Left 4 Dead

You know, when the vampire trend was spinning out of control and spitting out some of the worst films and television programs known to man (as well as some really cool stuff; I won't forget that), I started believing that it was time for people to start getting into zombies.

When I was first in college, getting my philosophy degree, I descended into the world of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. These films were some of the best movies I've ever seen. I used to watch horror films because of how ridiculous they were, but now I was watching zombie movies that were smart and told me something about "human nature." To this day, Dawn of the Dead remains one of my favorite movies of all time.

Left 4 Dead was a franchise that came about long before the zombie thing started to feel like it was being done to death. And the brilliance of these games stems from the fact that it feels like you are inside of a Romero zombie movie. You are controlling one of four main characters.

I've come to love this game enough that it has crept into my every day life. For example, whenever someone has a headache, I have the unhealthy compulsion to shout out "Pills here!" And sometimes when there is a girl crying in public I like to shout out "WITCH!" OK, that last one was a lie, but I have definitely said the former quite a few times.

Just play the game.

Venture Bros

In the tradition of such cartoons as Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Venture Bros quite brilliantly takes on the cartoons of our youth. As a result, it is, for the most part, aimed at those of us who were kids in the late 70s and the 80s. It is not a cartoon for children. Like much of anime, it is a cartoon for adults, and that is why it is featured on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

The distinctions that I have drawn above assume that there is some way of measuring whether and to what extent one is a child or an adult. Venture Bros does not make this assumption. Rather, with an emphasis on the psychology and politics of heroes and villains, it reveals that, like the rest of us, cartoon characters carry with them, throughout their lives, the pains of their childhood. They act out the wars of their parents. And, most of all, they are motivated by the things that they lacked in their youth.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that Venture Bros is a serious television program. No. Venture Bros is a comedy. A smart and witty comedy. A penetrating comedy. Sometimes a painful comedy. Maybe this means that they're making fun of the adults who watch this program. We carry with us our Johnny Quests and our Fantastic Fours, and where do we carry them? Into the office of our therapists.

Venture Bros is awesome. And, yes. That's a word I learned from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And, no. I do not want to lay down on a couch and tell you how I feel about this fact. (OK, I feel a little frightened. Smiling emoticon.)

The Guild

The really interesting thing about The Guild is the story behind The Guild. During the writer's strike, Felicia Day had a lot of down time. As a result, she was playing a whole lot of World of Warcraft. There came a point, however, when she needed to force herself to stop playing and do something worthwhile. So, she created a web series called The Guild that was essentially about trying to have a normal life while being devoted to WoW. Of course, since then it has been revealed that the characters are not playing Wow, but a game called The Game that is ridiculously similar to WoW.

Maybe we can learn something from the example of Felicia Day and The Guild. I know that I'm struggling to make something worthwhile come out of my free time right now. Maybe some people might think this blog is an example of succeeding in creating something beyond myself. But I know that there's something bigger out there that I could be doing. I just have to have the kind of vision that Felicia Day had during the writer's strike. I just have to make something great.

30 Rock

No network has ever made fun of itself nearly as much as NBC does with 30 Rock. A direct rip-off of the live comedy program Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock is capable of making fun of NBC, Lorne Michaels, and prime time programming, while also making time for pokes at producers, directors, actors and writers. Nobody is safe from 30 Rock, most especially not the people who are involved in making 30 Rock. And how could you lose with a cast of Tracey Morgan, probably my favorite SNL comedian, Tina Fey, one of the best writers for SNL, and Alec Baldwin, one of the most prolific and recognizable hosts of SNL. The only way that they could make 30 Rock better is to add the up-and-coming most prolific host, singer/actor/comedian/multi-threat Justin Timberlake to the cast. I just saw him in the movie Bad Teacher and I have no doubt that he's ready to join Tracey, Tina and Alec. ("Hi. I got you something." "What? You didn't have to do that." "It's nothing. It's, well, my favorite book." "Eat, Pray, Love?" "Yeah." "This, this is my favorite book too." "What's your favorite part?" "Love.") If you want some fun, superficial comedy that makes fun of everything else you see on TV, then watch 30 Rock. You're bound to have some office quotes for the next day that aren't simply dumb quotes from The Office. (Seriously? Planking?)

The Social Network (2010)

I remember hearing a friend of mine repeatedly say, "I refuse to see a movie about Facebook," and whenever he repeated these words they sounded like a moral stance. The subtext was obvious: "Nobody should see this movie. Why would anyone want to see The Social Network?"

I'll admit that I had some issues with the pacing of this film, but in the end it was one of those important movies that speaks to the zeitgeist of our time. I remember when Facebook was only available to select colleges, and my friend Becky, then a student at Central Michigan University wanted me to be her "friend." "We're already friends," I thought, but I signed up for an account anyways. Today, you're a social outcast if you're not on the social network. People don't buy web sites anymore. Even famous celebrities and bands will sometimes have either a Facebook page or a blog instead of a home page. For better or worse, Facebook has taken up more of the public consciousness of the United States of America than any other one thing.

The film The Social Network merely gives us the other side of the story, the part that we didn't know we were taking part in. It tells us about the motives behind this juggernaut, this behemoth that has taken over our lives. It commemorates the events that lead to our hypnosis.

There is a strong part of me, the part that is familiar with Buddhist teachings, that believes that Facebook is something that I need to be liberated from. It is something that keeps my consciousness from devoting itself to better and more important things. But if that ever happens I want it to happen as a result of understanding rather than ignorance.

I'm not going to blame The Social Network. It was a fantastic film with great performances by that geeky guy, the guy from N'Sync and future-Spider-man. If there's anyone to blame for my dependence on Facebook, it's me.

Borderlands: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC

I only have three more achievements until I have completed all of the achievements in Borderlands. All three achievements take place in Claptrap's New Robot Revolution, and all three require that I slaughter masses upon masses of rebellious robots, pick through the junk pile of their clanky corpses, and find the following items: oil cans, bobbleheads, panties, bags of fish, and slices of pizza. What will I do when I have completed these comical challenges? Well, hopefully Borderlands 2 will be out by then.

Daft Punk Discovery (2001: Virgin)

1. "One More Time" - 5:20
2. "Aerodynamic" - 3:27
3. "Digital Love" - 4:58
4. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" - 3:45
5. "Crescendolls" - 3:31
6. "Nightvision" - 1:44
7. "Superheroes" - 3:57
8. "High Life" - 3:22
9. "Something About Us" - 3:51
10. "Voyager" - 3:47
11. "Veridis Quo" - 5:44
12. "Short Circuit" - 3:26
13. "Face to Face" - 3:58
14. "Too Long" - 10:00

I've listened to Daft Punk's album Discovery quite often. All of my friends were listening to it while we were graduating from high school in 2001. Needless to say, "One More Time" has played, quite possibly, at every party I ever went to with my friends in college. And then there were the years when I listened to Daft Punk (or rants about Daft Punk) on a daily basis because my good buddy Adam was obsessed with them. (Still waiting for a chance to see a Daft Punk concert with you, buddy!) But I have to dig for those memory.

There is another memory, however, that I access without thought. It is the visual mark that is burned onto my brain and resurfaces whenever I listen to Discovery. Tom Mitsos, Adam Friedli, Stephan Mathos and I listened to this album a couple of times when we were driving around in New Mexico. As a result, every time I hear the album I think of sitting in my brother Micah's station wagon on a really hot day and driving through interesting scenery and little towns with little more than a gas station and a town hall and ranches built out of corrugated metal and trash. (Stephan and Adam kept talking about how everything looked like Borderlands and at the time tom and I would make fun of them because we didn't know anything about the game.)

No robots involved. Just friends. And memories. That's what Discovery means to me.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

There are a lot of things I associate with Lollapalooza 2008. It was a great group of guys. We saw Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails and MGMT, among other artists. We ate some really great pizza and Adam didn't get to split it with us. Josh had trouble navigating the streets of Chicago. We did impressions of Christopher Nolan / Frank Miller's rough voiced Batman as we walked for hours through Chicago because of my blunder reading the El Train map.

But, really, the memory that comes up the most often is when we returned one night from a day of listening to the music and hung out together in the common room of the dormitory that we had rented a room at. Bryan Avery had brought the first two seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and we watched that until we passed out. That was the beginning of my romance with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Lollapalooza is three days. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is forever.

Machete (2010)

Would the wealthy, the privileged, the "white," among us take advantage of those without power, without the ability to defend themselves if there were a network among the downtrodden? Would the world be ruled by the same people if every day-worker or wage-slave, from the ones who work road construction to the ones who serve our meals to the ones who clean the inside of our homes were connected? What if a cell phone tree were capable of motivating the "untouchables" in American society to overthrow their yoke, to rise up and strike the ruling class from within their most sacred of safe places?

To you, this may sound like some untenable Marxist fantasy. You may shout that the writer of this blog is a communist, a fascist, a terrorist, a threat to American society. To me, this sounds like a cautionary tale. If people rise up, this will inevitable create another upper class to rise up against. Those who gain power always eventually use it to become the new lords of the land. But if people can see the possibility, if they wonder whether the cook at the local dining service will use that large knife to cut carrots or whether the same cook will just as soon slit a person's throat, then the moral imperative arises to treat others well, to help elevate them, to at the very least share a smile and a kind word.

I am not a fan of spooking people into being better people. That's Sinestro talk, if you ask me. But I also recognize the value of cautionary tales in society from the dawn of tribal story-telling to the 2007 film Teeth. Say what you will about Machete, but in its own way it is a fantastic cautionary tale that attempts to give a voice to those who may never be heard. In a strange twist, a trailer that seemed horribly racist turned into a movie that, despite its emphasis on violence, is quite often thoughtful.

Borderlands: Zombie Island of Dr. Ned DLC

When I first devoted myself to PC gaming, there were two games that I really wanted to play: Borderlands and Left 4 Dead (the original; those characters are way better than in the second game). In a strange way, Borderlands: Zombie Island of Dr. Ned combined the two fantastic games. I love zombies, and I love the sci-fi comedy of Borderlands. According to the simple algebra of things I like, I am in love with Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. Headshot. Headshot. Headshot.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

Which is the best Joker? Is it Jack Nicholson in Batman? Is it Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight? No. It's probably Mark Hamill in Batman: The Animated Series. A year ago, I finally sat down to watch Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a fine film that features many of the voice actors from the Batman cartoon. In just over a month, the video game Batman: Arkham City will be released, featuring Mark Hamill's last performance as the Joker.

Mark Hamill did the voice of Joker here and there from 1992 until 2011, nearly twenty years of the finest voice acting in the industry. Sure, the last few years have seen some fantastic voice acting, especially that of the multi-talented Neil Patrick Harris, but is Harris good enough to take the mantle of the Joker? No. He's more oriented toward heroes with a light-hearted sense of humor. Nicholson hasn't played the role of Joker since 1989 and Heath Ledger is now dead. With Hamill's reign ending, who's next?

The Sopranos

The Sopranos, like the film Fight Club, is one of those really amazing things that all of the douche bags you know like. There is something really brilliant about the idea that a hard-headed chauvinistic Italian mob boss in New Jersey has to set aside his male bravado and see a psychiatrist. Of course, most people watch this TV show because of the chic of gangsters, from Scarface to gangster rap. These are the people who glorify the lifestyle of crime and who quote Godfather whenever it seems appropriate enough in order to prove that they are badasses. It is almost as though David Chase knew that everyone's annoying friend with something to prove was going to flock to The Sopranos, because he makes fun of those people every so often. There is nothing more funny than when one of Tony Soprano's enforcers misquotes a Godfather line while disposing of a body. It makes me believe that Chase made this show for people like me, people who adore the irony of a mob boss in therapy, rather than the people with big, expensive framed photos of Al Pacino above their fireplaces.

The American (2010)

One of the things that has annoyed me about the entire James Bond film franchise from Sean Connery's Dr. No through Pierce Brosnan's Die Another Day (NOTE: I have not seen every single James Bond movie, so feel free to correct me if this blanket statement does not apply to one or two of them) is how the spy is portrayed almost as the Marvel superhero Longshot. Because he has the right intentions, James Bond cannot be harmed and his bullets always hit home. Though most die-hard Bond fans I know hate Daniel Craig's portrayal in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, I was really amazed by how real and gritty James Bond felt in those films. I thought that these films marked a wonderful improvement in the franchise. The whole gentleman hero thing is entirely too British and entirely too outdated to work for me.

The 2010 film The American, which is not associated with the James Bond series in any way, shape or form, takes this concept of espionage a step further. Rather than flash and glam and sexy stewardesses, this film speaks of long hours and loneliness, of a strange balance between self and mission, and of a kind of reality that makes the main character Jack/Edward (George Clooney) feel like someone you can relate to. Just this past week, with the release of Grant Morrison's Action Comics #1, the overly powerful, incredibly unrelatable superhero Superman became a hero of the people, with weaknesses that are not in the form of space rocks and a concept of justice that questions the weakness of national laws. Perhaps the original James Bond comes from a similar era where the gentleman was the ideal human archetype, good was always more powerful than evil, the lines between good and evil were always starkly drawn, and government was always on the side of justice for all. If that is the case, then give me Jack, The American any day of the week.

Iggy Pop Lust For Life (1977: RCA)

1. "Lust for Life" - 5:13
2. "Sixteen" - 2:26
3. "Some Weird Sin" - 3:42
4. "The Passenger" - 4:44
5. "Tonight" - 3:39
6. "Success" - 4:25
7. "Turn Blue" - 6:56
8. "Neighborhood Threat" - 3:25
9. "Fall in Love with Me" - 6:30

Several years ago, the song "Lust for Life," which was co-written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie for the album Lust for Life, was featured on several advertisements for the Royal Caribbean cruise line. Here is an example:



These lyrics can be heard: "Here comes Johnny Yen again... Cause of a lust for life. Cause of a lust for life... Well, I am just a modern guy. Of course I've had it in the ear before." The song is considered by many an ode to drug culture, having nothing to do with the excitement of taking a Royal Caribbean cruise. The line that is excluded after that referencing Johnny Yen talks of a life of liquor and drugs, and this line comes up again and again. It is almost as disturbing to the wealthy, family values-oriented families who can afford expensive cruises as some of the things that are not excluded. While some have explained the lyric, "I've had it in the ear before," as having to do either with having a difficult time or suffering artistically like Van Gogh, it almost certainly refers to the fact that Iggy would inject heroin into his ear. I've heard it said that it's injected into the eye too. Ick. As for Johnny Yen, he is a character from William S. Burroughs' novel The Ticket That Exploded, described as "The Boy Girl Other Half strip tease God of sexual frustration."

I know there are a lot of people out there who would love the idea of a cruise that features drugs and alcohol in mass quantities and fringe sexual exploits, but I feel certain that these are not the people that Royal Caribbean was marketing to. I don't care if you voted for Clinton and fell for the whole Tipper Gore censorship of Frank Zappa and friends, or if you voted for Bush and think that Clinton's extra-marital affair is an affront to good Christian values. You're not going to take your children on a gender-bending drug cruise without seeming a little bit like a hypocrite.

Of course, Ronald Reagan used Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." for his 1984 campaign without realizing the irony of using a tune that points out the horrors of war and racism in America as a patriotic anthem. Is it an example of idiocy in marketing? Probably not. It's probably more of an example of the fact that the average American has a short attention span and is highly uncritical of the information that he/she is bombarded with. The fact of the matter is that the words "born in the U.S.A." sound strangely patriotic just as the words "lust for life" seem to suggest a life of good, clean, expensive adventure. If I were Iggy, I'd be laughing. I'd be laughing, as my father would say, all the way to the bank.

Firefly

How exactly does one reinvent the Western genre? Through the works of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, haven't we seen every possible variation on cowboys and Indians, train robberies and defending the innocents against raiders and crooks? We may have seen just that, and all that I can see on the horizon is a series of remakes of these various films. Although 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit were both absolutely fantastic, I have no strong belief that further Western remakes will follow suit.

I think that is where the genius of Firefly lies. Rather than seeing what develops on the undeveloped Western portion of the United States of America, outside of the purview of Washington, New York and Boston, Joss Whedon brings us into space. We get to see what happens on border planets, planets where law is difficult to uphold and where the dominion of the central government is loose. The term "Western" hardly applies, because West is a directional term that doesn't seem to hold well in space. Science fiction or speculative fiction are titles that might hold, but then again, in borderlands nothing really holds for long.

But what value is there in re-inventing or continuing the Western genre? Westerns have traditionally been concerned with basic rights of human beings to freedom, to a place of their own, and the struggle between what is right and wrong regardless of the bullying voice of state, religion and big business. A cowboy speaks not as a partisan or a minion of a particular divinity. People are simple. The greatest values are a horse, some clothing, and some work to help pass the time. In the case of Firefly, however, it's a ship. You can take everything else from the space cowboys of Whedon's epic one-season television program, but you can't take the stars from them.

Is Firefly as good as everyone makes it out to be? It is certainly good enough to join the pantheon of television programs on my blog. It is not my favorite television program, nor even my favorite Joss Whedon television program. There are other shows that I would resurrect before I would resurrect Firefly. But the fact of the matter is that Firefly showed a great deal of promise, and there is reason to believe that with six or seven seasons to tell a story it could have become one of the best shows ever.

Iggy and the Stooges Raw Power (1973: Columbia)

1. "Search and Destroy" - 3:29
2. "Gimme Danger" - 3:33
3. "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" - 4:54
4. "Penetration" - 3:41
5. "Raw Power" - 4:16
6. "I Need Somebody" - 4:53
7. "Shake Appeal" - 3:04
8. "Death Trip" - 6:07

Last year, one of my big trips was that I was going to do an intensive listening for one artist or band every single month of the year. Many of those were not the most productive. Erasure, for example, did not have as much zest and wonder to their music as one might think by listening to "Always" while playing Robot Unicorn Attack. But with the exception of Tears for Fears, there was no month more wonderful than September's Iggy Pop/Iggy Pop and the Stooges month.

Raw Power is one of the best rock albums that I have ever heard. The energy, or "raw power," of this album is unmatched. Much like Led Zeppelin with Houses of the Holy, Raw Power does more than you thought any album could in eight songs. "Search and Destroy" became popular enough to warrant a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover, but also an inclusion in one of my favorite scenes in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. With "Gimme Danger," Iggy invents a new type of romance, something like Springsteen's "Thunder Road" for nightwalkers.

Raw Power is hard and honest. It is one of the reasons rock and roll survived the death of Hendrix and the dissolution of the Beatles. It is solid gold in a way that most disco records could never imagine.

Garden Fresh Salsa

Some of the best and brightest minds in Michigan have determined that one of the best things to do in order to turn our terrible economy around is to buy local. A couple of those best and brightest minds, namely my girlfriend Amy's parents, have been buying mostly local for a long time now. One of the most fantastic things I have ever encountered in their kitchen is Garden Fresh Salsa. Made in Ferndale, Michigan, not only do the proceeds from buying this salsa go back into the state of Michigan; it's also a really good salsa.

I first discovered the splendor of Garden Fresh last summer, a week or two before I returned to Texas for my final year of my Master's degree. I experienced the great taste of Garden Fresh once, and then Ferndale, Michigan seemed ever so far away. While Amy and I were doing the long distance thing, Amy in Michigan and I in Texas, one of the first things I managed to do in order to remind me of both Amy and my home in Michigan was to go out to Kroger in search of Garden Fresh salsa. Certainly, it was a long shot. One doesn't expect to find local Michigan foods in grocery stores in Texas. But if I hadn't looked, I wouldn't have found this fantastic delicacy that made my days in Texas a little bit yummier. Of course, eating Michigan-made food in Texas is not exactly considered a locavore diet, but it felt good to feel connected. It felt good to eat my chips with a really good salsa.

The Fly (1986)

I just looked up Brundlefly on Wikipedia. I found out that it can mean one of three things:

1. Brundlefly - the name that Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) gives to himself in The Fly (1986 film)

2. Brundlefly (band) - a Canadian alternative rock band (NOTE: I cannot imagine a world in which this band was not inspired by watching the 1986 film The Fly.)

3. Brundlefly Sound System - Hip Hop band originating in Columbus, OH (NOTE: Also, undoubtedly, named after The Fly.)

Perhaps next time I'll research the influence of the term "Mogwai," which originated in the 1984 film Gremlins.

Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC

Borderlands provided me with a fair share of difficult bosses. Consider Marley and Moe, for example, two overpowered skag bosses that are horrendous when you are low-leveled and playing solo. (The key, I've found, is to keep the little skags alive. Sure, they'll winnow away at your HP, but they're quick kills, which ensures a Second Wind every time.) Consider Skagzilla, another overpowered skag boss who has, more than once, survived longer than all the ammunition in my arsenal. (This is where action skills come in handy, and let's not forget buffs that heal and regenerate ammunition.) Consider not the end boss, but the army of Guardians lining the mountainside leading up to the vault. (Shock weapons destroy their shields while shotguns and automatic weapons assure that your bullets make contact with speedy alien flesh.) But how does any of this compare with the optional boss in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC named Krawmerax or to the latter arena matches in the Circle of Duty quest-line? Of course, for those brave enough to complete either the Krawmerax or Circle of Duty challenges, there are ample rewards. Tons of great equipment. A guaranteed level for whatever weapon you are holding the moment Krawmerax dies. And let's not forget: Bragging rights. Not everyone is bold enough to follow up on these side quests.

I'm Here (2010)

Much like Wall-E, I'm Here is incredibly adept at showing you what it is like to be human from the perspective of a robot. But at less than half the length, I'm Here is more efficient at expressing humanity through robots. Eat that, Disney/Pixar.

I'm Here can be viewed legally in its entirety here.