First off. ISSUE 5 OF AHAB VAN HELSING VS NOSFERATU CARCHARODON IS OUT! It is for sale at Jays CD and Hobby and I have digital copies if you are interested. We worked really hard on it and I am extremely proud, seriously the best issue yet!
If you love the vampire shark and want to support the comic check out my threadless store at
2019 in review!
Well 2019 was a wild ride! I went on my first cruise and fell in love with Boston (the city not the band).
I always enjoy when people look back on the year and list their favorite moments.
Since this is mostly a travel blog about seeing concerts I figured I would start with my favorite concert moment of 2019. It's funny because this I year I took a pretty impromptu trek to Boston to see Dropkick Murphy's on Saint Patrick's day (which was amazing) and a 3 day Flogging Molly cruise where I literally spent 72 hours thinking "I cannot believe I am doing this." But the moment that struck out the most to me was the Aquabats show.
Unlike a lot of the shows I go to, Aquabats tends to have a plethora of young children running around dressed up as their favorite ska rocking super heroes. At one point in the show MC Bat Commander calls two little kids out of the crowd, lifts them up and tosses them on to an inflated pool float on top of the crowd and these two young kids surf from the front to the back and then back to the stage. Both James Riley and I thought "Holy shit! That's insane" As long as he doesn't kill or paralyze those children that is one of the most amazing moments those kids will ever have at a concert!
Favorite Movies
I don't post about all the movies I see because I don't really want to be a movie review site, I feel there's enough of those.
But here are my top 5 movies of 2019
1. Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood:
We think of Mr. Rogers as a man who talks to children, mostly young children, but this movie focuses on his wisdom and how it can help people of all ages. This is a PG rated movie but it's not a children's movie. It deals with very adult themes and subjects and makes us think about how we can handle stressful times. Also how dangerous it is to hold on to pain and hate and how important it is to forgive people. Most people think that forgiveness is something you do for someone else but it's really something you have to do for yourself. This movie touched me so much that I felt obligated to hug my friend Jacob after the movie.
2. Peanut Butter Falcon
Like Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood this movie hit me on a personal level. On the surface it's about a young man with down syndrome who has a dream of being a professional wrestler.
But what it really meant to me was about following your dreams and how no matter what limitations we may have if you keep moving forward you can achieve those goals. Seriously a great movie!
3. JoJo Rabbit
It's strange because 2019 became the year that Hitler really hit with comedians for me. First I watched Great Dictator for the first time, truly an amazing film, and then JoJo Rabbit came out.
Taiki Waititi really hit my radar with What We Do in Shadows, I watched and loved Flight of the Conchords but didn't know he was involved with it, and ever since Thor Ragnarok I have made a point to follow his career. Dealing with the subject matter you knew that this was going to get pretty heavy and it does, it's not the laugh fest that What We Do In Shadows was but it did stick with me.
4. Shazam
I'm not really a Shazam (DC's Captain Marvel) fan. I don't think I have ever read a Shazam comic book but holy shit did I love this movie! It was so touching and fun.
5. Spider-man Far From Home
It's funny, in a year of Avengers End Game and Joker breaking records and molds, two of my favorite movies are super hero movies that didn't buck the trend at all.
The fact that I watched a Spider-man movie with Mysterio is the main villain and he looked like Mysterio was enough to put this on the top of my list.
Books
1. Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons
I take Simpsons in all forms, not just TV. You would have to love the Simpsons as much as I do to really take away from this book. If you're like me and love learning obscure Simpsons trivia for Joel, check it out.
2. The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success
Being friends with Wes, I have learned about serial killers than I ever thought I would. Wes has always told me that serial killers and extremely successful people think and act the same. That's what inspired me to check this book out, not a lot of lessons I can take from it to put into my own life but seriously interesting. But I did write down the 7 rules of being a psychopath
1. Ruthlessness
2. Charm
3. Focus
4. Action
5. Mental toughness
6. Fearlessness
7. Mindfulness
3. Wild and Crazy Guys
2019 I absorbed a number of books about comedy, Wild and Crazy Guys was the only one that dealt with comedy of an era. If you're interested in the origins of Saturday Night Life and the biggest comedians of the 1970s and 1980s check out Wild and Crazy Guys.
4. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Did you know that Steven King thought his book Carrie was trash, to the point that he crumbled it up and tossed it into the garbage can. Luckily his wife found it, read it, and convinced him to mail it in. If that didn't happen we may never have heard about Steven King. Fantastic book. Like Peanut Butter Falcon, just keep moving forward!
5. Base on a True Story
Read enough books about comedy and comedians and you notice a disturbing trend. Most of them end up ether dying young and tragically or dying old and alone. Phil Hartman's You Might Remember Me From read almost like a horror or a thriller because you knew where it was heading. Norm Macdonald's Based on a True Story started out as a real life memoir but takes a strange twist. I loved this book because I had never read anything like it. I went out of my way to tell people what happened in it. Even if you don't like books about comedians check this out, you have never read anything like it!
TV
I don't watch a lot of TV, I got out of the habit when I went back to school and just don't have an interest in benging seasons of shows. I watched the last season of Game of Thrones (I enjoyed it), yes I still watch the Simpsons (this season has been very good, Todd Todd Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me might be one of the best episodes in years) but that's about it.
The only show I wanted to talk about was The Tick.
Amazon brought the Tick back in 2016, with Peter Serafinowicz stepping into the blue antenna. The Tick will always have Townsend Coleman's voice to me but he made it his own, maybe the second best Tick we've gotten, and Patrick Warburton's was pretty fantastic too.
I'm mostly talking about The Tick because A) I loved it. I even took a day off to watch the entire season. B) Sadly they canceled the show this year. I love the Tick, I love the character and I want to see more of him and sadly we live in a world were we only get fleeting moments of new Tick. It could end up being a short loved TV show or a comic book that only runs for 4 issues. I do not understand why that is, why is there a property that has spawned 2 live actions shows, and animated TV show and piles of merchandise can't sustain anything more than a brief burst of attention before disappearing again?
Here's part 2 of my talk with Joel.
This weeks episode is dedicated to Bentley at the Animal Rescue League https://www.arl-iowa.org/adopt/157228/find-a-pet/pet-detail/
As always Thank You for reading!
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