THE WORD SHALL RETURN...

....on Monday, July 10. Until then, here's a picture of a cute baby. Everyone loves babies.

Death Be Not Fatal

According to the Associated Press, Great Britain's richest woman, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, has confirmed the rumors that have been floating around since the release of the series' sixth installment that two major characters buy the farm in the final book, and there are intimations that one of those future daisy-pusher-uppers is boy wizard Harry his own doomed self.

Rowlings is quoted as saying: "I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks, `Well, I'm gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author written sequels. So it will end with me, and after I'm dead and gone they won't be able to bring back the character'."

Obviously, Rowling doesn't read superhero comics. Just 'cause a character is dead doesn't mean his adventures are over. It doesn't matter if, as in the case of Green Arrow a few years ago, the hero is killed in an explosion that scatters his atoms to the far corner of the universe, some writer will find some incredibly convoluted way to restore the character to life. Given that Harry Potter's world is one of magic and wizards, figuring out a way to return him from the grave should present no real problem to any half-talented hack--like Kevin Smith, who wrote the story that ressurrected Green Arrow.

"Reality" Watch: Big Brother All-Star Voting

Just surfed back from the CBS web-site, where I voted once again for my favorite Big Brother houseguests from summers past whom I should like to see return. I plan on hitting the site everyday until the voting closes on Wednesday.

When I posted my personal list of former houseguests I wanted to see again, it was well before the list of candidates was announced, but I seemed to have a pretty good line on what the producers of BB were thinking as half of the dozen that I named made the list. (Marcellas, though, was a no-brainer. You didn't have to be freakin' Nostradomus to predict that he'd be on the list.)

Of those six, there are four that I've been voting for and really, really, deeply want to see back in the house:

Nakomis (BB 5): She's a much better strategic player than she gave herself credit for on Wednesday's special. The "backdoor" nomination strategy (the Head of Household putting up two "pawns", then nominating the person he really wants gone after the veto ceremony when that person can no longer save himself) that was used to devastating effect last summer was pioneered by Nakomis. Plus, she's a hot chick with green hair. What more could anyone want?

Janelle (BB6): A lot better player than anyone gave her credit for. No green hair but still hot.

Kaysar (BB6): As I said two weeks ago, Kaysar was one of the finest strategic players the house has seen before he let his emotions get the best of him and made a stupid mistake that got him tossed out a second time.

Howie (BB 6): Quite frankly, Howie is not a good player. His stint as HOH was disastrous for his alliance. He is ,however, unpredictable and funny.

Then there are the people I really don't need to see again.

Ivette (BB6): No. Just NO. That's all I'm gonna say.

Bunky (BB2): As I've stated earlier, I didn't really get into BB until BB3. This guy--Bunky--is the reason I didn't watch BB2. I saw just enough of it to know that I didn't want to see anymore of this big hairy crying freak.

Alison (BB4): Geez, hasn't this wench been on TV enough? After BB4, she and her boyfriend Donny did The Amazing Race. I think the world has seen enough of her.

Well, we'll just have to wait and see who gets in and who doesn't.....Excuse me, I've written enough for today, I'm going back to vote again.

(Now, THAT'S Trivia! #19) Hail To The Chief...

I came across a book at the library called The Essential Book of Presidential Trivia by Noah McCullough (who is supposedly only ten years old) and here's a question from that book's "Ultimate Political Quiz". (This one stuck in my mind because it's kind of a trick question. I like trick questions.)

Q: How many presidents are not buried in the United States?

The answer lies on The Answer Blog.

(POKER MOVIES) "The Cheater's Game"

(To be quite honest, I am just horribly depressed today and do not feel like writing anything. However, a few months ago, I wrote a series of entries on Poker-themed movies that I was planning to post when the Rat Pack Bar League started up again. Since that apparently ain't gonna happen, I will instead being posting them on days like today when I can not conjure the energy to come up with an original thought. This first entry in the series offers an overview of the way Hollywood has portrayed the game of poker over the years. Future entries critique specific films.)

I've heard a lot about how the recent explosion in the popularity of poker, fueled by televised Hold' Em tournaments, has done much to dispel the "negative image" of the game. It's true the game has had a bit of a P.R. problem throughout its history, often being regarded as the exclusive province of cheats and hustlers. In fact, according to many of the books on poker that I have read (and I have read many) poker was widely known as "The Cheater's Game" in the 19th century.

One of the things keeping this negative image alive in the public consciousness is the way the game has been portrayed in movies. In nearly every "poker movie", from The Cinncinnati Kid to Maverick, there is some sort of cheating going on or scam being run. Even Rounders, one of the linchpins of poker's newfound popularity, has Ed Norton's Worm, an unrepentant cheat.

When there's no cheating going on in a film, the image presented of poker players is still less than flattering. For example, in Robert Altman's California Split, Elliot Gould and George Segal's characters are portrayed as pathetic losers who turn to gambling to fill a void in their souls. Then there's High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story (a.ka. Stuey), a biography of the three time World Series of Poker champion. While Ungar may have been, as many claim, "the greatest poker player who ever lived", he is hardly a positive role model, what with the cocaine and the Mafia connections and all.

Why can't someone make a film about a well-adjusted, honest family man who happens to be a professional poker player? Say, something like: Ten-Deuce: The Doyle Brunson Story. That's box office gold, baby!

"Reality" Re-Cap: Last Chance for Last Comic Standing

After last night, I'm just not sure that I want to continue watching Last Comic Standing. Now that the preliminary rounds are behind us, the show has morphed into some sort of half-assed cross between Big Brother and American Idol. I wish they'd drop the "behind the scenes" crap and concentrate on the performances by the comics. If I want to see who unfunny fat chicks yelling at each other, I'll go---well, nowhere, because I just don't need to see that crap. And I just don't need a Big Brother clone right now when the real thing is about to kick off. In fact, tonight the special which will present the past houseguests eligible to return to the show for this year's All Star edition airs at 8 pm. Fans will then have a week to vote on who gets into the house.

Anyway, back to LCS. I think I'll give it one more chance, but if the stunningly unfunny Roz makes it past next week I'm so outta there.

It's News To Who???

Here are this week's biggest non-news stories from the Pop Culture front:

Paul McCartney turned 64 on Sunday.

It must have been a slow weekend for news, since just about every news show I saw had a feature on the ex-Beatle's 64th birthday, just because he once wrote a not very good song called "When I'm Sixty-Four." Big Fat Hairy Deal.

Jar Jar Binks named Most Annoying Film Character

This is the "DUH!" story of the week. No one needed to take a poll to figure that one out; they just had to watch The Phantom Menace. (or better yet--don't. Just forget that it and the next two films were ever made.) Actually, I'm surprised that the rest of the characters named in the survey weren't from the awful second Star Wars trilogy.

Today's News Highlights

In the Columbus Dispatch today:
AK superheroes hail from Middle East

The interior voice of "Cynical Ray" says that this sounds like just another in a long line of new comic book "universes" built on a marketing gimmick rather than solid, entertaining storytelling. "Curious Ray," however, thinks that he might check these Middle Eastern super-heroes out--as soon as their initial storylines are collected in trade paperback, because Ray no longer buys comics periodicals.

Minorities absent in new comedies

It seems that nothing ever changes, you know. I swear that I see this exact same story, featuring minority leaders complaining that there aren't enough minority faces on TV, every single year as the start of the fall TV season gets closer. It's kind of sad, really.

"Reality" Watch: The Pride of Britain

If the Fox TV network were your only contact with the outside world, you could easily be forgiven if you were to come to the conclusion that all British men are obnoxious jackasses. This may not be the case in real life, but on the network's so-called "reality" shows it most certainly is true.

The prototype is, of course, American Idol's Simon Cowell. A large part of Idol's appeal comes from watching Simon lay waste to the dreams and aspirations of naive hopeful young singers. Perhaps his popularity speaks to some essential mean-spirited in the American people...or perhaps not. Such conclusions are better left to sociologists rather than media critics.

The nicest of the bunch is So You Think You Can Dance's Nigel. He can dish out the venom just as well as Simon, but it seems his heart really isn't in it. It's almost as if he tosses out the occassional put down simply because he feels it is expected of him as Dance's answer to Simon. Perhaps a quota of insults per episode is in his contract.

Hell's Kitchen chef Gordon Ramsay, on the other hand, positively revels in his obnoxiousness. He knows he's a jackass and he likes it that way. Unfortunately, he is missing the one element that makes Simon bearable: a sense of humor, both about himself and his show.

These three make me nostalgic for aTV show that featured a kinder, gentler, and far more likable example of British manhood: Fawlty Towers.

Great Moments In Comics' History: Amazing Spider-Man #147

Former comics writer, and current "supervising producer" for Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Gerry Conway's 38 issue run on Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man stands out not only as some of the finest work of Conway's career, but as second only to the 106 issues penned by the character's creator, Stan Lee, as the highpoint of Spidey's career in the comics. However, he is also responsible for what I consider to be the greatest unintentionally funny line ever to see print in a super-hero comic book.

He wrote this memorable bit of dialogue in ASM #147, toward the end of his run. In that story, entitled "The Tarantula Is A Very Deadly Beast," Spidey and the titular villain engage in a brawl through the streets of New York City that eventually spills on to a crowded city bus. Despite two super-powered lunatics pummelling the crap out of each other right in front of him, the driver of the bus appears not to notice anything out of the ordinary taking place as he calmly requests the combatants to move to the rear of the bus and emotionlessly reminds a clone of Spider-Man's dead girlfriend that she forgot to pay her fare when she boards.

Finally, an exasperated webslinger can take no more, insisting that, "Mister, you can't be real! Nobody behaves like you do---NOBODY!"

Finally acknowledging Spidey's presence, the man pulls off his "bus driver" mask to reveal another mask, with impossibly large protruding ears, underneath--the mask of Spider-Man's nemesis The Jackal! As he does so, the villain proclaims,"Nobody 'real' does act the way I do--(And here's the funny part..)--Because no one 'real' is THE JACKAL!"

I first read that story back when it was originally published in 1976. I was ten years years old and took such things much more seriously than I do these days, thus I failed to see anything even remotely funny about that particular panel. Re-reading the story as a somewhat more jaded adult some two decades later, I was struck by the utter absurdity of it and simply cracked up laughing, as I continue to do to this day every time I read it.

(STRAY THOUGHTS) TOPIC: Rhymin'

One of my favorite things about the English language is that the word "pants" rhymes with "dance," thus making possible some hilarious couplets such as the motto by which The Mary Tyler Moore Show's Chuckles the Clown lived by: "A little song, a little dance; A little seltzer down your pants."

My favorite, though, is the opening of the theme song from Cartoon Network's IM Weasel:

"You don't need pants for a Victory Dance."

That is the art of poetry at its finest, my friends.

(Now, THAT'S Trivia! #18) This Time It's Personal

Well, the trivia question is back for better or worse for those who give a crap...and Summer is less than a week away, but the "Summer Movie Season" has been with us for awhile...Today's question has nothing to do with movies, but instead is about early 1960's pop music. However, while sequels run rampant in the movie industry, especially in the summer months, "sequels" to hit songs are less common. Leslie Gore, however, did produce a follow-up to her smash hit "It's My Party" that continued the story and even brought it to a happy ending (for Leslie, at least).

What was that song called???

As you well know by now, the answer is to be found at The Answer Blog.

Frankly, My Dear...CAPA Movie Series Begins With GWTW

Just a quick reminder to my readers who are also fans of classic films and live in the Columbus, Ohio area that CAPA's Summer Movie Series kicks off this weekend with the overblown, overlong, over-acted and highly over-rated 1939 "classic" Gone With The Wind, a film most notable for shocking millions of blue haired old ladies by being the first American movie in which a character used the word "Damn," and for an early screen appearance by future Superman, George Reeves.

Future films in the Series, which runs through August 27, include Citizen Kane, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz, Brigadoon, Chinatown, and the best damn movie ever made (a.k.a. Casablanca) as well as two Saturday morning sessions of classic theatrical cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and other favorites.

All movies in the Series screen at the beautiful old Ohio Theater downtown. Gone With The Wind plays tomorrow through Sunday at 7:30 pm nightly with 2 pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $3.50 or $3.00 for senior citizens with a strip of ten, good for any movie in the series, available for $21.50

"Reality" Re-Cap: More Last Comic Standing

So, last night on Last Comic Standing they sent not five, but seven, comics to the finals. Host Anthony Clarke called that a "twist." Heh. That's no twist. If you want to see twists, watch Big Brother. The producers of that show could teach you a thing or two about screwing with peoples' lives for entertainment value.

Remember BB4, in which many of the houseguests were thrown together in the house with an ex- girl/boyfriend? Then there was BB5, in which not only were a pair of identical twins fooling everyone in the house into believing they were one person but the producers found a brother and sister who had not only never met but didn't even know each other existed and let them figure out that fact for themselves.

Yeah, LCS apparently has a thing or two to learn about "twists."

Meanwhile...

Before I criticize the choices for the last seven finalists, let me say that I know the "celebrity talent scouts" have a difficult job, and the chance of their choices pleasing everyone is absolutely nil. At least in the case of a show like American Idol, just about everyone agrees on what good singing is, but what's funny is an extremely personal thing to each individual. That said, I actually have very little problem with the comics who made the cut...except for one.

Stella Stolper was crude and unfunny and, worst of all, unoriginal. Her act has been done before, and much better, by female comics from Joan Rivers to Roseanne. Thankfully, the decision to pick two additional finalists meant that the inclusion of Stella did not mean that Kristen Key was denied the shot at the LCS title that she richly deserves. If there's one comic who should've made the finals who did not, though, it's the little lisping fireball, Nikki Payne.

Well, that's all about LCS for this week....we'll see if there's anything worth writing about after the next episode.

Football Already?

For those who give a crap--and let it be proclaimed through all the vastness of cyberspace that I am most definitely not one of them--here's a link to this upcoming season's Ohio State Buckeyes football schedule, posted today on the Columbus Dispatch web-site.

Buckeye Football Schedule

"Reality" Re-Cap: Last Comic Standing

Last Wednesday, before my (at first) enforced retreat from the blogosphere, I was going to write about last Tuesday's episode of Last Comic Standing. I'm going to do that now, just in time for an all new episode this evening.

I wish they would expand to two hours, enabling them to show the comics' entire 3-minute sets and the judges' (or "celebrity talent scouts") comments on all them, rather than only a select few. That certainly would have been better than wasting an hour of airtime with an edited "recap" of the premiere. This week they're filling the 8 o'clock hour with something even worse: Fear Factor. I've said that since I've been writing about TV on this blog, I've watched more so-called "reality" shows than I ever did before, but, blog or no blog, there is no force in heaven or on Earth that could ever compel me to watch an episode, or even part of an episode, of Fear Factor.

All right, with that mini-rant out of the way, let's look at the first five comics selected to advance to the finals: Chris Porter, April Macie, Joey Gay, Roz, and Josh Blue.

I'm not all that happy with the choices.

First of all, I am disappointed that my personal favorite from the first two episodes, Nikki Glaser, didn't make it. I really like her and feel she was the best comic on the show. Her material has a dark, almost uncomfortable, edge that in the hands of a lesser talent might induce cringing ranther thatn laughter, but she managed to pull off jokes about alcoholism and domestic violence and make them funny. I hope that I'll get to see more of her in the future, if not on LCS, then elsewhere.

Joey Gay is loud...I think he'll get tiresome after a while.

Roz told the audience in her nightclub audition that "I don't have jokes; I have problems!" She was right about not having jokes, and her problem is that she ain't funny.

April Macie's routine last week contained a few too many penis jokes (and not very funny ones, at that) for my taste.

Okay, this may sound crass and insensitive, but while I find Josh Blue funny, he is basically a one-note performer relying on a gimmick, in this case, that he has cerebral palsy. (That does make me sound like a horrible person, doesn't it?)

Chris Porter? He's OK, I guess.

Anyway, tonight we get to see who the remaining five finalists are, and maybe we'll get to see Tim Meadows again. That'll be a treat. You just don't see enough of him on the tube these days.

Odd--In Disturbing Sort of Way--Story of The Day

Arizona police say parents gave pot to their kids to reward good behavior
Okay...this is definitely taking the "cool parent" thing a little too far.

I'm BACK! (And I Brought A Friend)

Greetings, friends!!
I'm back. In retrospect, frustrating as it was at the time, the fact that due to problems with the Blogger web-site I was unable to update The Word From On High for two days was a good thing. After four months of posting nearly every day, I was getting a little burnt out. So I took a couple of extra days off, after a perfunctory post to let the world know I hadn't slit my wrists in the bathtub, to renew my creative energies and revive my will to write. And to eat and sleep, neither of which I do enough of. It is, however, time to get back to the daily grind of the unforgiving blogosphere, lest I lose my audience completely. If I take any more time off, my five readers may abandon me in frustration. Besides, the daily routine provdes me with some semblance of sanity or an unreasonable facsimile thereof, sorta.
Okay, I'm rambling. Let's move on.
In the near future, I'm finally going to get to some reviews of books I picked up at SPACE last month, and take a look at what the broadcast TV networks have in store for us in the fall, and tell you what I really think of Last Comic Standing.
For today, though, I thought I'd ease back into the swing of things and share some pictures from the aforementinoned Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo, which took place right here in the magical land of Columbus, Ohio on May 13.
The first pic is of me posing with the Drunken Cat eponymous namesake of Drunken Cat Comics. (Click on that link for a shot of Cerebus writer/artist Dave Sim hobnobbing with the DC)
The second is me wearing the head of the Drunken Cat costume and standing next to Drunken Cat Comics guiding light, Brian Canini.
Big THANKS to Brian for sending me copies of the pics and for allowing me to stick my greasy head into his nice home made mask.

Too Much Tim

It's ironic, isn't it?

After two days of being unable to update The Word From On High because I couldn't access the Blogger site, I don't really feel like writing anything today. Maybe I'll take the weekend off as well and get my head together (by which I mean drink heavily).

One thing, though...What's up with that Tim Meadows guy?

Between Last Comic Standing and Game Show Marathon, it was almost impossible to get away from his smarmy, self satisfied grin this past couple of weeks.

Is he just a total TV whore who will do anything to get his face on the boob tube, no matter how ridiculous? If he's that desperate to get on TV, maybe he should just swallow what little pride he may have left and go crawling on his belly back to Lorne Michaels, admit that his "movie career" is a pathetic joke and an abject failure, and beg Michaels to let him back on Saturday Night Live. After all, anyone who'd appear on Game Show Marathon obviously has no self respect.

All right, that's all the bile I wish to spew today. The trivia quiz shall return next Friday.

Billy Preston Dies..

Singer-songwriter Billy Preston dead at 59

From jamming with the Beatles to being the musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live, Preston had quite a career in the 60's and 70's. I remember my friend Jonny Hartwell telling me, one time when I played Prteston's Nothing From Nothing on an oldies radio show I hosted on WCCB, the Clarion University of Pennsylvania student radio station, that it was the first record he ever bought. For me, it was one of the songs on the radio that helped define the summers of my childhood. I'm sorry if I'm rambling a bit here. I don't really have much to say here, I'm simply too overcome with shock, sadness and nostalgia.