SPINE/SCREEN | The persistence of memory

Hoo boy, am I excited for Spider-Man 2. I wasn't even that big a fan of the first one, but have you seen the trailers for this thing? And read the reviews? This is going to be like getting smacked in the face with a copy of The Fountainhead by Steve Ditko himself, while Stan Lee puts on a cheerleader skirt and does a little dance in the background.

And, inevitably, it's going to inspire another round of the refrain that's been familiar since Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000: "the movies do superheroes better than comics." And looking at the incredible teasing glimpses of Doctor Octopus in the trailers, it's easy to believe that. But it's only half true.

In synthesizing Warren Ellis and Dave Fiore's two views of superheroes, I've come up with what I think are the two main components of superhero stories (I know Ellis and Fiore's views aren't as diametrically opposed as all that, but that link is a handy springboard for the following). They are

1. Fighting
2. Talking (aka "soap opera," aka "character development")

Lately, it seems that many comics concentrate on one or the other (or at least the prevailing public perception is that they do). Ellis's Authority is all fighting; Brian Michael Bendis's Daredevil is all talking. And among long-time superhero fans, there's a tendency to separate the two components within the same book, referring to "action sequences" and "character development" as if the two could never exist together in the same panel. Which is complete rubbish. The characters in The Authority express themselves through violence; the characters in Daredevil fight with words.

But the division between action elements and soap-opera elements becomes more clear when you talk about superhero movies. Superheroes are indigenous to comics, and comics have long been the best--if not the only--place to get good superhero stories. But lately, thanks to digital effects, movies have become just as adept as comics at depicting superhero action--probably more adept. Very few artists can do work that compares with the action in the Spider-Man or X-Men movies. The filmed violence is more intense, more alive, more real. Authority and Ultimates artist Bryan Hitch may be the one artist who can compete with film on the level of pure spectacle. Look at the new Spider-Man series from Marvel, which takes a conscioulsy cinematic approach to the action: as vibrant and gorgeous as Terry and Rachel Dodson's art is, it has maybe half the visceral impact of the digitally precise camerawork of the movies.

But movies can't beat comics when it comes to the equally important realm of soap opera. Movies don't have time for ongoing subplots that last for years, nor room for emotional journeys that have more than three checkpoints. Compare the straightforward "boy wants girl; boy loses girl; boy kinda maybe gets girl" plot of the first Spider-Man film to the ongoing roller coaster that is Peter Parker's love life in Bendis's Ultimate Spider-Man. The action in USM is negligible; the villains come and go, but the real driving force of the series is Peter's struggle against the one thing he knows is true: being Spider-Man is going to destroy every relationship he ever has. Though USM is divided into "story arcs," it's really one long, messy journey through the supremely messed-up life of one high school kid with a big secret. The first six-issue arc of the series was the one structured most like a three-act movie, and it's by far the weakest. Ultimate Spider-Man is at its best when it mirrors the rhythms of life.

But that refrain is still persistent: "movies do superheroes better than comics." It's hard not to agree. The trailers for Spider-Man 2 make the movie seem operatic: every emotion heightened, every fight the actions of gods, every struggle one between life and death. As good as Ultimate Spider-Man is, it never reaches that level; its charms are more low-key. I think the Spider-Man movies are tapping into something a little deeper than "CGI makes for some purty fightin'." The movies are modeled after the classic 1960s Lee/Ditko Spider-Man comics, which hold sacred status among superhero fans, no matter how cheesy those stories might seem today. The memory of those comics is stronger than the comics themselves, and that memory is what gives the movies life.

The scariest movie I've ever seen is Halloween 4. I saw it once, at a birthday party when I was maybe nine years old, and I've never seen it since. I know that if I saw it today, I'd probably find it laughably bad. But the memory of the effect that movie, and its final shot of a girl in distorted clown makeup, had on the nine-year-old me is still more frightening than any other movie I've seen. It's the same thing with old Spider-Man comics. I think many of the people who love those comics love their memories of those comics; they love how the comics made them feel when they were nine years old. For instance, Chris Claremont and John Byrne's "Dark Phoenix Saga" is regarded as the classic X-Men story, a heartbreaking tale of ultimate love and ultimate sacrifice and blah blah blah--bullshit. I've read it, and I'm here to tell you that it's full of leaden dialogue, cluttered art and cheap attempts at emotion. But I cannot wait to see that story play out in X-Men 3, filtered through twenty years of memory and technology. What the Spider-Man movies have done so well is not to recreate Spider-Man comics from the sixties, but to recreate the feelings those comics instilled in the kids who read them. The movies are dreams of what the comics might have been, dreams of what they were once the paper crumbled and the stories existed only in the readers' memories.

EVERYTHING IDOL | Qualifying Round, Heat 6

Homicide won by a landslide in Qualifying Heat 4; so far, these contenders will be moving on to Round 2:

Kitties
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Air conditioning
Bob Dylan, 1965-66
Star Wars: the original trilogy
The Simpsons
The stories of Raymond Carver
Home cooking
The lightbulb
Homicide: Life on the Street

And the losers' brackets are shaping up thusly:

FILM: Boogie Nights
MUSIC: Surfer Rosa by the Pixies, Otis Redding's oeuvre, Automatic for the People by R.E.M., "Georgia on My Mind" by Ray Charles
TV: Monty Python's Flying Circus
LITERATURE: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
FOOD & DRINK: apple pie a la mode, Guinness Stout, pizza delivery, Coca-Cola
OTHER: shoes

Now, to find out which wonderful thing will continue on its journey toward becoming Best Thing Ever:




1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles | You voted and picked this as the best Beatles album, and I agree, if only for "She's Leaving Home."




2. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick | Hello?... Ah... I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?... Oh-ho, that's much better... yeah... huh... yes... Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri... Clear and plain and coming through fine... I'm coming through fine, too, eh?... Good, then... well, then, as you say, we're both coming through fine... Good... Well, it's good that you're fine and... and I'm fine... I agree with you, it's great to be fine... a-ha-ha-ha-ha... Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb... The Bomb, Dmitri... The hydrogen bomb!... Well now, what happened is... ah... one of our base commanders, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes... to attack your country... Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri... Let me finish, Dmitri... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?... Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri?... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?... Of course I like to speak to you!... Of course I like to say hello!... Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... It's a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call... Listen, if it wasn't friendly... you probably wouldn't have even got it... They will not reach their targets for at least another hour... I am... I am positive, Dmitri... Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick... Well, I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes... Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we're unable to recall the planes, then... I'd say that, ah... well, ah... we're just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri... I know they're our boys... All right, well listen now. Who should we call?... Who should we call, Dmitri? The... wha-whe, the People... you, sorry, you faded away there... The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters... Where is that, Dmitri?... In Omsk... Right... Yes... Oh, you'll call them first, will you?... Uh-huh... Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri?... Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information... Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm... I'm sorry, too, Dmitri... I'm very sorry... All right, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well... I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are... So we're both sorry, all right?... All right.




3. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller | There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.




4. Ping-Pong | Sport of kings.

The polls close next Monday at midnight. Remember, voting is still open on Qualifying Heat 5 over at The Day Jobs.

SPEAKER | I am a tourist









And look! A movie about evolution and the food chain and such! We're living in the future!

"Skeleton" by Helium, from The Dirt of Luck

Did I tell you that you can't get to heaven
In high-heeled shoes?
You're such a loose little belle
You're a fallen angel
You go down into the big pit
It is deeper than a tar pit
Your lips are redder than Lucifer
Your hair is up in curlers

"Hollywood Kids" by The Thrills, from So Much for the City

Well they're sure keen on dancin'
Those Hollywood kids, those Hollywood kids got it made.
When they act, big doors open.
Those Hollywood kids, those Hollywood kids got it made.

YET ANOTHER EVERYTHING IDOL UPDATE | Qualifying Round, Heat 5

Qualifying heat 5 is going on right now over at The Day Jobs. It's an all-internet battle: Google vs. eBay vs. Mapquest vs. Weather.com.

Rollin' on the river



My friends Ben, Rick and Bryan started canoeing Georgia's rivers three years ago, with the goal, I believe, of eventually canoeing all the state's waterways. This has expanded into the Georgia River Survey, an ongoing scientific/naturalist/historical project. This year they plan on canoeing the Ocmulgee and Altamaha and possibly the Savannah and Alapaha, collecting data and photographs along the way. Check out their results so far and their plans for the future on their website, and throw 'em a couple bucks for food and supplies if the urge strikes you.

EVERYTHING IDOL UPDATE | A few general notes

Work has drained both my time and my mental energy, so no new microfiction today. I'll try to post something suitably cromulent this weekend. In the meantime, enjoy this Everything Idol update.

--Remember, voting on Qualifying Heat 4 is open till midnight on Monday. Homicide is currently leading Infinite Jest, pizza delivery and Automatic for the People.

--As suggested by Chris and seconded by Mail Clerk, there will be a losers bracket once all these qualifying heats are over (which won't be for a few months). There will actually be six losers brackets, reflecting the six general categories that Everything Idol contenders are falling into: Music, Film, TV, Literature, Food & Drink and Other. So when the qualifying heats end, we'll vote in the losers brackets to pick six wild card contenders.

--Speaking of these six categories, one thing from each category gets a free pass into Round 2. These are things that are undoubtedly among the Best Things Ever, and I see no need to confirm this by sacrificing other deserving contenders to them in the qualifying round. So, joining kitties, Macbeth and air conditioning in Round 2 are (PLEASE NOTE: Do not vote for these! They automatically qualify for Round 2! There is a special, unrelated pre-qualifying vote at the bottom of this post!):



MUSIC: Bob Dylan, 1965-66: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and his "Dylan goes electric" tour as documented on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall Concert" and Don't Look Back, directed by D.A. Pennebaker | One of the greatest sustained bursts of genius ever captured in a recording medium.




FILM: The original Star Wars trilogy: Star Wars: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi | For better or worse, the preeminent mythology of my generation: the story that brings us together and, ultimately, tears us apart.




TV: The Simpsons | Particularly seasons 3-9, which, if I were putting together a collection of artifacts to blast into space with the purpose of educating extraterrestials about earth culture, would represent both "the 1990s" and "earth human comedy." As for later seasons, I defer to R. Fiore's essay "The Glory That Was The Simpsons" in the Winter 2004 Comics Journal Special Edition: "I can still tune in every episode with a feeling of anticipation, and the assurance that I won't always be disappointed."




LITERATURE: The collected stories of Raymond Carver | Where 90% of contemporary literature comes from.




FOOD & DRINK: Home cooking | Nothing tastes better than your mom's food.




OTHER: The lightbulb | Without this, everything would be dark, like, half the time. Seriously.

--Finally, here's a little pre-qualifying round. Vote for the best Beatles album in the comments. I expect it'll come down to Sgt. Pepper, Revolver and Rubber Soul, but I'm throwing it open to you. Voting closes Monday at midnight.

SCREEN/SPINE | Cliffhangin'

Ed. Note: SPOILERS AHOY for The Shield Season 1 and the comic book Ex Machina #1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris. I heartily recommend both, so if you haven't seen/read them, I suggest you do so before reading this. Or don't. See if I care.

Buy The Shield Season 1 on DVD.

Read about Ex Machina:

Brian K. Vaughan interview
Tony Harris interview
Vaughan interview at Ain't It Cool News
Two glowing reviews

Most movies, or at least most genre movies, try to show you everything; they try to cram all the story and spectacle into as small a space as possible, leaving you overwhelmed and exhausted. If you don't see it on the screen, then it didnt' happen.

But in sequential entertainment--comics and TV shows--what happens between episodes and issues is just as important as what happens on the screen or on the page. Comics and TV tell stories in rigid, predetermined chunks. The trick to winning an audience is to build anticipation between each chunk of story: to create a rhythm of buildup and release. The wait between those chunks is a powerful tool, and in the right hands, that wait can make for a more satisfying experience than the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am of summer movies. But, to strain this prurient metaphor a bit further, the key to building anticipation is a solid climax.



The pilot episode of FX's The Shield (I know I'm two years behind the curve on this one, but I just saw it via the joys of Netflix) and the first issue of the Wildstorm/DC comic Ex Machina, cleverly titled "The Pilot," end in cliffhangers that work in very different ways, but which both practically guarantee that the viewer or reader will be back for more.

The Shield spotlights Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), the hardest cop in the hardest district in LA, and his elite Strike Team. Mackey and co. take a "by any means necessary" approach to law enforcement, most notably by giving one drug dealer a monopoly in order to reduce gang violence. New Captain Aceveda wants to put an end to Mackey's rule-breaking, and enlists the newest member of the Strike Team, Terry, in an effort to build a federal case against Mackey. Mackey, however, finds out about Terry's doublecross, and in a shocking final scene murders Terry during a drug bust and pins it on the (also dead) dealer. The ending comes a shock for two reasons. The first is that, though for the last half hour we've seen Mackey playing fast and loose with the law, it's always been the kind of thing that's more or less acceptable, like roughing up drug dealers and playing Robin Hood to a prostitute. But his murder of a fellow police officer to save his own ass places him squarely in the realm of Bad Guy, and it's to the credit of the writers and especially Chiklis that Mackey remains compulsively watchable and even likeable. The movie version of The Shield would end with Mackey murdering Terry, trying to cover it up, and then getting caught, most likely hauled away in the back of his own cruiser as the captain stares him down from the curb. On TV, however, Mackey has room to breathe and become a complex character as the consequences of his action start to weigh on him. Movies end with the climax; the best TV shows explore what happens when all the commotion dies down.

The second reason Terry's murder is a shock is that it wasn't telegraphed at all. Terry is played by Reed Diamond, who's hardly a star but will be fondly remembered by Homicide fans as arson investigator-turned-homicide-detective/Luther Mahoney-killer Kellerman. Diamond's name is even listed in the opening credits, as if he's a regular and not just a guest star. It's a subtle thing, but it leads you to expect Terry to stick around a while. As does the set-up for Terry's undercover investigation of Mackey; the viewer should fully expect that investigation to last a few episodes, if not the entire season. The bullet that kills Terry also shatters the expectations the viewer has formed based on similar stories from other shows, and compells the viewer to return for the second episode to find out what happens next.

The cliffhanger that ends Ex Machina #1 isn't nearly the visceral suckerpunch that Terry's murder is. Though I didn't see it coming, a rereading showed that it was subtly and carefully foreshadowed from page 1. Furthermore, it's not even a cliffhanger: it's a reveal of the altered status quo that exists in the world of Ex Machina, and while it hits just as hard emotionally, if not harder, than The Shield's cliffhanger, it also raises a huge list of questions about its ramifications.



Ex Machina is the story of Mitchell Hundred, the mayor of New York from "2002 through godforsaken 2005," as he puts it. From 1999 through 2001, though, Hundred was the world's first superhero, The Great Machine. An encounter with a strange artifact under the Brooklyn Bridge gave Hundred the ability to speak to and control machines. With that power (and a jetpack), Hundred fought crime in New York, to what is implied was little avail. Hundred then parlayed The Great Machine's notoriety into a bid for Mayor.

The comic jumps back and forth through time, from the future, where a depressed, possibly alcoholic Hundred begins the story of his term as Mayor, to his first meeting with Russian mechanic (and presumed jetpack designer) Kremlin, to the present day (which here is early 2002), to the encounter with the artifact, to the beginning of his run for Mayor, and back to 2002 on the last few pages. This nonlinear approach gives us snapshots of Hundred and his associates that coalesce to form a larger, clearer picture, and the last page is the final piece of the puzzle. It's a shot of the World Trade Center: one standing tower, one shaft of light jutting into the sky. "If I were a real hero," Hundred says, "I would have been here in time to stop the first plane."

Now we know why Hundred was elected mayor; now we know the significance of the comic's first page (a photo of The Great Machine flying toward a plane) and why Hundred is sick of it. But while the last page plays to our still-fresh memories of 9/11 (and has angered at least one reader(though later he says he read it again and liked it)), it also raises questions about would have happened if only one tower fell. Hundred says "People blame me for Bush in his flight suit and Arnold getting elected governor, but truth is...those things would have happened with or without me," and while that statement is more about politicians posing as "heroes" and vice versa, it also implies that saving one tower didn't change much. If Bush still put on that flight suit, then he probably still invaded Iraq too. After 9/11, there was a lot of idle wishing for superheroes to be real, for Superman to have swooped down and saved the towers. That's what Vaughan is playing off of here: what if a superhero saved the towers, or at least did the best he could? "It's the most obvious thing a superhero could do," Higgins writes in that Millarworld thread, and of course it is--the real meat is going to come from seeing how that affected both the world and that superhero. From what we see in Ex Machina #1, it looks like things are going to turn out badly. The broken Mitchell Hundred that we meet in the first few pages seems to be haunted by a heavy realization: Either you save everyone, or you've saved no one. There are no half measures.

To end the story with The Great Machine saving one of the towers of the WTC would have been crass, at best. But this isn't the end of the story; it's the beginning. It's abou the consequences, not the action. As Hundred says, "It may look like a comic, but it's really a tragedy," and both meanings of that word resonate in the reader's head as he waits patiently for the next issue.

EVERYTHING IDOL | Qualifying Round, Heat 4

So Macbeth squeaked by "Georgia on My Mind" to win Qualifying Heat 2, and it looks like air conditioning is going to win Heat 3 over at The Day Jobs. So far, the following wonderful things have competed in Everything Idol:

Surfer Rosa by the Pixies
apple pie a la mode
Boogie Nights
kitties
Macbeth
shoes
Guinness Stout
"Georgia on My Mind" by Ray Charles
Coca-Cola
Otis Redding's oeuvre
Monty Python's Flying Circus
air conditioning

The three winners moving on to Round 2 are kitties, Macbeth and, most likely, air conditioning. What will be the fourth item of splendiffery to join them? Your choices are:



1. Homicide: Life on the Street | The cop show against which all other cop shows are measured.




2. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace | Do you like footnotes? I like footnotes.




3. Pizza delivery | One phone call brings delicious food to your door. Provides jobs to young people with few marketable skills.




4. Automatic for the People by R.E.M. | Hey kids, rock and roll. Nobody tells you where to go, baby.

Everything Idol update

Remember that voting for the latest round of Everything Idol closes at midnight tonight. Macbeth is currently leading "Georgia on My Mind" 6 to 5. So get your votes in now!

SCREEN/SPEAKER | Riddick? More like riddick-ulous!

Oh ho ho, I'm so funny. Seriously, The Chronicles of Riddick is one big goofball extravaganza punctuated with a few very cool moments. Vin Diesel veers from menacing and slyly sarcastic antihero to big dull bad-dialogue-barking lump in the span of seconds. His big dramatic gesture is to either put on his goggles (signifying "I'm inscrutable and deadly, so fear me!") or to take them off ("Look in my eyes and fear me!") or to put them on and then immediately take them back off. Thandie Newton and Karl Urban are stuck doing the Young Reader's version of Macbeth in Space, and then there's the "triple-max" underground space prison, where periodically the guards release some sort of tiger/pinecone hybrid to--what? Thin the herd? Provide an action sequence and bad special effects? The whole movie is both very confusing and thuddingly simple-minded; it's almost like a checklist of space-fantasy cliches: bad haircuts (poor Eomer is stuck with the worst, which is saying something), Giger-wannabe set design, a vague plot about prophecies and destroying the universe and a race of black-clad baddies assimilating everyone. Then there's my biggest pet peeve, which you see in every single movie like this: planets with monocultures and mono-environments, and whose inhabitants seem to reside solely in one city. The entirety of the planet "Helion Prime" is represented by about fifteen people in three blocks of one city; I guess if the Necromongers invaded Earth, they'd take over Denver and declare the planet conquered.

So the movie's a big mess, but the final ten minutes are pretty cool, and actually made me want to see what happens next--but then I realized I didn't much care what had happened before those final ten minutes. I've heard someone describe the film as "Batman vs. Warhammer"--if I remember correctly, Warhammer is the horrible videogame my freshman-year roommate played incessantly and which made me plot out ways to quietly murder him in his sleep (except he never slept, because he was playing Warhammer)--but there's a reason Batman tends to fight single adversaries in dark alleys instead of whole armies on giant battlefields, and that's because he'd get blasted by a rocket launcher within five minutes of stepping on the battlefield. Durh.

But mess though Riddick may be, I do give credit to writer/director David Twohy for making the big honkin' space epic he wanted to make. I'm sure the studio got their grubby little hands all over it, but this is Twohy's movie, and I think it's pretty cool when one guy is given a boatload of money to realize his adolescent sci-fi fantasies on the big screen (see also: Star Wars and The Matrix). It's fascinating to see how personal these giant impersonal behemoths can get, even if I'm not sure what exactly Riddick says about Twohy (the way The Matrix said "Larry Wachowski really likes vinyl") other than that he's a big Vin Diesel fan.

Long-time Gardner Linn Fans will know that I have a big honkin' sci-fi-fantasy epic brewing in my head too, under the working title "Everything Awesome." Go here and scroll down a bit to read some preparatory writing exercises for "EA;" as we all wait patiently for it to hit the big screen, here are two songs that, god willing, will end up on the soundtrack.

"Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" by Steely Dan, from Katy Lied
Yeah, nothing says "hardcore sci-fi action" like 70's Los Angeles jazz-rock. Except maybe...

"Pure Imagination" by Gene Wilder, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Both of these tracks were chosen for their thematic suitability to the basic premise of "EA," which is based on parallel-world theory and the relationship between authors, characters and readers/audiences. And samurais. Lots of samurais.

Also, I want to have a big Bollywood dance number in the middle of the movie where Detective Charlie Winters stops shooting at the evil samurai long enough to sing this song. Like the Dan song, it's both sad and hopeful, an admission that our world isn't good enough, but maybe a better one is around the corner.

(MP3 disclaimer: All MP3s offered on this site are for evaluation purposes only--i.e. download them, listen to them, decide whether you would like to purchase the music from a friendly retailer, and then delete them. All MP3s will be available for one week after they are posted. If you are an artist or represent an artist or label whose music appears here, and you would like your music removed, just let me know.)

MICROFICTION | My Favorite Show

When I was a senior in high school, I started to get the feeling that somebody was watching me. Following me wherever I went, maybe taking notes, maybe just watching. Not in a creepy way. Just like my everyday life was a movie or a TV show--entertainment. A diversion. But more than that, because I started to feel like I was being watched all the time. So if I was a TV show, I was someone's favorite TV show. It meant my life was so good, it was worth watching 24-7. That's better than The Simpsons. That's even better than Survivor.

So I decided that if my life was entertainment for some guy who smoked and wore size 12 hiking boots (I found butts and footprints next to the oak tree outside my window), then I should make it really entertaining. I should do something important. I should get good grades, join the football team, ask the head cheerleader to the prom, try to get into an Ivy League school. Cure a disease. Maybe work for the CIA. Or be a homicide detective in New Orleans, with a partner who practices Voodoo. I'd watch that show.

But I wasn't any good at any of that stuff. I had to take summer-school algebra just to graduate. I took my cousin Cherise to prom. No Ivy League; no college at all. Cherise got me a job working the window at Hardee's, so I made enough money to pay my parents a couple hundred bucks every month to live in their basement. I figured my audience would disappear.

But the Camel butts kept piling up by the oak tree. The footsteps still fell in step behind me on the way to the bus stop. I never turned around. I figured that'd be like breaking the fourth wall or something. It'd ruin it for both of us.

I came to the realization one night, mopping the Hardee's kitchen, that if I had done well in school, gone to a good college and gotten a good job, then my show would have sucked anyway. Nobody wants to see some boring show about some successful jerk. They want to see crazy people doing crazy shit. So I drank a fifth of Jack Daniel's and drove my mom's car through the front window of Hardee's.

The next twenty years went by pretty fast. I was in AA a couple times. I was in prison for at least a year, maybe two, maybe three; the Aryan tattoo covering my entire left buttock doesn't reveal any clues. I got hooked on heroin in lockup, then switched to meth when I couldn't afford H on the outside. Eventually I couldn't afford that anymore, so I got clean and stayed clean for six months and nineteen days. I remember that exactly because they were the worst six months and nineteen days of my life. Every single image and memory from those six months and nineteen days is like a neon sign covered with needles, pressing into my flesh. I got married, I think. I got back on heroin and I went to sleep for a while. When I woke up I was in a hospital and ten years had gone by. I've been working at a halfway house since then. Six years sober. Loving every minute.

There's a pile of Camel butts on the ground by the dead maple in the front yard of the house. But everybody smokes Camels here. Even I've started, and tobacco was the one drug I wouldn't do when I had the disease.

There's this guy at the house, Roland, who says he used to be a bigshot physicist at MIT. Sure, I tell him, but he's got this diploma he keeps in his underwear that looks real enough. We let him work on the appliances when the break, which is all the time, and he's pretty good at fixing them. I don't know if that means he actually was a physicist or not, but it doesn't really matter. Roland says he's been building a machine with parts from the fridge and the washer and dryer and the lawnmower and the TV. He says it's a time machine. Sure, I tell him. He says do you want to give it a try. Sure, I tell him. I tell him if I could go back in time, I'd go back to when I was in school and watch myself like a hawk so I could find out how I fucked everything up so bad.

Roland tells me to swing by his room around ten tonight and he'll try out the time machine with me. Not that I expect it to work. But I know for a fact that he's got a pint of vodka stashed under his mattress, so either way I figure this'll be a better night than most.

SPINE EXTRA | Dream Teams part 2

Chris T. writes in with his response to my dream teams (my comments in italics):

Okay. Assuming you have your way with the business plan(all of which I don't totally agree with, but I'll play along), I would change some of the creative teams.

Don't play along! I wanna argue!

Batman: I read Brubaker's Batman and it was just okay. Which was one reason I was so reluctant to try Sleeper. His Batman was standard (both the regular title and Detective) and really had no direction (could be because of editorial influence). My dream team is BRIAN AZZARELLO and GREG LAND. Azzarello's 6-issue run on Batman are the best issues in terms of atmosphere and characterization that I have read in years. He could write the definitive in-title Batman story that has never been written. Just look at the way Azzarello used one panel and string of words to make the cliché scene of the death of the Waynes as shocking as the first time you read it. Besides, he's thebest writer in the industry right now. Yeah, even better than the other Brian.

C'mon, Alan Moore hasn't retired yet...I agree that what little I've read of Brubaker's Batman wasn't his best work. But Catwoman and Gotham Central are great, and Sleeper is amazing. Since a central platform of my little fantasy publishing plan is creativity unfettered by corporate or editorial influence, I think Brubaker could deliver a definitive Batman story. You could sort of tell in his earlier Batman stuff that he was straining against editorial control, especially in the big crossovers. I'd like to see what he could do when he's set free on the character.

And Land drew a great few issues on Nightwing before being lured away to Crossgen, where his art got immensely better. With the right inker and colorists, Land could draw the most beautiful Batman issues in the last decade. (And if I couldn't get Land than definitely Jae Lee.)

I gotta tell you, I'm not feeling Land. When he's lightboxing Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue covers, no one can touch him, but I find his non-pinup stuff to be merely above-average. But now that you mention "with the right inker and colorist"...imagine Kevin Nowlan inking Land. With Laura Martin on colors. Pretty...

Superman: I'm with you.

JLA: If I read that book, I think my head would explode from how amazing it would be.

Damn straight!

Flash: Mark Waid. Been there, done that. Excellent stuff and one of the last great extended runs in comics (other than Bendis on Daredevil and USM and Johns' current run). But like Waid said, he IS Wally. For this story, we need someone to take Wally where he doesn't want to run. For that, I choose BENDIS. I would love to see the trademark BMB dialogue in fast forward. And the man is a master at pacing. For a book based on speed, it would be challenge for both the writer and the character. As far as art, The Flash's best depictions are clean and detailed. For man whose coolness lies in doing a million things in a millisecond, we need to see what those things are. J.G. JONES is the man for the job because he has a crisp style that isn't overwhelming and is far from boring. He can also draw some great superhero stuff.

Confession time: I forgot about J.G. Jones when I was putting this list together. He would make a great Flash artist, though I'd like to see him team up with Grant Morrison again. I chose Waid and Wood because Waid is considered one of the definitive Flash writers, and he's such a traditionalist, whereas Wood is anything but. I think they'd either generate great creative friction together and push each other in new directions, or it would just fall apart completely. I was really looking forward to Wood's superspeed book with Mark Millar, Run, before that fell through. But I wouldn't turn up my nose at a Bendis/Jones Flash either.

Green Lantern: I'm a little stumped right now. I have to think about this one. Although I am sure of one thing. The book would star KYLE!!

Nerd. :)

Everything Idol update

The Day Jobs, the blog that celebrates the Puritan work ethic that founded this country, has joined the party and is hosting Qualifying Heat 3 of Everything Idol. It's a pretty even match--Monty Python's Flying Circus vs. Coca-Cola vs. the music of Otis Redding vs. air conditioning. Head on over and vote.

Meanwhile, voting on Qualifying Heat 2 continues right here; currently, Macbeth and "Georgia on My Mind" are battling it out for the top spot.

SPINE | Dream Team

Let me jump in late on the latest popular topic to hit the comics Cyberblogotron: dream creative teams on Marvel and DC superhero comics.

Except I don't really care who's writing Teen Titans. My conglomeration of Dream Teams is more of a Dream Publishing Plan, one designed to allow The Big Two to lay their superhero universes to rest, foster new talent and new creations, and still service the perennial trademarks. Who knows if this would be financially workable, but if I were a crazy billionaire, this is what I'd do.

DC

DC has three main branches: the DC Universe, home to Superman, Batman, et al; Vertigo, which publishes mature-readers creator-owned comics (Y: The Last Man) and some fantasy/mystical/Gothy corporate-owned stuff (Swamp Thing, Hellblazer); and Wildstorm, which has a really muddled history and mandate but which mainly publishes mature-readers superheroes (Sleeper), licensed comics (Thundercats) and creator-owned action comics (Ex Machina).

If I were publisher of DC, I would immediately cease development of all new series. Then the existing creative teams on all corporate-owned titles in all three imprints would have six months to wrap up their stories. These writers and artists would be given carte blanche to end their titles as they see fit, except for the teams working on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, JLA, Flash, Green Lantern and Wildstorm's The Authority. I would recruit Dream Teams to work on those seven titles for an additional six months and end them in spectacular fashion:*

Superman: Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch
Because Ellis wrote this, and because Hitch is the best superhero artist around.

Batman: If Frank Miller won't do it, Ed Brubaker and Jae Lee
Because Brubaker can write the dark and Lee can draw the dark.

Wonder Woman: Neil Gaiman and Steve McNiven
Because Gaiman knows more about mythology than Joseph Campbell, and McNiven can make the fantastic look real and the real look fantastic (and because he draws gorgeous women who don't look like pro wrestlers or Playboy bunnies).

The Flash: Mark Waid and Ashley Wood
Because everybody loves Mark Waid and nobody loves Ash Wood.

Green Lantern: Patton Oswalt and Seth Fisher
Because Oswalt's smarter and funnier than should be legal, and his Welcome to the Working Week was the best JLA story since Morrison; and because Fisher can draw anything he can think of.

JLA: Grant Morrison and Jim Lee
Because Morrison wrote the best Justice League ever, and because Jim Lee is Jim Lee.

The Authority: Alejandro Jodorowsky and Geof Darrow
Because Jodorowsky will make The Authority bestial sex slaves on a planet of robot cowboys, and Darrow will draw every buckle and strap on the gimp suits.

Once that final year is up, DC would be completely free of corporate-owned titles. The creators who worked for the company in that year would be allowed to pitch creator-owned series for Wildstorm, which would become the home for creator-owned superheroes, and Vertigo, which will continue to be the home for mature-readers creator-owned comics. In a few months, I would start publication of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman again. Each would start over from the beginning, with all-new takes on the characters, and would be self-contained; no crossovers, no DC Universe. The creative teams would be whoever submitted the best pitches for revamps, and those creative teams would also be allowed to pitch creator-owned series to Vertigo and Wildstorm. More of the DC superhero icons would slowly be added to the non-universe, reaching maybe ten titles in the first five years.

Marvel

I would do much the same thing with Marvel: put a moratorium on new series, give all corporate-owned books six months (except for the Ultimate books), and recruit dream teams to end a handful of big-name books in an addtitional six months:

Spider-Man: Michael Chabon and John Romita, Jr.
Because Chabon is a Pulitzer winner who loves Spider-Man so much he wrote the screenplay for Spider-Man 2, and because Romita is family.

Fantastic Four: James Sturm and Frank Quitely
Because Sturm wrote the brilliant, underrated Unstable Molecules, and because Quitely is too good not to be on this list (plus I bet he'd draw a freaky Thing and Mr. Fantastic).

Daredevil: Brian Michael Bendis and Bill Sienkiewicz
Because Bendis is writing the best Daredevil since Frank Miller, and because Sienkiewicz set the bar that Bendis's partner Alex Maleev is currently trying to reach.

X-Men: Grant Morrison and Travis Charest
Because Morrison made me care about the X-Men, and because Charest is even slower than Frank Quitely.

Captain America: Peter Milligan and John Cassaday
Because Milligan is just cynical enough to be have realistic ideals, and because it's about time Cassaday drew a good Captain America story.

The Incredible Hulk: Garth Ennis and Mike Mignola
Because Ennis likes the violence, and Mignola likes big monsters.

The Avengers: Joe Casey and Chris Sprouse
Because Casey loves politics, big business and the Avengers, and he does his best work on things he loves, and because Sprouse's line is so smooth it could get you into bed.

When that year is over and the Marvel Universe is dead, the creators who helped kill it will be invited to pitch creator-owned series for the Icon imprint, Marvel's answer to Wildstorm and Vertigo. Instead of rebooting Spider-Man and the X-Men from scratch, I'll keep the Ultimate line, which is still fairly new. Bendis and Mark Bagley can stay on Ultimate Spider-Man (unless Steve Skroce wants to return to comics and draw it), and I'd find new creators to work on Ultimate X-Men and Fantastic Four and whatever new titles are slowly added. After a certain time period working on one of those books, the new creators would be invited to pitch for Icon. In that way, the corporate superhero books become a sort of minor leage to help writers and artists develop the skills and ideas to work on their own series.

Oh, and some day I'm gonna be the world's first astronaut quarterback and I'm gonna ride a dinosaur to work and I'm gonna eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner.


*It's always tempting to name Alan Moore as a dream team creator, but let's be somewhat realistic here: he ain't gonna do it.**

**It's also tempting to just say "Grant Morrison and/or Warren Ellis" for all of these, but I'm trying to spread the love.

EVERYTHING IDOL | Qualifying Round, Heat 2

In a narrow victory, kitties won the first qualifying heat, their five cuddly votes beating out Surfer Rosa's four, Boogie Nights's two and apple pie's one. Though I suspect some voters were voting more for the actual kitties pictured than kitties in general, Felis domesticus will move on to the next round.

The next four contestants, please:



1. Macbeth by William Shakespeare | Toil and trouble. O'erleaping ambition. Is this a dagger I see before me? Out, out. Sound and fury. And so his knell is knolled.





2. Shoes | Without them, your feet would be cold and dirty.





3. Guinness Stout | Like drinking muddy water straight from the river of life.





4. "Georgia on My Mind" by Ray Charles | Might get a boost from the sympathy vote, but it deserves it. The greatest state song for the greatest state.

Discuss! Argue! Vote! Polls are open till 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, June 22.

SPEAKER | Informative six-page features

Hello hello, I'm back again. Yes, it's true. After a brief semi-hiatus to kill myself, I'm all better now and ready to bring fleeting glimpses of sunshine into your otherwise humdrum lives on a daily basis. Here's the slightly revised schedule, for those of you (like me) who've forgotten what the deal is:

MONDAY: SPEAKER: On Monday of every week, I am going to write about music. It may be long, it may be short, it may be about a song or an album or a band or a concert, but it will be about music. And it will be accompanied by an MP3 for you to download and enjoy. (MP3 disclaimer: All MP3s offered on this site are for evaluation purposes only--i.e. download them, listen to them, decide whether you would like to purchase the music from a friendly retailer, and then delete them. All MP3s will be available for one week after they are posted. If you are an artist or represent an artist or label whose music appears here, and you would like your music removed, just let me know. I'm just trying to share good music, not take food from your babies' mouths.)

TUESDAY: EVERYTHING IDOL: An ongoing effort to determine The Best Thing Ever. Voting in the first qualifying heat is open till midnight tonight, so all you Pixies supporters better come out of hiding and beat those kitties! Voting for each heat will last for one week; if any other blogmeisters out there want to join in the fun by hosting qualifying heats, just let me know.

WEDNESDAY: SPINE or SCREEN: On Wednesdays I'm either going to write about comics and/or books without the purty pitchers OR movies or TV. Thanks to Netflix I've been watching a lot more movies and TV lately, and I've got stuff to say. And in a month or so, my comics writing is going to migrate to another venue entirely, so those of you who just come here for the free music and Robot Jesus can stop humoring my geekery.

THURSDAY: THE ADVENTURES OF LIL' GARDNER & ROBOT JESUS: A new crudely-drawn comic-strip adventure every Thursday.

FRIDAY: MICROFICTION A new short-short story every Friday.

Occasionally one of the above might be replaced with a guest SUBSTITUTE column, and of course I'll be posting random tidbits in my usual haphazard way. Now, on with the music.

Last month's GLFC mix-CD theme was "Death and Destruction." I briefly considered making a CD of nothing but Nick Cave songs, but abandoned that idea for a more catholic mix, which did however include Cave's hilariously amoral "The Curse of Millhaven" (from Murder Ballads), which I've long thought would make an excellent Simpsons Halloween Special segment--just replace "my name is Loretta" with "my name is Lisa" and you're set. Here are a few choice Cave cuts that didn't make the CD but are still worth another listen:

"The Mercy Seat" (recorded live in Ancona, Italy, 7/14/02)
The studio version of this death-row nightmare is on Tender Prey; Johnny Cash covered it on American III: Solitary Man. This live version (Cave on the piano with Warren Ellis on violin, I believe) slows the arrangement down and introduces an actual melody; whereas the original was a swampy, punishing soundscape that emphasized the violently shifting mental terrain of the speaker, this spare live take turns it into more of a lament as Ellis's mournful violin underscores Cave's searching for absolution through death. The speaker goes snarling into death in the original version: the final line, "And anyway I told the truth / And I'm afraid I told a lie," is one last venomous, mocking shot at his executioners. In the live version, it's not quite a fully repentent admission of guilt, but it's one step closer.

"Mack the Knife" (with Spanish Fly and Kenny Wollesen, from September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill)
This is Cave doing a near-parody of his familiar persona; he's the shark, a mouth full of razors, spinning a tale of death and deceit as the band pumps out Goth cabaret. Those of you only familiar with the swingin' Bobby Darin version of the classic Brecht/Weill ballad might be surprised at the casual depictions of murder, arson and rape--find out why.

"Lay Me Low" (with The Bad Seeds, from Let Love In)
During Thanksgiving vacation in 2000, my brother and I were returning from seeing a movie in Atlanta and stopped for gas halfway up I-75. While I pumped, a man, either homeless or soon to be, stopped my brother while he was walking to the station to pay--he wanted a ride. Where? "Up a couple exits. To the truck stop." Being helpful, if naive, young men, we decided to give him a ride, though I did make the guy put his bag in the trunk (to prevent any sudden reachings for concealed weapons), and I told my brother ride in the back seat (just like gangsters do when they're about to whack somebody). We got back on the interstate and started driving. We talked about the movie we had just seen, Charlie's Angels. The man told us he really liked Drew Barrymore. "Yeah," we agreed. We passed the exit we thought we were going to. Then another one. He assured us the truck stop was at the next exit. I was getting a little nervous. We were listening to a tape of Nick Cave songs, and the grandiloquent self-requiem "Lay Me Low" started playing. The man got quiet and listened for a while, then said "This is a great song."

"Yeah," I said. "It is." We got off at the next exit. He told us to turn left, though the truck stop was to the right. He told us to stop and we let him out, then drove back home.

EVERYTHING IDOL | Qualifying Round, Heat 1

It's the new reality-show sensation that's sweeping the nation my living room! Just like American Idol, only it doesn't suck! Who or what will be crowned Best Thing Ever? You be the judge!

Meet our first four contenders:



1. Surfer Rosa by the Pixies | Contains "Gigantic," "Where Is My Mind?," "Cactus" and "Vamos," which is four more great songs than you'll ever write.



2. Apple pie a la mode | Warm apple pie + vanilla ice cream = delicious



3. Boogie Nights, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson | Night Ranger. Roller skates. Chest Rockwell.



4. Kitties | Cute, fuzzy. With patience, some can be taught to do tricks.

Discuss! Argue! Vote! The winner makes it to Round 2! Heat 2 coming soon!

Orange County: Like Los Angeles, only stupider

All the good jokes were already made in the article.

An Important GLFC Announcement

Sorry, but sporadic (non-)blogging is going to continue for another week. I'll try to post some new stuff this week, but I make no promises. I saw both Clash of the Titans and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban this weekend, and I got stuff to say about them, but no time in which to say it. Sorry sorry sorry.

But I can guarantee you that the GLFC will resume regular service on June 14, brighter and shinier than ever. In the meantime, go check out some friends of mine: The Day Jobs and Fly in the Honey. So good you won't want to come back here!

But please do.

SCREEN | It's been a month and a half since I've seen a movie

Some random thoughts on Troy:

1. Garrett Hedlund, the actor who plays Achilles's "cousin" Patroclus, looks oddly like a male version of Mrs. Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston. Subtext?



2. Like most war movies, Troy is an anti-war movie; but unlike most war movies, there's no "good" side. Unless you're a Greek or Italian who holds grudges a really long time, it's hard to root for either Greece or Troy, because they're both more or less equally wrong and equally right (Greece a little more so than Troy, to be fair, but it was a Trojan who started the whole mess). So it's up to the individual characters to be either heroes or villains. Hector, prince of Troy, is really the hero of the story, which I never really got when I read The Iliad as a kid: the story was written by a Greek, its main subject is a Greek warrior, and yet the guy who's all noble and heroic is his greatest enemy? Hector is the only undisputed Good Guy in the movie, but there's the little narrative problem of his death three quarters of the way through the story. Achilles, unlike wise general and devoted family man Hector, is a mix of petulant kid and feral animal, yet because he's played by Brad Pitt, he has to be a Good Guy as well as a savage warrior-poet. The movie accomplishes this by having him attempt to rescue slave girl Briseis while his compatriots burn Troy. It's been a while since I read The Iliad, but if I remember correctly, the Trojan Horse and the final sack of Troy aren't even part of the poem. So this kinder, gentler Achilles doesn't sit quite well. In his climactic fight with Hector, it's impossible to know who to root for: Achilles, because he's Brad Pitt, or Hector, because he loves his baby? Troy paints a picture of war as a series of personal battles, in which personal grievances decide the fate of nations. War is futile (though Troy undercuts that idea by truncating the ten-year Trojan War to about two weeks; we just don't get that sense of war dragging on endlessly), and the only winners are those who make it out alive.

3. It's that philosophy that gives Troy its true villain: Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. As played by Brian Cox, Agamemnon is a mountain of arrogance and greed who invades a foreign nation on trumped-up pretenses to satisfy his lust for power; who, once that pretense is rendered moot, continues to fight out of sheer pride; and who plays the role of war hero while his soldiers do all the work and die by the thousands. Any of this sound familiar? Troy isn't a great movie--for one thing, it's too in thrall to the old Hollywood version of ancient Greece, all blank white pre-ruined marble and Masterpiece Theatre accents--but Cox's pointed, near-satirical take on the abuse of power gives it more relevance that it seems at first.

4. As for those personal battles: Troy is really a framework for a series of duels, a structure that echoes The Matrix, the Star Wars prequels, Gladiator, Kill Bill, and just about every martial arts movie ever made. It's also the structure of every Mortal Kombat-style fighting video game and, with significant differences, of most porn movies. The plot is merely a way to get us to the next fight. But in Troy, as in most of the movies listed above, the one-on-one fights are where the film really comes to life. All the pretty speechifying pales next to the raw physicality of the duels. And the fights in Troy are thrilling, particuarly the brutal showdown between Achilles and Hector. In that fight, all the high ideals of honor and glory and sacrifice are expressed in action; their words are made flesh.

5. It's interesting to note how this martial-arts aesthetic has taken over Hollywood action movies. The cynical part of me notes how it turns movies into video games, or how the characters become action figures, pitted against each other in a deathmatch bracket. But there's something else going on. Kill Bill and The Matrix, especially, find a sort of mythological resonance in these one-on-one showdowns: they're expressions of personal agency, of a single man or woman fighting back against a world of injustice or oppression or whathaveyou, or simply taking revenge into her own hands. And when it's possible, via CGI, to depict acts of global violence in crisp detail, a one-on-one duel feels gritty and real and exciting. Troy, of course, is mythology, and the fights between Paris and Menelaus or Hector and Achilles become fights between gods, writing history in each blow.

6. Odysseus was an early hero of mine, so it's somewhat disheartening to see him used here mainly as an apologist for Agamemnon and as the guy whose bright idea allowed the Greeks to savagely destroy the proud city of Troy. But Sean Bean does a great job with what little he's given, and I'm starting lobbying now for an Odyssey movie with him in the lead.