The X-Files – Season 1, Episode 1 – “Pilot”

The X-Files

Agent Dana Scully is instructed to debunk an FBI project dubbed ‘The X-Files,’ cases linked to the paranormal that have been reopened by Agent Fox Mulder.

I’m told by an intro card that this story was inspired by actual documented accounts, which basically means some high-as-balls Gen-Xer spent 40 hours dehydrated in a desert.

The opening scene shows a frightened woman running through some woods in Oregon. After she trips, a mysterious man approaches and a flash of blinding white light kills her! Spooky! This is one for the Ex-Files.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

They didn’t warn me about this kind of shit at Quantico.

Agent Dana Scully, not a day older than 26, gets pulled into her supervisor’s office to discuss Agent “Loose Cannon” Foxy Mulder and her reassignment. She is now tasked with keeping a close eye on this guy for the next seven years in order to expose him for the crazy quack that he is! For the greater good. Also, she’s a logical skeptic, and frankly, she’s bugging everyone in the office too.

Scully wastes no time meeting her newest buddy. I’ve always been jealous of Mulder’s windowless basement office. As a guy who hates people and sunlight, it would be my dream to be holed up in a remote part of the building. I’d finally get some Wheel of Time reading done!

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

Go fuck yourself with your Quantico training. You’re going to start seeing some real shit now.

Mulder shows his newest partner a well-prepared slide show of the incident with the woman who died in the woods, Karen Swensen. She has two marks on her body that look like she was bitten by an evil alien vampire! Scully declares that she wasn’t bitten by an evil alien vampire, which causes Mulder to go all smug-face. Also, I wasn’t listening that closely anyway!

The duo travels to Oregon by airplane, in which Mulder takes up about five seats. The turbulence makes him horny. Once they land, they take a car to their next destination: a cemetery where Mulder intends to exhume a corpse of a kid who died of similar causes. If I were Scully I would be quite suspicious that my new partner wants to actually fuck that corpse, but he’ll never actually do that kind of thing in front of her. Silly goose.

The first confrontation of the series happens at the cemetery, where Mulder accuses the doctor in charge of the autopsy of not really autopsying very thoroughly. The dude gets mad and yells at the sexy man with indignation! Why is the FBI always poking their noses around crimes? Leave the crimes to the medical doctors!

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

With all due respect, Doctor, I don’t think kicking the body around with your shoe counts as a full autopsy!

I lol’ed out loud when they dig up the casket, drop it, and it rolls about seventy feet down the hill where it pops open and reveals what Mulder believes desiccated alien corpse. It has a hole in its mummified face shaped like a vagina. A human vagina! The plot thickens like so much floury gravy.

During her own take on the autopsy, Scully finds an object implanted in the body that’s shaped like one of those short green pieces from a K’Nex set. Very curious. I’m quivering with anticipation.

Sculder and Mully visit a mental health care facility where they intend to talk to two additional victims of an evil alien vampire! A coma kid and a wheelchair lady. Once the thrashing, angry young wheelchair woman flails enough to expose those two marks that were also found on the dead woman, Scully gets mad that Mulder was right. Mad that Mulder was right and that he thinks it’s aliens. Mad that Mulder was right and that he thinks it’s aliens and now Scully is going to have a tougher time writing up those debunking reports for the Big Boss.

Mulder wants to traipse through the woods now; every victim has been attacked in the woods, so let’s take our chances too! Perhaps we’ll get abducted and get hella probed and fondled. There’s that horniness coming out again in full force!

While in the woods, they encounter an officer of the local sheriff’s department, who gets cross with these two FBI agents and insists that they get the fuck out before he does some good old fashioned Orgeon-style shotgun shoot-’em-ups. Mulder is not going to stop meddling. Mulder never stops meddling.

Earlier in the episode, on the way to the cemetery, they drive through a strange flux of extraterrestrial alien spacetime warp quantum physics tear in the fabric of earthly delights. Mulder made a note of the location, and now he’s driving through that same stretch of road again. He checks his watch, it’s 9:03, there’s a flash of light, the two are disoriented, Mulder checks his watch, it’s 9:12, he runs out in the rain hooting and hollering about the aliens. He sees the “X” he drew on the road earlier with red paint and he straight up whips that dick out and strokes himself to completion.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

Scully… your hair smells like raspberries and residual Quantico training sweat.

That night, Scully types up her report on her whiz-bang 1993 portable FBI laptop, trying to throw Mulder under the bus the best she can, and the power goes out. No more laptop typing, because apparently her whiz-bang 1993 portable FBI laptop needs 110 volts at all times. She lights a candle and heads off to the bathroom, intending to take a shower. After some risqué shots of underpants and side-thigh, she is thoroughly alarmed by something unknown and scoots off to Mulder’s motel room for a second opinion. The first scene of sexual tension happens when she disrobes and he feels the bumps she discovered on the small of her back. They’re mosquito bites. He touches them for another 45 minutes with a glazed look in his sad, Mulder eyes.

A bond has now been solidified! They share a candlelit evening where Mulder discloses his sister’s disappearance when they were children. Possibly alien abducted. By aliens. This isn’t much of a secret, as subsequent episodes will show Mulder screaming about this to anyone who will hear him and/or listen and/or sort of looking at him while he rants. His whole life from that point forward has been dedicated to finding out what happened. THUS, the X-Files were born! Because the first 23 letters were taken.

They find out the thrashing wheelchair lady died. They visit her dead body and her wristwatch shows 9:03. Mulder gets all riled up again. They return to the motel and it’s on fire, destroying Scully’s laptop and all the evidence. Mulder is BESIDE HIMSELF and his acting has never been so Emmy-worthy. Such a glorious display of “AHHH!” and “THE EVIDENCE!” and “BAAAHHH!!”

Autopsy doctor has been lying. He’s in cahoots with the officer of the sheriff’s department. Something’s fishy here and it stinks like fish. Time to exhume more corpses! And before he even digs up one bone, he has an epiphany! The coma kid! The coma kid from the hospital! The coma kid who has been in a coma for the last four years has used his magic coma powers to lure these people to the woods in order to put dots on their body.

Mulder and Scully visit the coma kid in the hospital and poke him around for a bit, trying to get a reaction out of him. Poking and prodding. Mulder touches his gross foot, Scully extracts and item from it, and they hightail out of there.

Back to the woods! Maybe they’ll find more evidence, but what they find is another screaming person. While chasing after the location of the screen, Mr. Sheriff Guy bunts Scully in the face with his gun and trains it at Mulder. Mulder is like “NO!” and they see Coma Kid (with dots on his back) lifting up an unconscious woman and that white light happens again. The wind swirls. The woman is gone. Coma Kid still stands. He’s not a coma kid anymore. His back dots are gone.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

I’m here for your offering! Now please give me back my shirt!

No-Longer-Coma kid gives a testimony at the FBI Headquarters, where he talks about “them” who implanted a chip up his nose that made him do bad things. He’s afraid “they” will come back again. Mulder looks at Scully with an “I told you so” face. Scully submits her shitty report about the aliens, which pisses off her direct supervisor. Every question she’s asked is answered with some permutation of “uhhh not sure”.

BUT, she does have a piece of evidence that wasn’t destroyed in the fire! A vial containing the K’Nex piece. They ran a chemistry test on it, the material is unidentifiable! Crazy, right? It’s like space is full of elements that didn’t come from space. Totally reasonable.

That night, Mulder calls Scully at 11:22 in the fucking evening because he can’t sleep. He tells her that her case file isn’t in the database. It’s hella gone. Destroyed, see. It’s a shady coverup.

The episode ends with Cigarette Smoking Man walking through a giant Pentagon warehouse full of evidence from various cases. He pulls out a box containing several other vials containing implants. He adds Scully’s vial to the box and re-shelves it.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot

I am always losing my keys!

Next Time on the X-Files

Season 1, Episode 2 — “Deep Throat”
Mulder and Scully bust into an alien porn studio and Mulder takes closeup shots of alien genitalia for his “research”.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761 – “For a Thousand Years…”

* Part 7 of 9 of the Superman: No Limits collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761 – “For a Thousand Years…”!

In the previous issue of the Superman: No Limits collection, it is revealed that Lois Lane stole an artifact from the vicinity of the Fortress of Solitude while she and Superman were cavorting around Antarctica, which led to an entity named Kem-L to storm his way through Lois and Clark’s apartment. There’s a dumb fight. Also, Perry White yells at Jimmy Olsen.

In the previous issue of Action Comics (Vol. 1), a sultry seductress named La Encantadora uses her sultry seductress skills to sell fake kryptonite to villains and goad Superman into kicking their asses while she slinks away with their money. It was a very long issue, but I just summed it up in one sentence. I also totally copied and pasted that from an earlier blog post. That’s called being fucking lazy.

Onward.


Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761 [January, 2000]
Written by: Joe Kelly
“For a Thousand Years…”

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

I’m positive that “For a Thousands Years…” is a reference to how long it will take me to read through this issue. All of these turn-of-the-millennium comic books are dreadfully long and wordy. Much like my blog pages! Who am I to criticize?

Tom, that’s who.

I’ve been eating a lot of Special K Chocolatey Delight cereal lately, and in spite of getting diabetes in my ‘30s I’ll also have the necessary energy to plow through this! I consider it a wash.

Anyway, welcome Wonder Woman to the spotlight. Time to see some seriously sweaty, strangely erotic demon hacking and slashing.

Metropolis. A city where Sunday morning snuggling is still a national pastime…” Yeah, whatever Joe Kelly. I’ve seen pictures of you, you’ve never snuggled anything in your life.

Lois and Clark are snuggling reading the newspaper. It’s full of that WHO IS MRS. SUPERMAN hullabaloo, and they’re both having a good laugh over it. HA HA! Like that. Clark kisses her on the head with a “SMEK”.

Out of curiosity, though… let’s say that Lois wasn’t “Mrs. Superman”. Who would have wedded and bedded? Think about this carefully! Don’t fall in the trick bag! Whew, he’s a little bit smarter than he looks, barely. It’s Lois and it’ll always be Lois. Did he win?

No. Lois insists on a real answer to the question.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

Ruth Bader Ginsburg?? Hmm, she did leave a sexy corpse…

Speaking too soon, lady. Horrible timing, because five seconds after Lois draws open the curtains, the stunning-as-all-getout WONDER WOMAN makes her entrance! Lois’ jubilation has been stamped out! Maybe even literally, since Wonder Woman is roughly 14 feet taller than Lois and could accidentally crush her like a bug.

A couple of kids are gazing up at the sky from a bridge.
“Heh… hey, dude, look, up in the sky… it’s a bird–”
“Yeah… luckiest bird ever… Good God, those legs…

Now that we’re done objectifying Superman, I assume, we see he and Wonder Woman hanging out in the sky. They’re hooking arms, and I know for sure that Wonder Woman can’t fly but I still wouldn’t trust this whatsoever. The guy could be distracted by a doughnut he sees on the ground with his super telescopic vision and then Wonder Woman would drop like a stone.

There’s some good-natured, gentle ribbing about how Wonder Woman decided to conspicuously knock on the window of his apartment, where she could be easily observed by thousands of people, and also get Lois all riled up and jealous. Bad! Wonder Woman stays coy, like “ooooh, did I get you in trouble, big man? You can find my apology inside my vagina.”

Ha! Sounds tempting! *flies away*

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

Things are just fine, I can tell. No Wiccan spellcasting rituals tonight!

At home, a disheveled Lois gazes into a bathroom mirror. Obviously riled up. Obviously jealous. Obviously thinks she doesn’t got the goods. This isn’t the Lois Lane I know! The Lois Lane I know would be bitch-smacking this Lois Lane, guaranteed.

“Stupid golden lasso…”

A couple of ugly motherfuckers at the police station are fervently discussing the identity of Mrs. Superman. Officer Blanks, a man, and Officer Loretta Something-or-Other, a woman. She must be pretty hot and smart and funny and can cook a mean pot roast and derail a train with her big penis. Loretta says she met Superman and she knows what he likes! In fact, he came down to the station and dropped off a weird glass cube with a black crystal in it! Evidence! Blanks and Loretta don’t notice the crystal hissing, emitting a strange, swirling orange smoke…

FINALLY, after some flirting and beating around the bush, Wonder Woman discusses why she’s bothering Superman in the first place. It has to do with the son of Mongul and his desire to get help from the only man who actually CAN help. And this time it’s NOT Jeff Goldblum, although the offer is still on the table for his involvement. Certainly, though, Superman doesn’t really trust that guy… but it’s hard to fake that kind of fear in the eyeballs. He’s seen a lot of eyeballs in his day, and he knows eyeball fear when he sees it. So, he’ll be joining this new buddy in deep space, and he’ll need Wonder Woman to hold down the fort while he’s gone. The Earth fort. If she would be so kind.

Ok, fair enough. Well, sir, Wonder Woman is there for you. She can lasso like nothing else. Giddy-up and yee-haw.

“You’ve told Lois, of course?”
“Lois? Told her what?”
“Told her about this quest. You’re not asking me to watch the Earth as a formality…”

No, he hasn’t told her diddly-squat. And he doesn’t want to! First of all, he doesn’t want her to worry. Second of all, she’ll want to COME and UGGGHHH can’t he just be alone for FIVE MINUTES???

“So you didn’t tell Lois, your wife, the love of your life… but you told me?” she asks, putting her hand on his shoulder.
“Well, yes, but… it’s different with you…”

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

Hey there, baby… looks like we’re alone here in this… high school cafeteria…

Before they get a chance to indulge in rude intercourse, a large KRAKOOM rattles the area! Next is a SHAZZAKKT! Nanu nanu! And that shazzakkt strikes the two of them and envelops them in a sphere of energy. It totally kills the mood.

Superman and Wonder Woman are dizzy and woozy, and they may have time-traveled, and at the very least they’ve been teleported. Wonder Woman recognizes the place, but, to Superman’s confusion, she jumps at like a scared cat and starts screaming shit like “WRETCHED DEATH MONGER!!!” and “FILTHY, ILL-BEGOTTEN OFFAL-SPAWN! YOU DARE THREATEN A DAUGHTER OF THEMYSCIRA?!?” and “TEAR YOUR INNARDS OUT AND TIE YOU TO THE TREE OF LIFE WITH, SON OF A MOTHERLESS GOAT HERDER!!!” For real, it’s kind of hot. But Superman keeps trying to get her attention, and it’s thus far an unsuccessful endeavor.

She appears to be beating up a giant robot bug. Like a mantis or a grasshopper. A red-bearded man in flamboyant armor makes a hearty entrance and approaches Superman. He admires Wonder Woman’s instinctual tenacity! She will be a valorous ally! To what, we don’t know yet. Super Smash Bros.? The N64 version of course.

This dude is Thor, Odin’s son, and he welcomes Superman to Valhalla! Bathroom is two doors down on the right.

Wonder Woman finishes making short work of whatever it was that she yelled at. A demon from the deepest circles of Hades, she says. Wickedness incarnate, she says. The beasts are called, uh, “vrgtsmyth”. I think there are some letters missing. Or there should be less letters. Pick a direction.

None of that matters right now. Superman is aghast, because Wonder Woman *puts his hands on his cheeks like Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone* K-K-K-K-K-K-KILLED IT!

“Of course. What was I supposed to do with it?” she replies matter-of-factly. Superman continues to gibber and have a fucking heart attack about this. Mr. Odinson, the DC Thor and not the Marvel Thor, is like “she had no choice, idgit. The vrgtsmyth are a scourge to us all! They’re the rats of the, you know, ground. And Valhalla is positively lousy with the whatsits! *cough* *hack* *wheeze* *hack* *sputter*”

Superman still doesn’t understand. Can’t they just negotiate with these monsters? Sign a treaty? Why do you all have to kill them? Superman can’t even kill a bug without crying for six hours and asking the Lord for forgiveness. And Thor all but tells Superman to stick his peace treaties up his gaping butt. “Kal, there’s no grey area for me here,” Wonder Woman tries to explain to the lumbering blue-spandexed oaf, “I’m honor-bound to defend Asgard without question…”

Ok, lady, but how about this: uhhhhhh, how about a peace treaty instead? And furthermore–

Thor calls his nerd a weak coward, which is where we can both agree. So look, chump: Son o’ Odin expended every ounce of energy getting them here, so he can’t send you back where you came from right now. Not until the war is over!

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

So, pack ye a lunch.

What’s happening out of Valhalla, back in the real world? Why, it’s our good friend La Encantadora who seduced Superman, and if you can’t remember who that is, I don’t blame ya! Everyone tries to seduce Superman! He’s very seducible, as the dictionary tells me.

She’s in prison telling stories to her chain smoking prison mate. Yes, she kissed Superman! It was awful! His lips were like wriggling worms! On the plus side, those were NOT the kisses of a married man. No man who is married would kiss like that. I guess what I’m getting at here is that Superman is unmarried!!

No way, José. You’re full of beans or my name isn’t CHAIN SMOKING PRISON MATE.

Hold that thought! The guard is here to deliver lunch, and he sure looks like he’s under some horrible spell. I wonder if being in the immediate vicinity of La Encantadora has something to do with it, but probably not. Right? Unlikely. The dish has a single vial which starts emitting some of that scarlet smoke. You know, the one that allows her to encantadora the whole room! The smoke hisses.

Valhalla! A battle to end all battles! Or rather, a battle to start all battles…is underway.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

This sounds like literal Hell. I mean, do they get to put on fresh changes of clothes? Do they even get Nintendo breaks?

It sounds horrible, just beating up vrhtmyth after vsrirsbsmyth for years and years. Can you even imagine that? Imagine that right now. Instead of getting up and going to work on weekdays and indulging in your hobbies and watching the seasons change and going to the store to pick up some flower pots and garden gnomes and fixing some stuff around the house and hanging out downtown with friends and eating some dinner and watching new episodes of Better Call Saul and finding new interests and making new friends and starting a family, you’re hitting demons with an axe every 45 seconds for decades. What the fuck is that bullshit?

And the worst part is that Superman had to be careful not to kill any of them himself because the Book of Mormon forbids it.

Oh yeah, and he didn’t want to forget about Lois even though he’s spent 20,000 days in a row, morning, noon, and night, with someone way more attractive and physically fit. And she stays respectful even though she has a thing for him. He’s growing a stupid beard.

And one day, Superman could barely remember Lois. He can’t even remember how she smells. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, smells like orchids and sunflowers and daisies and meatloaf and electrical fires and old hats. It’s quite intoxicating.

Yadda yadda yadda. This goes on a while with that parchment-y narration. Even Thor eventually died, which is fucked up because he’s an actual god. Now Superman can’t remember Lois’ credit card number or the school she went to in third grade, but Wonder Woman shits tulips and ambrosia.

And they fight and fight and their bond grows stronger and stronger. Kind of shitty that Lois asked that question so vehemently at the beginning of the book! Way to jinx it.

And it sounds like the penis is really closing on the vagina here. Let’s check back with the goings-on at the Daily Planet. Perry White is talking about his terrible marriage with his terrible wife and how he cheated like a terrible husband why they continue to stick it out anyway for no readily apparent reason. He was able to reconcile with a bouquet of roses. He probably bought them from a bum near the gas station alley for 14 dollars and a kiss.

Uhh huhhhh. So Lois is like “OK! So even though Clark might be boning Wonder Woman, it could be also possible that he’s NOT boning Wonder Woman? Is that what I’m gleaning here?”

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

UH HA HA HA HA HAAAA! *laughtrack* *Perfect Strangers end credits music*

More Game of Thrones valor happens in Valhalla for a small collection of panels. Glory. Honor. The touch of woman would be nice one in a while, it’s kind of hard to just go without that for decades. Even prisoners touch each other once in a while, man. By now Superman kind of looks like Jared Leto at his hairiest and beardiest. He appears to be bedridden, needing potions and leeches, probably. Wonder Woman fans him with a comically large feather. A big offensive strike is going to happen. This is their last night together, whether they win or die. There is ALMOST a kiss! But then Superman pusses out. LOIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR 1,000 YEARS NOW BUT SO HELP HIM, HE WILL NOT PUT HIS LIPS ON ANOTHER WOMAN’S LIPS. NOT ON HER TASTY, TASTY LIPS.

Fine. Be that way.

“Thank you, Diana… for always being my best friend. I love you.”
And Wonder Woman is like, then bone my brains out idiot. “I love you too, Clark…”

AND THE BATTLE RAGES ON! SLASH! BASH! ZOOM! BOOM!

They win! Yay!

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #761

Is that it? IS THAT “IT”?? I’ll give you varlet, you overflowing dump truck of bullshit.

Thor immediately rises from the dead, I’m hypothesizing here, to congratulate them on a job well done! Kudos! Here’s your plaque and your TGI Friday’s gift card! Thor is like “yes I’m back hurf durf hurf durf and guess what, Superwoman and Wonder Man? You get to pick anything you want from the box as a reward! Whoopie cushions, yo-yos, the sticky hands that you fling against the wall and then they’ll stick to the wall! Ha ha ha!

They both smile! Anything? ANYTHING?? Wow!

Lois is at home in her nicer-than-Valhalla Metropolis apartment writing a letter. It’s a confession about whatever deal she made with Lex regarding selling back the Daily Planet. I think that’s what happened. He might have picked up Arby’s for her, too. That might be part of it. Now she’s like OH DEAR, PLEASE FORGIVE ME CLARK. I DON’T DESERVE TO BE YOUR WIFE. BOO HOO.

Lois is crying on the balcony and crunching up the letter, ready to toss it down to the street. Maybe even toss herself down to the street! But a large unknown blue blur whisks her up in the sky. Is it Sonic the Hedgehog? You’re close!

Superman and Lois share a very passionate, very public kiss. While they hover in the air among apartment buildings where about 900 people could easily see them. Superman’s not very conspicuous as it is, after all. Not very bright either, I guess, as I have already said many, many times over the course of many, many issues. He could give Captain America a run for his money.

Superman misses her; from his point of view he’s been gone about 45,000 years.
Lois misses him; from her point of view he’s been gone about 45,000 seconds.

That’s about 12 hours.

Final Thoughts

Superman doesn’t want to kill anything and he doesn’t want to fuck anything. Do you think he’d cry if he tried a sip of beer? Do you think he’d go into exile if he accidentally smelled marijuana?

Star One, Chat Pile, and Viagra Boys

Yo man, I’m on a roll! No time to extend this post any longer than it already is! Here are some roundups for Star One, Chat Pile, and Viagra Boys.


Star One – Revel in Time
(February 18, 2022)

Star One - Revel in Time

Technically, it’s Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s Star One, because why not? A guy like Lucassen is so over-the-top with his grandiosity that it’s no surprise that the band’s name contains the 20 letters of his own grandiose name. Don’t forget the apostrophe S.

This guy has been around forever, usually making solo projects under the moniker “Ayreon” and contributing to countless collaborations, but one thing is always, always, ALWAYS constant with his music: the sheer ostentatious pomposity. Everything is like a seven-layer quadruple chocolate cake of progressive metal self-indulgence. I can only listen to a fucking Ayreon album once every two years. I can only take so much, and it doesn’t take much to take so much.

This brings me to his first album under his Star One project in 12 years, Revel in Time. As usual, these songs are directly inspired by science fiction movies. Meaning, these songs are exactly about these movies. Like, these songs are just plot synopses. “Back from the Past” is just Back to the Future (“And when the lightning strikes/You have to be precise/Exactly 10:04/And not a second before“). “Revel in Time” is just Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (“You got to believe you’re the only ones/Here to preserve our society/It’s hard to conceive you’re the Great Ones/You’ll end all war and poverty“). “Today Is Yesterday” is just Groundhog Day (“Round the clock, it never stops/He can end his life, do whatever he likes/But it’s all in vain, he can’t explain/There is nothing he can do about it/No, there’s nothing he can do about it“).

There’s a lot I could say to illustrate how shitty this is, but there are two things I want to mention about it in particular: 1) There is no room for actual imagination or creativity in the lyrics. Just make things rhyme, I guess. 2) I think it’s kind of depressing that a 62-year-old man is gung-ho enough about semi-mediocre sci-fi movies to revolve entire albums around them. ENTIRE albums. Not just a track or two. It’s demented.

Skip this.

Early Verdict:


Chat Pile – God’s Country
(July 29, 2022)

Chat Pile - God's Country

Not very many bands are out of Oklahoma, are there? A quick search brings up a whole lot of nobodies, and then All-American Rejects, the Flaming Lips, and Hanson! Now, fresh out of Oklahoma City, we have Chat Pile. They’re the newest teen sensation since Pig Destroyer! MMMBop indeed.

Chat Pile plays sludgy noise rock with a lot of hardcore punk and industrial influence, and it’s unlike anything I’ve heard in a while. The production is hellishly sparse to create an atmosphere of industrial desolation while vocalist Raygun Busch rants and raves about nihilism and the futility of human existence over slow bass drones and squealing guitars. I love Busch’s voice; he sounds like if Jesse Pinkman was really mad about social injustice. At times the music and vocals sound even more demonic and twisted than your average death-doom band. The band makes great use of empty space, where the silence between phrases can be eerily louder and more powerful than yelps of “THERE’S MORE SCREAMING THAN YOU THINK!” Screw heavy metal, this stuff is the real scary music.

I can actually believe the vitriol behind Busch’s pained shouting. He really sells it. “Why” is my favorite track; the bass grooves go full-on Melvins while Busch screams about how society treats the homeless. It packs an emotional punch. “I COULDN’T SURVIVE OUT IN THE STREETS! COULD YOU?! I’VE NEVER HAD TO PUSH MY SHIT AROUND IN A SHOPPING CART!” But it’s not all hollerin’ and howlin’. “I Don’t Care if I Burn” is a somber, melancholy, calm spoken-word piece over no music. Just the sound of a crackling fire. “I think about killing you every day.” He sounds like Steve Albini if he were plotting some very public domestic abuse.

Never do I feel bored, never do I consider the music to be a load of indiscernible mush from one song to the next. Genres are often switched up from the guitar tones alone, freely maneuvering around its many influences without sacrificing its identity.

That is to say, this albums rules.

Early Verdict:


Viagra Boys – Cave World
(July 8, 2022)

Viagra Boys - Cave World

Viagra Boys’ album from last year, Welfare Jazz, landed a very respectable #5 spot in my top albums from 2021. Then I learned that their lead guitarist, Benjamin Vallé, died just last October. Then I learned that they basically had their third album in the can without Vallé. I thought that was nuts. A founding member tragically died at an early age, then the band is able to move on and get another album of fresh material recorded and released within a year? This can’t be good, right? This jarring circumstance is going to be noticeable, isn’t it?

I guess not. Against unspeakable odds, these guys are steadfast and consistent. Cave World is a continued step in the right direction, further expanding upon their unique sound and proving themselves the best damn Sweden-based punk band working right now. Maybe the only Sweden-based punk band!

Songs stick to two themes: self-deprecation/ironic arrogance and transparent political commentary. There are three, count ’em THREE, songs about humanity’s failure to evolve! With Sebastian Murphy’s usual tongue-in-cheek and hilarious lyrics, it wouldn’t matter if they were all about monkeys. “Troglodyte” is fast-paced and catchy with these cool electronic bloops during the choruses. The people who don’t believe in science and think the news is fake “…ain’t no ape, (you’re) a troglodyte“. The music of “The Cognitive Trade-Off Hypothesis” plods along on a prehistoric ugga-chugga rhythm with sprinkles of these Crystal Castles-style witch house synths. Murphy sings in falsetto about how “we climbed down from the trees and learned to speak/we lost all of our cognitive ability“. Then the closer, “Return to Monke”, has some of my favorite lyrics on the whole record: “Well, everybody’s worried about the future/Well, don’t take that vaccine man, they’ll, they’ll turn you into a computer/Well, out here in your local jungle, ain’t nobody vaccinated/We spend our time throwing shit at each other, we’re just hanging out masturbating“.

Speaking of vaccines, Murphy goes on an extended spoken-word diatribe on “Creepy Crawlers”. Ranting like a feral Nick Cave, he plays the part of an alt-right conspiracy theorist who tried to tell all of us that we should’ve done our research before “voting for the wrong motherfucker”. “Wow, they got kids growing up with animal tails, man/They’re putting microchips in the vaccine/And they’re putting creepy crawlers in the microchips/The kids without the vaccines are getting harvested/Because their blood is untainted“. Look, I could sit here and quote the whole album. There’s pure gold everywhere you look.

And of course, the usual sad-sack stuff is also great. “Punk Rock Loser” pokes fun at the shitty alpha male arrogance (“I ain’t your average, punk rock loser/Yeah, I’m a savage, I’m really cool/I tried to warn ya, I’m loose“). “Ain’t No Thief” gets loudly defensive about blatant robbery (“I ain’t no thief/We just happen to have the same stuff, motherfucker“). “Big Boy” shows off lack of confidence merely by drawing attention to it (“I’m a big boy, babe/I don’t start crying if you make fun of me/Yeah, I’m a big boy, honey/Ain’t got problems with my insecurities“).

Not to belabor the point that the album is fantastic, but it has a guaranteed spot on this year’s Top 25.

Early Verdict:

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26 – “Circles”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Legacy storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26 – “Circles”! Green Goblin’s been rambling psychotically about circles for two issues now. Let’s make it three, shall we? In the previous installment, Harry Osborn is undergoing hypnosis therapy that involves a lot of gaslighty brainwashing. It’s the only way Norman can make his son love him. Sad!

We also see the entire Green Goblin/Spider-Man exchange from Marjorie Taylor Greene Goblin’s point of view. As his evil alter ego, Norman is plagued with terrifying and persistent voices in his head that simultaneously tell him to thwart Spider-Man, hug and kiss Spider-Man, some nonsense about circles, some biochemical engineering jargon, and recipes for apple crisp. Goblin kidnaps MJ, we already knew that, but then he drops her off the side of the skyscraper. Spider-Man catches her before she hits the East River, but she’s unconscious and/or dead and that was the cliffhanger of the millennium!

And Nick Fury was nowhere to be found. That’s going to piss Peter Park off, man.


Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26 [November, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Circles”

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26

THE TRISKELION! The Ultimates’ floating headquarters five miles outside New York City! Well, this comic series about goblins, robot octopuses, and web-slinging teenagers has lost me completely at this point. Floating headquarters?? Outrageous.

Nick Fury is somewhere to be found after all. The floating headquarters, that’s where. He’s safely away from danger and demanding updates on the Osborn crazy-man situation. This all takes place simultaneously with the events leading up to the Green Goblin dropping a girl off of a building; Spider-Man trying to talk some sense into the jerk, and the jerk saying stuff like “CIRCLES! LOVE POTION #9…UH, BIOCHEMISTRY! BIOCHEMISTRY! GUUUHHHH! … THREE-MINUTE ALARM! AHHH!! CIRCLES! BIOCHEMISTRY! BO DIDDLEY BO DIDDLEY!”

Fury is trying to arrange for a good old fashioned Lee Harvey Oswald snipe through the noggin’, but MJ is too much in the way to get a clean shot without the bullet ripping through her face as well. Too bad! Oh well, he dropped her over the side. I guess that solves that problem.

NO! SHOOT! SHOOT A BULLET! The Furious Nicholas “Furry” Fury needs this mofo dead now. So he sends a couple of helicopters to start opening fire right at His Gobliness. Just raining bullets on the rooftop of a crowded, urban area. Just accidentally murdering about 400 civilians, probably. The Goblin remainds unphased. A little more perturbed, though.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26

NO! Upside-down and in the rain!! You stupid kids…

On the sidewalk, Spider-Man is making sure his damsel in distress isn’t dead as a doornail. Mary? *slap* Mary? *slap slap* MARY?! *slap punch* CAN’T YA HEAR ME, MARY?! *slap kick punch slap strangle*

She wakes up. All “whuzzah wha, huh, where am I, what’s going on?? huuuurrrrrrr”, and Spider-Man’s just grateful that his sexpot didn’t die. Explosions are happening above them, and Spider-Man urges MJ to get the hell out of dodge ASAP, PDQ, and now! But she wants to stay with him? Why, so she can fight with him. So she can weigh him down while he swings around the city with unbridled glee? Go suck a lemon, sister.

“No, get into a cab and get out of here!” Spider-Man urges, “Go to my house. No, not my house. Go to– go to that abandoned warehouse at Cruz and 3rd!” lmao, go hide out in the comfort of my basement while my Aunt May makes you cookies. WAIT, NEVERMIND! Go squat in a fucking dirty, rat-infested dump instead.

A taxi driver stops by to gawk at Spidey. Taxi Man is instructed to get MJ as far from here as possible. “Done! You da man!” he says, before shoving her in the backseat and driving her to Papua New Guinea. MJ stares at Spider-Man with a look in her eye that suggests that she’d rather eat a plate of poop than be away from Peter Parker. Frankly, I’d take the poop.

Spidey grabs his head and freaks out about how close he came to losing MJ too. Meanwhile, the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters continue to try to perforate Greeny. “Fury!! Come face me!!” he cries angrily, inconvenienced by being shot at. Also, Spider-Man punches him right in the face. Catharsis!

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26

Ha, speaking of a plate of poop…

The sudden appearance of the Spidered One causes S.H.I.E.L.D. to hold their fire. Goblin’s itching for a fight with Spider-Man! He can taste the victory! Like so many plates of–

Listen, you don’t want to mess with Spider-Man. He’ll do cartwheels all over town while mocking your many insecurities.

CRACK! “You really are a card-carrying, whacked-out-of-your-mind lunatic!!” Spider yells while knocking the MAGA hat right off of the Goblin’s head. SMACK! More blows reigned like it was fuckin’ Festivus. “I won’t let you hurt anyone anymore!!” SMACK! SMACK! Etc.

“Quartermain, what’s going on?” Fury asks his advisor at Floating Building Command Central.
“He’s beating the crap out of him!”

So he is. Fury smiles in a manner that says “oh good, I don’t have to work as hard”.

Goblin is bleeding orange fluid out of his nose as Spider-Man continues to fist up his face. Goblin gets tired of this and wraps his hands around Spidey’s two-inch diameter neck. “kkuukkzz” Spider-Man is known to utter. And then he’s flung halfway across town.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26

Nugh nugh nugh yourself, creep.

Perfect, the Goblin is alone again! OPEN FIRE! Bullets bullets bullets bullets, bullets that don’t work, bullets bullets…

GOBLIN IS GETTING UPSET!

The Flung Spider shoots a web back over the bridge from whence the fight was happening, he loses control, and smacks into the bridge tower. By now, Green Goblin is bounding his way back to his penthouse, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters are following suit. Damnit! What about meeee?? Now Spider-Man decides he needs to beat him there so that Harry doesn’t get killed or molested or cooked a shitty TV dinner or something.

That shouldn’t be too difficult. The Green Goblin is starting to lose steam, see. Gettin’ all sweaty and tired. Looking like shit, even more so than before. And he really looked like shit. Green is not his color. “Guhhh…the Oz is wearing off…burning…” he clutches his chest. Guhhh indeed.

Greeny hobbles his way to his lab to grab another syringe full of that sweet, sweet serum. Why, just this morning he melted rocks with a spoon and filled about twenty syringes! He’s all set. He… just… needs… to…reach…

Guhhh.

…one.

Foaming at the mouth with orange saliva, looking at the syringe he picked out with hungry, red eyes, he’s about to stick the thing in his neck when SONNY BOY enters the lab. All like “Daaaaaddd, you silly goose you.”

Actually, this goblin scares the bejesus out of him. “Wh– what have you done with my father?” he stammers, looking positively frightened like your standard Peter Parker.

Ultimate Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Issue #26

That’s some real nice limboing, son.

Harry’s eyes roll back in his head, positively orgasmic with fear, and collapses on the floor. Norman takes this opportunity to stick himself and re-up his goblin dope. “More! Mmmmore!!” he pants, like Elon Musk injecting his balls with fentanyl. He sticks another syringe in his neck and really starts going Super Saiyan. I think I’m using the right term. Getting all big and mean, right? If what I’m super sayin’ is wrong, please feel free to not tell me ever.

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to let you drive home like that,” pipes in a voice off-panel. Now who could that be? Jessica Jones? The Flash? Jeff Buckley?

SPIDER-MAN??? Bleh.

Spidey assumes a menacing, stringy pose and tells Norman that’s going to beat him up. And he kinda does at first. WRAMM! CHOKK! Good fist-hitting-jaw sounds. Let me try some! PIFFT! GURRB! HORK! MOO!

But then Goblin Man grabs Spidey’s leg and throws the kid through a window, shredding his costume. Looks like MJ’s going to have to pull out that sewing machine again. Face exposed, Parker starts crying. Or maybe it’s just water? Or maybe it’s tears!

Goblin grabs him by the head and starts squeezing his neck again. Harry wakes up and sees his father’s crazed double-boosted form!

Norman looks way more horny. In that, he has larger horns now.

Final Thoughts

This goblin stuff is cray-cray. Parker’s going to have to do something drastic, like put some Ex-Lax in Norman’s coffee so that he poops himself and then kills himself out of shame, maybe.

CIRCLES!

East of West, Issue #24 – “The Legion Brings Word”

* Part 9 of 14 of the The Apocalypse: Year Two storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #24 – “The Legion Brings Word”! In the previous installment, Archibald is quite unhappy with the efforts of a hired Japanese crime syndicate tasked with assassinating Xiaolian Mao. This causes Japanese crime syndicate crime boss to die of a crime. A murder crime courtesy of the Conferacy’s chief Crime Man: Andrew Archibald “Crime” Chamberlain.

We see the backstory of John Freeman 8 and Wolf rasslin’ in the good old days. In the present, Freeman allows Lux to take a pyramid full of money back to the Union. Then he tells a rather shaken Vizier that he intends to usurp the throne of the Kingdom (i.e. kill Daddy), take over the world, and make her Queen of the Shitty Dying Earth.

Things are heating up in Apocalypse Year Two and we’ve barely even seen any apocalyptic shit! And that’s fine with me. The politics are way more interesting.


East of West, Issue #24 [January, 2016]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Legion Brings Word”

East of West, Issue #24

Gross, what an unappealing cover. Ezra Orion’s lumpy, fucked up physical presence. He was supposed to die after cramming his throat full of paper and getting dragged into a demon’s mouth, but no. This smelly, veiny mound is still here. It’s really a crying shame.

Orion is ferociously dragging a tattoo machine over someone’s skin. I don’t know whose. “There’s an art to persuasion,” he grits his teeth, eyes bugging out, “especially when persuading those who are blind to a right and proper path…”

He mumbles about choosing words carefully. He is Prophet Orion now. Or always has been? This guy has a lot of nerve, throwing his dick around like King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

His giant, toothy demon buddy, and yes they are friends now, interrupts his ravings. “Rrrrarrrr. Apologiesss, Orion… But trying too hard isss never a good look,” he hisses like one of those talking poet eyeballs, kindly suggesting that he chooses his words even more carefully. Some of these words are little too, shall we say, aggressive? “Sssubtlety, I sssay. Alwaysss and ally in the doomsssaying.

Orion snaps at him, tells him to keep his opinions to himself. ORION’s the prophet, not YOU, you weird Hell thing. Then he tells his screaming tattoo victim, who is splayed out face down and hanging from his limbs in shackles and chains, to cork it. He looks like a sideburns kinda guy from the Confederacy. He’s not having a very cool time while Orion is using his back as parchment paper for his scrawlings.

East of West, Issue #24

I’m gonna stick this sword where the sun don’t shine. You’re gonna be a true hero!

This Daniel guy is begging for his life, sweating profusely while Orion freaks him out with emotionless and detached religious nut buffoonery. “After today, you get to walk through life with the luxury of knowing that you are not like all the others.”

Then he flays his back with the sword. If I didn’t know any better, and I don’t, I’d say that was quite painful. But what do I know?

“You are a man of achievement. A fulfiller of destiny. You have done what you were born to do. Take pride in that,” Orion says while rolling up his back skin like a scroll.

Daniel tells this bald fuck to stop, but he will not stop. He will never stop. It is not in his nature to stop. He will keep going. And maybe you will learn to like it when Orion keeps going! “That pain is an honor you have earned.” He just keeps saying stuff like that! Over and over! What a card!

No. Daniel wants it to stop! STOP IT. What the hell dude? Not cool.

Fine. “Do you see? I offered a gift, but all these people really want is convenience. No wonder God has forsaken this soft land. Go on, Buer…”

East of West, Issue #24

Nice to meet ya, I’m Mork from Ork. Nanu nanu.

Buer is the name of the demon! How cute. Buer chomps Daniel in one bite from neck to thighs, raining blood all over the dang room.

Ezra Orion, he has earned the pain! He says so himself, AND he wrote his words and Buer can’t tell him to change any of them and they are part of the Message and there are seven words and you can’t say them on television per George Carlin! These words are different, though. These words are for the Chosen! Oh boy!

So round them up, Buer my good chum. Think you can do that? Fetch, Boy, fetch!

“Within me there are many fallen… Hunters, seekers… All of which, my minions.”

Looks like Buer forgot to hiss a few of his S’s there. While he speaks, he doubles over like he’s going to blow a giant shit behind him. Something struggles to rip itself from within Buer out of his back, kinda like a reverse Alien situation. BURSTING FORTH AND OUT, we see a group of bloody, screeching, demon pterodactyl creatures. There are six of them. Each one grabs a scroll made out of human back flesh, each one containing words inked in by Ezra Orion the Smelly Prophet himself!

He instructs them to fly away to deliver the scrolls to each of Chosen. There will be one last gathering of “the faithful”.

So,n’lo, the creepy demon carrier pigeons find their way to the insufferable Chosen ones. A veritable montage is displayed over a few pages of each of them – LeVay, Freeman, Archibald, Mao, and… the Horsemen? – receiving a scroll. LeVay feeds hers a scrap of food. Mao shoots hers down with a bow and arrow.

East of West, Issue #24

Awww, how cute. Like a puppy dog ready to claw my face off.

Orion’s words are as follows:

“I devoured the three-fold Message at the fall of Armistice and became the Living Word. Apocrypha made flesh. And with my rebirth, the true believers of the end times were no longer beholden to the static and undecipherable Old Word, but liberated by the New… By me, for I am true providence. My every utterance, constructed – composed – for the ears that hear them. Each Message I sent…unique…to be witnessed by their eyes only. We have all cast off our old skins and put on our new ones. The true Chosen have revealed themselves… Both who have long believed… And those who have not. Now… I call them home.”

Throw that shit in the garbage. This windbag can keep his awful Word. I, for one, am tired of hearing about it.

The Horsemen receive a scroll as well, as I pointed out above with a nicely placed question mark! Their version invites them, as avatars of the end times, to come visit the Chosen to see what fun they’re planning! And Orion loves and forgives them! All is well and namaste.

War calls him a piece of shit as he tears the scroll in half. I’m sorry, a total piece of shit. The whole enchilada of shit. They’re at the Stonehenge-type location where they were reborn as filthy urchin children in Issue #1, and with them is a pea-brained companion named Jed.

Every 10,000 years it’s the same thing. Humanity is useless and stupid so they must be wiped out. It’s actually the fun part about being a Horseman. This time, though, they raise this annoying pup as their own, “teach him to believe and now look… the ape thinks he’s running things”.

East of West, Issue #24

Your little boy is a pain in the ass, Conquest. Why didn’t you let me smother him with a pillow when I had the chance?

The thing that Conquest finds most disappointing is that he/she raised Orion to be less of a wimp. He seems like a big, janky wimp. Oh well. You live 900 trillion years, you learn a thing or two once in a while.

“It’s ready,” says Famine, who is stirring a big cauldron of orange goo like a god-danged stereotypical witch. “I’ve cooked down all the meat we brought with us.”

Jed the pea-brain is instructed to lift the cauldron and dump it in the holes. And so he does.

Each of the three holes from whence the three Horsemen were reborn as little imps are filled up with Famine’s pot of boiling hot, rotten goo. “Damn the high cost of transubstantiation…” War mutters as he/she begins to lower him/herself into the hot hole. Yeah baby.

Jed stands in the middle of the platform as all three Horsemen HUURK and GUURK into their next transformed selves. It looks like the event is particularly hard on War, who seems to be enveloped by fiery, eye socket-tugging tendrils.

In the desert, a couple of crows intercept one of the demon pterodactyls after it drops off a scroll. They tear both its wings off mid-flight and it plummets bloodily to the ground.

“You made me a promise, Wolf…” our favorite sneering monochrome gangster mumbles to his companion, “That you’d be with me ‘til this thing of ours is done. Well… it ain’t done. And you never struck me as a man who went back on his word.”

Wolf glances at his scroll. “I’m not,” he says vaguely, “We are… with you. We just won’t be by your side for a bit.”

Sounds an awful lot like going back on his word, to me! Pretty flimsy stuff. I’ve disowned my whole family for much less.

Death resigns to this, giving Wolf the stink-eye. “How long?”

Wolf doesn’t know.

East of West, Issue #24

Oh no, is widdle Deathy Weathy going to miss his fwwwiennnds?

Death goes as far as his charm and warmth can, but it’s no use. Imagine that! So he kind of begs them to stay quite pitifully, but it’s too late. They’re going. Death feels betrayed. Even hurt. Maybe he wants to kill himself so that, and I quote Oppenheimer, “he am become him”!

“And what about you?” he snaps at Crow, “You got somethin’ you wanna say before you run off too?”

Yes she does. It’s a bunch of spiritual hippie shit. BUT she also tells him that she knows he will find his son, just as she knows that he’ll really fuck up whoever took him in the first place! “When you do, remember these words and the smile on my face as you kill them all.”

Wolf turns into a giant wolf and Crow stays Crow. She rides him off into the sunrise or sunset or even possibly north or south as well. It really doesn’t matter. They left all the same.

Next, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen Bel Solomon and his Hunter buddy, we’re in another part of the desert where the two of them are roasting a scrawny demon pterodactyl on a spit. Ol’ Bel, ever the skeptic. Ol’ Bel who is actually the designated skeptic of the Chosen. He’s skeptical of the scroll. “Do you think it’s a trap? ‘Cause it sure feels like a trap.”

East of West, Issue #24

Show me someone who is triply Chosen and you have yourself a deal.

He pores over the scroll and equivocates. It does seem very sound. Even Cheveyo, Bel’s eternal over-the-shoulder ethereal companion, sees the authenticity of the document. I mean, it’s written with tattoo ink and ripped from some loser’s back. It has to be kinda real.

Bel doesn’t want to, but Cheveyo goads him into doing what he must. He is Chosen, after all. He can’t back out.

His Hunter friend, Thomas, he smells something fishy here. Something’s going on. It sounds like a trap! Did you already say trap? Well, it’s a trap.

“So we shouldn’t go?” Bel asks with this strange look of horror on his face.
“Not sayin’ that at all,” Thomas drawls, “Hell, I’d bet my last dollar everyone we’re lookin’ for will be there.”

“And I just don’t think I could forgive myself if I passed up that kind of opportunity,” he adds, loading up his shotgun.

Final Thoughts

Mass shooting at the old Chosen watering hole. Get out while you still can.