Stuck in the past. Busted teleporter. What would Alex P. Keaton do? I'll tell ya what he'd do! He'd go and build a three movie franchise on the same stupid premise, get fat on royalties... grind his career to a halt putting out junk like "Mikey", then go home to his hot (though talentless) wife, 'cause he was in a movie -- But that doesn't do me a squirt of good, 'cause this hell is real life!
- Joe Kelly, "With Great Power Comes Great Coincidence"

"Hey Jude"
Thanks for the help. Actually being home and awake when Kate called was nice -- nay, necessary. And I appreciate whatever you did that got me through Joe Kelly's seminal Deadpool #11 in one sitting. As for all the rest -- like getting people to stop telling me how and why they think Garfield: The Movie is going to suck and other truly lost causes -- feel free to take your time. I guess I've got no where else to go, right?

Oh, and waking up this morning at a reasonable hour was certainly unexpected, but wonderful nonetheless.

"Stranded in Stuckeyville"
Remember when I used to talk about Ed all the time?

There's this great scene in the third season finale in which the utterly useless Warren Cheswick and his band are playing at Stuckeybowl's 25th Anniversary Party (which of course is just packed, because that bowling alley was that happening place to be in that town, despite the fact that they also had a horsetrack, all-night fencing place, and one hell of a costume shop). Warren Cheswick and the Cheswick Experience have been hired to take requests right, but these guys don't know that many songs, and this guy asks them to play "Tears of a Clown," and Warren launches into this lousy rendition of the song that's completely wrong because he's making it up as he goes along.

Well anyway, the entire time Brent and I lived together, we'd talk about this scene. We'd just be sitting there during a Smallville commercial break, and one of us would suddenly croon "I knew a clown his name was Sam, I punched him in the stomach and he started to cry" and the two of us would be in hysterics for upwards of two hours. And I still have the episode on tape, and I always meant to dust it off so we could watch it, but I have, like, 20 tapes, and they're all unlabeled, so finding an episode of anything is a lot of wading through the last two seasons of Friends, Scrubs, Gilmore Girls and an embarassing shitload of Dawson's Creek. So I never got around to it until now. You know, because he's gone, but I can call him while he's working and hold the phone to the TV while I play the upcoming Dodgeball's Justin Long screaming "You couldn't make the children laugh! No! You had to make them cry, you sick, sick clown! You demented clown! I hate you, clown! and there's just about nothing he can do about it.

Anyhoozle, I've been watching copious amounts of Ed in my considerable freetime, and I've got to say, it's stirring up all these feelings inside me. What kind of feelings? Is there a word for the opposite of nostalgia? No? Well near as I can tell, it's that.

Why? Well first off, Ed gets himself played like a chump, I don't trust Taye Diggs on general principle, and there's something about the turn of phrase "horrid relationship with Nick" that just gets to me. And I always feel foolish, because I actually think things like Wow, they actually got Christopher Lloyd on the show, and I can't believe Police Academy's Michael Winslow cleared his schedule to appear on this show! before I realize that Ed's cast of guest stars was always more quirky and offbeat than it was "A-list."

Aw, who am I kidding? I love that show. Where's the syndication? Where's a freaking DVD? If they've got the good sense to collect Freaks and Geeks they can at least give me the first season of Ed!

Last night, I noticed that "Fight Test" is playing over the loud speaker at the beginning of "Second Chances," and I spewed Dr. Pepper all over my Spider-Man sheets, which isn't the stickiest or most embarassing thing I've done in bed, but I'm having trouble deciding between a "I once tried making my own web-fluid" or wanking off joke, and now that I really think about it, some odd conflux of the two might just be best.

"Ultimate Negro Team-Up"
The second or third issue of Prowler is supposed to be this issue where Luke Cage, Power Man, drives Our Man Brown around Harlem teaching him how to be a Hero for Hire. Like "What If the Amazing Spider-Man Were Black?" (which really isn't what you'd expect from the unfortunate title alone), it's meant to serve as my comment on the notion that hip-hop and gansta culture constitutes "authentic blackness." It's also kind of my riff on Training Day, and I'm surprised that I even want to riff on Training Day considering that the movie didn't particularly wow me or nothing. (Issues six and seven are supposed to contain my far less surprising riff on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but that's a tale for another entry).

Anyway, after remembering some tiny exchange between Deadpool and Siryn about his non-involvement during the government's anti-mutant campaign "Operation: Zero Tolerance" last night, I was running this morning and I got this great idea about Luke Cage's stance on mutants. Something like "You ever work with the X-Men? It's such a fuckin' hassle, man. I mean, they're all professional and shit, which is cool 'cause you know they got yo' back when it gets rough, but it's like hangin' with the fuckin' Latter Day Saints or somethin'. When it's all over, they're always like "Have you accepted Charles Xavier as humanity's savior?" and shit. They just keep goin' on and on. "Charles Xavier's got a plan for each of us." "Charles Xavier has a dream of a stronger loving world." What the fuck?! But I still wanna tap Marvel Girl's ass something fierce. Knowhumsayin'?"

Can't you just see it? He and Hobie'd just be driving around in this big gas-guzzling Cadillac that Cage has attained under dubious circumstances, when he'd just launch into this whole wonky diatribe. And all the while, Hobie'd be wide-eyed and freaked out because he keeps hearing gunshots in the distance.

Oh! And don't ask me why, but I've got a real jones to have Batroc the Leaper become Hobie's roommate after he gets the SHIELD job, because if college has taught me anything, it's that life's always funnier when you're living with a guy who's an even bigger loser than you are, and if you need someone lamer than the poor black man's version of Spider-Man with a cape, it's just got to be France's greatest superhero. I love the idea of Hobie filling out field reports while Batroc makes lengthy and improbable claims, like how he's really just as good a mystic as Doctor Strange and that he taught Captain America how to fight while he watches Latverian press conferences on CNN. And when the both of them go shopping and Batroc's making a total ass out of himself about getting some quality brie, you just know that Stilt-Man's got to rear his ugly head. Don't even get me started on the bizarre love triangle between Hobie, She-Hulk, and his estranged wife. Not to mention Hobie's strange encounter with the Gwen Stacy clone. Is the Marvel Universe a hoot or what?

...

(I think I'm starting to understand why no one wants to date me.)

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