Thrashing about for things to do
Part of the reason I started this thing here was to try and force my energies into new and different outlets. This (writing an online journally whosis) is not precisely a new venture for me, but it is one I haven't done for a while.

Another current project is starting a band. I think, if I can get it going, it will be a good thing for me. It's still in early days, and there's a lot of work to do. Part of that will be learning to not play the guitar very well, and that's going slowly 'cos my guitar (purchased secondhand from a stripper--that seems like an appropriate part of the legend) is not fully operational just yet. I'm trying to get some assistance from my brother in this venture, and it's been hard to make connections on that just yet. But I remain optimistic.

Another stumbling block is sporadic contact with my bass player; he was supposed to come round today, but I guess that didn't work out. I shall have to call him tomorrow. I have to keep him focused on the band thing; there's no big rush at the moment, what with me busily not learning to not play the guitar, but I don't want him to lose interest. He's gonna need to get a bass 'ere long, and he has little enough cash, so that could prove difficult.

Nonetheless: I'm still doing band stuff. I did a little songwriting tonight; I revised one I'd already written, came up with another on the fly, and came up with some basic elements for a third one, so there's a tiny little accomplishment.

I will elaborate a little on the basic concept of the band, so as to alleviate confusion (such as why I'm focused on not learning to play the guitar very well). I'm going for an old-school proto-punk kind of thing, and the basic musical idea here is: "Here is a chord. Here is another chord. Here is a third one. Now form a band." The sound will probably end up pretty Ramones-ish; 'loud' and 'fast' will be important weapons in our musical arsenal to cover up for lack of other elements like 'skill' or 'talent'. Lyrically, there will be a strong Ramones influence as well, in terms of sense of humor and structural simplicity. There's going to be a bit of The Clash's political bent in there as well. The whole point of the thing is to just get up, play some songs, and have some fun... and to poke a bit of fun at the generally fucked-up state of the world.

The band is as yet unnamed. I've wracked my brains a bit trying to come up with something that feels right; at the moment, I'm leaning heavily toward "The Walkens", but I haven't run that by Paul (bass player) yet, so who knows whether it'll stick...

Meanwhile: it was a good weekend for television watching. Two long-awaited episodes, one each from a pair of my favorite shows, finally ran over the last couple days.

First up was the Doctor Who episode "Dalek". I enjoyed the hell out of it. This aired in the UK, like, forever ago, and I'm a total spoiler whore so I knew many many details on the episode coming into it. I still enjoyed the hell out of it. It was Doctor Who. It had a Dalek in it. What more could one ask? Well, okay, some of the Dalek episodes in the past have not always been great; but this one was really well written. It made the Daleks scary again, for one--and it even made a Dalek a somewhat sympathetic character (insofar as a mutated blob inside its own personal tank, which lives only to kill everything it sees, can be called 'sympathetic'. It also had some good bits for the Doctor, character-wise.

Second: Justice League Unlimited, "Far From Home". I love, love, love JLU. I would marry JLU and have its animated babies, if I were female and if an animated television series could impregnate someone. Since I don't really buy comics any more (apart from a few trade paperbacks here and there), it's a nice way to get my super-hero fix; it has the additional advantage of frequently being more entertaining than most DC comics these days, too. This particular episode featured the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion has long been a favorite of mine, so I pretty much spent the entire episode just sort of sitting there and giggling about how cool it all was. The only complaint that could realistically be raised is that most of the Legionnaires had no lines; Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy were the main focus of the story, and the others were just kind of there looking cool (though they had some kickass action scenes). It doesn't hurt that two of my favorite League characters were involved--Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Supergirl is really the star of the episode, though, and the writers gave her a good chance to shine. Seeing Supergirl fight pretty much the entire Legion, plus Green Lantern, was cool as hell. Sadly, JLU is coming to an end; there are maybe three more episodes, which will (I hope) be seen over the next several weeks. Cartoon Network beats JLU like a red-headed stepchild when it comes to scheduling. Somehow they keep finding vitally important bits of anime to show, and JLU gets set aside. But I digress (I will say no more about anime except that it is a vastly compelling argument against the use of nuclear weapons; look at Japan--you drop a couple little nukes on them and their culture is horribly scarred for the next several decades... judging by most anime I've seen, these poor people are deeply and fundamentally fucked up).

Anyhow, yeah, JLU is ending, and with it ends the 'Timmverse'--the animated version of the DC Universe as created by such luminaries as Bruce Timm and Paul Dini (among others), which has been around for a good fourteen years now. It started with Batman: The Animated Series, and continued in Superman, Batman Beyond, and Justice League. It kicked much ass, and now it will be over. This saddens me.

Okay. So there's a bunch of stuff I've just written, and that (to my mind) makes me square with the fact that I let this thing slide for a few days. I'm off. Beans and disease to you all.

--g