Revolver (blogging poetry comics music family work)

Six shots to your dome piece, home piece!

- BANG! I'm about half way done with a very lengthy review of my new phone, the powerful and praiseworthy Nokia N900. Also, look for thirty straight days of poetry (if I don't kill myself in the process) on my Soapbox. Shut up, just think of this as the previews for the movie ... or the warning shot ... your mileage may vary ...

- BANG! Speaking of poetry, I'm nervous and excited about the deluge to come. I have percolated the Bizarro poem idea in my brain for almost a year (and I may even have a Black Manta one ... why all DC? I need to dream up some Marvel ones, probably ... a seed of a T'chaka one is in my brain) and, honestly, I've been so fiction focused that it'll almost feel like a vacation from the politics and intrigues of my latest novel (which is *this* close to being 3/4 done -- writing it in quarters).

- BANG! Back to blogging, for the 2.5 people wondering where the second half of "The Reign of The Mediocre" is, I'm just waiting for Blackest Night to finish up ... oh, wait, that happens today! Excellent!

- BANG! Last weekend, I think I stopped so many people and asked them, "Have you heard Malcolm and Martin yet?" that my wife wondered if I'd been paid to do so. I am loving the mixtape (big .zip file) so much. The next time somebody complains to me about the state of hip hop, I'm sending them that link and telling them (as my wife loves to do) that they can "sat down and shaddup!" I may even get inspired to try to email them and interview them. Maybe.

- BANG! I enjoyed my time with all of my girls this weekend. We got to chill a lot and laugh, I taught Mooch some t'ai chi (and it's fun to see her try to work it into her every day life) and Myshell's jokes have been on fire lately. Since I never feel like I'm choosing sides, and since my techno-lust finally feels sated with a device that helps me do everything, it was super relaxing to just chill. On Sunday, we hung out with one of Myshell's friends B and B's husband, having a spirited discussion about politics and hip hop. Good times all around. Hm, this is personal, should it be on the other blog? Too late now ...

- BANG! I am supporting between three and three and a half websites at work now, branching into areas I barely understand. It worries me sometimes, given the balancing act, but it sure beats the alternative.

*Hannibal holsters his vocabulary and saunters off*

Playing (Music): "First Girl On The Moon" by the Bangz

Commentary Track for the Buy Pile, March 25, 2010

Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I've done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it's profound, sometimes it's gibberish, but it's always about comics ... let's see what we get this week!

What? This week's reviews ...

Remember that weird week a while back where I didn't dislike anything? This week was the opposite. Nothing was really catching my imagination. Weird.

Anyway, since that's all crap and I'm gonna take a whole blog to dissect Blackest Night some time in the next few weeks (in theory, don't hold me to it if I forget) let's look at Mark Millar's Nemesis.

I want to be on board for this. I'm the first one who says that Batman is a freaking psychopath. Billionaires with hangups don't put underwear on the outside of their fetish suits and go kick people in the face late at night in dark alleys. They spend their money making the world see things their way. The penchant for punching and young boys ... that's just some freak stuff, dude, no matter how you slice it.

Which is not to say that I think Batman isn't awesome, because he is. By sheer will, more than any Green Lantern, he has been the linchpin of galaxy-spanning events more than once. He's an amazing character. He just happens to be a dangerously repressed psychopath as well.

So the idea of a Bruce Wayne that has no repression, that he's having all the fun that the Joker has ... that's an intoxicating concept to me. So when I see it played out in the same shock-value decompressed style that made Kick-Ass tedious for me ... meh.

Now, people will be quick to call me a "hater" because despite my negative opinions, Millar's making a lot of money doing things this way. Which is fine -- I recognize that I am not the audience for every piece of content. I'm not gonna mitigate my desire to call shenanigans on it anyway.

I needed about fifty percent more content (details, character elements, plot points, whatever) to say the really enticing idea got properly executed. Failing that, I'd need more visuals like the bits with the train. As seen ... sorry, short of the mark, for me anyway.

Also: it would have been easy to just lift store clerk Quislet's whole shtick about Thaal (really? Thaal?) Sinestro being Space Hitler, now fueled by "pure" white power ... but people already think I'm that guy ... you know what? Let's save that for the "mediocrity" blog. That'll do for now.

Playing (music): "Take Over The World" by Kids in the Hall

UPDATED: The Reign of the Mediocre (The Music Edition)

Apologies to and appreciation for the illustrious and praiseworthy Nikki Blak, who inspired this meme.

Urgh.

I work hard not to be a hater. For real!

It's not because I believe the hype against haters (from songs I love like Maino's "Hi Haters" or Chamillionaire's "Good Morning"). On the contrary, if anybody appreciates the beauty and possibility contained in hatred, it's me ... well and Neil Tennant.

However, I have to deal with the dichotomies of my everyday experience. I listen to a lot of music and read a lot of comic books, blessedly for professional purposes (one of my friends said that all of my hobbies end up making me money) and I'm overcome by one common thread: "exemplary" is not only rare, but not even a big deal to the mass market. I say this not in the mind of the Wired article but in terms of literal mediocrity becoming the new standard for excellence.

To wit, I'll offer up two examples from each genre, each in its own blog. In music, I offer this guy ...

Yes, he's wearing a tweed baseball cap.

If you were one to believe the hype, you'd have the perception that Aubrey Drake Graham was one of the most amazing musicians in the field. He sings! He raps! He acts! He's sold a mountain of records and became a national phenomenon, getting huge radio play and big-name collaborations before he even had a record deal! He's the whole package!

On paper, that all sounds fine and dandy. However, in reality, there are some chinks in this publicity-spawned armor. Drake's singing? He has a range so limited it can't even rove, comprised of maybe five whole notes, all of which sound like a kind of droning dirge.

Let's try his rapping on for size. The following is his verse from his huge collaboration single "Forever" ....

Last name ever,
first name greatest,
like a sprained ankle boy, ain't nothing to play with,
it started off local
but thanks to all the haters,
I know G4 pilots
on a first name basis,
and your city faded off to brown -- Nino
she insists she got more class -- we know!
swimming in the money come and find me -- Nemo
if I was at the club you know I balled -- chemo
drop the mixtape that sh** sounded like an album
who'd have thought a country wide tour would be the outcome?
labels want my name beside the X like Malcolm
everybody got a deal, I did it without one,
yeah n**** I'm about my business,
killing all these rappers you would swear I had a hit list,
everybody who doubted me is asking for forgiveness,
if you ain't been a part of it at least you got to witness,
b****es,

From the simplistic lyrical cadences to the predictable rhyme patterns, from faux hardness to uncreative and pointless uses of profanity, this is less than stellar work. The best line, "everybody got a deal, I did it without one" is about all I could recommend here, and that on sheer gumption. I've been reviewing and writing about urban and hip hop music since 1993. I've seen "amazing" and this ain't it. His pacing is elementary, his stylings are lackluster at best, his voice doesn't command respect.

Moreover, he got shown up on this very song by Eminem's verse ...

There they go, packin' stadiums as Shady spits his flow,
nuts they go, macadamia they go so balistic yo,
we can make them look like bozos he's wondering if he should spit this slow,
f*** no, go for broke, his cup just runneth over oh no
he ain't had a buzz like this since the last time he overdosed,
they've been waiting patiently for Pinnochio to poke his nose,
back into the game and they know,
rap will never be the same as before,
bashing in the brains of these hoes,
and establishing a name as he goes,
the passion and the flame is ignited,
you can't put it out once we light it,
this sh** is exactly what the f***
I'm talking about when we riot,
you're dealin with a few true villians
whose staying inside of the booth truth spillin'
and spit true feelings til our tooth fillings come flying up out of our mouths
now rewind it
payback muthaf****r for the way you got at me so how's it taste?
when I slap the taste out your mouth with the bass so loud that it shakes the place,
I'm Hannibal Lecter so just in case your thinking of saving face,
you ain't gonna have no face to save by the time I'm through with this place, so Drake ...

... which is absolute fire and obliterated everybody else (Kanye, who has some ability when he chooses to use it, and Lil Wayne, who's just this weird little gremlin thing that impregnates impossibly hot girls for reasons I can't fathom) on the track. I have heard this song start on the radio, flipped channels for what I thought was three verses, and come back just to hear this. Drake? Lyrics? Meh.

Don't believe me? Check the track for yourself, tell me where I'm wrong.

How about his acting? Well, thanks to the wonder of the internet, I don't have to sit through a whole episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation (even his show was derivative), when I can just post this wonderful snippet of video ...

He can walk! It's a miracle! Call the Emmy voters!

Not exactly Andre Braugher, is he? He's not even Andre the Giant.

Heck, I even had to copy/paste his name at the start of this blog because he's so boring to me I couldn't remember it long enough to switch tabs and type it. Why is that? I have a theory. Did you note that his bio says he's Canadian? That goes even further to prove my point, because how can somebody take a fictional character seriously? There's no such thing as Canadia! It's like Narnia or retirement.

Yet, if you'd believe the magazines and what not, this is the most phenomenal rapper out right now, pledging to keep music interesting until Lil Wayne gets out of prison. Hh. No thanks, I'm bumpin' that Malcolm and Martin right now.

I put this forth to you: the wholly mediocre musician, a completely synthesized media creation without enough merit to even stand shoulder to shoulder with names legitimately worthy of the word "great," held up to the masses as some outstanding example of the form. Unacceptable.

Next time? Blackest Night -- brace yourselves.

Playing (Music): "Window Seat" by Erykah Badu

UPDATED! As if to reinforce my position, XXL magazine has given Drake and rapless wonder Nicki Minaj the May 2010 cover. "Rap royalty?" These half-wits? Then no fewer than three other sites hyped it up? "I fear for the republic ..."

Commentary Track for the Buy Pile, March 18th 2010

NOTE: This is the FIFTIETH blog post for The Hundred and Four site, and also yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. If you can't find something to celebrate in all that, dude, you're wack. Anyhoo, check the new standardized intro ...

Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I've done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it's profound, sometimes it's gibberish, but it's always about comics ... let's see what we get this week!

What? This week's reviews ...

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of "event comics." Crossover books -- perhaps born with Jim Shooter's now-legendary Secret Wars -- are too often (in my not-so-humble opinion) a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. As well, I believe that the writing of today's comic industry (where a "hot" book sells less than 200,000 copies, numbers that were considered a death knell in the halcyon days of yore) stinks of fan fiction, of, "ooh, what if Somebody Man came back from the dead ... and he was super badass?" Stories that don't expand the mind or imagination (Stan Lee's tour de force introductions of the Mole Man, Galactus, Black Panther) or tell stories that are worth remembering (Majestic: The Big Chill, Transmetropolitan, Enemy of the State during Christopher Priest's lauded Black Panther run) are just servicing the trademarks or scraping for sales, perspectives that I find all too prevalent.

But yeah, I bought Siege because I finally bought in to the idea of "an event eight years in the making." That may be prorated, given the #1 issue that Jae Lee drew and Marvel delivered in September of 2000. In any case, things seem big and important and loud and explosive and I like that, with gods falling and Norman Osborn making good on the words of Canibus: "raze hell 'till the heavens fall."

I don't fall for the teenaged girl mushiness many feel about Steve Rogers (I always felt his 616 version was indecisive strategically), I don't get moist in the underwear over big splash pages (although there's two pages there that really deserved two pages) but the balls-to-the-wall action with chess pieces well developed (Iron Patriot, the complications of Bullseye, et cetera) is enjoyable.

From the grandiose to the intimate as Hercules really was a good guy behind all his buffoonery. I was a huge, huge fan of the Bob Layton-fueled Prince of Power miniseries and I'm honestly saddened to see the big guy go. However, I'm an even bigger fan of Amadeus Cho, so to see a non-martial arts fueled Asian male protagonist whup ass on brains alone is very intriguing to me.

I'd even go as far as saying Doomwar is as close to the Victor von Doom I would have written as I'm likely to see (somewhere, on a hard drive, I have a pitch for a mini called Doom World Order where I had the good doctor do some very impressive things, heralding the Parker Robbins motif). It also makes T'challa the man I always said he was: the least of Panthers and the most likely to lose it all. As brilliant as he is, his weaknesses will be remembered more than his strengths, at least in Wakanda.

Marvel did a lot right this week, from the tour-de-force performance by the Rhino (the more I think about it, the more I wish I'd have bought it, Peter's unemployment idiocy notwithstanding) to the aforementioned Bullseye doing his best "Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights" impression.

In other books, I'd really like to see more of the adventurous spirit I saw in Siege happening, especially books like Irredeemable, Booster Gold and Executive Assistant Iris. Titles like that are always "kinda good," but not reliably enough to spend money on (not my money anyway).

Then when you get the plodding tedium of a crossover like Blackest Night or the ill-considered goofiness of Fall of the Hulks, well, that can almost tank your week. Almost.

But then Ambrose and Red Riding Hood share a tender moment in Fables and all is right with the world again.

Before I go ...

Image has a hilarious set of spoof ads for something new from Image Comics riffing off of a team name in one of new partner Robert Kirkman's titles. I like that kind of playfulness in marketing, and I am actually curious to see what it all means.

Before I go, I also wanna thank Google Alerts for letting me know about some kind words being said about these reviews on CBR's message boards, as I am grateful for both the praise and the disgust that writing in public exposes one to.

That'll do -- I have work to do, a family to spend time with and a dangerously sexy new smartphone to set up with a word processor. Behave!

Playing (Music): "Forever" by Mateo off his Underneath the Sky Volume 3 mixtape

Scattershot (life music cars phones culture)

Many of you are too new to the web to remember, but I INVENTED THIS SH##! The return of the bullet point blog, fool!

- As you may have noted, I was home alone part of the weekend, and within 36 hours, I basically degenerated into savagery (albeit observant savagery). I ate microwaved frozen food, I sat for hours on end in a leather recliner with a laptop, entertaining me and accepting the movement of my fingers. Bananas. The family's back and I'll enjoy a return to food that's cooked and sleeping before 2AM. Well, mostly (a new baby will keep you up with those night time feedings, y'all) ...

- If you haven't copped it yet, Janelle Monae is on freaking fire right now. Her singles "Cold War" and (even more impressively) "Tightrope" with Big Boi from Outkast ... unmitigated heat. Crazy, crazy, fire and eruptions of flames, yo. Wow. I pointed out links when they hit over on my linkroll but I haven't checked to see if they're still available. If you can catch her stuff, do, she's amazing.

- While we're on the subject of music, is anybody in the game doing it like Trey Songz right now? Between his monster smash "Say Ahh" (which I could imagine being so hot at the club ... you know, back when I used to rock clubs) and his relentless reign of remixes and releases online (he's all over the blogs like Wordpress ... more on that in a few moments) just won't let up. I like his voice -- he has a nice range that comprises both masculine lower frequencies while working through some bright tenor notes -- and despite his saddening propensity for using a certain racial slur, he's quite talented musically. Well, okay, when he said, "Imma beat ya body like a congo," he should have gone for "bongo" to make the rhyme work, since Congo is a country and conga doesn't rhyme. A minor quibble -- his Jasmine Sullivan response was hot (not as hot as The-Dream's remix, another great modern hitmaker, but I digress), I was rockin' his "Absolute Heat" freestyle while I did late night dishes this last weekend ... great stuff.

- Also crazy is Cypress Hill's "Armada Latina" with Mr. J-Lo Marc Anthony and the patron saint of clubbing, Pitbull. Catchy as hell chorus, rockin' beat, solid lyrics (what I can understand of 'em anyway, sorry, I took French in school) ... I can imagine going to my old favorite Thursday night gig at Sully's, saving this to be the last song ... and watching mutha####as go crazy. Perfect for any party-motivated crowd with at least 25% Latinos in attendance.

- Moving from music to motoring, my wife's tooling around in a brand new car I got for her. She used to push this reliable 1999 Honda Civic coupe, but that two door action wasn't the business for two kids. So we put our plan together and worked it out like Beyonce, Jurassic 5 or Jack LaLanne (and yes, I showed my age on that one, whatever -- I'm thirty-seven years old, dawg, come on). I won't show you her exact model because she has enough stalkers in the world, but here's an idea of what her new whip looks like ...

"... ain't a thang, got the whip game mastered ..."

... and she's very happy with it. A happy wife makes a happy something or other, so I'm happy too.

Although, from my own perspective, I like an actual trunk. I'll stick with American sedans ... especially after I'm hearing something about foreign cars not being as reliable as people say ...

- Yes, that was a cheap shot. I'm not proud of it.

- ... okay, yes, I am.

- One foreign thing I am happy to buy will be a cell phone. On Friday night, I plan to order myself a Nokia N900 (unless you'd like to get it for me, hmmmm?) and plunge myself into comprehending a Linux phone. I've talked about it before and finally the gods of finance and timing are aligning to give me digital nirvana. Yes, I'm buying it full price, unlocked, just like I did with my dearly departed Treo 680. I'll be reporting more on how that works out as it goes -- yes, I have a feeling vlogging is coming from The Operative Network. No promises!

- In "stuff I found and just love" news, if you're not in some way forced to silently nod at The Impossible Cool then I don't know what the heck is wrong with you. Dude, check Sidney Poitier. Peep the pimpin' from your man man from Scotland, Sean Connery. How many times will you see a photo of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. playing pool with some old cats like he was a hustler? You've gotta feel the J.D. Saligner quote at least! Yes, the "older" buttons being on the left is counterintuitive and the site smacks of the Church of the 20th Century's fixation on booze and smoking ... STILL!

I have a gang more to do, but I'm trying to moderate the length of these things because I'm told my largely US-based audience can't stay focused on one thing for more than hey there's a penny, cool ... wait, what were we talking about?

Playing (Music): "Eenie Meenie" by Sean Kingston ... what, don't judge me! I don't need your pity!

Commentary Track for March 10th Buy Pile Reviews

Holy crap.

I started writing The Buy Pile at CBR on March 9, 2006. Four years ago.

It also seems that I started writing the column as a whole on March 5, 2003.

A seventh anniversary. Seven years is a long time. Wow.

Yeah, there were comics, and whatever, but that's ... wow.

I don't even know what to say about that. Okay.

Sorry I'm not more chatty this week, I'm just bugged out over that.

Watching (TV): Men of a Certain Age, "Father's Fraternity"

TV imitates comics

So, the show Psych has this episode called "Think Tank" which has the two main characters Sean and Gus are recruited into a consulting group of experts in various fields to consider every single possible scenario in which a Richard Branson-styled billionaire will be assassinated. Before the second commercial break, I had a suspicion that the snippy security consultant Walter Snowden was, in fact, part of the problem.

The funny part about this is that a while ago, comic book company Boom! Studios had a comic called Unthinkable where -- hang on -- "following the events of September 11th, novelist Alan Ripley is recruited into a government think tank alongside several other creative minds. Their job is to conjure up the wildest disaster scenarios they can possibly think of, but the think tank is eventually closed and Ripley is sent on his way. Years later, the attacks that Ripley and his compatriots hypothesized start coming to fruition."

Sure, there's an Unthinkable movie in the works, but this is a cute end run, "borrowing" the ideas of popular fiction. I notice these things, sadly.

Watching (Hulu): Psych, "Think Tank"

A Stay of Execution

Hh.

Mmph. Ain't that about a beezy?

(Click to enlarge)

Looks like somebody blinked, a little anyway. I'm in a little bit less of a hurry, but I still plan to ditch this sinking freaking ship shortly. Real spit.

Watching (Hulu): Burn Notice, "Good Intentions"

Commentary Track for Two Weeks of The Buy Pile

All righty then.

Last week I was slammed at work and couldn't do a Commentary Track. Sorry. Like you freaking care. This week has been pretty brutal too, but I wanna squeeze all I can get from Blogger before I've gotta get out of this place ...

I like the idea of Gravel and a lot of what's going on, but the pacing is often really slow, making the "wait for the trade" mentality make more sense. Problem is, with my scatterbrained, episodic ability to enjoy entertainment between work and family and writing (more than I've done recently, thanks), I never get trades. They're too much of a time suck. I even load actual books on my phone, to read in snippets stolen from grocery lines or long meetings. Just a note, probably the biggest concern with this ongoing, the pacing.

Hit Monkey sucks. I said it. You can quote me. It should be hilarious and it's just a lead balloon.

I need Marvel to do something on their website. I need a round table with Amadeus Cho, Layla Miller and the newly (scarily) smart Valeria Richards. Honestly, I'd like to see Vril Dox moderate, but that's the stuff of fan fiction. Just letting those three loose would tickle me pink (if written well). I don't believe all three have ever been on panel together, and they're among Marvel's most interesting characters (to me) right now. Layla Miller singlehandedly brought me back to X-Factor, because the other characters that got my attention (Monet, Guido) were not getting the time they needed either.

Jonathan Hickman needs to go back to the indies. I said it. He's too good to be wasted in such a way, on plots that are too finite for his grandeur. I'm debating whether or not Fraction should follow. H1-X1 my butt.

I have to make two interesting notes about my (ongoing) criticism of Blackest Night -- I got an email from a reader named Michael Zack (thanks for checking out the work) who wrote:

I was just reading your "Buy Pile" on Comic Book Resources, and I'm the guy who was sitting in a corner crying because of Blackest Night #7. That series is devoid of any literary merit. It's only goal is to minimize reader creativity and spirit and push forward fan boy moments for that cheap thrill.

I weep for the future of the industry if this is considered to be the gold standard.

That almost made my day (the smiles and hugs of my wife and daughters beat it out, though).

Then I got a nice name check in Jeff Patterson's SF Signal column, where he said ...

... and the fanboys just keep lapping it up, buying it in droves and spouting glowing reviews with each fresh defiling. And the public doesn't care. People shriek about the portrayal of Teabaggers in Captain America, but have no problem with the dim-witted idea of 100,000 Kryptonians immigrating to Earth or the Green Goblin being put in charge of National Security.

(It needs mentioning here that Hannibal Tabu, who writes The Buy Pile column at Comic Book Resources, has been diligent in finding this stuff offensive. Kudos, Hannibal)

Much appreciation, Jeff.

This is not me saying that agreement makes me right nor more valid -- perish the thought. I just don't know how to respond to the positive mail I get (way, way, way more than the negative, as the detractors, even the professionals, normally just talk crap about me on message boards I've never visited), so I'm trying "public gratitude" on for size.

Also: I must note that Quislet (the schoolteacher/retail clerk known to some as Adam K, who lost the famous case of Namor's ankle wings) first declared that Sinestro was Space Hitler, now wielding the light of the whitest, er, Brightest Day, not me.

Now, as to crossovers in general. Here's my feeling of most DC crossovers since maybe just after Identity Crisis -- "let's keep adding more and more ridiculous situations and see what happens!" From the Mouse House of Ideas, it seems less fanfic-ish, as they'll let a weird circumstance (Norman Osborn as head of national security) stand for a long time and leave ramifications of it even after they essentially roll things back to their "mandated by licensing" standpoints. I like lots more individual moments in DC branded comics, but as a general feeling of zeitgeist, make mine Marvel. Just my thoughts.

If you're not up on Dingo, you completely missed out.

Lalo Martins never told me what was wrong with Great Ten.

John Layman's doing some interesting stuff with Chew.

In that I haven't had a "nothing sucks" week in recent memory, I'm ecstatic to say I loved loving comics this week (despite my wife, people at the shop and random passers-by believing I hate everything, despite starting every column with glowing praise ... whadda ya gonna do?) ...

That should do it for now.

Playing (Music): "Say Ahh" by Trey Songz feat. Fabolous