Author Archives: Randall A. Golden

“Zootopia”: Welcome to the Harerdome

April 18, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Zootopia!

If you refuse to see it in theaters, the “sloth trailer” alone is a hoot. I can only imagine how excruciating that scene probably was to animate using, like, a hundred times as many frames per movement.

The worldwide phenomenon about two unique individuals from very different worlds — one who’s itching for justice, one who’s given some thought to law enforcement — passed $300 million this weekend at the U.S. box office and proved major studios are still capable of putting out product that can contemplate serious topics even while reveling in visual flair and not shying away from moments of intensity or even a few tears.

No, not the one with the angry costumed guys in it.

Right this way for a few words about Disney’s “Zootopia”!

The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #25: Colorado Cookery II, or “Snacks and a Plane”

April 17, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Airplane Restaurant!

Usually when an airplane is lodged halfway inside a building, it’s called a disaster. The Airplane Restaurant proves they can achieve peaceful symbiosis.

As with our July road trip to the South, I was determined to find places to eat in Colorado Springs that we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. Here we backtrack a bit to recap a couple of culinary experiences we had in the margins between the last several chapters in this series. Not all of them were trendsetting, but two of them were more creative than anyplace I’ve seen in Indianapolis.

For one of those establishments, the creativity was in the structure itself. Pictured above is my lunch option for Day 5 — the Airplane Restaurant, a perfect companion to the National Museum of WWII Aviation down the street. This 13-year-old eatery is attached to a Radisson Hotel, housed partly inside a normal building, and partly inside a Boeing KC-97. Once a refueling tanker for other planes, now it refuels people.

Right this way for more about the Airplane, plus donuts!

Dinnertime Down the Street at Lola’s

April 15, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Turon!

When restaurateurs want to make their mark on Indianapolis, they rarely glance in the direction of the west side. They flock to the upper-class north suburbs and their adjacent cities, they swarm around downtown’s millennial-professional boom, they move to the increasingly trendy near-southside neighborhoods of Fountain Square and Fletcher Place, or they take their chances in old-school-hipster Broad Ripple. We west-siders notice articles in the Indianapolis Star or in Indianapolis Monthly boasting about new restaurants and talented chefs, cross our fingers hoping someone will give us a chance, and find ourselves let down every time, feeling neglected and déclassé while they brag about marching in lockstep toward the only compass directions that matter to the Hoosier jet set.

When I read that a new place called Lola’s Bowl and Bistro opened suspiciously close to our house, serving fine Filipino cuisine, I wondered if it was a hoax, a dream, or an imaginary story. Or, y’know, journalism made of LIES. But no, Lola’s is real and they’re on our side of the Circle City, next to the one stoplight in Clermont.

I’m already talking too much. I’ll pause here so you can stare at our dessert for a few minutes. It’s also my desktop wallpaper at work.

Right this way for details about that dessert and also our entrees, I guess…

2015 Road Trip Photos #48: Noontime in Nashville

April 14, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Nashville State Capitol!

Twelve American state capitals have State Capitols without domes. Tennessee’s 1859 version is one of them.

When last we left Nashville, we’d stopped there for lunch on the first day of our 2005 road trip to San Antonio. We ate at our first Jack in the Box nearly a decade before they finally came to Indianapolis; we saw their version of the Parthenon, a World’s Fair tribute to their old nickname “the Athens of the South”; and then we moved on. Ten years later, we returned once again for lunch and spent slightly longer there this time than last time.

One last state capital before returning home to our own. One last Presidential burial site. One last sign of Confederacy fandom. One last pretty garden. One last Andrew Jackson statue. One last official Southern meal. Our midday stroll around downtown Nashville was like a symbolic highlight reel of our entire road trip.

Right this way for the final city walkabout of the series!

The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #23: War Relics II

April 12, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Fuselage!

Some airplane restoration jobs take a tad more paint than others.

Visiting the National Museum of WWII Aviation without my wife was a bizarre experience. She’s the one who’s a WWII aficionado, the one who aced history classes left and right, the one with the PoliSci degree, and the one who doesn’t need a tour guide through museums like this. While she spent another Colorado Springs morning fulfilling the company business obligations that made this trip possible, I did the best I could to take photos and notes of what she was missing. Maybe she already knows it all, but if I could bring her just one new trivia tidbit, then this tourist’s mission was a success.

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Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover…

April 12, 2016 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Photobucket Rescue!

From the pre-MCC archives: Anne and I as a very different dynamic duo at Wizard World Chicago 2010.

Welcome to Midlife Crisis Crossover! If you’re only recently discovering the site, tonight we present a quick overview of what we’re frequently about when we’re left to our own devices. If you’re an occasional visitor, you might see a tidbit or entry you missed the first time around. If you’re a longtime follower who reads the site so devotedly that you could win trivia contests about us, please enjoy the above photo as a random bonus never before shared here.

Right this way for an MCC recap for new and lapsed readers!

MCC Live-Tweeting: The “Sleepy Hollow” Season 3 Finale

April 10, 2016 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 20 Comments
Sleepy Hollow!

In which Ichabbie bids us a clumsy, ill-conceived Ichabbye.

Okay, after a self-mandated 24-hour cooling-off period, I think I’m ready to tackle that Friday night fiasco.

Once upon a time, Midlife Crisis Crossover provided same-night recaps of every episode of Sleepy Hollow. I’m not a pro reviewer entitled to advance copies of any TV shows, so every recap was an intense, on-the-fly, two- to three-hour marathon writing session, thinking and typing as quickly as I could to combine plot summary with top-of-my-head commentary in 1500- to 2000-word bursts — partly to see if I could do it, partly because sometimes there’s an audience for such a thing. This formerly fun exercise became a thankless chore if I paid too much attention to the competition from actual pro websites given days to prepare their material so they can click “Publish” mere seconds after each episode ends. It’s a nice luxury if you can work your way into it and don’t have to worry about sleep deprivation disrupting your full-time day job.

When Fox moved Sleepy Hollow to Fridays for the back half of season 3, I figured it was the perfect time to pull the plug on that ongoing MCC feature, not only due to diminishing returns but also because we have a family commitment every other Friday that precluded same-night recaps. Past experiences have taught me that delayed recaps are a waste of time and bandwidth, so that wasn’t an option, and that’s why this entry is not a straight-up recap. My wife and I still followed the show as fans, and every other week I’ve been live-tweeting it, which turned out to be a much better format for me. All of the MST3K-style improv joke-writing, none of the boring golf-commentator filler.

The timing worked out so that I could live-tweet last night’s season finale, “Ragnarok”, an astoundingly disappointing episode that encapsulated all of this season’s flaws to date, then one-upped them with the most poorly orchestrated mistake in series history. And after it was all over, I was there to watch the internet burn. Not just once, but twice.

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2015 Road Trip Photos #47: The Dukes of Hazzard Confederate History Month Holiday Special

April 8, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Dukes Memorabilia!

Back in the ’80s, this vintage merchandise used to make the perfect Christmas gifts, stocking stuffers, birthday presents, and Hannukah surprises.

We’d seen a lot of moving, emotionally charged sites throughout our trip through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — remembrances of Hurricane Katrina, souvenirs from world wars, paths where civil rights protestors once marched, places where people were beaten or died senselessly, tributes to immigrants, signposts of American progress, and new sides to areas we knew only from their embarrassing stereotypes. It was a week we found at turns educational, sobering, revelatory, alarming, grievous, yet uplifting at a number of key points when recounting the victories against racism and oppression wherever we found them.

Meanwhile in Nashville, on July 17, 2015, exactly one month after the senseless tragedy at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina, y’all could still come on down to Cooter’s Place, take a gander through the Dukes of Hazzard Museum, and then head to the backroom and stock up on all the Confederate flag accessories you’ll ever need to celebrate all your favorite Confederate States of America holidays. If you plan ahead, you’ll be all set to celebrate April as Confederate History Month, which is a very real thing in several southern states. Yee-haw!

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #22: War Wings II

April 7, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Douglas A-1 Skyraider Missiles!

The wing of a Douglas A-1 Skyraider housing presumably unarmed missiles.

Last July my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the National World War II Museum in scenic New Orleans, Louisiana. Anne is the big, big WWII buff in the family, but I enjoyed myself well enough to devote four chapters to it in our nearly completed July 2015 road trip series (here, here, here, and especially here). Four months later, I was surprised to discover Colorado Springs has a place that’s the perfect sequel — the National Museum of WWII Aviation.

I previously posted about my Day Five visit later that evening from the hotel and used up most of my intro material in that one sitting. The single plane pictured in that entry, their F7F Tigercat, was hardly the only aircraft on the premises. The museum is 30% display cases and 70% actual war planes in various states of disrepair, restoration, and flight capability. Tonight’s presentation, then: another batch of World War II fighter planes to go with our July set.

Right this way for another lineup of America’s WWII airborne warcraft!

“Race”: For Your Next Black History Month Consideration

April 5, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Race!

It’s one of those MCC traditions dating back to our humble beginnings nearly four years ago: if I see a movie in theaters, it gets an entry. My wife and I saw the Jesse Owens biopic Race near the end of Black History Month, but the requisite write-up kept getting pushed back as I let other topics cut in line to stall for time while I thought through what I wanted to type. Right now it’s down to its last hundred American screens, but with the home video release scheduled for May 31st, we can all pretend this is actually an advance review and I’m more of a DVD vanguard than a procrastinator.

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2015 Road Trip Photos #46: Presidential Flowers Are Prettiest

April 2, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Hermitage Garden!

When we planned our visit to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage in Nashville, we expected American history, Presidential burial sites, preserved or simulated 19th-century living quarters, honest acknowledgment of slavery, and maybe a few war props. We didn’t expect so many pretty flowers.

Rachel Jackson’s sudden death in December 1828 mere weeks before her husband’s first inauguration means she was never officially a First Lady of the United States. Up to that point, one of her prize works was the one-acre garden on their estate, which remains in place to this day with many descendants of the original flora as living, blooming legacies. For longtime MCC readers familiar with our annual spring “Flowers Are Pretty” entries (follow the saga here, here, here, and here) may agree this walk around the Hermitage works well as a bonus chapter in that series.

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The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #21: Lithic Landscape Lollygagging

April 1, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Palmer Park!

Day Five was the last full day of our week in Colorado Springs. I had a late-morning appointment that left me with an hour or so to waste after hotel breakfast #4. I scoped out my options on the east side of town and decided to hang out at Palmer Park, nothing I’d heard of before my vacation research. It’s a plot of land slightly smaller than Central Park, but encapsulating all the Rocky Mountain scenery I’d been exploring and driving around all week. The best part was, the petite peaks of Palmer Park were a picnic to perambulate.

Right this way for nature and scenery and panoramas and such!

This One’s for Her: An Evening With Barry Manilow

March 31, 2016 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Anne!

My wife and I have many things in common, but our musical tastes diverge more widely than our interests in any other medium. Most musical acts that bother to include Indianapolis in their tours are so far off her radar that, until last night, she’d never been to a full-fledged capital-C Concert by a nationally famous musical act. My own concert history has been intermittent over the years (still kicking myself for skipping Social Distortion when they were in town last year), but I get out there every so often.

Then I found out Barry Manilow was coming to Indy, one of the big names on Anne’s list since childhood. As I said: divergent tastes. But I’m her husband and I love her thiiiiiiiis much and not all outings need to be about me me me. Also, my mom used to listen to local AM radio all the time when I was a kid, so it’s not as though he’s an utter stranger to me. So I cashed in all my internet cred, exchanged it for Good Husband points, and took the woman I love to her first concert, because that’s the kind of off-the-wall thing a happy, blessed marriage inspires a guy to do.

Right this way for the setlist and select photos!

The One With “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” In It

March 30, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Batman v. Superman!

Which grim-‘n’-gritty breakfast mascot’s product do you think should win: Batman Chocolate Strawberry cereal or Superman Caramel Crunch cereal? Both are real things now in stores, and they’re banking on this movie to sell them somehow.

Look, everyone else online had a turn venting about Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice the past few days, so I want my turn now. The TL;DR version:

* Not the worst Zack Snyder film ever
* Definitely not the worst super-hero film ever
* It had good things in it
* The good things were outnumbered
* I don’t actively root against DC’s films to fail, but I’m not gonna mollycoddle them with blind adulation, because superheroes are not my religion
* Filmmakers still don’t get Superman
* This movie is more about superpowers than about superheroes
* I’ve been collecting comics for 37 years and I’m 98% certain I’m not this film’s target audience
* If Monday night’s Supergirl/The Flash crossover was an Earth-1 team-up, BvS is its Earth-3 doppelgänger

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2015 Road Trip Photos #45: The Twenty Dollar Man

March 29, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
$20 Bill Y'all!

Anne takes her rightful place in the American economy just as soon as I’m appointed Secretary of All the Monies. But we’re cool with Hamilton keeping the $10 bill.

Day 7. The grand finale of our 2015 road trip. All that stood between us and home was five hours and a handful of stops. We woke up in Nashville with one last to-do list before we’d let I-65 guide us home.

We’d hoped to see a thing or two the evening before, but traffic coming into Tennessee on Day 6 had been stop-‘n’-go most of the way, made all the more disconcerting as we listened to radio reports of that day’s tragic shootings in Chattanooga, just a couple hours southeast of us. So we weren’t at our best on Friday morning. That buzz to keep seeking out new experiences was playing tug-‘o’-war with our yearning to return home to comfort and familiarity.

First stop: following in the footsteps of President Andrew Jackson. Old Hickory. King Mob. The Hero of New Orleans. He tied our week together nicely.

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Happy Easter from MCC!

March 27, 2016 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Easter Service!

Our view of church this morning at 8 a.m., remembering and worshiping before the crowds who’ll be flocking in for the 9:15 and 11 a.m. services. We sat in the back with Anne’s grandmother and enjoyed the message, in which our lead pastor skillfully worked in a brief but topical detour to refute Lex Luthor’s flawed theology in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Apt timing.

Happy Easter to you ‘n’ yours from Midlife Crisis Crossover, and may you have a truly blessed day.

C2E2 2016 Photos, Part 9 of 9: The Things They Carried

March 26, 2016 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Reading Pile!

The total addition to my reading pile from our two days at C2E2. On a related note, I’ve been suffering back pain flare-ups all week long. I normally don’t buy sketches or prints, but I bet fans who buy only sketches or prints didn’t share my problem.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I spent two days at the seventh annual Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition, where Midwest comics fans in particular and geeks in general gather together in the name of imaginary worlds from print and screen to revel in fiction and touch bases on what’s hot or cool at this moment in pop culture.

So it all comes down to this, as every convention ultimately does: stuff and things! Items for sales, displays around the show floor, the neat collectibles everyone wanted to get their paws on, and the big corporate advertisements that surrounded us and insisted we need more stuff. Thus we conclude with one last look at the inanimate objects that entertained, tantalized, or just plain baffled us.

Right this way for one last C2E2 2016 photo gallery!

C2E2 2016 Photos, Part 8 of 9: Who We Met and What We Did

March 25, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
John Ratzenberger!

“Did you know the Visigoths actually invented comic book conventions back in the fourth century as an excuse to get together with family and draw unflattering caricatures of the Romans? True story…”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I spent two days at the seventh annual Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition, where Midwest comics fans in particular and geeks in general gather together in the name of imaginary worlds from print and screen to revel in fiction and touch bases on what’s hot or cool at this moment in pop culture.

Last year Anne and I discussed the notion of no longer considering any conventions an automatic buy-in until and unless the guest list gave us a solid reason to commit. They’re expensive and the guest lists aren’t always tailored to our specific areas of fandom or nostalgia. When C2E2 added TV’s John Ratzenberger to their 2016 roster, he was the first sign that I knew we’d be there. From TV’s Cheers to every Pixar movie ever, ol’ Cliff Clavin has been a part of our lives from childhood to adulthood. We met him twice at C2E2 — once at his autograph booth, where he confirmed he’ll indeed return for Finding Dory, and once at his photo op, where we sensed he was not a jazz-hands kind of guy. ‘sokay, no harm done.

Right this way for the comics creators and the other big ’80s star we met!

C2E2 2016 Photos: Last Call for Costumes!

March 24, 2016 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
PuppyMonkeyBaby!

Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I spent two days at the seventh annual Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition, where Midwest comics fans in particular and geeks in general gather together in the name of imaginary worlds from print and screen to revel in fiction and touch bases on what’s hot or cool at this moment in pop culture.

This isn’t the final chapter in this very special week-long MCC miniseries, but it is all the costume photos we have left. Most of these would fit into a “Movie and TV Costumes!” chapter of their own, but that would leave a few stragglers out in the cold. As always, our goal here is to see No Cosplayer Left Behind if we have any say in their fates. So everyone unites in one last big potpourri hurrah for the sake of inclusion.

What we’ve presented in our five C2E2 2016 costume entries is a fraction of a fraction of all the hundreds of cosplayers we saw swirling around us all weekend. No two C2E2 attendees will have the same costume photo collections, so I’d strongly recommend seeking out others online if you want an even broader picture of the complete Chicago convention experience. C2E2 is large and it contains multitudes.

Right this way for costumes, costumes, COSTUMES!

C2E2 2016 Photos: Comics Costumes!

March 23, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Silk + Luffy!

New Marvel meets modern manga: Silk and One Piece star Monkey D. Luffy.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I spent two days at the seventh annual Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition, where Midwest comics fans in particular and geeks in general gather together in the name of imaginary worlds from print and screen to revel in fiction and touch bases on what’s hot or cool at this moment in pop culture.

In tonight’s photo gallery: costumes from your favorite comic books! Or someone else’s favorite comics, whichever. You’d think these would out number the other categories, but C2E2 attracts a diverse following of myriad tastes in reading material. Regrettably, it wasn’t till after we got home and I took inventory, when I realized Marvel and DC Comics were very nearly the only publishers represented in the “comics-based costumes” section. I have no idea how that happened, but it’s too late for retakes.

Regardless: onward!

Right this way for super-heroes, super-villains, and a few bonus movie characters!