16 Days Later...

Wow! I have been away from the blog for quite some time! Did you miss me? Of course you did....

Where have I been? Well, I spent a week at the beach on our annual family getaway to the Delaware shore. As always, it was a blast! Here are the highlights:

1. Waves - rough but fun! Got four days of quality boarding in. Saw a good number of dolphins as well.

2. Read 2 1/2 books - including the latest by Jasper Fforde, he of "Thursday Next" fame. I was afraid I wouldn't like this new series simply because it didn't have Thursday Next or her Literary Crime branch in it, but in truth it was a delightful read. I laughed out loud about 100 times - seriously! Great stuff.

3. Spent some quality time with my niece, sister, and brother-in-law which is always fun! Who would have thought my sister would eventually be kewl?? She used to seem like such a pain!! Here she is now....oh so pretty!! She has always looked up to me....
















4. Ate at my second favorite restaurant, the Hobbit. Received the bad news that they are closing down for a year and half to put up a new building though....No me gusta!! Oh, hit Grotto's pizza two or three times too! Super-tasty!!!

5. You know what wasn't super-tasty? Some of the new flavors available at our favorite ice cream shoppe....




















Way too disturbing! Well, stand by - I have to take a break, but there is definitely more to come. I, of course, have to comment on life after the conclusion of "Rockstar: INXS" and a few other things. Hang tight, True-Believers!!!

I'm so depressed...

You know what - I'm going to re-write this entry. I posted it as an immediate reaction to seeing "Fashion Rocks" on CBS tonight, and I kind of feel like I'm not giving it ... I don't even know....the "seriousness" that it deserves. I can't even figure out how to say what I want to say here.

Just got in and watched the tape of "Fashion Rocks" that I recorded tonight so I could see my man David Bowie.

I had forgotten that he suffered a heart attack last year. The minute he walked on stage, however, I remembered.

I guess (hope) that he has stopped smoking because I have never seen him so chubby. His face looked so old...I have never seen him like this. It makes me so sad.

A sentiment echoed by many reviewers on the "Reality" tour last summer was that he seemed to be eternally youthful. It's so easy to buy into this because, except for a brief period in the 1980s, he has always been so musically vibrant, so relevant, and so energetic. I have NEVER seen him look anything less than fantastic. One of the best moments of my life was the first time I saw him and Gail Ann Dorsey sing "Under Pressure" live on the "Earthling" tour.

Ziggy Stardust. The Thin White Duke. The Berlin Visionary. The Heathen. This man has ALWAYS mattered to rock music!

I hope I am just over-reacting to this. I have just never seen him like he was tonight and it never entered my mind that I ever would. It seemed like his body or some sort of medication or something is conspiring against him to make him look his age. So unkind; so unkind.

I am so depressed right now.

PS. And what's the deal with CBS?? You have one of the legends of rock music perform three songs for you - "Life on Mars", "Five Years", and whatever that Arcadia Fire song was - and they show the one that no one has ever heard??? I know DB would defend that group that played with him, but I had never heard that song before and I would guess most people hadn't either. Show his classic hits if you ask him to sing them! D'uh!!

The Golden Age

Bought a book today to read whilst at the beach next week, not that I needed to having a stack of tomes about 15 tall on my nightstand right now, but I always like to take some sort of comic book trade collection with me as well as novels. By this I mean, a book that collects one comic storyline from multiple issues into one book. They are very popular right now; in fact, one of the current problems with the comic industry is folks waiting for the trades and not buying the "real" issues of the story.

Anyway, this year I didn't go with a comic collection exactly. Instead I picked up a book that takes a look at All-Star Comics, a title which ran from 1938 to 1951, basically throughout what is considered the "Golden Age" of comics. All-Star Comics featured the Justice Society of America, comicdom's first superhero team, and the obvious forefather to the Justice League of America.

The JSA featured the original Flash, the original Green Lantern, the original Hawkman, the Original Atom, and many more characters (including Wonder Woman, who as a girl, served only as the JSA's official secretary. Different times.... Eventually they let her join full-time.)

The reason I put "original" before all the heroes names above is because during the Silver Age of comics, an editor named Julius Swartz led DC Comics as they recreated these heroes with new secret identities, new costumes, and new backgrounds. This period began in the mid-1950s. You can probably picture the Flash in your head, and when you do, it is the Silver Age version you are most likely thinking of.

For whatever reason, I have always enjoyed these Golden Age versions more than their Silver Age counterparts, and I have been able to read many of the old All-Star Comics courtesy of DC Comic's wonderful Archives line. Many readers of today's comics would be bored by the simplistic storylines, but these adventure tales of an era I will never really know, hold tremendous appeal for me. This is the same reason I enjoy listening to old radio shows featuring the likes of the Shadow and the Lone Ranger or watching old Flash Gordon movie serials.

Also, many comic fans of today criticize the artwork in these old books, but there were many true geniuses working during that time. Seriously. For almost every bad artist a critic can point out to me, I can point out someone producing honest to goodness ARTwork.

• Jack Kirby
• Sheldon Moldoff
• Alex Toth
• Mart Nodell
• Joe Kubert
• Joe Simon

And there are more - these are just names that I could list off the top of my head. I'd rather look at a page drawn by any of these guys than a page drawn by many of today's "hot artists".

There is something about these guys that just seems so fantastic to me. They were creating the entire industry as they went along. Today, creators have 70 years of history to look back at and draw from, but these guys only had each other. I read accounts of groups of creators working non-stop over a weekend in a cramped studio to get books done in time, and to me, it's such an inspiring, romantic image.

I was fortunate to have dinner with Mart Nodell a few years ago at the Harvey Awards, and I heard some of his stories about working on Green Lantern in the late 1930's . I don't think that he looks back on these times as fondly or as idealistically as I'm apt to think of them, but I just can't help it. For whatever reason, I won't let reality intrude upon my vision of the Golden Age - probably because of how much the characters mean to me. I think of their creators as giants and can't compute the idea that they were doing it for the paycheck. I guess I'm being foolish, but I can't help it. Anyway, I know that looking back, they are proud of their work. I saw that talking with Mr. Nodell, and I saw it when I had the chance to talk to Mr. Moldoff and his wife. I could see how happy Mrs. Moldoff was for her husband, and how proud, as we gathered around him looking at original artwork and hearing him talk about the old days. The same was true of Mrs. Nodell, as well.

OK - I'm not going to bore you anymore. Just wanted to write a few lines about this book I got, and I went a little overboard. Can't help it, and who does it hurt? I'm really looking forward to reading the book. Enjoy the weekend, friends - I know I will.

Life is what happens to you....

Labor Day weekend has come and gone, and no blogging was done. Yet the outcry from the public was decidely...subdued. Could it be that the demand for my rambling thoughts, once thunderous and mighty, has peaked and dwindled???

That doesn't sound right, does it???

This is Linnen here folks! There are so many trivial topics on which I can ramble endlessly that it would make your head spin. True, my holiday weekend wasn't really all that exciting, except for some sort of exotic heat rash which played havoc with my mighty forearms, but that doesn't mean I can't explore other avenues of expression.

Just finished reading A History of Violence which I mentioned somewhere else on this blog. What a fantastic graphic novel! I was really impressed with it. Then tonight I saw the preview on CBS as I watched the latest installment of my personal addiction, Rockstar:INXS. The feeling in my chest was not unlike when I saw the early previews for Batman Begins and Spiderman. I was surprised at how excited I was! With Viggo ("Aragorn") Mortenson playing the lead, I think this movie is going to receive acclaim similiar to the last DC/Paradox press movie, The Road to Perdition.

Why is it that DC can't hype these books when they are released, yet half a decade later, they are being made into these incredible films?? I guess it's just a case of American readers not taking comics seriously, and at times I can't say I blame them. Can we have a few more books released this month with an "X" in the title?? 10 X-men books a month isn't enough.

My delightful sister-in-law Laurie sent me this link to an album cover online game - it's pretty neat. Type in the name of a group/singer and it gives you a ten-question quiz based around their album (CD) covers. Check it out!!

Linnen says "Click Here to Try the Game."

Well, I didn't do it in writing here, but once again I have second-guessed INXS and predicted who would get the boot this week. So long, Jordis! I'm sorry she was so sad when they gave her a well-deserved boot, but she was lame - almost as lame as JD claiming the melody that he wrote a few weeks ago to an INXS backing track as an "original song." My boy MiG came out smelling like a rose.

Oh, another reason I haven't been on here the past few days is because of the cool software I got ahold of. Along with the latest erasure single, you get software to make your own remix of the track! It's really cool! And as fate would have it, the song, Here I Go Impossible Again, is (in my opinion) the best song they have written since 1989. I have been busy creating my very own Mix-Master Linnen version of the song. More about that as we get closer to its completion.

Well, I'm going to wrap this up, do a quick spell/grammar check, and post it. If you find typos or any mangling of our language, don't consider it a coup - I'm very sleepy. Just wanted everyone to know that the blog wasn't dead.

Good night to all!!

First Post of September!

Attended a Harrisburg Senators home game last night, ignoring a severely overcast sky and the fact that the team was in last place. A great time was had by all as the hot dawgs were tasty and the home team won! We also were treated to a triple-play, which aren't too common, and the final game played in Harrisburg by Ryan Zimmerman. Turns out that he was just called up to play with the Washington Nationals this morning! Good luck in the big leagues to this talented young man!

I know those well-wishes will eventually make it back to Mr. Zimmerman because this blog is one of the major sports blogs on the web! : )

Speaking of talent, I was almost dead-on with my Rockstar:INXS prediction. I listed both who would be in the bottom three and who should be in the bottom three. Seems like I should have had more faith in the general public as the three I labeled as "should" were indeed in the bottom three. And I also said that Ty would get the boot, which unfortunately was the case.

As I previously mentioned, I was lucky enough to see Ty perform in We Will Rock You twice and he is just a tremendous talent! He is going to succeed in whatever he sets his mind to, so I know that this is not the last we will hear of him. Having said that, I was still sorry to see him go before some other contestants who I think he could blow out of the water.

As he departed, he alluded to the fact that there was some ill-will towards him by the voters due to the color of his skin - and he supported this claim with the statement that the public has never really embraced a rocker of color. I guess ignoring Hendrix this is true. Critics sang the praises of both Living Colour and King's X; however, the lauding never translated into sales. Right now, I can't really even think of any other applicable singers/bands, which is sad.

The thing is - I think Ty was wrong. People weren't reacting to his skin - they were reacting to his insistence that INXS was a soul band. He mentioned this many times, and the unfortunate thing is that I just don't hear this in their music. I hear Pop. I hear Rock. I hear Funk. I don't hear Soul. A few weeks ago, Ty mentioned that showing the group his skill at singing Soul was going to be his new strategy, and I knew then that his days were numbered. I think he blinded himself (deafened himself??) a bit so he could hear what he wanted to hear in their music.

He is an incredible singer (and a good songwriter it seems too), but in all truth, he really isn't right for their group. I will miss seeing him on TV though.