There's a new Here's the Thing... up. The last one, actually. But I suggest the idea for my new article in the end. Please give some feedback in the article's comment section on what you think. It's either going to be this or nothing and I think you're going to like what I have planned - I already dreamed up some interesting ideas. Not great ideas, some aren't even good ideas, but hopefully it leads to discussion and revelations. The first one will run first Friday in January.

Continuing my twelve posting days of Holiday Cheer. So far I’ve giving love to the DC Conspiracy, Chris Staros, Larry Young, David Lapham, Sam Kieth and J.H. Fialkov. Today I’m going to one of the most polarizing men in comics.

Frank Miller teaches us a lesson every time he puts pen to paper and the lesson is, “Fuck you, this is my story.” He has the Sin City movie, a beautiful film to gape at even if the story doesn’t do much for you, a movie that got him national praise and a newfound interest in the graphic novels. He follows that up with Vicky Vale walking around in panties, talking into a tape recorder, for several monologue heavy pages.

Don’t get me wrong, I love All-star Batman and Robin; I honestly feel it’s one of the most entertaining books to come out in the past year, but you get two pages into it and you just KNOW most people are going to bitch. Frank Miller knew most people were going to bitch. You can almost see the meeting at editorial when Dan Didio must have said to Frank Miller, “You and Jim Lee are getting a Batman book and you can do anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

And what Frank Miller gave us was page after page of wild, crazy, insane, fucked-up Batman as he should be, as the world he lives in likely perceives him to be, and it fucking rocks. And a lot of people make fun of it. He knew they would. There is no way this man did not know he would get a bunch of people saying “This is not MY Batman.” And he follows it up with Batman calling Robin retarded. Reminding Robin he’s the goddamn Batman.

He followed it up with a “Fuck you, this is my story.”

Happy Holidays to Frank Miller. I’d never want to meet you in a Dark Alley but I love to have your books under my Christmas tree.

______________

As I’ve mentioned before I was a manager in the dining hall through out my four years of college. The fact that I was the Late Night Café manager meant I got keys to the dining hall, as well. Having keys to a massive dining hall in college is more than just having keys to your own personal kitchen. It really means having keys to your own private, spacious room. And that could lead to some interesting stories.

For instance. Anyone who reads this site ever go to our visit BU? Ever eat in the Towers Dining Hall? If the answer is yes, and you’ve done it after the class of 2000 graduated, I think I should inform you that I had sex on the salad bar one night. Not in the wells, obviously, but I propped her ass up on the salad bar counter and violated every health code possible. Even though it was one of those “heat of the moment” things that just sort of happens, and even though I did wipe down the counter afterwards, I still think it’s safe to say the salad bar at Towers should be replaced.

But seriously, it was the passionate kind of thing you’d see in a Hollywood movie except between two people who aren’t Brad and Angelina. Unlike when I had sex on my bosses desk – that was just to say I had sex on my bosses desk. That was totally planned – like a week in advance at least.

But it wasn’t always about sex. I used to use the dining hall to study. One time, in fact, I needed to get some serious studying done but I was stuck on the night shift. The dining hall closed at midnight and it took an hour longer to get everything cleaned up and shut down. I was kind of fucked, had a test the next day. So I had my friend deliver me some Ritalin, gave him ten bucks and some free chicken fingers (yes, this was my Magic card/drug paraphernalia connection).

This was my first (and only time) snorting Ritalin. Supposedly it’s supposed to make you concentrate. Instead I spent about two hours in my boss’s office, staring at his bulletin board, my leg shaking, and singing a variety of show tunes (yes, I’m a show tune singer). Funny part was that I snorted it with an hour to go in the shift – the people working that night kept knocking on my door and I just shouted “I’m studying, do whatever you want.” I came out of the office once to make sure everything was clean but that took all of two seconds because in reality I only peaked out the office door and said, “Looks good – you can go home.”

I flunked my organic chemistry test because of that which really wasn’t a big deal – I flunked all of my organic chemistry tests. There’s a reason I’m not a doctor right now.

But of all the illegal shit I did in the dining hall, nothing would beat the party I threw freshman year.

It started out pretty simple – the RAs make rounds twice a night before midnight which means you can’t be too loud then. Everyone else is sleeping after midnight so you can’t be too loud then. The dining hall, however, is in the basement and there are no bedrooms in the basement or on the first floor – we can be as loud as we want all night.

We started the party at ten – we let people into the humongous kitchen in the back and served them up alcohol while the unsuspecting people ordered burgers from the grill-man in the front – we had about 20 people in the kitchen. When midnight rolled around we locked the front doors and started letting people provided someone knew who they were. At one point we had close to 60 people in the dining hall.

We had the blenders going, mixing up rum smoothies. We had pizzas in the pizza oven – we turned the Belgian waffle machines on and brought out the batter, whipped cream and strawberries. Everyone had access to all of the tonics and juices they could possibly need to mix their drinks. Someone even supposedly made some “special” rice krispy treats but if that’s true I never got my hands on one.

Everyone had a good time – we had some music, some dancing. Like all parties in college a couple of people drank too much. Like all parties in college a couple of those couple of people left when they felt ill but there’s always that one guy that throws up all over the place.

I don’t even remember the kid’s name anymore – he was a sixth-floorer I believe – but he shot projectile vomit towards the end of the party. We all laughed at first but then I realized that I was the one who was going to have to clean this shit up. I tried to get him to do it but he played drunk and said he needed to go to bed. I look back at the puke build-up and realize, to make matters worse; it was on the rug and not the tiled floor.

I felt kind of bad for every person who’s house I threw up in or near while I was cleaning up some unknown bastard’s vomit at four in the morning – trying to hurry up and get it done before the breakfast crew comes in – but the empathy only lasted about a week.