2020.04.29 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 33

From my cold basement, I type at thee…

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I’m watching some wrestling in preparation for a new project. There is a real shortage of people talking about wrestling on podcasts so I am taking matters into my own hands. More details to come probably next week.

Speaking of pummeling people, there’ a new Streets of Rage game out tomorrow. I am not really sure what, if anything, I want or expect out of a new Streets of Rage game, but the bits and pieces I’ve seen in some streams today make me at least curious to check it out. The “beat-em-up” is really a genre that has fallen by the wayside in the last… well 25 years. There have been cool things here and there, but they mostly feel like they trade mainly on nostalgia? and I’m not sure that’s enough. The beat-em-up bundle that Capcom put out a while back was pretty rad, playing Metal Warriors for the first time was a real joy and made me want a new Mech beat-em-up… I guess that’s what I want in a new beat-em-up: Giant Robots.

Currently Playing: Yuzo Kushiro – “Streets of Rage 2 Soundtrack”
Currently Reading: THE HOUSE OF MANY WAYS, Diana Wynne Jones

2020.04.28 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 32

I’m gonna get killed in an avalanche of books/comics/manga as I keep piling them higher on this desk down here, and that’s how I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go out.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Someone talk me out of buying a Gigantor Tetsujin 28 Vinyl figure! HURRY. I like his little pointy nose and those wrist band thingies. There is also a funko pop figure, at the best of times Funko pops don’t really look great? but this one in particular is annoying me.

Like… Gigantor’s huge body and tiny head are like… that’s the whole iconic THING about Gigantor… Look at this stupid thing!

Now I want a whole shelf of cool robots from movies and animation… The guardian robots from Castle in the Sky, the NES R.O.B., Johnny 5, Gigantor, Astro Boy, Android 13…. Yeah… Robots are rad.

Currently Playing: Aesop Rock – “Music From Freedom Finger”

Currently Reading: HOUSE OF MANY WAYS, Diana Wynne Jones

2020.04.27 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 31

Yeah, I’ve been thinkin’ about gettin’ an ottoman.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I spent some time trying to find a youtube video of a kid eating a radish because they thought it was an apple. I didn’t find it yet, but I did see a bunch of kids eating onions like apples. These kids are just going to town on these onions no matter how much it hurts their eyes or makes them cough… they are going to do okay in life. They’re gonna be ready. Good for you, kids.

For some reason searching for baby eats radish also yielded a Dragon Ball Z clip of Bulma trying to punch Goku? I like to think YouTube is just worried I might get bored after 2 or 3 baby videos and is trying to look out for me. Thanks, YouTube. Now stop giving white supremacists a platform!

Currently Playing: Phish – “Sigma Oasis”
Currently Reading: CASTLE IN THE AIR, Diana Wynne Jones

Read Icculus Goes Bananas

Finished 1 book and 3 mangas this week:

CRYING FREEMAN, VOL. 1, Kazuo Koike & Ryoichi Ikegami
PARASYTE, VOL. 1, Hitoshi Iwaaki
THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM: PERFECT EDITION VOL. 1, Kazuo Umezz
HAYAO MIYAZAKI: MASTER OF JAPANESE ANIMATION, Helen McCarthy

The book about Miyazaki was interesting, but also very strange and dated. It came out after Princess Mononoke. There is a lot of talk in it about whether Miyazaki could possibly repeat the success of that film with his next project which little was known of. The next project would turn out to be SPIRITED AWAY, which is, in my opinion, one of the three greatest films ever made.

The other thing that was weird about the book was how much of it was dedicated to just detailing the full plots of each film. I can see that being something you’d want to have at the time when these movies were not easily (or in many cases even remotely) accessible, but in 2020 I don’t need to read a 20 page synopsis of My Neighbor Totoro because I’ve seen it no less than 100 times.

Still, a fun enough little time capsule.

2020.04.24 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 30

Rewatched Hayao Miyazaki’s CASTLE IN THE SKY last night for the umpteenth time. Still a masterpiece.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I started watching season 5 of Community yesterday. I was an enormous fan of the first 3 seasons of Community. It was a perfect blend of the kind of absurd/surrealist stuff I like with a lot of great pop-culture parody/reference that I also am a sucker for. Community did this blend better than most other shows and the cast was funny and charming. I quit watching in season 4 when they fired Dan Harmon, the creator. I have no idea if it’s good (though I suspect it’s “fine” but not quite the same) because I didn’t feel right about watching it after he was fired. They brought him back for season 5 and 6 but by then I was out of the habit of watching it (and most other sitcoms come to think of it) so I never saw them.

The whole series was recently added to Netflix and friends have been talking about it so I put on the REPilot, season 5 premiere… It’s really funny. I’ll probably watch the rest. I’m glad. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to watch it all, lately I have barely watched ANY live-action television, but who knows. That’s the thing about having a defective brain, you never know where it’ll spin you next.

OH, I should probably mention the new episode of my podcast went out this morning. You can listen to it at http://www.brideofthecreature.com

Currently Playing: A wrestling podcast reviewing old episodes of RAW and NITRO, don’t worry about it.
Currently Reading: Trying to finish up a few things I’m most of the way through

2020.04.23 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 29

Went to sleep at 9:15 last night and I feel positively… ENERGIZED. Let’s see how long before I feel like shit again.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I read Murakami’s book about running (and writing) WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING and suddenly feel like I want to start running? I’m in… poor physical condition? My knees and back are… not good? Yet, I still think running might be a thing I’d like to try to get into? My saying this here is sort of a way to force my hand a little. Public declarations of intent (even wishy-washy ones like this) are more likely to cause me to act than just telling the bride my plans. I’ve long since gotten used to disappointing her so it’s less of a motivating factor than it could be.

Watching archival Phish and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead concerts on youtube has been a great source of background music the last few days. JRAD is something of a new discovery for me. I have been aware of Joe Russo and the band itself but hadn’t listened to them until recently. Some really great playing on these renditions of the Grateful Dead songs I know so well. There’s a ton of free concert footage on the nugs.net youtube channel.

Currently Playing: Joe Hisaishi – “Laputa: Castle in the Sky Original Score”
Currently Reading: HAYAO MIYAZAKI: MASTER OF JAPANESE ANIMATION, Helen McCarthy

2020.04.22 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 28

Is it considered bad parenting to lock a couple tiny anarchists who live in your house in a garden shed for a day or two? Asking for… myself an the bride.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Up to about 30 different April 2020 Manga Haul youtube videos now… this is what I’ve become. I have thousands of comics in this house I could read and I’m just watching videos of strangers opening boxes containing the same books over and over again for hours.

To be fair (tobefaaaaaaaiirrrrrrr) I have actually read some comics this week, but I’ll save that for a Read Icculus on friday.

aaaaaaaaaaand I got nothing. See you tomorrow.

Currently Playing: bvdub – “The Times the World Lied”

Currently Reading: HAYAO MIYAZAKI: MASTER OF JAPANESE ANIMATION, Helen McCarthy

2020.04.21 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 27

For no discernible reason I listened to “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy 5 times this morning? So that’s about par for the quarantine sanity course right there.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Speaking of weird stages of quarantine… I just spent a bunch of time looking at guides for making Monkey D. Luffy costumes for my kids? So, that’s new.

I spent about 2 hours listening to Fleetwood Mac this morning to try to figure out why the hell I don’t like this band. I like TUSK. That’s a great song. I think THE CHAIN is aight. GO YOUR OWN WAY, sure. But, that’s about it? I have never been able to get into this band despite all the people around me with good taste loving them. The guitar and drumming are both excellent, but these songs just do nothing for me. I will probably continue to attempt to try and like them every year or so until one day they click.

While it’s not Fleetwood Mac’s fault, but the fact that Stevie Nicks’ hit “ONE WINGED DOVE” is NOT CALLED ONE WINGED DOVE. I’ve been apoplectic about that since I learned it a few months ago. Fuck off out of here, EDGE OF SEVENTEEN. You can’t sing JUST LIKE A ONE-WINGED DOVE over and over again in a song and then not fucking call it that. GOD DAMN IT, STEVIE.

I will never bend on this.

When I was in high school I maintained that Pearl Jam was the worst band in history. When Eddie Vedder’s solo soundtrack to INTO THE WILD came out I liked that and my opinion softened? Over the years I’d listen to songs here and there and think “well, that’s not THAT bad, I guess”. Until yesterday when hearing JEREMY again I finally just said: “hmm… I think this band might just be awesome? shit. MY IDENTITY!!!!”

*Ron Howard Voice* Joey was getting life lessons all over the place.

Currently Playing: Fleetwood Mac – “Rumors” and not getting it still.
Currently Reading: THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM, PERFECT EDITION: VOL.1, Kazuo Umezz

2020.04.20 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 26

Happy 420. SMOKEWEEDEVERYDEED

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow

Dana White has apparently secured a private island to host UFC fights.

It’s not that I didn’t always suspect our society would get to “Enter The Dragon/Mortal Kombat Island” or even that I thought it would take longer. I just always imagined a better class of super-villain to be behind it. We as a crumbling civilization deserve a better deranged criminal to organize fight island than Dana White.

Call me crazy, but this seems like an irresponsible thing to do. How are you supposed to maintain social distance while in a cage-fight?

I also worry we’re maybe 2 months away from some kind of Battle Royale or Running Man situation.

What we really need is BATTLE BOTS. We need that movie REAL STEEL starring noted song & dance-man Hugh Jackman. (Which I think is based on a Richard Matheson story? Did I make that up?) I want Big Robots and I want them to fight each other.

In case it wasn’t clear it’s monday morning and my brain is short-circuiting. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a week.

Currently Playing: //delay(5000); – “Dispatch from COVID-19 Occupied Tokyo, pt 3”

Currently Reading: CRYING FREEMAN: VOL. 2, Kazuo Koike & Ryoichi Ikegami

2020.04.17 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 25

I’m at the “watching hour long videos of nerds touring their manga collection” phase of isolation.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I moved a bunch of manga down into my office (I got another table so my workspace quadrupled and now I have so much more space to do activities!) so that I would see them every day until I felt shamed into reading them all. I’m being stared at currently by the first 6 20TH CENTURY BOYS omnibus editions by Naoki Urasawa, the first 5 URUSEI YATSURA omnibus’ by Rumiko Takahashi (I’ve read the first one and I loved it), a big collection of the complete DORORO by Osamu Tezuka (given to me by my friend Sho for my birthday! What a guy.), Junji Ito’s adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s NO LONGER HUMAN and a bunch of other stuff. (Gotta save some for the next time I can’t think of what to blog about on a friday).

Here’s hoping this strategy of piling stuff I want to read beside me all day will prompt me to read some of it.

Speaking of reading! I suck at it again… My reading rate has plummeted of late and I only finished one thing this week so I’m not going to bother with a full Read Icculus entry. I’ll just mention it here:

I read Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running (and really, about writing) WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING. I loved it. Maybe I should start running? Why not me?!

Currently Playing: Makeup and Vanity Set – “Roy”

Currently Reading: That same stupid light novel about meeting girls in dungeons, it’s TRASH, but it is a fun diversion from the apocalypse.