To the Vato-Mobile!!

Recently we've had a string of comic book heroes tales translated into the big screen.  Thor, X-Men, Green Lantern and the upcoming Captain America.  Being the comic book junkie I am it hit me, what do all these characters have in common?  Super powers?  Capes?  Bad ass gadgetry?  Nope thats to easy.. All these dudes fit the profile for Hitler's master race!  Blonde hair, blue eyes, tall and muscalar..  Im done, where the Latino heroes at??  Lets explore the last few decades or so to see where Marvel and DC have gone with this demographic..  I mean hell, they even did a Steel movie with Shaq.. 
  WTF?

Lets start with this dude.. El Dorado..  Any of you remember this guy from the Justice League days of the 80s? 
  He had the bad accent, looks like Ponch from Chips and unlike other Justice League members who had episodes devoted to their backstories this guy was just kinda there and there was never an explanation of who he was, what he could do and how he came to be.  Shady? 



There's this guy Tarantula from the Marvel universe who is a bad guy in the Spiderman world, powers comparable to Spiderman but this dude had knives on him (Imagine that, a latino having a knife on his person) and a really thick accent.  Im betting most of you dont ever remember this guy, do you get where Im going?  Lets move on shall we?

Im gonna move on to probably the most well known Latino character (cause he's not really a hero) in Comics.


BANE!  An absolute badass of a villian and I like the respect he gets that he's not all braun, he is on Batman's level intellectually.  He is actually the main villian in Christopher Nolan's final chapter in the newly rebooted Batman series starring Cristian Bale.  As long as we dont go back to Joel Schumacher's version of the character Ill be happy.



See though, that kinda makes my point.  Take what I described above and then forget about it.  Mr. Schumacher thought it was to unrealistic to have a latino villian who wasn't a complete buffoon and actually carry on a conversation with our hero George Clooney aka Batman..  Total disrespect..

Ive scanned the internet and the list of characters are so obscure and so random that its not even worth diving into further.  It just seems like its a big joke.



See what I mean?  This was a real dude.. 

The world is a little less Macho..

I was at the gym on Friday and as I started my workout I saw on the TV screen that the Macho Man had died.  I had my headphones on and I couldnt hear the whole story but I let out a "Oh man that sucks!" loud enough to make the ladies on the treadmills next to me glance my way.



Growing up as a kid this guy and many others were at the top of their game in their respective "sport".  Now Ill admit, back then you couldnt tell me or my buddies anything negative about wrestling.  I wasn't havin' it.  I had to figure it out on my own.  I do believe the day I realized it wasn't all I thought it was was the time Ravishing Rick Rude and Jake 'The Snake' Roberts had a match and I couldnt watch.  Next day I figured Id get the results of who won in the sports section of the LA Times..  Wanna take a guess how that went??



Regardless, I watched for a few years and was taken by all the persona's involved.  Sadly, I think ive devoted a few hours of my life recently researching where all these guys from the past have been and what they are doing now.

Andre the Giant as everyone knows is dead, but if you dig deeper in the late 80's early 90's wrestling pit you find out there are alot of these guys pushing up daisies.

Earthquake?  Dead, died of bladder cancer.
Dino Bravo?  Dead, died of 17 gun shots to the head.  Apparently he screwed over the Canadien mob.  Who knew Canadiens had a mob?
Mr. Perfect? Dead, died of a overdose.
Ravishing Rick Rude?  Dead, died of heart failure due to drug overdose.
Bad News Brown? Dead, died of a heart attack.
Bam Bam Bigelow? Dead, lethal dose of Cocaine.
Big Boss Man? Dead, Heart attack.
Hercules?  (This was the guy who had a name but always lost.)  Dead, Heart attack.
Road Warrior Hawk?  Dead, Heart attack, died in his sleep.
British Bulldog? Dead, Heart attack.
Yokozuna?  Dead, take a wild guess.

It was funny cause I was talking to some buddies and they were like, "Isnt the Ultimate Warrior dead??"  Negativo!!  The UW cannot be killed by conventional means, if he has a heart attack he'll attack his heart right back and go off the top ropes on that thing!  Then power slam it back into rhythm!!  (Ironically enough thats the Macho Man he's about to destroy.)


Anyway, I was legitimately saddened by Randy's passing cause he was probably my favorite wrestler next to the Warrior.  I loved the OH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and his mannerisms and to this day if you can pull off a good impression of the Macho Man you're gonna get a laugh.  I don't watch wrestling anymore and I mock those who are my age and do so but still, there was a time.  Nowadays to me they all look alike, they all use their real names but come to find out, The Undertaker is still in the game!!!  Wow, that guy is a machine.

I suppose him being gone and a bunch of the others is just another small part of my childhood tucked away forever. 



Father time had certainly caught up with Randy and he like many other wrestlers before him just had that old ticker of his give out.  Now he had his attack behind the wheel and he was dead before they hit that tree but I was thankful to know that no one else was hurt and his wife for the most part is ok.  His will stated that he wanted to be cremated with no funeral and have his ashes spread around his favorite tree where he spread his dogs ashes years before.  Not quite what you'd expect but thats what the guy wanted.

Maybe the preacher who predicted the end of the world was right, the rapture came and went like a thief in the night and claimed Macho Madness for heaven..  Heh..

Get to the Choppa!!

Ahnold Ahnold Ahnold..



You sir have been a pop culture icon for decades.  Bodybuilding Legend..  Action Movie Star..  Bad Politician..  And now Adulterer extraordinaire!!  I have read the details and man, how you slept at night is amazing.  This lady worked for Maria and Arnold for 20 years!  Im just curious how all of a sudden he decided to come clean.  I heard this maid would bring this kid over and play with the other kids back in the day.  Did Maria notice a familiarity?  Was he ripped and with a big gap between his teeth and dropped an occasional bad movie line every now and then?

 

I can imagine the Schwarzenegger clanned gathered around singing songs in the governors mansion, the pitter patter of bastard children's feet up and down the hall..

 

 

What gets me is he kept this secret for over a decade and this Maid stayed quiet, I mean kept it on the down low so you know he was cuttin' her a fat check every month.  A little hush money ya know..  So I imagine whether or not Maria was in the room, if her eyes weren't trained on him they would share a glance or a look and just smirk to themselves.  Personally I see Arnold making this face every time Maria had her back to him and he made eye contact with said Staffer..  How was he not thinking "You Eeeeediot!"?

 

Yes now comes the real hard part for him and he is going to get killed by the media, they may in fact try to terminate him.... HEH..  But ya know I give him props for manning up and saying leave my family alone, it was my bad and yes Im in the wrong.  Thats not so easy for one with an ego as big as his.  Personally I think its a european thing, they have a differently mentality when it comes to this sort of thing.  Plus when you looked like this back in the day and had women galore throwing themselves at you, how do you not build up that sense of "I can have anyone and get away with whatever I want."?




I mean is that not ridiculous?  When youre like this do you really think about anyone else?  This takes a focus and a level of narcissism that cant be measured and not even a Kennedy could reel that in forever.






Im just glad he had a boy and not a girl with this woman..
Can you imagine?

Historical pornography...

Have you been subjected to this?  It was my unfortunate experience the other night to have to waste an hour of my life watching this historical telling of the Borgias family and their tale of how they came into power over the church during the renaissance.  First and foremost I have zero interest in this but I was playing on my Ipad and someone else was in control of the TV.  I swear every other scene it was the chamber maid doing this guy and some princess doing this other guy and then I had to have it broken down to me that so and so is betroved to her BUT his brother is nailing her on the side and then later on he kills him..  It went on and on like this.. Then Jeremy Iron starts messing with some broad and I had had enough.. "He's the Pope!!"  I screamed, what kind of pope is this?  "~And now.... I shall invade France..."  Let your imagination soar on that one folks... VOMIT!  I mean there was a scene where a couple went at it in a dining room hall decorated with the stuffed bodies of the Kings enemies..  I was like, Um yeah youre just gonna throw her on that table surrounded by decaying bodies and the obvious stink that comes with it?  I was done, I told my wife to go grab my claritin cause I was having an allergy attack and I yelled "Make Haste Wench!"



This is another one that is out there..  So this one revolves around King Henry the VIII and his debauchery..  Im not gonna dive into this one to much other than its about all his affairs, his multiple wives and lovers, and the Catholic church... What is it with the Catholic church in these things??  Long story short, he dies of Syphilis.. SHOCKER! 



Ok on this one, I actually wanted to watch this, hoping it would be like a 300/Gladiator type thing.. Ya know, blood and carnage and a overcoming insurmountable odds ordeal..  Two episodes into it I lost interest because again, every other scene was some wench getting railed by some dirty warrior...

To me all these shows have nothing interesting to say and the over saturation of gratuitous sex within dilutes any kind of story.  In short, its softcore porn!  I know I know, some of you may be saying, well David what's wrong with that?  Nothing really if youre into that kind of stuff but does every show have to be revolved around it?

It just occured to me, wouldnt it be funny if they created an original series on the life of a porn star but it had NO SEX in it?  It'd probably be due to her not being catholic..

A National Treasure...

Ahh where to begin!  First let me say that I don't dislike Nicholas Cage...  I dislike his last 15 movie choices but I dont dislike the guy..  So I read he got into a quarrel with his wife down in New Orleans and personally I think to much was made of it, some onlooker felt the need to play a hero and called the cops for nothing.  How do I know it was nothing?  I don't but seeing how she wasn't bruised anywhere, refused to press charges and was a former waitress til she pumped out Nick's kid.  Im gonna go out on a limb and say it was just another man and wife having a little lover's spat. 

If you're going to indict Nick Cage and bring him up on charges I suggest you book him on the following..

Exhibit: A your honor..


From the ridiculous script to the really bad hair piece, this movie was trash.  I know of one person who actually liked this movie and its my friends wife.. Sorry Sammy..  Only good thing about this flick was the nicely tanned Eva Mendez..


I went in KNOWING this movie was gonna suck but I dont think its fair for me to fully criticize something I haven't seen or heard so I put myself through it.  Usually movies of this nature put the audience through the torment of world anniliation only to redeem us all in the end with some off the wall sacrifice that gives all of humanity another chance..  NOPE! We all die in this one and a hand full of wacko children are saved and dumped on some other planet with an Adam and Eve metaphoric tree of life ending..  There, I just saved you two hours of your life..  You're welcome.


Ok show of hands, Who didnt DRIVE ANGRY all the way back home after this one??  Anyone?  Anyone?  Its pretty cool how all these bad movies and their titles lead into really easy one liners for me ain't it?


Ok... I can't say anything quick without getting pornographic but you get the picture.  Not only is this movie about an assassin with a set of rules (I know, never been done before right?  Can't believe Jason Statham didnt get this role.)  But also it has the most ignorant name you can give a movie.  If there were to be a sequel what would you call it?  Tokyo Serious?  Moscow Hideous?  Los Angeles Hazardous?  I rest my case.



I know these movie's are clever and make lots of money and I recently read that NT3 is underway but COME ON!  How much shit could Ben Franklin and the rest of our sneaky fore fathers hide from us for centuries???  What's the tagline for this one gonna be?  National Treasure 3: The search for more money..



Again, another bad toupee and an awful script..  I don't think Disney even tries anymore.  They are running out of cartoon fairy tale characters to ruin so now they've moved on to live action abominations like this gem.



Now here's what I think happened, the studios saw the success of these films above and banked on similiar returns.  WRONG.. I break it down for you Hollywood in order.  Gone in 60 seconds was carried by the Cars.  Pure and simple, much like the fast and furious movies that film was all about the cars.  Face Off was more Travolta then anything, remember it was during his late 90s comeback spree when his popularity was at an all time high.  Cage just went along for the ride.  Same thing with The Rock, that was all Connery and Michael Bay and his loud explosions and gripping story... heh.. 

Call me a softy but my all time favorite Nick Cage movie is..



I used to ride my bike down a rural mountain road with my eyes closed and arms out stretched reaching for the sun all the time til I saw this movie.. Probably saved my life!  Thanks Meg Ryan!

Im comin' with ya dad!!!

     Now first off let me just say that my father is very much alive and so is my mother.  I was just taking the time to think about that today and thinking about people I know that have passed on.  Then it hit me!  Whats my headstone gonna look like?  What few words of enlightenment will be cast upon that marble slab.  I mean I hope its Marble, those are nice.  So call it morbid curiousity that I went out on the net and tried to find a picture of said headstone..



Ok so here's one of the few I found, at first I said I love my father dearly but do I wanna be placed side by side with him in the hereafter?  I mean what if I can't find the remote or his favorite spoon?  I gotta listen to him gripe at me throughout eternity??  No thanks.

Then I dug deeper, no pun intended and I found..



Not sure how I like this, the whole picture thing.  Im picky about that sorta stuff and what if I dont like said picture, can I object at this point?  No, I have to leave it in the hands of my surviving family whom I trust.. Sort of.

Nah I need something simpler but bold..  So I found..



Clear, concise, to the point!  I even like the Font, its got a real Times Roman feel to it and thats always been my favorite, none of that Italic shit.  Still its not quite perfect and Im real picky.  So I checked around some more.

Ok.. Let me say this.


If my family springs for this and this alone Im haunting someone's house til the day they die!  I mean really?  Talk about forgettable.

Now this is more like it!



I prefer these because they obviously stand the test of time longer, they dont get caught up in overgrowing grass or weeds like place markers do.  Not sure about the green lithograph in the middle but Ehhh to each his own.

Ive got plenty of time to think about this but for now I think Ill just stick to my original plan..  Just slap me into one of these and call it a day..



:)

Ok, its Twilight but for Werewolves.. Got It!

Who doesnt remember the 1985 classic Teen Wolf??  It was pretty much a staple of your childhood memory if youre a child of the 80s like me.  A quirky family comedy of a boy who discovers that he sucks at basketball (Had nothing to do with him being 5'6 and white) and he doesnt exactly run high on the popular scale at school.  Stiles ,his best friend is a fast talking con artist of sorts and his other pal is a normal run of the mill girl who secretly loves him but waits til he hooks up with someone else to start showing signs of attraction.  In other words, the girl thing..



Ok so apparently he hits puberty and BAM!  He's a hairy Michael Jordan!


So now, 26 years later MTV running out of ideas because there's only so many teenage mom's and obese teenagers they can exploit has now come up with the plan to create a werewolf teen drama and call it Teen Wolf.  Now at first I thought it was just a coincidence but after reading the premise and the character names, they are in fact going off of the 1985 movie.



Ok so instead of basketball they have chosen Lacrosse, yeah cause thats a popular sport the kids will relate to.  Personally I can't wait for the scene where he's getting pummeled and underneath the dogpile he turns into the wolf and comes out with the ball..  While everyone gasps and scratches there head and lets out the proverbial 'WTF?' he will then decide to take the ball and run down the field and score right???  Thus making everyone feel ok with his lycanthropy and move on to focusing on the game..  Right?  Thats gonna happen..




Ladies and gentlemen what does this look like to you??  For christ sake be real!  Its Twilight for werewolves.  Just call it Moonlight..  Or First Bite.  (Credit to my boy Sam on that one...)  Its going to be dark, brooding and appeal to the EMO generation.  You know, the chicks with the pale faces and black lipstick and the dead kennedy's shirts and the guys who wear their sisters pants and steal their mothers eyeliner..  Can't wait for this!

Personally im curious to know if the dad is gonna be as heartwarming as the original..



Until I see something else that tickles me..  Later!