The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)

Tagline:
Better Late Than Never.

Wide Release Date:
August 19, 2005

Directed by:
Judd Apatow
Written by:
Judd Apatow, Steve Carell
Produced by:
Judd Apatow, Clayton Townsend, Shauna Robertson

Starring:
Steve Carell
Catherine Keener
Paul Rudd
Seth Rogan
Romany Malco

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I saw this movie in the theater! I was home from college for the weekend, and I saw it with my sister. September 24, 2005. I remember the exact date because five days later I’d start a relationship with my first girlfriend, now my wife. Although I was 17 at the time, this movie hit a little too close to home for me. But I’m hella not a virgin and I’m still four years away from 40, so it all worked out.

Anyway, I might have seen this at least one more time along the way. I like this movie. I’m gonna watch it again.

THE 10(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Andy (Steve Carell) is a 40-year-old virgin.

THE 500(ish)-WORD REAL SYNOPSIS

Andy (Steve Carell) is a 40-year-old virgin. He works at an electronics store with David (Paul Rudd), Cal (Seth Rogan), and Jay (Romany Malco), all of whom are not virgins. He lives in an apartment full of nerd shit: video games, comic books, action figures still in their original packages. He’s shy. He’s awkward. He’s Steve Carell, baby.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

John Philip Sousa, bitches!

During a poker game with his co-workers, Andy gets cornered into revealing that he has never had sex. There are varying degrees of reactions to this, but David, Cal, and Jay all make it their mission to help Andy get some. They all offer advice, and a lot of it sucks. David has Andy try speed dating, which backfires when David matches up with his ex-girlfriend and attempts to reconnect. Jay has Andy try hot waxing, which backfires when it proves to be too painful for him. Cal has Andy try feigning confidence, which works on a bookstore clerk named Beth (Elizabeth Banks). She gets all weird and horny about it.

Andy doesn’t really like any of these tactics, but along the way he gets intrigued by a customer named Trish (Catherine Keener) who owns a brick-and-mortar startup across the street from the electronics store. When nothing his co-workers suggest works, Andy bones up enough courage to call Trish and ask her out on a date. They have a good time. They decide to put off having sex for 20 dates, which Andy is thrilled to do.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Why, yes, thank you! I am charming! Plenty more dick jokes where that came from!

Andy and Trish’s relationship goes well. Trish’s teenage daughter Marla (Kat Dennings) wants birth control, which Trish opposes to vehemently. Andy agrees to take Marla to a sex health clinic to join a group session (which is more for his own benefit than hers), where he learns that she is a virgin. Andy admits his own virginity in confidence, which increases Marla’s respect for him.

Other events happen with Andy’s co-workers. None of them are important! After 20 dates, Trish tries to start some sexy times with Andy, but he freaks the fuck out and leaves her bewildered and hurt. Following this, Andy has a weird breakdown where he gets shitfaced at a nightclub and goes to Beth the Bookstore Girl’s apartment. She jerks herself off in the tub with a shower head, which scares him a little and sobers him up. Meanwhile, Marla convinces Trish to stick with Andy, and Andy’s co-workers convince Andy to stick with Trish.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Nothing turns a woman on quite like a man who gets scared shitless of her.

Trish is waiting in Andy’s apartment when he returns, and after a brief confrontation she gets in her car and drives off sad and angry. Andy chases her down on his bike and gets into an accident. Lying injured on the street, he finally admits to her that he’s a virgin. She is not only ok with this, but she is relieved that everything finally makes sense.

They get married, they fuck, it lasts 30 seconds, everyone lives happily ever after.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Virginity

Yuck, am I really going to talk about this? No one reading this wants to hear about it from me!

So, virginity. It seems like such a pathetic topic for anyone older than 25, right? Does anyone even really give a shit about that kind of thing once you’re old enough? The people who haven’t had sex have obviously not for a whole slew of reasons, and that their personal business. I’m happy for Andy that he found a woman who loved him for the shy nerd that he was, but was there any sense that Andy was at all dissatisfied with his life? Comic books and video games and toys? Sounds like the sweet life to me. Who says you need to get rid of that stuff as you get older? As you all may know, I got into comic books for the first time at age 33.

Andy’s hobbies aside, if I were 40 years old and I never had sex before, I wouldn’t want co-workers who are barely my friends to get involved in my personal life. It’s like, fuck off dudes. Let me be involuntarily celibate in peace!

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

HELLO KIDS. I CAN MAKE BALLOON ANIMALS AT YOUR PARTIES!

TOPIC 2 — Times Have Changed

Man, I never used to really think much has changed since the 2000’s, but this movie sure shut me up. We’re talking Circuit City-type electronics stores! We’re talking pornography on video cassette! We’re talking landlines! We’re talking brick and mortar stores centered around eBay, which I think might’ve been a thing?! We’re talking 40-year-old virgins! What a simpler time.

Speaking of times changing, this is probably one of the first comedy movies of its time. The bombastic, jokey, slightly dumb humor of the ’90s and early ’00s has been eschewed for more subtlety and conversation-based humor. A precursor to stuff like Superbad, Pineapple Express, Knocked Up, and a large handful of others. I don’t know enough about current comedies to know how the formula has changed, but this was the quintessential comedy style of its time. Barring oddities like the surrealism of Napoleon Dynamite, or the quote-fodder absurdity of Anchorman. Maybe I was the perfect age for these types of movies, but I certainly have a fondness for them. Fun times in the theater, that’s for sure, and they really highlighted the garbage-ness like Adam Sandler’s Click. Seriously, what the fuck was that shit?

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Seth Rogan is wearing a GZA Liquid Swords t-shirt, which is also a relic of a simpler time in America.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Steve Carell’s then eighty-year-old parents went to see the film, much to his embarrassment.
“Stevie, what was that about thinking a boob feels like a bag of sand? You know that’s not right! Here, I’ll show you! Come grab a piece of this…”

When Catherine Keener was cast, Steve Carell told Judd Apatow that her casting had legitimized the film’s credibility.
There are a few other bits of trivia that are similar to this one. I don’t think Steve Carell enjoyed doing this movie one bit! One big smear on his resume. Too bad he would never go on to do anything in Hollywood again…

What’s this now about a show about an office?

In a magazine interview, Judd Apatow revealed a trick behind the film’s success: during the first preview of the movie, he had actually recorded the preview audiences vocal reaction with a tape recorder. When it came to re-cutting the film for the general release, he trimmed the film in sync to the recorded reaction. The scenes that did not have audience reaction were either cut or trimmed (but reinserted in the Unrated edition).
Even Judd Apatow had to fabricate a “trick” to get this film to succeed. No one wanted to do this, and the director/writer/producer had no confidence in it. Sounds like me at my own job.

The scene where Andy has his chest hair removed required five cameras set up for the shot. Steve Carell’s chest hair was actually ripped out in the scene. Carell had told director Judd Apatow just before shooting the scene, “It has to be real. It won’t be as funny if it’s mocked up, or if it’s special effect. You have to see that this is really happening.” For obvious reasons, the scene had to be done in one shot.
I want you to hurt me, Judd. Hurt me bad.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

The face of a man who made a bad decision.

In a deleted scene on the Unrated DVD, when Andy is on the phone trying to get help to get rid of his erection, the person on the other end is Judd Apatow impersonating an Indian accent.
This one is actually commendable. Nothing kills a boner quite like racism.

Steve Carell was forty-three years old, had been married for ten years and was already the father of two children when the movie was released in 2005.
I hate all these non-virgins stealing roles from the virgins. This has to stop.

Jonah Hill got heatstroke filming the final dance number.
L-O-FUCKING-L

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

It’s a cute movie, for the most part, with a lot of very painfully awkward moments courtesy of Carell’s pitch-perfect acting. I saw this movie at a very pivotal point in my life, so my own view of it is biased. I like this movie, but I saw so much of myself in Carell as a 17-year-old (which is sad, I know, give me a break) that it’s still hard to watch at twice the age. I probably will never see it again, especially since I just wrote about it. That’s how I do, ya’ll.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42 – “Temptations”

* Part 3 of 6 of the Irresponsible storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42 – “Temptations”! In the previous installment, MJ gives Peter Parker a long, sappy letter she wrote about 1,400 years ago about how much she loves him and how much she has always loved him and I didn’t believe a word of it! But, they get back together, and it is good, and she whipped up half a costume for him. Now he’s going to beat up bad guys with a Spider-Man poncho. It’s going to go poorly, but who gives a shit? Spider-Man is back, baby.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42 [August, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Temptations”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42

“I would really like to make out with my girlfriend!!” Spider-Man is crawling around a brick wall in his pants and socks, Spider-Manned up only from the top to his waist. “This is not that.”

At the top of the building, he spots a plume of smoke from about a block away. Police are going after it, but not firefighters. Apparently, the police now fight fires. At least they’ll be doing something for once.

Half-Spider-Man is self-conscious about his exposed gray pants. The mocking might even be worse than getting his tender little butt kicked. Maybe he can talk some sense into the Geldoff guy who seems to geld off on blowing things up! Did that joke land at all? It doesn’t look like it to me.

God, he would really like to stick his tongue down MJ’s throat right now…

Focus! Focus, son! Cars are exploding! Semi-Spidey confronts Geldoff, who is all like “vhat ees thees?” while the crowd around him mocks Spidey’s lack of a full costume. It doesn’t matter, Spidey’s got the upper hand here! THWIP SPACK SPACK! Take that Geldoff, your hands have now just become spidery egg sacks. Take that, bitch! Haha haah haaah! And–

Geldoff’s hands start glowing blue with incandescent energy. The crowd around Geldoff wants him to kick Spidey’s ass. The principal of the other school comes out. The police are showing up. It’s a scene, to be sure. Not handled very well. Poor inconspicuousness. D- work.

Ok, the police are here and Geldoff starts freaking out. He can’t be caught by police! The police don’t like him! The police are like “hey, Geldoff, we don’t like you” and they keep holding their guns at Geldoff’s temple point-blank and killing him. It’s very rude.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42

Vey vill send me bahk to Moldova. Please to be giving me your help.

Geldoff doesn’t want to get arrested and sent to Hell Jail, so when Spidey THWIPs his way up with his webbing, Geldoff hangs on tight to the back of Spidey’s poncho. “HEY!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET OFF!!” And, oh, Geldoff will not Getoff. And then he starts plummeting toward the ground to his certain death! But then Spidey THWIPs him at the last second, saving him.

They land all rough-and-tumble on the roof, and Spider-Man gives the guy a stern lecture about being an idiot. He almost got himself killed, then people would’ve blamed him, and that’s not good PR. So why was he doing all this shit? Hmm? Huh? Well? Answer. Well? Huh? Hmm?

“I vas at this rockin’ out party and I vas a little plastered, you know, and I vas blowing up the parked cars for fun.” Geldoff looks like a beautiful young woman in this panel, holy shit dude. If I were Spider-Man I’d be showering him with all sorts of make-outs. “You know, just for the giggles. You know. And the principal, he got a list of names and suspended half the team. And we’re coming up on the season finals and I got mad and told him: he don’t put them back then I got to protest him. So I blow up his car to make him unsuspend them.”

Sounds good, Boss! Heh heh. Spidey will just be going now, and f– BUH WHAT?!

So he started blowing up other cars. He just kept on blowing up dang cars! He couldn’t stop! You know. You know. You know.

“Listen…” Spidey does a classic facepalm. “You’re — you’ve got amazing abilities. Amazing!! And the best thing you can think to do is blow up the principal’s car? Show off at parties?”

Geldoff doesn’t listen. He enjoys the wind whipping through his luxurious head of hair.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42

In short, he has the power to scare the shit out of my mom.

“Let me see vhat is going on under the mask.”

“You touch my mask, I’ll drop you like a bag o’ ham.”

“I have the thing–” Geldoff continues. “I can look at something and I can make it exploding.”

Geldoff shows Spidey. He looks at a barrel on the rooftop and focuses. A big, blue ball of energy forms in his hand. Grows and grows and grows, then… boom.

Spidey calls him a mutant, which offends the ever-loving fuck out of this cocksucker. “Mutants are devil’s children!!” Geldoff looks like he’s about to send Spider-Man’s entrails to Staten Island. “You say that about me one more time, and you vill have the trouble!”

Spider-Man backs off. Geldoff gelds off.

“What’s, uh, what’s the accent?”

“Vhat accent?”

“Where are you from?”

“Oh yes, I am an orphan. Originally from Latveria.”

There’s that fake-ass Latveria again. Popping up everywhere. Everyone’s from Latveria these days, aren’t they? His adopted parents learned about his powers just recently. They are not too happy. They are scared now. They also think this mutant is a mutant, but the mutant is really adamant about how mutants are the devil’s playthings. Or children. Whatever he said.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42

It works like vampires. Get bitten. Lose your soul. Hunger for blood. Garlic sucks now.

When asked how he got his powers, Geldoff doesn’t know. “Maybe I am – how you say – a magic man.” They drop the subject, and Geldoff earnestly wants to know why Spider-Man wears the mask. “You’re like – you know, famous. Why not just be all the vay the famous?”

Spidey doesn’t want to be famous, he just wants to cavort around in a very bright suit and be in the newspaper and on TV all the time. That’s all! “I don’t want to be Spider-Man all the time. I want, y’know, to do what I can for people, help people out, and then live a normal life when I’m not.”

Geldoff’s big, bright, blue eyes light up like big, bright, blue Christmas LED lights. “I should maybe get an outfit, huh?” Spidey still tries to get through to the kid to use his powers for good instead of vandalism-type endeavors.

Well, here’s the thing: everyone made fun of Geldoff until he started blowing shit up. Now they either think he’s cool, or they’re just really scared of him. “I meet the girls,” he adds, pointing out yet another benefit of the irresponsible exploding stuff with his hands thing. “Sure, some people they scared of me, but I like that, too. Good to have someone scared. Maybe I blow you up and be famous for girls.”

Ha, we knew it would come to this. Spider-Man had this in his back pocket for just such an occasion: “Okay… well… instead of that, how about this… ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.”

Geldoff looks at Spidey like he just came off the boat from Lateveria or something (fake-ass country). Why should he help people with his powers? He looks like it’s a foreign concept. Didn’t they help people in Latveria? Or did they just roam the Latverian streets stealing Latverian bread from Latervian marketplaces?

BAM! BAM! AAAIIEEE!

Oh no! Something’s going on at the ol’ currency exchange below! “Everybody freeze!!” yells a bad guy of sorts. Spidey tells Geldoff to stay on the roof, but Geldoff wants to come with him and blow some shit up real good! Nope! Stay there and watch a pro, son.

Three robbers wearing, respectively, Batman, Captain America, and Iron Man masks are looting the establishment. Spider-Man tells them to knock off the shenanigans. Capt. ‘Murrica shoots his gun off, which misses Spider by about four inches. Then Spidey webs his gun and pulls his body toward him, clocking the guy in the mug. He’s out cold. The other two are like “okay, man, sorry” and they start backing off.

Looks like the situation has been neutralized handily and–

EXPLOSION!

Now the clientele are almost all dead! Thanks douchebag. “Huh? You like?” Geldoff smiles. “Kicked some of the butt that time.”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #42

Taste the back of the hand, whore!

Confrontation ahoy! As you might imagine this culminates into Geldoff threatening to blow up Spider-Man again. “Huh?? Yeah? Never tried it. Wonder what would happen I do it to a Spider-Man?” He raises his hands in the air like he just don’t care, preparing to fill them with blue balls.

Spidey stays silent. He just stares at him.

Well, actually, he stares past him.

Because behind Geldoff are three beautiful women in X-Men outfits. They’d like to talk to Geldoff.

He’s one of the devil’s children.

Final Thoughts

X-Men / Spider-Man crossover story! Can you feel the that buzzing excitement in the air? *head gets swarmed by 500,000 bees*


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All-Star Superman, Issue #6 – “Funeral in Smallville”

* Part 6 of 12 of the All-Star Superman limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-Star Superman, Issue #6 – “Funeral in Smallville”! In the previous installment, Clark Kent gets an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with the incarcerated Lex Luthor. The whole issue boils down to the following:

“I hate Superman.”

“Waaahh, I can’t get what I want because of Superman.”

“My Superman obsession is not unhealthy! It’s NOT!”

“I killed Superman using the sun as a weapon.”

So if you didn’t read it, you didn’t miss much. All-Star Superman isn’t nearly as good as I was led to believe! I’ve got one more before I take a short break, so let’s just get this shit over with.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6 [March, 2007]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Funeral in Smallville”

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

Oh shit, is Superman’s Pa gonna bite the big one? And more importantly, whose dog is that? And, even more importantly, didn’t anyone spring for some numbers for the tombstone? Birthdate and deathdate? Useless fucking chunk of stone.

“You maybe can’t imagine how it was for us… your ma and me, we’d been married, oh, it must have been ten years by then. And Lord knows, one thing after another, we both bitterly regretted that we couldn’t have a child.”

Final Thoughts

Pfft! That’s always funny. Anyway, old Jon Kent spent a lot of time praying in between masturbation sessions for a baby of his own to raise, neglect, and abuse. Then one day some kid in a tube bolted from the sky down to the fields, nearly scared the cows half to death it did! “A childless couple, blessed from above with a miracle boy from another world!”

Now wouldn’t it be quite funny if some other alien kid came down right now in its own space pod and landed on Jon Kent’s balding noggin at 75,000 mph? I don’t think I’d ever recover from the laughter.

Something does descend from the sky, but it ain’t no baby and it certainly didn’t land on anyone hilariously. It’s a dog in a Superman cape. “Krypto!” Clark runs toward the Superdog. “Where have you been, pal?”

Woof woof bark. Bark bark rowf. Woof rowf bark yip yip yip.

Clark pulls a dead tree up from the ground by its roots. “You ready? Catch!” He throws the tree to the Oort Cloud, and Krypto chases after it. Then Superman chases after him and everyone revels in the merriment and the love.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

Dork.

In this version of Ma and Pa Kent, they look like a hella decrepit, old, fat couple. Pa looks like he has poop in his overalls, and Ma has all the diabetes.

Superman and Krypto fly to the moon and have a good long look at the Earth. It hasn’t been ravaged by irrevocable climate change yet, it seems, based on the blue part (ocean) and the green part (land). Meanwhile, Ma and Pa get accosted by a man interested in Pa’s services (blowjobs).

The next day, Clark notices three new men working in the fields. Ma tells Clark that Pa wants things done the old fashioned way and not the Super Guy from Outer Space way.

“Clark, I’d like you to meet our new farmhands,” Pa says jubilantly while he lets into the house a guy that kinda looks like Clark, a guy wrapped up like a mummy, and a tiny little man who looks strikingly like that Mister Mxyzptlk motherfucker. These are going to be Bad Guys, I can already tell. The Clarky looking hunk of meat introduces himself as Calvin Elder. The other two are thus far nameless, so I’ll call them Ribeye and Marmaduke.

Clark meets up with an old Smallville friend (Lana Lang?) to discuss the suspiciousness of Pa’s new farmhands, a thrilling topic to be sure. “Did the big city make you so cynical already?” says (Lana Lang?), forgetting the fact that at least two of the three farmhands are very creepy and very suspicious. Another old friend, Pete Ross, shows up to tell Clark he is indeed full of beans of all kinds. Lima. Kidney. Jelly. Clark is talking about how overwhelming the big city is, how much he likes farming, and how he hasn’t decided what he’ll be doing next. It’s all so very riveting.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

Smile! We’re all ugly!

While Clark sits there like an over-muscled lump, he starts hearing whispers with this super-hearing! “…I saw him! It was the Kansas Superman!” “Ain’t no such thing.” “But he flew away…” “…with that old man!”

Superman goes catatonic and preoccupied even after Lana Lang (confirmed) asks him where he wants her to send that ugly fucking photo they just to. Clark pretends he’s going to shit his underoos and takes his leave…

Atop a silo about twenty miles away, Superman and Krypto observed “Calvin Elder” zipping around the farm like Superman. “See, Krypto? ‘Calvin Elder’ has superpowers and an action suit like mine!” I’ll give you an action suit, Superman. A class action suit.

The three “farmhands” talk amongst themselves. Something about how a chronovore ate a man’s life? Don’t care. Suddenly, they hear a faint heartbeat in the distance! As if there’s a person within a 45-mile radius! Let’s investigate…

Suddenly, Superman #2 appears behind Superman and Krypton, and Superman is floored that he was able to be snuck up on like that.

“Are you from Krypton, like me?” Superman asks in awe.

“No. I was born on Earth, Clark. 851 thousand years from tomorrow.”

Great. Time-travelling nimrods. Anyway, Kal Kent of 853,000 AD (although it should be CE instead, you unwoke scum). He’s part of the Superman Squad! Hut hut hike! A group of Supermen who protect the structure of spacetime by fucking around outside of their own time, apparently.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

Oh fucking great, just what I fucking needed today. Someone get me my lithium tablets.

So these Supermen all have fun introducing themselves and getting to know one another and it’s all one big happy orgy. Anyway, they’re all looking for a “chronovore monster” that they’ve been hunting across ten centuries so far. Have you see it? About yea big and yea high.

“It’s come here to die… and spawn,” says Kal. “The distinctive energy footprint of the beast can clearly be seen in this frozen light image.” He holds up something he stole from Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

Then the chronovore shows up. It’s a ball of little red balls with floating limbs and teeth. It is pretty scary, I have to admit. For a child. It’s all like raaawwwwwrrr lmao

“It’s aging everything it touches! It… it just turned Farmer Stone’s cows into the hamburgers they were destined to become!” Superman cries out as if this was even close to an awful thing. Sounds pretty fucking sweet to me. Well, good thing Klzzyzyzk Kzlazznazalt brought his “handy hyperpoon” with which they can “spear” the chronovore and “chain it with 5-D snares” until their “teammates” get there with their “tesseract cage”. The rest of the Supermen make slow jerkoff motions with their hands.

So, as it were, Clark’s getting in the way. The rest can, and will, and should, and shall, handle this without him! “I’m going with them!” he insists. “This is my home! These are my people to protect!” The rest are like “hands off, girlfriend”, but Superman blasts Kal with lasers and proclaims to the room at-large that something smells stinky and fishy.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

Sloppy seconds again, Kzrtrzkzkkz Kntntlkplkzl? Thanks.

Clark tries to take down Kal, but Kal is too quick and fast and strong and smart and brave and cunning and dashing for him. Kal says Clark’s solar powers are merely in their infancy, no match for the swarthy talent of Kal from 853,000 CE! “Oh yeah?” Clark argues. “I have my dog!”

Good comeback, chump. The chronovore continues ravaging the land, turning animals into the food by-products they so richly deserve to be anyway. Meanwhile, one of Jon Kent’s “farmhands” congratulates him on a “heck of a harvest”. “You boys did a fine job,” Jon Kent responds even though they’ve only known each other since this morning. Oh wait, I get it, it’s chronovore time. Something about selling the farm and uprooting from Smallville. Whatever, I do not care.

Krzztl Krztztzlzl has the chronovore pulling him by a chain. He’s doing nothing to stop the chronovore, but he thinks he is.

“I tried to warn you,” Kal Kent mumbles as he witnesses Clark tackle the chronovore. “If you face the chronovore, it will eat a precious three minutes of your life. And in those three minutes… Jon Kent suffered a fatal heart attack.”

And here I am all like “what?” Incredible storytelling! Grant Morrison, you’re the best of the best and I’ve told this to a lot of orphans over the years.

Suddenly, in the midst of his fight, Clark can’t hear his Pa’s heart beating. “PA! PA!” This is Clark yelling “pa”. “PA! NOT MY PA! I CAN SAVE HIM!” He flies away.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

Doofus.

…and finds his father dead in front of a dang scarecrow. Probably scared him to death! Ma always told him to get rid of the dang scarecrow!

“I CAN SAVE EVERYBODY! AAAAAA!” Superman screams, hair on fire. Laughing hard at this.

Nobody saves anyone. Next thing we all know, Clark has squeezed himself into a black suit and is now giving the eulogy. “Jonathan Kent taught me that the strong have to stand up to the weak and bullies need to be bullied back.” How very eloquent. The emotional capacity of a third-grader.

The funeral is full of sad faces as if people are sad or something. “He taught me that a good heart is worth all the money in the bank.”

Ma looks fat in her fat veil. “He taught me that the measure of a man lies not in what he says but what he does.”

The three imposter Supermen were allowed at the funeral too, for some fool-ass reason. “And he showed me by example how to be tough, and and how to be kind and how to dream of a better world.”

Much later, Clark is packing up to return to Metropolis. He doesn’t want to go, but he must. The big city beckons him! “I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Clark says, hands in his face. Ma comforts him, even though it really should be the other way around. Ma lost a husband. Clark didn’t lose a husband!

The other three Supermen, far off in the fields, commiserate. Apparently, the chronovore is destined for the celestial zoo at Squad HQ, so they need to return to 853,500 CE. I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Mr. Bandaged Superman can finally take off his bandages, revealing himself to be Mr. Regular Superman! What a twist! “Thanks for the opportunity to see my Pa one last time,” he says, as if this could possibly be a treat to anyone.

Sorry, I’m hard on Jon Kent. Probably because he looks like he smells.

All-Star Superman, Issue #6

SuperBlondeWoman, Goldman Sachs, and Who-Cares-Boy!

Gold Superman has an indestructible flower from New Krypton! Consider it a gift for being so dang super! “For him, from all of us. In remembrance of all that we are. And all that we will be.”

Final Thoughts

Fucking lame-ass fucking bullshit lame-ass shit. This sucks my ass. Stupid bullshit! Fuck fuck fuck *twitch* FUCK *twitch* STUPID COCKSUCKER!

Sorry, my Tourette’s is acting up again. I hate it when that happens! *wink*


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Severance, Season 1 – Stuck at Work Forever

Through the Idiot Glass Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this show and you haven’t yet seen it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned.
Discussion Subject: Severance, Season 1 (2022) (Apple TV+)

Severance, Season 1
I’ve liked Adam Scott for years and I had a crush on his Ben Wyatt character from Parks and Recreation. <3 Ben Wyatt 4ever.

I went into Severance mostly blind. I had a shallow understanding of the intriguing premise without much context, and I’m hearing Apple TV+ is absolutely killing it with their original programming. Do we have a new HBO on our hands? Or is the feelgood chicanery of Tad Lasso just a delightful fluke?? Time will tell.

The Premise

Lumon Industries is a megacorporation that has developed a surgical procedure called “severance” that can separate a person’s work memories from their memories outside of work. The outside version of the severed employee walks into the elevator at 9am and the door immediately opens at 5pm with a complete break in consciousness and no memory of their work day. Conversely, the inside version of the employee walks into the elevator at 5pm and the door immediately opens the next day at 9am with no memory of their outside life, essentially creating an existence of endless work for the inside version. We mostly follow Mark Scout (Adam Scott, known as Mark S. on the inside), a Lumon employee who voluntarily agreed to the severance procedure as a means to cope with the loss of his wife. His “outie” is a depressed alcoholic. His “innie” is an engaged hard worker who doesn’t spend too much time ruminating upon his unending existence within a windowless office floor.

Mark S. is in a department with three other people: Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), Irving B. (John Turturro), and the newly-arrived Helly R. (Britt Lower). We see these people bent over a computer for eight hours a day doing what appears to be nonsensical busy work. We see Helly’s increasing sense of agitation, fear, and existential dread. The audience learns that the innies can never leave, because “leaving” isn’t freedom. It’s death. We see these people being psychologically, possibly physically, tortured by their gaslighting superiors Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette). The show touches upon many themes: corporate greed, morality, ethics, slavery, identity, persistence of consciousness, depression, anxiety, death, even love.

Severance, Season 1

The Walken Mind-Meld. Once you go in, you may never come out.

As the season moves along, the audience continues to pick up clues about the implications of severance, the motivations of both versions of the severed, the agenda of Lumon Industries, and a very large conspiracy.

In short, this show is fucking awesome.

My Half-Baked Thoughts

I’m not much of a binger, but I finished all 9 episodes in 4 days. If life permitted, I probably would’ve knocked it out in 2. This is the best show I’ve seen in a long, long time, and probably the best Season 1 of anything I’ve ever watched.

There’s just so much about Severance that checks off my boxes: great acting, great soundtrack, a thought-provoking premise, a captivating and addictive story, eerie mystery, and plenty of philosophy. Only two days after finishing the series, I started watching it again with my wife. I never, ever binge and rewatch. Ever. It’s never happened before now.

Realistically, the last time I felt this absorbed by a TV show was when I was binging upon the first 3 seasons of Lost on DVD, way back in 2008. Lost was the first time I took a non-comedy television series seriously, having spent the entirety of the first 20 years of my life steeped in adult cartoons and Comedy Central. Sure, other shows have scratched that itch to some degree. The usual suspects: The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, then maybe some Better Call Saul, some Fargo, some Mad Men, some Stranger Things, yada yada yada. Nothing has quite stirred my imagination like Severance though. I’m spending much of my time lately putting my self in the characters’ shoes; daydreaming about what it must feel like to descend that elevator at 9am and immediately find the door reopening at 5pm. Or, horrifyingly, vice versa. I’m combing Reddit for discussions on opinions on the moral, psychological, and philosophical ramifications of the severance procedure. I’m theorizing upon the motivations of Lumon Industries, the reasons why some of the “outie” versions of characters are deciding to undergo the severance procedure, and what these “innies” are actually working on while in the office.

Severance, Season 1

Must’ve been a good office party.

More than anything else, though, Severance has reignited my existential crisis in full force. Every once in a while I spend a blissful amount of days or weeks thinking constantly about death, consciousness, and non-existence. I’m not a religious person, I don’t believe in an afterlife, so the finality of dying and ceasing to exist is a cause of a lot of anxiety for me. It’s incredibly cool and fun. Let’s go into detail!

Death
Innie Helly spends much of the first few episodes plotting her escape out of the severed floor of the Lumon building, mostly in trying to relay a message to her outie counterpart. I was initially rooting for Innie Helly to succeed, hoping that Outie Helly would get the hint and let herself quit the job. I didn’t think at first that Innie Helly only actually exists because Outie Helly returns to work every day. Innie Helly can never actually escape and leave. If Outie Helly decides to quit and never return, the last thing Innie Helly ever sees is that elevator door closing at 5pm.

This shit messed with my head. I have spent a lot of time and mental energy trying to fathom the idea of an eternity of sudden non-existence. I’ve conceptualized the break and return to consciousness to be immediate, similar to real life accounts of general anesthesia or waking from a coma. A complete lack of awareness of the passage of time. Severance does a fantastic job of displaying this break in consciousness. Innies return to work immediately after the elevator closes, whether an evening or a whole weekend passed. An outie could have a serious life-threatening accident that puts them out of work for months, and their innie would just be confused that they feel some lingering pain the “next” morning. An outie could quit her job for decades and return to her old post, with the innie suddenly finding an office of brand new faces, looking in the mirror with disbelief at how much she aged. I’ve done my own thought experiments about similar circumstances. I could die for a day and return with little inconvenience. How about a week? If the passage of time was an instant, why would I care? How about ten months? Big deal, right? 18 years? I wouldn’t even know it happened. 1,000,000 years? That would be trippy, but I wouldn’t know the difference.

It’s the never returning part that fucks me up. I could show up again in the blink of an eye after the universe bangs and crunches 1,000,000,000 times in a row, spanning unfathomable amounts of eons. Perhaps I’d be disoriented, but there’s something still comforting about the returning part. As long as I return, I don’t care how long I’d be gone. But forever? With no end? Why is that so much more terrifying?

Part of me believes that if it were me in that office, no matter how absolutely miserable and torturous a life of unending work and poor treatment would be, I’d be anxious every time I ascended that elevator at 5pm that it wouldn’t open up again. Every night could potentially be death. What a horrific thought.

Severance, Season 1

Ben Wyatt has really seen better days.

Parenting
This is an interesting angle that took me a while to grasp onto. Part of my triggered existential crisis involved parenting, but I didn’t know it until I spent a lot of time thinking about the show.

A large theme of Severance is morality. On the surface, the idea of going through a surgical procedure that will permanently cut the shitty 8-hour workday out of your life sounds extremely enticing. God knows I considered it when I first started the show. Once you really dig into it, though, you come to the realization that severance will actually create a brand new consciousness. A consciousness that essentially begins its life on that conference table, completely wiped of personal memories. Sure, personality traits are retained. Language is retained. General world knowledge is retained, to an extent. Some suspension of disbelief is required to understand that these innies have no knowledge of personal experiences before their initial wake-up while retaining everything else, nor will they have any personal experiences outside of the office. Herein lies the moral sticking point: The outie made the decision to bring the innie into existence. Without their consent, they are subjected to a life they probably never would have asked for without any possibility of leaving. If an innie wants to quit and he’s not allowed, that’s fucked up. Slavery.

I know it’s not quite like that at all, but I’ve been very much struggling with the reality that I brought two children into this world without their consent and I have to make good about it by making sure they’re really happy all the time and grow up to be functioning adults who don’t whine or kill people or question the system or go to jail or cut themselves or work for IBM or have to take an armload of meds like I do! I think that’s a tall order and I have anxiety about it constantly. I think this show has really triggered that sinking feeling in my stomach, and it has solidified my anti-severance stance.

Severance, Season 1

Fun fact: Zach Cherry held his arms out for so long during filming that now even his muscles have muscles.

Speaking of which, I’m spend a lot of time ruminating upon putting myself in the innies’ shoes. As somebody who doesn’t get much satisfaction from work nor has his identity tied to his career, undergoing a surgical procedure to cut out those eight hours of my life sounds pretty attractive, actually. At least at first. Besides the surgical procedure part, which we saw performed on Helly and it looked rather gross, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat if I was assured it was safe. I mean, worst case scenario I quit my job and I never feel the effects of time loss again. The only thing I would need to worry about is the chip exploding in my brain! And, let’s be real here, would that be so bad?

Knowing that it wouldn’t actually be me trapped in the office since the show makes it pretty clear that the “original” is the one that stays outside, would I still do it? Maybe. I’m pretty fucking selfish like that. If I had an inkling that the innies were getting tortured, though, then I’m in a spot. Do I keep going to keep myself alive? Do I quit and kill that part of myself?

In the end, who cares? This show is really good!

Worth the Watch?

Abso-fucking-lutely yes it is. Did you read any of what I just wrote?

They’re filming Season 2 as we speak. It’ll be hard to top after such a stellar first season, so I’m nervous that the writers will take a crap all over the show and start introducing time-travelling DeLoreans and Great Gazoos. If it goes in this direction, we can all pretend that Season 1 was just a Severance miniseries and call it good.

Plus, we’ll always have the Milchick Dance.

Severance, Season 1

Hubba hubba. Get down with your bad self.


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Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41 – “The Letter”

* Part 2 of 6 of the Irresponsible storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41 – “The Letter”! In the previous installment, Peter Parker continues trying to do the Spider-Man thing even though he has no costume. He tries going out in a mask with a sweatshirt and jeans, but it doesn’t work. He should really quit the Spider-Man gig and start banging MJ again, but that won’t happen. Peter Parker is a colossal dingus. He and Gwen are flirting more and more, but that’s stupid. Go for the redhead.

The issue ends with some man/woman blowing up cars with his/her electric powers. I don’t know if I’m supposed to know who it is. I don’t. As a result, it wasn’t much of a cliffhanger.

Shall we continue?

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41 [July, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The Letter”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41

I didn’t mention this last time, but something keeps repeating “GELDOFF GELDOFF GELDOFF GELDOFF” and it ain’t my novelty Mickey Mouse alarm clock!

This is definitely a man who’s doing the blow-’em-ups. He looks like a young Sebastian Bach from Skid Row and/or Gilmore Girls! The kids are reveling in the vehicular destruction until a gaggle of cops come barreling down the street. Cries of “Oh, man…” and “Ooooooh, man!” and “Bail!” can be heard as a filthy teenagers start running off in all directions.

Gwen is yelling, positively screaming, at Parker to shake a leg and get out of there, but Parker stays rooted to the spot. He glares angrily, probably because cops fucking suck.

“EVERYONE, FREEZE WHERE YOU ARE!”

Eep! It’s the bobbies! Kids are running out of the house, hopping fences, shooting up delicious heroin, and causing 9/11. MJ, ever the damsel in distress, gets knocked to the ground while attempting to leap a fence. “Ow! Some idiot stepped on my butt!”

Yeah yeah yeah, we’re all stepping on each other’s butts. Time to keep moseying. They run across a street – Parker, MJ, Gwen, and Liz – recreating the Abbey Road album cover.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41

Come together/Right now… Sorry, this is dumb.

They all end up at a bus stop with a few sultry prostitute types. “What happened exactly?” asks Liz. “Some dude, this lanky mutant dude, blew up a couple of cars right on the front lawn,” responds Gwen. Blew up with his mind, man. Dig it.

The prostitute types are like “His name is Geldoff, he goes to our school”, which either makes them not prostitute types, OR they all go to prostitute school. It has to be one or the other. Anyway, this Geldoff guy is a foreign exchange student. They don’t know what his deal is, only that he does some trick where he blows up stuff with his mind, man. Dig it.

If it’s a mutant, that shit is heavy. Liz’s uncle was a mutant and he died of mutant anal cancer.

Gwen, however, wonders how getting arrested would’ve gone over with the police force considering her dad was Coptimus Prime. This wondering leads to some very public sad-sackin’. “My dad would have died of embarrassment… You know, if Spider-Man didn’t already kill him.” Twist that knife, Gwenno! MJ stares at Parker’s stoic reaction. Parker comments on MJ’s really slutty outfit, but, like, in a nice way!

Bus a-coming. Each kid takes their own seat until MJ beckons her old squeeze over to her. “What’s so funny?” Parker asks her after he catches her smirking. Here’s what’s funny, bro: Your DICK is hanging out of your PANTS! Also, why take the bus, idiot? Go be Spider-Man and swing on out of here.

He can’t be Spider-Man. He lost the costume. MJ laughs at this fucking ninny. Not much else happens. Things are awkward.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41

We need to discuss, at length, the sex that we are currently not having.

So MJ stops Parker to talk about a folded envelope that she pulled out of her purse. “If I give it to you…” she hesitates, “…will you promise not to open it till you get home?”

BIZZZORRRT BRRTTT!! Well, now you’ve piqued the kid’s curiosity! Gwen and Liz look on as Parker doesn’t get a good answer on what the fuck it even is. “Just promise me,” MJ says again. He glares at her like that “me gusta” rage face, only he doesn’t look like he gustas at all. “Yeah. Okay.”

Then Gwen and Parker have this exchange. Ready?

“The hell was that?”

“Let’s go home.”

“Open the note.”

“I’ll do it at home.”

“Whipped. It’s okay, I know what it says.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Wanna bet?”

DOES GWEN KNOW WHAT THE NOTE SAYS??!*

*who cares

We don’t get left hanging too long here. Parker opens the note in the comfort and sanctity of his own jerkin’ hole and starts putting those reading skills to good use.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41

Gross.

So yeah, the note is a bunch of this kinda shit. And that she’s miserable. And that she wishes she hadn’t said a lot of what she said. Blah blah blah. After finishing the note, he bolts next door and leaps through MJ’s window, shattering it into seven trillion pieces and killing both himself and her in the process. “You mean it?” he asks. “I’m so scared, Peter,” she responds.

They get lovey-dovey. Here’s how he can fix this: 1) he promises no one else will toss her off anything high, 2) he promises to tell her every at all times, including which TV dinners he ate that night, 3) that’s it, really.

Then they kiss and make up. FINALLY! After all those issues. Bone the redhead, son! She’s the one who matters!

The next morning, someone had sprayed “GELDOFF RULES!!” all over the lockers with red paint. Parker finds it curious and disconcerting. Who the FUCK is this Geldoff guy and why does he, as they say, rule? “I gotta get over to that other school and figure out what the deal is.” Is he going to be the new Big Bad? Is he just some snot-nose kid like Parker? Does he poop his pants like Parker? Eat his turds like Parker? These are the questions.

MJ surprises him with a peck on the cheek. Flash Thompson surprises him too, but no kiss from him. Rude. “I gotta talk to you, Parker,” he says for the second time in two issues. Parker tells him, in a nicer way, to fuck right off. Again.

MJ has his back, all like “yeah!” Flash gets mad and storms off again, so we will undoubtedly get four more issues of him trying to approach the intimidating Peter Parker for more fireside chats.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41

He probably knows Geldoff and has been accidentally funding his various Bad Boy crimes.

Liz comes running up to the two lovebirds and shows them her cute little 2003 flip phone. She has a friend from another school who knows a guy who knows another guy who actually knows Liz’s friend, and Liz’s friend is personally currently seeing Geldoff blow shit up at this one school. Lots of “BOOM!”s are emanating from her phone. Kong wants to go over there and see shit get blown up. Liz does not want to go watch shit get blown up.

MJ pulls Parker aside and tells him that he must – nay – he MUST go over there and set shit straight. Costume or no costume! But here’s the funny thing, right? She made him another costume. Well, half a costume. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl hasn’t had enough time to finish it yet, but hey, it’s the “thought” that “counts”.

They scuttle over to a dumpster and he puts that shit on. It looks like a poncho draped over his smelly slacks. “Well, this is just embarrassing,” he says, embarrassed.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #41

Tuck it in, son!

Final Thoughts

This kid looks like a fool-ass fool. I wanna see MJ put on the mask and start kicking ass. She really needs to dump this loser and stop being a fucking girlfriend. Yeesh.


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