On the interest payments of Fame, and the rise of a young man from North Carolina

I used to watch a lot of the game shows as a kid. I can still scat the theme song from The Better Sex, and could probably remember at least several of the villains' names from the Gauntlet on Whew! I spent a great majority of my young life thinking that the stars of Match Game and other game shows were famous solely for being on game shows. I was new to the ways of fame, and had not been alerted to the concept of "coasting", where you do something great early in your career and are able to eat out on it for the rest of your life. Steve Wozniak does not have to do anything else ever for the rest of his life - the man was one of two Steves who created the personal computer business. I'll go so far as to say he was the more important Steve. Bill Gates should call him at regular intervals, just say "Thank you" and hang up. Legacy achieved, mission accomplished.

So why, I ask you why, is he on Dancing With the Stars?

Because people like to be on television. Maybe he got sick of the fact that the other Steve was getting all the face time, and got mentioned as "founder of Apple" and not "CO-Founder of Apple" one too many times.

"You aren't really anybody in America if you're not on TV." 

-Suzanne Stone Maretto (Nicole Kidman), To Die For

It wasn't until years later that I started to catch reruns of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and saw Charles Nelson Reilly, and I thought, "Oh, OK, HERE'S what he was famous for". He showed up on Lidsville, and Uncle Croc's Block and a raft of other shows, and I realized, OK, you can be famous for more than one thing.

So I learned about a lot of people careers backwards. I'd see them now, and then see them then, and find the Now performance even more impressive. The aforequoted Nicole Kidman film changed my opinion of her as an actress as well.

And then there was A Face In The Crowd.

I knew Andy Griffith (as did the rest of planet Earth and at least two districts of the Moon) as the star of his eponymous TV show, more recently as the underappreciated Salvage 1, and a fine performer in his own right. As I started to hear more of his stand-up act on Dr. Demento, I realized he had a bit more of an edge to him. Public television got a copy of the original live performance of No Time for Sargeants, the play that really launched his career. It was more in line with the character in Andy Griffith (thought ironically, far more in common with the spinoff show and Jim Nabors vehicle Gomer Pyle, USMC) but still had some cynicism in the writing. I saw the film they made years later, but found it lacking in comparison to the kinescope performance I saw before.

But the manipulative power-mad media darling he played in FitC just blew me away.

Griffith plays Larry Rhodes, who is dubbed "Lonesome" Rhodes by radio programmer Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal), who finds him in a local jail and asks him to sing for her radio show. He has natural charm and charisma, and after a witty monologue and performance, gets a job doing their morning show. His popularity with housewives skyrockets, and he jumps from local radio to television in a twinkling. He makes fun of his sponsor, a mattress manufacturer; quite the common ploy now, but anathema in those days. Only when does the sponsor realize his sales have risen with Lonesome's fame does he allow it to continue.

At this point things begin to accelerate for Rhodes. An office boy in the sponsoring mattress company, Joey DePalma (Finder of Lost Loves himself, Anthony Franciosa) makes a few calls to New York, alerting the major advertising agencies of the events, and informs them that Rhodes is accepting offers. He is whisked to New York and given a national program.

As this occurs, Rhodes starts to realize the power he now wields. His camera-side personality is as affable as ever, but behind the camera he becomes rude and demanding to his friends (for lack of a better term) and staff, including the ever-hopeful-she'll-be-noticed Marcia.
His downfall comes with the simple turn of a knob, and his reaction to it is truly astounding to behold. He gives a Nuremberg-like speech to his empty apartment, with his eager hanger-on running the canned appluase machine.

Walter Matthau plays a writer for Lonesome, and his self-loathing for his job and his career is a cynical counterpoint to the joy and excitement everyone else feels about being in such a fun industry.

The film is a savage attack on the "personality machine" of the entertainment industry, creating stars and dropping them as soon as they get a little taint on them. It has never stopped being contemporary and identifiable.

Citizen Kane wasn't supposed to be any one publishing mogul, but you couldn't help but assume it was Hearst. So too here, while the film wasn't intended to portray any one media star, the one he drew the most parallels to is Radio and TV star Arthur Godfrey, who made a name for himself with his ukelele, his pleasant accent and his gentle skewering of his sponsors. But the amazing thing is, no matter what era of television or radio you grew up on, there's a personality you would SWEAR they based old Lonesome on.

This film is well over 50 years old. It is still as telling about the entertainment industry now as it was then. The only difference is we know more about what total cocknecks the stars are now, and we don't care.

If Lonesome Rhodes were around today, he would certainly appear on Dancing With The Stars.

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On the return of an old friend who was sorely missed.

As much as I ADORE Pushing Daisies, I am soooo happy to see Bryan Fuller back on Heroes.

He made his return to the series during the production of last week's episode, and wrote this week's installment, "Cold Snap". In one week, the show is back on track.

I haven't gotten actively excited about the show in months. This is is the first time in longer yet that I was actively talking back to the screen. This woman at work and I used to get together Tuesday morning and go over the episode, chatting about what happened, who did what, real watercooler stuff. She got laid off a couple months back, and this is the first day i actively missed her because it's the first time in I don't know how long that I actively wanted to talk about the episode.

Bryan Fuller is the diseased maniac behind the aforementioned delight Pushing Daisies, the great missed opportunity Wonderfalls and basic cable darling Dead Like Me. He was responsible for possibly the best episode of Heroes to date ("Company Man") and was widely considered the show's heart. Now that ABC lost faith in Daisies, his dance card was open again and he was welcomed back to Heroes with open arms.

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!



He hit the ground running. "Cold Snap" got all the problems the show had been having out of the way like a fast gun of the gas pedal will blow all the buildup out of your engine with a frightening "KA-BLOWWWW!"

First off, no more Poor Powerless Hiro trying to live vicariously through Ando, who had a power that didn't quite make sense to the average user. Thanks to Matt Parkman Jr's new ability to "activate" things, Hiro's got the ability to stop time back. Alas, like Peter Petrelli, he's been nerfed, as he can't (yet) teleport through time and space, but at least he's back on the board. Yes, we get that you can be a hero without powers, but now that he knows that, leaving him without powers was just annoying.

Similarly, Ando, whose power was to be able to buff other Abilities, himself got buffed, as he can now hurl bolts of power. How did it happen? Who knows, who cares? He touched himself, maybe. (Oh, grow up...)

Secondly, after weeks of Matt Parkman (Senior) pining after Daphne like a little puppy, Fuller finally made the relationship worth something, just in time to take it away. Brilliant scene. Damn close to tearing up.


Similarly, Nikki (Ali Larter) finally got out of the hotbox and DID something. Once again, a great scene, followed by a quick removal. Don't fret, Ali Larter fans; people who suffered through season two will recall there were THREE sisters, so we ought to be meeting the third any time now. Hmm...they've been saying the Big bad of Season Four would be a female villain...

Angela Petrelli got another chance to shine in the episode, primarily in a short scene with Daisies alumna Swoosie Kurtz, playing a woman friend of Angela's (and, I'm betting, her sister.)

Over and above everything else, the one thing that made this episode work was the emotion. You really felt for the characters again, something that simply wasn't there in a long while.

Advice to the executives of NBC - do not let Bryan Fuller leave. Bind him to you with promises. Offer him anything. Keep him on this show. I can't think of such a precipitous drop of the quality of a series after a writer left than Michael O'Donoghue leaving SNL.

HOW in the hell did I not figure out who Rebel was? There's really only one answer - I Just Didn't Care. Were I more invested in the story, I'd have probably spent more time figuring it out. But on the whole, my last few months of watching Heroes has been on the level of "Well, it's been good so far, maybe it'll get better. Like Larry Miller's comparison to a stagnant relationship, I was taking the milk out of the fridge, noting it was sour, and putting it back, thinking "Maybe it'll be fresh tomorrow".

Well this week, I opened the carton, and found it was filled with ice cream.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Heroes is back. Get on board.

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On the popular pastime of reinvention and its inherent pitfalls

As a rule, if one is embarrassed or upset by the group one is a member of, it is inherently easier to change the name of the group than it is to change the group. Trekkies made enough of a hue and cry about the term that the more acceptable (to them) "trekkers" of "trekfen" were coined. (Fanzine writer and Big Name Fan Arthur Hlavaty commonly "corrects" the spelling to "terkkies".) The common rule of thumb is, if you care enough about the term "trekkie" to be offended by it, you're a trekkie.

Comic book and other sci-fi fen are regularly called "geeks" by the general populace, as in the popular phrase "Geek Chic". And the rule still applies - if you care enough to be offended by the term "geek" to attempt to correct it, please get in line for your too-short-for-your-ample-tummy stiped shirt and propeller beanie.

Nine times out of fourteen, you can tell from a person's tone whether they're actively trying to offend you, as oppsed to just being witty (successful or not) or accidentally using a word they "thought it was okay to use now". That applies for just about all slurs, save for the one unspeakable word, the Queen Mary of offensive slurs, which no one who is not one is ever allowed to use. That word of course is "Liberal-Democrat".

Usually when one chooses to reinvent oneself, either by simple semantics or radical surgery, it suggests a dissatisfaction with oneself, or at least of how things are going for you. America is the land of reinvention - I believe we invented it, or were at least the first to file paperwork. Before we patented the process and trademarked the term, it was known as "giving up and trying again".

If one reinvents oneself slowly, over the course of years, you can get away with no one noticing. But if you get the dyejob, the liposuction and demand that your friends and family henceforth refer to you as "Meredith", it's going to get Talk started. Usually along the vein of "what brought THIS on?" It's impossible to just forget what a person was and go with what they now want to be. Just ask wrestling fans when a guy shows up one week as a blonde goodguy and reappears the very next week with black hair and a goatee, a new heel name and the announcers look at him as if he's this total stranger (e.g. the Oz --> Vinnie Vegas transformation of Kevin Nash)

The Science Fiction Channel, colloquially known as "The Sci-Fi Channel", or more summarily "Sci-Fi" has announced that it will be changing its name to "SyFy". Talking heads have theorized a multitude of "real" reasons the change is happening, not the least of which being that "Sci-Fi" cannot be trademarked, and "SyFy" can. There's that whole "can does not equal should" thing going there, but whatever. I see it as a logical progression in the channel's slow move to become more than just a channel that shows science fiction. The problem is, is there a real benefit to showing more than "just" science fiction?

One of the big promising things about cable when it first came out was the idea that channels dedicated just to one genre or type of show could arise. There's the Game Show channel. the Soap network, the Food Network, and a plethora of others. As they started to appear, the programmers began to notice something they hadn't considered - channels that only show one kind of show only appeal to people that like that one kind of show. For a lot of people, this goes against the American desire to eat one's cake and have not only it, but all other cakes in the vicinity as well.

So using the same marketing strategy that gave us new Coke, these mavens said, "Let's dilute what we do well by doing some things we don't do well". MTV started doing it first - putting more actual programming on its channel, as opposed to videos. It's now at the point where they had to start whole other channels to do what the main channel used to do -play music videos.

So we started seeing reality shows on Sci-Fi, and live-action movies on Cartoon Network. And on the whole, they did not succeed because...Well, I've said it for a long time - you don't go to IHOP for a steak.

Sci-Fi bucked that tradition by carrying shows that already had a core following, like Crossing Over With John Edward (the irony of that show running on the Science-Fiction Channel will bring a smile to my face to my dying day) and its currently most-watched show, ECW Wrestling. It was hilarious when that first started running - they thought it might cushion the blow by putting more "Science fictiony" wrestlers on the show, so we got jobbers like "The Zombie" and other sources of shame and derision. Sci-Fi got a taste of of what real ratings are like, and wanted more. But they felt hobbled by the obviously pigeonholing name.

Their solution? A name that's pronounced exactly the same, but is SPELLED differently. Also, they (claim they) do not plan to change their basic dedication to science fiction. So we're back to "why change the name then?" again.

Let me ask you this - if BET changed its name to "Bold Entertainment Television", or the WWE to "World Wide Entertainment", do you think its followers would sit back and think, "Oh, well, it's goo to know they're not planning to change what they're currently doing"?

Sci-Fi, like so many others, are trying to find a way of extending its grasp, only realize that in order to do so, one must lose one's grip on what one now has. And that's then you start dropping things.

I've long said that one of the best things Sci-Fi can do is to go backwards. I watched a whole lot more of the channel when all it ran was reruns of classic sci-fi shows. But where ar those shows now? Stuff like Lost in Space, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants are now on that hidden treasure of a channel The American Life Network. They've had exactly one hit in all the attempts at original programming - the new Battlestar Galactica. I find it hard to believe that any of their "Sci-fi originals" drew better ratings than any episode of The Immortal. They spent truckloads of cash trying to be more than they needed to be.

Like the trekkie, they care too muh about what they are called. odds are if they just resigned themselves to their image and embraed it, they'd probably be allowed to do more than if they try harder and harder to disguise and deny what they are.

Look at William Shatner.

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On Castles and Kings

I don't think it's any secret that comics and Sci-Fi (Or is that SyFy now?) fans love Nathan Fillion. He bought us flowers and candy in Buffy and Firefly, made dinner for us in Slither, and closed the deal in Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. Mainstream America has tasted his wares as well, on Desperate Housewives and a truly wonderful little film called Waitress. Indeed, they had him first on Two Guys, a Girl and a Progressively Shorter Title To Keep the Idiots who Watch TV from Getting Confused. But they decided he wasn't their type, and he walked into genre fandom's bedroom and set up housekeeping.

In short, there's a general sense that Nathan should be a much bigger star than he is, and only the Right Vehicle is needed. ABC's new show Castle is the latest attempt to bring Nathan to a larger audience.

Far from the humble and self-effacing characters he usually plays, Fillion plays richard Castle, the hottest crime/suspense writer in the industry, and man with a boatload of talent and an ego to match. Siezed with writers block after killing off his tentpole character, he's contacted by the Police because someone is using his books' murders as fodder for a series of copycat crimes. He offers to help the police in their investigation, using his connections ("the mayor's a big fan") to get "assigned" to the case, much to the chagrin of Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic). The case gets solved in the requisite 44 minutes plus commercials, and Castle finds his writers block broken, inspired by tough, plucky Detective Beckett. He arranges to continue working with her (after signing a sheaf of waivers and disclaimers so he can't sue if he gets hurt or killed) and they proceed their tenuous partnership. He's ever amazed at the things real policemen can and can't do (like they don't actually crack jokes and eat ham sandwiches during autopsies), and he applies the rules of fiction to their investigations (he suggests that a murder was done by someone in the apartment house because it "makes a better story").

Fillion plays it perfectly - a rakish charmer with a 2.2-gigawatt smirk and a heart of gold. He's not the insufferable prick Captain Hammer was, he's a guy who's used to having things go his way, and treats the investigations as a new adventure. Though it's clear he has realizes it's all "for real", it doesn't stop him from having a ball, try as the police might to rein him in. The supporting cast all do a journeyman job; Fillion and Katic have good screen chemistry, and Castle's "old soul" teen daughter and "young at heart" live-in Mother provide nice family color and show he's actually a nice guy. But the show rises and sets around Nathan, and will win or lose based solely on his ability to make America fall in love with him as gener fen have. To steal a term from Big Tobacco, the show is a Nathan delivery device, the only question is will America watch to get their Fillion?

Over on NBC, the much publicised Kings began to lackluster numbers, and I think that's a shame, as I found it quite impressive. Loosely based on the Biblical story of King David, it was created by Michael Green, former writer for Heroes, current occasional writer for DC Comics and the current helmer of the green lantern film script. Set in the nonexistent but real-sounding country of Gilboa, the film starts with King Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane, in an emotional and non curse-laden performance) dedicating the new Capital, Shiloh. David Shepherd (Michael Patrick Crane) lives in what appears to be the country's farm belt/dust bowl, and fixes cars for a living. Fate and a well-crafted script will bring these two together faster than a professional wrestler and a turnbuckle.

The scene jumps a year ahead, and David and his brother Eli are enlisted in the military, on an offensive (also known as "war") against Gilboa's northern neighbor, Gath. Pinned down by the massive "Goliath" tanks of Gath (get it?), David sneaks across enemy lines to save two of his countrymen, only finding out afterwards that one of the is Prince Jack, scion of the King. Army photographers snap pictures of him standing up against the Goliath, and in half a twinkling he's ushered off to Shiloh as a national hero. He's uncomfotable in these surroundings, and longs to return to the front (and his brother), but the King sees him as an important propaganda tool, and gives him the position of military liason to the Press, and the rank of Captain.

The cameras love him, and by the end of the second episode he has single-handedly brought the war with Gath to an end, twice. As a result of his actions, it's made clear that Silas has lost the favor of the Lord, and that He has chosen another, one who fate and a well-written script has placed right at Silas' side.

At its core, it's a drama in the style of Dallas and Falcon Crest, with an intrigue-filled family fighting for control of the family business. It's just that here the business in question is ruling a country. The style of the acting is a bit grander as well. Not quite Shakepere-level pompous or anything, but there's some nice little scenes, including one where David faces down a tank column holding a bloody (from his brother) sheet, and gives a great speech about if they want blood, they should take this "And have it be enough".

McShane is tremendous as a character who has gone through a lot to bring this country together, and has had to make many deals and promises, some that come due too soon. The politics and government country is played very subtly - there's a free press, but it's clear that they still present questionable items to the royal family first. A gentleman following the King around chronicling his moves is occasionally guided by Silas as to how they "actually" happened. A massive tirade by Willaim Cross (Dylan Baker in a wonderfully bastardish role), CEO of the company that funded most of the construction of Shiloh (and brother to the queen, a marriage of convenience) is corrected to "and the King's Brother-in-Law came by and congratulated him on his actions".

Location scenes of Shiloh and its skyline are clearly New York City, with seamless new skyscrapers added in to give it a sense of difference. It's not "supposed to be" New York, but basing it on the city makes the show easier to identify with. So far no real countries have been mentioned, nor has a time frame. It could be modern day, and it could be anywhere on the globe, and that helps keep the show safe from finger pointing that it's preaching.

As good as the reviews have been, the ratings for its premiere were inversely poor. I fear it may be as a result of the connection to the Bible - some might fear it's some sort of religious propaganda. I saw none of that here - God plays a role in the narrative, but the show is much more about the frailties of Man than anything else. It's got the opportunity to discuss the politics of war, the way media can be controlled, and how dangerous it is to let business too close to running the country. But in simplicity it's a well-done piece of drama that can easily be enjoyed for its surface level alone. WELL worth a look.

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On how sometimes the best things happen when the boss ain't around.

One of the single most important additions to the Super-Mythos happened when "Superman" wasn't around.


Bud Collyer, voice of Superman on radio and Filmation cartoon series (and first host of classic game Show Beat the Clock), was taking time off from the show. Rather than recast the role temporarily, the writers came up with Kryptonite, a metal from his home planet that weakened him. They locked Superman in a closet with a box of the stuff, and all the replacement actor had to do was moan a little. When Bud got back, they solved the deathtrap and went on with the show. Super-fans are happy to relate that a great deal of the most important parts of Superman today came from the radio show, including the aforementioned debilatory mineral, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, and his ability to fly itself (not to mention the catchphrase "Up Up and Away")


The last time Superman died (there's a statement you don't get to use too often, outside of comics and Church) they spent several months without him in the books. To fill the void, they created four brand new characters to attempt to fill the void left by the big man: John Henry Irons, AKA Steel, the humanoid form of The Eradicator, the character known as the Cyborg Superman, and the new Superboy, eventually known as Conner Kent.


People commented that it was insane to take the character out of the books that bore his name, that it was pointless to do since it was only a temporary sales gimmick, etc etc etc...


Can you see where I'm going here?


Out of those four characters, two are still in active use, one is rumored (OK, I guess when they show you the character in a "Coming Soon" tease, it's not a rumor anymore) for a return BUT quick, and there's a general feeling the fourth may re-appear during the World of Krypton arc. In short, they ended up with four very strong characters that got used for over fifteen years now. Not bad for a gimmick.


They're not killing Superman this time, but as I've gone on about before, he's moving to New Krypton for about a year of "Real World" time (no idea how long DCU time, but I'm betting the whole story will be about six-twelve weeks all told). And once again, people will be trying to span the gap.


Some of the best moments in television history happened when the main character of the show was away and the supporting characters stepped up and became more three-dimensional characters.


Of course, you also can end up with the last seasons of Happy Days and Welcome Back Kotter. But there's a very important difference. Ted McGinley does not work for DC Comics.

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On Fathers, and friends, and the death of fathers, and the death of fathers of friends

As I've discussed before, I lost my father (ok, no, I know where he is, in a veteran's cemetary on Long Island) at a young age, and have few memories of him that are not comic-related. Here are a few.

While trying to teach my adopted sister (I'm adopted as well - I at weeks old, she at the age of five) to pray, my father attempted to show her the Sign of the Cross. She, in an attempt to please him, made as big a cross upon her person as she could, "In the Name of the father" from the top of her head, "and the Son" to the base of her pubic bone, and the "Holy Spirit" positioned at ends of both shoulders. He was trying to get her to dial it down a little, and chose to express this by jamming his hand into his crotch and exclaiming "DOWN HERE is the Son?" Oh, how we laughed.

He didn't care for hair curlers, or at least pretended not to. My mom and aforementioned sister decided to do their hair one evening, and both were done up in curlers when he came home. He looked at my mom, and gave a cartoon scream at the sight of her. Turned to my sister, and gave a cartoon scream at the sight of her. Looked at me, sans curlers, sighed in relief, and hugged me.

I remember my mom trying smoking to have something to do with him while he smoked. I recall that exactly once.

I can't tell you what I had done, but he was chasing me out of the backyard for some grievance, down the short sidewalk beside the garage. (My grievance may well have been leaving the backyard - my father was very protective of me) I don't recall climbing over the shoddy picket fence gate, but I must have, because HE had to. Back in the kitchen, he was getting iodine or some other antisceptic and sting-y material dabbed on a series of deep scrapes and scratches the gate had given him. I don't recall them healing.

I recall him peeing onto a little blue strip of paper, and comparing the resulting color to a small chart he had.

I recall the gurney that took him out of the house.

At the funeral, the comics memories start up again. I discovered that the cover logo of the Richie Rich comic I got to keep me busy was printed in an odd shade of bright red that if I jiggled the cover just a bit under a bright light, it's like the logo left contrails behind it, much like (decades later) the screen of a PSP draws black. Nobody seemed to care.

My dad had diabetes. He was 44 when I died.

I have diabetes. I'm 42. (The name of the blog will get progressively more incorrect, but as anyone who's ever tried to re-name a blog knows, it's better to just leave it go.)

I'm not fatalistic, but it's sobering. It inspires thought.

When I got diabetes, lots of people offered advice and support. Or tried.

"Oh, wow, my brother had diabetes."

"Yeah, what happened?"

"He died. But I'm sure you'll be fine though."

The same happens when people you know die. Things get said that probably sound very consoling in their heads. When my Mom died a few years back, The Wife's favorite teacher, Sister Francesca Thompson, called to offer comfort.

"Oh dear I know what it's like to lose both your parents. You wake up one morning and look in the mirror and think, 'I'm nobody's child.' I know what that feels like."

I was doing pretty well with it until then.

You never know what to do. You try to empathise. You too often end up with statements like "Yeah, I remember when my dog died...", or you compare your leg cramp last summer to their hysterectomy. Their story wins, but you can't resist trying to beat it.

It's harder when you didn't know the person who died, just your friend. You fire off an inoffensive "Well, I'm sure he's in a better place now," only to be told the family are rooting for brimstone enemas and a bodysuit made of male velcro worn inside out, as the deceased's behavior regularly reached Jerry Springeresque proportions.

It's an uncomfortable situation. And that's just YOU having to think about it, imagine what THEY'RE going through having to LISTEN to all of it.

You never know how you're gonna act when it happens to you. After one night of Dad's wake, Mom said good bye to everyone, and stood in front of the funeral home. Five minutes later, she realized she was waiting for Dad to bring the car around.

So anyway, this guy I know, one of his relations died recently, and I thought rather than privately offer my sympathies, I would externalize my feelings, turn it into a story about myself, and let him extract whatever comfort he could from that. Hey, we all deal with grief in different ways.

Nowadays, the eighth stage is usually "capitalization".

In comics, they often announce death three months in advance. This annoys people, and makes them angry at how death is trivialized. Of course, when the publishers keep the deaths a secret, this annoys people because it means they didn't have enough advance notice, so they could buy enough copies to keep up with demand.

Some people rail and rant that their favorite character is gone. Some sit quietly and await their eventual return. Some point fingers at others, saying if it weren't for this thing or that guy, or the other situation, they'd be alive today. And some just move on.

And some take their emotions and post them on the electric-type internet.

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On the conspicuous and mysterious vanishment of a Commander-in-Chief, an extradimensional imp, and a grown man who plays with toys

In pro-wrestling, especially in the WWE, when a wrestler leaves a federation (or a "territory" as they used to be known), he was entirely forgotten. Mentions of him ceased, any feuds he was in are dropped off the narrative precipice and in short, would become what George Orwell referred to as an "unperson"

Having said that...where in the world is George W. Bush? He's just friggin' gone.

Usually they'll at least have a post-game wrap interview with the exiting President somewhere, to give him a chance to put a cap on the last term or two, a little coda to his work.

I just did a Google-type search in the news. Not one goddamn story featuring the man who ran the nation (as everyone chants "into the ground", I know, I know...) for the last eight years. There's stories about his parents, and mentions of Will Ferrell's one-man show (which I was quite keen on seeing but of course I forgot to set the Tivo and then I forgot my password so I couldn't even log onto the website to tell it to record it while we were in the city so now I have to watch it tonight instead, but hey, whaddayagonnado?) but not a thing about the ex-president himself. The guy who threw shoes at him got more ink than he did.

Actually I tell a lie - as I was writing this, exactly ONE article popped up, saying that he and Condi Rice will be giving some speeches in Southwest Michigan "in the coming months".

When Nixon left, after resigning in disgrace, they took that iconic photo of him giving that double-rabbit ears to the nation, and they still followed him around, taking pictures of him on the beach at San Clemente (with his big ol' shorts on...and a metal detector...), and then they did the whole Frost tapes, and in short, as bad a job as he did, they never game him a minute to stew in his own embarrassment and sadness.

When Clinton left office, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a mention of him. They took pictures of him as he went to get a hamburger, he was making speeches left and right, setting up his office in Harlem to be closer to his people (cause he was the first black president, back when they thought there would never BE one, so they settled for him; I wonder if he's officially given back the title...) making more money for personal appearances than Uncle Majic the Hip-Hop Magician.

Bush? Bupkis. Nichts. Nada. A paucity of somethingness.

It's like that scene from Dumbo where the elephants are so embarassed about old big-ears' shenanagans that they gather in a circle and make a promise that "from this moment on he is no longer an elephant". I can imagine the press corps meeting in a musty cattlecar, and Katie Couric raising her hand and leading them all in a silent vow.

Of course, Bush isn't exactly pounding the pavement either. I get the impression he's holed up in a fallout shelter in Dallas, waiting for the political half-life to lower the radiation of his presidency to an appreciable level. Hopefully he brought something to read.

There's hope. Jimmy Carter was able to salvage his legacy by building houses for the homeless, and eventually they let him start talking to other countries again. Bush will get a presidential dollar coin when his turn comes around (in 2017 I believe) and by then people may have cooled (or is that warmed? Depends on the starting temperature I guess) to him enough that they'll go ahead and collect the coin to keep from having an incomplete set. Perhaps to make people happy, the coin will come pre-tarnished.

This is pretty much how we used to deal with continuity in comics when I was a kid.

When someone wrote a story that was just crazy, something so WTF-y that everybody just kind of turned their heads and walked away. Mopee the Elf, for example. When saner heads came to power, they all looked at the story, and they all sort of said "Hey, we understand, we've all handed in some some outrageous crap as the deadline loomed. No harm no foul, but let us never talk of this again. And that was enough.

Then YEARS later, somebody would dust the idea off, and like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, realize it wasn't such a bad little idea, it just needed a little love. So the Batman from Planet X would become a backup personality for Bruce Wayne, or Aquaman's extradimensional little pal would become a massively dangerous energy being, or the three skrulls who got left on a farm in upstate New York would eventually infect the whole town by drinking their milk.

Crisis on Infinite Earths (I'll finish that CoIE post to tie into that blog-crossover soon, I swear) was a good carpet to sweep those stories under. For years, any story that didn't quite fit "happened on an earth that was destroyed in Crisis"

Nowadays, there's this mindset that things can't just be ignored anymore, they have to be un-explained. Infiinte Crisis was another chance to give everybody they wanted to a do-over, but too often there's this self-imposed moral imperative to give a logical explanation as to WHY this guy changed. Geoff Johns is the current master of this, coming up with amazing tales weaving together many different versions of characters into one cohesive one. His explanation of Hawkman was sublime, his Brainiac was logical, but might have needed a bit of headtilting and a short sigh before you said "Okayyyyy...", but I thought his Toyman tried to do a little too much, while still getting so, so much right.

Allow me to explain. In an attempt to grim-n-gritty up the Superman comics (which is right up there with trying to make vanilla ice cream taste more like butter brickle, but hey, who am I), they reimagined the Toyman into...well...a kidnapper. They kept away from making him a pedophile or molester, but when Cat Grant's son Adam tries to escape, Toyman finds him down and stabs him to death. This was for a lot of fans, including myself, the single worst move made in comics in decades, maybe ever. It was the four-color version of Dylan going electric. It functionally RUINED Toyman as a character.

Apparently Geoff Johns thought so as well. In a recent story, he retroactively explains that every Toyman that we've seen since we last saw the "classic' Winslow Schott was actually one of Schott's robots. The skinhead child-killer was one that malfunctioned, went rogue and started with the kidnapping and Grant-stabbing thing. Schott, in his grief for even obliquely responsible for the injury (not to mention the death) of a child causes him to snap not unlike a twig. He kidnaps Jimmy Olsen and pleads his case, exaplaining that he would never harm a child (bear in mind, at this point he thinks Jimmy is 16 (insert Lance Kerwin joke here) and has him tied up and lying on a floor, so maybe his definition of "harm" is rather elastic). Batman and Superman find him and capture him.

It's a STELLAR story. In one swell foop it takes the curse and stink off the character, while adding a magnificent layer of pathos to him. He accepts the guilt of Adam's death, while at the same time trying to absolve himself of it. He becomes a three-dimensional character, as opposed to the simple gimmick-monkey he was before. Combining that with Kurt Busiek's absolutely joyous revamp of the Prankster, what were once the most simplistic villain Superman had are now two of my most favorite, for two very different reasons.

But the main quibble I have with the story is it reached too far, and tried to clean up too much, including at least one thing that didn't need cleaning. One of the replacement Toymen (Toymans?) Hiro Okamura, a Japanese youth with an intellect that would make Lex Luthor want to hit the books again. After a brief foray into villainy based mainly on boredom, the World's Finest convince him to use his incredible intellect for niceness instead of evil. In Jeph Loeb's run of Superman/Batman, it's revealed he ends up building most of Batman's new crimefighting gimmicks, creates the rocket that helps destroy a kryptonite satellite approaching Earth (and sends Captain Atom into his own miniseries) and is a main character in Sam Loeb's issue of Superman/Batman. But Johns claims that he too is but one of Schott's creations, thus invalidating a bunch of very good stories, including Sam's which Geoff himself helped complete.

Personally, I just mentally added in my own fix - In his grief and guilt, Schott attempted to assume the guilt of anyone and everyone who had ever used the Toyman name, even ones like Hiro whom he had no connection to. So Hiro is still merrily tinkering with his next giant robot in Japan, and Winslow is seething in his cell, trying to figure how he will stop "one of his creations" from ever harming anyone ever again. (Free story idea, Geoff - just make Norbert a Lantern and we'll call it even.)

And that's the problem with trying to clean up the past. Sometimes the chaff is inefficiently de-wheated, and the progeny is erroneously disposed of with the detergential medium.

Not everything that was written by the silver-age writers on deadline was bad.

Not everything that George Bush did was bad, either.

It just may take decades for anyone to realize it.

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