where do we go from here

Nine consecutive boss battles -- four cakewalks, four tedious grinds, and one absolute pain in the ass -- with nary a savepoint in sight. Lose one, and it's time to start all over again at the beginning.

FUCK YOU, ROGUE GALAXY. If I hadn't already invested three days of my life in playing the game, I'd have snapped the disc in two.

Soft Cell - Frustration (from Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, 1981) - Marc Almond feels my pain. Why do I find that so disturbing?

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I seem to know a lot of August babies. Is there something about November that makes it especially conducive to human fertility?

If I remember correctly, friend and fellow blogger Dave Lartigue of Dave Ex Machina celebrates his birthday today. Since I know Dave is a big fan of games (boardgames, that is) and music, I gathered together a handful of relevant tracks in honor if the occasion.

Rubella Ballet - Games of Life (from At Last It's Playtime, 1985) - The fun side of anarchopunk.

Pop Will Eat Itself - Games Without Frontiers (from Peace Together, 1993) - I'm still waiting on the grebo revival movement, complete a new line of mass-produced cyber-pirate-yeoman wear available from Hot Topic.

The Cardigans - My Favourite Game (from Gran Turismo, 1998) - I was this close to posting the bemani cover version of this track, but I was able to pull myself back from the Eurodance abyss just in the nick of time.

for a peculiar sensibility of temperament

He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses. The most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.

– Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Poor Roderick Usher. I empathize with his condition, having experienced bouts of hyperesthesia on several occasions. They almost always comes on the heels of some physical illness, and I’ve learned to accept it as part of the recovery process. Rather than manifesting itself as a languid morbity, in my case it comes in the form of extreme irritability. As I’ve been frequently ill these past few months, I’ve also been frequently irritable.

This morning was exceptionally bad. When these episodes happen at home, I can cloister myself in the bedroom in order to block out all unwanted stimuli (apart from the dogs’ usual rambunctious idiocy) until the feeling passes. I don’t have the same option at my job, however, and though my duties require a minimal amount of human contact, it can be a very noisy work environment (especially on Monday mornings) that will invevitably spill over the partitions and into my cubicle. The fuss and noise and bother got so unbearable at one point that I actually had to plug my ears with my fingers and close my eyes. (That sounds more dramatic than it actually was.)

Fortunately, I have a personal collection of soothing “peculiar sounds” on my portable hard drive that I can queue up in order to get back on a more even keel. It consists mostly of electronic music, but the Suburban Lawns’ self-titled album and a compilation of 60’s Euro-discotek cuts are in there as well.

I Monster – Who Is She? (from Neveroddoreven, 2003) – I caught a Macy’s commercial that featured I Monster’s “Daydream in Blue” the other night, and it made me do a double take. I know it’s common practice in the genre to use electronic tracks to score ads, but no marketing wizardry is ever going to erase my memory of the (potentially NSFW) “Daydream in Blue” music video. “Who Is She?” is a delighfully creepy rendition of Mario Nascimbene’s theme song to the 1969 Hammer film, The Vengeance of She.

Goldfrapp – Hairy Trees (from Black Cherry, 2003) – Black Cherry is right up there on my short list of favorite albums of all time. A friend of mine once dismissed it as being too derivative of Lamb’s material, but I honestly don’t hear it. This track in particular is a thing of ethereal wonder woven around some rather suggestive lyrics.

in 1978, an aspiring chef was given a ring of power by a dying alien

A watershed moment in my political education occurred during a protest against the first Gulf War, way back in 1991. People from all around the region had gathered in front of the Federal Building in Boston’s Government Center to express their disapproval of Bush the Elder’s “splendid little war,” and being of the same frame of mind and nothing better to do that day, I joined them.

It was an interesting experience, but in hindsight I’ve realized how choreographed the affair truly was on both sides of the barricades. The police set up a “straw man” line of gates far out from the building with the understanding that the protestors were going to push closer, and so factored a false concession into their crowd control procedure. (Somewhere, in some photojournalist’s file cabinet or FBI anti-subversive database is a picture of an 18 year old Andrew on the verge of doing a faceplant after getting his boot caught on one of the riot fences.)

The protest itself was a tepid mix of warmed over Vietnam Era platitudes and sincere yet inarticulate convictions. For my part, I merely chanted the lyrics to some anti-war punk songs where I swapped in more topical names and places. (I was photographed a lot that day. I don’t know why, except that I was a colorfully costumed punk rocker at a time when that subculture was at its lowest ebb around these parts.) The demonstration may not have been effective, but it was cathartic, and that’s a far better alternative to giving in to despair.

Then the fucking professional socialists showed up and it all turned to shit. Where the gathering had started as an unfocused howl of protest, the socialists brought order, and queueing, and “You people would be more effective over here, and you folks over there, and would anyone like to volunteer to risk arrest on our behalf because we don’t want to miss Seinfel—I mean the 5th Internationalists cell meeting tonight.” I’m generally sympathetic to the socialists’ ideology, although my own views run more toward a pragmatic egalitarian idealism. (Slow trickles of water have brought entire mountain ranges down, while rigidly overreaching dogma about revolutionary change ends up benefiting only vultures and other carrion eaters when put into practice. I won’t compromise on the idea of equal rights, though. That issue is a no-brainer.) That said, I’ve yet to meet a capital “S” Socialist I could tolerate for more than thirty seconds.

After they had insinuated themselves into the protest, the socialist faction had the crowd move away from the federal building so that they could be lectured on a broad series of topics completely unrelated to the present concern. As they launched into their ideological laundry list, I could see a large number of attendees make puzzled faces at each other. The crowd gradually began to disperse, as small groups of folks who came out to express their disapproval of Bush the Elder’s military adventurism drifted off towards either Quincy Market or the nearby subway station.

In hijacking the discussion in order to grind their own axes, the socialists had effectively killed it.

Which brings us to the second issue of Mark Waid and George Perez’s The Brave and the Bold relaunch. The book has been garnering a lot of positive reviews, and quite justifiably so. It’s great to see Perez’s excellent art again on a monthly basis, and the book does capture that old fashioned DC magic that’s been missing from too many of the company’s titles in recent years. At the same time, though, it’s a lot like catching a performance by Midnight Train, a tribute band dedicated to “the magic of Journey.” The songs are played note perfect, but all one is really getting is a hyper-polished simulacrum of familiar material. (Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, on the other hand, has a Nouvelle Vague feel to it, using familiar material as a springboard to launch into new and interesting directions.)

I cut my comics-reading teeth on Bob Haney’s 1970’s B&B run, and there was a mad sense of “anything goes” to those old stories, logic be damned. The current series, by contrast, feels like a calculated, sterile recreation of the old material along the lines of Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho.

“Wait a minute,” I hear you asking, “how do these half-assed musical analogies tie back to your anecdote about socialists?” By way of this, my friends.

I do get what Waid is trying to do here, Kara’s schoolgirl crush on one of her “big brother’s” cool pals. It’s a plausible bit of characterization, and Green Lantern does a creditable job of setting her straight on why she needs to put a stop to it. What I don’t understand is why Green Lantern has to repeatedly remind himself that Supergirl is “17.” Or rather, “17, 17, 17, 17, 17” as it continues on subsequent pages.

It adds an element of creepiness to the story for the sake of a clichéd comedic trope. The “statutory rape temptation” gag was tired in when it was used in Three’s Company, nearly three decades ago. (Although, I’d love to see GL taking a cold shower, then having a meeting with Superman at the Regal Beagle where he malaprops his way through a series of lame sexual double entendres while explaining what happened on the mission.) It’s time for those kinds of jokes to take their place on the “unpleasant humor of the past” shelf next to quips about women drivers and the entirety of Don Rickles’ routine.

There’s a tendency within the comics internet to use the indignation wagon as a Trojan Horse for less lofty objectives, such as attacking a certain creator or company one has a grudge against. Like with the protest I mentioned, issues that do deserve discussion get hijacked and manipulated, spurring backlashes that toss the babies out with the bathwater. There are also the procrustean beds of the conspiracy theorists, where lines between cluelessness and malice get blurred for the sake of a grand unified theory of that most sexy of beasts, the “hidden agenda.” Ignorance is not a defense, but the remedies are different for deliberate acts and for passive offensiveness. I’m not asserting that broader agendas are a myth, but that aggregated institutional cultures should not automatically be taken as an active conspiracy.

There is a lot that is shitty about comics, especially in the superhero genre these days, but it’s ludicrous to think a bunch of shrill jihads which too often mask personal vendettas or delusions of fan entitlement will bring about change for the better.

Someone who has once had a fork jammed into his or her eye will come away from reading an issue of Jams-Forks-In-People’s-Eyes Man with a completely different take on the subject matter than someone who has made through life without that unfortunate experience. Part of why The Brave and the Bold #2 skeeved me out as much as it did is because I have had the misfortune of knowing too many guys with fixations on teenage girls. I’m not talking To Catch a Predator material either, but men who would otherwise give one the impression of being down to earth and reasonable folks…until the conversation turns to the latest underage starlet, popstar, et cetera, and things get very ugly, very quickly. In that personal context, a lame joke in an otherwise decent comic can feel extremely sinister, especially when it doesn’t even need to be there in the first place. This didn’t help, either, even if it arguably served a purpose within the story, though all description -- or illustration -- is necessarily selective.

Gary Puckett & The Union Gap – Young Girl (from Young Girl, 1968) – I used to have a cut-out bin compilation cassette called The Sounds of San Francisco, which featured a bunch of 60’s acts from the Bay Area. This song was on it, and it stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the psychedelic rock cuts. To this day, every time I hear it, I feel the urge to fast forward to The Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard.” (The Seeds were actually from Los Angeles, but sell-through cheapo compilations bow to no sense of rhyme or reason.)

Steve Lawrence – Go Away, Little Girl (from Greatest Hits, Vol. 1, 2004) – Years ago, I was as some party and there was a drunken metalhead who could have been Steve Lawrence’s twin brother. This fellow’s version Eydie Gorme was a drunk/stoned/insane (?) stripper, and they spent the evening slapping each other in the face and calling each other rude names. It’s funny; I can remember that vividly, but I can barely recall any lines of any of the plays I was supposed to have memorized in college.

D-Day – Too Young To Date (from a 1979 single, collected on New Wave Hits of the 80’s, Vol. 1) – Offering a view from the other side of the gender gap, we have a raunchy slice of power pop out of Austin, Texas.

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I’m going to pull a Casey Kasem here and congratulate pal Benjamin Birdie for his extra special guest visitor in the comments section of today’s installment of The Rack, the webcomic he and Kevin Church put out every Monday and Friday. Way to go, Benjamin! I’m officially jealous. This track is dedicated to you, my friend.

New Order – Touched by the Hand of God (from a 1987 single, collected/remixed on (The Best of) New Order, 1994) - Is it just me, or does anyone else hear echoes of Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" in those rising orchestral bits of the song?

gaining fame and claiming credibility

So, about the whole “nerdity” kick I’ve been on lately? It started off as an easy springboard for putting together ready-made themes, but I’ve come to enjoy the opportunity to pontificate upon and discuss the various related topics (fan entitlement, the nostalgia trap, and so forth) that come with the territory. Before settling on the mp3 blog gimmick, I had considered starting a comics-themed blog, but realized that there wasn’t a hell of a lot I had to say that wasn’t being stated more effectively elsewhere. The nerdity posts have allowed me to scratch that comics blogging itch without risk of infection.

It’s just as well I didn’t create a comics blog. How would I be able to live with myself if it turned out that Dick hated my blog? Or worse, put me on his “enemies list”? I’d probably cry myself to sleep -- not due to being hated (I’m used to that by now), but because I’d spent enough time blogging about comics to be hated for something I’d said.

If you happen to be reading this, Dick, I’d just like to state for the record that I’ve discussed Primal Scream with Graeme McMillan. I know Graeme McMillan. Graeme McMillan is a friend of mine. Kiddo, you're no Graeme McMillan. Hell, you aren’t even an Avi Green.

Elsewhere in the comics blogosphere:

Dorian’s “How Not To Blog: A Primer Born Out of Many Years Experience Blogging” is, by his own tag’s admission, “a thin veneer of satire hiding the rage underneath,” and as such, it’s right up my alley.

Ragnell has courteously provided a handy field guide to “The Twelve Levels of Comic Book Fan Agreement.” Forewarned is forearmed.

In the absolute “must read” category is Kevin Church’s “We Need To Talk: A Open Letter to Comics Fans.” It’s a highly articulate, well-composed howl of rage regarding dysfunctional fandom and how it affects the medium as a whole, and it’s something that really needed to be said. Change won’t happen unless we make it happen, people, and that applies to more than just comic books.

Here are a few tracks to watch the inevitably shrill fallout by:

Essential Logic – Wake Up (from the Wake Up EP, 1979, collected on Fanfare in the Garden, 2003) – To all those misguided souls who use the term “postpunk” to describe this year’s variant of whiny alt rock, this is what real postpunk sounds like.

Teenage Head – Ain’t Got No Sense (from Teenage Head, 1979) – The band’s mix of power pop, punk and rockabilly was very popular in their native Canada (that nation’s first “punk rock riot” occurred at one of their early shows), but never caught on in the States. Foolish Americans.

Christmas – Stupid Kids (from Ultraprophets Of Thee Psykick Revolution, 1999) – Underrated indie pop/rock out of Boston. The members of Christmas later went on to form neo-lounge act Combustible Edison. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that fact.

Pet Shop Boys – How Do You Expect to Be Taken Seriously? (from Behaviour, 1990) – The answer does not involve impassioned defenses of Marvel’s Civil War or creating a blog specifically to piss and moan about other comics blogs.

anything ragged or rotten or rusty

Today’s post was inspired by a pile of cat poop.

When it came to assuming responsibility for household tasks, my wife and I ended up with an Edward Bellamy-inspired socialist arrangement where the odiousness of the task counts as much as its required time commitment. (This is not to be confused with Ralph Bellamy-inspired socialism, which involves wagering Don Ameche a dollar that one can take a Philly street hustler and turn him into a commodities trader while turning a privileged Ivy Leaguer into a common criminal.)

Because I’m a man who values his time more than his sensitivities, I ended up opting for the less time-intensive, yet thoroughly disgusting, set of chores. When the pups have the occasional accident, I’m there with the paper towels and Febreeze. I’ve become a master at changing the cats’ litter boxes, and my special deodorizing formula is a treasured secret that shall be passed by deathbed whisper to the next generation. I spend part of each Saturday afternoon on hands and knees, making sure our bathroom is free of E. coli and wayward strands of hair.

…and I’m fine with that, really, because doing these tasks means I don’t need to learn how to operate the washing machine, dryer, or vacuum cleaner. The only down side to this arrangement comes on garbage collection day.

Every Wednesday (or Thursday, when there’s a holiday) morning is a mad rush to collect, bag, and carry all the household garbage, indoor and out, to the curb before the trash truck arrives. It would be easier if the sanitation folks decided on a set time for swinging through our neighborhood, but they operate under their own mysterious timetable, decided by the gods of refuse and communicated to their mortal servants via the entrails of a virgin seagull ritually sacrificed on an altar of non-biodegradable used diapers. Thus I am forced to drag my sorry ass out of bed at 6:00 AM one day each week in order to ensure that, yes, our trash is out front when the truck passes our house, be it at 6:45 AM, 8:30 AM, or 4:45 in the afternoon.

It’s not an easy task, either. In the summer there are swarms of bloated maggots to contend with. In the winter, I have to fumble around in the morning darkness to liberate the garbage cans from the snow drifts that form along the side of the garage. Some mornings I go out and have to deal with a debris field of banana peels, cat food cans, and other aromatic delights left behind by an itinerant raccoon or skunk (the reason why I don’t simply put the trash out front the night before). Even when I think my task is accomplished, my wife will holler out a reminder that there’s a bag of trash from when she cleaned the rabbit cages the other day hidden behind the weight machine in the back of the cellar, not to mention ancient foodstuffs in the fridge that “really ought to be tossed out, but I’m too grossed out to handle them.”

When all is said and done, when the scrambling and searching and lugging and dry heaves are dealt with, I ought to be able to catch my breath and start to relax, content in my knowledge that I’m free of this burden for another seven days. That is usually the case, but not today. As I was finishing my preparations to head off to work, I looked out the window to see if the garbage had been collected yet. It had been, but during the process the collectors had torn open one of the bags, leaving behind a small mountain of used kitty litter and cat shit on the street in front of our house. Etiquette isn’t really my strong point, but I’m fairly certain that leaving a stinking pile of animal feces and urine-soaked clay by one’s front step is a sign of being a bad neighbor.

As I was clearing away the pile with a snow shovel and push broom, thinking to myself how much I hate trash day, I decided to write a post about it.

Glancing back on what I’ve written, I’d like to say that I’m truly sorry about that lapse of judgment.

The Stranglers – Thrown Away (from The Gospel According to Meninblack, 1981) - The Stranglers are another band where each time I hear one of their songs, I think to myself "I ought to listen to them more often," yet somehow never do.

The Doll – Trash (from a 1978 single, collected on Beggar’s Banquet: The Punk Singles Collection, 2002) - Not the Doll(s) you were expecting and not the "Trash" you were expecting, either. It's because I want to keep you on your toes.

The Cramps – Garbage Man (from Songs the Lord Taught Us, 1980) - Butch Vig? Steve Marker? Duke Erikson? Oh, I know, Shirley Manson in the "Androgyny" video!

Oscar the Grouch – I Love Trash (from Oscar's Trashy Songs, 1997) - Because I'm not afraid of dissenting opinions, as long as they come from green furry puppets that live in garbage cans.