Random

I've been looking at a few old issues of The Beano, a weekly British comic book that's been running since 1938 (which most Americans have never heard of).

Anyway, the bizarre thing about the comic is one of the regular features, Dennis the Menace. It's NOT the Dennis the Menace we Americans know. So you think, maybe someone ripped somebody's idea off. But get this: the two characters debuted independently (i.e. unrelated creators) in their respective countries just 3 days apart. Hella weird.

Anyway, Britsh comics and advertisements are different.




And this is a great quote I haven't thought of in years but which came back to me yesterday:

"If you want to be successful in life, everything you do must be an act of patricide. You must always kill the father. Every song you sing, every sentence you write, every leaf you rake must kill the father. Every act from the most august to the most banal must be patricidal if you hope to live freely and unencumbered. Even when shaving— each whisker you shave off is your father's head. And if you're using a twin blade—the first blade cuts off the father's head and as the father's neck snaps back it's cleanly lopped off by the second blade."

--from “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist”, by Mark Leyner

Once Again

Every now and then I check on Mark Leyner's career to see how far he's fallen since his 1997 masterpiece, The Tetherballs of Bougainville. The last thing was a horrible Middle East corporation film, War, Inc.

But now he's cashing in once again with another crappy medical humor book he's known to co-author. This time it's called Let's Play Doctor. I haven't read it, but it's got a phat 1.5 stars on amazon, and this review:

In case you're inclined to view Leyner's previous career (as a uniquely sardonic wit and social satirist) as the product of a bargain struck with Mephistopheles, these "doctor books" he now dashes off in conjunction with this Goldberg character can be viewed as what comes after the twist ending - when Satan shows up at the book-signing party demanding payment in full, and waving the signed contract like a combination past-due invoice and eviction notice.

The most bothersome aspect is the probability that something like LET'S PLAY DOCTOR is outselling ET TU, BABE by a ten-to-one margin, which is hardly Leyner's fault. But better he spends his free time with lawyers rather than doctors; what he needs is a contract-law barracuda to renegotiate his original deal with the devil, so he can get back to leaving bite-marks in corn dogs, posthaste.


I couldn't agree more.

War, Inc.

I think the first American movie I've seen this year is War, Inc.

It's not that good. It's throwaway parody that could've been made fifteen years ago. The only reason I downloaded it is because Mark Leyner co-authored it. What happened to that guy? He used to be one of my favorite writers, then he started doing crappy collaborations. You throw enough cash in his face and he'll write Transformers 2.

Watch this instead: