Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Apparently the site is shitty on iPad; I fiddled with the code (LEET HAXXOR, remember?) and maybe I did something. Give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else.
(Also: is this just an iPad problem? Anyone view the site on a non-Apple tablet?)
Is Twitter just finding out?
If you never dance,
You’ll not miss a step.
If you close your eyes,
It’ll all go away.
You don’t know if she wants to kiss you;
Better to not take the chance.
If you don’t have company,
No one ever leaves.
Never try and you won’t fail.
Never try and you can’t fail.
Never try and you’ll still fail.
Keep your heart in its original packaging;
You’ll get your security deposit back.
This is a terrible Super-Team, honestly. I can’t even see these four agreeing on a name, let alone getting anything done. There are a number of different agendas going on, plus Galactus would eat the earth the first chance he got.
Electro (this is the old comic book version, who was white and had the coolest costume ever, not the movie version, who was black and sucked) is pretty much just a bank robber with zappity powers. This should give you an idea of how dumb comic books were back then (and still mostly are today): the guy controlled electricity and he used this ability to rob banks at noon.
Luke Cage and Doctor Strange are both getting their intellectual properties serviced this year, Strange in a movie and Cage on Netflix. Is this racist? Maybe a little, but Doctor Strange needs a lot bigger effects budget than Luke Cage: the Doctor battles demon dimensions and has a Cloak of Levitation and goes to Tibet, while Luke mostly hangs out in Harlem and punches people.
Luke Cage was Marvel’s stab at Blaxploitation: he’s just Shaft, except Shaft wouldn’t wear buccaneer boot. (Superheros were big into buccaneer boots.) Luke was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, and volunteered for an experiment while in prison that gave him super-strength. Basically, Super-Shaft. Lately, the character’s been allowed to wear human clothes and turned into an actual human being and an Avenger; he no longer uses a chain as a belt.
These are Toy Biz Marvel Legends: for the first time in the ’00’s, Marvel finally got some good toys. They were big hunks of well-sculpted (mostly) plastic with a good heft to them and many points of articulation, plus it wasn’t just Spider-Man and Cap every time. The figures came out in waves of five or six; you’d get one superstar, but the rest would be obscure weirdos like Captain Britain or Deathlok which no one wanted to buy.
So Toybiz got smart: starting around wave 8 or 9, they included a piece of a larger figure in with each individual toy. It was called a Build-A-Figure. You had to buy the entire wave to make Galactus, which got pricey. In Toy Biz’s defense: HE IS SO FUCKING COOL. (Also, the strategy was faulty: with a gnarly and super-desirable BAF like Galactus, you could put some real scrubs in the wave and people would still buy them, but I just looked and it’s Nightcrawler, and Professor X, and War Machine, and First Appearance Grey Hulk. Later on, they had shitty BAFs like Mojo* and the characters were Longshot and Psylocke. I ain’t buying Longshot and Psylocke.)
(As to what this is apropos of: I collected this junk for years and they’re sitting in a box in my closet. Gonna sell them on Ebay, I think, so I have to take pictures of them all. I won’t subject you to the whole thing, unless you’re entertained by it. I think I’m opening this one up to a vote. Every landowner over 18 is entitled to a vote, and the poll tax can be paid by clicking the Donate Button.)
YOU COULDN’T FUCKING HELP YOURSELF, COULD YOU?
In my defense: name another daily Dead-themed satirical blogs that could wrap up a post on children’s toys with a poll tax joke.
…
Yeah, kinda.
Right? Worth something.
We need to have a talk.
We’ve been talking for years.
Yeah, about that.
That’s what the asshole from the record company looked like. Not Bobby Cannavale. He wasn’t the hero.
Also: holy shit, Darlene Love.
I’m suing.
What is it now?
I was given no input.
Into the blurb on the back of David Browne’s So Many Roads, available for pre-order in softcover right over there on the sidebar?
Yes.
Just wanted to know what we were going to be getting wrong.
That was some good book-pluggin’.
I do what I can. Anyway: what’s the problem? Do you feel the blurb was taken out of context and misrepresents your feelings about the book?
Not at all. Loved the sucker. Gonna do a whole day on it when I get my softcover copy.
Why are you such a whore for free books?
I like it when the UPS guy comes. It makes me feel important.
Sure.
Here’s the thing: I can beat that. I can do better. David Browne should have given me another crack at it. I’m not going to ask him to have the whole run of the softcover pulped.
That’s good.
I shouldn’t have to ask: he should do it because it’s the right thing.
It’s weird how you think networking works.
Hey, Norman Mailer used to headbutt people at parties.
Are you comparing yourself to Norman Mailer?
Norman Mailer was a fraud and boor and plus he had curly hair. Never been a good writer with curly hair.
…
I actually can’t think of one.
Comment Section will come up with it.
Sure.
I just wish he had asked. I have a whole bunch that are much more complimentary than the one he used.
Such as?
“David Browne’s So Many Roads cured me of cancer. I had face cancer and then I made out with So Many Roads for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then I didn’t have it anymore. The cancer.”
Holy shit.
No?
Wow.
That was a warm up.
Take your time, but let me interrupt to mention that David’s book is immediately to the right.
Where?
—————->
Oh, there.
If you’re gonna screw around, then I’m not playing. If you have a good blurb, then let’s hear it.
Fine. “If Garcia were alive, he would love So Many Roads, but it would have a different last chapter.”
That’s a bit dryer than called for by the blurb form, don’t you think?
Yeah, maybe. Okay: “So Many Roads has all the stories a Dead Book is legally required to have, but also a lot of new stories, and they are written well; there are pictures, too.”
That’s not a blurb, that’s a statement of fact. Blurbs are effusive.
You’re right: “YAAAAAAAAY”
Too effusive.
I’m trying to calibrate my effusion here, man.
Neither of those.
Try this: “Within the pages of David Browne’s So Many Roads is a series of clues that when deciphered lead to treasure.”
Is that true?
Well, I didn’t ask David, but I would assume it wasn’t.
Then you can’t write that.
Why not? It would sell a ton of books!
It’s a felony. I’m not sure which, but one of them. Maybe several.
Fine. Better idea: “So Many Roads is only a book about a semi-defunct choogly-type band on the outside. This book is actually the LOST TWILIGHT NOVEL!”
Same felony, chief. Can’t do that. Exact same concept.
I like it when you call me chief.
Are we almost done?
One more: “Buy this book or I’ll hunt you down and stab you in the asshole with a pen.”
Yeah, we’re done.
WAIT WAIT WAIT.
…
Yes?
“The superfluous “e” in David Browne’s name stands for ‘Excellent book about the Grateful Dead.'”
We’re done.
“Get in my bus!”
I don’t know, Bill Walton.
“Ya gotta. Bus comes by and you get on.”
I know the lyric. It’s just that I don’t think you know how to drive that thing.
“How hard could it be?”
Hard. Pretty hard. It’s a ten-ton, 40-foot vehicle.
“Don’t worry so much. Jump in. We’ll go to Funkytown.”
That isn’t a real place.
“This isn’t a real conversation.”
Notwithstanding.
“Funkytown has the best Thai food in the world. I don’t know what makes Thai food funkier than other cuisines, but it must be, because that’s where you have to go. C’mon, get in my bus and we’ll go to Funkytown for Thai food.”
I don’t want to do this anymore.
“Then we’ll go to a dance club and talk to girls.”
I don’t go to dance clubs.
“Every club I go to is a dance club.”
Sure.
Alembic only made one keyboard, and the first time someone played it, all the pregnant women in the area turned inside out, so they concentrated on guitars from then on
This is the 2CV6, Enthusiasts. Not the original French workingman’s car, but the updated (just a little bit) version Citroen introduced in 1970 and made for 21 years. It had a 602cc engine that produced 28 bhp. (You don’t need to know what those numbers mean, just know that they aren’t enough.) It has ridiculous French windows and a ridiculous French suspension and a ridiculous French transmission.
But you can roll the roof back. It’s a rag-top. Remember rag-tops? No giant Mercedes motorized hard-shell top that weighs 500 pounds, no whirring gears that break every year: weatherized canvas. The French do the little things right. (The big things they completely botch, but the details are always beautiful.)
And if you’re wondering why those people are so darn friendly? Yup, you guessed it: Canadians. (Although most of the Canadians around here have plates from Ontario or Quebec; these folks were Nova Scotians, which is a hell of a drive. Also: I didn’t understand a goddamn word the guy said when he asked me for directions.)
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