If you visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs and read your brochure front-to-back, you’ll notice your admission includes an unusual mountainside bonus that requires some extra effort to check out. It’s nothing to do with animals, but it’s an interesting tangent in the Zoo’s historical and literal background even if you’re too young to know anything about actor/humorist Will Rogers. Ask your grandparents if they remember their parents ever mentioning him.
I don’t get many musicians’ autographs, but when I do, it’s almost always in absentia. Alas.
It’s that time again! The annual entry where I look back at the previous year, marvel that I’m still buying new music at all, reaffirm my disinterest in digital, and boast how I’m one of twelve people nationwide still buying CDs. I don’t buy a lot of them, though. I rarely connect with the Top 40 acts that get all the social media attention. My favorite bands tend to be old and denied promotional push from their labels, assuming they still have a contract. I’m open to hearing new bands, but my styles of choice are narrowing over the years and I’m a lot less enamored nowadays of bratty whippersnappers who overestimate their own wisdom. Fortunately my finicky criteria don’t eliminate all musical acts.
The following list, then, comprises every CD I acquired in 2015 that was also released in 2015. On with the countdown, from least favorite to worthiest:
In game, you sink Battleship. In real life, battleship sink YOU.
After lunch, Day 5 saw us heading east along the Gulf Coast, back into the state of Alabama, slowly through the city of Mobile in congested traffic, and down to the shore of Mobile Bay, where they’ve docked the kind of enormous boat that would’ve been a big help against Jaws if it would’ve fit anywhere near Amity’s beaches.
Welcome aboard the U.S.S. Alabama.
You can click him now and be teleported somewhere inside MCC’s timeline, or you can read this entry first and then take the plunge. YOU make the call!
If you’re like my wife, sometimes you’ll flip through your TV channels, find everything new is boring, and instead go paging through the lesser networks and stations for amusing episodes of defunct series that were once beloved by ancient civilizations. In recent months she and/or I have found ourselves inexplicably, temporarily mesmerized at times by the likes of Doctor Who, Supernatural, Grace Under Fire, The Facts of Life, Amen, 227 (we found an episode guest-starring Pee-Wee Herman!), Columbo, Adam West’s OG Batman, and more. When you’re not in the mood to choose your own specific entertainment, sometimes it’s relaxing to turn to your TV, yell “HIT ME!” and see what happens.
And now, you can do the same with Midlife Crisis Crossover!
Local Dad Misreads Calendar, Mistakenly Celebrates “Take Your Daughter Day”
Each year since 2009 my wife and I have paid a visit to Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. Usually we do both sets as a one-day double-feature date, but a non-negotiable scheduling conflict cut into our window of opportunity. We saw the live-action set this week, with hopes to catch the animated shorts next weekend.
This was the first time in years that neither Anne nor I hated any of the five live-action contenders. Oddly, this was also the first year in some time that not a single nominee featured any Hollywood actors we recognized. (I uncovered a few low-level ones after the fact, but they were strangers to us.) We don’t require familiar faces to enjoy a given work, but it’s nifty to have a lineup 100% guaranteed not to have slid in on marquee recognition alone. Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Live-Action Short Film nominees, from the most Outstanding to the most Needs Improvement, as my old report cards used to label. They’re probably available on iTunes or other streaming services, but I honestly haven’t checked. Links are provided to the official sites if you’re interested in more info. Enjoy where possible!
After lunch on Day Three, I headed back to the hotel to rendezvous with Anne, who had reported to work hours early by request in exchange for an earlier departure. They would’ve been more than happy to let her work ten or twelve hours, but excess overtime hadn’t been part of trip planning. She also really liked the idea of having time to rejoin me on the sightseeing before all the best places closed. She’d missed out on nearly everything I did Monday. In my book, she deserved to see more of what Colorado Springs had to offer.
We did our best to make it count. Next stop: the U.S. Air Force Academy, one of the few military installations in the city that allows civilians inside. We’re not allowed access to all 18,500 acres, but of all the permissible parts, the most fascinating is the Cadet Chapel.
Most of these photos were shot inside the nave during early sundown. Above: the view toward the altar. Below: straight-up shot of the vaulted, pointed ceiling.
All-new all-different Scooby-Doo art by DC Comics VP Jim Lee. To the EXTREME.
Just when you thought entertainment corporations had cooled down on the idea of rebooting their property catalogs, along comes a day like today to remind you to stop overestimating entertainment corporations. This morning Entertainment Weekly reported Hanna-Barbera has struck a deal with DC Comics — that bastion of work-for-hire literary integrity — to jump-start some of its most well-known characters as 21st-century comics for a new generation who doesn’t know them and/or an old generation that will shell out money for any repackaged remnants of their childhood.
The article linked above includes teaser images from DC’s planned reboots of Scooby-Doo (now with weapons and tattoos!), the Flintstones (realistic proportions + painful Stone Age puns = PROFIT), Space Ghost and Brak (no more Adult Swim irony, natch), and more. (Jonny Quest’s cast looks surprisingly unchanged, but we’ll see what happens after half of them are killed in the first issue.) The official press release offers additional details omitted from the EW summation, including the part where the Scooby Gang will be fighting nanites, which are now officially Over if they weren’t already. (Trivia undisclosed in the article: DC, Hanna-Barbera, and EW share the same giant parent company.)
It didn’t take long for Twitter to burst into laughter and kick off another round of reboot jokes. Within the first thirty seconds after I caught the news, I next saw other users lining up to brainstorm concepts for a grim-‘n’-gritty Yogi Bear, scoffing about a Jabberjaw revival, hoping Mighty Man and Yukk were up for grabs, and so on. By the time I got home after a long work day and in a better position to interact, I didn’t even bother checking Twitter because I assumed all the best jokes and obvious intellectual properties were spoken for, and my late contributions would be tired and redundant. What’s a sarcastic guy to do?
Author file photo, taken at an uncertain theme park circa 2006-2008, the years I used the Kodak EasyShare you see dangling from my lanyard. I ultimately decided not to buy the crown.
Welcome to Midlife Crisis Crossover’s 1200th entry! In the grand tradition of 20th century comic books and sitcoms that ran five seasons too long, every 100 entries we mark the occasion as a sort of accomplishment and sometimes celebrate it. Not all those 1200 moments have been winners, but they’re integral components in the comprehensive mosaic of the last few years inside my head — the distractions, the fancies, the traumas, the endless parade of lists.
Before I launched MCC on April 28, 2012, I’d already been writing here and there online for years. My early efforts at self-expression and public entertainment comprise a couple thousand Usenet posts (a few longform pieces in the bunch, mostly irretrievable and irrelevant now), several thousand message-board posts (much easier to sort through, a few of them previously transferred and preserved here), and a LiveJournal I kept for a few years but can barely stand to skim now. In 2006 the longtime message board that Anne and I call home received a software upgrade that added blogging functionality for any member who wanted their own little playground contained within the site itself. Between April 2006 and March 2012 I penned 110 intermittent entries before I decided to stake my own separate claim here among the WordPress territories. That virtually invisible blog was good practice in a number of ways, most of them involving some balance of creativity and humility in the face of a mostly empty studio, so to speak.
As part of this MCC celebration that I just realized could technically double as a “Throwback Thursday” nod, we present the following flashback to an essay originally published May 16, 2006. This oddity, which I’ve lightly edited for a broader audience, represents my very first “meta” post about the odd act of blogging. It was written within and for the confines of the internet equivalent of a shed with a single skylight, but I’m a little surprised how much of my nascent impressions still ring a bell today. Please enjoy, and thanks for being here.
“Hi, yes, I don’t have a question. I’d just like to point out for the record that no one has ever produced a single shred of evidence linking paper companies to the 2008 recession. So SUCK IT, BANKS.”
The first time I saw the name Adam McKay, he was a writer on Saturday Night Live who occasionally appeared in short films that helped kill time during the show’s after-12:30 wasteland. Those never did much for me, but he moved on to helming Will Ferrell comedies that attracted much larger audiences, of which I’ve not been a part. Fourteen years after his SNL stint, he’s now co-written a Marvel super-hero movie (last summer’s not-bad Ant-Man) and directed a Best Picture nominee in The Big Short, which ought to be mandatory viewing as an ethics cautionary tale in all future finance classes ever.
As Hollywood careers go, that escalated nicely.
The giraffes had space both indoors and outdoors. In the mornings, you’ll find them where the food is.
If you read Part 10 and Part 11, you saw a lot of me nattering on about the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, that fabulous nature spot with animal pens up the side of a mountain, but not so much about the zoo animals beyond the meerkats. This, then, is the one with a bunch of other animals in it.
Today the coastline along the Mississippi Sound is a calmer, beauteous place. As a target to multiple hurricanes over the past two centuries, it hasn’t always been like that. We found a few places on our drive through Biloxi that testify to the tragedy in those moments as well as to the resilience of its residents and their works.
Ransom Riggs’ Library of Souls, one among a handful of 2015 books I actually read in 2015.
Presented below is my full list of books, graphic novels, and trade collections that I finished reading in 2015, mostly but not entirely in order of completion. As I whittle down the never-ending stack I’ve been stockpiling for literal decades, my long-term hope before I turn 70 is to get to the point where my reading list is more than, say, 40% new releases every year. That’s a lofty goal, but I can dream
The Wonder Woman MEGO figure was the perfect compromise: too tall for an action figure, too prone to punching for a Barbie doll.
Fans of Star Wars: The Force Awakens have been up in arms the past two months over the complete lack of a dedicated action figure based on Rey, even though she’s the movie’s main character, arguably its most interesting new hero, and quite possibly a powerful descendant of one of the series’ most famous faces. While Hasbro has given Rey a one-way ticket to the Island of Misfit Toys, all the major male characters boast their own figures and multi-packs and variants and prominent roles in numerous other Star Wars toy assortments and games.
Online protesters suspected the executives at Hasbro were just being big fat sexist jerks, but their rage has been further fueled by an interview published Wednesday with an alleged Lucasfilm insider who claims The Powers That Be mandated that Rey specifically be denied an action figure because girl. Fans of Daisy Ridley’s amazing performance are unhappier than ever and demand Rey figures and justice now, in that order. Hasbro, who have yet to reveal the exact location of the landfill where they deposited seven years’ worth of unsold Padme in Immobile Ballroom Gown figures, could not be reached for comment.
While Hasbro squirms and harrumphs in its Rhode Island lair, we here at Midlife Crisis Crossover are betting that somewhere in California, the folks at Mattel are watching the debacle, taking notes, and adjusting their own plans for the eventual toys that we presume will coincide with the 2017 release of the first Wonder Woman theatrical film in world history. Of course there’ll be action figures! If you have a super-hero toy license, it’s what you do!
We’ve consulted our greatest prognosticating minds and our own secret anonymous sources, and have assembled our definitive predictions for the complete release schedule of the Wonder Woman action figure line, broken down by the waves to be released every 4-6 weeks as demand ramps up and the collectors beg for more. We’re thinking 2017 will be a very good year for DC Comics toy manufacturers and the boys who love them.
Right this way for your ultimate Wonder Woman action figure checklist!
It’s the kind of moment a man hears can happen, but never sees coming. He’s walking around by himself, minding his own business, lonesome in a crowd but trying to keep up his spirits. Then out of nowhere a young lady walks up to him without preamble or any sign of hesitation, stares him down point-blank, and hits him up with the kind of once-in-a-lifetime proposition he’d have to be a fool to refuse:
“Hi! Would you like to help feed the meerkats?”
If I ever got self-deluded enough to pay for a Midlife Crisis Crossover booth at a convention, this would totally be the image on our banner.
Whenever we meet new people and tell them about our annual road trips, we’ll talk partly about the famous attractions and the Very Important sights, but sooner or later we make a point of mentioning the expected “biggest ball of twine in Minnesota” sort of roadside whimsy and bafflement. Some places are more self-aware of their kitsch levels than others. Some places stop just short of posting “STOP HERE FOR PHOTO OP!” signs begging you to drop in and go wild. We’ve seen a few places that go all the way with full-on shameless billboards dozens of miles in advance. (Wall Drug, I’m looking in your direction.)
U.S. Route 90 through Biloxi runs near the Gulf of Mexico and features a pair of souvenir shops ready to sell you Mississippi memorabilia, provide all the beach gear you’ll need for your extended near-ocean stay, or just let you hang out with their marine life collections — all of it colorful, most of it inanimate.
Longtime MCC readers know my wife Anne and I are big fans of Chopped, the fast-paced chef-vs.-chef game show that’s like the lynchpin of the Food Network Cinematic Universe. When we heard host Ted Allen would be appearing here in Indianapolis this weekend, obviously we were in.
Allen was the headliner among several special guests at the inaugural Fantastic Food Fest, hopefully an annual event bringing together the best and brightest providers from numerous restaurants, markets, farms, caterers, bakeries, and other tremendous sources of locally sourced ingredients and cuisine. All things considered, the alliteration of “Fantastic Food Fest” rings better than, say, “Indy Foodie Con”.
Original working title for this entry: “I’m Sorry the Academy Thinks Michael B. Jordan Sucks”.
The Academy Award nominations are in! But you already knew that because chances are you’ve had more time for internet than I have today. You’ve already been surprised at how many of the nominees you’ve seen, not surprised that the theme of the 88th Academy Awards will be the Year of the White Guy, and probably up in arms that Star Wars: The Force Awakens wasn’t nominated in nineteen different categories including Best Foreign Language Film on behalf of the one scene with the two guys from The Raid. Ha! Sorry you got your hopes up, you FOOL. The guys from The Raid weren’t nearly white enough.
(If you had to work today like I did, here’s the complete list in showy poster format, or you can do like I do and skip to the “Printable List” button on the right side of that page for a handy PDF. I have zero interest in copying ‘n’ pasting the entirety from someone else’s site, or in typing every single title from scratch. It’s not like I’m paid by the word.)
Momentary pause here to signify my disappointment that Creed likewise failed to be nominated for all the awards ever. I’m sincerely cool with Stallone’s nomination and expected no less, but much more love needed to go out to Michael B. Jordan, director Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Goransson’s score, screenplay, editing, the works. I already went through this frustration two years ago with Fruitvale Station, and yet here we go again. A few things went my way, but seeing Creed seated at the kiddie table wasn’t one of them.
(Same goes to a certain extent for Inside Out, my favorite film of 2015, but I’m used to Hollywood underrating its animated films. To its credit, it received nods for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay, which means it got twice as many nominations as Creed did. Congrats?)
The following lists and other thoughts popped into my head throughout the day while I mulled over this year’s honorees:
Arson investigator Ken Cosgrove searches for clues that will bring shady real estate baron Walter Bishop to justice. We’ve come a long way since the days of barrel-tossing apes.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: as a kid, I frequented video arcades regularly. As a parent, my son and I spent a good decade playing games together on his various systems. When he graduated and moved away to college, he took all his systems with him, leaving me with only my old Nintendo that won’t play cartridges unless you keep the Game Genie firmly inserted, and an Atari Plug-‘n’-Play Controller I got for Christmas a few years ago that interested me for about two weeks. On Black Friday 2014, I decided I wanted back in the 21st century gaming mode and picked up a used PS3 for reasons already outlined in the post linked above.
Naturally I started off a generation behind the rest of the civilized world, but I didn’t care. After fifteen months without, holding a controller felt abnormal and rusty for the first few weeks. Once I got used to it again and figured out how to disable the “Digital Clear Motion Plus” feature on my TV, I could shake the dust off my trigger fingers, choose the games I wanted to play, sprint or meander through them at whatever pace I saw fit, and try some different universes beyond Final Fantasy and our other longtime mainstays. The following is a rundown of my first year’s worth of solo PS3 adventures, sorted not by preference but by my mostly lackluster Trophy percentages, best to worst. Y’know, for fun, as games are wont to be. Consider this my personal PS3 report card.
Fans of Dr. Strangelove, Stargate SG-1, WarGames, and numerous other near-apocalyptic dramas may recognize the location. No, I don’t mean the zoo.
Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain! One of the most distinctive sections of the Rocky Mountains in the Colorado Springs area, this mass was once home base for the North American Aerospace Defense Command. If you saw a movie or TV show in the ’80s or ’90s in which grouchy American military officials glowered at each other in a secret underground bunker and tossed around terms like “mutually assured destruction” or “DEFCON 1” or “the football” or “Russkies”, chances are they were filmed in a sterile Hollywood soundstage but fronted by a stock photo of thick, beautiful Cheyenne Mountain.
NORAD isn’t quite the hotbed of top-secret nuclear management it once was, having transferred its primary functions to nearby Peterson Air Force Base. (No public tours. I checked.) Today it’s a mountain with a lot going on around its base, not much of it related to national security anymore.
Right this way for another round of scenery and guaranteed animals!
My wife, Anne of Arabia.
One of the great things about vacation photos is you can refer to them whenever you’re in the midst of oppressive dreariness and remember a time when everything was better . I’m writing this in January at the end of a weekend whose temperatures plummeted by half within a 36-hour span and saw snow and ice cover our roads dangerously enough to warrant at least sixty-six police runs to handle traffic accidents this morning. Worse still, it wasn’t enough to blanket all the greenery and make everything look like a Christmas postcard. Slick and ugly snowfall is the worst.
Thanks to the magic of blogging, tonight we’re traveling back to that bygone era of July 2015, on a quiet Sunday morning when my wife and I ran amok on a brightly burning beach that was the dehydrating yet delightful opposite of the chilly here-and-now.
