How You Do A Justice League Movie, Part III

You don't, apparently.

The best part of this semi-decision is that it leaves Man of Steel room to breathe. The second best part is that a JL film won't get rushed into theaters in 2015 to take on Avengers 2 and Star Wars VII, avoiding a humiliating face-plant that the other nerd-subspecies would never let us live down. If there was no chance of the project becoming something amazing (there wasn't), better nothing than another Green Lantern.

My only question is, if the script really was that bad, why did WB/DC run with production for over a year? Putting the project aside doesn't seem half so canny a move when you merely defaulted to this position because you realized the story was no good. Nine months after Avengers made you take this idea semi-seriously for the first time. I'd say this is a good time for the studio to focus on the individual characters for a while, but given this and other recent fumbles, we might as well watch WB/DC tease JL further. Because that'll restore our faith in them.

This is part of an irregular, ongoing series that may finally be over. See Part I and Part II.

(Image courtesy Uncyclopedia)

Your Peace Offering Stepped on My Testicle

It's tempting for many, especially at this time of year, to fall back on Charlie Brooker's eloquent position regarding love. After all, it's a loaded topic, forever imprisoned on a pedestal by both the lucky and unlucky in love, many of whom know better but act otherwise. We pretend that love isn't susceptible to the same power relationships and false advertising that our other institutions are infected with. So, when love falters (as it will, from time to time), we get huffy and disillusioned. Because love is supposed to be different, it's supposed to be too important for that. And because every one of us occasionally mistakes cynicism for wisdom. Our standards for love are high because what sets love apart as a value is that when love is real, it endures through the storm in a way others won't. It might come out bruised and dented, but it's there.

I'm 26 and I'm happily married and if I think that I know more about love than anyone else, I should be struck through the scrotum with a fish hook and dragged into the Potomac.

Speaking of my scrotum, here's a story:

Mrs. Half-Drunken Scribe and myself got married last May. In September, we moved into our new apartment. A few weeks into our tenure at the new place, she and I are feeding the cat (you remember Olivia, I trust--she'll be important later), brushing our respective teeth, and generally doing the things that are a part of our process of going to bed on a weeknight. Because we're multi-taskers, we're also arguing about something. I can't remember what. No, really, I can't. And neither can she. Why? Because it was a small and stupid argument. The kind of small and stupid argument that spelled the end my relationships once upon a time. Whatever it was, she and are going back and forth, very likely knowing that the argument is stupid. But we remain entrenched in it because neither of us can handle the psychic impact of the conclusion: one of us winning a stupid battle and the other--horror of horrors--being wrong.

A part of me, I think, senses the impasse. It's the same part of my brain that's always eager to play this next card. And though it means I'll be forever bad at arguments and extemporaneous debate, I can't bear to shut this part of me off, for fear of losing an integral part of who I am.

I begin deliberately irritating her. Not pissing her off, mind you, that's different. I don't believe in picking fights. But, I will sometimes try to annoy her with little things, like responding to her serious inquires by reenacting this scene. Or replying to her questions as Batman (if she says "I swear to God," how am I not supposed to respond with this?). What can I say? She's cute when she's mildly aggravated. A lot of guys do this in relationships, responding to her every groan with a bemused laugh until she's genuinely angry. I don't know how that works with gay couples--some kind of ongoing loop of childish antics, I guess. Although, without the reaction, what's the point?

Anyway, I retreat to bed because that seems the best place to avoid the discussion. At least until I remember that it's also her bed. Before long, L walks into the bedroom, holding Olivia aloft and says "I bring you a peace offering." She plunks Olivia down on to my chest and the cat, as she often will after being involuntarily transported, turns around and walks away. Struts away, in fact, in that way that cats do when they don't have any place to be but don't want to be where they are. Cats live in the moment; there is no past, there is no future, there is only "I'm not involved in this shit." So she's strutting away. And, maybe this is just the way she's walking, but as though making a point of doing so, Olivia's back paw lands on my right testicle. Righty, the one that hangs a little lower than the other.

She doesn't step hard, mind you, and most of her weight had landed on my thigh. Everything's still intact. Pain signals move slightly slower than the "something happened" signals.

The wife takes her first cue from my wince. She's grown kind of fond of me and wants kids one day, so, for a second, she genuinely feels bad for Righty. Then she sees me unclench and knows everything's fine and breathes a sigh of relief. And then she laughs, evolution's Everything's Okay alarm.

This symbolizes marriage. Somehow. Karma is involved; you act like a dick and get it back in a note of imperfect poetic irony. There's fleeting physical pain that's so superficial, it demands laughter for medicine.

It's also beautifully mundane. She and I don't have the independent wealth-financed lives of leisure, world travel, and gym time that either of us would like. We go to work every day and come home tired and sometimes resentful of whatever the Metro's cooked up for us. We drop our shit on the floor in the entryway, collapse onto the sofa, and together we summon the necessary strength to cook dinner. And she does grad school on top of it all, so the amount of room I have to complain about any of it is about as roomy as a... not-so-roomy thing.

While not every day is wine, roses, beer, and X-Box, we do the banality together. If that seems unromantic, well, it is. She and I do romance, sure, but that's our business. The point is, the fictionalized exaggerated version of love that we're sold from childhood is fine when kept in context. But it's as much about the everyday trivialities; sharing a fridge for seventeen years, as Brooker says. In between, you buy her flowers, just because. And you let him play video games for another hour or two, just because. If you can't do that, then the better parts of it--the big moments you've been promised--won't mean a thing, if they happen at all.

Are you upset because it's Valentine's Day and you're alone? Because you're disappointed? Because you're expected to put in some effort? Yeah, fair enough. But remember that Valentine's is just the avatar of the entire concept we've bought and sold to ourselves since forever. If you want to be cynical and say that you're not buying into today, go for it. Post those "Fuck Valentine's" Facebook statuses (that's sure to stick it to The Man). I don't have the moral ground to hash that out with you and it's probable that you've earned your dyspepsia. However, it might pay to consider how you ended up here. And remember that you can only blame an abstract concept for so much.

"It's not all Disney princess shit," as the wife says. She's so sweet. On the third anniversary of the day I proposed to her, I love her as much as I did then. Happy Valentine's Day, kitten.

The Continuing Promise of The Walking Dead

The best part about cautious pessimism is that it leaves just enough room to be proven wrong and not feel too bad about it. The worst part is that the cowardice of the lack of position allows no ability to gloat when you end up being sort of right. So when I wrote last fall that this third season of The Walking Dead had all the pieces to form a really solid action/horror/drama series but it that it might not do it, I wasn't saying much. I had been burned by the show before, but loved the spirit of it too much to bury the thing. And here we are, about to enter the second half of a mostly-terrific third seasons and I haven't a cowardly leg to stand on.

That'll show me. I won't be looking, but it'll show me.

Quick rundown on what went right in the first half: Lori is dead. Carl's growing into a stone cold zombie apocalypse survivor. Rick is half-mad. The Governor is more so. The town of Woodbury is one of the most interesting sociological experiments I've ever seen on television. We now have real inter-character conflict brewing, rather than a dull back and forth "what now?" And Daryl is still Daryl.

The dialogue remains a wet fart in a dark room. Too many of the characters (particularly the female ones) are still wooden and conspicuously bad at decision-making. And come season's end, we might be able to look back on some uneven pacing. But the show has made enormous strides. And for someone who's wanted to be a fan since the first promos back in 2010, that feels great to be able to say.

I've recently been playing through The Walking Dead tablet game. As an interactive, plot-driven story, it delivers a far more immersive experience than the show does. It features characters that the player may not necessarily like, but are developed enough to have what qualifies for pathos, something rare even amongst the more popular characters of the show. And because the plot branches into new directions with each decision from the player, there's much less remove from the events of the story and it's easier to feel the emotional impact of bad consequences. I haven't yet gone back through to play the game with different decisions, but it seems that most consequences are bad consequences.

The narrative differences between television and video games deserve a post or two to themselves, so I won't go too in-depth with that analysis just now. Suffice to say, there are some types of moments that may always fail to land as well as we'd like. But the moments that do are sweet.

A few episodes ago (specifically, "When The Dead Come Knocking"), Glenn was tortured for information about the group and then narrowly avoided becoming walker-chow while tied to a chair. These made for some genuinely harrowing moments, made all the more dire by Maggie's parallel experiences, after which she gave up the desired information in order to save Glenn. I don't know if the writers intentionally chose to put two of the characters the audience likes most in this situation (at least I do; my wife has expressed some misgivings about Maggie), but the episode is better for that decision.

This is what the show needs. They've shed a lot of the--sorry--dead weight. And I look forward to more of the good times. Good times for us... Rick's people suffer for our entertainment, after all.

Thank You For Riding Metro

Ever run to board a train before the doors close, only to have the person in front of you inexplicably slow down as they pass into the car? As though the "door closing" chime is a signal sounded just for them, telling them they've made it and can relax? Not even because the car is packed--the car may, in fact, have ample standing room and a few single seats to spare--but because they can?

Good news: it turns out you're allowed--nay, encouraged--to push them. Just shove 'em out of the way! Kids, too? Sure, kids love to learn. Old people? Of course! After all, if anyone needs to hurry it along, it's those with pressing time constraints. After all, you have places to be and you'd have been there quicker, but you really needed to rub one out before you left your house this morning and that's other people's problem now.

So remember to push the douchebags and thank you for riding Metro.*

The DC Metro system sucks. I spent a long time trying to defend it in a country that sorely needs better public transport options, but I gave up that ghost a while ago. The delays, the single tracking, the myriad safety issues, the rising costs; indefensible. I won't catalog all of the infrastructural failings and institutional incompetence/apathy. There's a perfectly good blog already doing that. Although: the green line meltdown last week? Metro cares not for meltdowns.

And the riders help nothing. It's not just the anecdotal incidents I've witnessed, such as the tourist family posing for a photo in front of open train doors at Metro Center during rush hour. Or the group of a dozen or so grown-ass men and women (we're talking mid-to-late forties) taking turns indulging one another with their horrifying, music-less, pole dancing techniques. It's the little things, the things that should be eliminated through basic observation and consideration and yet remain universal.

For example, people sitting on the outside of the 2x2 row seating when both seats are empty. And then, when that person is asked to move--a rarity, it seems--they simply swing their legs around to allow the new person some ten inches of maneuverable room through which to access the inside seat, only to be squashed in by Lazy McSelfish-Ass' freely swinging legs.

And then there's the blatant disregard for the Escalator Rule. Most of you immediately know what I'm talking about because you've likely seen an escalator in action. For the rest of you, the Rule works as follows: on two-person wide escalators, the left side of the escalator is reserved for people walking up or down. One may also walk on the right, assuming no one is occupying that space, but standing on the right is acceptable, so one may need to move around them. Once practiced, it proves remarkably simple.

And yet many never master it. See the group of teens who can't bear to be apart for more than a few seconds and so cluster into tight, inward facing packs for the length of the ride (one wonders how restroom visits work). Or the lone fighter of uniformity, leaning against the left handrail, like the American Hero his mother told him he was. Or the ill-advised, if merely unfortunate, soul who, having missed the elevator, brings luggage onto the escalator, inconveniencing everyone, including himself (extra points if they're on the Wheaton, Rosslyn or Dupont escalators).

I've been on subway systems in seven cities on two continents and the Escalator Rule works the same in all of them. Amazingly, it's the same rule that's used by malls, museums, hotels, government buildings, and other large, public and private structures that have escalators. And even if you've never personally experienced a ride on these automated miracles of sharp, interlocking metal teeth, it's easy enough to understand this rule just by watching. As you step on, simply look up/down and study the natives. If you follow their lead, you'll be in the right 99% of the time.

As with most societal niceties, most people have no problem following standard Let's Try Not To Kill Each Other Today procedures. The rules are only in place because a very few people can't or won't put the brakes on their Special Snowflake train for the few minutes it takes to get from one place to another with other human beings. And because those few simply cannot help themselves, the rules become overarching laws, governing us all to a degree that no one really wanted, but that we all asked for. This is basic John Locke Social Contract shit.

If you visit the District of Columbia, or any city with a public transport system (however faulty), please follow the procedures your fellow passengers are quietly demonstrating. They know what they're doing, have places they're trying to get to, and have done this before.

*I've seen this happen. And having been at the would-be pusher end of the engagement, I understand the urge. But it's a helpful reminder that there are just enough thoughtless people riding the Metro during rush hour that there are very few win-win scenarios.