My dad used to say to me when I was younger, “One day, you’re going to be reincarnated as a hamburger” because it was literally the only thing I would eat when I went out to dinner (which as a kid was not that often).
Recently, I went with my family to California for vacation. One of my main goals was to finally have an In-N-Out burger. I missed my opportunity to have one when I had a brief stopover in Los Angeles in 2008, but I was hellbent this time to have one.
Did it live up to the hype?
Well, let’s just say I had tears in my eye with every bite I took, and it wasn’t due to any spice. It may have been the single best “fast food-style” burger I’ve ever had in 42 years of existence. It was every bit sweet and savory, greasy and satisfying, soft yet with a little bit of crunch. In short, as Michael Fassbender would say, “Perfection.”
So why write about burgers in the section I usually save for personal reflection? It’s because if this (and last) summer has taught me anything it’s that I have to savor the positive things in life, while letting the negative fade into the ether. Summer 2024 was, as Taylor Swift (or Bananarama) would say, a cruel summer. Two major deaths, intense professional and personal frustrations and worries all marred what I had hoped was going to be a great summer.
However, last summer during my time in Paris (I have awesome in-laws), I discovered how much taking time and effort to savor things was important to my mental well-being. The Parisian philosophy of “living to eat and not eating to live,” really transformed parts of my life. It’s much easier to remember the negative of any situation. However, it just doesn’t seem worth it. I could tell you about all the frustrations of this vacation — however when I look back through photos, what I see is joyful memories and good times rather than the 12 hours of sitting in Newark Airport or me getting annoyed at a great many things. Now, it’s much easier for me to go back to that bite of an In-N-Out Burger, remember sitting in the pool with my daughter as she saw her first sunrise, remembering the sights and smells and feeling of pure joy of Disneyland, the small moments of laughter with my wife, and getting even a sliver of time away from my daily grind to refocus myself.
Savoring the positive in life real has helped my mental health a lot, and I hope these couple words can help you all as well.
I Read Comic Books Now: Marvel’s Blood Hunt. Marvel’s summer event series Blood Hunt is now officially in the books. This was the first comic series I collected (nearly) every issue and it was definitely fun (albeit a bit costly) experience. I collected a metric ton of comics that included the actual Blood Hunt series, limited-run serieses, tie-ins and one-offs. The varying degree of quality was astonishing. Now none of the books were bad but many of them were pretty inconsequential to the main story. Did we need a whole Union Jack run that tied into nothing? Did we need a standalone Hulk issue that was essentially a carbon copy of the Hulk short story from Blood Hunters? Why did we introduced a new Werewolf by Night, when a new series (with a new hero) launched a month later? The answer is a resounding no to these. Also, it has to be said that the Midnight Suns run was easily the most disappointing as their involvement in the main storyline was wildly non-essential.
However, was it fun to see Wolverine cut through hundreds of vampires? Was it a blast to see random characters like Hellcow show up in the Blood Hunters anthology? Was it very cool to see Misty Knight, Lizard and Peter Park team-up to save Dr. Michael Morbius? Or how about that shockingly good Dracula run? Yeah, all these more than made up for the lackluster issues.
As for the main storyline, Blood Hunt concluded its run with one of the best twists in quite some time. Without spoiling things, let’s say since Dr. Strange gets taken off the board quickly (in an excellent twist), he must cede his mantle as Sorcerer Supreme to the worst person possible. Does that person save the day from the vampire incursion? Of course! But then everything goes sideways and we’ll be heading into a massive event series in 2025.
Till then, here are my ranking of the tie-ins, one-shots and mini-series that were associated with Blood Hunt.
Wolverine Blood Hunt #1-4
Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt #1-3
Dracula: Blood Hunt #1-3
Blood Hunters #1-4
Doctor Strange #15-17
Avengers #14-16
Laura Kinney: The Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1
Strange Academy: Blood Hunt #1-4
Jubilee: Blood Hunt #1
Black Panther: Blood Hunt #1-3
Magik: Blood Hunt #1
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #21 – #22
Psylocke: Blood Hunt #1
Vengeance of Moon Knight #6
Fantastic Four #22
Midnight Suns: Blood Hunt #1-3
Werewolf by Night: Blood Hunt #1
Hulk: Blood Hunt #1
Union Jack the Ripper: Blood Hunt #1-4
Oh the Random Things You’ll Hear: This the name of my ever-evolving Spotify playlist that was created back in 2011 (currently at 2,898 songs). Every month I’m going to give you some recent cuts from this list that I’ve added that are in heavy rotation…
“California” – Phantom Planet: 22 years a little band from the West Coast, featuring Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman on drums, delivered this absolute breezy bop of a song. On the aforementioned trip to California, we were literally “Driving down the 101” when this song came up on the DJ-less radio station Jack FM. The song definitely feels like a relic from this time when Weezer made it cool for rock to be poppier and less aggressive, and right before shaggy haired emo boys brought their tears and fears to the radio. It’s literally one of the best songs of California out there. Fight me on that one.
“Death Valley High” – Orville Peck featuring Beck: If Phantom Planet crafted an anthem about California then Orville Peck and Beck have done the same for the high desert areas of the U.S. A groovy, lounge-y Vegas-styled banger, these two wild virtuosos have created a high replay track that is just oozing with charm and fun.
“That’s How I’m Feeling” – Jack White: Jack White is back to being Jack White with the lead single from his No Name album. This is a back-to-basics garage rock ripper that harkens back to the early days of his career with The White Stripes. It is more than a welcome return to the form we all fell in love with Jack White with two decades ago.
“Up All Night” – James Bay, The Lumineers, Noah Kahan: An all-star clap-your-hands, stomp-your-feet, gang chorus around the fireplace type of song. It has a late summer/early fall vibe that feels perfect from a beach bonfire or in the backyard in front of the fire pit.
“Angels Point” by LA LOM: This instrumental from LA LOM (aka Los Angeles League of Musicians) is another California tinged tune that speaks to time on the West Coast. It evokes images of long highway drives, beach towns, mountain regions, local mom and pop shops and the big lights of Hollywood.
Reeeee-Watch: Everything Everywhere All at Once. Welp, it took me two and a half years, but I finally watched the Winner for Best Picture from 2022. It speaks volumes of how good a film is when it not only lives up to every ounce of hype after two years but also the experience of watching it on a tiny screen on an airline did not impact its viewing (neither did the multiple announcements of keeping our seatbelts fastened).
This film was one of the most magical films I’ve ever experience. It was hilarious, harrowing, heartbreaking, heartwarming, fantastical and yet so grounded in reality. It’s an absolutely beautiful film that is graced by all-time performances from Michelle Yeoh, Key Hu Quan, Stephanie Hsu and LoPan himself, James Hong. This easily makes its way into one of my favorite films of all-time, and I don’t think I can ever look at an everything bagel the same again.
The Wonderful World of Disney: This section of the column is normally reserved for wrestling, but I wanted to focus back on the time I had in California — in particular my first trip to Disneyland. Since 2022, I have been to Disney World (Florida) and Disneyland Paris; so I know a thing or two about Disney parks (although I would not consider myself any sort of expert). In my humble opinion, I enjoyed the original Disneyland better than Florida’s Magic Kingdom. It has this feeling of history and originality to it because it was the original Disney theme park. This feeling is undeniable, and you feel like you’re walking into the blueprint for parks around the world. This park wonderfully blends original rides like The Matterhorn and the original, expansive It’s a Small World with new cutting edge rides like Rise of the Resistance and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Rail. They also have an excellent Nightmare Before Christmas overlay for The Haunted Mansion, which we were lucky to snag a virtual queue for.
As for its sister park, Disney California Adventure — it’s not as great as EPCOT or Hollywood Studios — but it still is teeming with fun times. Avengers Campus blew away its Parisian counterpart with not only a plethora of characters walking about like Ms. Marvel, Shang Chi, and Spider-Man but excellent stunt shows and the Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout ride (which is a re-theme of Tower of Terror).
I highly recommend, if you have the money, heading to this park as the lines were so much quicker and efficient here, and the experience is so much different than Florida (which is also awesome, don’t get me wrong).
