The Godfather Of Soul has died at the age of 73 this Christmas day.

Well known as an innovator and influence on music for the past 50 years, it was not until very recently that I came to understand who the true James Brown is.

He is a crazy person. A force of nature trapped inside of a man that can only be unleashed in the form of music.

Rolling Stone magazine recently published the article Being James Brown and its a shockingly hilarious look inside the world of the hardest working man in show business. Its a long read, and probably not your idea of holiday entertainment, but unhinged insanity that begins when James Brown enters a room and lingers long after he leaves… well its a good metaphor for his legacy in music as well.

From the article:

James Brown writes a lyric, to record over a long, rambling blues-funk track titled “Message to the World.” For anyone who has ever wondered how James Brown writes a song, I have a sort of answer for you. First: He borrows Mr. Bobbit’s bifocals. James Brown doesn’t have glasses of his own, or left them at home, or something. Second: He borrows a pencil. Third: He sits, and writes, for about fifteen minutes. Then he puts himself behind the microphone. The result is a cascading rant not completely unlike his spoken monologues. Impossible to paraphrase, it meanders over subjects as disparate as his four marriages, Charles Barkley, Al Jarreau, a mixture of Georgia and Carolina identities he calls “Georgia-lina,” the fact that he still knows Maceo Parker and that Fred Wesley doesn’t live very far away, either, Mr. Bobbit’s superiority to him as a checkers player, the fact that he believes himself to have both Asian and Native American ancestry, and, most crucially, his appetite for corn on the cob and its role in his health: “I like corn, that’s a regular thing with me. Gonna live a long time, live a little longer.”

Mr. James Brown will live a little longer. Here he is just a year and a half ago at the Live 8 benefit concert, in top form.

It’s Christmas Eve, and what better time to watch an old Christmas special, like this Claymation Christmas CLASSIC:

You can find a plethora of Christmas specials like this, all in their entirety ALL RIGHT HERE, from It’s A Wonderful Life, to the stop-motion classic Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, to less obvious selections like The Office’s recent Christmas episode, or even the Star Wars Holiday Special (Part 1, and Part 2). It’s Christmas everybody, so even if you don’t celebrate it, ’tis definitely the season to watch a video of Chewbacca celebrating it.

Due to the holiday (and becuase I’m feeling lazy), I’m gonna skip this week’s $20 Game of the week and lost classics columns. Don’t worry though, I’ll have twice as much content for next week. Until then, check out this review.

In 1983, director Brian DePalma created a film starring Al Pacino that would forever change the way we would think about drug dealers, cocaine, Cubans, immigration, and pelicans. This film would be known as the story of a man named Tony Montana. It was the chronicle of his journey from yet another Cuban refugee looking for the American dream to the biggest drug dealer in all of Miami, all the way to his violent end as a desperate man consumed by a coccaine-fueled blind rage. This film would be the stuff of legends, serving as inspiration to entire generations of rappers, actors, gangsters, and other entertainers. This film is called Scarface. Nearly 2 decades later, Tony Montana’s story would continue on as a video game courtesy of Vivendi Universal.

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The Powet forums are down, as I’m sure you’ve discovered by now.

While we work to get them back up, Shwiggie was kind enough to set us up with a temporary forum here.

Check back here for updates, or on the temporary forum.

We’re also working on getting the normal layout back for the front page.

-Crazy

IDW, the publisher currently bringing Transformers comics to the stands, has released info about a Movie Prequel Comic that will be starting in February 2007. It’s a four-part mini, with the books being 32 pages each, and it’s being written by Chris Ryall (Zombies VS. Robots) and Simon Furman (more Transformers books than can possibly be listed), with Don Figueroa (not as many as Furman, but plenty nonetheless) on art. Interestingly, Ryall also happens to be IDW’s Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.

Here’s what he had to say about the book:

This is no peripheral movie tie-in. Rather, it’s a fully realized, generations-spanning tale that also sets up and explains much of the backstory in the coming movie. With Paramount and Hasbro’s assistance, we’re able to show you the characters and explain some situations that are integral parts of the movie. It should also assuage any early fan trepidation and show that this prequel and the movie together are going to comprise quite an epic TRASNFORMERS story.

Ultimately, while I’m unfamiliar with Ryall’s previous work – and I’m a little curious how the writing chores are being split up – with big guns Furman and Figueroa attached to this project, this books is sizing up to be a pretty safe bet for my money. And what’s more, if that blacked out image is any indication, this book should provide a clear look at what some of the characters – if not all – will look like, at least with Cybertronian alt-modes.

UPDATE: Wizard has a short blurb on the book with the full version of the blacked-out image colored.

A free trial of the Wii Internet Channel is now available for download from the Wii Wares section of the Wii Shop Channel.

It is surprisingly easy to use. So much so that I easily posted this news update with it.

And don’t worry! Powet and it’s YouTube videos work fine with it.

Marvel released their first glimpse of what the Silver Surfer will look like in the Fantastic Four sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, and this image is it. To be honest, this image really tells me nothing, as with nothing around for comparison or reference, this might as well simply be a drawing. That said, we’ll get our first look at the character in motion once the trailer releases today with Night At The Museum.

More details from the article at USA Today:

With computer-generated imagery techniques similar to those used to create Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, the slippery Surfer, voiced by Doug Jones, “will look somewhere between gun metal and fluid metallics so you can see the body motion, the breathing, the muscle tone, the mood,” says Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad.

The Surfer’s mood is key to the story. After striking a deal with the evil Galactus to save his planet, the once-human Surfer wreaks havoc throughout the cosmos. “He is a highly emotional being, trapped inside fluid metal,” Arad says.

Marvel is putting out a new bust. This bust features Rachel Grey as she appeared on the cover of Uncanny X-Men 468 where she is sporting a new tattoo forced upon her as marker by the Shi’ar identifying her as a carrier of the phoenix force.

 

Action Figure X-Press has gotten themselves an exclusive version of the bust where Rachel is using some of her phoenix abilities.