SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, CHVRCHES, and Circle of Sighs

This week I’m covering newish albums by SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, CHVCHRES, and (breaking the all-caps theme) Circle of Sighs. These bands need no introduction! But I wrote one anyway! Rebellious.

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE – ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH
(April 9, 2021)

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is a band who named themselves after some 1973 Spanish film called The Spirit of the Beehive, and then they decided to put their band name in all caps for scream reasons. They seem to make cryptic, lo-fi experimental pop-adjacent music in the same vein as Ariel Pink or Laurel Halo or Liars, bordering on the aesthetics of the old school industrial acts of Throbbing Gristle.

This should be right up my alley, and I chalked it up to just difficulty of the music at first, but I’ve listened to ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH about six times and I don’t have anything to take away from it. Nothing has gelled, I have no a-ha moments, I’m just a little frustrated. The tracks feel like you’re listening to a car radio on a lonely desert road, and the radio keeps kind of fading in and out of various stations. ACTUALLY, you know what this reminds me of? The sample-heavy experimental collages of Negativland, which was a project also marred by very spotty consistency.

The band seems to be throwing ideas at a wall to see what sticks, which is fine if a lot of it actually sticks. I don’t feel any immediacy here, or even a strong message or theme to extract or focus on. No point in getting too deep into individual songs, the point of the album as a whole is to enjoy the dreamy, psychedelic vibe. Songs ebb and flow into one another, almost making the progression seem like more of a hazy swirl than a linear timeline, especially with the heavy sampling serving as buffers between tracks.

I would have been all over this kind of aimless Ariel Pink or The Books-style hypnagogic pop 10-15 years ago, but, like the rest of the indiesphere, I’ve kind of moved past hypnagogic pop. This feels very much like an album that should’ve been made in 2011, and it’s weird to hear something like this in this post-Trump pandemic hellhole we find ourselves in. Maybe it just hits too close to home and makes me pine for a simpler era. FROWN.

Early Verdict:

CHVRCHES – Screen Violence
(August 27, 2021)

CHVRCHES - Screen Violence

CHVRCHES make the kind of synth-slathered, sweetly female-voiced pop music that makes people my age tear up with nostalgia over prom dates and John Hughes movies. They did that kind of thing with with their first three albums of bouncy, synthy happiness. They shift gears ever so slightly this time with Screen Violence, their horror album!

And even then, it’s not too different from their usual formula if you’re not paying that much attention. Loaded with hooks as always, and peppy and cheerful on the surface, the horror (and sadness, and disillusionment, and fear) concept of the album stays mostly within the lyrics rather than the music. For my money, the two strongest tracks are the lead single “He Said, She Said” and the slightly melancholy pop-ballad “Good Girls”, which both deal with sexism. Lauren Mayberry had this to say about the former per an interview with Rolling Stone: “Being a woman is fucking exhausting and it felt better to scream it into a pop song than scream it into the void.” It’s very lyrically straightforward, with the verses aping the words of what seems like an emotionally abusive partner and a chorus that repeats “I feel like I’m losing my mind” (and then echoed using some tasteful autotune). It’s the best song on the record.

CHVRCHES is at it’s best when Mayberry unleashes some of her pent up vitriol, and since it’s happening more and more as time goes on I’m looking quite forward to what’s to come in the future.

Early Verdict:

Circle of Sighs – Narci
(June 4, 2021)

Circle of Sighs - Narci

Boy, this Circle of Sighs album sure sounds weird. Let’s look them up…doo doo doo…aha, “Occult-themed synth-doom metal”. OK, I suppose so. Other than that, there’s not much to find. Anonymous on purpose, I don’t even know what country they’re based out of. And, to compound the mystery, it’s really hard to categorize this music succinctly. Prog? Industrial? Metal? Who knows.

Diversity of Narci on a song-by-song basis is surprising. I could write thousands of words about what other music comes to mind when listening to this album. “Spectral Arms” is a 10-minute sprawling and moody piece that refrains a piano section that reminds me of the more pretty, ambient tunes on (of all things) the Metroid Prime soundtrack! Then, when you think you’ve got the band’s sound nailed down in your head, the very next track “We Need Legends” is a slab of bizarrly trippy, funky synths and industrial noises. It’s like a cut from a completely different album, and THIS reminds me of something that would result from a collaboration between Genesis P-Orridge and Steven Wilson! Psychic TV and Porcupine Tree! Can ya feel it?? Anyone?? Hello?! Anyway, “We Need Legends” also reminds me of video game music, maybe for a dystopian futuristic sci-fi romp. Video game soundtracks likely influenced their approach.

Other notable tracks include the unsettling and ethereal “Roses Blue”, which reminds of the deliberate avantgarde creepiness of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum or the psychedelic electro-industrial moodiness of the Legendary Pink Dots, and the finale “The Man Who Sold the Wind”, which mixes neo-prog and Pink Floydian guitars with more industrial electronics.

Give me an album full of strange shit and I’m a happy guy. You can tell the musicians behind Circle of Sighs are very competent and thoughtful songwriters who aren’t afraid to incorporate each member’s varied musical tastes. They’re probably all insufferable art school students.

Early Verdict:


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Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3 – “Gifted (Part 3)”

* Part 3 of 6 of the Gifted storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #3 – “Gifted (Part 3)”! In the previous installment, our favorite X-Men busted up a banquet where hostages were being held by some jerkoff named Ord, but then he was possibly killed by a dragon identified as an X-Dragon out of nowhere! So that’s that. We learn some backstory about Kitty Pryde remembering Frost being a complete bitch while Frost was still a villain, so Pryde can’t trust her YET buuuuuuuut I’m thinking she will by Issue #13! Why? Because that’s how stories go, that’s why. We ended Issue #2 with Beast attempting to break into Dr. Rao’s Mutant Cure Lab of Wonders and Amazement. Rao goes “Don’t try to stop me!” and Beast goes “Ok”, and here we are now!

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3 [September, 2004]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Gifted (Part 3)”

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

Look at that cover! How much farther up Wolverine’s hairy-armed sleeves can they take us? Hooooo boy I’m blushing like a bride at a white wedding! Sorry, I spent a good 15 minutes staring at that cover. Where was I? Oh yes.

So far, I have to admit that there’s nothing astonishing about any of this! What differentiates the Astonishing X-Men from the All New X-Men, or the Uncanny X-Men, or the X-Treme X-Men, or the Extraordinary X-Men, or the Amazing X-Men, or the Ultimate X-Men?? How about the Go Fuck Yourself X-Men? God Damn. These mutants are all a bunch of whiny LOSERS! They remind me of me.

GROAN. On with the story…

Kitty Pryde is sitting on a bench with some kid named Wing. Wing’s superpower is flying, it’s important to him, it makes him feel good, and he doesn’t want it gone. Pryde assures him that nobody can make him do anything that he doesn’t want to do. Wing, in ultra-woke 2004, calls her a retard.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

This kid is one more R-word away from getting cancelled.

Droves of mutants, meanwhile, are lining up at Benetech Labs for the cure, which means that many DON’T want their powers. Or, rather, it looks like a lot of them are parents with their children because nobody wants their kid to go all Tildie Soames on their asses, I suppose! Wolverine’s watching the news at X-Men HQ, or an apartment, or whatever, and Beast pops in to announce that he’s been up all night trying to analyze Dr. Rao’s cure for himself. Frost looks pissed.

Oh, I guess Ord’s not dead, because we see him in Rao’s lab hootin’ and hollerin’ at her about giving a sample of the cure to a member of the Big Bad X-Men (that’s what you should’ve called it, Joss, ya moron). Dr. Rao isn’t fucking having it, though, and basically tells Ord to buzz off. I’m not sure if I should like Dr. Rao or not, but I do so I’ll embrace it for now! Ord tries to play one last “fuck you, human, you can’t talk to me this way, I own you, you are my puppet, rawr! Snarl!” but it falls flat. Take that, Ord. Get a better name.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

“You’re starting to make me Nick Furious, James Marsden.”

Scott “Bakula” “Cyclops” “Buffy” Summers appears to be questioning a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer (I don’t know anything about S.H.I.E.L.D. yet except that the guy from the Julia Louise-Dreyfus show is in it and also it’s a bitch to type out. I’m looking forward to learning that the acronym is probably some tough guy heavy-handed shit). He wants to know why these mercenaries following Ord’s orders were carrying S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons. The S.H.I.E.L.D. officer basically goes “I ‘unno” and then calls Ord a mutant just to make Cyclops mad! It works! It’s easy to make all these superheroes mad, and the other people all know it. That’s why they do it constantly! I can get behind that. Anyway, this S.H.I.E.L.D. officer is not shy about his anti-mutant bigotry, and he and Cyclops get into a back-and-forth hissy fit that shoehorns in some backstory to catch the readers up, but I’m snoring as we speak! Just kidding! But seriously, I guess Magneto razed Manhattan recently or something and Colonel S.H.I.E.L.D. is rubbing it in Cyclops’ face because all the mutants in the world know and talk to each other. When Cyclops asks him why the X-Men team would knowingly harbor a dangerous criminal, Mr. S.H.I.E.L.D. asks him how Frost is doing, and that’s pretty funny! These X-Men need to lighten up.

Beast is still staring at the sample through a microscope even though he probably did that already and there’s not much more you can do after you look at it once, I always say. Wolverine tells him to throw it away and then starts bullying him about wanting to possibly “cure the mutant disease”. They get into what can only be described as a “friendly tussle” that ends with broken glass everywhere. “I used to have a mouth you could kiss,” Beast tells Wolverine, which I think is selling himself a little high but ok. Wolverine tells him that X-Men stick together! And if the community sees an X-Man giving in to the miracle cure then they’ll all be lining up! And, personally, I don’t think Wolverine’s case is as strong as he thinks it is, and I guess Beast agrees, because the two of them start horsing around again like a couple of kooks, busting up the walls of the school in front of all the impressionable young mutant whipper-snappers.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

Lucky kids. None of the teachers tried to kill each other at my school.

Frost somehow transports the team to a holodeck that looks like a giant little girl’s room. A giant-little girl’s room? A giant room for a little giant girl? I find out in this scene that the S.H.I.E.L.D. guy is named Nick Fury, and I know who that is because I remember reading about some comics where he was swinging some guy’s intestines around and Stan Lee was reported to have been very sad and bummed that such crude things were happening in his wholesome comics! I also heard Stan Lee was touching some nurses inappropriately in the hospital before he died! Anyway, the X-Men team is coming to terms with the reality that no one is going to help them right now to figure out this mutant cure crisis, so they fumble their way through starting some recon: Beast continues in the lab, Pryde is apparently a computer nerd so they want her to research who might be funding Benetech for this project, Frost is to “check the students”, whatever that means, Cyclops will see what other X-Men teams might know, Wolverine is going to keep drinking beer and watching TV.

Cyclops is not handling leadership very well.

During another long night in the lab, Beast discovers something simply ASTONISHING about the sample! It’s fiendish! Ghoulish! Rotten! Evil! Turgid! Stenchy! Not about the sample itself, but it’s about the body they’re performing the testing on!

Jean Grey?!

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

You bitch… You skunk… You dog… You cow… You cunt… You goblin… You clown… You snake… You slut…

Final Thoughts

I don’t know much about Jean Grey at all whatsoever, honestly. I don’t know who she is or what she does or who she means to anyone or what happened to her or if she’s dead and why she’s dead if she’s dead. I’m beginning to think that this series was NOT a good starting point for my foray into X-Men! But power through I must!

Also, even though I’ve only otherwise started Ultimate Spider-Man, the New 52 version of Batman, and the New 52 version of Batgirl so far (so my sample size is basically nothing), I can’t help but notice how deeper and more complex the social aspects of this particular story are. I do appreciate that, and it gives me hope that comic books actually can reach the levels of higher art and beyond! My mind’s not blown by anything yet, but I trust that it will happen one of these days.

*snort*


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Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3

Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3 – “A Breath of Broken Glass”

* Part 3 of 6 of the Darkest Reflection storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3 – “A Breath of Broken Glass”! In the previous installment, Batgirl aka Barbara Gordon aka Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon aka Gordon “Sting” Sumner aka Gordon “ALF” Shumway aka the Gorton’s Fisherman followed a lead on Mirror’s identity and discovered that Mirror was some guy who survived a car bomb that killed his whole family. This didn’t sit well with him, and now he wants to kill everyone that should have died as an act of kindness and mercy because he has nothing better to do with his time. Batgirl, who also has nothing better to do with her time and doesn’t seem to even have a job or a steady income or anything, wants to thwart this douchebag. BUT, this douchebag put a bomb on a train, so she has to go take care of that first.

Other things happened too! Barbara Gordon dates her physical therapist and I think he’s going to die in a few issues! A warrant is out for Batgirl, I guess, and the Commissioner might be ok with that? Does he have a beef with Batgirl? Did Batgirl shit in his coffee once? And what’s up with Barbara’s new roommate? Is she, uh, is she seeing anyone? All these questions and less will be answered!

Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3 [January, 2012]
Written by: Gail Simone
“A Breath of Broken Glass”

Batgirl (Vol. 4), Issue #3

Batgirl is second-guessing her desire to stop evil-doers, since this Mirror guy is pretty evil as far as doers go. She’s on her way to find the bomb-train so she can…uh, do something about it? She probably doesn’t even know what she’ll do yet. Mirror gave her an earpiece so he can talk to her while she goes off to do the superhero thing. “His whole motivation seems to be that he doesn’t think anyone should believe in miracles,” Batgirl narrates, morosely, “He says miracles are a lie–just a cruel prank. He’s wrong. I know he’s wrong.” You know what, if this comic series starts getting Jesus-y then I’m bowing out post haste! Of course, Batgirl only thinks this because she was shot in the stomach and rendered a paraplegic for only three years. So she wants to prove him wrong? Who cares? Go home and watch TV.

Batgirl lands on the runaway speeding train on the elevated rail. She bends over in front of a window and asks the operator if he can stop it or do anything. No. Batgirl is like “fuck”, anchors herself to the train with her grappling hook, and whips around the side to crash into the train through a window, effectively shattering harmful, sharp glass all over the already-traumatized passengers like some sort of huge asshole!

Batman (Vol. 4), Issue #3

The left button is the “Never Find the Bomb On Time” button! Hah hah hah hah haaaaaah! The right button is for ordering nachos!

While Mirror taunts her via one-way walkie-talkie technology, Batgirl calls out for Rupert Ansell, the man who should have died on the train tracks a few months back and the reason Mirror is trying to bomb a train in the first place. Once she finds him, she orders the rest of the passengers to leave that particular train car. After they all leave, Batgirl sucks Ansell’s dick! Ha! It goes on graphically for the next nine pages! Haha! Wait, no, she doesn’t suck his dick, but Ansell does think she’s trying to make some moves on him at any rate. While Ansell just stands there bewildered, Batgirl attempts to connect the dots out loud to Mirror about why she’s on his list: she was supposed to die hanging on the balcony while stopping the Brisby Killers. ERGO, she needs to die ironically because Mirror likes to spend an extraordinarily unnecessary amount of time setting up and following through on making sure these people die similarly to how they were supposed to die. ERGO, Batgirl can’t be blown up, and so Mirror can’t kill Ansell while she’s on the train as well. Did I get all that right? Bleh. APPARANTLY, though, Batgirl forgot one thing…

…YES, the good Samaritan takes the train running in the opposite direction! Take that, Batgirl! (??) (???) Boom.

Batman (Vol. 4), Issue #3

Goddamnit, I always, always, ALWAYS, forget about the good Samaritan! Grrrr!

Two hours after train go blowup, we see Detective McKenna frying eggs at home while bugging Commissioner Gordon who probably has better things to do than to tell one of his police detectives, AGAIN, that she can’t work right now. McKenna is like “fine” and hangs up, but she’s probably going to do some police work anyway because these kinds of comics do not mirror reality on a believable level whatsoever. Where I come from, cops don’t even do police work while they’re on duty. Barbara Gordon was already standing at the office door waiting for her dad to get off the fucking phone already, looking worried and numb. The Commissioner asks what’s wrong, Barbara’s laundry list of worries runs through her head but she doesn’t tell him anything. For secret identity reasons. What I’ve learned about comics so far is that secret identities are important because…… uh. Anyway, Commissioner Gary Oldman tells Barbara to be careful and cuts and runs to follow a fake lead that Batgirl gave him. Barbara wonders why everyone worries about her all the time. Probably because people keep trying to kill her? Yeah, gee, I wonder.

Batman (Vol. 4), Issue #3

OOoOoooOOOOOOOoohhhh, pierogis!

Instead of being careful like Commissioner Daddy said, Barbara puts on her batclothes and flutters off into the night again because people in comic books don’t sleep for 46 days in a row. She heads over to the vehicle impound lot to recover her Batbike that she had to abandon in the hospital after, as you recall, she drove right inside the building and into the lobby elevator. Two seconds after she finds it a voice behind her goes “Stealing from the cops now, are we?” It’s Nightwing, AKA past-Robin, AKA Dick Grayson, AKA the 9-year-old superhero. Batgirl pretends that she knew Nightwing was following her this whole time, but she’s a filthy fucking liar. Nightwing was probably following Batgirl because he has a Robin-sized boner for her. Ah, apparently the feeling is mutual, because he sits behind her on the Batbike and wraps his arms around her as they plow through the closed gate of the impound lot…and she all like “yeah baby”. Her internal monologue talks about how she used to not like him in the past, but she can’t believe that these days. That’s kind of a bummer, because I’d much rather read a story where Nightwing and Batgirl fight like 5th-graders. He pulls on her hair, she kicks him in the dick. That kind of thing.

So Nightwing is worried about her, which Batgirl finds annoying because she was just complaining that everyone worries about her all the time. I starting to sense a pattern here that all these fucking MEN need to shut the damn-hell up and let Batgirl do her thing. Where’s Batgirl’s roommate? Get her in here instead! She’ll leave Batgirl alone. Nightwing asks her if she’ll be able to take Mirror on by herself; Batgirl responds by kicking Nightwing’s legs away from under him and grappling away! Ah, young love. *farts*

We cut to a flashback scene with Barbara and Dick talking to each other at what I assume is a Wayne Manor charity event. They flirt and shit. Well, they don’t shit. Maybe someone shits. Anyway, the point is they like each other but apparently they can’t be together? One of those tales as old as time, eh? Woody Allen and Soon-Yi made it happen! Jaime and Cersei Lannister? Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia? Am I implying that these two are also somewhat related! I hope so, that would be a funny twist!

We cut back to the present day, where Batgirl and Nightwing are playfully leaping around buildings in a game of superhero grab-ass. I feel like this has been going on for 10 pages. Come on, Gail Simone, who wants romance in their superhero stories?? GIRLS?! Just kidding, I’m basically a girl. Maybe it’s because I don’t care about either of these characters yet? I hope they get hit by a blimp during their fancy-free escapades.

Batman (Vol. 4), Issue #3

Young love! The delicate dance of attraction! The push and pull! The punching and kicking and screaming!

Wait, something happens that still satisfies my cynical cravings for schadenfreude! Batgirl starts beating the tar out of Nightwing. It turns out their version of “flirting” really is just kicking the piss out of each other. Now that’s the kind of love I can relate with! After the tussle is over, Batgirl reiterates that she doesn’t want people to worry. She wants understanding and respect, not pity and comfort. She says that she’s going about this alone, and Nightwing can’t deal with that then she’s kicking his ass to the curb! Away with the zero, get yourself a hero, girlfriend. Nightwing begrudgingly acquiesces to Batgirl’s wishes and does a provocative pose as one final “get a good look at THIS because you’re not seeing it anymore!” before he fucks off into the night.

Batman (Vol. 4), Issue #3

The judges give it a 10 for presentation, but a 4 for flavor.

Final Thoughts

Every single character sure is stubborn. Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon, Detective McKenna, Nightwing, Mirror, George Costanza, Jack Shephard, Jack Bauer, Jack-Be-Nimble. I suppose it could go either way, but my prediction is that Barbara Gordon will prove herself right about being able to handle everything on her own, despite all these worrywart white-knighting MEN in her life that may think otherwise. You can’t really name yourself “Batgirl” without being treated like a girl, whether you’re 12 or 42 years old. I’m guessing most Batgirl stories over the years handle the heroine like a precocious, yet naively flawed individual.

There seems to be more to it than even that, though, which makes me still wonder if it will indeed go the other way. She’ll be proven wrong, she’ll bite off more than she can chew, and she’ll have a problem she won’t be able to get out of so easily? There’s nuance to this series that’s drawing me in. I think whatever happens, I’ll be surprised. Or not! Maybe the Joker will pop up and blast her in the gut with a shotgun this time! He’ll be wearing assless chaps and a cowboy hat!


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State of the Blog Address – September, 2021

State of the Blog

Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the very first State of the Blog Address way back in 2002.

Hello to all 2.5 of my fans! Things are really blowing up around here, whoooooooaaa nelly! Well, thank you for joining me at any rate. It’s been a while since I meta-blogged, so I want to get some thoughts out there about how I feel, where I’m at mentally, how my blood pressure is doing, where I see myself in five years, where that rash came from, and all the jazz. Not really. But sort of! Ruining the magic by pulling back the curtain, that’s what I’m all about. And you can either sit down and zip the lip or you can scream your head off until you’re blue in the face. I don’t care! It’s a computer! I’m not in the room with you! Or am I?…

I’ve decided that I’m going to check in periodically with these State of the Blog Addresses, even though you don’t know me and who cares, right? OH WELL. My blog, my rules. Get used to it. Scream all you want, I can’t heeeeeaaaarrr you…

Comic Books
I initially took on the comic book blogging project as a goof, and I’m simply astounded at how much I’m indeed delighting in reading these nerd books. As of right now, at the pace I’m going, I’m literally ten weeks ahead of my current three-per-week comic book blogging schedule. That’s 30 comics ahead as I speak! That means if I get hit in the face and killed dead by a falling defunct Russian spy satellite TONIGHT, from beyond the grave this blog will STILL update with a new comic book three times a week until the end of November! How about that, huh? Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, though, there’s a lot more to read out there.

For me, writing the commentary along with reading these issues go completely hand-in-hand. I can’t imagine reading comic books otherwise now. The caveat, of course, is that it takes me about six times longer to get through a single issue this way. Since I have tens of thousands of comics to read, it’s unfortunately going to take me a great while to even adequately scratch the surface.

I am in it for the long haul though, and I’m having such a blast doing this that the momentum from the enjoyment alone means more to me than followers and readers. I can say that with honesty, and I’m grateful for it.

I’ve been sticking with Marvel and DC exclusively for now, and it may be a long while before I attempt to branch out a bit. Eventually, I’d like to tackle the Buffyverse comics, as well as Sin City. Others will obviously follow.

I’m steering completely clear of the Golden Age because most of the ~20 years of that time period consists entirely of boring trash, but I intend to spotlight an issue from that era every once in a while as a separate feature. Stay tuned.

State of the Blog

Abraham Lincoln once dreamt about delivering a State of the Blog Address 150 years before it actually happened. He quickly forgot about it because, in the very same dream, he was also attacked by radioactive bees.

Newer Release Roundups
Focusing more on comic books has, in turn, reduced the amount of time I can focus on music blogging. I have a full-time job and two very young children, and while it kills me sometimes that I can’t devote more time than I already do to this blog, I have to make peace with the reality that (for now) I just can’t write as much I as I really want to. That being said, Album Reviews and Discography Deep Dives may trickle in less frequently, but I’m committed to providing a Newer Release Roundup every single Wednesday. Keeping up with new music is incredibly important to me, and staying disciplined with this particular feature has helped me tremendously. Other than that, my big Buckethead project lost steam from the moment it began, quite literally. I intend to relaunch this at some point, I just need to polish up my concept for it. We’ll see.

Other Stuff?
I have plenty of ideas for other projects, but absolutely no time to begin to execute them. So I’m kind of just chipping away at them. Some of these projects include: plane crash analyses, commentary on the bad seasons of the Simpsons (Season 9 and beyond), junk food reviews, random television episode rants, random movie rants, bringing back the Sucky Comics Sunday feature I had on my old blog, and plenty of other stuff that has nothing to do with my personal life. My personal life is dreadful and boring! You’re better off not having to read about any of it!

Website Maintenance
Keeping this thing going and looking “nice” is way harder than I thought. There are all sorts of considerations that I never really spent energy thinking about before, like desktop/mobile screen accessibility, hosting security, figuring out and mitigating page load times, and even a little bit of blog promotion (which I’m absolutely awful at). As it stands, the blog layout is almost nearly how I want it to look and I’m quite satisfied with it. Admittedly, there are still plenty of older pages with poor formatting from the Blogspot > WordPress transition that I still need to fix up. Eventually. And I want to figure out how to add WordPress Loops to my static pages for automated updating on new content for each category (in a way that’s more intuitive to navigate than literally 99.9% of the other blogs out there).

That’s it. I’m writing more than I ever have in my entire life and I couldn’t be happier with that, so lack of readership is far from discouraging. To anyone that is actually reading my words, thank you so very, very much. Really.

Cheers.


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Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2 – “Gifted (Part 2)”

* Part 2 of 6 of the Gifted storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #2 – “Gifted (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, a lot of stuff happened that I didn’t go into too much detail about anyway! Kitty Pryde showed up to the Professor X School of Freaks to work there. Wolverine and Cyclops fought in the schoolyard like a couple of rapscallions. Some geneticist lady named Dr. Kavita Rao gave a speech about how mutants are just diseased humans and that “they” found a cure for it. Cyclops wants to bring the band back together. A mysterious hostage situation at an undisclosed location is underway.

A lot is happening and I don’t know nuthin’! Let’s get this show on the road.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2 [August, 2004]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Gifted (Part 2)”

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2

We begin the fascinating second installment of Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) at Dr. Rao’s press conference. She shows a video of some Kevin Spacey-lookin’ motherfucking cop and his partner busting into little girl Tildie Soames’ house. Apparently, mutant powers are supposed to manifest at puberty, but Tildie’s an early bloomer! I’ve always said that about her, the little pistol! We come to find out that Tildie’s superpower is making her nightmares come true, so it is revealed that she accidentally killed her parents at the beginning of the first issue. Whoops! She kills the cops too. Double whoops! *cue Buffy intro music*

Elsewhere, Team X-Men is assessing the hostage situation. We learn from Ms. Blue Lipstick (Emma? Frost?) that it’s happening at a building hosting “Walter Langford’s annual fundraiser for the preservation of Victorian architecture”. BORING! The X-Men radar shows a bunch of red dots surrounding a single blue dot, and it’s the blue dot that is suspicious! It’s the hostage head honcho, and he’s anticipating the arrival of the X-Men for an old-fashioned beat-‘em-up! One of the soldiers gets so spooked he starts shooting a window! Walter Langford’s not going to like that!

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2

You show that motherfucking window who’s boss! Take no prisoners!

Soon, the X-Men team barrels into the room all guns a-blazin’ and there’s about seven wordless panels in a row of heroic contorting and bad guy punching. The head honcho is still standing, letting the X-Men know that they fell for his little trap, so to speak! Heh heh heh! So this guy starts kicking all their asses and declares, verbatim, “Diamond. I am Ord, of the Breakworld. We stuff our pillows with diamonds.” So that clears it up! As Mr. Ord is about to claim victory, some fat dragon thing pops up out of nowhere and breathes fire in Ord’s face, effectively shooting him out the goddamn window! “Lockheed! You found me! You are the best X-Dragon ever.” says Kitty Pryde, bewilderingly.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2

“Lockheed”. That’s subtle. I’m gonna call him Martin!

After the threat has been vanquished, the team turns to the camera crews and the attendees of the fundraiser to explain what was going on, but they’re not good at explaining, and they kind of just make it worse. One member of the press asks the blue beast guy what he thinks of Dr. Rao’s new cure. The X-Men are confused about this, but Mr. Kelsey Grammar Blue Beast claims that Dr. Rao is one of the great geneticists alive in the world and that the news is probably true. Frost wants to kill the bitch and everyone concurs, likely because this “cure” is just going to be “mass genocide” and that’s not fun for anybody. The X-Men decide to call it a night because they’re all tuckered out and they’ll regroup in the morning. Wolverine’s gonna have a beer. As a reader, I sure am glad that the team is treating this with the urgency it demands!

Frost and Pryde hang back as the rest of the crew leaves. This scene fails the Bechdel test immediately because they start talking about two men. Frost is grateful that she has Professor Xavier’s trust since I guess she used to be some sort of villain? And now she’s an X-Man. And she likes that. Mostly ‘cause she’s boning Cyclops. She reveals that she was the one who requested Pryde’s involvement in regrouping an X-Men team. Pryde reveals some backstory that her first encounter with X-Men involved Frost being a jerk to them, so she doesn’t trust her as far as she can throw her (unless she’s strong, I don’t know yet). I can see that we’re going to have some baggage here that even Joss Whedon might not be able to wiggle his way out of with a pen and paper! You can’t harass cartoon women, Joss, remember that now.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #2

Fancy seeing you here! We haven’t meant up like this in quite some time.

We are treated to a scene where Dr. Hairy Blue Guy McCoy tries to sneak into Benetech Laboratories but then Dr. Rao catches him scuttling around the ceiling. They take this opportunity to catch up since they were buddies from old times or whatever; Rao insists that she is trying to help save innocent lives and that McCoy can’t stop her, but McCoy is like “Hold the phone, darling, does that shit work? Gimme some of dat!” Aaaaaaaaannnnd, SCENE!

Final Thoughts

Things are starting to get interesting, son! Is McCoy tired of being some sort of large blue cat or whatever he is? Are Emma and Kitty gonna hate-fuck? Are Wolverine and Cyclops gonna hate-fuck as well? Is Issue #3 gonna be 20 straight pages of gloriously-illustrated group hate-fucking? Join me next time when these X-MEN will continue to ASTONISH you!


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