squidbag

Dollar Store Country

I buy things at the Dollar General store across the street from my apartments sometimes.  Dollar Generals are always these interesting cultural whirlpools of vague sadness, the lonely elderly and the aimless broke citizenry joined with people who just want something cheap.  Knockoff products next to movies that were once popular, slave-made clothing and holiday decorations, generic medicine.  There’s usually an aisle or two that resemble a crackhead’s garage sale; stuff spilling out onto the ground, things half ripped out of packages, and claustrophobic, non-ADA spaces and corners they must get cited for once a week.  I’m used to all of this, having had dollar stores of one kind or another located near everything in my life, pretty much, and the only thing that keeps assaulting me about this one is the bad fucking country music that’s on every time I go in there.

Country music, based on my non-scientifically gathered representative sample, has more aggressively taken the same slide into puerile, obvious, homogenized meaninglessness over the past decade and a half or so that pop and everything else took, but it had to do it with a conservative Christian primary listening audience in mind.  Contemporary Dollar Store Country seems to be populated by the most blinkered homilies, things everyone knows, but stated in such a way as to pluck at one’s heartstrings like any episode of Little House on the Prairie where someone died.  Strong relationships come from listening to one another, don’t swear in front of your kids because they copy stuff that you do, be nice to people.  Cry a little, so you can remember these things.  (sniff)

If they don’t have that vomit-inducing claptrap, they have such overused clichés about redneckedness you’d swear they were parodies, and they are – albeit unintentional.  Probably.  Maybe.  If not, Satan works in their idea house.  She thinks my tractor’s sexy?  I want to check you for ticks?  These are the songs, trapped in my head, making me forget – shit, anything.  I’d rather have Al Capone’s hat size (6 7/8) in my head than that ridiculous cowpie of a song.

I gotta cowboy hat and a homily; I wear my boots and I drive a Chevy

I'm just like you

and we agree on everything, too.

I won't challenge you with profanity, or any ideas, thoughts or complexity,

I vote for the GOP, and the Dems'll never speak for me.

I got a straight white Jesus to whom I pray,

he's the only one in my heart's praying room,

and I'm deeply sorry now,

for having said, "whom."

I, for one, would like to see a radical left atheist country anthem – something a little more subversive that doesn’t once mention McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, John Deere, or fucking trucks of any brand be they endorsed by Denis Leary or not.

I can be a simple man, without being a simple man,

I prefer to think things through because I simply can.

Don't need no imam or pastor, no rabbi helping me,

Just some quiet time to think, sit alone and simply be.

I try to let my conscience be my guide, that small internal voice,

It can be really hard to hear above the shouting and the noise.

Don't need no news, or NPR, no Fox to tell me how I feel,

I've been around long enough for convictions made of steel.

Of course, there’s no audience for that, unless you tart it up and parade it around in almost no clothes and a cowboy hat in a mock-Western setup somewhere.  Even the best of the country crooners, if they be female, are prone to the trap of the cheesecake music video, and sex sells even better to the repressed, I imagine.

I have go charge my iPod now, so it’s ready the next time I run short on hand soap or dish detergent.  They don’t make enough soap for me to clean that sound out of my ears.

GameStopped

This entry will serve two functions if it works like it's supposed to; I'll get to vent, and I might find out the answer to a question that's been bugging me for around three weeks now.  I'm not getting my hopes up either way, though.  Stupid hopes.

Towards the end of the Summer, my small family ventured to Madison, WI, where we stayed with Eric and Diane, had much fun, saw lovely people, blah-blah, that's not what this entry is about.  The important thing, as it pertains to this entry, is that we played a lot of RockBand 2 on Eric's Xbox 360.  We really enjoyed it, and as a family, discussed getting a game system of some sort for Christmas.  So we could play RockBand.  Together, our whole family, as a group.

Then, Christmas came early.  Three weeks ago or so, my brother-in-law got us a Wii as an early Christmas present.  Very early Christmas present, and thank you awesomely much, Brian.  This Wii came with a Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock bundle, featuring a drumkit, guitar, and mic.  And a Soundgarden CD.  We've been enjoying the hell out of GH:WoR, but RockBand 3 comes out for the Wii later this month, and I'm looking forward to getting it, too. Here's my issue:  RockBand uses a four-drum format with some optional cymbals, while Guitar Hero uses a three-drum with two cymbals set-up.  The big question?  Will my Wii Guitar Hero drumkit work with RockBand 3 when it comes out for the Wii?

I can't get a straight answer anywhere.  I can't find Gh:WoR listed on any of the compatibility lists, because it just came out on the 28th of last month.  Official websites seem only to list compatibility up to RockBand 2, which doesn't help me, either (other than I can maybe assume that if it was compatible for 2, it will be for 3?).  I've asked gamer friends, and gotten some promising leads that turned out not to answer my question.  Finally, like a moron, I went to GameStop, where the Wii and the GH bundle came from in the first place.  There I encountered Bullethead the Unhelpful, an ungainly college freshman-aged person with an unflattering mohawk-growing-back-in haircut, prominent front teeth, a Pac-Man lanyard with some keys and cards about his neck, and wearing a Green Lantern ring. We had this exchange:

BH: What can I do for you?

ME: I hope that you can answer a question; my family and I are relatively new to gaming - we just jumped from Gamecube to Wii, and we got a Warriors of Rock bundle with it as a gift.  We really like RockBand, and so I'm wondering if I'm going to have to buy a new drumkit for the game when three comes out.  I'm hoping not, but I can't find a a solid answer any-

BH: (big, throaty laugh) Probably, yeah!

ME: Did you just laugh at me while giving me bad news?

BH: Well, uh - have you checked Wikipedia?  Or the website for - 

ME: Those were the first things I checked before I started bugging the (checks for the proximity of my daughter, lowers voice) shit out of people with this question.  Aren't you supposed to be wired in, here?  You work at the fucking video game store.  Just because I'm a newbie to the Wii doesn't mean I've never seen a browser, youngster.  If you don't have any answers, just say, "I don't know."  And don't laugh when you give people bad news - it makes them want to watch you aspirate your teeth.

BH: What?

Who wants to bet me that he Wiki'd "aspirate" after I walked out the door?

Politics and Sports

There is an ongoing argument, that I believe I first encountered in Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, that runs something along the lines of this: organized sports (and, as I recall, this goes from the high school level on up) are a jingoist distraction designed to keep the general public from paying attention to things that really matter, keeping them hyped up in imaginary conflicts, and indeed, turning them against one another in yet another American societal division, so they don't turn on the national government.  Intellectually, of course, I know that this is, to some degree, true.  From the lofty perch of my mid-thirties, however, I have begun the process of ceasing to give a fuck.  For a couple of reasons that I strongly suspect I have in common with the great mob of the unwashed electorate.

First off, and most importantly, I like sports.  Not like some people, where I become obsessed and take it to extremes, but I always enjoy the sports, even when playing something I'm bad at (increasingly true) or when watching a game.  There are sports I cannot abide - golf (unless it's miniature), baseball (unless I'm actually at the park), and NASCAR(...) are the big three - and watching people lose their minds has killed the joy of college football for me, too.  I watch, but only as a reflexive act, and only when I can engage with something else simultaneously.  I love the NFL and NHL, and discovered soccer over the Summer.  I usually catch the NBA quarterfinals forward, if I can.  I can still watch boxing sometimes, and there's other stuff out there I can enjoy.  So, I watch American football because I love to shout at the announcers (I give Al Michaels a pass) and because I keep up with what's going on enough to really engage with whoever's winning or losing.  Additionally, there is still an element of doubt involved, that excitement of not knowing how a thing is going to turn out.  Uncertainty.  Thrilling.

Not so, the lumbering American political creature.  More and more, as I become disenchanted with the people around me, do I see this as a self-defeating system where people with money and influence, helped and chosen by a moneyed oligarchy, stand up and yell loud until a heaving mass votes for someone who is usually at either end of a spectrum that starts with dangerous ideologue and ends with opportunistic megalomaniac.  The last candidate I gave hope to has been rendered ineffective at the one thing I deemed most important: crushing our national inability to have a real discussion.  People with agendas on one side shout, and people on the other side with agendas shout shit back, and there may not be a single idea exchanged.  Like shooting without taking territory.  What's the fucking point?  If you expect to maintain your own thoughts, it's best not to listen at all.  Now that we're ankle-deep in the spreading foam of our mindless jaw-pumping yammering, one begins to think that the prescription may be for something a little stronger than representative democracy, especially when fear is fed by misinformation and the largest mass of people responds to their self-interest more often than anything else.  You vote, you know what's going to happen whether A or B gets into office, and then - you wait to vote again.  How participatory.  How exciting.  Most people vote against someone, not for someone, and that's fifth grade lunch table clique disgusting.  Local elections are better, but often not much better.  Depends a lot upon where you are.

At the end of the day, paying enough attention to what's going on in the world outside of sports, within the system we jokingly still call "politics," like it reflects the will of the people, to deserve an opinion will bring you nothing but exhaustion and misery, while your second-string quarterback dominating Jacksonville can actually be gut-bustingly funny, if you're paying attention to that instead.  You have to keep trying, but it's really more rewarding not to.

So, root, root, root for the home team.  No one wins.  It's a shame.

Comics for You

It has come to my attention, courtesy Mitch Silverman, that many of you are not getting your recommended daily allowance of comics, collected edition or otherwise.  So, I made some hot chocolate and confronted the need.  Seems like it always goes easier with hot chocolate.

First, let's nail down our terminology: a "graphic novel" is simply a bigger or fatter comic book.  It's basically marketing terminology popularized during the late 70s and early 80s.  "Trade paperbacks" are collected versions of comics that originally were released as single "floppy" issues, direct to newsstands and comic stores, and the term has been appropriated to refer to all of these collections, hardback or not.  Understood?  I personally detest both terms as neither is strictly accurate, or indeed, very descriptive, and typically use "comics" to describe all of it, regardless of size or reprint status.  Granted, "comics" is also not very accurate or descriptive, but it's traditionally used, has precedent, and when I say it, you know what the fuck I mean.

Additionally, I'm skipping right over Watchmen, because if you're ignorant of that it's your fault, and Dark Knight, because it's slightly overrated.  Frank Miller is awesome, but he told a better story - though less fantastically - in Year One than he did in Dark Knight.  Or its half-crappy sequel.  Here's a list.  It's not THE list, by any stretch, but it's certainly long enough for you to begin to deal with.  Without further crapping around, then; here are some things you can count on being at least interesting the next time you're standing in a comic store and thinking, "I could call Garrett on my cell and ask him what I should get but he hates the phone and might not answer."

1602  - Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove start the Marvel Universe characters you're familiar with - Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, Thor, the Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, Nick Fury - in Elizabethan England and the New World.  You don't need a big comics background to think this is an awesome story. 

Astonishing X-Men (1st four) - Joss Whedon and John Cassaday make the best X-Men I've read since I started reading it in 1980.  These four volumes - Gifted, Dangerous, Torn and Unstoppable - are how the X-Men ought to act, how they ought to be treated (as characters and by the antagonists), and what they ought to look like.  Like 1602, you'll get more out of it if you've been an X-Men fan for awhile, but you'll still like it even if you aren't.  Isn't that true of almost everything?

Batman: Ego - Darwyn Cooke's exploration of Batman's psyche, motivations, and origin.  Sharp.

Batman: The Long Halloween - as with anything by Jeph Loeb, this meanders all over the place, but he makes it work sometimes, and this is one of those times.  Tim Sale's art you'll recognize from Heroes, if you ever watched that, and this has all the elements of a nice, creepy Batman story - lots of good characters, and timely, too.

Batman: Year One - the front cover of the first issue of this tells you everything you need to know about Batman; young Bruce Wayne, alone in spotlight, between the corpses of his parents.  Mazzucchelli's images are stark right when they need to be, and without Frank Miller's writing in this, there'd have been no Chris Nolan Batman movies.

Captain America: Red, White & Blue - Many different takes, some completely bizarre, on Cap.  An anthology rather than a complete story, with varied narrative and art approaches.

Daredevil: Guardian Devil - Kevin Smith's Daredevil, and the storyline that elevated Daredevil from a B-List character to someone you'd actually want to read more about.  Ending's a little off, but the dialogue is spot-on (it's Kevin Smith, duh) and Quesada's Man Without Fear is really entertaining to look at.  Black Widow's not half bad, either.

Dr. Strange: The Oath - an underrated and missed story about friendship and magic.  Good Dr. Strange mojo here.

Elektra: Assassin - Miller again, but the big thing here is Sienkiewicz's mind-blowing collage art that makes you feel like you ingested something illegal before story's beginning.  Non-linear and nonsensical storytelling push the envelope on this, but it's worth it if you push through.

Fantastic Four: Imaginauts - Mark Waid understands why the FF is cool, and his story, together with Mike Wieringo's art will make you wish you lived in the Baxter Building.

From Hell - the densest of the dense Alan Moore, with Eddie Campbell art that looks like it was done with white paint and fingernails on black paper in some places.  Disturbing and dark, complete with biology and history lessons; looks like a fucking phone book, and is almost as easy to get through.

Fun With Milk and Cheese - a collection of Evan Dorkin's Milk and Cheese.  If I have to sell it, it's not for you.

Global Frequency (both volumes) - Warren Ellis and 12 different illustrators, one per mission of the Global Frequency, an organization dedicated to matching just the right operatives to the crisis du jour, dealing with the "unexploded bombs of the 20th century."  Uneven art, for obvious reasons, but the selected artists' styles tend to match the feel of the story in a most excellent way.

Iron Man: Extremis - Mr. Warren Ellis again, telling the Iron Man story that made the character a hot property again, and Adi Granov, giving us the best looking suit of Iron Man armor since the "Golden Avenger" suit from the 80s, and the one that informed the movie armor.  It's a Warren Ellis story with Iron Man in it, so be ye not afraid.  Can be read standalone, no other stories required.

JLA: Earth 2 - Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely give us Earth 2, a place so repugnant because of the very nature of what it is.  The Justice League has counterparts in the Crime Syndicate, and the coolest Martian Manhunter sequence ever is in this thing.  The coolest is in Terra Incognita, so you might consider getting that, too.

JLA: Heaven's Ladder - Mark Waid's exploration into religion and the origins of the universe, using the Justice League.  Ever wondered what spirituality is like for Wonder Woman's people?  What about Atlanteans or speedsters?  Martians?  Bryan Hitch's alien stuff is actually awesome in the old school sense of the word, but this book is huge and thin and flat, like a comic coffee table book.  Max & I both loved it.

JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice - reads VERY old school, and definitely not for everyone, but a beautifully told story with like, everyone in it.  Actually, the "everyone" thing will be distracting for a noob, but I think this is well-illustrated and expressively told - definitely worth a read.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. - Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen parody the Marvel Universe.  Funniest superhero comic, possibly ever.  Volume two is called I Kick Your Face.  I think that should be all you need.

Preacher (all) - Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion created an epic story that started now 15 years ago, and incorporated all of the pop-culture elements that have found their way back into the public eye.  Some of the best characters (Tulip, especially) that you will ever read, and if volume 7 feels like you're veering off into odd territory, don't worry - you'll come back and it'll REALLY be worth it.

Red - the 3 issues that spawned the forthcoming movie are dark, distressing, and like blunt force trauma in your eyes.  They're also excellent.  Get a collected version, and it won't matter if you read it before the movie or not - they're so different.

Spider-Man: Fearful Symmetry - Back in the 80s, Marvel fucked with the heads of fanboys by throwing this at us.  Just read it, and see if you think Spidey is the clean whistle character you thought he was.

Spider-Man: The Other - the word "reboot" gets thrown around a lot when it comes to superguys - this takes it in a whole new direction.  I find this story compelling even though I'm not sure that I like it.  I think what it does do, it does very well.  Different writers and artists on this one, and that can be annoying, but you muscle through.  You muscle through.

Superman for All Seasons - more Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, but more focused this time.  Sale's backgrounds here are just nuts.  They're incredible, and this is a paced story, slowly told, and told by different people.  This has recently migrated into Max's room, and he reads it over and over.

Thor, Vol. 1 - Thor is back, and not lame.  I simply love this Thor arc, it made me remember why I used to like Thor when I was a kid.  All of the Marvel mythology of Thor is wrapped up in a bow here, as this is a (sigh) reboot of the character, all the characters, Asgard, the whole ball of Uru.  Give it a try.

Transmetropolitan (all) - Ha.  Mssrs. Ellis and Robertson make one of the best comics ever, featuring one of the most uncompromising characters in all of literature, Spider Jerusalem.  Nine volumes of good shit which is relevant all the time.  Get these now.

Trinity - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman.  All in one story, that ranges all over. Not good just for that, but also because it evokes an early time and kind of storytelling, and also deals with Clark, Bruce, and Diana as people.  One of my personal favorites.

Umbrella Academy (both) - I had no intention of liking this, but these stories are the weirdest kind of random bullshit in all of the best kinds of ways.  You'll instantly dig their universe.

Now that you're done reading, go read!

10/13 Dream

So I had the best dream ever last night.

There was a huge outdoor party happening, that ranged all over an anonymous Southern city.  Think Mardi Gras, but with less of a total focus on inebriation, and mixed with a Fall carnival, and five times as people-dense.  I was at the party, and had designed all of the promotional materials for it, so I kept seeing my work - a graphic of a sexy female clown in a spacesuit shooting a laser gun over a skyscraper with the time and dates of the party in the laser - everywhere.  My wife and I ended up hanging out mostly with Stan Lee and a burlesque dancer who went by the name of Redd Bare'n.  Sorry.  Much conversation ensued, and we ate a roast duck.  It seemed like the whole city was in on the party, as you could go from shop to shop and into restaurants and bars without actually leaving festivities.  We moved from event to event, getting into trivia contests and Karaoke - Stan cannot sing - throwing darts, drinking games and talking about the past.  I was constantly running into people I'd like to run into - most of them also from my past - and I was wearing a black and purple checked shirt which people really liked.  I also wore my sunglasses the whole time, and had a dark purple streak in my hair.  There was some sort of military parade - but they looked like Legionnaires - that kicked this thing off and was central to the shindig.  The next morning, we awoke in a strange room and got dressed - Stan and Redd had gone elsewhere - and opened the door to the room we'd been in.  It was a boarding house, but the hallway was filled with shoes and hats and pants, and there were people sleeping in chairs and on the floor.  The parade filed back out of town at about midday, and the big thing was over.

The dream cliche, of course, is that it seemed so real.  But I almost never have dreams that seem real.  I'm falling, and I suddenly tell myself to wake up and I do.  Or things suck, and there's a door, and I open it and they don't suck anymore.  Or if they do, they're on the other side of a door now.  Last night, though, I could've sworn I talked to Stan Lee for a couple of hours, to say nothing - pointedly - about Redd Bare'n.  I don't know if it was the burritos for dinner or the good company shortly before I crashed, but something put my brains in a good state for this dream.

Thanks, brains.

Your Conflict is Bullshit

The reasons you are fighting are false.  They are completely made-up, a bullshit tale run down to you by voices louder than the ones (either internal or external) who have no bad news, and are thus less interesting, and ignored.

You are fighting over nothing.

If you are warring over homosexuality, then you are either wrong, or defending your rights.  If you are gay and fighting, it is only because someone else started the fight, and that person is either filled with self-loathing, fear, or disgust, and that is likely because they hold an outdated and completely manufactured belief in their head.  If you are not gay and fighting about gayness, the most important thing for you to realize is that your opinion on the subject does not matter.  You are not gay, and any stake you think you have in other people's relationships is a bullshit lie you tell yourself to justify your revulsion based on erroneous beliefs.  Shut the fuck up and this - persecution, outing, violence, lies, and all that shit that keeps us from having fun - is over.

If you are fighting over race, then you are responding to deep instincts about being excluded or simply to baseline xenophobia.  It is important for you to realize that your hatred of the other is based solely upon fear of them, and is a natural lizard brain impulse.  Don't be embarrassed by it.  Instead, be consumed by shame over your not having done your duty as a human being.  Humans are differentiated from the rest of the animals in that we can subsume - through major effort, for some of us - our animal instincts and use logic and emotion to deal with things.  Stop being controlled by your primitive signals, and we can all move on.  Simple, right?  Nauseatingly so.  But so hard for so many.

If you are fighting about religion (or some other belief system), then you're missing the fucking point.  Your beliefs have little to no viability outside your own head, and that bothers you.  I don't understand why.  Near 36 years, and I actually find that I am intellectually ill-equipped to comprehend why faith has to come with any kind of ego, and while I have suspicions, that's another entry, and I probably already did it.  Your beliefs are simply your own beliefs, and not tied to anyone else or their actions.  They are supposed to give you comfort in time of strife and ease your fear of death, and that's pretty much it.  All the rest of this is an outgrowth of ego: either trying to be "right" or making sure others are "wrong" based solely on an emotional experience you had once.  Based on this perversion of logic, the Temple of I Got Drunk and Had an Epiphany a Couple of Saturdays Ago should have a lot of followers.  And it probably will before I finish writing.  Shutting the fuck up would solve a lot of this one, too.  Give it a shot and see.

If you are in conflict with others over a political ideology, then you are most likely conducting a war without the proper tools and while existing in a fog of misinformation from people who benefit by keeping you stirred up into a rage.  Any side of any issue (and issues are not window panes with two fucking sides, they are jeweled things with facets you can't see all at once) has a group of people attached to it who benefit from exploiting people who get worked up about it, and you gotta keep that fire stoked or support goes away as people learn that there are families and friends and books and music and ships in fucking bottles and kites and games and tons of other crap that they could and should be spending their time with.  You have been lied to for your whole lives, and you are now just a lump that jumps when poked.  That's not people.  Stop jumping for anyone else, and never believe anything they tell you.  Trust is not a part of politics.  Propaganda is.  In the absence of trust and real belief, they repeat things over and over until you believe them by rote, by default, as learned behavior.  That's not thinking, and it's not healthy for your brains.  Your brains are dying, and the first thing to go is the critical thinking skills.  Without critical thinking skills, you barely qualify as adult, and citizenship should be totally out of the question.  Television is not good for you; it's the candy of entertainment.  Same rules apply.

If you're picking on someone for being different, or slamming their point of view because it's not in line with yours, and it doesn't fit into one of the above convenient cubbies I've provided, then the reason is likely because you have dehumanized the other person, making them easier for your stunted mind to deal with.  A non-human voice is simply noise, and you can drown out noise with more noise.  This is what you most often hear in our discourse; people shouting shit like it's a rebuttal to what has just been said or done when really, it relates not at all, but is simply what spews out when a damaged person feels threatened.  This is a selfish, egocentric way to deal with the rest of the world, and is often born out of a lack of compassion, which is a necessary component of respect.  Likely, you need some therapy.

Any other reason you're fighting is probably due to someone around being an asshole.  We get so tied up in the above crap that we forget about the people behind labels, or we lack the basic courtesy skills to get through a day and that leads to smaller, person-to-person conflicts.  I'm the last person to decry these - this would be height of hypocrisy -  but the reason for most of them is still a bullshit justification or a lizard brain reaction, pure and simple.  Short version still boils down to minding your business and being helpful when you can.  Not 'nice', I didn't say 'nice.'  Helpful.  Helpful goes a lot further than nice, and people need it more.  Help.  Nice is fine, I guess, but I'd rather be useful than pleasant.

And I hope I am.