For those who still haven't seen ti and wonder whetehr or not the Dark Knight lived up to its hype, the answer is unequivocably, yes.  Did Heath Ledger top Jack's Joker?  Yes.  I knew he was a good actor when he did A knight's Tale, and a really good actor when he did The Patriot.  He got mad props for Brokeback, which I don't plan on seeing...but this, was a damn fine performance.  The flaw that many movies have made when handling comic book franchises is this: the give a campy feel to the villains.  In other words, they take on what they feel to be a comic book approach, but it reads more like the Sunday paper, y'dig?

Iron Man, and the new line of Batman movies takes it to the root of the comic book, and gets into the lore.  Yes, they're comic books, but they deal with a lot of serious moral and ethical issues.  The joker does look like a clown often in the comics, but he's not one.  The Ceasar Romero Joker (from the 60's TV series w/ Adam West, Burt Ward, Merideth Burgess & Eartha Kitt...yes I used to watch the re-runs)) is what I'm sure influenced Tim Burton's/Jack Nicholson's Joker, which they gave a darker spin on.  But here's the thing, when the Joker does something he finds funny, it's only funny to him...not the audience.  We laughed along with Jack, and never took Ceasar Romero's iteration seriously.  Yeah, they were the bad guy, and Jack's Joker did sick things, but he didn't feel dangerous.  Heath's Joker did.  He brought a twisted comic legend to life in a way nobody has ever done as far as comic bok villains go.  He has set the standard for what a comic villain can be.  The reason why this is so big, why Spider-man and Batman are such big successes is this:  The heroes are only as good as the villains make them.

The fact that Batman beats the guys he goes up against with no powers, or that Spider-man is almost always overmatched, makes them instantly appealing.  They are the heroes, yet they're still the underdogs that manage to keep beating the odds.  Their personal lives are unassuming and belie their rue nature, which helps the reader get further into the mythos...to connect.  I cheered the Joker because they captured him on film...I was thinking to myself, "that's something the Joker would do".  Anyway, enough about that...go see it it, the jon't was like that!

As far as me, I've been transitioning.  I went from scraping to get hours to manage things to not having enough in the day sometimes (it feel that way).  I'm working a new full-time gig, and still doing part-time and freelancing on the side.  Meaning, I haven't had the thought to update this journal, or had the time to start remapping the illpoets.com redux.  All in due time, though.  Things will come together soon.  Just trying to get acclimated to waking up early again.  I can wake up and all, it's just when I stop moving at the end of the day, I am wiped out.  This beats not having a full-time gig, though.  A little secret ya'll...I've been without ful-time employment for over 2 1/2 years.  During that time I was often mildly stressed (at a minimum), but blessed enough to never have missed a mortgage, car or any other payment I owed, and I did it all legally (naturally/of course).  Being responsible, restrained, planning and a whole lot of God got me through that, ya'll.  Real talk.  Lot of scraping to get by and learning new trades, but I'm here, and I only plan on getting better.  That is why many have not seen or heard from me like that, and much of why I don't write in the journal as much...Life demanded all of my time and energy.  I'm getting back to me slowly but surely, though.

More to come soon...