Friday, July 24, 2009

Today's Video Link

One more from Big Daddy, the group that takes songs recorded after the fifties and makes them sound like they were recorded in the fifties. This is them on some German TV show — and even though I took German in college, I have no idea what the host is saying and I don't think I want to know. But after you sit through that, you'll get to hear Big Daddy perform its version of the title song from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. (There's a lot of blank video at the beginning. Be patient.)

• Posted at 9:36 AM · LINK

From the Comic-Con...

A couple times yesterday, I found myself trying to articulate just why it is I enjoy this convention so much. Me trying to articulate anything is always dicey but it goes something like this: It's invigorating to be in an environment where so much is happening, where so many people are having such a good time, and there's so much raw creative energy filling the space. Yeah, it's loud and if you hit the wrong aisle, it can take upwards up a month to traverse ten feet...but you're not a prisoner of any of that. You're in it because you love it and I'm a little weary of folks who bitch 'n' moan about it year after year after year. This is what Comic-Con is, people. No one brought you here at gunpoint.

I wouldn't/couldn't live in this environment all the time...but four days per year is invigorating. Look left and there's someone you want to meet or haven't seen in way too long. Look right and there's something you want to buy. Behind you is a kid in a brilliant homemade costume. And up ahead of you, just down that row you can barely squeeze through, there just may be an exciting career opportunity. (Or not. I think the surest way to let yourself down, and maybe even to make it not happen, is to come here expecting to land a job. If it does occur, great, but you need to let it be one of those unexpected bonuses in life.)

Years ago, I wrote a piece about Guilty Pleasures and why I think they're emotionally dishonest. There's some really stupid movie that you know is stupid but you love to watch it again and again. You're afraid to just admit that...afraid someone else will say, "Oh, you like that kind of crap?" So you call it a Guilty Pleasure and somehow you're supposed to be able to enjoy it without it counting against you. That's trying to have it both ways, which is how too many people want to have their Comic-Con. They can't wait to be here and when they leave, they can't wait for the next one. But to cut themselves away from the herd, to pretend they're somehow above what some seek as geekery of the highest order, they belittle the con and join the throngs who dismiss it all as the Grand Festival of Nerd-dom. (I tried typing that with one "d" and no hyphen and it didn't look right.)

This is the 40th one of these and it's my fortieth...a fact which some seem to envy. It means I got a larger piece of cake than they did, or maybe that I found this wonderful mystical land before them. I've had my gripes with the convention and there were years there I didn't enjoy it as much as I felt I should. Those years were all before I came to realize that my problems were mostly with me; that I was approaching it with the idea that the con was there to entertain me and enrich my collection and career. When I figured out I was shirking my responsibility — that it was just a place I could make those things happen — then I began to really have good times at these things. And I became unafraid to admit that I love this convention.

Gotta run. Four panels to do today, one of them the Stan & Hunter Freberg Spotlight, plus there's the award ceremony tonight and I'm presenting. Also, June Foray's autobiography makes its debut (and June arrives to sign it) and I have two meetings and one interview and don't you think I'd better stop blogging and get over there? If you're around, say hello. I'm easy to spot in the hall. I'm the one with the badge and the big smile.

• Posted at 9:34 AM · LINK

In Other News...

This is being quoted on a couple of other sites but I felt like putting it here, as well. Yesterday on Keith Olbermann's show, political reporter Howard Fineman said the following, and no one seems to be leaping up to disagree...

I talked to people on the Hill all day today. I talked to Republicans as well as Democrats. Republicans claim they have a plan. They don't. They claim they're going to have a plan. They won't. Their whole strategy...is to stand on the sidelines with their arms folded while the Democrats try to work this thing out. That's their whole strategy.

I think the health care system in this country is in dire need of repair. I think people are losing their lives or at least their homes because they simply can't afford proper treatment. Whether the Democratic plan is ideal, I don't know, though the arguments against it I'm hearing sound to me like they're coming from folks who haven't read it but since they don't want any Democratic plan to succeed, are just making up bogus reasons to fear it. In any case, it's apparent that the G.O.P. plan is no plan; that they just want to leave things the way they are. And you know...if I were a Congressman or Senator devoid of conscience and I got that much money from the drug companies, I might too.

• Posted at 9:01 AM · LINK