also like to see the return of Lucas, the P.I. House hired this season, who last we saw was trying to start a relationship with Cuddy. (I haven't watched this week's episode, so maybe he's back already.) That could get interesting. Plus, I like the actor, who played Private Dancer on Scrubs last year.

--Pushing Daisies is amiable fluff. It's always gorgeous to look at, and I like the characters, and I get a kick out of the rapid-fire dialogue, but... I don't know, it just never quite gets over that wall. I'll keep watching it, but I think if I skipped an episode, I wouldn't cry.

--My Name Is Earl is just about done. After squandering all goodwill with that season-long prison/coma digression last year, I find that I'm now watching it out of habit, and not laughing very often. The Office, on the other hand, is still brilliant. Jim and Pam's engagement was handled perfectly, Amy Ryan is a terrific addition as Holly, the new object of Michael's affection, and the triangle between Dwight, Angela, and Andy is excruciatingly hilarious.

--Two imports have left wildly divergent impressions on me. I had high hopes for Kath & Kim, but the first episode was so unbearable I deleted it after five minutes. And I thought Life on Mars didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding, but I've loved the first two episodes, with Michael Imperioli's weaselly detective being the standout, and I look forward to more. I still don't see how they can extend the premise indefinitely, but I'm more than willing to see where it goes.

And there's probably some more stuff, but let's stop here. Any TV you've been especially loving or hating so far this season?

TV Rundown

2008-10-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

A few brief thoughts on some current TV:

--I keep coming this close to giving up on Heroes, and then still watching, and hating, the next episode. Well, I forgot to set up the DVR for Monday night, and I missed the last episode. And I don't care. That's the push I needed: I'm out. How unbelievably awful has this season been, seriously? It's atrocious. And I'm glad to be rid of it.

--Unfortunately, I also forgot to record Chuck and My Own Worst Enemy. Chuck has been pretty damn good this year. As for My Own Worst Enemy -- I actually still haven't watched the first episode yet, so I don't know if I'm really missing anything there. I know some people were eagerly anticipating this show. Anybody watching it? Anybody liking it?

--I also also forgot to record Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother. Monday is a busy TV night! I can wait for the Big Bang episode to come around again during reruns, but HIMYM is essential viewing for me, one of my five or so favorite shows currently airing. I'm going to have to track that one down online (hopefully it's already up at CBS.com). It's been a little wobbly in the early going this season, but it's always worth watching just to see how Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders play off one another. Great comedic chemistry between those two. And I do love me some Sarah Chalke, but it's obvious she's not the mother, so every time she shows up it feels a little like the show is just killing time until the inevitable breakup.

--I quit on Sons of Anarchy. It's good, but not great, despite some kickass performances from Ron Perlman and Katey Sagal. I've been cutting back on TV this year (hard to believe), and Anarchy never quite made it into that essential viewing category for me.

--The Shield, on the other hand, is in that category, but this final season has been, dare I say it, comparatively weak so far. All the nonsense with the magic Blackmail Box is getting old. And Vic's deal with the Armenian mob was so stupid it was laughable: I stole millions from you, but I'll give you three wishes and we'll call it even. Shyeah, right. But there've been some brilliant moments in there as well, mostly involving Shane. I was thrilled to see Tavon return and put Shane in his place -- that's been coming for about four years. And Shane's moment of realization that Vic and Ronnie had set him up was terrific. Only five episodes left of one of the greatest crime dramas ever. Things should start getting really ugly, really quickly.

More tomorrow. I'm going to track down that HIMYM episode now.

Tweet this.

2008-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Yeah, as you can see over on Ye Olde Sidebarre, I signed up for Twitter. And there was much rejoicing.

It's gonna take me a while to figure out who all of you folks have Twitter and that I should be following. Let me know if I miss you. And please feel free to sign up to follow me. At least my Twitter updates should be more frequent than my blog updates.

More YouTube? Yes, more YouTube.

2008-10-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

From the people too stupid to live who brought you instructions on toothpick boxes and "HOT" labels on hot coffee comes this latest moronic warning:

At the very beginning of the commercial, at the bottom of the screen in tiny type, it actually says the following:

"SCENE FROM POLTERGEIST. NOT INTENDED TO DEPICT ACTUAL CABLE VIEWING EXPERIENCE."

The sad thing is, if they hadn't included that warning, which essentially says, "This fake scene cribbed from a horror movie is not intended to be taken literally, dummy," some idiot -- or even more likely, some dick deliberately playing the idiot -- would have found some way to sue DirecTV over this.

Somehow I want to blame Bush for this. Can I blame Bush? I blame Bush.

Yes, it fills me up, smart ass... with awful, awful beer

2008-10-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

Two things about this commercial:

1. That girl is really cute, even is she does use her miraculous ability to control time in order to be condescending about awful beer.

2. In the final seconds of the commercial, when the "Drinkability" logo appears... it looks like the logo is peeing on itself.

If you watch the commercial again, you'll notice the puddle between the K and the A spreads. Kind of like Drinkability's bladder let loose after a few too many Bud Lights. I guess if I were to be generous, I would guess that that expanding pool is really supposed to indicate frozen ice (?). Or something? But whatever the intent, it looks like the logo is pissing itself. Which is not a good image to associate with a beer.

That's tough titty, kid.

2008-10-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops, dead at 72.

There is no way to underestimate the power and influence of the music of the Four Tops, which is phenomenal. But, as Monty mentioned elsewhere, Levi Stubbs' performance as Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors may be the work for which I best know and admire him.

Little Shop is one of my favorite musicals, endlessly entertaining, with Stubbs' incredible voice perhaps the single most important element of the film -- a film which boasts not only Rick Moranis' finest performance, and Frank Oz's best directorial effort, but which features brilliant smaller roles from Christopher Guest, John Candy, Bill Murray, and of course Steve Martin as well.

In memoriam, here is the original ending of Little Shop, which I believe still has never been officially released in any form, cobbled together into three parts on You Tube. This is the dark, test audience-unapproved ending, aka the "Everybody Dies" ending. It's in black and white, with much of the sound unfinished, but it's worth watching if you're a fan of the film, or if you're a fan of film in general: take a look at that blockbuster finale in part three, and tell me if you think there's ever been more money and effort spent on a final sequence which was cut entirely from a motion picture. (Probably yes, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.)

GOD DAMN DODGERS

2008-10-15T22:59:00.000-07:00

God damn Dodgers.

My only consolation is the abysmal ratings the likely Tampa Bay/Philadelphia World Series will generate. Coulda been Los Angeles and Boston, and gotten the highest ratings in a decade. Instead, nobody outside of Tampa and Philly will watch, and them only barely. Lesson to be learned: cheat harder, umpires! Ratings = raises!

World War Hulk

2008-10-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Hey comics people! If any of you still read this! I have a question for you.

As I may have mentioned here once or twice, I've all but given up on a weekly comics fix. But I still buy the random graphic novel here and there because, even if I can't support a weekly habit, I will always have a love for the dang things. (No matter how many times I get hurt by the many, many awful comics out there.)

One of the last comics collections I picked up before nearly completely swearing off comics for over a year was Planet Hulk, the massive hardback collection of the Hulk-in-space storyline by Greg Pak.

I found Planet Hulk to be tremendously entertaining and well-written, easily the best Hulk storyline since Peter David was in charge. So naturally I was greatly interested in the immediate follow-up to the story, World War Hulk. However, as I believe I've already mentioned, I'm not into the whole weekly comics-buying thing anymore. So I decided to wait until the story was over, and the trades came out.

Well, the trades are out now, and I need advice from you comics readers. What should I read? Because there are a lot of tie-ins. A lot. Obviously, I need to get the main book, World War Hulk. But how essential are any of the tangential collections?

I might be best off if I limit myself to the tie-ins authored by Pak. Like, say, Incredible Hercules (which I'm not entirely sure is a tie-in, or rather more of a sequel). But what about:

World War Hulk: Frontline
World War Hulk: Gamma Corps
World War Hulk: X-Men
World War Hulk: Aftersmash

I can probably answer the question, "Are any of these necessary to my enjoyment of the main story?" on my own: no. Absolutely not. Tie-ins are never essential. But are any of them worthwhile? Are any of them actually good? I love the Hulk. And I would love to read good writers creating good stories involving the Hulk. Greg Pak writes a darn fine Hulk. What about those other series?

And what about the tie-ins to other series not specifically created for this event:

Avengers: The Initiative
Ghost Rider
Heroes For Hire
Iron Man
Irredeemable Ant-Man
The Punisher War Journal

Anything worth picking up there? Or any other titles I might be overlooking? For example, I left out the She-Hulk tie-in (which, now that I think about it, may actually have been a tie-in to Planet Hulk rather than WWH) because I'm already a fan of Dan Slott's work on that book, and I'll be picking it up eventually regardless of its crossover relevance. Want to recommend anything else on (or off) that list?

Also, check me if I'm wrong here, but as I understand it, Greg Pak has quit writing the Hulk now, and instead it's Jeph Loeb who is writing about a red Hulk. I don't need any advice on that one: skip it! Jeph Loeb stinks.

Help me out here, folks! Give me a little advice. Who knows, maybe this will help me get back into comics full-time, the way Peter David and Todd McFarlane's run on The Incredible Hulk did for me way back in college (which was, holy cow, 20 full years ago!).

Obama-McCain 2: Electric Boogaloo

2008-10-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

Here's tonight's debate drinking game, which is much simpler than the Palin Bingo drinking game:

Drink every time that crazy old bastard McCain makes you want to. You win when you can't hear his lies anymore.

My Ideal Crossword Puzzle

2008-10-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

From Nothing Nice To Say.

Subsequent callback joke:

$5 buy-in, $20 payout

2008-10-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

The winning card in last night's game of Palin Bingo:

I did not win.

Say what you will about what a train wreck freak show mockery Palin's selection has made of the whole process, I had eight people over last night for a debate party, and I have never seen, nor do I expect ever again to see, that many people genuinely interested in a Vice Presidential debate. Way to go, Hockey Mom Pit Bull!

Why are you so stupid, Heroes?

2008-10-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

I can't begin to list all they ways in which Heroes has been unbelievably, brain-numbingly stupid thus far this season. But let's hit a few highlights.

Last episode, as Sylar meekly returned to his cell (I'm not even going to touch how ridiculous the "Sylar plays nice" plot thread was), Bennett confided to the Haitian that he was only pretending to accept Sylar as a partner, and that as soon as he found Sylar's weakness, he would kill him.

Hey, Bennett. The Haitian can nullify people's powers. So why don't you HAVE THE HAITIAN TAKE AWAY SYLAR'S POWERS AND THEN SHOOT HIM IN THE FUCKING HEAD??

That might work.

Oh, no, wait, now Sylar supposedly can't ever be killed, because he's got Claire's powers (ignoring for now the fact that the Haitian can take away those powers long enough to burn Sylar into ashes). Except, hold on: we've already seen with Claire and Peter that if the brain is pierced with a foreign object (tree root for Claire, glass shard for Peter), death is permanent until the object is removed. Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul! So again: shoot him in the fucking head. Stupid Bennett. Stupid writers!

Next: take Hiro. Please! (Ha!) His whole stupid, stupid plotline, in which the world is in danger of being destroyed because Hiro was too bored to obey his father and not open a safe, could be resolved if Hiro would just go back in time and prevent his stupid, stupid former self from opening that safe. (How, by the way, to go off on a digressive complaint, how in the world could Daphne -- or, as the AV Club refers to her, Speedy Hot Topic -- know the exact second that Hiro opened that safe and therefore know exactly when to run in and steal the formula? She's fast; she can't see through frickin' walls.)

Anyway: as Hiro told Ando, he would not go back and fix his mistake because going back in time was too dangerous, and he would never do that again. Except, hold on: as we saw earlier in that scene, Hiro was making time skip forward and backward just for fun. Stupid Hiro. Stupid writers!

And then there's Suresh, the stupidest genius in the world. He decided to inject himself with his new superpower serum in a scenario that seemed very familiar to me. Hmmm... maybe that's because the entire thing was stolen directly from Cronenberg's The Fly! Let's break it down: there's the egotistical scientist who makes an amazing breakthrough. There's the girlfriend/soon-to-be-girlfriend warning him about its dangers. The scientist rashly subjects himself to the untested breakthrough. It gives him super strength, makes him euphoric, changes his personality, makes him sexually voracious. And it eventually causes hideous changes in the scientist's body. The whole thing could not have been more blatantly ripped off from Cronenberg. For crying out loud, there was even a scene in which Suresh scaled a wall as though he were a human... fly? Is that the word I'm looking for? Stupid Suresh. Thieving writers!

There are a hundred more similar idiocies which have already cropped up in these first three episodes of the season. Take your pick. I have a high threshold for stupidity in my TV, as you well know. But I don't know how much more of this I can take.

At least they had the sense to kill off Francis Capra in a timely manner. I hate that dude. He's just laughable. As I've noted before, Capra is the tiniest, most unrealistically threatening "hoodlum" since the Fonz.

So it's root, root, root for the Dodgers

2008-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

All other pop culture malarkey gets put on the back burner today, because the Dodgers (yay!) are playing the Cubs (boo! hiss!) tonight.

It's been a poor couple of decades for the Dodgers. They've gone dry since the Greatest World Series Ever, 1988's Kirk Gibson-punctuated trouncing of the Oakland A's. Despite a plethora of talent, including five (FIVE!) Rookies of the Year in a row in the '90s, the Dodgers have won only one (ONE!) postseason game since '88. Ouch.

Now, I don't need any Cubs fans, or fans of other ball clubs, giving me sob stories about how your guys haven't won a World Series since the Taft administration. Of course they haven't. Your guys stink. We're talking about my guys, the legendary Los Angeles Dodgers. Jackie Robinson! Don Drysdale! Sandy Koufax! Duke Snider! Steve Garvey! Ron Cey! Fernando Valenzuela! Orel Hershiser! Kirk Gibson! The Dodgers are winners, baby, winners! And every year they fail to win is a huge embarrassment. Every year, say, the Cubs fail to win is just another year.

Which makes tonight's game so thrilling. Dodgers vs. Cubs! The Dodgers have a terrible record this year, only six games above .500, the worst record by far of any playoff team, sneaking into the postseason by the grace of the rest of their division stinking even worse than they do. But the Dodgers have a lot of young talent mixed in with some tough veterans, they're on a hot streak, having gone 17-8 in September, including a crucial gut-check of a 12-1 run after losing 8 straight in late August, they've got Joe Torre at the helm, who has a certain amount of experience at guiding clubs to World Series, and, let's face it, if anyone can lose to the Dodgers, it's the eternally jinxed-in-the-postseason Chicago Cubs.

My hopes, I'll admit, are not tremendously high. But as always... you never know! I'm bouncing off the walls in anticipation. Go Dodgers! Play ball!

Infinite Jest update

2008-09-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm on page 221 of Infinite Jest. And if David Foster Wallace had not already committed suicide, I would now be fearful that David Foster Wallace was going to commit suicide.

Infinite Jest is not entirely a cry for help, but with so many characters intent on suicide, and with such deeply knowledgeable explorations of chronic depression, and with such detailed coverage of drugs, anti-depressive and otherwise, it most certainly is partly that.

It has recently come to light that Wallace was clinically depressed and on anti-depression meds for a good two decades. Reading this book, I am not at all surprised to hear that. It is still deeply sad and disappointing, but seriously, to anyone who has read this book, it can not be at all surprising.

That aside: awesome book so far!

More on Paul Newman

2008-09-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

My Five Favorite Paul Newman Performances

1. Cool Hand Luke
One of the greatest movies of all time, anchored by Newman's powerhouse tragicomic role as Luke, the hardcase with nothing to lose. But, as we all learned, sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.

2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The film that made Newman and Redford such an iconic duo, it's hard to believe they only ever made one other movie together.

3. Nobody's Fool
Cynical and romantic, bitter and sweet, funny and wise, this is Newman's last great film.

4. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
John Milius wrote and John Huston directed this often overlooked masterpiece, a savagely satirical take on frontier justice.

5. Harper
Newman gets hipped up as a cool cat P.I. investigating a very California mystery.

Top Three Paul Newman Films I Can't Believe I Haven't Seen Yet

1. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

2. The Hustler

3. Hud

I can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs.

2008-09-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

I have been completely without TV, internet, or even newspapers since Friday. And I just now discovered that Paul Newman died.

Son of a BITCH. That's what I get for leaving town!

Miss Me

2008-09-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Gone till Tuesday. Let's see if anyone notices.

Fragment: Minute-by-minute at the 2008 Emmys Ceremony

2008-09-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

For the sake of posterity, or something, here is the fragment of my Emmys recap that survived Blogger's massive fuck-up last night.

Hello and welcome to the most irrelevant and untimely "liveblogging" of any event ever! Or, as Richard Marcej suggests I call this recap of an event three days past, "TiVoblogging." Enjoy.

7:00 -- The show begins with a taped bit in which contemporary TV stars recite classic TV catchphrases. It's dreadful (except possibly for the bit with the two Baldwins -- Alec: "Mom always did like you best." William: "She also liked Daniel and Stephen better than you"). I open my first beer, despite the fact that I'm actually on lunch break from work right now. Hey, some traditions you don't fuck with.

Also, I realize my DVR, which is not technically a TiVo, doesn't have a timestamp on recordings like TiVo does, so I can't go strictly minute-by-minute as I prefer to do. Aside from noting the show's 7:00 start time, all my other gems will simply be bullet points. Sad.

--Oprah Winfrey opens the live ceremony. Her forehead is nearly as huge as her cleavage. She is tremendously aristocratic in her delivery, as well as self-congratulatory, both specifically of her own program (and its ability to influence book sales) and of TV in general. Why do people like her?

--She introduces the five (!) hosts for the evening, the five nominees for Outstanding Host for Reality or Reality Competition Programming: Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst, and Ryan Seacrest. Ugh.

--Seacrest is instant death. Mandel, ad-libbing on the significance of the Emmys' nod to reality programming, is even worse, and Probst is visibly, amusingly, genuinely upset with him for interrupting. All the hosts wear matching suits and ties, even Klum (who is stunning), who towers above all four men. Only Probst is tieless, oddly.

--While Probst, Mandel, and Seacrest all try to hog the spotlight, talking over one another in obnoxious fashion, Bergeron and Klum appear to be equally mortified. They even appear to share a moment: just as the camera cuts away from the five-shot, I see Bergeron leaning in toward Klum, possibly to say, "Can you believe these pricks?" I imagine Klum might respond: "I am maybe the most attractive woman on the planet -- top five, easy. My beauty elevates me above this. There is no reason I should have to tolerate these hammy turds."

--They riff for an infinity on how they have nothing written. Bergeron now appears openly hostile, which is possibly an act, possibly not. The three hams finally exit, leaving Bergeron and Klum on damage control.

--William Shatner gets called up from the audience in one of the weirdest, most awkward staged bits ever: Bergeron and Shatner yank off Klum's suit, revealing a sparkly hot pants number underneath. I mean, I'm all for more skin from Heidi Klum, but this is creeping me out. Every single second of this ceremony thus far has been agonizingly awful.

--Tina Fey and Amy Poehler! Thank fucking god.

--Fey to a very pregnant Poehler: "When are you due?" Poehler: "How dare you! I've gained weight for a role."

--Supporting Actor in a Comedy goes to Jeremy Piven, again. Three in a row, Emmys? I mean, I like him, but come on. At least Rainn Wilson and Neil Patrick Harris were nominated; perhaps next year, when people begin realizing how done Entourage is, one of them will get the win they deserve.

--Piven rips on the hosts: "What if I just kept talking, for 12 minutes? That was the opening."

--Beer #2. Hey, at least I'm off work now.

--Bergeron and Seacrest are sitting in a replica of Seinfeld's cafe set. Perhaps they think if they pretend to be part of a great show, we will stop noticing how bad this show is. They are wrong.

--I still stand by my assertion that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is getting more lovely as she ages. Too bad the patter written for her here is so terrible. She presents Supporting Actress in a Comedy to Jean Smart, for Designing Women. Well, at least I imagine that's why she won, because it can't be for her weak-ass role on Samantha Who.

--Smart, on Samantha Who: "The most amazing, brilliant, hilarious cast in the world." Hyperbole at the Emmys? Never!

--People Smart thanks before her family: Christina Applegate, the cast, the producers, the writers, the executives at ABC, her show's cushy timeslot, her agency, her agent, her publicity firm, her publicist.

--After a brief moment of silence, Probst interrupts Klum just as she begins to speak to tell her it's her turn to speak. Klum, cuttingly: "Yeah, thanks."

--They introduce the cast of Desperate Housewives who appear on a Housewives set. Dana Delany -- man, she is still smokin' hot. Jeez, something happened to Marcia Clark, though. Yikes.

--Supporting Actor in a Drama goes to Ted Danson. I wrote that before they announced the winner. Looks like I was wrong. Zeljko Ivanek, Danson's castmate on Damages, actually wins, and gets the dubious honor of hearing his name massacred by Delany. I'm amazed he's never even been nominated before; he's very good. Too bad he won't be in the next season.

--Ricky Gervais! Man, he is so effortlessly charming and funny, it makes the reality show hosts look even more humor-free and inept, if that's possible.

--Speaking of his Emmy win in 2007: "The press called it a major upset. Which means they thought I shouldn't have won." This precedes a very funny routine in which he tries to get Steve Carell, who had accepted the award for him, to give it back. Carell eventually pulls an Emmy out from under his seat and reluctantly surrenders it. Awesome.

--Directing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program goes to the guy who directed the Oscars, which it seems like always happens. Yawn. I didn't do my picks this year, so there's really no reason to go through every single award, keeping track of my record, is there?

--Conan O'Brien appears, weirdly, on a set for The Simpsons, rather than his own program. I mean, he appeared in an episode, and of course started out as a writer for the show, but it still seems kind of like a slight to Late Night, which he's been doing for 15 damn years already.

--Supporting Actress in a Drama goes to Dianne Wiest, for a show nobody I know has ever watched. At least she's not present, so we're spared one speech.

--The clips for the nominees for Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program are always among the funniest bits at the Emmys, since they are created by the writers of the nominated programs. The Colbert Report writers are depicted enjoying a Christmas party, with Colbert as the shotgun-wielding, boxers-clad hillbilly who chases them out of his cabin. The Daily Show group uses clips of bozos in the audiences of the two big political conventions to represent themselves. The Late Night writers are children adopted by Angelina Jolie and Conan O'Brien. Dr. Phil diagnoses the Late Show staff: "Jeremy Weiner: enabler. Joe Grossman: delusional. Bill Sheft: messed up." And of course, David Letterman: "miserable old psychopathic wack-job." And the SNL writers use Wii Miis, which is pretty lame. The Colbert Report wins, which is sweet.

--Mandel is back. Ugh. He and Probst introduce the accountants, which is death. Steve Martin follows, which is quite a jarring contrast.

--Speaking of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Martin calls it "perspicacious, multifarious, and only sometimes placatory. And believe me, I only use those words to see how closed captioning will spell them." My closed captioning doesn't even attempt perspicacious, but the other two come out as "multifair yus" and "placetory."

And that's it! Approximately two-and-a-half, three hours of Emmys watching and recapping after that: gone, baby, gone. Oh well, at least 30 Rock won a ton of Emmys. Although even that didn't stop Tina Fey from desperately imploring the audience to tune in. And the sad thing is, they mostly still won't watch the funniest comedy on TV. Stupid audience!

FUCK YOU BLOGGER

2008-09-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

A Blogger glitch just deleted my Emmy recap post, which I had spent literally four hours on. And yes, I had recently saved it. Still didn't help. Poof, gone!

As you might imagine, I am so fucking mad I wish every employee of Blogger had one neck and my hands were tightly wrapped around it.

It was a good fucking post, too. You would've enjoyed it. God fuckity fuck fuck damn it.

I'm going to bed.

2008 Emmys

2008-09-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a big post on my Emmy predictions that I was trying to finish up before last night, but I guess I can discard it now.

I actually didn't even watch the Emmys. I TiVoed them, but I was watching the Cowboys game at a friend's house during the ceremony. I have no idea who won anything (and I'm trying not to find out, which will be difficult, so no spoilers!). Oh, except for Don Rickles. Al Michaels annonunced during the game that Don Rickles had won an Emmy, which must mean Stephen Colbert lost. RICKLES!!!

I'm considering doing an after-the-fact liveblogging of the ceremony. I haven't liveblogged anything for a while -- which is probably a good thing, indicating that I've been too busy doing fun stuff in Austin rather than watching awards ceremonies by myself. But I always enjoyed doing those big-ass posts, so... who says liveblogging has to be live? Heck, I always got a couple hours behind real time on those posts anyway, due to all the pausing I did to type out my pearls of witticism. Now I'll be a couple days behind. What's the diff?

EDIT: Geez, how the hell do I kill time at work on the internet while trying not to find out what happened at the Emmys? That rules out just about every major site except Google.

Where's my royalty check?

2008-09-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

Hey, you know how I'm always ripping off The AV Club?

Well, today they ripped me off!

Turnabout's fair play, I guess. I don't see my name in that byline, though!

I don't want to reprint my entire post, so if you don't want to click that last link (you should! It has pictures!), which listed ten films I consider among my most rewatchable, I'll summarize it here. In no special order:

Robocop
That Thing You Do!
The Princess Bride
Unforgiven
Rio Bravo
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Spider-Man 2
¡Three Amigos!
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Casablanca

Way, way back in the olden times of August 2007, when I ran that post, I said, "I really like The Big Lebowski, too, but I'm not a part of the ever-growing cult who worships it. (Yet.)" I'm definitely in that cult now, and would add it to that list.

And you folks? Again I ask you: what films, great or cheesy, do you find yourself rewatching most often? Don't be shy!

Warning: Sports Content

2008-09-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

Only about two of you will get this, but it helps me vent my frustrations over an ex-Cal player. (Though not over Cal itself, and their boneheaded loss this weekend. Stupid, stupid Cal!)

From ESPN's Page 2.

Note for most of my readers: DeSean Jackson is a football player who did a very stupid thing.

TV: Privileged

2008-09-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

Stop the presses: I've found another show on the CW that I like. Which brings the current grand total up to... uh... two, I think, once Reaper returns.

And it's about the unlikeliest of shows that I would enjoy: Privileged, the tale of a spunky young journalist wannabe who winds up as a live-in tutor for two ultra-rich, ultra-spoiled teenage girls.

This show has most of the ingredients of other programs targeted at a similar demographic that I despise: uptight fish-out-of-water (usually with dark secret) contrasts with wealthy, responsibility-free hedonists, complete with plenty of beach and pool scenes, a fetishistic worship of fashion and cars, and one (1) snarky gay guy (often of color, to take care of two tokens with one stone). But somehow, I found this iteration to be charming and entertaining.

Most of that has to do with lead actress Joanna Garcia, playing Megan, the tutor. She's a bubbly, amusing presence, enthusiastic but grounded, with a slight bit of sharpness. What's really surprising, though, is that her character is nice, a pleasant person you wouldn't mind being around. She's allowed to be smart without being an outcast, she can be girly but still convincingly display a backbone, and rarest of all, she has a self-awareness characters in shows like this tend to lack: she considers and questions her goals and motivations, not in a navel-gazing, self-obsessed way, but just enough to make her a rounded, believable character, rather than a caricature plugged into plot points.

Even the rich girls have hidden depths. Rose (played by Lucy Hale, whom I hated hated hated on Bionic Woman, but who is actually sweet and enjoyable here) aspires to higher education and achievement beyond celebutante-hood, and the bitchy exterior of Sage (Ashely Newbrough) conceals deep fears of being outed as intellectually curious by (and therefore different from) her peers, and even deeper fears of being abandoned by her sister.

It's not a perfect show, but it has a kinder, funnier, smarter core than most of its ilk, and I was fully entertained. Whether I tune in every week is questionable, especially when I seem to be cutting back on all TV in general, not just the new season premieres. But I was pleasantly surprised, and that's a fine accomplishment right there.

Sidebar Update!

2008-09-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

Time for the coveted Sidebar Update! And barely a month after the last one! Who says I'm not on the ball around here? You? Well, you're a dirty, dirty liar.

The current Object of My Affection is Elizabeth Banks, whom I can't believe I've never mentioned before on this blog. I've been infatuated with her since her appearance as Betty Brant in the first Spider-Man, but where I really fell head over heels for her was when I discovered what a fantastic comedic actress she was in films like Wet Hot American Summer and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and her guest appearances on Scrubs. (She still wasn't enough to get me to see Fred Claus, though.) She, and Kevin Smith, are currently getting some of the best reviews of their careers for the upcoming Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which is a must-see for me. Smith will actually be here in Austin showing a sneak preview of the film on Thursday, though sadly I'll be at a concert and have to miss it. Dang it! Too much fun stuff at once in this crazy town! By the way, have you seen the movie poster which has been banned in the U.S.? I warn you, it will make your eyes bleed and destroy your moral values:

Shocking! Scandalous! By which I mean: whoop-de-fucking-doo. Canada has no problem with this poster. Canada! Jeez, get some balls, America.

Reading: like I said yesterday, I'm tackling David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. I plan on keeping record of my current page count over on the sidebar, to help humiliate myself into getting through it in a timely fashion. And really, it's not an especially difficult book, or unpleasant to read; it's just the sheer immensity of it which is intimidating.

Watching: nothing is holding my attention quite like the final season of The Shield. Absolutely riveting, brilliant TV. Not to malign Mad Men, which is very fine, but how the hell does that show get a million Emmy nominations while The Shield doesn't get shit? For Michael Chiklis, Walton Goggins, Forest Whitaker and CCH Pounder to be overlooked in the acting categories is criminal. Seriously, what the hell does Pounder have to do to get the recognition she deserves? As I always seem to say this time of year: if you're nominating Mariska Hargitay for an acting award, you ain't looking hard enough.

Listening: Neil Young's On the Beach, which was recently released for the first time on CD. What a lovely, fantastic album, one I had never before been able to listen to. I was missing out. And the Lyric of the Moment comes from this album as well, from the song "Vampire Blues," which is about the oil industry and rampant gasoline consumerism raping the world. That song is 34 years old. Man, the more things change....

Hating: same jackass, different photo.

David Foster Wallace, R.I.P.

2008-09-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

David Foster Wallace was found dead of an apparent suicide on Friday. He was 46.

As I recently mentioned, I've never read Infinite Jest, his most famous and well-respected work (though I have read The Broom of the System and Girl with Curious Hair). I think I'll be moving it to the top of my reading list. I've tried reading it a couple of times before. What a shame that this is what will probably finally get me to finish it.

Separated at birth?

2008-09-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

MO WILLEMS, children's book author and creator of my niece's favorite book, Knuffle Bunny, and...

DORIAN WRIGHT, author of my niece's second-favorite blog, Postmodernbarney.com.

At the very least, I think they shop for facial hair at the same store.

Both pictures found at Bully's blog, by the way, as though you couldn't guess.

My First Album(s)

2008-09-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

Once again, I steal an idea from the AV Club. In this article, the AV Club staff discuss the first albums they ever purchased with their own money. (Oh, and while I'm thinking of it: Noel Murray! Donna Bowman! Nathan Rabin! Where are your entries?) So I thought I would share mine. You're welcome.

I have a very clear memory of that day. It was at Blue Sky Music in Ojai. It was early '84, which means I was 13. And I bought two tape cassettes at the same time. That's right, tape cassettes: not as cheesy as 8-tracks, but equally as dead, the all-but-forgotten stepping stone between the retro-cool record album and the high tech CD (which itself is being driven to obsolescence by the mp3 -- damn you, change!!!).

The first:

ZZ TOP: ELIMINATOR
And the second:

"WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC IN 3-D
I regret nothing.

I got Eliminator because ZZ Top was everywhere that year. I don't know if you can recall back that far, you young folks, but when Eliminator came out, MTV was blanketed with ZZ Top videos, all of them featuring that car, those spinning guitars, and scads of hot, hot ladies. (Well, almost all of them, the exception being "TV Dinners," which was just weird as hell.) I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying these videos helped establish the identity of the still fledgling music channel and set the template for a generation of music videos to follow. I mean, just check 'em out:

Gimme All Your Lovin'

Sharp Dressed Man

Legs
Great videos, great album, great band.

I got the "Weird Al" tape because I was then, am now, and always shall be a huge nerd. I used to stay up late listening to Dr. Demento on the radio, hoping to catch a new "Weird Al" tune, and I was thrilled every time MTV would play the video for "Eat It," or "I Lost on Jeopardy" (which, back in the day, was a lot). I'm still a "Weird Al" fan, and 3-D is still entertaining as hell. So there.

So what about you folks? What was the first album you ever bought with your very own cash? Tell me in the comments!

Fringe

2008-09-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

SPOILERY.

I watched the 95-minute premiere of Fringe, the new sci-fi/crime procedural show from J.J. Abrams, and my opinion on it is landing somewhere in the middle ground. There were some interesting ideas and visuals, but there were a number of things that irritated me as well.

The set-up is basically X-Files meets... well, nothing, I guess. It's government agents investigating weird crap and conspiracies. Anna Torv is an FBI agent dropped into the middle of a case involving a chemical/biological weapon, John Noble is the crazy-but-brilliant scientist who can help her, Joshua Jackson is the estranged son who is needed to liberate his scientist father from the asylum, and Lance Reddick is the mysteriously menacing government agent who may be helping Torv, or may be placing her in harm's way.

Mark Valley also appears as Torv's love interest. I always like seeing Valley; I've been a fan since Keen Eddie. And I like that the show listed him among the regular cast, rather than as a guest star. Nice bit of misdirection there, but I still could tell, the minute he appeared, that he was doomed. Just too damn happy and cuddly for a gloomy show like this. I have to say, I didn't expect him to be a bad guy until about halfway through the show, when it was obvious someone on the government's side would have to be a bad guy, but it was still very clear that he wouldn't be making it out of the episode alive.

Not that that prevented his being useful. Nice bit at the end, with Blair Brown, as the representative of the evil corporation, Massive Dynamic, receiving Valley's body into a high tech lab. "How long has he been dead?" "Five hours," says a minion. "Question him," she replies. Spooky! We now know the evil corporation has appropriated crazy scientist's experiments, used earlier to connect Torv to the comatose Valley, that allow a person to retrieve information from another person's brain up to six hours after death. And who knows what other shenanigans they're up to?

That was one of the things I liked about the show: that a giant corporation is being set up as the main villain, that a stonewalling bureaucrat like Brown (wielding a bionic arm, no less!) has more power and a higher clearance level than an FBI agent investigating a terrorist attack. Kind of like what you'd imagine happens behind the scenes at Halliburton.

I also liked the look of the show, which is stylish and slick without devolving too often into Michael Bay-style quick-cut indecipherability (the main exception being the car chase at the end). I even liked the bizarre way that floating words identifying locations would appear within scenes, integrated into the action rather than mere subtitles. I got a kick out of the SOUTH BOSTON legend seeming to be frozen and covered in snow, as though it were actually physically present in the wintery setting. And I really enjoyed the playfulness used with the BAGHDAD IRAQ caption. From the helicopter's eye view, it is visible below in a legible size; when a reverse angle is taken from the ground, the B in BAGHDAD is backward and gigantic, as though the word were a permanent fixture of the city's skyline, right above roof level. Completely pointless and show-offy? Yes -- but I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before, so points for originality and cleverness.

A lot of what I didn't like about the show has to do with the cast. Torv seems like she could be a solid lead, if she wouldn't so frequently wear an intimidated look on her face. Often it looks as though she is cowed by whomever she is speaking to -- Reddick, Brown, Noble, nearly everyone she interacts with she greets with a wide-eyed, timid countenance. Perhaps that can partially be ascribed to the fact that she's in fear for Valley's life throughout the episode, but that seems generous. And it doesn't explain why she's so flirtatious with Jackson.

As for Jackson -- holy crap, that dude will not shut up. I'm okay with his wiseacre performance when it plays naturally off the other actors, but there are a number of scenes throughout the episode where it becomes absolutely overbearing. At one point, Torv and Noble are having a discussion of vital importance to the case at hand, and Jackson interrupts them in between every single fucking line to toss off some smart aleck comment. Dag! Rein it in just a little, would you, Pacey?

I have a big problem with Noble's character as well. At the top of the episode, he's introduced as a babbling, incoherent, possible psychotic blamed for the death of a human test subject in one of his experiments; by the end of the show, he's lovably eccentric. Miracle recovery, there.

Something similar happens with Valley's character. He's caught smack-dab in the middle of a series of huge explosions at the beginning of the show, and absorbs some mysterious chemicals which turn his skin transparent, for some reason. Torv and her team find a cure for the chemicals, and his skin changes back, waking him from his coma and leaving nothing but a few crackly marks in his skin as a side effect. In no time at all, he's up on his feet, murdering terrorist suspects and engaging in high-speed car chases. At no point does he show the slightest sign whatsoever of his having been BLOWN THE FUCK UP. Another miracle recovery!

Fringe is an ambitious show. It clearly is attempting to establish a vast mythology, complete with weird symbols and a dark cabal (in the form of Massive Dynamic), much like Abrams' previous shows Alias and Lost. I just don't know if I want to stick around to watch it all unfold. There's some promise, enough to keep me watching next week -- but if it doesn't cohere a little better, not much beyond that.

The Shield

2008-09-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

SPOILERS AHEAD, up to but not including last night's episode, which I haven't watched yet (don't spoil it for me!).

Last year, I somehow managed to miss out on the entire sixth season of The Shield, which long-time readers (if I still have any) well know I consider to be one of the very best shows on TV. A marathon DVD-viewing session this weekend has rectified that oversight, just in time for me to catch up on last week's seventh and final season premiere (which I've been saving on TiVo).

And holy cow, have I been missing out. As great as I always say this show is, it's only gotten better. The sixth season was brilliant. Possibly not quite up to the impossibly high standards of season five, in which Forest Whitaker's Lt. Kavanaugh debuted, and which was one of the ten (or so) best seasons of any TV show I've ever seen. But season six nonetheless was a whirlwind of violence, emotional trauma, and sheer intensity that had me riveted.

At the center of it all was the fallout from Shane's murder of Lem at the end of the fifth season. Shane is perhaps my favorite character (along with Dutch), but while he was going through his suicidal guilt I was hoping for him to pull the trigger, and when he confessed to Vic, I was hoping Vic would waste him right there. Shouldn't have messed with Lem! Of course Vic let Shane live, which will probably be the cause of Vic's downfall. Walton Goggins' Shane is a terrific character, cold and calculating one second, vulnerable and easily manipulated the next. Watching him react as he found out that he killed Lem because of Kavanaugh's trickery was devastating. I have the feeling that his inability to avoid getting suckered by the people he thinks he's controlling (like Antwon Mitchell, or the Armenians, or even his wife) will be the cause of his downfall.

Speaking of Kavanaugh, I was a little surprised to see Whitaker wrap up his guest role after only two episodes of the sixth season. It was a satisfying end, making complete his transformation into that which he pursued, but he was such an incredible character, and Whitaker so amazing in the role, that I was sorry to see him go. Maybe he'll be back.

According to the DVD extras, Franka Potente will be back in season seven as Diro Kesakhian, the daughter of the Armenian mob boss with whom Shane fell in at the end of the season. And that's fine with me. She was a lot less flashy or intense than Whitaker, but there was still a great deal of power in her character, and I'd like to see where she goes from here.

Jay Karnes as Dutch continues to entertain me to no end (minor trivia note: did you realize that he, Shane, and Vic are the only characters to appear in every episode so far?). He spent most of last season chasing Officer Tina and butting heads with his lazy, conniving new partner Billings, which was good stuff. When Billings tricked Dutch into showing up at Tina's house while she was having a tryst with Hiatt (not sorry to see that character leave, by the way), it somehow managed to be heartbreaking and cruelly hilarious at the same time. I was glad to see Billings return in the final season premiere, partly because David Marciano plays such a great weasel, but mainly because it gave Dutch a chance to nail him to the wall. And what will come of the kiss Dutch shared with Danny last season? I can't wait to see the excruciatingly awkward paths that will take.

With Lem gone, I love that David Rees Snell's Ronnie has had to step up and fill that void (both the actor and the character). Ronnie has been going to some dark places; his killing of the Armenian hitman was especially chilling, one of the coldest moments I've seen on the show. "Do you want me to answer that?" the hitman asks as Ronnie gets the information he needs from the hitman's cell phone. "That won't be necessary," Ronnie calmly replies, and BLAM! BLAM! puts two in the hitman's chest. Damn! I jumped out of my seat at that. Wow, Ronnie is a stone killer. Will he be the next Vic? Or Shane? Or worse?

I'm very glad I watched the sixth season immediately before the seventh season debut. The terrifying momentum has me watching the show like a freight train barrelling out of control. It's going off the tracks; the only questions are when, and who gets out alive? This is the best show on TV right now. I hope you're watching.

Nerd Heaven, R.I.P.

2008-09-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Sad news this week: Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton shut down on Sept. 1 after an 11-year run. This is sad not only because it indicates how weak the whole Trek franchise has become, unable to sustain a once wildly-popular attraction despite that J.J. Abrams reboot waiting around the corner, but also because ST:TE was one of the highlights of my first trip as a grown-up to Vegas, and one of my earliest entries at this here blog.

In honor of its passing, I here rerun that entry on Star Trek: The Experience (although I kept calling it The Star Trek Experience, which I guess is non-canon). I updated the broken link to Quark's Bar; it now leads to a PDF of the menu. From November 29, 2004, this is my tribute to Nerd Heaven.

Just back from my four-day weekend in Las Vegas*, my first visit there in my adult life, and let me tell you what: it is tremendous.

But let me skip for now the gambling, the drinking, the dinner at Wolfgang Puck's, the sighting of Wayne Newton (seriously!), the drinking, the George Carlin show, the half-naked ladies (one showgirl was wandering around the casino in a bikini bottom so small, you could see her birth control patch), and the drinking, and get straight to the highlight of the weekend, Nerd Heaven: The Star Trek Experience.

Conveniently located in the Hilton, where I was staying, TSTE is composed of two attractions, the Klingon Encounter and the Borg Invasion 4D. (And no, I don't know what the fourth D is. I only counted the usual three.) Both of them have live action performances in which actors lead the visitors to various areas for various scenes, finishing in a spacecraft-shaped auditorium with some incredible filmed sequences taking you into the action (much like Star Tours, if you've ever been to one of the Disney parks). The Borg one was better, I thought, mainly because it's more recent, and more technologically advanced; it's based around the Voyager series. The Klingon Encounter was still pretty damned entertaining; it's based around The Next Generation.

But neither show would've been as much fun if we hadn't visited Quark's Bar and Restaurant first. Did I say I was going to skip the drinking? Guess not. Oh my good lord was it fantastic. It's modeled after the bar from Deep Space Nine, of course, and the drinks, oh the drinks! Little ol' nerdy me had a James Tea Kirk (which was basically an Electric Tea, if you know what that is**); my two nerdy friends had Mind Melds, which were some kind of peach-flavored rum concoction. Then we had a round of Harry Mudds (a shot of kahlua, Buttershots Schnapps, cinnamon liqueur, and Bailey's, I think, which my friends claimed tasted like an Oatmeal Cookie, and I had no reason to doubt them), then two more Mind Melds and for me -- I can't recall the name (something nerdy), but it was Vanilla Vodka, Godiva Chocolate Liqueur, Buttershots, and cream; tasted like chocolate milk, with a hell of a kick. And then we got crazy. Two women from our group joined us, so we ordered the Warp Core Breach. This goddam thing is served in a fishbowl. A chunk of dry ice at the bottom of the bowl created a cloud of smoke pouring out of it. Kind of like this:

In fact, exactly like that, only purple. And don't let the scale of that photo fool you; that glass is big as a bowling ball. Then all five of us got straws about two feet long, and we got to business. What's in it? It was delicious, and had a blackberry taste to it; I couldn't really tell you more about it than that. It's in a goddam fishbowl. What more do you need to know?

We also got a visit from some of the in-character employees; two Ferengi had an argument next to us at the bar, and then a Borg came by, saying that he was on the station "for observation purposes only". We took some pictures with him, and he stayed totally in character; when one of the women commented on his lack of a smile, he said, "I am familiar with 'smile'." When we thanked him for the pictures, he said, "Acknowledged." Neeeerrrrrrrrd Heaven.

Then we three nerdy guys went back upstairs to go on the rides. Shows. Whatever you'd call them. The entryway was lined with an insanely detailed Trek timeline on one side, and a Trek museum (biggest in the world, they claim) on the other, filled with costumes, props, photos, etc. Normally the line would be so long, you'd have plenty of time to absorb it all; that day, there was hardly any line at all, and we were staggeringly drunk, not quite in the frame of mind to appreciate it all, so we zipped right through it (except for some reason my friend Scoot kept pointing out Guinan's costume).

The Borg Encounter was first. It started with a costumed crew member leading us into a room and showing us a video on the wall screen; it was the Doctor, from Voyager, telling us some malarkey about how we had all been summoned because something unique in our DNA was highly resistant to Borg probes. His spiel was mercifully interrupted by a Borg attack. Our crewmember escort summoned security, and we were ushered through various other areas, in which Borg appeared, and engaged in battle. We three drunken nerds were highly wrapped up in it all, laughing, screaming, telling them to shoot the Borg! Annoying? Possibly. But our thinking was, if they're going to go to the trouble of pretending there's a Borg attack, why not be courteous*** enough to pretend we believe it?

Then into the seating area. It was an impressively large set, with a giant front viewscreen, two smaller screens to either side, and a "hatch" on the ceiling. With our 3D glasses on, we were treated to a spectacular movie sequence, involving the section we were seated in being carved out of the space station by the Borg, and being brought aboard the Borg ship. The Borg then injected us with their nanoprobes, simulated by blasts of air on our faces and pokey-crawlies in our seat backs and seat bottoms (which made me giggle like the Pillsbury Doughboy). We were confronted by the Borg Queen (whom I suspected was played by Alice Krige, the actress who originated the role in First Contact; when I looked up her name on IMDb, I found that not only was it indeed her, but also that the Borg Invasion actually has its own entry, as does the Klingon Encounter).

Captain Janeway and the Starship Voyager eventually came to our rescue, after five or six minutes of the most realistic 3D effects I've ever seen. A final debriefing by the Doctor, and we were released back into the real world. Which we immediately abandoned for the Klingon Encounter.

This was more of the same; the story hinged on the Klingons abducting our group of tourists because one of us was supposedly Jean-Luc Picard's ancestor. We were rescued by the Enterprise, and taken aboard the ship's main bridge, which was so beautifully reproduced it made me as happy as a little girl. On the viewscreen, a filmed bit with Riker and Geordi appeared, to fill us in on the blah-blah-blah, and then we were taken into the turbolift and sent to a shuttle pod. When the door closed on the shuttle pod, Scoot began poking all the fake buttons on the wall next to him, prompting one of the employees spying on us to announce over the intercom that we shouldn't bother touching the console controls, because they were DNA-encoded to respond only to Enterprise crewmembers. We loved that. Neeerrrrrrd Heaven.

Then began the filmed sequence (non-3D this time), in which our pod alternately tried to escape from, and engaged in battle, various Klingon vessels, with the Enterprise by our side. We then got zapped back to Las Vegas, and the battle continued over the Strip, zooming over and around various Vegas landmarks. So cool. At the end, as we exited the shuttle pod, an employee directed us onto an elevator that would take us to the exit. All three of us drunken nerds cheerily engaged him in conversation, right up to the second the elevator doors closed, at which point one of the other tourists asked us, "Do they pay you to be here?" which cracked up the rest of the group. It seems our unbridled enthusiasm actually helped the other people to have a good time; everyone was laughing and smiling at the end. Which was nice. Ah, sweet, sweet alcohol: makes everything better.

*I started writing this post on the 22nd. So now I'm just back, plus a week.
**Even if you don't know what that is; frankly, your mixological knowledge has no effect on the drink, one way or the other.
***I.e., "drunk".

New TV

2008-09-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

The new TV season has begun, and I just don't much give a crap. Not yet, at least. Not when all the new stuff is on the CW.

I watched some of that new 90210 over at a friend's house while we were having a barbecue, and while it wasn't immediately, overwhelmingly stupid, it certainly didn't achieve the level of scintillating entertainment I require from my television viewing (says the guy who hasn't yet missed an episode of The Big Bang Theory).

As I would expect from a show run by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, there were a few moments of humor, and there were actually a few surprisingly enjoyable references back to the old (I almost said "classic," which is a misnomer if ever there were one) series, such as a teacher's reference to Andrea Zuckerman's daughter: "What is she, 30?" (For those who never watched the old show, Gabrielle Carteris, who played Andrea, was the oldest of the original "kids," hitting 30 midway through the 1st season.) But during my admittedly fractured watching of the 2-hour pilot, I didn't find any new characters worth caring about, and seeing a reunion between the old show's Kelly, Brenda, and Nat isn't near enough to keep me tuning in.

Three other CW shows have returned with new episodes this week, but they are all beneath contempt, so: moving on.

Most other networks are holding off on new programming for three or four more weeks, but like the CW, Fox has also jumped the gun with new episodes this week: Prison Break is back, as is Bones. I quit on Prison Break a long while ago, though I get a kick out of the news that a character who was decapitated last year will be coming back to the show. Guess she got better. (Or rather, the actress has given up on her contract negotiations.) And Bones returned with a 2-hour special set in London, of which I saw about five minutes. Bones is occasionally fun but definitely non-essential viewing for me.

FX also premiered two shows this week, the final season of The Shield and the first episode of the new biker club drama, Sons of Anarchy, which is supposed to be brilliant. I TiVoed both, but haven't watched either yet. I still haven't seen the previous season of The Shield, but I've got all four discs from Netflix, and I'll be catching up this week. Hopefully I'll be able to start watching new episodes by next week. And Sons of Anarchy I plan on watching tonight and reviewing tomorrow. It's got Ron Perlman and Katey Sagal. That's gold, Jerry! Gold!!!

I have the feeling my TV watching (and blogging) will be much curtailed this new season. I'm definitely not going to watch every new show, as I've done in previous years. Too much of it looks like utter garbage. But I am a TV addict, after all, so I'll be checking in here and there with some of the new and some of the old. Let me know if there's anything I'm missing out on!

I want Daddy to go away on a trip

2008-09-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

For today, a link to another site you will enjoy: Tiny Art Director. It's a blog recording the pictures an artist has made for his daughter, and her scathing rejections of them.

Por ejemplo, the tiny art director requests a drawing of a monkey:

Her critique: "Stupid ugly angry monkey. I hate him."

This site is a bundle of cuteness in an adorable wrapper. (Though it might make you happy you don't have such a harsh critic living with you!) It gets to where you want to cheer when the daughter actually accepts a drawing. Check it out.

Misty May's Ass, Au Revoir

2008-09-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ever since that picture above started making the rounds, in which it looks like Dubya is about to smack Misty May right in her Olympically-toned posterior, my Google hits for the phrase "Misty May's ass" have dropped off the cliff. For four years, I was permanently in the top ten, at times even the #1 Google search for those three words. Seriously, four years. Take a look at the date on the post in which I first began making jokes about how many hits I was getting for that phrase. Most blogs don't even last four years. I've been running one joke into the ground for that long.

Anyhoo, because of that picture, and everyone posting it and commenting on it, I've been bumped from #1 on Google all the way to page 12. (And still falling.) Sheesh!

It was amusing when I first noticed all the Google hits I got from that phrase, and it's amused me to revisit Misty May and her rump every once in a while over the ensuing four years. But now... man, I just don't have the energy or will to keep up. If I'm going to have to refer to Misty May's hindquarters every other day in order to reattain my first page position on Google, I just can't be bothered. And compound this with the fact that May is going to appear on the next season of Dancing with the Stars (as Augie has recently alerted me), and you can see I'll never be able to talk about her sit-upon enough to keep pace with all those wonderfully perverted Google searchers out there.

So today, with sadness in my heart, I announce that I am officially retiring the "Misty May's ass" joke from this blog. No more shall I blog about Misty May's ass, or show pictures of Misty May's ass, or make meta references to hit counts generated by Misty May's ass, or in any way exploit Misty May's ass.

Okay, one last time.

Farewell, Misty May's ass. And good luck to you in all your future endeavors. A new era has dawned here at Tom the Dog's blog! Misty May's ass... is dead.

Long live Kerri Walsh's ass!

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Hollywood to be born?

2008-08-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

Disaster Movie, the latest cinematic abortion produced by writer/director/crapmasters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, opens today, and if you actually pay to see it in the theater, you are a bad person. There is no wiggle room here. Seriously. This is a Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll-level indictment of your worthiness as a human being.

Friedberg and Seltzer are the pathetically talentless duo responsible for Epic Movie, about which I had a thing or two to say, and Meet the Spartans, which Slate's Josh Levin eviscerated in one of the funniest negative reviews I've ever read:

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Awesome. "A bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it." That immediately joins the grand pantheon of brilliantly vicious pans, which also includes:

Roger Ebert on North: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it."

Bloom County's Opus as movie critic: "George Phblat's new film, 'Benji Saves the Universe,' has brought the word 'bad' to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene. Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness."

Family Guy's Cleveland on Skeet Ulrich: "There is nothing good about who you are or what you do."

James Downey on Adam Sandler in Billy Madison: "Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Me on Committed: "This show is bitterest poison. It should be banned by the protocols established by the Geneva Convention. I hate it. I hate everyone associated with it, I hate myself for watching it, and I hate you for reading about it."

Although truly no invective foul enough exists to adequately describe how awful Friedberg and Seltzer and their movies are. And I'm sure that will hurt their feelings, if they happen to read it in between rolling around on their giant piles of money.

Why would women talk about anything other than men, anyway?

2008-08-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Johnny Bacardi (who was inspired by elsewhere), I want to take a crack at this meme-type thing regarding women in film.

It involves the not-at-all pretentiously named Bechdel-Wallace test, which assesses how inclusive a film is towards women. In order to pass, a film must contain:

1) At least two named female characters,
2) ... who have a conversation,
3) ... which is not about a man.

So the deal is, pick five of your favorite films. How do they fare in the Bechdel-Wallace test? My suspicion is not very well. Let's see!

Johnny already did Citizen Kane (FAIL), so I'll start with...

1. Casablanca: The film has three named female characters, Ilsa, Yvonne, and Annina (the woman trying to get an exit visa from Renault), but I don't believe they ever speak to one another. FAIL.

2. McCabe & Mrs. Miller: I'd have to rewatch to confirm it, but I'm pretty sure Mrs. Miller has talks with her prostitutes (including Ida, played by Shelley Duvall) which aren't specifically about men. Not that a madame and her passel of prostitutes is necessarily the progressive representation of women this test is looking for, but still. WIN.

3. Chinatown: I believe that Evelyn and Katherine have at least one exchange, if brief, while packing to flee town, but I'm not 100% sure on that. UNDECIDED

4. Unforgiven: Prostitutes again, but they speak to each other several times -- mainly about hiring a gunfighter, yes, but I don't think that that counts as "about a man" in the way the test means. I'm calling it a WIN.

5. The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy and Glinda the Good Witch have a couple of chats, as do Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West (which I'm counting as a named character: last name West, first name Wicked Witch of the), and Dorothy and Auntie Em, and Auntie Em and Miss Gulch... this one is all kinds of WIN.

Well, that's three out of five, but in two of those films just about the only female characters are whores, so that probably violates the spirit of the test, if not the letter. I've only got one real slamdunk here, and it's a children's movie.

Now that I think about it, not a lot of movies would pass this test, and certainly very few big releases. I mean, let's look at the movies I've seen this year and see how they stack up.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: FAIL

Iron Man: FAIL

The Dark Knight: FAIL

Hancock: FAIL

Step-Brothers: FAIL

Pineapple Express: FAIL

Tropic Thunder: FAIL

Hell, even in Waitress, which I recently reviewed, the majority of the conversations among the rich and interesting female characters revolve around men in some way. Dang, good thing I'm allowed to see movies that fail this test, or I'd never go to the theater!

Tom Petty -- Post-Show

2008-08-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Had a fantastic time at the Tom Petty concert last night. Great, great show from Petty and the Heartbreakers. The set list was very similar to the one I posted yesterday, except they cut "Gloria" out of the encore, and, in a bit of a disappointment, Steve Winwood didn't join him for a couple of songs, as he has been doing frequently throughout the tour. (I'll print the full set list here once it gets posted on Petty's website, for future historians to appreciate.) (EDIT: Apparently, they're posting just about every set list from this tour except for the show I went to.)

But I finally got to see Petty live, and that was all that mattered. He rocked my face quite handily.

A few notes on the show:

--The approach to the Verizon Amphitheatre could not have been more poorly laid out. You would think: gigantic amphitheatre, approximately 20,000 capacity... perhaps some consideration should be made to the amount of traffic this will generate. But no: for about the last mile and a half, there's just a little two-lane country road in the middle of pastures and goat farms leading up to the venue. We were stuck in a line of barely-moving cars for almost forty damn minutes, which resulted in me missing almost the entirety of Winwood's set. All I caught were the last two songs, "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and "Gimme Some Lovin'." And he sounded great. I hate that I missed so much of his performance. Next time I go to the Verizon, I think I'll park a couple miles away and bring some roller skates.

--My buddy Brian and I had lawn tickets, but when we got to the lawn section, there was a table set up that said, "Upgrades $10." So we paid twenty bucks and got tickets to move up to the covered seats. Totally worth it. Especially when you consider if I had paid for a similar upgrade online, it would've run me more like $40 or $50 extra.

--It was oppressively humid, topping out, according to Weather.com, at 83%. According to scientists, standing underneath a steaming hot shower for 20 minutes only reaches 80% humidity, so you can understand how bad it was. That's not true at all, of course, but that's what it felt like.

--Petty was wearing black boots, black jeans, and a black long-sleeved shirt. I suspect his wardrobe combined with the humidity may have contributed to he (and Winwood) cutting a couple songs from the show. Not that he looked all that put out by the mugginess. He is a Florida boy, after all; he's probably used to much worse, now that I think about it. (Weather.com says Gainesville, FL, Petty's hometown, hit 93% humidity yesterday morning. Yikes.)

--Beers were nine dollars. Nine goddam dollars. For a 24 oz. Miller Lite. Yeah.

--"American Girl" is just about the best fucking song ever.