In which I reveal my secret shameful past as an utterly obsessed star wars fanatic geek.

if i were david prowse sebastian shaw, i'd be spending lots of time in primal scream therapy. I know already that he was deeply disgruntled when his own vocal work in the star wars trilogy was usurped and discarded in favor of the mellifluous tones of james earl jones. NOW he must contend with the indignity of having been sliced almost entirely from the return of the jedi's long awaited dvd-release! in this digital travesty, we no longer get to see the real, human face of the man who was darth vader, returning to look upon his son with his own eyes and own face. instead, we get the man who BECAME darth vader. the man who, while a contributor of genetic material to luke and leia, has absolutely no reference point for anyone still alive at this point in the film.

see, instead of daddy shaw, the third member of Jedi's glowy trinity is young anakin, hayden christensen. hayden christensen! who thought this was a good idea? to begin, there is no context for this last-minute substitution within the original trilogy; it makes absolutely no sense that luke smiles so benevolently at anakin at the end of the movie now. luke would have no idea who the fuck hayden christensen is! the man has only seen his father's old, bald, machine-infested head in the flesh; he has no idea that this strapping young buck is (or was) his father. if i had been in luke's position at that point, i would have turned straight to obi wan and said 'what the fuck? that is not the man i cremated! that's not my daddy!' it's a very sour note at the end of a film which is already universally accepted as the weakest of the trilogy.

second, (let's face it) episodes 1, 2 and probably 3 have generated sufficient suck power that plenty of new fans are going to come to these dvds after the prequel media hoopla has died down and will have no idea who the skinny white kid with the eyebrows is.

as it is, all i can do is roll my eyes and weep inwardly that lucas fucked that dvd up so badly. i had been looking forward to it for so long--i'm one of those people who knew the names of all the characters, all the characters and major story arcs in the subsequent books, who ditched school to camp out and be the first person in line to buy tickets for the re-release. i had the toys, i had the comics, i still have the return of the jedi lunchbox. my first car keys spent their short life in my posession attached to a new republic keychain. my zine was called the galactic empire. i've written a song about luke skywalker. i was a Fan. i suppose i feel like lucas owed me and the others of my ilk something for making us wait so long (exclude the bonus materials for now, we haven't gotten there yet and i'm just grousing about the movies themselves), and he really didn't deliver.

and so i, like so many others, am left with no choice but to hold my un-remastered, original version videos close to my heart and hope for a better tomorrow.

late, late, late.

and now that i've kept you in suspense for the better part of a week, it's time to resume a little programming around here.

SO! the show went well; swimmingly, in fact. so well in fact that we were offered a slot on my birthday (that's march 17th, for those of you playing along at home). so it's all very exciting. and it's also very important, because if we draw a good crowd, the booking agent might get us into some of his other venues. so i start now in the shameless self promotion stakes: if you live within driving distance or will happen to be in the new york area on st patrick's day, come see us at the c-note. details to follow.

in other news, it's snowy here. not that you're not necessarily aware of this already, but i just thought i'd reiterate. it would be awesome, this snow, if only it were to STAY snow. but alas, its inevitable transformation into the great black sludge of doom and evil has already begun. in a mere matter of moments, the corners (once bolstered by four-foot high, gleaming snowdrifts) will be waterlogged with a vile liquid that we shall all be forced to ford in order to cross the street. it's sufficiently awful that i've been forced to adopt that awful tucked-in trouser look, jamming my cuffs into my big black boots. it's awful, but it's better than walking around in salt-soaked trousers all day.

ah, winter. i suppose, of course, that i should count us lucky at this point; at least the temperatures are back up into the double digits--34 degrees F: balmy!

perception of temperature is such an odd thing. i remember the first new york winter i spent, shivering and trembling in the face of it after ten years in california. it was awful and terrible; then, i went home for the holidays and upon my arrival, stripped off my jacket immediately after exiting the airport, because it was 40-some odd degrees--waaaaaaay too warm for my jacket. way too warm for anything but a sweater, to my mind at the time. meanwhile, my mother waited for me at the bus stop, shivering in her giant anorak while i meandered and took much joy in the comparitive warmth.

i compare this to now--after many days of temperatures in the single digits, i strolled around yesterday without gloves, reveling in the *ahem* warmth of the afternoon.

relativity is a funny thing.

and by the way...

...the band has a gig tonight. we've also had another name change, after several weeks of high levels of confustion between the shivery and Shivaree. so, if you're in the new york area tonight, come on down to the c-note (10th and C) at 8pm and catch The Shivs, now with 25% more rock!

if you're interested but need more info, just send me an email, or check out www.theshivery.com (yes, we know. it'll take us a few days to set up our new site. work with me here.)

immortality, an explanation

so, the whole comic book thing started a couple years ago, when i met phil jiminez (the comic's creator, as well as a primary artist for Wonder Woman and a variety of other titles in the DC universe) at a mutual friend's party. we chatted only briefly, but got along very well.

several months later, i'm hanging out with the divine miss n (formerly of DC herself), and out of the blue she asks me if phil has called me yet about being in the book he's going to be doing for the vertigo imprint. "erm, no," i said. "what?" she then proceeds to explain to me that after meeting me, phil has decided that i amthe perfect model for one of the lead characters in his project, and that i should expect a call at any time.

thrilled, naturally, i waited.

but alas, the course of true comic book immortality never did run smooth, and it took several weeks for phil and i to finally talk after n had broken the news to me; we set up an appointment for him to come to my apartment with a camera and the promise of sushi. and come over he did, plying me with tasty dinner in exchange for making a series of faces for his camera. that he would use to base the character on.

this was early spring 2003.

in the time since then, apparently the character has changed a lot--weirdly, she's now an awful lot like me. she's in a band; she has my name. most strikingly , though, she looks like me. she really, really looks like me. and i know that's the point, but it's still bloody weird.

but also completely awesome. of course.

and now, at last, at long long last! it's here! it's coming!

the neatest part of it, though? i might get my own action figure.

HOW COOL IS THAT?

immortality.

Oh. My. Heavens.

it's almost here. it arrives march 30.

does the redhead on the third page of the preview look familiar?

putting the 'foo' in 'food.'

i write at last from my new desk, in our new office. i write testily because i am starving, and for the third day in a row i've struck out on the lunch front and been forced to subsist on less than half of whatever item i've selected, the portion i've consumed before throwing it away in disgust.

tuesday it was the sandwich from the deli which had never heard of muenster cheese or, apparently, mayonnaise.

wednesday it was the sushi that had already gone off (it still LOOKED fine, though. it's wily like that). the best thing i could say about it is that i didn't think the few bites i had were going to make me sick to my stomach.

and today, it was the sandwich that was not only DROWNING in mayo (clearly, they stole the other deli's mayonnaise ration) to the point of complete. and total. inedibility. NOT ONLY THAT, but they gave me the WRONG SANDWICH. i ask for navajo chicken, they give me...something with bacon, only wrong. bacon, limp lettuce, mealy tomatoes and about three pieces of chicken. after turning out the pathetic contents into the plastic clam-box-thing, i attempted to gnaw on part of the gummy tortilla to garner SOME sort of sustenance, but i couldn't even hack that.

so basically, in the last week i have eaten this for lunch:
1. half a tuna sandwich.
2. two pieces of tuna sashimi and half a piece of rancid salmon sashimi.
3. four bites of mayonnaise with a little bacon, chicken and tortilla thrown in for good measure.

i mean...come on. i did the starvation bit in college, and really: anything that works for paris hilton doesn't work for me.

empty space

i shouldn't complain, i really shouldn't; my nomination to be the one who got to go and let the verizon guy into our new office meant that i had squirmed out of desk-schlepping and computer-dismantling duty (all bad news for a girl who's spent the week with her wrist in a splint). however, it also meant that i spent the better part of the morning waiting by myself in a large, empty room with no internet access, no company, not even a chair. i amused myself thusly:

1. finished my book.
2. stared at the ceiling.
3. stared out the window, attempting to hypnotize the students at the parochial school across the street using nothing but the powers of my mind.
4. worked out (a shadowboxing routing is highly portable).
5. went downstairs three times to make sure that the reception people knew to send the verizon guy right up.
6. called my sister.
7. called dom.
8. called my boss.
9. started re-reading my book because i had no other reading material with me.
10. text messaged biscuit.

finally, the verizon guy showed up and we had to face the expected extremely irritating problems; though we ultimately got them sorted, this resulted in me being told to remain at the office until further notice. what further notice that was, i wasn't sure--there wasn't really anything i could do. but, stay i did, and the verizon guy had no other appointments for a few hours so he stayed and kept me company (and by 'kept me company' i mean 'stayed on point because i didn't know if i was supposed to detain him until my boss called me back.') until i had the official go-ahead to let him leave and tick off another half hour of my sentence. he was a nice guy (going by the name of dominic, no less)--far less taciturn than the guy we had yesterday. plus, he left me a newspaper to read while i waited for my own dispensation!

and let me tell you, when you've spent the morning counting the spots on a granite and beige industrial carpet, even the daily mail is high literature.

45 minutes later, we had our wiring problem fixed and i received the green light to skeedaddle myself. now i am home, with the afternoon stretching before me. it almost makes up for the fact that i have to go back in tomorrow.

almost.

blacklisted

a quick shout out to the biscuit, who just gave me the blacklist and nuked more than 2000 of those pesky comment spams.

bitchin'.

we will shortly return to our regularly scheduled programming.