Addiopizzo

VERSE 1

You sold us a world where we could be ourselves

You occupied several rows on the library shelves

But then April Fools became your golden rule

The marginalized became part of your death pool

You didn’t sell books, but you collected pizzo

Protection? You’re the only one who eats though

Built a castle out of corpses, sat on a throne of bones

But what do we know? We’re always on our phones

CHORUS

We’ll never pay your prices

You can feed your own vices

Addiopizzo!

Addiopizzo!

VERSE 2

You sold us combat between two superstars

Roads to your arenas jam packed with cars

Then the comedy writers turned the show to shit

But your bank account is still a number one hit

Making more money now than any other point

Smoke cigars made of pizzo, stink up the joint

Built an empire out of muscles and steroids

But what do we know? We’re not one of the boys

CHORUS

We’ll never pay your prices

You can feed your own vices

Addiopizzo!

Addiopizzo!

BRIDGE

You’re wearing a suit made out of pizzo

Crisp dollar bills from the tip jar, keep those

You’re wearing shoes made from human flesh

The worst of it all? The wounds are still fresh

CHORUS

We’ll never pay your prices

You can feed your own vices

Addiopizzo!

Addiopizzo!

VERSE 3

You sold us a product from an MLM boss babe

Got an army of recruits with empty promises made

But then they knock on your door asking for a check

There are more instructions in their DM texts

Keep buying the stash and supplying the pizzo

Ugly leggings, ripped boots, hole-covered speedos

It’s a cycle that continues for the rest of time

Nobody cares that collecting pizzo is a crime

Addiopizzo!

Addiopizzo!

"Happy!" by Grant Morrison

BOOK TITLE: Happy!

AUTHOR: Grant Morrison

YEAR: 2017

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: Crime Fiction

GRADE: Pass

Disgraced detective turned contract killer Nick Sax completes an assassination of mob boss Mr. Blue’s sons. During the final moments of the confrontation, one of the sons tells Nick the password to a bank account full of laundered mafia money. Just as Mr. Blue’s henchmen are about to extract the password from him via torture, an imaginary blue unicorn haunts Nick’s psyche and agrees to help him out dangerous situations on the condition that he rescues small children from a porn studio. Will Nick Sax become the hero he was meant to be or will he selfishly reject Happy the horse every step of the way?

This graphic novel is incontrovertible proof that not all protagonists have to be saints in order for the audience to cheer for them. Nick Sax is a vulgar, selfish, negative alcoholic who would rather waste his life away than use it for good causes. Seeing as how this is a redemption story, Happy the Horse has a long way to go in order to convince Nick to see the light. The two of them get into schizophrenic arguments that make outsiders feel uncomfortable and downright frightened to death. When the big payoff finally happens, it feels right. Some would criticize Nick’s newfound reasons as being selfish yet again, but that just goes to show how stonehearted a broken man like him can be. To me, that’s gritty and realistic, which is what all detective novels should be like, imaginary horse aside.

Speaking of Happy, I enjoyed his characterization as well. He’s a goofy, lovable, lighthearted ray of sunshine in a world covered in darkness and beer. Sometimes the reader needs a break from all of the R-rated horror and Happy will provide that relief through his personality alone. In truth, Happy is the last line of defense for childhood innocence since he was one of the kidnapped children’s imaginary friend at one point. Once he’s gone, the whole world turns to poison. Imagination is the most powerful tool we have and it took a lot of it to incorporate Happy’s character in a believable way. Good job in that department, Mr. Morrison!

I don’t have many complaints, but I do have one about Nick Sax’s back story as to why he acts as coldly as he does. While it is a tragic story about his family that would make any reader tear up, it seems forced and cliché, like it somehow excuses Nick’s behavior by virtue of its mere existence in the storyline. I’ve seen this trope used many times before and it only numbs me to the real tragedy of the much larger story. But as I said, this is a minor complaint since it didn’t actually derail the story in any way. It’s just a flaw that needed to be pointed out, that’s all.

All in all, this was a fun little graphic novel and I can easily see why Syfy would want to make a TV show out of it. Sometimes it’s fun to root for the antihero, especially when a magical flying horse evens him out. That’s the trick with the antihero: he can’t be worse than the villains he’s fighting. Otherwise, there’s nothing to believe in. Nick Sax’s redemption story is believable to me and that’s why I’m giving this graphic novel a passing grade despite his clichéd character history.

"Kick-Ass 3" by Mark Millar

BOOK TITLE: Kick-Ass 3

AUTHOR: Mark Millar

YEAR: 2014

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: Superhero

GRADE: Pass

Following the events of Kick-Ass 2, Hit-Girl is locked in solitary confinement while Kick-Ass and his friends try to rebuild what’s left of their superhero team. New girlfriends, real world priorities, lack of preparation, freeloading teammates, and dissension among the team all play a factor in slowing down progress for Kick-Ass and his ambitions of keeping New York City safe. A team of superheroes is needed now more than ever since mafia boss Rocco Genovese is back in business and plans on uniting every east coast gang to form one big mega corporation that also includes corrupt cops. Can Kick-Ass and his crew get their ducks in a row? Can Hit-Girl escape from prison and reunite with her friends? These questions won’t get answered without a few splatters of blood and some broken bones along the way.

It’s been a long time in between reading Kick-Ass 2 and Kick-Ass 3. I had completely forgotten by then how delightfully brutal Hit-Girl can be. Even in solitary confinement, she manages to murder everyone who crosses her, smuggle a bottle of Jack Daniels in her cell, and play with Hello Kitty cards all in the same day. When she unleashes her litany of tough guy swear words, she can back up every single one of them and go completely overboard in the process. Granted, I’m not a big fan of her anti-liberal remarks, but that’s only a tiny part of Hit-Girl’s overall character. She’s a badass in every sense of the word. If she can’t slice heads off or smash genitals into powder, she’ll outsmart her foes with explosives and guns. Lots and lots of guns. You mess with her, not only are you dead as a doornail, but you’re going to feel it in the afterlife as well.

The other thing I liked about this graphic novel is Kick-Ass’s struggles with balancing his superhero life with his personal one. There are times in the story where he seriously considers settling down with his new girlfriend and forsaking his superhero persona altogether. He blames himself and his obsession with Batman for his friends and loved ones being killed left and right. While capitulation isn’t a desirable trait in a superhero, it’s certainly an understandable one. It’s all a part of the normal life versus exciting life debate that goes on not only with fictional superheroes, but aspects of the real world as well whether it’s the music industry, Hollywood, wrestling, or professional sports. For a graphic novel that loves hardcore violence, it certainly makes you think a little bit every now and then.

Speaking of hardcore violence, it’s peppered everywhere in this comic book and I love it to pieces. Splatters of blood, crunching bones, sloshing organs, you name it, it happens. There’s even one painful scene where Hit-Girl punches a corrupt cup on the groin so hard that his whole pelvis explodes. It’s later learned that the poor guy lost sixty pounds since then. I don’t know how, but it sounds brutal nonetheless. There’s another scene where Hit-Girl slashes a gangster’s head in half horizontally, which reminds me of something that would happen in Kill Bill. In fact, if you took Kill Bill, Hostel, the Saw movies, and Blood Drive, put them all in a milkshake blender and watched the red juices overflow, that’s pretty much what Kick-Ass 3 is like. It’s gruesome as hell, but in a fun and delightfully sadistic way. Would this be considered a guilty pleasure?

Kick-Ass 3 lives up to the awesome reputation the first two installments did and wraps up the series in a nice little bundle. The ending is satisfying, no stone is left unturned, and everybody goes home happy. Well, I don’t know how happy anybody can truly be after everything Kick-Ass went through for three graphic novels, but there’s at least a modicum of solace in his new life. A passing grade goes to this excellent piece of badass violence! Great work, Mr. Millar!

Dead Man Down

TITLE: Dead Man Down

GENRE: Crime Thriller

RATING: R for violence, language, and bullying scenes

GRADE: Mixed

Victor is a man with anger in his heart and revenge on his mind after his wife and child were murdered by mafia boss Alphonse Hoyt. To satisfy his vindictive needs, Victor infiltrates Mr. Hoyt’s crime syndicate in an attempt to find the right opportunity to kill the brutal boss. While Victor bides his time, he befriends a disfigured, yet beautiful neighbor named Beatrice, who at first wants to date him, but then blackmails him into exacting her revenge against the drunk driver who disfigured her in the first place. The entire movie is a struggle to find the balance between justice and vengeance as well as coldness and love.

The slow, dramatic pace, Victor’s convincing cover, and his relationship with the forlorn Beatrice make this movie a believable crime thriller. Everything was executed correctly from the shootings to the explosions. Plus, they were executed at the right time. The whole film is about a man who bides his time for the right moment to strike. Not only does he strike first, he strikes hard. Victor knows exactly what he’s up against and times his attacks perfectly so Alphonse Hoyt doesn’t suspect a thing.

Having said all of these things, you’re probably wondering why this movie receives a mixed grade rather than a passing one. The crime thriller conformity was perfectly done, but there’s one aspect of the movie that makes me cringe every time I think about it. Beatrice was disfigured in a drunk driving accident and as a result, the neighborhood kids bully her relentlessly. The bullies’ main gimmick is calling her a “monster” every time they see her and build “jokes” off of that. They even went so far as to carve the insult on her apartment door. These kids need to have the shit beaten out of them, but it never happens. They get away with everything they do and are never heard from again. As someone who experienced bullying in high school, this lackadaisical approach is sickening to me.

The other issue I have with this movie is the lack of screen time for Bad News Barrett, a WWE superstar whose role in the movie was so hyped up it’s the only reason I agreed to see it. Anybody who watches wrestling knows how convincing of a villain Mr. Barrett is. He enslaved John Cena, he led a team of rookies into destroying a WWE arena, he insults the crowd on a regular basis, and he just might win the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award for 2014 because he insulted a kid from the Make a Wish Foundation. With all of these evil credentials under Bad News Barrett’s belt, why would they make so little use of him? Why even bother calling Dead Man Down a WWE films production? Sounds like false advertising to me.

If you make the decision to watch this movie, do it because you love crime thrillers. If you’re doing it because you want to see revenge against bratty bullies or because you want to see Bad News Barrett kick some ass, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Despite the flaws this movie has, I can’t really hate it at all. I enjoyed the movie, but not enough to give it a passing grade.

Savages

MOVIE TITLE: Savages

GENRE: Crime Thriller

RATING: R for graphic violence, gore, language, and sexual content (including rape)

GRADE: Pass

In the beautiful sunset strip of California, life is equally beautiful for Ophelia and her two lovers, a marine named Chon and a pacifist named Ben. The three of them grow marijuana out of their own greenhouse, peddle it, and smoke it while having the most mind-blowing sex imaginable. If life was really this heavenly 24/7, then Savages would have been a soft snooze fest.

It so happens a Mexican cartel run by the ruthless Elena Sanchez wants a cut of Chon, Ben, and Ophelia’s profits. When the cartel doesn’t get what they want, they kidnap Ophelia and bend the wills of Chon and Ben by threatening to kill and torture her. The two marijuana dealers have to pull every favor they’ve banked to both do business with and fight back against the cartel.

If you know anything about how brutal Mexican cartels can be, then you can appreciate the difficulty level of what Chon and Ben are trying to achieve. These gangsters will slash, rape, shoot, and immolate their way to a higher profit and they don’t care whose blood they spread across the desert sands. The title Savages could be a reference to the violence and hatred Elena Sanchez’s cartel brings to every battle.

Or the title Savages could refer to what Chon and Ben must become in order to do combat with these mafia thugs and live to tell about it. If the latter is the case, then they can’t just be an ex-marine and a lover-boy respectively; they have to be homicidal lunatics with their business and combat tactics. All of this gore and all of these guts over a beautiful woman who doesn’t deserve the draconian living conditions she’s placed under.

There are many reasons why somebody would like this movie. If you have a fetish for gore, that’s one reason. If you like to be frightened, the cartel gangsters can hook you up (maybe that’s not the best figure of speech). If you like a good story where the lead characters have to go through hell in order to earn their happy ending, then goddamn it, Savages has all of that for you. If you want to see some hardcore sex scenes, then Savages could be an iffy deal for you since the consensual scenes are brief and the rape scenes are disgusting. If you take a huge interest in gang culture, then this movie will give you paranoid thoughts about moving to either California or Mexico.

There’s something in this movie for everybody provided they’re at least 18 years old and are not genetically predisposed to psychological trauma. The chain whippings, blood splatters, fiery explosions, eyeball pops, limb slashes, body burnings, forced sex, and even Elena Sanchez’s slap across Ophelia’s face can all attest to how important movie ratings are.

Vooga

Let’s try a little English language exercise today before we get started. Take any kind of dangerous word and put it in front of “Mafia”. We get things like Fireball Mafia, Cutthroat Mafia, Rhino Skull Mafia, and the subject of today’s character analysis: The Copperhead Mafia. There, wasn’t that fun? It’s probably a lot more fun than getting your ass kicked by the Copperhead Mafia, especially when that beat down involves the leader of the group: Vooga.

Vooga is a stereotypical Cult of Personality villain in the sense he has his minions do all of his dirty work and he wants to control everything around him. He has so many minions they could technically all overthrow him and he wouldn’t matter. That would be ideal if it wasn’t for one small detail. The movie script Vooga was a part of was a dark fantasy western called Texas Technique and in this canon necromancy is popular among villains. Since Vooga is a necromancer himself with a snake motif, he could throw a poisonous bone spear through the ribs of anybody who opposed him. Or if his opponent was an undead creature, Vooga could manipulate that being into torturous positions until boredom hit like a punch to the face. Given his reputation for sadism, it could take entire lifetimes before he got bored of torturing his undead victims, or even his live ones.

Pissing off this ophidian necromancer can lead to apocalyptic results, especially when the sin in question is stealing a magical red sphere of blood that can transform into any weapon the user wants. Ronan Duran, an undead cowboy who stole the weapon in the first place, is at the top of Vooga’s shit list. Remember what I said about necromancers being able to torture and twist undead creatures whenever they want? Well, since Ronan happens to be one of them and also happens to be the main hero of Texas Technique, he’s definitely going to go through hell if he wants to earn his ending. Ronan could be set on fire, electrocuted, poisoned, or Vooga could crumple him up like a piece of paper and throw him like a fetch toy for one of his giant wolf minions.

Vooga can have endless hours of fun at the expense of whoever he wants. There’s just one thing standing in his way: he actually has to go out and find these people, because his minions keep getting their asses kicked. It’s almost as if Vooga is the M. Bison of the dark fantasy wild west. He’s all powerful and all knowing, but he’s too lazy to do his own heavy lifting. When you get lazy, you get complacent. The longer you stay complacent, the easier it is for your opponent to kill you. Because Vooga is the head villain of Texas Technique and the good guys always win, he is eventually overcome with holy magic and shrivels up into a pile of dust and snake skin.

Every dark fantasy story can put a Cult of Personality to good use, especially if that Cult of Personality wants to conquer everything around him. But I think that if I use Vooga again, he’ll do all his own heavy lifting from now on. After all, if you want something done right, do it yourself. Yes, it’s nice to have a maid to rub your aching scales and a butler to cook your undead flesh like a rare steak. However, with lazy villains, they can just as easily go back to having nothing in the blink of an eye. If UFC fighter and fan villain Michael Bisping got somebody else to get in the cage for him, he wouldn’t have the journeyman record and legendary status he has today. Vooga can learn something from the hard work and evil ways of Mr. Bisping.

　

***DOMESTIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Nobody wants to see the Flintstones get brutally murdered.”

-Susan Wilson-

You Might Be a Sociopath

If you’ve ever drawn a picture of Spongebob Squarepants giving a blowjob, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever complained about WWE programming not having enough man on woman violence, you might be a sociopath.

If you can see the irony in finding a coat hanger in a catholic church, you might be a sociopath.

If you constantly refer to Nickelodeon as “The Foot Fetish Channel”, you might be a sociopath.

If you actually know there’s a website called Wiki Feet, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever been kicked out of the mafia for being too violent, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever ripped the wings off of a fly and then poured hot bacon grease over it, you might be a sociopath.

If the spinning table scene from Tales From the Hood gives you an erection, you might be a sociopath.

If a Soulfly song has ever changed your life, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever cracked your knuckles during a moment of silence for 9/11 victims, you might be a sociopath.

If you go to a grocery store and buy duct tape and adult diapers at the same time, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever refused medical treatment because you like to watch yourself bleed, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever spanked a baby for being too loud, you might be a sociopath.

If the only reason you buy stuffed animals is to make them have sex with each other, you might be a sociopath.

If you have a crush on Casey Anthony, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever photo-shopped a ball gag in Nelson Mandela’s mouth, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever been hungry for human jerky, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever smacked a child and claimed it was self-defense, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever told a pregnant woman to staple her vagina shut, you might be a sociopath.

If your best strategy in a political debate is to burn an American flag, you might be a sociopath.

If you’ve ever wanted to scalp somebody for not liking your art, you might be a sociopath.

Jeff Foxworthy never though of this shit, did he! Jeff Foxworthy, eat your heart out! Actually, don’t do that. Otherwise, you might be a sociopath.

"Kick-Ass 1 & 2" by Mark Millar

Have you ever felt like putting on a superhero costume and going around fighting villains in brutal street wars? Buy copies of “Kick-Ass” and “Kick-Ass 2” before you make any sudden decisions. What can you expect from the two-part series? Brutality. Lots and lots of brutality. These kids (Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl) are barely old enough to know how to drive a car and already they’re engaging in hellacious fights with villains who aren’t afraid to die. Broken bones, electrocuted genitals, torn flesh, massive bleeding, gigantic bruises, and a litany of other monstrously violent battle scars cover the bodies of every pubescent superhero who tries to make a name for himself. But it’s all in a day’s work for Kick-Ass and crew. You’d think that he would get used to all of these beatings by now, but as the story progresses from part one to part two, the brutality multiplies to greater volumes. The worst of the beatings happen to people that Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl care about such as parents, friends, love interests, etc. It was almost enough to make them want to quit being superheroes until the villains pushed a little too hard a little too much. With this cluster-fuck of violent behavior going on in these beautifully drawn graphic novels, you’re bound to have some critic out there complaining that they “normalize” all of the adult content that takes place. I remember reading a review that complained about Hit-Girl swearing at such a young age in the Kick-Ass movie. I see these reviews and wonder if these critics even know the difference between fantasy and reality. In the fantasy world, violence, swearing, sex, and drug use are beautiful things. They have to be in order to keep the reader’s attention. In the real world, martial arts violence is brutal and upsetting. This kind of debate was going on with “A Clockwork Orange” and the same arguments could be made in that conversation. Reading comic books like “Kick-Ass” and “Kick-Ass 2” is a form of escapism. We escape from one world of dullness and enter a world of fantasy and wonder. That’s how fiction works. If people tried being superheroes in real life, the pain that Kick-Ass felt after having his balls electrocuted would pail in comparison to what the would-be heroes would feel. In some ways, “Kick-Ass” is a fair representation of what vigilantes can expect if they become too independent of the police and military. It’s an ugly world out there, I agree. But it’s not worth having fried balls over. Leave that to Kick-Ass and his crew of head-stomping superheroes!

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What’s it called when the earth shits itself?
A: Gaia-Ria.