Pluto, gnash

If I had a lot of viewers of this blog, I might lose some of them after this.  Lucky for me that practically nobody even knows this thing exists, even after posting on Facebook begging for attention.  But this post is going to be a bit political.  

We're discussing the subject of America becoming a plutocracy-- (from Wikipedia) defines a society or a system ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens. 

Seems that's the direction we're headed.  Politicians are mostly bought.   This nation...heck, the entire world, is turning into a plutocracy.  The highest bidder wins.  "Corporations are people too," and all that idiocy.  The one percent, butt-hurting that the Poors are lambasting them.  The race to decry a living minimum wage.  Seriously, the argument that we're giving generously to the poor, enough that they live some life of luxury, is hysterically ridiculous.  I was poor.  I was on welfare.  Nothing motivated me more than that sorry existence to get out of its clutches and live my own life.  

I make a good living now.  I can pay all my bills.  But if being a welfare queen was so awesome, I promise I'd still be there.  I'm fucking lazy, and that's before taking my daily meds.  

I begin this with Warren Ellis' apparent entry into comics, which was DOOM 2099

This.

This, I'm told, is Ellis' foray into the idea that corporations might rule in the future, led of course by Dr. Doom.  Or his son.  Or clone.  This was also Ellis' first work for Marvel, which is kinda why I cautiously bought the collection in the first place, because I knew the earlier works of authors you romanticize can bite your ass.  I think my first exposure to Ellis was HellStrom, and then Druid, both of which ended just as they were building mythologies.  I am struggling with this volume, but still reading.  But I'm interested in seeing where it goes.

Buy this.

They Live was so prescient it almost makes John Carpenter seem psychic.  This is practically what is happening right now in America.  Plutocracy out of control and no way to stop it, seemingly.  Rich keep getting richer, but hey, if you give up your morals you can join them!  As long as you don't mind boning blue inside-out aliens, AMIRITE?  I still pop this in at least once a year.  I had no idea Roddy Piper was so hot til I saw this movie.

(Full disclosure:  Piper was on an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories recently and has not held up on the hotness scale.  Then again, it's not like I'm posing for centerfolds either.)

Ben Elton was one of the driving forces in the 80s "alternative" comedy scene, with his best known works being The Young Ones and co-writing the Black-Adder series.  He's also, it turns out, a pretty prolific author of imaginative fiction.  This book opens as the Earth is teetering on the brink of total eco-collapse, and how the one percent make plans to save their own asses, rather than curb their lifestyles for the overall good of the planet.  While I liked the book when I first read it, I thought it was hippie nonsense, but now, re-reading it, I'm not so sure of its implausibility.  Climate change deniers abound these days and seem to have the loudest voices in the room.  Meanwhile, more and more freaky weather becomes common, and if I hear one more forecaster mention the goddamn polar vortex I will forcibly shit my pants.

A good friend of mine once took to his Facebook... on a night I'm sure was tinged with some alcohol... and posted this:

If the federal government shuts down on Tuesday because of the incompetency and childish -- insanely childish - actions and behavior of the house - all y'all republicans just need to unfriend me... Those children need their asses whooped XXXXXXXX style - belt - yard stick - whatever - just whooped. No one elected you to go to Washington and blow up the government and stomp around like a spoiled little bitch because you're not getting your way. 1,000's of people will go without paychecks - but the house voted this morning to keep receiving their paychecks - even if they start a government shutdown. Embarrassing and shocking and true. My only hope is that it will be the final nail in their coffin - that maybe will finally be rid of the homophobic - abortion/vagina obsessed - ignorant, narrow minded - party of the stupid. For all my "poor" friends - or those on government assistance - that it's republican because of your love of God and guns - they hate you. I have no idea why you continue to vote for these people that clearly hate you - they play to your fears and exploit your beliefs - and you still vote for them. They. Hate. You. Wake up.

That's pretty much what these books were describing.  And he lost a lot of friends posting that, because when you tell people the truth about themselves, they break the sound barrier with how quickly they bury their heads in the sand while screaming "LALALALAICANTHEARYOUUU..."

So the world is ending, and like everybody else, I'm avoiding the truth by watching the boob tube and reading funnybooks.

Schadenfreude, kinda

Once in a while you come across something online that can't be coincidence, but has to be.

I do not believe I will ever be in another relationship again.  Any future relations will probably be purely sexual.  I say this partly because I've realized the type of person I am attracted to is also not cut from the cloth of relationships, but also because of... ah, I won't go into it.

I was doing my regular pervy surfing, looking at profiles online for people I'll never speak to, when I saw a pic of my ex, with his current beau.  Not Dale, who has seemed to drop off the face of the internet again, but He Who Shall Not Be Named.

(I've always thought that calling Voldemort that was stupid, because by doing so, you ARE naming him.  It's like Louis C.K. ranting about how the "n-word" is worse than the word "nigger."  By saying "the n-word" you make ME think nigger, which makes me the racist by reverse default.  Anyway.)

It was (I suppose still is) a B411 profile, with a picture of the happy couple, X seemingly happy as can be and his partner who seemed to just be a fatter version of me.

I just found it amusing is all.  We couldn't make our short relationship work because of his neurosis about relationships.  We couldn't be friends because of various other reasons.  And now he's dating somebody who pretty much looks exactly like me only 50 pounds heavier than my heaviest.

I wish there was some freaky foreign word that describes how I laughed about this that didn't set off NSA alarms looking for Nazi saboteurs.

Lying Cat, my hero

Damn.

Brian K. Vaughn might not necessarily be the best writer ever in comics, but he's sure trying his best.  And his best is fucking good.  Better than most of the crap out there.

Today brought issue 18 of SAGA, which I thought was kind of a pompous name until I read the first issue.  There are almost no comics I can name besides this one and maybe V for Vendetta, and okay The Sandman that I read one issue of and was immediately hooked (mind you, the first two were #1s and The Sandman was issue #8, which was the intro issue for Death and anybody who wasn't hooked by that issue has no soul).  No concept of what the story was about, just looked interesting, picked it up because it was a number one, BAM, addict.  I've mentioned in my last post what all makes SAGA special, but, like Pam Poovey on Archer, it seems the fan favorite breakout character is an unlikely choice:

lying...

 

The apparent death of Lying Cat in a recent issue nearly had fans doubled over in nauseous shock and wanting the head of BKV on a pike in Times Square so that we might pelt it with rotten tomatoes.  That's the sign of a good storyteller, I think, somebody who can make you care so much that you go apoplectic with rage when you even think that character might die.

 

I first encountered this with Douglas Adams when he killed off Marvin, the Paranoid Android.  I think now, looking back, it was because I identified with Marvin so much.  I was always paranoid, trying to hope for the best in life but totally expecting the worst.  And of course, making everybody laugh along the way, no matter what I really felt.  Kind of... he was killing off the only character I'd ever really bonded with.  And it was obvious that he was doing it just as a fan-service, because he was very caustic in stating Marvin's death... The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the last time ever.  Not as big a "fuck you" to Hitchhiker's fans as the comedy-less ending of Mostly Harmless, but enough to make a very young version of me hand-write a letter to this author I revered and tell him that he, in fact, should be the one fucking himself, after fucking all of Marvin's fans like that.

 

Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!

 





So while I was picking up SAGA, I made sure to pick up the next reprint issue of....

 

...Miracleman #2.  I forgot how vicious and death-lusty Kid Miracleman was until I saw this pic...

 

sup bitchcakes

 

And it was just as shocking and scary as the first time I read it.  So yeah, good day for comics and memories.



Fiction Friction

I admit to being lax in not only updating this blog, but in most of my former habits.  Seeking out new music, I just don't know how without a Tower Records listening station.  Writing for my self... I guess this is part of it, but it's not what's roaming about inside my head, which currently includes a mermaid family and a teen superhero story.

Comic books are waning once again, with really only Brian K. Vaughn's SAGA series, which has all sorts of interesting bits, such as interplanetary wars, giants with big nasty testicles, assassins, spider-women, drugs, gay sex, robot royalty with TVs for heads, two people in love, blowjobs, visions of gay sex, and a cat that can detect lies.  It's pretty awesome.

Other than comics, however, I've really slacked off on reading.  I'm trying to fix that, but I'm finding it harder than it used to be.  Used to be, I could just zone out for hours on a weekend afternoon, nothing else to do, lose yourself in a good book.  Like with music, it's getting harder to find good fiction, or even nonfiction for that matter.  Take for example this book:

I made a stop at B&N recently, the first in a long while, and this is the only thing that leapt out at me, begging to be bought.  Written by a fairly accomplished author, it is literally a handbook on how to invade planet Earth.  Hysterical idea, right?  Almost worthy of Douglas Adams praise.  If only it were actually... well, funny.

It's not.  The author certainly did his research... the first few chapters talked about how since the Moon is tidally-locked to Earth and has one side that always faces away, perfect for an invasion base, and explaining Lagrange points enough that I actually understand why the Moon and Earth share five of them, and only one is good to hide from Earth's prying eyes.... but it's so fucking boring.  I'll keep giving it a shot but I'm not holding out much hope, as this guy is not even as affable a writer as Michio Kaku.  Speaking of which...

This book straight up must have been fun to write.  It's just taking research on things like life and death, the missing universe, cold fusion and The Wow! Signal, and other things science really doesn't understand, and it speaks in a tone that I first found with Kaku's Visions.  It's fun to re-read it again, and pretty shocking to realize that after five years since its publication, we really don't understand these mysteries any better.

And this, one of my two favorite bathroom books.  The other is Stewart's Wicked Bugs, which tells the encyclopedic tales of these plants wicked counterparts in the insect world.  It's entirely fascinating reading, unlike her latest volume, The Drunken Botanist, which I bought sight unseen only to find it's basically a bartender's handbook for how to get lit off of, like, daisies and stuff.  I really don't need help in that area nowadays.  

But regardless, I am going to make a concerted effort to write for myself more, and read more, like I used to do in both camps.  I need new hobbies between DLC for Dead Rising 3 and XBox One releases.

KIMOTA! Here's my junk.

 

Seriously, Quesada?  Do we need to have the center focus of this on Miracleman's junk?

 

MM has a long, troubled path to re-publication, for good reason.  The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's turn as The Joker is very much owing it's life to Miracleman.  Comic books simply didn't know they could be "dark and edgy" until Miracleman.

 

Of course, you wouldn't recognize it at first.  It's only after Young Miracleman comes back (sorry... spoilers) that you get the full picture.  The logical extension of a God among mortals and what would happen, as much as just Alan Moore's regular deconstruction of the Uberman stereotype, comes into play front and center.

 

But most know this already... we're all just wanting to enjoy these stories like we did back then.  I was lucky in that I was able to read the original run as it was reprinted.  And then as the new stories began.  I hope Gaiman doesn't screw this up like he did the Sandman prequel, which I'm also wanting to read, and now.

 

Time of the Doctor

The hills are alive... with the sound of Silence...

I should probably admit to recent troubles before delving into reviewing this show... which for me was an okay send off, not nearly as good as David Tennant's...

We didn't want you to go either...

...but anybody who still has any doubts about whether Peter Capaldi was going to make a great Doctor should check and make sure they have a pulse.  In just ten seconds, he pretty much wowed me and makes me wish the new season was here already.

The truth is, I fell off the wagon pretty hard recently because of a number of issues.  One is, I'm beginning to understand why my predecessor left for greener pastures.  Mainly because I have a very big pasture to mow and very little help doing it.  I am addressing this issue with my boss soon, because I have to stick to the caveat I came to the job with, which is:  commercials come first.  I produce commercials (not too fun, sometimes) and imaging (always fun), but imaging doesn't feed the bulldog.  But that means imaging gets the short end of the stick.  That makes me sad, imaging really is the fun part of my job.  Sometimes I want to go to work because of it.  ME.

I love it when I get to show off to my boss, and I bring him into my studio and he has no idea what I'm going to play, and it always gets thumbs up.  Usually with loud peals of laughter.

So, we'll deal with that when he's back from vacay.  I need help, an assistant, somebody full time.  Otherwise what happens if I need to take a sick day?  If there's no back-up... well, I guess, what, commercials just don't get produced and spots miss?  And I have to wait til the sun and moon and stars line up before I can take time off for even a day?

Also I'm still dealing with the break-up over a year ago.  Part of it is because it seems I was right... this guy who I thought the world of for years had his own, repeating agenda in life.   Basically, fleecing guys and then dumping them when he lost interest.  Shortly after the initial break up (actually I guess it was the second break up), I called him on his behavior, saying that I thought he had done this before and would do it again... Very BSG of me, I know.  

He didn't seem to like me pointing that out.  Recently I sent him an extremely nasty note, and I stand by that, because he'd already went and broken the heart of the guy he left me for.  It's not even been a year.  But now I climb back on the wagon before my acne returns.  And now...

TIME OF THE DOCTOR

hard to believe that's a wig...

Fitting ending, I guess, for Matt Smith's version of the Doctor.  As I said, there was no "I don't to go" moment to make us all bawl.  Matt's Doctor didn't feel like he needed it, I think.  His sudden abrupt change was well played, and another shock to viewers, I guess, but if you think about it, he'd lived many hundreds of years... Tennant's Doctor was even shorter than number Nine, so no, he didn't "want to go."  And then Capaldi's first words... "Do you know how to fly this thing?" Very much plus points on awesome.

The plot was convoluted and didn't make much sense.  I guess I could say they have more of a plan than LOST did... because we know now that they really just lied to ABC to get the show going.  I don't think Stephen Moffett had the whole thing planned out from the beginning as he's alluded to, but he'd better have Sherlock's return planned out.  If that goes off from the cuff I shall be put off in a very bad way.

But, I guess Matt Smith's run has always been hit or miss.  The best thing is, even when it's been a miss, it's still a hit, of sorts.  I admit I feel silly that my favorite 'sode was The Girl Who Waited, as at the time I identified with that story a lot.  I was wrong.  I did not wait.  Waiting implies that something was there for me at the end, and there was not.  I'll take the tears that come with Vincent and the Doctor from now on.

GODZILLA 2014 is the new MONSTERS

I've never hidden being a Godzilla fan.  It's embarrassing as hell, but many other nerds still find it cool for some reason, even if they're not into it.  I guess it's like being a fanatic about The Prisoner but still finding respect for Dr. Who fans, as silly as that show could get sometimes.  "You like this, I like that... let's just play nice and put the switchblades down.  I'm the Sharks, you're the Jets, let's share the turf and get laid by some chicks."  

Yet I can't help but be a little let down.  My whole obsession with Godzilla began, obviously, as a child.  Once in a while, our TV antenna (a big proper one with a fence to keep us kids from trying to climb it) would pick up channel 41 in Louisville (WDRB) or channel 19 in Cincy (WXIX [see what they did there], both at the time independents, and now both Fox affiliates).  All life stopped during these moments.  We had fuzzy-screened access to monster movies, japanimation, and other imported goodies that the local national affiliates wouldn't touch.  The world was literally our oyster... until whatever atmospheric conditions were causing us to pick up the TV signals moved on, which was usually right at the climax.

Eventually I discovered that Maloney's, the department store that had opened across from Dad's Western Auto and was helping put him out of business (They were appropriately bought by "Heck's" within a couple of years), had not only cable (not even a chance of us having that on Hatton Creek) but they also had WXIX.  Which regularly showcased Godzilla movies!  Although not regularly enough.  Although I do remember a Sunday afternoon watching all the monsters in Destroy All Monsters while sitting on a golden-sparkle motorcycle helmet in the TV/45s and albums aisle, and i remember buying the   45 for Purple Rain in that aisle and the theme song for The Greatest American Hero there, I do not remember seeing another Godzilla movie there. 

So it was a great while before I was finally able to buy a real Godzilla film to watch on VHS, because I was fucking seven years old in Maloney's/Heck's, and I barely remember watching that, except when they beat the fuck out of Ghidorah's three heads.  I loved that.

The point is, when I finally got to watch this icon in his proper medium, which was in my teens when such things started to become available, I was shocked that it was pretty fucking stupid.  The scripts were insipid... they were just trying to match the "lip flaps" of the original actors, which, given the deleterious differences between our languages, naturally makes any lip-flapping mash-up sound ridiculous.  

That's when I really liked Godzilla movies.  The dumber they sounded, they more I liked it... especially when I began culling soundbites from them for my job.  They were insane.

Anyway, this post is getting too long.  The movie looks pretty serious.  Like Gareth's previous movie, Monsters, which I didn't care much for.   Far more serious than Pacific Rim.  I'm unsure I want something so serious from a Godzilla movie.

Rather have:

NuWhoReVue... but first, rape

I forgot the actual reason for writing about Christmas until just now.

The reason was because I realize that a cherished holiday song from the past is actually kind-of a song about date rape.  Seriously.

Baby, It's Cold Outside has been a holiday classic forever, and everybody from Dean Martin to CeeLo Green have covered it.  Recently, we did what's called "flipping to Christmas" at my radio station, which basically means a fairly popular station in our cluster "flips" its format to all-Christmas, all the time.  The first song we played was BICO.  I got there early to listen to the "flip" live and fix any small glitches that might appear... luckily there was only one, easily fixed, which is surprising because I had to build the imaging for it from the ground up... usually it's been our Soft AC station to do it (think James Taylor and The Carpenters... basically Doctor's office background music.  However, earlier this year we flipped that station to New Country, so the only one in our cluster who we could viably flip was our Hot AC (Maroon 5, Pink, Lorde etc).  This is a huge risk, but I think we were right to do it, because all of our other stations either had week signals or were too grounded in their audience to do it.  (In my eyes, anyway... I have no actual insight into these decisions.)

So this was the first time I actually paid attention to the song, and it was just so unsettling.  I'd only heard it as I've heard most Christmas songs, kind of in the background.  Now that I paid attention it was fucking creepy.

First, I had thought the guy was the one wanting the girl to let him stay because of the weather.  It's the opposite--she's trying to leave, he's the one trying to talk her into staying because of the inclement weather.

It just gets creepier and creepier.  He talks her into staying for just half a drink more, but soon she's asking, "Say what's in this drink?"  HULLO ROOFIES.  And he's having none of her reasoning for why she doesn't want to stay... never mind that her family might get worried or she might be shamed by spending the night with somebody she's not married to, he's got a peen going and he's too lazy to just fap it himself at his laptop on Fleshbot.  He eventually guilts her into staying, with a dismissal of her reasons, "get over that holdout."  Then presumably he shame-screws her and high-fives all the guys in the office over his achievement, while the girls in the typing pool tut-tut the woman's lack of chastity.

Oh and... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Anyway...

F*** you if you don't like Christmas

It's not that I don't like Christmas.  It's fine.  I remember plenty of great Christmases in my youth.  Like the one where I got the new re-vamped GI Joes, the SuperJoe line.  It was a sci-fi version of GI Joe, and since my older brother and cousin had moved on from GI Joe to titty mags, it was mine, all mine.  The Shield, the cyborg with a... well.  Shield.  Attached to one of his arms.  That he couldn't throw at Nazis like Captain America could.  But it had a tiny light in it to scare people!

Luminos, the see-through cyborgy looking thing that had light up eyes that, presumably, you could use your vast imagination to pretend were lasers cutting the enemy in twain, although I usually used him to pee at night.

Gor, King of the Terrons, who apparently were some kind of insect-lizards who fainted when you shone a light on them.

And of course there was SuperJoe with his1-2 Punch, his black friend because it was trendy in the 70s, and Darkon, the green-skinned version of SuperJoe who was also one of those almost naked villians.

That was a good Christmas for me.  As was the one where I got ROM.

What made me sour somewhat on Christmas was becoming one of The Poors.  Mom's mental breakdown when I was a kid happened at really a bad time for all of us, especially when Dad had to declare bankruptcy for the medical bills racking up.  (Badmouth Obamacare?  Of course I will.  It doesn't go far enough.)  After that, I got to see the real spirit of Christmas, which is, "What did you get?..."

Every year at school I'd be asked that, and when I gave an honest answer of "Nothing," I was treated to derision and ridicule, as if I was trying to engender sympathy for my situation.  What was I supposed to do, lie?  Say we got a Nintendo?  Everybody knew we were poor.  Why did they bother asking what we got, was it just to feel superior?  Whatever.

I don't hate Christmas, but I don't like what Christmas has become, some kind of tournament to see who got the best goodies.  Because we became poor for a while (strictly speaking we still are now), we stopped celebrating the holiday like that.  When possible we still gave gifts.

While both Kelly and I lived far from home, we would coordinate to visit all at once close to Thanksgiving to celebrate all the holidays and have (since Kelly's birthday was Dec. 8th and mine was Sept. 11th) what we called "BirthThankMas."

So now that Dad has passed, we will really appreciate the true meaning of this holiday.  It's about appreciating what you have and showing others you appreciate them, even when you don't know them.  It's not about what you get; it's about what you give.

I'd sure like that Absolute Top Ten collection though.

I am become Death, destroyer of worlds

I've noticed lately that I've been kind of obsessing over my death.

 

Notice that it's death, not suicide.  I don't remember ever having anything close to a suicidal thought.  I'm not that far gone, and I don't think I could be.

 

I've written before, somewhere, about the untimely death of a high school friend's younger brother.  It was the day after his birthday, they found him dead in bed.  The previous night he'd tried to do some fancy gymnastics into the swimming pool and cracked his head on the concrete side.  He went to bed that night complaining of a headache, and never woke up.

 

Later in life the memory of this would lead me to realize how close we almost accidentally kill ourselves all the time.  I had begun hanging out with Voldemort again, it was Christmastime, and we went shopping together at the Galleria, where he decided he wanted to go ice skating.  And wanted me to as well.

 

I should point out that I was probably sixty pounds heavier at the time and had never been ice skating.  My response should have been, "No, I don't want to snap both my ankles," but I'd been trying to be friends with V again because I didn't have any other friends in Dallas at the time.

 

V was not much better than me at skating.  Children routinely lapped him.  I myself clung with a white-knuckled fear-grip to the side, slowly inching my way around the rink.

 

When the fall happened, I immediately thought I was dead.  My head cracked on the ice and I actually felt what I assume was my brain bouncing around in my skull.  I was unable to speak and the only thing I could do is whisper "help" to the halo of faces looking down at me.

 

In the nurse's office I was told I should probably get some stitches, which I declined.  At the time I did not realize that my scalp actually ripped open a little, or that a small puddle of blood had pooled beneath my head.  All I could think of was how I was going to die like that kid did.  I did not sleep that night.  And ever since then, any headache, no matter how small, is met with the knowledge that I've probably blown a vein in my brain and if I go to sleep I will never wake up.

 

Since then I've been acutely aware of how close we all actually come to snuffing it all the time.  I think most people need that kind of experience before they also see it.  This past year has been a particularly busy one, as I've nearly died six times... or rather, came close to a life threatening injury, technically.

 

1.  Stroke-- It started with the stroke, of course.  In fact if Dale hadn't been there I probably would have died from it.  He convinced me to go to the hospital.  Nobody else in my life, aside from my little brother, could have done that.

 

The weirdest thing is, although something was obviously wrong, it didn't feel like it.  You expect something like a stroke to be painful:  it wasn't.  Aside from the fact that my arm and leg weren't obeying my commands, I didn't feel like there was anything wrong with me.  That's what I would tell potential stroke victims... yes, there are signs that can warn you you're having one, and it can also feel completely different or like nothing at all.  It's not a heart attack.  It seems most strokes are caused by lack of oxygen reaching the brain for some reason, which also happens to be why seizures often occur after a stroke as well... the brain knows something is wrong and is temporarily shutting down the system in hopes of getting more oxygen.

 

2.  Shower-- I've never been the most graceful person, but after the stroke I've had to remedy that and be more careful in my movements.  There are still the occasional hiccups.  One was, while still recovering, getting tangled up in the shower curtain and nearly plunging to the floor.  My bathroom, being tiny, affords me many ways to crack my skull open in such a scenario.  Luckily, my wet leg slipped free and I gained my balance.

 

3.  Shampoo-- I know they think it's clever marketing to give a shampoo bottle a distinctive shape, but if it's not shower caddy friendly it might as well be a land mine.  Luckily, the shower grip I grabbed onto after tripping on the bottle held. 

 

4.  Chuck Taylors-- My shoes slipped on a patch of ice after an ice storm.  Luckily I fell into a freshly plowed snowbank rather than the pavement, which otherwise would have split my skull open just as the ice rink tried to.

 

5.  720-- I really have no idea how I came out unscathed from this one.  I was making a sharp left off the on-ramp in Winchester when my little truck started hydroplaning.  I knew enough to let off the gas, but with my power steering out, my steering wheel couldn't right itself, and I continued hydroplaning in a doughnut WITH A LINE OF CARS BEHIND ME THAT DIDN'T REALIZE I WAS HYDROPLANING.  I have no idea how I  didn't plow into one.  I came to a stop after doing two full loops.  Jesus. 

 

The sixth one is frankly boring and another shower story.  Didn't have body wash, soap slips, I nearly slipped on the soap.  What a boring way to die that would have been.

Nightmare In Silver - DWreview

Well, I wouldn't have believed it if anybody had told me beforehand.  Even though Neil Gaiman wrote it, I was still down about being out of a relationship and thought very little chance of being entertained by this past Dr. Who, but damn if it wasn't awesome.

So awesome I'm going to skip talking about the rest of season 7.2 except to mention that the thing that is making this half of the season terrible is Clara.  The companion.  The companion is integral to The Doctor.  Sometimes they stand up to him, question his decisions and choices.  Sometimes they save his life.  Sometimes they run.  But always, always you like them in the end.  Even that screeching harpy Donna turned enjoyable towards her tragic end.  Every one of them likable, except Clara.

I can't give you a reason why.  Maybe it's because she feels like a mystery shoe-horned into the Doctor's life just to be a different type of companion.  Or, maybe she just sucks.  Or maybe what she's been given to do sucks.  But I haven't warmed up to her yet.

I've made predictions about the show before, none of which came true (but that I think were very clever).  So I'm hesitant to do this, but I think we'll find in the next 'sode that whatever is causing Clara's "condition" is either directly because of the Doctor, or because he chooses to do something that puts him in danger and Clara steps in to save the day by sacrificing herself.

If you think about it, that's kind of Moffat's whole schtick:  the Weeping Angels are practically unstoppable, as long as you're not looking at them, but if they look at each other, they can be immobilized for eternity.  You can't remember the Silence, but they can plant post-hypnotic suggestions in your head that you will (unknowingly) obey... even if it's about killing the Silence themselves.  Take the enemy's strength and make it their weakness as well.

A fine and time-honoured trope that appears again and again in the genre, so I don't mind it.  Still, like the TARDIS, I don't like Clara that much, yet.

GIRL, werq!

Still, this episode did to amazing things.  It let me not dislike Clara, and it also made the Cybermen actually seem kind of threatening.  It also managed to not feel like a typical Neil Gaiman story (unlike The Doctor's Wife, which absolutely did).  I should note that, while I am a huge Gaiman fan, I have not placed him on an unreachable pedestal.  He can write boring but award winning stories about teens realizing the chicks they're hitting on at a party are aliens or something, and then he can write things like "When the Saucers Came" which makes me hate him for being an actual talent and able to give a twist to a story that makes M. Night Shyamalan blush with jealousy.

I'm sure you can find the whole thing online somewhere.

Anyway.  Two incredible performances in this 'sode.  One from Matt Smith himself, playing the Doctor and the Cyber-infected Doctor at the same time.  I kind of love these schizophrenic kind of performances, but I really wish more people would follow Peter Jackson's idea of filming the two disparate characters separately and jump-cutting between their perspectives.  I just think that's cooler.

THIS IS TOTALLY NOT LIKE THE BORG!

The other incredible performance was from Warwick Davis.  Man, he would have been awesome in Game of Thrones.  As emperor of the galaxy, he was pretty fucking good.

Emperor Davis

So next up is Trenzalore and the question which must never be asked, and the explanation of Clara.  I hope it makes me trip balls.  Like this!

The Doctor Sucks

"You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and you actually talk to them and five minutes later they are solid as a brick. Then there are other people then you meet them and think, not so bad for ok. Then you get to know them and their face just sort of becomes them, like their personality is written all over it... and it just... turns to something so beautiful"

At first, I was absolutely sure I knew what was wrong:  I wasn't enjoying it because my partner wasn't here with me, and I kind of knew he wouldn't be coming back.  I had always enjoyed the show before we got back together, but now I had to re-learn how to enjoy Dr. Who alone, again.  It wasn't coming along.

I thought, maybe, like the Doctor, I needed a companion, to enjoy the show.  Since my brother had built his dream house after moving back home, I elected him to be my surrogate Dr. Who companion.  I go home most weekends, and we try to watch it together, although he usually falls asleep on the couch.

But that wasn't the problem.  This season, particularly the second half, has just plain sucked.

Asylum of the Daleks

This 'sode was not a knock out of the park, but it was pretty good, especially for setting up the Doctor's new status quo as an unknown variable, as opposed to the most feared being in the universe.  Also, the perfect couple being on the rocks?  And then seeing them grow together again?  That was pretty good.  If you've ever given somebody up because you know you'll never be able to give them what they truly want, Amy's speech about children was probably pretty touching and effective.
 

I'm not a big fan of westerns, aside from Tombstone (of course), but this sci-fi take on the genre was good.  But again, it was a western... I'd watch it again, but not go out of my way, necessarily, to do so.
 

A fun romp.  This kind of sounds like somebody came up with the title before having any idea about a plot, but it was fun.  Rory's dad was a good addition.
 

Apparently the power of three is to bore the audience to tears.  Ugh, how boring this was.  That's when the cracks started appearing in the Doctor's facade for me.  But we still had the big,  bad Weeping Angels appearance to get through....
 

...and "getting through" it was exactly what you had to do with this one.  At best, a mediocore 'sode that should have been an excellent one, seeing as how it was a supposedly farewell ep for Rory and Amy.  It was one of the few times that I would agree with friends who point out the illogical in certain tropes.  "Well, why couldn't they just arrive in Jersey and take a cab if the fabric of space-time was preventing them?"  Normally I'd dismiss this with, "Yeah it's so illogical that this time-traveling immortal couldn't figure that out, it's so unrealistic..."  but they took way too many liberties with time travel, paradoxes, Angels (honestly the Statue should have been a huge shocker but it was yawn-apalooza)... Just not really all that great.

to be continued soon with reviews of the second half of season seven

A New Universe

In a few weeks the title for this post might have another, hidden meaning... but for now, it's just referring to Marvel's third revival of their New Universe line.

New Universe was a line of comic books put out by Marvel in 1986, in honor of their 25th anniversary.  It was pretty much a sputtering, gasping failure from the beginning, but for me it was really cool... something that wasn't your regular spandex-clad super-hero fare.  I especially enjoyed Star Brand, a book that seemed to have a story arc, but I'm guessing like most things back then they were just winging it.  In 2006, probably to keep the trademark alive, Marvel let Warren Ellis revive the concept with his newuniversal mini-series.  It has been said that a catastrophic hard drive failure left WE with none of his notes on the series, which smells suspicious to me, but it was a great mini anyway, updating a nostalgic concept for more modern and engaging story-telling.

And now this.  Jonathan Hickman has taken control of Avengers and New Avengers, and has brought the NU into 616, or at least the concept of it (meaning the concept Ellis had fleshed out), and I am fucking hooked.  It's like the Godfather, just when I thought I was getting out of comics, they pull me back in.  I don't know yet if they're planning on incorporating NU stuff into 616, and after today's issue of Avengers I think they might not. But still, it's pretty awesome.  

(I will always lament that Kickers Inc. never got a second chance... super-hero FOOTBALL players fore hire?  Awesome.) 

When The Tripods Came... for him

a.k.a. his proper name, Samuel Youd

John Christopher, one of my favorite authors of the apocalypse fiction, has died.

I'm not going to recap his life... there are plenty of resources on the internet for that (although not nearly enough, in my opinion). I'm just here to express my grief on the loss of this author.

The Tripods

I guess I should just start out with what most people will be familiar with, his Tripods Trilogy (+1). Fanboys a little older than me probably read the first three books in grade school... they were common in libraries across the country. The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire tell of a world thrown back into the pre-machine ages, ruled by aliens who strode across the land in thrice-footed titans known as Tripods, who are also worshipped and loved by the populace thanks to a "cap" they place on humans upon reaching an agreeable age of maturity. Naturally, there are people who eventually rise up against this... the Freemen... and this is the tale of three young boys who join their camp and the fight against the tyranny of the Tripods.

Most of us either read these books in the school library, or the public library, or watched the BBC adaptations of the books on PBS and THEN read the books. That's how it happened for me. It didn't help that I had a crush on the actor who played Will (who looks disconcertingly like a young Paul McCartney).

This is the cover art from our library's copy.

I remember discovering the series on our local PBS channel, a branch of Kentucky Educational Television (KET), one Sunday morning. My brothers and even my sister were pretty captivated by it. Science Fiction? British? Sunday morning? Sign us up. Later I would see one of the books serialised in comic form in Boy's Life, but it was not as engrossing as the series. I sought out the books and of course raced through them, lamenting Henry's fate in the third book and eagerly awaiting the second series to see the alien Masters on screen.

In the 80s, for some reason, Youd penned a forth book, When The Tripods Came, a prequel telling of how the Tripods took over. They apparently used viral programming on television to do so, which was a bit prescient of how the internet would eventually help spiral popular things to the top of popular culture. When the internet finally started doing this, I noticed this similarity and thought it very peculiar. I wonder who really put that Hamster Dance online... Anyway, the book was a good chapter in the story, but it did feel kind of tacked on.... good, but unnecessary.

I liked how the books played as a comedy in the strictest terms, because, after the Masters were defeated and driven from the planet, humanity started its in-squabbling again. Oh humanity, will you ever learn? Yes, I view The Tripods ultimate as a comedy, in the strictest sense, because my actual favorite trilogy from Youd is very definitely a tragedy...

Art in the style of the Tripods, above...

It wasn't until I was an adult that I would come across many more John Christopher works. One that sticks with me is the Sword of the Spirits trilogy. It's a tragedy, in that our hero does not meet the best of fates at the end. Youd also manages to do something remarkable... he takes a likable protagonist, and through the course of three books, turns him into an absolute asshole without you really noticing it until the very end. Christianity also gets a very cold shoulder at first in the trilogy, being something to be ridiculed, but in the end it overturns the now-tyrant protagonist, who had become the aforementioned asshole. An awesome trilogy, with a very depressing end, that I can read over and over again.

The Lotus Caves

Youd wrote other stories as well, some quite well received, still. Probably the most famous is The Lotus Caves. It takes place on a Moon base. Humans are living there, squee, so it's already pretty fun from the start. Two boys hijack a go-cart and have an adventure in the moon mountains, only to discover a hidden cave where a Hive mind lurks, wanting to soak them in. Pretty gripping stuff for youngsters, lemme tell you.

But I don't think anything compares to his apocalyptic novel, No Blade of Grass.



I came across this very edition in a used paperback store in Lexington, KY, for only two bucks. I was elated when I realized what I had found... a JC novel I'd never read and knew nothing about... I knew I'd eat it up in mere days.

Kind of ironic, because the book is about the world starving to death. All grain based plants... meaning, most of them, fall ill to a virus, and the story follows a group of survivors trying to make it to one of their relatives' farms to live off of potatoes. The depravity they have to endure along the way is astonishing, when you consider when the book was published. It's my favorite John Christopher book of all, I have a first edition in storage even.

Anyway, it's not like I thought that he was going to write another book, but it is sad that he is gone. I wish they'd finished the Tripods on BBC for him.

Doctor Who Preview, The Wedding of River Song

It could just be Dress Like a Pirate Day...

(clicky the pic to embiggen)

So the Doctor Who fandom is having shouting matches all over the internet (I must say, polite ones) about theories on the Season 6 finale, and some of the theories make sense and others make my Flesh-boot Doctor seem genius.

Take the above photo. many questions are raised, such as:

1.) Why do River, Amy, and Rory all have Madame Kovarian eye-patches? What are the eye-patches for?

eye-patches are cool, that's why.

2.) Why are the Greys (not sure what to call them now since the race isn't really called The Silence or Silents) submerged in a tank of (presumably) water while all the other ones are running around free?

I'm moisturizing AND I'm doing the dishes... at the same time!

3.) What's up with Rory's get up here? Is this like an alternate time-line version of Rory, like the Micky who worked for an alternate universe's Torchwood?

Super-Rory? UNIT Rory? G.I. Rory? Hot Role-Play Rory?

4.) Are you seriously trying to get us to believe that the Doctor doesn't know how to knit already? What's he need anyway, a cozy for his sonic?

OMG They have a Hello Kitty section!

5.) But I think the most exciting is this photo, which really seems to bring it home that the Doctor ain't messin' about this time...

Hmmm. Well I think after the last episode's finale, everybody's pretty much agreeing that the eye-patch thing must be a way to circumvent the effect the Grey Silents have on you. Other footage from the show seems to suggest a splintering of time, with lots of historical events happening at the same time... as if all of history is taking place in the present. Hence the pterodactyl, the future pyramid thingy, the Romans still being around, and it'd even explain (kinda) how Dorium the merchant returns after being decapitated, but I bet they're going to explain that away with something cuter, like his race doesn't keep anything important like a brain in their head.

All in all it looks to be a very curious episode and could be incredibly good or incredibly awful. Just so long as it's not incredibly average.