#231. Shotgun A Beer

I don't like beer.

I didn't grow up in a household with much alcohol. We had a wine rack and liquor cabinet, but they were never used. I certainly never thought about sneaking anything out of it. They were like the antiques and porcelain figurines around our house - part of the decor/mess combination I grew up in, not actual bottles of liquid you would drink. I think I saw my mother maybe drink wine twice outside of religious ceremonies from ages 1-17 of my life. Alcohol was so not a part of my existence that even in the throws of the endless infant/child/teenage/college/now/always rebellion and power struggle between myself and my parents I never once even had the idea to go get wasted or drink anything, really. My sister and I came home one day a few years ago and found a six pack in the fridge and quite literally both stared at it in befuddlement until we discovered it was part of a halloween costume my dad wore to a party.

Christian eventually drank the beer.

I was also straight-edge until I was 21. Absolutely no alcohol of any kind in any quantity once I had the understanding of what it was. I've still never smoked a cigarette, or any tobacco, or done any drugs. I'm even trying to stay away from caffeine more now and I take pain medication SUPER rarely (though I do when needed), and only over the counter stuff. I had my first drink on my 21st birthday in Steve Bragale's basement and I'm pretty sure it was a Mike's hard Lemon or Limeade. I've been drunk twice in my life and I don't like it, and I've been buzzed a few more times than that (I'm starting to get the appeal, five years into it). Suffice it to say, drinking is not a substantial part of my life and if I never drank alcohol again it would be no great loss. I'm still getting used to the fact that my friends just keep beer stocked around the house. All the time. Cause they drink it. Every day.

So if I'm not drinking to get drunk, then I'm doing it for taste. And I HATE the taste of beer. IPAs in particular (dear god), but I'm just not a fan. People say it's an acquired taste but as a very wise sixteen year old character in a play I recently directed said "Who'd want to acquire this?" I can manage a few sips, and there are a few beers that I'm just neutral on, but I find nothing "enjoyable" or "refreshing" about them - though I really appreciate hearing people who do love beer talking about all the different varieties, etc. Any interest I have in beer is of a purely intellectual kind. Leave me to my fuzzy navels, mojitos, and pineapple/rum/sprite combinations.

If I'm a pay to poison myself, it's gonna taste GOOD.

So it may come as no surprise that I have never shotgunned a beer.

Until now.

Last night I met up with Max Nova and Sarah Davis to power down a can of alcohol in the most hose like way possible. None of us had ever done so before. Sarah backed out (and took pictures). Max and I went for it.

Going in, I had both strengths and weaknesses:

Weakness - I hate beer.

Strength - my superhuman ability to consume gargantuan amounts of liquids in record time, from water to ginger ale.

I felt ready.

My Enemy.

We stood at the sink, ready for anything. Max went first, and proceeded to shoot beer all over himself and his sink.

It's like a mini fireworks display.

Eventually he got the hang of it.

Even when shotgunning a beer, Max keeps etiquette in mind.

And then... it was my turn.

Man vs. Beer

And you know what? I rocked it. Given the speed of the beverage traveling down my gullet I could barely taste it. No need for my Root Beer chaser. No spillage. Just pure liquid consumption and epic can crunching and posing. A world I was born to rule.

True Metal Radio.

Because here's the thing - it's not like I've ever needed a reason to chug something.

That's just what I do.

Now I have to do a keg stand a body shot.

Bring it on.

We Crush You.

#129. Walk Around On An Airplane Runway

Last night Sully and I decided to go after the runway walk.

Fully expecting that we'd have to sneak into somewhere to do so, I was actually pretty nervous on our drive to College Park airport. I'm all for Adventure, but I'd rather not have the FBI come after me (as the warning sign on the fence handily told me they would to anyone who damaged or stole from the planes, and I assume anyone they think were going to do so as well.) But the main office was open and we went in and explained our situation, asking for an escort to the runway and a chance to take a picture or two. The guy was really cool and politely but firmly told us there was no way in hell that was going to happen. After 9/11, a strict restricted fly area has been extended around the DC area (including CP Airport). In order to get access to the runway you need to go through a three tiered permission and background check system involving two of the big three area airports.

And you need a pilot's license.

Unlikely to happen soon.

He did tell us where the nearest airports outside of the restricted area were, and intimated which would be the best one to go to. So we headed off towards Tipton airport, just between Bowie and Laurel - with a warning not to get hit by any planes. (It is still rarely in use.)

We got there as it was nearing twilight, pulling up the dirt road and parking near the old hangars and abandoned planes. There was no gate or fence, just an open field with a long runway surrounded by old warhorses of machines.

Pilot Heat reporting for duty

Across the way a herd of dear were grazing just next to the pavement. They ran away as we approached, except for one who just seemed annoyed he or she had to leave to follow the group. It was hot, but not muggy. The sun was just starting to set as we looked down the vast expanse of black and green. It was really beautiful. Absolutely peaceful, and head clearing.

We took the long walk all the way up and down the runway and I was filled with joy.

This was awesome.

My 'Beautiful Day' Moment

I feel like we found an open secret in the area, this cool place to just go every so often and walk around, relax, and clear your mind. Worthwhile for being something and somewhere different and new.

And I'm a plan the best 'picnic on a runway' date for some lucky girl that ever been seen. Just you wait.

As long as we don't get hit by a plane.

I'm a pink plane, just looking for a hangar...

About six people will get that reference, but it's so true.

I told you I would return

Sometimes you lay in your bed in the dark, with the fan blowing peaceful and alone, listening to Weezer's Butterfly, reading your ex-girlfriend's blog, and wonder whether to do the smart thing or what your heart wants to do.

And you hope writing it down will be just enough of a compromise between the two.

#194. Straight Up Crash A Party

I was at the Fringe tent last night with Aaron Bliden, making plans for lunch today. It was ten pm and the night was winding down, and drenched in sweat from the crushing humidity we were getting generally prepared to roll out within the hour. Instead we were approached by a very nice and attractive actress I had met briefly several times at auditions. She invited us to a cast party a few blocks away, worried it would be lame without a lot of people, and really wanted us to come. We asked if we could bring our crew and that was cool. She was really nice and I had apparently made a very good impression in our brief interactions on the audition circuit as she was singing my praises to Aaron, which was gratifying to hear. Plus, like I said, she was really pretty. We said maybe. I was down, cause I'm all about new adventures nowadays, and got Aaron and Jayme Bell to come with me. Me and the girl texted for a bit and an hour later we were on our way up the street.

Turned out that the party was across the street from four friends' cars so they decided to stop by a bit too. We knock on the door, expecting music and alcohol and people.

Instead the seven of us walk into an extremely nice apartment with No. One. There.

There were two late thirties to early forties women who had NO idea who we were or what we were doing there and were obviously EXTREMELY uncomfortable with us being there. Two actors I knew were in the back, stoned or drunk or both. A bowl was on the table. The girl I knew (who genuinely is lovely and a lot of fun to hang out with) came out of the bathroom.

This was obviously NOT a party at all, but a very intimate group of people trying to hang out and smoke up that we had just totally crashed. And who by and large were not thrilled about it.

The vibe was brilliantly awkward. It was AMAZING. We sat silently on really nice couches like children. Minutes later two other dudes showed up from the Fringe tent, also expecting a rager. One was from Turkey and couldn't speak English very well. He apologized for not knowing what was going on. We assured him no one knew more than him.

The girl was trying super hard to make sure everyone was having fun, but as I would learn later was schwasted. She kept insisting I try a drink of this weird looking glass on the table. I declined, opting for water instead. She passed me her bottled water and it was NOT water. I have never been slipped a drink before, and only half jokingly told Jayme that if I started acting loopy in fifteen minutes not to leave me alone. One of the other guys was convinced to try the weird glass only for one of the women to ask rather sternly what he was doing drinking her drink. When she took it from his dumbfounded hands and tried it, she discovered it was now spiked and no longer wanted it.

Then one of the women brought out name tags and forced us all to wear them. No seriously. Name tags. Like a birthday party. She also scolded me for accidentally placing mine on my leg, I guess near my crotch. It felt just like hanging out in someone's mom's living room, only weirder. The other four quickly left leaving me, Aaron, and Jayme and these two dudes. Then A&J left, and there were pigs and blankets and Tina Turner and I realized that I was now in charge of getting my new friend home safely - which was it's own adventure.

To share part of a text message from Jayme after he left, that I think sums up the vibe better than any description -

"I would not want to stick around there if you want to keep your organs."

Best night in awhile, no joke. And this was only half of it.

Ridiculous.

#95. Write a Review of Your Entire Comic Collection: Uncanny X-Men 162

4. Uncanny X-Men #162
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Dave Cockrum and Bob Wiacek
Published by Marvel Comics
"Beyond The Farthest Star"

The Short Form: Dealing with spasms of pain and hallucinations, Wolverine is hunted and on the run on an alien planet. Fighting off giant scavengers and members of The Brood (an evil alien parasitic species), Logan realizes that he and the other X-Men have been implanted with Brood larvae that will kill their host bodies as they hatch. Logan's healing factor destroys his embryo, and he vows to rescue the other X-Men or kill them before they hatch.

The Cast:
Wolverine / Logan - The best there is at what he does, being the most prolific super-hero with body hair ever.
The Brood - Intergalactic space rapists.

The Long Form:

We are now in the heart of Chris Claremont's first 15 year run on Uncanny X-Men and it is impossible to overstate how important and influential he was to the success of this title. For over 15 years he was the guiding force behind the book and was directly responsible for turning a low selling title on the fringes of the Marvel Universe into a mind-blowingly successful franchise. He shaped the characterizations of Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Wolverine - and created some of the most famous and popular characters in the title, most notable Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Gambit, Psylocke, and Jubilee (among so many others). The Claremont run goes beyond laying the foundation for the X-Men - in so many ways he created the basic vocabulary and situations that are still being reframed to this day. No one offered more to the legacy of the X-Men than Chris Claremont, and while his later runs (and even later in first first run) lack the quality and clarity he brought to his first five to seven years he deserves an unquestionable amount of credit and respect.

This issue takes place after such seminal stories as The Dark Phoenix Saga or Days of the Future Past, but is part of another very famous storyline - The Brood Saga. Claremont very much introduced the element of outer space adventures into the X-Men mythos with the Shi'ar, and he's playing around in that sand box again here. This is effectively a Wolverine solo story with cameos by the other X-Men, at a time when Wolverine was clearly the breakout star of the book, but before he became the overly ubiquitous presence he is now. This is a pretty famous Wolverine moment as we see his healing factor put to one of its most formidable tests so far - fighting against the alien embryo inside of him. This is before his healing factor was amped up over the years to insane degrees and the battle is a real struggle - leaving significant scars.

It's worth noting that looking back with an older mindset this story is seriously messed up in it's core concept. The X-Men are all basically drugged and raped and implanted with these embryos. Kitty in particular is the only one other than Wolverine to have a sense that something is wrong as it is happening and it pretty clearly reads like an off panel sexual assault. This is made substantially worse by the fact that I think Kitty is like 14 or 15 in the comics at this point. When Wolvie gets implanted we get a terrible grimace as well as a literally dripping "ARRRGH!" sound effect. This particular subtext isn't harped on (in this issue at least) but it's definitely there, and the level of trauma the average super hero must go through that gets glossed over in the actual stories is kind of staggering to really think about.

Who Should Read This: Any X-Men fan. Despite the uncomfortable subtext, these are the classics.

#95. Write a Review of Your Entire Comic Collection: (Uncanny) X-Men 19

#3. (Uncanny) X-Men #19
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Jay Gavin and Dick Ayers
"Lo! Now Shall Appear - The Mimic!"

The Short Form: The Mimic infiltrates the X-Men in order to steal their powers so he can gain access to a machine that will increase his own, but ends up losing his power instead.

The Cast:
Professor x / Charles Xavier - Super psychic bald school teacher.
Cyclops / Scott Summers - Love struck field leader of The X-Men.
Marvel Girl / Jean Grey - The original telepathic red headed knockout.
Beast / Hank McCoy - Brain and Brawn all rolled into one.
Iceman / Bobby Drake - Sub zero practical joker
Angel / Warren Worthington III - Rich kid with wings.
The Mimic / Calvin Rankin - Power Mimicry, Douchebaggery

The Long Form:

This is a blast from the past by X-Men and Marvel Universe creator Stan Lee written during the heart of the swingin' sixties and is it ever a product of that era - and that is not a bad thing. An entire vocabulary was being updated and discovered during this era and there is a freshness and energy that so many of today's comics lack. Stan Lee (along with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and many talented others) essentially created the Marvel Universe as we know it during those years, totally changing the nature of the super hero comic. Sure - the dialogue is tremendously dated and hokey but man howdy do they pack a lot into one issue! We get the debut, origin, and ultimate defeat of new character The Mimic on top of the continuing Cyclops/Jean Grey love subplot. Beast and Bobby go on a double date, the whole gang gets a supposed vacation - only Angel is left without a lot to do.

And check out that title! "Lo! Now Shall Appear - The Mimic!" At their best, Super Hero comics are a tremendous blend of the absurd and the dramatic and while the formula wasn't perfected for the X-Men during this time period (that would be Chris Claremont in the 70s) these are the building blocks being laid. This is far from essential reading, but a lot of fun for what it is. And this is the first appearance of The Mimic (who is a total douche bag here) a character who would go on to have a really interesting run in Exiles many decades later, exploring his potential as a hero. There are no dropped ideas in comics, only those on hiatus.

I put the ( ) around Uncanny because at this point the title is still just X-Men, though this is the book that would become and stay Uncanny X-Men until now.

Who Should Read This: X-Men fans who are looking into their history, and those who love that kooky Silver Age.

#95. Write a Review of Your Entire Comic Collection: X-Men -1

2. X-Men #-1
Written by Scott Lobdell
Art by Carlos Pacheco and Art Thibert
Published by Marvel Comics
"I Had a Dream"

The Short Form: Xavier and Magneto meet up at the site of the concentration camp where Magneto was prisoner as a boy in order for Xavier to fruitlessly try and talk Magneto out of his Mutant vs. Human worldview.

The Cast:
* Professor X / Charles Xavier - MLK Jr. of the Mutant set
* Magneto / Erik 'Magnus' Lensherr - Malcolm X of the Mutant set
* Amelia Voght - Xavier's hot teleporting red head girlfriend
* Quicksilver / Pietro Maximoff - Arrogant mutant super speedster
* The Scarlet Witch / Wanda Maximoff - Crazy powerful chaos based mutant (and we do mean crazy)

The Long Form:

This is a better issue than the previous Flashback issue, because it's hooked into a much stronger central premise of the X-Men - Xavier and Magneto as former friends and leading mutant politicians and philosophers whose differing ideologies have broken their brotherhood and are leading their people into battle against each other. That's hard to totally screw up. Given how intrinsic this particular conflict is to the mythos of the X-Men at this point, and how stark the difference between the two men is, charting various points along their relationship is fodder for a lot of stories and comes with a greater amount of reader investment than Rachel Summers and Sanctity for example. Even non-fans know Xavier and Magneto, so there is a shorthand that allows for greater depth in a small package. Unfortunately, this is not that issue.

This issue is about as bare bones characterization and conflict as you can get - touching on a lot of areas without ever giving them nuance or a new spin. We've seen this conversation before, many times, where Xavier pleads on behalf of sanity and their old friendship for Magneto to abandon his crusade, only for Magneto to bitterly apologize about the need for conflict. We've also seen it done better. This feels less like a missing scene than a retread.

The concentration camp is used to try and give the story more weight and provide a parable for what Magneto could become - the phrase "a man who does not remember the sins of the past is destined to repeat them," is actually used as the end of the book, so subtlety and subtext is not the goal of this story. It takes a very skillful touch to integrate a real life tragedy like the Holocaust into a super-hero narrative and have it be compelling and meaningful and that is not the case here. This is a lot of exposition and posturing.

The most interesting aspect of the book is Amelia Voght's internal monologue about Xavier. The fact that she loves him but is also afraid of him, and has no problem saying so, is an interesting dynamic that really underscores why this relationship is effectively doomed from the start and how much Xavier's single minded philosophical goals will cost him in his personal life. It says something that his most successful (and I use that term very loosely) relationship was with an alien space princess and very long distance, and basically ended up destroying her empire too. His attempts at a solid earthbound relationship (and for a crippled bald man he's had a few shots) invariably fail and it's because Charles Xavier is not as fully developed a human being as he would like to be or think he is. His unyielding focus on his dream and intensity has cost him elements of his social skills that only become apparent in intimate relationships. Like most of us, the closer he gets to someone the more his flaws come out and it's important to realize that while Magneto is definitely the more aggressive and hostile of the two Xavier is far from a cuddly old man.

Who Should Read This: X-Men completists or HUGE fans of X-Men: First Class the movie, but really, there are better examples of this same story out there.