Spiked

It's nice to know I wasn't the only person who wondered what the hell was going on with Spike for most of the character's tenure on the latter seasons of Buffy. Turns out James Marsters himself was often at a loss:

"...That was the problem with Spike. In all honesty, that character had no objective 90 percent of the time. I would have to make it up ... To find your objective is like a gas pedal for acting. And if you can find that objective and play it honestly, it's like 'Wham!' And if you can't find it, you're mired."

Appetite for Destruction

Chris "Lefty" Brown gives praise to Guns & Roses' Appetite for Destruction:

...I love every song on this album. The weakest song that I still like is Anything Goes, and that's track 11. My favorite song is probably Sweet Child O'Mine, because of that legendary guitar intro that is forever burned into my head. It reminds me a little of the twin guitars during the Allman Brothers' Jessica only it's dripped in sex and booze of the Sunset Strip. It's hard-wired in my noggin and no amount of sugary pop songs, hip-hop, disco, or Robbie Williams will dislodge it. And I thank God for that every day.

Appetite was the CD we put on during late-night tech calls at the theatre in college when we were out of pizza and everyone's energy was starting to flag and we still had major work to do ahead of us. To this day, if I hear the opening to "Sweet Child O'Mine," I feel like I'm 19 again.

For about half an hour.

Then I get tired again.

Aging sucks.

4%

George W. Bush's unpopularity continues to grow; he's "now more unpopular than FDR, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Ford, and Clinton ever were, and has matched the highest disapproval rating of his idol, Ronald Reagan." This is not, actually, all that surprising; for all of the right wing's talk of mandates and pointing to maps where sparsely populated counties are colored red, Bush is a president who has only ever made it into office by the hair of his chinny chin chin. He lost the popular vote in 2000 and very nearly lost, as a wartime incumbent, to a less-than-charismatic candidate in 2004.

What does amuse me are the numbers reported: Bush's approval in the latest Gallup poll is an anemic 40 percent, and his disapproval is 56%. What I want to know is, what's wrong with the other 4 percent? Is there something they're waiting on? Have they not made up their mind yet?

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

Short people

This post at 2blowhards discusses some of the troubling implications of research that strongly suggests that many genetic predispositions are the key, neccessary-but-not-sufficient component of many great athletes' greatness. For instance:

One of the most remarkable physical specimens in the world is the great bicyclist Lance Armstrong. Armstrong's heart is 20% larger than a normal person's, and his body produces one-third less lactic acid than do the bodies of other top cyclists. It's thought that each one of these physical attributes exists in only a few hundred people on earth. Walker quotes one doctor, who says of Armstrong that, in terms of his physical capabilities, "He's probably one in a billion."

Of course, reading this made me think of Batman.

You see, at one point while I was watching Batman Begins I thought to myself, "One of the great things about being Bruce Wayne would be being able to afford masterfully tailored everything" (an insight I probably would not have had before I was a starving grad student; my Amazon wish list lives here, if my plight moves you). A second later, I thought, "It would sure help to have Christian Bale's build, of course."

Which got me thinking: Has anyone explored how much of Batman's success lies in his remarkable genetic luck? Sure, it was witnessing his parents' murder at the hands of a street thug that gave 8-year-old Bruce Wayne the impetus to become Batman. But he was very fortunate indeed that, as he embarked on his training, that he grew into an athletically-framed, six-foot-something guy with a lantern jaw instead of a five-foot-nothing guy with a weak chin and a tendency toward having a beer gut.

There was an Elseworlds Batman story a few years ago that took as its premise "What if Bruce Wayne was a poor immigrant in the 1930s?" Couldn't it be just as interesting a springboard to ask "What if Bruce Wayne was short and scrawny or in chronically poor health?" The closest thing I can think of to anything along these lines would be Rorshach wearing a full-face mask and lifts in his shoes in Watchmen, but that was really just an incidental detail to the main plot. The original Atom was 5'0", but had a wrestler's build and eventually got super-powers. But how would a Bruce Wayne, or similarly motivated would-be hero, whose genetic predispositions didn't help him wage a war on crime work around, or with, his limitations?

This is as it should be

I was amused to read this in a recent profile of Lynda Carter, aka TV's Wonder Woman:

...at the moment we're drawn to the display cabinet in the next room with the superhero accessories from the 1970s television series. There's that tiara, the two pairs of "bulletproof" bracelets and, yes, the golden lasso.

That's just so darn right it makes me all tingly.

Theme night!

You know it's going to be a weird evening when both the MI-5 and Farscape episodes you watch on DVD feature people getting their faces burned off.

Potter casting

Two thoughts on casting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:

1. Scrimgeour, the new Minister of Magic, should be played by Bill Nighy. I'm surprised I have to point this out.
   
2. Since She Who Must Be Obeyed and I jst finished watching Yes, Minister and are gearing up for the sucessor series, Yes, Prime Minister, I couldn't help but imagine Paul Eddington's Jim Hacker in the chapter during which Scrimgeour briefs the PM on the war against Voldemort. Sadly, neither Eddington nor his foil, Sir Nigel Hawthorne, is with us any longer. But I would be greatly amused to see Derek Fowlds play a Prime Minister who may or may not be named Bernard Woolsey in the inevitable movie of Half-Blood Prince.
   

They're dropping like flies...

I've had what must be, by all accounts, remarkable luck getting my Justice League Unlimited action figures to stand up. But the same summer weather that has brought me terminal insomnia has brought many of these figures weak knees or ankles or something. As of now, Amazo, the Atom, Dove, Elongated Man, and Hawkgirl have given up the ghost and Batman's looking a little woozy himself. Maybe I'll get myself some action figure stands for my upcoming birthday...

Grant Morrison (Hearts) NY

Fanboy Rampage links to this terrific New York Times article about Grant Morrison's reimagining of New York City in the pages of his Seven Soldiers project -- which is the closest thing to a mainline DC comic I'm reading these days. A project where minor characters are dusted off and reinvented instead of slaughtered for shock value -- just imagine!

Snark aside, even if you don't know anything about comics this is worth your time.

Since I've been gone...

Apologies all around for the recent unplanned hiatus in blogging -- which will still be light for the forseeable future as I deal with a bulletproof case of insomnia (I can down more than the recommended dosage of Tylenol PM and keep going) and a home improvement project that seems to keep expanding every time I look at it. Stay tuned...