Keep in mind I was never a party animal. I wasn't even a party manimal. Saturday nights were pretty mellow. At most when I was single I would go and get a beer with friends and listen to some music at some risky looking dive bar. The type of place that has secret organ transplants going on in the bathroom. You all have been there and if you haven't you know someone who has. When my wife and I got together we would hop around to functions with friends, parties, bars, party bars, rooster fights. We wouldn't go nuts, but the weekends were lively. Now they are livelier...just in a different way.
Last night I was trying to wear the baby out and get her exhausted just in time for bed. Usually this would involve running around on the grass and ingesting benidryl, but once Mercy caught on I was no longer allowed into the medicine cabinet. I think she laces my drinks with benidryl though. It was too hot to go outside.
So we cranked up the music and danced. It started with Michael Jackson's "Don't stop 'till you get enough". You all know the video, Michael is wearing what looks like a waiter's outfit from some kind of steak and seafood establishment and he starts dancing behind a background of giant falling disco ice cubes. We followed this up by "Billie Jean" which features my all time favorite music video scene. Michael throws a homeless guy a magical glowing coin and suddenly he's wearing a magic suit...hopefully he is magically rich or employed, otherwise he would just be a well dressed homeless man. If Michael were president his economic plan would be "Let's just give all the poor in the world magical Billie Jean coins and they will all be sharply dressed and confused...wooohooo...moonwalk away..."
Now when Luna dances it is quite the sight to see. She begins kicking her feet and shuffling from left to right like she is being chased by a horde of invisible bees. Then she tries to snap her fingers which looks like she is swatting at the aforementioned inviso-bees. These moves parlay into my favorite dance move of hers. She looks like someone hit her in the neck with a tranquilizer dart and she is dragging around the paralyzed side of her body. When I dance I have what my wife calls the happy leg. Only one half of me can actually stay in beat to the music and I bite my bottom lip like the music had made me hungry. Hungry enough to eat the lower half of my mouth. There is more of a grace to Luna's insane dance, a grace that she must have inherited from her mother because I am hamfisted at best. Look for her next year on "So you think you can dance".
Comic Book Review: Animal Man # 12 and Swamp Thing # 12
For those of you who don't read the comic book related tidbits of my blog should just pass on this one too, because it is about to get nerdy. Well, nerdier than usual. If you are a comic book fan than you know that last year DC comics dropped an atomic bomb on their universe and started everything from scratch...sort of. All of the super heroes have only been operating for five years, but ten or twenty years worth of their adventures have supposedly occurred within that very short span. For Batman that makes him an extremely lousy team player because he is on his fourth Robin. The first one quit and became Nightwing, The second one died and came back as the Red Hood, the third one quit and became Red Robin and serves delicious burgers with the endless basket of french fries and the fourth one is his illegitimate son who was trained to be an assassin by his nihilistic mother. And all that happened in five years. Goody, DC you made everything so much easier for a casual fan to understand!
Animal Man and the Swamp Thing are DC characters who have always inhabited the darker, edgier corner of the DC universe, they both have had very cool, bizarre adventures that have stretched the bounds of what you can do in a comic book. But this is the first time they have ever teamed up before. For the past year both heroes have been fighting their own battles with a mysterious force known as the rot. Animal Man is connected to all living, breathing creatures and can channel all of their attributes. Need to fly, just use the powers of an eagle, need to fun fast...bam! Cheetah power activate. He doesn't turn into the animal, he just has their talents. As this series progressed, we learned that he is connected to the Red, a mysterious dimension that ties all living creatures together. Likewise, Swamp Thing is the plant equivalent of Animal Man. He controls all plant matter on Earth. Which might sound weak until you see him hardening his hands into giant thorns and cutting off the heads of the Rot's zombie hordes. In case you haven't guessed, the Rot represents all the dead and decaying facets of the Earth. It is championed by Swamp Thing's arch foe Anton Arcane, who is now a creepy super corpse. Animal Man and Swamp Thing 12 both tie into each other, weaving the first part of the massive Rot World crossover. So far, the story and art is very impressive and both creative teams blend together well. This is how a crossover should happen, it is seamless and builds a world that is far more interesting than most of the settings we have seen so far in the New 52. Each character has their own shining moment....for Animal Man it is going to the rot dimension without powers and still kicking butt. For Swamp Thing it is being a regal, warrior who hides the fact that he is in over his head. There is a cool revelation from Anton Arcane and the two parter ends with both characters being separated and thrown into a post apocalyptic future in which the Rot has won the battle. The two issue story is a perfect segue for anyone who has not been following the series. 10/10 Tranquilized dancing babies
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