Posts from — October 2008

More posting later, but I wanted to share Ichor Falls with you guys.

It’s the best microfiction project I’ve seen since 365tomorrows.

Today’s story, in particular, is awesome.  You won’t look when you shut doors for the next three days.

I tried to come up with an interesting take on the presidential debates, but really, there’s nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. It was exactly like watching the end of The Matrix, when Neo comes back from the dead and wrecks those three Agents without even trying. And it should be pretty obvious that John McCain is those Agents.

The thing that slays me about McCain is that he’s spent eight bitter years recovering from the character assassination that Bush laid on him in 2000, yet he now finds himself in the ironic position of acting like Bush’s fresh-faced sole male heir waiting to move into the castle with his exotic princess from the unexplored hinterlands from a policy perspective and laying out the exact same character assassination tactics that he spent eight years kvetching about to try and bring down Obama. Except we remember McCain’s rhetoric about running a clean campaign just a few months ago and we very unfortunately remember his shameful admission that he’d compromised his principles to get votes the last time he was a serious presidential candidate - which was the exact moment that a younger, much more conservative Jeff stopped respecting him.

Yeah, I know everyone does it, but confessing it is the worse crime when it comes to politics; moreso than Gossip Girl or Heroes or House, we want our leadership to sell us on its pleasant, pleasant fiction. In the past, I’ve told people that I don’t understand why Europeans are obsessed with their royals, but that is the answer - it’s like having network dramas without needing to watch TV. It’s a proto-ARG that engages our desire to have something vaguely related to a personal stake in government. To feel like our vote has weight. This is the same feeling that was ripped from the breast of so many DC faithfuls when Jason Todd came back a few years ago, by the way.

So, the debates. The debates were boring as hell, simply because none of the moderators wanted to actually make the participants answer the questions being asked of them. Instead, McCain and Palin each took the opportunity to reach out to their base in the ugliest way possible, by reminding them that the opposition was dangerous and couldn’t be trusted, and while I’ve heard scads of Republicans say that the rampant Obama-hate in their red-state ranks isn’t due to race, but the stump speech crowds and the diarists in the blogsphere and the talk radio die-hards can’t resist attacking on that front - so while I’ve never claimed that all Reps are racists, it’s pretty obvious that racism is a motivator on the right. And McCain, in the debates and in the ads, has been playing it up and then telling everyone to calm down. Which led to the Dems spending most of their energy on damage control and spin defense instead of really getting into talking about the issues. Hell, looking back at the second debate, Obama had to spend over his allotted time debunking McCain’s batshit assertion that Obama wants to start a Bush Doctrine-style war on Pakistan.

So that’s where I am on the debates - they’re a wonderful way to expose our bread-and-circuses hypocrisy but they have no real political value and I’m also jaded as all hell about everything.

Like most thinking people of taste, I love Kate Spencer.  More accurately, I love Marc Andreyko’s Manhunter - a comic that began with a wild reinterpretation of the Manhunter legacy and proceeded to lovingly tie it into not only Kate’s Manhunter-mantle-donning predecessors, but into the greater DCU as a whole by incorporating the JSA and the not-often-enough-lamented classic Infinity Inc. and Chase.

There’s no denying that Manhunter was one of the best books published by DC in terms of quality, but in terms of sales, it was always a disappointment.  It’s true that Bob Wayne saved the book from the chopping block, but in retrospect, it almost seems like the book was set up to fail from the moment of its salvation, between its inconsistent shipping schedule (all of that time that DC spent letting Andreyko and Gaydos “get a head start on the book” also helped to kill awareness - go figure) and - and this is an old gripe between me and the The House of DiDio - their total lack of promotion of a critical darling title outside of free press online.

Guess what, DC?  I don’t have a chart to look at, but I’m going to guarantee you that most of Manhunter’s readership consisted of fans who actively participate in online fandom.  Promoting the book to those people creates some good will, yeah, but it ignores the masses of people who aren’t reading the book already.

Where were the house ads?  Where were the guest appearances from the JLA?  Kate did join the Birds of Prey, but that’s a book that Venns almost completely with Manhunter, if I don’t miss my guess.  It’s not promotion to put a character from one book into a book that all of those readers are already reading!  There’s no ‘gateway factor’ there at all.  All that seems to exist at DC these days is a strategy of making the core following of a book happy and forgetting everything else.  I’m tempted to think that they want to turn every title’s fanbase in a viral marketing street team, but hoping that anything will go viral is a bit like asking for a unicorn for Christmas - at best, it won’t have the effect you dreamed of and at worst, you get a drunked crayon sketch signed “Love, Dadd.”

Of course, I’m not saying anything new about DC’s marketing strategy.  No matter how smart and precocious your toddler is, you shouldn’t throw her out the window and then be shocked that she can’t fly.

No, it’s not what you think.

I don’t think I’m giving a lot away by saying that while I’m not exactly happy with my current status, I definitely think it falls into that ‘it’s for the best’ category. So this post isn’t my mighty moment of doubt.

Instead, it’s an acknowledgement that I am literally ten years off my game when it comes to dealing with sane, rational members of the opposite sex. Not that I’m actively seeking this sort of thing, but I’ve found myself falling into it repeatedly in the past few weeks and it’s been annoying.

Take, for instance, last Friday night. I was at a work function, or more accurately, the after-party of a work function, and these two distinct things happened:

1. Catching me totally unawares, a woman I have seen before in my life sneaks up behind me and wraps one arm around my shoulders, tousles my hair with her free hand and plants a kiss on my cheek. I turn my head to get a better appraisal of what exactly the fuck is going on, and the woman, who I have to reiterate at this point that I have never seen in my life, fumblingly apologizes and says to me, “You’re the wrong guy.”

Story of my life, huh?

Now if I weren’t nestled in a warm, moist bed of scotch by that point in the evening, or if I even gave a damn at all about this misfortunate piece of bar trash that is herself so impaired that she sees a bearded, six and a half foot tall man in a black suit, black shirt and a solid neon pink tie and gets him confused with someone else, I might have said something like, “Are you sure about that?” to try and turn it around or whatever. I didn’t do that, though; I had another beer. Hindsight tells me that it was the wiser choice anyway.
2. Later in the evening, I’m approached by a petite blond who wordlessly goes about the business of untying my tie and trying to steal it. It was “pretty,” she told me. I know, I say back. That’s why I paid money for it. She looked perplexed. Jesus, I am such a curmudgeon. After talking her out of the tie gambit, Mary - her name is Mary - and I ended up arm wrestling (I know you’re curious, so I’ll tell you I lost on purpose because really, are you going to thrash a girl at arm wrestling? That’s fun to live down at the office, I’m sure).

After the big throwdown, Mary continues to hang out and talk to me. She was really affable despite being completely tanked, and so I got my hopes up slightly when she casually asked me, “Are you seeing anybody?”

“No,” I said, despite the twinge of guilt that forming and aspirating the word caused me.

In an almost total act of non sequitir, Mary reached out to touch me and said, “I’m married. And I love my husband.” WHAT? It was a bit like the ending of The Crying Game or Ang Lee’s Hulk in the way that the big climax makes the viewer almost enraged that they’ve been fooled into thinking that guy was totally a chick or that a summer tentpole action movie wouldn’t turn into a high-budget Beckett play that ends with a giant green monster fighting a body of water. I’ve long believed that my life is a series of interesting misfortunes strung together for the amusement of others, but it’s rare that the examples of this follow so close on one another’s heels.

I should probably amend the title of this to Things I Hate: Random Encounters With Drunk Women, but honestly, it’s a less compelling headline. It’s probably also true that I’ve just described two episodes that are annoying or irritating but not indicative of any kind of fumbling lack of skill or grace on my part. It just never feels like that in the moment that it happens, does it?

So, I’m bursting into the splendid nonactivity of User Generated Content Week (I swear, I will finish all the post requests this week) to share something I just read on Newsarama. I only do this because some of you are of the (correct) opinion that reading the site is the psychic equivalent of punching yourself in the solar plexus over and over and over again. This quote from Faith Erin Hicks, however, is what 5 out of 4 dentists refer to as “the shit”:

I look at a show like Gilmore Girls, and I think, “What an awesome show! I love the character interaction! But having the inhabitants of Star’s Hollow stalked by zombies would be even better!”

I not only bring this up because it’s a) pretty funny and b) an awesome idea besides, but because c) I’ve made the exact same observation before. Spooky!

If you’ve not read Hicks’s (or is it Hicks’ - English degree be damned, I always mess that up) stuff, you should peruse Zombies Calling, which puts some self-aware zombie cinema fans in the midst of a zombie invasion (and whether it’s The Monster Squad or Scream, that’s always a scenario I enjoy) or December’s The War At Ellesmere, which I’ve just now preordered.

If you dare to read the whole thing (I’d recommend it), click here. It’s a funny read and it’s nice to see an indie comics creator not talk down to/about the industry while still acknowledging that it is Or you can eschew the Rama and go right to her personal Web site and learn more about her awesome comics.

Last night, I stood in front of the mirror thinking that it was time for a fresh start in my life and that, accordingly, I should make a celebratory life change, like shaving off my beard.

I only seriously considered this for like five seconds, because let’s face it, there are tons of benefits to beard-having, but here are the best 20:

1. Telekinesis.
2. Ultra-manliness.
3. Protection against cold weather.
4. Extra time freed up by lack of daily shaving.
5. Feared by dogs, small children.
6. The telekinesis? Can’t stress that enough.
7. Conceals the twin scars I received at age 10 when I tried to duel my father’s killer, a six-fingered man.
8. Compensates for my weekly viewing of Grey’s Anatomy.
9. Allows me to blend in at cons.
10. Makes me an authority on wilderness survival.
11. Visual cue distinguishing me from my evil twin.
12. Beard telepathically commands me not to shave it off.
13. Great for catching errant chips during depression-driven binge eating sessions.
14. Can stop a 9mm bullet.
15. Vital component of my Hercules, Prince of Power Halloween costume.
16. +2 to Charisma
17. Makes me Totally Rugged.
18. [Make up your own Katie Holmes joke here - post in comments]
19. Beard will be incorporated into official Jefferson Stolarship logo - can’t lose it now.
20. Gnostic prophecy indicates that removing my beard will cause a horde of mutant locusts to rise from the ground and devour the world’s wheat crop. While on fire.

As you can see, I’m basically doing this for your benefit.

The town of Tree Hill is the perfect, all-American town where everything revolves around scholastic basketball, crazy nannies, Pete Wentz and scholastic basketball. Also, scholastic basketball is very important. In that respect, it’s a lot like all small towns in America. Don’t each of us in the rural wilds of the United States live a similar life to those pretty youths that inhabit the Schwannverse? Accordingly, we can draw some parallels between our world and theirs.

Consider Nathan Scott - the favorite son, the lauded hero, the boy who will do anything in order to gain the approval and acceptance of his betters. If it weren’t for Nathan’s ability to score from the paint (because Nathan can raise his arms above his head), you might think I was describing John McCain. Right?

And don’t you think that Tree Hill’s vapid idiot Brooke Davis is a little like McCain’s Veep pick, Sarah Palin? You Betcha. Will this revelation presage the uncovering of a McCain/Palin sex tape? Oh God, I hope not.

Hey, doesn’t basketball star and fellow vapid idiot Lucas Scott love to play basketball, win hearts and minds, and wax moody and idealistic? Does he offer change we can believe in to the Tree Hill Ravens? You see where I’m going with this right? Hint: Barack Obama.

Where does that put everyone else? Well, evil fucking patriarch Dan Scott is George W. Bush, Skillz is Joe Biden, Nanny Carrie is The War On Terror, and Dan’s terminally estranged brother Keith? Well, he’s the economy.

Think about it, won’t you?

NEXT: Why Lorelei Gilmore is like our foreign policy toward China.

Did you know that TacoTuesday.org is already registered? That sucks. I picture it as the Internet’s premier social networking site for people who love Tacos and Tuesdays combined. Which is all just tangential to the topic of this post. But still a good idea.

I love me some Mexican food. Hell, I even love Taco Bell, in that way that you love things that you know aren’t actually any good but are aggressively good at being bad at what they try to do.

Unfortunately, for years and years and years, the only Mexican options in town were Taco Bell and Chi-Chi’s, which, well, that was no good. Back in college, a little place called La Esperanza opened up, and it was pretty heavenly, but it’s gone now. Micro-chain La Tolteca has been here for at least the last few years, and their food started out pretty amazing, but has gone way downhill since they opened up another location about 30 miles north, taking all the quality along with it.

I’m most excited, however, by La Villita, a place that I’ve never gone to. It was pretty convenient to my old address, but it was in a bit of a shady neighborhood.

Somehow in my mind, though, that obvious negative becomes a positive when it comes to food. My experience is that truly satisfying food needs to come from a kitchen with a single, paroled chef and an unquantifiable number of code violations-in-waiting. This is why the crime rate in Clinton Hill, the foodiest place in New York City, is so astronomical (I think this is not actually true, but I could be wrong).

To overcome my recent bout of blog paralysis, I’ve turned the reins over to YOU, the fans. For the next few days, we’ll be celebrating User-Generated Content week here at Conditional Axe. And maybe at Alert Nerd.

What this means is that YOU pick the topics I write about, and the list is, in fact, a doozy. Check it out:

1. Having a beard.
2. Mexican food.
3. Re-cast Grey’s Anatomy with the X-Men. You must use Gambit.
4. How One Tree Hill mirrors the current political landscape of our times?
5. The Presidential debate.

If you have more ideas, email me or hit me up on Twitter.

So, we’ve been being vague and cryptic about it for awhile, but Matt Springer and I are co-writing a comic book.

Neither of us knows how to draw, so we’re looking for an artist.

If you know anybody - or if you’re reading this and you are anybody - give me a yell at the email address in my profile.