By Troy Brownfield

Welcome back to the large column. I've been updating at staggered times lately, mainly due to the fact that I've been taking on some extra writing for places like Comicon.com's Pulse News. However, the rest of the site has been pretty active, and we've had some new additions (or re-newed additions) over the last few months, and I thought that I'd take a moment to acknowledge some people and some sections.

Please Allow Me to (Re)Introduce Ourselves: If you've never been here before, I'm Troy Brownfield, the Editor-in-Chief. I launched the Indianapolis-based ShotgunReviews.com in June of 1999 with a mission of providing "news, reviews, comedy and commentary" seen through the filter of popular culture. I originally wrote the main SGR column at the now-defunct ComicKingdom.com, which is where I also started the Big Question (which still continues on this site, albeit slowly).

The webmaster of the site is Shawn Delaney. He's the main designer (along with his girlfriend, Heather Locke), and has done a truckload of updates in our nearly four years "on the air". He has total responsibility for the look and maintenance of our music sections, and writes almost all of Shoe's Music in the Review Rack, which provides up-to-the-minute rock/techno/what-have-you reviews.

Our other music section is the Lyrical Lounge, and that's the province of Mr. Jonathan Birdsong, J-Ice to some, Bird to others, and Big Daddy to an untold legion of women. Jonathan writes reviews, recruits others to write reviews (like the notorious Black Plauge and Captain Westside!), and does a metric ton of interviews. Jonathan's co-chair of sorts is The Queen, Oseye Boyd. Oseye is a seasoned reviewer and interviewer, and has written for papers in Indianapolis and Muncie, Indiana.

Also housed in the Review Rack is our Bento Box section, which covers anime reviews. The main voice in that section, as well as the regular White Base Wires column, is Matt McConnel. Matt, aside from kicking in other book, manga and film reviews, speaks with great authority on anime and writes way more than any other human should in a week. In the past few months, he's made himself a key figure on the site.

A more recent addition to the ranks is Brandon Duncan. When original wrestling columnist and managing editor Russ Ray retired, Brandon offered his services as wrestling writer. He has a truly different take on things, and I think that you can see him growing as a reviewer. Another recent addition is Jamie Tarquini; he's another guy with his own site (www.pmpknface.com), and he's a learned observer of comics.

Over in the film section, we have a quartet of reviewers that keep things strong. Kyle Duvall, a friend of mine and Shawn's "from the day", handles the Spit Takes column. Other regular reviewers included the powerfully talented Eric Barker and Neil Wright, as well as Gareth Von Kallenbach (who also runs his own site at Skiewed and Reviewed).

Rounding out the main cast is L.I. Rapkin, who's covered a little bit of everything. L.I.'s articles are a little more sporadic in nature, but when L.I. shows up, it's in a big way. L.I. carries the honorific of being senior writer, and anyone who's read her features knows why.

Other figures of note on the site are the artists for our online comics. They are Tim Laitas and Matt Ross on Manifest Darkness and Dan MacLeod on Control Zero. Though the comics haven't been active as of late, don't think that they're going away. Also, big ups to occasional updater Joe Durrant.

So, why reintroduce everybody now? Easy. It's been a while since we've really gone over who does what, and from the looks of the numbers, we've been having more visitors than ever before. As a matter of fact, September and October of 2002 were our two biggest months EVER. I mean EVER. This site has been here for going on four years, and it keeps growing in readers? That's insane to me; as a matter fact, our readership is DOUBLE what it was two short years ago.

I attribute some of this to my ongoing column at Comicon.com's Pulse News, which has a huge audience and is making an impact. I attribute some of this to our reviews getting printed on the backs of books by publishers like Viz, or getting linked on websites like ADVFilms.com. I also attribute some of it to people accidentally stumbling across my subliminal insertions of the phrase "Anna Kournikova naked", not to mention the almighty draw of the Indianapolis News Personality Beauty Pageant.

Whatever the reason, people keep reading. And for whatever reason, there's a strong core of people that keep writing. I've told them from the start that, quite literally according to the cliché, you get back what you give. Well, they must be getting something out of it, because they do great work. It's a privilege to be associated with them, and many who have written for us in the past.

So, if you're a long-time listener or a first time caller, that's the cast. Give 'em a hand, eh?

Voting: I'm not going to hold forth with a big voting lecture this year, mainly because I'd probably just tell you to vote Libertarian. What it comes down to is that something humorist Michael O'Donaghue once wrote is painfully true: "Life is a fucking minefield, and the only place in it that isn't is the place where they make the God Damn mines." Essentially, that's how I feel about voting.

People used to categorize the voting process as choosing the lesser of two evils. Forget it. They're ALL evil. They have to be to be candidates. Politics is inherently the art of compromise, and compromise ultimately resolves nothing that necessitates sweeping change. Face it, kids; this country needs sweeping change.

We're the only industrialized nation that lacks some form of public health care. Our schools suck because they're underfunded, understaffed, undernourished, and undersupported. Every good teacher is balanced out by five bad ones that won't be weeded out either because of tenure or a lack of a mandatory recurring teacher competency exam.

Our leaders continue to plunder by using the power of the ignorant and the uninformed. They play folksy and stupid to court the mass vote, knowing that a lot of people fear men and women of cunning and intelligence. Hillary Clinton's biggest sin was to be a smart woman in America; the only thing that will bury you faster is being a smart black man with an opinion. So the will of the stupid and the cynical triumphs over the bright and the optimistic, and we're left holding the bag, being led by simpletons who debate the import of honky rappers instead of explaining to me why registered offenders get to buy guns.

Voting, like any Battle of the Bands or beauty pageant, is a sucker's game. The shit's locked up, bought and paid for, and if you don't believe me, there's a LOT of zoning in Florida that I'd be glad to sell you. The delirious drunken optimist in me says that MAYBE, just MAYBE, Tuesday will be a referendum against some of the willfully stupid saber-rattling bullshit of the last year. Maybe enough people with some sack will get together and say, "Y'know, Iraq is a problem, but so is joblessness and a broken educational system and a lot of shit at home."

Maybe the people will vote to fix the problems within our borders. And maybe, just maybe, we can get our stuff together and then go out looking for trouble. Maybe, after all the hungry kids in middle America and all the kids who get passed on instead of learning to read and all the kids who get their brains blown out because it's okay to buy a Tech at a gun show are taken care of, maybe then we should go out and play the world's cop. Maybe we'll fix our stuff, and then I'll feel better about smacking some third-rate dictator over the head with a big fucking red, white and blue stick.

Just maybe. That's the American dream: that it'll get better. That's what we ask for. And what do we get? American Idol.

Yay, voting.

That's all for now. Go read some comics.

Troy Brownfield is the Editor-in-Chief of Shotgun Reviews. Candidates who have automatic machines that call you with "important messages" about their opponents need to molested by rogue elephants. Email Troy at psikotyk@aol.com

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