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John Byrne’s Studio

Okay, so I have a John Byrne obsession, so what? He’s still got some pretty cool shit in his studio …

John Lindley Byrne (/bɜːrn/; born July 6, 1950) is a British-born, Canadian raised, American writer and artist of superhero comics. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on many major superheroes, with noted work on Marvel Comics’ X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise, the first issue of which featured comics’ first variant cover. Coming into the comics profession as penciller, inker, letterer and writer on his earliest work, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also served as penciler and inker). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He scripted the first issues of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing. In 2015, Byrne and his X-Men collaborator Chris Claremont were entered into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.

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These Guy Are Insane

Jump in around the eight minute mark to watch these guys eat the Carolina Reaper, AKA the hottest pepper known to man.

In the first season of Hot Ones, host Sean Evans proved that there’s no wing he can’t handle. But the world of spicy foods doesn’t end at Mad Dog 357 hot sauce. To train for Season 2 and ensure his invisibility on the Hot Ones stage, Sean met up with a true legend of the chili world—Denmark’s ghost-pepper-popping Chili Klaus—to take on the hottest chili pepper known to man, the Carolina Reaper. Special thanks to “Smokin’ Ed” Currie of PuckerButt Pepper Company in South Carolina for providing the heat.

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The Morbid Story Behind The Red Ceiling

Fascinating and sad.

According to the Oxford American …

The house in the photograph belonged to a man named Tom “T. C.” Boring, a dentist born and raised in Greenwood, whom Eggleston has described as the best friend he ever had in the world. He was the scion of a well-respected Delta family, a sharp and promising Southern archetype who glided his way through the University of Mississippi, Loyola University, and the Navy before coming home to Greenwood and gradually, ungracefully losing his mind.

Full article here. As always, enjoy or don’t.

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Look Around You

*checks notes*

Yep, talented people still suck.

Look Around You is a British television comedy series devised and written by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz, and narrated in the first series by Nigel Lambert. The first series of eight 10-minute shorts was shown in 2002, and the second series of six 30-minute episodes in 2005, both on BBC Two. The first series of Look Around You was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2003.

The humour is derived from a combination of patent nonsense and faithful references and homages. For instance, fictional items that have a passing resemblance to everyday objects are shown and discussed. Such items include the “boîte diabolique”, a box at the top of a piano scale which housed the “forbidden notes”; and “Garry gum”, a performance-enhancing chewing gum which has the unfortunate side-effect of inducing diarrhoea, necessitating the consumption of “anti-Garry gum”. Each episode begins with a “countdown clock”, similar to the one used on ITV Schools programmes from 1979 to 1987. The music that accompanies the countdown is in the same spirit as the original, but is played on a solo guitar, and at the beginning of the “Brain” module, the guitarist can be heard tuning.

The module subjects are distorted beyond recognition; for instance, germs are described as coming from Germany, and whisky is said to be made by combining water with nitrogen. The maths module features a distorted and inaccurate version of the ancient ‘seven cats’ puzzle by Ahmes. Additionally, subjects are mixed: for example, a chemistry experiment about eggs (In the episode Water) turns into a French language lesson. Each episode follows a general format, beginning with an introduction to the subject, followed by a series of silly experiments performed by the hapless (and normally mute) scientists, played by Popper, Serafinowicz and Edgar Wright, among others.

This is “Music,” episode 6 from the first season.

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Bid On That Axe, Eugene

David Gilmour is probably my all time favorite guitar player, and he’s selling a bunch of his guitars for charity. 120 of them. He’s even selling the “Black Strat” that he played on Dark Side of the Moon, Wish you Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. So that’s the guitar that was used for Time, Comfortably Numb, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, and Run Like Hell. Day-um… I’d just like to see that guitar, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to own it. Check out the auction here…  

So if you’ve got $100,000 burning a hole in your pocket, go pick one up.

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Fuck Me, Don’t Tell A Soul Is 30

Released February 1, 1989. This makes me feel older than turning 50. To put it in perspective, this post is the equivalent of the 20-year-old me in 1989 talking about an album that came out in 1959.

Wiki-wiki-wikipedia says …

Don’t Tell a Soul marked the debut of Bob “Slim” Dunlap, who replaced founding guitarist Bob Stinson. The album was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles and produced by Matt Wallace and the band. It was mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, who decided to give the record “a three-dimensional, radio-ready sound”. However, singer and guitarist Paul Westerberg was not satisfied with the new direction, commenting: “I thought the little things I’d cut in my basement were closer to what I wanted.”

To celebrate, let’s all take a moment and watch one of my favorite rock ‘n’ roll moments.

As explained by a lesser blog …

Before the show, they were told they needed to change the line, “We’re feeling good from the pills we took.” Well, fittingly, Westerberg did no such thing, and the censors were obviously ready for it, as the tape goes silent during that section of the song. What the censors at ABC didn’t anticipate was this: Near the conclusion of “Talent Show” the lyrics address the time when the band hits the stage and there’s no retreating: “It’s too late to turn back, here we go” is repeated twice on the album version, but here Westerberg has changed the line to “It’s too late to take pills, here we go”—ha! The censors missed it and they’ve pissed everyone off again! To add insult, the line is sung three times.

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Let It Be

This should be inneresting:

Peter Jackson has signed on to direct a second archive project: a film edited from the full 55 hours of footage of the Beatles’ Let It Be recording sessions.

Jackson will somehow produce a 65 hr documentary. Apparently the original version is getting a scrub and re-release to coincide.

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Best Beer To Prevent Gum Disease

Short answer, IPAs. Or anything hoppy, I guess.

Because of the length of time needed to travel, beer had the propensity to spoil to a variety of bacteria. Yet, those that had a higher proportion of hops in the recipe appeared to survive without any significant product loss. This led to the requirement of hops not to offer a fulfilling flavor, but to stay fresh. Eventually, hops became a critical component in any beer recipe; a tradition that continues until today.

Although the beer bacterial burden was solved, microbiologists, curious individuals that they are, wanted to know why that was the case. The answer wasn’t known until 1937 when the antiseptic properties of hops were finally seen. When exposed to a hop extract, bacteria simply couldn’t survive. The finding not only gave more reason to drink hoppy beer, but also opened the door to a natural means of infection prevention.

For centuries, dentists have been trying to find natural means to prevent gum disease, which is an inflammatory process sparked by bacteria. When the antimicrobial activity of hops were found, dentists decided that it was at least worth a try. What they have found reveals that not only are they good for the mouth, they can potentially help to prevent problems in the future.

Through a series of experimental papers published over the last five years, we can understand exactly how hops help. In 2008, a team from Osaka University unveiled a group of chemicals known as polyphenols, which are known to help prevent oral cancer. Based on their experiments, these compounds stopped inflammation and kept gums pink instead of red. In the same year, a team from Nippon Dental University revealed the molecules also halted the development of dental plaque. By 2013, xanthohumol also proved to keep teeth happy and healthy by ensuring that bacteria could not stick to the teeth and gums.

Full article here.

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That Missing Persons EP

Guilty Pleasure Time!

There’s a special place in my heart for the first self-released Missing Persons EP. Although technically, it’s the 1982 re-release I love, the one that replaced the original EP’s “Hello, I Love You” with “I Like Boys.” At this stage in my life, I don’t know if it’s an entirely accurate memory, but it seems like we spent a lot of time blasting this in a friend’s car one summer.

Anyway, as we’re living in the Digital Age, I now present to you the videos for the songs from that glorious EP.