item #2: i'd like to take this opportunity to announce my engagement to sidra roberts, otherwise known as "the spawn of sheryl". we'll be announcing a date sometime in the very near future. i do freely admit that this is a one-sided love affair with sidra's ability to grade comics, but she'll learn to love me. sorry, fellas, she's all mine! muhahahahahaha...
item #3: i was originally supposed to review the new nine inch nails record in this space. well, dammit, i'm just not done ripping it a new one yet. see, when that reznor guy actually leaves quake servers long enough to record something, it's usually something that takes a while to digest. some of my peers have gotten severe indigestion from "the fragile", but i'm a bit more forgiving than that.
my early impressions of the record? ah, what the heck. note, i do reserve the right to change my mind here.
first off, like most records released by tortured artists these days, it's too goddamned long. is there some unwritten rule that you have to release 3 goddamn hours of music at a time now, if girls who wear black clothing have posters of you on their wall? 2 cds was just overkill in this case, and the record, upon early observation, drags as a result. as loathe as i am to even sit through this much, a single cd, that maxed out at 75-80 mins. would've been a much leaner, meaner machine. even that's too long though. anyone else get nostalgic for the days when an album would fit perfectly on one side of a 90 minute tape, and you'd feel FULFILLED after it was over?
secondly, to trent's legion of fans: you people REALLY need to buy him a thesaurus or two. ok, sure, if he can get his point across by using the same 100 words on every record (and the word "away" in almost every song...), i suppose he's entitled, but it also doesn't reflect a lot of growth on his part, artistically speaking. the address to send trent a thesaurus, by the way, is:
other than those complaints, and a little minor bitching about the vocals being flat, "the fragile" is kind of an interesting record. well-recorded instrumentation. good "headphone" record. i'd be surprised if the record buying lemmings "got" it, though. ** 1/2 to ***, if you were wondering.
item #4: ok, hands up, and don't be embarrassed here, after all, you're already reading this, you've got nowhere to go but up: how many of you "marked out so hard you almost shit yourselves" (kudos to for that one) when capt. america got his shield back in #22? *meekly raising hand* ok, waid, you win this battle, but the war goes on!
item #5: i went to toronto at the end of last month. way too late to get a report in before deadline. basically, the trip went like this: i ate 5 pounds of mushrooms, and saw lou ferrigno. well, not in that order. to be more specific, i went to that big-ass comic con in toronto, the last weekend of august. bought my first pre-70's all-star comics (#35, 56 more issues to go!), finished my run of adventure comics spectre issues, as well as my 80's deluxe comics thunder agents run. got a bunch of other stuff there too. got my copy of capt. canuck #1 autographed by the lord high satan of capt. canuck comics himself, richard comely. he's got out, too. and yes, lou ferrigno was there. THE lou ferrigno. lou goddamn ferrigno. lou fuc...er...anyway. at one point during the day on saturday, i heard this growl coming from across the convention floor. everyone on the floor seemed to freeze, and drop everything. when it was done, there was polite applause from that area of the floor, and we were all like "oh. it was lou. bitchin'."
other things i did during my visit: i took a lot of drugs. i went disco dancing. i ate food. i saw i went to and on queen street in toronto. i even stopped at niagara falls, and locked my keys in my car, on the canadian side, no less. pretty cool, eh?
item #6: monster magnet played at the brighton bar in long branch, nj last night (9/29/99). they kicked ass. dave wyndorf is good people. he used to sell me comics. go see them if they play near you. they're like blue cheer with more balls.
ok, i'm bored of writing, and i've fulfilled my obligations as a CT writer, as so to avoid the guilt trip from our editor. =) i'll leave you know with a list of a few books i've been reading lately (jesus, a lot of comic book content for me, eh?)
* a zulu toast, meaning "cheers".
Scott Crawford can STILL be reached at sdcrawford@earthlink.net, or, if you're feeling especially daring and your mommy and daddy say it's ok, go to and visit his home on the web.
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