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.

2020.04.16 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 24

Tiny anarchists ate in my bed again. Popcorn this time.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow

I have a lot of comics and every time I walk past the shelves I think “I really need to reorganize these shelves”. To do this I need way more shelves and to take a bunch of stuff to the dump and I should really create some kind of database to track all my stuff and, and, and…

I usually get sweaty and anxious and just go stress-eat some pizza or something at this point.

I love collecting stuff, much to the chagrin of the bride, I have multiple stupid collections. I collect old video games, books, comics, blu-rays and probably other stuff I’m forgetting. I’ve stopped collecting physical music and toys (meaning I’m not actively acquiring new items, doesn’t mean I still don’t have a metric ton of those things taking up space in my basement).

At some point I started to realize I was running out of space (and the bride was running out of patience) and I decided to try to focus a bit. I rarely buy single issue comics anymore (those physical collections are currently split between my mother and mother-in-law’s homes, it’s aroudn 20,000 comics I think) and I mostly only buy physical manga collections these days. Books I’ve all but switched to reading digitally and only buy physical books of specific authors or of big art/coffee-table type things that just don’t make sense to read digitally. Blu-Rays I’ve tried to slow down… I mostly stick to one or two boutique labels and resist the urge to be a completionist for anything.

I don’t know why I’m like this. I mean, I have SOME idea -I don’t take those prescription meds every morning for hay fever- but I’m really pretty fortunate to be married to such a patient, understanding woman… Anyway, I am gonna go count my collection of used bandages.

Currently Playing: Tuluum Shimmering – “Bird Song”

Currently Reading: THE DOGS OF RIGA, Henning Mankell

2020.04.15 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 23

Bet you thought I was going to forget again! No such luck.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Ed Brubaker, Marco Martin & Muntsa Vicente released a new digital first comic on Panel Syndicate today! I have only read the first couple pages but it appears that Marcos Martin is doing his best work ever? Which is already a pretty high bar? I really love this format. I wish more creators would release their comics digitally like this. (No disrespect to the many fine local comic shops out there who are definitely hurting at this time, but the fact that they’re wonderful places doesn’t change the fact that the mainstream comics distribution and sales model is badly in need of repair). Brubaker and Martin get instant buys from me anyway, but this appears to be great even for them!

A new season of anime is upon us. Cheer or groan here depending on your persuasion. I am excited and managed to watch the first episode of 3 series last night:

Kaguya-Sama Love is War: Season 2
I was a big fan of season 1 and this first episode was great. It’s a very funny show, though I could see it being patience-trying for some. Chika is eternal best girl.

Appare-Ranman!
This was the new show I was most intrigued by as it looked like a 19th-century, steampunk, anime WACKY RACES. The first episode was very light on the WACKY RACING, but it did give us a taste before flashing back to setting up how our characters arrived in said WACKY RACE. It seems good. The animation is very strong and I love the character designs.

Gleipnir
I don’t know what to make of this show? It could go either way, but after episode 1 I was pretty into it. It’s got weird sports-mascot monster guys and a deranged seeming female (pro?an?)tagonist? I’m definitely going to keep watching, but it’s not going to be for everyone.

Currently Playing: Phish – “Sigma Oasis”
Currently Reading: IS IT WRONG TO PICK UP GIRLS IN A DUNGEON? LIGHT NOVEL VOL. 1, Fujino Omori

2020.04.10 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 20

You know how most kids animated movies just cut to dance parties in lieu of endings? Well, Trolls World Tour is just 90 minutes of that. Good tunes though.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow

Bit of a day off today. Felt good not to be sitting in this chair all day AND all night, I even toyed with the idea of not sitting in this chair at all today, but then I remembered that I could play the Final Fantasy VII remake, so here I sit, awaiting a download to finish.

Watching Dave Matthews play a quarantine solo acoustic show in his house and I’m reminded how much I like Dave Matthews Band. He’s got a really cool voice and if there’s one thing in this world I love it’s excessive, self-indulgent jamming. So for fans of long, live, excessive jamming there’s never been a better time as dozens of jambands are streaming old concerts basically every night. It’s prettay prettay prettay good.

Currently Playing: Dave Matthews Band – “American Baby”
Currently Reading: WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING, Haruki Murakami

2020.04.09 Dispatches From the Wasteland – Entry 19

This basement was not designed with my hermit command center in mind, and so I have too many things to plug in and not enough outlets. There’s never been a better time to learn how to wire up more outlets I suppose…

Greetings from my hovel on the banks of the Bow.

I think I’m finally getting cured of whatever strange mental deficiency caused me to never bail on an anime series no matter how bored I was. I dropped 3 shows this week that I only had 3-4 episodes left in and it felt good… but also terrible and there’s a non-zero chance I’ll end up finishing them just because my brain is broken.

Granted, my standard for anime is MUCH lower than the standard I hold other forms of entertainment up to for some reason. I think it’s because I watch anime the way some people watch reality TV. I’ll watch whole multi season series of anime I barely have any interest in whereas I STILL have not finished The Wire, a show I KNOW to be brilliant. I like to have bad anime series on as a sort of background hum while I’m doing other things. At some point I realized I watch more YouTube and bad anime than I do anything else? It should maybe bother me, but I also know that I get more pleasure out of bad anime than most prestige tv. When I want entertainment to engage and challenge me I will watch a film or read a book, watching tv for me is way more passive.

I promise to finish The Wire someday though.

Currently Playing: Phish – “Sigma Oasis” (it’s gonna be this for a while)
Currently Reading: WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING, Haruki Murakami