"D'you get Bravo? There's this show... The "South Bank Show..." It's British I guess. Very cultural elite, y'know? It's the coolest. It's just about art and writing and dance and stuff. It's just one hour on one person or one subject. One week it's Mamet... the next some dancer lady that doesn't speak English... Anyway, I catch -- I'm just flipping and I catch this one... and it's like the history of British comedy."
"... and you're in hog heaven..."
"Exactly... So they, like, have everybody you can think of on. The "AbFab" Girls, Mr. Bean, and a bunch of blokes you surely never heard of.. But they're all hilarious... and they go on and on... but they all bow to the great one..."
"Jackie Gleason?"
"John Cleese..."
"K..."
"He's now like The Godfather of British Comedy... The comedian's comedian. And they all, and I mean every one of them, pine away for him to get off his ass and produce more work. And I'm sitting there going: 'Yeah! Why doesn't he produce more? He used to do tons...' And then lo and behold, they interview him... I guess at his house... and they ask him point blank... 'Why aren't you working anymore...?' And he's very dry and very calm, and very sincere and he says this...
When you're a child, you are told the rules of lie. You are told of the strict order of the universe -- the strict order of society... and that's that. And when you get in your teens and young adulthood... you begin to see flaws in the order. You see that these rules in your life are silly, ridiculous. And you poke at it, make fun of it... and that's where the comedy... anybody's comedy comes from. But as you get even older, and hopefully wiser, you begin to see the truth... The truth that there is in fact no order at all... Nobody has any idea what they are doing at -- at all. That religion is a lie, that politics is a lie, that morality is a lie. and that -- that everything truly is in utter chaos... and as soon as you realize this..."
"Oh my god!!"
"Well... it's just not that funny. So I'm going to go back to Pizza Hut where I was happy... and all I had time to think about is what cheese went in what crust."
- Brian Michael Bendis, "John Cleese"

"They Ruined Spiders"
I'm feeling a little off my game today. I shouldn't even be here.

"Window Washer"
I've got an odd urge to look into window washing when I go into Jersey exile. It's my only chance to see the city from that kind of perspective. Lots of time to think, and there's an obvious metaphor about rising above whatever.

Of course, this is probably just another life imitates art type of thing on my part. Hobie Brown was a window washer, don't you know?

"The King of Teaneck, New Jersey"
It was going to be this tongue-in-cheek send-up of Bendis' Daredevil run.

Hobie was going to be outted as the Prowler, only absolutely nobody would care, except for the city council of Teaneck, New Jersey, who argue that his status as a washed-up former crimefighter presents a danger to the city, 'cause what if the fucking Vulture shows up looking for a fight or something? Only we find out that the council's really being controlled by Wilhemina Philips, this old woman who's always showing up at townhall meetings and complaining about potholes in the streets and other things retirees concern themselves with when they realize their lives are over, but she's so good at harassing folk, the city council does whatever she wants within reason, calling her "The Concerned Citizen". And Wilhemina wants Hobie out of Teaneck because his grandmother (whom he inherited the house from) was an old friend of hers turned rival when she married Wilhemina's man (Hobie's grandfather). So anyway, Philips makes a bit of an inconvenience in Hobie's life, and it all comes to a head in this heated confrontation at the corner deli. There's a bit of a scuffle, Wilhemina falls and breaks her hip, and ends up in the hospital. The details would be intentionally vague -- was it a big fight? Did Hobie push her into that waitress or was the waitress a friend of Hobie's? And what of reports that Spider-Man had been seen crouching on a bus nearby? -- but the word would quickly spread that Philips was in the hospital, and that Hobie Brown had declared himself the new Concerned Citizen of Teaneck, New Jersey. Of course, this switch in status would have sent shockwaves through the suburban jungle, and Hobie'd find himself facing down the local Boy Scout troop, who're trying to stake a claim over the neighborhood in a no holds barred battle royale in the rain-soaked streets of Teaneck. Beaten to the edge of near discomfort with wiffle bats and nerf guns, Hobie would stumble his way to the Free Clinic, where his brother Abe would confront him in a touching scene in which he asks his younger brother if this whole affair is the result of a nervous breakdown because NBC cancelled Ed.

In the end, Hobie, recovered from his minor injuries and back in the Prowler costume for the first time in years, would have enlisted the help of the Sandman (a known felon, but hey, you don't care), Rocket Racer, Batroc the Leaper, and Peter Parker: Spider-Man (though he's so ashamed to be a part of this group, he's wearing the Scarlet Spider costume to defer culpability) in a cunningly-timed ambush on his attackers in the schoolyard of Teaneck Elementary during recess. The Sandman would have been their secret weapon, rising out of the sandbox in the nick of time when Batroc and the Rocket Racer find themselves pinned down behind the teeter-totter while the fifth-grade houligans toss water balloons at them. When the recess bell sounded, The Prowler and the Schoolyard Bullies would be standing over Timmy O'Rourke and his merry band of mischief-makers, and Teaneck would be safe once more.

(I thought it was a great idea for awhile. Well, maybe not great, but I thought it could have been funny. Eventually, I realized it was just stupid. And thank god for that, although I think The Sopranos helped a little.)

I dream of Prowler day and night. (Well, not really at night. My nocturnal narratives are a mystery.) Did you know he first met Mindy MacPherson at the movies? Did you know Mary Jane Watson takes private self-defense classes at a little dojo in Harlem? Did you know French-Canadian mutants would kill you just as soon as look at you?

I didn't 'til I closed my eyes all those afternoons.

"The Long, Dark Pizza of the Soul"
I'm sorry, but I'm just a pepperoni kind of guy. It's not very special or amazing or exotic or sexy or dreamy or whatever, but when you throw all that other crap on there, it all looks too busy.

My secret is that I like pepperoni and onions, but that hardly seems to matter.