Year: 2002

Eyewitnesses at various sniper shootings swore that the sniper drove off in a white van. Or a Burgundy Caprice. They were so sure, in fact, that police repeatedly caught the snipers at roadblocks but waved them through because they weren’t driving the cars that the witnesses were positive were connected to the shootings.

So all those witnesses were wrong. More people died because of that, actually. I’m not blaming the witnesses, God knows. It wasn’t their fault. It was a stressful situation.

But it leads me to wonder how many people are on death row…mostly because of eye witness testimony. And of those people, how many of them are physically larger than cars, and thus even easier to ID? I’m guessing none. How many of them are, in fact, smaller than cars and probably tougher to ID? I’m guessing all.

But hey, no one’s ever been wrongly executed because of misidentification. Right? We’re all certain of that. Why, we’re as certain of that as we are of what kind of car the snipers were driving.

The sniper’s been stopped. The death penalty lives on. And state governments remain the biggest serial killers in America.

Food for thought.

PAD

Got distracted by other stuff, so I didn’t comment on Buffy this week. Figured I’d combine it with Angel here (which I watched while taking a one-hour break from watching the Anaheim Angels, which somehow seemed Apropos, which is something else entirely.)

Buffy–Overall a solid episode. Loved the subtitling and the extensive sequence with the actors speaking whatever-the-heck-language that was. Anya’s song was blah, unfortunately, and her hair length didn’t seem to match that from “Once More With Feeling.” And the final sequence with D’Hoffryn finally made him seem like a genuine demon head of a vengeance clan, rather than the avuncular type he always is. However, the episode seemed less than the sum of its parts. How could Buffy have forgotten a sword thrust against Anya would be useless considering *we* all remembered having seen Halfax run through last year? “I’m just getting started,” quoth Buffy. What, she’s dragging it out? And the constant repetition of “it devours from below” came across ominous as first, but now it’s starting to sound like an impending case of virulent demonic jock itch. It’s almost as if they want to keep reassuring us that, yes, there is indeed an overall big bad this year (as opposed to the aimlessness that seemed to characterize last season) but enough already with the warnings.

Also, am I the only one who feels like the energy level of the acting is down? Certain cast members…well, it’s not like they’re phoning it in, but they come across more like actors who feel their series is winding down rather than their characters. Maybe they’re jet-lagged. I dunno. Only Marsters seems really on his game; whenever anyone’s in a scene with Spike, their performance level goes up a few notches. Otherwise they seem kinda blah.

Angel–Good characterization marking an episode that seemed mostly set-up. Wes and Lyla are turning into *the* fun couple of TV. These two play more headgames than the guys from “Highlander.” I thought Cordy was going to figure out Angel’s true nature when he didn’t reflect in that honkin’ big mirror she was looking in, but the “Am I a nun?” thing worked nicely too. Connor was actually tolerable. Now when the heck are they making Andy Hallet a regular? I haven’t seen this much lack of support for a regular recurring character since Tara…which is ominous, all things considered.

PAD

Last night was the first time that we’ve actually bothered to watch the World Series, because thus far it’s between two teams I don’t really give a dámņ about. But hey, any Series that features near-death rescues of wandering uniformed three year olds certainly gets my attention.

It was a really good game, unless of course you’re a Giants fan. Having no real vested interest in either team, I could admire the play from both sides. However, being a latecomer to all this, and knowing pretty much nothing about the Angels…

Would someone please explain to me what the hëll is up with the monkey?

I’m sitting there watching people waving stuffed monkeys and wondering if it was a stuffed monkey giveaway day or something, and suddenly there’s this frickin’ uniformed “Rally Monkey” on the screen, holding up a sign reading “Believe in the power of the monkey.” And the announcers are discussing this in a matter of fact, everyone-knows-about-this manner, in the same way that they could make a reference to Babe Ruth’s calling his shot and everyone gets the reference. Me, I’m totally out of the loop.

How long have these monkey shines been going on? Whose bright idea was it? How the heck did it catch on, anyway?

PAD

Kathleen, Ariel and I hauled our sniffling selves to “Dance of the Vampires” last night, now in previews on Broadway. Based on Roman Polanski’s “The Fearless Vampire Killers,” it stars Michael Crawford as Count Von Krolock and Rene Auberjonois as Professor Abronsius.

If you have any interest in Michael Crawford, Rene Auberjonois, vampires (dancing or otherwise), or a fun evening of theater, you should definitely go. Soon. Because if you have an interest in what the NY Times will say, they’ll probably hate it.

They will probably say that there’s a few songs too many (there are.) That certain aspects of the book never really come together (also true; a story arc involving a flamingly gay vampire, for instance, draws laughs but ultimately goes nowhere). That the show starts out strong in terms of a tongue-in-cheek tone, but gets patchy after the first half hour (‘fraid so.) That composer/lyricist Jim Steinman’s songs are for the most part unmemorable. Well…yeah.

That’s the most depressing aspect, really. Early on in the show, Steinman–who wrote songs for Meat Loaf–slides about sixteen bars of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” into the middle of Krolock’s first song. It draws huge laughs as the audience slowly tweaks to the self-referential digression. But when kicking off Act II, they do a full blown rendition of “Total Eclipse.” It’s great to hear. They do a terrific job with it. The problem is that it really points up the fact that no other number in the show can touch a song he wrote at least two decades ago, because that’s the song you’ll come out humming.

The thing is, all of these thoughts occur *after* you’ve left the show (which is, of course, when reviews are written). *During* the show you’re having a great time. The songs are bouncy (if forgettable), and some of the lyrics are genuinely hysterical (particularly an early song about garlic and Auberjonois’ Gilbert & Sullivan-esque patter song about Logic.) And it may very well be that legions of Crawford fans alone will be sufficient to keep the show going.

Furthermore, this *was* still previews, keep in mind. Trims and fixes may yet be made. Such typical preview glitches as effects misfiring or poor sound mixing or mikes going out will presumably be cured by opening night; perhaps other aspects will be fixed as well.

But just in case they’re not, go anyway. If nothing else, it’s the first genuine Grand Guignol to hit Broadway since Sweeney Todd. And there’s just not enough Grand Guignol out there to excuse supporting it when it meanders along.

PAD

Tom Brevoort passed this along to me. I’ve never run a fan letter here, but this is pretty cool in a geeky sort of way:

To the Crew,

Month after month I see people praising every book Brian Bendis and Grant Morrison put out…but people are missing out on the best read of the month, bar none. Mixing pulse-pounding, universe-ending, balls-to-the-walls action with hilarious, fall-over-laughing, satire on the comics world as a whole, and still being able to tell the story of a guy in love with his wife.

Amazing. Spectacular. Uncanny.

Peter David deserves an award for almost every storyline so far (and probably those coming up), and ChrissCross (one of the most underrated pencillers in the industry) should have an award named after him. I have been able to get about 20 to 25 people to pick up the book, and try to convince everyone I see to pick up the (in my humble, geeky opinion) best book of the month.

Keep up the wonderful work, and until Rick Jones combines atoms with Captain Ultra, Make Mine MARVEL.

Oh what the hëll, even then.

Alan Korsunsky

Comedy Centrals’ “Beat the Geeks” Comic Book Geek

Now I feel kinda bad feeling so satisfied when the comic pros wiped the floor with the Geek team in the trivia competition at San Diego.

PAD

I’m not much fun today. I’m fighting off a headcold. I was up until 3 AM last night working on the next NEW FRONTIER novel, then collapsed into bed, crawled out around 7 AM to get Ariel off to school, took some night time Theraflu ’cause that’s all we had in the house, and fell back into bed. Just woke up. Still coughing up interesting things from my lungs.

PAD

Been having some baby excitement the last few days. Kathleen started experiencing serious Braxton-Hicks contractions for the first time over the weekend…which is pretty much normal. And at work yesterday, she almost passed out a couple of times, probably because of abruptly dropping blood pressure. Again, normal, but it’s obviously disconcerting.

A guy at work poked her tummy, obviously thinking it would be marshmallow soft. He was astounded to discover that Kath literally has rock-hard abs. It’s all muscle and baby. Then the baby shoved back, and the guy actually saw the rippling of her stomach surface, and was totally skeeved. See, that’s why men couldn’t carry children. It has nothing to do with pain. It’s that by the third month, the moment it started moving around, guys would be flashing on “Alien” and would be screaming, “Get it out of me! Get it out! Ahhhhh!” for the next six months.

We’re going to the baby doc today. And no, we don’t know the gender. Brian Stelfreeze thinks it’s a boy. Julie Caitlin Brown thinks it’s a girl. And Harlan Ellison thinks it’s a tricycle. Maybe we’ll name the kid “Schwinn.”

PAD