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SwanShadow Gives Thanks: 10th Anniversary Edition

November 28, 2013

If you do something ten years in a row, it’s definitely a thing.

Every Thanksgiving beginning in 2004, I’ve paused here in my little corner of the World Wide Wackiness to express my appreciation for 26 people, places, and/or things, one for each letter of the English alphabet. Truth to tell, there are so many people, places, and/or things sharing my universe for which I am grateful, that if I seriously attempted to make an exhaustive list, I’d be typing from now until next Thanksgiving, by which time my fingers would long since have snapped off. Therefore, this has become my yearly exercise in gratitude, with its arbitrary format allowing me both room to range and boundaries at which to stop.

The list you’re about to read marks my 10th annual Thanksgiving post. (You are going to read it, aren’t you? You might as well; you’re here already.) Much has changed in my life during the decade since I composed the first one. No doubt, much more will change if I’m privileged to write others in Novembers yet to come. If I’m granted those opportunities, I promise to be as grateful — for everyone and everything listed, and for so much more — as I am on this Thanksgiving Day.

On this particular Festival of Turkey, I am thankful for…

Auditions. I have a weird job. The overwhelming majority of my working life is spent performing for free, in hope that someone will pay me money instead. Most workdays, I spend hours standing or seated (I switch it up a lot) in front of a microphone, auditioning for voiceover projects. Once in a while, I book one. As much I live for those latter moments, I also can’t help but appreciate how cool it is that for a few hours every day, it’s my task to just play.

Bay Bridge. We got a new one this year, finally — nearly a quarter-century after the original was horrifically damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, and three years after the not-yet-in-existence suspension span became the logo of the Golden State Warriors. The upgraded Bay Bridge will probably always play second fiddle to its more famous younger cousin around the corner, but it’s a beauty — and a treat to drive — nonetheless.

Crustaceans. Tasty giant insectoids that live underwater. I’m fond of all the edible species — lobsters, crabs, shrimp, langostines, crawfish, you name it. During our spring vacation in Australia, the Pirate Queen and I dined on yet another variety that neither of us had ever tried: Moreton Bay bugs, prehistoric-looking creatures that resemble lobsters whose claws were snapped off, then were run over by a truck. Like their relatives worldwide, they sure were delicious.

Down Under. Speaking of Australia, we spent three incredible weeks touring the Island Continent and its next-door neighbor, the North Island of New Zealand. We saw a play at the Sydney Opera House, marveled at the mysterious sandstone monolith known as Uluru, explored a tropical rain forest north of Cairns, watched tiny penguins scurry ashore on St. Philip Island, enjoyed the view from two of the tallest towers in the Southern Hemisphere, and saw where the hobbits live. A spectacular adventure, and one that I should write much more about.

Enter the Dragon. The only motion picture to which I ever memorized every single line of dialogue. Throughout my teenage years, a poster depicting Bruce Lee in the film’s climactic fight scene graced my bedroom wall. In 2013, we lost Jim Kelly, who costarred alongside Lee as the irrepressible Williams. When Han, the villain of the piece, insists that Williams must prepare for defeat as well as victory, Williams replies with consummate cool, “I don’t waste my time with it. When it comes, I won’t even notice. I’ll be too busy looking good.”

Fountains of Wayne. When I need a quick pick-me-up, I throw on a tune by this power pop quartet from the Big Apple. Songs like “Denise,” “Maureen,” “Hey Julie” (my personal favorite), and the ubiquitous “Stacy’s Mom” never fail to put a grin on my face and some extra pizzazz in my step. The band’s name, incidentally, was cribbed from a garden ornaments store in Wayne, New Jersey.

Grandma. Not my Grandma, but The Daughter’s. With boundless patience and good humor, she shares her home with KM and her hyperactive canine companion Maddie. She graciously lets me drop in for visits, keeps me posted on goings-on in The Daughter’s life, and even hems a pair of pants for me on occasion. She’s not my mom, but after many years of dutiful service as my mother-in-law (she was my late first wife’s mother), she might as well be.

Heroes and heroines. Regular visitors here know that I own an extensive collection of original comic book superhero art. I started reading comics at age five, and from that time forward, the costumed characters who starred within those colorful pages became my fantasy friends. If you ask me why I love superheroes and superheroines, I can rattle off a litany of reasons. But the one that trumps all the others is this: It just feels good to be reminded that there are heroes in the world. The real ones don’t usually wear costumes. You know who you are.

iPad. It’s the device that serves up my VO scripts, delivers the news, keeps me in touch with friends and colleagues, and provides the occasional stress-alleviating game of virtual pinball. Thanks, Steve Jobs, wherever you are.

Jupiter Jones. The leader of the Three Investigators proved to my boyhood self that a smart chubby kid could be a hero. He proved it to Alfred Hitchcock, too. You could look it up.

KM, referred to more often here as The Daughter. The brightest, funniest, most thoughtful offspring any father could ever ask. I continue to be shocked and awed by the young woman she’s become. It’s unfathomable to me that she’ll be 25 next year. That’s the same number of years that I spent married to her mother KJ, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2010, but left an indelible legacy in the daughter she birthed, raised, and continues to inspire.

LearnedLeague. It’s described by its creator and Commissioner, the honorable Thorsten A. Integrity, as “a creed, an ideal, a Weltanschauung.” I call it the universe’s greatest online trivia league, where some of the finest quizzers on Earth — from Jeopardy! champions and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire winners to The Beast and The Governess from both the American and original UK versions of The Chase — assemble to do daily battle. An experience of knowledge warfare both adrenaline-pumping and humbling. Lately, more the latter.

Monterey Bay Aquarium. Endlessly fascinating and dazzlingly educational, it’s one of my favorite spaces to wander. Filled to bursting with phenomenal displays of ocean life, it’s as though Aquaman invited you to hang out at his house for the day.

Navigation apps. How did the directionally challenged among us get around before GPS? Maybe we didn’t. Some of us might still be out there, lost in the boondocks without a clue how to get home.

Oracle Arena, or as we like to call it during the NBA season, Warriors Ground. The oldest active arena in the Association is also the loudest, wildest, and — thanks to a long-overdue ownership change, leading to an influx of top-flight talent over the past couple of years — most exciting home court in basketball. With Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson bombing away from downtown Oakland, All-Star David Lee maintaining a seemingly nonstop streak of double-doubles, center Andrew Bogut finally healthy to anchor the middle, and key acquisition Andre Iguodala completing the puzzle, the boys in blue and gold come ready to rock the house.

PayPal, for making it quick and easy to do business online, and for keeping the Pirate Queen gainfully employed.

Speaking of whom… all hail the Queen of Pirates, who shivers my timbers without ever threatening to make me walk the plank. (I think she’s thought about it, though.) We are at once the classic Odd Couple and a perfect match. It would be impossible to envision the second chapter of my adult life without her.

Renaissance Faire. Seriously, who doesn’t love spending a day surrounded by merry folk in Elizabethan drag, spouting in pseudo-Shakespearean patois like the mighty Thor? (Which raises the age-old question: Why did a supposed Norse quasi-demigod talk as though he’d wandered in from a road company of Hamlet? Discuss.) I totally get into the RenFaire atmosphere — it’s among the best venues for people-watching to be found anywhere. Park me on a hay bale while blackguards and wenches regale me with sea chanteys and bawdy songs, and I’m as giddy as Puck on a midsummer’s night.

Solvang. Remember: Copenhagen is Danish. Solvang is Dane-ish.

Tropicana Las Vegas. After burial in the bowels of the cavernous MGM Grand, followed by drowning in the screaming miasma of Circus Circus, TCONA — that’s the Trivia Championships of North America, for the uninitiated — finally found a fitting home in its third year, at the Tropicana. Laid-back, comfortable, user-friendly, and conveniently located, the Trop provided the best experience yet for our annual Continental Congress of quiz nuts. I was thrilled to hear earlier this month that we’ll be back there again next summer.

Uluru. The emotional highlight of our Australian expedition, nothing prepared me for the power and majesty of what Westerners formerly dubbed Ayers Rock. Scientists describe it as an inselberg — Uluru is to the Australian Outback what an iceberg is to the Arctic Ocean, albeit on a far more imposing scale. As immense as the rock we can see is, there’s a good 80% more of it under the desert surface. It’s as though God were holding this ginormous stone at the creation of the world, set it down in the center of Australia while He busied Himself with other creative tasks, then left it there. You should go see it. But be warned — billions (and I do mean billions) of obnoxious flies share the site.

Vermeer, Johannes. The legendary painter’s masterwork, Girl with a Pearl Earring — sometimes referred to as “the Dutch Mona Lisa” — made a tour stop in our fair city this summer. I’ve seen the image dozens of times, but standing before the actual canvas in all its luminous wonder shook me to my shoes. I literally had tears welling in my eyes as I looked upon this sublime beauty. A true representation of the power of art.

The Walking Dead. Both the TV series that the Pirate Queen and I have grown to love, and the video game series that keeps many of my talented voice acting friends employed. I haven’t scored a role yet. But I’ll keep trying.

Xhosa. How can you not love a language that sounds like humankind communicating with dolphins?

Yams… because it’s Thanksgiving, and they’re yummy.

Zite, the news aggregation app that puts all the cool stuff right at my fingertips. What’s great about Zite is that you can give it feedback on every article it offers — I like this or I don’t like that — and it adjusts future filtering based on your input. You can also set specific subject categories, from ocean-broad (“Politics”) to pinpoint-narrow (“Hunter Pence”), and the app will make sure you get a bounty of content on that topic. There are plenty of apps that function similarly, but I’ve yet to find one that does the job as efficiently and as effectively as Zite.

And as always, friend reader, I’m thankful for you, who take the time to stop in here from time to time and peruse my drivel. I don’t use that word “friend” lightly. I appreciate your kind attention, and hope that my words continue to prove worthy.

May you and the people you love have much to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day… and may we all be here for the next one.

Categories: Cinemania, LearnedLeague, Listology, My Home Town, Reminiscing, Ripped From the Headlines, Soundtrack of My Life, SwanStuff, Teleholics Anonymous, Thanksgiving, That's Cool!, Trivial Pursuits

Comments: 2 Comments

Comic Art Friday: Catch me now, I’m falling

November 22, 2013

I thought long and hard — well, okay, as long and hard as I think about anything; which, given the attenuated nature of my attention span, is not all that long or hard, really — about what to post on a Comic Art Friday that falls on the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Given that I was a toddler on this date in 1963, I haven’t any emotional tale to share about where I was or what I was doing when the news broke. I only kinda-sorta-vaguely recall the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and those occurred five years later. Thus, no deep personal insight here.

As a Presidential history buff, it does strike me as interesting that Kennedy’s assassination resonates with us the way that it does. Kennedy wasn’t the first President to be assassinated. That dubious honor fell to Abraham Lincoln, as has been extensively memorialized in print and on film. Two other Presidents — James Garfield and William McKinley — were bumped off within the following 40 years. By the time of Kennedy’s murder, it had been more than 60 years since a President had been killed, and Americans had largely begun to think that we had advanced beyond that sort of business.

Of course, we had not.

Perhaps by coincidence, the Kennedy assassination would mark the start of a turbulent era in American public life. The rest of the 1960s and ’70s would see the polarizing Vietnam War, the full impact of the civil rights movement, the Watergate scandal, the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Politics in this country would never again be the same.

Ironically, it took a band of Englishmen to record one of the most provocative commentaries on this dark time in American history. In 1979, the Kinks released the album Low Budget, which featured a song entitled “Catch Me Now I’m Falling.” The lyrics read, in part:

I remember when you were down
You would always come running to me
I never denied you and I would guide you
Through all of your difficulties
Now I’m calling all citizens from all over the world
This is Captain America calling
I bailed you out when you were down on your knees
So will you catch me now I’m falling

That song reverberates through my synapses today as I think about the Kennedy assassination, and all that’s gone on in this country since then. We’ve fallen — and in my view, continue to fall — in many ways over this past half-century. And yet, by many other measures, we rise to levels that no other nation in the history of human civilization ever has.

Bizarre how that works.

I suppose that both our struggles and successes are to be expected, and are to some degree of a piece. We are remarkably accomplished as a people at making both good and bad, both love and hate, out of the same things; at finding unity in places that ought to divide us, while dividing ourselves over that which ought to unite us. Our greatest national strengths are often the cause of our most debilitating weaknesses… and vice versa.

I’m not entirely sure why that is. But that’s America for you.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Categories: Comic Art Friday, Hero of the Day, Random Acts of Patriotism, Reminiscing, Ripped From the Headlines, Soundtrack of My Life, SwanStuff, That's Cool!, The Body Politic

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Comic Art Friday: Typhoon Taarna

November 8, 2013

It struck me this morning as ironic that on the birthday of the late, great Tony DeZuniga — who led the tsunami of artists from the Philippines that took the American comics industry by storm in the 1970s — his native land is being pummeled by one of the nastiest typhoons on record.

Weird universe we live in.

I happened to be in the Philippines for a major typhoon once. On Thanksgiving Day in 1974, Clark Air Base — where my father was stationed at the time — was struck by Typhoon Irma, packing winds approaching 100 miles per hour. It was the most powerful typhoon to hit the area in the base’s 90-year tenure.

We lost electrical power by late morning. Fortunately, my mother had cooked the turkey early as a precautionary measure, so the bird was ready to roll at mealtime. Most of the accompaniments we ate cold, straight from the can. When we weren’t eating, we spent the day mopping up the water that blew in under the front door, bracing the windows with duct tape in case the winds shattered them, and praying that the roof would hold. It did. The bamboo pole that held our TV antenna aloft was not so fortunate.

Anyway, in memory of Mr. DeZuniga, that’s his rendition of Taarna, the heroine of the final segment of the animated film Heavy Metal, leading off this post. Below, you’ll see Taarna again, as drawn by Tony’s close friend and colleague, Ernie Chan, another member of the Filipino-American comics community who passed away a mere five days after Tony left us.

Again, irony.

Speaking of Taarna…

For several years, I maintained a reference page about Heavy Metal on Squidoo, the web community founded by marketing guru Seth Godin. A while back, I got a cryptic email from the site’s administrative team, advising me that they were shutting down my page due to some kind of inappropriate content.

Nothing in the notice explained exactly what content was under review. Although nudity is depicted in the film (okay, it’s animated nudity, but still), I didn’t use any nude images on the site. The text was 100% original — I wrote the entire page from scratch; no content was pirated from Wikipedia or any other site — and 100% profanity-free. The only links on the page went either to my Comic Art Fans gallery (where my Taarna commissions are displayed) or to Amazon (where readers could purchase the DVD of the film — the kind of link Squidoo encourages). So I have no idea what the issue was.

At any rate, I copied all of the text into a Word document for my own records, and deleted the page. If you want to know more about Heavy Metal — a landmark film in the history of animation, and an essential bridge between comics and the movies — you’ll have to look elsewhere than Squidoo.

You could always just ask me, of course. I know almost everything there is to know about the film.

I used to have a Squidoo page that demonstrated this.

Our final Taarna image is a new one, courtesy of Gene Gonzales, who — unlike Messrs. DeZuniga and Chan — is still with us, and still creating lovely artworks like this. I love the dramatic angle Gene employs here. Taarna looks strong and majestic, as a good Taarakian defender should. Her windblown hair is gorgeous as well.

Although…

…I hope that isn’t a typhoon stirring up.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Categories: Comic Art Friday, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Hero of the Day, Reminiscing, Ripped From the Headlines, SwanStuff, That's Cool!

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Michael Rankins. Jeopardy! 1980s Fan Favorite. Vote. Yadda, yadda.

September 30, 2013

So, here’s the deal.

I’m Michael Rankins — you knew that, right? nobody’s real name is SwanShadow, for crying out loud — and way back in 1988, I was a five-time undefeated champion on Jeopardy!, America’s favorite quiz show. You can see how young and serious I was then, in the graphic above. (You’d think they’d have found a pic of me smiling, wouldn’t you?) I was also a semifinalist in the 1988 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions; a participant in the first prime-time Jeopardy! tournament, Super Jeopardy! in 1990; the winner of the Jeopardy! Battle of the Bay Area Brains in 1998; and a Round One winner in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005.

Okay, résumé over.

Now, I’m competing for the chance to go head-to-head against other 1980s Jeopardy! champions in the show’s 30th Anniversary Season Battle of the Decades! The Battle of the Decades is bringing back former Jeopardy! champions from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s to compete in a multi-level tournament, that will begin airing in February 2014. The show’s producers have already selected 14 champions from each decade, but the 15th and final spot in each tournament is up to Jeopardy! fans — this means YOU — via an online voting campaign. I’ve been selected as one of five candidates for the 1980s Fan Favorite slot in this mega-event.

To get there, I need your help!

Here’s how you can throw me your support starting today, and continuing daily until 6:59 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Monday, October 7.

Visit the official Jeopardy! website (that’s Jeopardy.com, of course), choose me from the five Fan Favorite nominees, and click the “Vote Now!” button.

If you’re on Facebook, you can go to the Jeopardy! Facebook page (a.k.a. Facebook.com/Jeopardy) and use the Battle of the Decades voting tab. Just like on the Jeopardy! site, you can choose me as your Fan Favorite, and click “Vote Now!”

If you’re a Twitter user, you can vote for me by tweeting: Michael #JeopardyVote. (Be sure to include both my first name and the hashtag.) One such tweet per day counts as a vote for me.

It’s that easy! You can vote for me once each day in each format — that’s one vote on Jeopardy.com, one vote on the Jeopardy! Facebook page, and one vote via Twitter using my first name and the special hashtag: Michael #JeopardyVote. Again, voting starts today, and continues until next Monday morning, October 7, at 7 a.m. PDT.

I’m not the sort to ask folks for much — if you know me, you know that. But if you would take a moment each day this week to vote for me — once per day in all three locations, if you have Facebook and/or Twitter accounts — I would be eternally grateful. (Well, for this lifetime, anyway.) And I’d especially consider it an honor and favor if you’d invite your friends, family members, and other contacts to vote for me too.

By the way, each of the other four nominees is a worthy champion also. Some of them I’ve come to know at least a little over the years, and they’re all cool people. Any of us would do you proud in representing our Decade of the 1980s as your Fan Favorite. But if you’re inclined to give me your votes, please know that I treasure your generous support. (And please, vote fairly. No spambots. I want your help, but not that kind.)

Thanks for your time, friend reader.

Now, please… go vote for me as your Jeopardy! 1980s Fan Favorite!

Categories: Jeopardy!, Reminiscing, Ripped From the Headlines, SwanStuff, Teleholics Anonymous, That's Cool!, Trivial Pursuits

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If I had a ballot…

January 8, 2013

…I’d ballot in the morning. I’d ballot in the evening, all over this land.

And assuming that ballot were for the National Baseball Hall of Fame (“the Hall” for the remainder of this post, because I’m not typing that entire name over and over again), here’s who’d be on mine this year.

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Jeff Bagwell
Mike Piazza
Jack Morris
Lee Smith

Tomorrow, the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (hereafter “the BBWAA,” because, well, see above) will announce their selections. I fully expect, based on the electors who’ve already publicized their votes, that Bonds and Clemens will not make the Hall in this, their first year of eligibility. Indeed, I would not be surprised if Bagwell doesn’t make it either, though the case for his election or omission is more easily argued from either side, in my opinion. (I doubt that Morris, who’s on the ballot for the 14th year, and Smith, who’s on year 11, will ever be elected, for different reasons than the aforementioned players.) Piazza? Hard to predict.

But let’s get this on the table right now: If Bonds and Clemens — the greatest offensive player and pitcher, respectively, of their generation — are not elected to the Hall tomorrow, as I suspect they will not be, it’s a travesty.

Most, if not indeed all, of the electors who left Bonds and Clemens (and possibly Bagwell and Piazza) off their ballots will say it’s because they cheated the game by using performance-enhancing drugs (“PEDs,” because… you know). Here’s the first problem with that: We don’t know whether they did or didn’t.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: We do know. Game of Shadows, and all that. Well, I read Game of Shadows right after it came out, and it impressed me at the time as the work of two muckrakers trying to make a name for themselves. There’s a ton of speculation in the book, and a lot of “he said, they said” scuttlebutt from sources the writers declined to identify, but not a great deal of what folks in the legal profession call “evidence.” The fact remains that we’ve never seen the results of a positive test for PEDs that Bonds failed, and I’m not sure we ever saw one from Clemens either. Bonds was tried in federal court, and was not convicted of perjury regarding PED use. (He was convicted on a single count of obstruction of justice, which may yet collapse on appeal.) The last time I checked, our legal system still operated on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”

But what about the evidence of our own eyes? Bonds grew from Bill Bixby (or Eric Bana, Edward Norton, or Mark Ruffalo, take your pick) into the Incredible Hulk right practically in front of us. Don’t get me wrong — I think he used PEDs. I don’t know whether he took anabolic steroids, but I’d guess he at least took human growth hormone (HGH). But what I think and guess is essentially irrelevant. My inferences, deductions, and suppositions are not proof. Like most people, I believe in a lot of things I can’t prove, and I’m entitled to those beliefs. I can’t, however, prove that someone is guilty of something simply because I believe it to be so. Two years ago, I was the foreman on a jury that convicted a man of murder. My fellow jurors and I convicted the defendant on the basis of evidence, not because we looked at the guy and said, “Yeah, I think he did it.” I believe Bonds, Clemens, and every other player suspected of PED use deserves the same consideration.

There’s another factor in this that frequently gets brushed aside. PED use, while clearly contrary to the spirit of fair play and integrity, was not against the rules of baseball during most of what today gets referred to as “the Steroid Era.” Make no mistake, using those substances was against federal and state laws. But unlike, say, cycling or the Olympics, baseball itself did not explicitly prohibit their use, nor test for said use, until well after PEDs were epidemic in the sport. Was that a loophole? Sure. But you can’t penalize people for taking advantage of a loophole if one exists. All you can do is close the loophole, and say, “No more.” Baseball has now done that — we might argue about how effectively — but that creates no retroactive license to go back and slap the wrists of players who might have engaged in activity that was not prohibited by the rules of the sport that then stood. If San Francisco starts metering parking on Sundays (which, not coincidentally, the city did on January 1), the meter reader can’t send me a ticket for not feeding the meter on a Sunday before the law changed.

One more point, and I’ll stop the ranting. People inside the game, whose expert opinions I respect, have estimated that at the height of the Steroid Era, as many as 75 to 80 percent of MLB players may have used PEDs to some degree. That means guys like Bonds and Clemens — and what the heck, throw Bagwell and Piazza in there too — were not outliers if indeed they used. They were part of the flow of traffic, just as you or I are when we nudge our cars upward of the posted speed limit to keep pace with the cars around us. (And we do. Let’s not be all sanctimonious here.) Does that make it right, if they did it? No. But it does mean there was a clear majority of players who were equally in the wrong. Which, to my mind, levels the playing field. It’s no longer “cheating” — and again, as noted above, it actually wasn’t cheating under the then-prevailing rules of the game — if everyone, or nearly everyone, is cheating. Ask the NFL Players Association, which turns a consistent blind eye to the widely intimated idea that perhaps 75 to 80 percent of its membership uses HGH to this very day, even though such usage is currently against the rules of their sport.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love baseball. It has been part of my life for more than 40 years, a part that I now love sharing with my daughter. And I consider myself a purist in a lot of ways — I prefer the National League style of play in which pitchers came to bat, and I enjoy seeing the fundamentals of the game practiced at the highest level. It makes me sad that we had a Steroid Era (assuming we’re not still having a PED Era in some fashion, which may be another example of assuming facts not in evidence). But let’s not kid ourselves: We did have such an era. We did not have a period in which a random handful of players — Bonds and Clemens included — used PEDs. We had a period, probably 20 years or more, during which the majority of major league players “juiced.” The idea that “everyone did it” doesn’t make it right, but it does need to influence how we view those who might have done it, and especially how we evaluate them within the timespan in which they played. Are we going to pretend, from the standpoint of the Hall, that those 20 years didn’t happen? That the statistics don’t count? That the games weren’t played? Ridiculous. We watched, even attended the games. We saw the achievements. They happened. And what’s more, we as fans of the game supported them, with our ticket-buying dollars, with our eyes on the television set, and with our ears to the radio. Let’s not act as though we didn’t. It’s hypocritical to harass the prostitute after we’ve paid for the services.

To those writers who take the holier-than-thou position that Bonds and Clemens, and others of their generation, don’t belong in the Hall because of the PED scandal, I say, “Take a good look in the mirror.” If you covered the game during the PED Era, and made your living by doing so, you were part of the problem too. You could have washed your hands and walked away. But you didn’t. You continued to draw a paycheck from a sport filled with guys dosing up with whatever BALCO and other pharmaceutical factories cranked out. You kept telling the stories, and selling the game. And don’t say you didn’t suspect, because if you didn’t then, why do you now? If you closed your eyes and held your nose all of those years, why can’t you do the same now, and acknowledge the accomplishments — within the context of the game as it was being played during their careers — of the men who provided you the means of your livelihood? Don’t act as though you’re better than they are. You are not.

If I had a ballot for the Hall of Fame, I’d check the boxes next to the six names listed above. Barry Bonds was the most amazing hitter I ever saw. Roger Clemens was one of the game’s most dominant pitchers. Mike Piazza ranks among the best to ever play behind the plate, both defensively and offensively… even if he was a Dodger for a lot of that time. Jeff Bagwell is a borderline call for me, but I’d vote for him. As for Jack Morris and Lee Smith, the former was the best starting pitcher in the American League for an entire decade, and the latter was one of baseball’s first and finest true closers.

In case you’re wondering, my exclusion of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire has nothing to do with whether I think they did or didn’t use PEDs. McGwire was a one-trick pony — a player whose only tool was power. He rarely hit for average, had no speed, and for most of his career was a subpar defensive player. He was a beefed-up Dave Kingman or Dick Stuart, to put it another way. Sammy Sosa wasn’t even that good — a pretty solid mid-level star who had a couple of spectacular seasons. I wouldn’t vote for either of them, not because of PEDs, but because to my mind, they weren’t Hall of Fame-caliber players. (Craig Biggio? Tim Raines? Please. Very good, but not great players, whose stats are at least partially inflated by longevity, especially in Biggio’s case.)

You’re welcome to disagree. I won’t argue with your opinion, or your right thereto. But this is my ballot, and I’m sticking to it.

Categories: I Love the Giants, Listology, Ripped From the Headlines, Sports Bar, SwanStuff, Taking Umbrage

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The perfect Cain

June 14, 2012

Over at ESPN.com — a site owned by a network that typically can’t be bothered to cover the Giants because, after all, we don’t have real sports out here on the Left Coast — David Schoenfield just asked the question, “Did Matt Cain throw the greatest game ever?”

Well, let’s see…

No hits.

No walks.

No baserunners.

27 up, 27 down.

14 strikeouts, tying the record for the most ever in a perfect game… a record set by Sandy Koufax, who for five seasons may have been the greatest pitcher ever.

A feat accomplished only 22 times in the 130-plus years of baseball history.

Yes, Mr. Schoenfield…

I believe he did.

You go, Matty. We’re glad you’re on our side.

Categories: Celebritiana, Hero of the Day, I Love the Giants, My Home Town, Ripped From the Headlines, Sports Bar, That's Cool!

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Comic Art Friday: Avengers assemble!

May 4, 2012

Unless you’ve been living in an underwater grotto for the past year or so, you know what today is: the U.S. premiere of Marvel Studios’ summer blockbuster, The Avengers. (Also known as Avengers Assemble, if you happen to live in the U.K. In which case, you already saw the movie a week ago.) While I didn’t feel compelled to queue up for a midnight showing, I do have the flick on my weekend to-do list.

In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to revisit a few pieces from my galleries featuring the heroes from the film’s roster of Avengers. It’s a much shorter list than the slate of current and past Avengers in the Marvel Comics universe, which, the last time I counted, has included more than 80 heroes and heroines over the superteam’s half-century of history.

Interestingly, there’s never been an incarnation of Avengers in the comics that included the movie’s Big Six — Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk — at the same time. The Hulk, a founding member of the team, ditched the others by the second issue of the original run. He made guest appearances in a couple more early stories, but was gone entirely by issue #6. To the best of my knowledge, ol’ Greenskin hasn’t been an active Avenger at any time since early 1964, a year before Hawkeye signed on, and nearly a decade before the Widow became a permanent member.

Let’s start with one of the first drawings I acquired when I began collecting original art. Thor faces off with his not-so-jolly green compadre in this scene penciled by Dan Jurgens and inked by Bob Almond.

Next up, here’s the Incredible One again, this time doing battle with yet another fellow founding Avenger, Iron Man. The late, great George Tuska — the definitive Iron Man artist of the 1970s — lent his potent pencil and imagination to this one.

People who don’t follow comics closely might assume that Captain America was an original Avenger, so identified is he with the team. In fact, Cap didn’t join until Avengers #4 — he was busy being frozen in ice prior to that. No sooner had the Star-Spangled Super-Soldier thawed out, though, that he became the heart and soul of the ever-changing ensemble, assuming his longtime leadership role in Avengers #16 when the remaining founding members — Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man (who’d changed his code name to Giant-Man by then), and the Wasp — departed en masse. Cap’s been the center of the Avengers most of the time since. Here he is with his doppelganger and one-time fellow Avenger, the U.S. Agent (or USAgent, if you prefer), as drawn by Ron Lim and embellished by Bob Almond.

The Black Widow didn’t become a full-fledged Avenger until 1973, though she made periodic guest shots before then. At the time she joined the team, the Widow was probably best known as the partner (both in and out of costume) of the blind crimefighter Daredevil, whose comic she co-headlined for four years. Readers of a certain age, however, will recall that before she settled in with the Man Without Fear, the spy formerly known as Natasha Romanoff starred in her own year-long series in Marvel’s Amazing Adventures in 1970 and ’71. In this Common Elements commission by Ty Romsa, the Widow chills with Silver Sable, one of the very few Marvel heroes who has never been an Avenger. (At least, not yet.)

Alas, I don’t have a solo drawing of Hawkeye in my collection. Which surprises me, because I’ve always liked the guy. (I’m tempted to throw up my Mike Grell Green Arrow instead, just to see whether anyone would even notice the difference.) He does, however, make an appearance in my Common Elements series, in a terrific piece drawn by the legendary Ernie Chan.

Go see The Avengers. But wait a day or two until the crowds thin out. It’ll still be the same movie, but you’ll be able to get a better seat.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Categories: Cinemania, Comic Art Friday, Hero of the Day, Ripped From the Headlines, SwanStuff, That's Cool!

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Comic Art Friday: Tony DeZuniga needs your help!

April 27, 2012

I was deeply saddened recently to hear of the dire health circumstances faced by one of my favorite comics artists of all time: the legendary Tony DeZuniga, co-creator of the DC Comics characters Jonah Hex (don’t blame Tony for the abominable movie) and Black Orchid.

Tony suffered a stroke earlier this month in his native Philippines, since which time he has been hospitalized and breathing via a ventilator. He has at least partial paralysis, as well as other complications that frequently accompany a major stroke. Fortunately, the latest report from Tony’s wife Tina indicates that he is starting to show improvement, and may be disconnected from the ventilator with the next few days.

It’s hard to overstate the impact that Tony had on the comics industry, despite not being a household name on the level of Stan Lee or Jack Kirby. Tony was the first artist from the Philippines to be hired by either of the Big Two comics publishers. Rather than simply being satisfied with his own success, Tony facilitated the debut of numerous other Filipino artists into the American comics mainstream by persuading DC’s then-editor-in-chief Carmine Infantino to undertake a recruiting trip to the Philippines. As a result of Tony’s efforts, American comics readers enjoyed the work of such talents as Ernie Chan, Alex Nino, Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, Gerry Talaoc, Romeo Tanghal, and many others.

Having had the chance to get to know Tony and Tina DeZuniga at comics conventions over the past several years, I can attest to their generosity and kindness firsthand. You’re looking at a few of the amazing artworks that I’ve commissioned from Tony, demonstrating the level of creative brilliance he maintained before his recent setbacks. The greatest testimony to Tony’s genius is the fact that it’s his pieces other artists always admire when I break out my portfolio at a con. Hardly a con weekend goes by that another artist doesn’t ask to “see what Tony drew.”

Like most freelance artists, Tony doesn’t have health insurance to offset his medical expenses. Superstar artist Neal Adams and others are spearheading a fundraising drive for Tony and Tina. I understand that the DeZunigas are also receiving assistance from the Hero Initiative, the nonprofit charitable organization that helps comics creators in need. (I’ve been a proud member of the Hero Initiative since I first learned about it. Anyone who grew up loving comics, as I did, should consider supporting this group that does so much good for the folks whose talents enlightened our childhoods.)

Like dozens of other comics fans and industry insiders, I’ve contributed what I could share. If you’d like to chip in, you can direct funds to Tony’s PayPal account: tonydezuniga@yahoo.com. The account is managed by Tony’s daughter, Cheryll Lim. Whatever amount you can offer will help, and will be sincerely appreciated by the DeZuniga family. (I received two lovely notes from Tina thanking me for my gift.) I know that times are tough for a lot of folks these days, but if you have a few uncommitted simoleons that you can donate, please be assured that Tony is well deserving of whatever help you can give.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Categories: Comic Art Friday, Hero of the Day, Ripped From the Headlines, SwanStuff, That's Cool!

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Comic Art Friday: RIP, Al Rio (1962-2012)

February 3, 2012

I was shocked and saddened on Tuesday morning — as were many of my fellow comics fans and comic art aficionados — to receive the news that artist and former Disney animator Al Rio had passed away in his native Brazil, the result of an apparent suicide.

Those of you who have followed Comic Art Fridays over the years know how greatly I appreciated Al Rio’s art. He is among the most well-represented artists in my collection; I own 15 of his original works — six of which I commissioned personally, plus several I’ve had inked by other artists. I’ve also enjoyed receiving the lovely postcards Al made available to his fans every holiday season. Al’s art representative, Terry Maltos, has always been one of my favorite vendors with whom to transact business. More than once, Terry has given me a price break on a purchase, or thrown in a little something extra in gratitude for my frequent custom.

Al first came to prominence when he followed J. Scott Campbell as the regular artist on Wildstorm’s Gen13 and DV8. Although many people saw him as a Campbell clone, particularly in his early comics projects, his style continued to evolve. He worked on a variety of series for both of the major comics publishers and numerous second-tier labels — everything from Spider-Man and Captain America to Grimm Fairy Tales.

As you can see from the pieces I’ve chosen for this memorial post, Al drew some of the most beautiful women in comics. Because of this, he was sometimes dismissed as “just a cheesecake artist.” That’s a bit like saying that Michelangelo, Titian, and Rubens weren’t great artists because they painted a lot of naked people. Without question, Al knew his way around the feminine form, but he could also draw heroes and backgrounds with the best in the business, and his sequential work shows that beyond his pinup talents, he was a brilliant storyteller. I was especially fond of his work on Marvel’s Heroes for Hire and White Tiger a couple of years back.

Since I didn’t know Al personally, I can’t really say much about him in that regard. I’ve always heard him described as a nice man who extended extraordinary kindness to his fans and to other artists, and who frequently donated art in support of charitable causes. In fact, his Superman and Supergirl piece — seen at the top of this post — began as a preliminary sketch for a drawing Al created in support of victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

You can see my entire gallery of Al Rio’s art by following this link. Please go take a look at the beauty and dynamic range of this talented creator’s gifts.

Al Rio was 49 years old. He leaves behind a wife, three children, countless friends, and a legion of fans who admired his unique abilities.

And that, sadly, is your Comic Art Friday.

Categories: Comic Art Friday, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Reminiscing, Ripped From the Headlines, SwanStuff, That's Cool!

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This one’s for the boobies

October 3, 2011

It hardly seems as though it’s been a year, but it’s October again. You know what that means: It’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Those of you who’ve visited here and at our previous location know that I’m not big on causes, but I champion this one for a powerful personal reason: KJ, my wife of 25 years — and life partner of 29 years total — lost her decade-long battle with breast cancer in July 2010. This disease cost KJ’s parents their only remaining child (KJ’s brother died from Ewing’s sarcoma 22 years ago), my daughter her mother, and me the woman I’d loved my entire adult life.

So yeah — breast cancer made itself a lifelong enemy here.

If you’re a woman, know your risk factors. Talk with your doctor about those risks. Learn to examine your own breasts, and conduct those exams religiously. Don’t think that breast cancer is just a disease for older women — KJ was 34 when she was first diagnosed. If you’re 40 or older, by all means get annual mammograms.

If you’re not a woman, pass the preceding paragraph along to every woman you know.

Regardless of your gender, if you have a few spare dollars in your pocket or purse this month, consider making a contribution to the breast cancer awareness/research nonprofit of your choice. (KJ’s favorite was Susan G. Komen for the Cure.) I know things are tough economically for a lot of you, but every little contribution helps.

Breast cancer will affect one woman in eight — too many precious lives. That’s your wife or partner, your daughter, your sister, your mother, your grandmother, your aunt, your neighbor… maybe you.

Let’s hunt this beast down, and kill it for good.

Categories: Breast Cancer Awareness, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Ripped From the Headlines, Taking Umbrage, That's Cool!

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