Month: October 2005

Magazine of the Misfit Toys

When I tire of my son's Lincoln Logs, Thomas trains, and the other 7 milion items I step on, trip over, sit on, duck from, get run over by, and last but not least, get hit in the head with. I'm glad Hi Fructose is out there, so I know there's toys for me too. These are toys that more often will just sit on a shelf with many collectors, but I'm sure I would let them go toe to toe with the Thomas trains, and the whole fleet of trucks that cause traffic jams in my front hall, just to see if artists and designers can make toys that withstand the punishment that only Tonka and Bruder can dish out.

I've enjoyed the first issue of Hi Fructose. It's a nicely designed/produced magazine, that could suck a reader into a world they didn't know existed and may not have cared. It's definitely something for the Juxtapoz crowd. I can't justify subscribing, but I have a strange fascination for well-crafted magazines, so I'm sure I'll pick this up again.

Particularly of interest is the photography of Brian McCarty. If you're spoiled daughter wanted to hire a photographer for Barbie and Ken's wedding, he probably wouldn't be the one to hire, he'd be busy taking the candids of Skipper shagging a bus boy next to the dumpster, or capturing a drunken Care Bear puking in the parking lot. McCarty has a knack for capturing the real life of toys. He has a gift for reading between the lines on the packaging copy, and goes beyond what the Saturday morning commercials let on.

Oh and he's got Master Shake cavorting with some bikini clad babes.

Matt Lauer Ignores the Teleprompter

There's no way President Bush could have expected anything except Jeff Gannon size softballs to hit out of the park, but my guess is Matt Lauer saw an advance of that new George Clooney movie, Good Night and Good Luck, and fired up by Edward R. Murrow, he came out of it like I did as a kid after watching the Rocky movies. Lauer set his sights on the president, made light of the “photo-op”, and went on to ask questions about Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and why the government doesn't want to ever forgive the Katrina debt.

Bush handled the interview better than I would have imagined. (Translation: 85% less stuttering and stammering, Andy Dick would be disappointed.) His handlers must have prepared him already for some other audience. But still his sometimes incredulous expression simply said, “WTF?”

Lauer must want Dan Rather's job or something. I always thought Matt Lauer just came across as completely dull and uninteresting, but he had his argument with Tom Cruise a few months back and has now showed the president another vertebrae in the news media backbone.

The president's comment, “Last night, Laura and had dinner with Mayor Nagin and a group of distinguished New Orleans citizens from all walks of life.” intrigued me. Was Robert Davis one of those distinguished citizens?

All in all a fun time was had by all…but President Bush.

Fell #1

Ellis has got another good title on his hands. Damn if that chain-smoking, cane-swinging bastard doesn't have a knack for caustic characters with memorable one-liners. If comic books were movies, Warren Ellis would have a few lines, right up there with anything from “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw” to “One time in band camp…”. “If you're gonna shoot porno, don't clog the drains” appears in the second panel. For a change the supporting characters are more caustic (because an adjective for that escapes me right now) than the hero (anti-hero…no, scratch that, actually maybe not, it's one of those things people write but never actually say, like “gal-pal”). Ben Templesmith makes with the bleak yet rich panels, and is apparently happy there's no vampires.

Warren Ellis is reaching out to the poeple with this one. These single issues contain an entire story each for $1.99. So I can get the baby formula, and afford a comic book this week, instead of just buying the book and shoving a binky in the kid's mouth. (That's not even funny, is it? I'm such a dad.)

Plus if you like the prose, there's some more of it sans pictures to extend the reading life, and it kind of acts as the DVD bonus material concept applied to a comic book. Ellis still hasn't added me to his myspace, but why should I care, since I still don't know why I have a myspace account, I'm finding plenty of music elsewhere on the net these days.

I Don't Know Harriet Miers from Jacoby & Myers

The Left Coaster is doing a bang-up job compiling the data. Although even with all this information, I'm still not sure how she'll vote. Although it looks pretty clear that she's quite loyal to the Bush family. And that only means more fun in the Middle East, and less privacy for Americans. Attytood's post on the subject hints at that, as well as use of the military as a police force. I believe the term for that is martial law. It's been done before in places none of us would want to live.