ohtani's jacket

I hate to break it to you guys, but Phil reviewed that Fujiwara match in 2016.

The book has started to ignore New Zealand and Australian music. Here are some 90s songs from both countries. New Zealand Australia

I forgot about Belle and Sabastian. I had friends who were really into them. I've only started listening to them recently. I also really like this Greek band, Trypes:

I think Crossroads should have been in the book. And De La Soul: The Roots: Some more tunes:

R&B made a comeback in '96!

1996 The arrival of Liam's baby has given me more time to explore each year individually, which is fun because I get to explore styles of music I was oblivious to in '96. I got heavily into Modest Mouse and Silver Jews while I was waiting for his updates. It's indie pop, so your mileage may vary, but it floats my boat. My memory is fading these days, but I remember Sublime being popular back in the day: I am pretty sure folks thought Beck was the Second Coming in '96, but it doesn't seem that his music has held up. Here are a few more songs I like from this year:

I can see that. I just find it off-putting when characters argue about Raymond Chandler in the middle of a fight scene.

I'm still enjoying Starman. James Robinson enjoys writing about things he likes (to put it nicely), and there are moments where the characters have ridiculous debates about pop culture that seem to be influenced by Tarantino, but aren't as universal as Tarantino. Reservoir Dog characters argued about Madonna songs, but Robinson's characters argue about far more esoteric topics. All writers have bad habits, though. I feel like that's something his editor should have curbed. I pretty much love everything else Robinson does in terms of messing with comic book structure. There's no real emotional pull yet, where I have to keep reading, though I do like Jack's relationship with his dad. The art, and character design, is really 90s at times, but I do love the foreshadowing and the preordained sense that the book is leading somewhere. I've been slowly making my way through the Five Years Later Legion of Superheroes. I usually enjoy dystopian future stories, but I've got to be honest, it is really hard to follow what is going on. It's not like I haven't read the famous runs on Legion. Admittedly, it's been a few years, but still... I feel lost from issue to issue, and Giffen's art doesn't hold up.

I was kind of disappointed by Barry Smith's second run on Conan the Barbarian after they announced he was leaving the book. He struggled to keep up with the deadlines and ended up doing a lot of breakdowns. Gil Kane did the fill-in issues between Smith's two stints. Opinion was divided in the letter column over Kane's work, but personally I thought it was much better than Smith's second run. I recently finished Omega the Unknown. I'm not a huge fan of Steve Gerber, but as far as deconstructionist takes on the superhero genre go, I think his unfinished run on Omega pretty much encapsulates the heart and soul of what he was trying to do.

I gave this a watch. It's entirely predictable in terms of its hierarchy, but at the same time I don't think it lacks a narrative or that the storytelling is implicit. The entire reason that the match its predictable is because of the explicit storytelling. Everybody watching knows exactly where Jumbo, Yatsu, Tenryu, and Kawada fall in relation to one another, and since Japan is so fond of the slow burn, there is absolutely no progression whatsoever. The only development in this bout is Jumbo taking out the ref. I don't know how often he's been doing that type of thing in the other matches you've watched, but it's one step closer to the grumpy Jumbo of 1990-92. The problem with the match, to me, is that they ran the match-up again. I don't expect Kawada to grow half a dozen inches just because he's facing Jumbo & Yatsu. Perhaps the Jumbo & Yatsu team have been portrayed as too dominant? What if this were Jumbo/Kobashi vs. Tenryu/Kawada? As far as I'm aware, there is no end game where Tenryu & Kawada pull off the upset against Jumbo & Yatsu. The build is entirely about Jumbo vs. Tenryu and what happens when it's just them one-on-one. Most of the time, the way they treat Kawada is sending a message to Tenryu. The same way the bad guys might rough up Robin to send a message to Batman. That's if you think of Tenryu as the protagonist. I think there are big spots in the match, but they largely revolve around the finish, since the win is so important to Japanese wrestlers. I have a suspicion that Jumbo vs. Misawa is closer to your liking in terms of traditional pro-wrestling. We're just waiting for Jumbo to lose it completely.

Wow, India.

Weird Western Tales.

I have been eagerly devouring Roy Thomas & Barry Smith's Conan the Barbarian. I love the early Savage Sword of Conan issues, but for the longest time, I had this impression that the original Conan title was watered down and not worth reading. That was stupid of me. Smith starts out as a Kirby clone in the early issues, but he quickly begins to develop his own style, and within half a dozen issues, his artwork is simply phenomenal. It really is some of the most gorgeous stuff I've seen in comics. Although, I'm up to the Elric crossover right now, and I think that's been a misfire. I also read the Chris Claremont & Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series. Having lived in Japan for many years, I thought the representation of Japan was silly (Yakuza, ninjas, etc.), but the art is nice. If you like Miller's early work on Daredevil, you should check out his pencils on the series.

I finished Garth Ennis' run on Hellblazer. It tapered off a bit towards the end, as most runs do, but I was happy that he tied up all the loose threads instead of leaving them for another writer to ignore or misinterpret. The biggest problem I had with the run was the impetus for Constantine turning his life around after he'd hit rock bottom. I thought that could have been handled better. More impressive was the Heartland one shot that deals with Kit's life in Belfast and her relationship with her family. That was a great read. Proof positive that Ennis doesn't need to use shock tactics to write a really good story. Also, Jonah Hex, where have you been all my life? I've always had a fondness for Westerns but never explored the genre in comic book format. The Hex stories have been excellent so far.

As for hip hop, Mobb Deep also released a legendary album in '95, but I guess you can forgive the list for overlooking it. Other bangers:

1995 1995 was another formative year for me. I grew my hair out, bought clothes from secondhand ops and did my utmost to emulate Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain just like every other guy in high school. The book makes 1995 seem like a boring time for music, but I was sure having the time of my life at gigs. I think they picked the wrong Bjork song. I would have chosen Hyper-Ballad. Even today I think this is an exquisitely beautiful piece of music. The biggest omissions were Liquid Swords and Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx, two of the greatest hip hop records of all time. I also thought they should have included a track from Radiohead's The Bends and Death's Symbolic, the latter being perhaps the most accessible mainstream Death Metal I can think of. It doesn't make sense that they included the 80s thrash bands but didn't feature any extreme metal. Here's a bunch of stuff I liked: Some more stuff. (I like the Tony Stark joke in the Faith No More comments section.) One more batch: Props to D'Anglo too. And the absolute banger of the year:

Dear Mama is a good song. I like the Joe Sample sample a lot and the Sadie sample in the chorus. I also love the way Tupac stresses his rhymes. I never really got into the dance scene from this era, but that Bucketheads song is an awesome throwback to the funk & soul era, and that's a type of music that this era desperately lacks. That Joe Henry song was a headscratcher. I was impressed with Carlos Nunez' musicianship, but I thought the book steered away from instrumentals? If instrumentals are fair game, why has there been no jazz or classical music? I've never really listened to Jay-Z. That may sound crazy, but I had stopped listening to modern music by the time he got big. The song was okay, but far from the best hip hop released that year, and they probably should have included one of Biggie's own songs instead.

I still think the first season was the best. Now that the cast has expanded, there's less focus on Johnny. I wonder if they can really stretch it beyond a 4th season. Once the issue with Kreese is resolved, where can they go from there?

'95 wasn't that bad. It had Liquid Swords, Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx, and records by Radiohead, Pulp, Pavement, Guided by Voices, Tindersticks, Fugazi, D'Angelo, Teenage Fanclub, The Magnetic Fields, and Yo La Tengo. I've enjoyed exploring '95 while waiting for Liam's updates.

Johnny vs. Kreese vs. Robby vs. Daniel four way = six stars?

Alanis Morissette was everywhere in 1995. I'm glad they included a song of hers as the authors often eschew the chart-topping hits. I've got to admit that Back for Good is a decent tune. I can imagine banging that one out at karaoke. Robbie looks like a prize dick in the video. I could have done without Bono. If they wanted Pavarotti in the book, they should have included Nessun Dorma. I was into Garbage at the time. I met they once at an autograph signing. I remember making a dick of myself telling Shirley Manson how beautiful she was. Listening to them years later, they kind of have that 90s Butch Vig production, but the tunes are catchy. I probably would have chosen Queer over Stupid Girl. Mad Season never registered with me, even though I was heavily into grunge at the time. I'm having some serious flashbacks to '95 -- Everclear, Bone Thugs and Harmony, Jewel, No Doubt... Why didn't they include Don't Speak! That's a great pop song.

There's one thing that bugs me about Season 3: But... The Good, The Bad, and The Badass was a seriously great episode. Arseface being renamed as Penis Breath reminded me of this:

"How to make legs work again"

I did my own little tribute to MF DOOM by reading some classic Doom stories while listening to his music. Emperor Doom offers up an interesting premise -- what if Doom took over the world and actually made it a better place? Doom solves the world's problems in short order, leaving the heroes with the moral quandary of whether it's right to have a utopia with no free will. Doom, for his part, grows bored with no one to challenge his authority. A decent Avengers yarn, but it wraps up too neatly, especially for the graphic novel format. I could understand it if it was in the monthly books, but I expected more from a prestige format book. Next up were the Wally Wood Doom stories. These were like a whirlwind. I had no idea what was going on half the time. Things just randomly happened. But the wackiness fit with the samples that MF DOOM liked to use from the Fantastic Four cartoon, and the art was great, as you'd expect. Lastly, the Doom arc from Fantastic Four #196-200. MF DOOM actually used a panel from #199 for one of his album covers, which is cool. The main event here is the double-sized anniversary issue with an epic showdown between Doom and Richards. It's a tremendous heavyweight fight. Richards had his powers juiced earlier in the storyline, and Doom snaps during their fight and nearly chokes Richards to death. The ending was brutal. You could easily read this as a standalone issue and skip all of the build up. I thought it was terrific. The art wasn't very dynamic, but the story lived up to its billing and was befitting of the occasion.

Hash brown me too.