Blog-A-Song 08

Successful People

I've been playing a lot of other people's music lately, which partially inspired this song. The rest of the inspiration comes from the soul crushing depression and jealousy that comes from seeing other people succeed.



Lyrics:

successful people have great hair
successful people wear silk underwear
successful people have nice teeth
successful people don't eat beef

successful people have lots of money
successful people have personality
successful people have lots of time
successful people know how to rhyme

look at all the regular people
going to their regular jobs
they've given up on their dreams
and still they seem
happy

successful people drive fast cars
successful people drink in martini bars
successful people wear dress shirts
successful people never have their feelings hurt

look at all the regular people
going to their regular jobs
they've given up on their dreams
and still they seem
happy

successful people are arrogant
successful people have no talent
successful people have lots of luck
successful people, go take a flying...

duck


In case you are wondering, the chorus to this song is lifted directly from the greatest animated show that never got a chance.

Top Ten Episodes of G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero - Number 03

"The Traitor"

Written by Buzz Dixon

Buzz Dixon wrote a slew of great G.I. Joe episodes, including the movie, but The Traitor is easily the best story he delivered. Split into two parts, The Traitor tells the story of Dusty betraying the Joes and joining Cobra. It's a compelling episode full of intrigue, action, and comas!

The story begins in a ship docking harbor, where Cobra attempts to steal a chemical that can be used in a "mind control" formula. Unfortunately for Cobra, G.I. Joe has some kind of new chemical that, when sprayed onto their vehicles, makes them completely invulnerable. Cobra is successfully repelled and are seemingly helpless against the Joe's new technology.

Dusty takes this opportunity to make use of his leave time and goes to visit his sick, invalid mother. Sadly, Dusty's mother can't afford the special treatment she needs and already owes money to the bank. Cobra takes advantage of Dusty's situation and offers to pay his mother's medical bills in exchange for the armor chemical formula.

Two of my favorite Cobra villains, Xamot and Tomax meet Dusty at a cowboy bar and try to make the deal. Xamot and Tomax were some goofy, but visually interesting characters. They are weird, European, arrogant, acrobatic twins. Specifically, they are mirrored identical twins who share an empathic connection. They always finish each others sentences and feel each others pain. This actually makes them pretty lousy soldiers because this connection is constantly shown in every fight they get into. You punch one of them and they both fall over. Still, they are fun characters.

Desperate to take care of his mother, Dusty starts giving Cobra top secret information. Suspicious that Dusty is a traitor, Duke sets a trap to flush him out; but an unexpected explosion puts Duke into a coma. Dusty gets captured by the Joes and court marshaled. Having no where else to go, Dusty joins Cobra. Now a member of Cobra, Dusty gives them the armor formula and leads a number of missions to get the rest of the chemicals for their "mind control" formula. Eventually, Cobra gets all the ingredients and captures a bunch of Joes in the process. But just before Dusty is forced to gas the Joe prisoners with the "mind control" formula, he gases the Cobra soldiers and frees the Joes.

The Joes get out and storm the base, then to their surprise, all of Cobra's equipment starts deteriorating. As it turns out, Dusty was a triple agent, working for Duke. Duke knew that their armor formula was unstable and, although at first making an object invincible, eventually caused it to deteriorate at a molecular level. Duke wanted Cobra to destroy all their equipment. Dusty's name is cleared and all's well that ends well.

Like all the two part episodes, there's a lot going on. The extra space allows the action to breathe and lets various other characters have a moment without feeling cramped or rushed. Although the action and intrigue is very straightforward, it's handled very well and focuses on broad concepts such as morality and loyalty. Despite being an alleged traitor and having all his friends turn on him, Dusty sticks to the mission and tries not to hurt anyone. When Shipwreck attacks him in an angry rage, Dusty spars with him then saves him from a burning building. When Cobra Commander forces Dusty to fight for dominance in a pool of piranhas with "rocket nunchukus", he saves his opponent from being eaten alive. Dusty's a good guy.

The animation is pretty top notch in this episode, too, with one glaring exception. The nature of animation means that all characters are drawn from model, including background characters. In the case of the Cobra Troopers, they all look the same because they're all based off the same model. In this episode, there's a new Cobra Trooper that is given a face, Lieutenant Claymore. The animators took this opportunity to give the show some diversity and made him a black man. Unfortunately, there were numerous animation gaffes where the character was constantly switching skin color. G.I. Joe had consistent animation errors and coloring was the most common one, it's just unfortunately obvious in this case.

Comics Review: Paying For It

Paying For It is the autobiographical memoir of author Chester Brown detailing his experiences soliciting prostitutes. Brown has a lot to say about to about the nature of monogamous love and his interpretation of it. He writes about his conflicting needs for sexual gratification and physical intimacy with his desire to not have a girlfriend.

If half of this book is philosophizing about the origins of the idea of Romantic Love, then the second half is Brown's argument for the decriminalization of prostitution. He argues passionately for the plight of sex workers and goes into great detail about the difference between legislation and decriminalization.

This extremely personal work is written and drawn with a deep passion for both the subject matter and the people in it. Although there's a detached formality to the narrative, Brown is also unconsciously emotional about the women with which he's had relations, without the slightest amount of eroticism.

This is a very personal and intelligent approach to an extremely taboo, but no less important subject.

Blog-A-Song 07

Play With Fire by The Rolling Stones

Sometimes I really hate the Rolling Stones. Sometimes I really love them. This is a song that I love.



Lyrics

Well you got your diamonds
and you got your pretty clothes
and the chauffeur drives your car
you let everybody know

Don't play with me cause you're playing with fire

Your mother, she's an heiress
she owns a block in St. John's wood
and you're father'd be there with her
if only he could

Don't play with me cause you're playing with fire

your old man took her diamonds
and tiaras by the score
now she gets her kicks in Stepney
not in Knight's Bridge anymore

Don't play with me cause you're playing with fire

Now you got some diamonds
and you will add some others
but you better watch your step girl
or start living with your mother

Don't play with me cause you're playing with fire
Don't play with me cause you're playing with fire

Top Ten Episodes of G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero - Number 04

"Hearts and Cannons"
Written by Alfered A. Pegal and Larry Houston

I think one of the strongest elements of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero concept is the distillation of cliches and stereotypes into well rounded characters. The characters are pastiches of America. Sometimes it's a little heavy handed, and a few times it's embarrassingly tacky, but most of the time the Joes are representative of the different types of people that make up America. And America has, if nothing else, lots of different types of people in it.

That brings us to Footloose. I was never a big fan of Footloose, I never had his toy, and he wasn't in many episodes. It's not hard to see why, most of the time he came off as a single joke character, and the joke is pretty thin. He was a pretty straightforward pastiche of hippies. He was kind of detached from reality in a zen sort of way and said "like" a lot, heck, even his helmet is covered with "leaves". The problem with Footloose was that he felt like he was being written by people who didn't actually know any hippies, but saw them on TV once. I don't know if the writers didn't know what to do with that type of character or if they just didn't want to go there in the first place, but Footloose didn't see a lot of action in the cartoon series. But when he did, he called everybody "man" and said "far out" a lot.

Hearts and Cannons is one of the better episodes that he stars in. In this episode, he is partnered with Dusty. Footloose is an existential free thinker and Dusty is just a rugged, good ol' country boy. They work really well together. Although they have opposing competitive styles, it never devolves into Odd Couple style arguing and bickering. They come across more as two guys from different lifestyles who have bonded to become friends.

At the beginning of the episode we find out that Cobra is attacking unnamed villages in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. They have kidnapped a scientist, Dr. Winters, and are forcing her to create a prototype plasma cannon tank. The Joes are flying over the area looking for the secret facility. After their plane is struck by lightning, they are forced to jettison the cargo and supplies, including the Mauler tank. But that wasn't enough to lighten the load, so Footloose and Dusty are forced to parachute out as well. After spending the night in the desert, they find Destro's secret weapons testing compound, sneak inside, rescue the scientist, and make their escape.

This is where the fun begins, because Dr. Winters happens to be a very pretty lady. So the entire time they are rescuing her, Footloose and Dusty are competing for her affection. It leads to some genuinely great comedy and action. After escaping the compound, our heroes get caught in a sand storm and are separated.

This episode makes great use of Footloose. There's a particular scene where Destro forces his troops to drive through a mine field in order to catch the Joes. The Cobra troops are naturally reluctant to do so and, after being forced at gun point, proceed with a humorously half hearted battle cry. They are promptly blown up and (presumably) killed off screen. Dusty comments how he feels sorry for them. Footloose replies that he has no sympathy because "they're just livin' out their karma." Interestingly, the scene is played pretty straight, and actually comes off pretty dark. One of the reasons Footloose fairs better in this episode than in others is that the writers actually give him more to say than the usual hippie "buzz" words, but still maintain the cultural feel. His response to the unrelenting sand storm is, "All Things Must Pass. Keep On Keepin' On." It's a nice reference.

Dusty found refuge in a stolen Cobra Hummer, but Footloose and Dr. Winters are trapped in the storm. Fortunately for them, they are found by a mysterious Arab man named Jabal who, at first, thinks they are Cobra soldiers. After realizing that Footloose is G.I. Joe, Jabal lets them go and helps them fight Cobra.

Now, this is where it gets a little embarrassing. Jabal is presented as a kind of Sinbad style, scimitar wielding, fantasy caricature. It wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't say things like "snake warrior" and "sky chariot" and such. But despite being a presented as an ignorant third world nomad, he's also a suave, romantic warrior poet and he totally sweeps Dr. Winters off her feet, much to Footloose and Dusty's chagrin.

In the end, Jabal found the Joe's Mauler so he and Footloose use it to fight Destro's prototype super tank. What follows is a pretty neat desert tank battle. Using teamwork and Dr. Winters' knowledge of the prototype, they are able to defeat Destro. As it turns out, Jabal is the rightful monarch of the land and with Cobra gone, takes control of the country and gives Dusty and Footloose medals. Then he takes Dr. Winters to his palace, leaving the two Joes to argue about whose chick she really was.

Footloose really shines in this episode. He's got a real Jeff Bridges style about him. He and Dusty really gel. The two characters have good chemistry and it's a shame they didn't have more appearances together outside of this episode.

Blog-A-Song 06

A Four Legged Friend - written by Roy Rogers




Lyrics:

A four legged friend, a four legged friend
he'll never let you down
he's honest and faithful right up to the end
that wonderful one, two, three, four legged friend

A woman's like cactus and cactus can hurt
'Cause she's just a tight waisted winky eyed flirt
She'll soon have your land and your pride and your gold
And bury you deep long before you grow old

Who carries your burden?
Who carries your load?
On tumbleweed land or a long dusty road?
Who asks you no questions?
Who tells you no lies?
That four legged friend with the two honest eyes

Top Ten Episodes of G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero - Number 05

"Memories of Mara"
Written by Sharman Di Vono

One of the tactics used by voice actors in creating voices for cartoon characters is doing impersonations of other actors. For example, Homer Simpson's legendary voice grew out of Dan Castellaneta's Walter Matthau impersonation. Such was the case with Neil Ross' voice work for one of the most popular G.I. Joe characters, Shipwreck.

Shipwreck's voice was heavily influenced by iconic actor, Jack Nicholson, and this vocal style really informed how the character was written as well. Shipwreck was played as a sarcastic, arrogant womanizer. The women he hit on found him insufferable yet attractive. He was a capable rogue who often played by his own set of rules. He butted heads with his superiors but always got results. This made him a very endearing character, after all, it was the 80's and we all wanted to be Han Solo.

So, it should come of no surprise that Shipwreck was used frequently throughout the cartoon. Memories of Mara is one of his most memorable episodes. The episode follows a standard formula. Duke, Lady Jaye, Gung Ho, and Shipwreck are aboard a Navy ship searching for a missing submarine. As it happens, a Cobra submarine is in the area and attacks the Navy ship. Before the battle begins, Shipwreck sees a drowning woman in the water and dives in to save her. The Joes try to keep Cobra busy while they save Shipwreck and the mysterious blue skinned woman.

After a couple of action scenes, the Joes scare off Cobra and get the drowning girl to safety, though it is not easy. The woman, named Mara, was a Cobra soldier who had been experimented on by Cobra scientists trying to create the perfect amphibious soldier. Unfortunately, the experiment was a failure, Mara has gills and can breathe water but she can't breathe air. She was trying to escape Cobra when Shipwreck rescued her. Naturally, most of the Joes don't trust her., though they promise to try and reverse her condition and pressure her to reveal the location of Cobra's secret undersea laboratory. Shipwreck sympathizes with her and thinks she's being treated unfairly.

Knowing that Cobra is aggressively looking to reclaim Mara, the Joes try to get her to a concealed island where she can be hidden while they study her. Shipwreck and Mara get separated from the rest of the Joe team and spend the day fighting Dreadknoks and having romantic swims in tropical bays.

One of the strength's of this episode is the focus on Mara's character. She reveals why she joined Cobra. It doesn't go into too much detail, but she clearly describes a rough childhood, probably in a violent third world country. She has little to no concept of honor or valor, and the only loyalty she understands is loyalty to herself. Through Shipwreck, she learns that people can be good, and really can do something for nothing in return.

After meeting up with the rest of the Joes, Mara reveals the location of the Cobra undersea laboratory where they are hiding the stolen submarine. They lead a mission to rescue the submarine crew and destroy the Cobra base.

With the Cobra lab destroyed, and all of the research with it, Mara realizes that she'll never go back to the way she was. Under romantic moonlight, she gives a tragic goodbye to Shipwreck and dives into the sea.

It's a touching episode. The drama is centered around two people from different worlds learning and growing during their brief period together. Thematically, it sticks to strong concepts like Heroism, Altruism, and Friendship, and stars one of the most likable characters to ever appear on the show.