Batman Birthday Image Search

Today is my birthday, and this 34-year-old-with-adolescent obsessions is happy for two things:

1.) His celebrity birthday brother is current film Batman Christian Bale (so long, Gene Hackman! I just got a new trophy-celebrity!)

and 2.) The Google Image search I did for "Batman Birthday." Just on a whim and with a strong desire to come up with a Batman-related post, I typed this in.

Besides this one, which seems to serve #1 perfectly...
...I got mostly decorated cakes. At first, I ignored these. But then I recalled my recent enjoyment of the book and blog "Cake Wrecks" and decided to go with it. Some are cool. Most... less so. Embrace the snark, everyone.

It seems like the easiest and best way to go is to do a round cake with the classic Batman logo. Like so...

Remember "Batman Z?" It was gonna take all the best parts of "Batman Y" and make 'em even better!

There are many ambitious mothers and confused grandparents out there who want more for their son or daughter (probably son), and that leads us to some questionable choices.

This one's admittedly pretty bad ass, except it's for a 5-year old. Not that the old Adam West show wasn't good for that age group, but I just have a hard time understanding how a modern day 5-year-old would appreciate the detail work that went into crafting the opening-credits image of Batman and Robin on his cake.
GRADE: "TOO MUCH TIME SPENT MAKING THIS."

It reads on the cake-page a little more ominously than they meant it. More like "Happy Birthday... Forever." Seems like the perfect title for mid-80's horror shlock. "The boy who never aged, but had to celebrate his birthday so often that he killed people with cake. Cake that had a Bat-logo made of tar."
GRADE: "TAR."

Jeebus... A funny thing about these things; as with any art, it is in the attention to certain details and the neglect of others that point to the artistic voice. Notice this is a riff on the DVD cover for the movie "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker." We all know the Joker has white skin, but on the box he had been given a greenish hue. That's paying attention to detail. That's the kind of thing that slips when it came to making Batman there. He has a little gimpy leg that kind of droops into a foot. And just incase you don't know what you're looking at, they added "Batman Beyond" at the top. Classic mom cake.
GRADE: "CREEPY."

Pretty incredible, really. That signal looks like it's neon.

GRADE: "NEON = FLAVOR."

Incredible for a different reason. Batman's got sexy cat eyes for you on your birthday, And what tastes better than gray cake?
GRADE: "GRAY FROSTING."

Is it just me or does the writing on this cake look like it was done in ink? And I'm sure it's a trick of the camera, but the little shape on the bottom right looks like a dog. So you've got a skyline against a white sky, a signal shaped like ice cream, ink writing and a dead dog lying in the street about to get hit by the Batmobile.
GRADE: "INK."

I doubt even Robin wanted a Robin cake. And those toys positioned above the cake seem to be passing judgement.
GRADE: "CANDY."


Batman escaping a snow fort on a steel cake. Look at that top! It looks like it could stop a bullet.
GRADE: "FORMIDABLE."

This one reminds me of Frogger.
GRADE: "LOGS."

Now we get into a strange series of Batman sitting on the cakes. Batman rarely looks good sitting unless it's at the driving wheel or a computer. Observe:

There's gotta be a story behind this. Some satirical angle. It's obviously been done by a skilled tradesman. It looks like it's been molded from clay -- Batman's six-pack has definition! -- but the pose is so oddly relaxed. And it's a fat-face Batman, too. This cake Batman looks like he ate too many Batman cakes, and he's sucking it in for the camera.

This one's from Brazil, and maybe in that country, in that culture, a man can sit with very straight posture with no piano or computer or anything in front of him (it's too bad about the piano, because the way the cape flies back it would be perfect for a concert pianist). But to my crappy American eyes, this looks like Batman on the toilet. I cannot be the only one who thinks so.

Yes, happy 6th, Brandon, from your hero, Transexual Batman. (S)he's posed as if we're at Heff's grotto. And that little smile makes it all worth while. Tranny Batman enjoys a little mystery in his-her nightlife, and if you read the right Batsignals, that mystery could be solved quickly. Or get really freaky real fast. Either way.

Hamill-time

For part of my birthday present, my wife watched "EMPIRE STRIKES BACK" with me (she said she knew it would be a treat for me because I often hold off on watching such things as often as I'd like to, because if I did that we'd have to get a divorce; or at least serious marriage counseling; and she was right).

So aside from the usual stuff you notice as you watch something for the zillionth time (like how smooth the transitions are between scenes; we just saw R2D2 get eaten and spit out by a swamp monster, then we go to 3PO in the Falcon asking, "Where is R2 when I need him?"), I realized that Mark Hamill is sadly underrated in this film. He has only two scenes in the entire movie with another human face. Every other scene is with a puppet, a mask, a monster or all of the above.

What's more is he makes those puppet/mask/monster scenes work, and therefore makes the entire movie work. Everyone wanted to give Frank Oz all the credit for making Yoda effective, but if Hamill didn't appear like he was buying it, none of us would have either.

It could have looked horrible. Acting without any real people around you is very difficult. When you don't do it well, it looks like this...

Or this...


Or this...

What you want is this:
A confused, yet ambitious look of desire and hope. He wants to be great. He needs to learn patience and responsibility.

Yeah, I'm probably over stating his abilities purely based on my own nostalgia. I probably take Luke more seriously than I should because I'm hanging onto the feelings I had as a child, letting my memories and perceptions become truth. BIG DEAL. That doesn't mean it's NOT true. And in this case it is. 100%.

We'd be lost without you, Mark. You were the rock.

A Better "Bigger Bang"

I realized that the Stones have released a total of 24 studio albums, four of which were completed in the last 21 years. This would constitute a "down period" in the band's career, but that doesn't mean they haven't put out some good stuff.

They just haven't been doing it that often.

The result has been lackluster, especially when compared to their hey day material. The unfortunate bit is that three of these later albums were CD's, which means they were longer than a traditional 40+ minute album. And since the Stones were reared on putting out albums in 40-minute blocks, but are required to churn out 60 minute CD's, that's about 20 minutes of not-so-spectacular stuff.

WHY BRING THIS UP? Because as I've been playing and playing 2005's "A Bigger Bang" and skipping my less-favored tracks resulted in a solid Stones album forced into a CD lifestyle. I've been dealing with this for a while, because for some reason I can't stop playing the CD in the car (it just lives there), but it wasn't until recently that I uploaded it onto my iPod and started cutting some of the fat. There was a good album in there -- good enough music that the band actually opened their recent tour with "Rough Justice" (for a few nights anyway) and kept some of the songs in the line-up. When I saw "Shine A Light," I actually was hoping to hear some of my favorites from this album, which seems crazy. When given the choice, shouldn't I want to hear "Sympathy for the Devil" for the 100th time?

The fact that they didn't play them then made me a little sad, because it's like they didn't believe in their own music. And it makes me sad-angry because they've been forcing songs like "You Got Me Rocking" down our throats since 1994, but I can't find a single instance of "Laugh, I Nearly Died" live. It's a travesty!

So without further ado, I present to you the 1970's album version of 2005's "A Bigger Bang," (aka "The Way You Should Actually Experience This Album If You Want To Like It.")

First off, the cover. Either don't look at it too often or, if you're still using the CD, turn it from the goof-ball, space-campfire photo and opt for the simple white-letters-over-black reverse side. I can't find a picture, so just look at the one at the top of the page compared with this (assume the sides)...

___________________________

therollingstones.abiggerbang

_____________________________

Already you're in a better place.

Now, you're gonna cut it down to 11 tracks, leaving:

1.) Rough Justice
2.) Let Me Down Slow
3.) It Won't Take Long
4.) Streets of Love
5.) Back Of My Hand
6.) Biggest Mistake
7.) This Place Is Empty
8.) Oh No, Not You Again
9.) Laugh, I Nearly Died
10.) Look What the Cat Dragged In
11.) Infamy

Now we've got something to properly review. And in true addition-by-subtraction fashion, this new running order gives a new focus to the entire operation. In fact, a decent emotional thread weaves through this album, making it almost sound relevant. It's like there was a concept album hiding amongst the latest affirmations of going wild* and car-as-love motifs**.

This leaves a lean, mean, blusey record, where all the songs are about something beyond "Let's make a song." In the past, strong music as used for "Rough Justice" would have been relegated to the proof of how crazy or sexy the Stones want to be. Here, it's about something (breaking up with a girl or I dunno...). And "Rough Justice" is one of their greatest songs of the last, 30 years. It's an album kick off, not an album sludge (I'm looking at you, "Flip the Switch"). It is a fan maker. It is a rocker that doesn't have anything to prove. It has stupid innuendo used well, not random swearing for swearing's sake (I'm looking at you, "Sparks Will Fly"). It deserves better. I hope they play it for their 90th birthdays.

"Let Me Down Slow" is an okay #2, but coupled with "It Won't Take Long," you have something taking shape. In "Let Me Down," Jagger's expecting his girl to break up with him, and he wants it done painlessly. Then by track 3, he's in denial about the situation, declaring it won't take long to forget her. I say denial because we still have more album to go.

That's where "Streets of Love" comes in, a well made schmaltz and the best version of "Wild Horses" they've made since "Angie." More importantly, it's better-made, more-tolerable schmaltz than "Rain Fall Down," which contains some of the worst lyrics on the CD (it's just stream of consciousness; something like, "I went to sit down, started watching TV, then I got hungry and I saw you there, and the Rain Fell Down, and we made sweet love." This is barely an exaggeration). Carrying the schmaltz torch alone, you only have to sit through 5 minutes of good schmaltz instead of 10 minutes. Plus, "Streets" solidifies this heartbreak theme, where Jagger's protagonist is admitting to himself that he's alone and lonely and that he's at fault.

THIS IS NEW, people. As far as I can tell, I can't think of a single Rolling Stones track where they admit they might have some fault in a failed relationship.

You go to "Back of My Hand" for a dose of blues menace, and it's a great song because it's cool to hear them doing this again. This is the best you could ask for in a later-period Stones album: does it remind you of the right things.

You skip the bar rock "She Saw Me Coming" going directly to "Biggest Mistake" arrives to throw in some more empathy as Jagger is realizing his cheating ways may have cost him the love of his life. We've been down this road before ("BABYLON'S" "Already Over Me" -- which sounded exactly like "Always Suffering" on the same damn album), but not without the filler to soften it. Here we just came out of "Back of My Hand," making for a more powerful emotional transition.

"This Place Is Empty" stays mostly because it fits the theme. It's not a bad song, but not great. It keeps things going for the pick-me-up of "Oh No, Not You Again," a song they believed in enough to include in their concerts. More bar rock is jettisoned in "Dangerous Beauty" (I mean, who cares?) and you get to one of the lost jewels in this mess, "Laugh, I Nearly Died."

It's really a shame that their success has overpowered the band's ability to shed the fat and just play music. I understand it for "STEEL WHEELS" and "VOODOO LOUNGE" and "BRIDGES TO BABYLON" (more on the 1st and 3rd), but this was a good album, with actual musical stretching going on. I have never heard Mick Jagger sing like he does on "Laugh." Never. It's on the chorus specifically. It's a pained howl, and it's loud and it's awful and it's great. And they never play it live. Nor will they. History will regret because the song was on the back end of a fat album, bookended by turds like "Beauty" and the less-than-timeless "Sweet Neo Con," a song not helped by some seriously annoying lyrics (it's like liberal bait; I'm all for doing politics in music, but lyrics like "You call yourself a Christian / I think that you're a hypocrite / You say you are a patriot / I think that you're a crock of shit" are as tired as Charlie).

We're almost done.

Some songs seem fast, but are really slow songs with fast guitars. Some are fast songs with slow guitars. "Look What The Cat Dragged In" gets a lot of play with me because it's a fast song with fast guitars, fast drums, fast bass, fast other guitar and fast lyrics. It's a lot of fun to sing along with, and I guarantee no one has ever confessed to that with any of these songs and it is a shame.

We drive past "Driving Too Fast" -- I don't know many CD's where you can't skip the second to last song -- and go into "Infamy," a great song if for no other reason than it is a Keith song with the full Rolling Stones. That is to say, it's not just a Keith song with Ronnie and Charlie and Darryl. Mick plays the harmonica on it, and it's nice to hear. The way their careers and concerts have gone, it seems there's a serious separation between the Mick material and the Keith material. But since they were always stronger together than apart, it stands to reason that this feels more like fun than obligatory.

There you have it. 43 minutes and it's all pretty good. At least as good as "TATTOO YOU." The only thing you're missing is a great, get-'em-all-singing last song. "Infamy" is a great song, but it's not a finale. At least not by the standards of a band that has closed albums with "Salt of the Earth," "You Can't Always Get What You Want," "Moonlight Mile" and "Soul Survivor" (yes, I'm comparing it to their absolute best albums. So what?). It's not even on par with a finale like "Star Star," which was at least as grease ball as the rest of its album. It's more along the lines of "TATTOO YOU's" "Waiting On A Friend." "Here's a good song... and the end."

This is what I think about: ways to save my heroes from themselves for my ability to better enjoy them.

*As a rule, I believe that if you have to say/sing how you're going to "go crazy" or "be wild" that you are, in fact, neither crazy nor wild. This can be seen in "VOODOO LOUNGE's" "I Go Wild" and "BRIDGES TO BABYLON's" "Out of Control." Both serviceable songs, but ultimately suspiciously pushy about their agenda.

**Seriously, what is up with 60's-age Stones and these car songs? "LOUNGE" has "Brand New Car," this one's got "Driving Too Fast," and I'm pretty sure there's some mention to engines or speed on "BABYLON." It's like they just discovered the Beach Boys.

Tightwad: "Led Zeppelin Downloads"

Intellectually, this has very little do with this blog (no parenting, Batman, Star Wars or Rolling Stones whatsoever -- unless you count the one insert shot of the Stones' Amazon.com page, which I don't). But it was done by me, and I'm in charge of this, so that makes this 100% relevant.

Enjoy...

Le Star Wars

Qui, you read correctly. I can write in French.

Or I at least write it as well as the people in charge of the following gem understand English. Or movies. Or electricity.

I've worked for three-plus years as a transcription writer for television, and our duties are basically to write down everything said or shown in English so that it can be translated into another language (the foreign markets are so important these days). I don't know who 20th Century Fox used to transcribe the movie, the trailer or even the gist of "STAR WARS," but I'm positive it didn't come close to this.

And even if the story got mangled, it took a visionary -- a man or woman of tremendous ability -- to mangle it all in their head. To make a video like this takes true artistry. Blind, clueless, living-in-your-own-world artistry.

I think the meeting went like this:

EXT. PARIS - CAFE - DAY

Smoke is everywhere as a NERVOUS EXEC meets with a DANCE CHOREOGRAPHER.

NE: "We would like you to direct a music video."

DC: "I've heard of those. I'll do it. Direct on the stage?"

NE: "No, with cameras for television."

DC: "Perfect. What is everything you just said?"

NE: "It's a video for that disco version of the theme from 'Star Wars.'"

DC: "I love it. What is 'Star Wars?'"

NE: "It's this movie. Kind of sci-fi fantasy with lots of --"

DC: "Oh, yes. I have seen the poster. I know just what to do."

NE: "You do?"

DC: "Sure. So the gold robots fight the black face man, they can both fly and dance, they dance with each other and then land on the city, yes? I got it, I got it..."

NE: (wipes his brow)

DC: "Ah! Our crepes are here."

And just for good measure, the Dancing Vaders (aka "The Darth Vader Dancers," aka "Lords of the Sith-Dance") have Batman capes, giving this post a score of 18 out of 30 on the Blog Relevance Meter.

Knowing

I've been humming "Baby Break It Down" for the past two days. Granted, most songs with the word "baby" in them get into my head a lot quicker these days, but most of them are at least more explainable. "Baby It's Cold Outside," "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time," "She's My Baby," etc. These are what we call "hits."

"Baby Break It Down" is not a hit, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I had to look up its location, which is deep in the later half of "VOODOO LOUNGE," a 15+ year old record and not one of their finest. When I was consolidating music, I actually picked a handful of songs I still enjoyed from this album, mixed with a (smaller) handful from "BRIDGES TO BABYLON" and put them on a CD along with "TATOO YOU" in its entirety. Semi-needless to say, this CD gets about as much play as a sweaty nerd on prom night (thank you), and even if it did get played in a regular rotation, "BBID" isn't even among the chosen few (that would be "Love Is Strong," "The Worst," "I Go Wild" and "Mean Disposition").

So how did this happen? How do I know most-ish of the words to this song (at least the chorus) when by all rights it should have been excised from my memory?

The answer is simple and embarrassing: I know it because I played the album so many times.

And how did that happen? Because I was a fan? Sssssssort of.

It's because I was a fan in the making. "VOODOO LOUNGE" was the first Rolling Stones album I ever purchased and heard in its entirety.

Now THAT'S embarrassing.

I can't be the only person to have played "VOODOO LOUNGE" more than 20 times in my lifetime, but I hope I'm the only one who knew the words to every song on it before even hearing a lick of "EXILE" or even "SOME GIRLS."

Or maybe I'm not. Here's a video of a dude who not only admits to knowing the song in question, but he's playing his version of it. And he video taped it. And he put that video on YouTube. And it's got 1800 hits.

1800 hits.

It is at this point in the navel gazing when you must ask yourself why was this song -- a mostly OK but disposable album filler -- even recorded, as this is a question the Stones must have asked themselves every time they've entered the damn studio since 1974. Whatever new song they create, they're never obligated to play it again. Nor can they. Their live shows average around 2.5 hours long, only 10 minutes of which can be dedicated to any song made since the 70's. How does it affect your songwriting when you know you're probably just gonna have to make room for the zillionth playing of "Brown Sugar?"

But the main question remains: how have I retained the knowledge of this song? Why haven't I let it go? It's a strange thing when the fans clearly know the artists' work better than the artists themselves. Actually, it's a strange realization. I suppose with very popular artists, this happens more often than they'd care to admit (or than the fans would care to admit).

Lucas On "The Daily Show."

OK, now he's just lying to us.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
George Lucas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

While I can appreciate the nod to "I had no idea it would get this big," and the gentle good humor he has toward "These are just movies," I still don't think I buy that young kids loving the prequels deems them as good movies. By the logic diplayed here, won't those same kids eventually grow up to hate the prequels (or the "Clone Wars" TV show that some generation seems to love...?), therefore proving the popular belief that the prequel trilogy is crappier than the original trilogy?

The answer is yes.

Oh, and he wrote a book, that looks like it's really long and text-booky. But I've also heard that some of the younger librarians claim it's their favorite. Much better than anything written by Pauline Kael.

Child Abuse

As the parent who dresses our baby, I take full responsibility for my actions.

As you can see, he's thrilled with this decision.

It's not great parenting, I know. I mean... a faded logo shirt with dark sleeves and cords?

What's next? A hipster fedora?

Realizations - MST3K and the Rolling Stones

I just realized that to many fans, Mike Nelson is the Ronnie Wood of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." He was an easy yet controversial replacement to a much beloved member of a popular group, and though he was part of the group longer than any of his "better" counterparts, he is still seen as the lesser.

But to examine the analogy a little further, and to the side (you really gotta want it with my analogies), MST3K and the Rolling Stones have a weird parallel in their careers, and one that proves Nelson may in fact be the Mick Taylor of the show.

Starting with the original lineup of Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, and Kevin Murphy, this would be considered "The Brian Jones" period, one of popularity and prosperity. Then Joel left the show and was replaced by Mike. If the show had suffered, then the Ronnie Wood analogy would hold up. But during Mike's run as host, some of their funniest material came about. This includes the theatrical movie as well as the transition to the Sci-Fi channel, making this period the "Sticky Fingers" portion of Best Brains, Inc.

Obviously this isn't remotely scientific (or even Mystery Scientific) and if you really wanted to get down to it, the period where Mary Jo Pehl acted as antagonist was probably the post-1977 Wood years for the show, but she'd already worked on the show for so long (120 episodes!) that it doesn't exactly work. Neither does calling replacement Crow T. Robot the Ronnie, since he was only part of 48 episodes and -- while no Trace -- found his spot and did good work. Perhaps there is no true Ronnie Wood to MST3K, and we'll all just have to wonder the planet aimlessly knowing that ours is a world without rules. Chaos Planet I call it.