Sitting here in Arizona, with 22% humidity and 112 degrees, it's a little tough to fathom the devastation occuring hust a few hours' plane ride away.

With the stories coming in, it's not hard to believe that relief and rescue workers are going to need assistance once the storm has passed and emergency workers will be able to go into the many communities affected by Hurricane Katrina.

If you have some extra to spend this month, I ask that you consider making a donation to the American Red Cross.

Here is the link for the Red Cross.

This probably isn't going to be too exciting for a lot of you, but the Jack Kirby Museum is now open. The museum is currently only online, but it's being invested in by a lot of folks who will be sure to make it go.

The guys from ToMorrow Publishing, who print the "Jack Kirby Collector" magazine, Jack's daughter and Mark Evanier are all involved. It's going to be a neat project, bringing Kirby's work to a central db for viewing by the public. I hope that DC and Marvel play ball and let the museum use as much Marvel and DC content as possible.

Kirby is responsible for most of the Marvel Universe and a good chunk of the characters in the DCU. His dynamic style broke the mold for comics, teaching artists not to rely on static shots, but infusing each panel with ACTION.

His work looks a little odd and dated to folks just taking a quick peak, but I like to think Kirby's work holds up under study as some of the finest draftsmanship and dynamic craft in the industry.

Anyhoo, check out the new Jack "King" Kirby Museum. Heck, join up. They could use the funding. The League must check in with Mrs. League before throwing money at such a useful cause.

CLICK HERE

I've been watching some of the shows on E! or VH1 or one of the entertainment networks, and the latest trend seems to be a return to the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", without the charm and wonder of 80's gadfly Robin Leach.

Instead, the format of the new shows sort of uses the "I Heart the (Decade's)" with Q-level entertainers sort of waxing unfunny about the bizarre goings-on of celebrities. The basic trend I'm now noting, no doubt late tot he party, is that basic cable spends an inordinate amount of programming celebrating the mundane luxuries of the unfortunately privileged. And the only two things which keep the have-nots from freaking out and having France 1789 happen in the here and now are 1) the fact that we've got TV to keep us warm and happy, and 2) we have a deep seeded belief that, with the right lotto ticket or if someone saw our real potential, that would be us with the fleet of Hummers. And WE don't want to be executed for installing an HDTV in our bathtub.

The shows highlight the bizarrely extravagant parties thrown for rich people's kids (at, like, age 2, when they'd be just as happy playing in a tub full of mud), how they spoil their pets, their opulent beach homes, etc...

The show which really makes me really start reconsidering Marxism is "Filthy Rich Cattle Drive". A program in which 19 year old kids are complaining about the thread-count of the linens they get at a cattle ranch and threaten to involve attorneys when asked to do the dishes.

Look, I'm a privileged suburban kid, too. But there's definitely a point at which you sort of aren't just saying, "Boy, I wish I had their money." Instead, you start saying, "My GOD, this person is a moron. How did they amass this wealth to begin with without blowing it all on gum and pinwheels?," or, alternately, "Can't this freak's parents see what a moron their kid is?"

My new resolution for the upcoming Fall is, when the show I am watching on E! (usually The Soup) ends, I will locate the remote and turn off the TV instead of writing off the show as background noise while I do whatever. Obviously I'm watching these shows enough that they're bugging me.


Anyhoo, we had a good weekend. It was hot as a bastard here in the Valley of the Sun, which was fine. I had to actually do some work over the weekend, and we're watching our pennies these days. Today we went to the first birthday party of Isaac N., Ryan "Good Ryan" and Trisha's kid. It was really my first kid's birthday party, and it was actually a lot of fun. Take cake, add baby, plus sheet of plastic, hilarity ensues. Anyway, we got Isaac a Richard Scary book, a book which investigated the various sounds farm animals make (from their mouths, people), and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I sort of want my own copy of the Richard Scary book, but I can't find a good way to justify buying it. It's actually a pretty neat book, and I like Richard Scary's very busy illustrations.


I just realized I never wrote Nathan's 5 questions. Gotta run.

Hey, what could trump the great Pepsi Holiday Spice Challenge, or the CHicken Fries Extreme Taste Test?

Oh, boy... 'Twas Randy who located the proper taste test to end all taste tests.

Folks, check out "Steve, Don't Eat It!" from weblog, "The Sneeze".

To try to recount Steve's trials and tribulations here would only be a disservice.

Go here to see what Steve is willing to eat.

ENORMOUS ANNOUNCEMENT FOR LEAGUE OF MELBOTIS READERS:

Melbotis Perkins (AKA: Melly, AKA: Mel, AKA: Smelly Melly, AKA: Buster Brown)
shall henceforth be known as Diddy.

He's just tired of people not knowing what to call him.

Propah!

Work is work. Not much to report from back at League HQ where I've been getting up early for work and arriving home late this week as it's the first week of the semester and that makes The League a busy bee.

Last night I sat down on the bed to prevent Jamie from reading her book, and fell asleep at 9:20. I woke up again a fe wminutes later, but I was asleep by 10:00, and that is not assisting me in my contribution to the world of blogging.

Randy over at RHPT.com has not only given up on RHPT.com, he's re-directed his blog to this page. Which makes me wonder... If I redirect to RHPT.com....? Well, I'm pretty sure it would mean the end of the universe.

I am supposed to interview Nathan Cone in short order. Nathan, expect your questions this weekend.

There's been a lot of e-mail discussion about Six Feet Under concluding, and I'm proud of the producers for not trying to go on for ten years and just make a buck. It sounds like the show maintained its integrity right up to the end. Aside from "Small Wonder", I can't think of too many shows which went out on their own terms in quite the same way.

I did watch Six Feet Under for the first season and one-third of the second season. I missed an episode somewhere along the line, and when I came back to the show, I had no idea what was going on. Seriously, like one episode. Anyway, I moved shortly after that, didn't have HBO for a while, and never got back into it.

I also don't watch Sopranos, Deadwood, Lost, or any of the other programs which some people are hooked on like $5 crack. I'm just not much of one for episodic, hour-long TV. I even gave up on X-Files for the last season or two. Something about dedicating an hour a week to a show doesn't bug me. Dedicating 22 hours of my life to a network show or two... that sort of bugs me. That's the equivalent of half of an entire credit-bearing course at a semester-based university.

Watch two or three shows like that, and suddenly you should be getting some sort of associates degree.

Don't get me wrong, I am a bitch to the TV. Sadly, my favorite show right now is probably "Mythbusters" on Discovery. I also watch a lot of "Soul Train" on Saturdays on WGN. On Sunday mornings I try to tune into "Breakfast with the Arts" on Bravo rather than watching Russert, which I should probably be doing if I were more responsible.

I also will sit and watch an entire program simply because I can't believe it's on TV at all. "So You Think You Can Dance?" has almost drawn me into it's gyrating spell on numerous occasions.

Last night VH1 was running some programming from it's sister channel, VH1 classics. The show was called "Alternative" and featured videos pretty much from my middle and high-school era. Echo and the Bunnymen. Pixies. Love & Rockets. Basically, somebody raided the locker they kept the videos in from MTV's Sunday night show, 120 Minutes.

120 Minutes ran at a time when MTV figured its audience was probablya sleep, anyway, and they figured there wasn't much to lose by airing these videos that the "college rock" fans of the time could enjoy.

Younger Leaguers will be shocked and dismayed to learn that until 1992ish, there was no such term as "alternative rock". There was just rock. And some of it sold, and some it didn't. And some of it did well with college audiences, and it had it's own chart and everything. And then one day people quit sniffing glue long enough to realize that Vanilla Ice was just a horrible idea, and for some reason everyone decided to buy Pearl Jam's debut record and the album by the band with that "Teen Spirit" song, and voila! A new genre was coined by some coked-up record exec.

The funny thing about the show on VH1 was that it was referring to the videos they were showing (all of which were incredibly cheap looking by today's big budget standards) were incredibly unpopular at the time. Go back and check your Yearbook. Your school didn't vote for "Jesus Built My Hotrod" for class song. You guys all got together and voted for "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men. Shut up. Yes you did.

VH1 Classics is talking up some video by Peter Murphy, like this was what we were all listening to, but meanwhile "End of the Road" is popping up on one of VH1's endless "100 Worst Break Up Songs" specials, and everyone is having a good laugh, like that album wasn't flying off the shelf at every Sam Goody in the country in 1991.

But The League has a long memory. And we remember that you couldn't flip channels in the latter days of the Bush-41 administration without Garth Brooks or Color Me Badd lurking around every corner.

This was pop culture at the time. Only dusty old copies of Billboard Magazine survive to back up what I remember with crystalline clarity.

So is it great to see these videos? Sure! Is it somehow dirty and disingenuous of MTV Corp. to suggest they always backed these bands? I dunno. Somehow I really miss Dave Kendall sitting in his dark little studio trying to get you to stick with him for a full two hours.

And, hey, I found some bands I liked at the time through 120 Minutes. Lush. Charlatans UK. A few other things which never made the transfer from cassette to CD.

Hope all is well with all Leaguers, great and small.

I made a huge mistake at work sometime several months ago which I was completely unaware of. Until today. It was not fun. No sir, it was not.

Hope everyone popping by will just go down the blogroll. I really don't have time for much today.

It seems like I had a crackerjack idea for tonight, but I can't remember what it was in the slightest.

I am tired.