Author: dannyhong

I love Luis Guzman, but I can’t get over him as Gomez Addams

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently because I live under a rock, I had no idea that there was an adaptation of The Addams Family on the slate for revival.  And very recently, some stills dropped to release the initial promotion for what is apparently going to be a Netflix series.  Obviously, I know nothing about it at all, but seeing the above image, was enough for me to be intrigued.

To no surprise, Catherine Zeta Jones is still gorgeous, and there’s little doubt that she’ll visually portray Morticia Addams probably very well.  The kid playing Puglsey doesn’t look nearly as fat or creepy as I always remembered the character to be, and I don’t think I need any synopsis to read that based on the promotional imagery, the show is probably going to lean heavily on swirling about Wednesday Addams, because the point of all revivals and reboots today are typically geared towards drawing in the next generation, while using easter eggs and nods to the past to satiate us olds.

But for me, it’s all about Gomez Adams, who is laughably portrayed by Luis Guzman.  Now I’ve been a fan of Guzman since I saw him in The Count of Monte Cristo, where he played Jacopo the Maggot, Edmond Dantes’ sworn-for-life right hand mate, a role that endeared me to him forever, because few characters have ever portrayed selfless and die-hard loyalty than Jacopo did.

But let’s not sugar-coat it; Luis Guzman isn’t exactly the most stereotypically handsome man in the history of Hollywood media.  He’s a stumpy, pug-faced runt of an actor that so often times gets pegged as some cholo Los Angeles gangbanger named Hector or something as stereotypically bad.  And here he is, slated to be the suave, debonair, romantic love machine, Gomez Addams that was so brilliantly and famously done by Raul Julia in the 1990s.

From what I’ve heard, this reboot is supposedly aiming to harken back to the original Addams Family comic strips from way back when, where Gomez was always portrayed to be kind of stumpy, way shorter than Morticia, and in fact, a little ugly, compared to his bombshell of a wife, adding to the situational humor of the pairing.  So I guess that if that is the objective, than a guy like Luis Guzman isn’t a bad pick, but at least for olds my age, who grew up seeing Raul Julia flipping around and stealing the scenes with his portrayal of Gomez, it’s going to be a really, really hard sell to see Luis Guzman try to ooze the machismo that his predecessor did.

All the same, I do love Jacopo, and for him alone, I would consider giving this Netflix Addams Family reboot a flyer.  Sure, it’ll sit underneath tons of other titles that are in my queue, but if the conditions are right, I’m definitely willing to give it a shot, because as hard of a pill it’ll be to swallow, my appreciation for Luis Guzman would make me take a chance on the new Gomez Addams.

A new metric for the vernacular: A WCW

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my friends in a group chat turned me onto this keen observation, and I found that I liked it so much, I believe it’s worth integrating into my general lexicon, to casually drop into conversation and low-key hope to have the opportunity to mansplain it to anyone who risks questioning what I mean by it when I use it.

In 2001, Vince McMahon bought the crumbling remains of World Championship Wrestling for an estimated $4.2 million dollars; a tremendously far cry of a bargain, considering the company was about $30 million in the green just two years prior.  Fairly recently, in spite of my own general ambivalence towards the subject, there’s been a lot of hullabaloo over a WWE scandal in which it was revealed and continues to unearth, that Vince McMahon has shelled out over $20 million dollars over the years in hush money to hide his and his inner circle’s general sexual deviancy.

Frankly, it’s no shock or surprise that it turns out that Vince McMahon and his cronies did any of the things they’re being accused for at a rapid pace these days, because they’re rich, they’re white, they’re old money, and they’re in an industry where there are literal Playboy-caliber women that come and go.  As much as I respect Vince McMahon’s business acumen, I’m not the least bit surprised that he’s an asshole who wields his money and power for sex, because an endless parade of men in similar circumstances have been doing the same for eons now.  But when the day is over, there’s a whole lot of murky water in the sense that the money was accepted by their recipients, and in my legally uneducated opinion, I have to ask, what crimes actually occurred?

Regardless, the silver lining to it all is that the HeAT has forced Vince McMahon into the retirement that wrestling fans have been calling for, for years now, to actually occur, and in the aftermath of it, same with all of his cronies and stooges who were all implied to be complicit to his bad behavior, if they weren’t accomplices to begin with.  And with it, ushers in a new era of WWE, helmed by his more progressive daughter Stephanie McMahon and with her, Triple H is back into the fold, creating optimism and hope, considering his popularly lauded work with NXT over the last decade.

Obviously, most wrestling fans know that we’ve not seen the last of Vince McMahon, but as long as this scandal is continuing to unfold, we know there’s plenty of time for the company to move and evolve without him so frequently aboard the main cabin.

But anyway, back to the point of this post, the takeaway of it all is that the analogy was made that to date, Vince McMahon has paid out the valuation of 4.7 WCWs, in hush money for his sexual indiscretions.  WCW has become a noun, which is definable as an analogy for approximately $4.2 million dollars, and is applicable as metric in dannyhong speak moving forward.

  • Lionel Messi’s salary for 2022 is approximately 9.76 WCWs
  • Tiger Woods reportedly turned down anywhere from 166-190 WCWs from the Saudi-run LIV golf organization
  • Juan Soto rejected a 15-year/107.14 WCW contract from the Washington Nationals before they traded him to the San Diego Padres

Yep, metric checks out. Once the greatest threat to the WWE, now a unit of measurement to ironically measure stupid amounts of money to something more humorously.

Dad Brog (#094): It was bound to happen eventually

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This photo here is of the remains of a snow globe that I’ve had for the last 14 years.  It was one of the few mementos I had from my time working for Cartoon Network, which to this day is still one of the feathers in my cap of my career, because I enjoyed my time there greatly, and I got to do a lot of noteworthy projects while working there.

As a freelancer, it was always hit or miss on whether or not I got to take part in any of the company perks.  Sometimes I was allowed to attend company functions, other times I was the guy that was needed to be in the office while the actual Turner employees got to.  Sometimes I was privy to swag, other times there was an air of exclusive gate keeping from the lowly hired guns.

However, this snow globe was one of the few things that I was allowed to have, and it was something that I did treasure to some capacity, long after my time at CN came to a close.  It was something fairly tasteful, branded so I would always know where it came from, and most importantly, it was exclusive.  These were only given out internally, and were not available to the public.  Those who have them, are Cartoon Network people, and it was something that I took pride in having of my own, because for the two years I was there, I was all in, wanting to be a part of the team.

Honestly, I probably should’ve moved it at the very first evidence that #1 was capable of reaching it.  Naturally, as my children grow, stand upright and become increasingly mobile and mischievous, the need to childproof things rises and rises, commensurate to their level of physical access.  And prior to this incident, I knew she was capable of reaching it, as she had done so numerous times already, but in the past, usually I’ve been readily present to be able to prevent her from harming any of the things on this particular piece of furniture, but as is often times the case with toddlers, it only takes a second and a foot apart for destruction to occur.

In some regard, I suppose I’ve been fortunate to have gone as long as this, for my kids to have destroyed something meaningful to me.  29 months since the arrival of the first one before any of them managed to find the moment of weakness in which they could inflict some damage to some personal property that’s relatively extremely difficult and costly to replace, seems like it’s been a fairly decent run.  But as the subject of this post says, it was bound to happen, eventually, probably.  Kids are kids, and sooner or later, they become destructive, whether it’s a phase or just an accident.

More importantly though, nobody was hurt or incurred any physical harm from broken glass and glittery water.  A meaningful trinket breaking is nothing compared to if my kids or mythical wife suffered any slips or cuts from the damage. 

All the same, I am pretty bummed out by this.  I really did love this silly snow globe, and as I stated, replacing it would be costly, from those former Turner folks who are hocking them on eBay for well over $130 as exclusive goods, and I don’t think I’d want a replacement anyway.  The one that broke was mine, my symbol of belonging on a team, and my personal memento of a brief but fun and memorable point in my career, and replacing it with someone else’s for the sake of having an intact variant, doesn’t seem like a justifiable idea.

I am all in for Gus Fring as Professor X

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Giancarlo Esposito reveals that he has had meetings with Marvel people for a future role, expresses desire to be Professor X

My knee-jerk reaction to the idea of Gus Fring being Professor X, was absolutely all aboard the train.  I get that aside from Captain Picard, the role of Charles Xavier was basically designed to be for Patrick Stewart, but in the age and in light of pursuing change and pursuing the future, I’m hard pressed to imagine anyone more succinctly qualified for the role of Professor X than Giancarlo Esposito.

Like many, my first real exposure to Esposito was him playing Gus Fring in Breaking Bad, and as far as characters go, he’s easily up there as some of my all-time favorites, because I love characters that are cerebral, command respect, and play the long game like a chess grandmaster.  I get that throughout his career since, he’s basically been bad guy after bad guy after bad guy, but there’s absolutely no reason to believe that he wouldn’t be capable of playing the cerebral, respect commanding, long game-player like Professor X, plus it’s not like Xavier didn’t make some fucked up choices in his life either.

Esposito is polished, annunciates intelligently and in the manner you’d expect to hear from Professor X, and has been entrenched in sci-fi/comics long enough to where it probably wouldn’t feel inorganic or phony on his part when playing the role.  There is absolutely zero reason why he wouldn’t make an excellent Professor X.

Unfortunately, to no surprise, there are plenty of people out there that don’t agree with my enthusiasm for the idea of Gus Fring as Professor X.  And the funny-not-really-funny thing about the internet and social media and how we’re spoon-fed occasional comments, is when you see the remarks from people you know, and you’re reading words that don’t really sound that intelligent or, in the case of what I saw, were good examples of peoples’ white privilege soaking through the sponge.

Because in spite of many peoples’ best attempts to try not to be racist but not doing a very good job of doing it, the seemingly number one reason for any sort of opposition of the idea of Giancarlo Esposito as Professor X, really boils down to the fact that he’s not white.  I understand that there’s an expectation set by decades of seeing a lily-white Caucasian Professor X in comics and FOX properties, but we live in a world where change is inevitable and is happening very rapidly.  But you could go back to 1963 and change the skin tone of Professor X to absolutely any color at all, and it wouldn’t have altered the course of history one bit.

He’d still have has had his legs crushed by the Shadow King.  He still would have gone toe-to-toe with Phoenix on the psychic plane.  He still would’ve gotten shot by Stryfe and been the first guy to have the Legacy Virus.  He still would’ve mind-fucked hundreds of people and become Onslaught.  And so forth and so forth.  A black Xavier, Hispanic Xavier, Asian Xavier wouldn’t have changed the course of the character’s history one bit.  Just because he was white in six decades worth of comic books doesn’t mean he couldn’t be presented as non-white in what would be at the very most, a series of films.

But seeing people take shots at his polish, his acting ability and other reasons to criticize the guy when they’re really just objecting to the fact that his skin tone doesn’t match Ben Affleck’s, is insulting and is bullshit.  When the day is over, the right performer should be the one to get the role, regardless of the color of their skin.  I mean, look at the shitty 2003 Daredevil speaking of Ben Affleck.  The film was horrendous, but one of the few things they did get right was casting a very black Michael Clarke Duncan as the role of the historically very white Kingpin.  Regardless of skin color, Duncan is a tank of a man who commands a room, has swag and is convincingly physically invincible, much like the character he portrayed.  Naturally, there was much complaints about that as well, but to its credit it still came to fruition.

Plus, Patrick Stewart isn’t getting any younger.  Y’all remember seeing his cameo in [spoiler redaction]?  Eyes all sinking in with age, not entirely sure the wheelchair was just a prop.  When he was a layup for the role of Professor X, those Bryan Singer X-Men flicks were literally two decades ago.  Stewart is 82 years old.  Eighty-two years old.  At the very most, Professor X was probably in his early fifties in the comics, in “present” canon.  Absolutely no disrespect to Picard.  He is the living embodiment of how Professor X was originally portrayed.  But my man is getting old.  He is old.  He doesn’t need to be continued to be trotted out, and then get the digital Luke Skywalker treatment.  Let the change happen.  Change.  Is.  Needed.

Hopefully the stiffs at Disney/Marvel/ESPN/FOX will be capable of not caving into their white racist brethren when it comes time to eventually start casting for the introduction of mutants into the MCU, and make the right fucking call: Giancarlo Esposito as Professor X.

Dad Brog (#093): Year One of Forever, part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As is often the case with life with two kids as young as my own, things seldom go according to plan. And as much as I loathe tardiness and inability to be on time, things happening behind their intended time has become more and more of a routine occurrence that I hope one day rectifies itself as/if life ever calms down to a less frantic pace.

That being said, with no disrespect for my second child, #2’s birthday has come and gone now, for a few weeks now, but finally I’m taking the time to really reflect on the monumental  occasion.

To be fair, some of this delay had to do with the fact that unlike with #1, #2 got to have a traditional big Korean first birthday party, as the travels I described in prior posts was so that my side of the family could celebrate the first birthday, as is a big tradition in Korean culture.  And that particular weekend was the best chance at getting as much of my family members present, even if it meant celebrating a little bit past the actual date.

But my little #2 is officially one year old, and it most certainly has been an eventful twelve months since her arrival into the world.  I’d be full of shit if I didn’t talk about just how difficult it had been at times, especially considering her challenges she’s had with sleep in general, that still rears up every now and then even to this day.  And when she gives us hell about going to sleep, I fantasize about when she’ll one day be a groggy teenage girl who wants nothing more than to sleep, and I’ll be the obnoxiously awake dad who will gleefully remind her of her infant days when she fought like war to not sleep on a daily basis.

Continue reading “Dad Brog (#093): Year One of Forever, part 2” →

The Clock King is most definitely the worst villain ever

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A long time ago, I posed the question if The Clock King really was a villain, in the grand spectrum of things.  That he really was just a punctual and time-considerate individual in a world full of shitheads that don’t have such qualities, and he’s the one that gets painted to look like the bad guy, and eventually a member of Batman’s rogues gallery.  Back then, it didn’t really seem fair to me that he was considered a villain and I wanted to open that discussion to my then-six readers.

But after a weekend like this past one, and 2+ years of parenting, all I can really think of now is that not only is The Clock King most definitely a villain, he’s without a shadow of a doubt the greatest evil in all of comics.  Worse than Darkseid, worse than Doomsday, worse than the Joker.  Worse than Thanos, worse than Kang, worse than Onslaught.  Shit, it transcends comic books, and The Clock King is the greatest evil in the history of, history.  Worse than Hitler, worse than bin Laden, worse than Trump.

Obviously this goes into the obvious notion that there is no greater force in existence than the passage of time, and how it’s unfeeling, unbiased, impervious by nobody, and never ending.  Which means those who wields it to greatest effect, like The Clock King, are basically the worst people ever.

At this current juncture of my life, there’s seldom any time in which I am not up against a clock on a fairly regular basis, and there are times in which it becomes absolutely maddening and fills me with despair and levels of stress that I have a hard time coping with.  By individual nature, I am a punctual person who believes in punctuality and adequate lead time; I hate to rush, I like getting to my destinations early, and as a worker I believe that 15 minutes early is on time and on time is late.

But since I’ve gotten older and had kids, my agenda is always packed full of things for other people, I’m routinely stretched past capacity, and I’m way more prone to being late to things, and I concern myself that I’m developing a reputation of being flaky and unreliable.  Or just a typical parent maybe.  Regardless, it goes against everything that I’ve always put a lot of conscionable effort into maintaining, and I have a hard time dealing with the seemingly endless stress that comes with being up against the clock.

Continue reading “The Clock King is most definitely the worst villain ever” →

Kind of one of the worst days ever in a long time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[transcribed on my phone while I was laying awake in a sweltering house at 3 in the morning]

  • Couldn’t really work due to all sorts of conflicting appointments to do
  • Work team building function sucked up even more time in which I would have preferred to have gotten some actual work done than swing golf clubs when I don’t golf
  • Had to rush pack and head to the airport to which of course there was hellacious traffic because Atlanta
  • Atlanta’s airport logistics are never the same each time you visit and my risk of missing my flights due to being unable to check bags increase with every passing minute
  • Successfully getting our baggage checked was probably the only good part of the day
  • The plane ride from hell where #1 pissed herself during the taxi time in which nobody can access restrooms and then 30 minutes later, shit herself, requiring me to change her out of soiled clothes and into a spare outfit in the confines of a tiny airplane lavatory
  • Also #2 was a squirmy handful the entire flight because she was bored, hungry and past her bedtime and I’m pondering how much I hate air traveling with an infant and a toddler and never want to do it again
  • My dad’s house turned out to have turned into a house of horrors with no working refrigerator, no hot water from certain outlets and worse off, no working air conditioning. It was literally 84F upstairs, resulting in numerous people to sleep in the dungeon of my old basement to have any chance at staying sane

I went to bed after a cold shower feeling dejected, embarrassed and miserable at the circumstances of my surroundings and that I had to subject other people to them, much less my wife, kids and mother-in-law.  Need to figure out how to salvage the rest of this trip’s lodging situation even if it means relocating to a hotel or my mom’s place.