During the month of September, I’ll be DJing the pre and post shows for grandstand concerts at the Los Angeles County Fair. I will likely not interact with the talent. I will not get you a free ticket. I will be working and not very chatty. I will rock the party that, likely, will rock your body, should you attend.

All shows take place at the Pomona Fairplex (I got lost on my way to Pomona once with my mom, ask me some time, funny story). I start rocking around 7:30 or 8 and will be done around midnight, at which time the fair closes and they will hurl you from the premises. Just kidding. Probably.

In order, here’s the list of shows I’m doing …

• George Benson and Chaka Khan, Thursday, September
  13, 2012
• Tower of Power feat. Average White Band, Friday,
  September 14, 2012
• Boyz 2 Men, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and En Vogue,
  Thursday, September 20, 2012
• War, Friday, September 21, 2012
• Old School Soul Jam (featuring Rose Royce, Heatwave, Lenny Williams & Evelyn “Champagne” King), Saturday, September 22, 2012
• Earth, Wind and Fire, Sunday, September 30, 2012

I already did one “warm up” show (because I was rusty and didn’t feel confident, but it went pretty well) where I did a mostly 80s set for the B-52s. Super fun getting a chance to play “The Batter Ram” and two songs by LA’s Dream Team!

I’m doing these shows in conjunction with YNotLive Entertainment, the company formerly known as Starlight Entertainment. I probably won’t be drunk. Right, then.

If you’re making the drive, be patient with the roads as they’re super crowded and stuff ain’t going anywhere. Leave early, be prepared for them to search your bags and have fun. I know I will!

Playing (Music): “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran

No preamble! Let’s make with the “biff” and the “pow!”

It’s easy for things to fly by
moving 45 miles per hour east on Pico
It’s 8:13 AM on a Tuesday morning
thirty minutes away from being due in twenty

Still, stop light forces me to glance around
noting a dreadlocked head
staring purposefully at MacBook Pro screen
one hand holding, one typing furiously
in shade of botanica,
Superman logo across gray sweatshirt covering thin chest.

What is he doing?
My phone’s signal sniffer
sees no wi-fi nearby.
Going at keyboard like it owes him money,
he could be in deepest cave or submarine
world around him no distraction

Maybe he’s penning the next great American novel.
Maybe a love lorn letter has him typing his digital heart out
or he’s railing against some great injustice
like inconsistent UI on iPad apps
or bombs over Tripoli.

I’ll never know.
Light turns green
Tuesday keeps on pushing me forward
but I’m not working on my novel,
not writing to my love,
nor speaking truth to power.
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
contestants in a suicidal race,
I’m off to work.
Have to find my own intensity there.

“Tuesday Morning Commute”
By Hannibal Tabu

The events that inspired this actually happened way before Libya set it off like Vivica Fox, but still.

Playing (Music): “Who’s Your Daddy?” by Mook-n-Fair feat. DJ Webstar

Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I’ve done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s gibberish, but it’s always about comics … let’s see what we get this week!

The hustle and bustle of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con is likely the root cause of why, days after writing it, my reviews have yet to be posted online. On one hand, this is a huge annoyance to me, because I have a fairly regimented life and when one thing falls off the wagon, it can make other elements go awry. No Buy Pile, no Commentary Track, cats lying down with moose, the world gone mad.

However, I need to move on. I won’t go any farther to spoil what I bought (and therefore didn’t) than I did in both of my mobile blogs, so I can’t go into much detail without spoiling the column for whenever it does see print …

Oh, yeah, I’ll still need to be paid for it, regardless. I was on time.

What can we talk about instead? What else is happening in comics? Oh, right … ‘Con itself (since I am #notatcomicon)! First big announcement that strikes home is the big announcement from Stranger Comics about their debut property The Untamed heading for the silver screen courtesy of Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin and Shopgirl producer Andrew Sugerman, with Eureka creator and Boom! Studios co-founder Andrew Cosby and already has visual effects covered from Ken Locsmandi, who did Fight Club and The Matrix. Quite a line up of talent for a story from tyro writer Sebastian A. Jones, even if he did have art from Harry Potter vet Peter Bergting.

In all fairness, I will note that I’ve been friends with Sebastian for more than ten years, and have pitched in on some light marketing duties for Stranger Comics, based in the same west LA special effects house where Stealth, The Dark Knight and many other cinematic wonders got their visual “wow.” I remember when his son was too young to walk, I’ve seen his make his way from the music biz through club promotion and acting to his true passion. The Untamed is the vanguard movement for twenty years of story development, and since I’ve read the original screenplay, there’s lots of scenes I’m psyched to see played out on a big screen.

I won’t pretend like the announcement of CrossGen coming back through Marvel is a huge surprise, since Disney bought their whole universe for pennies on the parsec, but I didn’t expect them to return to print, which is what I’m sensing from the little I read. CrossGen had a much stronger magical underpinning, and (The First notwithstanding) I felt they did mysticism a little better. How this’ll work — other worlds scattered through Marvel’s cosmic realm (easier) or somehow jammed into Earth, via present or past (less optimal) or just a separate shtick a la Ultimates and Zombies (likely easiest) — is anybody’s guess. The one thing I do hope for is that if Marc Alessi was honest in one overarching story through all the properties that we’ll see some resolution to it.

Re: the stabbing in Hall H? Given the annual preponderance of bladed weapons and people easily given to making bad decisions (almost linked to any ridiculous con photo I’ve ever seen, decided it was too easy), I’m honestly surprised there’s not more of this. Hall H is too amok, it’s time to broadcast the panels out from an undisclosed location already. My biggest beef? Did the suspect have to be a Black guy? Come on, people, don’t we have enough problems getting in and being okay? Sheesh.

While the visual excited me, the storyteller in is has some worries about tossing the Infinity Gauntlet into Kenneth Branagh’s Thor — feels like it’s either too ambitious for this tale (took dozens of entities to beat Thanos) or too belittling for such an item (i.e. if it’s just another trophy in Odin’s shiny Valhalla like The Destroyer), but it’s too early to render a real judgement.

Sadly, seeing this tweet from Dwayne McDuffie is the most interesting thing out of DC. I never liked the uniform on Ryan Reynolds and the corpse of Abin Sur didn’t do much for me. Creepy.

That said, Whedon on Avengers is vaguely interesting, the cast, not so much. I also have some interest in the trailer for Red (even as far from the Warren Ellis as it is). I didn’t really see much I got super excited about, honestly, and I did more business in Los Angeles than I did in the last two times I was at SDCC, so being #notatcomicon meant driving my six-year-old and her best friend to Disneyland … and leaving them there with the best friend’s dad and our babysitter. It also meant watching my six-month-old learn to bounce, tons of laughs with my wife and I got to see Inception, which — in terms of craft and skill at storytelling — was Matrix good. Like, the first Matrix. I would review it, but there’s little I could say that wouldn’t be a spoiler. I highly recommend it, though.

That said, I hope whatever you love brought you joy, no matter whether you were in San Diego or not. Auf wiedersen!

Playing (Music): “Our Generation” by John Legend and The Roots