Sorry, but there's profit to be had

I was in sixth or seventh grade when Disney announced that they were going to build a new theme park in Haymarket, just a short drive away from D.C. and where I lived in Fairfax County.

Like I'm sure many kids around here were, I was absolutely exuberant upon hearing this. By that point, I'd already been to Disney World (still the gold standard, even though as I discovered a few years ago, not nearly as much fun when you're an adult. That time, my favorite ride was the buffet at a Norwegian restaurant in Epcot), Disneyland (pretty good, but meh, compared to Disney World), and Tokyo Disneyland (really meh, but at least there were no lines). So I loved the idea of having a Disneyland close by that I could go to without having to trek to the far corners of the earth. Orlando, Anaheim and Tokyo, being the far corners of the earth, for the purposes of this blog post.

But then I and all those other kids got the bad news. We wouldn't be getting a Disneyland. We'd be getting something called "Disney's America." There'd be rides, but its primary function was going to be to educate visitors about American history, which Disney's always had some weird fascination with. I'm sure it would have actually been a lot of fun, but at the time, I stopped listening once I heard the word "education."

In the end, it didn't happen. There were the usual NIMBY objections, and people were also upset that Disney would be decimating hundreds of acres of land around Civil War battlefields to build this thing. (My class once took a field trip to Manassas. Per our teacher's instructions, we spent a good part of the day futilely looking for arrowheads. A theme park would have been a vast improvement.) So eventually, Disney gave up and dropped the whole thing.

I'd mostly forgotten about it until someone brought it up recently. So I checked it out on Wikipedia. I had no idea the plans were so detailed, but here's what the park would have included:

Crossroads USA - A Civil War-era village that would serve as the hub of Disney's America. Guests would enter under an 1840s train trestle, which featured antique steam trains that circled the park.

That sounds cool. Who doesn't like trains? In the very least, this seems like a better entrance than the old Main Street U.S.A. in Disney World, where one of the very first things you would run into was an arcade. If I were a parent and had just dropped $50 per ticket to bring my kids to Disney World, I'd be fucking furious if that wanted to stop and play video games.

Native America - A recreation of a Native American village that would have reflected the tribes that were known in that part of the country. Guests would have also enjoyed interactive experiences, exhibits and arts and crafts, as well as a white water river raft ride that travelled throughout the area, based on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Can you really call them "arts and crafts" if they're made in Taiwan? I also wonder how many people would have passed through this area, obliviously wearing their Redskins gear.

Civil War Fort - A Civil War fort would have plunged guests into a more turbulent time of American history, and adjacent to it, a replica battlefield where Civil War re-enactments and water battles between the Monitor and the Merrimac would have once again been fought.

Death by bayonet, festering wounds, and battlefield amputations don't seem especially Disney-esque, so these battles probably would have been more along the lines of the kind of re-enactments you see at county fairs around here, where people just put on Civil War uniforms and sit around a campfire making oatmeal. The water battles probably would have been great, though. You know that part in Pirates of the Caribbean, where the two ships are firing cannons at each other? That's kind of what I'm picturing. Only more educational and less fun.

We The People - Moving into the 20th century, a replica of the Ellis Island building, which acted as the gateway to America for many immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Guests would have lived the "immigrant experience" through music, ethnic foods and a live show presentation.

I'm guessing Disney's "immigrant experience" would have been considerably more pleasant than immigrants' "immigrant experience." For the sake of accuracy, though, maybe Disney doctors could have examined visitors for certain diseases and expelled them from the park if they felt they were a contagion risk. Also, it goes without saying that any Irish would have been harassed by park security, and not allowed in many of the restaurants.

State Fair - An area that was going to show how even during the Great Depression in the 1930s, Americans knew how to entertain themselves. With folk art exhibits and a live show on baseball, guests could also have enjoyed classic wooden thrill rides reminiscent of Coney Island.

This area of the park probably would have horrified anyone who had actually lived through the Great Depression. But between the baseball show and the rides, I'm sure I would have dug it. Disney would have achieved accuracy in one at least one regard, though: The mark-up on Great Depression food prices and Disney food prices, undoubtedly would have been really similar.

Family Farm - A recreation of an authentic farm where guests could have had the opportunity to see different types of farm industries related to food production in addition to some hands-on experiences like milking cows and learning what homemade ice cream tasted like.

Pass. Unless there was a Disney slaughterhouse you could walk through.

President's Square - A celebration of the birth of democracy and those who fought to preserve it. The Hall of Presidents from Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World would have been moved to this section of Disney's America.

Ugh. Anyone who's ever had to endure the Hall of Presidents at Disney World knows just how dull and generally shitty it is. I'm not saying it wouldn't have fit in perfectly with the motif of Disney's America, but I'm not wild about the Magic Kingdom's plan to dump their garbage on us.

Enterprise - A mock factory town, it would have highlighted American ingenuity where guests could have ridden a major roller coaster attraction called the "Industrial Revolution", traveling through a 19th century landscape with heavy industry and blast furnaces. And, on either side of the coaster would have been exhibits of famous American technology that defined the American industry in the past, and new developments that would have defined industries in the future.

This one sounds really good. I mean, I had no idea 19th century factory towns were so cool, but I guess I'll take Disney's word for it.

Victory Field - Guests would have experienced what America's soldiers faced in the defense of freedom during the world wars. It would have been themed to resemble an air field with a series of hangars containing attractions based on America's military fight using virtual reality technology. The air field would have also served as an exhibit area of planes from different periods, as well as a place for major flying exhibitions. Soarin' from Epcot and Disney's California Adventure was originally proposed for this area.

I know it's not what Disney was planning here, but after reading the "...experienced what America's soldiers faced in the defense of freedom during the world wars" bit, I immediately thought of a theme park ride version of the opening of Saving Private Ryan, and how awesome that would be. Maybe a bit tasteless. But awesome. I sort of cringe to think what early 90s virtual reality technology would have been like. Remember those mall kiosks where you could pay $10 to put on a big helmet for a few minutes, and shoot at badly rendered versions of other players? Or the Virtual Boy? Probably a lot like that, leaving people unsatisfied and with headaches.

Ultimately, even without "real" Disney rides, I'm sorry this never happened. Six Flags is awful, and King's Dominion and Busch Gardens are too far away to make the trip worth it. It would have been nice to have had a closer alternative. Besides, I'm sure that once Disney realized how much the park's reputation for being "educational" was costing it, they would have jazzed the place up a bit. We'd probably even have that Saving Private Ryan ride I wished for.

Wonder Woman: Now with pants!

If you're going to read superhero comics without your brain exploding, there are certain things you have to just accept without question. Like, how no one ever notices that Clark Kent looks exactly like Superman, if Superman put on glasses. Or that the Batmobile never gets stuck in traffic. Or that superheroines hate wearing pants. Or, really, clothes in general.

If you were to start questioning that last one, you'd probably realize that there's absolutely no good reason for a woman to fight crime in a swimsuit. None. Whatsoever. And, in fact, a million reasons not to. Basic common sense and safety concerns aside, you have to figure that in real life, it wouldn't be an especially flattering look. I think Keith Giffen's classic Justice League run is the only comic book to ever tackle the issue of superheroine cellulite, when Guy Gardner suggested to Ice that if she was going to wear such a revealing costume, she should start jogging to avoid "thigh cheese." It was a watershed moment.

(If that strikes you as a tad sexist, A) Welcome to the comic book industry, and B) A couple of years later, Giffen followed that up with a story where Blue Beetle really let himself go and wasn't able to fit into his costume. So at least Giffen was an equal opportunity offender.)

Anyway, DC Comics has announced that in Wonder Woman #600, out tomorrow, Wonder Woman is getting a new costume. Specifically...pants.

I generally hate it when comic books mess around with classic costumes to this degree. It just seems sacrilegious, somehow. Hell, I'm still annoyed about that period in the 90s when Superman had shoulder-length hair. Fucking hippie.

But honestly? I really dig the new costume. It's a fantastic design by Jim Lee. Which is actually a little surprising, considering that as insanely talented as he is, he hasn't always shown the best judgment in this regard. I haven't been this jazzed about an iconic superhero costume being updated since...well, since DC finally gave Robin pants, I guess.

The reason for this change is being credited to the new storyline kicking off tomorrow, but I'm guessing there's another motivation. Warner Brothers is again trying to make a Wonder Woman movie, and it'll be hard enough to get a decent actress to star in it without also having to convince her that running around in a swimsuit would be good for her career. I mean, Lynda Carter more than pulled the look off, but it's not like she went from Wonder Woman to an Academy Award, either. So now, the filmmakers can use this costume and not have geeks lose their shit that they took liberties with the comic. I mean, don't get me wrong, they'll still lose their shit. But because this is now canon, they'll grudgingly accept it. Probably. Maybe.

Of course, there's no way this change isn't temporary. Wonder Woman's costume is too iconic--and more importantly, featured on too much merchandise--for DC to just toss it away. Plus, you can never underestimate fanboy outrage. If a boycott of the series hasn't already started, I'd be shocked. Sooner or later, the old look will make a comeback.

But until then, Wonder Woman can fight crime and finally not have to worry about chaffing. I'm not sure if that counts as feminism or not, but with comic books, that's about as close as it gets.

Dave Weigel and the dangers of Fight Club

I liked Dave Weigel's blog. All things being equal, I don't think the Washington Post should have fired him. I mean, isn't everyone in America pretty much agreed that Matt Drudge should self-immolate? What, we're just not supposed to say it out loud?

But honestly, given what happened as a direct result of Weigel's firing, I have a hard time not seeing the whole thing as a net positive.

This mess stemmed from Weigel's comments on JournoList, an exclusive listserv for left-leaning journalists that on Friday was shut down by its founder. Now, I'm a liberal. I tend to agree with and gravitate towards liberal commentators. But JournoList bothered the hell out of me, and I'm glad it's dead.

Journalists, even those who tilt towards the same end of the political spectrum, are supposed to be competitors. Reporters are supposed to go after and do a better job covering the same stories than their fellow reporters, whether it's exposing Watergate or exposing that Albert Haynesworth's a prick. Pundits, which unfortunately seem to outnumber reporters these days, are supposed to try and...well, out-pundit the other guy, I guess. In any profession, the line between work relationships and personal relationships gets blurred, and I'm well aware that journalists have been friendly with each other long before email lists existed. But there's something to be said for their not being so friendly in the context of a work-related endeavor like this, either.

Ostensibly, JournoList existed to give liberal journalists a safe harbor to discuss issues and current events with each other. Wouldn't it be great if we, the unwashed masses, could see such intelligent and educated people debating one another, and make up our own minds as to who was correct? Well, according to JournoList founder Ezra Klein, no, absolutely not: "Taking the conversation out of the public eye made us less defensive, less interested in scoring points."

That's about as bullshit a rationalization as I've ever heard. Commentators are supposed to "score points." That's what they're paid to do. Or if you want to phrase it in a slightly less aggressive way, commentators are supposed to make the case as to why they're right and other commentators with different viewpoints are wrong.

I see bloggers like Klein, Matt Yglesias, Andrew Sullivan, etc., openly disagreeing with and sniping at other bloggers all the time. Whether it's due to political differences, personal animosity, or indeed, trying to "score points," I doubt there's been a day in years where one prominent blogger hasn't publicly disagreed with something another prominent blogger has written. The only question is whether that disagreement is phrased in a respectful or contemptuous manner.

But here's the thing: You typically only see it between conservative and liberal bloggers. Sure, some of it's petty dick measuring. But it's also resulted in some interesting exchanges. By taking such liberal-on-liberal debates out of the public discourse, the members of JournoList made a conscious decision to hide their disagreements and thought processes from the very people who they're supposed to be writing for. And while that made their jobs a hell of a lot easier, it certainly didn't help the public.

I'm sure being a professional blogger is a cushy gig. Especially if you're one of the really lucky ones, where your living room is your office and you get to wear pajamas all day. But when you're discussing actual issues, as opposed to celebrity gossip or whatever, you actually are playing a role in the political process. It's not supposed to be just a fun intellectual exercise for shits and giggles and a paycheck. Should Americans care what Klein, Yglesias, Sullivan, etc. think when they're making up their minds about certain issues? I dunno. But they do.

From the above-cited Politico article:

“It’s sort of a chance to float ideas and kind of toss them around, back and forth, and determine if they have any value,” said New Republic associate editor Eve Fairbanks, “and get people’s input on them before you put them on a blog.”

As someone who isn't a journalist--except, I guess, because of this blog, in the absolute loosest sense of the word--I depend on journalists to give me both unbiased reporting and their honest opinion. It does me no good to have hundreds of the nation's top journalists bouncing ideas off each other instead of me. It does me no good for hundreds of the nation's top journalists to fall into some sort of group think. It does me no good for hundreds of the nation's top journalists to be having debates behind closed doors instead where I can see them. Klein calls it scoring points. I call it accountability. If you're a paid blogger and you post something stupid, you should get called out on it, not talked out of posting it in the first place by your fellow JournoListers. Worse, if the group decides one such "bounced idea" is bad, and the group happens to be wrong, that means a good idea didn't make it through.

From The Daily Caller:

After Sarah Palin claimed Obama’s health care legislation included “death panels” that would ration health care, for instance, the Huffington Post reported that many Americans believed the claim was true. Weigel suggested that reporting on the subject might be counter-productive to liberal policy aims. The Huffington Post, Weigel pointed out, ran “a picture of Sarah Palin, linking to a poll that suggests 45 percent of Americans believe her death panel lie. But as long as the top liberal-leaning news site talks about it every single hour of every day, I’m sure that number will go down.”

“Let’s move the fuck on already,” Weigel wrote.

And:

After Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat, threatening to kill the health care legislation by his presence, Weigel stressed how important it was for reporters to highlight what a terrible candidate his opponent Martha Coakley had been.

“I think pointing out Coakley’s awfulness is vital, because it’s 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats,” Weigel wrote.

So, is coordinating coverage of stories with other reporters to help a political party, "floating ideas" or "getting input"? I can't tell. Either way, if the same people had found out that conservative journalists were doing this same thing during the Bush years in order to figure out how best to propagandize the war, I'm guessing they would have lost their shit, and rightly so.

From Tommy Christopher at Mediaite:

Given the fact that Journolist is (was) leakier than a summer camper with his hand in a bowl of warm water, it’s tempting to say that Dave Weigel is to blame for the Dave Weigel kerfuffle. Then again, you don’t stop going to bars just because one idiot can’t hold his liquor. No, Weigel shouldn’t be blamed for thinking that his private emails would remain private.

You know, it is tempting to say that Dave Weigel is to blame for the Dave Weigel kerfuffle. Why? Because Dave Weigel is to blame for the Dave Weigel kerfuffle.

I'm not sure of the exact figure, but JournoList supposedly had a membership somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 people. That's really stretching the definition of "private." Especially since it seems highly unlikely that everyone on the list had the same professional status or were equally known among their fellow members. Did Klein personally vet every single person who wanted to join? Were there background checks? Loyalty oaths? How many people can an email go out to before it's no longer considered private? 500? A thousand? Whatever Tommy Christopher decides it is? If Sarah Palin wrote something inflammatory in an email to 400 people, would the journalists now screaming about invasion of privacy refuse to publish her comments because they were "private"?

And hey, speaking of private, let's say for a moment that journalists do need a place where they can have off-the-record conversations with each other. What was the purpose of keeping the names of JournoList members secret? What possible good did that do, other than add a "You do not talk about Fight Club" mystique to the whole thing?

Weigel's a great writer who won't be out of work for long, given that a lot of the people who seem to be outraged over what happened to him are also in a position to hire him. (Although some of the reactions from his fellow bloggers were just embarrassing temper tantrums, and probably gives more credence to the idea that maybe these guys shouldn't be quite so chummy.) Still, it sucks he got fired. I imagine working for the Washington Post is as close to a dream job as it gets.

JournoList will probably live on in some form, even if it's just occasional email chains between a far more select group of journalists. But it won't be nearly as formal or as all-encompassing, which seems like a pretty significant victory for fans of transparency in journalism. Sure, a lot of reporters have lost their little clubhouse, and suddenly seem a lot more paranoid about where their colleagues' loyalties lie. But you know what? Fuck 'em. It's for the best.

Panel of the Week

From Superman #700:

Jonah Hex

In 1985, DC Comics cancelled Jonah Hex, one of the last--if not the last--Western comic books that was still being published by that point. Considering that DC really no longer had need for a 19th century gunfighter, by all rights, Jonah Hex should have faded into the ether along with the company's other Old West characters like Bat Lash, Cinnamon, Scalphunter, etc., until there was a story where Superman time-traveled into the past and they ran into each other or something.

But DC had another idea. Westerns may have faded in popularity in this country by the 80s, but sci-fi was huge. So DC decided to take Jonah Hex and send him into a post-apocalyptic future that looked an awful like The Road Warrior.

From a "gut-wrenching" final issue to a "gut-searing" first issue. More adjectives should be preceded with the word "gut." Anyway, all things being equal, it was an incredibly undignified way for a classic comic book character to be treated, and it wasn't long before Hex was sent back to the Old West, and even though it took a while, is once again starring in his own series.

But that was nothing compared to this indignity:

If you'd told me two days ago that there was a movie that couldn't be at least partially redeemed by Megan Fox's thighs, I would have called you a damn liar. But it's true. They do provide the most thrilling parts of the film, but even the biggest Megan Fox stalker would have been hard-pressed to sit through the rest of it.

Here's a list of all the critically-panned comic book movies that are better than Jonah Hex: Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. Steel. Spider-Man 3. Catwoman. Daredevil. Ghost Rider. Batman & Robin. Yep. You heard me. Jonah Hex is worse than Batman & Robin. That's not a statement anyone should make lightly, but there it is.

Like most comic book films made by filmmakers who think they're smarter than people who create comic books, Jonah Hex fails primarily because of the arbitrary and completely unnecessary changes made to the character. In the comic, angry Indians, not John Malkovich, give Hex his facial scar. But I guess that would have triggered a protest or two, so it had to go. Also, Hex has no magic powers. If he touches a dead body? It doesn't suddenly come back to life. His horse doesn't have saddle-mounted gatling guns. He doesn't have a Q-like arms maker who gives him pistols that shoot sticks of dynamite. He's never had to save Washington from glowing mini-nuke balls.

No, he generally just goes around, being a bad-ass gunfighter with a dark sense of humor. And geez, who'd want to see a movie like that?

The animated bit in the beginning (I'll bet the director thought he was throwing a bone to comic book readers with that) was awful. I'm not going to say that a character's origin isn't usually the dullest part of any comic book film, but you can't just gloss over it entirely by cramming as much exposition into thirty seconds as possible. The stylistic dream sequences that appear throughout the film were even worse. If we're seeing Hex fight Malkovich in "real life," why are we also watching him fight Malkovich in his dream sequence? Usually, dream sequences like that are supposed to serve as some sort of metaphor. But a dream fight scene intercut with another fight scene isn't a metaphor, it's just repetitive.

On paper, the cast looks great. On film, not so much. Josh Brolin might have been an okay Hex with a better script, but here, he always seemed half-asleep. Megan Fox is barely in the film, which, amazingly, is probably a good thing. You can only have so many scenes of her slowly putting her stockings on. John Malkovich must have gambling debts that needed to be paid off, because about this time two years ago, the man was in a Coen Brothers film. Will Arnett can't do drama. I mean, maybe he can. But I think his comedic work has ruined him for any sort of serious role, because I kept waiting for him to be funny and got more and more annoyed when he wasn't. And Wes Bently...I actually had to go to the IMDB to verify that was, in fact, Wes Bently, because I didn't believe it. The guy was in American Beauty. What happened to him? He's in two really brief scenes here, and in both of them, he gets beat up by Malkovich. It didn't feel like a cameo, either. This is probably a role he had to audition for. Needless to say, it's a huge step down from even playing the bad guy in Ghost Rider.

The stupidest sequence comes when it's time for the part that's in almost every comic book film, where the hero has been wounded by the bad guys. Hex is riding his horse, half-dead, having been shot a few times. He falls off the horse, and is dragged off-screen by his feet. We suddenly see him surrounded by Indian medicine men, and it was such an abrupt, nonsensical cut, I thought the film had shifted into yet another flashback explaining how he got his powers to speak with the dead. He suddenly wakes up, a crow flies out of his mouth, and in the very next shot, he's seen racing away to stop Malkovich and his secret weapon from blowing up D.C. Then I realized it wasn't a flashback, and in the span of about a minute, the film just waved away all those bullet wounds.

It never ceases to amaze me how, with films based on Marvel characters, the filmmakers usually decide to make the film appeal to comic book readers first, and trust everyone else will show up. Warner Brothers usually takes the opposite approach, catering their films to some hypothetical audience that WB has yet to prove exists, that wants to see a Catwoman who has nothing to do with Catwoman, or Superman as a deadbeat dad, or now, a cowboy with magic powers.

This is a terrible, terrible, terrible film. This whole post in general, and my invoking Batman & Robin in particular, probably gave you that impression, but I want to be absolutely clear. Before seeing Jonah Hex yesterday, I watched When In Rome, an insipid romantic comedy that seemed to have been written by a computer that had been fed a list of romantic comedy cliches, and ordered to incorporate all of them into its script. (Oddly enough, Will Arnett is in that one, too. But at least he's trying to be funny in that one.) As bad as When In Rome is, Jonah Hex makes it look like a Best Picture nominee.

One of my favorite parts of doing this blog is at the end of the year when I do my Best & Worst Of lists, and I sit down to figure out what, among other things, was the absolute worst movie of the year. Jonah Hex has robbed me of even that simple pleasure, as there's absolutely no possibility whatsoever that a worse film will come out in 2010.

In closing, let me just say that this film makes a good argument for the return of McCarthyism, because there are clearly some people in Hollywood who need to be blacklisted. And they can all be found in the closing credits of Jonah Hex.

Panel of the Week

From The Boys #43:

Ten bucks for this Honus Wagner card I found? Sure, why not?

Not long ago, I was taking an extended cab ride with a coworker. We had one of those really chatty cabbies who clearly liked telling total strangers his entire life story. During his autobiography, I just played with my phone, but my coworker would occasionally engage him, because she's polite and probably didn't want the conversation to be completely one-sided and awkward. At one point, the cab driver mentioned that he collected wrestling memorabilia. As it turned out, my coworker's husband collected the exact same thing. Then, apparently noticing that I'd been silent for the last ten minutes, she turned to me and asked if I collected anything.

"Comic books," I said, and the conversation soon turned to something else. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really don't collect comics anymore. I mean, I read comics. I don't throw them away when I'm done with them. But I don't exactly collect them anymore, either.

That didn't used to be the case. It used to be that I would go to one of the small comic book shows out in Tysons Corner or wherever, specifically to try and fill in holes in my collection. The problem is, there was only a certain number of comic book series that I had any interest in--and don't get me wrong, it was a lot, but definitely not unlimited--so there were only so many holes I could fill before my only option would be to start collecting new series just to create new holes.

I decided against that, so as of a few years ago, I'd more or less completed my comic book collection. At least, to the extent I could without devoting a small fortune to it. While I'd love to have a complete run of Batman and Detective Comics, issues that came out before the 1980s tend to be a bit pricey. Issues that came out before the 1960s tend to be really pricey. Plus, it's nice not to have to worry about the condition of things anymore. I don't even want to think about how obsessive I was as a teenager about the differences between "mint" and "near-mint." Now, when I do make a decent investment in a comic book, it's for sentimental reasons, like a favorite Joker story or the first appearance of a favorite character.

This has left a...I really don't want to use the word "void," because that sounds pretty fucking sad. But that's sort of what it is. If you spend years having a collector's mentality and no longer have anything to collect, that creates a void in your life. I mean, if you put too much time, money and effort into it, collecting can become a frightening obsession. But if you put just the right amount, it gives you something to do on a slow weekend or a fun way to get an occasional endorphin high.

So I decided to once again start collecting something. Not with the same fervor that I used to collect comics. More of a casual thing. And there were a few conditions I put on it: 1) It had to be something small. I have enough crap in my apartment without adding additional tonnage to it. 2) It had to be something less geeky than comics. No action figures or anything. 3) It had to be something I found at least semi-interesting. I wasn't going to start collecting stamps or coins just for the sake of collecting. 4) It had to be relatively inexpensive.

I finally settled on baseball cards. They're easy to store, and as with comic books, I like the fact that I can tailor the hobby to suit my particular interests. Rather than try and collect every baseball card out there, I'm just going for two subsets of the baseball card market: Pitchers (since I find that aspect of the game far more interesting than hitting) and Nationals players. There's every possibility I'll get bored and quit one or both of these, but for now I'm enjoying it.

I also decided to learn more about the baseball card collecting industry. And you know what I found? It's ten times more confusing and fucked up than the comic book industry on its worst day.

Suppose you wanted to read a Superman comic. There are about four of them that come out in any given month, but they're all published by DC Comics and they all feature the same character. Now imagine if there were two or three comic book companies publishing Superman comics, each with their own version and each with multiple titles coming out each month. Which one do you get? That's sort of the problem I ran into with baseball cards.

Topps is unquestionably the premiere brand. But there's also Upper Deck. And Panini. And Bowman. But Topps owns Bowman, and releases rookie cards through that company/brand. But I guess they're not technically rookie cards, they're "First Bowman cards." Because Topps also manufactures their own rookie cards. In fact, right now, Topps is doing a limited giveaway of Stephen Strasburg's rookie card. But if you can't get one of those, you can get another version of Topps's Stephen Strasburg rookie card in a few months. How can there be two rookie cards? I dunno.

There are even cards featuring players from when they're in high school. The Bryce Harper card is apparently a hot commodity at the moment.

They also do chrome versions of cards. (This practice, I'm somewhat familiar with, from back when comics would routinely use gimmick covers, including chrome ones.) But hold on! There are also various versions of the chrome cards with different colored borders and refractors. What's a refractor? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what a "SuperFractor" is. But apparently "fractor" is worth a lot or money, as--again using Strasburg as an example--a one-of-a-kind Strasburg SuperFractor card just sold for $17,000. Meanwhile, I'm trying to think of a single comic book that's come out in the past 30 or 40 years that's worth $17,000, and I'm drawing a complete blank.

Topps also releases various types of baseball card. Like, there's one that takes current players and renders the images on their cards as if they had been made back in the 1940s. And then there are "Opening Day" cards, Series 1 and Series 2 cards, etc.

The most mind-boggling, though, is eTopps. This is both the best and worst thing I've ever heard of, and since it seems to somehow make money out of nothing, I have to think there's some way to apply this idea to the U.S. economy and get us out of the recession. Basically, eTopps will release new cards online. (Not even a regular Topps cards. Specially-designed eTopps cards, which seem pretty worthless to me, but whatever.) People bid on them, like an IPO of a stock. Then you own the card, and can do whatever you want with it, from getting it delivered (for a fee) or sell it on eBay (for a fee) or just let Topps hang onto it for you, making your "collection" mostly virtual. Topps sets supply. Topps sets demand. And everyone else provides the revenue streams. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how this works, but I'm convinced this is the greatest con ever created. A perfectly legal and, I guess, mostly ethical con. But still, a con.

So, anyway, I guess I'm a baseball card collector now. A few years from now, after I've picked all the low-hanging fruit, I'll be faced with the decision of whether or not I want to invest money into older, harder-to-find cards. But for now, I'm just enjoying getting back into the collecting game. It's a sickness. But a fun sickness.

Pitying fools

I saw The A-Team over the weekend. It's good. Really good. Like...really good. I mean, if you're into that sort of film. Obviously, if you're a mainly an aficionado of French cinema or something, seeing a tank fall out of an airplane and plummet to the ground while the heroes shoot down drones with the tank's machine gun, probably won't do much for you. But if you can appreciate a good action film, I can pretty much guarantee a good time will be had.

I was surprised I liked it so much because of two things: 1) I thought the first trailer was absolutely godawful, and 2) When you get right down to it, the original A-Team was a terrible, terrible show. In fact, this might be the first time a film adaptation of a TV show is superior to the original in every single way possible.

Here's what I remember about The A-Team from when I was a kid:

-- George Peppard (on the show, anyway; I don't think I've ever seen him in anything else) was the hammiest actor to ever ham it up on-screen. The guy made Shatner look like a Shakespearean-trained thespian. Granted, it's hard to say lines like, "I love it when a plan comes together," with a straight face, usually with a cigar in your mouth, but it's not like Peppard really seemed to make much of an effort. The other actors weren't much better. Mr. T. was...well, Mr. T. He basically just seemed to be playing himself. Dirk Benedict always came off a little too smarmy. Dwight Schultz was good (and indeed, the one actor from the TV show that I thought was maybe better than his movie counterpart), but he never got to do much besides badly-written comic relief.

-- No one ever got killed. I mean, sure, maybe a minor character would die to kick off the plot (i.e., "When her father is murdered, a woman hires the A-Team to help her protect her father's investment in a South African diamond mine. A ruthless South African businessman will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to steal it from her."), but I'm fairly certain that the A-Team, in the five seasons the show was on the air, never actually killed a single person. Which, depending on how you look at it, makes them either the most impressive team of mercenaries in the world or the most boring team of mercenaries in the world. It was the live-action equivalent of the G.I. Joe cartoon, where no one was ever fatally injured and whenever a plane got shot down, you always saw the pilot's parachute open. By way of comparison, in his first five seasons, Jack Bauer killed 139 people all by himself.

-- The basic premise of the show was pretty weak. Four Vietnam vets framed for a crime they didn't commit and on the run from the government, rather than devoting all their efforts to clearing their names, just drove around the country in the most conspicuous van ever made, helping people in trouble. Ostensibly for money, since they were, after all, soldiers of fortune and had no other way of paying for all that gas they must have used, but I don't remember money exchanging hands too often. Going over the list of episodes, it seems as if a great deal of them involved the A-Team helping someone who was either being forced off their land, or whose business was being harassed by a competitor. I honestly can't believe they managed to squeeze five seasons out of that.

-- When I was a little kid, my friends and I would play A-Team during recess. I can't really remember what playing A-Team entailed, although I do remember the teacher yelling at us a couple of times, so I suspect it mainly involved pretending the other kids were forcing someone off their land or whatever, and beating up on them.

Obviously, everyone wanted to be B.A. (Actually, now that I think about it, it's interesting that a bunch of white kids at a mostly all-white school in Texas in the early 80s were constantly fighting over who would get to be the black character. Give Mr. T credit for breaking down racial barriers.) After that, it was a toss-up between Hannibal and Face. Face was cooler, but if you were Hannibal, everyone else--even B.A.--had to do what you said, being that you were the leader and all. Whoever couldn't make a case as to why he should be playing B.A., Face or Hannibal, was stuck being Murdock. That was usually me. It could have been worse, I guess. If we'd had a fifth kid in our little group, I might have been forced to be the reporter chick who occasionally tagged along with them on their missions.

Anyway, go see The A-Team. I don't say this very often, but this is one of those rare instances where the 21st century has taken something from the glorious decade that was the 80s and somehow found a way to make it better.

Panel of the Week

From Nemesis #2:

ESPN Zone

Disclaimer first: Obviously, it's never good when lots of people lose their jobs. Especially in a bad economy. So from that standpoint, it's a shame that the ESPN Zone in D.C. (not to mention pretty much every other city) is shutting down next week, and if I could snap my fingers and make that not happen, I would do so.

But if you take that aspect away from it, I couldn't be happier ESPN Zone is going away.

I've always hated the idea of theme restaurants. There's something so incredibly condescending about the concepts behind most them, in that the owners clearly think rubes--often tourist rubes--will happily accept lousy food and service if it means they can have a fun story about seeing an autographed movie poster or the vest Michael J. Fox wore in Back To the Future or whatever, to tell their rube friends back home.

Remember Planet Hollywood back in the 90s? Remember how every time a new one would open, there'd be a big, star-studded opening night where all the principle investors like Stallone and Schwarzenegger would show up? Maybe Bruce Willis would sit in with the band or Demi Moore would get behind the bar and serve drinks to the invited VIPs, and it all looked awesome as you were watching it on Entertainment Tonight. But of course, when you went there, there'd be no celebrities. Just some lame memorabilia on display and $15 burgers.

Marvel Comics tried launching a chain of restaurants around that time, too, called Marvel Mania. This was back when Marvel was at its most obnoxious, publishing roughly 100 titles each month with no regard whatsoever for its customers' wallets. So its belief that people would be willing to pay good money to eat Marvel-themed food while employees dressed up as Marvel characters wandered around, and then go to the gift shop (which, as I understand it, sold every sort of Marvel-related merchandise except comic books) and spend even more, was right in line with the company's thinking at the time. And of course, it closed. "The Fantastic Four Cheese Pizza" was a brilliant name for a menu item, though.

Then there was Stephen Spielberg's restaurant, Dive, which had a submarine theme, and took customers on "special-effects simulations of undersea adventures." Closed.

At the height of the supermodel craze, The Fashion Cafe, a model-themed restaurant opened. I remember two things about this place. First, way too many jokes about how a restaurant owned by models made no sense, since models don't eat. And second, reading that Cindy Crawford was angry she wasn't asked to be one of the investors. In retrospect, by snubbing her, her fellow models did her a favor. Closed.

Now, I don't despise all theme restaurants. The Hard Rock Cafe, though hardly fine dining, is mostly unoffensive. I had a good time when I went to Margaritaville and Medieval Times. I've never eaten at The Rainforest Cafe, but I always liked walking past the one in Tysons Corner. You know, before it closed. The robotic crocodile was kind of cool.

But back to ESPN Zone. In theory, this could have worked. In fact, if it had been done right, I think it could have transcended the whole theme restaurant genre. Everyone loves sports. Everyone loves food and alcohol. Everyone loves places where they can enjoy food and alcohol while watching sports. All ESPN Zone had to do was not be stupid and sit back and watch the money roll in. But at least in terms of the one in D.C., ESPN Zone was a really stupid place. The main viewing room is out of sight of the vast majority of the seating--including that at the upstairs bar--and roughly a third of the space is taken up by air hockey and various other arcade games.

I mean, I know ESPN Zone wasn't intended to be a sports bar sports bar. But it didn't have to try so hard to be a fun-filled destination for the whole family, either. Between that, food which wasn't bad, but wasn't great, either, and a lousy drink menu, it managed to be a pretty unappealing place to watch sports.

Let me put it another way: This past Tuesday, on the biggest night in D.C. sports in years, ESPN Zone was hosting a Guitar Hero tournament. To be fair, it was scheduled long before the announcement of Strasburg starting that night, and there was a sports connection to the tournament, in that some Redskins were participating. But still, what if someone came in that night just wanting to watch the most important game in Nationals history? That doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation in a place named after the premiere sports network in the country.

Also, the gift shop aside, there wasn't much in the way of tie-in promotions with ESPN. Madden Nation once filmed a segment there, and I think that's about it. With Around The Horn and PTI taping in D.C., how could ESPN not have gotten them to do the occasional episode from the bar?

But the kicker, the thing that makes me actively glad the place is going under, is that a few years ago, some co-workers and I were looking for a place to watch the first day games of the NCAA Tournament. ESPN Zone, with its huge TV, seemed as good a place as any. So we get there, and there's a sign on the door saying that it's closed for a private party. Apparently, some business rented out the place so its employees could watch the tournament.

Which is crap. You can't call yourself a sports bar--even a pretend sports bar like ESPN Zone--and close on one of the few days a year where people actually want to gather in bars and watch sports. You just can't. If someone wants to rent out the place on a day where there's nothing important going on, great, go ahead. But there should be some blackout dates where the option of renting is unavailable. Especially dates that are known well in advance, like, say, the NCAA Tournament. I'm sure ESPN Zone made a lot of money that night, but I'm also sure it alienated a lot of customers.

I'm not at all sorry ESPN Zone is closing, but I am sorry that the potential ESPN Zone once had is now down the drain. I'm not sure a "real" sports bar can afford the space ESPN Zone is leaving behind, but it'd be nice to see one of them give it a shot.

Strasmas!

Just how big was the debut of Stephen Strasburg last night?

It was so big that an image of Jesus appeared on the screen!

Wait, no, that actually is Strasburg. Sorry. Around here, it's been somewhat hard to tell the difference over the past couple of weeks. And I think the only reason Nationals fans might be able to be convinced that Jesus and Strasburg aren't the same person, is that Jesus would have thrown a perfect game. Or in the very least, a shut-out.

But it was an amazing night. Whatever rationalizations people used for why they just had to see Strasburg debut, as they paid inflated prices for tickets to StubHub, scalpers, or the team itself, I have to think that the experience justified them. I've never seen Nats Park or RFK go as nuts as it did last night. Honest to God, I don't even think John Lannan or Chien-Ming Wang striking out someone in a World Series game the Nats were playing in, would cause as much sheer delirium as Stephen Strasburg striking out Lastings Milledge did.

I always hate this word as a way of describing excitement because, well...it's usually kind of a gross image. But Nats Park was positively orgasmic last night.

And I think a lot of the credit for that goes to the decision to leave Strasburg in for seven innings. All season, we've heard that the Nats are going to make a point of limiting how much Strasburg pitches this year, so expectations weren't high. Five innings would have pissed the crowd off. Six innings would have been acceptable, but not much more. But seven innings? That seemed to make pretty much everyone happy.

But seriously, how big was Strasburg's debut?

It was so big that well before the gates opened, even though there were no t-shirt or bobblehead giveaways to entice early arrivals, there was a decent-sized crowd aimlessly milling about outside Nats Park. It had a distinct Dawn of the Dead vibe to it.

It was so big that a 1960s paparazzo seems to have traveled through time to 2010 in order to attend the game!

It was so big that hundreds of people paused to watch Strasburg stretch. Not warm up his arm. Not take batting practice. Stretch.

It was so big that there was more media there than at the White House. There was the national media on the field, and outside the park, local reporters were circling around like sharks. If you stood in one place for too long or, God help you, made eye contact with someone holding a microphone, you probably ended up on TV last night.

It was so big that for once, even the Nat Pack wasn't annoying!

No, that's not true. They were more annoying than ever. I guess even the power of Strasmas has its limits. I mean, I get that they're sort of a necessary evil, in that the team needs someone to fire t-shirts out of an air cannon into the crowd between innings. But still. In the very least, I wish they'd give the blonde chick a Valium before each game. No one should be that peppy.

It was so big that diets were suspended!

It was so big that Ken Burns threw out the ceremonial first pitch! DC101's Elliot In the Morning was picked to officially start the game! A saxophone player named Jaared--no, I didn't forget his last name or throw in a superfluous letter A; it really is just Jaared--played the National Anthem!

Yeah, I don't get the thinking behind two out of the three, either.

It was so big that the Nationals Dream Foundation booth had a sign up announcing that Strasburg-used balls (heh) could be purchased for $100 each. I guess the money's going to charity, but wait, here's a better idea: Rather than raise ticket prices to cover whatever obscene amount of money Scott Boras is going to demand for Bryce Harper, why not put this extra revenue from Strasburg's balls (heh) towards that? I mean, charity's nice and all, but like children, sometimes it needs to be left to fend for itself in order to mature, you know?

Incidentally, see the Elijah Dukes jersey in the corner? It's autographed. And only $75. Which is $25 less than an un-autographed Strasburg jersey in the team store. And yet, oddly unwanted. (I know what you're probably thinking: Maybe $75 is how much the Nats are willing to pay whoever takes the jersey off their hands? But no, I checked.)

It was so big that thousands of people, many of whom probably couldn't give a rat's ass about baseball before now, are fans. Of Strasburg, anyway, if not the Nats. But I have a feeling that'll change.

It was so big that now that all the questions regarding whether Strasburg would live up to the hype have been answered, just one question remains: Exactly how much is a WTOP Strasburg rookie card worth?

Panel of the Week

From Justice Society of America #39: