Sunday comes and I’m scared to death.  I stood in line and my knees were shaking as I approached the front of the line and said “One for the one o’clock Fantastic Four please” (yes, I said “please” believe it or not).  I stood outside for a moment to finish my cigarette and to wait for a couple of other people who were meeting me there.  While standing there, I took the time to reflect over moments in my life.  Ok, ok, I know this sounds corny as crap, but just stick with me here.  Hollywood already ruined my favorite comic character of all time when that supposed movie called “The Hulk” came out in the summer of 2003, and I was terrified the same fate would befall upon my favorite superhero group of all time.  When I was a kid, The Hulk was it…he was huge, green, angry, and ran around smashing stuff yelling out such thought-provoking statements as “Hulk SMASH!”.  I loved it.  I had the Hulk Comics, the action figure, never missed the TV show even though it was different from the comics but I didn’t care, I had the Hulk “Crazy Foam” for the bathtub, and of course various cups and glasses and shirts with images of The Incredible Hulk.  I loved the character because he didn’t take time to analyze this and that or whatever, if he was threatened he demolished whatever it was using whatever he needed to get the job done.  Well one day I go to a friend’s house when I’m about 6 years old, and he had a bunch of superhero action figures.  One of them was this dude who looked like the Hulk physique-wise, but he was orange and made out of rocks.  I was like “who is this?” and he tells me “That’s The Thing”.  Whoa…what a name!  The THING!  He then showed me some of the Fantastic Four comics and I was introduced to the world of Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm aka The Thing and their battles against Mole Man, The Puppet Master, The Skrulls, and the super-villain Doctor Doom.  Now I never considered The Hulk a true superhero because his goal wasn’t to go out and solve crimes and bring about justice…it just kind of happened that way when he went on a rampage, so my experiences with superheroes were really with Batman, Superman, and Spiderman.  However now there was a group of people with really cool super-powers who operated as a group and didn’t have to worry about keeping their identities hidden.  I slowly starting becoming obsessed with The Fantastic Four.  I’ll never forget the next year at Easter when my grandparents were visiting and they wanted to get me something.  My mom a few days before had asked me what was the name of that big orange comic book guy I was always talking about…and I told her “The Thing”.  So that weekend I was given a present, wasted no time tearing the paper off, and inside there he was in all his plastic, fully-poseable glory – The Thing.  Believe it or not, here it is almost 30 years later and I still have it.  What was so cool about this figure was that he looked like he was yelling angrily.  So now Hulk and The Thing spent a few years beating up Planet of the Apes figures, invaded the Batcave saving Batman from impending doom at the hands of The Joker and The Riddler, and even once got a hold of one of my sister’s Ken dolls and kicked his ass for being such a wimp.  I also still have one of my favorite comic books of all time as well.  It was a series called “What If?” and the crux of it was that it took situations from past comic issues and made a whole story based on what if it had happened differently?  The very first issue that came out was based off a meeting The Fantastic Four met up with Spiderman and it was briefly discussed that they should join forces.  In the real issue, they went their separate ways, but not this one – “What If Spiderman Joined The Fantastic Four?” was the issue and I read it soooo many times.  The became The Fantastic Five and in the story Spiderman had to reveal himself to the Four since they didn’t know his true identity.  It rocked!  The next “What If” I bought was also about The Fantastic Four and posed the question “what if The Fantastic Four had different powers?”.  In this issue, Reed Richards was nothing but a living brain, Susan Storm was the one that stretched, Ben Grimm had these giant bat wings and was also super strong, and Johnny Storm turned into some metallic half robot looking thing (I lost the issue of this so I kinda forget what Johnny Storm turned into).  It was pretty cool…but took too many creative liberties.  I mean since Reed was now a brain in a jar basically, all he did was lament over the love he’ll never be able to give Susan Storm and blah blah blah.  Ok, fast-forward to this past Saturday night.  While normal people my age are changing diapers or going to dinner parties or being a guy forced into watching some stupid romantic movie he would NEVER watch in a million years, I was watching hours of Fantastic Four cartoons.  Yep, the Bro and I watched the origins of the Fantastic Four, their battles against the Puppet Master and Doctor Doom, all on DVD.  See, I was going to Blockbuster to rent the series that just came out, but then saw it was four DVD’s which means I would spend about twenty bucks or more to get them all.  I had to run to Wal-Mart for something, and saw the box set for thirty dollars, so I figured I would just go ahead and buy it.  Man, it was so cool watching those, and it definitely got me in the frame of mind for the movie.  See, superhero movies lately have taken this position where they need to be more dark and dramatic...and that’s cool if it works for the story (take Batman Begins for instance).  That’s what had me worried so much about The Fantastic Four because I KNEW they couldn’t make this one dark, so I figured it would be super campy and come across as just dumb.  Watching the cartoons reinforced this, which made me more worried for the movie.

So there I am in front of the theater.  Everyone arrives and I go in to wait in line for the requisite 20 minutes for a friggin coke.  One day…one day theater concession stands will figure out a more efficient way of serving stuff.  It is maddening standing there while it takes some dude 5 minutes to get two cokes and a tub of popcorn.  So I got my Diet Coke and a bag of M&M’s and headed into the theater.  Two minutes to go until the hour of previews start.  My heart is racing by now.  Finally the lights go out and I swear those previews lasted an eternity…although “King Kong” looks pretty cool.  As soon as the opening credits started, I turned to my bud Jason and said “I think I should just leave now, I can’t take this”.  I stuck it out though…and I wasn’t let down.  Granted there are things I would have done differently, but overall it was a real good comic book movie.  Even the one-liners that illicit endless guffaws from the audience didn’t really do that.  Yes, the origin was changed a little bit with the addition of Victor Von Doom going up into space with them, but it really wasn’t that big of a deal.  The guy who played Johnny Storm did a real good job and wasn’t as obnoxious as I was afraid he would be.  Michael Chiklis did and OUTSTANDING job as Ben Grimm/The Thing…and the outfit he wore as The Thing just rocked…literally…hahahaha…oh man I’m good sometimes.  He had the perfect voice as The Thing, and the way him and Johnny Storm would bicker with each other was just like in the comics.  The reviews I had read said Jessica Alba’s acting was horrendous, but I didn’t see it that way.  I mean are they expecting Shakespearean soliloquies as Susan Storm?  My only casting complaint was the dude who played Reed Richards just didn’t look quite “distinguished” enough…although he did pretty well.  Oh, and why didn’t Johnny Storm have blonde hair?  I mean Jessica colored her hair blonde, why couldn’t they do the same for the dude?  I really dug it though, and they left a great ending for a sequel.  It wasn’t as good as Batman Begins, but it definitely did the job.  See the weird thing about the Fantastic Four is what I mentioned earlier about them not having hidden identities.  Take Spiderman for instance.  In that movie a lot of the drama is based on the fact that he has to keep his identity secret, but not so with these guys.  These guys are all seen as good guy heroes and everyone knows who they are so of course the story is going to be more light-hearted.  I really think if this movie had come out before Spiderman, it would have been quite heralded amongst comic fans.  Instead the dorkus maximus geeks have taken to the internet to complain about every little nuance.  Those people must lead pathetic lives.  Of course I say that and anyone who knows me knows that when the topic of "The Hulk" movie is brought up I'm liable to launch into a rant so I probably shouldn't say anything...hahahaha.  SO in my book this movie definitely gets a thumbs up.  While it isn't perfect, it did the job.  I read they signed on for two sequels, so with the origin story out of the way I can't wait to see where it goes from here.  Wow...to think in the summer of 2007 there could be a sequel to Batman, The Fantastic Four, and also that same summer is being targeted as the release of the Iron Man movie.  Now THAT could be a dramatic movie.  The dude Tony Stark who is Iron Man becomes a raging alcoholic and loses his fortune and everything, so that one could definitely have some drama to it.  I doubt that would make it into the first movie though, so they better do the first one right.  Oh why oh why can't I be a consultant for these movies?

Ok and now for some band news.  NoiseCult has now taken on a few line-up changes recently.  Here's what's happened - We finish the CD finally, get the DVD doone, book two gigs in July and then the singer quits.  He wants to go devote all his time to this other band he's been working with.  Well we can't cancel out on these two gigs because if we do we'll be screwed...as in these clubs won't book us again.  So it was somehow decided one of us would do vocals...and that someone ended up being me.  So over the last few weeks I have been learning to do something I have never been able to do and that's play and do vocals at the same time.  It's not as easy as one might think.  Add to that the fact I never knew all the lyrics anyway and it adds a little to the whole equation.  Well, to make matters worse, the drummer vanishes.  I'm not kidding, it's like the earth opened up and swallowed him.  The last me or Don heard from the guy was the weekend before the July 4th weekend...which was like 2 weeks ago.  No phone calls, no nothing.  His drums are still at the practice place so I can't figure it out.  I can speculate though.  See, this dude got himself a little girlfriend a couple of months back, and since then his time at practice has been reducing each week.  Well Don and I saw this was going to be a problem and though about finding someone else...but we figured we would cut him some slack for a little.  However a couple of weeks back he said that we couldn't book any shows on Saturdays in August because he's going to be playing drums for his little girlfriend's country band.  That was it for me.  I told Don he'd play these two gigs in July and that was it...he was out.  Thankfully we found another drummer very quickly but still expected that our drummer would be doing the gigs in July.  We hadn't even had a chance to talk to him yet about everything and then he disappears.  I honestly have no clue where he is...no one does.  My guess is that he's going to wait until after the gig this week and then call and give us a big story about "personal problems" and that's why he never called...when in reality he didn't want to do it anymore so he could spend all his time with his little girlfriend.  So we got another guy who has been working his ass off the past two weeks to learn all the songs and this Thursday we're playing.  Yep, July 14th at about 8:30 we're taking the stage at The Basement where yours truly will be handling bass and vocal duties.  This is going to be quite an experience seeing how I've never done vocals live before outside of some backup stuff.  But you know what's weird?  The new drummer we got is on the same wavelength as Don and I are musically...he LOVES all the same stuff we do like Black Flag and The Misfits and 80's metal so who knows, maybe all this is for the best.  All I know is I have to remember all these words to these songs AND play and sing them at the same time.  So next week you'll either get to hear about the disaster of the show it was or about the night I became a true rock god...hahahaha.

Yeah, I could have talked news and crap this week.  After all, terrorists set off bombs in London but really...what am I gonna say?  Sure, it's a horrible thing and I'm hoping people wake the hell up so we can take the gloves off in this war before it happens again.  Sadly there's too many enemies within the U.S. who don't want that to happen.  I've gone over it a ton of times - either your for us winning this war or you're not...it's pretty simple.  Also, with each passing day I'm thinking more and more that the Muslim religion is FAR from a peaceful one and that these terrorists are not some minority of their beliefs.  And I'll keep thinking that until I'm proved wrong.  If they want to go to their heaven where 72 virgins await them I say let's help them get there very quickly.  I'm sick of this crap, and I can't believe there are people in this country who feel sympathy for those monsters.  I'm stopping here before I keep going off.