The Comic Book Store

Hero comics it's called. Located on 35th avenue and Thunderbird. I stroll in and see a short man with a pony tail. I'd say he's about 5'4" or 5'5". Row upon rows of comic book goodness with the newest issue of Detective Comics at the forefront. As I was searching for issue 17 of Watchmen, I noticed the television at the front of the store playing an episode of DragonBall Z. I was mesmerized by it because I haven't watched it since childhood. It was the episode when Goku confronts Frieza and he turns Super Saiyan for the very first  time. Instant nostalgia ensued. As I turned my attention to back to my quest for that Justice League comic, I noticed 4 white portable tables set up and school-aged kids were playing an intense game of Yu-Gi-Oh. Other person was sitting by himself drawing was seemed to be an anime character.

I got a relaxed vibe from the store. No one was in a hurry to do anything and the short man with the pony tail was very welcoming. The store was littered with posters of new comic book releases and upcoming events such as, a Pokemon tournament with the first place winner earning $200. It's times like these that I wish I still had my cards. And another poster for the final issue of Batman: Death of the Family story line. The poster depicted Joker in bloody tuxedo dancing with the Bat-Suit.  

Sonnen Has Been Without UFC Contract For Months

In a strange turn of events, Chael Sonnen has said that he has been without a UFC contract for months now.

Sonnen made these comments when he appeared yesterday on, former WWE Superstar, Stone Cold Steve Austin's podcast called "The Steve Austin Show". During the podcast, he stated that he never signed bout agreements with Anderson Silva from the second time they fought and for his upcoming title fight against Jon Jones.

"I never, to this day I don't have a contract to fight Anderson Silva. I never signed an agreement that said I would fight him, we never picked a dollar amount, we never picked a weight class. Nothing. I told those guys I would show up and I did."

"They never had a contract with me, they said what they would do and they did. My UFC contract expired about four months ago, I don't know if they just haven't realized it because they're so busy, or if they just know they don't need one with me. But, I got a world title fight coming up, we've got a sold out venue -- I don't have a piece of paper with my name on it or Jon Jones' or anything else, but I don't need one either."

If this proves to be true then it is pretty honorable of him to continue fighting without a contract. Or maybe this is another case of "Chael being Chael" in which he says outlandish things just to get publicity. If so, Mr. Sonnen, you won.

Chael's next fight is for the UFC Lightheavyweight title against Jon "Bones" Jones. will be at UFC 159 on Saturday April, 27 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City Review

The book I read was Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. It was published in September of 2004 by W. W. Norton. He is 53 years-old and he has also written The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir and The Reenactments: A Memoir  This is a memoir about Flynn's reunion with his estranged father, Jonathan, an alcoholic resident of the homeless shelter where Nick was a social worker in the late 1980s.

This memoir parallels Nick’s life as well as father’s. In one part the story, Nick describes his own teenage years in much the same way he describes the adult years of his father: lost, drowned in alcohol, and heading nowhere. "I see no end to being lost," writes Nick, "You can spend your entire life simply falling in that direction. It isn't a station you reach but just the general state of going down."

Unlike his father, though, Nick is able to pull his life together. Flynn ends up settling in Boston and gets a job at the Pine Street Inn, one of the nation's most active homeless shelters.

In 2012, the movie adaption for this story was created. The movie was entitled Being Flynn. It starred Robert De Niro as Johnathan Fylnn, Julianne More as Jody Flynn, and Paul Dano as Nick.

“The boat has become supreme isolation, chosen isolation, holding myself apart from the world, which I only dimly understand anyway. I can sit on the aft deck and never be surprised by anything again- no phone will ever ring, no one will knock that I haven't seen coming for a quarter mile. that I can go to sleep any night and wake up having broken loose- a failed knot, a line frayed, the anchor dragged- that I can drift out of sight of land makes a twisted sense, in line with my internal weather. When everything has proven tenuous one can either move toward permanence or toward impermanence. The boat's sublimely impermanent. Some mornings the fog's so thick that I exist only in a tight globe of clearing, beyond which is all foghorn and unknown.”

Another Bullshit Night was a great story. A heartbreaking story. Nick Flynn throws himself towards the blunt trauma of history, towards his fear of what he himself might become. It is a story of self-discovery. In the end it is about family, about fathers and sons and how painful it is to know the depth of that relation at its fullest.