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Music industry scum, by Steve Albini

Mort Weisinger, who brought pop psychology to Superman

At Last, some comics reviews:- Booster Gold #42 & JL: Generation Lost #21

Ok, I know, I know, they are both DC titles, but what can I say? I love DC,  always have; the only other comics I felt any connection to as a kid were assorted 2000ad titles, their US (four colour)reprints and Judge Dredd spin offs, while the only Marvels I ever bought were incomplete instalments of stories, randomly picked out of the frustratingly tangled web of  interconnected  Spiderman & X-men comics, which I quickly found were at lot easier to follow in the British editions, shortly before deciding to not bother with them at all. I was also very fond of Viz, Electric Soup & The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, from around the age of 13 and until the market became flooded with a slew of instantly forgettable(despite the graphic and tasteless depictions of heinous shit they usually contained) "Adult Humour" magazines that began to appear across the UK, giving us all the chance to rediscover dear old  Frederic Wertham's POV, refracted through the  lens of the UK tabloid machine, but I digress......

Spoilers Below!




Booster Gold #42 & JL:Generation Lost #21

JL:GL #21
Judd Winick (Writer0
Fernando Dagnino & Raul Fernandez (Art)

I've decided to review these two comics together, basically because BG #42 has me wondering how JL:GL # 21 would be this week, were Keith Giffin still on writing duties for both books. I think the problems of having Booster appear in both titles concurrently were apparent at the outset, and could have been the catalyst for Giffen's sudden departure. To enjoy both, I need to switch to extreme suspension of disbelief mode and look at it as though both storylines are happening somewhere in the same year, rather than concurrently. Thanks to the time travel factor, this is a lot easier than it would be usually for me, as despite being a lazy, unpunctual, slovenly and inconsistent individual here on Earth Prime, I'm something of a stickler for continuity in my comics.
   JL:GL#20 ended up with Max Lord ventilating a Blue Beetle's skull for the second time, and so, for most of this issue we were led on a tour of the other character's reactions to the apparent death of Jaime Reyes. From the death inspired passion, ahem, igniting between Beatriz LaCosta(Fire) and Gavril Ivanovich(Rocket Red), to the reflections of Nathaniel Adams(Captain Atom)  on his loss of humanity, as Tora Olafsdotter(Ice) brought a candle to his dark night of the soul by reflecting that he will always be there to protect humanity as a result of the accident that gave him his powers; a thought which comforts her. As ever, Booster Gold had the trusty, but sarky,  flying robot, Skeets, as his wise counsel, uging him not to beat himself up over letting Maxwell Lord take away another of his closest friends, while reflecting on the overall damage Lord had done since his resurrection  in Blackest Night #8. All of this made for a genuinely affecting requiem; that is, until Jaime stood up on the last page declaring he has a plan to beat Lord once and for all. Now, I'm sure there are many who cheered as they reached this page, but  I was not among them. When DC promised to close the 'revolving door' around the infinite deaths and resurrections in their comics, I took it to mean we wouldn't be seeing any more deaths followed by resurrections within 6 months to 2 years. Having a character shot in the brain, only to be brought back  by the life support system in his weaponizsd bio-suit is a renege on that promise; the fact that it happened over two issues, before the character had a chance to have a funeral does not make the 'death' exempt in my view. Although I generally enjoy this series, sometimes I get the feeling Judd Winick has simply been treading water, providing plenty of consequence free dialogue and giving . Of course, another way of looking at it is Jaime's apparent death was necessary to finding out what's going on with Lord, as his attempts to separate him from the sentient Scarab(which makes him Blue Beetle) may have afforded them some leverage into the war machine the enemy is operating from. Despite the misleading premise of the issue, it was an interesting read, while good art, character development and banter continue to make this a title I would most likely stick with beyond the limited run of 24 issues.

Booster Gold #42


Keith Giffen, J.M Matteis(Absolutely able writers)
Chris Batista & Pat Oliffe(also amazingly able as artists)

 In Booster Gold #42, we catch up with Booster in the 25th Century as he continues the five year sentence imposed on him for stealing the time-bubble and powered suit that transformed Michael Jon Carter, shamed foootball  player , into Booster  Gold, cocky hero in the first place. His cellmate, 'The Perforated Man', after some totally transparent build up, turns out to be an older, diseased and insane version of Booster himself, who appears to be twisted and insane as a result of his constant time travelling.  There follows a neat little twist on the myths and theories of what would happen if time travelling versions of the same person share the same space in time as the two Booster's go at it with each other, each punch landing them in a different time zone, from the dinosaur era via Paris 1600, etc,  to a cliffhanger on the surface of our dying sun. It becomes clear that Rip Hunter has set this event up on purpose, though since we know that Rip is actually Booster's son and his father is alive and well(as seen in Time Masters:Vanishing Point #6 last month) we have to assume that The Perforated Man is an anomaly of some kind, possibly arising from DC's upcoming alternate future crossover event,  Flashpoint, which will see the entire DC Universe change beyond all reason and recognition, leaving one or two good guys to save the day, much like every other comics event really, but let's not moan before we've seen issue 1, at least! Chris Batistas art is nicely done, reminding me of Carlos Pacheco, with a little beautiful simplicity similar to  Francis Manapul's recent Flash output; and the Perforated Man/Old Booster reminds me of one of the Furies of Apokolips, I think its the slightly kinky(or kinkier than usual) head and face mask! I'm enjoying the narrative device here, that's a twist on the old 'Dead Man Tells His Tale In Flashback',  since Booster couldn't possibly be dead as he has returned to Rip's Lab, yet  still seems in genuine peril in the story he's telling, leaving us to wonder how they got out of it, and if the right Booster made it back alive! Anyway, I liked this as much as any past Booster Gold comics, and although I'm looking forward to the return of Dan Jurgens(who is never very far away from this 80's creation of his while at DC), I'll miss Matteiss and Giffen on the title. Maybe I'll seek out their Metal Men(which ran as a back up in Giffens Doom Patrol)when they wrap up here, providing the next couple of issues don't finally reveal them as the tired old hack writers they actually are, "Bwah, hah, hah, hah,"*


*See Justice League International/Europe, out now in TPB, folks!

Charlie Sheen: Real Gone Kid

"Take Me To The Hookers", This was the command Charlie Sheen allegedly issued to a Glasgow taxi driver way back in August 1997, as he began another night of legendary drug-fuelled mayhem, destined for the frnt pages; nothing out of the ordinary there, only this time it was in my back yard, the city I grew up in and which seemed as likely to be the setting of a real life adventure starring Charlie Sheen as I had of being in one of his movies. His subsequent mystery tour through the night of this town became legend in the murky worlds of this city's newspaper reporters, drug users, film crews  and taxi drivers . 

   The version I came to accept is as follows:-  having made his way to the hookers, he convinced an astonished streetwalker to take him to Easterhouse to seek out an "eight-ball" of cocaine. At the apparent  achieving of this end, he next had the driver take him to Mo's 24 hr Store in a bid to procure a roll of tinfoil and some Bicarbonate of  Soda (to make crack), although the "coke" ultimately turned out to be mere amphetamine(looking back, I wonder if his hotel room bore the brunt of his frustration there, and its perhaps just as well for the hooker she had melted back into the night).  The taxi driver, prostitute and even Mo's staff all weighed in with statements for the press over the following week or so and everyone had a good laugh, especially me as the absurdity of the tale really struck a chord with my sense of humour and understanding of  the city I love and hate in sometimes equal parts.  Actually, the day  before this episode, a friend of mine on the crew of Sheen's film, "Obit", had  told me of  a funny moment during a beak from filming. At one point someone had come up to Sheen to congratulate him on his recent rehabilitation, apparently he merely looked at the guy over his ever-present Ray Bans, and drawled "Sure".  These days, he doesn't seem half as funny as his talk of "Tiger Blood", "Princesses", "Warlocks", "Trolls",  "Rock Star Life", "Chuck-E-Cheese"(a reference to the creator and Exec-producer of  his hit TV show, along with some other bizarre and possibly anti-semitic nicknames) have entered the lexicon of today's media, while the internet is literally buzzing his utterly deranged and difficult to watch, much less understand,  behaviour.

    Heavily publicised incidents such as  the announcement of his three way living arrangement with his nanny and a porn star, a rant from rooftops while brandishing a machete, and his reveal of a tattoo stating 'Death From Above' etched onto his solar plexus has compelled him to attempt to explain it all away internet rants on  Twitter, where he has become the  fastest ever Twitterer(or is that just 'Twit'?) to  reach one million followers, and Ustream,  where he addresses his webcam on all manner of subjects, none of which I understood and most of which I ignored, except for a mind-bendingly awful 'skit' where he played both himself  in the style Apocalypse Now's  Colonel Kurtz,  and Chuck Lorre, in the style of a simpering version of Captain Willard, who was, of course,  played by Sheen's father, Martin(One hell of a Freudian slip).

   Charlie's internet activity seems to be an attempt to 'set the record straight' after a round of increasingly paranoid and frantic media 'exclusive' interviews failed to do so. His highest profile appearances have been on Piers Morgan Tonight and Good Morning America, but has he has played host to, or simply solicited the attention of scores of reporters, more often than not simply descending into an embarrassing diatribe about how silly he looked in some stupid shirts while being paid more than any other American TV star. On the Ustream 'shows', he more or less simply lets his disordered thoughts flow through his mouth in a style that has the unmistakable air of a manic depressive, using a sort of stream of consciousness that would put James Joyce to shame(and not in a good way). Looking  like Jon Snow would if  had spent the last ten days tripping on acid while attached to an IV morphine drip, Sheen is lost and somewhere in his heart he has to know it. Unfortunately he is surrounded by Bizarro people, and so his rare moments of coherence (which seem to revolve around deeply insulting comments about his former employers and co-workers) are lost in the rush to stroke his battered ego.

   

Amazingly, he does offer those from his former network that he doesn't actually despise the chance to come join him, and 'be on the winning side' which is nice, if a tad unlikely. Despite the clarity of his speech and cadence at times, his claim that he is happy to have been been fired, as he can now sue, speaks volumes. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fucking positive these statements will hurt his chance to sue the network for their "Gazillions", as he puts it. The addresses to his webcam touch on on all manner of subjects, none of which I understood and almost all of which I ignored(ironically while surfing the internet for something  more interesting and less awful, which I'm sorry to say never found.). The point of these pitiful broadcasts which seemed to be to portray himself as a mysterious and hardcore Warlock, and Lorre as a brainless, bean counting keyboard basher. Sheen is so sure of his power that he is to embark on a tour of America, bringing his wisdom to conference centres and mid-size arenas all over the US, where will this end?

*UPDATE* On April 2nd, it has been reported Sheen was booed off the stage at his first appearance, which is simultaneously surprising and somehow not. I'm fairly sure at least some of those booing must have turned up expecting him to be that guy from 'Two and a Half Men' Fucking humans, we're all a disgrace.

   The bad juju generating around Charlie Sheen at the moment is beyond my ability to perceive and process, including the truly sad separation from four of his children for their safety, by his two ex-wives. Perhaps elevating a man with a proven history of violence towards women and paranoiac tendencies to the status of Televisual Deity was a bad idea from the start. I don't particularly want to go on making a rubbernecking list of his seemingly endless low points, in fact my main point here is simply to ask why the man isn't being sectioned, or at least being helped to see how badly he has slid off the rails? Surely he has reached a point where his paranoia,  actions, reactions and expectations have merged to form  a perfect storm of impending doom, so why not an enforced period of rehabilitation and reflection? Is he too rich? Are too many people getting off on his one-man, two woman three ring circus?  Its a pretty poor reflection on humanity that when talented people like Amy Winehouse, Nick Nolte,  Robert Downey, Jr, Pete Doherty, and Britney Spears, and dozens more earn more money and column inches when their lives descend into chaos than when they are doing the thing that brought them to the world's attention in the first place. 

   

   As Sheen's latest drama unfolds, Mike Starr, former bass player with Alice in Chains has died of a prescription drug overdose, not long after his addictions had been broadcast as info-tainment on VH-1's Celebrity Rehab and Sober House, no doubt pushing up sales of his old band's first two albums.  This makes me wonder if Charlie Sheen will end up making even more money dead than alive, like Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley?   I believe that  if something happens to Sheen now, there will even be some dumb fucksticks  who believe that his destruction was caused by the powers that be "taking action" over his bizarre(and ironicallly internet fuelled) 9/11 theories(yep, he's been on that wacky band wagon, although that was a while ago now!!), rather than the drug addiction and destructive personality traits that were in place long before Al-Qedea ever thought of sending a different breed of delusional twat to flight school. I'm not saying here there aren't questions I wouldn't like answered about Building 7, the Pentagon plane, Gulf War II, etc. I'm just speculating that some folk will be more prepared to believe the wild conspiracies than the simple truth that there is a fine line between 21st century fame and the impulse which gave birth to Victorian freak shows.

     The nature of this peculiar style of 21st Century celebrity meltdown, where people watch a well known person descend into well of madness and personal hell, and have the cheek to ask "How'd this  happen?" when the path to each incident has been delineated very clearly on TV, the press and to an unprecedented degree,  the internet. In fact, the only reason I'm OK with writing about something so "Big in The News" in a blog I'm keeping pretty much private for now is the fact that in a Google search of "Charlie Sheen", this will come in at entry number 5,666,666,666. 

   On Ustream, the Twitters about him are coming in so fast that you can't even read them unless you let your finger hover over your mouse/pad/i-gadget to select them, the pico-second they appear. They say that in an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of keyboards, one would eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare, but I bet they couldn't come up with the tale of Charlie Sheen; that one could only happen in this reality.

 Back in 1997,  I felt my own interest in the  bizarre story of Charlie Sheen's night flight to a coke sting in Easterhouse was immature, and that the Glasgow press had went slightly over the top. Now I really know what immature interest and overexposure to celebrity culture really is.  For the record, I always thought Cusack was way cooler.

links to the 1997 episode:-

      1997 Daily record short version

1997 prostitute interview

What the fuck is Tiger Blood?

TV Reviews pt. 1 - Dr Who, Season 5.

 To my immense surprise, the fifth season of the 21st  century Doctor Who is actually highly enjoyable. Even the one with James Corden in it. To be honest, I'd written the show off almost entirely a while ago as a knee-jerk reaction to how insanely popular the show became. Once again, I'm forced to admit that something I've previously declared rubbish is rather good, and I'm actually a bit of a tosser for opining without enough knowledge of the facts. The first clue that I may have made a boo-boo here was when I learned that the show's new producer/head writer/guru was the same guy who had written season 3's excellent "Blink", and was in fact the creator of  "Press Gang", possibly the only CITV drama from my teens I'm convinced I would still enjoy today. If only they'd told me that at the same time as they were going on about "Coupling" as part of Stephen Moffat's CV, I could have been watching along with everyone else last year. Oh well, at least this way I got to see it all in a short space of time, sans ciffhangers.

 The casting of Matt Smith as The Doctor was once a less than pleasant surprise , but within two episodes the role becomes just as much his as it once was Tom Baker's or David Tennant's. The new companion, Amy Pond(played by the gorgeous Scot, Karen Gillan), is a surprisingly complex and realistic character. She even tries to get off with The Doctor without looking like a total slut, or dying ten minutes later. Other characters and actors are top quality also, Toby Jones, Tony Curran, and Meera Syal all make appearances and Alex Kingston as River Song pops up fairly often, while Mike Skinner (from 'The Streets'), and Bill Nighy have parts so small you could miss them if you went for a cup of tea(sometimes the Beeb's 'no ads' rule ain't all its cracked up to be.)
 A minor quibble is the attempt to turn the Weeping Angels into something more than the admittedly brilliant story gimmick they were in one previous episode. As much as I enjoyed 'Blink', and even the parts of the 'sequel', but I need to say I don't really see much of a future for these characters. Returning to positive spins, another element that appealed to me was true explorations of the nature of time travel, previously only hinted at in episodes like 'The Girl in The Fireplace' and the two/three/five Doctor crossovers(speaking of which, when will we get to see a McCoy/McGann(?)/Eccleston/Tennant/Smith event?) which are far more believable than the usual conveniently timed team ups we see in the series. It is entirely likely that, should time travellers ever run into each other frequently, (as they do in the DC universe all the time, so I should know!)  each incident would occur at different stages in the characters lives; hence the first time the Doctor met River song in season 4 was the last time she would ever see him, having spent a significant, and as yet unspecified, amount of her life with him. For a time traveller, things tended to happen in a very tidy, linear way to, and around, The Doctor. Stephen Moffat is clearly a storyteller who takes great pleasure in screwing with the audiences expectations, and being given the entirety of time and space to play with is a bonus for both him and us. Having said that, I am aware that the linear aspect has been necessary to keep the series coherent, its just nice to see it get messed with for a change.
 Finally, I just want express my delight with the whole 'crack in time' concept, possibly the best long-ranging concept to appear in the show since the mid-noughties revamp, and I say that as someone who nearly flipped with anticipation every time 'Bad Wolf' made its way into the show during season 1. Although the cracks seem slightly similar, the possibilities for the concept seem a lot better and bigger, and so it seems I never fully escaped those cliffhangers after all. Roll on Season 6.

Record Day Tuesday Duty(Trying to get back with it)Pt. 1 Armando - Downfall remix / Photek - Avalanche

Ok, in an effort to do something worth while with this blog, I'm going to be reviewing a couple of records each week, First up is an update of a track by an old favourite of mine, Chicago legend Armando. "Armando-Downfall(Jason Fernandez remix)" sounds nothing like the original, although that's probably the wisest choice, since most of the original 303 12's are pretty hard to improve upon. Instead, Fernandez builds up to a climax that's quite unlike the original after floating along in a spacey dub, with occassional mini breakdowns, each time increasing the pace with snare rushes and spacey synth yelps, completely (and wisely) understating the 303 of the original. To be honest I don't think I've ever heard an acid track remix sound better than the original, with the possible exception of Slam's vocoderific kickass rework of  "We Are Phuture" from 1996, and even then, it was so good because it was totally original while being suggestive enough of Phuture's 1987 original to provoke a lot of dancefloor fun and nostalgia. Although there are others in this remix package, including the always reliable Advent(which I've yet to hear, the Fernandez mix alone tells me the others might be worth a look, especially if, like this, they aren't mere "updatings" with samples of the original.
  For my second review, I've picked Photek's "Avalanche", my reason for doing so is that I've been led to believe its Photek's first true foray into dubstep and I'm eager to see if these tracks do for Dubstep and me what "Into the 90's" and "The Hidden Camera Ep" did for my eventual partial acceptance Drum & Bass. I have to say that, while i'm loving this E.P, it's not really Dubstep as I've come to know(and at times be confused by) it. The title track certainly has the "fast, but slower"element that Martin Hannet would no doubt be extremely heartwarmed to hear, but it really bears no relation to the "other stuff" I've heard(not being able to recall any names for now, except Slugabed, Ill Blu and Slack), being almost accessible as "Into the 90's", a title that is now totally retro, sob! "Slowburn" is another "as close as it gets without actually becoming" dubstep, that I imagine would work well as a builder, reminding me somehow of the Coil remixes of Nine Inch Nails.  "This City" is more my kind of thing, nice techy-house beats with warped speech samples and flanged up synth washes, helpfully supplied with nice clicky stripped down beat sections, all the better to mix with. "101" is similarly housey, though a bit more minimal, and is also the type of song I'd be far more likely to play out, unless Dubstep goes beyond saturation and all other styles of dance music become illegal(or people just refuse to dance to anything else), in which case you'll probably find me arguing with the 17yr old current crop of DJ's that they should at least accept Photek as "propah" Dubstep, so I can still play something I actually like, in a genre I don't fully understand. Actually, the Boddika Drum Machine remix of "101" sits perfectly between house and dubstep, and wouldn't sound out of place in a breaks or cross-style set by, say Plump DJ's or James Lavelle and contains some nice clear non-specific vocals. While admitting my ignorance to a sound I've yet to fully appreciate, I have to say that Dubstep(thank fuck it didn't stay as "Grime")reminds me of the origins of Drum & Bass, wherein the pioneers doubled the speed(or played 33's at 45rpm)of hip-hop records, except this time they forgot to take out the originals so now we have two records playing at compatible, but totally different speeds, to make a new and, to me, bizarre whole. I always knew someday "the kids" would come up with something I would basically understand, but still be unable to grasp. I just didn't want it to be true.

What is the point of this Blog?

At this stage, having not posted anything in a while, while in the mood to vent, I feel I ought to clarify my intent for any poor sod who has stumbled across this chronicle of bizarre opinionated neuroses. Basically, I am a writer searching for his 'voice', and writing blogs that aren't fully in the public domain, but are still 'out there' forces me to be at least halfway coherent, just in case someone does read it. Also, it won't hurt to have an archive of articles that record how I'm getting on at this stage in my life, to either throw away or reconstitute into something useful.
 I only got properly on the internet again about halfway through last year, having been violently set against the internet by the days of dial up, stupid fucking chatrooms and waiting half an hour to see fuzzy fucked up 5min porn pictures, etc.  I truly felt I could comfortably live the rest of my life without ever spending the night in front of a monitor, ever again. Of course, that was unrealistic, as everyone now spends a good few hours a week online:- watching TV, downloading/listening to music, checking e-mails, 'dating'/'social networking, pretending to be a simple alien weapon/toolmaker on a savage post-apocalyptic world of warrior races as part of the MMORPG community, encouraging some zit-ridden sod in Louisiana to end it all(or not), or simply monkey barring their way through pages and pages of utterly useless information. There's now a mind swirling assortment of choices on the internet, and its taking me fucking forever to decide or find out what's going to be worthwhile, and what's going to be an achingly dull and frustratingly pointless waste of time. I'm sure I'd love for everyone to be reading what i'm writing and agreeing with each other how fantastic I am, but I know in my heart that I'm not really saying anything too important at the moment, so I just keep the URL to myself for the time being. Once I'm more sure of what the fuck it is I'm actually doing(or trying to say), then I'll  attempt to lure readers in so they can get the full benefit of my whiny opining, but for now I'm happy just to 'build an archive', so if you've stumbled upon this by accident and have so little to do you've got this far, just let me say GET A LIFE

 

more excuses for downloading comics, when I know I'm being a cunt for it!

 One thing that leaps to mind when I need to defend this heinous practice is that  many a time I have tried to get Comic Shop Guys to allow certain titles to build up to 3 or 4 issues before I buy them. They will not do it. They act as though they cannot; as though the concept is harder to understand than quantum mechanics.Even if you explain, on a daily basis, what it is that you want done(and why), they just nod and say "Yeah", while thinking their interest in comics(or lack thereof)is cooler than the dopey customer making daft fucking requests in front of them.
 Every time I have tried to let a few issues slip by before buying, I end up with the dreaded number gaps in my collection, something I hate more than mere words can describe To geeks like me, the idea of counting up say 45, 46, 47, 48, then shock horror, what the shitting hell:-50!!!! easily brings out our inner Rain Man, and can result in sitting with a pile of comics on our lap, pounding our poor empty heads with another couple. .Therefore, I have taken to downloading certain titles(American Vampire, Knight and Squire, Batman Beyond, Ultimate Avengers, etc.)and waiting a few months to read them. I done this with Wonder Woman, the new weird re-vamp, alternate wotsit that's been going on and I have to say, if I'd paid for that shit, I would be unhappy about it, and for any one who says the writers are upset about the loss of money through downloading-J Michael Straczynski was so eager to get his, he dropped the the fucking title altogether, halfway through his big whatever the fuck he wass doing with it!