Doctor Who, Woke Geek Culture and Chicken Wings

Issue #94: You pick the subtitle this week

How’s it going readers! We can close the book on another week and we’ve made it to June. Man this year is going by quick!

So…

I have never really been a big fan of Doctor Who. I would certainly never consider myself a Whovian (did I spell that right?). I don’t hate or dislike the show. It’s just something I never really got into. I remember when I was younger I saw a couple of episodes of the show with Tom Baker on PBS. It never really stuck. I watched a few episodes and a couple of specials when my youngest daughter was into it. I would say that she is, or at least was, a very big Doctor Who fan. Anyway, why am I talking about Doctor Who? After watching the premiere of The Acolyte on Tuesday evening, the new season of Doctor Who popped up in my recommendations so I tried out a couple of episodes. I enjoyed them. I talk about this with some friends of mine. After discussing general Doctor Who stuff for a while we decided that we were going to start a rewatch “together” of the show starting with the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston). Well, rewatch for them. And so my excursion into Doctor Who begins.

This popped up on my Facebook memories this morning. It is something that I saw somewhere (I don’t remember where) and copied and pasted it. I’m copying and pasting again. It is about the ties between “geek” culture and left wing vs right wing ideology.

"X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

Captain America literally fought the Nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance is Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races, and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

Superman and Supergirl (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics are pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Supergirl.

Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism, or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love."

This will always be relevant. For instance, X-Men 97 was recently released and there were people out there asking when the X-Men got “woke.” Uhmmm….1963 folks. X-Men was woke before there was a term for it.

This week on Rebel Rock Radio we did our livestream on Wednesday instead of Tuesday for reasons. On this episode we shared our thoughts about the 2-episode premiere of The Acolyte and we played tunes from The Lookout, Jon Snodgrass, and Moonstone.

Punk Lotto Pod put out a new episode this week about the 1999 Rage Against the Machine album The Battle of Los Angeles.

So…new music? There were a lot of new releases today but nothing really jumped out at me specifically. If you follow me on Spotify, you know that I typically do a playlist of new music released that I am enjoying. This year, that playlist is called Sounds of 2024. This week, the only one I added to that playlist was We Really Felt Something by Tiny Stills.

This album didn’t come out this week because it was something that was not on my radar when it did come out on May 31st. It’s from a band out of Essex, UK called Bad Nerves and the album is called Still Nervous. A friend of mine recommended it to me.

Since it is June now and May has come and gone, here are my favorite albums that were released in the month of May.

• Frank Turner - Undefeated

• Hot Water Music - VOWS

• Stress Dolls - Queen of No

• Shellac - To All Trains

• Resolutions - Monster Mirror

This week’s comic book pull list consisted of X-Men #35 and Ultimates #1.

Other than these I really haven’t been doing much reading much else. I finished reading X-Men: Messiah Complex. This is a trade (there’s probably a hardcover of it out there) that compiles the, you guessed it, Messiah Complex story arc which consists of Uncanny X-Men #492-494, X-Men #205-207, New X-Men #44-46, X-Factor #25-27, and the Messiah Complex one shot. It was a really great story arc in my humble opinion.

Monday I played my first session with the new Star Wars GM at DM Daves. My new character is a Duros (Cad Bane was a Duros) mechanic. I like the new character. He is going to be fun.

Let me talk for a bit about chicken wings. My go to chicken wings, for whatever reason, have always been garlic parmesan. Doesn’t matter what wing place we go to, that is the flavor that I order. However, recently (it’s actually been a couple of months I think), we went out for chicken wings and instead of my usual flavor I ordered lemon pepper. These are my new go to. I like this flavor so much more than the garlic parm. My wife doesn’t like that flavor because she says they are too bland for her. Keep in mind that she usually orders the super hot flavors and I do not. Anyway, yeah, lemon pepper chicken wings. Your thoughts? Also in regards to chicken wings, which “type” do you prefer? Do you like the mini drumsticks or the flats? Personally, I prefer the flats. What about you?

My dad (who is no longer with us) ruined me on lasagna. His lasagna was the absolute bomb. I loved his lasagna. So everytime I get lasagna somewhere, I am disappointed. At some point before he passed he had his recipe written down. Others have tried to make this recipe but for some reason they can’t seem to get it right. I miss lasagna. I could really go for a good lasagna.

This week I went to the theater and watched Furiosa again. One of the other movies that I watched in the theater this week was IF. It was fine. Not really my cup of tea. I had very low expectations going into it so I wasn’t really disappointed. Last night, I went and checked out Bad Boys: Ride or Die. It was good fun. If you just want to sit back, eat some popcorn and enjoy an action movie. This one is a good one to check out.

As far as streaming movies goes, I watched the 2023 biopic Ferrari and I finally got around to watching Poor Things. Ferrari was fine. I’m glad I didn’t see it in the theater. Same goes for Poor Things. I had actually wanted to see that in the theater but never got around to it. That movie was kind of weird. That one was nominated for a bunch of Oscars and actually won a few. I’m not surprised. Seems like the kind of movie that would. To be fair, I would say that the Best Actress award the Emma Stone got for this movie was deserved. She did a good job in that (very weird) role. Although….now that I look back at the other nominees…I think Lily Gladstone should have won that one.

Today’s track of the week comes from the aforementioned Tiny Stills album. Enjoy.

That’s it for this week kids. Have a good weekend and remember to BE MORE KIND!