Old Man Wolverine

Why isn’t there a story arc where Wolverine is a slightly burned out suburbanite dad with a dead-end job? I mean, the man has been a sickly dandy, a samurai, a World War 2 veteran, a secret spy, a science experiment, a psychopath, an X-Man, a Canadian & other terrible things.  Property line disputes and prolonged bout of lawn mowing would cause anyone to freak out & does.

All that spy & scientific experimenting stuff was probably his midlife crisis.  He probably has a wife and kids in the Midwest somewhere waiting for him to return from the store.  

No this post is not about me, why?

Hey you kids.  Get off ma lawn, bub.

Stairway to Thanksgiving – High School Musical Reunion Special

Stairway to Heaven is 40 years old.  Black Sabbath is touring again.  The original Van Halen is working on a new record.  And the Rolling Stones aren’t dead yet.

Didn’t we used to listen to this stuff to avoid old people?

I received an email from my high school reunion committee inviting me to something called a “High School Reunion.”   These are not people in high school. These are people who have graduated from high school.   The purpose is to gather as many graduates from a high school in a given year for no other reason than to make them feel uncomfortable with each other again.  I’ve got family gatherings for that. There are TV shows & websites dedicated to people doing nothing but talking about and as I understand it, attending them.  Perverse, isn’t it?  

(In real life I am not so cynical that for a moment the idea gets the best of me.  Is this morbid curiosity or do I really want to go?)

Previously the only reunions I ever considered were TV related.  Your Keatons’, Bradys’, your Cosbys’, your Gilligan’s Islands’.  I’d only watch them for reasons I assume are universal:

1) To see “old friends” and revisit old times.

2) To see if there’s any of that old chemistry.  Failing that…

3) To openly gawk at the ravages of time.

I’m not sure staring at strangers is an experience I’d pay for, more likely sit in the studio audience for.  Participating is for Jerry Springer contestants.  For anyone attending the reunion I want to assure you that it’s OK to stare at each others startling weight gains.  Other than that I’m not sure that’s enough to justify the plane ticket, costly New Jersey roadside hotel with glass chandeliers and fake marble columns reservations at $100 per plate roast beast / cherries jubilee and/or the extended false pleasantries.  Besides, I’ll probably see them again if I watch Jerry long enough.

(And fountains.  Nothing says klass like porcelain fountains!  I’d forgotten about them.)

The other sticking point is NJ.  A natural resource of Jerry contestants.  If you’ve seen Snooki, you’ve know what I mean.  Jersey Shore commercials are nearly enough to turn me orange.  The reason they slap on a coat of orange is to hide that New Jersey is just a leper colony for New York.  Don’t let the stereotypical bravado fool you.

The bright orange skin is a sign of those desperate to hold their fading youth. It is a dead giveaway.  Don’t call them The Situation.  Call them The Desperation. No Willie Wonka styled persona or promise of a lifetime supply of chocolate to offset the disturbing  Oompa-Loompas found there.  Although maybe that’s how everyone got so fat?

I like Stairway to Heaven on its own merits.  It’s great. I intensely dislike it when placed in the awkward frame of preliminary drug usage and our attempts to make it significant by playing that song. Again & again & again. An attempt to take the Rock Gods by their frilly lapels and tell them at once that we are still cool.  A notion that only a 15-year-old can take seriously.  A notion pretty much confirms you are not.  I dislike that some are still trying to prove their youth decades after the fact by drunkenly slurring the lyrics at the top of their lungs like it’s a magic spell that’ll return them to the days of simplistic optimism. To actual youth.  A time they prefer over the good things they have & good things to come.

I am still friends with a few people from high school. These are people I genuinely like and I think they manage to like me.  But I likes my past in the past. Where it’s harder to idealize.  I don’t want my memories trussed up in a party dress, hanging in a gymnasium, pinned and bloodied like Carrie White’s gym school teacher. Though that might brighten things up.  I’d still decline going, unless it’s set to music. Nah. High school already is a gothic teen horror set to music.

Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,

madmonq

Hipocalypse

I was at a bar called “Highwire” last night.  Had there been a fire, half of the Athens, Georgia hipster population would have been wiped out.   Like when Genosha was attacked by Sentinels, reducing Earth 616 to, like, all the good-looking, interesting mutants.  That was a good story. Grant Morrison.

Building sized robots are always cool.  Always.

Quentin Quire is a jerk. 

How in the hell can they afford the drinks in that place anyway?  Aren’t they all supposed to be broke?

remember, remember the 5th of november is a saturday when the bank lobby is closed

November 5th may have a very nice “V For Vendetta“ ring to it to but it’s a bad day to ditch your favorite bastard multinational bank. Saturdays are usually the day when the teller section is closed.

That’s what you get when you ask anarchists to plan something.

That said ANY day is a good day to exercise your God given right to capitalism and move your money to a friendly neighborhood credit union or bank. Use the system that millionaires & billionaires use everyday. The system politicians, lobbyist and other lawyers are using against you.

Drain them of the only power they’ve got with what little power you have: Your money.  We might be poor, working class or middle class but we’re going to do what they are incapable of. 

Stay classy.

Bank of America threatens Foreclosure over $1

V for Va Va Voom!

America’s Next Top Dominatrix: Ann Jemima

Ann Coulter says about Herman Cain: ‘Our Blacks Are So Much Better Then Their Blacks’

Yeah Ann Coulter.  All 3 of them.  Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele and Herman Cain.  And Republicans did their best to demonize then get rid of Steele as RNC head.

So that leaves them just two: Clarence Thomas & Herman Munster McCain.  By Ms Coulter’s logic, starting in the 1990s (and decades after the civil rights movement), Republicans gave an African-American male Favored Persons Status.  She should be proud but I doubt it’ll give her Log Cabin Status, more like Aunt Jemima Status:  An idiot caricature from an ancient and ignorant time that still exists to sell a product.

Aunt Jemima's Doctor Who-ish changes from the old to...

Oo Lawdy I shaw do loves me some golf courses, 'Publicans & ma-yo-naise! Yes suh I does!!!"