"Here is where you are wrong, my friend. This woman has killed before."
"Allegedly."
"Okay, whatever. But she was a big girl. We are talking about a large, healthy woman of questionable stability."
"Oh, you are totally underestimating the never-say-die scrappiness of a survivor."
"Hey, guess what? Nobody cares who would win in a crazy fantasy fist-fight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden."
- Doc Hammer "Tag Sale, You're It"
"Come on! They have one female servicing a large group of males. That implies a species that lays eggs."
"Oh my God, you're crazy! They're so obviously mammals!"
"Please! She'd be in estrus 24/7 if she didn't lay eggs."
"Smurfs don't lay eggs! I won't tell you this again! Papa Smurf has a fucking beard! They're mammals!"
- Doc Hammer, "Are You There God, It's Me, Dean"
"Speaking to Spiders"
I moved into my new place over the weekend. It's probably too early to make this determination, but it seems very likely that the official nickname for the apartment will be "The Spider-Hole".
Now, I wanted to avoid doing any obvious comic book references. I wasn't going to call the place the Fortress of Solitude or anything so on-the-nose, but Spider-Hole is appropriate for non-Parker related reasons. First off, the ceiling has weird abuttments so that I actually have to duck when walking around to avoid banging my head in one corner of the place. Plus, I have flushed -- on average -- two spiders a day since I've moved in. Tonight, I'm going after a big brown spider hiding in a crevasse in the bathroom with a can of raid.
I feel bad about this, because on an intellectual level, I feel like I should get along with spiders. There is, of course, the Wall-Crawler connection. But on top of that, in my quest to explore my spiritual side, I've settled upon worshipping a certain West African trickster god who seems perfect for me. So much so, that a few weeks ago, I whispered a plea for help to an arachnid, and it seems as though said prayer was indeed answered, so I might just owe the eight legged little buggers.
The problem of course, is that on an emotional level holy fucking shit, there are goddamn spiders crawling around where I sleep!
"The First Son of Krypton"
Nic Cage and I have been on good terms. I liked him in Adaptation. I saw Family Man in theatres, and not because I was confused and thought it was a live action Seth MacFarlane flick. I even watched National Treasure last week and didn't think it was too bad. I haven't seen Raising Arizona yet, but it isn't his fault.
So of course, he had to go and ruin a perfectly good thing by naming his second born son Kal-El Coppola Cage. Now what am I going to name my son? If I name him Kal-El now, people are just going to assume I'm some crazy Nic Cage fanatic trying to model my life after him instead of a nice, normal guy with a healthy appreciation for the Man of Steel trying to pay a little homage.
But you know what? I'm not going to make this a big thing with him. It's not like he knew what I was planning or anything, right? Great minds think alike. We comic book fans shouldn't be dividing ourselves up over these petty little things. That's not what the Man of Tomorrow would want.
Besides, the lion's share of the blame for this debacle shouldn't fall at Cage's feet. Oh no. If this is anybody's fault, it's Erin Tuttle and Andi Dempsey's.
If Andi had had my 10,000 babies -- as I asked her to several times, and very politely mind you -- I could have beaten Cage easily on this. But I'll concede she didn't really owe me or anything. And let's face it. My Dempsey babies were really meant to be a simple drone army for my empire...
Now, in our first semester in college, on the other hand, Erin asked me if she could have my baby and never delivered. (Pun very much intended.) She never even came close to delivering, and that's the son who would have been my rightful heir to rule the empire and avenge my eventual death at the hands of crazed insurrectionists led by the dastardly and dangerous Prew-Prew Boo-Boo. That's the seed of my loins who would have been truly worthy to call himself Kal-El Tiberius Clark. He was my best bet at finally outstripping my uncle Kent in the cool Superman-referencing names department in the Clark family line.
And now the dream is dead.
So I just wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank you for screwing me on this Erin. You'll rue the day you crossed me. Rue.
"A Lifespan with No Cellmate"
Two weeks ago, I made a conscious decision to use my powers for evil.
I was in a conversation with somebody awhile back on just what superpowers I have. (You may be surprised to learn that this is a conversation I've never had with Caleb. I mean, unless you're Caleb, in which case you fully understand that this is the exact type of conversation we should never lower ourselves to have.)
So anyway, I've been giving some thought to what powers and abilities I have that are far above mortal men. What can I do a little bit better than others? I was told to consider writing, but I don't count that, as it's actually more of an acquired skill through years of training, like Batman in Tibet, and that doesn't count as a superpower in my narrowly defined terms for the purposes of this argument.
Eventually, I concluded that my only assets are charming lies and my powers of persuasion. I can spin a yarn that'll leave a smile on your face, and I can come up with surprisingly deft logical arguments for certain courses of action when I set my mind to it. You might not think that logical reasoning and a guy who talks to his Krypto plush toy like it's people go hand in hand, but you'd be surprised. I once pushed Justin Smith to the verge of selling his urine by using his own liberal biases to wedge a tap in his bladder. I tortured Brent into finally revealing his most closely held secret -- which was of course common knowledge to the rest of us -- on a two hour trip to Columbia in a fit of boredom. I got Caleb to submit to the logic of the puddle plan in a long night of mostering. (Actually, I probably can't count that, as he more acquiesced under supreme duress and really just wanted to go to bed.)
Now, in recent years, I've tried to use these gifts in relatively noble pursuits to little success, and I think I've finally figured out where I've gone wrong. These are not powers that really lend themselves to the do-gooder lifestyle. These are powers that, at best, could lead one to a successful life of tricking girls into sleeping with me and a successful career as a lawyer, political pundit, or other megalomaniacal mad man with delusions of grandeur and a passing interest in world-domination.
So far, it's been a little slow going. The transition from nebbish nobody to freakish force for evil doesn't happen overnight, but I'll get there eventually.
Ladies, lock your legs. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
"Fast Times in the Funnybook Field"
On what was undoubtedly my strangest night in the city, I was at a bar with Garth Ennis and Mark Millar. I didn't talk to them or anything, because after the terrible events of Wizard World Chicago 2000, I'm weary of what might come out of my mouth around comic book writers.
Besides, what am I supposed to say? "Duh, I wrote a paper about you for college... My friend gave me a "Fuck Communism" lighter for a graduation present, wanna see it? Here... I quote you on my blog, like, all the time... I really liked your picture, wanna go out with me?
Still, pretty cool.
Not quite as cool was two days ago when, while conversing with another aspiring comic book writer, I told him how proud I am of my blog, related to him -- in great detail -- the plot of the second episode of Tobey and Clark, citing it as both my greatest artistic accomplishment as well as my third greatest personal embarassment.
I also told a few people that, while I wasn't an artist, I'd pursued stick figures fairly seriously for a number of years, and they all told me the same thing: "Yeah, too bad Matt Feazell cornered that market."
Apparantly, there's this indy comic guy who's been publishing stick-figure comics for years! So my assertation that I'm America's pre-eminent stick-figure artist were as premature as...
Ug, I don't even want to finish the joke.
"Earl Has to Live!"
When I first saw a promo for My Name is Earl my immediate response was, "No, Jason! Oh hell no! Why?!"
So of course, it's my favorite new show of the season. What can I say? I'm slow. I didn't catch on to Ed or Veronica Mars until their first seasons were in summer re-runs.
My only question -- and one I'm sure has already been asked on the ViewAskew message board which I haven't been to in five years -- is how long is it going to take for Kevin Smith to do a guest spot on this show in a Mallrats reunion of sorts with Lee and Ethan Suplee.
"Paging Mr. Gonzales"
I find it highly ironic I should have this particular intimate affliction. Think about it. I'm a pretty patient guy. I never push my way to the front of the crowd, and I always hold the door and let people go ahead of me. It's a cosmic injustice is what it is.
NEXT:
Things Get Damaged.
Things Get Broken.
"Allegedly."
"Okay, whatever. But she was a big girl. We are talking about a large, healthy woman of questionable stability."
"Oh, you are totally underestimating the never-say-die scrappiness of a survivor."
"Hey, guess what? Nobody cares who would win in a crazy fantasy fist-fight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden."
- Doc Hammer "Tag Sale, You're It"
"Come on! They have one female servicing a large group of males. That implies a species that lays eggs."
"Oh my God, you're crazy! They're so obviously mammals!"
"Please! She'd be in estrus 24/7 if she didn't lay eggs."
"Smurfs don't lay eggs! I won't tell you this again! Papa Smurf has a fucking beard! They're mammals!"
- Doc Hammer, "Are You There God, It's Me, Dean"
"Speaking to Spiders"
I moved into my new place over the weekend. It's probably too early to make this determination, but it seems very likely that the official nickname for the apartment will be "The Spider-Hole".
Now, I wanted to avoid doing any obvious comic book references. I wasn't going to call the place the Fortress of Solitude or anything so on-the-nose, but Spider-Hole is appropriate for non-Parker related reasons. First off, the ceiling has weird abuttments so that I actually have to duck when walking around to avoid banging my head in one corner of the place. Plus, I have flushed -- on average -- two spiders a day since I've moved in. Tonight, I'm going after a big brown spider hiding in a crevasse in the bathroom with a can of raid.
I feel bad about this, because on an intellectual level, I feel like I should get along with spiders. There is, of course, the Wall-Crawler connection. But on top of that, in my quest to explore my spiritual side, I've settled upon worshipping a certain West African trickster god who seems perfect for me. So much so, that a few weeks ago, I whispered a plea for help to an arachnid, and it seems as though said prayer was indeed answered, so I might just owe the eight legged little buggers.
The problem of course, is that on an emotional level holy fucking shit, there are goddamn spiders crawling around where I sleep!
"The First Son of Krypton"
Nic Cage and I have been on good terms. I liked him in Adaptation. I saw Family Man in theatres, and not because I was confused and thought it was a live action Seth MacFarlane flick. I even watched National Treasure last week and didn't think it was too bad. I haven't seen Raising Arizona yet, but it isn't his fault.
So of course, he had to go and ruin a perfectly good thing by naming his second born son Kal-El Coppola Cage. Now what am I going to name my son? If I name him Kal-El now, people are just going to assume I'm some crazy Nic Cage fanatic trying to model my life after him instead of a nice, normal guy with a healthy appreciation for the Man of Steel trying to pay a little homage.
But you know what? I'm not going to make this a big thing with him. It's not like he knew what I was planning or anything, right? Great minds think alike. We comic book fans shouldn't be dividing ourselves up over these petty little things. That's not what the Man of Tomorrow would want.
Besides, the lion's share of the blame for this debacle shouldn't fall at Cage's feet. Oh no. If this is anybody's fault, it's Erin Tuttle and Andi Dempsey's.
If Andi had had my 10,000 babies -- as I asked her to several times, and very politely mind you -- I could have beaten Cage easily on this. But I'll concede she didn't really owe me or anything. And let's face it. My Dempsey babies were really meant to be a simple drone army for my empire...
Now, in our first semester in college, on the other hand, Erin asked me if she could have my baby and never delivered. (Pun very much intended.) She never even came close to delivering, and that's the son who would have been my rightful heir to rule the empire and avenge my eventual death at the hands of crazed insurrectionists led by the dastardly and dangerous Prew-Prew Boo-Boo. That's the seed of my loins who would have been truly worthy to call himself Kal-El Tiberius Clark. He was my best bet at finally outstripping my uncle Kent in the cool Superman-referencing names department in the Clark family line.
And now the dream is dead.
So I just wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank you for screwing me on this Erin. You'll rue the day you crossed me. Rue.
"A Lifespan with No Cellmate"
Two weeks ago, I made a conscious decision to use my powers for evil.
I was in a conversation with somebody awhile back on just what superpowers I have. (You may be surprised to learn that this is a conversation I've never had with Caleb. I mean, unless you're Caleb, in which case you fully understand that this is the exact type of conversation we should never lower ourselves to have.)
So anyway, I've been giving some thought to what powers and abilities I have that are far above mortal men. What can I do a little bit better than others? I was told to consider writing, but I don't count that, as it's actually more of an acquired skill through years of training, like Batman in Tibet, and that doesn't count as a superpower in my narrowly defined terms for the purposes of this argument.
Eventually, I concluded that my only assets are charming lies and my powers of persuasion. I can spin a yarn that'll leave a smile on your face, and I can come up with surprisingly deft logical arguments for certain courses of action when I set my mind to it. You might not think that logical reasoning and a guy who talks to his Krypto plush toy like it's people go hand in hand, but you'd be surprised. I once pushed Justin Smith to the verge of selling his urine by using his own liberal biases to wedge a tap in his bladder. I tortured Brent into finally revealing his most closely held secret -- which was of course common knowledge to the rest of us -- on a two hour trip to Columbia in a fit of boredom. I got Caleb to submit to the logic of the puddle plan in a long night of mostering. (Actually, I probably can't count that, as he more acquiesced under supreme duress and really just wanted to go to bed.)
Now, in recent years, I've tried to use these gifts in relatively noble pursuits to little success, and I think I've finally figured out where I've gone wrong. These are not powers that really lend themselves to the do-gooder lifestyle. These are powers that, at best, could lead one to a successful life of tricking girls into sleeping with me and a successful career as a lawyer, political pundit, or other megalomaniacal mad man with delusions of grandeur and a passing interest in world-domination.
So far, it's been a little slow going. The transition from nebbish nobody to freakish force for evil doesn't happen overnight, but I'll get there eventually.
Ladies, lock your legs. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
"Fast Times in the Funnybook Field"
On what was undoubtedly my strangest night in the city, I was at a bar with Garth Ennis and Mark Millar. I didn't talk to them or anything, because after the terrible events of Wizard World Chicago 2000, I'm weary of what might come out of my mouth around comic book writers.
Besides, what am I supposed to say? "Duh, I wrote a paper about you for college... My friend gave me a "Fuck Communism" lighter for a graduation present, wanna see it? Here... I quote you on my blog, like, all the time... I really liked your picture, wanna go out with me?
Still, pretty cool.
Not quite as cool was two days ago when, while conversing with another aspiring comic book writer, I told him how proud I am of my blog, related to him -- in great detail -- the plot of the second episode of Tobey and Clark, citing it as both my greatest artistic accomplishment as well as my third greatest personal embarassment.
I also told a few people that, while I wasn't an artist, I'd pursued stick figures fairly seriously for a number of years, and they all told me the same thing: "Yeah, too bad Matt Feazell cornered that market."
Apparantly, there's this indy comic guy who's been publishing stick-figure comics for years! So my assertation that I'm America's pre-eminent stick-figure artist were as premature as...
Ug, I don't even want to finish the joke.
"Earl Has to Live!"
When I first saw a promo for My Name is Earl my immediate response was, "No, Jason! Oh hell no! Why?!"
So of course, it's my favorite new show of the season. What can I say? I'm slow. I didn't catch on to Ed or Veronica Mars until their first seasons were in summer re-runs.
My only question -- and one I'm sure has already been asked on the ViewAskew message board which I haven't been to in five years -- is how long is it going to take for Kevin Smith to do a guest spot on this show in a Mallrats reunion of sorts with Lee and Ethan Suplee.
"Paging Mr. Gonzales"
I find it highly ironic I should have this particular intimate affliction. Think about it. I'm a pretty patient guy. I never push my way to the front of the crowd, and I always hold the door and let people go ahead of me. It's a cosmic injustice is what it is.
NEXT:
Things Get Damaged.
Things Get Broken.
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