The comments, reviews and rantings are for entertainment only. If you are offended then someone else is getting entertained. Welcome to the internet. Have at it. This is where I sound off on what I read in comics this week, and occasionally ramble about other things.
It's Friday, November 4, 2011, its my stepmother's birthday, and this is The Side. Hopefully the HITMAN volume 5 trade I ordered for her will get here soon.
I'm very tired right now.
I'm thinking today about the division of things, mainly groups of people. It seems like there's a lot of focus on it now. In many areas I'm all for it when we keep things in perspective. Splitting things up can bring about competition, which can be fun and enjoyable. The competition can be physical, mental, or emotional.
Physical competition is pretty obvious. We typically see it in sports. It gets the blood up, and pushes those competing to be the best person out there.
Mental competition also pushes folks. We see this in debates, spelling bees, chess matches, and any other intellectual pursuit that can involve more than one person. This is also good. It keeps the mind sharp.
Emotional competition is along the lines of being a fan of something. Let's say you're a Yankees fan. If your team is on the field you're invested at least a little bit emotionally. Well, there's someone else out there who's invested emotionally in whoever the Yanks are playing. Being passionate about something is good for the soul.
There's a flip side to all this. Competition can bring out a lot of bad stuff. people can cheat. They can do something to intentionally hurt someone. They can get so obsesses with winning that they hurt themselves. This happens when people forget something very important: they are part of a larger group.
That person cheering for the sports team that's playing against the team you love. You both love the same game.
That guy at the comic shop who loves Marvel Comics instead of DC. Guess what. You both love comics.
That guy I face in the ring when the gloves go on. He's there because he loves martial arts just like me. That's why the first thing we do is bow.
Unfortunately, there are people out there who want to focus so much on the divides in things that they do some really stupid stuff. There's no competition to see who is a better person. In that its when you start behaving like you're better than someone else because of some divide that separates you, you become a worse person.
Atheists that malign religious folks needlessly, and just as much a bunch of douchebags as those 'Christians' who tell people "You're going to hell" for not living their lives a certain way.
Anyone who assaults another person for being a fan of a particular sports team should get to spend time in cell to think about what they've done.
People standing around pointlessly in the streets because they're not as successful as they wish they were and someone else is doing well because they worked hard and got a little lucky are just being petty.
Calling somebody a "racist" simply for having a differing political view that has nothing to do with race at all simply because you want to tear down those people is pretty disgusting.
However, all this ranting probably will be forgotten fairly quickly by anyone who reads it. After all. Next year is an election year.
I'm a baaaaaad man! Its Friday, August 19, 2011, I'm trying some new stuff, and this is The Side. Comic reviews will be up on Sunday from here on out, for those of you who didn't read that on Wednesday. Also, Firefox for whatever reason decided to just stop working on my computer. I spent some time trying to get it squared away. I uninstalled it, and installed a fresh file. No good. So we're going to be using Google Chrome for bit and see how that works out.
I will say this: Its working faster.
SOCIETY
Something really caught my attention in regards to the BBC's SHERLOCK series. It was profanity. Actually, it was the lack of profanity. The bad guy didn't use any. Actually, as far as bad guys go he didn't look all that bad either. I'm not referring to attractiveness. Its just that this guy was evil and he didn't look evil.
Things have changed a bit. I remember listing to Mike Powers on 96X before Bob Fresh came on board they formed the Mike and Bob Show, so I'm going back over 12 years. Mike was interviewing a professional wrestler from the old ECW promotion. They were doing a show in town. I can't remember that guy's name for the life of, but he was one of the bad guys or "heels". Mike's big strength on the radio is that he's one of the best interviewers I've ever heard, and he really got the guy open up. He asked what it was like to play a "heel", because the guy sounded like a really nice dude. He said he struggled a bit with it but another wrestler, Tazz, gave him some of the best advice, "Don't curse.", and it worked beautifully.
So wrestlers who didn't curse had an easily time being accepted as villains? Wrestlers who did came off as more popular? Yes, to both. Maybe it was that particular crowd which liked seeing "anti-heroes", who have no problem being horrible bastards, but didn't cross certain lines. Maybe no cursing made the wrestler sound more "elite" than the crowd, most of whom I imagine have no trouble cursing, and it played into a subconscious class warfare mentality.
Things that we used to identify with people that probably should be avoided are now the norm. Tattoos are another example. More to the point, excessive tattooing. Back in the day, if you saw someone covered in tattoos they were probably in the freak show at the travelling carny. Now you can fine them in the mall. Mohawks were the haircut of rebels and punks, and now I keep seeing two year olds with them.
You can tell a lot about people by their heroes. We're at a time now in which Batman is a lot more popular than Superman, but the key thing is why. Ask some comic fans and they'll tell you about Batman will do "whatever it takes" to win. "Sure, he could beat Superman. He's nothing but a big blue Boy Scout." Being a Boy Scout is a bad thing now? Here's another favorite. "It doesn't matter that Captain America is a better fighter, Batman would win because he'd cheat." So how Batman is victorious doesn't really matter to some people so much as that he's victorious. In fact, if he does it in a really "bad ass" manner then he receive even more praise from these fans.
Not sure where being a true-blue, stand up guy fell out of fashion with our heroes. Not sure when having more tattoos than a convict became the norm. Not sure when not swearing started becoming the best way to turn a crowd against you in some circles. Maybe we want our heroes to be flawed like we are. Do we still want heroes to inspire us and give us an example to aspire to? Or do we want to identify with them because of their flaws and see them do awesome things which may make us feel better about ourselves and give us hope that we ourselves may one day do awesome stuff.
"Bad" may be good, but I certainly hope "good" doesn't start really getting equated to bad.
MUSIC!!
I'm just in an Elvis Costello mood this week.
That's all for me today. I'll see y'all Sunday. Have a great weekend.
