The 8 Ball Knows

At Folk Fest, there's a lot of hanging around at night, wandering through camp, or sitting around a campfire. And since you're on a field full of strangers (or best friends you don't know yet), well, it's a good idea to have an icebreaker. Hence: The Magic 8-Ball.

Jay started bringing a Magic 8-Ball to the campsite a few years ago, and we've used it to start conversations, settle disputes, and find our way around the camp so we can encounter secret bars(!). The 8-Ball is invaluable. Mostly, we ask people if they have questions for the 8-Ball. We hear lots of questions, dish out lots of billiard-style wisdom, and everybody's happy -- although more often than not, the answer hedges a bit, such as "Signs point to Yes" or "Outcome hazy. Ask again later."

We prefer that they ask the question aloud, but if they don't, we just assume the question is about whether they'll finish the night with a little naked wrasslin'.

We're always right about this, by the way. It's the only thing people are shy about -- usually because their prospective wrassle-mate is standing right next to them.


(Oh, wait - one last order of business. Mom, this might be a good time to stop reading. Just pretend I end this story with something you'll find really funny.)

But I just related this story to a friend in an e-mail, and I thought I'd share it with you, too. Because the World Must Know.

Sometimes they're not shy. A woman came up to our campsite, shook the 8-Ball and asked, "Will I get head tonight?"

The Magic 8-Ball for once did not equivocate. "YES." That's it. No hedging, no weaseling -- just Yes. She was going to get the headiest head in the camp.

She was very pleased. "That's right," she agreed, making a circular scrubbing motion around her midsection before she walked off: "It's 'cause I baby-wipe that shit!"

Ah, camping! Hope the 8-Ball got that one right, since she put in the effort.

Rob

Fest Minus 8 Hours

Seven and a half, actually. I'll spend a couple of them sleeping, a couple more driving, and then a good chunk of time hauling a ridiculous amount of camping gear out of my car. And then: Bliss.

So here's the incomparable Chris Smither, an amazing songwriter and guitarist, to keep you company while I'm gone. He's singling No Love Today... and ths weekend, he'll be singing at Fest.


"No Love Today" by Chris Smither from Tom Weber on Vimeo.


Wish you were here.

Rob

Walking with Superman

So there's this year-long storyline in Superman in which our hero decides to take a walk across the breadth of America. He doesn't explain his motivations for this, though it seems to be precipitated by a woman slapping his face because while he was in outer space, her husband died of cancer, which she believes he could have cured somehow. Superman was off in space at the time, trying to keep 10,000 other Kryptonians from conquering Earth (under which rule, presumably, her husband still would have died). But the details don't matter too much to me (though the notion that this is actually happening as a reaction to Superman witnessing his own people wiped out a second time is intriguing). In new writer J. Michael Straczynski's first story, Superman gets slapped, Superman goes walking. And -- I hoped -- we would get a year's worth of done-in-one stories where Superman would come into a city, identify and solve a problem, and then walk on. He's Shane, he's The Lone Ranger, he's Superman.

And these problems, I expected, wouldn't be entirely super-villain oriented. In walking on Earth, Superman would be encountering the recession, corporate greed, pollution, maybe the effects of global warming, who knows? It'd be a return of the Social Justice Superman from the Golden Age. The guy who kept landlords from raising their rents and evicting goodhearted people. The guy who puts the heat on corrupt senators. This guy (click to enlarge and read):

"You can announce that henceforth my mine will be the safest in the country"

 And to a certain extent, I was right. In the most recent issue, #702, Superman walks through Detroit. He encounters tons of people who are out of work, but he also meets up with some technologically advanced aliens living incognito in one of the city's neighborhoods. They fight, they talk, and Superman wonders whether to evict them from Earth or not. (They've fled a tyrannical government, and argue that their situation was no more tenable than an exploding planet.) Basically, he tells them they should be doing something for the community.

Later on, Superman brings them a guy who's sick and obviously dying, and they use their technology to heal him. And then Superman has an idea, and this happens (click to enlarge and read):

"It is expected that as many people as were fired during the automobile shutdowns will be rehired to handle the wave of equipment slated to be produced by these factories."

Immediately. Detroit's unemployment problems are solved!

Now, this is definitely over-simplifying real-world issues. I got to the point where the aliens set up a medical research firm and gave everyone jobs, and I thought "Oh, come on!" But then I realized something:

That's exactly how something like this would have been handled in the Golden Age. Find a problem, find a solution, and Outta Here! (I mean, look at how that Golden Age mine-safety story was wrapped up. In one panel!)

And while that isn't necessarily satisfying to today's readers (it wasn't initially satisfying to me), I think it's an interesting choice for JMS to make, particularly because it goes against the grain. And I have to consider -- do I really want five issues with pages devoted to the aliens putting this company together? There's something to be said for getting it done and capping it off with a happy (though facile) ending.

When this storyline started, my biggest hope for it was that it would give us done-in-one stories of the "Social Justice" Superman of the Golden Age. And in this issue, that's exactly what we got.

So now that I've seen it, I've got to decide... is that really what I wanted?

I'm not sure. It's still not entirely satisfying to me, but I have to admit it's something of a catharsis to see someone essentially punch unemployment in the face.

Rob

A Pretty Little Devil

Climb, She-She, climb!

We’re on vacation, so I don’t have any photos to share right now. But I wanted to write a little about She-Devil, our ferret who we lost a couple days ago.

She was a pretty little sable ferret, who we called “the beautiful lady.” (Or climby-girl, because of her high-altitude exploits. Or slinky-girl, because of the way she'd positively ooze herself out of the ferret bed, like one of Dali's melted clocks.) We got her several years ago, along with Gus, Blink and the Dude, from neighbors of friends, who found them too much to handle. And they were a handful, to be sure.

I always had trouble telling Blink apart from She-Devil. They were both sables, but Blink was a little smaller and lighter than She, and had a different coloration on her nose. They were so similar, in fact, that after Blink passed away, I sometimes imagined that we’d gotten the IDs wrong, and thought that Blink was adjusting to her new life getting called She-Devil.

She-Devil and me

But no, She-Devil was all she-devil -- in causing trouble, at least, though not in temperament. She regularly climbed up the outside of her cage, King Kong style, and then would peer over the gate that sealed off the family room, and drop the two and a half feet into the kitchen when we weren’t looking. Then, she could explore. She loved to explore, walking around not only the first floor, but climbing the stairs to the second floor so she could sneak around the office and our bedroom as well.

In later years, she gradually lost her sight completely. This did not deter her in the least. She’d climb, look around the corner, and drop into the dark, trusting that the kitchen floor would catch her. The only concession to her blindness was that, when she would leave her cage, she would walk the perimeter of our family room to make sure everything was where she expected it to be.

The Fab Four, piled behind a speaker in early days

I always worried about She-Devil. Part of that was that she was the oldest of our ferrets, and I think part had to do with the way Blink passed away. Blink got really sick, really quickly. One night, we noticed she wasn’t well, and resolved to take her to the vet the next morning. When I woke up to check on her, she was already beyond any help. There was nothing we could do.

She-Devil somehow spared us that. There was no feeling of helplessness with her; we were on vacation, but even our niece, who was ferret sitting for us, says that she just walked into her room to check on them, and She-Devil didn’t move. No prolonged illness; she just stopped.

She-Devil and Gus

Or that’s what it seems like to us, from the outside. Earlier in the year, She-Devil had a growth on the side of her face. The doctor said it wasn’t any trouble unless it interfered with her eating, but he could remove it if we liked. We’d worried about invasive surgery, so we didn’t opt to remove it until it grew to be about the size of a raspberry – it was like she was growing a second head. A couple of months ago, we removed it, and then a few weeks ago her stitches fell out. She was growing fur back in the places on her neck the doctor had needed to shave for surgery. For the first time in months, she looked truly healthy.

And somehow, the whole episode let me finally let go of the worry I’d always harbored. She seemed happy and well at last, and that’s how I’ll remember her. A dedicated escape artist, and a clever, brave girl who would kiss me on the nose a little almost every day.

We’ll miss you, She-She.

Rob

UPDATE: As you can see, I've added some photos of She-Devil and her friends. Here are also a couple links to some of her greatest hits.

Sometimes I work.

I'm editing some professional listings, and there's one that begins:

[NAME WITHHELD] is a professional photographer who specializes in weddings, events and headshots. 

But in my head it reads:

[NAME WITHHELD] is a professional assassin who specializes in weddings, events and headshots.

So far, though,I haven't had to spruce up the listings of any professional killers. Maybe if I were working for Craigslist...

Rob

Bears do it, bees do it.

Celebrate National Watermelon Month, that is.

Also, apparently, listen to Nirvana.

Anyway, more pictures of adorable killing machines eating helpless watermelons here.

Rob

For My Baby

Some behind the scenes footage of The Walking Dead, coming in October on AMC.

Gonna be jaw-dropping. Possibly literally.

Rob

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams

Last night, Kathy & I went to a screening of the east coast premiere of Tim Sullivan's horror-comedy 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams. Tim's a Metuchen guy, and he came back to him hometown (and the Forum Theatre) to debut his most recent gorefest.

And a festival it is: The town of Pleasant Valley, Georgia, holds an annual "Guts 'n' Glory Jamboree" in which northerners are duped into their little town and are murdered and eaten as payback for the slaughter of 2001 town residents during the Civil War. (Oops, sorry, the War Between the States. Please don't eat me, cannibal Confederates.) But this year, when the sheriff decides not to allow the Jamboree to continue, the band of creepy hicks and inbreds (led by The Devil's Regects' Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye from There's Something About Mary, who plays the deliciously overt-the-top Granny) decides to take its slaughtershow on the road. Which is how they encounter the cast and crew of  Road Rascals, a thinly veiled mockup of Paris Hilton & Nicole Ritchie's The Simple Life, stuck in Iowa with two flat tires.

After circling the crew of Yankees (though as one guy points out, they're really from California) like sharks for a while, the Maniacs start killing them one by one, and then, eventually, in packs. I like a horror movie with a large cast -- there's plenty of people that can die, instead of killing the same poor schlubs over and over.

One thing about this movie: Leave any sense of racial and gender sensitivity at the door. I mean, it's a horror movie, so human dignity really isn't on the agenda. Everyone here, Maniac and Hollywood creep alike, is a stereotype, or is treated as one by the Maniacs. Part of that is just the obviousness of the writing (horror isn't a genre that rewards subtlety), and part is because Sullivan clearly enjoys poking a finger where it hurts. Some of this is eye-rolling; other parts are quite a bit more unsettling. When a black man participates in a carnival-style lynching of a black woman -- not because she's black, but because she's a northerner, though when someone says "northerner," they're cautioned not to use the "N-word" -- you know that Sullivan is deliberately crossing as many lines as he can, just to see what he can get away with. And all the while, you're watching thinking "he's not really going to do this, is he? He can't do that!" And for a moment you think Sullivan has pulled away from it at the last minute, and you realize that the reprieve doesn't make it better. And then...

Look, I don't know what to think of this. Sullivan's clearly using racially charged imagery, but I don't think he's trying to do so in a racist manner. He's trying to provoke, though I don't know to what end. There doesn't seem much point to the scene other than one more stomach-churning set piece. I'm not sure what he's trying to say. I didn't enjoy the scene. But at the same time, I can't stop thinking about it. (Out of all the killings, it's also the least bloody; I get the sense that for all the glibness of its setup, Sullivan isn't treating this as a punchline.)

Anyway, enough of that. Suffice it to say that there are plenty of stereotypes on display here, and most of them get slaughtered -- though none in quite so historically ugly a fashion. And in general, if you like horror movies and lots of red squirting everywhere, if you're willing to overlook clumsy (intentionally clumsy, I think) stereotypes, and if you like girls taking their tops off (since that happens a lot, too), you'll possibly like this movie. But I don't think you'll like that scene. I doubt you're intended to.

Rob

Kayakin' with Mom

So down in Stone Harbor last week, Kathy & I scheduled a kayak trip around the wetlands. The house we were staying in was situated right on the bay -- we'd even set up some crab traps one morning -- and thought it would be great to have a little sunset tour.

That Thursday, riding our bikes back from the beach, Kathy took a spill on her bike. (Message to all those who've forgotten this since you were 12 -- don't ride a bike in flip-flops!) She scraped up her elbow pretty badly, and cut her knee, ankle and toe, as well. And took most of the force of the fall in her shoulder.

Since Kathy knew that she would not take it easy in the two-person kayak, we decided to cancel. Problem was, it was too late to cancel and get our money back, so we'd be out 80 bucks. So I asked my mom if she wanted to come out and join me. To my surprise, she said yes.

With Mom in front and me in the aft, we had a great time paddling the kayak all through the tour. (The tour was put on by the Wetlands Institute and Harbor Outfitters, by the way.) We paddled right past the dock behind our house, where the family was all waiting to see us. (Some of them were waiting fro us to come back, but we never passed the house again, instead making a big circle.)

The tour was a great time, and I highly recommend it. Somewhere around the halfway point, we pulld up the kayaks onto an embankment and took a short swim. The guides (Andrew and Erin, and I think maybe another Andrew?) told us all about the area, including how jetskis deplete the minnow population, and pointed out the various birds we saw -- a lot of laughing gulls, but some ospreys and egrets, too. They also showed us an edible plant ("full of potassium," they said) called glasswort that grows along the bay. was alike a thin finger made of grass, and it was crunchy and very salty -- not a surprise, considering it grows in bay water.

We traveled about six miles, all told, and ended the trip paddling into a beautiful sunset over the wetlands. And as much as I would have liked taking the trip with Kathy, I was really happy to spend those hours paddling around with my mom. I don't get to spend a lot of time, just me and her, and when we do spend time together, it's never doing anything -- it's generally just sitting and talking. So working together to propel a little plastic boat six miles? That was really something special.

Rob

Is this a book cover, or is this a freakin BOOK COVER?

Robbie want.

Rob

Grrr.

Somehow I lost all the text to a long-ish post about (well, sort of about) Harvey Pekar, the great comics author who died yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to recreate it, but in the meantime, here's a link to an interview from a few years ago, and Heidi MacDonald's rundown of the tributes and retrospectives.

Rob

Back From Vacation

And a good time was had by all.

Seventeen of us in one house, and we managed to have fun and live together amicably, like the ginormous family we are. We're a good, friendly bunch, and every now and then we get together and prove it.

There was only one member of the household with whom I must admit I have irreconcilable differences. And that is a cable television network called Nick Jr.

Now, Nick Jr. certainly does the trick of keeping the kids occupied and, for a while, quiet. And I realize that there were probably moments where it saved the day, temper-wise. But man... when it was on the TV, what I'd give to hear a baritone voice. And how can they call the show Go, Diego, Go! when he's always around? Worse yet, he never eats any of the animals he finds. (Though there was a wonderful moment when Go, Diego Go! became a drinking game, with us all tipping our beers whenever he spoke a word or phrase in Spanish. Gracias, Diego.)

Anyway, upon our arrival home, Kathy & I realized that there could be only one antidote to a week of intermittent kid's TV: the last two episodes of Deadwood. Swearing, murder, drinking, swearing, betrayal, complex sentence structures, swearing, prostitution, gambling, drugs, and did I mention the fucking swearing? Oh, home. You know just what I need sometimes.

I've got some good stories of vacation, and I intend to tell them here. But tonight's for homecoming. 

Anyway, here's a little video demonstrating why it's best that we didn't bring any Deadwood DVDs to the shore with us.

Rob

Gone Fishin'

Have a great Fourth! Back soon!

Rob

Greendale

So I just finished Neil Young's Greendale, with script by Josh Dysart and art by the amazing Cliff Chiang, and... well, the art is by the amazing Cliff Chiang!

The art is gorgeous. Gorgeous! Here's a page:

See what I mean?

Problem is, the story never hits the ground for me. It's about Sun Green, a girl in a long line of the Green family where the women all seem to have some sort of nature-magic quirk about them, and then disappear. Reading it, all I could think was that I bet the album would have blown me away... particularly if I were hearing it during the middle of the Bush era. But either way, songs seem able to imply more than the lyrics might say -- we're invited to fill in the blanks with our own experience and details, where Greendale the comic fills those blanks in for us.

Now, I'm a big ol' lib, but the politics in this book just seemed simplistic to me, and never entirely... Idon't know, solid. Bush bad, war bad, drilling bad. More sloganeering and cheerleading than policy. They don't have much depth, and I guess I was hoping for a little more. Or maybe a little less politics altogether. The environmentalism is really at the heart of this book. It never really comes together for me, but taking it out would have gutted the book. But it feels too airy, somehow.

Aargh. At least the book is coherent, which is more than I can say for this post.

Anyway, when I was searching for the art I posted, I found this french website that posted material that an earlier artist, Sean Gordon Murphy, completed before Cliff Chiang replaced him (I don't know why). And I have to say, as much as I love (love!) Cliff's art, I think Murphy might have been a better choice. The people look a little cartoonier, a little less glossy. And with Murphy on art, I likely wouldn't have been interested enough to buy it (Chiang was the draw for me). But I think I would have managed to touch me a little more -- wrap me up in the story more than making me stop and look at every gorgeous page.

Any thoughts? About anything? 'Cause I'm all over the map.

Rob

#Tweetsfrommyweekaway

I spent a week without updating Twitter, or, really, this blog. So I just took five minutes and recapped the week on Twitter, and I see a second bird over here that I think I can nail with the same stone. THWAK!

• This is the week where I start regretting my car's AC is broken.
• Sea Bear vs. Grizzly Shark? I gotta go with Grizzly Shark.
• Who knew sake could freeze? 
• Five guys fires don't need ketchup, vinegar or anything. They are inherently perfect. 
• The problem with the cliffhanger to Legion #2 is that it's the same cliffhanger as Legion #1. 
• Flash 2 had the same problem. 
• Damn, this is the best barbecued chicken I've ever made.

And, of course: 

• GOOOOOOOOAAAALLLLLL! #tweetsfrommyweekaway

Rob
 

Comings and Goings In Delaware County

For your viewing and learning pleasure, here's the Forbes chart of the 2008 migrations to and from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, that I couldn't figure out how to grab the other day. Courtesy of Scott Neely, Scooby-Doo artist extraordinare, who certainly knows his way around a graphic. Thanks, Scott!

Rob

Bat-Call-Of-Duty-4 Must Look AWESOME.

Okay, we know Batman is big on the Bat-bling. He pimps out his car, his motorcycle, his helicopter (a whirlybat!), his plane... when these things are comin' at ya, you know who's behind the wheel. It's all part of the "strike fear into the hears of criminals" motif he's got going. Ever since his parents died, this is the shit he lives for.

I understand. It's a big deal, and a guy's gotta have hobbies. But as I was looking through this month's Batman 700, I finally got around to looking at the four pages of Batcave schematics -- the sort of thing that bores me to tears, usually. And I noticed this inset picture, of the Bat-Computer.

It's shaped like a bat.

I love this. It's like, after all those other things, he just couldn't help himself. He just had to spring for the Bat-monitors. "I know know one will see it but me, Robin and Alfred, but... can't I just want something nice? Is that so wrong? I'm rich, I can afford it. A guy can only have so many batarangs, right? Besides, if it's not bat-shaped... I mean, no one will know, but I'll know. I just... I don't want some normal, square-shaped computer nagging me in the back of my head, throwing me off my game. No, I've gotta go with the bat-shape." Batman has become as obsessive-compulsive as Little Dot.


Now I'm dying to see what the Batcave toilets look like.

Rob

Hey! Where'd Everybody Go?

This is cool. Well, as long as you define "cool" as "an interesting way to present data," which is how we roll, here at Laughing at the Pieces. Forbes magazine has set up a site where you can click on any county in the U.S. (Here's one for Delaware County, Pa., where I grew up; the screencap of Orange County, Calif., below, is from Kevin Drum's post on it, because he's a pro blogger with at least a modicum of technical skill, and I, apparently, am a ten-thumbed chump incapable of grabbing a simple jpeg), and see the inward and outward migration from the county, based on IRS data. (The data doesn't list moves of less than 10 people, so not every move is represented.)

Anyway, click on over to Forbes's site to see where your neighbors have gone, and where the new ones have come from. And ponder what brought nearly 100 people from Delco to Northeast Texas in 2008. Did a business transfer operations there, or did everyone just get a sudden hankering for barbecue?

Rob

The Witch Is Dead? Oh, no, it's just someone at the door.

So the other day, when I put these White Stripes lyrics atop the blog:

"I'm thinkin' bout my doorbell. When ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it?"

I had no idea I would actually be buying a doorbell. But there it is, next to the back door and the front door, a little wireless doorbell that sounds a ringer that it turns out you can't hear unless your in the same room with the ringer. So I should put it in the computer room, which was the point of the whole exercise -- to have some signal for Kathy to use when she gets home from work and I've let the ferrets run around the family room, so that she can't safely open the back door. Knocking on the back door simply isn't loud enough.

She's even called me on the phone, once, in fact. Which would have worked, if I hadn't've been in the shower at the time. Had we a dog, I would have been in its house.

Anyway, new doorbell! Which plays all sorts of little tunes, generally off-key! One problem, though: It just doesn't have character like this one:

I look at this doorbell, and wonder what the hell the welcome mat looks like.

Anyway, just for grins (because there's little hope of it actually settling Kathy's and my disagreement on the matter, and besides, it is where it is, and inertia's a powerful thing): What height should a doorbell button be? I looked online to see if I could settle it (thinking of course I was right, I just needed proof), and it turns out that opinions vary. Which, given that among our small sample of two, opinions varied, I probably should have guessed. So what's your preference?

Also, see the poll at right.(Poll text reproduced in the comments, since it seems to be working intermittently at best.)

Rob

Shine a Light

The trick to walk around in the dark is to bring a light with you. Shine it ahead of you and you're not walking around in the dark anymore -- even though your eventual destination might be far out of reach.

Camping at music festivals, I've done a lot of walking around in the dark. The other night, it was just me and newfound friend Bob, stumbling home to our campsites from Plentyville, after we'd both had plenty enough that day.

Kathy gave me a little copper flashlight for our anniversary (7 = copper, which was news to me!), and with it, I could see maybe 15 feet ahead of me, which was more than enough. I didn't need to light up the camp. I only needed to know that I wasn't stepping on any other tent's guy lines. That light kept me on the trail, even though, for a while in Plentyville, I didn't even know which direction I should be heading out in.

This, by the way, is a long way around an extended metaphor. Or rather, the extended metaphor is a long way around what I'm trying to get to: I'm writing a book where I never really had an ending in mind. I had a middle in mind -- a strong middle, that probably, in reality, is a strong 2/3 point -- but from there, all was dark. And I've finally gotten there.

So instead of diving into another chapter blindly (as I did the last one, and I think I might have stepped on a scorpion), I took this afternoon and just typed away at my keyboard, thinking out loud. Thinking of places the story could go from here, and places the story shouldn't go. And while I still don't quite have an endgame, I'm a lost closer. Shining that light around let me pick a direction, and I know the next few steps will get me closer to where I want to be.

So that's my unpublished novelist's advice for today: When in doubt, shine a light and start walking.

Rob

Los Angeles Log Cabin Republicans: I Salute You!

Because this is flat-out awesome.

Rob

Private Property

So Rand Paul thinks that private business owners should be allowed to decide who to do business with, up to and including racial discrimination -- and yet won't respect copyright when Rush's lawyers tell his campaign to stop using their music.

Yay, situational morality!

Rob

Texas Tea

From the Upright Citizen's Brigade, what happens when BP spills coffee:

Rob

Random, Non-Hockey-Related Thoughts on Tonight's Hockey Game

• The idea that the Stanley Cup takes its time arriving at the stadium is flat-out weird.
• One thing I like about Chicago? They advertise Lemonheads, my favorite candy of all time, on their boards.
• I missed the announcers, but more importantly, the camera crew, from MSG. This camera moved in and out and round and round so much that I had a hard time keeping track of the puck. I felt like I was getting a mild case of motion sickness -- and I say that as a fan of The Blair Witch Project and the first season of Homicide. It's like these guys were getting paid by the zoom.  
• I'm looking forward to seeing some World Cup matches, since presumably I'm not too old to see a soccer ball in motion.
• And finally, one hockey-related thought: It felt to me like the Flyers were consistently outplayed in this series, though that may be because we don't get Versus, and so I couldn't actually watch any games where they won.

Rob

Too BLANK for TV

Okay, so I find Gene Rayburn one of the unsettling people in broadcast history. (That skinny little microphone doesn't help matters any.) But this page, on the Match Game Wallpaper website, cracked me up: Six censored answers, while Match Game Fans try to figure out the offending words.

Bonus Round: Here's a video of Alex Trebek, purportedly drunk (and certainly grouchy) while shooting a promo (though one commenter says it was Diet Pepsi he was drinking).



Rob

Welcome to Puerto Plata! (Special TMI Edition)

Lots of stories to catch up with, so here's one from our first day in Puerto Plata.

After our flight from Newark, Kathy and took the shuttle from the Puerto Plata airport to our resort. Our room wasn't quite ready for us, so we sat at the bar and the bartender (a vivacious and funny woman named Miriam) served us drinks of increasing strength. Mine was a rum/vodka/orange juice concoction called a Happy Happy, which certainly had that effect. The fact that we were finally on vacation helped, too.

Eventually, the porter took our bags to our room and we started to get set up there. And a little while after that, we discovered we hadn't locked the door, because the maid walked right into the room. Now, to spare my honey any undue embarrassment, instead of saying what we were doing, I'll just list the various things we weren't doing.

• We were not playing Scrabble.
• We were not watching TV.
• We were not filling out Sudoku boxes with random numbers.
• We were not not having sex.

That about covers it, I think.

Anyway, the maid just stands there, speaking very quickly in Spanish, most likely explaining how very embarrassed she is. But she just stands there. And talks and talks. And then, finally, runs out of the room. She's mortified, I'm sure. And Kathy and I burst out laughing.

"That's it," I say. "By the time the week is over, we're banging a maid." Kathy automatically fist-bumped my outstretched hand, and then said, "I can't believe I just fist-bumped that."

But she did.* And for the rest of the week, our maid was all smiles whenever she saw us. Even when we were dressed.

Rob

*Although we didn't, of course.

Extended Shellfish Break

Regular posting will resume tomorrow, as it's my honey's birthday today and I've got crab cakes to fry up for her.

So here's a video from the closing act of yesterday's Crawfish Fest, Galactic. That's Cyril Neville on vocals, and Stanton Moore blasting away on the drums. I'm glad I finally got to see this song; I was heading back to the chairs with bowls of crawfish etouffee and shrimp creole at the time.

Pal Jay, who could only make Day 1 of the fest, asked us to make him feel better by telling him that Galactic sucked. No can do, buddy.

Rob

I Mean Your Little Poodle Dog

Well, so far my Blog Every Day resolution hasn't borne a whole lot of fruit just yet. And since we're heading out to Crawfish Fest to celebrate Kathy's big four-oh for a few days, I'll have some more catch-up to do. But to tide you over, here's one of the weekend's featured performers, the amazing Marcia Ball, who wants to play with your poodle.

(And if you can't join us at Crawfish Fest, why not check out Jeri Smith-Ready's Shade? Jeri's signing at the Border Express at the Springfield Mall on Saturday, and I can tell you without a doubt that it's a damn fine book. Go!)

Rob

Cracking the Books

I don't have time tonight to get into what I did in Puerto Plata, so here's what I read there (and since):

Riding the Rap. An Elmore Leonard novel about Raylan Givens, now best known for being the lead character of the new show on FX, Justified. The novel was terrific (I expect no less from Leonard), and there were a lot of elements taken from it used in Episode 4: "Fixer."

Last Words: My brother gave me George Carlin's autobiography for my birthday last year, and I finally got a chance to read it. I planned on reading a chapter or so and then start another novel, but it was so engrossing that I'd finished it by the time were were stateside again. There aren't many showbiz biographies I'm interested in, but Carlin's a hero of mine. He didn't disappoint.

The Book of Three. The first book in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series. I've read this a number of times. Inspired by Welsh mythology, these books are to me what Tolkien's are to most of my friends. They're the fields of fantasy I played in as a kid, and they've only gotten broader and richer since I've returned. Next up is The Black Cauldron.

Power Girl: A New Beginning. I missed the first six issues of Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray & Amanda Connor's Power Girl comics, so I'm happy to see the book I've dug since issue 7 started out so strong. Every character Connor draws is filled with such personality and life, and Palmiotti and Gray provide her with playful scripts that never paint the hero is a real, flesh-and-blood person... and give the book great New York flavor, as well.

And rounding things off with another gritty crime drama, there's Daredevil: Cruel and Unusual, an well-done five-issue sequence which starts with Matt Murdock at a psychological low point, until he's confronted with a chance to defend a career criminal on death row...but who didn't do the crime he's going to die for. So why'd he confess? By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark and Paul Azaceta.

There you have it: Rob's Reading Corner.

Rob

Casting About For Castaways

I'll post something more substantial later tonight, but I want to link to MGK's excellent post about the end of Lost (and its lingering questions).

And I might as well announce my intentions to have at least one post up every day again in June. Sometimes I need a boot to the ass, y'know?

Rob
(Ted Dawson's Archie Comics version of Lost via Three Men in a Tub.)

Gone.

Be back soon. Sunburnt, drunk, and ready to blog.

Rob

Bellydancing Beauty with a Power-driven Saw

So yesterday, as I was finishing up S.M. Stirling's A Meeting in Corvalis, the name "Lady Eleanor" pops into my head. Some people in the Stirling books go by "lord" and "lady", but I don't think any of them are named Eleanor, particularly. But it jogged a memory of this name, and that reminded me of this song, which I'm pretty sure I taped off WXPN when I'd first started listening to it, and the depth and breadth of the music they'd play seemed so much vaster than it does to me today. (Granted, I rarely listen anymore, since I'm about 10 miles out of broadcasting range.)

This might have actually been on the same tape as Tim Hardin's "The Lady Came From Baltimore," also a strange, old-timey folk song, though far less trippy. "Lady Eleanor," on the other hand, recalls Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses,"or if Fairport Convention were playing King Crimson songs.

Anyway, here's a recording of the band Lindisfarne's 1972 hit "Lady Eleanor," inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Along with, improbably, pictures of butterflies.

Rob
(Well, that just bounced from place to place, didn't it? I ain't joking, woman, I got to ramble.)

Brother, Can You Lend a Hand?

Kathy and I had a damn good dinner the other night at Bar Six in the West Village; I had a tender barbecued short rib, and she had a really tasty Mongolian chicken dish. Good stuff, but I have such posting inertia that a good meal isn’t enough to get me to write a blog post these days.

But this sign, found in the men’s room (and, apparently, the women’s room as well), is:

“Employees must wash all their hands before returning to work.”

Certainly a good sentiment, and a proper, hygienic practice. But: All their hands? There’s something about that phrasing that makes me think that someone on the staff has a little vestigial hand poking out of his belly, the last remnant of a twin he absorbed in the womb.

(Lifting up shirt to scrub tiny belly-hand.) “Sigh… this is such a pain…”

Gotta wash your babyfingers. It’s the law.

Rob

I Just Realized I'll Be Missing the Lost Season Finale

Appropriately enough, I'll be on an island.

Anyhow, this will have to hold me over until we get back from our trip:



Rob

This Just In.

Nancy just blew my mind.

Rob
(Just a quick link to let y'all know I'm alive. Regular posting will resume shortly.)

It's Shade Day!

Jeri Smith-Ready's new novel, Shade -- her first young-adult book -- is available in bookstores and online today, and it's a hell of a read. Picture this: Ghosts are real, and suddenly, they're commonplace and visible... but only to kids aged 16 and younger -- people born after a mysterious moment dubbed "the Shift." For this new generation, the world is very different, and immeasurably more complicated. Especially when your boyfriend dies and comes back as a ghost. Is it okay to start seeing other flesh-and-blood people?

And -- well, look, Jeri's put up a description on her website that says it better than I could, and, more importantly, gives away only the plot points she wants given away. So  let me just say that the premise of the book, where no one over a certain age can see ghosts -- is a deft allegory for how all generations see the world differently from the ones that precede them. The story isn't about this generation gap -- it's a more personal story than that -- but it takes place in a world with a chasm that separates young from old more efficiently than technology, the way we do it in our world. (No, I don't have a Tumblr account.) In Shade, nature has made that divide crystal clear, and, as ever, parents just don't understand.

I've read all of Jeri's books, and this is my favorite. Jeri writes with confidence and charm, and opens a new world to us where death is not the end, but only teens can see what's next. (Shade also got a fantastic review from Publisher's Weekly. I don't think a direct link to the review is available online, so Jeri's reprinted it on her site. If you need a convincer, it'll do the job nicely.)

Rob
P.S. Had a great time at Lady Jane's Salon last night, where Jeri read from Shade, along with Christina Britton Conroy, who read from One Man's Music, and Leanna Renee Heiber, who gave a delightful reading of The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker, a Victorian haunted romance that promises a lot of spooky, proper fun. Also, we hung out in a glass room full of comfyness, including leopard-print beanbag chairs, with some of Jeri's other friends -- one of whom I'm blanking on her name* (beer was involved, and it's best not to guess), and the other of whom a check of Twitter reveals is Kate Milford, whose debut novel The Boneshaker hits the shelves in three weeks, and looks phenomenal. Congratulations to you, too, Kate.

*UPDATE: Thanks to Twitter, I was able to find out/confirm her name, too, and it's what I'd have guessed -- Julie! Although there's no reason for you to believe me. But the fact is, I has considered doing a little parenthetical John Edwardy type thing (not schtupping a woman who's not my wife, that's John Edwards with an S; I mean the cold-reader phony-baloney "psychic"). So I would have been all, like, "I'm getting a "J" and hope that someone would chime in with Julie, and then I'd say "Yes, Julie, I knew it all along." I was like 85% Julie, 12% Judy. And 3% Yuengling, but that was the beer talkin'.

Riding Around

Good day today; we got my bike back in shape (air in tires, oil on chain), rode our bikes into town to pick up some stuff from the hardware store and get some iced coffee (and to remind me how easy it is), and then rode around a little cemetery in Metuchen with an awesome gravestone. I'll try to get a photo soon. Then came home (I made it up the hill pretty well, considering I haven't ridden my bike in a year -- straight and relatively speedy, but once I got into the driveway I was a panting, sweating mess.).

Since then, I've cleaned off the grill and put the screen doors in. And bought a few new parts for the grill, since the heat shield is literally being heled together by rust and ash. I picked it up to clean it, and part of it crumbled in my hand.

But: BBQ pork chops tonight! Let the deliciousness begin!

Rob

7 Years Ago, Yesterday

Kathy & I got married.

It looked a lot like this picture, in that Kathy looked fabulous, and I was walking on air. 

She still does, and I still am.

Rob

Ruling the Roost

Want to know what that medical procedure will cost you in chickens? Here's a site that lays out the deets of Sue Lowden's healthcare plan.

Annual checkup: 24 chickens.
Appendectomy: 1019 chickens.
Hip replacement: 6549 chickens.

Egg on her face? Priceless.

Rob

Kevin Comes to Riverdale

So, Archie comics are introducing a gay character to Riverdale -- a welcome addition, and one reflective of the world kids are growing up in, as the hang-ups of previous generations get cast aside. From all indications, there's no drama that the new kid (Kevin) is gay -- he just is. So Bravo, Archie. Between this, the very fun Jughead #200, and what's probably my favorite Archie cover ever, you're having a hell of a year.

Naturally, though, the usual suspects bitch and moan about how they don't want their Archie comics "sexualized" -- which is a riot, because a) Kevin's dates won't go any farther than shakes at the Chok'lit Shoppe, same as Archie's/Betty's/Ronnie's, and b) if dating = sex, Archie is the gettin'-it-on-est guy in America. (But it doesn't. These are innocent, fun comics about teens, for preteens. Despite this.)

Here's the way these conversations go: after the announcement is made, some people praise the move, then some other folks complain/say they're dropping the books/etc., and eventually say that this is because the Bible tells them to think this way. Then other people call them on that, saying they're intolerant, or bigots, or whatever. And then someone says this -- "Seems like the angriest, and most hateful comments always seem to come from the ‘tolerant’ crowd.” Someone says this pretty much whenever they're called on their bigotry. What bigots want the most is for people to be tolerant of them.

But the conversation at the Beat yielded this comment from Jason A. Quest -- the most succinct and eloquent rebuttal to this false equivalence I've ever read. Take it away, Jason:

That’s because we aren’t tolerant of just anything. We’re tolerant of things that aren’t really that big a deal. People who try to poison children with the idea that it’s evil to be in love with someone… that’s a big deal. And yeah: I hate it when you do that.

Amen, Jason. There are some things that are intolerable.

Rob

For Your Listening Pleasure

"Midnight in Moscow," as performed by The Ventures.

Total dixieland... and then, suddenly, that haunting surf guitar. Mind? Blown.

Rob

Bully for Us?

Now, from the number of his clips I've linked to on this blog (more a couple years ago than lately; if I'm going to watch a news/commentary show these days, it's usually Maddow), it's pretty clear that I agree with Kieth Olbermann about a lot of things. The directions that he and I would prefer the country to go in are, by and large, the same place.

And yet, watch this video, that I found at The Daily Intel, from the other day's Morning Joe (also an MSNBC program).After some conversation about Rahm Emanuel, a guest asks the hosts who the liberal Rush Limbaugh would be. And suddenly, the hilariously awkward tiptoeing begins.

Suddenly, it's that shot from The Hurt Locker where the defusion expert discovers he's surrounded by live explosives. Except Joe and the crew want to do nothing but run, far and fast.

As the Intel's Chris Rovzar says, "Sorry, but that is not the behavior of people who are not terrified of pissing off Keith Olbermann."

Rob

Spy and Go Seek

Was watching Hopscotch yesterday, via the Netflix streaming video on the Wii. It’s an old Walter Matthau movie (well, I guess there aren’t any new ones), where he plays a CIA field agent whose new boss (Ned Beatty) demotes him to a desk job, so he goes AWOL through Europe instead, writing his memoirs, chapter by chapter, and sending them out to intelligence agencies around the world. Not so much to spill state secrets; more to tweak Ned Beatty’s nose.

It’s more of a comedy than a spy thriller, and even a mild comedy at that. (Extra-mild, in fact, since it seems Netflix is streaming an edited-for-television version, where Ned Beatty is forever frustrated from exclaiming, "Son of a bitch!") It goes for smiles more than laughs (though there’s a moment with a photo of Ned Beatty that gave me a good chuckle), but Matthau has a sort of rumpled charm that makes him really enjoyable to be around, as he stays far enough ahead of his ex-colleagues that he has to resort to dropping obvious clues just to give them a fighting chance. The whole thing’s sort of like Burn Notice without a body count.

Also: Sam Watterson plays Matthau’s young protégé. You don’t see that anymore.

One bit of trivia, which I haven’t seen mentioned online, even though Roger Ebert specifically notes this scene in his review. At one point, Matthau hires a charter plane to take him to an island. After they land, the pretty charter pilot, played by Lucy Saroyan, says to him “You remind me of my father,” to which Matthau retorts, “That’s always been my problem.” In once sense, it’s a cute nod to the fact that Matthau married Saroyan’s mother after she divorced from writer William Saroyan. Also, though? Just the slightest bit creepy.

Incidentally, this was Saroyan’s last movie, despite how familiar she looked to me during her scene. (She also had a small part in The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, so it’s not like I’ve never seen her before.) She passed away a few years ago, but Wikipedia says there was a gallery show of her paintings earlier this year.

There’s nothing quite like watching an old movie, saying, “Hey, who’s that?” and following the winding paths of IMDB, is there?

Rob

She's Not Kidding

Last week, I posted about Republican Sue Lowden, the candidate who's running for Harry Reid's seat in the U.S. Senate. She'd mentioned that it could be possible to barter for healthcare. In my original post, I put an asterix next to her name, and intended to indicate that a subsequent statement seemed to imply that she's meant "bargaining," not "bartering." Somehow -- I think because when I went back to reread her statement, I discovered that it didn't explicitly disavow the bartering idea -- I never got around to writing that caveat. Bad blogger, me.

But it's just as well. Because bartering is exactly what Lowden meant.

"Bring a chicken to the doctor."

That's her plan. That's her fucking plan. "Bring a chicken to the doctor," and hope they'll treat you.


What, exactly, would a chicken cover? How many chickens would I need for knee surgery? Should I keep oxen in my yard, just in case? How many houses do I have to paint before I can get an MRI?

Look, the good old days of country doctors who treated people, in exchange for whatever they could pay, however they could pay it, is inspirational. Atticus Finch did some of his lawyering the same way. But it's case-by-case charity, not a plan for coverage. It's not a sound basis for a healthcare system. Chickens are cheap, and medical treatment is expensive. Most poor people don't have chickens, and most doctors don't want them.  It's just mind-numbingly stupid. We have money for a reason. We have insurance for a reason.

Attention, GOP. Your healthcare plan sucks. I mean, just between us chickens.

Rob

Crisis of Infinite Fabric!

Okay, I don't watch America's Got Fashion, or whatever it's called, but I have to admit that every time I see Tim Gunn on a talk show, I'm extremely entertained. Which makes this video (which I saw via Comics Alliance) one of the most awesome things in the history of awesome. Ladies and gents: Timm Gunn, critiquing superhero costumes.And the two words that amp the awesomeness even more? "Part One."

Rob

Hey Blockhead!

Yeah, this is my third video in a row. I saw this last week, but never had a spare moment to share it with you until now. It's Patrick Jean's new short film, Pixels. Enjoy.

Rob

This Really Ties the VHS Collection Together

I saw this on Val's site, and just thought it was just too good (and thorough) -- and had so much pride of craftsmanship -- not to share. It's a *little* NSFW, but considerably less that you might expect from a trailer for a porno. Not just any porno...  the Big Lebowski porn parody. No nudity here -- just dirty stuff.

Me, I'm curious how they'll handle the scene where Walter explains what happens when you find a stranger in the alps.

Rob

GOP Abandons the Dollar

This just in -- Republicans no longer have faith in the U.S. Dollar, and are suggesting that, when we can't pay cash for our medical expenses, that we barter with the doctor. Here's Nevada senate candidate Sue Lowden*, this past Tuesday.

"I think that bartering is really good. Those doctors who you pay cash, you can barter, and that would get prices down in a hurry. And I would say go out, go ahead out and pay cash for whatever your medical needs are, and go ahead and barter with your doctor."

"Bartering is really good." Not haggling, not bargaining -- bartering. As in, "I can only afford $100 for those blood tests, so how about I mow your lawn all summer to make up the difference? Or would you like some old comic books?" As in, "you're money's no good here -- we only take livestock."

This lack of faith in our currency is really disheartening. I wonder what could get them to respect the dollar again...? Maybe they're holding out until we put Jefferson Davis's face on it.

Rob

How's It Hangin', Marvel?

Got a strange promotional item with my comics today (Flash Secret Files, Jonah Hex, and Jughead, in case you're wondering, which you're likely not). It's a Marvel heroes door-hanger, like those "Do Not Disturb" signs for hotel room doors.

So this is what it looks like when you want to say: Do Not Disturb. Avengers Meeting in Progress.

In other news: If the Quinjet's a rockin', don't come a-knockin'.

Rob

Peep Show

Here it is: The Washington Post's annual Peeps diorama contest.

Happy Easter!

Rob

The White Ribbon, plus a digression

Just got back from a screening of The White Ribbon, a film by Michael Haneke about a small village in Germany in the early 1910s. Strange, malicious events are happening in the town -- a horse trips on some invisible wire strung across a road, injuring its rider; a barn burns down; a child is tortured -- and no one knows who's doing these things, or why. The events of the movie seem like they're part of a whodunnit, but there's something else going on. Haneke exploits our natural curiosity about who would do such things, and instead seems to be saying that anyone might have. Some blame is laid at the feet of the town's children, but which ones? Could it be all of them?

It's a truly unnerving movie, and pretty much the antithesis of a crowd-pleaser.

I'm especially glad I got to see it projected in a theater; a local live theater, the Forum, is screening movies on certain weekends. A couple weeks ago, Kathy and I saw Crazy Heart there. We missed An Education, but were able to catch Coco Before Chanel a couple of months ago. I'm thrilled that they're doing this. For the past few years, I've seen most of the art-house type movies I've been interested in on DVD, where years ago I'd drive into Philly every other week to see something interesting. (In New York, I tend to take the opportunity to see something old at the film Forum rather than something new and unknown.)

Anyway, there are a few things I really appreciate about the Forum's film series. First, not all the movies they show are the exact ones I'd want to watch. Selecting every movie myself, in the Netflix queue, limits my capacity to be surprised by something, and to see movies outside of my usual genres. I was interested in Coco Before Chanel, but it never would have made its way to the top of the Netflix queue.

Second, it's destination viewing. The movies run for a weekend, and might be held over for a second. So there's really no putting off seeing the movie for a more convenient time, which then slips by. I might miss Shutter Island, because I figure it'll be around next week. But if I wanted to see The White Ribbon, I had to go tonight.

Third, it's a local theater, and I like putting my money back into my town.

And fourth, like I said: I used to go see movies like this all the time. And while I like a well-made big-budget movie as much as the next guy, independent and foreign films are usually so much more challenging. And I do like a challenge.

Rob

Particle Fiction

A few days ago, my online pal David Wynne debuted his new comic, Particle Fiction, online. Well. it's available both online and as a printed comic -- and if you decide you'd like a copy (or one of his other books) and order before April 4th, he'll throw in a free sketch. Which is a damn good deal, because his art is terrific.

But regardless, this is a cool done-in-one story, with a beginning, middle and an end, and you can download it as a pdf or read it online in your browser.

So go! Enjoy!

Rob
(And next week, Ami will have a podcast interview with him!)

In Dreams I Walk (and Fly and Sail and Ride) With You

Crazy, crazy dreams last night. Probably (no, definitely) had too many cinnamon crack balls before bed.

First up, I’m in a plane with pals Andy & Jeff. We’re the only passengers on the small airplane, and for some reason we learn that the pilot’s evil. (I don’t think he’s a terrorist in the sense we have in this century; he’s more like a Bond villain henchman.) So, we make our way to the front of the plane (it’s not a commercial flight, there’s no door between the cabin and the cockpit) and we fight the guy, throwing him out of the plane and into the ocean. Not that we know how to fly it. And not that there will soon be much of a plane to fly, given that our scuffle (with guns and knives and a decisive thunk with a fire extinguisher) has somehow damaged the structural integrity of the plane, and the cabin and wings are peeling apart as it drops out of the sky.

We land in the water, and somehow we’re able to keep the plane afloat and moving, even as the water continues to damage what is now the boat. And then we take the boat into New York Harbor, and up into the streets of the city, as we’re somehow able to balance the thing on its two landing wheels. We drive through the city, and photographers are taking all sorts of pictures of us, because of our amazing emergency landing/sea voyage/driving a boatplane, but also because I have lost my pants.

Yep, it’s a dream, all right.

Then another dream. I’m looking for Jeff, planning to have dinner with him. (I am again in pants, by the way.) Then, just as I see him in some distant food court, he calls me on my cell phone and tells me my cover has been compromised. So I go wandering through a deserted college campus with a box of lo mein. The only other person I could see was a security guard walking her rounds.

And then I meet an old friend—actually a giant of a guy I just met in the last six months or so, but here he is an old, old friend—and we continue walking down the melancholy streets. Then, a sweet girl I knew back in college joins us. And the three of us start talking a little about the times we had together, all of us a little sadly. And then the fourth member of our quartet shows up, a girl I went on a date with some thirteen years ago, but here she is another old friend. And I know that she is dead, and has been dead for a long time. And that is why we four friends no longer hang out together.

But we have that night, walking through empty streets and parking lots. One of us, the giant, spots a cardboard box full of clothes outside of a boutique, and pulls out a tattered sweater so big that all four of us could fit into it at once. This is our next Halloween costume, he says—a four-headed axe murderer. And we talk about it and negotiate who gets to put their arms through the arm-holes, and how we’ll all be able to drink what we want at the party, with only two arms for four heads. We resolve to practice.

And then, on a little hill between parking lots, the dead girl, Lora, sings a song. I can’t do justice to it here. It’s a light, flighty song about the insistence of existence.

It begins “Shining like an arrow in your bow,” and ends “You might think I wasn’t, but I was.” And when her song ends, it becomes clear that the four of us never hung out together, were never a group of friends. Our memories are constructed. All of it is false, from top to bottom. Even Lora is alive somewhere, and not dead and returned for this night.

Except her song is true: We might think she wasn’t, but she was. Somewhere, these four people, who do not know each other here, were connected. But even in that place, they could not hold together any longer.

This wasn’t the sort of dream I usually have, where I wake up, laugh it off, and move on with my day. I woke thinking that history was fluid, and that I could be in many places at once: Here in the life I know, and another place, and others beyond that. I felt like universes had revealed themselves to me in a dead girl’s song.

Rob