Ooops, sorry She Hulk, it's just these web shooters they can be a mite unpredictable....
Friday, June 30, 2006
This is how much of a geek I am...
....powerpoint nearly gave me the horn I was so excited using it. I went to do a paper in my old university in the University of Ulster at Coleraine. Although it is probably true that every university campus of a certain age looks more or less the same, every inch of that place brought back bizarre memories like 'near this bus stop is where I drank 3 litres of strongbow for the first (and last) time and bawked up green'. Anyway it was an amazing conference . I had a great epiphany in that I was reworking a paper I did last year on Spider-Man and realised I was reworking old stuff and thought to myself, 'If I'm bored reading this guff who's going to be interested listening to it?' hence a crazy powerpoint presentation on Spider-Man loneliness and wanking, pics above. It was great to see Iain and the Soph again and new friends like copanelist
House Wife the Band.
As regards the paper I'm so pleased that the new Spider-Man trailer implies it's all about boo-hoo loneliness and the darkness within rather than smoothing with MJ.
Was mad to be back in the north, I totally forgot about loyalists, any of the nationalism in Norwich is more of the 'Fat Les/Vindaloo' variety it was funny to observe stocky fuckers with union jacks on their peak caps. Passing through Ballymoney I saw a big oil pipe with "no pope here" sprayed on it. I was thinking to myself, like, yeah, there's one place less to look, I didn't think he was in there in the first place. I'm a Catholic and try to think of yon Nazi Youth John Ratzenberger as little as possible and you guys are thinking about him all the time trying to narrow down the places he isn't, that's a job: Antartia: no pope here...maybe try the Vatican he's probably there tugging his benson and telling God it's ok coz he's infallible, so God must have meant him to jizz his load over "Nuns Quarterly"
Ahh the ever present racism of Hollywood...it's ok coz it's dig-i-tal girlfriend!
I don't know, maybe it's becuause I've just come back from a conference and I'm all psyched up media studies wise, but I just can't let some things lie. One of the things that's always driven me mad (since I've noticed it, damned my eyes) is the raw deal African-American women get in supposedly fun family digital aminated films like Madagascar and Over the Hedge. Are great black comedy actresses not being made fun of by making them Hippos and Skunks?
On the steps today I raised this point with fellow contemporary cinema expert 'double H', we have a good balance PhD wise I have to watch Barb Wire and Catwoman and she has to watch R.V. and Cheaper by the Dozen god help us all and quell your 'my god these people are studying guff on our tax money' rants, we both do it for the love of our subject and cause, like, we really like poverty. Anyway, double H is an expert on digital stardom so I had to ask what's up? is there any theory on this trend and she answered the answer I knew in the back of my head was true but wish it wasn't: 'rascism, latent rascism'. So it is, enjoy your hi-tech talking animals this summer, I'm off to enjoy supposedly gay superman (I mean it's not like we know people of krypon even have genitals!).
It's a livin'! Jimmny as Norwich's ubiquitous barman
You know that great Simpsons character, that high-pitched teenager who says things like 'you can't go in there sir' and 'do you want fries with that' but turns up in every service industry and retail job so either he has to work each job to fund his dungeons and dragons/comics/flarn-addiction or there are a brethren of similar mooks that man every till in Springfield.
Anyway that's what I'm like in the pubs of Norwich, people who've seen in the Grad Bar, The Temple Bar or the Belgian Monk turn up to the Rose Tavern where I am currently working and do a drunken double take like, whenever they're drunk there's some bespectacled Irish guy in a Punisher t-shirt wherever they go asking are they ok for a drink.
The managers wanted to do some fun superhero placemats and posters featuring superheroes and they asked if I had some suitable images! Do I? A wee search on the Grand Comics Database and Superdickery found the above 'superheroes and food' themed covers which now grace the walls of the Rose, hooray for trying to inject a bit of geekdom in this world cup-obsessed time, although young Karl Whitney has pointed my attention to a possible middle ground!
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Rinky-Dink Boondoggle...
dy Anyone who knows me--or at least gets to know me long enough to ask me about my musical tastes (more fool them)--will know of my yen for foul-mouthed rap ladies (you may remember my sleaze-a-rama collection, parties stopped in their tracks by shouts of 'what the fuck is this' gauranteed). Surely the queen of foul-mouthed electro pop is the great Peaches, (what no new album what is she up to? lots of sex and drugs no doubt.oops....just checked, she's got one out on July 11th called Impeach my Bush! excellent, so to use a fine Irish phrase, she has got her finger out of her hole) .
In the meantime, the filth void is aptly filled by the great brother and sister dodgy duo Punk Bunny not to mention uber filth femmes Princess Superstar* Lil Kim and Foxy Brown.
Despite it being a step more safe in the filth stakes I do have a soft spot for the likes of hip-hop's own Vicky Pollard Lady Sovereign and Lily Allen ( know she's another myspace darling but at least she doesn't sound like a foghorn like that other 'punk rocker with flowers in my hair' eedjt).
So there's this, guy (this was the very slight reason for this post which, as it turns out, is just an excuse to have loads of links to naughty music ladies in one place) who really wanted to have a "date" with Lady Sovereign. So this guy some how needed $10,000 to 'get random with Lady Soveriegn' after her San Francisco Gig, why? does he think she's a grandaughter of the Queen or something, $10 for some brown-bag booze would done it, why does he need to fleece random gulliwebs**
Incidentally, we*** never used to have 'dates' in Ireland, you just get drunk and hope for the best, you go things like the cinema and 'coffee shops' after drunken congress. The phrase 'date' for me is for people like Ross from Friends. Where 'dates' means stalking ladies of various ethnic backgrounds in coffee shops (this, by the way is the only way for ethnic minorities to get into Friends...date Ross, *shudder* haven't the disaffected suffered enough...sorry aside due to not teaching my sitcom course.)
In honour of
help me get random with lady soveriegn
perhaps I should start
"help Jimmny Homunculus get his rinky dink touched before it falls off"
(damn you blogger! I was trying to do a funny joke where all the above words were were all to gether with a www on one end and a com on the other in a bit of e-enjambment but everytime I published it all the links wer sent to the bottom...)
catchy title isn't it? betcha it's taken already though.
*Bad babysitter is one of my favorite songs, and in moments during quiet shifts in the Grad Bar I will be often heard to sing almost audibly 'I'm a baaad babysitter, got my boyfriend in the shower 'woop' I'm making 6 bucks an hour', god help the customers who overhear without the sleaze music context, although the fact that I've MTV Dance on may be a clue.
**I just made this up but I sure there is a better phrase for people who part with cash for ridiculous Web campaigns for the vague vicarious thrill of being involved in some thing 'cool' on the 'Internet'.
***Correction, I never used to go on dates in Ireland, uncless seeing some ladies who were on the opposing debating or table quiz team counts, which it does not.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Clamnuts great Jimmny Pic
Well this has just made my week!: Young and talented Bob Byrne of Clamnuts has listened to my Radio 4 thing and is frightening adept at picking up on the overall dodgy subtext of my academic work-see fine pic above. Maybe I could use this as a front piece to my thesis, but it might frighten the examiners as he as got my demented face right while thinking about such matters.
The last digital testament of Jimmny Homunculus
So I got my digital camera stolen during my last trip back to Ireland to visit mam, so these pics below and above, (glad I got JB the and the Brute in one shot, hopefully this will happen more often!) are the last photos I retrived to my 'puter from my camera before some swift-handed scanger on the luas had his/her way with it. Thank god there was no blackmailable pics on it (I didn't even get the chance to do that with it).
My mates Al and Tara got married, see below, and as per usual I took lots of pics of comic shops, shelves and toys rather than people, [insert psychoanalysis here]. I'm sure I'll get another digi camera again, but I really liked this one and it was a present from my dad so I'm pretty pissed off. Damn my brown leather jacket*, it was too rigid to feel the camera getting swiped on a packed luas. I was probably being cluchie instead of street smart and being distracted by the speedy tram and the sky scrapers, ie Dublin buildings that more than three storeys tall ( se above, it looks like the fortress of solitude or something). In conclusion feck sake god, give me a fucking break, if you exist, which you don't, but the only reason i would ever want you to exist was so I could go up and beat the fuck outta ya. (obviously not for the camera just for everything else)
*Ah my poor five punt brown leather jacket, it's a classic, it stands up on its on in clubs and is probably bullet proof and looks like something out of The Streets of San Francisco (the show not the actual geographic area)
The Life and Sad Times of Wee Jimmny Four Jobs
So for the last week or so I have technically had four jobs, teaching as UEA, teaching at NCAD, working in the Grad Bar and working at fine Norwich pub the Rose. Gawd, worked there last Saturday for the 'arrrghh ahhhh it's a football game England versus Paraguay. Don't remember much about it apart from hobbit style blokes saying 'ahh could I have 9 pints of Carling and 8 pints of ale and a Smirnoff ice etc..' So I finished all my marking last night where I managed to mark 36 exam in one day, it was a long day though 7am to 12am. Toward's the end (where some on scripts on Friends appeared to be written in sanscrit) I kept myself awake by listening to Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2 in my (soon to be cleared-out office) and heard the great Count Arthur Strong.
Six Line Reviews
A friend (John Griffiths aka CooperKing) of a great friend of mine (Hannah, god bless her she puts up with so many of my rants, so many) has made this great site:
Six Line Reviews
That's it, trying to review pop culture and basically anything into six-line nuggets that are perfect for our micro-vox-pop style culture.
I've done some: for X-Men: The Last Stand, Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven, The Burger King Coin-op, and Hard Candy and few more on the way.
Hannah's one on The Da Vinci Code rocks.
Drop ole CooperKing a shout and pop him some wee good six-liners!
American Apparel and the regaining of perverse innocence
Ahh Vice magazine, there's very few magazines where you're (well, ok me) are waiting for the next issue purely to see what the back cover American Apparel ad will be. I don't even know much about American Apparel and their wares are no doubt out of my price range, but those ads would make you want to buy anything, kind of like when Bill Hicks described that 'drink coke' ad 'I don't know what it is, but damned if ain't buying these products'. . . It's kind of like youtube, when the total porn sleazeness is in absence coy perverse innocence is the horniess thing ever...
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Damn you You Tube stop sucking out me eyes: Comedy wise
One of the best things about the ole you-boob-poo-tube is that it's great for stock-pilling grainy bits of comedy gems that aren't on DVD, and in some cases may never be, as in the case of Heil Honey I'm Home or Mad TV's great Pimp My Bride.
My eight degrees of comedy youtubation
There's the great Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's great Danger 50,000 Volts! Zombie special
Then Pegg et all in this great comic relief spoof of Blankety Blank "Freddie Starr, you really are a prick"
Then Peter Serafinowicz this time with his bro doing O! News spoofs on the Oscars and the Apple V Apple thing and some music bits from Look Around You.
And of course Rodge and Podge's top interviews with Johnny Vegas and Jodie Marsh and course the GIC: Greatest Irish Curse.
And finally, my favourite gem, Vic and Bob's The Weekenders Part One and Part Two. Or the great Lethal Weapon Spoof. Happy time wasting folks!
Damn you You Tube stop sucking out me eyes: Sexy wise
The weird thing about youtube is that it maintains quite a coy policy there's no hardcore sleaze on there, which is, strangely, a good thing. Kind of like a nine year old who just has to look up "bum" and "fuck" when first reading a dictionary, with any new Net advance, the first things I have to look up are She Hulk and fetishism and stuff. The extent in youtube is just lovely Japanese ladies kissing and girls dancing around and stuff.
There is a strange voyeurism to it all when you think that these are private wee videos. Then you find out they're already been watched by millions so that's all right then, or is it? Anyway while searching for Pixies stuff (honest) I came across this video of ladies miming on to Hey and felt a bit bad because it looked like a genuine bedroom private affair, then I found out that it was made by film type students and there was already a making of Hey video and a clip of the makers on TV, forgetting about 'jumping the shark' this is tripping over minnows.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Pandora's boom box
Oh my my me, the Internet is like crack. You know the experiments where there's like hampster that presses a wee button and he gets some water and/or crack. That's what broadband Internet is like. Apart from the Adam and Joe Podcast what I've been listening to is Pandora, god bless Pandora where you can visit a site type in any artist or song and through musicology jiggery pokery, they come up with a streaming radio thing of lots of bands and songs you will like! it's great, I wish I could say more about how the internet is sucking out my eyes via youtube and my ears via podcasts but I can't because it's late and I should sleep, shouldn't I always? But I must sleep w.because I'm working in the rose tomorrow.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Monday, June 05, 2006
Phew! at least I didn't say feck or arse!
Just back from BBC Norfolk for the Women's Hour bit on Female Superheroes it's now got a 'listen to this item' and listen to the show again feature, if you want to hear yours truly mumbling to some question about Buffy but getting slightly better when i get to mention She-Hulk and Spider-Woman quelle surprise. The other speaker Dr. Esther Maccallum Stewart who was very good, has a great blog, Break of Day in the Trenches which combines blogging and academia expertly.
It was a bit weird sitting in a wee room on my own beside the reception of BBC Norfolk* waiting for about 45 minutes with head phones on and cardboard cutouts of three Look East presenters leering over my back waiting for a wee light that may or may not light up as a big retro clock clicks on and on. It reminded me of poor Desmond, my favorite character in Lost (why? because he's got a bunker! and some retro computers and that) waiting to type those famous numbers every 108 minutes.
Ever since I started the thesis I have been trying to clarify the differences between transferring pre-existing female superheroes to film and the slightly different creations of Xena, Buffy and Tomb Raider, but people still keep asking me about Buffy, so I have to try and not offend Buffy fans by claiming she's not a superhero in the comic book sense.
I think the constant coverage TV action heroines obscures some of the great recent characters like Tara Chace in Greg Rucka's Queen & Country, Ed Brubacker's great run on Catwoman, and Warren Ellis' great Jenny Sparks character. Whilst back in Dublin I was wandering around an old haunt (that other comic shop that's not Sub City or Forbidden Planet opposite Urban Outfitters in Temple Bar, Bob will no doubt know the name it escapes me) and saw this old cover for a 2000ad summer special. I had forgotten all about Tyranny Rex, perhaps by green-woman thing predated She-Hulk! I remember this cover especially as I felt the need to put it inside the door of my locker at the seminary and almost got it confiscated.**
Just listened to it online, I'm not as much of a mubling mook as I thought and props to the BBC for pronouncing my name right, hooray.
*I tried in vein to get a snoop about by asking to go to the loo, but got told to use the public ones in the Forum pfft! feck that I've seen them, I wanted to see the nerve centre of east anglia media.
**I should feel bad about this, but then I listened to a DC Comics podcast with Brad Meltzer where he was talking about having a She-Hulk poster up on his door at college.
Psyching myself up....
Just about to leave the gaff and psyching myself up by listing to Bard Meltzer on the DC Comics podcast talking about killing characters and checked out the Women's Hour page for today!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Jimmny Homunculus on BBC Radio 4!
Lesbian superhero shock! Is more or less how the press has reacted to the reinvention of a Batwoman character which has caused a bit of stir with reports on BBC Online, The Guardian, CBS online, CNN, The Independent, The New York Times. (They all refer to a 'classic' character!mmm that's a bit of stretch)Newspaper reporting on comics 'events' like this does drive me up the wall a bit with the Guardian's Lotte Jeff starting off with:
Holy hole in a doughnut! Batwoman is set to be revealed as a "lipstick lesbian" in the weekly DC comic book 52
How longer do we have to suffer bad 'holy' something jokes in any reporting on a bat-theme?
Anyway a producer from BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour called me and after a few chats (no doubt to make sure I wasn't a crank or lunatic, ahem, I'll let that one go for the minute.)
I have been pencilled in for appearing on the show on Monday 5 June at 10am! I have to go to a studio in BBC Norfolk and have to try and get images of Alan Partridge out of my noggin beforehand. I'm sure there'll be a streaming version online if you can't get Radio 4.
I'm generally positve about this story but will be trying to put in context of DC Comics' attention-grabbing summer crossovers. There's always something like The 'Death' of Superman or 'Batman breaks his back' where a people would come up to me in the street and say things like 'ooh you know Superman's dead!' Where do you start explaining that DC comics are hardly going to kill off their flagship character.
Similarly with Batwoman, it remains to seen if this character will become integral to the DC universe, will her sexuality be mentioned much or dealt with in any depth in the longer term. It's admirable for DC to make these attempts at diversity but their universe in still predominantly white and male. It's always going to be more acceptable to create a lesbain character that's very conventially attractive to a heterosexual audience. I'll also be trying to get across that pidgeonholing superheroes into the confines of human sexuality when some characters are so cosmic in scope and some can change their bodies at will is a bit reductive and undermines the power of some of these fantasies. No doubt some She-hulk talk will also ensue.
Mental notes to self: talk slowly and don't say 'feck' 'arse' or anything worse....
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