I recently read Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece 62, which means that I’ve read over 12400 pages of this series, far more than anything but maybe Amazing Spider-Man, which I’ve read almost front to back, barring an extended break when it went sour in 1996. But yeah: 12400 pages, minimum. It’s as good as it ever was. It’s not at the emotional heights of Water 7 (I called it “a complete and utter emotional apocalypse” a while back, and I stand by that), but it’s still plenty enjoyable and better than most books.

Here’s a couple pages from it that I like a lot:

Oda does that thing at the top of page two a few times throughout the series, and it never fails to slay me. Someone starts to explain something related to the plot or science and Luffy listens, nods, and goes “Ah hah! So it’s a mysterious _______!” It emphasizes how dumb he is, but it’s also a good joke. He doesn’t have to know how things work, because he’s just going to barrel his way through anyway.

I dunno a lot about Japanese pop culture. Actual pop culture, I mean, not just manga or anime or movies. Maybe this “Ah, a mysterious _____” is a reference to a Japanese comedy show, or the “That’s what she said!” of Japan. But this gag works for me in a way a lot of equally dumb jokes normally wouldn’t.

Part of it is Oda’s cartooning. The contented smile, lazily closed eyes, mugs of tea, and body language elevate the dumb joke. I don’t even know that I can really articulate why I find this so funny. It’s like–you get it or you don’t. The earnestness, which is mirrored on the preceding page by Luffy aggressively wondering about the conditions required to sail underwater and then immediately pretending like he knows what “salinity” means, is crucial. (One day I’ll write a really salinity post.) Nami’s the eternal straight man for the antics of the rest of the crew, even Nico Robin, and is alternately horrified and exasperated with the rest of the crew.

I never get tired of watching her bounce off the rest of the crew, in part because Oda has created clearly-defined characters with their own comedic hooks. Luffy is endearingly stupid, Chopper is unbelievably naive, Sanji is Pepe LePew, Zolo gets lost, Nico Robin is morbid, Franky is strange and really into building fancy things, Usopp is a coward, and Brook is a pervert. Once you start combining the cast and creating combinations, you’re looking at differing types of humor. Zolo and Sanji are aggressively and absurdly competitive. Robin has no time for Franky’s strange antics. There’s a great bit in the “Thriller Bark” arc where Franky comes up with a combining robot (think Voltron with humans) for the crew to pilot. Robin refuses because it would be undignified, which pisses off the giant they were fighting, who thought the finished product would look really cool.

There isn’t endless potential here, but there are so many different hooks and combinations that no type of joke overstays its welcome, so each joke comes off fresh and funny.

Someone on Twitter, I forget who (sorry), posted a link to “Shit White Girls Say… to Black Girls,”, and this video had me laughing hard at work.

With a few exceptions (“Jews were slaves, too” & “My grandma hates collards” mainly, ’cause what kind of monster hates greens?), I’ve heard all of this, despite not being a black girl. This is one of those “So funny it’s true!” videos, and its jokes have plenty of bite. I keep my hair super short in part because some white people LOVE to touch black hair, like it’s catnip or magical or something. (It isn’t. It’s just black. And mine.) If I say no, you can’t touch my hair, then that’s… I don’t even know, playing hard to get? “Your mouth says no but your hair says YES YES YES TOUCH ME TOUCH ME?” And I mean, I’m a grown man with a good aight job who’s self-sufficient, and people still pull that. I had a mohawk for a couple months in late 2011 (word to travis bickle) and it still happened. C’mon, son. It’s always so awkward, too, because nobody means nothing by it but it’s enraging and then you’re taking things too seriously and you gotta loosen up, your hair’s cute, i just wanna touch it and–

Don’t even get me started on afro-fetishism (it’s not that cool of a hairstyle, y’all, especially after you put your hands in it) or calling black folks some variety of chocolate or other brown foods as a romantic thing. Really? Are you twelve?

This chick saying “______ is soooo ghetto” and “Hollerrrrr” had me in stitches. It’s a dead on impersonation, and the ghetto one is a particular pet peeve of mine. It’s pretty screwed up, if you think about how that word is used and the perception of who is in the ghetto.

I tripped over a reference to the video for El-P’s “Time Won’t Tell” off his Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3, directed by Shan Nicholson, by accident the other day and thought to myself, “Oh, it’s my favorite video from last year.” I don’t know when I decided that, or if I’d ever been consciously aware of that fact before now, but it’s true. I watch a lot of music videos, and this is the one this year that grabbed me the most.

Part of it is El-P’s production. El is easily the best at making sinister sounding tracks. A lot of classic songs sound like impending violence, like somebody’s about to get his whole head bust outside of the club. El-P makes joints that sound like the beginning of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia or the cityscapes from Blade Runner or Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira look. They sound like impending doom on a level far beyond DMX barking in your ear about how you didn’t ride, so you must wanna die arf arf arf.

It’s the way the bass pulses and buzzes under the track, and just how dirty and dusty everything sounds. It sounds processed, but like it was fed through a meat grinder, not Pro Tools. The drums are messy, there’s a throbbing horn infesting the middle part of the track, and a wail that hints at something horrible. And then, at 2:10, the track takes a breath and comes back majestic.

Nicholson’s direction clinches the deal, though. The beginning is a tour, as we follow this kid around town and check out foreclosed homes, decrepit section 8 homes, the presence of authority figures as something to fear, and generally just life in the projects. It feels lonely, because this kid never interacts with anyone and looks uncomfortable around the people he does run into. The long shots of him walking alone push that loneliness even further, begging you to extrapolate a little.

He walks past four kids who then follow him around town and the suspense kicks up. The first thought to come to mind was one of danger, of kids who goose step over innocence. He grabs the mattress, the kids follow, and you know something bad is going to happen. And then it doesn’t, it’s just some kids playing together and having a good time. The first kid has something dope and the other kids appreciate it.

And jeez, man, I can relate. Boy, can I relate. We’re trained to think of other humans as possible threats. You stand real close to the ATM, you ignore strangers in public, you don’t wear short skirts, you practice defensive driving, you don’t make eye contact in the street, you get told to stay away from that white girl, you wonder if that guy is really talking about monkeys or if he’s just dog-whistling, you push forward on the sidewalk with your head down and dare people to not get out of your way, you sign a pre-nup when you get married, and your heart skips a beat when you hear footsteps behind you on a dark night, all because “what if something happened???”

I know what it’s like to be a lonely, skinny black kid. I went to two elementary schools, four middle schools, and three high schools. The longest time I spent in one house after elementary school was my last two years of high school. I’ve been the new guy, the guy who doesn’t get to hang because he wasn’t there when the group formed. I’ve been the guy who didn’t want the new guy in the crew.

But sometimes you connect to other people off the back of stupid things like comic books or music or jumping on a mattress out where the factories used to be and just vibe and things are wonderful. I remember as a kid, there was this big mound of red clay that the neighborhood boys would use as a bike ramp. I never did it–the thought of going in the air on my bike terrified me, and I’d had a bad bike wreck shortly after moving in–but we would hang out and that would be our sun. I have other memories–the woods between our school and our hood or the filthy creek near the dumpster where we found a gang of playboys or the youth center on base–where the “we” involved is different every time.

It’s nice when people actually connect with each other, no matter the catalyst. This video is as good a depiction of what it looks and feels and sounds like to let other people in as you’ll ever see.

-I’m traveling, and I totally forgot to post this earlier today.
-We did a catch-up review show that basically turned into us talking about how DC’s New 52 shook out.
-Esther ain’t too fond of Mr Terrific and Batwoman.
-But she’s digging Batgirl and Wonder Woman.
-I like WW so much I barely have anything to say about it.
-I’m also digging Green Lantern and Justice League.
-Pazow!
-There’ll be another next week!
-See you, space cowboy!

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I saw Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage at the Shattuck in Berkeley this past weekend. It’s my… probably third time seeing it. I bootlegged it back in 2010 when it dropped, and then I bought an official Hong Kong Blu-ray of it. It’s a thoroughly unromantic movie on pretty much every possible level. It’s not the sexy kind of crime movie, not even close. And that got me thinking.

I’m listening to this album right now, Greneberg, that’s actually pretty prime crime rap. Roc Marciano, the emcee on the album, is one of my favorite of this new wave of thugged out rappers. (It’s him, Pill, and Freddie Gibbs, really. That’s another post, maybe.) Part of the thrill of listening to their music is the actual music, of course–Alchemist and Oh No are great on average, fantastic regularly–but Roc Marcy’s rhymes are compelling. He paints a picture of crime that feels pleasingly authentic, brutal, and exciting. The authenticity is what’s crucial here. You listen or read or watch fiction in order to be convinced. You want to believe that this picture the artist is painting is real. In the case of Roc Marciano, its his low voice, ruthless nature, and matter of fact approach. For Scarface, it’s his desperation, storytelling, and bursts of vicious anger.

Part of the appeal of crime fiction is watching someone live out a fantasy that you wouldn’t mind being a part of. It isn’t aspirational exactly, but it’s in the same neighborhood. It gives you a chance to see someone live life according to his own rules, no matter who stands in his way. Sometimes that means Rae and Ghost playing at being coke kingpins. Other times, it’s about DMX raping and murdering everything in sight. It’s transgressive, but in an attractive way. It lets you step outside yourself and into someone else’s shoes.

Why do good girls go for bad guys? Because bad guys lead interesting lives.

I think this is particularly true of crime fiction featuring the yakuza. There’s an exoticness there that’s definitely attractive. The semi-legitimate and public nature of the yakuza, when combined with the organizational structure, fashion, history, and tattoos, is something entirely different from the mafia or street gangs. It’s cooler to read about and more interesting to study. That distance between what we know (mafia) and what we don’t know (yakuza) makes for a tale with built-in appeal.

Outrage feels like a response to the sexiness of the yakuza. I say that it’s unromantic because there is nothing aspirational, or even escapist, about the yakuza in the film. There aren’t any young, attractive dudes following an honorable code of their own. Tattoos are only shown before acts of violence and aren’t idolized in the least. The yakuza themselves, from the boss on down, are disloyal and dishonest, more than willing to lie to their boss’s face or deal drugs if it’ll make them money.

The dishonesty is what’s most interesting, I think. The movie gets going when a boss suggests that a sub-boss re-examine his ties with a man from a rival crew. The underling’s solution is to have Otomo, played by Takeshi Kitano, use his gang to start a minor argument. Otomo, ever-loyal, does just that, and what follows are a series of betrayals on every possible level. Boss betrays sub-boss, sub-boss betrays friend, and everything rolls downhill.

Thinking about it, Outrage is about a lack of integrity. The members of Otomo’s gang range from loyal to disloyal, but the traitors never cross Otomo in an open way. They skim off the top and look for ways to make their lives better. They do their dirt in secret, just like everyone else. The bosses speak out against dealing drugs, but just do it on the side anyway.

I can only think of one character with a speaking role who isn’t compromised. He’s a cop whose anger at a smoking yakuza is far out of proportion. His anger suggests frustration and impotence more than anything else. He isn’t telling the yakuza not to litter because he really believes in keeping the environment clean. He’s telling him that because that’s the only level of control he can exert over them. (There’s a couple of others who speak, generally waiters or greeters, but they say nothing of substance beyond “irasshaimase” and maybe “arigato gozaimasu.”)

That’s because a high-ranking and upwardly mobile officer is in bed with the yakuza. He lets them know about surveillance, drops tips in their lap, and takes part in sham interrogations. But he’s nothing more than a crony. He sold his soul for cash, and once he’s no longer useful, he’s no longer going to be paid.

One of the more interesting characters is a civilian who uses his place to throw parties with drugs and gambling. That lack of integrity makes him vulnerable to being taken advantage of, and when he sees a way to get out of his predicament, he trades freedom for money. He follows his baser instincts.

Outrage explores corruption and the fact that it isn’t something you can easily contain. It seeps and spreads and infests and eventually ends you. There are a few characters that aren’t loathsome (Otomo, Ozawa, and Mizuno), but you don’t want to be any of them. You don’t even want to step into their shoes to get just a taste of the life. This movie isn’t about the triumph of a criminal so much as the downfall of one. They’re all mired in corruption and compromise, and it damns them.

Not to say there aren’t several cool characters, of course. I liked Ishihara, who was played by Ryō Kase. Mizuno (Kippei Shiina) was great. Ozawa was played by Tetta Sugimoto, who is the exact kind of older dude who can really anchor a movie. I’d like to see more with that guy, in fact. But I like these characters in spite of their actions, not because of them. They played their roles to the hilt, but I never wanted to slip into their lives for a moment.

Outrage is good stuff. I liked it a lot, in part because it was so unsentimental and raw. There’s no fantasy here, nothing you’ll daydream about doing. Scarface is an intensely aspirational and escapist movie, and even though Tony dies at the end, it doesn’t play out like Outrage does. Tony led a glamorous and amazing life before Sosa takes him down. In Outrage, you get the barest glimpse of the benefits of life in the yakuza, and that’s always tainted.

You can rent it on Amazon for seven bucks, catch it in theaters, or get the blu-ray in January.

I was listening to The Roots’s undun on the way home. On the song “One Time,” Dice Raw ends his verse with “to make it to the bottom, such a high climb.” It’s one of those lines that kicks your feet out from under you. It’s not just something intensely sad. It’s something where the implications are horrible. It’s despair that sticks to your ribs. It got me thinking about other things in media that are sad like that, and I think there’s a post in it. I have to work through it a bit more before it’s go-time, though.

It’s a huge downer of a subject. (“Why didn’t they stop my mum and dad fighting?”) That got me thinking about the funny parts of comics, the gags that are the polar opposite of the things that kick your guts out. They make you pause in place to collect yourself, you show them to your friends, and you do a really poor job of retelling the joke at your earliest convenience. The good jokes are ones that break the flow of the comic, but not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, on a certain level, anything that takes you out of the book is bad, but I don’t think that enjoying something so much that you get pulled out of the work is bad by any reasonable standard. I bought a couple books this week with good ones.

I started writing this and realized I was just explaining jokes. That’s dumb. Here’s a list of stuff I thought was pretty funny, and hopefully I’m not ruining the jokes with my words.

Zeb Wells, Joe Madureira, Ferran Daniel, and Joe Caramagna create Avenging Spider-Man, and it’s definitely a worthy book. Wells writes the best Spider-Man in the business right now, and the series plays to Joe Mad’s strengths. He actually draws a pretty great Spidey, but it’s J Jonah Jameson that he really goes to town on. Wells, too. The second issue dropped this week (four dollars, ugh), and I really liked this exchange:

Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is still basically the best comic. I read volume 60 and it was pretty great. One thing Oda excels at is smart dumb humor. Monkey D Luffy is an idiot, at best, and a lot of the jokes come from that. The best jokes come when Oda plays up the Looney Tunes absurdity that’s lurking beneath his art. He does a great job with people pulling faces, but his comic timing is pretty great, too. He likes to throw in a beat before the joke starts. You aren’t quite sure what’s gonna happen, maybe he’ll play it straight, and then bam, there’s that punchline. First bit, read it right to left:

It reminds me of another, similar joke earlier in the series. In volume 53, Boa Hancock, the most beautiful woman in the world is taking a bath. Luffy drops in out of the sky, sees her nude, and she attacks him with her attack that uses the dirty thoughts in men’s minds to turn them to stone. Luffy mistakes it for something else, another attack that slows you down. He gets caught in the blast, slows down, and then pauses. Nothing happened. Hancock looks at him in shock, does it again, and Luffy stands there awkwardly before trying to get away. He’s too stupid for dirty thoughts. (Later, Hancock falls in love with him. He remains oblivious.)

One more:

That three panel sequence of the monkey trying to use spit to fix his wound kills me. It’s so dumb.

One more one more, because I like this, too:

The puns on Luffy’s shirts are great. It’s not fall out of your chair funny, but I appreciate the fact that Oda puts that much effort into things that are really hard to see.

Next week: sad songs.

I’m really, really fond of Ian Edelman’s How to Make It In America (Amazon VOD at $16 bucks for eight eps or Blu-ray for $22). It’s… not difficult to explain so much as any brief summary won’t really get to the meat of why I enjoy the series. It’s not high concept friendly. Here’s the summary off Amazon, presumably given to them by HBO:

An aspiring designer and his free-spirited best friend plot to achieve the American Dream on their own terms in Season One of this HBO comedy series.

It’s technically accurate, though I’d probably argue against the “free-spirited” bit. Ben Epstein, played by Bryan Greenberg, is certainly an aspiring designer, Cam Calderon, played by Victor Rasuk, is definitely his best friend, and it is a comedy series that comes on HBO. But that’s a bland description for something that’s really more of a fairy tale.

You know how when you’re a kid, your parents told you about growing up? You’d go to college, graduate, and get to do something you liked to make money. You’d date someone who is handsome or beautiful or whatever, and life would just be real cool. The tough times would be dramatic, but doable. You’d be pretty, all your friends would be pretty, and life would be pretty okay as long as you have them. Here’s the cast of How to Make It In America:

Not an ug-mug among them, right? There’s something for everybody, particularly once you break it out to the supporting cast. The result is a cast that’s ethnically pleasing (like Martin Luther King’s dream woke up and took hold of real life by the throat and whispered “or else” in its ear), attractive, and living in the greatest city in the world. They’re all good at something, they have their little careers that let them scrape by, and they go to incredible parties.

I hesitate to call it a soap opera, because the majority of my experience with those was as a child before GI Joe and as an adult while getting my hair braided, but it’s sorta soap opera-y, except you know nothing too bad is going to happen. There’ll be tension and release, tension and release. It’s comforting, in a way that feels very much like a fairy tale. “It’s all going to out. Look, see?”

I’m super into this show, and here’s the bit where I try to explain why.

The Theme Song

The theme song is a version of Aloe Blacc’s “I Need A Dollar.” I loved this thing that my man Jamaal Thomas wrote about the song. It’s a little stripped of context when it’s laid over the show’s opening credits, which actually works out for the better. It lends the song a more universal feel.

I say universal because the song is stripped to its barest essentials. What’s it about? It’s about needing a dollar and needing help. It’s about talking to people. In short, if you look at How to Make It In America as a guide, the opening credits tells you everything you need to know. How do you make it in America? You need dollars and you need people.

How to Make It In America is about people in search of dollars and people. Ben and Cam date, screw up, and date again. They’re trying to get their clothing line off the ground. Rene, played by Luis Guzman, is trying to turn his life around by way of small business. Lake Bell needs to keep her job, but also sorten out her relationship issues. In essence, they’re us. We can relate to the need for money and how good it feels to have people around you.

Hustling

If you are working in America and trying to maintain a life that includes health insurance and some level of comfort, then the odds are good that you’re hustling. A forty-hour work week is just a starting point. You have side hustles like writing online. You have dream hustles like firing your boss and working for your self. You work because you need money to make anything come true.

But in certain cases, sometimes you work because you believe in it. You put in the extra time and the blood, sweat, and tears that’ll make that gig a success, something you can use as a building block, something that’s fulfilling. A lot of people have creative hobbies. Whether it’s whittling wood or ballet, everyone has something they’re good at and something they’d love to be able to do for a living. That’s just how it is.

In How to Make It, Ben and Cam cover both bases. They need money because they’re tired of not controlling their lives. The one informs the other, feeds into the other, and multiplies the effect. Ben and Cam work hard.

Facebook/Twitter

Ben and Cam play hard. One of the best parts of being in your twenties is the fact that people throw house parties. You can talk to incredibly interesting women, get super drunk or high for basically free, and make a whole lot of bad decisions.

In How to Make It In America, these parties are bursts of pretty people doing pretty things while less than sober. You can see glimpses of the goofy and/or stupid things people do at parties, boys desperate to impress girls, and a bunch of sexy young folks generally enjoying life. It’s a fantasy, and a fun one. It’s aspirational. “One day, you could meet a cool chick with a purple mohawk at a party and make out with her while you think no one is looking!” It’s why people watched all those movies in the ’80s about being horny high school or college students. There’s a thrill.

But what’s really cool is how the How to Make It In America gang captured what those nights out feel like once the next day dawns. They’re blurs of motion and strange tastes and things you hope you didn’t actually say aloud. Clarity comes when you get up and check Facebook or Twitter to find snapshot after snapshot of last night’s debauchery. Nowadays, everything gets documented, twitpicced, and tagged, whether you want it to or not. How to Make It In America nails it.

Stay CRISP, Ponyboy

The other thing about How to Make It In America is that it isn’t about the shirts. It’s about the life and trials of Ben and Cam. The shirts are a part of that, sure. They’re a way out. But the show is really about how a little bit of success, or a little bit of any variable, really, changes things. Once you get a taste of hope, you aren’t just going to give it up. You’re going to fight for it.

So we watch as Ben and Cam navigate the streets of New York and try to dodge snakes. Season two features my favorite snake. This character is the type of snake that seems like a blessing, but is actually a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (Metaphor status: a little muddled.) This character is a poisonous influence on one of our two main dudes. The snake preys on his lack of confidence in his talent and lives by the rules of realpolitik.

The problem then becomes figuring out how to stay balanced. Once you get a little bit of something, someone else will want a piece. How do you avoid the snakes without burning your bridges? How do you succeed and still keep your circle sacred?

Basically, how much compromise are you willing to suck down before your dream doesn’t belong to you any more?

Brothers & Sisters, Rebuild Your Lives

Luis Guzmán plays Rene Calderon, who the How to Make It In America homepage describes as “once the most feared gangster on the Lower East Side.” He’s an old thug who has finally realized that he can’t sustain that life. So, he’s going to change. He’s bought into a small business and he’s going to try to make money the right way. He wants to find a nice lady to settle down with. He wants a paycheck. He wants to stay out of jail.

Old habits die hard. Push Rene, and you might catch a bad one. “I don’t fucking fight. I shoot.” Try as he might to reign in his former self, his old life was easier and this new life involves eating a whole lot of crow. He has to convince his girl that he’s gone straight, he’s got to dodge prison, and he’s got to make sure his business gains a foothold in the community.

While Ben and Cam are finally trying to invent themselves, Rene is working on reinvention. And changing is hard. You can’t just instantly right your ship. That takes work. That takes drive. Rene is hustling doubletime, and he’s doing it in two areas that are entirely foreign to him.

Everybody Needs Something

Ben is the kind of guy who’s talented, or at least he seems pretty talented, but secretly wonders if he isn’t. He needs that support from friends to keep his confidence up, but at the same time, he’s open to manipulation. He wants to be liked, so he’ll go along with you if you let him.

Cam is in it to win it. He’s down for anything because, frankly, he’s got very little to lose. He’ll holler at girls at parties, fast-talk his way into clubs, and do whatever he’s got to do to make his life one worth living. He can’t live with his grandma forever; that’s just not happening.

Rene is more than ready to fix his problems, and has a concrete plan on how to get the job done, but his nature just leads him toward messing up. He’s got a temper and he’s got a rep, and that rep is one of those things that spikes his temper. He’s different now, he really is, but don’t test him.

David “Kappo” Kaplan just wants to be down. He’s got a high-paying job and a ridiculous apartment, but no girl and no game. He has some cool friends, but he’s a little lost. He wants to be like Ben and Cam.

Rachel has job security, but she has no idea what she wants to be when she grows up. So she dabbles. Journalism here, interior decorating there, and then traveling to Africa out of nowhere. She’s flighty, but that type of flighty that wants to be grounded. She just can’t figure out where she needs to be yet.

Domingo is that guy who’s getting by. He’s happy. He’s real happy, in fact, but his future consists of right now and what party he’s going to tonight. Tomorrow? That’s tomorrow’s problem. But even then, that sort of free-wheeling life only goes so far. Sometimes you need a solid foundation to come home to.

The Music

There’s a lot of music in How to Make It In America, and they post setlists after every episode. I may not like every single track, but this is a show that sounds good, and when it occasionally goes for a pointed song choice, as in Bobby Womack’s sublime “Across 110th Street” or Smif-n-Wessun’s “Sound Bwoy Bureill,” it’s deadly.

New York, New York

I love New York like somebody who grew up hearing about New York loves New York. It’s real, because I’ve been there several times, but it’s still a huge deal. It’s a fantasy of a city. It’s where magic happens and everyone is lovely, rich, or becoming both.

New York is the city, the only city. The only city even remotely on par with it is maybe Paris. (Los Angeles is different.) This is a show that features a lot of NYC. Subway signs, cross streets, brownstones, everything from the mythical NYC is in here.

It’s not Illmatic New York. It’s not a grim and gritty place where foreigners get their green card ripped up. It isn’t Life After Death, either. Nobody’s rich… well, one dude is rich, but he’s a square. There’s nobody dancing in puddles of expensive champagne on a speed boat with a swimming pool. It’s more like A Tribe Called Quest or Camp Lo’s New York, where you’ve got at least one friend or connect of every race, all the girls are real pretty, and you might fall on some hard times, but things are generally pretty okay.

wrap it up, this is over 2000 words already

I didn’t really think of How to Make It In America as a comedy until I saw that description on HBO’s site. It’s funny, yeah, and dramatic. But there’s this thing about it that makes it feel very low-stakes. I mean, these guys are definitely put into do or die situations, but I never really felt like they would collapse under the pressure. They might lose, but they’re not going to be destroyed by that loss.

Which is pretty much why this feels like a fairy tale to me. It’s a little too perfect, and things work out pretty well in the end. That’s far from a complaint–it’s nice to watch and see these guys make their way toward a better life. It’s entertaining and charming in all the right ways.

undun, by The Roots, drops today. I bought it before I went to work just so I could have it to listen to today. You can stream it for free on NPR, but personally, it’s an album worth owning. It’s four dollars on Amazon right now, which is a steal. It was eight when I bought it this morning, but I don’t regret it at all.

I wrote a little about undun here and here. There’s an iPad app that includes all of the music videos and a lot more promo besides. There are interviews with people who knew Redford Stephens, lyrics, a few photos… it’s good stuff. It’s a great way to do promo, really. It’s something that adds to the experience.

Now that undun is out, what’s next? Well, next week, Anthony Hamilton, basically my favorite soul sanger, releases his sixth album, Back to Love. Great title, right? You can stream it on NPR, too. “Pray For Me” knocked me out of my chair the first time I heard it. Saddest joint he’s done since “Comin’ From Where I’m From,” easy.

Here’s the video for “Woo”:

I think this album’ll be a good chaser for undun. I’m probably gonna buy the deluxe edition of Back to Love for the bonus tracks.

I hate writing about writing, because it is the most stereotypical and annoying thing a writer can do, but I’ve become what I’ve forsaken and the irony’s wild.

I haven’t written about comics on here in a month. I wrote about comics on ComicsAlliance a total of eight times in November, roughly twice per week. I did this Judge Dredd thing with Douglas Wolk that was actually a whole lot of fun, since I rarely collaborate and Wolk is one of the sharpest dudes around. (This week’s dance partner is Alyssa Rosenberg of ThinkProgress, who completely outshines me.)

I haven’t done it at all this month. I burned out. I needed a break. I’ll be back in a while. Maybe a week, maybe less, I dunno. Hopefully this post doesn’t come off too self-pitying or whatever, but it’s been bugging me and if I don’t write about it it’ll keep bugging me so… reap the whirlwind, I guess.

I quit because comics journalism, or criticism, or whatever you want to call writing about comics, is essentially free advertising. Which is fine, I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. When I write about something, be it Brandon Graham’s King City or Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman’s Hulk, it’s because I want you to buy and read it. Well, first and foremost it’s because I wanted to talk about it, but the buying & reading goes right along with that. I want to talk to people about these books. It’s not hand-selling, but it is recommending, yeah?

And I quit because every time I saw a review of Grant Morrison and Rags Morales working on Action Comics, I wanted to scream. The thought of Marvel caking off Fantastic Four 600 and dedicating it to Jack Kirby and Stan Lee makes my skin crawl. I can’t pretend like a comic set in the Congo featuring child soldiers and a warlord named Massacre is something adults should take seriously. Batman is already a dumb idea, but it has seventy years of inertia behind it. (“Massacre?” Negro please.) Or a million other things. “Check out this cool Tony Daniel preview!” “Matt Fraction is breaking new ground in the Defenders! What if Hulk… had a Hulk!” Pshaw.

I felt complicit in something I hated, and I decided not to write about it any more, barring my obligations at CA, and I eventually sent Laura a sad sack email begging off those, too.

(I didn’t quit reading comics, mind. I bought Thickness #2, a porn comic, and it’s grrrrrrrreat. I finished Twin Spica 10 over lunch today and it had a twist that I saw coming that still knocked me off my feet with its finality. I bought comics online and in stores. I just quit blogging about them for a while.)

A lot happened in that month, personal and otherwise. I had a hilariously awkward conversation with a PR person after I wouldn’t play the game. I spent a lot of time thinking about this post about Black Panther and War Machine. I wondered if I’d screwed up somehow, but I read it and reread it and reread the reaction to it and… I’m appalled that people came at me like I was calling Marvel a bunch of racist scumbags. I don’t even imply it, not even close. But you know, mention that two black characters share a thing, and speak of that thing negatively, and suddenly you’re… I don’t even know, bizarro David Duke or something. (I can’t think of a famous black racist right now. Sorry.) That got me to thinking about how insular and toxic comics culture is, how Team Comics has people thinking that we’re all in this together and leaping to defend corporations that don’t care about them, how comic shops actively hamper digital comics, how people claim to ignore Rich Johnston but hang on his every word…
November was a month that seemed hellbent to make me hate everything, including comics. I thought about every encounter with pushy PR people, every time I got someone in trouble because of something I wrote that some PR person didn’t like, the gross quid pro quo of maintaining access, passive-aggressive emails from Bluewater’s president because I told him I wasn’t interested in his ugly, stupid comics, and years of beating my head against the wall. Everything I don’t like about comics, I ended up processing alone or with a group of close friends, all of whom have been remarkably okay with me being such a Debbie Downer about some dumb old comic books.

I realized that I didn’t need any of that. I don’t depend on comics. I have a job. Life is short. Why should I do anything I don’t want to do, within reason? So I’ve been trying to figure out how I can keep writing about comics and entirely avoid, shun, or ignore the business side of things. I’ve gotten books early or for free, which is nice, but not necessary. (It also makes me feel really guilty. Friends make friends pay retail, yeah?) I can talk about comics I love at any point. I’m on a ’60s manga kick right now, so I’ve been buying used copies of Shotaro Ishinomori’s Cyborg 009. I can (and will) write about that at any time! (It’s wild racist, if you like/hate when I point that stuff out, but totally awesome, too.)

November was “How can I continue doing this thing I like doing when I’ve managed to surround myself with almost every aspect of it that I hate?” Sales figures, that thing where you read bad comics because you want to get your two-minute hate on or self-harm or whatever, paying attention to reviewers you don’t actually like in the name of… well I guess that’s masochism, too.

I ended up being The Digital Comics Guy somehow. Or A Digital Comics Guy, I figure. I think Brigid Alverson is the only other person to have really written repeatedly and at length on the subject. I’ve made some mis-steps (regarding believing sales charts, even!), but I’ve spilled tens of thousands of words on the subject. Maybe a hundred thousand, even. (Terrifying thought.) I’ve got a google alert for digital comics news and I’m on a bunch of mailing lists.

I saw an announcement that made me really happy. “Dark Horse Delivers Day & Date Digital Comics Same Day As Print!” They’re one of my favorite companies, they publish at least three of my favorite ongoing series (Usagi Yojimbo, Hellboy, and BPRD), and I own a bunch of their stuff. I’ve actually given away a bunch of DH stuff, because I had friends who I thought might dig it. Share the wealth, spread the word. I was really happy about this announcement, shot off a couple of quick questions to DH, forwarded the news to Andy at CA so he could write it up (being on my “oh poor me i hate writing about comics right now but am still gonna read comics news” vacation) and felt good.

On Sunday, Rich Johston reported that Larry Doherty of Larry’s Comics was refusing to shelf Dark Horse Comics over the price point. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is a crybaby punk move. Digital comics aren’t physical comics. Digital books provide a different experience than print comics. This stupid “print vs digital” thing is a smokescreen, a garbage talking point. They aren’t direct competitors, and they certainly won’t be as long as the prices are so high.

But this guy Larry, this actual racist, this person who sent a friend of mine a picture of a woman with a bunch of hot dogs stuffed in her mouth after she rightly called him out on requesting DC do a XXX video fo Batwoman and Question “banging each other” because “chicks doing it is awesome,” this scumbag who two different people I know personally–and I live a few thousand miles from dude’s store–have been like “Oh yeah, Larry? I used to live around him, he’s a disgusting punk,” this guy, the last guy anyone should be listening to or hanging out with or associating with, period, is the one who’s banging the “WHAT ABOUT US POOR RETAILERS YOU OWE US” drum the hardest.

I read the news, rolled my eyes, had a few conversations about it, and moved on.

Today, I assume in response to Larry’s bleating on Twitter, Dark Horse caved. More specifically, they caved and said this:

Unfortunately, there has been a bit of miscommunication regarding our pricing strategy, and we would like to clear that up here. In our initial announcement, we did not come forward with any pricing information on our upcoming releases. However, some assumptions were made based on our current pricing model.

Earlier today, in response to some dumb DC news I shouldn’t have read anyway, I said “these could conceivably not be lies.” I instantly felt bad about being so cynical and skeptical, did a little more research, and proved to myself and a couple friends that the things DC said weren’t lies. Which is pretty screwed up, but that sort of shows you where I’m at with comics marketing. I’m conscious of the fact that it’s poisoned for me, and I’m working to correct it. But dang, man, almost every bit of news I read seems like more and more garbage. It’s not healthy.

But that thing up there, the quote? It’s, at best and at my most charitable, a falsehood. It’s a falsehood that offloads blame onto the press, onto the people who reported the news. Maybe there was some miscommunication, but there definitely wasn’t on my side. I was sorta surprised at how much I resented reading this, as if it were personal almost. But I take writing very seriously, even if I’m just doing research for someone else, so it is what it is and he said what he said.

And now I’m like… this is an industry where Mark Millar runs wild with comments about shooting people who don’t deserve it, wondering if black people can have Down’s Syndrome, telling people not to buy digital comics, and plotting “The Rape of Wonder Woman” for yuks. This is an industry where Alan Moore talking about comics he hasn’t read, and says he hasn’t read, and proceeds to talk about anyway, is front page news every single time. It’s an industry where people complain up and down the street about how inaccurate sales figures are, except when their own books sell out. Rushed events are blockbusters. Sub-par fill-in artists are something publishers pooh-pooh and downplay as necessary.

It’s where one of the best publishers in the industry publicly bows down to someone who has consistently been an embarrassment to what passes for the comics community.

And I’m having some serious trouble figuring out why I should even want to support this industry with my time and words. It’s not like I have a lack of stuff to talk about, things that don’t make my skin crawl. I’ll get past it, obviously–I want to talk about Cyborg 009 and Wonder Woman and everything else I’m reading and enjoying, and getting paid to write is really really nice this time of year, and a month is probably long enough to get over it, especially after this post–but right now, I’m seriously not feeling it at all. I hate it.

I started working out earlier this year. I’m not particularly out of shape or anything. I’ve been skinny to slim all my life, but a youth spent slaving for my grandfather, cutting down trees, knocking down walls, mowing the lawn, and working on interminable home improvement projects means that I’m fairly fit. I get by. I bike a few miles each day, with a stiff hill between my crib and job. I wouldn’t make the cover of Men’s Health, not topless at least, but my calves are so toned from a couple years of biking around San Francisco that women fall into hysterics, the old-fashioned kind, when I reveal them. It’s pretty awkward, actually. I feel pretty guilty. Anyway.

I know how to exercise, anyone who’s had phys ed knows how to exercise, but I was smart enough to know that I did not know what I needed to do. “I should exercise!” was the beginning and end of my thoughts on the matter. I asked a friend of mine, Larry Leong, for advice. I’ve known Larry for probably ten years now? Maybe a little less, I don’t know. Here’s a video I found of him by googling his name:

Larry’s in shape. He does stuntwork, he shot and produced his own (very funny) martial arts flick, he mastered a one-arm pull-up, and he deadlifts some absurd amount like 2.5 times his weight or something. I hate him. He’s the kind of fit that makes people who are in okay shape but don’t exercise feel guilty. But all that aside, he’s got focus. He sets a reachable goal and he knocks it down before moving onto the next goal. I know this because I’ve talked to this guy on a regular basis for years, so I’ve seen him do exactly that while I sit on my couch and seethe while shoving cinnamon rolls down my gullet. That focus is valuable. It’s a problem-solving tool.

I went to Larry when I decided I wanted to start working out on a regular basis because of that focus, and also because he was around and I knew I could scam free advice off him. I told him what I was thinking about doing (“I dunno, lift weights I guess?”), what I was capable of, and what I owned (“A floor I can do pushups on.”). He gave me a five-day regimen that was composed of around 30-45 minutes of lifting, cardio, and other things. Every day worked a different part of the body, and it was the sort of stuff I could do in my tiny San Francisco apartment with no trouble (barring the jump rope). His combination of educating and guilt tripping me worked, and I picked it up pretty well.

I’ve kept up with it, for the most part. I always cheated on the abs, though. Lunges were incredibly tough, but abs were the one thing where I was like “Ehhhh… I’ll do double next week to make up for it.” I recently asked Larry for some abs-specific stuff to help rectify my abs situation. He told me to do Ab Ripper X, which is part of the P90X series, twice in a row. Now, our friendship is going to end in a murder/suicide.

Larry’s started up this new online effort called Move Damn You!. Instead of showing you how to work out, it’s teaching you why and how you should work out. You always hear that you should “get in shape” or someone’s “gotta get to the gym,” but no one really talks about the benefits or how to do it. Not the step-by-step how to do it–I mean how you should approach it, what mind state you should be in, what you should expect to get out of it, and all of that. “Lose weight!” or “Get muscles!” is… it’s small, yeah? It’s vague. It’s easy to fail with goals like that. Specificity counts for a lot, especially when you’re doing something like working out. You have to have a goal in mind or else you’ll just get tired and quit.

Here’s episode 18, featuring my friend Ching Chow:

Larry’s show approaches working out as a holistic exercise. It’s not just curl twenty times, break, curl eighteen times, break, curl sixteen times, break, curl til failure. You have to work toward a goal and you have to commit yourself. Why are you curling? Why are you doing one hundred push-ups? How is your form? Is it worthwhile? Are you seeing results or do you just use your one hundred push-ups story to impress girls at bars?

I like that he talks to people about how they approach exercise. I especially liked episode 3, featuring Karuna Tanahashi. She spins poi and fire dances, which isn’t something I would normally think about as being exercise, but totally counts. It takes focus, concentration, and physical control. If she wasn’t comfortable with herself and her body, she couldn’t do it. Exercise, being fit, whatever, is about moving and the good feelings that come from moving, directly or indirectly. You might feel better because your beer belly turns into a six pack, or because suddenly your thighs look amazing in that pencil skirt. Or maybe it’s because you work out hard enough that you get that really nice burst of endorphins and feel good for a couple hours. (It’s magical before biking to work, let me tell you that for real. Someone cuts you off in their Benz and you just smile and say “thank you.” You don’t even hope they rear-end a bus or anything.)

The thread that runs through the videos is how important and life-affirming it is to use your body. You’re pretty much stuck with the body you have, so why not really explore and test your limits? Why not push past those limits and risk heinous bodily harm? Being really comfortable in and familiar with your body is a really, really good feeling. It feels like the root of confidence sometimes. If all you have is your body, and you’re proud of it, then you’re gonna be fine, yeah? I dunno, maybe that’s just me.

Here’s a paraphrase/edit of what Larry told me when I asked him what the point of MDY! was:

Well, the purpose of it is to promote exercise, that everyone can/should find a joy in using their bodies, that prolonged inactivity is a waste of your life/a thoroughly irresponsible way of living, and that there’s always something out there for you to excel at, as long as you take the time to look and put the time in. The biggest obstacle anybody has is just getting started in the first place, which is not that hard.

I guess that point about “always something out there” has a lot to do with the interviews because basically everyone I’ve talked to has had some problem they needed to work with or push through, even if it is just getting older, but that persistence is what counts. Strength of character. Moving forward. Fear of failure is bullshit. Failure is a speed bump, not a roadblock.

Actually, I guess the main point is that anybody can improve the quality of their life as long as they’re willing to start. There’s always options, there’s always something you can find that works with your body. You just need to persist and be intelligent enough to question what you learn and understand it. People are too quick to buy into products or routines without putting in the effort to understand WHY things work.

The variety of stuff that he goes over in his videos and that his interviewees discuss was/is really helpful to me. Everybody’s good at something. You just have to find it. I’m going to be taking a dance class at the top of the year. I rarely dance, rarely meaning “hardly ever in public” basically, but I decided that I want to learn how to salsa. I know that I don’t have the footwork to do it right now, but I would like to add that footwork to my repertoire. I think that’ll be a good feeling. So: I’m going to learn how to salsa. Pick a goal and knock it down. Exercise is bigger than bench pressing and sit-ups. (I hate sit-ups.)

Also, I mean, Larry’s got jokes and viking hats along with all of that advice. So there’s that, too. Move Damn You! is great motivation for getting off your butt and into motion. It’s not about turning into a steroid nut or whatever so much as it is all about just being understanding why you should move your body.

Check out his Youtube page here or visit Move Damn You!. These are good videos, maybe five minutes max, and really solid motivation. Well worth watching and considering.