Best CDs of 2013, According to an Old Guy Who Bought Seven

January 15, 2014 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Wesley Stace, Self-Titled

This man deserves to be selling zillions more albums. Someone see to it.

It’s that time of year again! The last time I summarized my year in music purchases, it was slightly longer than this year’s list, only because I bought a 2012 reissue that merited inclusion. I don’t limit myself to a maximum of seven CDs per year; the identical count is coincidental. Blame the music industry for largely boring or alienating me nowadays. As you can imagine, local commercial radio is no help.

The following, then, comprises every CD I acquired in 2013 that was also released in 2013. Back-catalog materials are forbidden from inclusion, though allow me to express in this singular clause that I wish I’d gotten Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ Live at Hollywood High much, much sooner.

On with the countdown, then — from least best to surprising favorite:

7. Childish Gambino, Because the Internet. The only other rap album I bought in the last five years was Donald Glover’s 2011 pseudonymous debut Camp — a killer mix of scathing satire and autobiography, laced with pop-culture references as cutting descriptors rather than random gags. Harsh language isn’t my thing anymore, but the Community-clever snark and wounded candor rose above. His sophomore effort, on the other hand, is a hodgepodge of half-finished tracks, electronic hooks in search of lyrics to stick to, verses that lead nowhere, Bone Thugs speed-rap for listeners who love rhyming words but hate complete sentences, and a general impenetrability that strings a velvet rope in front of us intruders who don’t Get It.

Sample track: The obligatory NSFW single “3005“, in which he sounds defensive about his insecurities and comforts himself with in-jokes. Or something. But it’s more or less a complete song in music-class terms. Points for English class completeness, I suppose.

This way for the other six…

“Sleepy Hollow” 1/13/2014 (spoilers): the Power of Salt and Vintage Ghost Traps

January 14, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Demon Jenny Mills, Lyndie Greenwood, Sleepy Hollow, Fox

You think your sister has issues…

Tonight’s new Sleepy Hollow episode, “Vessel”: a French demon revealed, a new tape from the Sheriff Corbin archives, modern exorcism tropes, dry cleaning, the word “boondoggle”, and the one moment that Ichabod Crane ‘shippers never thought they’d live to see.

For those who missed out, my attempt to streamline the basic events follows after this courtesy spoiler alert for the sake of time-shifted viewers.

This way for spinning heads and flying little girls…

21st Century Digital Fogey

January 13, 2014 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Google Chromecast

Welcome to the newest addition to our family.

Every few years there comes another time in a man’s life when it’s time to upgrade to the next level of entertainment technology. While the old gizmos might work fine and haven’t broken yet, sometimes it’s time to escalate our media consumption anyway. It’s never easy for me. The older I get, the tougher it can be to shift my paradigms to keep up with the Kids These Days.

Another one of those shifts was implemented this past weekend. I’m never excited when they come to pass, but circumstances warranted it, the money was available, the price was unbeatable, and so far the performance is competent.

…

This way to keep up with the Joneses…

One Good Thing to Come Out of the “Bridgegate” Scandal

January 12, 2014 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Chris Christie, New JerseyFor those just catching up on the week in headline news: Republican politician Chris Christie, currently governor of New Jersey but intermittently mentioned in hushed tones among optimistic rank-‘n’-file as a possible party savior in the 2016 Presidential race, has been accused of directing his subordinates to pull transportation strings and create a four-day traffic snarl where the George Washington Bridge connects Manhattan to the New Jersey town of Fort Lee, allegedly because its mayor hadn’t fallen in lockstep with his party colleagues and publicly endorsed Christie’s future endeavors.

Or something like that. I’ve missed some finer details. Political stories don’t stick with me for long. (When I first began noticing heated debates in my circles about Benghazi, my only reaction was, “Is that Ian MacKaye’s new band?”) Bridgegate was unusual enough and filled with enough bipartisan hot-button issues — political extortion, abuse of power, petty vengeance — that I finally relented and read an article or two about it. At this point it’s now all about denials, apologies, firings, and now I’m seeing the word “subpoena” creeping onto the battlefield. I imagine this brouhaha is only in its infancy and in no danger of falling off the main page anytime soon.

I am grateful for one noticeable change that’s a direct result of Bridgegate: over the past two days, whenever internet users were overwhelmed with the urge to take potshots at Christie, the jokes were no longer about his weight.

The following has zero to do with politics…

2013 Road Trip Photos #25: Paying Respects to Lucille Ball

January 11, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Day Seven of our road trip was divided between two different towns in upstate New York, each boasting a hometown hero who left home to become a classic TV trailblazer. We spent the morning in Binghamton, where Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling spent his formative years learning how to write, narrate, and remain invisible to everyone around him.

We spent the late afternoon some 220 miles westward in Jamestown, birthplace of a certain funny redhead that brightened your grandparents’ lives. She used to be in all the papers.

I Love Lucy mural, Jamestown, New York

An intro to Lucy’s old stomping grounds…

My 2013 at the Movies, Part 2 of 2: the Year’s Least Worst

January 10, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Matt Damon, Elysium

The Bourne Upgrade. District 18. Green Zone 3000. Good Will Exploding. And so on, and so on.


Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Once again January is National List Month, that magical time of year when everyone’s last twelve months of existence must be dehydrated, crammed into enumerated little packets, and lined up on the shelf in subjective order for re-inspection. The final tabulations reveal I saw twenty-five films in theaters in 2013 and one via On Demand while it was still in limited art-house release…

And now, the countdown concludes:

13. Elysium. Some say the 99%-vs.-1% feud will end in negotiations; some say in explosions. Neill Blomkamp’s sophomore extrapolation of the effect of humanity’s self-hatred on its own future stops asking questions halfway through and solves nearly everything with chases and showdowns between Matt Damon’s everyman underdog imperfect sinner Average Joe antihero and Sharlto Copley’s cyborg Snidely Whiplash. In some respects this deserved to be ranked a lot lower, but something about Blomkamp’s vivid underclass aesthetic and leftover District 9 effects cachet boosted it a tad unfairly over the other popcorn-film competition.

This way for #12 through #1…

“Revolution” 1/8/2014 (spoilers): Everyone Loves Li’l Sebastian

January 9, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

David Lyons, Sebastian Monroe, Revolution

Sebastian Monroe, voted Father of the Year by no one ever.

Revolution is back from its December hiatus with tonight’s new episode, “The Three Amigos” — a tale of father/son bonding, grandfather/granddaughter quality time, husband/wife faith put to the test, not one but two wagonjackings, and Aaron running away yet again because it’s what he does best.

Make way for the Son of Bass…

My 2013 at the Movies, Part 1 of 2: the Year’s Least Best

January 7, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

The Rock, Bruce Willis, GI Joe Retaliation

John McClane and the Scorpion King: sequel survivors perpetuating the vicious circle of lame.

Once again January is National List Month, that magical time of year when everyone’s last twelve months of existence must be dehydrated, crammed into enumerated little packets, and lined up on the shelf in subjective order for re-inspection. MCC’s first full calendar year consequently allowed me to submit entries for everything I saw in theaters in 2013. Even if this site didn’t exist, since 2000 I’ve saved lists of every trip I’ve made to the cinema, year by year. The best part of this compulsion is rereading previous years’ lists and seeing names I no longer remember. (Disney’s Teacher’s Pet? Past Me swears my son and I saw it, but we’ve mutually wiped it from memory.)

The final tabulations reveal I saw twenty-five films in theaters in 2013 and one via On Demand while it was still in limited art-house release. This count doesn’t include five 2012 films I attended in 2013 for Oscar-chasing purposes, or any old films I watched on home video. Because lists such as this one must have rules.

Links to past reviews and musings are provided for historical reference. On with the reverse countdown, then:

26. GI Joe: Retaliation. Once again Hollywood forgets the lessons learned from Halloween 3 and Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift — i.e., if you dump too much of the original cast, why even bother with a theatrical release? While Ray Park is good for a few minutes of aerial man’s-man ballet, Bruce Willis and the Rock are called in as scabs from other macho action series to shoulder the rest of this silly, overlong commercial for military weaponry and boys’ toys, in that order.

This way for #25 through #14…

Early Scenes from Snowpocalypse 2014, Indianapolis Division

January 5, 2014 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Snowpocalypse 2014, Indianapolis, Indiana

Yep, snow’s here. The above photo was taken just four hours into it, so you can still glimpse asphalt peeking through the tire tracks. Two hours later and safely at home, I’m guessing the coverage is thicker by now.

I expected worse, to be honest, but the great and powerful snowstorm of January 2014, which should be trending shortly on Twitter as #snowpocalypse2014 unless anyone has a clever idea, launched six hours behind schedule in our vicinity. “Better late than never!” said no one I’m ever speaking to again.

This way for more snowy pics from this morning…

2013 Road Trip Photos #24: Rod Serling and His Hometown All-Stars

January 5, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our first stop on Day Seven was Binghamton, New York, childhood home of Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. The celebrated sci-fi writer isn’t the only well-known personality with roots there, but he certainly has more markers than any of the rest.

What you saw in the previous entry wasn’t the whole story. Also marked for historical significance: Binghamton High School, Serling’s old alma mater and home of the Binghamton Patriots. Their athletics program totally missed a merchandising opportunity in not naming themselves the Binghamton Venusians, the Binghamton Invaders, the Binghamton Beholders, or the Binghamton Characters in Search of an Exit.

Rod Serling, Binghamton High School

And there’s more than Rod in Binghamton!

After the Blizzard, Sliced Bread Will Be the New World’s Currency

January 4, 2014 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

grocery bread aisle blizzard conditions doomsday prepOur local weather forecasts are calling for massive snowfall this Sunday. Depending on who you believe and how much you exaggerate when you pass the word along, by Monday evening we should expect anywhere from six inches to fifteen feet. Midwest meteorology is an inexact science in that respect.

One result you can count on with demonstrable exactitude: if a TV weatherman so much as whispers the word “snow” as if it’s Today’s Secret Word, viewers will drop everything they’re doing, shove aside their loved ones, drive to the nearest grocery, and buy all the bread they can carry. Without knowing whether the coming storm will produce a mild drizzle or The Day After Tomorrow, the better-safe-than-sorry motto of the doomsday-prepping majority dictates that everyone err on the side of caution and hoarding.

Why bread? Great question…

If You’re Gonna Fail at New Year’s Resolutions, Fail BIG

January 1, 2014 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

personal reboot, relaunch, restart

All the typing in this entry is new, but my MS Paint gag is a rerun from last year, not unlike the average person’s New Year’s resolutions.

It’s January 1st once more, which means it’s time to reinvent your entire life from scratch yet again. Gone are those halcyon days when people awoke on New Year’s Day, looked in the mirror, and thought to themselves, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” Alas, this holiday dispels contentment, disregards recent successes, assumes the worst in you, and demands you rethink your life now. Not on February 14th or June 22nd, or some random day in otherwise meaningless August, but now, because federal law mandates that Things can only begin on January 1st.

I’ve never been great with New Year’s resolutions. I can’t think of the last one I ever even chose, let alone the last time I actually attained one. Though we see renewal symbolized in the rough annual transition from Father Time and his 365-day reign of terror to Baby New Year and his inevitable future letdown, beginning my personal transitions on a meaningful date has never worked for me. My most successful diet began on a July 5th. I proposed to my wife on December 26th. I was baptized on the Sunday after a Thanksgiving. My first comic book was given to me sometime in a December. I had to start wearing glasses one nameless summer month. The forces of change laugh at our puny human concept of calendars.

Continue reading →

WordPress.com Magic Elves Offer Colorful Second Opinion of My 2013

December 31, 2013 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Happy New Year, readers and skimmers alike! Here’s hoping 2014 proves to be the Greatest Year of All Time. At the very least, maybe it’ll help us forget the parts where 2013 let us down and still has a lot to answer for.

For MCC’s second New Year, the happy-go-lucky stats wranglers at WordPress.com have compiled an automated 2013 Annual Report for each and every blogger on their roster, complete with fireworks and eye-popping design work and a world map in case you prefer practical gifts. In addition to the facts and figures I already reported yesterday with my own manually culled year-end review, this report also helpfully confirms which WordPress bloggers left me the most comments last year and therefore deserve innumerable treasures in Heaven and possibly also baked goods. You should subscribe to all of them so they can rise to fame and I can write entries about how I’m one of the Little People who knew them way back when.

For the intensely curious, WordPress’ report also reveals which of my 2012 entries absolutely refuses to die. It didn’t exactly go viral or receive attention from any major online sources I’m aware of, but passersby just keep clicking it and clicking it and clicking it and now the report thinks I ought to consider churning out more daily posts exactly like it, despite how impractical this would be on multiple levels.

Have some sample artwork as an additional incentive. Ya like colors? It has colors.

The weirdest statistic it reveals:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 80,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the report in all its scintillating wonder!

That most important part, once more with emphasis:

Happy New Year!

Midlife Crisis Crossover 2013 in Review, Including Last-Minute Posts Seen Only in NYC and LA

December 30, 2013 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Hi-dee-hoo, fans and visitors! Welcome to the second annual Midlife Crisis Crossover year-in-review for this humble site, launched on April 28, 2012, as an excuse for one guy to do things, try stuff, and think whatever aloud. Next week will mark MCC’s 600th post, but that’ll be in an entirely different year and is therefore ineligible for celebration at the moment, so forget I mentioned it till next week.

This occasionally purposeful experiment has lasted a full twenty months without crashing and burning yet, though we’ve seen some excitement, some tears, some discomfort, some joy, some serious stress, and some much-needed days off. And that was all just over Christmas break. 2013 was a year of successes and failures, of triumphs and tragedies, of records and horrors. MCC’s own fortunes have ebbed and flowed depending on which subjects caught my attention at the right time, which times I was utterly out of step with the rest of the world, and what moments of synchronicity were the most unexpected of all.

Of all the nouns to frequent the site this year, none had a deeper effect than Boston.

Boston Public Garden, Boston vacation

Continue here for MCC’s own best and worst of 2013!

“The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug” as an Afternoon of Binge-Watching

December 30, 2013 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Bilbo Baggins, Martin Freeman, The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug

Bilbo struggles with temptation. So. Many. CUPS.

Two advance caveats:

1. It’s been years since I read The Hobbit. I remember most of it, but to me it’s not a sacred idol to be treated as holy writ every time it’s adapted into another medium. My impressions of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey were previously documented to this effect.

2. Some of the following will assume you’re familiar with the book and/or already saw The Desolation of Smaug for yourself. As a latecomer to the party once again, I doubt I’ll be treading unfamiliar ground for too many readers.

That being said: I may be one of the few viewers who found The Desolation of Smaug a more satisfying experience than its predecessor, burdened as that one was with cumbersome exposition and morose musical numbers. Faced with a 161-minute running time, I entered the theater this time with despondent expectations, but realized partway through that the movements are so neatly segmented, it was like binge-viewing a TV miniseries at home. Granted, Desolation was the equivalent of a series’ middle and therefore guaranteed to disappoint no matter how it ended, but taken as Disc 2 of 3, its 3½ episodes zoomed along nicely and moved the story forward with only minimal irrelevant detours.

Onward toward Erebor, then…

My 2013 in Books and Graphic Novels

December 28, 2013 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Neil Gaiman, Skottie Young, Fortunately the Milk

A rare instance of a book I bought and read in the same year it was published.

I rarely review printed matter on this site, but rest assured I find time to read a book or two where I can — in between buying new comics every Wednesday (single issues, pamphlets, floppies, whatever you prefer to call them), occasional issues of the Indianapolis Star, my longtime Entertainment Weekly subscription, Bible study, internet, contributing to this site close-to-daily, overtime at work, chores, family, and other distracting excuses. But books are definitely on my activity list, ranking well ahead of laundry, shining my shoes, and any home repair projects that I don’t actually know how to start.

I spent the first part of the year trying to clear out my accumulation of new finds and autographed items from conventions. I wedged in some prose novels and even a little nonfiction wherever I could, but most of my reading was catching up on the graphic-storytelling variety. I’m really tired of having a large backlog, and some tentatively planned restructuring of my free time and priorities in 2014 should help facilitate that. Maybe. Hopefully.

Presented below is the complete list of books, graphic novels, and trade collections that I finished reading in 2013. A few were started in 2012 and one was an on-‘n’-off side project for years, but I reached their final page this year and that’s what matters. I’m also pessimistically assuming I won’t have any reading time over the three days remaining. If reading time does occur, I’ll just stop three pages from the end and save it for January 1st. Fair enough?

That list, then…

2013 Road Trip Photos #23: An Attraction Not Only of Sight and Sound But of Mind

December 28, 2013 By in Travel, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Portrait of a family of three on their innocuous annual road trip. Having journeyed beyond the bustling Commonwealth of Massachusetts and into the verdant hillsides of upstate New York, they sally forth into the seventh day of their ambitious cross-country trek — a Lewis, a Clark, and a Sacajawea advancing the expedition of a lifetime into uncharted territory without benefit of Presidential sponsorship.

Their destination: a quaint metropolis called Binghamton. Its contents: numerous reminders of a hometown hero. That hero: writer Rod Serling. His most famous offspring: a world-famous televised parade of allegories and cautionary tales, a five-year procession of cerebral science fiction and fantastical thinkpieces, an occasionally pretentious but frequently provocative anthology of morality, tragedy, whimsy, and triumph.

It’s a show and a place called…The Twilight Zone.

Twilight Zone Rod Serling pavilion plaque, Binghamton

Unlock THIS door with the key of imagination!

Holiday Snacktime Overload

December 25, 2013 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

chocolate chip cookies, Christmas leftovers

Behold our leftover cookies as of today. Most of these will be shared with others in the days ahead. This photo would look a lot more appetizing to me if I hadn’t just spent the last seven celebratory days enjoying sugar as an integral ingredient of every other meal.

This way to snacks, glorious snacks…

Christmastime Moments in Downtown Indy

December 23, 2013 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

With uncharacteristically minimal preamble, we present random relevant pics we took in 2013 during our varied experiences in downtown Indianapolis so far this season. Consider it a bold experiment to see if I have the willpower to publish an entry under 200 words. Also: because Christmas!

All the best companies downtown have large holiday displays. Pictured here: the lobby of the OneAmerica Tower.

Christmas tree, downtown Indianapolis

This way for more things containing Christmas!

2013 Road Trip Photos #27: Christmas at Ralphie’s House

December 22, 2013 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

[No, loyal MCC readers, you didn’t sleep through a few missing weeks like Rip Van Winkle, and I haven’t deleted any entries lately. I’ve chosen to warp space-time with a very special flash-forward for the sake of holiday synchronicity. We’ll backtrack for the intervening installments in due time.]

When we told friends and family we would be spending an entire day of our vacation in Cleveland, they thought us mad. In the old days Cleveland was a frequent punchline whenever a movie or TV show needed a throwaway reference to someplace vastly inferior to a given cast’s current setting. Nowadays they’re more likely to use Detroit or New Jersey, but Cleveland suffered that role on numerous occasions. Exhibit A: all of Howard the Duck.

In the course of our research, we were surprised at how many geek-based tourist attractions the city had to offer. We eventually concluded that it deserved much more than a lunchtime layover. Thus were we compelled to spend all of Day Eight driving around the city in a carefully mapped arc, beginning with our south-side hotel, looping around and northward toward Lake Erie, and back around again.

First stop: the house where several key scenes were filmed for that beloved American holiday juggernaut, A Christmas Story — an underdog flick that changed the course of millions of lives in my generation and monopolizes the TBS airwaves for twenty-four hours out of every year, much to the chagrin of the generations before and after us.

Fans will be thrilled to note one of the first items that greets you upon approach is a Major Award. It looks seriously weird in daylight.

leg lamp, major award, A Christmas Story

This way for the Old Man’s tour…