LIFE: Stop the presses

LIFE: Stop the presses

Geez, some days I wish I worked at a gas station. It's a truism in newspapers that whenever someone essential in the newsroom goes on vacation, all hell breaks loose. Since my city editor is gone all week and I'm running a newsroom of 28 people, I feel like I've been at ground zero all week. Breaking news, breaking news, breaking news.

Since Monday, we've had – 2 drownings in local rivers and lakes, one of a 5-year-old boy; a terrible freak accident that killed an off-duty cop; and the start of an attempted murder trial for the school shooting we had here earlier this year. Egad. Happy news, where are you?

On the bright side, I did get to see "Superman Returns" last night and quite enjoyed it. Will try to post some thoughts in next day or so as the chaos fades.

Sweet Spider-heaven.

The Spider-Man 3 teaser is here!

Yeah, it's Superman's week and all, but man, "Spider-Man 3" looks cool. I was a little wary of them trying to cram at least two, maybe three villains in this one (Sandman, Venom, and Harry Osborn) but I've got pretty high faith in Sam Raimi after the very good part 1 and downright superlative part 2. If they can make the comics' rather convoluted Venom backstory into something that works, it could be fantastic. Summer 2007 suddenly seems a long time away...

LIFE: Hot hot hot

LIFE: Hot hot hot

Whoo-ee, it's been hot 'round these parts. Temperatures right up around 100 last few days, which is on the "oh my god" side for our corner of Oregon. Fortunately we beat the heat by heading to a local riverside haunt Sunday afternoon (where you can examine the colorful local folk and count their horrible apparently self-applied tattoos). Then Monday, which I had as my day off, we fled to the oh-so-fine Oregon Coast, specifically the Coos Bay area. Amazing how a mere 70-80 miles west, the temperature can be a good 25 to 30 degrees cooler. We hung around the very scenic Cape Arago area west of Coos Bay, one of our favorite spots, which has some fine beaches surrounded by rugged rock formations. Here I help Peter develop that incredibly important manly skill of building, and then smashing, sand castles:

It was strange to realize that just might be our last trip to that particular part of the Coast. At just a hair over two months until we leave Oregon for New Zealand, I'm starting to realize we might just be doing some things "for the last time." I'm really glad we got in our fine John Day camping trip a couple weeks ago because that was on my list of things to see before leaving Oregon. But Oregon is an extremely cool place with so many sides, and there's still so much I want to try and do again and only a limited number of free weekends remaining -- we have to visit our favorite coastal haunt of Bandon again, of course, and do the Eugene Saturday Market another time or two; by gum we simply must go to the big city of Portland one more time and visit Powell's and all that jazz...

And then there's all the things we've NEVER done in Oregon in our 4+ years here and it's starting to look like we won't get a chance. Never really spent much time in Salem, Oregon's capital, or visited the Oregon Caves National Monument deep deep in the country past Grants Pass (which doesn't allow kids under 4 in most of the caves). Never made it to the far, far reaches of Oregon like Baker City, Ontario or Hell's Canyon. We've done about 75% of the coast but I always wanted to go to Tillamook and visit the cheese factory there. Only been to Corvallis, home of Oregon State University, once, and that was just driving through. Ah well... it's 96,000 square miles of space to see, after all. And who knows, we might well be back someday...

MOVIES: 'We are … The Three Amigos!'

MOVIES: 'We are … The Three Amigos!'

Man, I saw this for $7.99 at Fred Meyer yesterday and couldn't resist picking it up. "Three Amigos!" may not be the best movie ever made, but by gum, it's a charming and funny little romp, one I've always had an unaccountable minor fetish for. I actually saw it in the theater when it came out, exactly 20 years ago now. It's not one that'll be mentioned in the obituaries of Steve Martin, Chevy Chase or Martin Short, but for my money it's a lot funnier than many of the movies those three have made solo.

Why "Three Amigos"? It's basically a poor fifteenth-generation riff of "Seven Samurai" (which is ripped off so often it's practically its own genre). Poor village hires strange gunmen to help defend them against evil bandits … except in this case, the gunmen are actually three deluded, out-of-work Hollywood silent-film actors who think it's all a show. Of course, in the end, the bumbling actors become real-life heroes, the village is saved from the evil El Guapo, and so forth.

I'll be straight – "Three Amigos" isn't really a good movie, but watching it on DVD last night, I still laughed a lot. Director John Landis can't figure out if he's making a comedy or a lighthearted action flick like his "Blues Brothers", but oddly enough, Chase, Martin and Short have a real chemistry together. Martin's the wise-ass self-deluded amigo, Chase the moron, and Short the sensitive man-child. A pretty darn great Martin overshadows Short and particularly Chase, who'd just started to morph into the arrogant, couldn't-care-less personality that eventually ended his career.

There's a nice surreal sense of humor in the movie, and several lines that never fail to crack me up ("You shot the Invisible Swordsman!"). It's the wacky moments that stick, like the laconic Mexican bartender (who is played by an actor with the name of, I kid you not, Fred Asparagus. Why couldn't I be named after a vegetable?) or the Amigos doing an impromptu dance number to "My Little Buttercup." And as the menacing El Guapo, Alfonso Arau has a sleazy wit and knows what the word "plethora" means.

Curiously, at one point the movie was considered for Martin, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, which would've been a very different movie – probably better, certainly more unhinged. But I admit to liking "Amigos" just the way it is, not trying to be the world's most epic comedy, but just a simple, kind of sweet diversion.

I leave you with this from Steve Martin's Lucky Day:
"In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be *the actual* El Guapo!"

Words to live by.

ETC.: Link-a-rama!

ETC.: Link-a-rama!

Nothin' but links!

Here I stumbled upon a very nice article that explores my old hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, and its musical and literary heritages. Great to see old favorites of mine like Blue Mountain, Beanland and The Kudzu Kings getting a shout-out.

Ever wonder what it'd be like to meet one of your idols? San Francisco Chronicle writer Steven Winn got to meet John Updike, one of his and my literary lions in this life. Here's an excellent piece about what it was like to meet one of America's finest living writers, who knows more than 10 of me put together.

I'm a member of The Cult of Klosterman, that fine pop culture sex-and-death-obsessed scribe Chuck Klosterman. He's one of my top-five pop culture writers these days and I found a most excellent interview with the man over here in a Colorado newspaper, revving me up with excitement for his August collection of columns and reviews, bearing the classic rock-esque title of "Chuck Klosterman IV." I can't wait!

Classic movies it's OK to hate, according to The Onion A.V. Club, which apparently only thinks classic movies started being made after 1970. And it's so edgy to bash the original "Star Wars", ain't it? Still, agree with 'em on "Shawshank Redemption," which I never quite understood all the fuss about – the novella is much better and a lot less sappy. And I have to agree on "The Big Lebowski" – in my humble way, I consider "Raising Arizona" a far better Coen brothers comedy.

Do you have the Perfect Penis? Egads. Work-safe post, but it'll still scar your mind.

Long Box Dave looks at Marvel Vs. DC, that crossover clash comic from the late 1990s that was a tremendous disappointment to all of us who always wondered who would have beaten whom. Dave tells us who REALLY would have won in Superman vs. Thor, Batman vs. Captain America, etc. And read the comments. Man, Dave gets lots of comments. (Beware: If you are not a nerd, you will be after reading this.)

ETC.: Deep Thoughts

ETC.: Deep Thoughts

It's the first day of summer and my brain is cooked already. Incapable of longer coherent posts, so here are things to watch, hear and read as you lie on the beach or carpet or what-have-you.

WATCHING "Entourage" co-star Jeremy Piven as Hollywood agent Ari Gold may just be my favorite character on TV. Just finished watching Season 2 of the HBO comedy on DVD and Piven, dammit, should have an Emmy for this stuff. He makes Ari a compelling, complex bastard, a standout among a superb cast. Watching his meltdown against boss Malcolm McDowell at the end of Season 2 was fantastic teevee. The rest of the show's pretty swell too. I only wish us poor HBO-less folk didn't have to wait a year or so to see the now-airing Season 3 on DVD.

LISTENING to Bob Dylan "Live 1975" (The Bootleg Series Volume 5). Yep, still on my dedicated (some, wife Avril, would say obsessive) Bob Dylan kick, and got a copy of this recently, a fantastic souvenir of Bob's rollicking "Rolling Thunder Tour." From the very first track, a fiery, stomping take on "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," it's tremendous stuff, with an amped-up, rocket-fueled Dylan sounding more passionate than I've ever heard him before.

READING James Kochalka's Superf*ckers #3 from Top Shelf, the latest issue of his extremely sick and twisted take on superheroics. Imagine an extremely talented, Tourette's-afflicted 10-year-old doing a scatalogical superteam comic. It's disturbing, gross and hilariously funny stuff. Neon-colored and brutal satire.

LAUGHING at the things a toddler says. Peter's most recent curious statement, which can sound quite bad out of context:
"There rice on my penis!"

Ah ha ha.

LIFE: 'The more thou dammest it up, the more it burns...'

LIFE: 'The more thou dammest it up,
the more it burns...'

...Egad, two days of not going to bed until after 1 a.m. aren't as easy as they used to be. Thank God I'm off work today. Had to work the Saturday night shift, then last night, made the trek down to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and their opening weekend media nights. (One of the few perks of the job, free tickets and I get to pretend I'm a bona-fide theater critic.)

They always invite folks from my paper (and, um, slightly bigger ones like the SF Chronicle, Seattle Times and New York Times) down for several nights of performances to review. So last night my buddy Patrick, his partner Karen and I saw "The Two Gentlemen Of Verona," which I'd never seen performed before. Always a blast visiting Ashland, browsing bookstores and eating at good restaurants, not to mention the festival... It was a bummer to realize it's probably the last time I'll be at the festival. (And next summer they're doing "The Tempest," dammit.) Bought myself a souvenir T-shirt as solace.

"Verona" was good fun -- it's one of Shakespeare's earliest plays so it lacks a little polish, but you can see him trying out a lot of his comedic themes (cross-dressing, people falling in love at the drop of a hat, etc). Best of all, it's got a dog in it, and the trained pooch they had onstage Sunday was amazing. It was a lively production that had lots of flash that helped skim over some of the play's inherent faults.

Yesterday was Father's Day too, my third one since I became a dad. After working the night before and going to Ashland in the evening, didn't plan too much activity, although I did have an awful craving for IHOP so we went out to breakfast there and witnessed the menace Peter can create in a crowded restaurant (two words: thrown toys). Ah well. It was a nice day anyway as (cue sappy music) pretty much any day with P in it is. Being a dad is a lot of work, but it's a hell of a lot of fun too.

COMICS: Spidey's got a secret

COMICS: Spidey's got a secret

Well, if you don't troll the comic book shops and haven't heard the news, there was a minor earthquake in superhero comics this week. In the pages of "Civil War" #2, the latest "everything must change"-type miniseries from Marvel, we had a heck of an ending – Spider-Man calls a press conference, and in the view of the entire world, reveals his secret identity: "My name is Peter Parker and I've been Spider-Man since I was 15 years old. Any questions?"

It's a bold storytelling move, although how strong the tale is ultimately depends on what's done with the idea. I liked the first two issues of "Civil War," which manage to combine writer Mark Millar's knack for shock theatre with a genuinely interesting political hook – what if superheroes were forced to register themselves with the government? Would they agree, or would they go underground? Who would fight, who would give in?

But right now, I'm just interested in how this story will affect my favorite superhero, Spider-Man. One of the things I've liked the most about reading Spider-Man comics since 1982 or so is that the character has grown and matured over the years. We've watched Peter Parker grow up, from a 15-year-old in his earliest adventures to whatever age he is now (nearly 30?). He's fallen in love, gotten married, gone from outcast to team player, and now discards his secrecy. Lots of fans seem to hate the move, but I'm cautiously interested in seeing what happens next.

Having a secret identity was an integral part of Peter Parker's character for the first 25-30 years of his existence. He started out as "puny" Parker, teenage outcast and glasses-wearing nerd, picked on by bullies and only able to enjoy himself as the wisecracking, carefree Spider-Man. Gradually, Parker became less of a failure in his civilian life – he bulked up, lost the glasses, found steady girlfriends. Tragedy still dogged him, but he had come a long way from the sweater vest-wearing egghead seen back in "Amazing Spider-Man" #1.

I've actually really enjoyed the changes to the Spider-Man dynamic the last few years have wrought, even if the execution of the stories isn't always great. His joining the Avengers, being part of a team rather than the weird loner, offers real opportunity for his talents to be appreciated. (Although in "The New Avengers," very little of this has been explored to its full potential.)

Spider-Man's "secret" identity has gradually been less and less guarded the past few years anyway. Dozens of his allies have learned his identity, many of his foes. Some of these came in great stories – the "Sin-Eater" tale in the late 1980s where Daredevil and Spider-Man learned each other's secrets, or the superb "Spider-Man/Human Torch" miniseries of 2005. The final issue of the latter series, where clueless Johnny Storm finally figured out after all these years that Peter Parker = Spider-Man, was a real pleasure, particularly in the warm inviting scenes at the end where Peter's family and the Fantastic Four "family" enjoy some leisurely family get-togethers without a supervillain in sight. It felt like the "happy ending" Peter's so long been denied. Even Peter Parker's ancient Aunt May has learned the secret in the comics. So "coming out" to the general public has been foreshadowed for a few years now in the Spider-Man comics.

Of course, there are purists who want Spider-Man to eternally be the outcast teenager, always falling short in love, affection and success. Even Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada has frequently voiced his disapproval of Spider-Man's marriage (as if this were a recent event; it took place in 1987, after all, nearly 20 years ago now!). Yet what appeals to me about Spidey is that he DOES grow – other characters, like Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman, seem mired in a stasis, with little real changes over the years that aren't quickly fixed. But Spider-Man's stayed married, he's stayed out of high school and he steadily continued to age (at a far slower ratio than the 44 years worth of comics he's starred in, obviously).

"Civil War" is only two issues in of its seven, and it's uncertain which way Millar & co. will go yet with the unmasking story. I'm genuinely curious to see what comes next. How can Spider-Man remain married, protect his aged aunt, or have a normal life now? Is his stand of principle worth the cost it'll demand? Nothing lasts forever in comics (the list of characters who've died and come back could fill Valhalla), and the cynic in me is pretty sure they'll come up with some giant deux ex machina to correct it all (alien memory-erasing pixies? plastic surgery? it was all a dream?).

But the fan in me kinda would like to see them ride with this a while, explore the idea of a public identity and what it would really mean for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Done right, it would provide further opportunities for growth for Spidey – and change is far better than stagnation for comics' most fascinating, multi-layered hero.

LIFE: Out into Eastern Oregon, part 2

LIFE: Out into Eastern Oregon, part 2

…Continuing our travelogue of last weekend's Eastern Oregon adventures at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We left off Saturday, where we continued our trek east to the final section of the John Day Monument, Sheep Rock. They had an excellent visitors center there full of paleontological goodness. Couldn't linger too long with a fidgety toddler who wanted nothing more than to touch all the "dinosaurs," though.

Sheep Rock, right, is a really cool eroded mountain that looks nothing at all like a sheep.

You get some really beautiful close-up views of the rock formations out there. Each layer of rock had a completely different color. Mighty purty.

I particularly liked this overlook of much of the monument – the mesas in the background look like they were cleanly sliced off at the hands of some giant's axe, don't they?

We spent the night at a campground near John Day, which is a town of about 2,000 people that's the biggest town in a 100-mile radius or so I think. Very podunk but kinda quaint place, it's hard to imagine living so far from any major cities. It makes rural Roseburg feel like downtown Tokyo.

We drove on all the way down south from John Day to Burns, basically a town-slash-truck stop on Oregon's Highway ... It's a beautiful drive south, across high alpine plains that reminded me somewhat of Alaska. We saw a ton of wildlife in general on this trip – deer, elk, hawks, rabbits, snakes and coyote, plus about a zillion chipmunks. They swarm over the road like dust at some points; you can seem them scurrying out of the way as you hurtle down the empty highways (and it's almost impossible to avoid running over a few of the fuzzballs).

Once you're at Burns, you hit the highway west toward Bend. The scenery here is pretty much what I expected all of Eastern Oregon to look like – two-plus hours of this:


But we stopped in civilized Bend, ate takeout Indian food and basked at their lovely riverside park before taking the final lap homeward. If you look on a map of Oregon, we basically drove in a gigantic loop over the Cascades to the East and back. And how did Peter feel about his 937-mile trek of a weekend?

LIFE: Out into Eastern Oregon, part I

LIFE: Out into Eastern Oregon, part I

...Whew, 937 miles of round-trip driving later, I return! We ventured far into the dusty ragged outlands of Eastern Oregon over the weekend for a fine camping trip, and here's a few photos of our journey for you.

I've always wanted to go into Eastern Oregon, but the furthest I've ever been is Bend. The "east side" is the size of about 2/3 of the state, but the vast majority of the state's 4 million people live in a narrow strip of the western state along Interstate 5. The images you have of Oregon being wet, green and leafy don't apply to the east side. East Oregon is big, open and empty, but it's a pretty gorgeous place. I was expecting it to look kind of like most of Nevada does – big, empty hills – but instead it turned out quite different, alternating forests with high plains, massive monoliths and eerie rock formations.

We spent most of our weekend checking out the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, which is 14,000 acres of raw, epic landscape spread out over three separate locations around the wee town of John Day, Oregon. It's land that looks like it was cracked open at the hand of giants, with amazing colors, rocks of every shape and size, and a sense it's all barely been disturbed in the last zillion years or so. And because it's so far from everywhere and still early June, it was nearly deserted out there this weekend.

Here's a few photos from some of our weekend trek:

We camped our first night a bit south of the flyspeck town of Fossil, Oregon, and Friday night we went out to check out the most remote part of the John Day monument, the Clarno section. It's a huge rocky section of eroded palisades cliffs, erupting out of the sagebrush. You can hike right up to the base of them (not the easiest activity carrying a 2 1/2-year-old) and they're as impressive as they look.


Then on Saturday morning bright and early, we headed out to the Painted Hills, about 70 miles south of Fossil along Oregon Hwy. 26. These hills are impossible to capture on film – basically enormous mounds of clay and minerals that are filled with a dazzling array of colors, reds, golds, browns, etc. They range from mountain-size to ten feet tall.



Up close, you get an idea of the shifting colors, which change depending on the angle you look at and the time of day you seen them. Poor Peter really really really wanted to climb on them. Unfortnately this is forbidden, because these hills aren't as sturdy as they seem –

Extreme close-up view! If you look at them they're like crumbling clay, you can pick them apart with a finger. It's almost like they're held together by force of will.


And here's Peter, surrounded by the awesome glory of Eastern Oregon's bounty … and playing with dirt. The toddler mind, ladies and gentlemen.

I don't want to overwhelm with the photos of rocks and hills, so we'll continue our journey to the rest of the monument and through Eastern Oregon tomorrow!