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Mad Scientists and Super-Villains

Back when I was a reporter, on slow news days I’d say to my colleagues, “We need a super-villain.” That would make a great front page, I’d argue. DR. COLOSSUS THREATENS CITY WITH DEATH RAY. Sub-hed: Mayor, City Council Argue Over $1 Million Ransom Demand.

Then 9/11 happened. Now, I’m not one of those asshats who believes 9/11 “changed everything” – to my way of thinking it didn’t change nearly enough – but after that day, the joke didn’t seem that funny anymore. Suddenly, we had a super-villain, and he carried out his fiendish plot, and the good guys were all asleep until it was much Too Late.

Most super-villains and mad scientists seem sort of pathetic by comparison. Delivering their monologues to their helpless adversaries, creating elaborate machines to convert humans into monkeys, and always struggling for respect, even from their own henchmen.

The life of a super-villain must be lonely. Then reality added insult to injury, as a guy in a cave managed to terrify all of America with nothing more than a few planes. He didn’t even have the decency to invent his own death ray.

That’s not to say the Osamas of the world don’t share some characteristics with the super-villains and mad scientists. Their overriding need is to have others conform to their singular vision of how things ought to be. They refuse to accept anyone else’s rules. Like a child, they cannot accommodate themselves to any other desires but their own – but instead of growing up, they turn themselves into engines straining forever to make the world behave.

It’s sad, in a way. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

Anyway. That’s what I think of when I hear this song.

Fatherhood Learning Curve, Part II

Yes, I know I haven’t been posting much lately. As it turns out, having a baby cuts into your comic-reading and Internet-surfing. (Who knew?) I was also using a simple test, devised by John Scalzi. Every time I sat down at the computer, I asked myself: is the book done? If no, then no blogging.

Now that the book is done (at least until edits), I’m free to impart more pearls of wisdom gathered during childcare.

• Stuff my daughter likes already: Mozart; Barenaked Ladies; Adam Carolla; the Bourne trilogy (Seriously, slept like… well, a baby, even during the most violent parts); the Enchanted Duet; Dan Zanes (It must be something they inject in utero).
• Stuff that annoys my daughter already: Stephen Colbert (I think she finds his faux-Bill O’Reilly act a bit forced now. It’s either that or the pitch of his voice.); Family Guy; CNN.
• For those of you afraid I’m making my newborn watch TV, relax. She’s just listening to the above. Usually while she sleeps. There’s no need to call Child Protective Services.
• Baby products are, for the most part, pure crap. Our pediatrician is fond of saying, “Baby care products have no place in baby care.” She’s right. I’m no chemist, but I don’t think using something that’s flammable will soothe a baby’s diaper rash. Likewise, nothing absorbs spit-up like baby clothes. Five minutes after changing her outfit, she’s soaked. The manufacturers should consider using the material that goes into the burp cloths. I have yet to find anything in the house less absorbent, and that includes my neoprene wetsuit. Spit runs off those things like an oil slick.
• Cute is an evolutionary defense mechanism. Someone pukes on you in a bar, and you’d put a beer bottle into his face. Your baby does it, and you grin like an idiot because of the toothless smile she gives you afterward.
• I was in no way prepared to have a child before now. But I sort of wish I’d had a baby in my twenties, if for no other reason than my knees and back would have been ten years younger.
• Our child is a freaking genius. She talks, giggles and sings along with the radio. Clearly, she’s going to be the first supermodel/kickboxer/Nobel prize winner. But we’re not going to pressure her.

“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

The writer of one of the funniest half-hours of television ever, Bill Dial, has passed away. Many thanks to Joal Ryan at E! Online for covering this, and putting a name with the laughs.

Good Charlotte

After two sad exits, a crappy summer TV season, and the cost of gas rising to a kidney and your firstborn, it’s time for some really good news.

Bill Heisel and Jennifer Heiger have a new baby girl, Charlotte Ray. 8 pounds, 8 ounces, 20 inches long. Born 6/16/08. As anyone who knows the parents will attest, this is great for everyone, not just them. For anyone else, you’ll have to believe me, Bill and Jennifer are the kind of people you want more of in the world.

Stan Winston, RIP

I only got to meet Stan Winston once, but it remains one of the highlights of my so-called Hollywood career. I went to his studio to pitch a take I had on a script. I was put in a conference room to wait, and I was surrounded by werewolves, Terminators, a velociraptor, and Tom Cruise. All life-size models of the things Winston had created for all the movies I’ve loved.

I pitched my take to Winston’s chief exec, a great guy named Brian Gilbert. He listened politely as I went through the mind-numbingly faithful video-game adaptation I proposed. But mainly, I just enjoyed the scenery. Winston walked through the meeting smiling, happy  — you’d never have known he was sick — followed by his two dogs. He introduced himself, even though he probably had a lot better things to do than meet a schmuck writer.

Little kindnesses like that mean a lot, especially in this industry. But even if I’d only been in the room with his creations, I’d still feel pretty lucky. He never looked down on the things he made — you could see it in the care and effort he took to make it look real. He elevated a lot of movies from the “man-in-suit” disease that afflicted too many genre pictures. The fact that Iron Man did $100 million its opening weekend should tell you how much he changed the status quo: by making them more real, he helped move sci-fi and horror out of the ghetto where Hollywood had put them.

I hope he gets enough credit for that.

Shotgun Honeymoon LIVE

Breaking my self-imposed blogging ban once again, this time for a better cause than shameless self-promotion.

Rob Whalen (hubby of everyone’s favorite ex-B!tchling and all-around gal Friday Gretta Parkinson) is at the House of Blues tonight with Shotgun Honeymoon. Print the flyer, bring it to the door, and you get half off the cover. They are filming this performance, so the more bodies the better. Doors open at 8:30 p.m.

(No, I won’t be there. I have a newborn, and besides, as I was reminded yesterday, I am an old, old man. You kids have fun.)

Da-da-da-DAH…da-da-DAH!

I’m briefly breaking my “no blogging until the book is finished” rule to announce: My review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is up at E! Online. And yes, it pretty much rocked.

And In This Corner…

I’ve got a review of David Mamet’s new movie, Redbelt, up at E! Online. I’m a huge Mamet fan, so this was more like a reward than work.

Review in a Hurry: A martial-arts trainer who lives by a strict samurai’s code can’t pay the bills and gets pushed into a prize-money tournament after a tragic accident. This scores high on the ass-kickery meter, and what could have been another generic fight film is elevated into a thinking-man’s Rocky…

Even if you’re not a Mamet fan, you should see this. It’s smart, interesting, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic in the lead. Of course, as a movie that preaches the virtues of restraint, it’s going up against Iron Man. Which you should probably also see. But one is dinner, and the other’s dessert.