Author: lobablanca

BookBin2014: Tricked

~ lobablanca

tricked

First graphic novel of the new year! Alex Robinson’s Tricked initially caught my eye because of its cover. It’s quite appealing to a child of the 80s (it also made me want a companion book emblazoned with a pencil on its cover; awkward cassette tape humor, FTW).

If I were to boil down this novel into one sentence, it would be that this is one of those “strangers suddenly linked by a common experience” stories. We’ve seen quite a few of these types of stories recently; if it works once, it will work hundreds more times, right? I could even argue that Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy could qualify as this type of story, since many of the residents of Pagford really didn’t know each other at all (most especially the ones who were related or married).

The question is, was Robinson’s take on this storyline successful? To qualify, he would need to create characters who are not necessarily likeable but complex enough to pique reader interest, as well as story arcs that join together in believable ways and lead to a captivating conclusion. As to the latter part of these requirements, I feel ambivalent. In some ways, I felt that the ending, while not what one might expect, was more satisfying. Conversely, the failure of meeting fully the expectations of the former requirement meant that the ending lacked the punch that it might have carried, had all the characters been interesting.

I will say, however, that two characters in particular shine: a paranoid schizophrenic who decides to stop taking his medications, and a waitress struggling to overcome body issues ingrained upon her by a string of abusive relationships. Both characters are believable in discomfiting ways. Both characters, for primarily subjective reasons, caused me to engage in a great deal of internal debate regarding their behavior, their choices, and at times their insufferable behavior. It’s a shame that the other characters couldn’t incite this level of response from me, but I applaud Robinson for taking the time to craft these characters so well.

Lest we forget that this is a graphic novel, I should acknowledge that Robinson’s illustrations are somewhat tame but clean and controlled, with the occasional inspired use of space and his monotone palette. Overall, his artwork is enjoyable while in the midst of the novel but not memorable enough to remain with me.

Final Verdict: I like Robinson both as a storyteller and an illustrator, and since my new favorite thing is to search the county library catalog and put holds on books, I’ll have to see if they have anything else of his that I can give a go.

Febrewary: Wailua Wheat

~ lobablanca

02-febrewary-ww

Brewer: Kona Brewing Company
Location: Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Type: American Pale Wheat Ale
ABV: 5.4%

Today was a reminiscing day, denizens. It’s been like a heat wave the past two days, with temperatures reaching into the mid-50s both days. After nearly two solid weeks of temperatures barely getting out of the single digits and sometimes going into negative numbers? Plus, snow sometimes every other day? I felt like breaking out the sunscreen and the flip-flops.

Instead, I put on the hoodie I bought in Kauai last April and enjoyed the fact that I only had to put on my winter coat to go outside, and not the two coats, two scarves, two sets of gloves, and knit cap that I’ve been wearing every other time I dared to venture outdoors. And this evening, when I finished my workout and came upstairs for dinner? I brought with me this little beauty from my beer fridge.

I wrote about Kona Brewing Company once before, in my review of their KoKo Brown for Darktober. As I said, though, this month wouldn’t be all about dark beers (mostly, but not completely). In my Darktober review, I mentioned a few of Kona’s other beers that I liked. I hadn’t had this particular brew at the time. If I had, I definitely would have raved about it as well.

With a clean layer of foam, white as the caps of cresting waves, and a color as golden as the glow of sunlight starting yet another glorious Maui morning, this beer is nothing like what I expected to enjoy. But dark beers aren’t really par for the course in Hawaii (although they can be found…and they are delicious)…so when in Maui, go with what the locals like, eh?

Right off the bat, I guess I should confess that all my consternation about “fruity beers” is apparently a lie. I only dislike some fruit-flavored beers. Others, though? Others utterly astound me. So it was with Wailua Wheat, which carries with every sniff and every sip a beautiful passion fruit sweetness that is perfectly balanced and never overwhelms. This ale does have a bit of a thin mouth feel in contrast with the bold passion fruit bouquet, but this might also be my mouth balking at the foreign feel of a light beer.

Mingling wonderfully with the beer’s natural wheatiness, the passion fruit is what ultimately makes this beer both delicious and dangerous. You’ve no idea you’ve just downed an entire pint until you pick up your glass for another happy swig, only to discover that you’re staring at the coaster through the distorted emptiness of the glass bottom. It’s a good thing that this isn’t a high-ABV beer, because one could easily make it through an entire six-pack of this ale in one sitting and not even realize it.

Even a dark beer lover like me understands that every beer fan should have a few light go-tos. I would tag Wailua Wheat as a perfect summer afternoon sipper…even if it is the middle of winter and snow and more single-digit temperatures are in the 24-hour forecast. Actually, that’s all the more reason to drink this beer. Forget about the blah. Embrace the aloha.

Febrewary: Sweet Baby Jesus Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

~ lobablanca

Hey there, denizens. Remember when I did Darktober? Thirty-one days of dark beer reviews. Pretty flippin’ sweet.

Seems I’ve gone an amassed a bunch of new beers (mostly dark, of course, since that’s how I roll) that I would like to try. Plus, I have a couple of beers that I’ve been aging for a few years and are now at a point where I think it’s time to crack them open, too.

Therefore, I deem this to be the beginning of….Febrewary. Oh yeah. It’s not going to be a daily thing this time, simply because I’d rather keep the workouts to my whole body rather than just my liver. So it will be a kind of semi-regular theme throughout this month. I’m posting this today because…well, I’ve had a frustrating evening thanks to some computer kerfuffling that left me wanting a beer to tame the tantrum.

01-febrewary-sbj

So let’s kick this off with a brand new purchase I just made this morning during a trip to Total Wine: Sweet Baby Jesus! Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter. As with Darktober, here are the stats on this one:
Brewer: DuClaw Brewing Company
Location: Abingdon, Maryland
Type: American Porter
ABV: 6.5%

Obviously, the reason I picked up the beer in the first place is the name. Seriously, how do you resist picking up a beer named Sweet Baby Jesus!? Plus, it’s a local brewery, and I do try to support them whenever I can. Then I was pretty much sold upon reading that it was a chocolate peanut butter porter. I’ve never had such a thing. I honestly never even considered that such a beer could exist. Besides, just one bottle couldn’t hurt.

I poured this at room temperature, which is how I’ve taken to drinking my dark beers. These types of beers have so many complex layers that you completely miss if you drink them cold. So many smells and flavors that awaken with warmth.

At first, this beer had a bit of a…hinky bouquet. It smelled surprisingly hoppy and not at all chocolatey or peanut buttery. I let it sit for a few minutes, went back and smelled again and was greeted by a glorious dark chocolate nose, with a slight smoky undertone.

Took a sip and I could definitely taste the chocolate, although the taste was nowhere near as delightful as the smell. However, I wouldn’t describe the rest of the flavors as even remotely close to peanut butter. To me, it tasted more like…burnt mash doused in chocolate sauce. It was not the type of flavor that would cause me to proclaim “Sweet Baby Jesus” in a positive way.

The beer left a cloying aftertaste. It’s not even that it tasted overly sweet while drinking it, but something stayed behind with each sip

Unleashing the Writer: Doppelg

~ lobablanca

Funny what we find while cleaning.

Seems as though I have let all my e-mail accounts fall into various levels of disarray. I finally have my work account relatively under control (I consider being able to see all my messages in one window without having to scroll as “under control”), so I’ve turned to trying to organize my primary personal account. While tackling my Drafts folder (a far easier task than either the Inbox or Sent folders), I found the following snippet of…I’m not really sure. I remember the inspiration for this piece: a waitress at a restaurant near my office. She honestly looked nothing like my mother minus her hands, which I couldn’t stop staring at as she cleared our dishes. The time stamp on the draft message this was saved in marks this as more than a year old. I’m not sure what I was going to do with this or even if I had planned to write more. It feels both finished and lacking.

Somehow, that seems…exactly right for this particular topic.

A stranger has my mother

Flashback Friday: The Jukebox Network

~ lobablanca

Sometimes, I look at the artists on my iPod and I realize…I have some truly questionable taste in music. It’s eclectic, to be sure, ranging from classical to country, from rap to death metal (though not a lot of the latter and not enough of the “old school” former).

Why the strange mix of musical tastes? I suppose I could blame part of it on the years that I spent absorbing every music video played by MTV and VH1 (remember the moment you realized you were getting old was when you realized you were watching way more VH1 than MTV?).

However, I can also blame the Jukebox Network(later re-christened “The Box”) for my crazy-mad love affair with a lot of 80s-era rap (as well as my introduction to a pop princess-cum-reality diva and a thorny love affair with a blossoming new metal group).

First, though, what exactly was Jukebox? Well, denizens, there was a time when you couldn’t just go online, look up a particular artist, and spend hours watching every music video, concert performance, and interview they ever made. Used to was, you had to wait patiently for them to become popular enough that one of their videos would make it into heavy rotation on one of the aforementioned music channels. Either that or plunk out money for a VHS of their latest concert or music video collection.

Jukebox, however, was just that: It was the music video equivalent of a jukebox. You waited for the video menu, wrote down the corresponding number to the video you wanted to watch, and then called the Jukebox hotline and paid for your selection. If memory serves correctly, each video cost $2.99. Pretty pricey for the late 80s/early 90s, but worth it if you liked an artist that wasn’t played frequently on MTV.

The great thing about Jukebox was that it played nothing but music videos. No commercials, no special programming, no talking heads. Just videos. It was a national channel, but it played videos popular in your particular location. I happened to live in an area where rap was far more popular than any other genre, which would explain why I grew to love artists like MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, Kool Moe Dee, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Heavy D and the Boyz, EU, Kid ‘N Play, Whodini, Big Daddy Kane…you’ve heard me mention them all many times here. Jukebox was how I got my fix of them all. See, MTV didn’t really play a lot of rap videos in regular rotation. True, they had Yo! MTV Raps, but how does a half hour show compete with 24/7 music video access?

Strangely enough, I can remember the very first video I ever saw on Jukebox. It was one of the stupidest videos by one of the cheesiest groups I’d ever heard:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/BaeNelsAOGo

That’s right. They’re Tigra and Bunny and they like the boom. It kind of makes sense that this would be the first video I saw on this channel and that it was always in heavy rotation. If I remember correctly, Jukebox was a Miami-based channel, and so were the girls of L’Trimm.

It wasn’t all about the rap though. Every now and then, a totally unexpected video would jump into the rotation, like the DNA remix of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/jWMToInrke0

I can remember when it was the most important thing in our universe to be able to sing all the lyrics to this song, whispered to each other during random study hall moments. So weird.

Then there was this video that wouldn’t stop popping into the rotation, irritating me with its poppy perkiness until I finally just surrendered to the infectious beats:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0pyxKqdtrH8

Ah, Paula. Who knew the boatload of crazy she would bring to our world many years later? For a time, though, she truly was forever our girl. Her videos were like kudzu on Jukebox…once one took root, others quickly followed. I can honestly say I wouldn’t have been half as enamored of her as I was had it not been for Jukebox.

For the record, yes, that is Elijah Wood in this video, which was directed by David Fincher. Fincher directed several of Abdul’s videos, including “Cold Hearted,” which was like Flashdance meets Fosse:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/o7aShcmEksw

I can remember when this was considered too sexeh for MTV and they would restrict its play until the evening. Sometimes I miss that demure quaintness.

Ironically, Jukebox brought me into the rap scene, and Jukebox carried me right back out with another unexpected music video that kept interrupting the regular rotation:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/o1tj2zJ2Wvg

Oh, Axl. You so cray.

I swear, denizens, I’m going to stop that.

The introduction of “Welcome to the Jungle” into Jukebox’s regular rotation was what reminded me that I loved awesome guitarists and androgynously misogynistic lead singers in leather pants and makeup. It wasn’t long before I reverted back to metal and hard rock before the grungy likes of Nirvana and Co. brought that genre to its sha-na-na-na-na-knees-knees. It also wasn’t long after this that someone finally pulled the plug on the Jukebox Network. I read somewhere that MTV bought it and converted it to MTV2. Not sure if that’s true, but sure, let’s go with that.

And there you have it, denizens, a brief history on a dying art form–the music video channel. Now known as YouTube.

Flashback Friday: Sir Mix-A-Lot

~ lobablanca

Oh, denizens. You ever get a flash of music from your past that you just can’t shake from your brain, no matter what?

That happened to me earlier today with a Sir Mix-A-Lot song. No, not that Sir Mix-A-Lot song. See, I knew his music before he informed the world of his…undeniable fondness for generously portioned backsides. First Mix song I ever heard? The one that popped into my head this morning as I watched an old-school Cadillac roll past me on my way to work:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/l_F76ySzk48

Dang, Mix, even here, you’re checkin’ out posteriors. “My Hooptie” was one of my favorite songs back in the day. What other song would you love when your first car is a 1980 Chevette? To be fair, though, my little Chevette was in way better condition than the Buick he and his posse roll in throughout this video. Speakin’ of his posse…

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SBPpy_SVV_0

Of course, when you couldn’t find Mix and his posse on Broadway…well, good luck finding him as he made his way across the country. Better jump on it…

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tmCKnVaU7H0

Getting tired? It’s true, you’ve gotta be an Iron Man to keep up with Mix most of the time:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sWMHa-ccRtQ

Yeah, that was “Iron Man.” If you’re curious, the metal group is San Francisco band Metal Church. They relocated to Washington State, which is probably how they ended up running with Sir Mix-A-Lot. He’s always called Washington State his home. It’s one of the things that I always found so interesting about him. While so many other rappers were drawing lines in the sand around their respective coastal allegiances and defending those lines with threatening lyrics, Mix always maintained a mellow groove up in Washington. He rolled to his own beat and always seemed secure enough not to need all the posturing and posing that so many others resorted to to make names for themselves. Mix-A-Lot never seemed to need all that. He just needed a great hook and clever lyrics.

And…yes, denizens…he needed butts. Big butts.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/FlItMpGYQTo

Yes, one could make an argument that this video is about as subtle as a sledge hammer when it comes to innuendo. Whether it’s the lyrics or the visuals, you’re really not going to miss the point. Mix-A-Lot loves booty. But you know what? From the flip side of the coin, Mix-A-Lot is actually reaffirming a healthy body image for women who won’t ever meet the stilted criteria of PhotoShopped fashion mag models.

Ross understands. Don’t you, Ross?

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XQglwughEyc

Could they be worse parents? And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bunch of Friends clips to watch now…and, yes, I sense a future Flashback Friday idea, too, my denizens…

Personal Aesthetic

~ lobablanca

The woman who taught us how to apply theatrical makeup for our high school play one year chose me for the “old age” portion of our lesson. She told me the lines that formed around my eyes when I winked provided her an “easy template.” She also let her 4-year-old daughter run around the classroom wearing a greasy chicken bucket on her head. I should have taken her words in that context. A 16-year-old kid already equipped with low self-esteem doesn’t understand context.

I think about that woman and her bucket-wearing child every now and then, usually when I’m washing my face in the evenings or applying eye liner in the mornings. I’ll wink and watch the lines feather away, arrow fletchings along my skin. I’ve gained new lines since those “easy template” days…lines that curl upward and join the creases that undulate along my forehead or loop across my nose. If I crinkle my brow and wrinkle my nose in just the right way, I can form ridges like a Bajoran. I’ve practiced this move several times.

I notice the lines. I rub them with SPF lotion (for I am pale and freckled and love the sun). I clean them with face wash. I sometimes run my fingers along them. Every now and then, I confess that I try to smooth them away, revealing for fleeting moments that younger me, only now with a perpetually shocked lift of her brow.

Better to look shockingly young than dour and old!

And yet. I like my lines. They tell me stories. They mark my worries, my thoughts, my moods, my years. They remind me parenthetically that I love to laugh, that whole flocks of glee have marched across my skin. They map summer journeys and connect the dots that sunshine left behind.

And yet.

These lines tell you nothing. They are my prologue to the story I know. They tell you nothing of my joys or my sorrows. They don’t tell you who I have lost or who I have found. They don’t teach you anything about me deeper than those superficial creases.

These all seem like obvious statements, logical sentiments.

And yet.

Your body does not define you. Your body is not beautiful. It is not ugly. It is a shell for the beauty or ugliness you choose to cultivate within.

You are you. Make that mean what you want it to mean.

Flashback Friday: “Fluffy Bun”

~ lobablanca

Bet that title got your attention, eh? Now, let me whisper three little words that I’ve been meaning to say to you all for quite a while now…

“Where’s the beef?”

Yeah, okay. Those words have never been whispered. They’ve always been yelled. By this tiny, incredibly hard-of-hearing octogenarian:

clarapeller

Or a presidential candidate.

(And we wonder why we were stuck with Reagan for two terms.)

So, what’s this all about then? On January 10, 1984, American fast food chain Wendy’s launched a new marketing campaign, aimed at making viewers believe that their competitors skimped on how much beef they used for their burgers. The campaign, originally named “Fluffy Bun,” featured three elderly women examining a big, fluffy bun before discovering that the bun hid a tiny little hockey puck of a burger. One of the women, disgruntled by this discovery, proceeds to utter this now quite famous line. Multiple times. Loudly.

For full disclosure, Clare Peller yelled the line because she was quite hard-of-hearing. She was totally allowed to be hard-of-hearing. She was 81 years old at the time Wendy’s ad firm cast her in this and subsequent commercials. Because, of course, America fell in love with her and her memorable delivery of this catchy line. She starred in several different “Where’s the Beef” commercials until Wendy’s fired her a year later for spoofing her famous line in a Prego commercial. In 1987, Peller passed away at the age of 85.

I can’t believe today marks the 30th anniversary of the debut of this moment of marketing genius. Is it fair to ascribe so much to this series of commercials? I think so. A quick, pithy catchphrase is priceless. Just ask Nike. Combine it with a memorable spokesperson and you’ve struck gold. Just ask Hertz.

Er. Maybe not.

Of course, Wendy’s regrouped after “Beef Gate” and came back with a new campaign starring founder Dave Thomas that proved equally memorable. Just without the cool catchphrase designed to drive everyone crazy after a week. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

This was my favorite of the “Where’s the Beef” ads:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/l7udCXqTGFg

And then there’s this…er, gem. Enjoy!

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/egGS8jONZ6Y

Photo Fun Friday: Why So Serious?

~ lobablanca

So, New Year, new opportunities to rejuvenate the lair…dust off the cobwebs that settled last year, get back on track with writing, musing, rambling, and just having fun. I hope.

Sooner or later, I’ll even get back to Flashback Fridays. Today, however, I needed to scratch an itch that’s been tickling my brain for a while now. Ever hear the P!nk song “Raise Your Glass”? No? Well, here, in all its NSFW glory…

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XjVNlG5cZyQ

I love that song. I love the video, too, for all its strangeness. Okay, some of the strangeness is just downright weird. But it’s still fun. The one line that always jumps out at me, though, is when she sings, “Why so serious?”

Obviously, as a comics fan, all I can think of when I hear that line is Heath Ledger’s Joker. Successful ad campaign is, obviously, successful. Of course, you know my wacky brain, denizens. Each time I hear this song, I immediately start combining P!nk and the Joker. It just kept getting worse and worse, until finally? Well, finally, this happened…

pink_whysoserious

You’re welcome.

BookBin2013: Elmer

~ lobablanca

elmer

Another graphic novel posing another allegorical examination of another human flaw. This time, rather than examining our obsession with war by putting animals in the path of bullets instead of humans, we examine humanity’s intolerance of those who are different…through racism toward sentient chickens.

I know, denizens. I know.

Actually, though, sometimes the best way to get someone to think differently about a topic or to look at it with fresh eyes is to pull it out of familiar settings and turn it on its head a bit. Why do you think Star Trek has been so popular for so many years? When we remove these topics from the realm of the familiar and put them in unexpected settings, we’re forced to view them in new ways. Perhaps even view them in ways opposite from how we would typically view them.

Such is the case with Gerry Alanguilan’s graphic novel Elmer. Part social commentary, part family drama, the novel tells the story of the strange and sudden evolution of chickens into creatures capable of intelligent communication and interaction with humans, and what this means for a global society forced to accept that what was once part of the dinner menu at McDonald’s now demands the same rights and freedoms as any other sentient being.

Where my previous BookBin review left me feeling quite depressed, Elmer left me feeling amused as well as enamored of the fact that Alanguilan succeeded, for even the briefest of moments, in encouraging me to re-examine my rather carnivorous eating habits. What would I do if, tomorrow, chickens actually did start speaking? Or, even worse, cows? How would we deal with no longer being able to depend upon these creatures for sustenance?

Insert parallel comparison with slavery and emancipation. Minus the consumption. Again, always interesting when someone can force us to view old arguments through new lenses.

Sadly, I’m still just a carnivore at heart. I’ve greatly reduced my meat consumption in recent years, particularly my red meat consumption. But sometimes…sometimes. Sorry, Bessy, but sometimes I just need a steak.

Final Verdict: I might be tempted to add this to my wish list, just to keep an eye out for a cheap copy through Amazon Market Place. It was an interesting enough concept executed in a captivating enough way that I wouldn’t be averse to revisiting it later on (could I sound any more non-committal?).