Jack Evans hates online poker

This morning, the D.C. Council's Finance and Revenue Committee, led by Councilman Jack Evans, had a hearing on the District's plan to offer online gaming later this year. The authorization of said gaming became law some time back, but since it was passed as a provision from Councilman Michael Brown in a budget bill that Evans apparently never bothered to read, and is set to go online in just a couple of months, he now finds himself having to rush in order to kill it before it's too late. And rest assured, that was the point of today's hearing.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, this is a subject of particular interest to me. Had I known about the hearing before today, I would have taken the day off work and gone. As it stood, I had to settle for watching the live stream.

Well, trying to watch the live stream, in any case. This became a frequent occurrence:

My office has a T1 line, so I know the problem wasn't on my end. It's great that D.C. offers live streams of hearings, and to the government's credit, the video of the hearing was posted extremely quickly, but the buffering issues during the hearing were unbearable. Maybe once that online poker revenue starts pouring in, they can spring for better computer equipment.

The hearing lasted over four hours. I lost interest way before that, but here are some of the more interesting moments from the first half or so, along with where in the video they occur.

00:01 -- Evans begins the hearing by going over the parameters of the bill. The three biggest points: 1) Players will only be able to access the system from between 10 a.m. to 4.a.m., presumably to keep the real degenerates from losing all their money, 2) Players will only be able to access the system from approved hot spots inside the city, as opposed to their homes, and 3) Players will only be able to deposit $250 a week.

Immediate reaction from the online poker community to these has been less than kind (especially that last one), but for what it's worth, I'm fine with all of them.

07:30 -- Evans reminds us that even though online gaming has already been passed (however unknowingly) by the council, it can also be unpassed. Okay, Jack, we get it. Your dick is as big as Brown's.

17:15 -- D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi reads the list of what games will be available online: Blackjack and Victory at Sea (yeah, I don't know what that is, either) at first, followed by poker, bingo, e-scratch (I'm assuming that's an online version of scratch-off lottery tickets, which...wow, how lame do you have to be to play those?), and "random number generated games," which I take to mean online keno or slots. I think they'd be better off sticking with just poker, blackjack and bingo, but whatever.

39:40 -- Evans seems to suggest to Gandhi that since the council might decide to unpass the online gaming legislation down the road, wouldn't it be swell if they could just agree to drop the whole thing now before any more money is spent? Gandhi suggests this is something Evans and the council perhaps should have considered before they voted for it. Burn.

(And ultimately, this is Evans's biggest problem. He can complain about how online gaming in D.C. came into being, and to be fair, it's not a wholly invalid point. But the bottom line is that Evans and the rest of the council voted for it. So now he gets to live with it.)

1:01 -- Evans is relieved to hear that D.C. libraries can be blocked from accessing the gaming site. Next issue: Suppose two businesses, X and Y, each want to license an authorized hot spot for online gaming. Isn't there a danger of X bribing someone in government to ensure it gets one and Y doesn't? A confused D.C. Lottery chief Buddy Roogow does his best to pretend this is somehow a valid concern, and reassures Evans they'll keep an eye out for that sort of thing.

1:26 -- Councilman Tommy Wells asks Attorney General Irv Nathan about how the placement of gaming hot spots will be legislated and/or regulated. Nathan responds that formal legislation likely won't be necessary, and essentially says that basic common sense should be sufficient. Wells wants to know what will happen if a hot spot somehow ends up in a school. Or the basement of the Wilson Building. Rather than explain the definition of common sense, Nathan simply assures him that schools and the basement of the building they're currently sitting in would almost certainly not be granted gaming licences.

1:35 -- After Evans goes off on a tangent about how the city taking money from poor people via online gaming is wrong or something, Gandhi points out D.C., with its roughly 1,000,001 different forms of lotteries, crossed that Rubicon a long time ago. Evans acknowledges the point, but then seems to imply that if it were up to him, there would be no D.C. lottery. Yeah, good luck running for mayor with that as your platform, Jack. Seniors in D.C. love lottery tickets like teenager girls love Bieber.

1:52 -- In a surprise cameo, Patrick Thibodeau of DC Blogs pops up to speak out against the implementation of online gaming in D.C. Suffice it to say that I disagree with him on this, and when he brought up the issue a few weeks ago on his site, I posted a response to his concerns. You can check it out here, if you want.

Anyway, that's about when I bailed. So let me just close with this: It's fairly obvious that Evans and Wells would like to kill online gambling in D.C. Or in the very least, keep delaying its implementation indefinitely. They shouldn't. Aside from providing much needed revenue to the city, there's a basic question of personal freedom. There's no reason why Americans shouldn't be allowed to play poker online, and that freedom trumps concerns about exploiting the poor or those with gambling problems. As Gandhi points out, D.C. embraced gambling a long, long time ago. The difference is, poker--and even blackjack or bingo or whatever the hell Victory at Sea is--actually gives the player a chance to win. Scratchers don't. Lotto drawings don't. So if we're not going to do away with the whole lottery apparatus in the interest of protecting potential problem gamblers, the very least we can do is give them fighting odds.

Panel of the Week

From Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #1:

Your ad here

If you have a blog that's been around for a while, chances are you're on several PR email lists that may or may not have anything to do with your blog.

I get a fair amount of press releases, usually about musical acts I've never heard of. Occasionally, I get requests to publicize stuff. Charity events, museum exhibits, newspaper articles, Democratic Party meetings, etc. Sadly, never anything fun and/or cool. So I typically ignore them because none of them interest me, so I'm assuming none of them will interest you, either.

I did once get an offer to interview the guy who played Ted on Scrubs, who was touring through D.C. with his acapella/sketch comedy group. I didn't respond to the email. It's easily in my top five mistakes of all time.

But in the past week, I've gotten a few somewhat unusual promotional requests, so what the hell. Maybe there's something you'll enjoy.

-- The Hot 99.5 "Hotty" Awards. In the email, I was encouraged to nominate myself for something. I'd very much like to win the award--excuse me, the Hotty--for Hottest Bathroom, which, believe it or not, is an actual category. You're so crazy, Hot 99.5! Play that Katy Perry song again for the millionth time! No, that other Katy Perry song! No, that other Katy Perry song!

-- When you read my posts about the Smurfs' Village iPhone game, did you find yourself thinking, "This sounds absolutely fascinating. Where can I learn more about this wonderful game?" but were just too lazy to use Google? Don't worry, here's a link to what I can only describe as a frighteningly comprehensive website entirely devoted to Smurfs' Village. Well, whatever. I spent Sunday at a comic book convention and wrestling. I have no right to tell people what they should do with their free time.

-- Sierra Club? You're up:

On Wednesday, June 22nd at 6:00 p.m., the Sierra Club’s Washington, D.C. Chapter will hold a streetcar happy hour at Ray's the Steaks, 3905 Dix St. NE, located a short walk from the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station. Please join fellow sustainable transit advocates have a drink and informally discuss the streetcar system that will soon come to the District.

The Sierra Club plans to hold periodic happy hours in different neighborhoods across D.C. If you would like to suggest a location for a future happy hour, please contact Jason Broehm, chair of the Chapter’s transportation committee, at jason.broehm[@]dc.sierraclub.net. To learn more about Washington's streetcar initiative, visit www.streetcars4dc.org.

I'm too late to publicize last night's happy hour, but apparently, there'll be future ones for all you sustainable transit advocates out there. And presumably, if D.C. gets street cars, you'll be able to attend more happy hours and not have to worry about driving home. See, it all ties together.

-- I was dumbfounded to discover there's actually a singer named Christian TV who is real, and not the invention of The Onion or Weird Al Yankovic. Here's a little bit about him:

He is on tour with the Millionaires, Breather Electric and Set if off! The tour will stop in Baltimore on June 24^th at Sonar. His smash single, “Love 2 Baby” is steady climbing up the charts and a favorite of Britney Spears!

Obviously, I immediately went on Twitter and made fun of his name. But then the guy responded and was pretty cool about it. Anyway, if you're so inclined, read about him and watch his video, and go see him tomorrow night at whatever Sonar is.

So there you go. See? I know how to play ball. Now, someone offer me something cool to plug.

Capitol Punishment

Ever since I've started watching wrestling again a couple years ago after about 20 years of not watching, and indeed, looking down my nose at it, there have been three WWE events in D.C. The Survivor Series, an episode of Monday Night Raw and a house show. The first two were great. The third, not so much. It had its charms--it seemed less scripted and the wrestlers weren't quite as militant about maintaining kayfabe (at one point, Maryse broke character and burst out laughing because the ref pinched her ass or something)--but if I'm going to shell out money to go see a show, I need the bells and whistles of a televised broadcast.

Still, when the WWE announced last winter that there'd be another pay-per-view in D.C., I wasn't going to go. Originally, it was advertised as Fatal 4-Way, where each match would consist of four wrestlers against one another. The concept sounded awful, and definitely not worth spending money to go see. Evidently, the WWE came to the same conclusion, so a couple of months ago, they changed it to Capitol Punishment.

A D.C.-themed WWE event? Sold!

-- By far, the weirdest part of going to a WWE show is seeing grown men carrying championship belts. Most are just plastic replicas, but some are really expensive custom made ones that are actually made out of metal and leather. For me, this phenomenon falls into the same category as costume contents at comic book conventions: I don't get it. I don't really approve of it. But it is what it is.

As I walked through the Verizon Center concourse before the show, I actually thought about doing a post consisting of nothing but funny pictures of guys walking around with belts slung over their shoulders. Then an odd thing happened: I didn't see very many of them. Sure, there were a few, but not nearly as many as I've seen in the past.

-- There was no Divas match, which was great. When you think about it, it's actually kind of amazing that the WWE has somehow managed to make drop-dead gorgeous women fighting and groping each other into such a dull exercise.

-- At one point, the Bella Twins' entrance music started playing, and I thought maybe there was going to be a Divas match after all. But no, they weren't wrestling. Apparently, Keystone Light was a Capitol Punishment sponsor, so they came out along with...wait for it...freaking Keith Stone!

Keith Stone! Totally in character, carrying his trademark Keystone Light, which he and the Bellas enjoyed (or at least, pretended to enjoy; I haven't heard good things) when they sat ringside. In between matches, more people in that section wanted their picture taken with him than the Bella Twins.

So I've now seen Keith Stone and the Geico Caveman at D.C. sporting events. If I ever run into that Progressive Insurance chick, I win pitchman bingo.

-- They hired an Obama impersonator to do some really just awful shtick. I'm pretty sure it was the same one who was thrown out of that GOP event last week for making fun of the Republican presidential candidates. I'm trying not to think about how much money that guy must make. It would just make me angry.

-- The matches were actually pretty good, up until the end. The Miz vs. Alex Reilly was both my favorite and least favorite. It was a great match, but it's annoying to see The Miz go from WWE Champion to jobber within a matter of weeks. The WWE is really lousy at figuring out what to do with ex-champions not named John Cena once they've lost the belt. Maybe The Miz and Sheamus can form a tag team. Or in the very least, a support group.

I didn't really think they were going to let R-Truth beat Cena, but I was hoping. Ever since his heel turn, R-Truth has been awesome. So needless to say, the stupid way the match ended--a kid planted in the audience threw his soda in R-Truth's face, distracting him just long enough for Cena to get the win--was not the best way the night could have ended.

-- After it was over, we were exiting the Verizon Center when I saw a douchebag and his friend harassing some little kids who were wearing Cena shirts. "Why do you like John Cena?" the guy demanded, as he towered over them. Luckily, there was a security guard nearby, and he promptly threw them out of the building. Which wasn't that big of a deal, since everyone was leaving, but it was still the right thing to do.

Outside, the guy and his friend (who was wearing an Ultimate Warrior wig and stalked around huffing and puffing, just like the Warrior would do) kept it up, actually getting into the face of a guy in a military uniform who just stood there stoically.

Another security guard came up and told him to knock it off or else. Suddenly faced with the prospect of spending the night in jail dressed in that outfit, he and his friend hightailed it out of there.

And you know, I get what he was doing. It was just kayfabe, and he was simply getting into the spirit of the evening, playing the heel role. And his retarded friend was just...well, I'm not sure what he was doing. But for Christ's sake, leave kids out of it, huh? They're not going to know what you're doing. Assholes.

So, Capitol Punishment was a rousing success, completely selling out. Now, when does D.C. get a WrestleMania?

2011 D.C. Comic-Con

Sunday was Father's Day. As it happens, mine lives a few hundred miles away, so other than a present and a phone call, I was off the hook in terms of having to make plans. Thus, I was free to indulge two of my iffier passions in life: comic books and professional wrestling, as the Gods of Awesome Timing scheduled the D.C. Comic-Con and the WWE's Capitol Punishment pay-per-view on the same day.

I felt last year's inaugural D.C. Comic Con was a good first step, but only if the show had aspirations to grow. Unfortunately, while there seemed to be a better selection of comics, and this year's guests were better than last year's, the convention organizers don't appear to have any desire to expand beyond George Mason University's Student Union Building II, never mind, actually hold the D.C. Comic Con in D.C.

I realize that since it's not my money at stake, it's really easy for me to say, "Hey, guys, you should be holding this thing in the D.C. Convention Center or at least the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, not the same building I once took the LSAT in." But it's not like D.C. doesn't have more than enough nerds to fill a dozen convention centers. Additionally, there isn't a big, pop culture-ish event of any sort that's held in this city, meaning interest would be huge, even among non-comic book readers. And when you consider the close proximity to New York, Baltimore, Philly, etc., it almost seems like it would be impossible to fail.

Since Marc Nathan, the organizer of the Baltimore Comic-Con, also helps runs this one, I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason for keeping the D.C. show small and unambitious is so it won't cannibalize the audience for Baltimore. If so, he needn't worry. There's plenty of nerdiness in this region to go around. But I get why it might be a concern, so here's what I would suggest: A point of pride for the Baltimore Comic-Con is that it's strictly about comic books, not an overall pop culture convention, as San Diego and most other shows have become in recent years. So why not go the opposite route for D.C.? Let Baltimore stay all about comics. For D.C., yes, have comics, but also fly in Bruce Campbell and Felicia Day and other C-list celebrities to sign autographs. Let the horror, RPG, anime, etc. exhibitors in. Have booth babes. Whatever. Comic book purists may turn their noses up at Wizard World shows, but there's nothing inherently evil about them, and they're held in pretty much every major city in America--except, inexplicably, D.C.--so you can't say they're not popular. And if the D.C. show was held in spring and Baltimore in the fall, enough time would pass between them so that Baltimore shouldn't lose much, if any, business.

There's a huge vacuum in D.C. just waiting to be filled, and if Nathan and company aren't interested, they should surrender the D.C. Comic-Con name to someone who is, and just have the George Mason show fall under the Virginia Comic-Con umbrella.

Anyway, on to the con itself.

--It seemed like there was a better variety of dealers this year. One guy in particular had a great selection of '60s and '70s comics that weren't in super condition, but were only $3 each. I picked up some old Batman comics. I haven't read them yet, but I have smelled them. Seriously, old comics smell awesome. If Blogger offered a scratch and sniff widget, I'd show you.

-- I was one of the first 100 people to get in, so I got the con exclusive, a free copy of Witchblade #136 with the D.C. Comic-Con variant cover.

See? The Washington Monument! Cherry blossoms! Things you find actually in D.C., not on the George Mason campus! Regrettably, several people beat me to putting their copies up on eBay, where demand would have been soft regardless. But now with the oversaturation, it's virtually non-existent. Since I'm not a Witchblade fan, I suspect this is going to end up in the trash.

-- Probably the biggest factor in my deciding to go to the con this year was that Larry Hama was one of the guests. The guy wrote the G.I. Joe comic when I was a kid. The guy's still writing the G.I. Joe comic. I used to dream of owning a copy of G.I. Joe #1, which, back in the day, Overstreet had priced at something like $50. But when you're 8 or 9, $50 might as well be $5,000,000.

Eventually, I grew up and moved on to more mature material. You know, like Batman. So I never did get a copy of this issue, even though A) It's no longer worth $50, and B) Even if it was, I could now afford it. But when I heard Hama was going to be there, all of a sudden, it became vitally important that I own a copy. I didn't hear about the show in time to buy one on eBay, so as soon as I got into the con, I made a beeline to the first dealer I saw with a good back issue selection and was in luck.

Granted, owning this isn't quite as cool as it would have been when I was a kid, but it's still a nice thing to have.

It was only after I got home that I realized Hama also wrote the Barack the Barbarian mini-series. Which was pretty godawful, but I still would have gotten it autographed. The lesson being, always do your homework before you go to one of these things.

-- Finally, I had a bit of a...well, not exactly an epiphany, but a moment of realization while at the show.

When I first started going to conventions as a kid, the coolest part was looking at the comics that dealers had hanging up on the rack behind them. The really old and/or rare and/or valuable ones. Back then, I was mostly relegated to the quarter bins. Maybe the dollar bins, if I'd saved my money. But the rack comics? So far out my price range, it wasn't even funny. Forget $50 for G.I. Joe #1, Silver Age comics usually went for hundreds. Golden Age books, even more.

But between eBay and the collapse of the comic book collectibles market, prices have dropped considerably. And now, as someone who has a fair amount of disposable income, I looked at those same comics I did 20 years ago, and suddenly realized, "Holy shit, I can actually afford these."

That doesn't mean I'm going to buy them. I have no real desire to be a hardcore collector. But ever since it was announced that Stan Lee was going to be the guest at the Baltimore Comic-Con in August, I've been thinking about how cool it would be to have a Stan Lee-signed comic. It just seems like the sort of thing every comic book fan should own. And while I could easily find something that he wrote relatively recently for little money, how much cooler would it be if it was an early issue of The Amazing Spider-Man or X-Men? Not even in mint condition. Just in reasonably good shape that I could frame and hang on my wall? What's the most I can spend on one comic book and still maintain a decent amount of self-respect? I suspect I'm going to find out.

Tomorrow: My day of geekery continues with a recap of Capitol Punishment.

Green Lantern

In Brightest Day,
In Nightest Black,
This Movie Sucks,
I Want My $10 Back

Okay, whatever, I took liberties with the oath. But it was surprisingly difficult to rhyme a word with "night" that fit my angry fanboy agenda.

Spoilers follow...

The Good:

-- Amanda Waller. This was the one and only nerdgasm I had throughout the entire film. What a great, unexpected character to just pop up out of nowhere. They even threw in her origin! There was no reason to show the flashback of her husband being killed; that was just meat thrown to the fanboys. And it was appreciated. (Joy almost turned to outrage when it looked like they'd killed her off, but based on her exit, she seemed to be okay. Given that they cast an actress like Angela Bassett in the role, I'm guessing she's going to be the Samuel L. Jackson of the DC film universe.)

-- Blake Lively. Hot. Also, not nearly as unbelievable as the world's youngest test pilot/aerospace company executive as I'd expected going in. Don't get me wrong, she was still horribly miscast, but she's the least of the film's problems.

-- The post-credits sequence. At least, in the sense that unlike with Marvel films, I didn't have to sit through the entire closing credits to see it. As for the actual scene, it sets up the sequel nicely and all, but it seems to come out of nowhere. I know why Sinestro puts on the yellow ring, but most of the audience probably didn't.

The Bad:

-- Ryan Reynolds. I'm not sure why an actor who specializes in playing cocky guys was cast as a character who's mostly straight-laced. To his credit, though, his brief attempt at a superhero voice was a hell of a lot better than Christian Bale's Batman voice.

-- The ring constructs. Some were good. I enjoyed the race track. But on the whole, they exhibited a surprisingly lack of imagination on the filmmakers' part. I mean, it's a movie about a ring that can literally create anything the user thinks of. This should have been two hours of pure CGI eye candy. Instead, we got machine guns and flamethrowers and other assorted crap.

Speaking of--and this is like, Green Lantern 101, not something that should have been overlooked, especially with so many DC Comics people consulting--a flamethrower made from a Green Lantern ring should have been shooting green flames, not orange. Ditto for the machine guns and its bullets. Green, guys. Green. You know, like the name of the character? Come on.

-- The costume. Way too busy. You had the weird thing going on with the chest emblem, the suit crackling with green electricity or whatever, etc. The classic GL costume is one of the best to ever appear in comics. It didn't need to be improved for the movie. I'm also confused why it has an indentation for Hal's navel. How tight is that thing?

The mask also looked really bad. When Carol immediately realizes it's Hal underneath it, it was a cute moment, but it sort of seemed like one of those scenes where the writer thought, "The idea of a domino mask protecting someone's identity is absurd. Stupid comics! I'm going to deconstruct it, thus proving how much smarter I am."

-- Too many villains. Parallax sucked. (A cloud with a face? Jesus.) Hector Hammond was okay, but his whole arc seemed largely pointless. Sinestro spent most of the film being heroic. Rather than make this film into a mash-up of Geoff Johns storylines, they should have adapted the two Emerald Dawn mini-series from the early '90s, which was a great GL origin story that would have focused mostly on Sinestro and his penchant for fascism.

-- The Guardians. A lot of the CGI through the film was noticeably weak, but the Guardians were almost laughably bad. They should have used real actors with painted blue faces, instead of going for all CGI.

-- The ring. I was mostly fine with the changes to the lantern, but the ring was perfect the way it is in the comics and didn't need to be "improved upon."

The Ugly

-- The voice-over at the beginning. Has there ever been a good movie that began with an expository voice-over? I realize the audience needed to be caught up to speed on a lot of stuff, but how about letting them discover what was going on along with Hal, instead of just having Geoffrey Rush dump everything in their laps at once?

-- The Green Lantern oath. I can't put all the blame on the movie, here. It's an element from the comics, after all. But I've always thought it was corny, and the bit at the end where Hal recites it just before he defeats Parallax, was corny times a thousand.

Panel of the Week

From Flashpoint: Grodd of War #1:

One man's trash

A few years ago, I went through a brief phase where I'd buy stuff and try and flip it on eBay. It started one Sunday when I bought this small painted plate at the Georgetown Flea Market for a dollar. When I got home, I realized I didn't like it quite as much as I thought I did. Instead of just tossing it, I Googled the artist's name from the back of the plate and it turned out that he was actually a painter of some renown. I'm not saying I'd found a long lost Picaso or anything, but if you traveled in whatever lonely circles are traveled in by collectors of painted plates, you'd have probably heard of the guy. I put it on eBay and sold it for $50.

"Wow!" I thought. "I just turned $1 into $50 (minus eBay fees)! If I can do that on a regular basis, this would make a very nice second income for myself. One that the IRS need never know about!"

So for the next few weekends, I hit as many garage sales, flea markets and estate sales as I could. And while I managed to find and resell a few things, I never got anywhere near the profit margin from that plate. And when you considered the time and money I was investing in not just the acquisition of objects, but the packaging and listing as well, it occurred to me that I could make a lot more for a lot less effort if I just volunteered for weekend overtime projects at the office. So that was kind of the end of that experiment.

But aside from not being especially cost-effective, I came to realize that my plan had other flaws as well:

1) Not everyone is as lazy as that first flea market dealer. Most people actually price their goods correctly, if not overprice them.

2) If you're going to try and flip art or antiques or other rare-ish items, you need a decent bankroll. It's a lot easier to buy something for $300 and sell it for $350 than it is to buy something for $1 and sell it for $50. And your bankroll has to be big enough that if your $300 investment turns out to be worthless, you can just shrug and move on, not think, "Holy shit, I just lost $300!" and be paralyzed.

3) My apartment is full of stuff I've gotten at Georgetown and Eastern Market, so I'm pretty unsuited for flipping items anyway, in the sense that I tend to fall in love with them and start to think about how much nicer they'd look in my home than in someone else's.

Recently, I've started watching Pawn Stars on the History Channel. For the uninitiated, the show's about a family-owned pawn shop in Las Vegas where people come to sell various vintage treasures, which often fit in very nicely with the theme of the channel. It's also probably the least real reality show I've ever seen. Rick, the owner of the store, has such an encyclopedic knowledge of almost every item that comes in the store, it's clear that he bones up ahead of time. They do little comedic bits that were obviously pre-planned, if not entirely pre-scripted. There was even a dream sequence in an episode, where Chumlee, one of the employees, fantasizes about going on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, complete with Meredith Vieira cameo. The fuck? How can you have a dream sequence in a reality show?

But Pawn Stars has managed to renew my interest in buying and re-selling stuff. The show may be as fake as hell, but seeing Rick's eyes light up when someone brings in something cool that he knows he can sell, is completely genuine. The best thing I've seen on the show so far was a gambler's kit from the 19th century, which held a deck of cards, poker chips, and other various tools of the trade, not to mention, a knife and a revolver, for when things got dicey. Rick and I were both geeking out over it.

Will I be lucky enough to come across something like that or other items from the show, such as a document signed by John Hancock, or a Civil War belt buckle with a bullet lodged in it (which actually turned out to be fake)? Probably not. But that might actually make this more enjoyable. Instead, I'll have to think outside the box and focus on stuff that isn't so obviously popular. So I think it'll be entirely possible to have fun and turn a profit, as long as I focus more on the former than the latter.

Seriously, though, don't tell the IRS.

Panel of the Week

From Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #1:

Nerd TV

Kevin Smith made his name with realistic banter between comics lovers in Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy. Now he's angling to capture the real thing.

The indie moviemaker put out a casting call for comics geeks to show up last week at his The Secret Stash shop in Red Bank, N.J., with plans for a three-day shoot starting June 14. "He's not looking for actors, he's looking for real people who live and breathe the comic book lifestyle. Must be funny outgoing and have a knowledge and passion for comics, superheroes, movie memorabilia and everything that goes with it," read the recruitment post on Facebook.

Last night he tweeted that the show would be on AMC, which recently announced plans for a stronger reality-show lineup. The pitch for comics fans also included a request for collectors. "It's Pawn Stars for Fanboys, and if you have something to sell/trade/or value, we want you to bring it to us!," the post added. (EW)

I like Kevin Smith. I like comic books. I like Pawn Stars. So in theory, I should be really excited about this. But I'm not. Not because it'll make comic book readers look bad or anything--though it almost certainly will do that--but because the show's probably going to be boring as hell.

The time to do a reality show set in a comic book store was the early '90s, during the speculator boom. You had kids reading comics. You had adults reading comics. You had people treating comics like they were legitimate long and short term financial investments. And the publishers! Oh, my God, the publishers! Their complete ineptitude made the whole thing a train wreck, but a fascinating one. Marvel was greedily gouging fans by publishing a ridiculous number of badly-written comics, DC was cluelessly trying to imitate Marvel by dumbing down their comics as much as possible, Image was making them both look stupid by selling millions of copies of little more than blatant ripoffs and splash pages to ADD fanboys, and Wizard Magazine was the carny virtually running the whole industry.

 

And of course, the nexus for all of that was the local comic book store.

Today, most comic book stores are actually respectable places of business. Going into one in the '90s, though, was basically like walking into some nerd's basement that had a cash register set up in it. Socially maladjusted owners and staff? Check. Posters of bikini-clad superheroines in erotic, anatomically impossible poses hanging on the walls, ensuring that no female customers would feel welcome, or for that matter, safe? Yup. A halfhearted attempt at best at pretending they were actual businesses, as opposed to a hobby to be enjoyed when convenient for the proprietors? Uh-huh. Apparently, banks gave loans to anyone who walked in back then, even a dude wearing a Punisher t-shirt.

 

So I'm not sure what the point of this show is. I'm also not sure if it's good or bad that they're doing a casting call. On one hand, interesting people are never a bad thing on a reality show. On the other, you don't want people who are going to play to the cameras. I'm sure there's one geek out there who thinks the key to making it on the show is to ramp up his geekiness by 1,000% and act like the comic book store version of Jack Black's character in High Fidelity, and he's probably right.

 

If they're serious about doing a Pawn Stars for comics, it's hard to imagine how they're going to get collectors to bring in their rare comics if they haven't already unloaded them by now. I suspect we'll see a lot of this sort of thing: A guy in his late 30s/early 40s who collected comics during the speculator boom and never threw them out, brings in a box full of stuff like X-Force, Prime and Glory, in mint condition and all bagged and boarded, thinking he's doing the store a favor and anticipating a nice payday for himself. He's stunned to discover that the comics are virtually worthless. He attempts to haggle with the clerk, dropping his asking price from $1,000 to $500 to $100 to "Well, can I just leave them here? I really don't want take them back home." After thinking about it for a moment, the clerk agrees, but reluctantly. The comics end up in the dumpster.

 

We'll also undoubtedly be treated to the interactions between the staff and the customers. God only knows what fascinating gems that'll produce. Debate over whether Batman could beat Galactus? DC reboot: Good idea or bad? Is Brian Bendis a great writer or the scourge of the Marvel Universe?

 

Now, will I watch that sort of thing? Yeah, of course. But it's hard to imagine too many other people doing so. Reality TV shows on cable often appeal to just a niche audience, but this may be a whole new level of nichiness.

Number 1/8

I went to the Bowie Baysox game on Saturday. The opposing team was the New Britain Rock Cats, and when they were up in the second inning, I was fiddling with my phone when I heard a murmur going through the crowd, along with a few chuckles. I glanced up at the plate, and this is what I saw:

No, they hadn't started playing a mid-innings little league game, like in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training. Nor was it a real life Rookie of the Year situation. The truth was a lot less interesting and sadly, had nothing to do with the plot of a kids' movie: It was just a really short baseball player. His name is Chris Cates, and the Rock Cats' website lists him at 5'3. Which I guess I'll take their word for, but I would have guessed shorter.

Predictably, the Bowie crowd had a bit of fun with their heckling when he was batting. But to their credit, only for his first at-bat. The next two times he came up, no one really brought it up. I can't remember if he ever actually got on base, but he did knock a hard one towards center field, which was caught. That seemed to surprise the crowd. And while it's unlikely a guy his size will ever reach the majors, AA ball is nothing to sneeze at. There are guys rotting away at single A who will never even make it that far.

Anyway, when I got home, I wondered who the shortest person ever to play in the big leagues was, and thankfully, Google and Wikipedia came through. His name was Eddie Gaedel, who, in 1951, played in one game for the St. Louis Browns, who eventually become the Orioles.

I thought this was a pretty fascinating story and since the hippies at Wikipedia don't believe in copyright, I'll republish however much I want:

Browns owner Bill Veeck was a showman who enjoyed staging publicity stunts. He found Eddie Gaedel through a booking agency. Due to his size, Gaedel had worked as a riveter during World War II. Gaedel was able to crawl inside the wings of airplanes. After the war, Gaedel was the promotional mascot for Mercury Records.

Gaedel was secretly signed by the St. Louis Browns and put in uniform (with the number "⅛" on the back). Gaedel came out of a papier-mache cake between games of a doubleheader to celebrate the American League's 50th anniversary, and as a Falstaff Brewery promotion. Falstaff, and the fans, had been promised a "festival of surprises" by Veeck. Before the second game got underway, the press agreed that the "midget-in-a-cake" appearance had not been up to Veeck's usual promotional standard. Falstaff personnel, who had been promised national publicity for their participation, were particularly dissatisfied. Keeping the surprise he had in store for the second game to himself, Veeck just meekly apologized.

Although Veeck denied the stunt was directly inspired by it, the appearance of Gaedel was unmistakably similar to the plot of "You Could Look It Up," a 1941 short story by James Thurber. Veeck insisted he got the idea from listening to the conversations of Giants manager John McGraw decades earlier when Veeck was a child.

Gaedel entered the second half of the doubleheader between the Browns and Detroit Tigers in the bottom of the first inning as a pinch-hitter for leadoff batter Frank Saucier. Immediately, umpire Ed Hurley called for Browns manager Zack Taylor. Veeck and Taylor had had the foresight to have a copy of Gaedel's contract on hand, as well as a copy of the Browns' active roster, which had room for Gaedel's addition.

The contract had been filed late in the day on Friday, August 17. Veeck knew the league office would summarily approve the contract upon receipt, and that it would not be scrutinized until Monday, August 20. Upon reading the contract, Hurley motioned for Gaedel to take his place in the batter's box. (As a result of Gaedel's appearance, all contracts must now be approved by the Commissioner of Baseball before a player can appear in a game.) The change to that day's St. Louis Browns scorecard, listing Gaedel and his uniform number, had gone unnoticed by everyone except Harry Mitauer, a writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The Browns' publicity man shunted Mitauer's inquiry aside.

Gaedel was under strict orders not to attempt to move the bat off his shoulder. When Veeck got the impression that Gaedel might be tempted to swing at a pitch, the owner warned Gaedel that he had taken out a $1 million insurance policy on his life, and that he would be standing on the roof of the stadium with a rifle prepared to kill Gaedel if he even looked like he was going to swing. Veeck had carefully trained Gaedel to assume a tight crouch at the plate; he had measured Gaedel's strike zone in that stance and claimed it was just one and a half inches high. However when Gaedel came to the plate, he abandoned the crouch he had been taught for a pose that Veeck described as "a fair approximation of Joe DiMaggio's classic style," leading Veeck to fear he was going to swing. (In the Thurber story, the midget cannot resist swinging at a 3-0 pitch, grounds out, and the team loses the game).

With Bob Cain on the mound - laughing at the absurdity that he actually had to pitch to Gaedel - and catcher Bob Swift catching on his knees, Gaedel took his stance. The Tigers catcher offered his pitcher a piece of strategy: "Keep it low." Cain delivered four consecutive balls, all high (the first two pitches were legitimate attempts at strikes; the last two were half-speed tosses). Gaedel took his base (stopping twice during his trot to bow to the crowd) and was replaced by pinch-runner Jim Delsing. The 18,369 fans gave Gaedel a standing ovation.

How has this not been made into a movie?!? Fuck Rudy, this would be a million times better. Back in the '80s, this would have been a great vehicle for Emmanuel Lewis. Nowaways? I dunno, Peter Dinklage? He might be a bit too old, but the guy has heat thanks to Game of Thrones.

If nothing else, I can't imagine how the Orioles haven't done a Eddie Gaedel bobblehead night, and they should really get on that.

Summer Movie Scorecard

Have Seen:

X-Men: First Class: A-
Thor: B
The Hangover Part II: C+
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: C

Definitely Seeing:

Super 8
Green Lantern
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Captain America: The First Avenger
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Fright Night
Final Destination 5

Might See:

The Beaver
Everything Must Go
Bad Teacher
Larry Crowne
Horrible Bosses
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Cowboys & Aliens
The Change-Up
30 Minutes or Less
Conan the Barbarian
Our Idiot Brother

Panel of the Week

From Batman: Knights of Vengeance #1:

The DC reboot

DC Comics has a new strategy to be No. 1 in comic books: all-new No. 1's.

Starting this summer, the publisher will re-number its entire DC Universe of titles, revamping characters such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and others from its 76-year history for a more modern and diverse 21st century.
...
In September, an additional 51 first issues will make their debut, introducing stories that are grounded in each character's specific legend but also reflect today's real-world themes and events. Lee spearheaded the costumes' redesign to make characters more identifiable and accessible to comic fans new and old.

"We really want to inject new life in our characters and line," says Dan DiDio, co-publisher of DC with Lee. "This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience." (USA Today)

Years ago when, frankly, I cared about comics a lot more than I do now, I would have been up in arms about this. Not in a send-death-threats-to-the-editor type way (which comic book fans have been known to do), but certainly a grumbling-to-myself-and-maybe-posting-a-brief-rant-on-a-message-board way. Now? It kind of bugs me just on principle. But I think it's probably the right move.

John Byrne is one of the biggest blowhards in history, but back on his old AOL message board, he made what I thought was a really good point: That as originally conceived, comic books weren't meant to be read by the same people for years and years and years. You read them as a kid, you grew up, and you moved on. At some point, comic book readers stopped moving on and just kept reading into their teens, 20s, 30s, and so on. But since no one just wants to read a never ending story where nothing important happens, those readers also demanded comic book characters grow up and change along with them. So DC let Superman and Lois Lane get married, has had Batman go through a series of Robins, killed off numerous characters and replaced them with new versions, and so on.

And for the past 20 or 30 years, it's sort of worked. But every time they attempt to deliver that kind of change, it's been with diminishing returns. How many times can the Justice League break up and reform? How many times can a C-list character be killed for dramatic effect? (Or for that matter, an A-list character be killed for a spike in sales and some mainstream media coverage, only to be resurrected within a year?) Every now and then, DC will pull a new rabbit out of the hat we've never seen before, but those have been getting fewer and far between. And then it's back to business as usual, trying to figure out how to make the millionth story where Batman fights the Joker interesting.

Hence this reboot. Which DC is insisting isn't really a reboot so people like me won't get mad and quit buying comics. But yeah, it's a reboot. And it's hard not to take a bit personally. Essentially, DC is saying, "Hey, guys, we really appreciate you buying our comics over the past however many years, but there just aren't enough of you anymore, so we're going after a new audience. Sorry."

It kind of hurts. Comic book readers have a weird relationship with continuity. It's not an especially healthy one, but it's a necessary evil when it comes to superhero comics. It's almost a social contract between readers and publishers. Readers will buy--or at least, keep up with--comics they might not have otherwise in order to follow the fictional universe their favorite characters inhabit, and publishers will make an effort to keep that entire universe as cohesive as possible in order to reward readers' loyalty. DC is breaking that contract. The entire DC Universe that I've read and loved (to varying degrees) since I was a kid will cease to exist in September.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, does it matter that all those great Batman stories I've read will no longer "count"? No, not really. But it's still a bit disappointing.

But like I said, I think this is probably the right move. This isn't a problem of fixing something that isn't broken. The DC Universe has become a tragic mess, especially over the past decade or so. In the past, DC's been able to temporarily patch up its continuity problems with stories like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis, without upsetting the overall flow of the company. I don't think that would work this time. It's gotten that bad. I'm not even sure what audience DC is making comics for these days. They're obviously not designed for casual readers, and increasingly, they don't even seem designed for longtime readers like myself. It's like DC Comics has mainly been producing comics for the enjoyment of the people who work at DC Comics.

So basically, I can't stand the current state of the DC Universe, but nor am I happy that it's being done away with. From the reactions I've seen online, a lot of people appear to feel the same way. So the potential for DC to completely alienate a large portion of its customer base seems likely. If nothing else, you have to give them credit: This plan takes major balls.

Ultimately, it'll come down to how well that plan is executed. From what little we've seen, I'm not encouraged. Some of the story changes seem a bit too radical for my taste, and some of the redesigned costumes are absolutely awful (looking at you, Firestorm). So worst case scenario, I decide the new DC Universe isn't for me and take this opportunity to jump off and do something else with my time and money. John Byrne would probably say it's the right move.