Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (aka glecharles) (aka loudpoet)

An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Chango’s Fire by Ernesto Quiñonez

There is something simultaneously appealing and frustrating about Ernesto Quiñonez's second novel, Chango's Fire, a marked improvement over his highly-flawed debut, Bodega Dreams, but in the end, still something of a disappointment. This time, the problem lies in his biting off more than he can chew with too many subplots rolling around what is essentially one man's coming-of-age story at its heart. He's inexplicably combined the systematic burning of Spanish Harlem, insurance fraud, organized crime, gentrification, Santeria, pseudo-socialism, illegal citizenship papers, a shady government agent and a few other random nuggets into a muddle-headed plot that rests precariously, and unsuccessfully,…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Ezra #3

At first glance, Ezra appears to embody many of the things I dislike about comic books these days: multiple variant covers, scantily-clad women for no apparent reason, too little story and a late shipping schedule. And yet, despite all of that, when I saw it on the stands today, I was happy to finally see it after what felt like months of waiting. You see, Ezra, Sean O'Reilly's highly-appealing, blue-tinted, medieval mercenary, has what I refer to as the Drew Barrymore Appeal. Against all odds, no matter what she does, no matter how ridiculous - ie: marrying Tom Green -…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Am I just being cynical in thinking that much of the love being professed for Barack Obama rests a bit too precariously on the fact that he's an articulate, well-spoken black man with a Great American Novel backstory? Because that's all you ever hear about him in references to his purportedly being the future of the Democratic Party. Nothing about his record, or his stance on any particular issue, just how he wowed everyone with his speech at the DNC and how he's of mixed racial background. And if I am being cynical, does that mean I'm wrong?

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

What I did this weekend, in between cleaning up vomit and watching football; all three things completely unrelated. Stomach viruses suck! As do collard greens and rice in a pool of watery bile, your son's foot covered up to his ankle. Pink yogurt and chunks of undigested oatmeal aren't too hot, either. Wondering if that burp was just a burp, or a prelude to dinner revisited? Not hot.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: New Avengers #1 / The Ultimates 2 #1

To say I was skeptical about Marvel go-to-guy Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers seemingly self-serving reload would be quite the understatement. Based on the ill-conceived complete disaster that was Avengers Disassembled, and it's half-assed epilogue/retrospective in Avengers Finale, I was fully prepared to hate it on sight. Boy was I wrong! After the requisite - and, thanks to its brevity, sad in that wow, that really was lame kind of way - first page recap of the Disassembled disaster, Bendis starts things off with a shadowy meeting between a silhouetted figure and a thug who turns out to be Electro.…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Comment: A Fanboy’s Rant #1

1. One of the sequences in Comic Book Superheros Unmasked (2003) dealt with the crash of the comic industry during the early 90s. I'd like to bring up one point made by Marvel's Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada during the interview, where he basically states that the variant cover phenomenon during that time played a big part in the industry's crash. Back then, the hottest books were selling in the several hundreds of thousands. Nowadays, a publisher would kill for 150,000! Well, more than a decade removed and it looks like the industry is back at it. This time though, rather than…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Pumpkin Seeds: STFU! Edition

1. Democrats whining about the election. It's pretty clear there were various problems across the country, as there always have been, but crying foul-play after your guy limply threw in the towel and disappeared is self-flagellation at its most annoying. Screw Kerry, deal with reality and start working on fixing the system that stuck us with the two of them as a choice. 2. Elitist Blue-Staters. Enough of the "Fuck the South" and "Urban Archipelago" nonsense. I have family down south. I live in the City you all cream yourselves over. They're not all ignorant racist homophobes, and it's not…

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