Aloha! Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! What is it that I do here at the MMC? Well, first I gather up all of Spaceship OL’s passengers – nerd-culture slovens and amigos and infidels alike! Then, I show `em the various bits of art and trash and fast-food debauchery that I’ll be devourin’ during the course of the week. At this point, I deactivate the laser-shackles and let the wayfarers bludgeon one another with their prospective plans for destroying ennui and undermining workplace productivity.

It’s a thing of goddamn beauty.

C’mon, jump in and join the madness!

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Hey you! Yeah, the turkey holdin’ the comic book! Why don’t you c’mon in? Oh, you’re not hungry? Well that doesn’t matter – you’re goin’ to want to check this place out. Of all the dining halls on Spaceship OL, this holodeckin’ eat-a-torium is most guaranteed to satiate your fanboy-cravings.

This is, after all, the Comic Book Café.

Now, I feel obligated to offer a word of warning. In spite of the innumerable perks that come with eating in a livin’ and breathin’ paneled-page, there’re some definite drawbacks. The lunchladies are cranky. The pizza’ll burn the roof of your mouth. And the cliques are unbearably divided.

By the Coca-Cola machine sits the Marvel crew – Peter Parker and Joe Quesada are trading yogurts, Betty Banner is smashing a watermelon with her fists, and Tony Stark is sneaking rips of gin out of a Gatorade bottle. At the top of the café is the DC posse – Wonder Woman is givin’ catty glares as Clark Kent sucks on Lois Lane’s bottom lip, Dan DiDio is nose-vomitin’ milk while he guffaws at Plastic Man, and Swamp Thing is tryin’ to extol the virtues of using a canteen instead of Styrofoam cups. And if you look between these two, you can see the IMAGE gang hanging by fire exit – Brandon Graham and Jonathan Hickman are hackin’ away at sketchbooks, some nutjob wearin’ headgear is claiming to be a prophet, and baby Hazel is cryin’ for milk.

It’s quite the scene.

But it’s not the whole scene. Sure, these three tables are the most jam-packed and rambunctious, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most exciting. If you’re lookin’ for a bit of adventure, why not take your tray to one of the other tables? What’s that? You thought that those three cliques were the only patrons of the Comic Book Café? Way wrong, bro!

Hey, take a seat at that small table next to the Art Club sign-ups. Yeah, the table with the dudes that don’t really look like anyone else in the cafeteria. This squad goes by the name of 215 INK, and they pride themselves in their independence from the other three. Once you get situated, you should strike up a conversation with the dude rockin’ the beautiful beard.

His name is Mauricio Pommella and he’s the illustrator of TRANSMEET, a comic about trying to grow love in the depleted soil that is our inevitable dystopia.

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It’s a spectacular time to be a Star Wars fan.

George Lucas, perhaps after being visited by some benevolent omnidimensional sojourner, has sold his most beloved franchise. The moment that fans realized Lucas was finally out of the picture, we began to dream. To wonder. To flirt with the idea that the piss-taste that’s been lurking in our mouths since 2005 may very well be washed away. New Star Wars films could be treated with the respect they deserve.

So, what’ve we been promised thus far? A new trilogy. Kasdan and Kinberg. J.J. Abrams. Cameos from members of the original cast. The interest of Hollywood’s finest actors and directors and other personnel. Spin-off, stand-alone movies.

In short, we finally have a newer hope.

Yesterday’s confirmation of the stand-alone flicks was the final nail in the coffin for my cautious optimism. I am now, for the first time in years, reveling in full-on nerdlust at the thought of new Star Wars. And while I have quite a bit of faith that a new trilogy could be beyond excellent, I’ve always loved the idea of free-standing movies taking place within the galaxy that Uncle George introduced back in `77!

Join me as I take a moment to geek-out about the prospect of new Star Wars movies! I’m going to fanboy my way through some of the premises I’d like to see materialize, no doubt getting so excited that my retainer spills onto the keyboard and my Diet Shasta bubbles over. After you check out my ideas, hit up the comments section and describe what you’d like to see during our next voyages to a galaxy far, far away…

Punch it, Chewie!

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This must be the new thing. Celebrities who clearly have creative directors themselves are getting named as the “creative director” for really shitty products. This time it is J-Timberchucklehead being named the creative director of Budweiser Piss Swill Uranium or something.

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Frankly, I’m surprised that we haven’t sent a porn star into space yet. I can’t figure out a group of people who have entertained more of the masses than the porn community, and the least we can do as a collective is let one of them gape upon (heh) the Blue Marble from afar.

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There’s a pain in your stomach that can only be cured with Russian magic.

Go ahead, clench the side of your abdomen. C’mon, admit it already! Y’know that you feel an inflammation somewhere in your gut! In the darkest recesses of your tummy! Maybe it feels like a itch at the bottom of your cecum. Or maybe it throbs like a patch of warts in your large intestine. Hell, some of you might even have a burning in the colon, and you’d damn well better pray that it doesn’t keep runnin’ down your digestive tract.

The truth is that you’re afflicted with a goddamn existential bezoar.

Fortunately, the Russians have been attacking these motherfuckers for years. Although Rasputin’s mystical sojourns are well-documented, it’s not often mentioned that he was simply trying to remedy the bezoar ailing Russia’s collective unconscious. Later, during the dark days of the Soviet Empire, the mystic arts would be forfeited in favor of science. But even with the root of these explorations being the same desire to destroy all that ailed, these efforts would also fall short. As such, Mother Russia, proud and noble and willing to die trying, would forge ahead in search of a new solution. And it would be found.

The solution? Beer.

To be precise, tonight’s curative elixir is Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout `12.

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Sony is selling their Hive Mind Headquarters, located right here in the heart of the Empire. They’re not just selling it though, oh no. They are slapping a fatty price tag of $1.1 billion upside its head. IDGAF. Let’s buy that thing, line it with soundproof materials, and like. I don’t know. Fart all day, while we play Super Adventure Island or something. Dream with me.

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Game shows have radically changed over my life time.  When I was a kid, daytime TV was littered with them.  Today game shows have been replaced with “reality” shows that give away money to people who are willing to whore for the camera.

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This is tremendous. A doctor decides that he is going to eat the world’s hottest curry. This is despite the fact that the son of a bitch is prepared in nearly hazmat conditions. Then the dude begins fucking hallucinating halfway through the enterprise. Does that stop him from finishing the fight? Hell no.

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[WEEKEND OPEN BAR: The one-stop ramble-about-anything weekend post at OL. Comment on the topic at hand. Tell us how drunk you are. Describe a comic you bought. This is your chance to bring the party.]

I want you to consider the following premises, keepin’ an eye peeled for similarities.

When a West Philadelphia-born prince ascended his Californian throne, he sang a little ditty. That time when the boxer prepared to avenge his friend’s death and defend America’s honor? You bet your ass he was jammin’ to some butt-rock. And when the world was ushered into the era of Y2J, it was greeted by the dulcet tones of a computerized countdown and processed vocals.

The conclusion: theme songs kick ass.

Hell, if you think about your favorite movie, TV show, or video game, chances are that it features some sort of soundtrack. Moreover, it’s also a solid bet that there’re clear-as-day, identifiable-as-hell themes woven throughout said soundtrack. While you’re experiencing this bit of entertainment, themes amplify the emotion at hand, whether it happens to be jubilation or intrigue or suspense. So affective, in fact, are theme songs that hearing them out of context can still teleport our consciousnesses to the space-time junctions of entertainment-inebriation.

Fighting Sephiroth.
Being devoured by a Great White.
Swoonin’ over a man with a license to kill.

If you count yourself amongst the OL faithful, then some of your life’s most consequential moments have probably been accompanied by a soundtrack. As such, I encourage you to respond to one or both of this weekend’s OPEN BAR prompts:

[What is a theme song you dig?][What would you choose for your own theme song?]

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