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Joe Hill & Ultron

I have commenced my Summer reading, nearly a full month in advance of Summer.  I say this because I have been on a trip, with some time to myself, and I have chosen to read fantastical works of fiction.  So it feels like Summer reading.  So it is.  QED.  Or the equivalent, which would be something like QES, or something.  Not that you care.

So - book reviews, then: One gothic (?) horror novel and one epic comic book space drama.  First, Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill.  Memorial Day weekend, I took off from work Friday, and that gave us four days to travel.  While I had initially thought that my dry and academic work from 1927, A Day in Old Rome, would suffice for travel reading, it did not.  Alas.  It's not a bad book, but it's not to be taken in travel-size chunklets, either.  So I picked up HSB during a late night provisions run.  I loved it.  I haven't been moved by a horror novel in quite some time, but this moved me on more than one occasion.  Joe Hill is Stephen King's kid with a (deliberately evocative and pedigreed) name change so you won't buy his books because he's Stephen King's kid.  When you do buy Joe's books, you'll be buying them because they are compelling and creepy.  Joe has the grasp of the banal that his dad has, that ability to set an incredibly scary sequence in a totally familiar - and even somewhat boring - environment, using solidly commonplace items in completely nefarious ways.  HSB is about a rock star who buys a ghost at an online auction, presumably inspired by this, and what happens after that.  The music is part of the book, with a Nirvana song title and subsections of the book titled after songs as well, with numerous musicalities dropped into the rest of the writing.  Anyway, if you like books that keep you the fuck awake, and dig horror, read Heart-Shaped Box.

Back in 2006, Marvel Comics started a huge epic space opera called Annihilation.  Annihilation dealt with a bid by a conqueror named Annihilus, who teamed up with Thanos and enslaved Galactus, unleashing something called the Annihilation Wave which destroyed planetary systems and consumed, in totality, all of their organic matter.  With me so far?  Annihilus, who is from the Marvel Universes' negative zone, was only defeated by a last-ditch teaming of Ronan, the Kree Accuser, the hero formerly known as Star-lord, Nova, Drax, and Moondragon.  After this was all over, however, sections of the universe, most notably the Kree Galatic Empire, were weakened, and thus susceptible to the newest attack, this from a non-organic enemy known as the Phalanx, who enslaved and killed with the best of them, and turned out to be secretly led by Ultron, who was trying to bond with the body of the newly resurrected Adam Warlock, and then have him cloned, creating a perfect master race of organically engineered beings with hardware brains.  This was all in the second big series, which I finished reading on the deck (one of them) of Matt & Cayce's house, and which was called Annihilation: Conquest.  The series, not the deck.  There were deaths and sacrifices, something like eight or nine limited series of four and six issues each, and I've been on the edge of my seat for going on a year and a half.  Again, not that any of you was geeky enough to follow any of that, but I love that shit.  When you're reading your independent comics and thinking you're really getting into comics now because this is some deep shit, this is why fanboys give you that look that says, "Boy - I'm three generations deep in Comicdom.  Three generations."

Abby Is 2

Today is Abby's 2nd birthday, but we have been celebrating it since last week.  She's had cakes and cupcakes and presents galore, and most recently, we've been traveling, combining her birthday fest with Memorial weekend vacation visiting.  We left on Friday for Chattanooga, where we spent a lovely day with Grandma Casey and Gigi, having cake and presents and seeing the sights to see.  We woke up this morning after a late night, and had my mom's breakfast casserole and read books and played and eventually hit the road for Atlanta.  We got to Cayce & Matt's house around sixish, and busted in on them at the end of another event, so we're testing their hosting skills to the extreme.  They are up the challenge, it seems, as they are trying to sleep one room away from where I am currently blogging.

Abby's day has been a good one, despite being awakened from a nap prematurely, having a minor meltdown in the car, and taking an unintended dip in the pool this afternoon.  She has been singing "Happy Birthday" to herself since shortly before we arrived in the ATL, and she has been jazzed on attention, sugar, new stuff and singing.  To amuse ourselves all day, we have been singing this variation on the trademarked "Happy Birthday," to which we now invite you to contribute;

"Happy Birthday, Abby Lou,
Today you are two,
(line of your choice)
Happy Birthday, Abby Lou."

Some used third lines include:

1945 saw the end of World War II,
The 1st Chinese dynasty was Manchu,
You are one of a few,
Sea World has Shamu,
A French cow says, "Le Moo."
You ain't no one's foo'
The Art of War was penned by Sun Tzu,
You took a dip in the pool,
You saw a raccoon,
You like the vacuum,

aaand so on.  Anyway, Abby's had a great 2nd birthday - thanks to all those who contributed to that, especially, and big love from the Squidbag to my only daughter!

Fantasy Garage

I had someone ask me one of those "what would you do if you were obscenely rich" sort of questions not long ago, & for some reason I actually gave it serious thought for a change.  Provide for my family's future and send all my friends checks is first, of course.  I would want my whole job, pretty much, to be meeting people and finding out about stuff I could help with or fix with my new resources.  I would also want to do a ridiculous amount of traveling, and buy a much larger share of Marvel and their various divisions.  I would want to urinate on Rupert Murdoch, of course, and knock out a few of Trump's teeth.  (Man, that Trump website screams 'class.') Lunch with McKellen, Ellis, Greenspan.  Then you get into the really petty and materialistic, where I have a seriously heavy-hitting comic book collection.  Then I started thinking about cars.  I think I would want some cars.

These:

1933 Rolls Royce Phantom II - it's the Rolls Royce Phantom II.  Black, preferably.

1948 Tucker Torpedo - I like Tuckers, what they look like and what they represent.  I always thought the Torpedo was the coolest model in the series.

1950 Mercury - Because they look like tanks with cooler grills.  What I would drive if I were a hitman.

1952 or '53 Hudson Hornet - Because they were some of the first NASCARs.  And Cars doesn't hurt.

1956 Nash Rambler (two-tone green or blue with white)  - There was a guy who lived around the corner from us, off Johnson, in Madison, WI, and he had one of these.  This was during the period when I was carless, and riding the bus everyday, with the pants gangstas and the licker guy, and I thought, at least four or five times a week, "Man, I wish I had one of those."

1963 Lincoln Continental Convertible (black)  - Because it's the car Kennedy & Connally were shot in on November 22nd, 1963.  And it's probably best if I don't say anything else about it, other than I would always corner at only 11 miles per hour.  See?  Even that was too much.

1966 Lincoln Futura The Batmobile from the late 60's Batman TV series.  Yes, the campy one.  But the car fucking rocked.  And so did Julie Newmar.  There are bad Batmobiles and good Batmobiles.  The current one is excellent.  The one from the 89 movie was good, and so is this one.  The Futura has fins, though.  Fins both rock and rule, like Run D.M.C.

1971 Dodge Demon "I've got a car for you!  It's a HELL car!!!"

1973 AMC Gremlin (with the Levi Jean interior) Is there anything, short of the Pacer, which I once had the misfortune of making a trip from Nashville to Indianapolis in, uglier than the Gremlin, from AMC?  Yes.  The 197-fucking-3 Gremlin with Levi Jean interior.  Disgusting.  Like what a 1970's pimp's accountant might drive.

pre-1974 Tatra T603 (white) When Communists had cars, they had Tatras.  Castro drove a white one, all over Cuba.  They are elegant and to my eye, attractive cars, until they fucked up the body style after the period I define here.  When Tatras wore out, they sent them back to factory and re-tooled them, spitting them back off the line as new Tatras.  That's communism, right there.

1979 Stutz Bearcat Ever since I had one as a Hot Wheels.

1981 Cadillac Hearse I know the cooler people out there would want Harold's hearse, from Harold and Maude.  But I grew up in the South, and this model is what people went to the cemetery in.  Ghostbusters made it cool, but I would want to have a fog machine in mine, I think.

1985 DeLorean It's the Back to the Future car.  It's the cocaine scandal car.  It's the first sports car I ever drove.  It's made of stainless steel and has completely pointless gull-wing doors that the hydraulic fluid used to crap out on.  They're so pretty.

1985 Pontiac 6000 sedan (British Racing Green) - this was my first car, hence the color specification.  I don't want one in the shape mine was in, with bent frame, cracked windshield, buckshot in the door and wreck damage.  This was the car Jon christened "Dentladenworthy."  No, I'd like a good version of this car.  For nostalgia.

1999 Bentley Hunaudieres - in movies about the future, they always do "the sports car people will be driving in the future" and it never quite works for me.  This does.

2008 Tesla Roadster - I saw this Nova special recently, with the guys from Car Talk, and thought to myself, "Finally, someone's making a cool eco-friendly vehicle."  Of course, they're ridiculously expensive, and currently, I don't even think I can afford one of the hats off the website.

I'm sure you have your own fantasy vehicles, or something you think I left out - tell me.

Making a Scene

Max has been rehearsing for a play for about a week and a half.  Where we used to go over spelling words after reading, we had been lately doing his lines.  This morning, the play, called "The Hunt for Red Octagons" (copyright SR, 2008) was performed twice, and for those of you who missed it, this is Max's scene.

The Set-Up: A fairy has brought a dismal kid from a camp to watch how motivation & a proper attitude can inspire people.  Two hockey players talk about how bad they are, until their coach (and our hero) arrives to pump them up.  This is an authentic home video, so it has weird zooms, guy's head in foreground, poor focus, and me whispering to Abby to stop doing something at one point.  Additionally, the AC hum (or something) in the room is louder than the dialogue, so here's what they're saying:

HOCKEY GUY 1: (After lamenting his own poor performance, etc.) Well, I guess we better hit the showers!

HOCKEY GUY 2: Yeah, if we can't be good, at least we can be clean.

COACH: Hey guys, you're looking kind of down - What's the problem?

HG1: We're awful.

HG2: And there's nothing we can do about it!

COACH: NO!  You are not awful! And yes!  There is something you can do about it!

HGS: What?

COACH: Are you willing to practice hard every day?

HGS: YES!

COACH: Will you eat healthy foods and get lots of sleep?

HGS: YES!

COACH: Will you lift weights and run laps?

HGS: YES!

COACH: Will you study the game plan and work together?

HGS: YES!

COACH: Will you quit eating junk food and all candy?

HGS: Y-uhhh, ummmm...

COACH: Oh well, we'll forget about that last one.  Say to yourself: I will prepare, I can do it!

HGS (And guy brought there by fairy): I will prepare, I can do it!

Then there's some wrapping up and posing out and exercising going on.  Max drops and does some sort of push-up things.  Anyway, for those of you who couldn't be there, had you been, Max would have blown you kisses and flashed you a peace sign on his way out of the room.  He was super extra cool today.

2008 Tour de Timor

So, apparently, this year's Tour de Timor in Madtown was of mixed success, raising three grand for Timor projects, but generating no proposals of marriage.  There is this great video, above, and if, by some chance, you don't even know why any of this is here, go here and go to the "History" part.  Then go to the past year's promo stuff and watch the silly Flash gator thing.

Hi, Diane & Eric!  To Tom: Fresh for '08, YOU SUCKAS!!!

Max's Recent Music

When Max was little, I mean really little, he would rock out (usually in his jumpy swing) to the hardest stuff we could find, a fact my wife and I attributed to him having attended his first concert in utero, and the bill there having been Sepultura, Soulfly, and Pantera.  When he got older, he did the kid music phase, but not for long, and now, all of a sudden, his musical tastes seem to have grown very quickly sophisticated.  So here's what we're doing: I'm going to give you a list and some details, then you're going to throw something back as a recommendation that's lyrically friendly for a six-year-old who likes the following:

Enigma: I don't know if it's fair to say that he likes this as much as it puts him to sleep.  I don't know how much real listening's really been done to their first two albums.  They're soothing, by design, and he crashes out to these.

the Miles Davis Quintet in Tokyo: Likes "If I Were a Bell," which the band starts with.  Lengthy discussion about what the title if this track could possibly mean ensued.  Says he particularly likes the keyboards, which on this were done by Herbie Hancock.  Picked it because it's Tokyo and he knew where that was.  Has now decided that he prefers this record to Miles in Montreux with Quincy Jones.

Sonny Rollins: Puttin' It Together: One of the few I've heard him repeat on his own.  I don't think he knows how to use the actual "repeat" function on his new CD player, so he just pushes "play" over and over.

Buena Vista Social Club: Was really into this and wore it out for about a week.  Doesn't care that he can't understand them as they're in Spanish - says that "makes the music almost better, anyway."

Crystal Method: Vegas: High-energy, jumping on the bed record.  Gets visualizations that come with the music of spaceships and people doing things.  He likes doing artwork and stuff to this album.

Street Dreams: Chicago: Likes the live nature of the performances and that they're varied and short.  Said it sounded like people just playing music as they went along.  Pays particular attention to crowd, street, and El noises.  (Sadly, I could find no link for this one - you get nothing but fucking stupid rappers like Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy.  Also Nas, who's okay sometimes.)

The Orb: Blue Room: Has yet to stay awake for the whole thing, but shit - there's a 40 minute track on there.  I don't know if I've ever heard that whole track without the aid of chemical stimulants.  Almost a requirement for the Orb.  Says he finds this relaxing.

Kodo: Best of Kodo: Another disc he wore out.  About a solid week of Taiko from Max's room every night.  Right through the damn wall.  There's nothing about this, from the form to the origins, he doesn't like.

Sufi Music: No verbal reaction - just pushing the play button a couple of times.

Sun Ra: I sort of got him started on this jazz thing with Sun Ra, by telling him I had a record done by a guy who thought he was from Saturn.  Look it up.  This led to a leisurely, lying in Max's bed discussion about the differences between "good crazy" and "bad crazy."

Kronos Quartet: Pieces of Africa: Thought this was really interesting for about three nights, but didn't think it sounded "enough like Africa."

Harry Connick Jr. Trio: Lofty's Roach Souffle: Enjoyed no voices on this, and said the music "made his room cool."

All suggestions will be appreciated.

For Science

25

Created by OnePlusYou

C'mon...I think I could fight more than that.

Jimbo insisted that I take this quiz, for science, and post it here on the blog.  I have done so now for Jimbo, and for science.  This result completely erodes any arguments that I make during the week about being too tired to bathe both kids at the same time, or trying to get C to split corralling duties with me, since apparently, I could deal with at least 23 more kids.  C did bust me for not fighting harder based on my answers, but y'know, being beaten by 26 five-year-olds would still make a great story, so I can live with not fighting dirtier.  I bet if I picked up Max through the elbows he could do that running kick Jet Li thing and take out several five-year-olds.  He was one of them recently, and knows their secrets.

Why I Listen to NPR

Back during the 1st Gulf War, some of the best and most immediate coverage of events was on NPR.  Yes, if you had CNN you could watch the whole war LIVE on TV for the first time, including wall-to-wall coverage of Pete, Bernie, and that other guy huddling under a table in a hotel in Baghdad during the shelling.  It was because of CNN that most of the world saw the smart bomb footage of the trip through the window which sold the American people on the concept of precision bombing - a concept I'm sure the people of Sadr City would've liked to have seen over the past few weeks - and thus, the war.  NPR, though, gave the most haunting report I had heard up to that point in my young life, this predating 9/11 by ten years, when an NPR reporter live from Iraq's signal simply ceased to exist while he was in the middle of a sentence.  The worst part was, I hadn't really been listening.  You bet your ass I was after that, though.  That's pretty goddamn immediate, and when it happens, you pay attention.

Anyone listening to NPR this morning got to hear two completely remarkable things: One was Melissa Block reporting from the middle of a Chinese earthquake as it was happening.  Melissa actually described the ground as "undulating" beneath her feet.  That should be a special journalism award, I think.  The Block Award for Perspicacity, awarded in this case for remembering to use the word "undulating" when that is in fact what is happening to the goddamn ground upon which you are standing.  On a serious note, Melissa's subsequent coverage of the school destroyed by the earthquake was completely devastating.

The other thing that NPR featured this morning was an unidentified reporter who had somehow cruised under the Myanmar wires and was reporting from inside the country, where Western media is not allowed, and not welcome.  Pretty impressive shit.  Really, let's see Huffington or Anderson Cooper or Nancy Grace or fucking O'Reilly do any of that.

NPR rules.

Lame Duckling Weds

Jenna Bush (who I realized while looking for this photo you could ridiculously easily find upskirt photos of) married her longtime boyfriend Henry Hager (who works in energy! How novel!) this weekend, bringing a lone spot of happiness to the current unelected Chief Executive's  otherwise abysmally torturous existence.  I can only hope.  As the realization that he is not the end times President dawns on him, he struggles like a half-insane animal in a trap, chewing at it's own once-familiar damaged tendons and ragged leg meat, making a vain attempt to free himself from his ever-spreading quagmire of bullshit and bad decisions, and create something that looks kind of like the goodwill he squandered after 9/11, and leave behind something that's more akin to a legacy, and looks less like a stain on this country's history.  When the end of times is not approaching with the speed prophecy seemed to imply, it necessitates sudden planning for the future.  A bummer to be sure when planning is never something you've even attempted, much less shown any aptitude for.

Jenna, known as the one who looks more like her dad, opted to marry on the ranch in Crawford, instead of having a big public Rose Garden soiree, but I'm going to guess still consumed a shitload of potential economic stimulus doing it.  Apparently, the environment of Crawford is more conducive to the huge cocaine blowout a Bush reception would most assuredly degenerate into, and it keeps them from having to equalize Cheney's exterior body temperature, since Texas is closer to Hell, where Dick is originally from.  Dick's body temperature is normally equalized to his surroundings using a complex robotic exoskeleton maintained by trolls.  In this way, everyone can be happy - except for those of us flashing forward to another fucking Bush someday running for - and eventually stealing - an office.

In other Monkeyface-related news, Oliver Stone has apparently been given a greenlight on "W," the funny little movie about the current occupant of the Oval Office.  Seen as more of a comedy, it will simultaneously explore the humorous moments; the bumblings and the fumblings, the idiocy and the silliness, while also delving into more serious matters and finally answering the question - Dubya: is he an Idiot Man-Child with a streak of pure black evil, like the fifth grader with low marks who got body hair before everyone else, and so takes out his frustrations on, in this case, Earth, or Sadistically Evil Fucker pretending to be a clown, like some sort of twisted mad Pagliacci with a Tommy gun concealed under his floppy motley togs and weeping through the second act when he suddenly kills not only those he loves, but everyone in the house as they applaud the farce.  A cast list can be found here, though it is believed that CGI will inevitably be used to render the monster Dick Cheney, since living actors can't make faces like he does without the aid of minor surgery which often consists something pointy speedily rammed edgewise into their rectum. 

This is known as "method."

Myanmar is Stupid

I think I can live without my own junta.  Apparently, they don't work very well anyway. 

Say, for instance, your semi-secret military junta (which you can make yourself at home by buying Uncle Squidbag's Semi-Secret Junta Morsels) seeks to keep light off it's activities - and indeed it's very existence - by limiting the access of other countries, international media, and multi-national bodies to the country, in the hopes that this lack of information will not only stymie criticism, but also change, since as far as the junta's concerned, the junta's getting along just fine.

Then, Mama Weather Bitch steps in & backhands your whole country with massive unyielding death in the form of a hugely destructive cyclone.  Things are fucked up, people are dead and dying, food and medicine need to be passed around - in short, Myanmar needs help.  However, one of the swollen problems with an insular society is often it's reluctance to admit that it needs help, and in this case, that is exacerbated by the fact that to accept help is to allow people into your secret country, where they will doubtless observe the semi-secret junta up to what it will doubtlessly characterize as no good, what with the repression, and the ignoring the human rights, and the hey, hey it hurts Myanmar.

But, wait.

Every major news organization in the world - in spite of not being able to get any closer to Myanmar than Thailand - is reporting on this.  I'm just a shmoe, and I'm telling you all about it.  Seems to me that the supposedly semi-secret junta is a lot like that big, secret society the Freemasons, and we already know the History Channel runs a special about them once a fucking year.  No secrets there.  Seems as though that if the objective you were shooting for was maintaining your oppressive regime behind a veil of secrecy, then everybody and their brother reporting about how you're trying hard to keep people out of the country and denying food and medical aid to your own people (except until after you've slapped propaganda on it) because you're trying to maintain your isolationism and secrecy in order to conceal your government's oppression of it's citizens and probable a multiplicity of human rights abuses probably constitutes a failure of junta policy.

Something to think about.  Anyway, I don't think I want a junta anymore.