Thursday, August 21, 2008

Happy Birthday, Admiral!

Here's to another year of being totally awesome


A B-25 flying through a wall of flame is almost as awesome as The Admiral

Sasquatch story: The jig is up

Well, the dream of a Sasquatch Scam is dead.

I honestly have no idea what these two guys from Georgia were thinking, or why anyone in their right mind went along with them on their "bigfoot in a freezer" story. I don't think I need to outline all the problems with their gameplan, if the goal was to make money off the discovery. My guess is that this was the introduction of the power of mass media to these two guys.

And, honestly, I'm disappointed that they didn't stick to their guns on their cockamamie story and just ride it out.

I will also say that the two hoaxers are handling things well... by disappearing!

They have managed to follow at least two parts of the three-fold path of the coward:
1) Deny everything
2) Make counter-allegations
3) Run like hell

And for that, I kind of respect them.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

May-Treanor and Walsh Win 2nd Gold (and Bolt is amazing)

The League salutes Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh for winning their second Gold at the 2008 Olympics!

That's, I think, 108 straight victories for the duo. They've never disappointed, and we at The League of Melbotis have to tip our hat.

Here's the AP article.

Keep in mind, this time they did it in the driving rain against a team that had the home crowd advantage.


(I'd have a better picture here, but the news services are a little slow with a proper, victorious image)

And, by the way, Usain "Lightning" Bolt, set a world record while winning the 200m last night. The man is unreal. I saw in the comments that Reed-o is also a fan of the man. If you've been watching track, I don't see how you couldn't like the guy.

Here.



Shazam! Bolt wins the 200m!

The League in Film School

This clip from Clone High is pretty much exactly like my experience presenting my work in film school.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Some random bits

It's not too late to submit questions to the Melbotis Mailbag either by e-mail or the comments section of this post.

Stolen from Randy's website: someone terribly suspicious of the symbol of God's promise

http://view.break.com/549954 - Watch more free videos
STOP REFRACTION NOW (in another 20 years, it will be too late). Time to ask yourself: What could possibly make this happen?

Music is always better when you can relate:

Thanks to JAL for forwarding the video

I've also been watching some Olympics, and some thoughts:

-Usain Bolt and the rest of the Jamaican sprint team are insane. Somehow (and I'm not sayin' how) Jamaicans have managed to harness the "Speed Force". Wally West, look out.
-That said: US sweeps men's hurdles!
-And I think I have a tiny crush on Sanya Richards, Texas runner who is now a Bronze Medalist
-The reason they are canceling softball in the Olympics: The US women literally cannot be beat. They have outscored the competition 50+ - 1. YOU CANNOT BEAT CAT OSTERMAN.
-May-Treanor and Walsh up for a Gold tomorrow in beach Volleyball. Be there. This may be the grand finale to a couple of amazing careers (both have hinted at retiring to start families).
-I actually salute NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics. They've managed to cut the footage down to the parts you're going to want to see when they aren't showing anything live. It makes stuff like Men's gymnastics, in which I have only a passing interest, a lot more watchable.

League Approved Olympic Training:



Anyway, I had to work tonight, so hopefully you Leaguers will forgive me if the post is a bit short.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Football - Bring Your Oxygen Tank



So, I accidentally bought season tickets to UT home games this year.

I know. I know. I'm unemployed.

The language on the website said something about "sign up now to get a chance at season tickets". What I didn't realize was that this didn't mean, "sign up now to get an opportunity later", it meant "we've got a really weird queue for tickets, and while you'll probably get tickets, you might not".

I assumed I was entering into some draft that I could walk away from when I came to my senses and realize I had no money. Rather, I gave a shadowy UT office a sack of money they would return if they ran out of slots.


The section I'm sitting in does not yet exist in this photo. I'll be in that empty blue space in the pic.

So, yeah, I think I literally have top-row tickets in the end zone for this season's football games. The way it works, every year I get season tickets, the better my seats will get. Always in cue behind: rich folk who give UT much larger sacks of money, members of the UT Foundation, longtime members of the Texas-Exes (of which I am a member, but I'm not done with my payments), friends and family of anyone with influence at UT, etc...

So, in, like, 2088, I might actually have decent seats.


Don't @#$% up, bro

Despite what I am anticipating to be excruciating heat at the first games, I'm thinking this will be fun. Especially as I will be at an elevation higher than any other structure in town, and be able to see birds and bats flying lower than where I'm sitting.

I will also be, I think, under the Jumbotron, so I will need to wear some sort of lead-shielding in order to make sure I am not irradiated.

Other than that, I'm pretty excited. I am not expecting a BCS bowl this year out of UT, but I am thinking we could be in the top 15 or so if Colt keeps his head on right and Chiles gets some playing time. We have three strong running back contenders (one of them is named "Fozzy". That's his name. And that is awesome.).


Wokka wokka!

And Major Applewhite is back in a backs-coach position. How sweet is that?

I think UT fans have a sort of unspoken belief that Major Applewhite is destined to be a headcoach at UT one day. If you're Major, you ride that belief for all its worth.

Anyway, I don't know what the schedule is yet for when or if Jamie is coming to games. So don't start with me on asking for spare tickets. But I'll keep you posted if I have a loose ticket.

GO HORNS!!!


I can dream of a return to glory at this point in the season. Don't ruin it for me.

Stray Thought of the Day: The Olympics and Der UberMensch

So Michael Phelps got me thinking...

One of the things we take for granted is that every Olympics, swimmers bust records, runners bust records, weightlifters lift more weight than anyone had ever lifted before. I don't mean we take the Olympians for granted, but we do assume that in a few races, somebody is going to break a record and swim faster, run faster, etc... than we've ever seen.

Which makes the League ponder...

Is there a point at which we won't be able to continue to beat records? Is there ever going to be a maximum recorded speed for humans to swim? To run? To lift weight? To jump? To throw a javelin?

I assume that in 40 years, the training, diet, equipment, etc... that athletes use will improve to such a degree that what we feel is state of the art today will look to them as the women in petticoats playing golf at the 1900 Olympics looks to us now (gymnastics and track & field wouldn't be added until 1928).


No doubt, these women were considered strumpets for their revealing athletic wear. And rightfully so.

So I wonder if, year after year (and four years after four years), as time marches on... what sort of humans will we be building? Will we see a Michael Phelps in the year 3000 that moves through the water faster than a motor boat? Or will we find some invisible wall and find ourselves competing for 1/1000ths of a second, never pushing beyond some as-yet-unseen boundary?

No doubt the future of gene manipulation (through state-mandated breeding programs, or through some mad science), we haven't yet begun to see how fast, strong, and unbelievable the human body will be by the time The League is an old man.

But, jump-forward to, say, the year 5000? What does it mean for sport when records are no longer breakable? Is that even a conceivable idea? Or is our desire, as humans, to continue to build and grow, advance and see progress so ingrained in us as a species that we will see swimmers who cut through the water like fish? Will they be recognizably human to our eyes from 2008?


Phelps in 3008?

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Sasquatch Corpse Saga Continues!

...now I just wonder exactly how far this is going to go!

Here's an article from Yahoo!

These dudes are sticking to their guns in the face of mounting evidence, logic and common sense. And you have to respect that. The technique is what I would call "The Jason Alternate Reality Technique", where you insist your cockamamie story is true way past the point of reason, and refuse to let the story go 20 years later (you are not secretly 5th grade math teacher, Mr. Glowka, in a clever disguise).

CNN covered the story. Unfortunately, in doing so, there was a technical gaffe that led to the following:


When things go wrong at the CNN master control.

Bigfoot press conference - covered by Fox


Bigfoot press conference (spoof)


Classic Bigfoot

Stacked Dogs



These are my dogs. I post pics of your kids, you can put up with pics of Mel and Lucy.

Pineapple Express

Saturday I headed out to Alamo South to see the latest film in the Apatow/ Rogan/ Ferrell... comedy phalanx that has pretty much redefined comedy rather abruptly since 40 Year Old Virgin (speaking of... I think Steve Carrell would do well to hook up with these guys again rather than enter into another big-budget flick with luke-warm critical and audience reception).

Pineapple Express won't appeal to my parents, and I really wouldn't find it something I'd want my kids to see if they were under 16. But it does hit that sweet marketing spot of 18-34 year olds pretty well.

I did find the movie funny. I found the reviews that harped on the shocking violence and action to have overstated their case. The balance was similar to films such as "Beverly Hills Cop", so I don't think action/ comedy of this nature is exactly a new idea.

For full disclosure, here is my "six degrees of separation" relationship to director David Gordon Green. Green lived on my floor in Jester my first year of college, and I think, at most, I would say hi to him in the hallway. I knew him mostly because he lived with another David, musician David Wingo, so they were in the room with two Davids. David Green fled UT to go to a film conservatory in North Carolina sophomore year, which I thought was just crazy at the time. And he'd send David Wingo copies of his student work, which we'd all watch at parties and whatnot.

What struck me as interesting was that (a) I was never enamored with Green's sense of humor in his college films (I was alone in this opinion). And (b) how Pineapple Express displayed some of that sense of humor, but actually really made it work. The same sense of uncontrolled chaos and oddly placed priorities is as present in his films I recall watching in college as Pineapple Express.

Speaking of, seeing what happened to his work between his college material and his first feature, George Washington, was mind-blowing. There's nothing like seeing someone else's work, who should be your peer, to let you know "this person has a skill I do not, and never could, have."

Pineapple Express is a pretty darn far cry from George Washington, so it'll be interesting to see what direction green takes his career from here.

Also, I need to look up Wingo. It's been years since I've talked to that guy. Tjeff will know where he is... Little help, tjeff?

(tjeff who floats through the comments section occasionally is, by the way, another musician whose work I'd recommend. Here's his site.)

I also happened to watch part of "Knocked Up" last night, the Seth Rogan sleeper hit from last summer. And while I enjoyed Rogan in "Pineapple Express", Rogan is going to need to learn to play a character other than Seth Rogan at some point. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some point, the audience is going to find all of his roles so indistinguishable, its going to have a negative effect. Doofus twenty-something with a disarming laughing is only going to work so long.

And, surprisingly, James Franco's perpetually stoned character "Saul" doesn't come off as grating, but actually pretty likable, which I wasn't expecting. Franco is a pretty direct contrast to Rogan's insistence on playing himself, as he throws himself into the character pretty fully, and is unrecognizable as Harry Osborn of the Spidey movies.

As per plot, PE is a surprisingly tight crime script, with a certain narrowly defined cast of colorful characters (Danny McBride of "Foot Fist Way" is a particular highlight). Too often comedies decide plot is secondary, but Pineapple Express has natural arcs for literally every character, and works as well, from a narrative standpoint, as any recent crime movie I've seen. It just happens to feature two guys who could be your neighbors in the last apartment complex you lived in.

I'll be honest, I don't think you'll lose much seeing the movie on the small screen. So you can probably wait to see it in the comfort of your La-Z-Boy. And while I'm not sure how long the Apatow comedy collective (oh, Freaks and Geeks! What wonders thou hast wrought!) can keep up this pace, but they're managing to make movies that seem a heck of a lot smarter than, say, "Hollywood Chihuahua".

Saturday, August 16, 2008

More Olympics: Phelps


You're a genetic freak, but you're our genetic freak.

Eight Medals. EIGHT. 8.

CNN has it here.

Olympics: Libby Trickett



This is Australian swimmer Libby Trickett. She's quite good and has won some medals.

I just like saying her name out loud.

Libby Trickett.

Libby Trickett.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Melbotis Mailbag!



Hey, it's been a while since we've heard from some of you. So why don't you write in with your updates, questions, comments, etc... and Melbotis and I will do our best to answer any and all questions sent our way.

Comic Fodder Post

...in which I discuss the criticism of comic book writers as "fanboys".

Go here.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

When Cakes Go Wrong



Tip of the hat to Marshall for providing this work-day killer: Cake Wrecks.

There's something absoludicrous about a cake gone wrong. Perhaps because I find the cakes one gets at the grocery to be kind of... bizarre. They just don't represent anything you'd make for yourself or your family at home, and there's something so perfunctory about the cakes (not to mention the events that precipitate such a cake).

Add in the tragedy or utter indifference that must fill the lives of the makers of these cakes, and the feel of defeat which must strike the person who has come to retrieve the cake the day of the celebration. I, myself, picked up a cake for a former co-worker and friend named John. They had spelled his name "JHON", which we didn't notice until we were half-way back to the office with the cake.

But, you know... they misspelled JOHN. It was so weird to see it misspelled, I paused and looked at it for a long, long time, entering into that weird zone where you wonder if you know how to spell "John" yourself.

From watching Food Channel, I also know that desserts are now no longer just an artform for the palate, but for feats of edible architecture. Which, of course, is going to lead to awesomeness.

Bigfoot Story (sadly) Falling Apart

It sounds like the likelihood of us seeing a real Bigfoot corpse tomorrow is now next to nil.

And, I have to send out my sympathy to site-owner for CyrptoMundo, Loren Coleman. The reasone we couldn't get to his site the other day was that his server was hacked, and he's had to bring everything back up, entailing a lot of work during a possible high-profile time for Cryptomundo.

Anyway, Coleman describes why the story is crumbling here.

Whoever the guys are trying to get this hoax going need to learn how to strike while the iron is hot. And not put out a "bigfoot corpse" which makes Jamie burst into peels of laughter.

That's a Whole Lot of Kryptonians


click on image to have your mind blown

I know some folks don't like the work of Alex Ross. Those people amaze me (in a disappointed way).

Me, I'm an Alex Ross nut. Especially when he's painting The Man of Steel and Co.

There's an upcoming story crossing over the Super-Titles in the coming months entitled: New Krypton. Supposedly there's several thousand Kryptonians coming to Earth. At least that's what the DC promo materials have said.

There are so many question marks, I can't help but be interested. Plus, note the various eras of Superman publishing represented in the various Kryptonian outfits. And I think that silver one way, way up in the sky represents the Krypton of the Donner-directed Superman movie. (Also, note Silver Age Nightwing and Flamebird, heroes of Kandor, coming at you).

And, who is that center frame? That's my boy, Krypto, yo!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

More Cryptozoological Hoo-Hah

El Chupacabra runs amok in Cuero

Reed sent this article along: You know its summer when chupacabra shows up

Note that you can link over to some video from that page, caught from the dashcam of a police cruiser.

It looks like some sort of dog that's managed to breed with little hair, or else suffers from mange. Natural selection choosing to greatly decrease hair on a dog living in Texas kind of makes sense, so I really don't know what we're looking at. And I don't know if this is the same nasty thing that's been attacking small livestock for generations. But it certainly doesn't seem like a domesticated house pet with no interest in your pygmy goats.

The last one that turned up, though, turned out to be nothing spookier than a coyote.

With this summer's earlier, and far more bizarre find of the Montauk Monster, one expects the Moth Man to be found drinking Schlitz at some bar in West Virginia.


More on Georgia Freezer Sasquatch

I found a site that had nabbed the pictures from Cryptomundo of that Bigfoot in a Freezer. Sorry that took so long.

I want to say that while the thought didn't pop into my head until I saw it online, but I suspect that this isn't just a hoax, but some sort of viral marketing campaign. Maybe for Jack Link's Beef Jerky. Or maybe an ARG spun out of control or something.


You just hope that nobody wanted those Otter Pops they left on the bottom of the freezer

here's a part of a Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2008

BIGFOOT BODY FOUND

DNA evidence and photo evidence to be presented at a PRESS CONFERENCE
to be held on
Date: Friday, August 15, 2008
Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm
Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto (A Crown Plaza Resort) 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California 94306

Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. Menlo Park, California
Tom Biscardi, CEO

BIGFOOT BODY FOUND - EVIDENCE AND DNA DETAILS TO BE PRESENTED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 15th

FROM 12 N00N TO 1:00PM AT THE CABANA HOTEL-PALO ALTO IN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as “Bigfoot” has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.

DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press.
Here are some of the vital statistics on the “Bigfoot” body:
*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and
five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are
eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.


I won't get into how the holes that are starting to form as part of the story, but I wouldn't expect much by Friday.

Holy Overused Robinisms, Batman! (plus, Countdown to backlash)

Someone finally notices that newspaper headlines on Batman are dumb

When the mainstream press finally takes note of how worn out the Batman TV-series inspired Bat-headlines are (Ex: Holy Megabucks, Batman!), it is a ray of hope that the rest of the media will finally knock it off.

Check it out at the LA Times (blog section). Hat tip to The Beat.

Now, if we can just get the press to refrain from using the following: Bam! Whap! Zap! or Pow! in any other stories about super-heroes, there may be a chance for comics in mainstream journalism.

Backlash imminent

And for no other reason than that it seems time, and the movie is doing very well:
Prepare yourself for the beginnings of Dark Knight backlash, wherein many, many people take to the internets to tell you that Dark Knight wasn't all that great.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Yahoos Claim to Have Corpse of Sasquatch

Hat tip to Occasional Superheroine for locating this story on CryptoMundo (what I assume is the New York Times for all your cryptozoological needs).

I've updated my link to a story where there are photos of the alleged creature.

Jason will surely freak out about all of this, but here we go...

Apparently some guys claim they have the body of a Bigfoot, found in Georgia. They're keeping the body in a freezer somewhere under armed guard until it can be released to the scientific community tomorrow. I, personally, think that this picture could be something, or it could be a latex mask and a costume shoved into a freezer with some deer innards. But I do find it interesting that they're taking it this far if its a hoax.

"But League," you say, "The Bigfoot lives in the Pacific Northwest!"
Oh, my friends... Bigfoots live all over the US. From our friends of the piney woods of Washington to the Bigfoot of Eastern Oklahoma to the Skunk Ape of Florida. Heck, if you turn and look around fast enough right now, there's probably a Bigfoot standing behind you.


The League streaks Zilker Park

Now, The League tends to be a bit cynical when it comes to cryptozoology. We're hopeful, but we mostly think that an undocumented species of 8 foot ape living in the US at this point is as likely as me learning Emmanuel Lewis is secretly living in Jamie's walk in closet.

I say that, but they DID just find several 10's of thousands more gorillas in Africa, so...

Anyway, mostly I'm deeply cynical of hoaxes and peoples' natural inclination to perpetrate hoaxes.

It will be interesting to see what these guys came up with. But it raises a good question.

INTERACTIVITY TIME:
Let us suppose these fellows in Georgia really have the body of a Bigfoot, and their find is confirmed and welcomed by the scientific community.

A) When you learn of the Bigfoot's authenticity, who is the first person you would tell?

B) If Bigfoot is real, what else might be real?

C) How would knowing Bigfoot is real change your outlook on life?

D) A Texas Oil Tycoon has offered a 300 million dollar bounty for finding and bringing back a corpse from another Bigfoot so he can stuff it and put it over his fireplace. A DotCom billionaire has offered 100 million for the first living Sasquatch brought into captivity. He's built a majestic habitat for the Bigfoot in Redmond, Washington. You think you know where a Bigfoot might be.

What do you do?

E) Any other thoughts on the possible reality of a Bigfoot?

Obligatory Olympics Post: Hyperbole and NBC

When I was in 6th grade, I recall being assigned a worksheet that was a quick exercise to check that we understood the lesson before we moved on within the framework of the day's lesson. We were learning about how to use metaphor, hyperbole and other tidbits of language that employ imagery.

One of the take aways from the lesson, that I found odd at the time, was Ms. Jarcik's off-the-book comment that you shouldn't use too much hyperbole, because people find it annoying. Well, normally The League loves hyperbole, but, darn it... if the announcers for the Olympics at NBC aren't ruining it for me.

In watching both men and women's gymnastics this week, it struck me that so much of why I have trouble watching gymnastics/ taking gymnastics seriously, is the insistence on every other phrase uttered from the announcer's mouth insisting that every single flip of the wrist or hop on the balance beam isn't just important to that routine... but that it's a mistake upon which the Olympics hang. And that, seriously, is not hyperbole.

Add in the turn-on-a-dime commentary in which the announcers switch from lauds and honor to expressing their disgust with some poor kid in tights, often within the same breath, and its often a mind-blowing ride trying to figure out if the announcers are lobbying for the beatification of some 16 year-old or blame her slip on the balance beam for crushing the spirit of America.

I know that these announcers' lives are gymnastics, but its just lacking that perspective that you get in about June about the baseball season from the announcers, when they're talking about what was on TV last night and what people in the crowd are up to.

It seems you can really point to gymnastics and diving as the two sports where the announcers don't just comment upon performance, but microscopically pick every movement apart (which is what the judges are doing) but do it in this really pedantic, school marm tone.

This evening the little blonde girl, Nastia, had a nigh-perfect routine, scoring a 16.9 (which is .1 away from perfection), and no sooner had the first announcer said "16.9!" than the other announcer was tripping all over himself to insist "It's just not going to be enough!"

Dude. Shut up. Learn to enjoy a moment or two. Life's too short. And, moreover... what are you like at home? What with the turn-on-a-dime swings between giddiness and praise to immediate condemnation...? It must be exhausting.

How anyone can tune these nags out, and how NBC can't find someone who doesn't come off like such a shrew for both diving and gymnastics is beyond me.

I feel bad, because it really makes the Olympics almost unwatchable when you have to listen to these announcers. Plus, I know Jamie loves gymnastics (she's a former cheerleader), and I too infrequently bite my tongue and just let it ride when the announcers make some breathless comment. So it leads to me ruining the whole thing for her.

So, really, NBC is slowly ruining my marriage with their sub-standard color commentators.

Astronaut Traverses Continent on Bike

Cousin Jim (he of the Rocket Racing League) has written to inform me of his pal, Astronaut John B. Herrington, who is about to begin a 4000 mile bike ride to promote kid's interest in math and science.

Herrington is also a member of Jim's RRL squad.

Even as I write that sentence, it makes me feel like such an underachieving loser.

Okay, on with the post.

Starting wednesday, Herrington will be riding from Cape Flattery, Washington to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Again, he's doing this on a bike. In the summer. 4000 miles.

So what are you doing with your summer?

This is why astronauts are astronauts and I am not.

Anyway, The League will be following Herrington on his trek via the interwebs. And you can, too, at his site: Rocketrek. if you have a chance, link over to the site from your own blog and help our Astronaut Herrington in his mission.

His mission for SCIENCE!

Monday, August 11, 2008

My Mom Can Shred


KareBear, Pastor Bill and KareBear's partner in crime, Peggy

Yes, the guy in the middle is a pastor.

Somehow I imagine KareBear is tearing up "Crazy Train"

Wolf-Man is coming back to hassle you

Even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.


I like The Wolf Man.

I'm not as big a fan of the original The Wolf Man movies as I am of the first two Frankenstein pictures. But I do think the original Wolf Man is a really good time. Horror. Romance. Pathos. Wolf clubbing.

I knew the story of the original Wolf Man from one of my monster movie books from when I was a kid, and its been spoofed, imitated, etc... so often that the story seems, perhaps, more simple than it actually is thanks to its immediate familiarity.

Suffer poor Lon Chaney Jr., who is talented, but who never landed his father's career or reputation. Yet, Lon Chaney Jr's actually a genial sort of Wolf-Man, and you really pull for him. I can't really imagine anyone else in the role, but part of that's sealed with time. Like many of the monster movies, the Wolf-Man is a sympathetic figure cursed with an affliction rather than a creature of outright evil (see: Dracula).

Now, its never a good time being a werewolf. You tend to kill and eat your friends, tear up the countryside and generally cause a lot of havoc that you normally would not. And without the benefit of getting to be a player, a la Edward Hyde.

The movie also features Claude Raines, and, dammit, when it comes to genre movies, YOU CANNOT GO WRONG WITH CLAUDE RAINES.

here's a fan-made trailer for the original:



Anyhoo, looks like they've finished a lot of principle photography on a new version of The Wolf Man, starring Benecio Del Toro. This is a bootleg video of ComicCon footage. Watch it before Universal pulls it down.



The director is Joe Johnston, who isn't my favorite director, but who I think could handle the material pretty well. Especially if he just really cuts loose. Plus, hey, lovely period outfits for the art film snobs.

I don't know why some trailers look wrong, and some look right. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the Keanu Reeves quotient.

Plus, you know, the promise of werewolves.


Wolf Man then


Wolf Man now


In case you missed it, Steven's B-Day. Birthday celebration, desserts, video and Steven's generally positive demeanor, all by Lauren.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Dark Knight in IMAX and in Perspective

Jamie, Jason, Wagner and Wagner's brother, Jeff, and I all ventured out to see "The Dark Knight" at the IMAX at the Bob Bullock Museum today. The show was sold out, as, I believe, all shows were sold out over the weekend for the IMAX.

It's true this movie is doing gangbusters. And on a second viewing, and sort of pondering what else I've seen this summer, rightfully so.

A second viewing revealed some plot holes I missed watching the movie the first time. Mostly regarding stuff like "well how did Batman know to be there then?" I'd say I'd let that slip, normally. But I reserve Batman simply KNOWING where to be for Batman as supporting character and seeing how he creeps out even his fellow JLA'ers. In a comic, cartoon or movie about Batman, he's a detective, and him figuring those sorts of things out is often what the story is about.

But, you know... Batman is cool like that, so if he just knows where to be, then... awesome. But had they done too much of this, its the same sort of thing that usually makes me say "I have absolutely no idea what is happening in this movie..." What bugs me about that sort of thing is that Batman IS a detective. At least in the comics. So would it have killed them to say "how did you find me?" And then have Batman give some idiot simple explanation.

I actually think I followed the plot a lot better this time instead of just gritting my teeth and letting the movie knock me over like a rogue wave. And, I am happy to say, the Batpod was just as cool on a second viewing.

Given the stories on all the clams Batman is making for Legendary and WB (and hopefully the folks who worked on the movie), I looked up how its ACTUALLY doing in an historical perspective. You can see where it's currently sitting at Box Office Mojo's adjusted dollars comparison page. Unlike every entertainment reporter in the world, this site actually takes inflation into account when making hyperbolic declarations about the success of a movie.

Right now, Dark Knight has almost made as much/ sold as many tickets as... Batman. Go figure. That said, I recall seeing Burton's Batman in the theater about five or six times over the course of several months, and Dark Knight's been in release for about four weeks. So... we'll see.

But its also sort of fascinating to consider ticket sales for something like "Cleopatra" when you compare it to the actual population of the time, number of screens, etc... In a way, it makes you really realize how even movies are narrowcasting to such a degree that when a movie DOES make superstar money these days, its worth looking at why that's happening.

How was Dark Knight in IMAX? I have no idea. We were sitting so close to the screen that I know the effect was totally lost on me. Aside for being able to say "Oh, THAT'S what it would be like to be a microbe floating somewhere near Morgan Freeman's face!", I don't know if I got everything out of it I could have. Jason actually got up and moved to the back and had to tell me the screen changed aspect ratios throughout. I hadn't even noticed because I was sitting in the middle of the image.

World Now Significantly Less Soulful

If you noticed that things seemed a lot less groovy today, there's a reason.

Isaac Hayes has passed away.

We're losing too many of the great ones.

Steven G Harms is old

I couldn't post on this before, because Lauren was attempting to keep things a surprise, but Happy Birthday to Steven G. Harms.

Last night we met up at Threadgill's on Riverside for some home-style cookin', and a whole crew of Harms friends and admirers were in attendance. Lauren busted out some really great desserts at the end (which I am not sure was okay with Threadgill's policy, but they didn't argue, either). So cupcakes AND cherry pie for all.

I had a brief passing thought that JimD should have been in attendance as his George Baileyness led, in one way or another, to many of the folks celebrating Steven's birthday. I also worried that if we were in the first act of a film and all celebrating such a nice birthday (we somehow managed to squawk out Happy Birthday in tune), that this had to be one of those coming of age movies in which someone was going to die in the third reel.

So, I am doomed.

Happy Birthday, Steve-N.

Byrne & Eno, together again

Do you like David Byrne? I do. Maybe not as much as some, but I have something like 80% of his stuff. Unfortunately, some time around 1995 I quit being able to remember the name of every song on every album I owned, so don't ask me what is on what album or anything. That part of my brain just doesn't function.

It seems Byrne and Eno have once again decided to collaborate. Funny, because just this week I was ripping "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" to iTunes for the first time, as well as Byrne's "Grown Backwards" and Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets". I've owned all of them for a while, but hadn't made the transition to iPod status.

Here's a link to a website for the new album. be careful, as there's self-starting audio.

There's a free MP3. That's pretty cool.

The site includes tour dates.

I happen to already have tickets to see Byrne as he's headlining (as far as I'm concerned) ACL Fest this summer. I'm glad I already had tickets. I think if his only swing through Austin was part of ACL Fest and I wasn't going? I'd be very irritated.

But I have tickets, so I'll try not to think about how ACL Fest is sort of screwing up Austin as a destination city for bands on tour. I'll be there at the AT&T stage for Byrne at the 6:30 show. Let me know if you're there, too.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Obligatory Olympics Post - 1

Well, if you read Jamie's blog, you're going to know we watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, as well as an hour of Animal Planet's Puppy Games.

So we're in neck deep now. Woke up this morning to Dressage (or horsey dancing, as we call it). Then watched the Americans slightly beat Japan in 3 of four sets in Women's Volleyball. Japan was really good, and I don't understand how the US managed to pull it out in the three sets. Plus, seeing really tall Japanese women is sort of interesting.

The American women swept Sabre. Which is awesome (yes, I got a little misty when they showed the three medal winners together). We also watched a Chinese girl (I'd say woman, but she was really young) lift 250+ pounds clean over her head for a world record. That was... insane. Kudos to her.

Anyway, we're now onto Canada v. China in women's soccer. Not sure when the US women play, so I need to look that up.

The only men's sport I've seen has been badminton, which a Polish gentleman was winning.

Walsh & May-Treanor play this afternoon, so I need to stick by the TV. Keep your eyes peeled for volleyball.

Anyhow, the games are on multiple networks, so I'm considering trying using the Picture-in-Picture feature on my cable.

One of the funny things about watching sports is how you automatically, randomly pick a side. Well, probably not randomly. But when you don't have a dog in the fight, and you're watching, say, Poland play Uganda in Tiddlywinks, I'll still decide to cheer someone on. Usually whomever is losing on the off chance that if they come back from behind, I'll feel like I knew how to pick a winner.

Also, I frequently cheer for someone based on the cut of their jib.

I did wonder exactly what the conversation was with Putin and W sitting a few seats apart at the opening ceremonies. "So, Vlad. Couldn't wait to stir up some military action until the end of the Olympics, huh?" "Da."

By and large, I thought the opening ceremonies were some of the best ceremonies/ least embarrassing/ keeping the cheese to a minimum in a few years. And I'm including Atlanta in that, although we had Ali at Atlanta. But, yeah, it was all very well done and imaginative.

So, viva los Olympicos.
It's been a strange day.

So here's U2 and Arcade Fire joining up to play some Joy Division

Thursday, August 07, 2008

The Day the Earth Stood Still has been re-made

So a while back I heard a rumor that they'd cast Keanu Reeves as Klaatu in "The Day the Earth Stood Still", a remake of the 1951 classic of the same name.

It's the sort of casting rumors you hear, like "Mariah Carey wants to play Wonder Woman!" that really make you shudder. Michael Rennie's portrayal of Klaatu is memorable partly for its matter-of-factness about the whole business. I don't know if Reeves is the right man for the job. In fact, I'm positive he isn't, if "Constantine" is any indication.

From the trailer, I'm guessing they've changed a lot, including the landing spot of Klaatu's ship, sort of defanging what it means to land a spaceship in the middle of the seat of power for the free world.

And, no doubt, the message of the movie will be muddled with somewhat as today's reading of the 1951 movie would be met with cries of "Why do you hate freedom?" and "Why do you want to appease the terrorists?" We're still living in a world where we're constantly on the brink of nuclear armageddon, but we're not... at least nobody has really brought that up in a while. (Curious what things we just sort of forget about.) But that was certainly the world in which the original appeared.

I dunno... the hard truth is that I will probably see this. But I would be far more excited about this movie if they'd cast someone with a bit more... gravitas... in the role.

The remake



The original:



Keep in mind, the original was made by director Robert Wise. The new one is being made by... some guy.

Dodging a bullet (unless you're Ted Kord)

WHat the @#$% is wrong with Hollywood?

As you may recall me mentioning here, before the writer's strike last year Warner Bros. was working on a Justice League movie.

The plot was going to roughly follow, for reasons I cann't even begin to fathom, Rucka's "OMAC Project" mini-series, part of the Countdown to Infinite Crisis event from a few years back.

If I have to take a guess as to how this happened?

The screenwriters assigned weren't really familiar with DC Comics, but were savvy enough to know that they didn't know much about modern DC Comics. And so they poured over recent releases, finding the OMAC wing of the Infinite Crisis plotline kind of fascinating (it is), and went from there.

Who knows? Maybe it was a good script, but the best script in the hands of a director without a feel for the material is never a good thing.

I do know they were going to cast this guy (Maxwell Lord: 40ish billionaire sociopath)


With this guy (20ish Apatow nerdy utility player, Jay Baruchel):


No, seriously.

Keep in mind, director Miller's vision of the JLA was also 20ish, telegenic folk fresh from OC casting calls. My guess is he decided the ultimate foe for the JLA had to be a hacker of some stripe, and this guy looked like a hacker to Miller.

Anyway, the movie isn't anywhere close to actually being made, and is, in fact, moving the opposite direction. Which is a good thing. So very, very much of what they mentioned wanting to do sounded like the same awful JLA TV Pilot-style adaptations that turned people off from super hero movies until Spider-Man. Greater FX do not a greater movie make.

Hopefully the success of The Dark Knight is giving DC/ WB a serious rethink on how these properties can be handled.

Comic Fodder

I've got a post up at Comic Fodder.

This week I decide to go the opposite of comics criticism.

Luckily, as is becoming the new norm, Travis responds with his own post, creating a bit of a conversation.

And, we're off to the races.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Wanted: Originally a Comic, not a Movie

Some spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.


So I kind of thought the movie "Wanted" that came out this summer wasn't very good. It seemed like there was a movie in there somewhere, but it was neither funny enough, nor did I feel like I was seeing anything worth my 2 hours and $6.00 to make me think this was something to tell others to see.

I was recently recommended the comic, assured that it was different. Being the polite sort of League that I am, I did not inform the folks who recommended the book that I have a love/hate relationship with Mark Millar, the guy who wrote the original comic of "Wanted". He's sort of an over-caffeinated little troll in his interviews, and he has no problem hyping himself and completely making up whatever facts he feels will help his image, projects, etc... Example: artist of the comic of "Wanted" JG Jones, drew the original Wesley Gibson character to look a bit like Eminem. Millar later claimed Eminem's people wanted to cast the rapper in the part in the movie. This was never true, and Millar now plays it off as if it was the press which misunderstood, and not some posting he made online. Apparently Eminem's people asked Millar to quit saying Eminem was interested.

Whatever.

If I didn't care for the movie "Wanted", I found myself disliking the comic slightly less. At least it wasn't boring. It's just derivative and vulgar and was the sort of high-octane, high calorie, low-nutrition comics that tend to wear me out.

Most importantly for League readers: THE COMIC OF "WANTED" HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MOVIE "WANTED". AND THE TITLE MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE CONTEXT OF EITHER WORK.



In fact, they make a point in both works that Gibson isn't going to be "wanted" by the law in either work, because they have such a super-awesome secret society of assassins and bad-guys, that the cops can't do anything about them.

Millar uses "Wanted" to tell a DC Elseworld's tale in which the super-villains have taken over Earth. As those of you who've seen the movie will attest: Que? How can Millar not just be embarrassed that the producers so soundly gutted his work? I've literally never seen such a departure from a comic's source material to the big screen. If Producers truly understood what happened there with "Wanted" I wonder if it wouldn't do more harm to Millar's Hollywood career than good...

The movie of Wanted roughly follows the first issue of the comic, and then wildly diverges from the source material to such a degree that I can't really figure out why the producers bothered to cite the comic as even an inspiration for the movie.

Millar's tin-ear for American, non-white bread dialog shines through, and he drops the f-bomb at least twice in every word balloon, robbing profanity of any potency or punctuation, and making his characters sound like mildly idiotic 8th graders trying to sound tough. Lifting from the Wildstorm/ Rick Veitch method of thinly disguising known characters, Millar sets up a somewhat intriguing scenario of a post-Crisis world reformed in which the villains have won the day, and are living in the shadows as the super-wealthy (which Millar seems to think $10 million means super-wealthy, which... come on. Maybe in 1955). Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know what to do with the scenario once its in place, except tear it apart.


You can sort of begin to see some of the differences between movie and comic here...

The comic winds up having the same problem as the movie, in that it seems to be challenging the reader to embrace... something. Chaos? Anarchy? Ignoring the fact that we generally aren't waking up one morning to find out we have super powers and millions in the bank. There's a last page with Gibson directly addressing the reader, and I felt the way he was describing, but not in the manner in which Millar intended. More in the "you've got to be @#$%ing kidding me" manner. Your plot was useless, your characters shallow stereotypes and interesting only in playing the "who is the analog for who?" game that he and others had already done for Wildstorm. And that ending made sense only in that it was on the page and we sort of had to go along with it, because that's what we had to do to finish the comic.

And it's sort of tough to differentiate between the casual racism/ homophobia of the book's narrator and the voice of Millar himself. One has hopes that Millar just really understood the mechanics of the soon-to-be villain, but given the evidence we get regarding Gibson's childhood and how he was raised, it doesn't seem in synch. Which is either Millar waffling, or Millar having a very weird idea about race relations/ LGBT issues in the US. There's just a lot of language that, maybe is intended to make things "gritty", but it doesn't seem to actually come from anywhere, other than a sense of bigotry ingrained prior to Gibson's transformation.

I just got really tired of it. Just as dealing with it in real life really wears me out.

I am aware that there's a class of comic reader out there who gets a small thrill from gratuitous violence, and I am occasionally part of that crowd. Especially when I'm reading anything by Garth Ennis (that dude knows how to push my "sweet lord, they did not just do that" button better than anyone). Millar's handling of the ultra-violence is so unsubtle and steady that at some point, its just a torrent of blood and death you can hop over to jump to the next plot point.

That said, JG Jones' art work is really, really nice throughout. His character designs interesting and familiar, while avoiding any copyright problems. I can see why Morrison had pegged him for "Final Crisis".

My difficulty comes in that: It may sound as if I'm picking on "Wanted" for spoofing DC material, but that isn't really the case. I wouldn't mind at all, if I felt there were a story here rather than just a bunch of things happening in some sort of sequence.

Mostly, knowing when this comic was originally released, it just seems like its about seven years behind the trend. Millar favors co-opted style over substance. The names of characters ("$#!T-head", etc...), all seem to have come from the Garth Ennis school of inappropriate hilarity, founded in the mid-90's. Pair that with the Warren Ellis school of bad-asses routinely declaring how bad-ass they are (founded, also, mid-90's) , an opening which, really, seems to have been taken from an early draft of "Fight Club", and you're left with the actual plot. Which is sort of nonsensical, and whose "twist" ending doesn't work. Even for a comic where the arch-villains are the protagonists.

I'm a little baffled by the huge audience for Wanted as a comic. I'm even more baffled how the movie and comic relate to one another.

I've had it mentioned to me that "Wanted" was optioned after the first issue, and a script cranked out before the comic series was done. And the producers must have liked their script much more than the comic itself (which, really, would make no sense to anyone but comic nerds, anyway). So they stripped the characters of their comic-book styled outfits, and nicknames. And put in some other plot about monks/ weavers (which, really...? how was nobody suspicious?). At any rate, its an interesting case study.

Title IX

Lauren, over at Carte Blanche, has posted a column on the perception of female athletes. Apparently market research is demonstrating that female athletes are mostly measured on their athletic prowess, versus a sexualized appeal. To sum up the sentiment, I'm pulling a quote from Lauren's quote:

Though there are a few notable exceptions — Anna Pornikova, Playboy covergirl/ tennis star Ashley Harkleroad among them — most Olympic caliber women are delightfully unsexualized. Which is not to say that they're not sexy, but that the press about them is about their athletic achievements as opposed to their finely toned backsides.


It is a shame that so few women's sports seem to make a go of entering into a televised professional capacity at the same level as the trinity of football, baseball and basketball. Scratch that: It's a shame that the televised events don't get the same media push that, say, the NFL enjoys. Now, I love the NFL and NCAA football, and I'm not sure if there's a chicken and egg effect... I'm just saying: The WNBA isn't on in prime time.

But... with things kicking off this weekend in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, it's a firm reminder to us folks in the general public that sport is captivating, not necessarily just the sport of one gender or another. And I think that's something young female AND male athletes need to see. When you get past the marketing and hoopla of pro sports, its about who plays the game well.

If the market researchers are looking for a particular reason why female athletes are being seen as athletes first, I would point to Title IX. We're now 36 years after the institution of Title IX, and into a generation of adults who never knew life without female athletes. And a generation of children who, thankfully, take it for granted that either gender can participate.*

Add in role-model athletes like the US Women's Soccer Team, May-Treanor and Walsh of the beach volleyball circuit, Diana Taurasi or Cheryl Miller of the WNBA, softball players like Cat Osterman... and while the athletes may not be as high profile as Terrell Owens or Shaq, they somehow manage to be just as stunning as athletes as the guys with all the advertising deals.

When the Brandy Chastain's of the world score a World Cup winning goal, it was only the pundits with need of something for the news cycle who missed the celebratory moment for what it was. The rest of us were jumping up and down in our living rooms and screaming at the TV (and, yes, maybe tearing up a little). It was a moment of sport at its finest.



Geez, that team was amazing.

Anyway, it was a moment when those who understood the implications of Title IX seemed at odds with those who sort of think a girl looks like a tramp unless she's got her ankles and wrists covered. And, honestly, there's no damn room for that in sport.

So, yeah. I might make cracks that I'm going to watch Walsh and Treanor-May in the beach Volleyball competition, but that's for teasing Jamie. Have you ever seen those two play? They're inhuman. And that's what I'm looking for in my sports, Olympics or otherwise. I'm looking for my few weeks every four years in which I get to see the most amazing athletes on the planet compete.

Man, now I'm kind of excited about the Olympics.

I just hope I don't spend my time following another doping athlete the way I did the summer Marion Jones was breaking records.



Whoo-hoo!

*It's worth noting that the actual Educational Amendment, Title IX, while routinely applied to athletics, was not specifically written about athletics. In fact, the wording is about academic access and discrimination based on gender. This happened to expand out to athletics where the differences in available activities were greatly unequal.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Gorilla City?

Barry Allen, take heed...

whole mess of Gorillas found in jungle.

Animated Wonder Woman in February

hey, Leaguers!

here's a link Randy sent me for a trailer to an upcoming animated Wonder Woman movie.

Linkety Link.

I am very excited about new Wonder Woman media, and this looks like its as much fun as I'd hope an animated Wonder Woman film could be. And because longtime DCU animators and DC Comics writers are involved, it looks like they're getting the character down pretty well. At least what see looks familair to the spirit of the comics, even if I can't tell what the story is about, per se.

Also, here's the movie's official website.

D-War = The League on Crazy Pills

So, this weekend Jason and I watched the 2007 film "Dragon War" off the ol' DVR. The movie was in theaters only last summer, and already its made its way from theatrical release, through DVD and onto basic cable (most likely bypassing HBO, etc... en route).

One should enter into watching any movie with a raised eye-brow when one cannot determine if a movie is called "Dragon Wars" or "D-War". Even when the movie begins and both titles share equal importance during the credits.

Opening in modern day Los Angeles, the movie quickly goes through a flashback, wrapped in a flashback, wrapped in Robert Forester dumping a lot of exposition and Korean words with which you can't possibly keep pace.

The story to the movie is probably not that complex, but the writer/ director's inability to simply get out of the way of device and tell a story is mind-boggling. Let alone his refusal to provide characters with story-arcs, growth, and dialog that doesn't sound like it came from a Babelfish translation. Also, the director's idea for a black character is mostly an amalgamation of other black sidekick buddies who tend to say things like "That's whack!" and "Say whaaat?" Unfortunately, he cast Craig Robinson of "The Office" and Apatow film fame, who is making a career out of not being the black-guy stand-in character. The whole thing reminded me of this scene from Clone High.

And there's a really weird scene where Robinson's character is attacked by one of the villains with a magic sword, and our two heroes abandon him as soon as its convenient. Bad enough, but in the next scene they comment on how "he's probably fine", though they left him for dead.

Say, whaaaaat?


The appropriate reaction to this picture is to click on it, which will blow it up to a much larger size. You will then want to perform a face melting air guitar solo in front of your computer.

Several times during the movie, I turned to Jason and said "I have no idea what's going on". It's always a little bizarre to watch a movie and get that same feeling I used to get in college watching a movie after a few drinks, and that's why you can't keep up. But when your only substance of abuse is a Starbucks Frappucino and a pack of Willy Wonka "Shockers", well... you begin to feel a bit like you've been taking crazy pills.

Which is always a sure sign that you're in for a treat of a movie.

I don't know if I was supposed to be making inferences about how Point A was tied to Point G, skipping all points between. Or, in fact, what was going on for huge chunks of the movie. Such as, where was the good-guy Dragon larvae? What was this Grand Cave they referred to frequently, but which never shows up in the film? And why had nobody but one sad sack zoo keeper noticed the 200 yard-long snake (which must have weighed several thousand tons) zipping through the streets of LA? And why would the cops believe the five dead and mutilated elephants (tossed around like rag dolls) were the work of the zoo keeper?

Inexplicably, there's a ten minute stretch in the middle of the film that's suddenly and jarringly pretty good. 16th Century Korean Magical knights and their reptilian steeds take to the streets of Los Angeles, and the effect is lot more rewarding than the jumbled mess of a street brawl from Transformers (which I think used the same streets for their climactic battle).


You may do the air guitar riff thing once again. This $#!& is totally rad.

What's most disturbing about the movie is that they hired some actors you'll recognize, such as the lovely and underappreciated Elizabeth Pena, and then stick them in thankless supporting roles. Its just bizarre casting. And I could understand "The snakes are the stars of the show" pitch for casting unknowns as leads, but neither is able to do anything with their part. My gut reaction is: hey, these guys can't act. When I'm pretty sure the reality is: hey, I think the director is awful and Meryl Streep couldn't do anything with this dialog.

That doesn't mean anything about the final scenes of the movie makes any sense, but it's staged well, and you can see the money right up there on the screen. Until they shift to the end at some mystical castle which appears to be in Apache Junction, Arizona. And I don't feel like I'm giving anything away, because... really.

I have to recommend "D-War: Dragon Wars" or "Dragon War: D-War", or whatever its called. It will blow your mind.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Lollapalooza 1991

I would say Lollapalooza seems safely back as one of the premier music festivals, seemingly leaving ACL Fest (at least this year) pretty far in the dust.

When I was 16, my parents gave me a strange taste of freedom. It was not the usual for Karebear and The Admiral to hear out a plan, and just agree to it. But it was also an unspoken indicator that my folks recognized Jason and I were now older (he'd just graduated high school, so perhaps no big a deal to him after living on his own for a year as he wrapped high school in Austin while the rest of us had zipped off to Spring), but somehow I landed permission to attend that first tour of Lollapalooza, back in 1991.

This was, for our younger readers, before Nirvana and Pearl Jam and that awkwardly affixed title of "alternative music". The show was at the then-titled "Dallas StarPlex Amphitheater", and I think we attended the show they scheduled after the first show sold out (but which wound up scheduled for the previous night). Which means the line-up that's listed on Wikipedia isn't actually the line-up I saw in 1991.

They have:
Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Violent Femmes, Emergency Broadcast Network

I saw:
Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Living Colour, Ice-T & Body Count, Fishbone, Butthole Surfers and Rollins Band.

Jason is going to need to correct me if I'm wrong about that line-up. I mostly recall that the sun was very high in the sky to have to come face-to-face with the Rollins Band, which I'd never heard of at the time. And we thought Butthole Surfers were just great, but probably needed rehab.

Mostly, I remember the first roadtrip. For some reason we'd included a friend of Jason's from Austin, so our travel was a jump from Spring to N. Austin, to Dallas. Which, despite the breakneck speed of Jason's champagne colored '84 Camaro, was a lot of miles. Especially when we had a moment of panic, realizing that our directions to crash at Cousin Sue's house were coming in on I-45 from Houston, not I-35 from Austin.

So, sometime before it got too dark, we picked out a two lane farm road on a map to make the jump from I-35 to I-45, adding on more time to our drive, but getting lost in Dallas in the dark seemed even diceyer. Keep in mind, this is all pre-cellphone. And I have this memory of us driving west-to-east down this two lane road between corn stalks and wheat and sorghum an hour or so before dark, driving just way too fast, and probably doing exactly what Karebear was hoping we wouldn't do, playing freeway tag with two cars with the sun coming in over the head of the crops in this lovely amber light.

Anyhow, Sue let us crash on her wood floors in urban Dallas.

Lollapalooza itself was never the same after that first year. After the first year, when it got all the good (and well deserved press) in SPIN, Rolling Stone and the MTV, the festival which had been one stage with regular beer concession and a few tents selling art and hemp bags and whatnot turned into a corporate sponsored alternative event. Any of the feeling of "we're gonna do this ourselves, because it sounds like a good idea" was gone. And looking back, it seems so very strange that the press was initially skeptical of this "festival" idea. And that Perry Ferrel (a man prone to believe his own BS) had given it this whimsical nonsense name that in itself somehow stewed up controversy. Within two years, the "Palooza" suffix would be universally attached to any event, but at the time...

The next year Houston had its own stop on the tour, and the thing had quadrupled in size, along with creating a traffic nightmare that lasted hours (I missed Lush and part of Pearl Jam). And while I enjoyed it, partially because my group of friends ballooned from 4 of us in total to two cars full of people, you could see the places where the MTV's and Budweisers were getting their hooks in.

Another year later, and the conversion was mostly complete. The term"'Alternative Music" had been coined, thanks to the press's inability to categorize Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, and the Sorority Girls had started showing up to see Arrested Development.

By '95 I'd lost interest in the bands they were putting in the line-up, and I'm not sure Perry Ferrell was involved anymore. But the point is: I didn't show up. Mostly, honestly, because I was so poor that summer, that I made the decision to make money instead of spend it.

And by 96', despite the fact the Ramones were going to be included, the thought of Metallica fronting a music fest that had been inititally set up for overlooked and somewhat underground acts seemed preposterous. It was moving towads the "Monsters of Rock", and I just wasn't interested. And I could see the Ramones any time. They weren't going anywhere any time soon...

Although, looking at he '97 line-up, one can only wonder about the ephemeral nature of rock stardom. One day you're Orbital and almost unknown, next you're pretty much headlining Lollapalooza. By 2001, you're forgotten.

And yet Goo Goo Dolls and Blink 182 are still around. There's no @#$%ing justice, I tell you.

But I guess my point is: It's tough to share what it was like to be at the StarPlex on that balmy day in 1991. Being the second show, it hadn't sold out, and so while there were a lot of tickets sold and folks there, it wasn't the crushing thing that Lollapalooza became. It was just a few thousand people. And like all good, fun things, it wasn't something everyone knew about. Not yet.

And certainly before marketing agencies had pegged the audience for non-Top 40 music as a demographic to be marketed to (we'd have the rest of the 90's to suffer through before they finally figured out how to reach that audience with Hot Topic and Suicide Girl chic). And I think for a lot of the kids like me from our bedroom communities, and the kids who were the ones who got beat up living in Hogstick, Texas for their refusal to sport a mullet... it was a revelation to see you and the four pals you hung out with weren't the only ones who liked this album or that band. That, though "Color Me Badd", Amy Grant and "C+C Music Factory" were burning up the charts, if there were enough folks into the same thing, this could be a good thing, even if you had to jump cities to see a show.

Mostly, I remember an odd bit of crying when the last band left the stage and those harsh flood lights were turned on the audience and the Star Plex had to beg people to leave. Who knows? Those crazy kids were probably just having a teen angsty moment, but I can read into it what I want.

I'm old and decrepit, and I probably know less about what the kids are listening to than other folks my age. I'm routinely baffled by the popularity of bands like "My Chemical Romance", forgetting that this is some 15 year-old kid's first time. And that my bands were, no doubt, just as ridiculous to some 30 year-old at the time. And I'm now more than twice as old as I was when we hit the road that summer morning to head out for our three city tour.

And I'm a lot more at ease these days with sponsorship deals, and how you fund a festival like Lollapalooza 2008. And I'd probably feel worse for these kids, not seeing this stuff untouched, but I'm pretty sure that clubs haven't changed that much, and even the kids in Hogstick, Texas are going to wind up in a city as soon as they graduate. And they'll wind up at some bar not too different from where I was trying to get into (if they hadn't closed Liberty Lunch).

It was just fun to be there that first summer.

Contest for NBC's "Heroes"

Hey, Leaguers!

I've watched some "Heroes", but I know Jamie has watched the whole series (to this point). And I know a bunch of you guys are nuts for The Heroes television program.

I was contacted by BJ at M80 marketing, and I thought this was actually pretty cool.

Apparently, there's a contest going on, sponsored by Sprint. Here's some language:

In November 2007, Sprint & the NBC television show Heroes partnered on the “Create Your Hero” contest, putting viewers in control of creating the next Hero from scratch. Over 4 weeks, viewers were able to choose the specific attributes that make up a “Hero” (with a unique question each week exclusive for Sprint users only).

As the third season of “Heroes” approaches, Sprint & the creators of the show compiled all the attributes based on America’s answers, creating two new potential “Heroes.” Now it is time to vote! Will it be Audrey, or will it be Santiago? The winning character will appear as the subject of a brand new Live Action web series written by the creators of Heroes, debuting around the November sweeps week.

As part of our partnership with Heroes, “Create Your Hero” will be live at the NBC booth at Comi-con promoting the voting for phase II of “Create Your Hero” with giveaways and exclusive comic books with an illustration by the late Michael Turner.


Here's a link to vote: LINK



And here's some info on that Michael Turner comic:

Heroes the comic book, illustrated by the late Michael Turner is an exclusive comic for the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. The comic includes 4 stories that reveal more about the Heroes Universe. The stories focus on the back stories of Mohinder Suresh, Echo De Mille (the main character of the new Heroes webisode series), and Adam Monroe (Takezo Kensei).

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes

I was planning to really hit you guys over the head with a review of the Trade Paperback release of Geoff Johns' recent run on Action Comics.

But I just read BeaucoupKevin's review, and its spot on. Comic readers should be reading BeaucoupKevin, anyway.

I may review this myself, anyway. But, here's a first shot.

Tron 2 Apparently a Reality (TR2N)

Back around 2000, there were a lot of rumors about a sequel to Tron. I believe it eventually boiled down to an updated Tron videogame, and that was about it.

I'm not a drooling Tron fan, but I do own a Collector's Edition on DVD. Well worth seeing, especially for the mind-blowing effort that went into the movie.

Last night Steven mentioned to me something about some very authentic looking Tron 2 footage. Having monitored ComicCon pretty closely online, I was surprised I'd missed it, but, hey... I'm a comic nerd, not the Oracle.

Anyhoo... I'm linking to several sites with illegally captured video that was shown at ComicCon in case any get pulled, which I don't think will happen.

It's my theory that despite the NDA they were trying to enforce regarding no footage being leaked, or even descriptions... they knew footage would get out (this is ComicCon, for the love of mike). And they knew that this is how you work a viral campaign. Camera-phone, shaky footage from a top-secret panel at ComicCon is how you start. And, in fact, they may have placed the footage themselves. I'll believe anything when it comes to marketing.

Whatever. I'll be their pawn in their little viral campaign. Why? Because TR2N looks totally rad.

Here. Here. Here. Here.

And embedded:


TR2N. Awesome.