The parts of the new Radiohead album that I like, I like a lot: the “no no no no no no no no” part at the beginning of “A Punchup at a Wedding”; the high-pitched ahhs when Thom mentions sirens singing in “There There”; the quiet “sha na na nas” also in “There There”; the lines about the Big Bad Wolf threatening Thom’s kids if he “squeals to the cops” in “A Wolf at the Door” (these lyrics are probably appealing to me because of the Law & Order obsession I’ve got). I just think a lot of it is kind of lifeless.

One more thing. Since this blog seems increasingly dedicated to talking about whatever Dirk Deppey’s talking about, I just want to call attention to his characterization of the upcoming young-adult romance comic Trouble, by superstar writer Mark Millar:

QUOTE: “Millar’s work reads like it’s [sic] job is to produce a hit comic which leads to bigger paychecks on better projects.”

I haven’t read the book yet, and I plan on doing so because books for this audience interest me on a professional level, but hoo doggy, has Dirk pinpointed a problem with much of Millar’s work at this point. Good God, has there ever been a smugger comic-book writer? Or one more convinced that everything he touches turns to gold, which in turn will enable him to touch more soon-to-be-golden things? His self-satisfaction with his own work and relentless broadcasting of same would make the Stan Lee who called Fantastic Four “The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” blush. There are a lot of great comics writers who evince a certain self-confidence in their own intelligence and abilities–for example, Alan Moore or Grant Morrison (Millar’s fellow Scotsman, as well as his mentor). But these guys are often making bold conceptual, stylistic and philosophical strides within their comics. Millar can write some killer superhero books (The Authority, Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates), but when all is said and done they’re straightforward, if well-written and “decompressed,” slugfests, the sole philosophical underpinning of which is some tedious kneejerk-liberal “the smart, humanistic thing to do would be to have the army hand out Girl Scout cookies, because this would solve all the world’s problems” sophomore-year dorm-room pop politics. Lately Millar has taken to complementing this smug style with ridiculous overstated would-be epigrams, which bare not even a tangential relationship with reality, in his columns and interviews: to paraphrase, “There’s no racism to speak of in Scotland,” “There are no indie writers today that can even touch the best superhero writers in terms of quality,” “Comic book writers will be the dot-com billionaires of the next decade,” and so on.

It’s probably titanically idiotic to poo all over the biggest writer in an industry I hope to work in soon, unless of course Mr. Millar takes the same turn-the-other-cheek approach he espouses in his comics, where, for instance, he has lead X-Man Cyclops “forgive” Wolverine for trying to kill him in order to steal his girlfriend and then expects us all to sit around and applaud this course of action as “the gateway to the future of post-humanity” or somesuch gobbledygook. Really my point is that I love 90% of every comic I’ve read by Millar–I’m just worried that his head’s getting so big that if he ever writes his autobiography it’ll have to appear in The Journal of MODOK Studies.

(Jesus God, was that ever an inside geekjoke. I apologize to everyone.)

Mrs. Collins will be gone doing some teachery thing all night tonight and all day tomorrow. What this means is that I’ll be eating Cherry Cola Mike & Ikes, Dominos Pizza (including those delicious Dominos Dots), and perhaps even TGI Friday’s Bacon & Cheddar Potato Skin Chips. I’ll probably end up renting movies with graphic violence and vomit in them and watch those too. Normally all this would be a lot of fun for me, but not when it means that I’m doing it instead of snugglin’ my special lady friend.

Awwwwww.

Anyway, if The Ring is good, I’ll let you know.

Read James Taranto’s first item today. You see, the secret to comedy is that it’s funny, because it’s true.

STOP REPRODUCING

CALM THE EFF DOWN

I’ve got to cop to a certain bias when it comes to talking about Led Zeppelin, because quite frankly, I literally can’t imagine what my young life would be like without them. From attempting to decipher the mysteries of my dad’s vinyl copy of IV to wading repeatedly through the 4-disc box set Zep produced in the early ’90s to receiving The Motherlode, The Complete Studio Recordings, while a sophomore in high school, my musical, mental, and even physical development are inextricably linked to the band, who in Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham had quite simply the best singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer in rock and roll history, period. Whether it’s epics like “In My Time of Dying” and “Ten Years Gone” or balls-out bullets of rock energy like “Heartbreaker” and “Living Loving Maid,” I’ve more deeply internalized Zeppelin’s music than any other band.

So words fail me when attempting to describe Led Zeppelin’s new triple-disc live album (are there seven more beautiful words in the English language?), How the West Was Won. This is because it is soooooooo heavy. Heaviosity, I realize, is an increasingly rare critical barometer of quality, but I find it as reliable as any other, and people, this monstrosity of rock is heavy. It’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” heavy. It’s “The Thing That Should Not Be” heavy. It’s “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” heavy. It’s, well, every song you ever loved by Led Zeppelin heavy.

Discovered during a trip through the vaults by Jimmy Page in preparation for the simultaneously released live Zep DVD, and consciously set up as an antidote to the band’s lackluster live album from the 70s, The Song Remains the Same (the record was left out of the Complete box, so if Led Zeppelin’s my religion in some sense, that’s the band’s apocrypha), the performances that comprise the album’s three discs were taken from post-IV, pre-Houses of the Holy shows in Los Angeles in which the band could almost literally do no wrong. I don’t know how many times that, upon listening to the live version contained herein of a Zeppelin classic I’d already heard three thousand times before, I burst into an irrepressible, idiotic grin. As if the lengths listed next to the tracks weren’t enough to get your rocks off (“Moby Dick”–19:23! “Whole Lotta Love”–23:07! “Dazed and Confused”–25:fricking25!), there’s the soul-crushing fury with which John Bonham pounds his drums during the opening riff for “Out on the Tiles,” which is used to kick of a searing rendition of “Black Dog.” There’s the warrior wails from Robert Plant throughout the album-opening “Immigrant Song,” which peel through the ether as though he’s reluctant to cut them short. There’s the unexpected ferocity with with Page, Jones and Bonham kick out the jams in the half-acoustic half-electric “Over the Hills and Far Away.” There’s the smile you can see in your mind’s eye, plain as day, on Plant’s face as he (one would assume) woos some pretty young thing in the audience by following up “Black Dog”‘s assertion that “big legged women ain’t got no soul” with the sly spoken admission “I could be wrong….” And, oh yeah, there’s “Stairway to Heaven.” (NOTE: When I saw Page & Plant close their first tour together in decades at Madison Square Garden some years back, they kicked off the 3rd or 4th encore of the night with the words “one more song!” Everyone thought it’d be “Stairway”; everyone was wrong (it was “Rock and Roll”). Hearing the infamous track on this record almost makes up for the taunt. Almost.)

Now that critics have decided that the highest calling in music is to rock with your cock out, as Zeppelin at their best so often did, dozens of sweaty bands in sweaty clubs in sweaty cities across America and the UK have been vying for “next big thing” status on the strength of their comparability to the big boys of yesteryear. One such band is NYC’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who’ve followed up an acclaimed and excellent eponymous EP with the new full-length Fever to Tell. Lead singer Karen O is often, and probably inevitably, the center of attention for this band, which is better known for her sex- and (literally) beer-soaked live performances than for any actual musical reasons. (The fact that the chorus of “Bang,” the song that kicked off the band

My boss is a big comic book fan. He’s also a sucker for tchotchkes: our office is so full of poseable action figure and ceramic statues and toy AT-ATs and such that it looks like Romper Room. Needless to say the combination of fanboyhood and disposable income leads to some intereting purchases, and Lord have mercy, the boss man has the gayest assortment of comic-hero action figures known to man. We’re talking glasses-wearing Tim Hunter from The Books of Magic, gothy Morpheus from Sandman, leather-wearing James Marsden replica Cyclops from the X2 movie toy line, black-spandex clad Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and Superboy’s friend Mon-El. He’s just a Robin and an Aqualad shy of being able to accurately recreate the back room of the Metropolis franchise of the Cock.

Once again I’ve got to cop to bias when it comes to a band I’m writing about: As I detailed in this post, the (one-sided, imaginary) relationship Thom Yorke and I have been in for the past half-decade appears to have reached the point of irreconcilable difference.* The point I was trying to make with that article was largely missed, I think; I’m not angry or enraged or indignant or anything like that. I’m just sad, is all, sad that from now on, every time I hear this band I onced loved so deeply, I’ll be reminded that they think I’m either terminally gullible or irredeemably ruthless. (Both may be true, of course.)

So it was with trepidation that I bought Radiohead’s much-anticipated new disc, the bluntly titled Hail to the Thief. Advance critical reaction, as usual, had consisted of the kind of oddly undescriptive superlatives that indicate that the critic in question a) remembers Lit Crit 101 and b) can’t make heads or tails of the record. It’s a pattern that emerged in some quarters with the electrosoaked Kid A and became pandemic with the even more difficult Amnesiac. Aside from the agreed-upon angry political over/undertones (it depends on which reviewer you’re asking), therefore, I didn’t know what the heck I was getting myself into.

What Hail is, despite the rage that underlies it, is a strangely inert document of a time in which Yorke and his bandmates felt increasingly helpless. This in itself is par for the Radiohead course–since the first line on The Bends, “You can force it but it will not come,” powerlessness has been the band’s stock in trade–but for the first time the music seems to reflect the lyrics, shuffling nervously and never attempting to break free of its largely self-imposed chains. Yorke, who is blessed with the world’s most angelic set of pipes and cursed with the face of the kid from Deliverance, sings every note seemingly until he runs out of air, from long soaring cries to short breathy gasps; it’s as though he’s gunning for the title of World’s Worst Breath Support. His vocals often slide into incoherence, sometimes with the help of electronic de-enhancement, which reflects his increasing desperation but also makes Tori Amos’s diction seem like that of Walter Cronkite. With the exception of the rhythmic, sharp-as-a-knife repeated line “I don’t know why I feel so tongue-tied” in “Myxomatosis,” the album lacks the kind of chilling vocal directness that made lines like “This machine will–will not communicate” from The Bends’ “Street Spirit” so disarmingly effective. Moreover, quiet, semi-acoustic numbers like “Sail to the Moon” and “I Will,” despite their Beatlesque titles and optimistic lyrics (“Sail” speaks of a future President knowing right from wrong; “I Will” swears to view the world through “babies’ eyes”), are no respite from the static, claustrophobic gloom. Compared to similar numbers from the band’s past, like “Bullet Proof (I Wish I Was)” or “How to Disappear Completely,” there’s no shelter here.

Indeed, in that regard Hail closely resembles its immediate predecessor, Amnesiac. On both records, the gloriously soaring, cathartic moments of the bands’ earlier efforts, be they quiet and heartrending or loud and mindblowing, are nowhere to be found. There’s no attempt to ruuuuuuun (“Creep”), no aching guitar pile-up (“Blowout”), no ironically triumphant claim that everything is broken (“Planet Telex”), no flying like Peter Pan (“Bones”), no saving of lives (“Airbag”), no everlasting peace (“Exit Music (For a Film)”), no glacial majesty (“Treefingers”), no spinning round and round and round and round and round (“Morning Bell”). It’s when you put Radiohead up against their own catalog that you realize what a monumentally tough act they are to follow, even when it’s them doing the following.

The album achieves its greatest success when it makes its few genuine attempts at forward motion. The acoustic-strumming strive of “Go to Sleep” evinces the same heady blend of musical optimism and lyrical cynicism that distinguished Jethro Tull at their best (which only an idiot would believe isn’t a hell of a compliment). The album’s best tracks utilize R&B rhythms and techniques, as in the defiantly groove-oriented first single “There There” (which, if it had first appeared on The Bends, would have blown people’s minds), or the pissed-off but subtle strut of “A Punchup at a Wedding” (probably the album’s best song, it simultaneously evokes DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt,” Isaac Hayes’s “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic,” and Neil Young’s “Southern Man”). The aforementioned ode to communicable rabbit disease, “Myxomatosis,” features a pulverizing synthbass riff so propulsive it’s frightening, as it should be given the song’s violent content.

Hail to the Thief ends with “A Wolf at the Door,” Yorke’s account of the threatening phone calls he receives from the Big Bad lupine entity of lore. Singing quite convincingly like a frightened child, it’s probably Yorke’s best moment on the record, but you can’t help but wish that at some point during the album he’d have bit the bullet and let the wolf in.

All of which makes the Deftones’ eponymous new album all the more refreshing. Their last album, White Pony, was what Kid A would have sounded like if after OK Computer Radiohead had listend to less Aphex Twin and more Black Sabbath. Sonically expansive and thrillingly experimental for the work of a band that got its start touring with Limp Bizkit, White Pony‘s highly textural and emotional epics were easily the most intelligent and rewarding metal songs this side of Tool.

Deftones takes the process of morphing its musicians from rapping nu-metalheads to bold experimentalists gloriously further. The first minute of its opening track, “Hexagram,” contains more visceral joy, rage and energy that practically all of Hail to the Thief put together. “Worship, play, play, worship,” chants lead singer Chino Moreno frantically, as though he himself can’t decide which to do. “Minerva,” with its ascending chords and gutwrenching screams of “God bless you all for the song you sang,” is the most emotionally affecting postmodern power ballad since the title track of Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile, and “Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event,” with vocals emerging from a lonely, watery place and a toy piano tinkling melancholically throughout, conjures up the bittersweetest adolescent memories you’d care to relive. And then, of course, there are wall-to-wall catharsisfests, like “When Girls Telephone Boys,” The overall product is one of intense emotional power, even at the album’s quietest.

Unfortunately, it’s an intensity too few music fans will experience. The Deftones have been largely ignored precisely by the kind of people who’d most enjoy them, primarily because of their long-time association with the baggy-pants crowd (Korn, Bizkit), their own frequent sporting of said pants, and the simple fact that they aren’t British. But the band has always admitted to musical influences that’d get booed right off the Summer Sanitarium stage, from Violator-era Depeche Mode to Pinkerton-era Weezer. Radiohead at their best also clearly shaped the band into its current brilliant form. With any luck, Thom will pick up Deftones on his next swing through the States, and the favor will be returned. It won’t be a moment too soon.

* (To digress for a minute, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Thom suggested that as bad as Saddam Hussein is, the weakening of the UN precipitated by the US and UK is worse. If I could I’d point out to him that the UN always did whatever the US (or, in its day, the USSR) wanted to do anyway, and that though it might now appear to be a counterbalance to the US’s power, perhaps an organization that puts Libya in charge of the Human Rights commission isn’t much of a moral arbiter. He also explained that the whole album stems from the sinking feeling he got while hearing the BBC report that Bush stole the 2000 election. I wasn’t thrilled about that at the time by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ll just say that if I were to record a politically-charged album between late 2001 and early 2003, I’d probably be focusing on a certain even that took place eleven months after that election. But that’s enough of that.)

Whoever’s in charge of Target’s advertising is a goddamn genius. Having worked in the business for a couple years now, I can tell you that ad campaigns that completely reinvent a company’s image and revitalize its sales are ridiculously rare. Cute clothes, hip music, punchy graphics, and voila–Target is now a place I shop at regularly. Well done. Also, they managed to use an Andrew W.K. (“Don’t Stop Living in the Red”) song in an appropriate fashion–i.e. unlike certain beer commercials (again with the commercials?–ed.) they don’t show a bunch of dimpy thirty year olds going to TGI Friday’s or whatever, drinking Coors Effing Light and playing pool and cheering for an NBA team and flirting with “hot” women while Andrew screams “IT’S TIME TO PARTY!!! LET’S PARTY!!!” in the background. That’s taking the name of Andrew WK in vain, people. When Andrew WK speaks of partying, he’s not referring to guys in khakis eating mozzarella sticks and flipping through Maxim–oh no. When Andrew WK parties, cars are driven into swimming pools–from the eighth floor of a hotel.

Anyway, I digress. Target ads good. But why, why, why are do they not sell clothes with the little red target logo on them? Does this not seem like a no-brainer to you? Those clothes are so cute! I’d wear ’em! Target, if you are listening, please make clothes with little red Targets on them. I don’t know how much clearer I could be about this.

Last night the missus, who is a middle-school chorus and music teacher, conducted her kids in their Spring Concert. It was a delightful evening, because she’s a brilliant educator and musician (she got multi-part harmonies out of sixth graders, people), and the kids are adorable and love to sing. Amy’s also around to correct any Christina Aguilera tendencies they might have, so there were no constipated facial expressions, flailing arms and pointless runs up and down the scale. Believe me, this is an achievement in and of itself in this day and age.

I bring it up not just to brag about how dope my special lady friend is, but because during the concert the woman in front of me began, quite audibly, to talk shit about my wife. Apparently she wasn’t happy with the grade her daughter was given (it had to do with very clear-cut violations of the absence policy and nothing more), so she began tearing into my old lady for the benefit of another woman in the audience. It took me a while to catch on, but eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. It culminated as Amy took the stage to begin conducting. “Look at her,” this broad said. “She’s miserable. She’s nasty.”

“She’s my wife,” I interjected.

Normally, one would think, when confronted with the fact that the spouse of an individual about whom one was talking shit was right there in front of one, one would smile awkwardly, murmur an apology, and shut the fuck up. Oh, but ladies and gentlemen, this is Long Island. And on Long Island, along with the God-given right to crispy bleached teased-up hair and an inexplicable attachment to lacrosse, people have the right–no, the duty–to continue talking smack about a person’s wife even when that person is right there listening and asking you to please stop. That’s right. After I called her on this crap, this miserable harridan not only explained to me how awful my wife was, but then after I turned around having had enough of it, continued the harangue several minutes later. And even then, after I turned around again to inform her that I can still hear her and that though I’m sorry she has a problem with my wife I can assure her my wife loves all her students and that at any rate there’s probably a more appropriate venue for these complaints than in the goddamn auditorium during the goddamn Spring Concert (I didn’t say “goddamn,” though–I was superpolite, since I didn’t want to make my wife’s life any more difficult than it already must be if she’s had to deal with this hag),she continued to inform me just what a sack of shit my wife is, and that she (the crone) has the right to talk about whatever she wants wherever she wants.

Listen. It’s a free country (and I told her so–boy, did she love that!), and I’m sure this (miserable ugly lonely pathetic shlub of a) woman is perfectly nice once you get to know her, and I guarantee you that whatever went down with her daughter wasn’t anything personal. But folks, maybe it’s just me, but if you are talking about what a shitty person someone is, and that someone’s husband or wife turns around and informs you of his or her relationship to the person in question, turn around and shut your goddamned pie-hole.

Seriously, man. I’ve been in fights before, like in high school or on message boards or whatever, where I figured I was as pissed as I could get. But believe me, it was nothing close to how mad I got at this loudmouth. Maybe it’s some sort of primitive instinct to defend your mate, but it really felt like my blood was on fire. If she was a guy (jury’s still out), I’d probably have slugged her.

Interesting postscript to this story: When I first sat down, carrying a big bouquet of flowers for the missus and not knowing this woman from Adam, she joked and smiled and was like “Oh, how nice of you to bring me flowers!” I joked and smiled back. Then I overheard her talking to her friend (who I assure you was mortified when I later turned around to shut her friend up and wanted nothing more to do with the whole situation) about how her husband (who wasn’t there) hasn’t brought her flowers in literally years. So no matter how many points she thought she scored off me during our subsequent confrontation, I could rest secure in the knowledge that she’s trapped in a loveless hell of her own design. Oh, dip!

As the end of this post by Kevin Parrott proves:

SENTENCES IN ALL CAPS WITH NO PUNCTUATION ARE ALWAYS FUNNY

DO YOU THINK I’M KIDDING

Some bits and pieces from throughout the blogosphere.

“If the Bush Administration Lied About WMDs, So Did These People”–says it all, really, but you’ve got to read some of the assertions by people who’ve magically transmogrified into doves now that a Republican’s in the White House. Via Instapundit.

Also via Insta, Howard Kurtz on the non-looting at Baghdad’s national history museum, and the lack of any corrections or apologies from the news media. To quote Jack White, I said it once before, but it bears repeating now.

(I would like to point out that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of what we heard about Iraq wasn’t true. One constant about government, all government, is that it lies to its people on a regular basis, and despite my support for some of the foreign-policy aims of the current administration, there’s no reason to assume this isn’t still the case. But basically you’d have to come up with a hell of a whopper to make me think that your dishonesty outweighs the moral necessity of ousting fascists.)

Little Green Footballs, meanwhile, has a chart documenting the countries that provided weapons to Saddam Hussein during his years in power, and–get this!–the United States isn’t even in the top ten! Who’d’a thunk it? I’ve always thought the anti-war “argument” that “The U.S. created Saddam Hussein, man!” was idiotic for an entirely different reason–as Christopher Hitchens often puts it, wouldn’t that double or treble our obligation to get rid of him?–but here’s a whole ‘nother way for it to be dumb. (Of course, this is not to say that we didn’t provide support in other ways–intelligence, for example; general handshakes-from-Rumsfeld cheerleading; and of course, oil revenue), but given the information linked to above, five’ll get you ten that we weren’t close to No. 1 on those lists, either. Our suddenly principled anti-war friends the Russians, French, and Chinese, on the other hand…

Speaking of the French, here’s another discussion (via LGF) of France’s various impending crises, this one focusing on the influence of radical, non-integrated Muslim immigrants. I’m a little uncomfortable with the way all French Muslims are tarred with the same brush by some of the people in the discussion, but it’s hugely important for European nations to come to terms with the problems posed by their Muslim citizens and non-citizens. Arabs are an ethnic group, Muslims a religious one, and neither should be discriminated against. But Islamists–radical, intolerant Muslims who believe in the subjugation of women, homosexuals and non-Muslims by any means necessary and who apparently are the most prevalent and vocal demographic group in many Muslim countries–are a political group espousing a violent, fascist ideology, and this has to be addressed. The problem, of course, is that some of the nations of Europe are cozying up to the Islamists’ bosses in the Middle East, and making excuses for them when their supporters kill people for speaking out.

(That, of course, was what happened in the Netherlands with Pim Fortuyn. Fortuyn was gay, and not just a little bit–he was a Wildean dandy. He disliked Islamists because–can you believe the nerve of this guy?–they think people like him should be executed. What a right-wing lunatic this Fortuyn was! And so he was assassinated by a left-wing activist who decried Fortuyn’s “intolerance.” This sentiment is echoed in the BBC obit I linked to above, which talks about how Fortuyn succeeded politically in the Netherlands “despite” its legacy of tolerance. Calling a political movement out on its stated aim–to institute sharia law and openly persecute homesexuals–is “intolerant,” I guess.)

Comics Activist Sean T. Collins Gets Results! From a comment on the comics article I posted at Blogcritics:

“I used to read comics, as a kid. I suspect there are lots of people like me, who put away what we perceived as childish things when we grew up. And still, at least once every couple of months, I daydream about a certain Fantastic 4 storyline that kept me up nights way back when…

“The sad part is, I’m even a geek who would have no trouble being seen with comics and so on, and I work right around the corner from a comic store. Guess how many times I’ve been in there. Go ahead, guess.

“That’s right, none.

“What’s my problem? I’ll swing by this week. Thanks for the kick in the pants. :)”

Got one! Thanks, Philip, and tell ’em Sean sent you!

Late last year I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. (That’s right–this blog isn’t some attempt to cash in on the popularity of Alan David Doane’s. Hey, we all know how that kind of thing turns out!) One of the symptoms of this disorder, aside from the fact that I can’t carry on a conversation if someone puts a cereal box with words on it in front of me, is that I procrastinate, because I can’t focus enough to actually do things that require any planning. Right now there’s a hella big list of such things:

* Buy a new cell phone to replace current broken one

* Buy new sneakers to replace current broken ones

* Set up stereo surround equipment given to us as wedding gift last August

* Order satellite TV now that our cable has been taken away

* Get JRR Tolkien-related tattoo

* Order wedding album from photographer (again, wedding took place last August)

* Buy laptop for which gift of money from parents for wedding was intended to provide

Here’s what we’re gonna do. Every time I actually do one of these things, I will let you all know. It’s gonna be like you’re right inside my head, struggling past the shiny objects that distract me (the new Led Zeppelin triple-live album, Kingpin issue one) and moving toward fulfillment. (In other words, don’t hold yer breath.)

There you go, referring to your “journey” again. Must I repeat myself?

While we’re on the subject, a note for the gentlemen of reality television: As a general rule, when wooing women on national television, DON’T GET SHITFACED

Over at Journalista, Dirk’s in the middle of a very thoughtful and interesting ongoing examination of Marvel’s publishing practices, and how they are trying, succeeding and/or failing at entering the “true mainstream” by breaking into the bookstore market and (or perhaps by) varying their output from exclusively superhero-oriented books. Today’s installment features an interesting examination of Brian Michael Bendis’s excellent Daredevil. Dirk’s theory is that though Bendis is a clever writer with a knack for the police procedural/crime drama elements inherent in the Daredevil character, he’s too smart for his own good: readers who might get involved for those aspects, Dirk argues, are inevitably thrown for a loop when ol’ Hornhead shows up in his red tights and beats up a flying guy named the Owl.

I definitely see his point–when you’re going, as Bendis is, for a more realistic style of story, the suspension-of-disbelief-heavy superhero elements might seem incongruous–but as usual, I think his supposition of an audience distrustful or disdainful of superhero conventions just doesn’t hold water. How much money do the X-Men, Batman, Superman films, Spider-Man, The Matrix, Buffy, Smallville, and (yes) Daredevil make, anyway? There’s something to be said for the “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition” angle–people picking up what looks like a straight noir book might be unpleasantly surprised when the superheroics start. But based on the sheer numbers of people who seem to dig superheroes just fine, surely the crossover audience exceeds that of people who’d forego a great story simply because someone in it wears a costume and fights crime.

I’ve often said that the anti-superhero camp in the comics world is just as cultish, irrational and unrepresentative of the world at large as the only-superhero camp. Dirk’s not nearly as far gone as many, but I think it’s a mistake to assume that superheroes are an obstacle. The fact that for the most part superheroes are the only game in town? That’s another story.

Goddammit, but everyone does cocaine. Ever since I joined a publication that chronicles the lifestyles of the young and the gorgeous, this has been probably the most surprising aspect of this new milieu I move in. You may not be aware of this, but I guarantee you, that actor you love? That actress you think is the next big thing? The band you really dig? The writer you feel like you know? They are all off their tits on blow. I do see the attraction to this lifestyle, insofar as everyone in New York City is doing bumps in the bathroom all the time, and so if you were to want to socialize in New York City it might behoove you to do bumps in the bathroom as well. (Indeed, one pastime my wife and I enjoy is estimating how much coke I’d be doing if I weren’t married and living on Long Island.) But as evidenced by the behavior of everyone from Colin Farrel to Marilyn Manson to the men and women of Fleetwood Mac, cocaine is nothing more or less than the world’s most expensive method of becoming an asshole. Lorne Michaels once said that cocaine is God’s way of telling you you have too much money (he should know), and I’ve got to agree with him. Can you imagine if all these line-snorting socialites spent their money on something worthwhile, like Bide-a-Wee or Fantagraphics? Instead, they’re out buying eightballs and assuring people how much they looooved their last movie.

On the other hand, cocaine is probably the number-one source of the renewed interest in Gary Numan records. So, carry on snowblind!

I meant to link to omnibus post by Instapundit on the “Bush lied about WMDs” canard a couple days ago, so here ’tis.

For anyone who’s done any serious study of the topic, the notion that the whole WMD angle was a sham is laughable. No one, except the Saddam Hussein government, argued that the regime was not pursuing a WMD program–not the Clinton administration, not the UN, not the French/Germans/Russians (that’s why the sanctions were still in place, duh–they couldn’t countenance actually removing them with such a threat still extant), not a single branch of the military/state/intelligence departments. The regime was never, ever going to just “give up” trying to get those things. It was either end the regime, or maintain a genuinely Orwellian perpetual Cold War of no-fly zones and punitive sanctions that hurt primarily average citizens who had nothing to do with the WMD program, and which were being countervened by the duplicitous regime, as well as by countries with ever-increasing smuggling ties to Iraq’s oil, such as Syria and Turkey (and, yes, France, Russia and Germany).

Besides, if you were going to just fabricate a reason to go to war out of whole cloth, wouldn’t you pick something that wouldn’t necessitate your administration going on the Sunday talk shows week after week insisting that your reason was valid? Give Rumsfeld some credit–even if you think he’s a liar, at least acknowledge he’d be a good liar.

While we’re on the topic of anti-war bullroar, here’s a summary of the quote-unquote looting of Baghdad’s museum.

Finally, to those who say “It must be all about oil–we’re not intervening in the Congo/Burma/Zimbabwe/etc!” I’m sorry, but that argument does no good against me. I strongly, indeed almost maniacally, advocate using the military power of the United States and its allies to depose autocratic regimes and end human rights abuses. Indeed, aside from the direct defense of American lives, I can’t think of a better use for our brave, genuinely heroic armed forces. Which is why a) When Paul Begala says (as he did on a recent Imus show) that no amount of saved Iraqis is worth the death of one Marine, I weep for American “liberalism”; b) I’d be tickled, in a perverse way, to see how the “what about the Congo?” crowd reacted if we were to move in to prevent an atrocious Third World disaster like that. I guarantee you that if a Republican’s in the White House, he’d get compared to Hitler for doing so. As someone–Victor Davis Hanson, maybe?–put it, some people seem to feel it better for nothing to be done than for the right thing to be done by the “wrong person.”

Don’t feel too bad, Bill–I didn’t make the list either…