Twist Street

Comic book adaptations of movies were generally pretty dull, but as a kid I pored over the Goodwin/Simonson/Janson adaptation of Close Encounters. It had a magic of its own that sprang entirely from their use of the medium. I studied it intensely and learned a lot about how comics can work.

Below: Fig 1: Simonson in 1978. Fig 2: Me in 1998. I didn't realize I'd done this until years later!

This looks awesome.

1970

There's a section of Nixonland about popular reaction to the Kent State murders that people pass around online sometime because it keeps being germane-- what they're all trying to enable here:

(X,XX)

this was a comment on one of my post from a recent live event. it was photos of joyful queer buckaroos celebrating together and proving love is real through creation, community, and a trot of love. most important I AM LITERALLY IN PHOTO AS A REAL FLESH AND BLOOD HUMAN

it got me thinking about how DEEP AND VICIOUS the irony poisoning of these early internet communities goes. the way buds like this cannot fathom someone just being a sincere person unrelated to their OWN old days of cynical posting. it is fascinating, and i will admit, sad too

despite a DECADE of work, countless live events, 350 tinglers written well before large language models were a thing, there are still people who cannot imagine someone like me could exist. it is a strange place to be. not just part of me, but my entire EXISTENCE is often gatekept

it is easy to say ‘well chuck your art IS strange’ but honestly i think it is more than that. magical realism is common. there are stories about dinosaurs and bigfeet and unicorns. this scoundrel reaction is about two unspoken things: my art is neurodivergent, and my art is queer

heres the thing: I WILL BE FINE. what concerns me is not an issue of MYSELF, it is a concern for the other young outsider buckaroos who see comments like this one and think ‘is that what they will say if i express MY unique way? will i be dehumanized like this at every turn?'

i will be honest, i cannot say that WONT happen, but i CAN say this: for as deep as this irony poisoning goes, it is slowly dying. the way i was treated at the start of my career is LIGHTYEARS DIFFERENT from the way i am treated now. there is a massive shift towards sincerity

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY. to young artists trotting up, the things that i am harassed over and doubted for and made fun of for are NOT tangental to what has made me successful, THEY ARE LITERALLY THE SAME THINGS THAT HAVE MADE ME SUCCESSFUL. YES I AM STRANGE, WHAT OF IT?

the things that you tuck away for fear of a review that says ‘there is a PROBLEM with this art because it has always been done another way’ THOSE ARE YOUR SUPERPOWERS. the gatekeepers want you to tuck those parts of yourself away because THEY TUCKED AWAY THOSE PART OF THEMSELVES

never forget that your unique way is PURE UNFILTERED 100 PERCENT ROCKET FUEL. it will stick out (maybe, if you are lucky, scoundrels will even say that someone like you could never actually be real), but sticking out isnt so bad when you are waving the flag of love.

in fact, when youre waving the flag of love, sticking out is pretty dang cool. what are flags for, after all? LOVE IS REAL BUCKAROOS. thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this long post then please consider preordering BURY YOUR GAYS.

LETS TROT

Satanic manufacturing cannot appear in the realm of god

This was one of those Ted Lasso people, right? I could never buy into that show-- Jason Sudekis is all bad vibes, and this lady's out there cramming domestic violence jokes into blockbusters as soon as she gets near-famous??? People selling Positivity and Kindness are just always so untrustworthy. I guess the suckers ate it up though and here we are...? Good job with all that kindness and positivity, you dopey fucking marks.

I want to see that movie-- I was kinda looking forward to it! I don't like the filmmakers (Bullet Train was a turd), but I like Ryan Gosling, I like Emily Blunt, and I like the fucking Fall Guy. And they pay it back by getting this spineless woman to do edgelord humor in a PG-13 action movie??? What the fuck is that? Irritating! (X)

For the longest time I thought this was some sort of remake of The Stunt Man - an amazing film and supposedly a big inspiration of the TV show. The idea of Emily Blunt riffing on Peter O'Toole's character seemed fascinating even if it fell flat. But no, it's another rehash of TV that I ignored as kid because it wasn't The Stunt Man and, from what I've seen is one of those shows that was mostly filler but had enough killer to seem better than it was in YouTube clips compilations.

The Fall Guy was one of (many?) shows in the 80's that really excelled in "Having a Theme Song That Kind of Tells You Everything about What the Show's Vibe Is." The Fall Guy, Greatest American Hero, Facts of Life, arguably Growing Pains.

There are some good themes in the 70's-- Taxi and MASH, say-- but the ones in the 80's are just bigger and dumber, but not in some lame ironic way. Nowadays, you might get a Succession theme song (or I guess it's not recent anymore, but I think Portlandia was really smart to use that Washed Out song, but)-- usually it's not the same thing, though.

I couldn't tell you what happens in any episode of the Fall Guy -- except that all those shows basically had the same 10-15 stories that they'd cycle through. (A concert pianist is trying to hide the fact he's secretly a murderer, an ex-girlfriend who runs an art gallery and is too fancy now for the main character got greedy and has gotten mixed up with jewel thieves and doesn't see a way out, an art forger just wants to paint but he's being blackmailed by the ringmaster at a circus-- time to go undercover, an annoying young person likes to use the computer but then he saw something he shouldn't, etc.). (Kelsey Grammar was the homicidal concert pianist once in one of those shows-- he was really good at that role).

But I've had that theme song stuck in my head dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times. I remember that, I remember the main character's name because it's just a great TV name (Colt Seavers), and I remember how they exploited Heather Thomas in the opening credits, to the delight of me / America / me; "we used to make things in this country", etc. It was never as good as the opening credits, but it had a fun premise and I'd rather watch that one than Hunter or BJ & The Bear or Remington Steele. Simon & Simon was probably better, though, even though I was never really 1000% clear who those guys were. I mean, they were brothers, I think, but besides that. (And I remember really liking Scarecrow & Mrs. King).

They all kind of laid the track for the peak era of Moonlighting but then Moonlighting just went out in such a "blaze of glory" immediately after that peak era-- that show just blew up when you were watching it, it was wild...