Standing up...

The last four years of my life have been much different than I could have ever expected. Whether it being grown up things like being married or owning a home or my involvement in one of my lifelong fascinations (pro-wrestling), I can honestly say I don't know what's going to happen next.

Several months ago (around November), Jerry (you know who I mean) was toying with the idea of going to an open mic night and testing out some stand up material. On a very long car ride, we spoke at great length about this and I was very excited to see him do this.

Flash forward to a few weeks later and, while I was on vacation, on a whim, Jerry decides to go an try his hand at comedy. I will be honest with you and say I was pretty upset that I missed him doing this as we spoke about doing so quite a bit. So, to give him grief, I decided since no one was there to see it, it didn't happen. The old 'it a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a sound' defense.

I kept on him about doing it for the 'first time' and he continually told me they aren't doing open mic around here anymore. He even went so far as going to Bethlehem this past Sunday to watch an open mic night.

My brother Tony fancies himself many things (writer, musician, etc.) and has wanted to perform at an open mic night, but didn't want to go by himself. I said I would go with him, but there weren't any in the area. I mentioned the usual place in Scranton and he confirmed that they in fact were still doing open mics. With this, he schnookered me into performing as well.

By nature, I do not like much attention directed towards me. I'm very happy staying home most weekends and "staring at the wall." Based on my current position, as mentioned above, in the world of pro-wrestling, most times I am either playing off other people, behind a microphone or in a warehouse with less than five people watching. All of these are greatly nerve racking but after four years, I've gotten more comfortable in my own skin. But I have my days.

Now, I was going to have to be on a stage, by my lonesome, not only holding court, but also charged with the task of making strangers laugh. I don't consider myself a "funny person" but I feel I have a good sense of humor. This, at times, translates into me saying things that make people laugh, usually my close friends and family. How was I going to translate to a live, unforgiving crowd?

I don't want to say much about my performance or Tony's performance (who had the unenviable task of going on last) as video of both sets exist (I have them, duh!) and am toying with the notion of posting them on the YouTube. However, having never been to an open mic night before, I was shocked at how...I don't want to be mean...but let's just say any concerns I had about being outshined by people who attend open mics all the time were all for naught.

Thanks for hanging in there, this was a bit long. In closing, it's done, I did my five minutes and JERRY NEVER DID!

...and Still Reading

Still plowing through yesterday's books with a few stragglers left to read. I had to break this up into TWO entries, as they are both kinda long and deal with two entirely different subjects.

Blackest Night #1: Great kick off to this HUGE event. Ivan Reis's art looked really nice and so far, even for the uninitiated, there's a LOT of information in this book, but it's not overwhelming.

Amazing Spider-Man #599: A bit late and the THREE different artists really reflect this. Was it worth is? I really dug the resolution between Harry and Norman but I feel like we've been here before.

Deadpool #12: Bullseye using his smarts? Deadpool being Deadpool? I liked this issue as it did not have tons of the triple internal dialogue that Daniel Way likes to use. And CLIFFHANGER ENDING!

Batman: Street of Gotham #2: the weakest of the new Batman Reborn stuff that I'm reading. I'll check it out for a bit longer for the Manhunter back up.

Walking Dead #63: A bit more is revealed about who is stalking the group and, to no surprise, it's for nefarious means. Also, you get Chew #1 for FREE. Get it for that alone!

Action Comics #879: The weakest of the current Superman books and I just wasn't feeling how the Captain Atom back up second feature fits into the grand scheme of things.

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1: We get the back story of Saint Walker and Mongul's son (the current Mongul) as well as our first glimpse of the Indigo Tribe in action but at $3.99, it felt a bit light.

I'm an Insider!

With the recent news about Ryan Reynolds being cast in the upcoming Green Lantern film, Hollywood is a buzz with all sorts of information. My snoops inside DC have leaded information about more casting set to be announced later this week:

Providing the voice of Green Lantern drill instructor, Killowog:





WILL FARRELL!



Co-Starring as the villianous Sinestro:





Entourage's Jeremy Piven!





And the other earth GL, Guy Gardner





Comedian Dane Cook




Looks like DC's got a hit on their hands!

Comics for 07/08/09

Here's what I'll be grabbing from my LCS today. You should too!

Green Lantern #43: while there has been smatterings of the impending Blackest Night event, this issue is the official kick off, which results in six issues a month for the next eight months. Thankfully the creators on these projects are good.

Superman: World of New Krypton #4: the Superman stuff has been great of late, with this being the strongest, IMO.

Wednesday Comics #1: the new DC weekly series. This time, it's only for the summer (12 issues) and in the style of the Sunday comics. It looks beautiful and this will be one of the few things I may double dip on if it gets a snazzy hardcover edition.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #36: kinda odd placement as the American Son storyline isn't over yet and this is a prelude to issue #600, the wedding between Aunt May and J Jonah Jameson Sr.

War of Kings: Warriors #1: I'm shameless. I've come around on the Marvel space stuff and since this ties into the big War of Kings event, it gets added to the pile.

Crossed #6: speaking of piles. I filled in my gaps on this series at the Philly Wizard con and is still waiting to be read in full behind the last few weeks stuff.

Near Twilight

From my understanding, Twilight is the hottest thing since sliced bread. Personally, vampires that *SPARKLE* in sunlight as opposed to, you know, BURSTING INTO FLAMES, like every vampire story ever just don't do it for me.

My cousin (the target demo, female and under 18) loves this book and movie. So I tried to get her to check out other vampire/relationship movies around this time. I shouldn't be surprised she didn't like Let the Right One In, probably one of the best movies of 2008.

Looking over the DVD releases today, I noticed Near Dark on the list. I've seen this film and it is a great film. However, it was the new re-issue cover that threw me for a loop:



And now, here's the original theatrical poster:



I only wish I was good at photoshop so I can fix some DVD releases to make them more appealing to the younger set. I need to trick a teeny bopper into seeing Love at First Bite.

Deadpool

This week saw the release of the ongoing series Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth. The pitch for this series is the Deadpool from our Marvel Universe teams up with the head of Zombie Deadpool (from the Marvel Zombies Universe) who he finds in the Savage Land.

To you, this may not be a big deal, but to a long time Deadpool fan, this is HUGE! If the book was Deadpool reading from the phone book from 22 pages, I'd still probably pick it up, however, this now puts THREE Deadpool books shipping monthly from Marvel (two ongoing series and one limited series). Outside of Spider-Man or Wolverine, there aren't many other Marvel heroes STARRING in that many books. That's pretty good company to keep. Now, how did this debatable 2nd tier character get this treatment.

I would assume it stems from the recent X-Men Origins: Wolverine film. Now, I saw this film by legal means, I assure you, and it wasn't very good. The opening montage of Logan and Victor's adventures through time was cool, but overall, a very poor action flick.

The rumors before the movie was released pegged Ryan Reynolds to be playing Deadpool in the film. Apparently, this Ryan Reynolds is hot stuff in Hollywood. Personally, I think he's not only a horrible actor, but also painfully unfunny. BUT Hollywood and the general populous feel he is the next Bill Murray thanks to turns in such films as Waiting (also starring Reynolds doppelganger Dane Cook) and the Amityville Horror remake. This makes him somewhat of a bankable star and thus if his name being attached to Deadpool gives the character more heat, that's the price I pay.

As I mentioned above, I've been a Deadpool fan for a long time. I don't say this to mean "I was there first" but more so to say his comic book portrayal has been pretty clear cut from his first beginning, as wafer thin as it may be. He's Spider-Man who kills people essentially. A concept that shouldn't work, but writers such as Joe Kelly have written him as a sympathetic, likeable character. To stray from this is silly to me.

Where am I going with this? I don't know, I'm rambling at this point.