In a nutshell

03 July 09 | 16:10 | Posted by:

I live a few blocks from the offices of Marx Realty, which has long amused me. You know, the irony of using the name Marx for a business predicated on selling people property. It's funny! I mean, not hilarious or anything, but worth a wry, I-still-remember-Social-Studies-class chuckle.

It took on much more significance this past weekend while I was in Orange County, though. While en route to the airport, I passed a billboard for Adam Smith Realtors.

If that doesn't encapsulate the differences between San Francisco and Los Angeles, I don't know what does.

category: blog | forums | eight comments | §

Things I didn't expect to see on my way to work, Vol. 73

02 July 09 | 11:00 | Posted by:

"Are you lost, little girl? Do your mommy or daddy know where you are? Let me go see if I can find a nice policeman who will help you get back-- s, stop it. Stop looking at me. Stop staring into me with those dead, black eyes of yours! NOOOOO I WON'T LET YOU EAT MY SOUL"

category: blog | forums | eight comments | §

Rainbow warriors

01 July 09 | 17:34 | Posted by:

Something I've always liked about G.I. Joe (as I mentioned yesterday) is that it took a progressive approach to things like race and gender, considering it was a toy about the military with its roots in the '60s and '80s. Granted, some aspects of the franchise were more progressive than others; the cartoon was content to throw in a few stereotypical caricatures and call it a day. (Roadblock no doubt doth protest: "Ain't no crime/to make black people rhyme!") But really, the first couple years of the toyline alone were impressively diverse, all things being equal:


The team kicked off with an experienced black Vietnam vet, a female counter-intelligence agent, and a Hispanic rocket specialist. The following year saw the addition of a second black character (a medical doctor), a Navajo paratrooper, a second female (who drove a frigging missile tank), and a native Hawaiian S.E.A.L. Not bad! No doubt much of this can be attributed to the fact that Larry Hama, a Japanese-American writer who himself served in Vietnam, wasn't just responsible for the Joe comic but also for penning the bio cards that defined the characters' names, backgrounds, and personalities. Aryan nation poster child Duke -- the main dude in every cartoon incarnation of the franchise as well as the upcoming movie, and the guy invariably attached romantically to Scarlett (the redhead seen above, left) -- barely registered in the comic, where Scarlett had the hots for the mute and grotesquely mutilated Snake-Eyes instead. Because he was a sensitive soul, you see, and also a totally awesome American ninja.

Bear in mind that the G.I. Joe '80s "A Real American Hero" relaunch happened in 1982, the same year that Michael Jackson released Thriller. As everyone has reminded us repeatedly over the past week, Thriller was a landmark because it was the first time MTV allowed blacks on the network. I know America is hardly the apotheosis of unity, but relatively speaking we're a big, open, loving society these days compared to the way things were just 25 years ago. And while they occasionally ran the risk of looking a bit much like The Village People, the characters of G.I. Joe made a positive impression on kids by subtly telling us that race and gender have no bearing on one's abilility to shoot lasers non-lethally at terrorists.

Or so I'd like to think. But I made the tragic mistake of reading some G.I. Joe-related forums where I discovered that the lesson didn't actually take very well. See, the upcoming movie features one of the Wayans (Marlon, I think, but the family's downright Baldwinesque and difficult to keep track of) as Ripcord, a character who, in plastic, was a red-headed Irish-looking kid. This made many people quite unhappy. I can understand people reacting badly to the prospect of suffering Marlon Wayans for two hours, but so far as I can tell the complaint among G.I. Joe fans isn't "oh no Marlon Wayans" but "how dare they turn Ripcord into a black guy!" I'm positive that if the movie were to include the Bongo the Balloon Bear subplot, the word "miscegenation" would come into play sooner or later. It was kind of depressing to watch, honestly.

I blame Sunbow, personally. If only they'd made a PSA about racial harmony, none of this would have happened.

"Remember, kids, people can still be awesome even if they're a different color than you."

"Wow, next time I see someone who isn't white, I won't instinctively burn him in effigy! Thanks, Flint, now I know!"

"And knowing is half the battle."

Although I guess the problem might have something to do with the kinds of people who are instinctively drawn to violent fantasy cartoons about American military superiority? Nah, couldn't be.

category: toys | forums | 19 comments | §

The rise of schadenfreude

30 June 09 | 10:20 | Posted by:

I've been reading reviews of the new Transformers movie with surprising cheer. Now, certainly I'm sad that something which by all accounts is so utterly despicable has earned 4/5 of the total take of genuinely good fare such as Star Trek and Up in the course of a weekend, but there's no sense in fretting about the vox populi -- the vast masses have different priorities in how they spend their free time and free money than I do, and I won't judge simply because I'm baffled. So it goes. But no, I'm happy that the new Transformers is (by every reliable account) utterly unwatchable trash... simply because it means the new G.I. Joe flick surprisingly won't be the worst movie of the summer.

That doesn't mean I harbor delusions about G.I. Joe possessing any particular merits; it's gonna be so, so bad. But early word is that unlike Transformers it actually has a plot -- a plot that more or less makes sense! Not only that, it actually seems to be about the familiar cast of characters that I grew up with rather than relegating them to second fiddle behind America's least charismatic young star. And I doubt there'll be much in the way of insensitive, racist humor, since the casting went out of its way to turn guys who were decidedly WASPish in plastic form into real-life blacks, or Egyptians, or even Canadians (that most repressed of minorities).

They even got the look right, for the most part. Look at the Baroness! That is pretty much a perfect physical incarnation of the cartoon woman that instilled a strange attraction to Eurotrash in a generation of young Americans. Plus, who can complain about a movie that casts Christopher Eccleston as the main villain? Only a heartless monster, I think.

I was always more of a G.I. Joe fan growing up than I was Transformers -- I lost interest in the latter once they started phasing out die-cast metal and phasing in stupid things like the Sharkticons or whatever they were called, while I actually bought the Joe comic right up to the end (albeit entirely out of inertia those last few years) -- so it brings me a tiny, meaningless bit of satisfaction to see that it'll come out ahead on celluloid. Even if it's all in relative terms defined in degrees of "less horrible than."

Of course, I'm sure Transformers will smoke it in terms of box office take, but that's to be expected. You people got no taste at all, you know that?

category: film | forums | 41 comments | §

GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 7

29 June 09 | 06:25 | Posted by:

With this week's update to the online version of GameSpite Quarterly #1, we're about halfway through the issue's content. I'm still a little bit amazed by just how much material we produced for this book. The reality of it all hits me every Sunday afternoon right around 5, as I find myself faced with formatting and producing the material.

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters
One of these days, I intend to play more than a few minutes of this Kid Icarus sequel/remake/whatever without getting weirded out by the addition of multi-scrolling. In the meantime, we have David to set the record straight for us.

Ninja Gaiden Shadow
I also hope, someday, to track down the people responsible for this strange iteration of Ninja Gaiden and get the true story behind its creation and how it came to be an NG game rather than a Shadow of the Ninja sequel. Despite its heritage, it's still a better attempt at Ninja Gaiden than anything we've seen since.

Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins
Hey, it's Mario! But not really. As I discovered earlier this year, Super Mario Land 2 is actually just Mario interloping in what really should have been a Wario Land game. The result is novel and fun, but feels a little off -- although Bob's article here indirectly refutes my observations, and does a pretty good job of it, too.

category: games, gamespite | forums | nine comments | §

Coming next

28 June 09 | 16:24 | Posted by:

After about five or six weeks of sales for GameSpite Quarterly #1, the plucky little magazine/journal/mini-book/whatever has sold about 300 copies. That's hardly enough for me to quit and make it my full-time job, but still hardly too shabby for a fairly pricey niche-oriented publication with outrageously high shipping fees. Especially since I haven't actually promoted it outside of this site.

We're about a week from deadline for article text submissions for issue 2, and the results are really great so far! So, I figure it's time to begin talking about the next book. I'd do the viral thing, but I don't have time to really come up with something interesting. You'll have to settle for the indelicate presentation of the teaser image from the back of the first issue, I'm afraid.


However, I can assure you it is relevant in every way to the theme of the next book. I can also assure you that the lemon cake in this photo was delicious.

category: gamespite | forums | 17 comments | §

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe

27 June 09 | 11:04 | Posted by:

I don't really do the cross-promotion thing between GameSpite and 1UP so much these days, but I'm unexpectedly satisfied with this piece I wrote about Michael Jackson for Retronauts and figure it's worth linking to. It's not really about Jackson, though; what it's really about is the bygone days of arcades and the fact that his death is a reminder of things forever lost. I guess ultimately it's about me, to be honest. Man, now I'm kind of ashamed of it. "Some guy died, please listen to me whine about missing my childhood." Sorry 'bout that, everyone.

The post did come from a sincere place, though. I don't know anyone who didn't think Jackson was amazing back when I was in elementary school. Thriller was so, so huge, and we all used to listen to it over and over. I haven't heard the album in decades, but I could still recite the stupid byplay between Jackson and Paul McCartney from "The Girl is Mine" if you really pressed me. And that was the lousiest song on the album! That cover made white suits and baby tigers were the coolest thing ever. We all figured we'd dress like that an have exotic pets when we grew up. And we all made fun of Jackson's flaky personality and effeminate mannerisms, but damn if we didn't try to moonwalk in our ragged size 4 Pumas.

Anyway, I have a follow-up post to that entry in mind, but it will have to wait for when I'm not wearing a monkey suit and listening to a din of Vietnamese at my future cousin-in-law's engagement party. The further joys of adulthood!

category: blog | forums | three comments | §