Been verified.

Ahh finally, a service for us paranoid schizophrenics!

Is this a real thing? Is this fucking legal?! This allows anyone to find out almost anything about you, including your address and phone number and presumably your social security number, medical records, number of sexual partners, etc. as well. Does that terrify anyone else, or is it just me?

On their website, there's a quote from some press organization called "Venture Beat" that says, "Been Verified is looking to shake up the background check industry with a cheap and fast solution...". The background check industry?! There's an entire industry of companies that invade people's privacy for no reason?! You know, there's a lot of cool things about living in the so-called "information age", but this has got to be a huge fucking check in the con column. I'm not a criminal or anything, but that doesn't mean I want people to be able to look at my background "cheap and fast".

Let's think about the implications of the fact that not only does one service like this exist, but an entire industry of them. Now, I'm not about to sit here and tell you that the world is bright and full of sunshine, but it ain't exactly Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome out there either. Last time I checked, roving bands of homosexual bikers aren't eating and slaughtering each other for gasoline on the streets of mid-class suburbia (that's what that movie was about, right?). But the existence of a service like this does nothing but breed mistrust. It goes like this: people see that Been Verified is out there, and think to themselves, "Gee, if a service like that is doing well enough to be able to afford to paste their commercials all over national television, it must fulfill a legitimate need in our society! Maybe most of the people I come into contact with down at the Starbucks have a history of violence. How do I know that the highly qualified electrician that all my friends had nothing but good things to say about and is highly recommended isn't actually gonna rob my shit?! Oh fuck!"
See, it allows people to see any mistakes someone may have made in the past without allowing for the fact that we ALL make mistakes, and that people can and do change (not to mention the fact that the most dangerous people, such as serial killers, usually don't have much of a criminal record until they're finally caught...). This mistrust goes around and around in a downward spiral, with people running background checks on each other all the time and denying each other goods and services based on one piece of the puzzle of who someone is, until eventually society breaks down and we are forced to strike first or be killed, ironically making a criminal out of everybody and completing the self fulfilling prophecy that is Been Verified.

Pictured: Been Verified's master plan.

...Jesus. I didn't realize how serious this was until I just wrote that last paragraph. People, not since zombies has a threat to the world as we know it this large existed. I'm gonna run a background check on Been Verified to see what dirt I can dig up; we're gonna need all the intel we can get for the upcoming battle.
Stay strong, brothers and sisters. We are the resistance.

Top 10: Songs to cheer you up- Part 1

Let's face it: sometimes, we all need some cheering up. We all have different ways of doing that, but I think that the right music at the right time can be one of the quickest ways to change one's mood. Therefore I present to you, in no particular order, my top 10 songs that have historically done the best job at cheering me up.

Andrew W.K.- "It's Time to Party"

I don't give one-half of two fucks (that's right, a math joke. Anyone who says my writing is unintelligent and classless can lick my hairy nuts) what you think about Andrew W.K. in general. The first time I'd ever heard of him, I was watching Saturday Night Live and he was performing. As I sat and watched this big, hairy, sweaty man-child jump around and contort his face into expressions that would make Jim Carrey burn red with envy whilst playing one note over and over again on the piano, my first thought was, "What the fuck...?". My second thought was also "What the fuck...?", but my third thought was that even though this was the most over-the-top yet somehow simultaneously simplistic bullshit that I'd ever seen, I couldn't help but immediately like it.

Andrew W.K.: like Jesus, but with more partying.

A lot of people tend to write Andrew W.K. off as an overgrown retard who writes nothing but songs about partying, and that's all very true; but that's also exactly what makes him appealing. I don't care who you are, on a Friday evening, after a long week of work, listening to this song in the car on your way to the bar will immediately make you shift gears, emotionally speaking (hopefully not literally; that could be dangerous). Clocking in at just over a minute and a half, it's a furious outburst of pure positive energy. And if you're just in a bad mood in general, well...at the very least, this song will make you smile. Sometimes, that's all you need, and it sure as hell is all you can ask for from a man who also has written a song called "Party Til You Puke" and frequently appears on VH1 shows wearing T-shirts that read "Andrew W.K.".


Creedence Clearwater Revival- "Lookin' Out My Back Door"
As far as I'm concerned, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better song to sit out on your front porch, smokin' cigarettes and sippin' whiskey to. If you're in a bad mood, there's no way this song won't cheer you up. There's not much more I can say about it than that, so instead I'll tell you an embarrassing story about myself. When I was a kid, I remember being annoyed by CCR because they would always get mixed up with the Creed CDs in the record stores, and it made it hard for me to easily find the Creed CD I wanted. So there you go. Laugh all you want, but Creed is still a huge guilty pleasure of mine, in the same way that watching MTV's "The Real World" religeously is: I wouldn't admit to it on a first date or anything, but maybe once we've gotten to know each other well enough that you can laugh at my poor taste without immediately thinking I'm a loser, well...girls like guys that can make them laugh, right?


Third Eye Blind- "Semi-Charmed Life"
Picture this: you've just had a long day on the street corner, hustlin'/sucking dick, and man, you are just beat. You break out the pipe and the revolver and are smoking meth and contemplating suicide, when this song begins to play on the radio. The second the immediately catchy "do do do, do da do-do" vocal hook comes in, the corners of your mouth start doing this weird twitchy thing. Are...are you smiling? Why, yes you are, and even though it has been so long since you've smiled that your facial muscles have atrophied, causing excruciating pain (also, that vicious meth habit ain't helping either, buddy), you're starting to feel a little better.

Aw, what a happy crack head.

Here's a song that really gets you. After all, you've been feeling lately that your life's a bit semi-charmed. Suddenly, you decide to check into rehab, drop the habit, get a job, and get your life back on track.
You are promptly murdered leaving your apartment by another meth head.
...Whatever, here's my point. This may be a controversial statement, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this is the happiest, most positive-sounding song about crystal meth addiction out there. Even if you don't do drugs (let's be honest, if you're reading this, you probably do), it's still one of the most uplifting sounding and catchy songs that I've ever heard. Add to that the nostalgia factor, which comes from the fact that this song came out when we were younger, and it's hard not to be put in a better mood by it.


Goldfinger- "Superman"

If you're anything like me, your junior high days were spent playing "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater", restarting the levels over and over until either Goldfinger or Suicide Machines came on instead of going outside and getting better at real skating. And while today a whole new generation of kids are busy playing "Guitar Hero" instead of learning how to play a real instrument, I still look back fondly on my simpler days of Nintendo 64 and semi-credible ska-punk. For me, the nostalgic feelings for a time when I had absolutely no responsibilities and my biggest concern was trying to figure out how to see some boobs/touch a vagina that this song conjures up alone are enough to cheer me up. However, it also sports one of the best horn section hooks I've ever heard (and I fucking hate horn sections in punk), as well as immediately singable lyrics and an easily-relateable sentiment. Break out the skateboard, remember to quit pretending you're a Superman, and cheer the fuck up.


Wheatus- "Teenage Dirtbag"
You forgot this song even existed, didn't you? Remember when this song was on the radio, and they censored the line "he brings a gun to school", but not "her boyfriend's a dick"? Man, as a culture, we sure are sensitive, aren't we? I don't doubt for one second that concerned parents would have complained about a song on the radio talking about someone who brings a gun to school- talking about it, mind you, not advocating it. What I find ludicrous is the fact that anyone could think that listening to a song as ridiculous as "Teenage Dirtbag" would be enough to make disturbed individuals want to act it out. Hey idiots: the type of kids who would consider going on shooting sprees don't listen to Wheatus. I can almost gurantee that.
That being said, I'm convinced that this song is almost impossible to dislike. From the oddly high-pitched singing voice of the singer, to the baffling obsession with "listening to Iron Maiden, baby", this song is tailor-made to bring you out of whatever funk you may find yourself in. There's something oddly therapeutic about singing "I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby" over and over again at the top of your lungs.

Pictured: Teenage Douchebags. Similar to the teenage dirtbag, but not quite the same thing.

Be sure to stay tuned for Part 2!

Cop Out

Okay, so let me get this straight. A grizzled veteran badass cop, John McClaine, teams up with a functionally retarded idiot savante, Brian Fellows. Together, they must take down an evil criminal mastermind, Stiffler. And the trailer expects us to believe that, against all odds, hilarity somehow ensues.

All right, let me just say this. Bruce Willis needs to stop acting in cop roles that aren't explicitly named John McClaine, because if we're being honest with ourselves, that's who he is, even if his characters aren't named that. In 16 Blocks he played an older, lamer John McClaine with a moustache; in Surrogates, he played John McClaine...IN THE FUTURE!! Once you've played the quintessential badass cop action hero, you really can't escape that; at least not as long as you continue to play badass cop action heroes. I mean come on man, I know a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required of the audience to even believe that an 80 year old man can be physically intimidating, but asking us to think that you aren't McClaine on top of that is just going overboard.

And Tracey Morgan... Look, 30 Rock is not a bad show, and his character on that show isn't bad either. But you know how Dave Chapelle quit comedy because white people were "laughing too hard" at his racist jokes? Forget for a second how ridiculous it is to quit being a comedian because people think you're funny, and try to understand the principle behind that concept. Chapelle thought that white people laughing so hard at his racist jokes about black people revealed just how racist white people innately are, even after all this time, and it disgusted him. It just so happens that he was completely wrong in his assumption; but now, by the same token, let's look at Tracey Morgan. He plays the retarded black man so well that not only do white people laugh their asses off at it, he's now being typecast into that sort of role. Is it encouraging, as an actor, to think to yourself, "I'm so good at acting like a moron that that's all people want to see me do"? I'm not here to give you the answers, people. I'm only here to ask the questions.

Jesus Christ, if the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were forced to watch this movie, U.S. citizens would be outraged at the level of torture being inflicted upon our prisoners of war. The prisoners themselves would be begging for another water boarding party out of fear that they would have to be subjected to this abomination again. Who the fuck directed this travesty?!
That's right, Kevin Smith. Known lately for being an epic fatass, Kevin Smith was at one time responsible for such straight-faced, dialogue based nerdgasms as Clerks and Mallrats. While he did write both a Daredevil and a Batman graphic novel that I'm quite fond of, most of his filmic ventures as of late have been similar to watching a late-term abortion in IMAX...which is to say, the fact that it gave me an erection filled me with confused, homicidal rage. At what point will we stop excusing bullshit put out by a director who's riding the coattails of moments of brilliance that they had years earlier? (I'm looking at you, M. Night Shyamalanadon.) The longer we as a culture continue this trend, the more films like Cop Out we're going to get. Are you prepared to give up that much of your soul, dear readers? Do you even care?!?


...In all honesty, though, this movie could potentially be decent. I've been wrong before, and I've seen some trailers that make it look not so terrible. I guess we'll see.

Slappin' your troubles away

You probably don't need me to tell you what a barren wasteland of creativity late-night television is. Watching late-night TV is like having your brain slowly eaten by an earwhig (they eat brains, right? Or am I confusing earwhigs with zombies again?). Mostly, I'd have to say that you'd have to be violently drunk in order to even come close to understanding most of the shit they fill these late time slots with, and luckily, I often am when I'm watching TV at five in the morning. However, I came across a commercial last night that, despite my David Hasselhoff level of inebreation, still left me screaming "what the fuck" through bitter tears. Apparently, David Lynch has begun directing infomercials:








Now, first let me say that I find it truly inspiring that the shamwow guy was able to find work after a hooker with a penis beat the shit out of his masculinity (what little there was to begin with). But "Slap your troubles away with Slap Chop"? Come on now, Shamwow Guy, you tried that already with that man-woman and it didn't end very well. Also, wasn't I supposed to wipe my troubles away with the shamwow? Make up your mind! In these uncertain times of economic turmoil, I think we can all agree that we look to the people on our television sets late at night peddling us worthless, idiotic bullshit for stability.

And what's with the part towards the middle? Shamwow Guy is slap choppin' up some disgusting egg-pickle-ham "breakfast", when all of a sudden we're treated to a punch of jump cuts of black people dancing. Does... does the Slap Chop make black people happy? Is it because of the rhythm produced by Shamwow Guy's enthusiastic slap chopping, and we all know that black people can't help but dance when there's any kind of beat present? Honestly, I wish I could be as happy about anything as those black people are about the Slap Chop.

The end of the commercial truly terrifies me too. Shamwow Guy starts thrashing around violently like someone's electrocuting him in the dick. Shamwow Guy, lay off the cocaine, please. We just lost Billy Mays; I... I just don't know if I could handle the loss of another quasi-celebrity whom nobody cared about before he died so soon after that tragedy.

Lastly, I must point out that this product is about ten years old. My Mom bought it from the Pampered Chef quite awhile ago. And yes, it is pretty convenient... I just didn't know you could make money by renaming something that already exists and that you didn't invent. That being said, buy my new product, the Stab Cut. It's like a knife, but called something different!

Welcome to my pop culture nightmare.

I figured it's high time I get myself my own blog, so here we go. Welcome. If you're easily offended (read: if you can't take a joke), expect to occasionally be outraged by my posts. I decided to post a personal favorite piece of writing of mine below, from my short lived stint on the now-defunct blog "You're Not Too Cool For Comics", which was mainly the brainchild of my good friend Matt Burke (incidentally, check out his writing as well if you get the chance. I'll post a link to his blog here when I get it.)
Overall, this will be for fun, and hopefully it will be entertaining...or at the very least, a way to kill time while at work...

Retro Comics Corner: Welcome Back, Frank!

Hello there! Welcome to the first in my hopefully extensive series, Retro Comics Corner, wherein I discuss graphic novels and story arcs which have become, in my opinion, classics. A quick disclaimer: I do not claim to be some sort of comic book historian, and I am writing these purely for fun and entertainment value. My goal is to provide a humorous perspective on classic stories, and if you don’t like what I have to say, I invite you to grab the nearest broom handle, break it in half (making sure of course to leave the ends nice and jagged), and enthusiastically fuck yourself with it.

That being said, let’s talk about Welcome Back, Frank!, Garth Ennis’s first run at the Punisher, and the character’s first appearance since he died and became some sort of avenging angel killing demons or something (I really didn’t pay much attention; reading that story was like watching a comic book having sex with the Bible, and then being violently raped by their offspring right in the common sense).

The Punisher as a character is deceptively complex, at least from a writer’s stand point. What I mean by that is that the concept behind him is fairly simple: his family is killed senselessly by bad people, so he decides to kill the holy bejeezus out of any bad person he can find. Murderers, rapists, mobsters, jaywalkers; you name it, he’ll eviscerate it. …That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. He’s like Charles Bronson in Death Wish, but with way less moustache.

Yeah. Sorta like that.

However, it is this simplicity that makes it so difficult to write a captivating Punisher story. After all, how many times can you write a story about a man murdering the shit out of a whole bunch of people before it gets a bit stale? That’s when you start to see story arcs like the aforementioned ‘avenging angel’ run or whatever the fuck it was called, which suck legendary amounts of penis. Thankfully, a man named Garth Ennis

exists. Ennis knows how to make shocking levels of violence and depravity fun, and is famous for injecting very subtle, very dark humorous tones into his ostensibly unfunny stories and somehow making it work. To say he revitalized interest in the Punisher is a woefully incompetent understatement. Welcome Back, Frank! was to the Punisher what Jesus is to Christians, or for you non-believers, what bacon was to the cheeseburger. Suddenly the Punisher was not only once again a credible character, he was fucking kickass.

Let’s look at a few moments from the series that epitomize why it became a classic, shall we?

“It’s bears!” WHAMFF!

I was going to do these in chronological order, but I couldn’t resist putting this one first. This moment, to me, tells you everything you need to know about this series.

While scouting Ma Gnucci for a hit, the Punisher is spotted by one of her body guards and takes one bullet in the ribs and another in the shoulder. Unarmed and losing blood, he hides out in the zoo, and proceeds to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting henchmen that are hunting him down. He feeds one to piranhas, another to a snake, but the best is when he punches a fucking polar bear in the face, causing it to attack Ma and her remaining bodyguards.

The Punisher tells PETA to fuck themselves.

And there you go. The Punisher. Punches a bear. In the face. Admit it, if you weren’t interested in this story arc before, you can’t wait to read it now.

Don’t hide behind the thin guy.

The first time we see the Punisher in a full on gun battle in this series is when he attacks Bobbie Gnucci as he’s viewing his brother’s body in the morgue. The Punisher uses the dead body of some fat guy as a human shield, and the guy he’s shooting at decides to do the same. Only he hides behind some skinny dude, and the Punisher shoots right through the body and kills the guy.

Garth Ennis has a tradition of making movie references in his stories, which as a

huge movie nerd, never ceases to fill me with glee. This sequence is a nod to the ‘human shield’ scene in Total Recall. If you’ve ever seen that movie, you know that it’s just stupid, over the top, extraordinarily violent fun. The fact that it occurs in the first issue of the series lets you know what to expect: reading this book will be a lot like watching a Schwarzenegger movie, and that is awesome.

Oh, and the best part: immediately after he does this, the Punisher walks over to Bobbie Gnucci and delivers a classic action movie one-liner. “Got a message for your people, Bobbie. Listen:” and then he blows his head off. Oh, fuck yes, the Punisher is back.

Punisher vs. Daredevil

Let’s get serious here for a second. Around the fourth issue of the series, the Punisher attempts to assassinate Dino Gnucci in Hell’s Kitchen, and of course, Daredevil shows up to try and stop him. After giving the Punisher a speech about how he has a choice and he doesn’t actually have to kill anyone, the Punisher tells him to fuck off and a fight ensues. Punisher manages to get the best of Daredevil, and ties him up with a gun taped to his hand. He tells Daredevil it’s time for him to make that choice he was talking about. Either shoot the Punisher in the head to stop him from killing Dino, or do nothing and let Dino die:

PUNISHER: If you don’t shoot you’ve got a death on your conscience. A death you could have prevented. If you do shoot, you’re a killer.

DAREDEVIL: What kind of a choice is that…?

PUNISHER: The one I make every time I pull the trigger.

After bitching and whining for a bit (I’m pretty sure ‘bitching and whining’ is one of Daredevil’s superpowers), Daredevil aims the gun at Punisher’s head, pulls the trigger and… click. No firing pin. Punisher paints a mural on the sidewalk with Dino’s thoughts and memories, and Daredevil is utterly crushed by the realization that he just attempted to commit murder.

This issue is interesting, because it shows that at the end of the day, Punisher and Daredevil are the same. They both fight crime, but they do so from a continuum. On one end you have the Punisher, killing everything bad that moves; on the other, you have Daredevil, who just likes to hit bad guys a few times and hope they learn their lesson. However, when Daredevil pulled that trigger, it proved that the points on the continuum on which the two characters reside are not fixed. The Punisher is Daredevil; he is Spiderman, he is whoever else you care to name. The only difference is that he doesn’t hide behind a wall or pretense; he doesn’t feel the need to incessantly apologize for what he is and what he does. Spiderman and Daredevil and all the rest may seem more “heroic”, but strip away all their speeches about justice and the value of human life and they’re really no different than any anti-hero you care to name. After all, these are people that are so driven by what they think is true and right that they dress up in costumes and get in fights with bad guys every day. To make a distinction between the hero and the anti-hero is therefore futile; the only difference is where they draw the line and, as this sequence shows, all it takes to push that line over to the “dark side” is the right set of circumstances.

“I hate them.”

About halfway through the series, Ma Gnucci finds out where the Punisher lives and sends everything she’s got to take him out. The Punisher of course kills everyone, but not before taking six bullets to the chest. As he’s lying in bed dying in his mousy neighbor Joan’s apartment, this exchange occurs:

JOAN: Why do you kill them? Bad people, I mean.

PUNISHER: I hate them.

JOAN: Oh. I thought it might be because you wanted to make the world safe for

good people.

And there you go. The reason the Punisher imprint is so great under the direction of Garth Ennis. The Punisher isn’t a goddamn superhero; he’s not even really an anti-hero. He just hates bad guys because of what they did to his family, and he simply likes to kill them. Even in story lines where the Punisher is helping someone, you still get the feeling that he’s only doing it because of the opportunities it affords him to kill a shit ton of bad guys. He’s basically a psychopath; luckily for us, he only murders people who deserve it. Ennis understands this, and can therefore write compelling Punisher stories.

The Russian.

The Russian is Ma Gnucci’s last-ditch effort to put the Punisher out of commission. He’s about the size of the Incredible Hulk, twice as stupid, and ambushes the Punisher out of nowhere. This is another instance of Punisher being caught off guard and unarmed, and having to improvise. After two entire issues consisting of nothing but the Punisher getting his ass handed to him, he’s finally able to kill the Russian. How?

By throwing a hot pizza at his face, and then suffocating him to death with his morbidly obese neighbor’s body.

You know, I think we can all agree that there isn’t much that’s funnier than fat jokes. Dick jokes, maybe, and punching a bear in the face, definitely, but only barely. And using a fat guy to take out an undisputed badass like the Russian? That’s just entertainment gold.

The Russian: giving "pizza face" a whole new meaning.

Detective Soap.

Finally, we have Detective Soap. Another thing about Garth Ennis is that he often will include a character in his stories that is an epic loser in every way imaginable, and they often even have some sort of physical deformity, as was mentioned in one of Mr. Burke’s earlier articles. Well, Detective Soap is definitely that. He’s a joke to the police force, and since none of the police officers actually want the Punisher caught, they put Soap on the case. He drives his first partner to suicide, falls in love with his lesbian second partner, and generally just gets shit on constantly, both literally and figuratively (at one point during Ennis’s run on the Punisher, he even unknowingly fucks his own mom. But that’s neither here nor there.)

However, Soap doesn’t have any physical deformities to speak of, and that’s the real reason I put him on here. I can just imagine Ennis, in a drunken rage, yelling at chief editor Joe Quesada: “Dammit Joe! Just let me make his nose into a dick! Or fine, I’ll put a vagina on his forehead! That way everyone will know he’s a pussy! It just wouldn’t feel right otherwise! QUIT STIFLING MEEE!!!”

And there you have it. Hopefully you enjoyed my first entry for YNTCFC. I’ll update some more in the future; hopefully fairly regularly, but realistically, whenever I damn well please.