Nobody's Inn

We checked in today at the Nobody's Inn in Durango, CO., so named because, well, nobody was in. We received a code in an email which got us in the door then upstairs we found the key to our room in the door. It was exhaustive carrying our luggage up the steep stairs to our room after spending the day at Mesa Verde. Had we known the door in the back of the hotel was on the upper floor that would have helped a lot. Anyway, very cute place and right downtown.

It Is Real!

We arrived at Monument Valley today and all that stuff you see in the movies, it's real! Not ashamed to admit it made me cry.

Another Sleepy, Dusty, Delta Day

It is the Third of June; Happy Ode to Billie Joe Day!

Almost Weekly Life Drawing

Most weekends I find myself at William Stout's studio for his weekly "Worshiping at the alter of feminine beauty." Most people might just call it a life drawing lab, but I like Bill's title better. These three illustrations are from last weekend. As with the vast majority of my work there, it is blank and white charcoal on grey Strathmore paper. These are all 25-minute poses.

Jack Berchman Keller

My father passed away at 3:10 this morning surrounded by the love of his family. He was one of the kindest people I have ever met.  He was 91 years old and had been in pain for much of the past two decades; he went quietly and peacefully in his sleep. I will miss you papa.

Surface Pro

Guess what I got on Thursday? So far I could not be happier. This is looking to be the best damn computer I have ever owned. This is a game changer for Microsoft. No wonder the Apple people were trying to piss on this before it came out; it... puts their products to shame. I can run over 40,000 Windows 8 apps, 675,000 Android apps (through Bluestack) and any Windows program I own all on one device. There is nothing on the market that comes close to this with a touch or keyboard interface and astonishing handwriting recognition. If it can read my scribbles (and it can) it can read anything.See More

 

The Happy Couple

This was taken at Paula's son's wedding. Thanks to Lucas and Samantha for providing us with an outlet to express our feelings.

Argo for Me

Every year I try to see all the Oscar nominated films, so that I can have an educated opinion of who should win in each category. Yesterday we saw Flight, DJango Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty. That finished off Best Picture, Sound Editing and Film Editing. I still think the best picture was Argo. Sound Editing is a tough one but I think I would vote for Life of Pi. I would almost go with Pi for Film Editing, but I think I would go for Argo instead. The market scenes the storming of the embassy and the tension at the end were all masterfully done.

Beginning Year Two of My Second Life

One year ago this minute I was a little over two hours away from the beginning of the end of my life. I didn't know it, had no idea it was coming, but that is the way life is. You never know what it has in store for you. In a little over two hours, a year ago, it had a heart attack waiting for me. Ten or fifteen years ago it might have killed me; one of my arteries was 100% blocked, but due to the miracle that is the modern cath lab, it didn't kill me. Only it did. It killed who I was; it killed the life I was living.

As I lay on the table in the cath lab and the miracle workers opened my blocked artery from the inside of the artery, there was that moment when I felt my heart jump in my chest and I didn't know if I had just died. And in that moment the regrets of my life, things I had never admitted to myself, flooded over me. And though I didn't physically die, the person I was, the life I was living, did die.

Within three weeks I would leave my wife and lose the respect of my son. I left the big house on the hill and wonderful neighborhood. I left the neighbors I called friends. But it wasn't all bad.

I found a new/old love; a woman who loves and respects me like I really don't deserve. I found a simpler life, of less things but richer moments. I found my new life.

And now in just a few hours, the first year of that new, second life will have been lived and the second year will begin. This first year has been a year of transitions and not everything from the old life has reached its completion, but they all soon will.

The world is not quite my oyster, not yet, but it has the possibility of being that and that is a beautiful thing.

Here's to new beginnings.

Turn and Face the Strain

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

Yeah, my life is all about changes these days. Some painful changes and some quite the opposite, but changes none the less. When last we talked I confessed to having a heart attack, which seems like a real game-changer in the game of life, but in my case it was only the tip of the iceburg. Something happened to me that was unexpected as I lay on the table in the Cath Lab at Pomona Valley Hospital.

Like I said before I had an angiogram, angioplasty and three stents placed in my Left Anterior Descending artery during the hour and half procedure. I was awake through the entire thing and to be honest even through the wonderful morphine haze I was scared shitless. I knew as soon as I got on the table that I would be a different man when I was wheeled out, if I was wheeled out. As they cut open the artery in my groin and began pumping dye into my blood I knew with 100% certainty that I had put myself on that table, that the poor choices I had made in my life blocked my artery, though at the time I didn't know it was 100% blocked.

Something else happened that changed me as well. While I was laying there at one point I could feel them working inside my heart. It felt like my heart jumped and at that moment I did not know if something really good had just happened or if I had just died. So I held my breath and waited to see what the afterlife was like, if there was one. And while I was waiting I felt the deepest sense of regret for the way my life had gone, in particular for my marriage.

I've been married 26 years and neither my wife nor I are the same people who tied the knot lo those many years ago. We had drawn apart; where we had few common interests in the beginning, over time we had even fewer. For a number of years now my wife would tell me, once a month or so, how unhappy she was being with me, how I brought little joy into her life. With these changes came a decided lack of passion and desire in our relationship. Still, it wasn't deplorable, it was livable, hell it was comfortable and that was the problem. My wife was not happy and I was not really satisfied but it was a comfortable existence, so we stayed together even though we maybe should not have.

When the moment ended and I was still alive I knew that my life had really changed, that I could not live causing my wife pain and that I could not live the rest of my life longing for a passion that just no longer existed. So, while recovering from a heart attack, while my wife was being the sweetest to me she had been in years, I hurt her again, hopefully for the last time, because though I still love her deeply, it was no longer enough, and I moved out of our house and my comfortable existence and into the unknown.

When I try to make a list of the things I have lost in the past two weeks, it is scary, but I have to feel it is worth it. My wife will no longer be hurt by me and will have a chance at finding someone who doesn't make her unhappy, but instead fills her with joy. And I have, amazingly and unexpectedly, found the passion and desire I so missed. More on this next time.

M.I.A.

That's me,, missing in action. I have had quite an interesting threee weeks. First I had my gall bladdre surgery, which messed me up quite a bit. Then, while home recupterating from that I had a heart attck. Good one too. I had a 100% blockage of my LAD (Left Anterior Descending) artery.Through the absolute magic of the Cath Lab they wre able to repair my heart while the attack was occuring. My attach started just abert midnight and the blockage was cleared completely by 4:00 AM. I was awake through the entire proceeding as they broke up the plaque blocking the artery, expanded balloons and inserted three stents. I cannot even come close to describing how this all felt as I lay there on the table.

It was one of those life changing experiences, and more than that I cannot at this time say. As a nifty souvenier I did get these wonderful picture of by heart, before and after stents:

Concentration

Besides being an old TV game show hosted by Hugh Downs it is also something I totally lack since my operation. I thought I would be able to use all this "free time" I have on my hands, you know, while the holes in my body seal up, for posting to my blog and doing some painting and some writing and, shit, I just can't concentrate on anything other than how shitty I feel. What a wasted opportunity this is turning out to be.

It's Gettin' Real in the Hyundai Commercial

last month I saw this commercial making the rounds and something about it seemed familiar. Talented people get to do their thing:



If you are like, "Huh?" check out the Whole Foods Parking Lot video This one always creacks me up:

I'm Alive!

Well, I got that pesky gall bladder removed and as the Hollies say, "I'm Alive!" I'm in pain, but I'm alive. I don't know what I would feel like if it weren't for the Percocet. I have four new openings into my body, two of which rip right though my abs and make it frankly hard to pee. But things could have been worse and I thank everyone who was in the operating room on Wednesday and who helped me in my room that night and the next morning.

How Smart is This?

This has got to be the smartest commercial I have seen in years. Man I wish I had written this!

Just Hold Your Gall Bladder

So two weeks before Christmas I am driving home from work and I start to get this ache in my stomach, really high, just under the rib cage on the right side. My first thought is indigestion, though it is getting worse with every passing minute and so my second thought is pancreatitis. This nasty ailment is something I have had once before, about four years ago and it hurts like a, well, let's just say, it hurts. So is the pain I am having that day driving home. About a third of the way home it starts shooting through me like a knife drilling through my body and then the pain starts spreading across my back. I am waiting for it to begin shooting laterally across my stomach, like it did the time before, only it doesn't do that. So though it feels really reminiscent of pancreatitis, I'm just not sure.

I get home and my son says, "Go to the ER Dad. You can go now or the ambulance can come and take you later." Me, I don't like going to the ER, so I say I am going to give it another hour or so to get worse or get better. It does neither. So, at 9:00 that evening, we go to the ER. As soon as they get me in and into a bed, I start to feel better. Now I feel like a fool. Indigestion I think. They run battery of tests including an ultrasound, but find nothing and I get home around midnight, my insurance company now $4,000 the poorer.

A few days later I go to my doctor for a regularly scheduled check up and he pulls my records from that night and tells me they missed the gall stones when reading the ultrasound that night, but the guy whose job it is to read these things sees them the next morning, so my gall bladder has to come out.

I see a surgeon a week ago and he schedules me for the Wednesday with the pre-op visit today. I go in, spend over an hour waiting to be seen, I see the doctor, I see his assistant, I see the doctor again and the assistant then starts asking me questions. The last question she asks is when did I stop taking my daily aspirin. I say, "What do you mean stopped? I took it this morning."

Seems they forgot to mention that I had to stop taking the damn aspirin, so I am now scheduled to have my gall bladder removed a week from Wednesday. I'll let you know if it happens.

Slashed!

I had said a few days ago that I was able to remote access my Kindle Fire using Slashtop and that was true up to a point. The point where it was not true was when I left my internal wi-fi and went out into the wild blooming yonder of open access wi-fi. From there I could not get to my desktop. I searched the Kindle Fire Forum and found another app mentioned, TeamViewer and downloaded it.

Today, from my Dr.'s waiting room, I was able to access my home PC and work on my novel. Pretty cool. The problem I had with Slashtop was that it only saw my internalal IP address, not the external one being generated by FIOS. TeamViewer doesn't seem to have that issue.

All Fired Up!

I am all fired up, Kindle Fired up that is. My son bought me a Kindle Fire for Christmas and I have been giddy ever since. I've had it for over a week now but I am really just beginning to see the potential in the product.

Bezos should have come out singing, "I am the God of hell fire and I bring you FIRE!"

I bought a nice leather case for it with a stylus. That comes in handy when I want to use Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile. It will take some getting used to the stylus which is not nearly as easy to use as my Wacom Tablet on the PC, but will suffice for now.

It's Kindle, so all of my Kindle books are available to me for reading at my leisurere. Though not an e-Ink screen, I can still use the Fire as a reader while on the go.

I'm not really much of a gamer, never owned a gaming device, though I have played with my son's XBox 360 and Kinect a number of times, but I seem to be loading the internal memory with  games like Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Back Stab and Madden 12, all of which play amazingly well on the Fire and for each of which I paid 99 cents. The graphics and the response of the machine are pretty damn amazing.

Video is another treat on the Fire. From YouTube to streaming full movies and TV episodes, the Fire is a smooth experience.

A few months ago I ripped all of my CDs to my PC and then moved all of them to the Amazon Music Cloud so that I could listen to them on my phone or at work. With the Fire I have access to my entire music collection.

A few months ago I gave my laptop to my step-son who needed it for work and so I went through November's NaNoWriMo without benifit of a way to go out and socialize while writing. I wrote my first novel using Scrivener for Windows and put my Scriverner data files into my Dropbox folder which allowed me to have access to them on my PC and my phone and anywhere else I had a Dropbox folder. Well, though not natively supported on the Fire, I was able to side load Dropbox onto the Fire, so my novel is now there as well. My problem is editing the files. The Fire does not have an editor for RTF (Rich Text Format) files, which is what Scrivener uses, so though I have access to them on my Fire, I still cannot edit them. Enter Slashtop!

Slashtop is a remote access app that allows me to have access to my PC desktop on my Fire. Utilizing Slashtop I have been able to work on my novel from my Fire. Not a perfect solution, but it does work and for the time being, that is enough for me.

So let's see if I can bottom-line this. I can surf the web, play amazing games, read my books, paint and draw, watch movies and TV, listen to my music and write my novel all from a $199 tablet, all for $300 less than the cheapest iPad. Only a complete fool would waste their money on the big Apple.

I am So Ashamed

I don't know what to say, I laughed. I really laughed at this. I don't know if this bodes well or bad for this new year.

LED Astray

For me, one of few stress relievers during the holiday season has always been to lay on the living room couch at night in the darkened room and spend some quality time gazing at the Christmas tree. I can lose myself in the reflections of the tree lights off of the glassy sheen of the ornaments. It induces a kind of hazy daydream effect that sort of washes over me, letting my troubles and the not inconsiderable stresses of the holidays float away in the soft glow of the lights. Or at least it used to.

This year I fought the strings of lights for about a half hour before giving up and telling my son to go buy some new ones. He did, only they were the new LED lights. "You and burn them all year Dad and they never get hot and they take about as much electricity to run them as a fart." he promised. OK, they are cost effective, they are safe, but they emit a harsh light that has totally ruined the one sure stress relieverer I had. I tried to lay down on the couch and lose myself in the tree, but those damn lights were burning holes in my eyes.

Oh soft glowing lights, why have you forsaken me?

One of the 36,774

Someday, and I swear it will be soon, I will stop talking about the NaNo. But today is not that day.

They released the stats this week for the National Novel Writing Month and they are pretty impressive:

• 256,618 participants, up roughly 28% from 2010’s total of 200,530 writers.
• We wrote a total of 3,074,068,446 words, up 7% from 2010’s collective word count of 2,872,682,109.
• This averaged out to 11,979 words per person!
• We had 36,774 winners, giving us a 14% win rate!

Happy to have been a part of it all. Of the 25 writing buddies I had this year, 13 of them completed the NaNo or 52%. Not too shabby for my friends.

Lessons Learned

This should give you an idea of how I managed my NaNoWriMo. Pay particular notice to the graph on the right and the long flat area starting about half-way through. In looking back at my first NaNo to see what it taught me, and hey, that is what all of us winners and loser are doing about now, I came to four lessons learned. They are as follows:

1. When the going gets tough, Barry takes nine days off.
2. Though I tend to complain about things quite a bit, they are usually problems that I have caused all on my own, and in actuality, I sort of get off on the drama, as it allows me more time for self-absorption.
3. Eventually I will rededicate myself, after I have waited the prerequisite amount of time to make the outcome once again somewhat in doubt (this also relieves me of any responsibility for how bad it might turn out as it is now crystal clear to all that I just don't have enough time to do it the right way).
4. I can do anything to which I set my mind.

3,073,176,540

National Novel Writing Month Total Collective Word Count for 2011:

3,073,176,540
 

The Truth About the Appleheads Among Us

I saw this first over the weekend as an in-theater ad shown before Melancholia and it cracked me up. These snooty, lame-ass, self-absorbed frauds and the perfect commentary on the army of unthinking iPhone users. Assholes standing in lines for hours to get a phone that looks just like the phone they already have and worried that people won't know they have the new phone, 'casue it is all about image and not at all about having a great phone, not even sure of the specs to the phone they are standing in line for hours to purchase. This is simply priceless.

I Came, I Saw, I Nano'ed!

That's write! I mean that's right! I Came, I Saw, I Nano'ed! You have no idea what a rush that was. Had I not taken nine days off it would have been a snap, but those nine days of 0 words made the last six days a little tense. My first NaNo, my first novel.

OK, confession time: my novel is not done. It needs maybe 10,000 more words in its rough draft form before I begin a serious edit. But the NaNoWriMo task is to write 50,000 words of your novel, and I beat that by 208 words.

So, to be clear: Is my novel done? No.

Did I win NaNoWriMo? Fuckin' A Bubba!

To NaNo or Not To NaNo

That is the question.

I had pretty much given up on my NaNo on November 16th. I was on track that day, having written over 27,000 words, but I was realizing I was no longer sure who my main character was or where she was going. So, I stopped writing and waited for divine inspiration to occur. Still waiting!

Then, yesterday I started thinking about the 10,000-Hour Rule and decided that though I am not going to end up with something very good, I can add to my practice of writing so that next year I will be more prepared for the task. So, I wrote almost 2,000 words last night and need to write about 14,000 in the next two days to "catch up." See ya later!

The Bird!

Yep, it's that time of year again; time for the unveiling of the LA Times Brine Bird!

We have been using this same recipe from the Los Angeles Times for, I think, six years now, and it results in the best turkey you ever ate. The best part about this is it comes out perfect every year and all it takes is maybe a half hour of preparation Monday morning. You clean it, salt it and bag it on Monday, turn it on Wednesday, unbag it Wednesday night and stuff and cook it Thursday morning. The result is the juiciest, tastiest bird you ever ate.

It's not complete though till you carve it. I take my carving instructions also from the LA Times.  The same year the LA Times put out the brine recipe, they put out a video on how to carve a turkey (you can still find it on line) and I started following it. This year's bird did not want to cooperate, but I managed. The result is a plate of meat that can't be beat. Instead of dry slices of meat, you get big juicy chunks; the perfect way to display and consume the brined bird.

The Kinect Effect

I saw this commercial on TV twice in the past day or so and had to share it. It moves me. Ah Microsoft, what a great commercial and what a great technology. The Kinect is surely the "big-titted hit" it deserves to be.

Oh No, WriMo!

While working on my NaNoWriMo novel I have been reading Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton which I downloaded to my Kindle when Amazon put nine books on writing on sale for $0.00 in support of NaNoWriMo. The first time I got in a jam with my story, Hooked actually helped get me out of it, but for the most part the book has been a detriment to me writing. By the end of the first or second chapter I wanted to reorder the chapters in my book, something that would not be too difficult to do and I figured I would get to that either by the end of the month, or next month while editing.

When I hit my first blockage and was ready to chuck the book, I took my dogs for a walk and on that walk a new vision came to me and I saw where my book should be gong plot-wise. That got me back to writing and resulted in another 10,000 words or so. Things were looking good, then I did a really stupid thing; I kept reading Hooked. My problems really started with Chapter Three: The Inciting Incident, the Initial Surface Problem, and the Story-Worthy Problem. Although I had an Initial Surface Problem that I was going to move from Chapter 16 (my chapters are small) to Chapter 1, and I had a Story-Worthy Problem, introduced with an amazingly heavy hand in my original Chapter 3, I did not have an Inciting Incident for the Story-Worthy Problem.

And my writing ground to a halt four days ago and has been there ever since.

I don't know if it will start back up again. The lack of an  Inciting Incident for the Story-Worthy Problem made me realize how vague my Story-Worthy Problem really is, which has made me reconsider the whole thing. Also, the more I write the more my main character (MC) seemed to be shifting from that character I though was the protagonist to someone else and her story if even vaguer than my original MC. So, here I sit, broken-hearted...

Or not. The holiday is coming and five days off of work and yes, there are things to do during those days, lots of things to do actually, but should things come together in my mind and should 5,000 words a day spew out of my for three or four days, I would be back on schedule.

So there is hope! There is always hope. What there is not is an Inciting Incident for the Story-Worthy Problem. Crap!

A Time Lapse View of Earth From the ISS

The crew of expeditions 28 and 29 onboard the International Space Station took a series of time lapse photographs of earth from August to October, 2011. Here they are strung together in a video; an amazing look at our planet. Blow this up full screen and take five minutes to enjoy the world you live on.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

NaNoWriMo is Here!

The Calendar above and to the right is supposed to show my progress in the NaNoWriMo, but so far it does not appear to be working correctly as it shows me behind on my writing every day, when I have in fact been ahead since day 5. Oh well, maybe it will start working corectly at some point. The word  count does appear to be working correctly at least.

NaNoWriMo is Coming!

Sounds like the name of a Stan Lee monster from the 50s, but it is actually National Novel Writing Month and I have decided to give it a try this year. I just finished up the F2K writing course online and a lot of the people there are now moving on to NaNo, which I had never heard of before. It takes place from November 1 to November 30 and to participate all you have to do is, 1) sign up at www.nanowrimo.org and 2) write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

This is not a finished novel, this is a rough, unedited first draft. In fact, editing is frowned upon as it usually results in less words and as it is you have to average 1,667 words a day for 30 days in order to "win" the contest. No one reads your novel, so you are on the honor system here, though you do have to upload it at the end of the month so the words can be counted by the nanowrimo software. If you do "win" your prize is a 50,000+ word novel and a PDF certificate proclaiming your victory over procrastination and writer's block.

According to the big clock on nanowrimo we have 10 days, 11 hours, 28 minutes and some change before the big event begins. Anyone want to join in the, uh, fun?

But What About the Other Guys?

Well, they got Kadafi. That only leaves Gaddafi, Gadhafi, Kaddafi and Qadhafi still out there causing trouble.

The Big "Easy"

Walter Mosley about to sign a copy of an Easy Rawlins novel for me.

It appears that NBC is bringing Walter Mosley's Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins to TV, and I'm not sure how I fell about that. I have loved every one of the "colorful" Easy Rawlins books, from The Devil in the Blue Dress to Blonde Faith, but how well will Easy translate to TV? The thing I loved about the books was the unique look into the world of a black man living in Los Angeles from 1948 to 1968, a time of massive social upheaval, some of which I lived through, but none of it as a black man. NBC says the TV show, co-written by Mosley, will take place in the 1960s, surely a time of social unrest, but a big part of Easy's transformation takes place in an earlier, and less forgiving time. I guess we will have to see.

Buddy! Buddy! Bud...

I saw Buddy Guy this weekend in Anaheim and it was a down right shame. I saw Buddy a year ago at the Hollywood Bowl with B. B. King and the contrast between the two men, health-wise, could not have been greater. B. B. had to be almost carried on and off the stage, sat in a chair and hardly moved, while Buddy, was, you know, Buddy! Up and alive, this dervish of energy, jumping off the stage and running up and down the aisles and never stopping. This weekend in Anaheim, Buddy stopped.

He played for only an hour and 10 minutes and of that, he was missing from the stage for a good 15 minutes as his band covered for him. After the first 10-minute departure he returned to sit on a stool and play acoustic. Buddy sitting? Buddy playing acoustic? At one point he said he wasn't feeling his best, and man did it show. I hope to god it was the flu and not something more serious. A world without Buddy Guy is something I don't want to even contemplate.  

Are You Ready for Pacific Gas and Electric?

I was recently updating a list of people I have seen live and came across this band. I don't think I realized this was a religious song back in the day. Of course I saw them at the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino. Are You Ready for Pacific Gas and Electric?

The Story of Johnny Quest

One of the great joys of my life as meeting the late Doug Wildey at the San Diego Comic Convention sometime in the 80's or 90's (not quite sure when). Doug was an amazing artist but few people know of him. If they do, they know of him for Johnny. Sit back and relax, this takes a while. Here is the history of Doug Wildey's the Johnny Quest.

A Tale of Rings

I am really just blown away by this. Check it out, they are taking five years worth of photographs snapped by the Cassini space craft and crafting an IMAX flip-book of Saturn out of them. Everything in this video is real, No CGI, no models, nada. Amazing!

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

Roscoe's

Saturday night, after the Blues festival, we turned our attention to food and being in Long Beach, I suggested Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. I always get the Herb's Special #3, a full half a chicken and two waffles, which I smother with syrup.

Now I eat chicken most days than not, usually from El Polo Loco and after removing the skin, but I would not think of doing that at Roscoe's. I only eat here maybe once every two years or so and when I do, I don't what to spoil what is for me a real treat. I don't know where Rosco finds these chickens, but they are gigantic, the "Chesty Morgan" and "Watermelon Rose's" of chicken, with huge, juicy golden breasts you just can't wait to sink your teeth into. There is also something in their waffles, some spice, that makes them special and unique and the perfect companion to beautifully fried chicken.

I have a theory on why Roscoe's is so good, why chicken and waffles go together in an almost addicting fashion: chocolate. I know what you are thinking, "What do chicken and waffles have to do with chocolate?" Let me explain. Is there a more addicting food on the planet than chocolate? I don't think so, and the reason chocolate is so addicting is that it satisfies two cravings most people have; chocolate is both a fat and a sugar, wonderfully melded together into a tasty treat, but to our lower minds, our more primative selves, chocolate is fat and sweet and we can't get enough of either, but together it is like a drug.

And so is chicken and waffles, a wonderful mixture of plump and juicy chicken, coated in a light batter and covered in the remnants of the fat the brought it to golden perfection, and waffles, drenched in the sweetest, sugary, maple syrup. Like chocolate the combination is addicting. And since I try to always stay on top of those things which can take control of me, I imbibe rarely, but with gusto.

Ana Popovic

Spent last night at the KJazz Blues Bash in Long Beach and was completely blown awy by Ana Popovic, Hendrix with a vagina. Watch and enjoy!

My Table

14 months ago I started in a woodworking class on Saturdays. All I wanted was to build a table for my art studio. It seemed easy enough. I wanted something tall enough so that I didn't get a sore back when I worked on cutting a mat or framing a piece of art. I also wanted some sort of flatfile system to hold my papers ...and finished drawing, plus something to hold my mat boards and mat cutter and other things as well.

I showed a drawing to the instructor and she never said anything like, "Isn't that a little ambitious for a first project?" though she should have. Well it is now 14 months later and though I still have to make the actual table top starting next week, the rest, as of today is done. Well, it does need six or so coats of wax to make it shine on like a crazy diamond, but other than that, it's almost there!

Morning Light

I take early morning walks with my dog and sometimes the light just astounds me. I'm not sure this one is finished, but it is moving in that direction.

To Retirement!

Today my brother Jack retired. Here's to taking it easy and doing nothing!

Dick Giordano, R.I.P.

Dick Giordano died this morning. I was re-reading Hot Wheels #2 (March 17, 1970) for my DC Comics blog last night, late as usual, and thinking what a stupid and utterly lame idea for a comic book this was. And what a magnificent series this turned out to be and the reason it was not the disaster it should have been was Dick Giordano. As editor he pulled together an amazing team, from the actually exciting scripts of Joe Gill and Alex Toth and Len Wein to the wonderful covers of Neal Adams and Alex to the even better pencils of Alex and Ric Estrada and later Neal and the glue that held the interior artwork together, some amazing, just dazzling, inks by Dick himself.

Dick Giordano had his hands on more of the comic books that I loved in those important early teen years than any other person in comics. The Marvel people had Stan Lee, but I never felt welcomed in by Stan. Dick Giordano on the other hand welcomed me into his books and seemed genuinely interested in what I and other fans had to say and he was nice enough to actually thank us at the end of each letter column for buying the book and joining in on the fun he had a hand in creating. I felt at home at DC because Dick Giordano made me feel that way.

I feel a hole in my heart the size of a child's wide-eyed enthusiasm. Thank you Dick, but this one is not going to be a very good afternoon.... See More

And I sincerely mean that thank you. Thank you Dick, for the best series I ever read, the Skeates/Aparo/Giordano run on Aquaman, a series that was likely to go anywhere at any time and always do it with style and the greatest of artistry, Thank you for the Secret Six, the Mission:Impossible of comics that made me appreciate the non-super-hero books for the first time. Thank you for The Hawk and the Dove and the Creeper and the excitement that Ditko brought to DC if only for a little while. Thank you for the Teen Titans issues with the Wein/Wolfman controversy, Wonder Girl's uniform, the sexiness of uniformless heroes, and the great artistry of Neal and Gil and George and of course and always Nick Cardy. Thank you for Hot Wheels, the greatest TV show/Toy/Comic book cross-over ever. Thank you for mixing a little more humor into the horror with The House of Secrets and even more humor in The Witching Hour, those early issues being more fun than chilling.

Thank you for knowing when to stay out of the way and let your writers write and your pencilers pencil and your inkers ink and for letting Nick Cardy create one amazing masterpiece after another. Thank you from bringing us Steve and Jim and Denny. Thank you for proving over and over again the pencils do not have to be weak to be improved by the inker. Thank you for some of the better parts of my childhood.

What's Behind it All?

We got back from San Francisco on Sunday. We stayed at a wonderful Worldmark Hotel there, in a colorful neighborhood full of cinematic history. Here is the view across the street from the hotel. I recognized it immediately

The New Math or You Can Fool Some of the People a Lot of the Time

There is a TV ad on in the past few days for a sporting goods chain named Dick's which just points out how some people are not very good at math. The spiel is that if you spend $300 at Dick's they will give you a coupon good for $150 at any of their stores. This morning my son was telling us how he was going to Dick's to spend $300 and get that $150 in free money. I guess that is one way to look at it. Here is another.

I asked him if he would be as excited if they offered 20% off everything in the store. He said "No."
"How about 25% off?"
"Not really."

"30%?"

"No."
"40%?"

"You're getting close."

"Then why are you so excited by 33% off?"

"What do you mean? Dick's is offering 50% off."

So then I had to explain that spending $300 to buy $450 worth or merchandise is 33% off, not 50%. It took a while, but I think he finally got it.

Honorable Mention

My painting, Beached, won Honorable Mention in the landscapes division at the USPA Gallery Show now showing in Laguna Beach.

40 Years Ago Today From DC Comics -- Aquaman #49

Aquaman #49 (On Sale: November 6, 1969) has just an absolutely beautiful cover by Nick Cardy. What a great design and a powerful drawing. One of Nick's best for sure.

The feature-length "As the Seas Die" is by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo and is some of their best work together to date. Jim Aparo is really changing before our very eyes; each issue is like looking at a different artist. His layouts get more dynamic, his people get more real, his story-telling gets more and this issue features some wonderful work. Aquaman and Aqualad are off the coast of Alaska investigating reports of schools of attacking fish, when they themselves are attacked. The fish don't respond to Aquaman's telepathic commands, so they must fight the fish. However, they get some assistance in that effort from Phil Darson, whom Aquaman (and we readers) met in Aquaman #43.

Phil is there investigating the fish as well, which he says are not only being driven insane, but are also dying. Aquaman and Aqualad go see Professor Davidson, who is the one who summoned Aquaman. The professor believes that the fish are being poisoned by pollution, but that none of the factories int he area will talk to him since a saboteur has been attacking the plants in the last few days. Even as they talk the saboteur is striking again, blowing up part of a nearby plant. Aquaman sees the saboteur jump into the water and gives chase, but is taken out when an explosive is thrown his way.

The next day reports want to discuss the saboteur with the president of the Leland Factory hit the night before, but he won't talk, saying that there was no saboteur, just a boiler malfunction. When they leave he explains to an underling that he doesn't want anyone snooping around and finding out that they are dumping chemicals into the ocean. Back at Atlantis Ocean Master arrives and demands a meeting with Aquaman, but Mera tells him that Aquaman is too busy to see him right now.

Meanwhile Aquaman and Aqualad have found evidence of pollution at both factories that have been hit by the saboteur. that is when Aquaman reads int he paper that Leland says that the explosion at his plant was an accident, which Aquaman knows to be false since he chased after the guy who planted the explosives. They begin to wonder if the Professor might not be involved. Aquaman decides to check out the Leland factory that night, while Aqualad keeps an eye on the Professor. Aquaman sees the saboteur returning to the Leland factory and follows him. The Professor leaves his lab and Aqualad follows him.

The saboteur breaks into Leland's factory only to find Leland waiting for him with a gun. The saboteur disarms Leland and explains that he had asked Leland earlier to stop polluting the ocean and Leland had refused; taking out Leland's plant had seemed the only way to stop him from killing the sea. Aquaman arrives before the saboteur can harm Leland, but he overpowers Aquaman and set the plant on fire. As Aquaman goes after him he is knocked unconscious by Leland who heads out after the saboteur. Meanwhile the Professor has been trying to reach Leland at his home with no success.

Aquaman awakes int he flaming building and staggers out as he hears gunshots int he distance. He sees two figures struggling on a cliff. When he gets there he finds they have fallen over, but the saboteur is still alive. He tells Aquaman he meant him no harm and considered him a friend. He pulls off his mask and it is Phil Darson, who explains that there was no legal way to stop Leland and his kind, so he resorted to the only method he knew would work. Darson then dies from his wounds.

Later they meet with the Professor who says he found evidence that chemicals from the Leland factory were killing the ocean and when to confront him. Aquaman says that he has already talked to the new owners and that they will stop dumping the chemicals into the ocean. They then head off, back to Atlantis. This story was reprinted in Adventure Comics #501.

Edited by Dick Giordano.

USPA Gallery Show

If you are in the neighborhood in the next month or so, I have two pieces in this show.

40 Years Ago Today From DC Comics -- Brave and the Bold #87

Brave and the Bold #87 (On Sale: October 23, 1969) has a Batman and Wonder Woman cover by Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano.

Batman and Wonder Woman star in "The Widow-Maker" written and penciled by Mike Sekowsky and inked by Dick Giordano. I remember being so very disappointed when this book came out that Neal Adams was not drawing it, particularly because I had read that Wonder Woman was the team guests and had wanted to see Neal's version of her. At the time it didn't even occur to me that the big news here was that Bob Haney's four-year run on Brave and the Bold ended this issue. Haney would be back next issue though, while it would be a year before Adams would return to these pages.

All those sour grapes aside, this is one of my favorite Brave and Bold issues and turning it over to Mike Sekowsky was exactly the right thing to do. With Wonder Woman Sekowsky was mining a new direction for pure action comics, aside from super-hero comics and this fit in well with the powerless Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and the equally powerless Bruce Wayne/Batman. Throw in a European local, and Formula One street-course racing, a homicidal driver, a little revenge and some jet-setter flirting between Bruce and Diana and you have a great story, sans super powers and traditional comic villains.

Diana and I Ching are checking out a fashion shoot taking place in the mechanic area of a European rally when she is spotted by driver Bruce Wayne and Willi Van Dort, the driver of the car Widow-Macher. Bruce butts in when Willi tries to make time with Diana, saving her from Willi's unwanted advances, but Diana doesn't recognize Bruce as he ex-JLA buddy Batman and remembers him only as a millionaire playboy. While watching Willi's qualifying lap they learn that Willi's car is called the Widow-Macher or Widow-Maker because the last seven drivers who seemed on the cusp of beating Willi have all died on the track.

When it is Bruce's turn to qualify his time is three seconds faster than Willi's and Willi and his team take notice. Later while passing a window Diana sees Willi talking to his men in sign language, which Diana can read. However, she does not speak German and does not know what Willi is saying, but as she spells it out I Ching translates the conversation and they learn that Willi has ordered his men to fix Bruce's car so that he will not win tomorrow.

Late that night as Willi's men go to work on Bruce's car they are interrupted by Bruce who begins to go all Batman on their asses until Diana and Ching show up. Bruce holds back in an effort to keep his identity secret from Diana and in the process get whacked in the head with a wrench. Willi's men escape capture and Bruce ends up in the hospital with a concussion. Told by a doctor that he cannot race Diana offers to take his place, but Bruce makes a call to Commissioner Gordon and Batman is (supposedly) soon racing to Europe to take Bruce's place.

The next morning it is Batman who is seated in the Wayne One Special. As he pulls out into a throng of press he is also met by Willi who informs Batman that he is the son of General Van Dort, a crazy lunatic that Batman once stopped. Willi promises to avenge his father's honor. After warning Batman of the Widow-Macher aspect of Willi, Diana uses binoculars to once again eavesdrop on Willi giving instructions to his men to see that Batman does not finish the race.

The rest of the story is one narrow escape from a Willi tactic by Batman followed by one take down of a Willi henchman by Diana and Ching. It's fun stuff excellently done by Sekowsky and Giordano. In the end Willi is killed in a trap meant for Batman and Diana needs Bruce's help to bail her out of jail when she and I Ching inadvertently used the wrong car to chase down Willi's men. This leads to the promise of a dinner date between Bruce and Diana. This story has been reprinted in Showcase Presents the Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups Vol. 1 TPB and Diana Prince :Wonder Woman Vol. 2 TPB.

They fill out one page of space with "A Matter of Life and Death" by Murray Boltinoff and Jack Sparling, a tale regarding the thoughts of a corpse in the back of an ambulance.

Edited by Murray Boltinoff

Buh-Buh-Buh-Bump [Snap-Snap]!

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Vic Mizzy has died. Don't know who Vic Mizzy was? You are not alone. Not exactly a "house-hold" name, his work was none-the-less familiar to us all. Mizzy was a composer best known for two little ditties he wrote in the 1960s: the theme songs to "The Addams Family" and "Green Acres." The Times piece is a great retrospective of his career.

The Bears Are Back

Tonight at about 8:15 we were upstairs watching TV in our bedroom when we heard the crashing of the trash cans next door. We went to the window and looked out at the side of our neighbor's house where they keep their trash cans and saw two bears. I went to get my camera and take some pictures, but I had the thing on video. This is what I got (best when viewed in full-screen mode):

And I Thought It Wasn't Possible For Me To Hate The Rams More Than I Already Do

But this will do it. A team I will be rooting to lose, and lose big, every single week (not that I haven't been doing that every year since Carroll Rosenbloom was murdered, uh, I mean died) . I mean the headline says it all: Rush Limbaugh says he's trying to purchase Rams

True Story

When I was up in Washington last month for my nephew’s wedding, my brother took my sister’s fiancé and me out for a drive. In reality he wanted to take us to one of the coffee huts in the area to look at the women. In Washington they serve coffee out of these little huts that look like old Photomats. The deal is the women serving you coffee are in their underwear. Anyway he took us to a place called Grab-N-Go and when we ordered our drinks the woman serving us asked what we were doing and if we were out “looking for trouble.” My brother just sort of brushed her off, but I thought at the time that the “looking for trouble” was a code for, you know, “looking for trouble.” It appears I was right. This video is taken at the Grab-N-Go we stopped at.

The Right, So F'ing Stupid It's Scary!

40 Years Ago Today From DC Comics -- Phantom Stranger #4

Phantom Stranger #4 (On Sale: September 16, 1969) has a cover by Neal Adams.

We begin with "There is Laughter in Hell This Day" by Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams and Bill Draut. In my mind I have always considered this to be the first real story of the modern Phantom Stranger. Before I get to the story though, I have to say that the strange combination of Neal Adams and Bill Draut came off pretty well, though it looks like Neal went back in and reinked quite a bit of this himself, so who knows what it actually looked like.

We begin in Haiti, where Dr. Terence Thirteen and his wife Maria are witness to a crazed tourist's dive from a waterfall into a pool during a native ceremony calling for Tala. Terry dives in to save the man but discovers an underwater vortex sucking everything into a tunnel. He barely makes it back to the surface and the next morning has the authorities use explosives to seal up the tunnel. No one notices the swirling smoke the explosion released that forms into the beautiful Tala.

As the Thirteen's jet back to New York to check on a supposedly sobbing brownstone building, their jet is engulfed by an enormous black cloud. From outside it is clear that the cloud is a manifestation of Tala's cape as sit stands astride the jetliner. A crackle of lightning from a vast white cloud signals the arrival of the Phantom Stranger. As they arrive in New York that evening the area is in the midst of a strange power blackout, when, low on fuel, the plane's lights and radio also die. Terry thinks he sees a beautiful woman standing on the plane's wing, but realizes it must be an illusion caused by strain.

A glowing Phantom Stranger guides the blinded plane in safely and Tala confronts the Stranger before flying off. Terry Thirteen also confronts the Stranger, calling him a phony stage magician, but the Stranger disappears in the smoggy darkness of night. the plane down and out of danger, the power suddenly returns to New York.

The next day a quartet of teenagers trade some junk with a Brooklyn junkman for some money and what he calls a "a book to raise the dead." The foursome then head for the supposedly haunted brownstone building where they plan on crashing for a bit and on of them mentions that the old how has been dead for years and that maybe the book could "wake it up again." Inside they find a huge old fireplace with massive gargoyles and above the mantle, a painting of a beautiful girl. In a mirror off to the side is the reflection of Tala.

Suddenly they hear the sobbing the house is infamous for and they drop the book on a dusty table where, unseen, Tala forces open the catch and flips the pages to a voodoo incantation for raising the dead. They read the incantation which asks Tala to bring them life. Unfortunately, the life is passed to the two gargoyles who attack the foursome. But the Phantom Stranger suddenly materializes as well and intercepts the gargoyles doing battle with them, turning them into a pile of broken plaster. Tala then emerges from the mirror and offers herself to the Stranger, but she is rebuffed and flies off in a fury.

Moments later the Thirteens arrive and Terry accuses the Stranger of playing upon the delusions of the youngsters. But they say they have heard the crying in the building. The wailing starts again and the Stranger cuts a hole in the wall with his finger and inside they find an old, skeletal woman. Thirteen tries to explain away her existence but the woman, barely alive tells of how she came to the building when she was 18, to visit her fiancé and how she told him of her love for another and how in a fit of rage he sealed her up in the wall and became a hermit, spending the entirety of his life in the house to be near her.

In his will he saw to it that the house could never be touched and so it and she remained. Suddenly the house begins to shake and tremble. As they run from the building Tala can be seen on top of the house laughing. Thirteen calls it an illusion. The woman says all she wants is to sleep forever and the Stranger promises her it will be. The next evening he places flowers on her grave. Thirteen is there, calling it all a hypnotic illusion staged by the Stranger. The Stranger tell him that there are "more things in heaven and Earth-- than one can imagine" and then disappears, leaving Thirteen still convinced that the Stranger has duped them all. This was Reprinted in Showcase Presents Phantom Stranger Vol. 1 TPB.

The back-up story "Out of This World" is by Robert Kanigher and Murphy Anderson and is presented as one of the "Strange Tales from the Phantom Stranger." This is the old story of a guy picking up a hitchhiker, taking her out dancing and falling in love with her. The next night he returns to the house he dropped her off at and discovers that she died one year ago yesterday. This is very close to the plot of the old Dickie Lee song, Laurie (Strange Things Happen In This World).

Last night at the dance I met Laurie,
So lovely and warm, an angel of a girl.
Last night I fell in love with Laurie -
Strange things happen in this world.

As I walked her home,
She said it was her birthday.
I pulled her close and said
"Will I see you anymore?"
Then suddenly she asked for my sweater
And said that she was very, very cold.

I kissed her goodnight
At her door and started home,
Then thought about my sweater
And went right back instead.
I knocked at her door and a man appeared.
I told why I'd come, then he said:

"You're wrong, son.
You weren't with my daughter.
How can you be so cruel
To come to me this way?
My Laurie left this world on her birthday -
She died a year ago today."

A strange force drew me to the graveyard.
I stood in the dark,
I saw the shadows wave,
And then I looked and saw my sweater
Lyin' there upon her grave.

Strange things happen in this world.

Reprinted in Showcase Presents Phantom Stranger Vol. 1 TPB.

The letters page features a letter by the late comic historian Richard Morrissey and one from letter column regular Gary Skinner.

Edited by Joe Orlando.

Republicans Are Class Acts All the Way

40 Years Ago Today From DC Comics -- Showcase #86

Showcase #86 (On Sale: September 11, 1969) has a Firehair cover by Joe Kubert.

Firehair in "River of Gold" is written and drawn by Joe Kubert. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying rereading these stories. In Firehair Kubert created the perfect tool for telling his tales of morality, human nature and the turbulent times on the late 1960s. An old prospector searching for gold stumbles into the land of the Crow and finds himself surrounded by warriors thirsty for revenge against the white men. Firehair comes across the confrontation and calls out the Crow for even contemplating "murdering defenseless of people."

Black Eagle, the son of the Crow Chief's issues a personal challenge to Firehair for interfering in their business. Years of having to fight for a place in his own tribe gives Firehair the advantage and he soon forces Black Eagle to concede. Firehair demands to be taken to Black Eagle's father, who as a great chief must be a just man.

The chief chastises his son for attempting to use his protection to right his loss in single combat to Firehair, but he also worries that the old prospector may not deserve the gift of life that Firehair has given him. He worries that the old man seeks the "yellow stones! The soft, worthless pebbles they value more than life or land" and that should he find any that their land would be "over-run by his kind!" Firehair explains to the old man that at tomorrow's sun dance ceremony he must fight Black Eagle again and that if he wins again that they will both be set free, but that the old man must not search for gold and must leave the land of the Crow.

The old man says he understands. but that night he attempts to sneak out of camp. However, he sees that he is being watched and returns to camp but not before spotting a trove of gold nuggets in the stream running through the village.

The next morning Firehair and Black Eagle once again square off in single combat and once again Firehair is victorious. The chief declares that they "will be as one -- in honor and trust!" and Black eagle and Firehair become blood brothers. The old man notes to himself that "they sure know how to settle their arguments!' but while the sun dance ceremony begins he sneaks off with his mule and a few sacks of gold from the stream.

Later when they discover he has gone, it is Firehair who must search for him as it is Firehair who has accepted responsibility for the old man. Firehair tracks him down and finds him just as a grizzly has also found him. Firehair intercedes and kills the bear. The old man however, pulls his gun on Firehair and says he will kill him rather than let Firehair take him back to the Crow.

Back at the village Black eagle wonders if Firehair will return when a moment later he and the old man are seen coming back. The old man turns over his gold saying that "I couldn't shoot someone who'd saved my life...twice! I guess...there's some things even more valuable than an whole river of gold!" The chief gives the old man his freedom and Firehair moves on in his search for a place he can belong.

"Saturday -- 1787" is written and drawn by Ric Estrada is a great little slice of frontier life and hardships of the early settlers. It does a terrific job of showing the hard choices the early settlers sometimes faced. A little gem from the late Ric Estrada.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Who Needs Mapquest When You Have Al Franken?

This is seriously amazing. Franken is really growing on me as a different kind of politician, one that seems to be able to connect to his constituents in a number of new and unusual ways.

Katrina

How I spent my Labor Day holiday. Painting. Every day. I had a commission to complete and I spent all weekend working on it. Finally finished this afternoon. Not my best work, but then again I never said I was any good with watercolors.

"Downtown" Jones

Anyone who reads Mark Evanier's News From ME blog (and you all should be doing so), knows that last month Mark got on sort of a "Downtown" kick. By "Downtown" I refer to the Petula Clark hit from the 1960s and Allan Sherman's takeoff of same, "Crazy Downtown." First Mark linked us to a video of Allan Sherman singing "Crazy Downtown" then a week or so later Mark related how he was almost sued by Mr. Sherman for writing his own parody of "Downtown."

So, I was alive when all this was going on. I was young, but I remember "Downtown," I even remember singing it in elementary school choir. But for the life of me, I don't remember ever hearing the song "Crazy Downtown," but it seems Mark was, shall we say, enamored with it and the Petula Clark hit as well. But exactly how enamored was Mr. Evanier? Just how big of a "Downtown Jones" was Mark in the clutches of? It was pretty bad folks.

You see, my other blog, DC Comics 40 Years Ago, causes me to spend some part of each week reading old DC comic books from, you guessed it, 40 years ago. On September 4, 1969 Batman #216 was published. It was a pretty good issue, but what I found really interesting was the letters page and a missive from one Mark Evanier of Los Angeles, California who extolled the work of new DC writer Frank Robbins is his own unique way. It went something like this:

Dear Editor:

The following is a song parody of the type I used to win original Inferior Five artwork with. It is sung to the tune of "Downtown"...

When there's a mag, wherein the stories don't drag,
The writer is probably--Robbins.
In all his glory, he can write a mean story,
Johnny Hazard's pop -- Robbins.
It may be in a Batman or it may be in a Flash,
If it's not his first issue then it's certainly not trash,
Superboy too.
Top it off with Novick art,
You have a Batman story that comes straight from the heart,
It's by Robbins...
Frank is a real find.
Robbins...Bad stories are behind.
Robbins...Immortalized in this song.

Oh yeah, that guy Evanier had a real "Downtown" monkey on his back!

Dismal Nitch

We are back from our weeklong+ trip to Oregon and Washington. One of the fun aspects of it for me was trying out my new camera (a Sony DSC-H20), which is the best camera I have ever owned. Here is a picture of my wife, Dayle, taken at a place called Dismal Nitch. We found a lot of depressingly named places along the Columbia River. Dismal Nitch is just across the river from Astoria, Oregon, where we spent the first night of our vacation. We wondered about the names of these places and learned that they go all the way back to the Lewis and Clark expedition. According to the Fort Clatsop Bookstore:

Heavey (sic) storms confined the members of the Corps of Discovery near the mouth of the Columbia River. For six days in November 1805, they set up camp at an area Wm. Clark referred to as a "dismal nitich". (sic) Today, this place is still called "Dismal Nitch" and is located just east of the Washington end of the Astoria/Megler Bridge.

40 Years Ago Today From DC Comics -- Flash #192

Flash #192 (On Sale: September 4, 1969) has a cover by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.

"The Day the Flash Failed" is by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. This is one of those rather convoluted Kanigher stories, but I found it compelling. The real interesting thing in this story is the reason Flash fails on the "Day the Flash Failed." I don't think this was ever done in a comic before or maybe since and for 1969 it is pretty progressive of ol' DC. The Flash fails because he is late getting to the launch of a Navy submarine because he was busy, uh, servicing his wife Iris. I kid you not. Check out the page below if you don't believe me. I will say as a horny teenager this subtle reference to Iris's carnal needs totally slipped by me.

So as we can see by page 2 here, the Flash is running late for a meeting with a Navy submarine that he was supposed to be aboard. We have to forget for a moment that the Flash can swim at super speed and can vibrate through walls and could easily "catch up" to the submarine because to remember that would just ruin the whole story.
Anyway, the sub disappears and Flash does do some super speed swimming and can't locate it and everyone blames him for the sub going missing and his life is hell, yada, yada, yada. Did I say I found this compelling?

Iris wants to get Barry out of the house and get his mind off of, you know, him being a failure and all, and so they go and visit a friend, Phil Anderson, at a lighthouse. There is a storm and the helicopter Barry is piloting is hit by lightning and Barry has to turn into the Flash to save them and Phil is a mess and his wife is missing and his heart is giving out and geeze, do the coincidences just keep a comin'!

It seems Phil and his wife went on a super-secret mission for the CIA, where they pretended to be a couple on their second honeymoon crossing the Atlantic in a small sailboat, but were actually looking for enemy nuclear subs lurking off the Greenland shelf, which just happens to be where Flash's sub went missing. Anyway Phil and his wife, Phyllis, get knocked overboard in a storm and picked up by a, you guessed it, enemy nuclear sub.

After being captured Phil and Phyllis escape through the sub but are trapped in the torpedo room, which is being filled with poisonous gas and Phyllis stays behind while Phil is ejected through the torpedo tube and eventually picked up by an American fishing boat. Phil is now waiting for Phyllis to come walking back across the water and into his arms because she promised she would.

OK, so the Flash goes looking for Phyllis and of course finds the underwater lair where the "enemy nuclear sub" is hiding with Phyllis and the missing sub that the Flash lost while he was busy "getting some" from the missus. Flash rescues everyone, but Phyllis was exposed to too much of the poison gas back in the torpedo room and is dying and the Flash super-speeds her to Phil, but she dies along the way and Flash sees her ghost walk across the water to meet Phil's ghost (his heart gave out at the same time). The end!

I have to give Robert Kanigher credit for the Flash gets laid and is late plot idea, proving that Barry is not "The Fastest Man Alive!" in all regards, but man, did this thing go south quickly.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.

Eye-Balling the Internet

As this article explains, we may be just a few years away from some Steve Austin-like eyewear, electronic contact lenses that could give you bionic eyesight and let you surf the web directly on your eye. They are not there yet, but in a few years? Who knows?

Ted Kennedy

As I recall, the National Lampoon Encyclopedia Of Humor was on the shelf for something like two days before it was recalled and this fake ad was removed. Click the picture to read the fine print.

iGo Now

We are getting ready for a week+ long vacation and one of the things I am doing today is getting our cell phone chargers together. We use the iGo charger, which allows you to buy one charger and spend less than two dollars for the tip that fits your current phone. When you get a new phone, which requires a different charger you spend another buck+ on a new tip and you are good to go. We have three iGos, one for each car and one for the home. This all reminded me of what happened last year while I was traveling back and forth to Florida for work.

Yep, I left my iGo charger in my rental car, dumb-ass that I am. When I got home I called the rental car company (who shall remain nameless to protect the incompetent) and told them what had happened. They looked around, found my iGo in their lost-and-found box and said they would put it aside for me and I could pick it up the next time I was in Florida. I gave them the date of my next arrival (a week later) and said my "thank yous."

A week later I fly into Ft. Lauderdale and go by the nameless rental counter to pick up my iGo (my company had booked me this trip with a car from a different company). I tell them who I am and what I am there for and this woman takes my name and goes into the back room and is back there for about 15 minutes. She finally returns and says they don't have anything that looks like an iGo and I am just out of luck. I ask if I can look and so after a bit of huffing and puffing on the woman's part she retrieves the box of lost cell phone chargers from the back room.

"See, there is no charger like the one you described."

I said, "Did you look in the big envelope on the top of the box? The one with my name on it and today's date?"