Comics

February 28th, 2006General4 comments

I want to talk some more about the UCLA Hammer Museum’s current Masters of American Comics exhibit.

Seeing these early comics before they were watered down by marketing and decades of recycling is pretty amazing. The early Peanuts were, like Dave says, very “Calvin and Hobbes”-like — with a lot of personality and wit.

“Little Nemo”, one of the earliest comic strips (from the first decade of the 20th century) was incredibly surreal, approaching Salvador Dali levels of weirdness. In his dreams, Little Nemo’s bed legs grow into jelly-like stilts, carrying him all over the city:

Little Nemo.

In his original comics, Popeye was a really dumb brute. There’s one newspaper strip in the exhibit where Olive Oyl disguises herself as a competing male suitor (to test Popeye’s love for her); and Popeye punches her out. Then he beats her up. It’s pretty crazy.

By the way, cartoon violence has been going on forever — ever since cartoons were first invented. Dick Tracy blows holes in villains with a machine gun; his hair gets singed off in a firey explosion. Popeye beats Wimpy to a bloody pulp. He’s literally lying in a pool of blood and surrounded by hamburger pieces.

There’s this “Garfield effect” caused by time and marketing that dulls an originally sharp and witty comic strip down to a boring, humorless piece of coal. “Garfield” itself was hilarious when it first appeared (I used to love the wide-layout book collections as a kid), but now it’s the comic strip equivalent of a mayonnaise and wonderbread sandwich.

Gary Larson and Bill Watterson were so very, very right to let their comic strips cease at their high points. Comic strips shouldn’t be immortal just like people shouldn’t be immortal.

Sawtelle

February 27th, 2006General7 comments

Sawtelle facing south. Giant robot store on right.

My favorite street for ramen, Japanese goods, and Hipster-spotting. Seriously, if a Katamari ball rolled through Sawtelle, it would be composed of noodles, gashapon, and horn-rimmed glasses.

Lloyd has a good rule for determining if someone is a Hipster: Ask them if they are a Hipster. If they get mad at you, then they are probably a Hipster.

I sometimes wonder if I am a Hipster. I have large glasses and carry a Hipster PDA.

I do like seeing Hipsters wander around though, pushing up their glasses and carefully examining independently published comic books. I like to see them with their Hipster girlfriends, buying Kogepan stationery for writing love letters.

There are two types of people that hate on others because of their clothes:

The first type are wealthy, brand-conscious people (Banana Republic, Nordie’s, Abercrombie) who smugly hate on those who dress oddly or differently.

The second type are oddly or differently-dressed people who smugly hate on those who wear brand names.

Both types of people are still mentally stuck in high school.

I hate no one except for Hitler, and he’s dead. So all is well over here.

Sawtelle power lines, maximum contrast.

So I got HBO again (see Sopranos story far below) and my TiVo picked up the original Pee Wee Herman Show shot live at the Roxy in 1981 or something. It’s essentially a full-length Groundlings show with lots of little sketch bits.

I had seen this when I was a kid, so seeing it again was really great. Phil Hartman plays a crusty old sea captain. There’s singing and dancing and the jokes are really great. This thing’s worth a rental if you can’t find it on cable.

What’s also great is the original Pee Wee movie directed by Tim Burton — this is probably my favorite Tim Burton movie of all time, with “Edward Scissorhands” coming in close second. The Danny Elfman soundtrack by itself is fantastic. I just heard “Breakfast Machine” again in this video for apple nerds, and it brought a ton of memories flooding back in.

Kentucky Fried Protest

February 25th, 2006General2 comments

I had lunch at KFC today. Meanwhile, there was a Peta protest in front of that particular restaurant.

Now, I love animals. I have many dogs as friends. So I can see where they’re coming from. However, KFC wins this battle vs. Peta in my heart and mind for these reasons:

“Death is cruel. Everything that we eat for food has to die,” said one smirking KFC customer today as he watched the protesters from inside. Eating meat involves killing animals. There’s no way around that. Is it morally correct? I don’t know. Is it healthy? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Is it delicious? Totally.

Pamela Anderson, God bless her, is okay in my book. But she’s not someone I’d consider a political role model. The Dalai Llama, yes. Gandhi, yes. MLK Jr., yes. Because all of these people are champions of great social causes. They all fought to bring the attention of the world to the suffering of their people. Pamela Anderson was on “Baywatch”. Which brings me to my third point:

You know who people are really cruel towards? Other people. Everything that is being done to a KFC chicken is being done to some poor soul somewhere in the world. Torture, starvation, and genocide are being perpetrated on other human beings right now, and for reasons far less important than the procurement of food. Can we work on that first? Because, frankly…

People are more important that animals. I can’t stress that enough. There are some who would argue with that, but if I had to choose between saving the life of a person and that of a pig, I’d choose the person. Why? Because people can create art, music, and stories. They create culture and have imaginations. They invent things. They fill the world with humanity in the spiritual sense. And that’s a good thing. It even outweighs our inhumanity.

Finally, KFC is delicious. I love it. It tastes good and it’s horrible for my health, but it’s yummy. I eat there once every two weeks or so, which is already probably too much. But if you’re going to protest KFC, protest it for its labor practices, its unhealthiness, its environmental impact, all these things that actually affect human beings.

I love animals. But I love human beings even more.

Subconscious

February 24th, 2006General0 comments

I noticed that when I approach an escalator that isn’t running (switched off for maintenance or whatever), for a split second I visually perceive it to be moving — like those spiral optical illusions.

Anyway, I have found that the escalator steps always appear to be moving towards me — i.e., I’m going the wrong way. I have to will my foot forward to get myself to step onto a perfectly still escalator.

I’ve been trying to figure out what this means. Does everyone have this sort of optical illusion, or is my subconscious just really negative? Am I afraid of escalators?

One thing that it makes me realize is that my mind perceives things in a hierarchical manner. When I look at a broken escalator, for a split second my mind still perceives movement only because my mind associates escalators with movement.

Stairs don’t move, and therefore I don’t get the optical illusion of stair steps moving against me when I look at them. That only happens with escalators.

Thus, my mind must already be subconsciously primed to know how an escalator works. It triggers that optical illusion based on the visual recognition of an escalator.

What would be interesting is to test this theory. What if I were to subtract the visual elements from an escalator? Would I still get that optical illusion?

Like, if I were to remove the black rubber handrails, would I still get the illusion? What if I replaced the metal steps with wood?

At what point in this deconstruction would my subconscious mind stop visually perceiving an escalator as an escalator?

Enough nerd speak! Let’s talk about videogames!

I currently have an Xbox 360, a PS2 and a PSP. March is set to be an awesome month for videogames, what with the new Tomb Raider and Ghost Recon coming out. Also Katamari is coming out on the PSP.

I love videogames. They let me turn off my brain and relieve my stressors.

Also, books, movies, and TV are like our shared cultural dreams. So are videogames. Except in an online videogame we’re sharing the same dream. And we can kill each other in a friendly manner.

Plus videogames tend to closely approximate my own sleeping dreams, where I’m usually jacking cars and punching blocks to make mushrooms appear.

Krazy Kat panel, 1937.

There’s an awesome exhibit going on at the UCLA Hammer Museum right now: Masters of American Comics.

We went to check this sucker out yesterday, and it was the best thing I’ve ever seen at the Hammer. They’ve collected original Popeyes, Dick Tracys, Krazy Kats, and Peanuts comics — many of them surreal, hilarious, and still very fresh.

What I learned was that the 1930s were dominated mostly by cartoon mice throwing bricks at the heads of cartoon cats.

You could spend hours looking through this exhibit and reading everything. It closes on March 12th, so you should hurry if you want to check it out. By the way, Thursdays are free!

Reviews

February 23rd, 2006General2 comments

The reviews are out in Minneapolis for the regional production of “Cowboy Vs. Samurai” — and they’re glowing, baby! Congratulations to the cast, crew, director and producers, as well as the company. Nice work, folks!

“Nimble, conversational and contemporary… Funny yet sweet.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A smart script with lots of laughs and plenty of poignancy… Delves into questions of identity, prejudice, and the complexity of love that will resonate with audiences of all backgrounds.” — TwinCities Pioneer Press

“With a solid cast, this promises to be the kind of topical social commentary with a sharp tang of humor that Mu does well.” [An A-List Pick!] — CityPages

A Nerd for All Seasons

February 23rd, 2006General3 comments

The word “nerd” used to only mean one thing: A guy with thick glasses who was good at math and dressed badly. The Fonz’s definition of the word “nerd”. Revenge of the Nerds.

But now there are lots of different kinds of nerds. The definition seems to be changing from someone who is obsessed with formerly nerdy things (math, physics, computers, anime) to someone who is obsessed with anything in particular. These things can even be things that are not traditionally nerdy. For instance:

• Weed Nerds are people who subscribe to High Times magazine. They show centerfold clippings of sweet, sweet multi-hued buds to their friends. They obsess over growing methods, ordering instructional DVDs. They own heat guns.
• Fighting Nerds are obsessed with no-holds barred ultimate fighting. They read Sherdog.com and download videos of fighting over the internet, and interviews with fighters in Japanese. Wrestling Nerds may be grouped in this category, especially if they jump off of their parents’ roofs and elbow-drop onto their friends.

There are Gun Nerds, Gym Nerds, Sports Nerds, Train Nerds (who chafe at being nicknamed “Foamers” by the MTA because they start foaming at the mouth whenever they talk about trains), Motorcycle Nerds, Music Nerds, Car Nerds, Fashion Nerds, Drama Nerds, Film Nerds, Poetry Nerds, Dog Nerds, Cat Nerds, Horse Nerds… I bet there are even Sex Nerds (people who collect strange sex toys and vintage pornography).

The Internet is a huge driving force in Nerd-dom because it fans our obsessions by allowing us to connect with other, like-minded and equally obsessed people. It also gives us access to tons of information to feed our hobbies. At no other time in history have we had so much access to gigantic mountains of totally useless information.

So what I’m trying to say here is that is no one who isn’t some kind of nerd these days.

Like Anthony Edwards pretty much said at the end of “Revenge of the Nerds”, we are all nerds. We have met the nerd, and he is us.

I would like to meet a woman who is a Golamco Nerd.

The Devil

February 22nd, 2006General0 comments

Chicago Columbian Exposition, 1893.

I got back into the habit of listening to audio books while I run. I just finished “The Devil in the White City” — a non-fiction about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and a serial killer named H.H. Holmes who ran amuck during the the festivities.

(Yes, he named himself after Sherlock Holmes.)

I noticed that I absorb the audio book more easily if I look down ahead of me at the pavement while I’m running. This completely eliminates distracting visuals (like the blinders on a horse). I also like to picture the words actually printed in front of me. It’s kind of comforting for me to visualize them.

I seem to take in the information fairly well, although my mind sometimes starts wandering and the audio book mixes in with my thoughts. Strange items start appearing on my mental To-Do List — things like “replace gaskets on steam-powered locomotive”, “make donation to Work-House”, “buy moustache wax”.

So the reason H.H. Holmes was able to kill so many people (mostly young women) and get away with it was because 1) He was a wealthy “doctor”, perceived by many to be of too high in community standing to be culpable, and 2) Because it was so darned difficult in 1893 to find someone that was missing.

These days people get mad at you if you don’t have a cell phone. They want to be able to call you and bug you any time they want.

But back then, someone would move to another city and you’d get letters from them every couple of weeks. If the letters stopped coming, then you’d start worrying. Of course, once you started looking for them it might be too late.

Also, with no forensic technology, barely any record keeping, and a Victorian society that couldn’t comprehend the idea of a person murdering someone for no-good-reason, it was fairly easy to make people disappear.