D.R.Scott's Pulp Culture

Dave Chappelle

2009-10-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

Do The Math

2009-10-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

Saul Williams

2009-10-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Bob Fosse

2009-10-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Funnies

2009-10-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Grateful Dead

2009-10-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Bipartisanship

2009-10-23T03:28:00.000-07:00

Noma Bar, Illustrator

2009-10-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to A Sport in The Drawer for turning me on to Mr. Bar. I'm forever in your debt, sir.

"Forgetfulness", a poem by Billy Collins

2009-10-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

Forgetfulness - Billy Collins Animated Poetry from smjwt on Vimeo.

Track Meet

2009-10-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

George Tuska, Comic Book Artist (1916 - 2009)

2009-10-21T03:54:00.000-07:00

"George Tuska, whose career in comics dates back to 1939 and his work in Will Eisner's studio, died around midnight on October 16 at the age of 93. The son of Russian immigrants, Tuska was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 26, 1916 and grew up to attend the National Academy of Design. Even before graduation, he was assisting on the Scorchy Smith newspaper strip and making his way into the then-new form known as the comic book. In addition to the Eisner-Iger shop, he worked for a half-dozen other publishers and studios, including Fiction House, Fawcett, Harvey and Standard.

"Drafted into the army, he served during World War II working as a technical illustrator at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. By the time he got back to New York and civilian life, the trend in comics was swinging from super-heroes to crime comics. He went to work drawing gangster stories for Lev Gleason and quickly became the star artist for that publisher's best-selling books, including the ironically-titled (because of how well it sold) Crime Does Not Pay. Not only did he draw most lead features and the occasional cover but other artists imitated his style. One, an illustrator named Pete Morisi, went so far as to call Tuska and ask for permission to draw like him. Tuska was flattered and told him to go right ahead.

"Though Lev Gleason kept him busy, Tuska chose to freelance occasionally for other publishers, especially for Stan Lee at Timely Comics. When the comic book industry imploded in the mid-fifties, he segued to newspaper strip work, taking over Scorchy Smith for a time, followed by a long run drawing Buck Rogers. In the sixties, he was tapped to draw for Tower Comics on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and returned to work for Stan Lee at the newly-successful Marvel line. Lee found him to be a valuable utility man and he worked on many titles including The Avengers, X-Men, Captain America and Daredevil. He was the first artist on Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and became the primary artist on Iron Man for some ten years. From time to time, he picked up assignments for DC, where he was usually assigned to "team" comics including Challengers of the Unknown, Teen Titans, Justice League of America and The Legion of Super-Heroes".

-- Mark Evanier

Back in the 70s, Marvel Comics weren't very good. Ditko, Kirby, and Steranko left the bankrupt House of Ideas years ago. George Tuska was one of those ink-stained guys called up from the minor leagues when Stan Lee's bosses couldn't afford to pay Neal Adams. No, Tuska didn't re-invent the wheel with his artwork, but he worked hard, was always on time, and was a big reason why Marvel didn't cancel the series. Rest In Peace, Mr. Tuska.

Jean Luc Picard's Teapot

2009-10-20T04:58:00.001-07:00

Thanks to BoingBoing for the head's up.

Bag Check

2009-10-20T04:46:00.000-07:00

Baratunde Thurston

2009-10-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

Caught Stealing

2009-10-19T10:59:00.001-07:00

This is how life changes.

You're born in California and raised as an only child in a pleasant suburb a ways east of San Francisco. You have a nice childhood with parents who love you. You play baseball. You are tremendously gifted at the game and you love it. By the time you are seventeen you have a room full of trophies. You have played on two teams that have competed for the Little League World Series and are the star player on your high school's varsity squad. You're a four-tool player: bat, glove, arm, and legs. You play center field. You lead the team in homers, ERA, RBI, stolen bases, and have no errors. Pro scouts have been coming to see you play all year and when you graduate, everyone expects you will skip college to be signed for development by a Major League club. At every game you look into the stands and your parents are always there.

In the regional championship game you are caught stealing third. You slide hard into the bag as the third baseman leaps to snare a high throw from the plate. Your cleats dig into the bottom of the base and as you pop up out of your slide, the third baseman is coming down with the ball. He lands on the ankle of your caught foot and, as you continue up, he falls down with his full weight on your lower leg.

The bone sticks straight out from your calf, and you just stare at it.

The pins they stick in your fibula restrict growth in the bone. It will not heal properly and for the rest of your life you have a hard knot of scar and bundled muscle tissue that aches in cold, wet weather. No one even pretends you will play again.

You stay away from the games and don't see much of your old friends. You have new friends, and you get in a little trouble. You work after school and buy a Mustang and fix it up with your dad, the mechanic. You drive everywhere and drag all the local motor-heads. You always win. When there's no one around to race, you drive fast on the back roads outside of town and get a rush from the speed. It's not baseball, but it's something.

Out by the cattle ranches, after midnight, a calf wanders into the road through a split in the fence. You swerve and pound down on the brake pedal. The wheel crazes out of your hand and the car heels down on the front right tire. The tire explodes. The wheel rim bites into the tarmac and the car flips up and begins to sail end over end. You are suspended in the car, held tight to the seat by the four-point harness your dad insisted you install. The car tumbles through the air and passes harmlessly over the calf. The Ford completes a full revolution, lands on its bottom, careens across the road and slams its front end into an oak.

Your friend Rich does not have his seat belt on. When you first saw the calf and slammed the brakes, Rich was kneeling on his seat, turned around and rummaging in the back for a sweatshirt.

During the flip you are for a moment suspended upside down. Rich bounces around the interior of the car and falls to the roof, sprawled on his back. He is looking at you, into your eyes, his face less than a foot away, inches away. The car flips with sudden violence, Rich disappears from your vision, and as you plow into the tree he appears to leap at the front windshield from somewhere behind you. He launches through the glass and flies the short distance to where the oak catches him brutally.

Lots of people show up at the funeral and cry and hug you. You have a bruised sternum and a cut on your cheek, and you look no one in the eye. Afterward your parents take you home.

In the spring you graduate and in the fall go to college in Northern California. You think about being a physical therapist or an EMT. You think about teaching like your mom. You won't go to work in your dad's garage. You don't want to work on cars anymore. You don't even drive.

You never graduate. You go to college for six years and study a bit of everything and do well at all of it, but you never graduate. You're not sure what to do and then you meet a girl. She's an actress.

You show up in New York with your girl and the two of you stay on the couch at her friend's place. Two weeks after you get to the city, she gets a job on the road and leaves. The friend tells you that you have to move out.

New York has great public transportation. You never have to drive. You decide to stay. You find an apartment the size of your folks' kitchen. You get a job tending bar. For the first time in your life you start drinking. You're good at it.

You live in New York, but you always act like a guy from a small town in California. You help winos out of the gutter, you call an ambulance when you see someone hurt, you loan money to friends who need it and don't ask for it back, you let folks flop at your pad and you help the blind across the street. One night you go to break up a fight in the bar and get knocked around pretty good, so the next day you start taking boxing classes. You drink too much, but your parents don't know that.

You're a good guy, you're tough and you have a reputation in your neighborhood for helping people out. It's nice. It's not the life you expected, but it's nice enough for you. You feel useful, you have friends and your parents love you. Ten years pass.

One day the guy who lives across the hall from you knocks on your door. He needs a big favor. That's when life really changes.

The Sunday Funnies

2009-10-18T10:45:00.001-07:00

Leonard Cohen

2009-10-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Are You Ready For Some Football? (Week 6 Picks)

2009-10-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

Schadenfreude, ya gotta love it.

Even better, the more Rush opens his big mouth, the more he validates the NFL's decision to keep him out. Didn't he learn anything from the "Monday Night Football" fiasco?

I'm not delusional. I know the big-money corporate overlords in the NFL didn't reject Limbaugh because of their moral values. I'm sure most of these Good Old Boys laugh at the same jokes Rush does. The big difference, however, between Rush Limbaugh and the owners of the NFL is that they can't afford to believe in bullshit. Bullshit is thinking that Donovan McNabb is an "overrated" quarterback. Bullshit is thinking football is a gang fight between Crips and Bloods. Thinking that way will lose you games and that's not good business.

Besides, other than the immense embarrassment of being associated with a stupid, openly racist talk show host, there's another reason the NFL didn't want Rush Limbaugh.

Football is the most successful sport in the United States, and it got that way by treating the athletes like shit. The union is weak, there are no guaranteed contracts, and careers are short. The great Emmitt Smith said that playing football was like "being in a car accident every game." The money these guys are paid isn't commensurate to the damage they do to their bodies. But the players love the game and most of them are too young to envision the painful future at the end of the their careers. The owners like it this way.

Now, with the possible threat of a lockout in 2010, the last thing the owners want is a professional loudmouth racist like Rush Limbaugh coming in the league and reminding the players that they're nothing but property. "Barack, The Magic Negro" ain't gonna be on too many iPods in the locker rooms. The GOP's Great White Hope would be the best argument for a strike the player's union ever had, and Jerry can't afford to have that billion dollar cathedral empty for a season.

Sorry, Rush. Nothing personal. But this is business.

O.K., I'm tired talking about Rush. Are you ready for some football?

The New York Giant vs. The New Orleans Saints
Sunday's best game. When it's over, we'll know which team is going to the Super Bowl.

The Buffalo Bills vs. The New York Jets
The helpless Bills can't run, can't stop the run, can't score. The Jets can't wait.

The Baltimore Ravens vs. The Minnesota Vikings
The Ravens won't lose three in a row. After this game, Brett Favre is gonna age faster than the bad guy in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

The Kansas City Chiefs vs. The Washington Redskins
I'm starting to get the feeling that the only thing Scott Pioli said to Belicheck was, "One or two sugars, Bill?"

The Philadelphia Eagles vs. The Oakland Raiders
Some crazy friends of mine played a drinking game where they did a shot every time JaMarcus Russell fumbled, missed an open receiver and/or looked confused. The EMTs barely got there in time.

The Houston Texans vs. The Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals got good, got bad for a couple of years, got good again. The Texans were never good.

The St. Louis Rams vs. The Jacksonville Jaguars
Uglier than Rush Limbaugh in a hot tub.

The Carolina Panthers vs. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Uglier than Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove in a hot tub.

The Pittsburgh Steelers vs. The Cleveland Browns
The Steelers remember that they're Super Bowl champions. The Browns forget how to play football.

The Denver Broncos vs. The San Diego Chargers
Throughout the years, the enigmatic Chargers have been a good team victimized by awful coaching. I think this is the season it finally catches up with them. Norv Turner is a nice guy, great offensive coordinator, lousy coach, future ESPN talking head.

The Arizona Cardinals vs. The Seattle Seahawks
Matt Hasselbeck's ribs get worse.

The Detroit Lions vs. The Green Bay Packers
Maybe the horrible screams of the Lions getting their butts kicked will drown out Favre's mocking laughter. Maybe.

Coming Attractions

2009-10-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

S.O.S.

2009-10-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

The Bum's Rush

2009-10-15T04:32:00.000-07:00

"I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed."

"Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

"Do you know what? The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies"

"African-Americans? They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?"

"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

Yeah, Rush, you said it. That's why the NFL wants you to stay the fuck away. As the great philosopher Bill Parcells said, "You are what your record says you are". Rush Limbaugh's own words prove without a shadow of a doubt that he's a) racist, or b) a cynical opportunist who says racist things to make a buck. Either way, that makes him a contemptible human being, and in a sport where 70% of the players are black, it also makes him a very, very bad idea. Words don't go away, Rush. Ask George Allen.

Invisible Man

2009-10-14T05:43:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, Somewhere In An Alternate Universe...

2009-10-14T05:32:00.001-07:00

Speaking Truth To Power

2009-10-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

"But they've now hoisted themselves on their own insured petard. They've exposed themselves. If they had to compete with a public insurance plan, they couldn't get away with this threat. They couldn't pass on the extra costs. They'd have to compete with a public insurance option that forced them to give consumers the best deals possible.

"Now's the time for Congress and the White House to say to the insurance industry: You want to play hardball? Okay. We'll play it, too. You didn't want a public insurance option. That was one of your conditions for supporting the bill. You wanted gigantic profits from having thirty million new paying customers and the market to yourself. The Senate Finance Committee and the White House agreed because they wanted your support and were afraid of the negative ads and hurricane of opposition you could finance. But you're even greedier than we imagined. And now you've demonstrated that greed to the American people. They don't want to turn over even more of their hard-earned money to you. So, insurance companies, we've got news for you. We're going to make sure Americans have the freedom to choose a public insurance option that's cheaper and better, and you're going to have to work hard to keep them your customers."

-- Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor

Imaginary Enemies

2009-10-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

Meleanie Hain: Gun-Carrying Soccer Mom Killed By Husband In Murder Suicide, Police Say

LEBANON, Pa. - A soccer mom who was thrust into the national gun-rights debate after taking a loaded pistol to youth sports events was killed by her husband in a shooting witnessed online by her video chat partner, authorities said Friday.

Scott Hain used his own gun to fire several shots into his 30-year-old wife, Meleanie, while her video chat was active and perhaps as she washed dishes in their kitchen, police said. Scott Hain, 33, later killed himself in an upstairs bedroom.

Meleanie Hain's loaded pistol -- with a bullet ready in the chamber -- was in a backpack hanging from the front door.

The couple's three young children were home just before the murder-suicide, but authorities stopped short of saying they were home at the time. The online friend heard a shot and screams and turned to see Scott Hain firing, they said.

He "observed Scott Hain standing over where Meleanie was and discharging a handgun several times," Lebanon Police Chief Daniel Wright said at a news conference. The man, who was described as a friend of both Scott and Meleanie Hain, called 911.

"He kept open his Web cam episode; however, he heard nothing or saw nothing after that," Wright said. The chat was apparently not recorded.

Meleanie Hain became a voice of the gun-rights movement last year when she fought for the right to carry a holstered pistol at her young daughter's soccer games. Other parents complained, prompting a sheriff to revoke her concealed-weapons permit, a decision a judge later overturned.

"I'm just a soccer mom who has always openly carried (a firearm), and I've never had a problem before," Hain said last fall. "I don't understand why this is happening to me."

Meleanie Hain died because she didn't understand what was really going on.

Hain's death exemplifies the stupid white people who get loud, scared, and angry about the wrong things, not realizing that they're putting their own lives in danger. They're Rush Limbaugh fans, Sarah Palin groupies, the audience that believes everything Fox News tells them to believe, the Teabaggers, the Birthers, and the "Country First" idiots who want to help Grover Norquist drown the government in a bathtub.

Guess who pisses these people off?

No, it's not the rich bastards who own over 90% of the wealth in the United States who bust unions, empty pension funds, close schools, deny cancer patients medical insurance, ship jobs overseas, and send kids to die in unnecessary wars. Of course not. It's a nigger welfare queen driving her stolen Cadillac to pick up that AIDS-infected spic faggot who's sneaking illegally into this country before stopping at the hospital to kill Grandma. Shee-it, let's buy another AK-47, just to feel safe.

Tragically, because Meleanie Hain was so obsessed by imaginary enemies, the gun-carrying soccer mom of three young children wasn't able to recognize the killer that shared her bed.