Aquaman's Lament

Aquaman is probably the poster child for comic book characters who work better in theory than in practice. Hence why his series keeps getting canceled, and why when he was killed off a few years ago, readers really didn't care. (Or in my case, really didn't even notice until he popped up as a zombie recently.)

But at least Aquaman can console himself that he's the Superman of Internet parody songs, as evidenced by "Aquaman's Lament" by The Motion Sick. This video is well worth checking out, as are the links below where you can find more of their songs. Enjoy!

The Motion Sick
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Select Accolades
-"30 Lives (Up-Up-Down-Dance Mix)" in Dance Dance Revolution Arcade, XBox 360, and PS2
-"30 Lives" video on "120 Minutes" - MTV Latin Amer., MuchMusic, Fuse, and many other regional, national, and international stations - 2008
-SPIN.com Band of the Year - one of 8 finalists in the Underground Category -"The Owls Are Not What They Seem (Instr.)" was licensed for use in a perennial show on the Oxygen Network, a new series that premiered on E!TV in May 2008 and other original programming, including MTV's three most popular reality shows.
-"Walk on Water" is featured in The Beware Dolls segment of Roadtrip Nation - 2008
-Semi-Finalist in Spin's Hot Pursuit Competition - July, 2008
-C|NET Download.com Editor's Pick - Jun. 5, 2008
-CMJ Spotlight Artist - 3/14 - 3/21 2008
-CMJ Independent Select Tracks Chart #67 - "30 Lives" - Feb. 2008
-CMJ Top 200 #71 - The truth will catch you, just wait... - Feb. 2008
-CMJ Top 20 Most Added #13 - The truth will catch you, just wait... - Jan. 2008
-Blender feature "30 Lives" Breakout Video - Feb. 6, 2008
-Best Boston albums of 2006 - Boston Metro - Jan. 4, 2007
-"Satellite" Music Video screened at the 2007 BIMINI Intl. Fest. of Animation Films
-2006 Grammy Entry #60 in Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal
-2006 Grammy Entry #127 in Best Pop Vocal Album
-2006 Last Band Standing, WFNX and AI New England Competition
-2006 Fuse TV Bodog Battle of the Bands City Finalists
-SPIN.com Band of the Month - Feature in SPIN Magazine, Apr. 2006
-SPIN Essential - Music You Need to Download! SPIN Magazine, Mar. 2006
-Microsoft - New Music Feature - SPIN Magazine, Mar. 2006
-SPIN.com Band of the Month, Jan. 2006
-SPIN.com Band of the Day, Jan. 13, 2006

TV stuff

-- I watched Fringe when it came on last season, really enjoyed it...and then missed a couple of episodes and couldn't be bothered to get caught up. I'm tempted to start watching again, but even after skipping just half of last season, it feels like I missed the boat. At least Lost took it slowly the first season or so before taking a wild swerve into weird and uncharted territory. It seems like Fringe just dove in head first. This might be one of those shows where I just wait until it's over and then Netflix the entire series.

-- I've officially given up on Heroes. I pretty much gave up on it after the second season, but I've given each new volume a shot in the hopes it'll return to the awesomeness of its first season, only to walk away disappointed. Not this year, though. I'm done. Hiro will have to time travel to another post-apocalyptic future (again), Nathan will have to turn evil before redeeming himself (again), and Peter will have to make the stupidest possible decision at every turn (again) without me.

-- I tried to get into Glee. Really, I did. It's a fun show, everyone I know seems to love it, and the Jane Lynch scenes are hilarious, but it's just not clicking for me. I might give it another try if they get rid of the annoying wife.

-- Eastwick was surprisingly not bad, but I have no idea how they're going to get a weekly TV show out of the concept, and I don't think I'm interested enough to find out.

-- It's not like there's much competition, but Community is the best new comedy of the year. This airing along with The Office and 30 Rock will really emphasize just how horribly unfunny Parks and Recreation is. Hopefully, history won't repeat itself and Chevy Chase won't get a swelled head and leave after the first season.

-- Without even having seen them, I can't stand Trauma and Mercy. Their dull, generic titles aside, the former just seems like ER with explosions, and the latter is a show about nurses. I have nothing against nurses, I just don't want to watch a TV show about them. I especially hate that promo where the hot nurse snaps at the doctor, "I know more about medicine than all your residents combined!" In a perfect world, that scene would end with the doctor calling all his residents into the room and making her prove it.

-- The only two shows I was really looking forward to are FlashForward and V. It looks like ABC is trying to kill V with incompetent scheduling, by airing the first few episodes, and then keeping it off the air until after the Olympics. As for FlashFoward, I liked the first episode, but I'm guessing that it's going to be Lost-lite, in that it'll go out of its way to be frustrating, and provide very few answers along the way. And kind of like with Fringe, I'm not sure I have it in me to get that involved in following that sort of story. But for now I'll keep watching until it does something to make my head hurt.

Movin' on up

Now that email has replaced letters as the preferred means of written communication, going to the mailbox tends to be a pretty dull experience.

On any given day, I'm likely to find a bill, a bunch of ads that go right in the trash, a Netflix DVD (today I'm finally getting 17 Again, weeks after it was released. Did Netflix cut its DVD-buying in half recently? And yes, I know it's sad that 17 Again has been at the top of my Netflix queue that entire time), or if I'm lucky, the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine or Wired. There just aren't that many surprises to be found in the mailbox these days.

But yesterday, I got something interesting: A rather nice black envelope, and inside, a letter from Visa letting me know that I'm one of the lucky 1% of the country that has been "pre-selected to receive the exclusive Visa Black Card."

Ah, the benefits of having great credit in a country where everyone else abuses it.

But honestly, I had never even heard of a black Visa card before yesterday. I had heard of the black American Express card, which is a well-known status symbol, and with its $2,500 annual fee and requirement that its cardholder charge at least $250,000 a year on it, a pretty good indication that whoever owns it has way too much money. Of course, it's easy to mock, but back in my retail days, a customer once whipped one out, and it actually was kind of impressive.

According to the letter I received, a Visa Black Card entitles me to "the highest caliber of personal service." Specifically, I would get:

-- A 24-hour Concierge Assistant

-- Executive Rewards Program

-- Luxury Gifts from some of the world's top brands

-- Noticed (Yes, seriously, this is listed as one of the perks. "Made with carbon, the Visa Black Card is guaranteed to get you noticed." Not just any carbon, either. Patent pending carbon. Yeah, suck it, you plastic-using monkeys.)

Oh, there's also a $495 annual fee.

But while all these things sound great, the fact that I am not, in spite of Visa's claim, someone who "demands only the best of what life has to offer," means that I'd have little use for them.

Do I need a 24-hour Concierge Assistant to get me a table at Five Guys? Does National Airport even have a first class lounge?

Are rewards programs--even the high-end ones--really worth the amount of money it takes to rack up points? There was that stupid commercial Shaun White was in where he traveled around the world for free on his points, but that was about as realistic as Star Wars.

What sort of "free gifts" are we talking here? A small bottle of cologne? A free bag of Godiva chocolate? And are they really free if I'm paying a $500 fee each year to get them?

As for "noticed," there are two kinds of noticed. The first kind is where a hot girl sees me whip out my Visa Black Card in a bar, thinks I must be a trust fund baby, and seduces me in the hopes I'll take her to my family's summer home in the Hamptons. The second kind is where some thug sees me whip out my Visa Black Card in a bar, follows me outside, where he and his friends proceed to rob me. Given my luck, the second kind of noticed is far more likely than the first.

So I think I'll pass. On the bright side, though, with my getting all these high-end credit card offers through the mail, I figure it's only a matter of time until someone steals my identity and totally destroys my really awesome credit rating. So I have that to look forward to.

Geekgasm

This looks pretty good. But then again, I felt the same way about the trailer for both the Halloween and Friday the 13th remakes, and was proven very, very wrong. On the whole, though, I like what I see here.

The nightmare scenes appear to do a good job of balancing how they worked in the first film with how they were done in latter films, when Freddy would construct elaborate scenarios.

As for casting, Jackie Earle Haley won't be as good as Robert Englund, but no one could be. Clancy Brown, Connie Britton, and the hot chick from Harper's Island make for a great supporting cast. As for the role of Nancy, I have no idea who or what a "Rooney Mara" is, but sure, why not?

The only thing that sort of bothers me is Freddy's face.

I prefer the somewhat more cartoonish, "pizza-face" make-up.

I also like my Freddy Kruegers to have a sense of humor, so I hope Haley doesn't play him too serious. I mean, if you were a child murderer who came back from the dead to kill a bunch of teenagers, how do you not enjoy yourself?

Week Three NFL Picks

9-7 last week; 19-13 for the season

Atlanta at New England (-4.5): New England

Tennessee at New York Jets (-2.5): New York

Cleveland at Baltimore (-13.5): Baltimore

Washington at Detroit (+6.5): Washington

Green Bay at St. Louis (+6.5): Green Bay

Kansas City at Philadelphia (-8.5): Kansas City

New York Giants at Tampa Bay (+6.5): New York

San Fransisco at Minnesota (-7): San Francisco

Jacksonville at Houston (-4): Houston

Chicago at Seattle (+2.5): Chicago

New Orleans at Buffalo (+6): Buffalo

Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (+3.5): Pittsburgh

Miami at San Diego (-6): San Diego

Denver at Oakland (+1.5): Oakland

Indianapolis at Arizona (+2.5): Indianapolis

Carolina at Dallas (-8.5): Dallas

Panel of the Week

From Giant-Size Wolverine: Old Man Logan #1:

Date Lab TV

From NBC:

Dear DC Universe,

Would you rate your DC date on the air?

It's an experiment in love:
Two singles set up for dinner through the Washington Post’s Date Lab.

The only catch?
They have to rate the date for the whole city to see!

Wendy Rieger takes you behind the scenes tonight on News4 at 11.

Please let us know if you are interested in posting this announcement on your blog.

Thank you,
Veronica Macias

No, thank you, Veronica! And yes, I am interested in posting this announcement on my blog.

Date Lab, to be kind, has sucked big, hairy donkey balls as of late. I mean, it's gone through droughts before, but never like this. There have only been five in the past year that I thought were worth commenting on. And to be honest, some of those people weren't even that bad. I just felt like being a jerk that day.

Everyone else they've picked has been pretty much normal. And for that, someone at the Washington Post Magazine should be fired. People don't read Date Lab because they want to see two perfectly nice people go on a fun date. You can go to any restaurant in D.C. on a Saturday night and see that crap. People want to see a train wreck.

Remember back when almost every edition of Date Lab ended in tears? (Or in the very least, snotty passive-aggression?) Those were fun times, weren't they?

But a behind-the-scenes of Date Lab segment interests me. I hope it's not just following along the two participants around while they're on their date. Because that would be boring as hell. I want to see how the Post matched them up in the first place. Back when Date Lab had, like, a .150 batting average, I'd spend a fair amount of time wondering how on earth anyone could think any given week's couple could possibly be a good match.

Past theories of mine were: Stoned interns, a deranged HAL 9000-like supercomputer, a retarded chimpanzee picking people at random, or an evil magazine editor who wanted people to be alone, and went out of his or her way to keep them that way.

So I'll watch tonight, just to see if any of these guesses of mine--or indeed, all of them, working together like some sort of anti-romance Legion of Doom--were correct.

I'll also take this opportunity to make my semi-annual plea to Date Lab to cool it with the normal people, and start featuring more freaks. Sure, you have to feature a happy couple from time to time, but Date Lab's never lost a reader by sending one or two thoroughly unpleasant people on an incredibly uncomfortable date, and it never will.

The unfair and never-ending persecution of Marion Barry

For a guy who had an HBO documentary made about him, and actually kind of came off looking like the shit in it, it's been a bad year for D.C. Mayor For Life Marion Barry.

There were allegations of his office's financial impropriety, he still hasn't mastered that whole "paying taxes" thing, he was the only council member to oppose recognizing gay marriage in D.C., there was that unfortunate stalking business, and, well...this.

That's bullshit! No man should have the details of his being turned down for fellatio plastered on the front page of a newspaper. And that's anywhere, not just in Denver. Rest assured, the only reason I still have my copy of that issue of the City Paper is to register my disgust and disapproval whenever I see it. I'm in no way planning on having it framed or anything.

But in response to Barry's alleged recent behavior, the City Council has drafted a "Code of Official Conduct" for its members.

The proposal states that council members need to uphold "unusually high standards of honesty, integrity, impartiality" and that the "avoidance of misconduct and conflicts of interest on the part of council members is indispensable."

Honesty? Integrity? Impartiality?

That's bullshit! There's no way Barry is going to be able to live up to these standards! This code is specifically intended to harass him. It's like if I were on the council and they said council members had to uphold high standards of not playing Xbox. This Code of Conduct might was well be called the "Let's All Get Rid of Marion Barry" rules.

And what is "misconduct," anyway? Is stalking misconduct? I've certainly never heard it defined as such, but under the Stalinist regime of Vincent Gray, apparently, yeah, now stalking is bad. "Conflicts of interest"? That's pretty wide open to interpretation, isn't it? Suppose Barry loaned his girlfriend a few bucks to grab lunch. I think we can all agree that wouldn't be a conflict of interest, right? So how is Barry paying his girlfriend thousands of taxpayer dollars for consulting work that may or may not have actually been done, any different?

The proposed code also states that members should avoid "using their office for private gain," never give "preferential treatment to any person," and steer clear of matters that impede "government efficiency and economy" or result in a "loss of confidence or impartiality."

That's bullshit! The fat salary aside, the whole reason why Barry ran for city council in the first place was to use his office for personal gain, give preferential treatment to any person, and decidedly not steer clear of matters that impede government efficiency and economy, resulting in a loss of confidence or impartiality!

It's not like Barry's made any secret of this, either. See this T-shirt?

You can't see it, but all that stuff is written on the back of it. It was his entire platform.

It reinforces several existing laws and ethics policies for council members, such as not accepting gifts or loans from someone who is seeking a contract from the city.

That's bullshit! If Barry can't accept gifts or loans from someone who is seeking a contract from the city, how else is he supposed to know if they're really serious? You don't want some chump contractor coming in and making promises without being able to prove he can back it up by handing out gifts and loans, do you?

One area left unresolved in Gray's proposal is what, if any, sanctions can be meted out for violations. The council has no formal reprimand or censure procedures. "We are just not ready for that yet," said Gray, adding that council members continue to consider the issue.

Finally, a bit of sanity. I mean, the D.C. Council can pass all the codes, laws, regulations, and resolutions it wants, so long as there's no actual system in place to punish anyone for breaking them. Anything like that would be grossly unfair to Barry, who is going to violate most, if not all of them.

When the people of D.C. appointed Marion Barry as Mayor For Life (and that is an actual title, by the way, not just a nickname), that was their way of saying, "Hey, do whatever you want. We don't care." It's about time the city council got on the same page. Let Barry be Barry. The man's a regional treasure, for Christ's sake.

(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Boo!)

During the annual rookie symposium the NFL holds each summer, players attend seminars where they learn about things like how to invest their money, staying away from drugs, why they shouldn't sleep with groupies, and other scintillating topics. These days, they should probably add a "How To Use Twitter" seminar.

This was posted after the Redskins' win over the Rams yesterday by linebacker--reserve linebacker--Robert Henson:

Maybe the rookie symposium should also offer something on proper grammar, although I guess that seminar is usually called "elementary school."

Henson then spent the next half-hour digging himself even deeper in his hole.

After getting deluged with the Twitter equivalent of booing (insults, wise-ass remarks, and one member of the local media calling for him to be cut, all in 140 characters or less), he spent the next half-hour trying to dig himself out of his hole, apologizing for the McDonald's remark and being a dick in general.

Henson wasn't the only Redskin to share his opinion on this topic.

Even family members of Redskins chimed in.

Now, for the record, Chris Cooley is probably my favorite NFL player. Tanner Cooley does a really good radio show on The Fan. Robert Henson, I'm sure is a very nice guy when he's not rubbing our faces in how much money he makes. But they couldn't be more wrong.

Fans have the right to boo anytime for any reason. Theoretically, they could boo the team if the hot dog stands at FedEx ran out of mustard. That's the freedom that comes with buying a ticket to a sporting event. Now, do they have the right to be vulgar or throw things at players? No, of course not. But booing? Totally within bounds.

Contrary to what some of the Redskins seemed to think, people weren't booing because they beat the Rams by "only" two points. People were booing because the team played like shit. The Redskins were in the red zone four times yesterday, which resulted in exactly zero touchdowns. If they were playing the Steelers or the Titans, that would be one thing. But the Rams? The fucking Rams? At home? I'm not one of those people who thought the Redskins had to come out and score 30 to make a statement, but they needed to score a touchdown. A touchdown.

At this point, the kicker and the punter are the Redskins' leading scorers. That's so incredibly wrong, it could only happen with this team.

And that last call Zorn made in the fourth quarter, deciding to go for the first down instead of the field goal was maybe the stupidest thing I've ever seen a football team do. Ever. The team is paying just Albert Haynesworth and DeAngelo Hall $144 million, and Zorn didn't trust the defense to stop the Rams from marching down the field to score a touchdown with only two minutes and no timeouts?

But back to the booing. The idea that fans can't boo when the team wins is absurd. Do you think the Titans were booed yesterday after losing to the Texans? Well, yeah, okay, there probably were a few. But not nearly as many as the Redskins heard, because even though they lost, they played a hell of a game. So if it's acceptable to not boo a team when they lose while playing good football, it stands to reason that it's also acceptable to boo them when they win while playing lousy football.

And let's be clear: The Redskins have given fans exactly two things since Snyder took over a decade ago: Jack and Shit. They haven't racked up the sort of goodwill that allows a team to have a really bad game and not hear about it from the crowd. Why some of the players chose to take this so personally boggles the mind. What they need to realize is this: Yesterday wasn't just about the Redskins and Rams. It was about the whole miserable last ten years. The fans were booing everyone. And I mean everyone. The offense. The defense. The coaching staff. Dan Snyder. Dan Snyder's lawyers. Vinny. Jeff George. Deion Sanders. Danny Wuerffel. Mark Brunell. The parking attendants. Everyone who's contributed to the Redskins game day experience being so fucking miserable. That's who was getting booed yesterday.

If anything, the players should feel good about the booing. It proves that fans still care about the team, in spite of years of mediocrity and an owner who treats them like walking ATM machines. It proves that people still like the players. I mean, I like Chris Cooley. I like Clinton Portis. I like Jason Campbell. I like Robert Henson. I even like Jim Zorn. (Sort of. Somewhat. In theory, anyway.) I don't want to see them go anywhere. I don't want to see this team get blown up next season, when Snyder and a new coach go all trade-happy and try once again to buy a championship, which is exactly what's going to happen if the team doesn't pull it together.

Bottom line is, fans boo because they care. It may not be fun for players to hear, especially after a victory, but there it is. If you don't like it, either get yourself traded to a team that always wins or get the hell out of the NFL. Working 9-5 at McDonald's may not pay millions of dollars, but you won't get booed. Maybe snapped at if you screw up an order. But not booed.

Sorority Row & Jennifer's Body

Technically, this wasn't another two-horror movie weekend, in the sense that Sorority Row opened last week. But since I didn't get to see it until yesterday, the same day I saw Jennifer's Body, that's how it worked out. And it was thematically appropriate, too, as both films had sort of an 80s throwback feel to them.

And since everything was better in the 80s, that means they were great, right? Well...

Spoilers follow...

Sorority Row

The killer's motivation (and by extension, the whole movie) is ridiculous, and if you haven't figured out who it is by the halfway point at the very latest, this is either your first horror film or you might be functionally retarded. But like most slasher films, Sorority Row is more about the journey than the destination.

And most of the journey is actually a lot of fun. During it, you get to see (in no particular order) Audrina Partridge get brutally murdered, Carrie Fisher wield a shotgun, one co-ed get her face melted off with a flare gun, another co-ed get most a bottle shoved down her throat, and the lug wrench joining the pantheon of tools that can also serve as potential murder weapons. But there was lots of room for improvement.

Let's start with--as always--the gore. If it wasn't for the occasional flash of nudity and liberal use of the word "fuck," I'd swear this was a PG-13 film. They really could have amped it up a bit here. Or in the very least, shown that melting face for more than a quick second.

Then there were the characters. You don't go into a movie like this expecting deep characterization, but they really didn't even try. About the only interesting one is Chugs, and she's the first killed off. There is one moment at the end, when Andy is trying to convince Cassidy to help him finish off the rest of the girls, that I actually thought she might say yes, and the movie would have had one of the unexpectedly all-time great endings. But of course, in the end, the film sticks to the formula to the letter.

About Andy. So all this was to keep anyone from telling what Cassidy did? It never occurred to him that a bunch of dead co-eds might get people asking questions? And he just happened to be lurking in the sorority house bathroom--in full killer costume, no less--without anyone noticing, so that he could whack that one girl who was in the wrong shower stall at the wrong time? That scene makes so little sense that I wonder if they finished the movie and realized that for a horror movie called Sorority Row, they hadn't shown a single pair of breasts, and quickly cobbled it together.

In the end, I'll keep going to movies like Sorority Row because the slasher film is a dying art form, and I'd like to see some director make one that's as good as those from the glory days of the 80s. It probably won't happen, but hope springs eternal.

Script: C+
Acting: C
Gore: B-
Overall: C+

Jennifer's Body

To the extent that it's possible to feel sorry for a horror movie, I feel sorry for Jennifer's Body. It's a perfectly adequately-made film, and really, there's nothing to dislike about it, per se, except that it's the unfortunate victim of its own hype. Between it being Megan Fox's first starring role, and Diablo Cody's improbable follow-up to Juno, it almost feels like it should one of those rare horror films that transcends the genre (due a lot more to Cody's involvement than Fox's). It doesn't. It doesn't even come close, so it feels like a bit of a let-down.

But based on its own merits, it's not a bad film. Good plot, good acting, and several tense moments. The real problem is the dialogue. The cleverest exchange was given away in the trailer ("Jennifer's evil." "I know." "No. I mean, she's actually evil. Not high school evil."), and nothing else really got much of a reaction. It wasn't quite as Juno-esque as I'd feared, but it also wasn't especially distinctive. The closest parallel I can think of is the dialogue From Dusk Till Dawn, which was obviously Tarantino, but wasn't in-your-face about it.

For some reason, this is coming off more negative than I intended. Jennifer's Body is a pretty good horror film. But if you go in expecting anything more than that, you're going to be disappointed.

One more thing: During the scene where Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried are making out, the woman sitting behind me whispered, "Ew!" disgustedly. This was not my reaction. Men and women are different.

Script: B
Acting: B+
Gore: C+
Overall: B

Well, this has been another fun look at recent horror films! Next month: Zombieland and Saw VI! Should be fun! And...what's that? There's one more film to review today? What are you talking about? What other...oh, come on. Really?

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (trailer)

Sigh. Okay.

Look, normally, I'm a live-and-let-live kind of guy, you know? Certainly, people could give me shit over my love of fantasy football and comic books and so on, so I try not to judge. But I had to sit through the trailer for this fucking movie before both Sorority Row and Jennifer's Body, and I'll no doubt have to sit through it every other time I see a movie from now until November 20th. And it's terrible. I mean, not only does it give away the entire story (such as it is), but I don't see how anyone other than a 13 year-old girl can see this and think, "Yay!"

Here's a recap of the trailer: The whiny pale girl and the whiny pale vampire break up, there are shirtless dudes, the girl decides to pretend to kill herself, the vampire decides to kill himself for real (with his shirt off, naturally), more shirtless dudes, and Dakota Fanning throws away what up until now has been a fairly dignified career.

Now, I'm not bashing this indiscriminately. I watched the first movie. I didn't think it was terrible. I certainly didn't think it was good, but I didn't want to break the DVD in half or anything. But that was before Twilight fever gripped the nation, and I started seeing Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart on the cover of every single magazine at one point or another.

Also, someone told me what happens in the fourth book, and you know what? That's some fucked up shit for a young adult novel.

I hate Twilight. You should, too.

Script: F
Acting: F
Gore: F
Overall: F

Week Two NFL Picks

10-6 last week; 10-6 for the season

New England at New York Jets (+3.5): New York

Carolina at Atlanta (-6): Atlanta

Cincinnati at Green Bay (-9): Green Bay

Houston at Tennessee (-6.5): Tennessee

Minnesota at Detroit (+10): Detroit

Arizona at Jacksonville (-3): Arizona

New Orleans at Philadelphia (PK): New Orleans

Oakland at Kansas City (-3): Oakland

St. Louis at Washington (-9.5): Washington

Tampa Bay at Buffalo (-5): Buffalo

Seattle at San Francisco (-1.5): San Francisco

Pittsburgh at Chicago (+3): Pittsburgh

Baltimore at San Diego (-3): Baltimore

Cleveland at Denver (-3): Cleveland

New York Giants at Dallas (-3): Dallas

Indianapolis at Miami (+3): Indianapolis

Panel of the Week

From The Brave and the Bold #27:

Big Monkey Comics

Big Monkey Comics is closing this month. Which is a shame, because for a while, D.C. was supporting three comic book stores (four if you counted Fantom Comics' two locations), which was pretty remarkable, given the economy, the fact that comic books are a niche market in the best of times, and that it wasn't too long ago that D.C. was supporting zero comic book stores. Now the city is down to two: Big Planet Comics in Georgetown and Fantom Comics at Union Station.

Back when Big Monkey was in Georgetown, I used to split my dollars between it and Big Planet pretty much equally. Both were solid stores, and there was something delightfully weird about there being two places named "Big ______ Comics" practically next door to one another. (Big Planet Comics didn't find it quite so delightful, and threatened legal action.) As a consumer it was ideal, because if one store was sold out of something, there was a good chance the other one had it. To be honest, I wasn't exactly a loyal customer to either. Not wanting to walk into Big Monkey with a Big Planet bag, or vice versa, if the first store I went to didn't have a comic or TPB I wanted, I'd just put everything I'd picked up back on the shelf and go to the other one. This approach served me well, and I very rarely went home without everything I'd gone there to buy.

The difference between the culture of the two stores was interesting. Big Planet was basically where you'd go if you just wanted to buy your stuff and leave. Aside from the inventory, the place looks exactly what you'd expect any independent Georgetown bookstore to look like: small, conservative, and maybe even a little stuffy. Big Monkey, on the other hand, was a lot more laid back. It was a "real" comic book store, and on any given Wednesday, there was a good chance you'd see a bunch of guys just hanging out, talking about comics, movies, or whatever.

I'd often wonder how two stores serving such a relatively small customer base could co-exist so close to one another, and a couple of years ago, I got my answer when Big Monkey decided to relocate from Georgetown to 14th Street, right off of U. I don't get over that way very often, and when I do, it's not to buy comics. So aside from a few trips here and there, my days as a Big Monkey customer more or less ended. But I kept up with what the store was doing, which included an impressive amount of comics activism and outreach to potential new customers.

Anyway, last week, it was announced Big Monkey was going out of business due to the economy. For the rest of September, they'll be open on Fridays and Saturdays only, and everything is marked 50% off. I went there last Friday during lunch, and while it was fairly busy, there was still a great selection available. I have no idea if that's still the case, but it's definitely worth stopping by if the idea of cheap graphic novels appeals to you.

While I was there, though, I witnessed a customer meltdown the likes of which I'd never seen before, even back when I was working retail.

As I walked into the store, I was almost plowed over by this woman who was pacing around, clutching a handful of comics, and angrily jabbering away on her cell phone. I just assumed something had come up at work or home that she was dealing with, and didn't think too much of it. She also had a British accent, which made the whole thing even stranger. After a few minutes of this, during which pretty much everyone in the store had shot her an annoyed look at one point or another, she put the phone away, and stepped up to the counter, cutting right in front of a guy waiting to pay for his stuff. It's then that I realized she wasn't pissed at the person she was speaking to on the phone, but had been venting about some perceived slight by the store.

She started going off on what can only be described as a crazed rant about how she didn't get all of her books (for the uninitiated, comic book stores often offer subscriptions to regular customers, which I'm assuming is what she was referring to), and how her entire Friday night was now ruined. The clerk calmly tried to reason with her, explaining that the store was going out of business and that there was no new inventory coming in, and that he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do. This answer didn't satisfy her, and she again demanded her comics. Her voice was getting louder and angrier, and it seemed like she was really about to completely lose it.

The clerk, who had obviously dealt with her before and was being far more patient than I would have in his place, calmly told her that she needed to leave. (By now, it was evident that the woman wasn't simply being stubborn and irrational, but actually had some mental problems. I have no idea how the store's employees put up with her as long as they did.) She refused. Like speaking to a slow child, he repeated himself that she needed...to leave...the store, but she kept trying to talk over him.

Finally, he just flat-out told her: "Get the hell out."

She was stunned. Apparently, no one had ever spoken to her like that before. Realizing she wasn't going to get the comics she was missing, she asked about the ones she already had. He told her to just take them and leave. As if to prove a point, she insisted on paying for them. Exasperated with the whole conversation by then, he said to give him $5 and he'd call it even. She did, and hands shaking, she quickly left the store, at which point the clerk let out a frustrated I-Hate-People scream, that you can really only understand if you've worked retail. Then he sighed, shook it off, and rang the next customer up.

When I was getting on the Metro to go back to work, I saw her on the platform. If you spend any time in comic book stores or at conventions or on message boards, you encounter people like this now and then. People who, for whatever reason, have absolutely nothing in their lives except for comic books. Of course, other subcultures, from football fans to soap opera viewers, have their share of nutjobs as well. But for whatever reason, with comic book fans, it somehow seems more pronounced. It's sad. But there's really nothing you can do for these people, other than feel sorry for them, exercise as much patience as you reasonably can, and think, "There but for the grace of God."

In any case, two lessons to take away from this:

1) D.C. has two fantastic comic book stores left. Support Big Planet and Fantom instead of buying your graphic novels at Borders or Amazon. And if you've never been to a comic book store before, go in. Ask for suggestions. (Hell, if you want, ask me for suggestions: dcublog@gmail.com. I guarantee I can match you up with something based on your taste in books, movies, or TV shows.)

2) British people have a crazy gene and need to be watched closely. If one of them even looks at you funny, don't hesitate to kill him. Or her. Otherwise, you're just putting your own life at risk.

Teabaggers love their signs

The 9/12 protest wasn't quite as goofy as the previous Republican protests from earlier this year, but there was still plenty of wingnut-watching fun to be had in D.C. today.

"Stay classy, Republicans!" take one.

I'm totally in favor of the Democratic Party changing its name to "Deathocrats." Frankly, Congressional Democrats tend to be pussies when it comes to making the tough decisions, and I think they might find it easier to stay strong if they had a cool, kick-ass name like Deathocrats.

I hate to pick on a kid, but...what the hell?

If you take out "Republican" I guess it's a somewhat coherent sign, but as it is, it makes no sense. Also, on one of his other signs, he had abortion spelled "aborshion." Yeah, conservatives, keep taking your kids out of school.

Speaking of which, maybe Obama should be indoctrinating school kids. Better him than some of these parents.

"Stay classy, Republicans!" take two.

You know, you guys living in these states that are constantly threatening to secede...I don't think you want to test how much we really want to keep you.

Yeah, I'm looking at you right in the fucking eye, Texas. I lived there for three years. You're a nice place. But aside from the the city of Austin, the San Antonio River Walk, and the Houston Rockets, I can't think of any compelling reason why we need you.

And if you do secede, I don't want to hear a word when the NFL moves the Cowboys to Los Angeles or when the Mexican drug cartels invade and take over your new country. We won't care.

Hard to believe that just a year ago, Republicans loved liked kinda, sorta tolerated John McCain. Today, when one of the speakers on stage brought up his name, the crowd booed, and there were signs like this.

Barack Obama didn't beat you, Senator McCain. The wackos in your own party did.

"Stay classy, Republicans!" take three.

Hey, remember when Republicans were all hot to impeach Clinton? But how later, they said any calls to impeach Bush were crazy, if not outright treasonous? I guess that kind of talk is okay again. I'm starting to see a pattern.

And how can someone be so angry while wearing Dockers shorts?

I saw several variations of this sign at the rally. Do what we say or: "We'll vote you out!", "You're fired!", "You will be replaced!", etc.

I don't understand why so many teabaggers seemed to think they were making some sort of bold statement with these. I mean...yes, you idiots. If you don't like what your congressman or senator is doing, vote against them! That's how democracy works! Not throwing temper tantrums on the steps of the Capitol.

As this woman--one of their own, mind you--was being taken away on a stretcher to an ambulance, someone nearby said, "If we had Obamacare, she'd still be lying on the sidewalk!" to much laughter.

"Stay classy, Republicans!" take four.

Someone was handing these out. I'm not going to lie. I laughed. Thank God at least one of these people had some creativity.

"Stay classy, Republicans!" take...oh, what's the point?

Panel of the Week

From Titans #17:

Week One NFL Picks

Tennessee at Pittsburgh (-7): Tennessee

Jacksonville at Indianapolis (-7): Indianapolis

Detroit at New Orleans (-13): New Orleans

Philadelphia at Carolina (+2): Philadelphia

Minnesota at Cleveland (+4): Minnesota

New York Jets at Houston (-4): Houston

Kansas City at Baltimore (-12.5): Baltimore

Denver at Cincinnati (-4): Denver

Miami at Atlanta (-4): Miami

Dallas at Tampa Bay (+6): Dallas

Washington at New York Giants (-6.5): Washington

San Francisco at Arizona (-6.5): Arizona

St. Louis at Seattle (-9): St. Louis

Chicago at Green Bay (-4): Green Bay

Buffalo at New England (-10.5): New England

San Diego at Oakland (+9.5): Oakland

Airport '09

Things I learned while traveling this week:

1) Even though 9/11 now seems like a distant memory, when the gate attendant at National casually announces that a group of TSA agents are going to conduct random pat-downs and searches of select passengers boarding the plane, people immediately regress to a 9/12-mindset, and start glancing around, trying to figure out who the terrorist is.

2) America isn't ready for all-male flight attendant crews.

3) Owning a kiosk or newsstand in a small regional airport is an easy way to make a fortune. Two Excedrin and a Dr. Pepper cost me $8.

4) Chinese food in an airport food court always seems like a good idea until you're actually eating it.

5) If I had unlimited money and unlimited space, I'd be shopping the fuck out of the SkyMall catalog. You would, too. Anyone who says they wouldn't want a remote controlled water cannon ($59.95), a chilled shot machine ($149.95), or a statue of a zombie that appears to be clawing its way up out of their garden ($89.95), is lying through their teeth.

6) Jennifer Aniston needs to stop only dating celebrities. The woman next to me was reading US or People or something, and I was getting bored with the David Baldacci novel I had, so my eyes kept drifting over. Thus, I learned all about Aniston's train wreck of a love life.

Jen: I know that after Brad Pitt, every guy is going to seem like a huge a step down. But you're not having any luck with the John Mayers and Bradley Coopers of the world, because as soon as they've earned their membership in the I Banged Jennifer Aniston Club, they move on, and leave you looking confused and somewhat pathetic. Find yourself, like, a nice veterinarian or something. You're still hot and only 40. You really want to wait until you're 50 and not-so-hot before realizing that rich, famous, younger guys just aren't that into you? I mean, you were in a movie with practically that title. How do you not get this?

7) Always get the window seat flying out of D.C.

Weekend Beer-Off! U.S.A. vs. Spain

Beers
Brand/Brewery

Dogfish Head Raison D'être--Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Alhambra Especial--Cervezas Alhambra, S.L.

Dogfish Head Raison D'être: According to the label, this beer is "A deep mahogany ale brewed with Belgian beet sugars, green raisins & a sense of purpose." Usually, when a beer has that much description, I suspect it's overcompensating for a lack of quality. And raisins? I mean, technically, I guess you can add anything to beer, and it's still beer. But this did not make me feel especially encouraged. I won't even mention the beets.

But it's actually great stuff. Somewhat sweet, it--and I apologize for sounding like a voice-over in a beer commercial--tastes great and goes down smooth. I can see how the sweetness might be a turn-off to people who like their beer hoppy, but I really dug it, and plan on drinking as much of this as humanly possible.

Taste: A
Label: C+
Appearance: B+
Overall: A-

Alhambra Especial: It's...drinkable?

I don't know. This is a fairly unremarkable beer in every way, that comes down right on the line between good and not-good, albeit slightly more on the not-good side. Not too sweet, not too bitter, not especially overpowering. It simply exists. In fact, it's so unremarkable, I'm having a hard time coming up with anything to write about it.

If you happen to be at a bar or restaurant in Spain, it'll get the job done. But then again, if you happen to be in Spain, I would hope you'd act like the stereotypical ugly American and turn your nose up at all the local offerings and demand a Budweiser. Because that's how we roll.

Taste: C-
Label: C-
Appearance: B-
Overall: C-

Winner: U.S.A.!

Panel of the Week

From Marvel Zombies Return #1:

Guest Blogger Dan Snyder

Sigh. Okay, let's get all this out of the way.

1) Yes, I'm an evil fuck.

2) Yes, the Redskins have been selling tickets to ticket brokers instead of our fans.

3) Yes, the Redskins have been suing fans who can't afford the payments on their season tickets, often bankrupting them.

4) Yes, I eat the meat of babies. I...damn it. That one hasn't come out yet, has it? Oh, what does it matter? I could just delete it, but why bother? This can't really come as a surprise, can it? Besides, frankly, I want it out there. I'm a little proud of it. A wise man once said, "It takes a tough guy to eat a baby." Don't ask me which one. There are lots of wise men you've never heard of.

Let's run these points down one by one.

1) There are two kinds of people in the world: Evil fucks and poor people. When I was six years old, and my best friend Tim Mahoney bet me a quarter that I wouldn't drown a kitten, I decided to be an evil fuck. You decided to be a poor person. We both made our choices, and we both have to live with them. And I don't want to brag or anything, but one of us made the right choice, and one of us is you.

2) It used to be that the average football fan who came to the games week in and week out, were mostly blue collar types. The so-called "American working man." You know, the kind of people I tell my kids scary stories about. "Study hard or one day, you'll have to join a union!"

Then a funny thing happened. The NFL got really, really popular, and my fellow owners and I decided to price most of our seats out of the American working man's price range. Our dream was, no longer would the upper-class/upper-middle class fan come to a game and be forced to sit next to some mechanic or high school teacher and have to worry about horrible smells or having their wallet stolen or whatever. We envisioned thousands upon thousands of doctors and lawyers and bankers filling our stadiums, each one decked out in as much team gear and buying as much food and drinks as their lucrative professions allowed them to purchase.

But the doctors and lawyers and bankers in the Washington area apparently didn't get the memo, so we were left with a bunch of empty seats. And it was either come clean that our supposed "150,000 person waiting list" is really more like 1,500 people (supposedly, Jack Kent Cooke got wasted one night and started exaggerating about how popular the team was to some female reporter he was trying to fuck, and that's how that rumor got started) or find some other way to get rid of the tickets. Hence the ticket brokers.

And yeah, it was kind of embarrassing when thousands of Steelers fans showed up for the game last year. A nationally televised game, no less. But you know what the difference is between a Pittsburgh dollar and a Washington dollar? There isn't one. So ultimately, I was fine with it.

3) Suppose you and I signed a contract, where I agreed not to hit you with a baseball bat. Then, one day, I came up and hit you with a baseball bat. And you said, "Ow! Hey, stop it! We had a deal!" But I just kept hitting you with the baseball bat until you were all bloody, and maybe one of your eyeballs had come out of its socket. You'd be mad, right? So now you understand how I felt when I was told that some of our supposed "fans" were trying to back out of their contractual obligations.

Look, I know the economy is in bad shape. In the past week, I've spoken to my good friends Tom Cruise and Jerry Jones about how tough things are. Tom only has a handful of $20 million film offers on the table. Jerry's been forced to lower the price for a pizza at his new stadium to only $60. We get it. But contracts were signed. Deals were made. I mean, I don't want to get hit in the head with that proverbial baseball bat any more than you do, you know?

Now, you might be thinking, "Wait, instead of suing them, couldn't you release the fans from their contracts and simply sell their seats to someone else?" Yes. And sometimes, we did just that in addition to suing them. Wait, what was my point again? Never mind.

4) Babies are delicious. I'm sorry. They just are. You eat veal, don't you? Hypocrite.

Marvel & Mickey

It's been really fun watching the Internet's reaction to Disney's surprise purchase of Marvel Comics yesterday. Predictably, editor-in-chief Joe Quesada thinks it's great. Industry pros seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude. The fanboys either don't know what to think, or are going apeshit, fearful that before too long, Spider-Man will be forced into crossovers with Mickey Mouse, and Howard the Duck will be killed off, given that Disney once threatened to sue Marvel over the character.

I come into this as neither a regular reader of Marvel Comics, nor a professional working in the comic book industry, nor a comic book store owner, nor someone with an MBA, nor, frankly, anything that would give my analysis any sort of legitimacy. But here's how I see it:

The Comics

Best Case Scenario: The conventional wisdom seems to be that Disney won't mess around with the comic books, simply because it couldn't give a shit about them. Disney is far more interested in the Marvel characters for film and licensing deals. That said, it seems inevitable that a few content changes are going to occur. If that means Disney says Marvel can't publish superhero comics with the word "fuck" in them, or Mark Millar's latest piece of crap creator-owned comic, I have no problem with that.

Worst Case Scenario: I guess the worst worst case scenario would be that Disney decides comics are unprofitable and shuts down the entire publication side of the company. But that seems unlikely. However, if Disney decides that the comic books affect how their newly acquired trademarks are seen, it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that the company might suddenly become interested.

I mean, forget the really out-there stuff, I just wonder whether even something like Marvel Zombies would get published under the new regime.

Disney Exec: "Hi, Joe. How's it going? Say, what's this Marvel Zombies thing I'm hearing about?"

Joe Quesada: "Well, it's this new mini-series we're doing. It's awesome. Basically, it's a spin-off of an Ultimate Fantastic Four storyline where on this alternate Earth, all the superheroes have been turned into evil, flesh-eating zombies. And their skin is decaying and their lips have been chewed off, so you can see all their teeth. Really gruesome stuff."

Disney Exec: "Uh..."

Joe Quesada: "So, like, Spider-Man ate Mary Jane and Aunt May. And Captain America gets the top of his head cut off, and his brains are hanging out. And since the superheroes have eaten everyone on the planet, now they're trying to find a new source of food."

Disney Exec: "Wait, I'm sorry, we might have a bad connection. Did you just say that Spider-Man eats Aunt May? That old woman that's in the movies? And Kirsten Dunst, too?"

Joe Quesada: "Yeah, it's awesome. And Iron Man gets the lower part of his body blown off. But because he's a zombie, he survives, and it's just a head and a torso flying around."

Disney Exec: "Jesus Christ, Joe! We have Iron Man 2 coming out next year! You can't just cut Iron Man in half! And Spider-Man 4 was just announced, and no one wants to see Tobey Maguire eat Kirsten Dunst."

Joe Quesada: "Heh."

Disney Exec: "What?"

Joe Quesada: "Oh, sorry, I thought you were making an off-color joke. No, look, it's cool. Everything takes place in an alternate universe. So it's not our Captain America. It's Colonel America. See what I mean? No? Okay, look, the Marvel Earth is Earth 616, while the Zombie Earth is--"

Disney Exec: "I don't care. It's not happening. Consider it scrapped. Now, tell me about these MAX comics you guys publish..."


The Comic Book Stores

Best Case Scenario: The Disney hype machines gets going, and aggressively advertises the characters. Not just for toys and movies and video games, but--wild concept--the comic books the toys and movies and video games are based on.

Worst Case Scenario: Disney starts cutting deals with big box stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy to carry comics, possibly at a reduced price, leaving comic book store owners out in the cold. Or they start canceling anything that isn't a top-seller, reducing the Marvel Universe to a handful of X-Men and Spider-Man books. There's also some question as to whether or not Disney will try and self-distribute Marvel's comics, which was disastrous when Marvel tried it a while back.


The Movies

Best Case Scenario: Some of the biggest characters--Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four--have been licensed out to other studios, so until Disney can get those rights back, there isn't a lot the company can do one way or the other. But presumably, once Disney does get the rights to all the Marvel characters, it can do what, in theory, Warner Brothers and DC Comics have never been able to do: Launch a real, honest to God, cinematic universe of comic book characters. A lot of geeks are giddy at the idea of a Pixar/Marvel collaboration. I always prefer live-action adaptations, but it would be interesting to see.

Worst Case Scenario: Yesterday on Attack of the Show, the film expert they brought on theorized that Marvel could start screwing around with the current plan of launching individual film franchises (Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, etc.), leading up to an Avengers film. I would hope they wouldn't be that stupid, but you never know.


The Sheer Nauseousness Of It All

Best Case Scenario: We won't constantly be subjected to images like this one from today's USA Today:

Worst Case Scenario: Kids in a Malaysian sweatshop are already working on the T-shirts.