Hoodies: Sweatshirt of choice for the Forces of Evil

5. Turtle Nation Gets Up in Arms

Having turned the dumbest property in ‘80s toy history into a blockbuster film franchise, Transformers director Michael Bay is now turning his attention to the second-lamest property: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Wait, hold up—that’s not the apocalyptic part.

Recently, the Armageddon auteur, who’s producing a Ninja Turtles film slated for December 2013 release, let slip that fans may need to slap another descriptor onto the pile when discussing Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello: alien. Be patient; that’s not the end-of-the-world part, either.

This is: Rather than apathy, eye rolls or hoots of derisive laughter, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan community (seven words I never thought I’d type in the same sequence) greeted this tidbit with … outrage. A voice actor from the original film calls Bay’s take a “sodomizing” of the franchise, and the website i09 suggests that Bay’s not the first to have “crapped” on the turtles.

Granted, it’s not unusual for obsessive fans of sci-fi/fantasy/comic/cartoon properties to get up in arms over the tiniest deviation from scripture. As a fan of many such properties, I get it. Try to cast Ashton Kutcher as the next Doctor Who, move the action in Game of Thrones from Westeros to Beverly Hills, or tell me that Peter Parker isn’t a likeable science geek but rather someone who talks, looks and acts like Tobey Maguire, and I’m howling right there with you. (Don’t even get me started on Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. That’s a sign of the apocalypse for another day.) But we’re talking about a franchise about … turtles. Who are mutated adolescent ninjas. Who co-starred in a movie subtitled The Secret of the Ooze with rapper and noted thespian Vanilla Ice. Remind me why anyone cares?

The flick’s actual director has hinted that Bay’s comment may have more to do with the ooze that turned the terrapins into walking, talking death-dealers. Whether that fits in with, contradicts or builds upon the turtle “mythology” is a debate best left to … I’m sorry. I can’t even finish that sentence, because I’m an adult male and I’ve had sex. With another person. Moving on.

4. Geraldo Rivera declares war on … hoodies

Apparently, the folks at Fox News decided that the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin wasn’t a sad enough spectacle, so they asked the thought-provoking attention-seeking “journalist” to weigh in on the subject. Rivera’s take? That the 17-year-old boy’s fatal mistake was … wearing a hoodie. Sure, the hooded sweatshirt has become a fashion staple for no-goodniks. But to suggest that pulling one on is akin to strapping on a sandwich board proclaiming one to be the next Unabomber is a stretch even Reed Richards wouldn’t attempt. But Rivera’s twisted logic isn’t as offensive as the “he was asking for it” subtext once reserved for rape trials in which the victims were attractive women who’d invited trouble by showing a little skin.

3. Ashton Kutcher has a good week

Marrying Demi Moore, palling around with Bruce Willis, accruing more Twitter followers than CNN … life’s been pretty good for a guy whose main accomplishments in life have so far amounted to playing a lunkhead on That ’70s Show and hosting a rehash of Candid Camera. Oh, and let’s not forget stepping in for Charlie Sheen on the most reviled sitcom in history. Offering further proof that fairness is an empty manmade concept at which the heavens scoff, the past seven days have found Mr. Kutcher joining the elite few who will get to take a sightseeing shuttle into space, and on the receiving end of what appears to have been more than just a booty call by singer and Battleship “actress” Rihanna.

2. The Saints get body-checked in bounty fallout

The NFL has lain such a fierce whooping on the New Orleans Saints that you’d think Commissioner Roger Goodell was offered a million-dollar bounty for taking the team out of NFC South contention for the next several years. For their part in the bounty scandal, the National Football League suspended Coach Sean Payton (who led the team to its only Super Bowl victory) for a year, General Manager Mickey Loomis for eight games, and assistant coach Joe Vitt for six games. In addition, the team loses two second-round draft picks and has been fined $500,000. To state the obvious, the Saints are in a world of hurt, and that’s before the penalties that are expected to be levied against individual players involved in the affair. It’s a devastating blow to a populace that has latched onto this team with a passion unmatched in the city’s history.

Speaking of football and people from New Orleans, the most head-scratching omen of our impending doom this week also involves pigskin and the Crescent City:

1. Pat Robertson is still on the air

Former Isadore Newman quarterback Peyton Manning has announced that the second phase of his football career will take place in Denver, where last year the inconsistent Tim Tebow led the Broncos to the playoffs and triggered a wave of Tebowmania that dwarfed even the fervor surrounding his years at the University of Florida. The Broncos, who’ve never been keen on committing to Tebow as their starter for next season, promptly traded the Bible-totin’ second-year QB to the New York Jets. New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez surely isn’t thrilled. You know who else ain’t happy? Televangelist Pat Robertson.

On his long-running show The 700 Club, Robertson registered his complaint against what he perceives as unfair treatment of the God-fearing Tebow. Addressing an audience of shut-ins and viewers too lazy to change the channel, he offered the following Christian opinion: “OK, so Peyton Manning was a tremendous MVP quarterback, but he’s been injured. If that injury comes back, Denver will find itself without a quarterback. And in my opinion, it would serve them right.”

Huh. Interesting. By that logic, Pat, if some deranged, doddering and deluded Muppet blamed Sept. 11 on the ACLU, feminists and gays, suggested that terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina were retribution for abortion, and hinting that someone should blow up the State Department … if someone like that suffered some kind of setback, well then it would only serve him right, wouldn’t you say?

Okay, I’m not crossing my fingers that Pat Robertson experiences an injury or anything like that. I’d like to believe I’m better than that. But the fact that this dangerous crackpot still has a platform, and that people take what he says seriously … if that’s not evidence of the end times, I don’t know what is.

Courtesy of ABC

5. Mississippi, Alabama outdo themselves

“Why do birds fly upside-down over Mississippi?” “How do you keep an Alabama girl from biting her nails?” You’ve heard all the jokes (especially if, like me, you were raised in Louisiana). But don’t think that the hard-working denizens of those states are resting on their laurels. No, sir. A Public Policy Polling survey of 1,256 likely Republican voters in both states, taken in advance of Tuesday’s primaries, revealed that Alassippians are working overtime to ensure that they remain looked down upon by the other 48 states. More than 40 years after the last state ban on interracial marriages was lifted, it turns out that 21 percent of Alabama voters surveyed, and 29 percent of Mississippi voters, think it should be illegal.

But that’s not all, folks. Forty-five percent of Alabama voters believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim. Of course, they appear downright enlightened compared to their peers in the Magnolia State, where 52 percent of surveyed voters are convinced that the leader of the free world prays facing Mecca five times a day. (Let me see if I’ve got the thinking straight. Sometime in the 1970s or ‘80s, a biracial, Kenyan-born Muslim named Barack Hussein Obama decides that in 2008, he will run for president. In order to cover his Allah-worshipping tracks, he begins attending a Christian church in the early ‘80s. Being such a forward-thinking type, you’d think he’d be smart enough to choose a church with a less-controversial pastor than Jeremiah Wright. But I digress …)

That’s not even the best part: A whopping 22 percent of the Mississippi voters polled said they believe in evolution, while 66 percent did not. Here, it’s the Alabamians who come out looking relatively sophisticated, as only 60 percent pooh-poohed evolution compared to a staggering 26 percent who were willing to risk public flogging by admitting they believe in it. Looks like Alabama’s in the midst of an intellectual renaissance, y’all.

4. Encyclopaedia Britannica gets shelved

Just when 1,256 likely Republican voters in Alabama and Mississippi need it most, the venerable educational resource is going out of print. Known for providing the authoritative take on any number of subjects covered within its dozens of volumes (the last set, in 2010, filled 32 tomes), this iconic mainstay of many a youth is finally succumbing to the realities of our digital age. The entire focus of the Encyclopayy-dia (as Ted Mosby insisted on pronouncing it) will now be directed to its online presence, which will continue to provide the gold standard of reliable information, a stark contrast to our era of ridiculously inaccurate Wikipedia pages. “We cannot deal with every single cartoon character, we cannot deal with every love life of every celebrity,” the Encyclopaedia’s Jorge Cauz told the New York Times. “But we need to have an alternative where facts really matter. Britannica won’t be able to be as large, but it will always be factually correct.” Meanwhile, we’ll always have the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook.

3. People are still watching The Bachelor

Oh, there’s a sliver of good news here: Monday night’s finale was reportedly the least-watched season-ending episode in the franchise’s history, down 40 percent from last year. But the part that has us weeping for the future of civilization is this: an incomprehensible 9.1 million people tuned in to see which woman this guy chose as his soul mate. No, seriously, take another look: This is the guy whose love life kept 9 million women glued to their TV sets for three hours. This dude right here.

2. Arizona joins the War on Women

A Senate Judiciary Committee in the Grand Canyon State endorsed a House bill this week that would allow employers to make sure female employees using insurance to buy birth control were using it for reasons other than not wanting to get pregnant. You read that right: Women would have to provide proof that they weren’t using birth control for the very purpose for which it exists. “What’s that, Mrs. Haversham? You like the way it tastes? And you say it gives you super-powers? Oh, all right, then, very good. As long as you’re not using it to … you know (shudder) … have sex.”

1. Atlanta’s Creative Loafing guts editorial staff

Creative Loafing, Atlanta’s award-winning alternative newsweekly, has laid off four members of its editorial staff. This is the latest chapter in a long and troubling saga, not just for this storied newspaper but for print media in Atlanta and, indeed, across the country. Shrinking ad revenues and harsh bottom lines have resulted in severe cutbacks and restructurings for many publications, and the shuttering of more than a few.

It’s a thorny puzzle, with readers flocking to the Internet while news organizations staffed with qualified reporters struggle to monetize their online offerings. The Internet may be the future of news, but if that future is increasingly manned by bloggers without the training, resources and experience of professional journalists, where, then, will we go for the kind of in-depth investigative pieces that shine a light on corruption, broach important topics and save lives?

I’m not trying to sound like a Luddite here. Like everyone under the age of 75, I get the majority of my news online. But I still enjoy the experience of reading an actual newspaper or magazine, and appreciate the hard work that goes into producing them.

I speak not just as an observer but as someone who has both written for Creative Loafing and competed against it. From 2002 to 2004 I was privileged to be a regular freelance contributor to its music section; after that, I took a job with a scrappy start-up founded by a quartet of salesmen who’d defected with the idea of running their own newspaper. Although there was some bad blood between the two publications, I was always grateful to Creative Loafing and particularly its Editor in Chief back then, Ken Edelstein, who was very gracious and generous with me. I’ve always respected the paper, and have recently been encouraged by what I saw as promising signs about its future direction under its new editor, Eric Celeste.

The cutbacks at the Loaf, as many Atlantans call it, come even as the paper’s parent company is said to be attracting potential buyers. Creative Loafing may survive and even once again thrive, but it’s hard to see past the immediate short term, in which its vitality and authority are severely diminished by the loss of celebrated and talented writers who were experts in their fields. And it’s harder still to shake the sense that something larger than a single newspaper, something formless and irreplaceable, has once again been lost, and can’t be regained.

Courtesy of NASA

5. The Osbournes are coming! The Osbournes are coming!

It’s not bad enough that Sharon Osbourne can be seen each weekday morning cackling with other hens on a pointless knockoff of The View, or that no one questions why marrying a slurring, bumbling, used-to-be rock star qualifies her to judge whether America’s Got Talent.

No. Now Ozzy and his brood are working on an animated series to be called The F’n Osbournes. (Apt, really, since the “Prince of Darkness” long ago descended into cartoon-character caricature.)

Apparently, since the great universal irony of having Kelly Osbourne pass judgment on the looks and fashion choices of others hasn’t split the entire space-time continuum asunder, the family believes the world is starving for more Osbourne media exposure. To which I say: Be careful, Osbournes. The universe can only take so much.

4. Jessica Simpson poses nude for magazine cover

First off, listen up, Jessica Simpson, you Demi Moore wannabe. I’ve seen Demi Moore’s naked and pregnant Vanity Fair cover. You, madam, are no Demi Moore.

Second of all, I’ve never understood this woman’s appeal. Sure, she cuts a nice figure in a pair of Daisy Duke shorts. You know who else does? Millions of other attractive women who aren’t fame-mongering ditzes, that’s who. If I want to see nipples, areolas, and pubic hair on a body with absolutely nothing going on upstairs, I’ll buy a blow-up doll.

3. This photo from the upcoming Lone Ranger movie

Credit: Peter Mountain/Disney

Granted, it’s premature to judge a movie on a single image. But if what we’re looking at turns out to be what it appears to be—a “wacky, zany” take on the classic tale, with Johnny Depp lending Tonto a certain Captain Jack Sparrow-ish wacky zaniness—well, the universe can only take so much.

2. Canada could be the next superpower

Yeah, you heard me. Let that sink in a moment. Amid speculation that Iceland could adopt Canada’s currency in a bid for economic stability, the panic index is rising … at least, it is here at Island HQ. “So what?” you ask. “What does it harm me if Bjork has to start carrying loonies in her pocket? She’s a loonie already, so it makes a kind of poetic sense.”

Well, sure, it starts with Bjork, but where does it end? Next thing you know, the Great White North is bailing out Greece, the Mounties are marching into Syria, and then we all wake up one morning and the radio only plays the Barenaked Ladies and the Tragically Hip, everyone’s wearing flannel and appending “eh” to the ends of sentences, Bryan Adams is on the flag and every television station broadcasts nothing but hockey and Rush videos. (Actually, that last part wouldn’t be so bad.)

1. The solar storm is coming! The solar storm is coming!

Two “coronal mass ejections” are slamming into the Earth even as you read this. Which, really, you probably shouldn’t be doing, unless it’s from the safety of your underground tornado shelter. Sure, everyone laughed and pointed at you when you started excavating your back yard and had a giant shipping container lowered in there, like Michael Shannon in Take Shelter. But who’s laughing now, huh? You, that’s who.

Sure, the mainstream media is trying to downplay the whole thing. HLN’s Bob Van Dillen is even making jokes about toasters becoming self-aware. But that’s just what you’d expect them to do. That’s fine. Let them laugh and play their reindeer games while our radios hiss static, planes are rerouted (to indoctrination camps, perhaps?) and the stock market plummets. Meanwhile, we’ll just sit here in our bunker. Waiting for the toasters.

Thanks to an NFL investigation uncovering evidence of a “bounty” program that encouraged defensive players to injure opponents, Saints fans are experiencing stomach pains even worse than those suffered by viewers of Lindsay Lohan’s performance on Saturday Night Live last weekend. The notion of defensive players participating in a pool that allegedly paid cash rewards when opponents were taken out of a game or carted off the field would curdle the digestive system of any staunch football fan. But the effect is exponentially worse for Saints fans, who’ve endured a host of indignities, from the “Aints” to the Mike Ditka era, that would send Job stomping off muttering “Fuck this shit.”

That’s because these Saints were more than just Super Bowl champions. They were the city’s champions, fighting on behalf of a down-but-not-out populace still reeling from a dual walloping at the hands of Hurricane Katrina and a famously mishandled federal relief effort. For New Orleans, the 2009 Saints stood for something much larger than a game of violent millionaires. They stood for the hopes, the determination and the battered self-confidence of a city that had been knocked in the mud and stomped on by the very institution that was supposed to rescue it. These were heroes, and seldom had a group of people been more in need of heroes than the residents of New Orleans.

Today, Saints fans are left to wonder if this is the upshot of their hero worship: an organization embattled on all sides. Quarterback Drew Brees, whose large heart, philanthropic efforts and Herculean passing skills earned him a spot or two above Jesus in local hearts, gets slapped with the NFL’s franchise tag, allowing the Saints to keep him for another year while paying him far below the $23 million he’d been seeking. Surely Brees figures that having lead New Orleans to its only Super Bowl win should count for more than this. (To add insult to injury, he’s now facing criticism from former Saints loudmouth Kyle Turley, who’s questioning Brees’ integrity as a member of the NFL Players Association. That’s gotta smart.)

You can argue all you want that the negative attention focused on the Saints organization is unfair, that “everybody does it.” And you’d have a point. This is a game, after all, that emphasizes physical violence and glorifies the men who commit it. Certainly, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell calls to mind Capt. Renault in Casablanca, sputtering “I’m shocked—shocked!—to find that gambling is going on in here!” as he raids Rick’s Café while pocketing his nightly winnings. Former Saints defensive coordinator Greg Williams apparently ran a similar bounty system with the Washington Redskins, and it’s possible that other teams he hasn’t been a part of have also taken part in such programs. There’s plenty of finger-pointing to go around.

But it doesn’t matter. The Saints are the first to have such a program exposed. And in the wake of the NFL’s recent rule changes in the name of protecting players from concussion, they’re going to be made an example. Williams will almost certainly be suspended, and Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis, who seems to have known about the program and done little to stop it, is likely to catch hell as well. Same goes for Coach Sean Payton, who rattled the community last year when his family packed their bags and loaded up the wagon for Dallas.

In the future, when we spot Payton standing on the sidelines in that familiar arms-crossed stance, we’ll have cause to speculate whether that Donald-Trump-undergoing-a-colonoscopy smirk into which his features are perpetually twisted is the product of a bad burrito, or the knowledge that he helped tarnish the goodwill of a team more beloved by its fans than just about any other in the history of the game.

The Internet monolith has folded together some 60 privacy policies across its various holdings—including YouTube, Blogger, Gmail and, of course, the 800-lb. gorilla of all search engines. This will allow the company to collate the information it collects about the users of its products, and use that data to more effectively convince us all to make impulsive purchases, watch more productivity-killing videos of kittens making out with penguins and, most chillingly, use Google Docs. Apparently, it will also start sharing our porn searches with everyone in our contacts lists, and implant microbe-sized GPS devices beneath our skin so that the black helicopters can find us and spirit us away to indoctrination camps. However, in a classic case of what journalists call “burying the lede,” we’re missing the real story here: Apparently, people actually use Blogger.

4. Davy Jones takes over the Internet

Former Monkees singer Davy Jones died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 66. And while every man’s death diminishes us all, the overwhelming reaction to his passing on the Internet suggests that our sense of perspective has shuffled off this mortal coil, as well. At least, that seems to be the case judging by your humble correspondent’s Twitter and Facebook feeds, where the outpouring of grief and nostalgia threatened to reach levels not seen since Whitney Houston’s passing earlier in the month. While this writer wasn’t a huge fan of the Monkees, he recognizes that Jones brought joy into the lives of millions and will be missed. Meanwhile, people are dying in Syria, our education system seems irreparably broken, and there appears to be a movement afoot to send women back into the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant (see below). Just sayin’.

3. Reality stars run wild

Kim Kardashian and Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes were spotted painting the town red last night, lending credence to presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s assertion that Satan is alive and well and plotting against America. Meanwhile, rumors persist that a human being engaged in unprotected sexual activity with Jersey Shore tribble Snooki.

2. The War on Women heats up

You probably haven’t been listening to The Rush Limbaugh Show, seeing as you’re currently reading this and therefore are a person of impeccable taste, intelligence and breeding. So it’s our sad duty to inform you that the talk-radio host has thrown a lit packet of matches into the gasoline-soaked powder keg that is the current debate over reproduction—something you’d be forgiven for thinking was settled decades ago. After Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke bemoaned the school’s policy of not covering birth control as part of its health insurance plan, Limbaugh took to the airwaves to purr in his usual calm, soothing tones that Fluke is demanding to be paid for sex, which therefore makes her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” This after a contributor to Rick Santorum’s campaign made a delightful jape a few weeks back to the effect that women should go back to the time-honored tradition of practicing birth control by keeping their knees locked tight. The far-right Anger-Industrial Complex, not content with whipping up a phony War on Christmas, has apparently decided to launch a War on Women.

1. Justin Bieber turns 18

Just when it looked as if Bieber Fever had abated, the mop-topped urchin whose ubiquitous smirk is as inescapable as Big Brother returns to torment us anew. Today marks the Young Master’s passage into manhood, a milestone that was observed with just the right amount of decorum: His Lordship was presented with a new car during an episode of Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show. But that’s not all: The Savior took the opportunity to announce a new single to be released later this month. The song, “Boyfriend,” is no doubt but the first salvo in a new campaign to make millions by exploiting the poor taste and judgment of teenage girls. (For those who think we’re being a tad harsh, we regretfully present Exhibit A.)

Now go out and enjoy today like it was your last. Because it just may be.

Jive Records

Sunday Night’s Grammy Awards received a lot of attention, drawing some 39 million viewers curious to see how the National Academy of Recording Arts and Scientists would pay tribute to one of its biggest stars. Morbid as it sounds, Whitney Houston’s untimely passing the day before made the awards presentation a must-see event, garnering more than 12 million viewers over last year’s telecast and netting the second-highest ratings in the event’s history. To the Recording Academy’s credit, it took great advantage of that brighter-than-usual spotlight, honoring not just Houston and the late Etta James (who deserved more attention than she got) but a stage full of dynamic female performers, from Jennifer Hudson and Kelly Clarkson to Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj.

That larger narrative was underlined by a handful of subplots that emphasized talented women overcoming adversity: the unsurprising dominance of Adele, who’d been forced to cancel tour dates twice last year due to vocal problems and ultimately underwent surgery; Perry’s vengeful tear through “Part of Me,” a “winning the breakup” kiss-off believed to be aimed at her ex Russell Brand; and Swift’s spirited performance of “Mean,” allegedly directed at one of her critics, newsletter writer/blogger Bob Lefsetz. (Minaj’s bizarre performance of “Roman Holiday,” featuring one of her alter egos, can also be counted as a moment of adversity, although it remains to be seen whether the singer will overcome the largely negative reaction.)

But like a needle scratching a record, the night’s theme of powerful women was marred by one “jarringly dissonant element,” as TIME’s James Poniewozik so succinctly put it: the Academy’s decision to share so much of its increased spotlight with R&B singer Chris Brown, who performed twice, and also won his first Grammy for Best R&B Album.

Brown has been a target of critics since assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna in February 2009, just before that year’s Grammy ceremony. Brown ultimately accepted a plea deal in that case and received counseling, community service and five years’ probation, as well as a restraining order requiring him to stay 50 yards away from the singer. Brown has publicly apologized for the incident and expressed his remorse, and in a perfect world, everyone would forgive him and move on, that would be the end of that.

Except that Brown’s statements of regret ring hollow in light of subsequent actions. He reportedly threw a fit in his dressing room following an interview on Good Morning America in which he was asked about the incident. And yesterday, after the likes of Miranda Lambert, Michelle Branch and Jack Osbourne spoke out about the singer’s past actions, the following message appeared on his Twitter feed: “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F**K OFF!”

Brown’s alleged Twitter rant also included the following statement: “Strange how we pick and choose who to hate!” Brown reportedly wrote. “Let me ask u this. Our society is full of rappers (which I listen to) who have sold drugs (poisoning). But yet we glorify them and imitate everything they do. Then right before the worlds eyes a man shows how he can make a Big mistake and learn from it, but still has to deal with day to day hatred! You guys love to hate!!!”

The message was quickly taken down, and a source told Radar Online that “Brown didn’t Tweet that, someone does his postings to Twitter and when he saw that he ordered it taken down immediately.”

In the spirit of fairness, let’s take that unnamed source at his/her word that Brown himself didn’t post that rant and in fact ordered it removed. Let’s also acknowledge that, yes, there are a number of drug-dealers-turned-rappers who are glorified by fans and the media. I’m sure we’re all guilty of being selective in whom we forgive and those we don’t. I know I am. I’m a big fan of Ice-T, who’s admitted to an early life of crime, and I also admire Jay-Z, who’s rapped about a similar background. Their pasts don’t bother me at all. And yet I’ve been critical of 50 Cent because of his own drug-dealing biography. Ouch.

Regardless, it’s hard to give Brown the full benefit of the doubt. The GMA incident, isolated or not, suggests a young man who bristles at having to continue to answer for a shameful occurrence in his past. I’m sure we’d all be much more willing to forgive Brown if his actions matched his words—if he devoted some of his time and fortune to domestic violence causes, and used his bully pulpit to speak out on the subject.

But that’s not the Chris Brown we see. Instead, we see a brooding young pop star who’s been given a second chance and appears annoyed whenever someone wonders whether he deserves it. We don’t see contrition; we see defensiveness. Young women who have been victims of abuse turn on the Grammys, and they see a high-profile abuser treated like royalty, as if all has been forgiven. Where is his incentive, then, to walk the walk?

Sunday’s Grammy telecast showed us a lot of strong women. It also did them, and victims of domestic violence everywhere, a disservice. And I’d argue it didn’t do Chris Brown any favors, either.

You don’t have to have the macrocosmic perspective of Dr. Manhattan to guess that this news has provoked negative reactions ranging from skepticism to derision and howls of protest from fans of the original series. Even Forbes weighed in on the matter. Throw in the fact that Moore, the reclusive, enigmatic genius who wrote the series, has stated his vehement opposition to the idea (and harbors longstanding enmity toward DC), and you’ve got one polarizing powder-keg of a project. (Holy alliteration, Batman!) Messing with Watchmen far outweighs such comics “controversies” as, say, the Spider-Man Clone Saga or the death of Superman (or Batman, or Captain America, or … you get the idea ).

Hey, I get it. Watchmen was a game-changer that blew the doors off the preconceived notion that comic books, particularly those featuring characters who dressed in costumes and fought crime, were fundamentally incapable of exploring weighty, metaphysical themes and employing complex narrative structures.  It was also a complete story with precious few loose ends. Indeed, the ending works, to the extent that it does, precisely because it invites the reader to reflect on what he’s just read and to imagine what might come next.

Still, I can’t get too worked up about Before Watchmen. In fact, I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked.

1. It’s DC’s prerogative

First and foremost, the comics industry is just that—an industry. And despite the popularity of its garish, spandex-clad ambassadors at the multiplex, it’s not an extremely robust one at the moment.

“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant,” DC Entertainment Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee announced in the official press release. And they’re exactly right. Collected volumes of Watchmen have remained in print since the series ended, a testament to the work’s enduring popularity. In spite of that fact, the property has sat dormant in DC’s vault for the last quarter-century. From a business standpoint, it makes no more sense not to capitalize on that popularity than it would to stop publishing Batman comics.

It’s easy for critics to paint Before Watchmen as a conflict between art and commerce, with the latter (money-hungry DC) trampling all over the former (a sacrosanct, universally acclaimed work that makes a strong case for the comics medium as an art form). That argument is short-sighted, if not downright naive. Very little of what we consider “art” can be completely divorced from commercial concerns. Artists sell their paintings, and many of them over the centuries have enjoyed the support of patrons and benefactors. From the very first issue of Action Comics to Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost—everything that contemporary consumers of popular culture revere exists because someone, somewhere, believed they could sell ads around it and/or charge admission to it. Don’t forget that Watchmen itself was born out of DC’s desire to do something with characters it acquired from Charlton Comics (more on that later).

It’s not just DC’s right to make the most of their property—in this market, it’s their duty.

2. We love sequels (and prequels)

That’s just a fact. When a story really resonates with us, we want more stories set in that same world. It doesn’t even matter if the new stories are good (see: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; the Star Wars prequels), or even if they crap all over the source material (see: Highlander II: The Quickening).

And there’s no reason to believe that will be the case with Before Watchmen, given the level of creative talent involved (see below) and the intensity with which the Watchmen faithful will scrutinize the project. And the truth is that while a sequel would be a futile exercise, that’s not necessarily the case with prequels. The world of Watchmen is rich with possibilities, filled with tantalizing glimpses into a past just different enough from our own to set the mind wandering.

“As far as I know,” Alan Moore is quoted as having sniffed, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to Moby-Dick.” So what? I don’t know about you, but if there ever was a prequel to Moby-Dick, I’d be all over it. As for a sequel? Well, not so fast there, Alan.

3. Top-flight talent

The writers and artists assembled for the Before Watchmen projects boast strong resumes. Who better to handle a Rorschach or Comedian miniseries than Brian Azzarello, writer of the acclaimed noir series 100 Bullets? (Well, maybe Ed Brubaker would come close, but let’s not nitpick.) Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier) on Minutemen? Sign me up. J. Michael Straczynski? Len Wein? Amanda Conner? Please. Considering that Rob Liefeld is still getting work, DC could have chosen far worse.

4. V for Vendetta

Alan Moore’s hostility toward DC is well-documented, and it’s not as if he doesn’t have some valid points about the comics industry and some if its practices. Moore apparently believes that DC has acted unfairly toward him: He’s stated that the original Watchmen contract promised to revert the rights back to him and Gibbons once the series went out of print—something that has yet to occur, given the book’s continuing popularity as a collected edition. He may feel that he is owed ownership of the title and characters, and wish that DC would not attempt to make even more money off of his creation. He may even have the moral high ground.

But Moore seems to have allowed his emotions to color his reasoning, basically asserting that DC is creatively bankrupt for seeking to make money off of characters the company owns.

“I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago,” Moore said of DC in the New York Times. Well, to an extent, that’s true, just as they’re still dependent on a character Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster created in 1932, for example. But it’s hard to take Moore’s statement as anything more than sour grapes from someone who first made a name for himself scripting comics about characters created by other people (Marvelman, Captain Britain, Swamp Thing)—and who originally pitched Watchmen as a murder mystery starring characters from Charlton Comics.

On top of which, his two most talked-about works of the last decade or so have been The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls, a truly graphic “graphic novel” in which Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Wendy from Peter Pan meet as adults and recount some extremely erotic encounters.  As comics author Peter David told Newsarama: “The fact that Moore is so vehemently opposed to the other authors working upon his characters—characters that are pastiches of Charlton Comics [characters]—might tell you something about how L. Frank Baum would likely have reacted to Moore’s handling of Dorothy.”

5. The original still exists

If the very idea of a Watchmen prequel offends you to the very core of your being … you don’t have to read it. And you don’t have to let it affect your enjoyment of the original.

One can still enjoy the first Star Wars trilogy (or at least the first two films) and ignore the fact that the prequels undermine everything cool about Darth Vader by asserting that he’s just a whiny, lovesick little girly-man in a cool-looking life-support system. You don’t have to accept the wretched Hannibal Rising, which does almost as much damage to Hannibal Lecter, as canon. Temple of Doom need not affect your enjoyment of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The original Watchmen is still there, complete and inviolable. And no prequel or sequel will ever take that away.

And if the very idea of a Watchmen prequel still gets your limited-edition Silk Spectre undergarments in a twist, well, you might need to get out more.

Yawn.

You’d think I’d be excited to watch this grudge match between two championship teams. You’d be wrong, and here are five reasons why.

1. Tom Brady is a privileged girlie-man

Brady, the Patriots’ quarterback, has won three Super Bowls. He’s amassed a slew of records. He’s married to a Brazilian supermodel (I don’t happen to think Gisele Bündchen is all that, or even a bag of chips, but I recognize the accomplishment nonetheless). By all relevant criteria, he is a god walking among mortals.

But not just any god: He’s the kind of god you want to punch in the face. He’s your senior class president. He’s as bland as a loaf of Wonder Bread. He’s the instrument through which New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a sourpuss who makes Dick Cheney look like Elmo, has notched three Super Bowl victories. He left his baby mama, the beautiful Bridget Moynahan, for a supermodel. Even worse, for a while there he was wearing his hair in what we can only assume was a slavish imitation of Justin Bieber’s. Really, do I need to say anything else?

2. Eli isn’t Peyton

Giants quarterback Eli Manning has labored in the shadow of his more popular older brother all his life. And even now, when he stands on the precipice of finally besting Peyton in the one stat that really matters—number of Super Bowl victories—he’s overshadowed by his amazingly lifelike Terminator of a brother once again.

If you tune in to ESPN or your local sports-talk radio station, you might occasionally come across a couple of guys arguing about whether Eli is an elite NFL quarterback. That is, after you sit through 12 hours of gum-flapping about whether Peyton will retire from the Indianapolis Colts, or be let go by the Colts, or ever be able to play football again because his manufacturers failed to follow code when they constructed his remarkably human-looking neck.

Never mind that Eli just might double his brother’s total of Super Bowl rings on Sunday at a towering two to Peyton’s one. Eli simply isn’t interesting enough to divert attention from a swirling lack of news about a quarterback who hasn’t played all year. Turns out you can spell “elite” without “Eli.”

3. The Voice airs right afterward

I’m told that The Voice is a decent singing competition. I wouldn’t know. I don’t watch the show for a number of reasons, chief among them being that I have a triple-digit IQ, testosterone and self-respect.

I know people who watch The Voice, and they say it’s better than American Idol. By that logic, NBC could air episodes of Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea? after the big game. Or Lana Del Ray’s Saturday Night Live performance. Or even bring back the late, unlamented Outsourced. You get the idea.

I actually feel a little bad for not wanting to watch the show. I like Cee-Lo Green and I respect Blake Shelton, although I’d be hard pressed to name one of his songs at gunpoint. I even have a soft spot for Christina Aguilera, whom I’ve always considered to be more talented, more attractive and probably more approachable than her former fellow Mousketeer Britney. But the fourth of the show’s quartet of celebrity “coaches” is Adam Levine, lead “singer” of the “band” Maroon 5. So, yeah, can’t do it.

“What’s wrong with Maroon 5?” you ask. Said “band” is responsible for the inescapable “hit song” “Moves Like Jagger.” What’s wrong with this “song”? Well, let’s see. One, it features the most egregious use of whistling since the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change,” or maybe Guns N’ Roses’ execrable “Patience.”  Two, it presumes (incorrectly) that Mick Jagger’s moves are something to be emulated. Have the writers never seen the man dance onstage? It’s like watching a chicken run around after it’s been decapitated. Only, you know, less sexy.

4. The ads have been spoiled

For those who don’t follow football, it’s the commercials that make the Super Bowl an event. Companies unveil their wackiest clips during the big game, and sometimes the ads eclipse the action on the field even for pigskin fans. That’s not the case lately, but it has been known to happen.

In fact, that might be enough to make me tune in if it weren’t for one thing: I already know far too much about these ads. The Lincoln Park Zoo is protesting a CareerBuilder.com ad that features monkeys in suits. Entertainment Weekly is offering a complete guide to the commercials. And of course the Ferris Bueller spot is already viral. So much for that.

5. One word: Madonna

Four more: Halftime show. ‘Nuff said.

Three years ago, I reviewed the animated film Coraline for the weekly newspaper I used to run. I didn’t review a lot of movies, but I was a big fan of Neil Gaiman, who wrote the book on which it was based. So I went to the preview screening, watched the movie, and spent the entire next week digesting it.

As often happened back then, I didn’t get around to writing the review until late in the afternoon of the day the paper was going to press. My workload was pretty insane in those days, especially on Thursdays. I did double-duty as both Editor-in-Chief and Arts and Entertainment Editor, which meant I planned, assigned and edited our A&E section (which could include something as menial and time-consuming as writing event listings, if an intern didn’t show up) in addition to steering the ship safely toward publication. We had a very small editorial staff—three editors, including myself; a part-time copy editor; and a handful (and I mean less than five) of college interns. I also wrote a Letter-From-the-Editor column each week, which despite my best efforts I never even started writing until late in the afternoon on (you guessed it) Thursday.

So we’ve established that Thursdays were a blur, filled with intense bursts of adrenaline and long periods of drudgery. And as the captain of the editorial part of the ship, it was my duty to read every single page, some of them over and over and over again. And it so happened that I cranked out my column, rushed through a short (less than 250 words) Coraline review, and dove back into a towering pile of pages that needed proofing before they could be sent on their merry way. Meticulously reading every word of every story, keeping track of all sorts of tiny details: page numbers. Phone numbers and website addresses. Photo captions and credits. Headlines and widows and orphans and on and on. And saving my own writing—my column and my review—for last, well past the time most everyone else had gone home.

You can see where this is going. My eyes glazed over my own stuff, and an error made it through. I’d generally liked Coraline, although to me it felt an awful lot like a Tim Burton movie—which wasn’t surprising, given that the director, Henry Selick, had directed The Nightmare Before Christmas (which bore the name of Burton, its producer and co-writer, in the title) and James and the Giant Peach (on which Burton also served as a producer).

What was surprising to many readers (including myself, a couple of days later) was the review itself. Where I’d simply meant to state that Coraline adhered to themes and an aesthetic often found in Burton’s work, I sloppily and unintentionally ended up implying that Burton had played some role in the creation of the film.

Not my finest moment. The following Monday wasn’t my best day, either, as I opened my inbox to a stream of emails pointing out the screw-up. But the worst part was that Gaiman himself had stumbled across the review, and posted it on Twitter, where he shook his head and dismissed me as a “twerp.” And  I received a few more derisive tweets as the day wore on, thanks to one Gaiman acolyte who went to the trouble of hunting down my Twitter handle and posting it on the writer’s feed so that all his million-plus followers would know exactly whom to eviscerate.

I quickly tweeted an apology and a clarification to Gaiman himself, who graciously accepted, apologized in turn for his fans, and even noted that the point I’d tried to make—that Selick’s finished product bore a more than passing resemblance to the films of his former collaborator—had also shown up in the New York Times.

After that, I considered the matter more or less settled, despite the sour wrenching in my stomach that didn’t abate for another week. The earth kept rotating. People lived and loved and died. Life went on.

And then, today, I opened up a browser, called up Google, and typed my full name into the little bar at the center of the page and hit the SEARCH button. And there, five links down—below my Twitter feed, a link to this site, my Facebook profile and a random page from my old Shaking Through website—were six little words that brought it all back: Kevin Forest Moreau is a Twerp.

The post itself took about as much thought and time as the title. The whole thing weighs in at 187 words, and roughly half of those are mine.  The post itself isn’t even that harsh, as online criticism goes. Obviously, the author, a gentleman identified only as “Brendoman,” dashed off his thoughts on the subject, hit “Update,” and promptly moved on to contemplating something else. No one commented on his post, and I’m sure he forgot all about it.

I’d like to do the same. But there it is, the fifth thing that comes up when you type my name into the world’s most popular search engine. I don’t even want to think about the implications of the fact that it pops up so high in a Kevin Forest Moreau-related search. It’s enough to know that it’s there, a tiny but indelible black mark on a hard-won reputation.

I don’t bear Brendoman any ill will, and I don’t hold a grudge against Gaiman, either. I know that if I ever had the good fortune to have a book turned into a movie, and the movie was halfway decent and stood to make me some money, I’d be defending it against any and all comers. (Although honesty compels me to admit that I haven’t been able to read anything of his since—even Sandman, which I love—and I’ve kept Coraline out of my Netflix queue ever since, despite my wife’s occasional “I’d like to see that.”)

Too few of us really stop to think of the power of our words.  That goes for me, as well. I’ve made a substantial part of my living as a critic over the years, and I rarely stopped to think about how the subject of a negative review would feel if they happened to read it, even though I knew full well that many artists have long memories and thin skins.

(I remember interviewing a musician with a popular New Orleans funk band who pointedly said, “Yeah, I remember you didn’t care too much for our last album,” and an independent comic-book creator who lashed out at me for a review I’d posted on Shaking Through. And then there was the time I ran into all four members of a young pop-rock group one Sunday night coming out of a Queensryche show at the House of Blues 10 or 11 years back, exchanging pleasantries as a trickle of sweat ran down the back of my neck, because I knew the local weekly was being delivered all over town at that very minute, bearing a snarky review of their new album.)

The point is, in this fire-and-forget world of Facebook posts and Internet commentary, it’s too easy to lose sight of the fact that a derogatory comment tapped out in the heat of the moment can live forever, nestled right at the top of one’s online reckoning. We’d all be better off if we stopped to consider that once in a while.

Especially the subhuman doodoo-head who posted my Twitter address on Neil Gaiman’s page for everyone to see.

But there’s one brand—er, I mean band—that stands out. I’ve had my issues with the Hall of Fame in the past, but I’ve got to give them the nod when they get it right. Guns N’ Roses is an obvious choice for enshrinement in this hallowed rock memorial. No band more deserves to take its rightful place alongside such rock legends as ABBA, Bob Marley and Genesis—although not for the reason you might be thinking of.

People try to put us d-d-d-down

Many of the actual rock acts in the Hall of Fame—Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, U2, the Rolling Stones, Metallica, even the recently shuttered R.E.M.—embody one of the core values of rock and roll, as succinctly framed by the Who: “Hope I die before I get old.” The bad news is, they proved the truth of that adage the hard way—by contradicting it.

Every one of those bands, you see, did get old. They didn’t live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse. They lived fast, got winded, kept going, slowed down, refused to call it quits, and eventually pulled over to the side of the road to gasp and wheeze and maybe toss up their macrobiotic lunch. They didn’t die young, and when they do shuffle off this mortal coil, no amount of embalming fluid and powder will make their corpses “good-looking.”

Some of them, like R.E.M., managed to summon enough juice to cross the finish line with at least a sliver of cred intact. But the vast majority of them morphed into Fat Elvis before they had the sense to leave the building. U2 long ago succumbed to arena-rock pomposity. The Rolling Stones resemble a gaggle of shambling, sybaritic zombies, random body parts sloughing onto the stage during the Viagra anthem “Start Me Up.” Metallica … well, the less said about St. Anger and the aptly titled Death Magnetic, the better.

So many artists have ignored Neil Young’s classic warning (“It’s better to burn out than it is to rust”) that surrendering to vanity, ego and one’s own press clippings has become the new rock and roll standard. And no band has lived up to that credo better than Guns N’ Roses.

Talk about living fast: GNR shot out of the gate with what is inarguably the best debut album in rock history. Appetite for Destruction has a few lags, but it established a benchmark that the band’s hair-metal “peers” of the time—L.A. Guns, Tesla, Warrant, Cinderella, etc.—could never hope to reach, let alone surpass.

But with all due respect to Cinderella, that’s not saying much. The inconvenient truth about Appetite is that it represents a peak that even rock’s heaviest hitters couldn’t touch. AC/DC, Mötley Crüe, Van Halen the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Stooges, KISS … none of them have recorded an album as muscular, as feral, as dense with rocket-launcher riffs and as rippling with chaotic sex and energy. Forget the Scorpions—with Appetite, Guns N’ Roses rocked you like a hurricane: swift, brutal and out of control.

Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s doah-woah …

That alone would be enough to induct the band into any Hall of Fame worthy of the name. But GNR clinched their place in the Rolling Stone Hall—I mean, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by skipping over the years of adequate-but-not-great albums that usually follow such a debut and diving straight into the inevitable third act of so many Hall of Famers: bloated self-parody.

Two years after Appetite, the band threw a curveball with G N’ R Lies, which consisted of a dubious live “bootleg” and a handful of middling acoustic tracks. In 1988, this apparently amounted to a rebellion on par with punk rock. The band sneered in the liner notes that they’d recorded an acoustic cover of the Appetite rocker “You’re Crazy” as if this was a Molotov cocktail through the window of the Cleaver household. Remaking one of your own songs? With acoustic guitars? Ooh, you bad boys!

Oh, sure, a couple of lines from “One in a Million” got Axl Rose accused of misogyny, racism and homophobia. But in retrospect the notable thing about Lies is that it foreshadowed the self-indulgent excess that would sink the band three years later.

From the petulant “How dare you criticize me?” belligerence of “Get in the Ring” to the cringe-inducing “November Rain,” Use Your Illusion goes off the rails in such spectacular fashion that it’s tempting to hope Rose and company are failing on purpose. Double album? Check. Pointless if faithful cover of “Live and Let Die”? You got it. Even more pointless and laughably grandiose cover of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”? Right here. Schlocky power ballads overstuffed with orchestral pomp, stretching on for ten minutes? Take your pick! Lyrics that aim for philosophical depth but instead make you want to claw your eyes out? Ohhh, yeah. (“The power-hungry go shopping in a human grocery store,” indeed.)

One in a million

But wait, there’s more. The sea change that took place in pop music, and rock in particular, in 1991 has been laid almost entirely at the feet of Kurt Cobain, and it’s true that from the very first moment the opening chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” jumped from college radio onto the mainstream airwaves, the androgynous pouts and puerile posturing of Poison and the rest of the hair-metal brigade were no longer entertaining and instead revealed as kind of sad.

But if any band could have led a successful counter-revolt and kept the stringy-haired, leather-pants-clad masses from sliding into irrelevance, it was Guns N’ Roses. Alas, by the time Nevermind fired the riff heard ’round the world, GNR had squandered any authority it once possessed. In 1987, Guns N’ Roses were lauded as the saviors of rock and roll; a mere four years later, they symbolized everything rock and roll needed saving from.

Having recorded one of the most arresting hard-rock albums ever, they had nowhere to go but down. And oh, what a drop. Use Your Illusion I and II made Guns N’ Roses a cautionary tale for ambitious rockers everywhere. And that, above all else, is why they deserve to be immortalized in rock’s greatest mausoleum.