Oh, to clarify that last post, this upcoming trip is not only to Canada, but to the magical land of Quebec. Yup, pseudo-Frenchies, cheese and gravy fries, high-alcohol beer and maple sugar candy… Yes, the great white north, indeed. I’m hoping for a decent exchange rate and less humidity. No big outlet sales, no coupons, no buy one get one free. Really, all I want is to spentd some time checking out where my Grandma came from, grabbing some tasty treats and not totally sweating my butt off. Sounds like a rockin’ good time. I’ll let you know how it all goes.

Tomorrow I embark on a voyage to the land of my people. And here’s the snapper. I’m bringing the boys. Yup, I’ll be riding in Mom’s backseat with my seven and four year old. Tell me that’s not brave. I’ve got some books. I’ve got my iPhone. We’ve got a stack of DVDs. Maybe I should have read some headphone reviews. Sometimes there’s nothing better in a crowded backseat than some kickin’ earbuds. I love’s me some rockin’ tunes, especially when we switch from live action Inspector Gadget to the cartoon version. Of course, if we switch on the Super Hero Squad I’m going to be all over that…and if anybody wants phones on I’ll be reaching for a phones splitter.

When I grow up I want to be a wholesaler. I don’t know, necessarily, what I want to wholesale, but it sounds good. Maybe I good sell wine. Or maybe comic books. Maybe I could sell very fancy shoes for puppies, tiny little shoes, made to order in Italy. But maybe not. It might be too confusing. I mean, people are used to buying pairs of shoes, not 4 shoes. Would I sell them as double pairs? Or quads? Maybe there would be front pairs and back pairs, like boots and gloves. It would work in the winter, sure, but what about the summer? What if you wanted flip flops to take your dog to the beach? It brings you right back to the quad problem. I mean, unless you wanted flip flops in back and a sort of pail and shovel thing for the front paws. But what if the dog developed a limp and I got blamed? Before you know it I’d have to all on my sword (not in the literal Chinese lead paint baby toy CEO manner but more in the figurative “I have a sex addiction and it’s not my fault” manner of the modern mega-church preacher). I don’t know, maybe wholesale isn’t for me.

One of my big brush with fame stories is when I met Mitch Easter when we opened for The Velvet Crush about 15 years ago. It’s a funny story because he was this long-haired older dude I didn’t recognize and he was so super cool while the guys from the band (it was a trio that Mitch had produced, but he was playing fill-in guitar on tour) were complete a total a-holes. The drummer in particular was a dick, stoned constantly, about 9 feet tall, 90 pounds and wearing some sort of massive boa. And I think he would have benefited from adult acne treatments.

Anyway, I was talking to Mitch for a while about the showmanship of heavy metal concerts. He was particularly impressed by Glenn Danzig. He’d recently seen Danzig and was blown away by the complete spectacle. It was a hilarious conversation to have, particularly when I discovered, a few minutes later, who he actually was. I couldn’t believe I’d just been talking smack with the guy who recorded Murmur.

Many people do the vanity Google. You’ve probably done it too. You know what I’m talking about, you type your name into a search engine and see what comes up. Well, about once a year I take it  step further and do the band search. And once in a while I actually turn up an archived review or some other nonsense that I never saw before. I’ve even found a few random new fans who came across records I worked on in a dollar bin at a used CD shop or something.

So I’ve decided to give back to a couple of those lesser known bands that meant so much to me a few years ago. I mean, I’m not talking about Tanya Donnelly (my big crush) who is now a flippin’ doula. I’m not talking about any of those Seattle bands like Tad (that dude has to be hawking phentermine at this point). I’m talking about Fig Dish and Cuppa Joe and Flop and Standard Fruit. Some of them were signed, some were not, but none got real huge.

Today let me mention Case Scott and the Creeps. Casey Scott did a sort of post punk blended with crotch rock. She was awesome. Really awesome. Skinny and crazy looking and singing songs like No Sharp Metal Objects and Creep City. She was on Capital Records, I think, but she never really got big, which was wrong. I mean, I never really liked Patti Smith, but I think if Patti Smith actually made good music, she would want to sound like Casey Scott.

The song of songs for me, though, was probably something Casey herself would have considered atypical, a ballad called 7th of November. The attitude of the lyrics was all Casey Scott and just…damn damn damn awesome, even though the music was a simple 4 chord progression, one of the great 4 chord progressions – the same one as With or Without You. But so full of balls.

I don’t want to be cruel, I don’t want to be cruel, I don’t want to be cruel.
I don’t want to be cruel but I don’t want to let you fool yourself into thinking everything’s cool ’cause everything’s not cool.

Casey Scott, if you ever do the vanity Google, I just want to let you know that your music moved me as a DJ, as a listener and as a musician. Back in the day when I was still on target for rock stardom I used to have this thought in the back of my mind that I would find you and lure you into a duet or something. Maybe some sort of weird ass Songs For Drella type of collaboration. sorry I didn’t make it, but if I did, you were so on my short list. I hope you’re still singing, wherever you are.

You know, it’s funny how some things have very different meanings in different context. For example: tea party. If little girls talk about a tea party it’s cute and charming. If middle aged women from Alaska talk about tea parties you might, like me, panic a little bit about the swift decline in the IQ level of the room. If patriotic colonial men dressed like Native Americans talk about tea parties, well…the harbor may be smelling like Earl Grey for a few days.

Here’s another: Black and Mild is meaningful to anyone who smokes a value cigar. Of course, if the phrase is spoken in passing in the workplace, well, the human resource people will probably have a fit.

You need to think, sometimes long and hard, before saying a lot of things. I’ve been watching The Flash, a show form the early 90s based on the fairly famous comic book character of the same name. When someone on that show says “Wow, you’re the faster man ever,” when the Flash runs up, he’s pretty darned happy. Of course, if she says the same thing during a passionate love scene…

I wrote earlier about my recent return to comic book collecting. This led me to my all new super favorite comic shop, Alterniverse, on Thursday. All the comic geeks reading know that new comics are released on Wednesdays, except on holiday weeks (the 4th of July fell on Sunday but Monday was considered a holiday) when they drop on Thursdays.

I got to the store around lunchtime and found the comics were late. I waited around for a while and saw a number of readers stop in looking for their favorites. No large lads looking for weight loss supplements here, my favorite comic shop has a rather fit clientele – at least at first glance. Yay for us.

This week was actually a big week for comicdom, actually. We celebrated the release of X-Men #1, a new series with one of the more popular super-hero teams. Maybe you’ve heard of them. There were some movies and such. Now this new series finds our team relocated to the West Coast and battling some pretty freaky vampires…not my favorite pop culture trend, I have to admit, but I guess vampires are the thing these days.

Anyway, Cyclops and Wolverine tangling with vampires is marginally more interesting that Wonder Woman in pants. But maybe I’m just getting old.

Oh, by the way…the title of the post refers to the fact that Alterniverse threw an X-Men release party featuring giveaways and, believe it or not, a Wolverine cake. I couldn’t hang around for the fun, but I have to say, I love comics.

You know I love to post about license plates I see, vanity license plates that is. Personally I think they are usually a narcissistic waste of money, though I do occasionally discover true joy on the back bumper of an automobile. I’m still waiting for some variation on click hereto make it onto a plate – or more realistically, to make it onto a plate that Ia ctually see because I’m sure there are a couple.

Earlier today I saw something that really got to me. I mean, I don’t know how to feel about it, but above all else, I’m kind of shocked that it was even allowed on a plate. The plate (on a white SUV driven by a middle aged woman with teenagers in the car) read VIOLATE.

Yeah, VIOLATE. I mean, seriously, how does that happen. Maybe it’s supposed to be a big F$#K YOU to the police or something – as in traffic violation – but really? That’s the word you choose to represent your quirky personality.

Maybe it’s just me, but that’s a woman I want to stay real real real far away from.

I have recently rediscovered a past addiction. For a period of two or three years in my young teen years, I became an avid comic collector. I started with a single title, but when a small video store in the next town started selling comics (the owner being a total comic addict himself) I began making weekly visits.

A year or so after I discovered this little haven, the shop closed down. A few weeks later, the video part reopened under new ownership, but the comic racks were gone. Apparently, the comic-loving owner was so into Marvel and DC that he kept two copies of everything he sold. And pretty soon, he was deep in the red. Oh well.

Now, I certainly didn’t stop reading comics. In fact, I maintained my love of comics over the years since, but I mostly stopped reading monthly mags and switched to trade paperbacks and graphic novels. Sometimes these were standalone storied outside of the normal continuity of a particular title, but other time a book like this would simply collect a series of comics in single place, covering a particular story arc.

Recently, though, I have been picking up comics here and there. Mostly old ones at flea markets (old now meaning 80s era – the time period I used to collect) but I’ve also grabbed some newer stuff. And lately I’ve grabbed a couple of cheap ebay lots. Some ebayers will sell books for a fraction of their potential value if you are willing to grab a boxful. Since I am just getting back into collecting, this is a great way to go for me. It gives me a chance to read a couple of issues of a particular title and see if it is something for me. I can either go to a back issue dealer and try to fill in the blanks, or I can, when I am ready, put together some mixed lots of my own and get the comics back out there for someone else to start, or round out, their collection.

Comics have a lot of detractors, but I, for one, am a big fan. In fact, I am so much of a fan that I am happy to see my oldest kid starting to read them. He can still read a novel, about 3 grade levels beyond his age in fact, so if he wants to pick up a comic once in while, that’s cool with me.

I’ve known people who say that comics are a sort of anti-literature because the art keeps you from developing a mental picture. That might be a valid argument if comics were novels, but they’re not. It is a wholly different medium. If a great film can be a great film, in spite of its plain reliance on visual storytelling, a comic, or any sort of story told in a comic format is equally valid. If you disagree, open your mind to The Watchmen, Maus, or even American Splendour. Don’t kid yourself, these are tremendous bits of narrative. They are unique and powerful. At times, even profound. and they do not rely on violence or gratuitous profanity to “shock and awe” their readers. Instead, they use compelling imagery, both as depicted in the art, and in the poetry of the storytelling.

Seriously.

I saw a funny license plate outside Friendly’s the other day. It was a Volkswagen Beetle with this tag: MyBg4ply. After a while I realized this was probably My Bug For Play, but that was not my initial read. At first I thought it was My Big Foreplay. I can’t say what that might mean, but it sure seemed…well, odd at the time. Big foreplay, after all, sounds somewhat racy, if nothing else.

And considering it was a VW Beetle, something like 80% of which have to be driven by women (that’s not an official bit o’ data, just an estimate based on personal observation) it seems to be an extra-amusing concept. After all, isn’t foreplay supposed to be the big weakness in the male repertoire of love?

OK, maybe I’m making assumptions here. Maybe I need a heavy duty document management system to analyze and understand the real percentages. Who knows? Maybe it’s not a chick ride after all, and maybe it’s some dude who has figured out how to make romantic use of the backseat. But seriously, if that’s the case, this dude has to be one kickin’ little person.