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7/2/07 Mono No Aware
"Are you in pain?" Hey Well, yet another month goes by (6/07) with but a single issue, I just can't seem to get them out like I could way back when. In the early years of this thing, living all alone (for the most part, the girls were here today, gone tomorrow) out in the wilds of Harmon's Creek, NLs were an excellent outlet, a way to occupy and entertain myself on those cold, lonely nights- (PLEASE) -there were quite a few, trust me, more than maybe you'd like to admit, as well as being a way, in my isolation both physical and emotional, of making me feel somehow connected to all you wonderful readers out there- (DOUBLE PLEASE)
So, for this issue, I say Bill will never be happy, never EVER, no matter what. Let's see how that works. Who's ready for some cathartic artistry? Saw something a few weeks ago (maybe, or else it was thirty years ago) where Marliyn Manson was cryng about his upcoming divorce from Dita von Teese, who made an appearance in here a few years ago due to her resemblance to you know who in her younger days, he was going on about, "oh, she decieved me so, and broke my heart", wah, wah, wah, you know the drill, I realize a guy named Marilyn isn't going to be the sharpest stick in the bunch, but when you marry someone who calls herself "Von Teese" I think you should pretty much know what you're getting into. Honestly, MM, if your truly hideous ass got to poke that stuff even one time, count yourself far luckier than you have any right to be, and quit yer goddamn whining. This paragraph, by the way, is just an excuse for Joe to run another photo of lovely Dita.
(WANNA HEAR MINE?) No. (IT'S ABOUT TITS, AND HOW THEY . . . ) Sorry, still no. Anyway, I think this guy may be on to something. (ME?) No, HIM. He cited all kinds of studies that show that when kids are exposed to nature they do better, well, duh. I played outdoors, and quite frequently up in the woods, extensively as a kd, and even a teenager, and look how I turned out. Seriously, though, playing outdoors was the norm when I was a kid, and fat kids were the exception, not the ruile. Also, for all the crazy ass sometimes reckless shit that went on up in the woods, I never knew of a kid who got killed, or even hurt bad, plaiyng in them- only kid I knew personally who died before I reached high school, got hit by a bus. And I'm not picking on the children of today, I feel fucking sorry for them, cos this situation is not their fault. Nowadays, rightly or wrongly, everyone's scared to let their kids go out and roam through the woods, or whatever sort of nature outdoors they have where they live, cornfields or the desert or whatever, and even worse, in a lot of places, they have none. I know both of the "woods" that I wandered through as a kid, in Maryland and here in WV, are all paved and covered in houses now. Fuck that. But that's how we live, so, let's move on, cos I'm about to get worked up. It's been a couple weeks ago now, Al and I were having breakfast with Robby (we're back at IHoP), Robby stays up half the night watching Lifetime movies and infomercials, I swear, he is goofball of the fucking COSMOS, they've apparently put episodes of the old Dean Martin show on DVD and are hawking them late at night, Robby watched the commercial and was commenting on how great Dean's show was, all the big stars who guested, Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart and "Nigsy Russell". Bill: WHO?
Before we leave Robby, one of the geezers he's recently attached himself to like some half wit limpet (Robby spends all day, every day, drinknig coffee in either McDonald's or Burger King, which is where he meets all these coots, it's how he met Al), name of Dan, I can't fucking stand his ass, he's foul mouthed and foul tempered even by my standards, and since he's deaf as a damn door knob he does all his bitching and cursing at the top of his lungs, he's been kicked out of half the eating establishments in Ashland, which is where he lives, and why he has to drink his old man coffee in Huntington now, legit, he does this "I'm a New York Jew, I'm supposed to be an asshole" schtick, bullshit, he's an asshole cos he's an asshole, leave NY and Judaism out of it, and I told him so the second time Robby showed up for breakfast with him in tow, right before I told Robby "Don't you EVER bring this dick around me and Al again", and he hasn't. However, the first time Dan came around he wasn't as fucking obnoxious, and he wes telling me about how he was bombadier on a B-29 in Korea (he knew enough about Korea and B-29's to make me believe he was telling the truth, about that, at least), he told me this story which he swore was true, about how they were sitting on the runway one night with the engnes running, and an atomic bomb aboard destined for China, supposedly that night there were 40 B-29's sitting on runways all across Japan and Korea with A-bombs aboard, take off time was 4 am, at around 3:50 word come to shut the engines off, we weren't going to A-bomb China after all (Dan was sorely disappointed, then and now). Atom War '50, indeed. True story? Don't know . . . but it could be. So . . . what's Bill been doing? Well, Rachel came in unexpectedly last weekend, I couldn't have been happier to see her (or her mother to get shut of her- Rachel and Loretta are at war, and it's not pretty, I fucking hate it, but I'm also staying the hell out of it, I didn't start it, and I can't stop it, all I can do is get my ass shot by both sides), Loretta and Paul- yeah, not Satan and Gandhi, and NO, I'm not maturing in any way (bite your fucking tongue) or over it (bite your other fucking tongue), it's like I said last issue, I'm just so very tired of the fucking hating, even a rage filled dynamo like our hero runs down eventually I guess- as I said, Loretta and Paul needed a long weekend away so they decided to go golfing at Tygart Lake (wouldn't have been my choice, but more power to 'em), and pass Rachel off to me last Friday, to be passed back the following Monday. Rachie and I had a really nice visit on the ride down from Morgantown
Friday, she went out with friends Friday ngiht while DFZ did his hardcore
thing in Ohio, then Saturday we had MC in the afternoon, saw Fantastic
Four (review in a minute), then went over to Chili's, good eats, I'm
told, although Chris's salmon was a little dry, as mine was last time I
got it there, everyone ate except me cos I had to go to work and I can't
work with food in my stomach, then everyone (else,which I'm not like) went
to Chris's, while DFZ (and Rachel, who's not like everyone else either, I
guess, except maybe me) went to Rand so DFZ could do his XMCW champ thing,
then Rach and I went up to Chris's for beers and cigars on his back deck,
which is rapidly turning into one of my favorite things (sorry, you white
geese that fly with the moon on your wings)- that's beers and cigars for
me and the boys, not Rachie. While drinkng and smoking to excess, Sandra Lee (among others) hater Doug said to me "You have the worst taste in women ever". Jeez, you think? It's not like my track record . . . never mind. Doug also remarked, after laughng his ass off at some Torch relevant stories (I was mourning him- sort of) way too rough to ever go in here, "You're the evilest motherfucker who ever lived". I can be, yeah. Sunday, the girls and I went to Huntington Mall so Rachel could buy some clothes for her trip, anotherr nice day, we ate a boatload of pizza at Cici's, then came back here and watched Pan's Labyrinth, whew, I can see why the artsy crowd ate it up, cos it's extremely well done, Rachel loves it as well, but it's a dark, dark film, don't watch it expecting to be uplifted cos it's not gonna happen, someone told me it had a happy ending, uhm, no, watch it agan cos you misread things. While I'm thinknig about it, for Father's Day, Sarah got me this way cool Lucha book, and Rachel got me a way cool Silver Surfer t-shirt. I am truly blessed. As for the FF movie, I'm here to tell you I didn't like it. The MC vote was one liked it, five were in the middle, like lukewarm water, and one, me, gave it a hearty thumbs down, although at Chris's house later a lot of the indifferent ones were sort of going, "you know, it really wasn't that good . . .". No, it wasn't. My main complaints (I have many, I'll give you two, probably don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet, but plan to). First, again, as in so many comic based movies, NOT ENOUGH ACTION! I want to see these superbeings punching one another in the head, and getting knocked through brick walls and water towers and shit, not listen to a bunch of poorly written dialogue. And also, GALACTUS IS A TWO HUNDRED FOOT TALL GUY IN A PURPLE HELMET, not some big ass cloud of space dust. I kept hoping that he'd be up there somewhere in the cloud, but no . . . he WAS the cloud. I call bullshit on that. While we're on movies, I talked to Danny today, he told me 16 to Life is in L.A. getting the sound fixed, and will indeed come out, hopefully in the next month or so. Well, good. I also got called to come to Huntington next Saturday to read for another part, by one of the guys who worked on 16, okay, and I'll do it, but I got cast three other times last summer, and all that came of it was one scene filmed for a bunch of goofs (Eugene and crew) that have already given up and gone who gives a fuck where, hopefully a well stoked Hell (I'm bad for holding a grude, and Eugene pissed me off huge, not saying I'd have nailed that athletic film girl instead of just making out with her, but his constant inane interruptions while I was trying to do that thing I do, sure as fuck didn't help) with their tails between their spindly, or alternately flabby, legs.
Couple Thursdays ago Danny and I went up to the Empty Glass (saw Spurgie there, Dave, he said COME SEE HIM, he's up there Sunday and Tuesday nights, so, message delivered) to see Webb Wilder. He was in Paradise Park, Danny couldn't believe I knew who he was, give me a break, I remember reading an article about him ages ago in Guitar Player, where he was described as "part Georgia Satellites, part Dave Edmunds, part Elvis Costello, and altogether wonderful", don't know if I heard any Elvis Costello in him, but the other two, to be sure, very much, and while maybe not wonderful, he was very good (got a great band, as well). Like the Satellites and especially Dave Edmunds (and we all know I like Dave) after a while Webb's rockers all started sounding the same, too much of that Chuck Berry repetitive clickety clack (although it still SOUNDED good, a Tele rhythm and a Strat lead and a Daneletro longhorn bass- sweet) but they also did a flat out awesome instrumental, and a couple pop songs to die for. We hung out with Webb and the band after, nice guys, the drummer, Jimmy Lester- swear- was an original member of Los Straightjackets, who play in lucha masks, he and I had a GREAT time- he bought me a beer for fucks sake, when does a member of the band buy a beer for anyone- talking about surf music and Mexican wrestling. He knew his shit, too. Oh yeah, and David, guess who's a big DFZ fan? You're gonna love this . . . Jackie Griffiths. For real, is that not crazy? For those of you who don't know, Jack was a hotshot local guitarist, legit, who went out west and actually made it big for a while, he was in Novo Combo in the early 80's, original Santana drummer Mike Shrieve was in the band, they had a semi-hit single, "Up Periscope" and were genuinely good. He lives up the street from Danny now, his son is best friends with Danny's stepson, they came to Rand last month when DFZ and Danny got the belts, and Jack came away a DFZ believer. Who'd a thunk, Dave, when we were reading that article about him in Gutar World up in the trailer that afternoon in '82 ( I remember it like it was yesterday) that this guy we were all stoked about would one day end up being a fan of MINE? Ha. Again I say, HA. Feels good. As I've gone on about on numerous occasions, there's been no comics corner for a couple years at least, and it's because I can't keep up with comics anymore and their constant REVISIONIST BULLSHIT, however, I was looking at some of Chris's current comics the other night, and dammit, I'm gonna do my Hawkman corner- here goes.
Carter and his honey used these wings to become crimefighters (I'd probably have gone the superviillain route, after trying out them wings for some late night mid-air fucking, but whatever), first they had these ugly and stupid looking hawk head masks, complete with beak, but by the mid 60's Justice Society, Hawkman had this very cool way lucha looking mask, yellow, with this red hawk symbol on the forehead (I know I hate red and yellow together, but this was Hawkman). Earth- 2 Hawkman didn't have any superpowers, just a big brawny guy (those Egyptologists apparently work out like fuck) who could fly, and hit you with this mace he often carried. Neat guy, he wasn't Wildcat or Hourman (my JSA favorites) but he was still pretty cool. Earth -1 Hawkman was a humanoid alien cop from Thanagar (Katar Hol, ha) who came here after some shape shifting crook and decided to stay, along with his hottie wife Hawkgirl, some of those early Hawkmen are comics SF classics, I've written in here before about the one where they go to the world where the tiger men are at war with the flying gorillas- (lSORT OF LIKE RACHEL VERSUS LORETTA? HEY, I NEVER SIGNED NO ANTI-AGGRESSION PACT) -me and Ronnie Darnell got a lot of mileage out of that comic (outdoors, of course, beng neither fat- well, Ronnie was a bit chubby, but don't blame me, I chased that kid around with a stick damn near every day- nor spastic- okay, I was a wall climbing nutcase, but still, we were OUTDOORS), "Come here, you flying gorilla", "Grandma, HELP!" Earth-1 Hawkman had a good hawk head cowl, and pretty much the same powers as his Earth-2 buddy, Katar eschewed his super scientific Thanagarian weapons (except the very handy absorbascon, which he'd point at shit and then it'd tell him whatever he needed to know, which was mostly, "they went thataway") in lieu of using maces and crossbows and stuff cos using rayguns on Earth wouldn't be fair or something. Katar also had a pretty distinct look for those generic times, he was drawn very patrician looking, very Roman, I thought, I have no idea if that had anything to do with the darker spin they put on him in the 80's (Hawkworld, written and drawn by Gauley Bridge Class of '74 boy Tim Truman), where it turned out Hawkmen weren't so much cops as the paramilitary enforcers for the Thanagarian ruling elite, who supported themselves by slave labor provided by other planets they'd conquered, and Hawkman stayed on Earth cos he was sick of that shit. As revisionist bullshit goes, it wasn't bad at all. I didn't see or hear from Hawkman after that (how soon they forget) until he crops up in Wizard a few years ago, as this BIG (not just tall, we're talking Superman/Martian Manhunter muscles, if not actual strength) hairy chested macho blusterer. WHAT? He's like Conan the Barbarian with wings. He gets into it with Batman, and Batman sucker punches him (my hero), now, for just about forever DC has set Batman up as the king of the non superpowered one punch knock out, he's flattened a zillion DC villains, also KO'd GL Guy Gardner with a (well deserved) sucker punch, as well as when DC and Marvel did one of their crossovers he punched out Bullseye with one shot, Bullseye even muttering as he drops (cos you can talk while knocked out in comics) "You even hit harder than Daredevil . . . " So when Batman clobbers this recent- can't call him current, cos it's been a few years- Hawkman, what happens? Hawkman doesn't even BLINK, just wipes the blood off his busted lip, gives Batman the evil eye, and says something like "You're in the shit now, human." Whatever, hell, I don't mind Hawkman being this new age bruiser, that's actually kind of fitting, but cut the Conan/Wolverine macho shit and give him back his brains and sophistication. That's what I'd do, anyway. What's Bill been reading? Lots, right now it's The Terror by Dan Simmons, he did the Hyperion stuff- here we go, started to say a few years ago, I'll bet it's been twenty- he's a pretty good writer, this has been real good so far (just started it today, I'm 100 pages into 750), its about a couple Brit ships trying to discover a Northwest Passage in 1845 and ending up ice bound- and then crewman start getting taken by something, I can't figure out yet if its an Eskimo, excuse me, Esquimaux, were polar bear, or a "real" polar bear ala Jaws, which will disappoint me no end, or the Thing, which I think woud be a very neat idea- not the James Arness intellectual carrot, but the orgninal John Campbell Thing, which John Carpenter did such a great job adapting (one of my favorite monster movies ever). Simmons does an excellent job conveying the insane cold, constant darkness, and claustrophobic conditions that would be present aboard a ship trapped in wintertime ice well above the Arctic Circle. I just hope he doesn't blow the ending. I broke down and got high speed internet out here a while back (Sarah needed it for her internet class), now that I can actually watch them, I've been checking out you.tube, they have TONS of old wrestling stuff on there, I haven't even scratched the great old matches cos I can't get past the promos. Old school wrestling promos are some of the funniest stuff that has ever existed. I was watching one with Ernie Ladd and Leroy Brown, two masters of the craft, Leroy of the rollin' them big eyes mumble, and Ernie of the rambling non sequiter ("yak yak yak, yik yik yik"), concerning theiir upcoming match at the Superdome with Junkyard Dog and Dick Murdoch- all four of these guys are gone, how sad- I'm laughing my ASS off, thinking I've seen it all, when here comes the rebuttal, drunik and toothless Dick Murdoch (they didn't pull his Captain Redneck nickname out of a hat), who was damn near incoherent at the best of times (and who dropped dead of a heart attack 11 years ago at the advanced age of . . . 49) speaks Hittite for 30 seconds or so, before calling Leroy Brown a "bad, fat flopoon". Lord help me, you just don't see promos like that anymore- (THAT'S COS YOU DON'T SEE WORDS LIKE "FLOPOON" ANYMORE). No you don't. But by God, I wish you did. Flopoon. Jesus. Getting on to the Death Falcon- (WOULDN'T THEY LIKE TO) -after having been billed from Batur/China, Tokyo/Japan, Spacehunter Nebula M (also home to Gigan, we took the Intergalactic Tag Belts off Anguilas and that overrated poof Godzilla in a Sunfighter (plasma, comets AND asteroids are all legal) Loser Leaves The Universe Match back in 2256- oh wait, that's still in your future . . . puny earthlings) and the (too generic for my taste, but Logan was all about it) Parts Unknown, DFZ is now being billed as from Bangkok/Thailand-
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"Work hard, rock hard, sleep hard, eat hard, grow big, wear
glasses if you need 'em." Webb Wilder
- but my life (not to mention place of residence) has changed
considerably since those times, anymore I simply don't HAVE time, which
sucks a Death Falcon sized weiner, but so it goes. I will say one thing
remains consistent, after noting that the insomnia wasn't a recent problem
last issue, I was awake all nght three of the next four nights, the only
one I slept was when I went down to Joe's and drank four beers, then came
back here and drank fourteen more. Also, my knees started hurting worse,
also also, after telling Chris last weeknd at MC that I didn't thnk my
sore right elbow was going to be chronic, it was getting much better, I
woke up THE NEXT FUCKING MORNING with it all swollen and hardly able to
bend, for no apparent reason other than that I had the temerity to say it
was getting better. For fuck's sake.
Also saw something in today's (Sunday) paper about "Nature Deficit
Disorder" which this guy says is contributing to an entire generation
growing up obese and unable to concentrate (that ADD shit). Now, eveyone
and the horse they rode in on, and the piles behind that horse, has a
theory about something-
Jesus. Like Joe said, Robby probably thinks Nipsy is what they call the
Japanese guy.
Still, for all my bitching, it's like I told Rick Rage, the other half
of ROT, the other night in the dressiing tent at Riverfest, when he was
lamenting getting turned down by some cute girl there, "You gotta
try. I'll happily take 20 fuck offs to get one phone number" and I
meant, and mean, it, and that's how I'm looking at this movie shit, I'll
happily read for twenty movies that will never be made, to get a part in
one that will. Cos being in a movie is fun as FUCK.
Back in the good old days, when kids played outside and weren't all fat
and spastic, there were only two Hawkmen, one each from Earth -1 and Earth
-2. Earth -2 Hawkman, who perversely came first, was this Egyptologist
guy, Carter Hall, who found (or built, I don't know, his origin was
actually in the 40's or something) these wings made out of the 9th metal,
which as everyone knows has anti-gravity properties.
