"The Loot!"

So, I have a newfound respect for Superman. No, don't worry; I still kinda think he's a douchebag as a hero, but there is something I've come to admire about him. You see, we're led to believe that Superman, unlike Batman, wears his suit at all times under his clothes.

Well, yesterday, I ran out of undershirts, but being the little preppy momma's boy that I am, I simply COULDN'T leave home undershirted (hehe, get it?). So, I decided to use the next best thing: Under Armour. Yup, not only is it compatible, but you also get that compression action (which comes in handy when you've gained 10 stress-related pounds in the past month!).

Yup, I thought I was a frickin' genius. I had beat the system. And then Hour 5 rolled around, and I wanted to kill myself. Kids, spandex is not your friend. Especially when it's under other layers of clothes. I wanted to run into a bathroom and strip down simply to let my skin breathe. But I didn't think i could get away with it without A) looking like a fool and B) exposing my secret identity.

So, his woman sucks, his city sucks, and his hometown sucks, but as far as his ability to withstand the 24 hr pressures of spandex, well, Supes gets an "A" in my book.

Posted by William @ 9/29/2006 06:01:00 PM
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"The Warrant!"

So, I have to say, watching the final clip of The WB gets me all choked up. C'mon, Michigan J. takes a bow for the last time! I mean, it's easy to talk trash about that network, but it truly DID define a generation. It may not have been YOUR generation, nor particularly one that you liked, but it's branding power was unsurpassed. I mean, this is shown by the fact that it officially went off the air. It had a mission to say farewell to its "creations", for lack of a better word. What did UPN do? Nothing. They shipped "Smackdown" over to the CW affiliates, and quietly shut their doors. Why? Because UPN never formed an identity. There was a time when it wanted to be "The Star Trek Network", but it found itself, instead, being the "Crappy Trek Spin-Off Network". I mean, anytime a network has to cancel Star Trek, in THIS day and age, a franchise that can survive in SYNDICATION, there is a problem.

Sure, The WB bounced around to find its place. There were the early days when it was The Wayans Bros Network, and every show was black except for 7th Heaven. Man, I would LOVE to have been a fly on the wall at those initial launch parties. I'll bet it was like when a White family accidentally wanders into the ghetto. You've got a young Beverly Mitchell & a surpringly-simian Jessica Biel being sized up by John Witherspoon and that guy who played Nick Freno.

After awhile, though, UPN said, "Wait, we want some Black people, too!". And our buddies at The Frog said, "Good riddance, you can have 'em!". And that's how we ended up in the situation where UPN's biggest shows were Girlfriends and Smackdown, while The WB was a STARMAKER. No, don't laugh. That network simply MADE stars. You might not've thought much of them when you first saw them. I remember thinking, "Man, those Wayans'll never be as famous as Keenan Ivory." Or "Man, I really wish Jamie Foxx would get as famous as he deserves to be." Or even "I really think, with some work, that girl who plays 'Mary Camden' could be kinda hot." And it was like the WB read my heart, heard my wishes, and made them a reality. Need further proof? Watch that final clip (it's all over youtube), and you'll notice a familiar celebrity right before Michigan bows: Jamie Foxx. Say what you will (especially you, 'Diz), but this network helped that man get an Oscar. It kept him working and making the connections that got him in Any Given Sunday, which led to Ali, which led to Ray. Sure, he was on "In Living Color", but he didn't get movies back then. That changed with The WB.

Sure, it was the Abercrombie & Fitch of networks, but that was its thing! You want an Aaron Sorkin show to succeed, you take it to NBC. You got a show that's loose on plot, but full of pretty kids, you take it to The WB. For instance, I LOVE One Tree Hill. I mean, I actually bought the season sets. But that show has no real plot whatsoever. I feel like I'm watching "Swans Crossing" all over again. What would've made an above-average afterschool special about the effects of teen pregnancy and the pressures of high school baseketball on affluent white kids, is now entering it's fourth season! That's syndication level right there, and that's where the real money comes in. It's The WB, baby. It could do no wrong.

Sure, there were a lot of misses. A LOT of misses. But you know what's weird? The WB ONLY knew how to make stars. It didn't know how to resurrect has-beens, nor did it know what to do with people who had achieved some level of stardom. Remember "Kirk"? I do. There was no way, especially since he started evangelizing, they were gonna revive Kirk Cameron's career. Robert Townshend's "The Parent'hood"? That pale attempt at The Cosby Show trudged along for a couple of seasons, but Townshend, surprisingly, had too big of a name. If a show had any cast member that you'd EVER heard of prior to the show, The WB had problems promoting it.

BUT, you get a show, cast a busty chick named Nikki Cox, whose previously acting was "the blind girl" on a couple episodes of California Dreams, you had a hit. Who cared if it was "Married...with Children: the Remix". That show lasted 11 years, so surely this would last half of that. And it did. Make a show about some REALLY old looking 15 yr old in Cape Cod, who wants to direct films. Hire a bunch of cute kids who talk about big things. You have a hit. Hell, completley rip off the X-Files and cast a bunch of Abercrombie models. You have a hit.

The WB also learned the value of "keeping it in the family". The Disney Channel does the same thing. Say you have a guest star, who's really charamatic and the audience seems to love him. Well, cast him in his own show. We already know the people love him. Who cares what the shows's about. We need a pilot shot, and we need it yesterday!

Plus, I've got a secret for you: I always wanted to be a cast member of a WB show. Why The WB? Because of the friggin' backlot! It was always a party. In every promo, Keri Russell might be leaving the "Felicity" set and grab coffee with Allyson Hannigan from "Buffy". It seemed like such a communal atmosphere. They let us into their world, but it also gave off the impression that they were people too, who were young, cool, and loved interracting with each other. I mean, who WOULDN'T love the idea of hitting on Soleil Moon Frye after she came off a long shoot on "Sabrina"? When those kids weren't working, it seemed like there was always a party, and a singing cartoon frog to boot! Oh, man, I'm about to say "Dubba, dubba, dubba, dubba, dubba, dubba, double-yoo-bee, YEAH!"

For these reasons, and many others, I will miss the WB. Aside from what you saw on the screen, there was a lot of magic in the process that so many people take for granted. Whether or not you liked what it did, you still have to admit that it did "it", whatever that might be, well. Now, looking at its metamorphosis, "The CW", I don't feel that much is going to change. In all honesty, it's still The WB, just with Black Sunday. Kinda like in the old days. So, I hope that it continues to be a starmaker and I hope that we are simply closing a chapter on a story rather than the entire book. Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.

Posted by William @ 9/22/2006 07:35:00 PM
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"OOooooh! The Chase!"

So, I know it's been awhile since I've blogged. The reason for that is inability. Say it with me kids: "inability". You see, I'd been stealing wifi from my tech-saavy neighbors, but they're either dead or moved away under the cover of night because that nice, fast, sexy, free signal has gone the way of the dodo. And I had dial-up, but it made me want to stick things in my eyes. So, I cancelled the service (NetZero SUCKS), and was ready to sign up for the Comcast Triple Play, only to learn that it's not available in my area. So, I'm either going to get DSL or crawl back to NetZero. In the meantime, I've decided to be ballsy, and for the first time (well, second actually), I'm blogging from work. I know I've promised posts on this and that, but I've either forgotten the juicy stuff, or my heads just not there at the moment. What I DO wish to speak about, however, is Marvel Civil War.

For the noncomic readers, "Marvel Civil War" is a big crossover event happening in the world of Marvel Comics. That's the company with Spider-Man & X-Men, but not Superman. On the same page? Good. So, the point of the storyline is to kind of mirror real-world events in the world of comics. Art imitatiting life, if you will.

It kicked off with a bunch of irresponsible teen heroes attacking an unsuspecting gang of villains. In the melee which ensued, a local elementary school was blown to bits, and 800 people of Stamford, CT, were killed. As a result, the government decides that superpowered people have acted irresponsibly for far too long and they should be regulated. They quickly pass the SuperHuman Registration Act, which must be signed by all heroes, villains, or vigilantes. If you've got powers and/or wear a costume, you've got to sign this bill. But the catch is that you have to reveal your identity to the government. If you're an orphan with no dependents, this doesn't mean much. But if you're Spider-Man, with an elderly aunt and a hotti-hot supermodel wife, both of whom would make great targets, you've got a LOT to worry about. The sentiments split down the middle, as half of the Marvel Universe agreed with the regulation, while half opposed it.

The Pro side is led by billionaire playboy Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man. He's what's known as a "futurist", and feels that the only way to avoided chaos is to go along with the law. Powers SHOULD be regulated, just as police and other enforcers are regulated. Under the law, he feels that heroes will gain the proper training and also be held accountable for their actions.

The Anti side is led by Captain America. I mean, his name says it all. He's opposed to the law because he sees is as a violation of civil liberties. It's the familiar "privacy vs. security" debate. With the passing of the law, he has gone underground with his own cadre who believe in his ideals.

Now, here's the problem. When Marvel set out to write this story, they claimed that both sides would be represented fairly. There would be no clear "right or wrong", as both sides would have their faults and points. But since the very beginning, the Pro side has been written like a bunch of assholes. Just as in reality, the message is being clouded by the followers. Now, most of the time i'm kind of middle-of-the-road, but when a school full of kids gets blown the fuck up, I say it's time to reveal some identities. I think the Pro side have a good argument, but they resort to dirty tactics. ****SPOILER ALERT****I mean, anytime a man clones one of his closest allies, from a strand of hair which he scraped off of his furniture YEARS ago, that sum'bitch ain't playin' fair. ****END SPOILER****

And Captain America is violating the law. Sure, he may not agree with it, but it is what it is. The other problem is that he could have worked with them and figured out another alternative, but the minute he got a whiff of what was going on, he kirked out. In fact, the Pro team just wanted to talk, to hear his side of things. And what did he do? He punched them in the face. Sure, I realize Cap is from the '40s, and he doesn't understand concepts such as "red tape" and "bureaucracy", but I'm sure they had civilized conversations back then. How could he not understand such a simple concept? Yet, it's still hard to get mad at him because he's Captain Friggin' America. And it seems to be human nature to root for the underdog.

So, after this week's issue, where the Pro side revealed they'd cloned a NORSE GOD(!), who killed a D-list Anti-side hero for "shock value" (Hell, even I had to wiki him just find out who he was), I'm left wondering: what are they even fighting for?

Each side is clearly past the talking stage. But it seems like the ideals have gone out the window. Now, it's just a pissing match. As much as I can agree with the Pro side, they're assholes and going about it all wrong. And as much as I understand the Anti argument, I don't get the feeling that their own members know what's going on. So, what could have had the epic effect of a "brother against brother" event has been reduced to a fanboy wet dream of "Wonder who'd win between Iron Man and Cap". Well, seeing as how 1940s science never taught you how to clone gods, I'm putting my money on Iron Man.

In any case, I guess I'm just kind of surprised at how quickly you can lose sight of the goal, and the fighting just becomes...well, fighting. Baseless, continuous, monthly, four-color fighting. And I'm not even sure I'm still talking about comics...

Posted by William @ 9/22/2006 06:34:00 PM
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"Something strange is afoot at the Circle K."

If my name is "The Crocodile Hunter", I damn well better be killed by a crocodile. I mean, it's only fitting for my legacy. Instead, what DID happen is the equivalent of Jeff Gordon being killed on the Beltway...

Posted by William @ 9/05/2006 07:38:00 PM
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