The Comic-Con Experience, Chapter II: Confronting the Inner-Nerd

Once you pay money to attend a comic book conference, the denial phase of your nerdiness is pretty much over. It cost me $30 to come to grips with my condition.

I have always accepted the fact that I’ve held a long passion for a number of things considered “nerdy”, as evidenced by my choice of Halloween costumes as a child. Even so, I still hesitated to embrace a total nerd identity, partially because I didn’t think it was accurate, mostly because I thought that would officially kill my chances of ever scoring a pretty wife.



My problem with the nerd moniker is that I think it’s too limiting. The image is of a scrawny, google-eyed kid with bad hair and a nasal voice that spends all of his free time buried in calculus books and X-files episodes, feverishly taking notes on continuity errors that he will promptly post to his self-managed web forum. Apparently this guy never exercises, talks to girls, or bathes.

I do all three of those things on a regular basis, so how can I really be a nerd?

The answer is that nerdiness is not a condition as much as it is a series of degrees. The stereotype comes from a full-blown degree reserved only for the chronic nerds, but in reality, everyone that has any semblance of imagination can lay claim to at least a small degree of nerdiness.

I recently had to face the fact that I’ve embraced a slightly higher degree of nerdiness lately, as is evidenced by the clip below:



But Harry Potter fixation aside, I was still hesitant to walk headlong into a convention center full of what I assumed would be a rabid herd of high-degree nerds, dressed to the hilt in super hero costumes and drooling incessantly. It was kind of like the way I felt before starting grad school in USU’s English Department, when I worried that I’d be spending the next two years in classes full of depressed girls who dressed in black and had lots of scars on their wrists.

As my sister and I approached the convention center, we started to take notice of the increasing number of costumed people on the sidewalk. The first one we spotted was dressed as a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, and he proved to be indicative of the general trend of the conference. This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the first film, and I’d say three of four costumed attendees were paying their respect to King George of Lucasland.



The convention seemed to be evenly divided between the two floors of the center, with the autograph booths and group meetings on the second floor and the merchandise expo on the first. There was plenty of action upstairs, but the high-degree nerds seemed to favor the expo primarily. The floor was a chaotic mess of toys, statues, TV monitors and booths, with thousands of people milling between them like red blood cells in a capillary system. The booths themselves were dedicated to specific artists, toy manufacturers, film companies, and general vendors, many of whom were handing out random free gifts and promotional items.



Through this network of walkways strode a number of high-degree nerds, dressed in what must have been painstakingly created costume renditions. I felt conflicted at the sight of them, torn between my culturally engrained “man what a geek” impulse reaction and the sheer admiration of the detail some of these people managed to work into their outfits. Most of these people put the folks at the Harry Potter book release party to shame.



Some of the vendors seemed to be conscious of this uber-nerd atmosphere, and almost seemed to be fighting to make it appear cool in a more traditional sense. At least that’s the impression I got from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, who signed autographs while several “Spawn Girls” distributed promotional materials dressed in short shorts. Because obviously tanned girls in skimpy outfits flock to comic book enthusiasts.



Sorry, Todd. You’re not kidding anyone. We all know that none of those girls have ever read any of your stuff.

It would be dishonest for me to neglect to mention that I actually saw “Return of the Jedi” 19 times in the summer of 1983 (even if I was six at the time), and I was in line for hours with everyone else to see the prequels. But I shuddered to think of how far beyond my level of interest many of these people had taken their mania, and I wondered if somehow by embracing their nerdiness so fully, perhaps they were being more honest with themselves than I was.

Every once in a while, though, I’d be reminded that I was in the midst of kindred spirits. The best costume of the whole affair went hands-down to the guy that wasn’t satisfied with a mere Stormtrooper costume, and instead integrated his own Elvis Impersonator element to the overall design. If I ever decide to dress up for one of these things, I hope that is the route I take.






The truth of it is that there was a lot of cool stuff to see, from the original Batmobile to the pink R2-D2 (dubbed “R2-KT”) that was designed to promote breast cancer awareness. Hey, nerds get breast cancer, too.

My original feeling was that I was going down to meet one of my all-time favorite novelists, who just happened to be appearing at a comic book convention. But I soon discovered the same thing I found at USU and the Harry Potter party: a few eccentrics, but mostly kindred spirits. Heck, if I’d brought my football with me, I’ll bet I could have got a game going.

Well, maybe not.

Next up in Chapter III: The lack of "comic" at Comic-Con

The Comic-Con Experience, Chapter I: The Road to San Diego

If there’s one part of Americana that is deeply ingrained in me (other than Drive-In double features), it’s the classic all-American road trip. I’ve been a fan of road trips ever since I drove to Island Park with four friends the summer after I graduated from high school. Since then I’ve cruised the Pacific coast highway, driven to Chicago and back, and made numerous swings to Vegas and back.

That’s why the notion of driving to Comic-Con 2007 instead of flying didn’t deter me in the least. Even with gas prices as bad as they have been, a trip to San Diego would cost less than half as much in gas as it would cost to snag two airplane tickets for my sister Katie and I to make our destined pilgrimage to meet Ray Bradbury.

So about 3PM last Thursday afternoon I pulled into the parking lot of Equity Title in Salt Lake and picked up Katie after working a partial shift. The car was all packed and ready to go, and following a quick stop in Alpine to drop off a DVD of my Harry Potter piece to my producer, we hit I-15 and made for the southern horizon.

Our initial plan was to wait until Friday morning and drive all the way to Los Angeles on the first day, where we would stay with my old friend Fabian Jakins in the north LA suburb of Canyon Country. But at the last minute we figured it might be smart to break the jaunt in two and crash in Vegas with my longtime friend Steve and his family.

On the way down, we passed the sights I’d gotten used to seeing on the way through Southern Utah, and looked forward to getting into a state where people know they’re supposed to yield the left-hand lane. Other than a pickup truck packed to the rim with boxes of Hostess desserts (and a driver behind the wheel who honestly looked like he was passed out—at 75mph, no less), nothing too extraordinary crossed our path. It was just good music, good conversation, and open road.

In an effort to get past our usual habit of grumbling about dating and career frustrations, Katie and I tried to stick to more topical conversations. I suggested we come up with our five favorite vocalists, along with an explanation for each.

Here’s my list:

1. Sam Cooke
2. Aretha Franklin
3. Steve Winwood/Ray Charles
4. Simon and Garfunkel
5. Janis Joplin

Finally around 11pm we pulled into North Las Vegas, and found ourselves relaxing on Steve’s leather couch while discussing the virtues of the latest Harry Potter book with his wife Sarah. Steve is one of my oldest friends. My earliest memory of him is the two of us watching “Gilligan’s Island” with another neighborhood kid—JC Lee—while sitting on a red shag carpet in my parent’s basement shortly after making the move from Centerville to Bountiful when I was four years old.

We spent much of the next several years playing Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformers, as our interests gradually evolved from outer space to basketball to girls. We even got our Eagle Scouts together:



After graduating from Southern Utah University, Steve moved down to Las Vegas with his new wife Sarah and started having energetic kids. These days they’ve got three of them, and the last two times I’ve been down to see them, watching the kids has been as entertaining as anything else I did on the trip.





Instead of doing anything inherently “Vegas”, Katie and I had lunch at a local Mexican restaurant named “Viva Zapatas” the next day before hitting the road again. Zapatas was a good spot, partially for their good salsa, partially for the restaurant décor, which consisted mainly of guns hung on the wall.

We’d already endured a lot of hot weather on the way down, but as we drove south out of Nevada, things went from bad to worse. In the Death Valley area, Sunny California boasts a landscape that is far from anything the Mamas and the Papas would ever be dreamin’ about. Long stretches of desolate rolling terrain, peppered with sage brush and the odd Joshua Tree, eventually rises into mounds of dirt and rock that I suppose would be considered mountains. The God-forsaken environment looked a lot more like a desert than the place I grew up at, in spite of what people told me.



After a quick rest stop, things just got weirder. Eventually we started to pick up elevation, and I figured that soon we would cross over into the beautiful paradise so many native Californians are always bragging about. But MapQuest had other ideas.

Once we reached Victorville, our directions took us off of I-15 and onto a rural highway headed due West. Palmdale Road eventually turned into Peachtree Drive, but the scenery remained the same: a long two-lane highway with almost nothing but dirt roads peeling off of it. Hand painted address signs tacked up next to the entrances to obscure trailer parks and ramshackle houses, and everywhere sagebrush, dirt, and dust. For a long time we questioned whether we were going in the right direction, but eventually we met up with the southbound Highway 14, and found ourselves on a much busier highway heading south towards Los Angeles.

Around 6pm we hit Canyon Country, and after unloading our bags at my friend Fabian’s place, we found ourselves in an In-and-Out Burger Drive-thru getting burgers and fresh fries. Fabian and I got to be friends while attending the 32nd Ward together two years ago. We both have an interest in film, so we spent the evening watching each other’s recent short film projects before Katie and I decided to crash on his couches around 11:30.

Following a borderline-miraculous rise from bed at 4:30am, Katie and I got our stuff together and got onto I-5 for the last leg of our drive to the conference. People drive very fast on southern California freeways, but at least there weren’t many of them out that early on a Saturday morning, and by 8am, we arrived safely at Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers and the Green Line stop of the San Diego Trolley System.

Qualcomm Stadium was serving a double purpose that day: hub for Comic-Con folks, and headquarters of American Idol auditions. As we stood on the dock waiting for the train, Katie and I looked out at the crowds in line to get ripped by Simon, and wondered what our lives would have been had we been steered onto that path rather than the one we were on.

Maybe they really aren’t all that different.

Candy Resurrection

Sometimes it's the little triumphs that see you through the dark times...

Last weekend I picked up some snacks/munchies/garbage/junk food to take on the road down to California, not realizing that anything chocolate left in my car longer than 13.5 seconds would soon be relegated to a misshapen mess. Over the course of the first leg of the journey, between Bountiful and Las Vegas, a bag of Deluxe Grahams, a Twix bar and a Three Musketeers bar fell victim to a solar transfiguration experiement.

Convinced that the candy bars were a loss, my sister suggested we cut our losses and chuck the unsightly candy bars. The outer wrappers had been twisted and mangled by the ebb and flow of the melted chocolate inside, resulting in a pair of choco-treats that looked like they may have been cooked up by the inbred family on the old "Home" episode of "X-Files". Even Mulder and Scully wouldn't touch them.

But I would. Rather than give up, I stood firm to my well-ingrained cheapness and demanded that they be spared a trash receptacle grave. I put them back in the food bag and waited until the end of our trip, when I promptly stuck them in my freezer, hoping that the extreme cold would generate the necessary separation of chocolate and outer wrapper. After leaving them overnight, I set them on the counter to return them to room temperature.

Today, while preparing my fifth taco meal in 14 days, I curiously withdrew the Three Musketeers bar and peeled open the wrapper, hoping a generous layer of chocolate would not come stuck to it. Suddenly I found myself holding one of the ugliest candy bars ever known to modern man. But in spite of its ugliness, it was whole.

Triumph.

B All Over sketches now on YouTube!

OK, I finally broke down and got a YouTube account. I'm gradually uploading all my sketches onto my account. Here are the first four:

English Re-Education 930:



Potter Syndrome:



The Merriweather Stone Pilot:



The second Merriweather Stone episode:

The Comic-Con Experience

In other news, last night I just got back from my road trip to San Diego, where I attended Comic-Con 2007. Yes, in eight days time I managed to hang out at a Harry Potter release party, wait in line for an hour at WalMart to buy the seventh book, and drive to California to attend a comic book convention. There's really no way to deny the nerd thing anymore.

At any rate, too much happened at Comic-Con to sum up in one column, so I think I'm going to have to do it in chapters. That way I can focus in on specific aspects of the conference, like the geek aspect, the autograph aspect, and the "pilgrimage to see Ray Bradbury" aspect. Of course, since I already still need to write columns on the Jackson Rodeo, Country Music, and the 2007 Days of '47 Parade, you can expect the Comic-Con pieces to be finished by sometime next year.

Probably while I'm attending Comic-Con 2008.

My only excuse is that it's been hard to write for the blog (an unpaid job) while working on pieces for KJZZ (wait, that's an unpaid job, too). Maybe I'll try to buffer the void by posting YouTube links!

OK, this is a special one...on the way to the convention, I stayed with my old friend and collaborator Fabian Jakins in Canyon Country, California (north LA suburb). He showed me this link to a short piece he did with his friend Stacy. Enjoy.

AMBER ALERT...DOH!

As I announced previously, my Harry Potter segment aired on Saturday's "final" episode of "B All Over". The original thirteen-episode run is now complete, and in the next week or two we'll find out if I've still got a comedy sketch job. Unfortunately, halfway through my piece, an Amber Alert flashed over the top of the screen and effectively muted the rest of the segment, so anyone who did watch only got half the "story".

Kind of puts me in an awkward position...I'm annoyed that my segment got geeked up, but I can't really complain about an Amber Alert, even if half the announcement was constructed of incoherent electronic beeps, static, and buffer junk. My solution, then, is to once again post a link to my own Web site, Planet Venison, where all my segments (B All Over or otherwise) are posted. They're all located in the pulldown menu at the bottom of the page, or you can just click the direct link here.

Shameless Family Plug

Time to welcome my sister to the Blogosphere!

Katie has finally hopped online as a blogger, penning a site called "The Bird Refuge". It's named after her favorite spot for photography/meditation up in Farmington, though from what I've seen so far, her commentary won't be limited to nature.

Here's a shot I took last time I swung out to the refuge...



Go check it out!

Harry Potter Sketch to Air Saturday

This Saturday night "B All Over" will be completing its initial 13-episode run at 10pm on KJZZ. The future of the show is still quite clouded, so this may be the last opportunity for me to get one of my sketches on the air for a while.

This week's contribution is called "Potter Syndrome", and auto-biographical examination of how one can dive headlong into Harry Potter Mania without even meaning to. I put it together using footage shot on my own, as well as with material gathered at last weekend's book release party at the Salt Lake City Library. I got some valuable help from family and friends, as has usually been the case. As is also usually the case, there are compressed Quicktime versions of my sketches available at Planet Venison.

Here are a couple of photos from late Friday/early Saturday, after returning from my 1am visit to WalMart to go buy book 7.





Tune in (or TiVo, I'm headed to SoCal to see Ray Bradbury) this Saturday at 10!

English Re-Education Sketch

Here again, in case you missed it (or didn't know about it), is the link to my most recent spot on "B All Over".

English Re-Education 930

Merriweather Stone Episodes 1 & 2 Available Online

Just finished compressing the original, uncut versions of the Merriweather Stone episodes for online posting. As you may recall, KJZZ had to combine and cut the broadcast of these two episodes for time reasons, but here are the original separate episodes in their entirety. (I've just posted links to them since I haven't figured out how to stop them from automatically playing yet.)

Episode One: The Interview

Episode Two: The Bear Trap

"Accent" Piece to air this Saturday

Still struggling to get a lot of writing done with this dumb splint on my finger, but I can still manage to make a couple of token announcements...

This Saturday at 10pm on KJZZ I've got another short film appearing on "B All Over". This one is a parody news piece about an adult education class that tries to help Utahn's speak without accents. It turned out really well, so enjoy. As usual, I'll probably post a smaller version of it on here once it airs.

Posts on the Jackson Rodeo and Country Music are still forthcoming, as soon as I can start typing with more than six fingers. Until then, I will leave you with a killer YouTube find. My friend Abby turned me on to these guys, and this is my favorite video so far:

!!!STITCHES!!!

JUST SO YOU KNOW...THIS POST IS A TAD MORE GRAPHIC THAN USUAL...IF YOU CAN'T TAKE THE SIGHT OF STITCHES, DON'T CLICK ON THE LINK AT THE END.

Looks like I've got a built-in excuse to slack off on writing for the next couple of weeks...I've got a big splint on my right index finger to go along with nine stitches. Last Tuesday at the Stake Sports Night activity I went up to block a Volleyball spike in a typical effort to be a sports hero. I met the ball at the same time as my opponent and caught the ball at a bad angle, hitting it with my fingers instead of my palm, spraining my right middle finger and dislocating and lacerating my index.

When I came down, I could feel that my fingers weren't lining up the way they normally did, and I could tell it was more than a sprain. Plus sprains don't usually bleed all over the place. Looking down at my right hand, I saw my index finger bent upwards after the first knuckle, the rest of it crooked into a little hook.

Instinctively--or maybe just channeling Jim McMahon--I grabbed my index finger and immediately popped it back into place as more blood squirted out. I was relieved that my finger was now able to move and flex normally, but I knew I was still in trouble from the flash of white I saw during the process.

A friend from the ward swung me up to University Hospital, and four hours and several nurse cringes later I had my nine stitches and a splint. The laceration wound 180 degrees around my finger, though it didn't go deep enough to cut any arteries or anything. Plus I managed to avoid an open fracture; turns out it was just one whale of a dislocation. From the right angle, it looks like the whole thing was lopped off and sewn back on.

In fact, if you can stomach it, click HERE. It's really not a very graphic photo, but I figured it would be wiser to link to it rather than give any casual surfers a nasty surprise.

Enjoy!

A Pair of Independent Memories...

Whenever the Fourth of July rolls around and firework shacks start popping up in parking lots all over town, I fondly remember a pair of childhood memories from growing up in Davis County.

The first of these gems took place somewhere in my mid-teens, while still attending church with my family at the Bountiful 19th Ward. On the Sunday nearest the 4th, sacrament meeting would always feature one or two patriotic hymns like “America the Beautiful” or “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

One year Bishop Bob Carling got up halfway through the meeting and announced that he’d arranged for a special musical number for our holiday service. Seems a few weeks earlier he’d come across a little-known patriotic ditty called “The Liberty Bell March” by John Phillip Souza, and had been so inspired he’d persuaded our organist to learn it for the day’s meeting.

Our organist was Rob Nish, a kid my age who’d morphed from a head-to-toe Utah Jazz superfan into a sophisticated organ-playing classical music guru in six months time. When Rob sat down at the organ to start pumping out the march, my family thought little of the situation. Rob’s Sunday recitals had become fairly commonplace even by that time. But when he started playing, my family’s ears perked up quickly.

Something sounded familiar.

Mom, Dad, Katie and I looked back and forth at each other wide-eyed as grins gradually spread across our lucid faces. Rob was playing the Monty Python theme in sacrament meeting.

When it comes to Python, most of the general population has only seen “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. But before the grail, there was “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, a half-hour TV sketch show that started them down the road to infamy. Apparently the Python boys had used the “Liberty Bell March” as their theme song.

I sat back on my bench and beamed as Rob continued to toot and wail his way through the song, which to everyone else in the chapel just sounded like any another patriotic tune. But to four grinning Mormons on the left flank of the pulpit, visions of waving banners and patriotic powdered wigs were replaced with dead parrots, effeminate lumberjacks and giant cartoon feet. The performance was a watershed moment in my religious upbringing, a dramatic crossing of the streams reminding me that God most certainly had a sense of humor.



My second fond memory took place a few years later, the summer after I’d returned from my mission to Chicago. After spending the previous two summers pounding the pavement in Illinois, I was anxious to return to our family’s traditional Island Park retreat near Yellowstone National Park. My loyal cohort Mike and I had just finished my triumphant return trip and were making our way south through Jackson Hole, Wyoming when inspiration struck.

Back before Mike joined the ranks of the married and domesticated, he was a semi-mischievous fellow who was always up for some offbeat fun. He was also the kind of guy that liked blowing things up, so as we got ready to leave Wyoming, he suggested that we pick up some fireworks while they were still legal. Our last option before crossing into Idaho was a lonely bar off the side of Highway 89 about a quarter mile shy of the border. Unlike the Evanston superstores and lavishly-colored parking lot shacks dedicated to pyrotechnics, this sullen bar just had a small hand-painted sign reading “fireworks” in the window. But we were still in Wyoming, which meant the place was good enough for Mike.

Even though we were both legal at the time, Mike and I felt a bit odd walking into this remote bar at 2PM in the afternoon. As our eyes adjusted to the dim light, we saw that the only person inside was a squat bald bartender in his 50’s who stared at us curiously while polishing a glass.

“Can I help you boys?” he asked us in a gruff, unwelcoming voice.

“Uh, yeah”, started Mike. “We saw a sign that said you had fireworks.”

The bartender raised his hand and pointed a thick index finger over our shoulders.

“Behind you,” he rasped.

We turned and saw a vast glass case that stretched from floor to ceiling, filled with a who’s who of fireworks. Mike moved in for a closer look, peering with the purposeful inspection of a seasoned veteran.

“You looking for anything in particular?” came the voice again.

“You got any M-80’s?” asked Mike.

The bartender smirked. “Come here,” he said. “I’ve got something better.”

As we crossed the room, the barkeep secretively reached down under the bar. In the movies, such a motion usually triggered a shotgun shootout. But instead of a sawed-off shotgun, this bartender pulled up a handful of small cylinders, each the size of a roll of quarters. Far from gaudy, each cylinder was wrapped in what looked like cheap 1950’s wrapping paper, with an inch-long fuse sticking out of one end.

“$1.25 each, or four for five dollars,” the bartender said.

Mike beamed at the insider product while I tried to decide whether the bartender realized that four for five dollars wasn’t a better deal than $1.25 a piece. But five dollars later, we walked out of the bar with four quarter-sticks of dynamite, quickly forgetting any questions of economics.

Mike wound up taking three of the cylinders, leaving me one triumphant artifact of the black market explosives underground. He took his contraband up to some family property in Morgan, where he managed to blow some 12-inch holes in the ground once he’d figured out a way to safely extend the fuses. Mine rested safely in an old Los Angeles Raiders coffee mug waiting for the proper time to do its thing. It rested there partially because I thought it was more valuable as a reminder of the story itself, but mostly it rested there because I suspected that if I ever actually lit it I would be swamped by a team of undercover ATF agents and thrown in the slammer to do hard time.

It was a typically paranoid fear, augmented by memories of prison scenes in movies like “Cool Hand Luke” and “Shawshank Redemption”. For better or worse, fear is an effective motivator, and eventually my mother convinced me to chuck the thing, probably because her paranoid fear had the firecracker mysteriously self-lighting in the middle of the night and blowing her only son to unfulfilled smithereens.

Nine years later, the regular firework displays are still pretty fun, as long as there are some cute girls watching with me, but I still wonder if I should hop in the car and cruise north to see if that old bartender is still around to cut me a deal on the kind of merchandise even Wyoming dealers keep out of plain sight. I’d probably bring along a fair assortment of Simon and Garfunkel for that killer drive up Logan Canyon, but at least once, I’d have to pop in a little John Phillip Souza for good measure.

Bishop Carling would be proud.

Rocky Anderson Follow-Up

Once again, for all those that either don't get KJZZ or actually had social engagements last Saturday, here's my follow-up piece to the Rocky Anderson interview:




Click to view!

WARNING! Until I start loading these on YouTube, they will automatically start downloading whether or not you hit "play". For that reason, you may want to scroll down the page and pause the original Rocky Interview post, which is no doubt streaming at the same time this new one is.

"So how many kids are in your family?" "Two. Listen, do you like Donovan?"

Back in the “old days”, during the three hapless years we tried to date girls before leaving on our missions, my buddy Breto and I had some odd ways of evaluating the girls we took out. Obviously they had to be attractive and all, and as time went on spirituality became more and more important. But usually Breto and I held our final judgment on whether the girl was familiar with our kind of music.

“So how did the date, go, man?”

“Pretty good. She didn’t know who Donovan was, but we had a good time.”

For some reason Breto and I thought we were going to find a stunning seventeen-year-old beauty queen from Bountiful, Utah that was talented, spiritual, and carried a track-by-track familiarity with our favorite semi-obscure B-list 1960’s recording artists.

Steve Winwood would have to belong to that category, I suppose, though I’m more inclined to put him on my own personal A-list. “Little Stevie” cut his chops with the Spencer Davis Group in the mid-60’s before moving on to the progressive jazz-rock outfit Traffic and serving a summer-long stint with Supergroup Blind Faith in 1969.

I can hear the collective, “Huh?” coming from my six readers even now…

But even if you don’t know the bands, chances are you’ll know the music. The Spencer Davis Group recorded “Gimme Some Lovin’” and “I’m a Man”, a pair of tracks that are hard to miss if you’ve ever listened to an oldies station or watched a decent share of movies from the 80’s or 90’s. Blind Faith also included a guitarist named Eric Clapton.

If anyone is familiar with the name Steve Winwood, it’s through his solo work in the 1980’s, songs like “Valleri”, “Higher Love”, and “Back in the High Life Again”. This was the era when Winwood was winning Grammy’s and getting top-40 play.
But I always think of Winwood as one of the original Blue-Eyed Soul artists, like Joe Cocker and Mitch Ryder, a British R&B Soul Man that testified through my single favorite rock instrument: the Hammond B3 organ with the rotating Leslie speaker. That’s the guy I went to see last Monday night.



Through a bit of strategy and negotiation, along with some generous sacrifice on the part of my roommate, I managed to bring Breto and my old friend and fellow-Winwood fan Josh Christensen in tow. Breto and Josh had long ago fulfilled their dating quests by marrying and having children, but I managed to free them up for an evening with an old kindred spirit.

We arrived shortly after 6PM at The Depot, a Salt Lake club built in the old Union Pacific railroad station at The Gateway. I saw Leon Russell there about a year ago, and loved the feel of the venue. Perfect place for a guy like Winwood. While waiting in line I asked someone to take a shot of my compatriots and I, then shortly after, another dude in line suggested I get a photo with the local DJ’s who were sponsoring the event.



I obliged, not knowing I was getting a photo with former Z-93 legend Jon Carter of the “Jon and Dan” morning show. Carter was the early morning voice of my high school years when I was cutting my teeth on Led Zeppelin. Now with 103.5, Carter left Z-93 once they changed over to K-BUL Country 93, a move that forever convinced me that I would be a minority amid my Utah neighbors.

Once we made it inside, we were happy to land on the third row near the center of the venue, sticking me a rough 30 feet from Winwood’s trademark B3. I was even happier to learn that I would be allowed to take photos of the concert as long as I didn’t use my flash. This resulted in a 75% “way the h@!! too out of focus” shot rate, but I was still pleased with the results.
It was more than an hour before the show got underway, and so we kept ourselves occupied shooting the bull with each other and the people around us, while periodically finding ourselves glued to the monitors around the venue, which for some reason were showing a “Flipper” re-make starring Elijah Wood and Paul “Crocodile Dundee” Hogan. But finally Jon Carter and his 103.5 sidekick came out to introduce Steve, and the concert got underway.

Whenever I go see a concert from one of my old favorites, there’s a lingering worry that they’re going to favor their new unfamiliar stuff instead of play the old tracks I love. But Steve took care of that one right away, ripping into “I’m a Man” at the B3 with a backup band that featured a guitarist, a percussionist, a mean saxophone player, and a drummer. For the first hour they barreled through a series of songs that had a 50% familiarity rate for me, but featured “Medicated Goo” from Traffic’s “Last Exit” and “Can’t Find My Way Home” from the Blind Faith album.



The B3 sounded incredible, and the supporting musicians were strong without being overbearing. Winwood would periodically shift back and forth between the organ and a guitar, letting the saxophone guy take over on the Hammond. After one number he delivered his traditional greeting to the local fans, expressing his thanks to be playing in such a "rather unusual place". I don't know if he meant the train station or Utah in general.



After a short break in the action, the band returned for the second half of the set, and soon Steve was ripping into some of his solo hits like “Higher Love”. Then he whipped out a Mandolin and delivered a rousing version of “Back in the High Life Again” that almost brought the crowd to its feet.

See, that was the only real problem Monday night…hardly anyone wanted to get up. I don’t know if it’s a Utah thing, or an old people thing, but when you go to a concert that features a veteran performer playing fun, upbeat music, you should GET UP. Josh and Breto and I would try to get up here or there, but when you’re the only ones standing, your polite gene takes over and you sit down, since you’ve been the “person sitting behind the rude people that won’t sit down”, too.

There really should be some sort of policy for this. A few years back, before James Brown died and was serenaded to on stage laying in an open casket during the six months and possible abduction he endured before being buried, I saw the Godfather of Soul at the House of Blues in Las Vegas with my longtime friend Steve Jones. We were up in the balcony, which was tilted at such a bad angle that if you sat down you could only see half the stage. So we stood up.

“Hey you, sit down!”

Two rows behind us were a group of middle-aged women who obviously felt the best way to experience Mr. Dynamite was to do it on their lazy rear ends. Down on the floor I watched with jealousy as two-hundred patrons jumped and danced at his feet, enjoying the full fruits of festival seating.

What made it worse at Winwood, though, was that two seats over from me was a gorgeous brunette, who, like the friend she was with, also liked to stand up. Unfortunately the seat between us was occupied by her Churro Salesman boyfriend/fiancé, who remained seated even when the rest of the crowd jumped up to applaud at the end of each song. (For more on what a “Churro Salesman” is, click HERE.) Mr. Churro obviously had no clue who Steve Winwood was, not to mention what to do with the top three buttons of his white shirt, and once again I was crushed to see yet another beautiful young lady—one with great musical taste, even—wasting her time with the kind of guy that wouldn’t know Steve Winwood from his own boxer shorts.
Tragic.





Luckily I still had a great concert to enjoy. Once Steve got through “Back in the High Life”, he swapped his Mandolin for his Fender Strat and surprised us all with a fierce rendition of “Dear Mr. Fantasy”, one of the great psychedelic rockers of the era. Amazingly, this complex tune was churned out by only three members of the band, while the percussionist and the regular guitarist took a break. Then the rest of the band came back out for an epic version of the Traffic anthem “Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” that left the crowd amazed and exhausted. As the momentum built, another surprise came by way of a “Crossroads” cover, which ironically I had seen Eric Clapton do only a few months ago at the MGM Grand.

(Odd footnote on the MGM Grand: the whole time I was there I was compelled to think that I was in the same venue that saw all of those 30-second Tyson fights. But instead I was watching Slowhand do “Wonderful Tonight”. Weird.)

As “Crossroads” got going, my friends and I tossed caution to the wind and rose to boogie. Nuts to anyone behind us. Eventually most of the crowd joined in, and since the Churro Salesman had gone to dispose of some of the excess beer he’d been drinking all night, his girlfriend got to dance next to a guy that had real taste for a little while.



But that was not to last, as Mr. Churro eventually came back, and Mr. Winwood started into his final number. When it became clear that the band was playing what may well be one of my five all-time favorite songs, I handed my camera to Breto and climbed over the two rows in front of us to join Josh and the gathering crowd at the stage, and for the next five minutes we partied like it was 1999.

“So glad we made it…so glad we made it…”



Finally, the Hammond went silent, the band rose and gathered at mid-stage, and bows were taken. Steve and the boys exited stage right and left us with the crowd still roaring our thanks for a lifetime of good music.
After most of the crowd left, Breto and Josh and I still stood at the edge of the stage, almost contemplating whether if we hopped up there ourselves if we could channel some of that same energy. Eventually we left, taking in the warm Summer air along 400 West while “Higher Love” still rang in our ears. Breto married a girl that digs 80’s music, and I don’t know what Josh’s wife likes. Still, Fiona and Melodi have been great for my friends, and I’m sure that my wife will be great for me someday, too, whether she listens to Donovan or not.

Just as long as she doesn’t like Garth Brooks.

Coming Soon...

Looks like it's either feast or famine on this thing...

Last night I spent some more time out at the KJZZ studios in West Valley, taping an intro for another clip I did that will be featured on this Saturday's broadcast of "B All Over" (airing at 10PM on KJZZ, Channel 14...well, actually around 10:45, since my clip will be the last to air). This clip will be a follow-up to the Rocky Anderson interview that ran two weeks ago, based on his recent hallway fracas with Dell Ray Hansen. If you miss the broadcast, don't get Utah cable stations, or just happen to be one of those occasional people that land on my blog while surfing randomly in India, I'll post a compressed version on my own site once the show airs.

But that's not all!

In the last week I've also taken a trip to Jackson, Wyoming and gone to a Steve Winwood concert in Salt Lake, both of which should be covered in upcoming columns. New material! What a concept! My trip to Jackson also gave me additional material towards a piece I've been mulling for some time, a bold attempt to capture my utter loathing of country music in words.

Until then, succas!

Short Films available on planetvenison.com

Hey people,

I finally got around to compressing (most of) my short films and posting them on my other Web site. They aren't the best quality, but should be entertaining for anyone looking to kill a few down minutes.

You can access them all via the pulldown menu on this page.

So far I've posted last weekend's KJZZ interview with Rocky Anderson, my Family History video ("Repentus Maximus"), my homage to Chicago ("Sweet Home Chicago"), my homage to Washington DC ("Chocolate City"), and my homage to Island Park ("Private Idaho").

Still working on my homage to Mantua, Utah.

You all can thank me later...

Be warned...

CLICK ME!

Be very warned...

In case you missed it...

Here is a compressed version of the sketch that aired on last night's edition of "B All Over" on KJZZ.




Click to view!

"The Horror...The Horror!"

Before turning 25 earlier this month, my sister had been feverishly working on a list of goals to accomplish before hitting the quarter-century mark. Appropriately (and symmetrically) titled “25 things to do before I turn 25”, the list included tasks as varied as flying a kite, learning a song on the piano, and skydiving.

One of these tasks was to visit nearby Antelope Island, so on a recent Thursday night, with nothing else of significance going on (meaning I had things to do, but chose emphatically not to do them), I joined her, her roommate Teresa, and her longtime friend and fellow Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter/Star Wars enthusiast friend Jessica for a quick drive out west.

Seemed like the perfect opportunity for a photo essay. Lucky you!

It was quite exciting to be able to go out to the land that inspired the short film classic, "Attack of the Killer Brine Shrimp", available at disreputable local video outlets everywhere. I found the brine shrimp so inspiring I used them as one of the main characters in a 168-page screenplay that also dealt with the lighter side of Kung Fu. Smashing stuff!

I never knew this, but you access the road to Antelope Island off the same freeway exit you take just past Layton Hills Mall to get to Famous Dave’s. Turn right, and you get BBQ and blues music; turn left, and drive for a really, really long time, and you find yourself on an island hanging out with a bunch of seagulls.

On this day we opted for the seagulls, and after paying the tollbooth lady $9 (you have to pay money to drive on the road—the “causeway”—out to Antelope Island. I’m not sure why this is, but it reminds me how grateful I am that we have not followed the example of our fellow states back east who have chosen to stick annoying toll roads all over the place.), we found ourselves on a straight-shot two lane road headed due west, pretty much out over the Great Salt Lake.

The thrill was so overwhelming I demanded that Katie stop her ’93 Geo Prism immediately so I could document the moment. Here, then, is a photo of a $9 road:



Upon closer examination, we were concerned to discover that our precious road appeared to be heading off into oblivion; there was no tangible end in sight. Perhaps it was a cruel joke by the tollbooth lady, we mused; she just sits there all day pocketing cash and watching unsuspecting drivers roll off to merge with the infinite.

Cautiously, we pressed on, but not before taking some more photographs of the wonders of Mother Nature. Seems the old gal can do some fascinating things when she gets a hold of a little salt. Observe:





When we finally arrived on the island after an arduous five-minute drive, we staggered out of the car and got reaccustomed to standing on solid ground again. I immediately stole off towards the lakeshore, abandoning my three female companions and reminding everyone why after nearly fifteen years of dating experience, I remain single and largely clueless. But I did get some nice photographs. Behold:





In the process we came across a number of examples of indigenous wildlife, and even one brave representative of the so-named antelope community. Though if we’re going by sheer numbers, the island should be re-named “Microscopic Swarming Lake Stink Insect Island” by the end of this year. Or maybe at least “Garbage-Sifting Seagull Island”. The only life form more plentiful than the seagulls were these teeny bugs that would swarm hundreds and thousands at a time whenever you stepped on the rocks near the lakeshore. It occurred to me that under the right circumstances, the bugs could be used quite effectively as the catalyst for a really bad horror movie.





After my contemplative sojourn, I made my way back to Katie’s car, which was now abandoned, but at least left the doors open. In the process of my hike I realized that when Katie and her friends offered to have me join them for a bite at Subway an hour earlier, I should have accepted, seeing as how the grand total of my food intake for the day up to that moment had been three tortilla chips which may or may not have included salsa.

Trudging along the shore, I began to rapidly lose energy and stamina, and so upon returning to the car I scoured the vehicle for food, finding only a bottle of very warm bottled water.

Yeech.

Soon after, as I lay sweating in the passenger seat, Katie and her friends returned, and I learned that while I was away she had accomplished yet another of her list tasks, which was to fly a kite. Once again Katie had demonstrated the proud family tradition of killing multiple birds with the same stone, which is a much better tradition than the one we have of going back into the house three times after starting the car in the driveway because we keep forgetting something we are going to need while we are out.

So on a wave of new enthusiasm, we all got back in the car and made our way further into the depths of the island, finally locating a picturesque spot on a western beach that looked perfect for some sunset images. Before long, the sun delivered, and we picked up the following:




Many of the sunset photos included four figures that were out on the beach near the lakeshore while we were shooting. I tried to get their dark silhouettes in the frame because I thought it would make for a serene artistic vision to include real human beings. But when I looked at the photos on my computer once I got home, I realized that the group was comprised of an engaged couple, a photographer, and a lackey out taking shots for a wedding announcement. Plus the groom had popped his collar.

I was infuriated.

On the way home, while answering the various voice mail messages that had failed to reach me while trying to achieve oneness with nature, we were flying east on the causeway when suddenly the car was overwhelmed with a stench so pervasive and overpowering I was dumbfounded that there wasn't a gymnasium or an oil refinery for miles. I mean, this smell was BAD. I was trying to tell my father something on the phone, but had to stop several times out of sheer horror at the stench. All I can say is that what we think is "lake stink" is nothing. And keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who regularly insists that he has an underdeveloped sense of smell. Whatever we encountered out there was plain demonic, and it's a good thing I wasn't driving at the time, otherwise Mr. Prism would have met Mr. Salt Lake and given birth to Baby Rust.

Now that would be fodder for a horror movie...



And so, thanks to my forward thinking, goal oriented sister, I had managed to bandwagon my way to a quaint photo essay. Something to stick on my blog and pretend to substitute for the real comedy writing I was supposed to be using it for.

Once again I am indebted to my kid sister. Welcome to your quarter-life crisis, punk.

More material on the way...

OK, people...obviously I've been a bit "off the wagon" lately as far as blog posts go. I can only assure you that I've been quite busy, only in efforts that don't always translate well to columns...at least right away.

The "B All Over" sketch was a mixed bag, if any of you caught it. They wound up editing it down quite a bit, so it wasn't quite what I was expecting. At the same time, I'm always happy to take a step forward, so that's the way I'm looking at it. It also helps that I've got another sketch airing this Saturday, probably between 10:30 and 11:00pm, judging by where it came in last night's shooting schedule. Let me know if you happen to catch it. It's an "interview" with Rocky Anderson.

More to come...

THIS JUST IN...JOSH'S SKETCH TO AIR SATURDAY

For those of you with access to KJZZ channel 14, you might want to set your TiVo's Saturday night. Or just watch. According to my inside source, a sketch by Steve Anderson and I is set to debut on Saturday night's 10pm episode of "B All Over", a new Utah-themed talk show produced by the guys that did "Singles Ward" and "Church Ball".


A couple of months ago, the producers asked Steve to be a correspondent on the show, which is basically supposed to be a fusion of "The Tonight Show" and "Saturday Night Live", with a focus on Utah themes. Steve got word to me, and the two of us spent a couple of weeks shooting some short film clips about a mountain man who has been forced to adapt himself to modern civilization...as a high school guidance counselor, naturally.

Anyway, word from Steve is that at least one of the clips is going to debut this weekend. The show usually comes on at 10pm, and runs for an hour. Steve plays the Mountain Man, and I play the bald guy.

Enjoy...

What would it take to get Salt Laker's to riot?

Tuesday night at a quarter to Midnight I was walking along 400 West in Salt Lake with my old roommate Brandon when we passed this guy in a bright Hawaiian shirt bopping by in the other direction. He had a big smile on his face as he shimmied from side to side while rapping the lyrics to Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”.

“I said a hip-hop, a hippie to the hippie to the hip hip hop-a you don’t stop…”

One might suppose he was drunk. Or stoned. Or just a weirdo. Especially since he didn’t have any headphones on. But Brandon and I knew better. Besides, this guy was a lot more normal-looking than the guy that decided to go stand in the middle of the road and get his freak on in front of a full-size truck that was blaring its horn at him. I’m not sure that guy was drunk, either.

See, Tuesday night the Jazz finished off the Golden State Warriors and advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 1998. So people were in a celebrating mood. Horns were honking, people were yelling, spontaneous chants were popping up all over. It was the kind of unifying behavior that makes academic types nervous.

For the 100th time in the last six months, I was reminded of how tightly our community psyche is tied to the Jazz. For better or worse, this little sports franchise is our ambassador to the public stage, and it has been nice to see them representing lately.

Ever since the Spring 1988 Fathers and Sons outing at Camp Zarahemla, when I crammed into the back of a Chevy Van with fifteen guys around a little 12-inch TV set to watch the Jazz beat the Lakers in the 87-88 playoffs, a bit of my self-esteem has been roped to the franchise with the oddest name in the NBA.

In spite of my admiration for Michael Jordan, I was bleeding purple that night at the Salt Palace two years later when my dad and I watched the Jazz overcome an 8-point deficit in 40 seconds to beat the Bulls when Stockton hit a desperate lay-up over His Airness himself.

When I served my mission in South Chicago, and the Bulls played the Jazz in the 1997 Finals, I rediscovered a pride in the land of my nativity, in spite of the love of Chi-town I’d been developing for 18 months.

This year, I finally became a season ticket holder (albeit a partial one—I share with a couple of guys at work), and became a face in the crowd on a more regular basis. Over the season I grew to love the moment towards the end of the game when the crowd would sense the win, rise to our feet, and declare victory as the last minute ticked away.

Tuesday night’s game was the first one that left my ears ringing for hours afterward.

Oddly, the Jazz played a lousy game. They missed six free throws in a row and threw the ball to the Warriors so often it began to look intentional. But in spite of that, they coldly dispatched the league’s new darlings, along with their bearded (and unsuspended) leader Baron Davis, with extreme prejudice. Four games to one. At least Golden State can still watch the highlights of Baron’s Game 3 dunk.

As a bonus, I got a Jazz hand towel when I arrived at the arena, so now I’ve got a towel for my bathroom. (I still need to buy a garbage can, though).

By making the Western Conference Finals, the Jazz officially surpassed my early-season prediction for this year’s success. I still figure it will be another year or two before we’re really looking at a possible title, but the way things are going, I wouldn’t put money against it.



It also adds support to the idea that the yearly parade of awards should at least wait until the playoffs are over. Not only did the league MVP get ousted in the first round, but the chap that beat Jerry Sloan for coach of the year also failed to get to round two (Though I’m sure Jerry would rather be in the conference finals).

In the years after the Jazz made their two finals runs, I always figured I’d keep watching until Stockton and Malone retired, then I’d probably turn away from the league in disgust, finally unable to tolerate the selfishness and posturing that had already turned many of my friends over to the college game.

But thanks to guys like Paul Millsap and Deron Williams, I’m still here. And though I don’t know if I’m going to be stopping traffic anytime soon, I’m not planning on going anywhere.

As Brandon and I made our way to the car, I mulled over a question that had popped up from time to time. If the Jazz ever won a title, would Salt Lake City riot? The night the Bulls clinched against us back in '97, Elder Clark and I saw troops in full riot gear manning the corners of South Chicago. It seemed silly to think that button-down Salt Lake could ever mirror the same scene.

But as I looked at how wired everyone was after getting to the conference finals, I began to reconsider. I doubt we'd ever go as far as to start breaking out store windows and setting fires all over town, and the term "riot" wouldn't be the best word to describe it, but if the Jazz do win a title, I think we can expect to see some crazy things. I'd like to see it happen.

Go Jazz.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Last weekend my roommates and I threw a Toga Party. It was a solid affair, with a good turn-out, lots of food, lots of music, a virgin margarita bar, and about a 45% toga to no-toga guest rate.

In a way, it gave closure to an endeavor I started six years ago.

Back in spring of ’01, in those innocent pre-9/11 days when I served as Elder’s Quorum President of the University 32nd Ward, I got this idea about throwing a ward Toga Party. Three years of staid social get-togethers had me bored, and I wanted to show my peers how to really have a good time.

Within reasonable limits, of course. In spite of the decidedly negative image of the Toga Party and the obvious clash that it would create with a ward activity, I opted to assure everyone that the Ward Toga Party would be high on zaniness, and low on immoral content. I even went into the Relief Society and demonstrated how to wear a toga while remaining morally clean.

Before long, the event became a bit of a vanity project for me. Getting my peers to show up for a ward activity in bed sheets was not enough, nor was convincing them to tie a bungee cord around their waists and pull a Toyota pickup across the church parking lot as part of our “Feats of Strength” test. No, I chose to use the Toga Party for the debut of my newest garage band, The Atomic Thunderlips Traveling Ministry.

After practicing off and on for several months, Thunderlips had put together a decent repertoire of covers and original songs, from the Ramones’ “The KKK Took My Baby Away” to a Gorditas tribute fused with a Pachelbel piece we called “The Taco Bell Canon.” I was even going to make my lead vocal debut on “Gimme Some Lovin’”.

Late in June, the trucks started showing up at the church on 1st South and 7th East and began unloading gas grills and band equipment. Soon decorative balloons and banners started making their way onto random walls, and everywhere we looked, people wore bed sheets. It was a beautiful summer day, making its way into a beautiful summer night.

Then a microburst drifted over the valley, and a single bolt of lightning knocked out the power to the church.

Outside, business went on as usual. The Truck Pull was a huge success, the relay games were going strong, and the nerf javelin competition was living up to billing. Inside, I stared at a powerless stereo that was supposed to be playing my special Toga mix and wondered whether God had struck me down in a figurative sense.

On a quiet stage, Thunderlips’ instruments rested unplayed. Even the cage we’d built for our go-go dancing gorilla out of PVC pipe from Loews was vacant. Eventually a group gathered in the darkened gym to hear Bob Morley sing his Jimmy Buffet parody “Wastin’ Away At the 32nd Ward”, accompanied by an acoustic guitar and a half-hearted tambourine from yours truly.

Maybe I really wasn’t ready to debut as a lead singer. Maybe God was sparing me from embarrassing myself. Maybe Thunderlips wasn’t as good in reality as we thought we were in rehearsal. I’ve mulled over a number of possibilities over the years, wondering just what the eternal significance of my failure meant. Could this really be God shaking his fist in vengeance?

Then I realized something. I realized that in the years since, I’ve gotten a lot more mileage out of this story as a failure than I ever would have had it been a success. The success would probably have been forgotten quickly. The failure gave me writing material.

Last weekend was fun, but I doubt I’ll be talking about our virgin margarita bar six years from now.

Stern's Paradox

Huh…can’t wait to see how all this turns out. NBA commissioner David Stern might have to look up the definition of “paradox”, if he hasn’t already.

For all the non-basketball fans out there, the last week of the NBA playoffs has seen a whole string of blatant cheap shots, and to date, no one has drawn a suspension, despite the fact that each one would likely get an automatic suspension if the foul had taken place during the regular season.

Here’s a quick rundown…

*In Game 2 of the Suns/Spurs matchup, San Antonio forward Bruce Bowen kicks at Sun Amare Stoudamire’s legs as he’s coming down from a dunk. No suspension.



*In Game 3 of the same series, Bowen knees two-time MVP Steve Nash in the groin while Nash is playing tight defense. Nash goes down hard. Again, no suspension for Bowen.



*In Game 4 of the Utah/Golden State series, Utah center Mehmet Okur goes for a late game drive and gets clotheslined by Jason Richardson. Okur lands on his back, and Richardson gets a Flagrant 2 foul and an ejection, but no suspension for Game 5.



*Earlier in that same game, Derek Fisher turns to go upcourt after defending a Baron Davis miss, when Davis suddenly stops and throws an elbow to Fisher’s temple, knocking him to the floor and drawing a 20-second timeout. No foul is called, but the NBA charges Davis retroactively with a Flagrant 2, which has no bearing whatsoever on a game that’s already over.



*In Game 4 of the Suns/Spurs series, Robert Horry takes over for Bruce Bowen and levels Steve Nash with a forearm shiver that sends Nash headfirst into the scorers table. No news on Horry’s fate yet, but ironically all the attention is going to Stoudamire and Boris Diaw, who left the bench to rush to Nash’s aid, and thus technically made themselves eligible for one-game suspensions themselves.



So far, every one of these fouls has been attributed to the rough play expected in the NBA playoffs. I guess that’s why the offender in each case opted to walk away from his victim as if nothing had happened. To their credit, no victim aside from Stoudamire has gone out of their way to lay blame, though Nash had to sheepishly admit during post-game interviews that, “well, it was a body check”.

We know, Steve. You shouldn’t be embarrassed to admit it.

Richardson and the rest of the Warriors chalk up his takedown of Okur to the fact that he shouldn’t have driven the lane late in a game that was already over. I’m sure they would have justified Andrei Kirilenko if he had thrown Baron Davis to the ground when he went up for his highlight-reel dunk at the end of Golden State’s 20-point Game 3 victory.

Or maybe not.

Like I said, the players involved—at least the ones that have been on the receiving end of these fouls—have adamantly declared that they don’t want to see their opponents suspended, that they’d rather win the series against a full opposing roster. I’m glad they feel that way. If I was in their shoes, I’d feel the same way.

What bugs me is not that Robert Horry doesn’t help Steve Nash up when he takes him out, or that Baron Davis just chucked all the goodwill he’d built up in the last month by taking down a guy who’s daughter is recovering from cancer surgery. What bugs me is that the league is only concerned about their bottom line. And it’s going to catch up with them.

That’s why they won’t suspend Davis. The league doesn’t want to lose revenue by suspending high-profile players during the playoffs. It’s the same reason the referee’s give superstars the benefit of the doubt on foul calls, while hard-working rookies like Paul Milsap get nailed for breathing too close: the league wants its superstars on the court, even though logically speaking, the superstars are the ones that are least in need of favorable officiating.

But here’s my point: you can bend over backwards to keep the big names on the court, and chalk up every cheap shot to hard playoff basketball, but what happens if Nash gets knocked unconscious on that hit from Horry? Will David Stern be OK with losing the league MVP to “tough playoff basketball”? Will the league be so lenient if Andrei Kirilenko hip checks Davis into the third row tonight?

I seriously doubt it.

Bad calls go both ways, often in the same games. No doubt about it. But as long as the league keeps pretending that it’s OK to maintain their double-standards, the clock will continue to tick. And I feel for the poor shmoe that’s in the crosshairs when the bomb goes off.

Of course, maybe we’ll get through the rest of the playoffs without any serious incidents, and I’m sure the apologists will give us a chorus of “I told you so’s”. But my point has already been made. The league already has its image problem. I’m just one of the few that’s stayed loyal in spite of it.

But my clock is ticking, too.

What if someone made a "Spiderman" movie and everybody came?

Spiderman 3
2 ½ stars out of 4

Three films into the series, I have to make it official: I think the action sequences are the weakest part of the “Spiderman” franchises.

Well, maybe not the action sequences themselves…the action is great, though the CGI Spidey does look pretty cartoonish most of the time. No, what I mean is that by the time Spiderman has his final showdown with (insert villain here), the best of the film is past.



In the first “Spiderman”, I absolutely loved the story of how Peter Parker became Spiderman. Less than an everyman, Parker was the perfect embodiment of the nerdy underdog that so many of us can easily relate to. But once Spiderman squared off against The Green Goblin, the film had turned into any number of generic action flicks, with the usual good-guy-defeats-the-bad-guy climax.

“Spiderman 2” did a better job of blending the action with the storyline, as well as making the third act grudge match a bit more dependent on the overall story. But still, what I remember about the first sequel was the story about Parker learning to balance his life a lot more than his head-to-head with the guide from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

For me, then, the best part of “Spiderman 3” is the sequence halfway through the film when the black oil (on loan from the X-files, I imagine), turns Peter Parker from hero-nerd to hot-head James Brown strutting whack job. Again, the action sequences are great, but when the credits roll they take a backseat to what makes these Spiderman movies work: their personality.

I guess that’s why I have to say I enjoyed the third installment of the trilogy, in spite of the fact that, as many are saying, Sam Raimi tried to cram too much in. “Spiderman 3” feels a lot like one of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books I read back in the 80’s, only instead of choosing one thread, Raimi put every last one of them in the movie.

This time around, Spiderman faces three bad guys: The Sandman (dude made of sand), Venom (regular dude turned into evil dude by black oil), and Green Goblin Jr. (Willem Dafoe’s avenging kid dude). And if three bad guys wasn’t enough to deal with, Parker also has two love interests to deal with: original girl-next-door Mary Jane (redhead) and newcomer Gwen Stacey (redhead-turned-blonde).

Two major pluses for the movie: Daily Bugle Editor-in-Chief Jonah Jameson is still around (one of my roommates claims I remind him of Jameson for some reason), and this time Harry Osborn has more to do than make random bitter interjections about Spiderman killing his dad.

One other negative: For a superhero with a secret identity, Spiderman sure does pull his mask off in public a lot.

Altogether, that’s why I give the movie two and a half stars: the plot may be overloaded, but the Spiderman personality remains intact. And as long as that is the case, I’ll keep coming back.

“Spiderman 3” is rated PG-13 for random action violence, some kissing, at least one moment where you’ll say, “isn’t the blond chick Ron Howard’s daughter?”, and the distinct chance that one of your friends will ask why Spiderman doesn’t shoot his web out of a more naturally correct location.