GIVE ME MORE!!!

I drank too much coffee and now I feel like the Incredible Hulk on speed. I’ve already had one near mental breakdown this morning, and I figure only a valium could help now. Gotta get on a plane to LA in a couple of hours, and I already have a problem with fidgeting. I’m going to lose my mind, help!

Ok, gotta get it together. Quick, put on some music! No, not that song… or that one either. Must type faster. Oh – stupid computer, you’re not typing fast enough! Damn! Oh, god, I feel good, oh shit, I almost crapped my pants. This is insane. Someone should make coffee illegal, or at least you need a license to drink it. My mouth is dry, and it tastes like coffee… mmm. My head is big like a balloon and I can hardly focus my eyes. My neck hurts, gotta stretch – aaah! I almost fainted! My heart is beating too fast, and my lungs feel like they’re going to cave in. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that Vicodin last night. Jesus. When will it stop?

Basically, I don’t have anything to say, except that coffee is ruining my life, and I love it! Nothing like getting paid to have a panic attack. I also noticed that even though I have all this energy and am completely wired, I can’t seem to get anything done and I’m making a lot of mistakes. This is gonna be interesting…

Marvel Comics Retro 10 by marvelclassics
Buy t-shirts at zazzle

Retro… vintage it doesn’t really matter, this Incredible Hulk hoodie looks too cool to leave off the list. And you know that I am a hoodie addict.

SAM WORTHINGTON stars in the LOUIS LETTERIER directed 'CLASH OF THE TITANS' remake

Directed by Louis Letterier and set for release on March 26, 2010, ‘CLASH OF THE TITANS’ will star; Sam Worthington (PERSEUS), Liam Neeson (ZEUS), Ralph Fiennes (HADES), Danny Huston (POSEIDON), Gemma Arterton, Alexa Davalos, and Mads Mikkelsen.

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Fantastic Four #1 is a comic I will likely never own unless I win the lottery, but its classic status ensures many a reprint, essential, omnibus, collection, digital download or trade. That’s the trouble with comics these days – it’s all too easy. But that’s another story and I digress. I first came into contact with this fantastic family back in 1972 in the pages of UK reprint comic The Mighty World of Marvel. That’s over ten years and four thousand miles it took to get from Stan and Jack’s original to me personally but it was worth the wait. What I am talking about? I was hardly waiting! I wasn’t even born when this comic came out – the following year the world became my oyster, but I’ll never know what 1961 felt like – whether it was particularly fantastic or not!

Within the pages of The Mighty World of Marvel I came across the Incredible Hulk, the Amazing Spider-man and the Fantastic Four. I liked all three for sure but it was the Fantastic foursome that tugged at my heartstrings most of all. I wonder why? The Hulk was kinda obvious (and the nature of his power seemed to change every five minutes too), Peter Parker made me feel manipulated (the put-down kid becomes the hero – not in my lifetime – I was almost completely cynical by the age of five), but the Fantastic Four had two massive attractions: A) they were a family and B) they WERE fantastic! I suppose the family thing was a bit of a security blanket myself being the timid sort, but the fate of Ben Grimm seemed much more sensible to me. The idea that you could somehow get great power – be a hero – and yet still have a heavy price to pay seemed somehow right – plausible – realistic. Spider-man might have had all the teenage angst but Ben had real tragedy. He remains my favourite character to date. Ben’s fate was also tied into the relationship with ‘the family’ – I suppose he was the grouchy but well-loved uncle. He had a ways wid da words too.

The individual powers didn’t really matter that much to be honest. Invisibility -mleh! Stretchy bendy shenanigans – okay! Flaming flim-flamery – not cool (at least not until we got the classic Torch look – you know, with the LINES!) No, Benjamin J Grimm was the one. And he was the ugly one. And yet he still had family. Aw! Shucks.

You can see the cover above and you’ll notice that the Thing looks like the brick guy we all know and love – inside he was still lumpy – I don’t know whether Marvel really gave a damn as long as they were selling comics, but it was confusing for us British kids until we discovered the genuine article! I might actually have seen the previous Marvel reprints in Pow, Smash or Terrific but I honestly can’t remember. At any rate this was the first time the Marvel universe came together to make sense to British kids. That, after all, would be the enduring legacy of everything that followed on to readers around the world – the fact that everything and everybody was somehow connected – and by extension that YOU were connected to something bigger …

Anyhow – the point of this blog? To say everything I ever wanted to say of course – while distracting you by filtering it all through the fabulous foursome. Where do we start? At the beginning. Next: Fantastic Four #1

Rage is everywhere – the roads, the workplace, the classroom, the home – everywhere.

Some people try not to lose their tempers.
Others thrive on it, and live their lives very angry about everything.

This is the top ten angry people.

10. The Reverend Ian Paisley.

How can a man so devout be so enraged by everything?

His reign of 37 years as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland featured countless terrifying rants against everything from terrorists to the Pope, who he referred to as “The Antichrist.”

Here’s some clips of him in action

9.

Roy Keane

Another Irishman, this time from the Republic.
The Man Utd midfielder was well known for being a bit angry.
Famous moments include his massive fall-out with Republic of Ireland manager where he said “You’re not even Irish you English c**t, so stick it up your b******s.”
Not sure it makes much sense, but it’s very enraged.
Other highlights include the horrific tackle on Alfie Inge Haaland, which he later admitted he did on purpose after a bust up in a previous game.
He also always used to try and fight with the equally angry Patrick Viera of Arsenal.

Here is the aformentioned tackle.

Not technically a real person, but he used to get well lairy when he was outsmarted by Bugs Bunny, to the point where he’d pull out his guns and start blasting.

Here’s some of their antics

7. BA Baracus

BA, standing for BadAss, used to become incandescent when faced with his A-team colleague Howlin’ Mad Murdoch and when anyone tried getting him on a plane.
However, when faced with milk before a flight, he lapped it up and instantly became unconcious.

Here’s some examples

6.

The Incredible Hulk

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry,

Damn right, he becomes massive, green and develops an unusual skill of jumping miles.

Bruce Banner’s alter-ego the Hulk was seriously angry

This is the classic 80s cartoon intro

5.
5.

The Ultimate Warrior

One of the greatest wrestlers was famous for two things, his incoherent shoutings and rampant steroid abuse.

Here’s an example of his work

4.

Trevor off Eastenders

The mad Scot who little Mo eventually clobbered with an iron was a seriously unstable chap, whispering in his scary accent before exploding.

Here’s a scary scene with Trev at his most evil

3. Trevor Brennan

Strangely another Trevor, and one you probably won’t have heard of.
Trevor was a rugby player well known for a short fuse on the field, one day, playing in France, some abuse from the crowd led to the Big Irishman wading in the crowd to attack the gobby spectator, thus earning himself a life ban.

Sadly there don’t seem to be any videos of it, but it was likely to have been spectacular.

2.  Mike Tyson

Where do we start? Prison, ear-biting, brawls, mental tattoos, Tyson is a man who lived in a perpetual world of extreme rage.

We know he was one of the greatest boxers ever, but boy oh boy was he driven by rage.

Here’s the famous ear-biting of Evander Holyfield.

1.  Number one is William Foster from the film Falling Down

The mild mannered unemployed defence worker just decides to lash out against the world in a spectacularly violent and oh-so angry way.

The breakfast scene is a classic.

MY DAD DRESSED UP AS THE INCREDIBLE HULK FOR HALLOWEEN BEFORE!!!

How cool is he?

Kirin Hobby is now accepting preorders for Harley Quinn from the Cover Girls of the DC Universe line of statues by DC Direct. And if you missed the first run, now’s your chance to get the popular Wonder Woman and Zatanna statues. The re-release for these 2 sold out statues is scheduled to arrive in time for Christmas! Also scheduled to be re-released is the sold out Sasuke Chidori Statue by Toynami from the popular series Naruto. Reserve yours now!

New in stock are the Revoltech Yamaguchi II Getter Dragon and Neo Getter action figures from Kaiyodo, Marvel Select Hulk and Iron Man from DST, Emaretta (Shunya Yamashita) from Yamato. And back from popular demand, Tokidoki’s Mozzarella and cactus friends vinyl toys make for great holiday gifts. They’re now in stock and ready to ship!

Enjoy!
Edward

Creators’ Labo #021 Emaretta-chan (Shunya Yamashita) [Figure] by Yamato
Revoltech No.075 Neo Getter 1 [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech No.074 Getter Dragon [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Tokidoki: Mozzarella the Moofia Vinyl [Figure] by Strangeco
Tokidoki Cactus Friends: Bruttino & Carina 2-Pack [Figure] by Strangeco
Tokidoki Cactus Friends: Bastardino & Polpettina Vinyl 2-Pack [Figure] by Strangeco
Mazinkaiser: Max Alloy Mazinkaiser (Mazinger Z) [Action Figure] by Max Factory
Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Zatanna [Figure] by DC Direct
Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Wonder Woman [Figure] by DC Direct
Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Power Girl [Figure] by DC Direct
Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Harley Quinn [Figure] by DC Direct
Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Catwoman [Figure] by DC Direct
Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Black Canary [Figure] by DC Direct
Marvel Select: Iron Man [Action Figure] by Diamond Select
Marvel Select: Incredible Hulk [Action Figure] by Diamond Select
Naruto: Sasuke Ultimate Chidori Statue [Figure] by Toynami
Naruto Shippuden Series 1: Naruto & Deidara Set of 2 [Action Figure] by Toynami

Mad Man, the scotch drinking superhero.

ANTHONY HOPKINS

Anthony Hopkins has been cast as Norse god Odin in Marvel Studios’ Thor.

Read more HERE.

Odin is Thor’s father, the ruler of the Norse Gods, and one bad azz mamma jamma you don’t want to mess with.

ODIN

Other confirmed cast for the Kenneth Branagh directed THOR, which has a confirmed release date of May 20th, 2011, includes:

Chris Hemsworth as Thor – the God of Thunder
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
Natalie Portman as Thor’s human love interest – Jane Foster
Jaimie Alexander as Thor’s Asgardian love interest – Sif
Colm Feore as a yet to be revealed villian
Stellan Skarsgård as a top-secret as yet unrevealed role

For more info on all of these casting updates click HERE.

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This ghoulish pooch made to look like The Incredible Hulk caused a stir at the 19th Annual Dog Halloween Parade in NYC

The trend this Halloween seems to be for proud owners to splash their costume cash on their pets. This weekend saw a host of pooch parades in cities around the world from New York to Tokyo.

The 19th Annual Dog Halloween Parade attracted large crowds to NYC’s Tompkins Square Park. With over 500 dogs in costume and 2,000 spectators, this is one of the world’s biggest dog shows with treats, cookies and iPod on offer to the winners.

In Tokyo, 1,000 children took part in the colourful Harajuku Omotesando Hello Halloween Pumpkin Parade 2009. They were joined by hordes of four-legged friends wearing witches hats, capes and charming pumpkin booties

Elsewhere a dog done up as Batman stole the show at the Family Pet Festival in Cali, department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Although he had tough competition from a four-legged Rastafarian.

DYLAN BAKER

[Dylan] Baker confirmed that he is on board for Sam Raimi’s forthcoming Spider-Man 4. Baker appeared in Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 as Dr. Curt Connors, a professor at Empire State University.

Read more HERE.

SPIDER-MAN vs. THE LIZARD in 'SPIDER-MAN 4'??

In the comic-book Dr. Curt Connors becomes the Spider Man villian, The Lizard, and it’s possible director Sam Raimi could go in that direction for one of the films villians.

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Before you think that I have gone completely mad (Although you may have thought this already) I am not referring to a hilarious incident where I accidentally dropped my least favourite combination (strawberry and chocolate) all over my lap in front of a former west end “Star” (Darren Day).  Instead I am referring to the equally hilarious Cuban film Strawberry and Chocolate.  You maybe thinking; “señor FilmWipe what has happened?  This is your weakest introduction yet normally they’re funny or strange.  However, today it is just rubbish”.  You may have a point.  The trouble (fans of this blog) will have noticed is that I have a very broad taste and like a wide range of films from a variety of different places.  The problem is that not everyone will have heard about the film.  So sometimes a jovial comment about how the film bears similarity to an equally embarrassing moment in my life is necessary to keep everyone interested.  So don’t fear.  It is not due to a lack of Coca Cola, or my pomposity hitting new highs.  It is simply an attempt to lighten things up. Anyway….

Strawberry and Chocolate follows Diego, a cultivated, homosexual and skeptical young man, falls in love with a young heterosexual communist full of prejudices and doctrinary ideas. First come rejection and suspicion, but also fascination. Fresa y chocolate is the story of a great friendship, that is, a great love between two men, which overcomes incomprehension and intolerance.

The film is without question a triumph.  That is  not to say it is perfect as it is not.  However, it is thoroughly enjoyable romp through the oppressive world of 70s Cuba.  The developing relationship between David and Diego is a delight.  The second that Diego drops his flirtatious behaviour (which is just creepy rather than attractive and is more like the Incredible Hulk on heat) the pair becomes a treat.  Diego’s fascination with Cuban culture beyond the prescribed works of the regime is liberating an insightful.  I challenge any viewer of the film not to want find out more about Cuba and its diverse culture.

The role of Diego is played superbly by Jorge Perugorría.  He puts in a performance that surely was worthy of awards.  It is pleasing to see that he has managed to continue to have a film career, which arguably peaked from an international perspective in Stephen Soderbergh’s Che films about revolutionary Che Guevara.   He plays the role of Diego with a mixture of supreme confidence and intelligence crossed with vulnerability.  You believe in the risks he is taking for the love of culture, and you feel for his thwarted feelings for David.

It is briefly worth mentioning that David is also played superbly by Vladimir Cruz.  He is excellent.  However, there is something about the performance of Jorge Perugorría that takes this film to another level and that is why he gets the billing he does.

The film is superbly directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío.  They manage to reign in a story that had the potential to go out of control, keeping it to what’s important.  The film is short and snappy and trundles along quickly.  Admittedly there is a patch in the middle where it is easy to lose interest but the film quickly becomes interesting again.  While the pair do a fantastic job of giving a view of Cuba sometimes you wish the story could have been developed more.  Although it is easy to understand why it was limited the way it was.

Overall this is a fantastic film that should be viewed by everyone.  If you want to understand life if communist Cuba this is probably the most interesting film you could watch from the 90s and is still relevant today.

8/10 – Fantastic

THOR About Ready To Smash Some Face

Read more HERE.

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It all started on Labor Day of 2008, Lizzy was away doing geology and I needed to go rock climbing. A friend from the gym, Konstantin, suggested that we climb the Red Dihedral on the Incredible Hulk. After doing the route we proposed that almost a year later we should come back, on the 4th of July and do Positive Vibrations. A lot of climbing, training and maturing later we climbed Positive Vibes this past July. I was so amazed by the route I wanted  do it with Lizzy and so in August we went back and climbed both the Red Dihedral and Positive Vibrations.

Peter Croft and Conrad Anker climbing  Solar Flare from Jeffery Morse on Vimeo.

On my first time up Positive Vibrations we got a bit lost and I became intrigued by the variation pitch I had led and wondered about the other routes on the face.  I surfed the web, posted on Supertopo and came back with a bunch of information.

I also ended up buying the awesome High Sierra: Peaks Passes and Trails  by RJ Secor. This book had been suggested multiple times and I was able to previewed it on Google books and saw the Hulk section had much of the information I was looking for. There were route descriptions for all of the major routes on the Hulk as well as a rough photo overlay with route lines.

Sadly not all is improved in the 2009 3rd edition. My friend Shay has the 2nd edition and on our trip to Mt Langley we discovered his book has a photo topo of the Keyhole Wall, but mine does not…

http://www.chesslerbooks.com/eCart/viewItem.asp?idProduct=6966

Topos for the easier routes on the Hulk can found on Supertopo.  You can get a free topo of Red Dihedral and more info about Positive Vibrations and SunSpot Dihedral here:

http://www.supertopo.com/routebeta/highsierra.html

To get the full Positive Vibrations and SunSpot Dihedral topo you have to buy the High Sierra Guide.

An alternate topo for Sun Spot Dihedral can be found here:

http://www.redrocksguidebook.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30

In my research I was able to track down a bunch of topos by Dave Nettle

Airstream 5.13b:
http://www.supertopo.com/topos/obscurities/Airstream.jpg

The Venturi Effect 5.12+:
http://www.supertopo.com/topos/obscurities/venturieffect.pdf

Tradewinds 5.11d:
http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Topo/Topo_91373.html

I also found a fairly cool article about Eye of the Storm (V 5.12, 12 pitches, 1500 feet) but no topo….
http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web07f/newswire-incredible-hulk-davis

The MoonBlog confirmed that  Airstream had seen a 2nd ascent by Nic Sellars and Tom Briggs.

I pulled the following post from my feed reader since I could no longer track down the actual blog entry from September 2007:

Nic Sellars and Tom Briggs have just returned from a trad climbing trip in the states where amongst other things they made the 2nd ascent of a classic Peter Croft route called Airstream. Nic sent in this report.

“Just got back to Blighty after a fab month long trip to the states to climb in the High Sierras on an Alpine rock trip. Tom Briggs and I managed to make the 2nd ascent of Airsteam, a 12 pitch Peter Croft route on a crag called The Incredible Hulk. The route comprised numerous pitches of 5.11 (E4 ish) up to the crux pitches of 512c (7b+), 513b (7c+), 512c. We managed to on-sight all pitches except the crux pitch which managed to squeeze in all it’s difficulty into about 15 ft of slippery groove technical shinaniggins. I red-pointed this by the skin of my teeth as I was fairly trashed by the climb up to this point. All in all we took 12 hours from bivvi to bivvi. The next day we quested down to a very hot and sweaty Bishop to contratulate Peter on his route with some beers (and meet up with a real US role model). Hope the photo attachment arrives in a useable state.”

Larger View

Since I was not content with the currently available information I started putting together some more information. This coincided nicely with a few additions that Scott Bennett made to the Incredible Hulk Mountain Project page. The comments he had made, the Nettle topos, combined with my experience and the Secor book allowed me to create the following photos. I’m still working to get all of the routes in photo topo form and will eventually be including BlowHard 5.12+, Solar Flare 5.12+, SolarBurn 5.12+, Airstream 5.13b and Eye of the Storm 5.12+ when I’m finished.

Above and below are the photo overlay topos that I made.  Feel free to leave comments here or on MP.com

Larger View

Enjoy,

Luke

It was back in July that I posted the trailer for the animated adaption of the Greg Pak story arc, Planet Hulk.

This is the story which finds the Hulk exiled from Earth and forced to become a gladiator before leading a rebellion against the planet Sakaar’s tyrannical emperor.

Well now we have this super-duper DVD cover by the excellent artist Alex Ross.

I loved the comics that this was based on so cannot wait to see it. I wonder if the Silver Surfer is in it?

What do you think of the cover? Will you be buying the DVD

(There’s no official point where the Golden Age ended and the Silver Age began. For the purpose of this challenge, I’m using a transition approach. Basically, I’m counting any new characters/series that debut after November of 1962 when Fantastic Four #1 hit newsstands.  Existing series that reflect a Golden Age approach were phased out over the next couple of years and won’t be covered in the Silver Age Challenge.)

FIRST APPEARANCES
Mr. Fantastic
Invisible Girl
Thing
Human Torch (Silver Age version)
Hulk
Spider-Man
Thor
Ant-Man
Dr. Doom
Mole Man

As you can see, a whole lot of famous characters were introduced in 1962 and late 1961.  From a conceptual standpoint, the minds at Marvel were very, very rich at this point.

ONGOING SERIES
Fantastic Four (9 issues)
Incredible Hulk (5 issues)
Journey Into Mystery (starring Thor, 5 isues)
Tales to Astonish (starring Ant-Man, 5 issues)
Strange Tales (starring Human Torch, 3 issues)

The new super heroes began to take over the established anthology titles just a few months after Fantastic Four debuted.  The FF and Hulk stories were 20-25 pages while the anthology lead features were about 10-14 pages.  All of these stories were written by Stan Lee and, incredibly, penciled by Jack Kirby (some of the dialogue was written by Lee’s brother, Larry Lieber).

SPECIALS
Amazing Fantasy #15 (starring Spider-Man)

The only 1961/1962 Marvel super hero comic that wasn’t penciled by Jack Kirby, instead illustrated by Steve Ditko.  Amazing Fantasy was on the ropes but the one-off Spider-Man story was a success, leading to the character’s own series the following year.

REVIEW!!!!!

Okay, let’s be frank: the writing is terrible.  A lot of the concepts are cool but the writing is just fucking wretched.  I think Stan Lee was either afraid of women, hated them, or just hadn’t met any, because their portrayals are disturbingly shallow.  Unlike her Fantastic Four teammates, Susan Storm/Invisible Girl has no apparent interests and spends most of her time daydreaming about the hunky Sub-Mariner.  The women in the Hulk and Thor strips spend most of their time being thoughtless and swooning over the title characters.

Additionally, the solutions to most scenarios are incredibly cheap and often involve powers that the heroes heretofore had never displayed.  Remember the battle at the end of Superman II in which Superman suddenly has the power to create illusion versions of himself, or shoot lasers out of his hands, or to throw the ‘S’ on his chest and have it transform into some kind of cellophane trap?  That’s the kind of crap you get here.  The Human Torch makes “mirages” of items he saw earlier in the day, even though he’s on the top floor of a skyscraper and can’t even see the item he’s somehow making a mirage of.  Thor spins his hammer so fast that it produces “anti-matter”.

There are plenty of super simplistic “Free World vs Commies” type politics that can only be described as retarded.  I know that the political atmosphere was quite different back then and comics were under completely unfair scrutiny but it feels like Rush Limbaugh was the political adviser.  The Cuban issue is touched on, presenting Castro as a straight up villain and Batista as a good guy (ugh).

The art is almost always solid but the fact is that is you can’t expect a guy (Jack Kirby) to pencil 40-60 pages a month and have it all be awesome.  It seems like some titles were either higher priorities or just had better inkers, as Fantastic Four and Thor stories seem to have better art than the Hulk stories.  Of interesting note is the constantly-evolving nature of some of the series, especially FF and Hulk.  It seems that Hulk is written and drawn differently each issue.  They just didn’t know what to do with him.

The best series is definitely FF, thanks largely to the hilarious bickerings of Human Torch and THing.  As I read the stories, I keep hoping they will murder each other.  Additionally, the delightfully haughty Sub-Mariner comes by all the time to try to kill the male members and have a shot at raping Invisible Girl.  The weakest series is ol’ Ant Man.  The old bore just shrinks himself down and then engages in run of the mill anti-commie detective work.

GRADE: B-
Pros: strong concepts, solid art
Cons: awful writing, inconsistency

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Back in the 60’s, before I was around… Marvel Comics hit the TV for a while, entertaining all comic book lovers, with animation and corny intro songs. Dope shit though. I remember watching some of these as Re-Runs in the 80’s.


Spider-Man, 1967

The Incredible Hulk, 1966

The Invincible Iron-Man, 1966

Captain America, 1966

Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, 1966

The Mighty Thor, 1966

The Fantastic Four, 1967

Marvel Super Heroes, 1966 this is basically The Avengers

STELLAN SKARSGARD

STELLAN SKARSGARD as the Saxon King CERDIC in KING ARTHUR

Skarsgård really is a spectacular and obvious choice for the movie. He was a major bad ass as the Saxon King Cerdic in the recent KING ARTHUR movie and would be great as any of the Norse Pantheon from the Marvel comic book.

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I thought it was just me. But it’s not. After talking to several of my guy friends (and after seeing He’s Just Not That into You with my wife, which chick flick or not, was a good movie,) I realized it wasn’t just me that had a token pair of Bachelor Pants. Every guy in his singlehood has an awful pair of pants that he’s kept for several years, unaware he is committing a crime. They are typically baggy, have cargo pockets, and are outdated.

The thing with Bachelor Pants is that a man is unaware of how horrible these pants are. In fact, men promote each other’s bad fashion tastes by mimicking what their friends wear. A guy doesn’t want to think about what to wear, so the tendency is to go with what’s comfortable and familiar, by default.

The girlfriend will remain silent about the offensive pants during the dating period, all the while she is plotting a plan to eliminate them from her boyfriend’s wardrobe. Traditionally, she will wait until one month after he proposes until he hears the out-of-nowhere newsflash, “You know you’re not bringing those pants into our house once we’re married…”

My contraband was a pair of brown pants I got in 2006 from a Banana Republic outlet. To fit the stereotype, there were quite baggy and had cargo pockets. Those were my Bachelor Pants. My defense was always, “But I got them from Banana Republic- they can’t be that bad…” They earned the name Potato Sack Pants.

So I made them disappear. By that I mean I hid them in a big bin full of winter coats in the storage closet. After being married now for almost 15 months, I decided to nonchalantly bring my Bachelor Pants out of the archives. To my surprise, I wore them around the house for the last two weekends and my wife didn’t say a word about them. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore: “I’m wearing the Potato Sack Pants. Didn’t you notice how awful they are?”

Regarding Bachelor Pants, the main issue is that a man can no long wear them in public after marriage. It’s a bad representation of his wife’s tastes if she allows him out of the house in them. However, Bachelor Pants are permissible inside the home, as they are the equivalent to the women’s sweatpants. Bachelor Pants = women’s gray sweatpants. Okay, it’s a deal.

Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man, but left on his own, a man typically makes the wrong decisions when it comes to fashion. And if he actually does know a lot about it, he may find himself in the questionable “is he or isn’t he?” territory like the professional hired dancers on Dancing with the Stars. So what is a guy to do? Listen to a woman.

When I think of a well dressed man, I think of Frank Sinatra and James Dean, with their stylish, never-out-of-style clothing and classic, never-out-of-place hairstyles. I allow myself to believe they took care of themselves. But I’m sure they had women dressing and styling them the whole time.

Believing that haircuts are annoying and expensive, I ended up in an Owen Wilson situation with my hair for the last several months. Then it all just hit me two weeks ago: This is annoying, I need a haircut. My wife’s eyes lit up when I said that out loud, responding, “You should get it buzzed.” I thought about it for two solid minutes in silence, then replied, “Okay, let’s go.”

What’s interesting is that during my recent Italian mobster days with the long hair, several different guy friends literally said this to me out of the blue: “You got cool hair.” But during that time, all females in my life said, “It’s time for a haircut… What does Jill say about it?” Now that my hair is 1/8th of an inch all over my head, universally every female has praised my decision, while most of my guy friends say, “Oh… you got rid of it…” I hear the hint of disappointment in their voices.

Men have a Survival Mode setting. Without the help of a woman, a man’s appearance shows this Survival Mode mindset: “I took a shower, I shaved, I’m dressed, I brushed my teeth, time to go.” He may be wearing pleated black pants with brown shoes and a wrinkled shirt with the right side of the collar folded up funny on one side and his tie may be a little too short… but he is dressed, and that is all that matters to him. He is convinced he looks good.

Bottom line: If it’s mainly fellow dudes that are approving of my sense of style, I am listening to the wrong gender. Because other men enabled and encouraged my ways, it made me confident in my own ability to look presentable and good. But women are the ones born with the sense of good fashion. I have to accept the fact that there is no shame in depending on a woman for this.

I wear the pants in the relationship… but she tells me which ones to wear.

My appearance with and without the help of a woman.

Edward Norton was recently speaking to MTV when they asked him whether he would be playing Bruce Banner in The Avengers film.

“It’s purely a function of time,” said Norton. “It’s always about just working things out on the schedule.”

“I get very busy. You have to deal with the demands of your moment,” he continued. “I tend to keep my head in the thing I’m doing and I don’t speculate or worry too much about what two or three blocks down the thing is going to be. I know all these things will reveal themselves and work themselves out.”

“The thing about their universe that’s fun is that it all cross-pollinates,” said Norton. “Even when I was working on the ‘Incredible Hulk’ script, I tried to plug in the whole super-soldier serum thing from Captain America.”

“There are limitless permutations,” he said.

There you have it. He may or may not be in it. Thanks Ed, that really cleared things up.