Alexander

I was going to make the "Giant-Sized Man-Thing" joke! I always wondered if Marvel and DC ever considered engineering a Man-Thing/Swamp Thing crossover. They probably did, and then thought: What's the point?

"She ran the gamut of emotion from A to B." - Dorothy Parker on Katherine Hepburn

Thanks for your wishes. Fortunately, we caught it right away (she got the tick bite less than a week ago, and we took her to the doctor as soon as the bullseye mark appeared on her arm). She's taking antibiotics twice a day for the next twenty days, and according to the doctor should suffer no ill-effects (since she hasn't yet shown any symptoms). With any luck, this should blow over.

I didn't have a very happy 4th. Let me tell you what happened: My wife and I took my daughter (who was just diagnosed with Lyme disease, by the way) downtown to see the fireworks last night. All went well for the first part of the evening. My daughter was very well behaved as we waited for it to get dark. A few minutes before the fireworks were to begin, I realized that I really needed to use the bathroom, so I got up and picked my way through the huge crowd to where the porta-johns were. Once I got there, I realized that there was no way in hell that I could wait in that long line and get back in time for the fireworks to begin, so I turned around and started back. I decided to find an alternate route. One that wouldn't require me to push my way through the crowd. I managed to get parallel to where my wife and daughter were, but was stopped by security. Apparently, the stretch of grass I needed to cross was off-limits. So I turned around again, it was quite dark by this point, and headed back to the porta-johns. Once there, I forced my way back into the crowd (which had closed ranks in anticipation of the fireworks about to start) and stepped over and around people (excusing myself all the while) trying to get back where I needed to be. By this point, the fireworks had begun, and I was getting a little anxious. It was now too dark to see faces, and I was concerned that I might overshoot my family and get myself lost. At this point, I was halted by a big, fat, drunken idiot who refused to let me by. Every time I'd say, "Excuse me, I need to get by" he would ignore me. I started pushing my way past him, and he turned on me in a rage. "What the hell are you doing?!" "Excuse me! I need to get by." "Don't you push me!" "I said 'excuse me' several times. You wouldn't let me by." "What the fuck are you doing walking around during the fireworks anyway?" "I'm trying to get back to my family!" "They left! They couldn't wait to get away from YOU!" "Would you let me by, please?" "Make me!" "I'm not dealing with this anymore..." With that, I started pushing my way through once more. The guy handed his beer to a friend, and started swinging at me. He caught me on the side of my head, in the neck, the shoulder, and in my ribs. I didn't hit back, but started grappling with him to keep him from hitting me any more. We struggled for a moment, and I found myself pushed into the crowd (knocking a few people over in the process). I recovered myself, and moved away. By this point, people had made room for me to get where I needed to go. I made it back to my wife, who asked me if everything was okay. I said, No it wasn't. I had just gotten into a fight. Well, I felt like I really shouldn't have been up and pushing my way through the crowd when I was, so I felt at least partially responsible. However, a little later on, during the fireworks, we heard an altercation behind us. The guy who had hit me was now fighting with somebody else! I didn't feel so bad after that. It wasn't that I was being rude: He was just an asshole! I'm at work right now, and sore as hell.

Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic here. A good fit, I think. Especially if I'm the Lee/Kirby Reed or the John Byrne Reed.

I was just going to make the Whitfield/Gaye comparison myself, Jim. I've also read that Issac Hayes made Sam Moore sing at the top of his range on all of the Sam & Dave hits, and it nearly drove Moore crazy. I just picked up "Something Cool" based on this thread, and I must say that it pleases me!

I've heard very little Herbie Mann, although I do have at least one recording with him as a side-man (Sarah Vaughn with Clifford Brown, I think). Which album was the one with that ungodly picture of a bear-chested (or perhaps even nude) Mann? Possibly one of my least favorite album covers of all time.

I've been a Faulker fan for many years. Oddly enough (given the opening post) "Sanctuary" has always been a favorite of mine. A real Southern Gothic thriller, and I've always thought it was make a great movie (it's actually been made into a couple of films, but they haven't been very good). "The Sound and the Fury" is a classic, of course, and I've always loved "Light In August". Damn! I'm going to have to reread some Bill Faulkner! I also LOVE the movie "To Have and Have Not", and one of the reasons is because of Faulkner's work on the screenplay. Faulkner rewrites Hemingway! I love it!

I went for "Imperialism," although I'm surprised you didn't include a "Ok, if its the "Liberty Bell March" Used as The Monty Python Theme."

I go for Jefferson. Hamilton was a prick and an elietist. It's a damn good thing he couldn't become president.

I once saw a program on TV in which they showed a hybrid Lion-Tiger called a Liger or Lyger. It was born of a male lion and a female tiger. In anycase, the point is this: In lions the gene that controls growth (ie: stops it from growing beyond a certain point) is passed through the female. In tigers, the same gene is passed through the male. Anyway, in this hybrid (which is sterile) there is no gene to control its growth, so this is the biggest cat you have EVER seen! HUGE!

This is a chestnut, but my wife still insists that Sting is singing "I'm a pool hall ace" instead of "How my poor heart aches" in "Every Breath You Take." I once saw an article in the paper on misheard song lyrics which claimed that the line "I've got my eggs and my pancakes too" in Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me" was really "I've got my head and my back-aches too." I've never seen any proof either way, but I insist that my hearing (eggs and pancakes) is right and the other is wrong. The second version makes no sense! The complete line is "I've got my eggs and my pancakes too. I've got the maple syrup, everything but you. I break the yolk and make a smiley face. I kinda like it in my brand new place..." Now if the line was really "head and back-aches" instead of "eggs and pancakes", why would she be talking about maple syrup and yolks? I ask you? And no, I don't really like Jewel, I just heard that song on the radio so many times I memorized the lyrics. And I refuse to admit that I'm wrong, which I'm sure many here knew already. So what say you? Eggs and pancakes or head and back-aches?

In case anyone cares, I wrote a column about the Crouch contraversy last month... Crouch Column

How ironic! I was feeling a bit depressed this weekend and decided to rent some movies I knew would make me feel better. One of them was "The Philidelphia Story," which I actually haven't gotten around to watching yet. I'll have to watch it tonight in Kate's honor. I always thought that she was the one actress who would've played a great Lois Lane...

Nothing to compare with scorpions or giant centipedes (the centipedes we get around here are small and harmless. They just look like walking eyebrows and give you the willies). I did once have a close encounter with a yellowjacket nest at summer camp (I was pounding tent stakes into the ground and hit a nest. They got pissed, flew out and stung me ten or so times in my leg). I also got ran over by a rat while lying in the grass outside a hot-dog stand (something, a cat or a dog, must have been chasing it because this was in broad daylight). One summer, my family stayed in a beach-house in Virginia. When we first arrived, we all put on our bathing suits and charged into the bay. As I ran by, a local girl drawled, "Watch out for the sea nettles." I stopped in my tracks, and watched as my father, mother, and little brother all ran into the water...and came out a few seconds later covered from head to foot in little jellyfish. The water in the bay was calm, and apparently this was the time of year for jellyfish to congregate. You had to go somewhere where there was surf in order to avoid them. Then there was the time I went over to a friend's apartment (my wife was out of town on business and his girlfriend was out of the country visiting relatives). He had just moved in, and was very concerned about a scratching noise behind the fridge. I kidded him about mice, but as we watched TV we kept hearing the noise. Finally, I looked over and saw a HUGE bat flying straight at my head. I yelled, "Shit! It's a bat!" and ducked. So there we were: Two grown men running around an apartment, waiving our hands in the air and screaming like little girls. Not one of my most dignified moments. Finally, there was the time my wife came into the bedroom early one morning and declared dramatically: "I think I just killed a squirrel." Apparently, it ran past her in the hallway and she drove it under a step with a broom. I went and looked (in my bathrobe, I believe), and saw that the squirrel was not dead, but very scared. I tried to lure it out the backdoor, but to no avail. Finally, I got out the phonebook to find the number for animal control. The listing said that before 9 AM (and this was about 7AM!) you had to call 911. Mortified, I dialed 911 and told the operator: "Yeah, I know this sounds crazy, but I have a terrified squirrel in my back hallway?" She laughed and said: "That's nothing. I got a call yesterday about a spider." I had to wait until after ten for the animal control guy to show up, and when he did, he just picked the squirrel up with his bare hands and dropped it into his net. He took it outside, and tried to release it onto a low roof next door. The squirrel, literally frozen in fear, just rolled off the roof. He caught it in his net, and tried again. Again, the squirrel rolled off. Finally, the guy just left it on the ground and eventually it got up and ran away. The animal control guy turned to me and said: "You know, I've never seen a squirrel that scared before. It must have been a baby, because if it had been an adult, it would haved just died from fright." Those are my animal encounters.

It's not?!?!?! Gosh, and I thought it was real!

If there are any aspiring artists out there who'd like to collaborate, I have some ideas for comic books/graphic novels. You can be the Dave Gibbons to my Alan Moore!

"The rapper's latest stunt adds to a catalogue of incidents that have secured his status as one of the most controversial figures in pop music today, leading George W Bush to label him "the most dangerous threat to American children since polio". Man, I LOVE it when Republican politicans feel the need to take on popular entertainers. George W. vs Eminem. I like to see them head to head in a free-style rap competition... Krazy K (aka Karl Rove): Yo! Give it up for the man of the hour, the man with da powa, the one and only G to the Ezzo, O to the Rizzo, G to the Ezzo! Dubya! BUSH! Dubya: Check it out, y'all! I got the court in my pocket, goin' straight out to da moon like a rocket, give a shock like yo finga in a socket, try to ban prayer in school, yo I block it. Keep the congress on my finga like a yo-yo. Givin' props to my homes on the down-low. Doncha wanna mess aroun' wit my veto, zappin dems out the sky like Han Solo. Krazy K: Yo! Tell em' George! Dubya: Smoke Saddam wit my nine, yo I pop it. Gonna invade Iran next, you can't stop it. Gonna send dem all to they Prophet. Etc, etc.

The Michael bit is silly, but I really like that last picture! Good idea, doubling up the images of the Beatles looking over the balcony. That would make a great dorm poster!

I LOVE the Python "Cheese Shop" skit! Thanks for posting it, Sidewinder. I needed a larf. As to the question of American Cheese, I don't touch it normally, but for some reason I really like it on cheeseburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. I'd rather have cheddar, ultimately, though. It's the single most popular cheese in the WORLD!

I like Chet Baker's singing AND boxing!

I voted no because even though I consider myself a pacifist, I actually like boxing. It's the only sport I really enjoy, actually. There's SO much more to boxing than two men beating each other senseless. Boxing requires a rare form of intellegence - the ability to make quick decisions and improvise on one's feet. There's a lot of grace involved in boxing too. To that end, I think Mike Tyson is one of the worst things to ever happen to the sport. He employs no footwork, no strategy...he just hits HARD (or used to, in his prime). He's a brute, and it's quite telling that as he grows older and his ability to hit HARD is fading, he's completely lost in the ring. There's none of the elegance that made someone like Sugar Ray Leonard or Ali so much fun to watch. It's sad, because the sport really has declined since Tyson made his mark. More and more young fighters aspire to be like him. I think people flocked to Tyson in the 80s because it's fun to back a winner, but all those fights that ended during the first sixty seconds proved rather dull in the end...

I started reading the books when I was the Children's Department Manager at Barnes & Noble several years ago, and I've been hooked ever since. I think they are extremely well-written, and have the same sadistic British tone as Roald Dahl (one of my all time favorite children's authors). The point we have to keep in mind is that Rowling has not only made reading hip and fun for kids, but she's continued to challenge them. Yes, she could easily have written Harry Potter books on the same level, with the same page count, year after year. But each book gets a little longer and a little more difficult. The books grow with the readers, and that is what will make the Potter books enduring children's classics. The movies are horrible, by the way. Cheap attempts to cash in on the book's popularity. The books will go on. The films will not.

The thread on the recently released "Hulk" movie got me thinking about the upcoming "League" film, starring Sean Connery. Many people that I've spoken to were'nt aware (and probably didn't care all that much, frankly) that the "League" was a comic book series first. For those here who have never read the comic, here's a little primer: What is the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? It is the late 19th century. The British Government, fearful that the Empire is endangered, authorizes British Intellegence to form a special task force to deal with special threats. MI5 head M dispatches agent Campion Bond (an ancestor of the more famous 007) to assemble such a team. Bond contacts divorcee Wilhemina Murray (formerly Mrs. Jonathan Harker) who recruits a Hindu sea captain who calls himself "Nemo" (believed dead since the Mysterious Island affair). Murray and Nemo travel to Cario in search of former adventurer Allen Quartermain, who has become an opium addict. With Quatermain in hand, Murray and Nemo then make way for Paris in search of an English doctor who is believed to be hiding there. With the aid of one M. August Dupin (best known for solving the Murders in the Rue Morgue), they find Dr. Henry Jeckyll and his hulking alter-ego, Edward Hyde. With Jeckyll/Hyde in captivity, then then travel to a girl's boarding school (its students include one Pollyanna and a girl named Rebecca from Sunnybrook Farm) to investigate a series of supernatural attacks. The attacks prove to be the work of Hawley Griffin, aka the Invisble Man. With Griffin, the League is complete. So, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen consists of: Mina Harker (Dracula) Allen Quartermain (King Solomon's Mines) Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Mysterious Island) Dr. Henry Jeckyll/Edward Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde) Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man) Once assembled, the League is gathered to their secret headquarters in the British Museum, and informed that a Royal Lunar Expedition has been sabotaged. The secret of powered flight, the element Cavorite, has been stolen by Dr. Fu Manchu. Bond dispatches the League to recover the stolen Cavorite. After infiltrating the Doctor's underground lair, they find the Cavorite and return it to Bond, who then gives it to his boss, M. But M (who Mina Murray is convinced is Mycroft Holmes) turns out to be none other than the Napoleon of Crime himself, Professor James Moriarty! Moriarty, it turns out, wants the Cavorite to power is own airship in an attack on his rival, Fu Manchu. The League then finds itself caught between the two warring factions, in an attempt to save London. That was just a synopses of the FIRST six issue series. The current series has the League fighting off Martian invaders... As for the movie, I don't know if any of the comic's plot will show up. I know that Quartermain has been made the leader of the League (rather than Mina), and that they have added both Tom Sawyer and Dorian Grey to the line-up. Has anyone heard anything more? Does the comic sound intreguing at all?

To be fair, some of the things you mention above (like "Watchmen") have been in the works for over a decade, and will probably never come to light. That "Batman vs Superman" movie has been in the script stages forever, and will probably never happen. Some (like "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") are already in the can, and will be finding their way to a multiplex near you in a matter of weeks. Being a life-long comics fan, I just can't resist these comic-based movies. I've seen all of them so far, and will probably continue to do so (although I will draw the line at "Punisher." Never got into the comics). I've been hearing positive things about "Hulk," so I will undoubtedly see it. I'll have to see the movie to make a judgement, but I can't say I'm terribly excited about the actor playing Banner (except that his last name is Bana, which is kind of funny). I think that unlike Toby Maguire, who was an inspired choice to play Peter Parker, or most of the X-Men cast, Bana is just...wrong. Banner shouldn't be beefy and studly. He's supposed to be a puny scientist. Steve Buscemi would have been a better casting choice for Banner, IMHO.