It's the end of the Whedonverse as we know it

In about nine hours, the final episode of Angel will have aired and Joss Whedon's remarkable series, which reinvented itself from the original Buffy movie and spanned two TV series, three networks, and innumerable books, comics, and toys, will effectively have come to an end for the forseeable future. The early reports that there would be a series of Angel TV movies on WB have proved to be premature exaggerations, alas. But I blog this day not to bury Angel but to praise it.

Angel always had a rougher time of it than Buffy did; it lacked the genius high concept of its parent series, which was summed up in one of the best titles ever conceived. Putting the words "Buffy," "the," "vampire," and "slayer" together in that order tells you a great deal about what's to come, whereas Angel could have turned into your standard good-vampire-fights-bad-vampires show. It never enjoyed the breakout pop awareness that Buffy did, either, and yet that lack of attention often worked to Angel's creative benefit; last season, for instance, wound up being structured as a series of escalating cliffhangers that was exhilarating to follow from week to week but that a higher-profile series probably could not have gotten away with.

And this (regrettably) final season was a pleasant surprise; the loss of Charisma Carpenter from the cast, and the addition of James Marsters as Spike, along with the new status quo of Angel and his compatriots taking over the evil law firm of Wolfram and Hart, all seemed like the kinds of shark-jumping shakeups that aging series tend to do when they're out of creative juice. Instead, though, we got what was arguably the show's strongest season ever; the law firm setup opened the door to the sort of done-in-one episode stories that both Buffy and Angel's writers and producers seemed to have forgotten how to do for a few seasons there. And in the midst of these episodes, larger plot and character threads weaved their way subtly throughout the season, until in last week's penultimate episode we stepped back and got to see what the larger storyline was about.

So whatever the resolution of tonight's final episode, I hope it's the sort of ending after which we can imagine Angel, Spike, Wesley, Gunn, Illyria, and Lorne still out there fighting the good fight.

And this seems as good a time as any to tell the David Boreanaz story. In the summer of 1998, I was nearing the end of my ill-fated escapade as a writer for Mania.com. One of my jobs was to cover the San Diego Comic Convention in August; this was the summer after the second season of Buffy, when the show was at its peak, creatively and popularly, and there was a panel featuring Joss Whedon and every cast member whose character was not named in the title. It was a huge, hot, sweatly ballroom packed to the gills with fans, many of whom were of the preteen female type.

Joss and the cast were great - funny, friendly, everything you'd hope they'd be. But the real treat came during the question and answer session. After a few of the standard questions ("Are Willow and Xander going to get together?" "Is Buffy coming back to Sunnydale?") a woman and her daughter, who was probably not older than 13 or 14 and who was literally shaking, came up to the microphone. The mom said she had two questions for David Boreanaz for her daughter, who was too scared to ask. Question one: "Are you married?" And Boreanaz said that he was, and you could hear 5,000 12-to-16-year-old hearts breaking. Question two: "Can she have a hug?"

You have to understand just how easy it would have been to say no: If I give one, I have to give one to everybody; security won't let us; etc. But instead he simply said, "Of course," and hopped down off the stage and made his way toward this girl, who was now flat-out crying with delight and heading toward the stage for her hug. I'm not exagerating when I say that this was one of the two or three most incredible things I've ever witnessed. Think about when you were the age that girl was, and just how much the stuff -- whatever it was -- that you cared about really meant to you. Imagine how much of herself she must have invested in her conception of Angel and the man who played him to get that worked up just being in the same room with him. And imagine her finding out that, at least for that one moment, he lived up to every hope, dream, and wish she had about him.

All of this happened right in front of the press area for the Buffy panel, and I managed to take three photos of The Hug; they're now framed and ready to go on the office wall as soon as I make some progress tackling the rest of our unpacking. If I ever run into David Boreanaz, I'd like to buy him a beer; and as for his vampiric alter ego, I'm hoping he gets a happy and triumphant ending.

This post by Augie de Blieck echoes something I've been thinking about myself for the last few years:

But where’s the science fiction on television now? It’s all gone. The once lucrative syndication market that used to be packed to the gills with sci fi show is now dead. The networks don’t have any shows anymore, and the cable networks don’t want to take the chances.

Part of the problem is that science fiction tends to happen on the margins of TV. The X-Files survived only because it was on the then-fledgling Fox network, which was thrilled at the time to have a well-reviewed show with a dedicated core audience. ST: TNG paved the way for Hercules and Xena in first-run syndication. At WB, Buffy essentially went the X-Files route: It debuted when the network was young and needed press, it was an excellent series, and it reliably brought in viewers who could be drawn to other new shows. Remember how relentlessly Dawson's Creek was promoted during Season 2 of Buffy? It was excruciating for those of us who weren't the typical WB target audience. But today a show like Buffy would probably never make it on the air; WB doesn't need the rabid fan audience the way it did eight years ago, just as Fox didn't need the kind of audience Firefly or Wonderfalls could bring. I'm not sure there are any margins left. Augie notes that Alias is an exception, and he's right, but that's largely because Alias is on a major network that simply doesn't have any new shows and can't afford to lose a show that brings in a reliable audience, even if that audience is smaller than the network would like.

This is a pretty hysterical take on the problem with the Kerry-McCain fantasy:

Hey, I’m all for injecting some life into Kerry’s candidacy. As it stands now I think their campaign slogan is: “John Kerry: Well ...oh, alright.” But if George Bush has taught us anything about campaigning it’s that it’s a lot easier to beat low expectations. As long as George Bush doesn’t drool on himself during a debate, he wins.

All this McCain talk sets too high a standard for a running mate. If I were the Kerry people I’d be out floating names like The Rock or Gary Condit. Then when you pick Evan Bayh Americans will be saying, “Oh, thank Christ it’s Evan Bayh!” and not “Who’s Evan Bayh?” and “How much time did he spend in the Hanoi Hilton?” In that sense I think it was wise for Kerry to steer the conversation to McCain for Secretary of Defense, which is an infinitely greater possibility. But how long did that last? A day?

The Post's indispensible Peter Carlson takes a look at Vanity Fair's profile of the strange ex-Presidency of Bill Clinton:

After leaving office in 2001, Anson says, Clinton was so bored sitting in Chappaqua, N.Y., while his wife worked in the Senate that he showed up at a local elementary school one morning to watch a school play. Another time, he invited a couple of local 12-year-olds into his living room to chat about the impact of technology on everyday life.

"He was," Anson theorizes, "desperate for company."

[...]

Clinton is full of energy but much of it is squandered, Anson writes. He can't sit still, flitting from place to place around the globe to make speeches and hobnob with celebrities. He thinks nothing of flying to Qatar and back in 24 hours. Paid $12 million to write his memoir, he dawdles, says Anson, wasting time on dubious projects like his lame "debates" with Bob Dole on "60 Minutes."

That's the comedy part; now the tragic part:

For a while, Clinton focused his ample talents on one issue -- AIDS -- and he made a difference. In 2002, Anson writes, Clinton used his connections and his charisma to line up sources of discount AIDS drugs for poor countries in Africa and the Caribbean, saving countless lives. Then he got restless and moved on to other things.

I guess in that regard Clinton's ex-presidency is a lot like his presidency: Well-intentioned, capable of the occasional success, but in the final analysis never about any damn thing except Clinton himself. What a waste.

Wow. Kitty Pride has never had a good costume.

I'm not one to bandy about the phrase "worst episode ever" lightly, but I used it with good cause twice last night. The Simpsons produced a tedious, subtle as a sledgehammer episode that consisted entirely of lame jokes dressed up as political satire that was pretty much painful to watch.

And then The Sopranos spent just about an entire episode on Tony's extended dream sequence. And it wasn't a cool dream sequence like the one on Angel a few months ago (stupid, stupid WB...), it was pointless and stupid and meanwhile, the only things that actually happened did so off screen. The only possible defense I can imagine for this episode is that it shows how Tony's being wrapped up in his own personal issues is distracting him from his duties as a boss and the events going on around him. But does it have to distract us, too? Especially in the third-to-last episode of the last full season of the series?

At least we got to see Khan lt himself turn into a redneck on King of the Hill. If not for that, I would have been better off reading a book or something instead of watching TV last night.

My college pal Phil Catelinet has written a marvelous post about going through family artifacts on a recent trip home.

I've had a Tuesday evening class all semester, but the end of classes and the onset of exams has finally freed that night up for me. Last night Kate and I actually watched Frasier for the first time in years, since it was on before 24. And while I tend to devote my TV viewing time to shows that are serial in nature (the aforementioned 24, the Whedonverse, Alias, Sopranos) or have more subtle continuing character through-lines (like CSI), there's a lot to be said for a well-done comedy that you can ease right back into after years away. The Frasier finale isn't getting anywhere near the hoopla that the far inferior Friends did, but I might have to find someone to tape it for me...

Political threads at Peter David's blog are a never-ending source of amusement, as they tend to devolve (from a pretty low point to begin with) into an orgy of generally ill-informed reactionaries and partisans (with a few notable exceptions) screaming at each other in increasingly shrill voices. This gem from PAD himself, though, strikes me as downright perverse:

Part of me is really hoping Bush is reelected.

Why? Because, without exception, every second term presidency in the past fifty years has become overwhelmed by scandal, misdeeds and wrongdoing on every level. Right now Bush still has defenders. If history holds--and considering the multiple debacles already in progress--a second term would be a fiasco of such epic proportions that even his most devoted apologists would have to throw in the towel. Granted, there won't be much left of the country, but hopefully the Democrats following him can rebuild.

Second term of Bush: Bring it on.

So let's get this straight: In PADland, George W. Bush is absolutely positively the worst person who ever lived and is snookering the nation into following him into the mouths of Mammon, madness, and misery...and PAD wants him to get re-elected just for yucks.

Peter David: WHAT THE FUCK?

Slate's Monday-afternoon mob-expert analyses of each episode of the Sopranos is a weekly must-read. I usually find myself nodding as I read, agreeing with points raised and gaining new insights into the show. But this line from Jeffrey Goldberg:

James Gandolfini was over-the-top compelling, taking Tony right to the precipice of permanent unlikableness. In fact, maybe he took Tony off the cliff. I felt pity for Janice, who is without a doubt the least pleasant character in a stable of unpleasant characters.

made me realize that, frankly, I didn't feel all that much pity for Janice when Tony went thermonuclear on her. Partly that's because Janice makes my skin crawl in a way no other character on the show, and maybe ANY show, for that matter, can; her evil is SO banal and SO petty it's far more likely to destroy directly innocent bystanders than a good deal of the actual crime we see on the show. Over and above that, however, I couldn't help but think we were simply seeing Janice at the start of one of her infatuation hobbies, which she seems to acquire at a clip unmatched by any fictional character this side of Bender. Of course she was being good; of course she'd taken what was said in her anger management classes to heart; it was her new thing, and she was going to stick with it until she got bored with it.

Last night I thought to myself, going out in your slippers to put something in the trash outside is about the most suburban, homeowner-y thing you can do.

I was wrong. The most suburban, homeowner-y thing you can do is, having gotten a note scolding you because one of your trash receptacles was too heavy, to be ELATED to go out after pickup and find that your redistribution of garbage between trash receptacles was a success, and the garbagemen took ALL your trash away this week.

This right here, THIS is what I imagined adulthood would be all about...

David Poland on Michael Moore's latest cry of "'elp, 'elp, I'm bein' oppressed!":

Moore finally started his inevitably endless whine with a reporter on Tuesday, though it is unclear in the article whether that interview was the genesis of the story. In a classic act of Moore-ish onanism, the Oscar-winning documentarian took $6 million from Miramax, making Fahrenheit 911 one of the most expensive documentaries ever made. After feasting on this capital from the "independent" division of a multinational, he brays to the Times, "At some point the question has to be asked, `Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?"

Well, if ya don't want those "monied interests" to make decisions, Mike… Don't Take Their Friggin' Six Million Dollars!!!!! Adding to the pathetic nature of this scam, please be aware that Moore probably has $6 million himself and could have self-financed or sold select foreign markets to get enough money to get well within range of his production budget. What was his salary on this $6 million doc? And how much of the budget was based on the speed of completion of the film so that Moore could feel he might influence this year's election. Perhaps he feels the federal government should give him matching funds.

[...]

I have to say, it is odd to find myself defending Michael Eisner and Disney for the second time in just a few short weeks. But demagoguery is not attractive, regardless of what your role in the industry or your personal politics. And neither Michael Moore nor Harvey Weinstein, who has remained silent so far, has any position from which to claim status as a victim.

There is a huge difference between Michael Moore's six million polemic and some documentarian having his or her film bought and squashed by the distributor for political reasons. In fact, Oliver Stone has a much more reasonable beef with Time-Warner for forcing him to rethink his HBO-financed point-of-view doc about Castro than Moore has with Disney. I didn't like the shallow perception of Castro in Stone's original doc, but HBO didn't tell him that he had to make a balanced film… until the political heat revved up after people saw it. On the other hand, Disney made it clear to Miramax and Moore that this film would never see the light of day under any Disney banner back before the Miramax financing deal closed.

Dear Friends,

Just GO AWAY AND DIE ALREADY!

Yours,

CJG

Ahem. I've always been befuddled by the success of this lame, endlessly soap-operatic, and terminally annoying sitcom, and its departure from the airwaves is, to me, about 9 years overdue. Always found Lisa Kudrow about as funny as falling through plate-glass. Thought Matt The White's character should have been sent to live on a farm. Never understood the sex appeal of bad haircuts and eating disorders. Basically, I wanted all of the Friends to get shot.

But I do like this bit of counter-programming:

Fox, meanwhile, offers a very special two-hour "Cops: Crimes of Passion," featuring "15 heart-wrenching segments" of cops responding to domestic violence calls. More must-see TV.

UPDATE: And it's heartening to read this:

Most writers vastly overestimate the size of the Friends audience. (Sitcom declinists make no claims about the quality or critical reception of Friends, only its popularity.) Sure, it's been a Top 10 show from its inception, and it was the most-watched show on television as recently as the 2001-2002 season. But although Friends' eighth and ninth seasons were its highest-ranked seasons ever (No. 1 and No. 2 overall), the show isn't nearly as highly rated as it once was. It's just that its ratings remain higher than the still-lower ratings of other shows.

Only 21 million viewers tuned in last year, compared to the nearly 30 million viewers who watched during the Ross-and-Rachel heyday of Season Two. And fans haven't been coming back for the show's final episodes, either. During last week's time slot, more viewers watched CSI than the penultimate episode of Friends. As the South Florida Sun-Sentinel TV writer Tom Jicha pointed out this week, seven out of eight American homes don't watch Friends, and this season's ratings wouldn't have cracked the Top 20 for any show only a decade ago, in 1995. This is mass appeal?

Slate has a helpful guide to today's crop of teen actresses. On a related note, every man who watched last week's Saturday Night Live, hosted by Lindsay Lohan, is going to a very bad part of Hell.

Kurt Busiek smacks down Micah Wright:

You've already confessed to being a liar after years of insisting that you were telling the truth. Every time you insist that people take your word for something now, whether it's that you got death threats so they shouldn't judge you or that you came forward first and the Post is therefore lying or that all your friends told you to post self-serving shit about how Big Media should have checked up on you, all you're doing is making another claim with no credibility behind it. Could be so, could be no -- but you have no standing to say, "trust me, it happened the way I say it did." You burned that platform yourself, and got attention and money in the process.

[...]

You didn't "make it all better" by admitting the truth. That it was the right thing to do doesn't mean that it balances out doing the wrong thing, or that it erases the damage other people have and will endure due to your actions.

Just shut up for a while and let people throw bricks at you for your stupid behavior. You earned them.

I always did like that Busiek fella.

Jim Treacher has posted a pretty comprehensive review of the revelation that Micah Wright is a big fat lying liar who lies. So go read him for all the details.

I think the funniest part of the whole thing is not Wright's pathetic attempt to change the subject to media credulity and George W. Bush, nor his straight-faced declaration that he chose to come clean on the eve of a Washington Post article about his being a lying liar who lies out of the goodness of his heart, nor even Newsarama's toady-like willingness to run one of Wright's lame "remixed" war propaganda posters in its article about his announcement, but the fact that Wright was caught not by the likes of Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein or even Joel Achenbach, but by the Post's frickin' gossip columnist. That's like being busted by the ex-hippie art teacher instead of the vice-principal; your lameness is exposed by the lameness of he who busted you.

I'll also be curious to see how the Pulse, which featured a credulous, head-shaking, "we're so much smarter than everyone who disagrees with us" intervew with Wright last year covers the story.

The big comics news today is that Hal Jordan is returning as Green Lantern later this year. This should come as a surprise to exactly no one, since it's the kind of thing one expects when a publishing company, trying to play catchup with all the cool young comics companies, decides to turn a beloved, long-running character into a psychopathic murderer and then systematically tear down pretty much all of that character's mythology, leaving just enough pieces around which to base their cool! new! young! hip! Green Lantern character.

That's not to say that replacing Hal, or even killing him off, was an inherently bad idea, but the execution was so ham-handed and metafictionally wrong that it was pretty much inevitable that there would, eventually, be a restoration and a hand-wave of all the bad stuff the character was made to have done, just because, well, a very large portion of the reading public's reaction to the last 10 years of what DC has been doing with Hal Jordan was basically, "No, really, when's he going to be Green Lantern again?" If Hal had died heroically and been replaced, there would have been grumbling from fans -- there's ALWAYS grumbling from fans when characters die, or are massively changed, or just change their costume or hairstyle or codename -- but it wouldn't have been the same sort of grumbling that followed taking a great character with one of the best costumes ever and making him a psycho killer, and then teasing his return two or three times a year for the better part of a decade. I'm pretty sure that in 1998 Hal Jordan, as Green Lantern, in flashbacks or time-travel stories or whatever, appeared in more comics than his replacement, Kyle Rayner.

I don't even know if I'll be picking up a new GL book, but it will be nice not to have to dance around the subject of what's going on with Green Lantern these days every time the character comes up with my father-in-law, who's told me in about every fifth conversation I have with him that he owned all the old Green Lantern comics from the 60s when he was a kid.

My one hope, actually, is that John Stewart gets to keep his ring and remain an active, heroic character. When I was a freshman in college, I was waiting for a Metro train and reading something or other that had the Hal on the cover. And a middle-aged black man walked up to me and said something like, "Excuse me, but...I had heard that a black man was now Green Lantern?" Thank GOD, I was able to tell him truthfully that, yes, you'd heard correctly, and that there were several Green Lantern comics featuring different versions of the character, and one of them, Green Lantern: Mosaic, starred John Stewart. And that answer seemed to please this guy, who had probably not read a Green Lantern comic in years.

Fortunately, this encounter didn't happen six months later, when John's book had been cancelled, or a few years after that, when John lost his ring and was, first, shunted off to join a third-rate super-team and, second, crippled and put in a wheelchair for several years, until the use of the character on the new Justice League cartoon prompted his return to active GL status in the comics.

So if anyone at DC is reading this, well, find a place for John Stewart in the new green order, OK? It matters.

Wow. Apparently if you're an active blogger you can get a GMail account. That's pretty damn cool.

Can you dig it?


:: how jedi are you? ::

Here's a painful review of DC Comics' 1988 crossover event, Millenium.

So I’ve been reading “Millennium” lately. Don’t ask why – really, is there a possible good answer for that? I mean, reading “Millennium” is the comic book equivalent of a horseradish enema. It’s not fun.

And yet I’m reading it. Apparently the Guardians of the Universe, who had left the universe sometime either right before or right after “Crisis,” have decided to return to the planet Earth with their Zamoran brides and usher in the next evolutionary stage of mankind. This involves ten people chosen totally at random by the Guardians in order to fulfill the cosmic prophecy that Earth will spawn the next race of galactic immortals. But, here’s the hook to really get all the kids – the Manhunters are opposed to this, so they want to stop the Guardians and the superheroes from bringing about the next step in human evolution – which everyone refers to as “The Millennium.”

Mostly what I remember about this book was that, while it was cool to see all those scenes of just about every DC super-hero together, it was really lame that, in the final issue, when the Guardian and Zamaron (don't ask) used the last of their cosmic powers on a select group of chosen individuals to jump-start the evolution of mankind to the next level (please, don't ask), the chosen became -- wait for it -- a bunch of super-heroes. And really, really lame super-heroes, at that; I remember one of them (a Japanese computer magnate) gained the power to control computers, or something. Which is nice and all, but seems awfully specific for cosmically-induced powers. I mean, if the story had taken place in the Stone Age, would he have gained the power to control wheels?

Now that I think about it, I think this story closely preceded my high school comics hiatus. Wonder if there's a correlation.

If, having just seen Kill Bill Vol. 2, you find yourself wondering, "Gee, I wonder if David Carradine has a web site," don't type in www.davidcarradine.com . Especially if you're at, say, work. Or a public computer lab. 'Cause, well, ain't no David Carradine site at that address, is all I'm sayin'.

Tax day got you down? Read Reason Magazine's lengthy, funny, and oddly touching report on the "tax honesty" movement.

The partisans of the tax honesty movement go beyond complaining that the income tax is too high, or that out-of-control IRS agents enforce it in thuggish ways. They claim, for a dizzyingly complicated variety of reasons, that there is no legal obligation to pay it. The continued life -- and even flourishing -- of that notion, in the face of obloquy, fines, and jail sentences, says something fascinating about a peculiarly American spirit of defiance. It may even say something encouraging about what it means to live in a nation of laws, not of men.

...

Not merely Protestant, the tax honesty people are strangely reminiscent of fandom -- of the comic book, fantasy, science fiction, role-playing-game variety. They have the same obsession with continuity and coherence within a created fantasy world of words. It’s just that, in this case, that world of words isn’t a multivolume fantasy epic or a long-running TV series -- it’s U.S. law. When these people try to reconcile the definition of income in this subsection of Title 26 of the U.S. Code with the definition in a 1918 Supreme Court case, it’s like hearing an argument over the inconsistencies between a supervillain’s origin as first presented in a 1965 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man and the explanation given in a 1981 edition of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man.

The tax honesty movement’s vision of the world is fantastical in another way. It is not merely obsessed with continuity; it is magical in a traditional sense. It’s devoted to the belief that the secret forces of the universe can be bound by verbal formulas if delivered with the proper ritual. There are numerous formulae in the tax honesty spellbook, with rival mages defending them. Which spell is best: The summoning of the Sovereign Citizen? The incantation of the Constitutional Definition of Income? The banishing spell of No Proper Delegation?

The tax honesty folks similarly believe that their foe the IRS must also be bound by these grimoires of magic: that without the properly sanctified OMB number an IRS form holds no power, that without uttering the mystic word liable no authority to tax can truly exist.

And always, always, the ultimate incantation, The Question: Where does it say that I owe income taxes? Show me the law!

So the Twin Cities bus strike is (tentatively) over, according to the Star-Tribune. As far as I could determine, this strike revolved around bus drivers, the vast majority of whom make more than Matter-Eater Wife and I do combined, objecting to increased costs of their health plan, for which they pay less than either Matter-Eater Wife and I do, and putting a very great many people who can only dream of making what the drivers do, or who are disabled or poor and can only get from point A to B via bus, at tremendous disadvantage.

Are you detecting, perhaps, a lack of sympathy? I knew you could.

"No details of the agreement" are being revealed. If this strike is anything like the clerical workers' strike we had at the University last fall, that means the union leadership will hold a press conference to crow about how great a deal they've gotten and how the strike was a rousing success, and then it will turn out that, basically, the union members don't really get anything that will make up for six weeks without paychecks.

And, of course, there's this:

Projected savings from suspending bus service amounted to about $5 million. Some of that money will be used to meet the terms of the new agreement, Pawlenty said, but he denied the strike had been prolonged in order to increase the size of the pot.

What's that saying about rivers in Egypt?

Dammit, no one told me Joel Achenbach has a new book out! As titles go, The Grand Idea : George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West doesn't compare to Captured by Aliens, but Achenbach still rocks.

Dahlia Lithwick looks into the disturbing and weird world of the Supreme Court's marshalls:

Some of the oddest conversations ever to be had in the United States of America are the ones between the reporters and marshals in the U.S. Supreme Court building. They resemble nothing so much as those bizarre discussions you'd have with your mother about waiting half an hour between a hot dog and a swim—the ones that ended in, "Because I said so." I have had marshals in the court confiscate newspapers and books (including, once, Franz Kafka's The Trial) for no articulable or articulated reason. I've seen them order the removal of neck scarves from some reporters, and head scarves from others, and I've seen them remove sketch artists in T-shirts. I have seen them remove handicapped protesters crawling up the front steps of the court building, while refusing to cite any rule that prohibits such conduct. These same marshals who demand a press badge to enter the courtroom, then march up during oral argument and ask that you not display it on your jacket. Query them as to why you cannot display the same badge needed to enter the proceedings, and they tell you that 3-inch plastic badges distract the justices.

No more Stamosing for you:

Married life is over for "Full House" actor John Stamos and "X-Men" actress Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, the former Victoria's Secret model.

They have separated after five years of marriage, publicist Lewis Kay said Monday.

Sheesh. What man in his right mind breaks up with a shape-shifter?

When Ebert gets going, he really gets going, and produces gems like this:

Lazlo Gogolak is played by Kevin Pollak (again) in one of the most singularly bad performances I have ever seen in a movie. It doesn't fail by omission, it fails by calling attention to its awfulness. His accent, his voice, his clothes, his clownish makeup, all conspire to create a character who brings the movie to a halt every time he appears on the screen. We stare in amazement, and I repeat: What did they think they were doing?

Ever since the Food Network's Rachael Ray posed for FHM, I've found it hard to watch her cooking shows. I keep expecting her to strip down to lingerie and climb in the sink or something. At least I can still watch Alton Brown without worrying about that happening.

Oh, look, another political thread at Peter David's site. This promises to be insightful, if by insightful you mean "a bunch of mostly poorly informed people screaming at each other from opposite ends of the political spectrum and ascribing the worst possible motives and intentions to all who disagree with their particular axe to grind, and by the way Bush is evil/Kerry is evil."

Have I mentioned how very, very much I hate Fox? How can the same network develop so many great shows and then piss them all away with crappy timeslots, no promotion, and hair-trigger cancellations?

Here are some pictures of Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne. Which really, you know, amounts to "Christian Bale with a haircut in a really nice suit."

Poop.

(Via Obscure Store, right.)

De Baisch reminds me of some things I will NEVER miss about living in Washington DC.

Not only would this news be the only thing that could make me seek out an episode of Enterprise, but the same article tells me I've been missing out on Shatner on The Practice AND that he'll be on the upcoming non-spinoff of the Practice. No word on whether they'll paint Camryn Mannheim green on the new show.

Someone should start a band called Camryn Mannheim Steamroller.

EDIT: It's fixed now, wife.

Penn & Teller's Bullshit returns for a second season on Showtime this week, apparently; this is good news, since at the moment we get something like 73 Showtimes that never seem to show much of anything good. So far I think the only things I've watched on it were an imported episode of the BBC series Strange (Imagine Jeff from Coupling as a defrocked priest battling a conspiracy of demons. Now imagine it done on a BBC budget, and imagine watching it unable to stop waiting for Jeff to say "hippo" or "jam sandwich," and you will probably be able to imagine why the show was not picked up for additional series and why Richard Coyle, who played both Jeff and the former Father Strange, is not returning for the next series of Coupling) and, during an insomniac fugue, the unspeakably awful Jason Bateman/C. Thomas Howell/Jonathan Silverman/Annie Potts cancer road trip movie Breaking the Rules, away from which I simply could not look.

What the hell was I talking about? Right. Penn & Teller. Oughtta check out their show.

Brian Vaughan speaks over the computer internet.

The Rock IS Joe Don Baker IN Walking Tall!

Huh:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Saturday evening I spent some time at Barnes & Noble, and, as I often do when I'm hanging out there, I reaad some TPBs of comics I've heard good things about but haven't read. One of them was the first collection of Marvel's The Ultimates. Rarely have I ever read a more maddeningly schizophrenic comic. There's much that's very, very good here, including terrific characterizations on Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk. The last was especially interesting; a Hulk rampage, for instance, was triggered at one point by Banner's feelings of jealousy and rage that resulted from Betty Ross going on a date with another man.

But that sequence also illustrated the grievous flaw in the book: An overwhelming desire for hipness and cachet with The Young People that made the whole thing feel like you were looking at a guy trying to act like his mid-life crisis behavior is how he's always acted, man!

You see, the guy Betty Ross was on a date with was Freddie Prinze, Jr. You know, Mr. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Star of, um, not a single thing this century that wasn't an effects-drived pile of schlock that would have made just as much money if it had starred a baked potato in the same role. For some reason, we never see Prinze's face; he's always shown in a long shot, with his back turned, or with a word balloon strategically placed in front of his face.

And that's not the only instance of celebrity name-dropping; there's also Tony Stark on a date with Shannon Elizabeth in -- wait for it -- the Space Shuttle (the kids these days LOVE the Space Shuttle!), pointless references to the likes of Cameron Diaz, and a bizarre multi-page sequence in which the Wasp, Hank Pym, and Nick Fury sit around and talk about who they'd cast in a movie of the comic they're starring in.

It's like all the postmodern stuff in Morrison's Animal Man, except it's pointless and it sucks.

Worse than the hip! current! name-dropping, though, is an overall revelling in the puerile throughout the book. The Hulk going on a jealousy-filled rampage is a good idea. Hulk screaming about how horny the battle is making him is not. Nor is having the Wasp bring him to a standstill by flashing her breasts at him. It's just plain juvenile.

And for some reason, Tony Stark's butler Jarvis is now gay. Instead of subtle characterization that deepens our understanding of the character or adds texture to the world of the book, however, he's just portrayed as a middle-aged poof making what apparently in some circles pass for witty comments about Cap and Thor.

And worst of all is a brutal scene of domestic abuse between Pym and the Wasp; that scene was just plain creepy, but not in a facing-the-reality-of-domestic-violence way. It was more of a Christ-I-wish-they'd-stop-trying-so-hard-to-creep-me-out-by-wallowing-in-exploitation-film-caliber-pornographic-violence sort of way, if you see the difference.

It's a damn shame, because there's much about this book that's good; a brief sequence of Cap walking home with the Wasp after a shopping trip brings home the "man out of time" aspect of his character better than most things I've read along similar lines. But it's so wrapped up in a leering, lookit-me sensibility that all of that gets pretty much lost in the cracks. It's a damn shame; this could have been a really great comic.

The Freaks and Geeks DVD set arrived in the mail yesterday, a few weeks ahead of schedule. We ordered the super-jumbo collector's edition, since the show is just that good. When we ordered, one of the extras promised for this set was described as a yearbook. Cool, I figured, a neat little book with some information about the show.

Heh.

The set's packaging is a full-size McKinley High 1980-1981 yearbook, and the book itself is a nice thick one with articles by staff members, candid set photos, class pictures, and damn near anything else you can think of, down to "signed" end-papers from various characters from the show, to Sam on the front papers and to Lindsay on the back (and, good Lord, I hope Linda Cardellini is going to use the money she makes on crap like Scooby Doo 2 and ER to do something that does justice to her talents.

How much did Freaks and Geeks rock? Let me put it this way: Looking at the fake F&G yearbook gives me more warm and fuzzy feelings than looking at my own real-life yearbook ever will. I can't wait to dive into the set!

Gary Farber links to a bizarre rant from a failed bookstore. With an attitude like that, I can't imagine why anyone would have been shopping there in the first place.

Overall, I'm pretty unsympathetic to the whole independent bookstore good/chain store bad mentality. About ten years ago I tried to support my local independent bookstore by asking them to order a book that was already out at the local Barnes & Noble but that I was in no hurry to read. So I asked if they could order it for me; in other words, I came up to them with a guaranteed sale. They check their system. They tell me it's not released yet. I tell them I've seen it elsewhere, but I want to buy it from them. They say they can order it so they get a copy when it's released. How long will that be? About six weeks. I give them my information and they tell me they'll call when it arrives.

Two months later, having heard nothing, I bought the bloody book from Barnes & Noble, and yea, it was good, and the independent store lost a guaranteed sale. Eventually -- and I mean, months later -- they called left a message telling me the book had arrived and did I still want it?

I didn't call back.

An essential part of shopping for men's jackets online seems to be repeated moments of thinking, "I don't remember clicking on a link to a gay porn site. Oh, wait, that's just a guy modeling a jacket. Talk about making love to the camera."

This is especially so if one clicks on "Leather/suede."

Chris Sullentrop of Slate argues that Scooby-Doo may be the most popular kids' cartoon ever:

Maybe Scooby's appeal makes sense when you compare it to the rest of kids' TV. The most ham-handed of children's shows try to stuff a moral message down the audience's throat. But the moral code of Scooby-Doo permeates the entire enterprise without you ever noticing it. The Washington Post's Hank Stuever concisely elucidated the "Scooby worldview" when the first live-action movie came out: "Kids should meddle, dogs are sweet, life is groovy, and if something scares you, you should confront it." What needs to be explained about that?

Which is all well and good, but, damn, Scooby-Doo is really, really annoying. Particularly whatever 70s-era iteration of the show featured celebrity guest-stars. There was one in particular in which great hay was made over the fact that the guest was Dick Van Dyke. How many five year-olds in 1977 knew or cared who Dick Van Dyke was, for God's sake?

This strikes me as deeply stupid:

There's been a lot of fuss over four little letters lately, particularly when used by Bono on TV. However, I suspect the real usage they want to block was this:

Did I expect George Bush to fuck [the war in Iraq] up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did. -- John Kerry

Kerry uttered said quote in Rolling Stone, which, last time I checked, and I admit, it's been a while, was not on television. Of course, one wouldn't expect a little thing like, you know, basic facts to get in the way of a certain breed of mouth-breathing, cringing, barking moonbat...

This is what happens when I take this test after reading the Sherlock Holmes vs. Lovecraft collection:

In my not so humble opinion, you, of course, belong
in the Picture of Dorian Gray, and do not try
to deny it. You belong in the fashionable
circles of Victorian London where exotic
tastes, a double life, decadence, wit and a
hypocritical belief in moral betterment make
you a home. You belong where the witty
apothegms of Lords, the silly moralities of
matrons, the blinding high of opium, and the
beauty of visual arts mingle to form one
convoluted world.


Which Classic Novel do You Belong In?
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D'Oh:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:


Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low


Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

At times I wonder what the hell is wrong with Minnesotans.

On Friday night, we went to see the astonishingly good Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And at the end of the movie, as soon as the house lights went up, the asshat sitting behind us announced, "Well, that sucked!" Then he gave an avuncular chuckle and added, "I don't even know what that title is supposed to mean!" He must have been asleep during the part of the movie where the poem from which the title is taken is quoted. Maybe there's just something in the water that makes the locals feel the need to offer up "snappy" comments after movies that are any more challenging than, say, Maid in Manhattan; when we saw Monster, the middle-aged asshat behind us felt the need to announce, "Well, that was an uplifter!" Or maybe it's just a geographic inferiority complex; by going to these movies, and then proclaiming how they didn't get it, these morons get to reassure themselves that they're smarter than all those smart-alecky art types who like this sort of highfaluting whatnot, dontcha know?

In the picture above, is Captain America

A. Dressed up like Eric Cartman because the young people love the South Park?
B) Wearing one of those stiff, cylindrical leather jackets Andrew Dice Clay used to wear in the 80s too look less fat than he was?
C) Actually Forbush Man in a premature Halloween costume?

Here's a decent interview with Brian K. Vaughan about his upcoming superhero/political thriller comic Ex Machina.

I realized watching Saturday's episode of SNL, which was surprisingly funny given that Ben Hoofleck was hosting, that the terminally unfunny Jeff Richards is no longer in the credits. A quick check of alt.tv.snl confirmed that he's been gone since February and that no one is really saying why he's gone. Except that, you know, he was perhaps the worst cast member in recent history. I've read he was a pickup from Mad TV, and that makes sense, since he always seemed more suited for the sort of lower-than-low-brow, look-Ma-I-pooped-'em-again dumbass humor that show seems to revel in. But the reason, in the final analysis, doesn't matter; what matters is that we will never, ever, ever see Drunk Girl again.

Fight Club!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
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Watson! The needle!

Last night the Home Theater Forum held an online chat with a group of executives from Warner Home Video.

The 3rd question of the evening came from me, and I crammed questions about a number of TV shows into a single question (my thanks to Warner Brothers and HTF owner Ron Epstein for putting up with me doing that!). One of the series I asked about was V: The Series.

Warner replied "V is coming." Yes, it's just that simple...it's coming. That's all they said, but for now it's enough. Yay!

For some reason, I searched for and found an online episode guide for the abomination that was V: The Series. One of the episode descriptions consisted pretty much entirely of, "At this point, the series becomes officially unwatchable."

I'm just sayin', here, is all.

Joel Achenbach is probably the best writer at the Washington Post, and today he presents a fascinating interview with physicist Brian Greene (no relation, I hope, to Brian Austen Greene of Beverly Hills 90210 fame, and, boy, do I need to stop watching F/X before coming to campus):

His reputation as a leader in the field of "string theory" must inevitably compete with his reputation as a good-looking guy who's comfortable on television. He recently hosted, with boyish enthusiasm, the three-part PBS series "The Elegant Universe," a madcap romp through the funhouse of modern physics, based on his bestseller by the same name. Invariably Greene is compared to the late Carl Sagan, for like Sagan, Greene makes science sound like the coolest thing humankind ever invented. There's an unspoken refrain of, Check this out, this will really blow your mind . . .

His new book focuses in particular on time, the most baffling dimension of them all. Length, breadth, depth -- no one's got a real problem with those. Time is the brain-boggler.

"I do believe in time," the scientist says. "I just think our intuition about it is wrong."

Just as we hit 18th Street, and seem to be heading into the Starbucks across the street, we take a sharp turn to the right, northward. Or perhaps we also go straight. And left. And stop completely. And return backward. Such multiplicity would be possible under the "many worlds" scenario of quantum mechanics, the hypothesis that there is no singular reality, that not only do subatomic particles exist in probability waves, but all their possible trajectories come true, causing the universe to splinter continually into parallel universes.

Greene finds that theory too extravagant, and in any case, in the version of reality that culminates in this story, we go to the right.

We head up 18th, up Mass. Ave. to Dupont Circle, down 19th. Greene doesn't do much sightseeing -- he's trying to explain that the past is as real as the present.

"I don't think that the past is gone. I think the past feels gone," Greene says. "There you were at a party, New Year's Eve, you were experiencing that moment. I would say you are still experiencing that moment."

Greene isn't just saying that somewhere on some distant place in the universe, an astronomer can see the light finally arriving from some event in our past. That's not controversial. That's simply speed-of-light stuff. When we see the Andromeda galaxy, we're looking about 2 million years into the past, because it takes that long for the light to reach us across the enormous distances of space.

Greene's point is more radical: That there is no such thing as "now." That just as there is no center of the universe, there is no location in the "loaf" of spacetime that's more special than any other . This is an implication of Einstein's theory of relativity (his "special" theory, if you can stand the irony).

"This is really a question of what's real. You're saying what's real to me is 'now' " -- the former judo competitor is hacking at the air in a fashion that might alarm other pedestrians -- "but she" -- a woman walking by -- "would slice through the spacetime continuum at a different angle."

This article will a) blow your mind and b) make you want to stay very, very still for a while.

This what be what the young people mean by repurposing.

I find it hard to get very enthusiastic about this news:

On his messageboard, John Byrne has announced that his next project for DC will be a relaunch of Doom Patrol.

While Byrne is remaining somewhat tight-lipped about the news the group will include - as will a handful of new, yet unnamed members - apparently, Niles Caulder - the Chief; the Cliff Steel Robotman, Rita Farr - Elasti-Girl; and Larry Trainor - Negative Man.

As for the feel of the book, Byrne said that the series’ catchphrase is “Together Again for the First Time!” – this given the team’s “appearance” in the pages of JLA #94. In regards to an explanation, Byrne related that their JLA appearance is the first time they have appeared openly in the DCU, although Batman knows something about them, and Ray Palmer (the Atom) has a connection with them.

Byrne also has referred to the relaunch as a reboot in the style of Wonder Woman, which many have taken to mean that the characters will be introduced fresh, without references to previous continuities or earlier adventures. This is referenced in JLA #94 when the character resembling Robotman is told by a wheelchair bound character that he (and the rest of the team) is not ready to go out into the field.

Don't get me wrong; the Doom Patrol is a venerable and solid concept, and Byrne is clearly enthusiastic about it, but, well, I just don't see much point to a ground-up reboot. The team is such a minor part of DC's overall tapestry of characters and history (convoluted though it may be) that I don't see why this approach is a better idea than replacing the dead characters with new ones or similar ones (as both Grant Morrison did and subsequent writers tried less successfully to do). I also wonder if Byrne has (to paraphrase Hunter Thompson) the kinky Mick Jagger streak it takes to do the concept justice. These folks are supposed to be STRANGE. And Byrne seems like he's relentlessly resisted anything smacking of strange in recent years, at least when it comes to the depiction of super-heroes.

Sigh. I wish DC would collect the rest of Grant Morrison's run. At least there's a second Doom Patrol Archive coming out soon...

Snarky question: Why does the cover art for the Bend it Like Beckham DVD feature the best friend character much more prominently than it does the actual protagonist of the film? Is it just because Kiera Knightley is inexplicably the It-Girl of the moment, or did it have something to do with the ethnicity of the two characters? I'm usually the last person to cry "RACE!", but this is the kind of thing that makes you wonder...

This person is entirely too kind to asshat chef Bobby Flay. I'm amazed Morimoto didn't (literally) kick his ass.

Not much time today, but the storm of classwork has somewhat abated. So here's some good news that perked me up:

Toon Zone's Steel recently caught up with a Warner Home Video representative at the most recent Home Theater Forum chat. When questioned about box sets regarding the "DC Animated Universe" properties, the representative responded that, "there will be season boxed sets of both Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series. Teen Titans is scheduled as well."

And it's about damn time. For whatever reason, I missed the vast majority of the episodes of the animated DC series prior to Justice League and I'll gladly pay to have them all on the shelf. I just hope Batman Beyond gets the boxed treatment as well.

This goes a bit farther than just rocking the vote, I think.,

Who says there's no second acts in America?

Ten years ago, Scott Styles the porn star didn't exist. In his place was a man with a different name who left his Clear Lake apartment every morning and drove a mile to Johnson Space Center.

Link via Obscure Store.

The Minnesota DFL has an uncanny power for pissing me off, even when I'm inclined to agree or sympathize with it. At Tuesday night's precinct caucus, some white-haired washed-up asshat local politician decided to kick things off with a meandering Bush-is-the-devil-who-caused-the-bus-strike speech, which was kind of misplaced, as it seemed like preaching to the choir, but whatever. Then he said, "I heard George Bush is the most well-read man from Texas! Let's send him back there to impress everyone!" Then he sat down, realized he'd skipped his non-joke's punchline, stood again, and said, "See, he's read ONE BOOK!"

I guess hate speech against Texans is less equal than other hate speech, or something.

Good news: The very funny Mary Jo Pehl of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame now has a web site to promote herself and her upcoming book. No blog, alas, but still cool.

Yeah, the one guy was there to protest for the animal rights whatnot:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - Police arrested six shivering protesters on Monday after they braved cool temperatures and staged a nearly naked pillow fight outside Harvard University to promote animal rights.

The five women and one man, members of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, were arrested on criminal misdemeanor charges, said police spokesman Frank Pasquarello.

"This is nothing compared to what the animals go through," protester Karla Waples, wearing nothing but pasties to cover her nipples and a pair of panties, shouted to reporters as she was led in handcuffs to a waiting police van.

Link via Fark.

Thought Balloons links to this series of recollections about the great Jack Kirby, and it's well worth a read, but what really struck me was how much Kirby's Superman resembled what a grown-up Tom Welling might look like in the cape and tights:


I'm just sayin', here, is all.

Philip Michaels links to this terrific article about other Oscars head-smackers from ESPN, which seems an unlikely source. But it's still worth a look. Dances with Wolves beat GoodFellas? The English Patient beat FARGO? Whoopi Farking Goldberg beat Lorraine Bracco? Yo, Oscar! WHAT THE FARK?

Surprisingly, the list omits the biggest Oscar travesty in my memory, which was Forrest Gump's win for Best Picture over Pulp Fiction, the most ground-breaking and influential movie of the last decade or so...

You are Schroeder!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
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Lileks is just being stupid this morning. He presents two quotes, the first from a George W. Bush State of the Union and the second from John Kerry during yesterday's debate:

I ask you: who’s speaking his heart, and who’s crafting a response on the fly trying to cover all bases? One more question: take these two statements:

“The liberty we prize is not American's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.”

Or:

“We pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard. And God has been on our side through most of our existence.”

Which one best represents the face of America you’d like the President to show to the world?

Isn't juxtaposing a scripted line with an off-the-cuff one is just a wee little bit like comparing apples and elephants? Why, yes. Yes it is.

Here's an alternate take on the awards Lord of the Rings should have won.

Screw the Oscars. I plan to spend this evening watching my new DVD of Lost in Translation, the best film of 2003.

I just finished reading GODS AND MORTALS, the first of four volumes collecting George Perez's relaunch of Wonder Woman for DC Comics in 1986. It's a superb read -- Perez was at the top of his game, and draws the most stunningly gorgeous Wonder Woman I've ever seen. The book also captures that elusive, electric energy that was running through the whole DC line in 1986; as a preteenager reading books like Legends, the Superman revamp, the Giffen and DeMatteis Justice League, Suicide Squad, Green Lantern Corps, and so much more (funny how many more comics I read when the cover price was 75 cents and not $2.99...) I felt like I was witnessing a renaissance in the DC line that must have been just like the birth of the Silver Age.

But that's not actually what I want to write about. This collection, I think, represents the first time DC has used any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of pages of character studies that were drawn for its encyclopedic Who's Who series in another context. The last few pages of the volume reprint the (recolored) art and text from those entries, and it makes me wonder what else DC could do with the Who's Who art in its files. I've been very surprised, for instance, that DC hasn't put together a Jack Kirby portfolio with his late-career takes on just about all of the super-hero and adventure characters he did for DC over the years. They put together a collection of Kirby's Green Arrow stories, for Jebus' sake; surely there'd be interest in a collection of his Who's Who entries?

This Salon article about the possibility of a Democratc win in Arizona jumped out at me because I'm in the midst of Rick Perlstein's fantastic book Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. It's intriguing, but written by that tool Sidney Blumenthal, so make of it what you will.

There's a fascinating article about Brian Wilson's lost album in today's Washington Post:

Wilson was the fragile musical genius who wrote, produced and performed on the Beach Boys' exuberant hits during the 1960s. "Smile" was reputed to be his ultimate achievement, a densely packed song cycle of intriguing melody and rich harmony that should have appeared at about the same time as the Beatles' classic "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album.

But somewhere on the road to completion in the spring and summer of 1967 Wilson lost his way, scrapping large chunks of "Smile" and descending into nearly three decades of drug-induced madness from which he began to emerge only a few years ago. And "Smile" descended with him. A few pieces of the puzzle appeared on various albums to tempt and torment Wilson's fans. But the great work itself vanished, as if it had never existed.

Until now.

This past week, Wilson, now 61, has been treating British audiences to a modern version of "Smile," performed for the first time live onstage at Royal Festival Hall here. It's been an event of extraordinary power and poignancy, sold out for five nights, fronted by a man who barely makes eye contact with the audience, whose voice often struggles to remain on key, and whose every hesitant gesture suggests a lifetime of pain and turmoil.

Read the whole thing, even if your knowledge of the Beach Boys as artists is limited to the nagging feeling that much of their work is probably horribly underrated which you got after seeing how well Cameron Crowe used "Good Vibrations" in Vanilla Sky.

This is the "cover image" at Salon.com today:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom stands between newlyweds Cissie Bonini, left, and Lora Pertle during a reception at San Francisco City Hall Feb. 13.

Um, Mayor Newsom? It's not cool to be checking out the bride like that. I'm just sayin', here, is all.

Josh Marshall nails President Bush's puch for a no-gay-marriage amendment:

It's his dad and the flag burning amendment all over again. Is there really anything that tells you more about a man's character than this?

Slate talks about those bizarre Quizno's ads:

What are these creatures? As I say, they're called spongmonkeys. I don't know why and neither did Hall. In your mail to me, you've called them: gerbils with birth defects; Mr. Potato Rats; drug-addled, castrato hamsters; and "hell lemurs" (which, while catchy, is not really accurate, as the lemur body type is far more ectomorphic). Whatever they are, they're clearly Photoshopped, and if pressed I would say the base element is a pygmy marmoset.

You gotta be kidding. Many of you are repulsed by the spongmonkeys, can't fathom how they would make you desire a sub, and worry that these ratlike creatures suggest an unsanitary sandwich-prep environment.

Hall says that Quiznos needs to be "dramatic" with the airtime it buys, because it's got a smaller ad budget than its competitors. It's a brand that's still in a growth stage, and its main goal right now is awareness—i.e., water-cooler talk. Mission accomplished, I'd say. By the way, this is an ongoing strategy for Quiznos and has met with some detractors in the past. Last fall, Ad Report Card critiqued a Quiznos spot in which a man suckles at the teat of a she-wolf.

This is genius advertising! You know what? I totally agree! Teat-sucking was over the line, yes, but the spongmonkeys are delightful. They've got a certain winning charm—you can feel it in the way they sing "pepper baaarrrr!" And come on, the pirate hat? Kudos.

Is this ad incomprehensibly weird? Yes. Quiznos transformed a piece of outsider art into a nationwide ad campaign. And I'm all for it. I hope their next ad somehow features a 16-foot model of the Lusitania built entirely of toothpicks and wood glue.

Also, believe it or not, there is some classic marketing strategy going on here. As others have pointed out, this spot—unlike shock-spots with, say, flatulent horses—actually centers on product attributes. We're told that Quiznos subs are tasty, crunchy, warm, and toasted. We're introduced to the concept of the pepper bar, which one imagines is a bar stocked with a menagerie of peppers. (Not really my thing, but still, a selling point of sorts.)

Personally, I find the things pretty fucking repulsive, but that's just me. Go eat Schlotzky's instead.

Although, damn, that song is pretty infectious...

Score one for the good guys:

You know, if I were Todd McFarlane, I would simply have apologised a long time ago. Instead, Todd threw a lot of money at lawyers, and lost the legal case in every way he could lose it, and then threw a lot more money at lawyers to appeal and just lost it again, for good.
...

Anyway... it's still full steam ahead now for the Miracleman plans, and now I need to figure out what I want to do with Angela, Cogliostro and Medieval Spawn.

More good casting news about the new Batman film was released yesterday:

The Hollywood Reporter is now stating that Ken Watanabe has been cast in Christopher Nolan's BATMAN movie. Watanabe will reportedly be playing the part of the criminal mastermind R'as al Ghul, arch-nemesis to the Dark Knight.

The Japanese actor is up for a Best Supporting Actor this coming weekend for his performance in THE LAST SAMURAI.

This is very, very cool. Watanabe was far and away the best thing about The Last Samurai (a film I really enjoyed, in spite of the woman sitting next to me who kept describing what was happening onscreen to herself -- "Oh, they're riding horses!" "They're fighting with swords!" and so on...) and I'm sure he'll do a great job playing the last great Batman villain.

But the fanboy ranting has already begun, as you can see here:

But hasn't Ra's always been European?

Also, does anyone know how good Watanabe's English is? It was heavily-accented but understandable in TLS; it's possible that his American accent is much better and he was merely pulling a Lambert Wilson for the dramatic effect. Oh well; at least it guarantees he'll sound cool calling Bale "detective".

Does this mean that Talia will also be Japanese, or what?

And here:

Ra's is supposed to be of mixed Arabian blood, I believe. According to Julie, Ra's al Ghul is an Arabic phrase.

What's funny here, of course, is that we see a character who actually belongs to a racial/ethnic minority, and Hollywood in its infinite wisdom casts a different racial/ethinicity.

As the philopospher Mike Nelson once said, what the hell?

I've always imagined Ra's as ethnically indeterminate, with a bloodline incorporating ethnicities and cultures that no longer exist. The guy's nigh-immortal, right? So why fix him to a particular ethnicity, and demand that in the casting, instead of being happy that a really, really good actor has been cast as the villain in a Batman film that just might not suck? There's no ethnicity that's essential to Ra's' (that doesn't look right...) character, so why not just go with someone who can bring the appropriate presence and menace to the role?

Good news: Teen Titans toys! Now I just hope they're in scale with Mattel's Justice League line...

Snort.

This just in: Comics journalism is not very good.

Now this, this is just plain wrong.

Trachtenberg isn't ashamed of her physical attributes, though, and is amused by how prominently her cleavage is displayed on the "Eurotrip" poster, especially when she learned that her image was not enhanced in any way.

"Maybe it was the way I was sitting that day," she muses, "or maybe I had a lot of salt."

Oh, Sherilyn, Sherilyn...

Sherman Hemsley, known best for his work in "The Jeffersons," is returning to the sitcom. At least his voice is.
Hemsley will give voice to the talking horse in FOX's remake of the 1960s sitcom "Mister Ed," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show, about a man who owns a horse that talks, is being updated to have a more "urban" sensibility.

David Allen Basche ("Three Sisters") and Sherilyn Fenn ("Twin Peaks," "Dawson's Creek") have previously signed on to the pilot, which comes from 20th Century Fox TV and Original TV, playing Mister Ed's owner, Wilbur Post, and his wife.

According to Cinescape, Kevin Smith has been tapped to do a Green Hornet movie:

Smith will write the script and direct the movie for Miramax Films as his next project, hoping to have the camera rolling by late summer. No stars are attached to the project so far but the CLERKS helmer thinks the idea of having George Clooney and Jet Li as the Hornet and Kato isn't such a bad idea.

This marks the second time that Smith has worked on a superhero project for Hollywood, with his last experience being the disappointing SUPERMAN screenplay he submitted to producer Jon Peters. "I always said I'd never do one, based on my limited experience writing on SUPERMAN and having to answer to the studio, the producer, the comics company and eventually a director," Smith explained to Variety. "Then there's a fandom that gets up in arms if you even try to stray from their character." Since the Hornet has been relatively low key in the public and the genre, Smith will have a freedom for exploration and his own vision that won't step on too many toes.

I imagine the movie will consist largely of two-shots of Green Hornet and Kato arguing at paragraph-length in front of brick walls. Which would still be more interesting, visually, than the old Green Hornet series, which was a bigger teast than Lana Lang is on Smallville. It got you expecting action! and excitement! with that incredible theme music, and then showed you half an hour of middle-aged men in suits and car chases at 20 mph and Kato did all the real work, anyway.

Well, this strategy worked wonders for Paul Simon in 1988, Howard:

Howard Dean returned home to Burlington, Vermont, early on Wednesday carrying a decision to quit his presidential campaign but remain in the race for the nomination, the Los Angeles Times reported in Wednesday's editions.

"Though Dean is not going to formally drop out of the race, he is going to stop campaigning," a Dean aide told the newspaper.

"The move would allow his supporters to continue to vote for him in the upcoming primaries and have a say at the Democratic National Convention in July," The Times reported.

Link via Drudge.

Here's an extremely uninformative, teaser interview with Joss Whedon and John Cassaday about their upcoming run on a new X-Men comic.

And here's a deranged thread from John Byrne's message board in which a bunch of people get really, reall mad over Whedon doing an X-book.

In my e-mail today, I've got messages from "Sexy People," "25K Grant," "Cash," "Cigarettes," "Bigger Breasts," and "No Debt. Sure, they e-mail, but they never come by the house. Stupid fair-weather friends.

After watching fifteen hallucinogenic minutes of HR Pufnstuff and Land of the Lost on TV Land last night, I can authoritatively say that the Lord of the Rings movies would have been vastly more entertaining if Sid and Marty Krofft had made them. Sigh...I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Neil Gaiman vs. the Gelatinous Cube

Yesterday afternoon we went to see Neil Gaiman be interviewed at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul as part of MPR's "Talking Volumes" series. Gaiman was his usual self --witty, insightful, surprising, in short, the perfect person to see asked questions about his craft. Even the insipid, lame-ass questions the MPR person was asking her.

There were only two things detracting from the experience. One was the air of MPR smugness that overhung the entire event. Before things got started an MPR apparatchik came onstage and, looking over her glasses at us, thanked us for coming out to an event about books, when we could be home watching the television or going out to a movie! Because, of course, People Like Us Who Read Books don't pollute our brains with the sorts of things commoners amuse themselves with. I continue to marvel at the ability of Minnesota Liberals to make my skin crawl even when I'm otherwise inclined to agree with them.

The other was the gelatinous cube who sat next to me throughout the event. I refer to her by the name of the freakiest D&D monster of them all not because of her size, which was ample, but because of her monstrous ability to ooze into every possible micrometer of space that came to exist between us throughout the event. Look: I know theatre seating is narrow and uncomfortable and there's sure to be a bit of touching. I understand that. But for God's sake, learn to, you know, get something out of your purse without splaying your legs to their maximal if limited capacity. Learn to, say, cross your arms once in a while to get your forearms out of the way. Don't repeatedly shove your hamlike upper arms into the person sitting nest to you. What was most annoying is that her companion, whom one might describe as Jack Sprat-like, sat on the aisle seat next to her. Yo, Cube! Maybe you should try sitting on the aisle once in a while, and they way the only person you're touching is the guy with whom you're going to spend the event engaging in sensual -- and I sensual, I mean grosser and more unnecessary than hands-in-each-other's-back-pockets goth couple wannabes at the Mall of America -- hand-holding activities the whole god-damned time, anyway. Do what you want with your cream-cheese filled fingers, lady, just do it in the dark and away from other people, 'kay?

And I haven't even gotten to the audio portion of the gelatinous cube's performance.

She brayed. Last month I had occasion to describe a guest at the potluck from hell as a braying ass. I was wrong. This woman brayed throughout the talk. Every time Gaiman said anything mildly amusing, she couldn't just laugh -- she let out these piercing, shrill bleats of something that an alien might consider laughter. Sort of a "NYEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEE HEE HEE HEEEEEEEEE HHEEEEEEEEE!" sound. Perhaps she's related to Howard Dean. But remember that Gaiman is an incredibly funny person, and then imagine that sound going off right next to your right ear three or four times a minute for over an hour, and you'll understand that I really, really respect Neil Gaiman, becase at no point did I turn to the gelatinous cube and tell her to SHUT THE FUCK UP SO I COULD HEAR THE GODDAMNED PERSON I PAID TEN BUCKS AND JOINED MPR TO HEAR.

The worst parts came whenever Neil talked about the creative process itself, because she turned the volume up to eleven and added hand-clapping and nodding to the performance -- and that's what it was, a performance to show everyone else just how smart and witty she herself was for finding the smart and witty writer so smart and witty. No doubt the gelatinous cube fancies herself an pan-media artist, writing sonnets about flowers in glue and glitter on black velvet, stalking the aisles of Michael's looking for sales, writing fan fiction in which she's the fourth Charmed sister and they go through the Stargate and meet Richard Dean Anderson and the power of her love and creativity turns the casts of both shows into ocelots and they all have sex with her.

Let me put it this way: It was so bad, that after fifteen minutes or so, the small children sitting in front of us turned and stared at the gelatinous cube every time this happened, and the children's faces appeared to say, "Gee, Mommy explained to me how to behave at the theatre. I wonder why no one ever explained it to that lady? And how come the lady looks like a gelatinous cube?"

I'm just sayin', here, is all.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

A statement from The WB:
For the last seven years Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been cornerstones of our network. The sum total of the work done on those shows has produced some of the proudest moments in our history. Like some of the great series that are leaving the air this year, including Frasier and Friends, the cast, crew, writers and producers of Angel deserve to be able to wrap up the series in a way befitting a classic television series and that is why we went to Joss to let him know that this would be the last year of the series on The WB. We have discussed continuing the Angel legacy with special movie events next year, which is still on the table. In a perfect world, all of these details would be completed before this information went to the press so that we could be definitive about the show's ongoing future. But in any case, we did not want to contemplate this being the last year of Angel without giving the show the option of crafting their own destiny for this character and for this series. David Boreanaz continues to be one of the finest, classiest and friendliest actors we have had the pleasure to work with and we hope that the relationship furthers from here. The same can be said for all the actors and producers on the show.

Is this what Doug Shaftoe meant by "displaying adaptability"?

According to the Israeli daily Maariv, Israeli police have a bizarre new way of preventing suicide bombings.

The police are going to begin implementing their plan to hang bags of swine fat in buses and other public places, in the hope it will deter suicide bombers from entering them...The suggestion is based on the fact that Islam, like Judaism, regards the pig as an unclean animal. Strict Moslem tradition holds that any Moslem who touches a pig before dying will be denied access to heaven.
What about those observant Jews within proximity of bags, won’t they be offended? Apparently not, because a rabbinical permit has been issued endorsing the measure. Rabbi Eliezer Moshe Fisher of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court warned:

[I]f the police do not use pig fat in buses, tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews will arm themselves with spray guns filled with liquid lard, which they will spray on terrorists whenever the need arises.
No doubt the suicide bombers will be able to elicit fatwas, or religious decrees, of their own permitting them to carry out the bombings, despite the presence of the bags.

This just in: NYPD Blue is still on.

This is not what I wanted to see when I logged on this morning after being without Internet access all weekend:

Comics writer Mark Evanier has reported the unfortunate news that comics legend Julius Schwartz died this morning at Winthrop Hospital in New York City at 2:30 AM. He was 89.

Schwartz was a pioneer of the Silver Age of comics, joining DC and immediately having an effect on the publications of that company. The majority consensus agrees that the Golden Age of Comics gave way to the Silver Age of Comics with the publication of DC's "Showcase" #4 in 1956 when DC revived the Flash. The job of editing the title fell to Schwartz and the changes to the Flash were guided by him. The response was so positive that the character was brought back in future issues of the anthology and the character was ultimately awarded his own series in 1959. The impact of this book changed the landscape of super hero comics forever. To this day he is considered one of comics' greatest editors.

Mark Evanier has plenty of reminisces about Schwartz at his web site; just go here and keep scrolling down.

I was lucky enough to meet Julie at a small, local con in 1988; he and Curt Swan were special guests and each one signed my copy of The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, the first hardcover comic collection I ever bought. I think it cost the princely sum of $16. Both Swan and Schwartz are gone now. Dammit.

I'm hoping DC will do a tribute book entitled "Strange Schwartz Stories." The kickoff should be 1985's surprise birthday issue of Superman, which you can read here.

Monitor Duty has this to say about the eventual Lord of the Rings DVD boxed sets:

Box sets? Can there really be anyone who loved these movies who hasn't bought them already?

Considering that the hard-core "LOTR-is-the-best-movie-ever" crowd has been gleefully buying two versions of each movie on DVD, one with the theatrical cut and one with the super-terrific-happy-special edition, with full knowledge in buying the first that the second will be out in just a few months, why wouldn't the studio expect that the lemmings will line up for a boxed set as well? Just throw in ultra-super-terrific-happy extras and outtakes and they'll fall all over themselves to buy it.

What's sad is the eager willingness of these folks to fork over their money for these things with nary a complaint. If George Lucas were to try the same nonsense with the original Star Wars movies, Skywalker Ranch would be burned to the ground with torches. The fans would still buy every version, of course, but at least they'd have the good sense to grumble about it, for God's sake.

If the casting news is any indication, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie might not suck:

Sam Rockwell, star of CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND and known to science fiction fans as Guy the security guy in GALAXY QUEST, will be sipping Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters shortly because the actor has been cast as Zaphod Beeblebrox in the HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY movie. The two-headed President of the Galaxy is one of the two that pick up the last Earthman, Arthur Dent, and his companion Ford Prefect after the Earth has been destroyed by the Vogon contruction force. Martin Freeman, Mos Des and Zooey Deschanel have already been cast as Arthur, Ford and Trillian, respectively, in the film.

Sam Rockwell, of course, kicks ass like a great giant ass-kicking thing that kicks asses. I've been willing to watch him in just about anything ever since I saw him doing an interview for Galaxy Quest in which it became quickly apparent that he had constructed an elaborate backstory for his character, who was, really, not much more than a bit part. If I ever get around to picking up Confessions of a Dangerous Mind on DVD, I'll make a point of watching his screen test for the role of Chuck Barris.

I am 42.80079% - Major Geek.

And for political entertainment of a more rousing sort than that mentioned in my previous entry, Bob Dornan is running for Congress again. Boo-ya!

Make sure to read the comments so you don't miss this:

That interview was almost as weird as the time I turned on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and realized that Bob Dornan was the star of the movie they were watching.

Posted by: Chris Puzak on February 4, 2004 02:27 PM

If you have a perverse desire to watch a bunch of people shouting at each other like total asshats, go read this thread at Peter David's message board/blog. I swear to Jebus, nearly every person who's taken part in this thing needs to be fitted with protective, padded headgear lest they give themselves brain damage.

Peter David's a hell of a good writer of comics and fantasy and Star Trek novels. And as a political commentator, he's a hell of a good writer of comics and fantasy and Star Trek novels.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think each of the major Democratic candidates can be mapped onto a character from King of the Hill.

John Kerry is Hank, the solid, reliable, dependable guy. Howard Dean is Khan, the screaming lunatic neighbor. Joe Lieberman is Bill Dauterive, the lovable loser down the block. John Edwards is Boomhauer, the slick good-lookin' feller with the accent. And Wesley Clark is Dale Gribble, the paranoid conspiracy theorist next door.

Look, it's about as solid as most political analysis you'll find on the Internet.

HDTV versus porn:

If HDTV is sharp enough to reveal a G-rated entertainer's humanity, the technology's harsh gaze must be all the worse for those who make their livings in the nude. So when DirecTV announced last week that it would be broadcasting pay-per-view adult movies in HDTV, starting last night after the Super Bowl, one had to wonder whether the company's decision-makers actually bothered to watch some samples. A big part of the allure of porn—at least the relatively highbrow variety that DirecTV shows—is that the participants appear to share few of our species' physical foibles, thanks to clever lighting, makeup, and surgery. Your spouse may suffer from a dearth of gym time or the occasional bout of acne, but Kobe Tai's on-screen personas are always in tip-top shape.

...
Of course, as long as they've got some bedroom skills, adult performers needn't be absolute world-beaters in the looks department, so they tend to be a lot less lovely than your average Hollywood star. In addition, they end up revealing a lot more nooks and crannies than their mainstream peers, which means many more physical flaws can wind up on-screen. That's no big deal for peddlers of lowbrow or amateur smut, in which bad bodies are the norm. But keep in mind that DirecTV will be broadcasting films from two sources, Playboy and the Spice Channel, both of which pride themselves on being vendors of classy porn. The action on Spice is tame compared to what you might find at the local XXX store, and the stars typically sport toned, pneumatic bodies without visible shortcomings. If Cameron Diaz's otherworldly reputation can't survive HDTV intact, what chance does the Spice Channel's talent have? And will HDTV customers readily fork over $14.99 per three-hour movie block once they realize that the naughty sorority sister their order conjures up has amateurish implants, and the lucky TV repairman's skin redefines the word "leathery"?

There's a long article at the Washington Post about Mickey Dolenz, his work on Broadway in the musical Aida, his thoughts on the Monkees from a few decades out, and other stuff, but this bit is what jumped out at me:

"The Monkees really becoming a band was like the equivalent of Leonard Nimoy really becoming a Vulcan," Dolenz says. "It was that weird. Mike used to say it was like Pinocchio really becoming a little boy. We transcended the imaginary and became this supergroup."