24 Years of Wedded Bliss

So, April 28th, 2024 marks the 24th anniversary of Jamie and I making it official.

We'd "dated" for years prior, back to 1995, but that's if you call "dating" two people just saying "yup" to each other and now we were an item.  There wasn't much in the way of trying to figure things out regarding our status.  I wasn't taking her to a movie and then dropping her off and wondering what she was thinking.  We were just together.  And while I didn't know that we'd get married in the first months, there was just not a lot of work there - we just didn't have a trial period or casual dating phase.  

When I hear about people having relationship drama, I'm just of the opinion that you aren't writing a romantic novel about overcoming all kinds of obstacles in liking each other.  I'm not saying there isn't any work or misunderstandings, but, kids, it can be pretty good pretty early on.  With Jamie's medical history, we wound up having plenty of drama that wasn't us arguing, so don't mistake things for being all smooth sailing.  And I got cold feet a couple of times as we headed toward what looked like a lifelong relationship - what with college ending and next phases of life starting.

But into those next phases we headed, sharing an apartment for two years before nuptials.  We got married on a Friday in April of the year 2000.  We were 25, which was pretty young by the standards of my peers.  But, also, most of my friends responded to the news with "shocker, man".  Which means people probably knew we were getting married before I knew.  

Me vs My Facial Hair

Beards are in.  Facial hair is *in*.  Cool dudes are wearing beards.

I'm not one to care much about remaining trendy or fashion (he said, wearing his Bugs Bunny t-shirt as if to put too fine a point on it), but beards and mustaches when I was a young man were for girlfriends' dads and people trying to show you they were, in fact, an iconoclast.  Which, in itself, was super strange.  Facial hair is a pain and it *should* be far more normal to have a beard than not have one. After all, to have a beard, all you have to do is nothing, and a beard happens, if your genetics are so inclined.

And yet...  it's often been the fashion to have a smooth face.  And not just recently.  George Washington?   Chin clean as a newly washed dinner plate.  Paintings of renaissance dudes?  Maybe a twirly mustache.

But going back to college, me and my Norelco have had fairly regular meet-ups.  I'd shave for work pretty much every day, just as I'd done since, like, 9th grade (when my need to shave was to keep the odd patches of beard and peach-fuzz stache from creeping in). 

Until a few years ago, the longest I'd ever gone without shaving was five days on vacation.  But this year, around Christmas, I let it go for several weeks.  And, then, from March 15th to April 17th, I didn't shave.  

these pics are me "reacting" to reaction videos

Here's what I learned.  

The $420 bottle of Batman Perfume and DC Comics in 2024

Hey, look, a $420 bottle of Batman perfume.

A long time ago now, comic artist and famed "nice guy" Jim Lee became President of DC Comics.  He'd been put in a position of power during the Diane Nelson era, having had brought in the Wildstorm Universe to DC Comics, first as an imprint, and then shoehorning it into the New 52 (pretty much against logic and reason).  And he was the foil to Dan Didio's blustering and general ass-hattery.  

But every time an interviewer put a mic in front of Lee, he'd say things that I found confounding.  Chief among those things was that comics weren't really a form of reading, they were a collectible.  DC was in the collectibles business.  

Which makes sense if you made a million dollars because kids were speculating wildly on comics in the early 1990's, but has made minimal sense since that fateful era that almost killed the American comics industry.

Martin Short Appreciation Post

A while back someone tried to do a hit piece on Martin Short.  It was weird - the legit journalist spent a day or so with Short and his take at the end was "I never thought Martin Short was funny."  Which is super weird.  

The article was not received well by the general public.  

Multiple generations are fans of Short, and, sure maybe he's not to everyone's taste.  Look, if I want to write a blog post and howl into the wind about something, whatever.  But spending time and energy of a legitimate publication to work through my personal taste in comedy, that's super weird and says more about me (and my editor or lack thereof) than it does Martin Short.

But let it be known, at this blog, we dig Martin Short.  From Ed Grimley where we first found out about Short, to his many movies, to Jiminy Glick, to his current work with Steve Martin, both stage shows and Only Murders in the Building - I've certainly liked him.  

I mean, this is how he responded to his pal David Letterman having a massive heart attack.

 

If you never saw Jiminy Glick, I think Short was oddly ahead of his time on this one

And, of course, his Ed Grimley sketches

It is *hard* to remain as funny as Short has over the years, and to keep it relentlessly fresh.  And to find new avenues for what he does.  I mean, there are multiple levels upon which I appreciate Only Murders in the Building, but certainly I'm a fan of how Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez have created some great characters.

Anyhoo, if you've got a favorite Martin Short bit or role or clip, share in the comments!

Twitter is over, and I need a junk drawer

Remember when you'd be over at your friend's house and they'd want to show you the groovy light their parents kept by the water bed in their room?

I have multiple social media accounts, but I don't really want to engage with humanity much on them.  

Engage with people on a topic for a particular issue or topic?  Especially responding to a post on movies or other things I want to talk to people about?  Sure.

But I think we all learned a lesson leaving twitter:  do not actually engage.  Do not start talking to people you do not know in an uncontrolled, anonymous environment.  Do not get into internet fights where you will prove someone wrong.  Do not get mad when someone points out you are wrong.  

But, also, you know, you don't need to live your life out loud on social media.  You don't know those people.

I am currently using my accounts the following ways:

Threads:  a quick scroll and mostly disappointment, but to get the basic gist of what the internet is thinking (last week I pieced together: What does Beyonce know about being Southern? is a racist dog whistle!*  What a time to be alive.)

BlueSky:  I see some Cubs chatter, which is nice.  But mostly I follow it for FilmSky, ie: people who are true weirdos about film who don't give a shit about film twitter, and are opining, posting links and living their best movie-nerd life.  Very friendly, unpretentious and lovely at the moment.

Instagram:  Initially I kind of used it not at all, despite having an account for years.  I am not trying to frame my life as exotic and exciting, and I don't particularly care if actors get to eat spinach salad in countries they don't live in or which fashion company gave them sunglasses.  But I've now followed enough people I know, and I just use dlvr.it it to send Signal Watch blog posts.  I also like to find silly stuff and repost it on Reels.  

Tumblr:  I use dlvr.it to repost stuff from the blog, and reblog funny pictures and some classic film stars.  I also know what people in their 20's who live with their parents and don't seem to have jobs think about the world.  It is wiiiiild.

Facebook (Blog-related):  I use dlvr.it to send Signal Watch posts to the official League of Melbotis page.  People still seem to use it.  I think this page is also linked one way or another, and I'll be looking into that.

Facebook (Personal):  I wouldn't even say this is a curated view of my exciting life.  I do still use it because it's the only way I'm in touch with many people, or the best way for me to reach some people.  A bit like why I still have a landline - because I had one in 2006, and that is where people find me, so I can't get rid of it.  Plus, I do get news, weather and other things there.

I do not do politics, or anything remotely, actually "personal" on facebook.  My parents, relatives, former teachers, bosses, etc... are all on there.  So I used to post things that were intentionally obnoxious and silly, but now I mostly use it to be silly.  Or mark "hey, it's Jamie's birthday!".  That sort of thing.

LinkedIn:  I actually kind of do use this at the moment as I'm between gigs.  I hear from recruiters there, and talk to colleagues, plus see what those colleagues are up to.  It's not all bad.  But I don't read those "thought provoking" articles that get reposted.  You know they aren't.

Slack:  I'm on a social slack.  It's all right with like four people.

But the thing I don't really do that I used to do when I was on Twitter is just put a short thread together, and I don't really have a place for things like "hey, remember the weird fluid and light things our parents had?  That was weird, right?"

So, initially I thought I'd use a return to League of Melbotis to do some personal journaling, but I don't know how into that I am as a concept.  Instead, I'm going to try to use it for a goofy junk-drawer for a while, which was often how it was used back in the 00's.  Signal Watch can continue on as a media review site, and I'll put other stuff here.

Deal?  

*our friend Bae is from Houston, and if you wanted to raise the collective dander of everyone in Texas, challenge if we know what the fuck country and cowboy culture are

A Total Eclipse of the Sun..!

taken with my Pixel 4

Well, here in lovely Austin, Texas, we were on the edge of the total solar eclipse.  Around 1:36 PM Central, we experienced about 90 seconds of totality.

I was, honestly, pretty excited about the eclipse.  I've seen probably 4 partial eclipses, including one last summer.  And one lunar eclipse back in middle school when my family was on vacation in Mexico and a guy from a restaurant was standing there looking straight up, and because I am that guy, I looked straight up, and me and that guy stopped and enjoyed a lunar eclipse together.

Austin was a big destination for the eclipse, because we are a very hip town for reasons that escape me, but for weeks we've known it was going to be cloudy here.  A month ago, to get ahead of how crazy things would get, local and state government got involved and declared a "state of emergency" so they could handle the influx of people supposedly coming in.  I heard crazy stories about no way to get a flight in or out for days on either side of today.  But I live here, so I didn't really see anything different.

We're expecting usual Austin-Springtime horrible weather over the next 24 hours or so, and so there was a chance we'd all be standing out looking up at the sun getting hit with hail.  

But that didn't happen.  

The weather sort of held on and we were able to head out to the field and retention pond area in our neighborhood where folks brought camp chairs and blankets.  

I will be honest and say, I also brought a box of Moon Pies and distributed them to folks who wanted one.

Folks were kind of quietly excited, and I realized, thanks to my daily viewing of KXAN news and the breathless reporting they'd been doing on the eclipse for what had to have been six weeks in advance, I was quite the know-it-all about the cosmic event.  

Do bats come out for an eclipse?  NO.  It turns out that they work on an internal clock and are not paying attention to the sun.

I tried to take pictures to show the difference in how very dark it did get, but my camera auto-corrected, and you can't see the change.

I've been fighting allergies, so sitting outside was a bit concerning, but given this was a possibly-once-in-a-lifetime event, I girded my loins, and - giving Jamie a headstart to go chat with neighbors, eventually I headed out.

Honestly, it was an amazing event.  Writing it down is a little meaningless.  You've probably seen plenty of pictures or video.  And I'd argue being there with other people to witness the same thing is part of it.  For the people who were at big civic events, etc... I get it.

As the moon got into position, the sky absolutely got darker and the temperature dropped several degrees.  I wouldn't say the birds went completely quiet, but they certainly toned it down.  During totality, a small bird, maybe a finch? flew weirdly close to us, I would guess a bit confused and looking for cover.  I'd argue I noticed when the birds came back to making noise again a lot more than when it went away, which might have been gradual.

Likely because we were so close to the edge of the event, and because clouds would disperse light, we didn't experience the same total darkness I saw in Indianapolis or other locations on the same path.  I'd say it got as dark as twilight during summer when the light hangs on a long time and you can still see a bit down the street.  But the change was *fast*.  I was pulling my cardboard glasses on and off to look around, and every time I did, it was noticeably darker in the minutes leading up to the grand event.

My neighbor, Michelle, and I were pondering "oh, yes, you can see exactly why ancient cultures lost their minds about this" and I need to look into what another neighbor was describing about the ancient mounds built by the First People on North America, because I was vaguely aware of them for ceremonial purposes, but not their astronomic/ astrological significance.  

As the news had said, the totality was brief, maybe 90 seconds.  You can get a rough idea of what the corona or ring looked like in my pics.  

And, of course, these pics do it no justice.  It was genuinely beautiful and unlike even the partial eclipses I'd seen before.  And, due in part to the totality and the clouds, if you weren't just staring, you could look at it with the naked eye.

The sliver of light left just before totality is kind of lovely and almost sad, and then... the ring.  In our case it was white light shining through the clouds, just shimmering around the perfect circle of the moon.  Then, when the event is passing, you get the diamond on the ring as the first real rays of the sun break out at the edge and a spot of light formed on, to my eye, the lower left angle.  And it's really kind of lovely.

Did I eat a Moon Pie during totality?  Friends, you know I did, and it was perfect.

I don't know that I'm ready to chase eclipses around the planet, but it was something that will be locked up in my mind's eye, ready to remember.  Glad I saw it with Jamie and our neighbors.