Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Sneaky Dragon, the internet’s patsy!
This week: diet water; hot dog fascists; keepin’ it klassy; no sex; Alpha bits; elf abuse; Moore about comics; full of Dredd; looking back at the future; Rat tales; past present tense; magic mirror; Sangster squad; maze balls; plod outline; the job interview; no claws; dazzling queen; childhood monsters; Dave turns over A New Leaf; May daze; Ishtar, baby; exotic locale heroes; Beatty’d down; theatre training; sun upping; maybe it was “phat”; warm welcomes; tough love; abuse ain’t just a river in Egypt; brawl in the family; no girls allowed; show runner; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; Pike’s peak; time travail; share the Blaine; tech it out; hug-o-meter; and, finally, Dave celebrates The Winning Season.
Question of the Week: How does your family get to you?
Sub-question of the Week: What’s your favourite invention?
Sub-sub-question of the Week: What’s a little known movie you might recommend?
Thanks for listening.
Dept. of Esprit d’Escalier
The city where Alan Moore lives (lived?) was Northhampton.
The actor who appeared in We’re the Millers, THe Maze Runner and the “Jabberwock” episode of Black Mirror, and has fantastic eyebrows is Will Poulter.
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I’ll lead off by thanking you for naming the Dr Pepper-free beverage after me, you finally get me and now I am complete in the eyes of The Sneaky Dragon. Personally, I haven’t had a drop since I was bounced out of the place in May, 2007, my preferred beverage now being either Coke Zero or Pepsi Max.
My immediate family is a mixed bag and much like David’s Mom, my Mom exhibits passive aggressive behaviors with little or no self-awareness. It seems to get worse as she gets older and I shit you not, she also made a reference to my weight the last time I was at their house. As bad as this sounds, Mom does express great and loving things to me and being the eldest son with a decent temperament, knows that when she does say something divisive I won’t take it to heart, she has my brother for that. Those two fight and she’s harder on with him even though I was one she called fat last time we were together.
Picture this, when I’m around, I’m the one who is herding them…Mom can’t move, Dad can’t hear and my Brother can’t see, so it’s up to me to kind of get them in gear. My Dad is terrific in every way, he’s the one you need to get to so things get done, even though he doesn’t hear well now, he has the body of a man 20 years younger than him. You just need to get past Mom sometimes to get to Dad so he can handle something.
Mom is also a “pot-stirrer” and by that I mean she likes to start trouble. Years ago when we would venture home to Chicago to see our ginormous family, I always wondered why everyone was fighting over such menial bullshit. My Mom would sit there and blame everyone while smoking madly in my Grandma’s kitchen, “I don’t know why we even come here if nobody is going to get along!!” she’d exclaim while flicking her ashes with anger. Years later I made the realization that it was HER that was causing all this family in-fighting, it made perfect sense that it always happened when we visited. Mom had a way of getting everyone mad at one another while taking zero accountability and then just retreating to Texas. It took me years to realize this but Mom does it and has been doing it for most of her life.
Then there’s my hot headed blind brother, who I really get along with very well, I just know how to mange him and I don’t get sucked into his arguments when he “baits” me to enter one. I’m like Switzerland, I chose not to let the shit that bothers my family bother me…I have my own shit to deal with and I think that drives them all crazy. All that being said, I’m picking up my brother on Sunday to go see my Mom and my kids as we celebrate three birthdays at once. They all live near one another, so we’re taking care of all of it in one afternoon and like I said before, it took going to my Dad to get this done. I do love them all and as divisive as my folks can be they do thank me for my help and are immensely generous.
Favorite invention, from 1988…The Art-O-Graph. This is a projector that sits on a sliding arm fastened to a desk. The projector is a simple device that is made from glass and mirrors lit within a closed box to project a photo inside onto a desktop, making it easy to draw into a larger illustration. The projector slides up and down to make the illuminated image larger or smaller while focusing a huge lens. My college had these in the art building when I was there in the 80’s and they were a game changer, so much that I bought one of my own within a year.
Favorite invention now, The iMac Computer. I’m still astounded by what these things can do and how much I’m tied into it, all while remembering that’s just one big, fancy pencil.
The movie isn’t a movie, it’s a Netflix series tilted “Bodies” that I highly recommend. You guys were discussing writing time travel and British written comics last episode, this series is a Vertigo title that takes place entirely in London and is a time travel story from 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053 about one mystery and four detectives. It’s time-loopy and much easier to dissect than the German series “Dark.” I had a good time with it and I might have to look into the comic now.
Lastly, they announced the cast of The Fantastic Four…discuss!
Who’s your pick for Dr. Doom?
Did you watch the new Deadpool trailer?
That’s enough from me, you guys take care of everyone and one another and have a Sneaky Successful Weekend!!
One more comment about Buddy Saunders (Real name: Jakey Don Saunders), owner of Lone Star Comics. If Buddy was a religious man, I never saw anything glaringly obvious but he was extremely principled when it cam to what he thought was decent in the comic marketplace. The growth of mature content that arose in the 80’s wasn’t to Buddy’s liking and when he wrote that cencorship article in the Comics Journal it started a firestorm that burned Buddy. Buddy may have exhibited some prudish tendencies but he did know how to keep over a half dozen comic stores afloat through a recession. His actions brought an end to any comic creatives visiting his stores but they did continue to thrive. Buddy’s comic of choice? He was always pushing Little Lulu to customers. I kid you not, Little Lulu was a favorite of his and you mentioned her on the last show too. Go figure.
I still see Buddy occasionally at shows and he’s retired, barely recognizes me but he was good to me. Maybe because I didn’t steal from him or cheat him like so many others in his employ did over the years. When I left Lone Star for college, I got a huge paycheck and I thought there’d been a mistake. I called Buddy and his wife, Judy, to report it. They told me I had earned that money, it was accrrued sick pay, leave pay and a bonus I had received. All they asked was that I use it for my education and to come back and visit from time to time. I guess it does pay to be honest sometimes, I left Lone Star on top with some great memories.
I had an audiology test last week, so an underrated movie I liked that features a character with hearing problems is Suspect from 1987. It got mixed reviews, but I thought it had strong dramatic performances by Cher as overworked public defender, Dennis Quaid as a slick lobbyist stuck with jury duty, and Liam Neeson as a homeless deaf and mute veteran accused of murder in Washington D.C. I liked that it showed the unglamorous and corrupt side of the American legal system. It was one of Eric Roth’s early screenplays. He went on to be a go-to guy for big Hollywood adaptations like Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star is Born, and Dune. He is the co-writer with Martin Scorsese of Killers of the Flower Moon.