Serious Political Discourse

The bargain bin can be a wonderful thing - forgotten movies from childhood, current movies hugging the middle of the road and movies you'd never own if they weren't $2 all meld together in this beautiful mixture of cinematic guilty pleasure and serious indictment of the film industry as a whole.

Fishing through the bargain bin, I ran across "The Running Man," the cheap-o 80s sci-fier about the riotous Ah-Nuld Schwarzennegger in a futuristic game show where he's hunted by a redneck with a chainsaw, a spandex-clad old guy with a flamethrower and a fat, opera singing rapist dressed as a Christmas tree who shoots electricity out of his ass. Seriously, watch the movie. It's terrible, but it's classic bargain bin. Needless to say, I snatched it.

This was a reissue from a couple years ago (2006, according to the box) and it's got decent special features on Ah-nuld and how they glued Christmas lights to a guy to make him look threatening. Seriously, watch the movie.

One special feature caught my eye, however. It was called "Down the Rabbit Hole" or some such. I clicked on it expecting a featurette on the story or the history of gladiatorial combat, but instead got a 45-minute documentary on the loss of civil liberties in the United States after 9/11.

Seriously, watch the movie.

Folks from the ACLU, respected professors from lauded institutions of higher learning, constitutional attorneys and political activists all decided to participate in this documentary which was created solely as a special feature on The Running Man. I was surprised, and then confused. First off, The Running Man is a political movie much like Batman is an exploration of multiple personality disorder. It's politics are very small and the whiz-bang is really big, by design. It wasn't made as a serious political statement and everything from the packaging to the special features to the disk itself screams "action flick," not "political expression." And then you have the 45-minute documentary.

Here's the conclusion I reached - somewhere in the depth of Columbia/Tri-Star Home Video sits a man with long facial hair and some manner of leather sandal on his feet, spending most of his working day on The Daily Kos and Atrios. And he, apparently, has some sort of power, saw an opening, and took it. You can't really blame him (as my politics tend to line up with the views of the documentary) but you have to believe someone had an opportunity and made a call. And there you go.

Just watch the movie.

Picture Monday - A Viking and an Emporer

I don't write enough about how cool the Grand Island Film Festival (http://www.gifilmfest.org/) is. I'm the president of the darn thing, and it's been an education in a number of things, from paperwork to working with movie studios to trouble shooting. On this particular day, it was how to tie decorative grapes to a toga without having it fall off.

We screened "Animal House," and to be honest with you, lost money on the deal. I don't care (OK, I care a little, but I'm not stressing too bad). It was an absolute blast, and yielded one of the finest quotes I've heard in quite some time.

Mid-way through the film, Chad (the dude in the viking hat) mused that "I try to be Bluto, but in the end, I know I'm flounder." Me too, brother. Me too.

We're showing Gone With The Wind on April 15.

The Wicker Comedy Continues

In order to give the full effect of this next bit, you need the background here:



The Wicker Man, the Niel LaBute re-make of the "classic" horror film starring Christopher Lee came out about two years ago to collective yawns. The thing of it is, the movie, which I finally saw about two months ago, missed "interesting failure" by a good ring and a half. A nip or a tuck here, and I would respect LaBute, one of the most interesting voices currently working on stage and screen (he seems to either REALLY hate women, or REALLY hate men who hate women, I haven't decided which yet, but misogyny is his topic and dammit, he tackles it) for giving voice to something different, while I laughed at it behind his back.

The movie is wide the mark, however, and it deserves our laughter. The scenes above are funny out of context, but in context they don't lose their comedic punch. I can't think of a situation where Nicolas Cage punching a woman while wearing a bear suit would elicit anything other than giggles from an audience.

Which is why I was so delighted that the Internets have yet to let The Wicker Man die. There's comedy to be mined! Hence, this video:



Brilliant. Walking on Sunshine was an inspired choice.

It makes me want to cut my own comedy trailers out of serious flicks. If I have time, I'll give it a shot.

SEX - Now that I have your attention...

Ghosts are real, and I found one yesterday in the form of an "In Transit" sticker.

The sticker was attached to a deep blue 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix (I know, because I have the same model in a different color). At the wheel of the parked car was a girl, no older than 17, on a cell phone. Even with a fairly heavy tint on the windows, it was clear she was crying.

When you're sitting in a parking stall outside a health clinic like the one I'm on the board of, tears staining your cheeks, one of two things is happening - you're either crying because you just got a positive pregnancy test, or you've tested positive for a disease. In my 9 months on the board of the Central Health Center, a clinic that provides low cost health services to women including pregnancy and STD testing, I've seen young women and men sitting in the parking lot, some talking, some obviously waiting for their friends or lovers to come out with condoms or test results. I'd like to say you can see the anticipation on their faces, but you can't. Often times, they're a blank slate.

Which is why I'm haunted, because this young woman's life had obviously just changed dramatically. I'd put money I don't have on the idea that a trip to the hospital, scowling parents in tow, is no more than 9 1/2 months away for her. Afterwards, whether it's a disease or a child, things will be different. You could almost hear the doors closing on her future.

Which is one of the big reasons I tell people politics matter. For a lot of people, politics are a theoretical thing - something to follow like a game, track like a horse race or avoid like the plague. It's so easy to hear statistics - a trillion dollars, three million e-mails, 4,000 dead - and write it off as something either out of your control or existing in some theoretical world you cannot penetrate even if you were concerned. It's easy to pass off or get caught up in the wrong thing. It's criminally easy to forget the human impact when considering politics.

For the past 7 years, this country has insulted its parents and robbed its children of sex education, opting instead for the entirely ineffective and religiously flavored abstinence only approach. The only way, our kids are told, to avoid pregnancy and disease is to avoid sex all together, something less than 30 percent of graduating high school seniors do. If you subtract those in the AV club who don't abstain by choice, the number gets even smaller. Nothing is going to stop one of the strongest urges the human brain produces from taking place among a population that can be irresponsible and impulsive. It's like throwing a war and expecting companies not to cash in.

We cut funding for clinics and nonprofits who care to address the problem. More over, we shun them from the community and make them feel "dirty" for caring enough about our kids to talk to them, frankly and truthfully about a difficult issue.

Any education that ignores the basic facts that high school students are very likely to have sex, and then throws bad information at them about contraception is like training soldiers how to avoid bullets instead of how to fire a gun. STDs are exaggerated, condom use is discouraged or ignored, which is basically the same thing, and our children graduate high school with more than 40 percent, according to recent statistics, believing you cannot get pregnant the first time you have sex. That's not the most embarrassing stat - that would be one in four, ONE, IN FOUR, girls graduates high school with an STD. That is goddamned unconscionable. And, there's a human toll that's easy to gloss over.

There are thousands of girls in cars, crying their souls out, wishing they'd made a different choice, wishing they'd used a condom, wishing they'd never met the boy who, hours earlier, they would have bled and died for (as is they way with teenage hormones). Mothers, terrified of the lives growing inside, them - disease growing on young organs that will never go away - confusion about what information is real from the government sponsored programs - it's all very real.

But it's the In Transit stickers that haunt me. This girl, crying to someone on a phone in a dark blue Grand Prix in the parking lot of a health clinic that cares enough to offer services, she had just gotten that car. I imagine her squealing with delight when the dealer or her father or mother handed her the keys. I imagine her first ride in that car, just a few days or weeks ago, the joy and freedom she must have felt. The roads were her playground and the world was her oyster and now that front seat is the site of a moment that is taking her life in a direction she didn't want it to go. A direction that could have been prevented if information had flown more freely, or if questions without fear of losing funding. A direction that she cannot change. My heart bleeds for her and the fact that it was done in my name, with my money, chips away at my soul.

Kids need information, not barriers to information. They need guidance, not black and white answers to multi-hued questions. They need access, not roadblocks.

We should be ashamed of ourselves for electing people who do this. I am ashamed.

And haunted.

Like Father...

It took a $22 trip to Best Buy to bring about a really cool moment for me today.

"The Mist" hit DVD on Tuesday, and thought, after a week of contemplation on the topic I realized I hated the ending, everything but the last 10 minutes were cracker jack and completely worth watching again and showing to friends. The two-desk special edition with the die-chrome cover went through the scanner and right into the backseat of my car for alter transfer to my DVD collection.

While I usually don't pick up my two daughters from day care, but today was the exception. I tossed the baby and the four-year-old in the seat, and immediately the oldest picks up "The Mist" and asks if she can watch it. I said, probably not as it was full of monsters.

"I love monsters," she said.

"Probably not these monsters. They're really scary."

"I won't be scared."

She sits for a minute, studying the back of the box.

"Is this a giant spider?"
"Kind of."

"What does it do?"

I explain "The Mist" as best I can to a four-year-old, and am peppered with questions as we pull into the driveway, open the door, unhook the baby and start to prepare dinner. She's all over this concept wanting to know about the boy on the cover and if the monsters got him ("no, the monster doesn't get him." "Does he die?" "Yes, he dies." "How does he die?" and on and on). To be honest, I don't sugarcoat the thing. If she wants to know about the nasty little monster movie I bought, I'll be happy to tell her. It's the same courtesy my parents extended me.

I remember, quite clearly, being a little older than my daughter is now, and grilling my parents about the horror movies they watched (coincidentally, the horror movies I now watch and make fun of). "Creepshow," "The Cat's Eye," "Bloody Birthday," "The Twilight Zone Movie," "The Dead Zone," "Maniac," I remember vividly the boxes in the video stores teasing blood and promising more, and my parents telling me about the ones they watched, though I'm pretty sure they looked at each other with slight trepidation over what, exactly to tell me. I remember being put to bed in a sleeping bag as my parents and their friends drank beer and watched bad horror movies, something I've done to the kid.

The descriptions of horror must have taken route in my brain, because up until 5th grade I was obsessed with horror movies - Freddy and Jason covered my notebooks at school (something that was brought up at multiple parent/teacher conferences, I'm sure), but I never watched the things. Gore scared me to the point of panic attack, but I couldn't get enough of the idea of gore or monsters or killers with bladed gloves. Having watched literally thousands of horror movies, I can tell you in all honesty it was 30 times worse in my head.

Given that background, it was proof positive, to me, that my kidd-o is a lot like me. I think I know what's going through her head, which is a rarity. She's fascinated by the horror, and as long as my wife is out of earshot, I think I'll tell her everything she wants to know - with a few edits, of course.

There's no way she's watching "The Mist," any time soon, though. We have a few miles to go before we get anything like in the DVD player during family hour.

Picture Monday - Creepy Trailer Guy

One of the parts of my job that's both somewhat demoralizing and completely fascinating is the trade shows I have to attend. The demoralizing part comes in when you realize you're spending time as a professional manning a booth at a trade show. The fascinating part comes when you see stuff like this.

What in. the. hell. were they thinking when they designed this? I have three ideas.

1) "Hey guys, lets design a mascot even worse than the Michelin Man."

2) "We want them to love the camper, so lets make him lovable! No, it won't bother people that they're living inside him. No, it's not creepy at all. Ted, look, it will work, OK?"

3) "Hey, look at what my kid drew. Let's use it as a mascot!"

It's all I can come up with, as no self respecting design person would waste ink, let alone paper on this idea.

On a Lighter Note

Here are some videos to help get you in the Easter Mood:




And one just to...I don't know, creep you out.

Egos

I don't know how many people I know actually read this thing, so I'll try to be vague.

I'm int he middle of a battle of egos - two people who are too big for themselves and hurting the common good. And I want to write generally about that, just to get it off my chest and hopefully get some sleep tonight.

A while ago, I decided to put together a career path. That is, I saw many of my friends having a "point B" in their careers, as it were and decided I wanted to shoot for the executive directorship of a nonprofit sometime in the next few years. Nonprofits have boards, require fundraising and often, but not always, involve dealing with people whose egos make working with them difficult. It's something that up until a few days ago, I put under the "challenging but interesting" category. Now I'm putting it in the "dreading it but necessary category."

What I'm dealing with is a disagreement on a base level, two people who simply don't agree with each other and are at an impasse. This impasse is preventing progress, and I'm the only one that has direct contact with each party. It's not even necessarily my responsibility to deal with this issue directly, but I see it as a roadblock and next week it is going to HAVE to be resolved or all forward momentum will cease in a hurry.

The challenge becomes how to deal with two immovable objects. You can't move them closer toward each other, and you can't move them out of the way. The only option, as I see it, then becomes to chart progress around them, which will mean hurt feelings and probably backlash in the name of trying to act like an adult.

My severe distaste of confrontation (and the massive amount of shit I've taken in the past because of that distaste), didn't lead us here, thank God. These folks got to their starting and ending points on their own. The strange thing is, if this goes well I'm going to gain confidence in dealing with this sort of crap and I'll be one step closer to where I want to be. If I totally botch it and the worst happens, I will have made a fatal error, will move on and be closer to where I want to be. It's a good thing except for the massive pit in the bottom of my stomach and the resolve I find myself summoning in vain when I think about the looming confrontation with both parties.

Maybe if I think positively...ah screw that.

If anyone has any advice given this exteremely vague post, I'd love to hear it.

Break on Through

If you subscribe to new age philosophy, there's a popular theory floating around right now that thought significantly influences behavior. If you sit in front of a random number generator and think real hard about 1s instead of 0s, more 1s will show up, the theory goes. Oprah commercialized the idea with "The Secret" which basically states, in its simplest form, that if you really want something (say, a bike), you keep a positive attitude and act as though you have that something (don't ride something that isn't there, but walk with a swagger that says "I have a bike") and the "universe" or whatever will send that request through central processing, and before you know it you're on the banana seat of a Huffy.

I don't buy that for a second, but I do believe positive thinking can do you good. I'm not saying your brain magically unlocks synapses that allow for something to happen that wouldn't happen before, but maybe the combo of motivation, good thinking and, hence, a willingness to put up with set back after set back adds up to a better situation than the one you had before.

Which brings us to today, and my completely inconsequential little victory. In my job, I do a fair amount of design work and use Quark quite a bit. It's easier that Photoshop, for me, but the big P is better for about every application, or so I've read. I don't know why, but the program is counter intuitive to me, so instead of reading up on tips or fiddling around, I decided to stick with Quark unless I absolutely had to go Photoshop. Today, I had to go Photoshop.

But I was feeling good, so I cleared a block of time, sat down and figured it out. It wasn't a difficult application, it wasn't a big deal, but something clicked that hadn't clicked before and voiala. The victory came not in doing a simple application that smarter folks could do fairly easily, but with the trial and error that helped me figure it out. It felt good.

I have a few friends and relatives who are big believers in positive thinking equals change, and I'm not sure I entirely disagree when it comes to your attitude and the change being in your situation. That, however, brings us to the central problem with this philosophy that I subscribe to in a very opaque type of way - I hate thinking positive. There's drugs in the water, poison in the sky, we elect people who try to forcibly destroy our government, people aren't smart enough to change a damn thing, people in general are lousy given the right set of circumstances and about one day out of 20 I wake up feeling like we're nothing more than hairless monkeys collectively drowning in a sea of filth, pushing each other's head under the grey water to gasp a few more breaths before someone pushes us down, never to return. You know, basic mood ebb and flow.

My point is, positive thinking cannot be a constant, and anyone who is constantly thinking positive likely has serious mental issues or is a complete idiot, whether the waves emitted from your brain can somehow shift reality or not. I don't think Photoshop magically opened it's secrets to me because I felt good today, but I don't think I would have made the progress I did if I didn't feel good today.

How's the quote go - I'm a complex person. I am full of contradictions.

Likes on Wednesday: John Stewart

Tina Fey is, by and large, an extremely likable person. Let's run the list:

-She turned the cultural touchstone that is Saturday Night Alive from the land of "God This Sucks," and exalted the beloved Lorne Michaels brainchild to the paradise of "Eh...What Else Is On" as head writer.

-Her brand of comedy is very clever. No denying it, she's funny and she's bright.

-Fey equals loyalty. How else do you describe putting the black hole of talent that is Tracy Morgan on your highly rated NBC show "30 Rock."

-Finally, she's got the strong, hot woman thing going. She's adorable and extremely competent.

To clarify, I'm not a fan. I don't watch "30 Rock" though everyone whose opinion I respect tells me I should, and never caught "Mean Girls" nor do I plan to catch "Baby Mama" this summer. But, I hold no ill will toward the lady and respect her talent.

So imagine my surprise when she decided to rip on John Stewart, in Readers Digest of all places.

Make no mistake, Fey is hot right now, but Stewart is a god damn institution. The man has been legitimately funny for 20 years, though not respected for most of them, and it's only over the past 8 to 10 years that he's moved from very funny to mildly (though distinctly) important. Tina Fey can be cute and funny and clever and make as many American Express ads that she wants (a sin I even rip on Bob DeNiro for), she has yet to come close to what John Stewart is to this country as a comedian and social commentator.

To back up, here's what Fey, who oversaw SNL during the time when "Deephouse Dish" ran for 8 consecutive weeks on basically the same one joke, had to say about the host of The Daily Show and forebear to Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell, among others: "You can prompt applause with a sign. My friend, SNL writer Seth Meyers, coined the term clapter, which is when you do a political joke and people go, "Woo-hoo." It means they sort of approve but didn't really like it that much. You hear a lot of that on [whispers] The Daily Show."

OK, not a high cross body, but definitely a whip to the turn buckle. I take umbrage with two portions of her argument.

1) The reason people clap at John Stewart's show isn't because he's employing some sort of cheep applause line. He's making decent observations that people agree with. Take, for example, a couple weeks ago when Fey hosted SNL and threw out a line about "bitch being the new black." People clapped more than they laughed because....they agreed. They thought it was astute and funny and showed their appreciation with more than a chuckle. So not only is Fey guilty of the same thing, more or less, but the "sin" she's manufactured doesn't mean what's being said isn't funny. It means it's relevant and funny and elicits a different reaction than Justin Timberlake singing about his dick in a box.

2) Maybe, just maybe, John Stewart has already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's funnier than hell, and is now shooting a bit higher than gut laughs.

Not that Stewart needs defending, but in an age where national reporters tend to worship candidates, don't investigate important stories like the build up to a war and routinely ignore issues like the gutting of the Constitution, Stewart is a stalwart. He's actually asked harder questions of John McCain than just about any journalist out there (you can search on Youtube and find a few killer clips). He routinely cuts to the heart of the matter in a way "serious" journalists cannot because their craft doesn't allow it or their too busy contributing to the eventual suicide of Britney Spears. He's not a crusader, he's an intellectual who finds himself in a position where he can make important points, and he freaking does. When you criticize that, you show ignorance of what Stewart is trying to do.

If you need proof Stewart is funny, read "Naked Pictures of Famous People," a forgotten gem of a book that's dated but laugh out loud funny. See "The John Stewart Show" that lasted for about two weeks in late night in the mid-90s. Hell, see an episode of the Daily Show which packs more thought into one half hour than SNL can in 90 minutes - and he does it four nights a week.

John Stewart is tyring to help in a tangible way, and sees his job as a responsibility. Tina Fey was a pretty good weekend update host.

Photo Monday - Cotton Candy High

Sesame Street Live is a unique experience. For the kids, they get the candy, the popcorn and the joy of watching their favorite Sesame Street characters come to life on the stage. For parents its a bunch of dancers in hot, furry suits goofing around while parents exchange knowing glances.

But this time I took my oldest daughter, it was just the two of us, which means I had no one to exchange knowing glances with. I figured, when in Rome, eat an unhealthy amount of cotton candy and enjoy the show.

This is the result.

Reckless? Try Crazy

There's always been a problem with iconoclasts in our society that reminds me of how people treat a disobedient dog. Take someone like David Lynch. He has done nothing in his career but stay entirely true to his artistic muse. You can say a lot of things about David Lynch, but you can never say he's wavered. A Straight Story is made by the same guy who made Inland Empire, and you can tell. Even misfires like Dune aren't sell outs, they're David Lynch's take on Dune.

Continuing with the example, Twin Peaks always struck me as odd because Lynch, being who he was and ever shall be, created something firmly within his cannon that resonated with people for a short time. He made a mystery and the mystery intrigued people until they realized he had almost no interest in solving it, at which point they abandoned the show. But anyone who knows anything about David Lynch knows that's the way he operates. You can't berate David Lynch for not solving a mystery - he's David Lynch. Mysteries are not what he does. He's more in the scary little person, backward talking decrepit old people department than he is the mystery solving department. You can't kick a dog for eating his own poop, he's a dog. Conversely, you can't criticize an artist for being an artist as long as they're staying true to themselves.

Which brings us to Wednesday night when I saw Henry Rollins for the first time at the Rococo Theater in Lincoln. That boy can talk. For three hours he basically went on about everything from politics to music to his travels, every topic peppered with the same spicy yet endearingly obnoxious cocktail that Rollins throws on everything regardless of circumstance.

Let's back up. I unequivocally love Henry Rollins. "Weight" by Rollins Band is on my top 10 albums of all time and his spoken word shows, of which he's done literally thousands, have always been a staple for me. Truth be told, when I did stand up last year on my 30th birthday, I prepared by watching and listening to a lot of Rollins. I figured if I had his swagger or even a trace of what he captures when he grabs a mic, I wouldn't look totally ridiculous. Of course, I didn't get there, but I digress.

Catching Rollins live, or at least catching Rollins live on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 is basically everything you expect made giant. Henry is bigger when he's not far from you. His screams are louder, his anecdotes more vulgar, his artistic sensibilities more naked and his show longer. A hell of a lot longer. Rollins regaled the audience for more than 3 hours, at the end of which, you could tell, his voice was beginning to go. He talked himself hoarse, no kidding. That's something right there.

But, and it's a big but, in the amplification of an artist, the cracks begin to show. I'm not saying at any point I wanted Rollins to shut up, never never never. But the show felt long. I didn't want him to change who he was or compromise on the way he's chosen to live his life, which includes traveling to dangerous places, participating in riots and bumbling in front of Iggy Pop. But some of what he talked about is so far away from what I understand and so foreign to my sensibilities, I found myself wondering what possesses a man to live like that. At some point, Rollins and his exploits became easier to respect and harder to admire, if that makes any sense.

Of course you can't be disappointed in the show any more than you can be at David Lynch for not gift wrapping Twin Peaks for the audience - Rollins is who he is and I couldn't change that if I wanted to, which I don't. It's good a guy like Henry is out there and I still love his work, just on somewhat of a different level. I guess hero worship or Rollins officially died Wednesday night, and was replaced with the idea of a man true to his craft and muse. I'm not sure it's a higher pantheon, but it's going to hold up longer, I think.

Among the highlights of the show for me:

-Henry reads many of the same political blogs I do like shakespearessister, feministing, and the Crooks and Liars. Kinda cool.

-My favorite story, related to Henry through a woman in Minneapolis, I think, involved a woman who got pregnant in a unique way. Two couples were going at each other, one in the front seat, one in the back. When the front seat guy finished his fornicating, he gave the condom he was wearing to the guy in the backseat. Ew. But the backseat Romeo turned the condom inside out because it would be gay to screw your girlfriend while wearing someone else's already wet raincoat. Backseat girl got pregnant, but not from the guy she was having sex with. Double ew.

-His bit on the Ruts is fantastic.




-Finally, he told a great story about being how traveling is the route to hard core knowledge. When you see something with your own eyes, he reasons, the facts are iron clad in your mind instead of what you read. He went on for about an hour about this, but it's a valid point.

Tap Tap. Who's There? Suicidal Cardinal. Suicidal Cardinal Who?

I have mirrored glass in my office which makes for some pretty interesting spring and summer afternoons. Like today.

For a good half hour, this cardinal attacked my window while I was trying to work. I put up a white piece of paper to scare it away (a trick that's worked before) but this was a persistent little pecker. I took the paper down and figured, what the hell, let's get a blog post out of it.

The funny thing is, he's still here, pecking pecking pecking. It's an amazingly colored bird but it either must want to die or is really keen on fighting with another bird. Really keen.

This reminds me of the first day I came to work, out the same window, two ducks decided to have sex in the grass right outside the door. It was my own personal Donald and Minnie peep show and...

GOD, HE'S STILL PECKING!!

I gotta go kick some cardinal ass.

Taken From The Wire, Posted Without Comment

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for two years — so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman’s 36-year-old boyfriend.

“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.“And her reply would be, ‘Maybe tomorrow,”’ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that “there was something wrong with his girlfriend,” Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was “somewhat disoriented,” and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

“She said that she didn’t need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave,” he said.She was reported in fair condition at a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City.

Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.Authorities said they did not know if she was mentally or physically disabled.Police have declined to release the couple’s names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren. No one answered his home phone number.

The case has been the buzz Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.“I don’t think anybody can make any sense out of it,” he said.

Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years. He said she had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up. At one time the woman worked for a long-term care facility, he said, but he did not know what kind of work she did there.

“It really doesn’t surprise me,” Ellis said of the bathroom incident. “What surprises me is somebody wasn’t called in a bit earlier.”

Come Back Here!

My affinity for avoiding confrontation is legendary. I've run away from fire. I've run away from floods. I've run away from minor conflict, major conflict, and have to bite on my knuckles when conflict is unavoidable and barreling toward me like a train. I have friends who can vouch for me and it made my time as a reporter, where conflict is part of the job, a good kind of challenge every single week.

With that in mind, I even surprised myself today when I found myself chasing after a guy in an SUV down South Locust Street over my lunch hour.

The baby had problems sleeping last night so I took her downstairs to rock her and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up it was about 7:45 a.m., leaving me no time to pack my lunch as I bolted around trying to not forget my pants before I flew out the door. This, in and of itself, is not necessarily atypical. It's rare, but not unheard of.

Lunch rolls around, my blood sugar drops, so I drive to Subway on South Locust Street, order my veggie on honey oat and wait in line. The woman hands me the bag with my food and as I'm putting the change back in my wallet, an SUV pulls out of the tiny, ill-conceived parking stall and slams into the back passenger side door. I layed on the horn when it was clear he meant to smash into my mid-sized Sedan, but too late. Two distinct crunches reached my ears and varied profanity escaped my lips.

The driver, a middle-aged Hispanic man, locked eyes with me. He saw me. No way he possibly missed me. Then he put the stick on D and drove away, heading north.

And, my transaction at the window complete, I followed the son of a bitch.

It was instinct as opposed to an informed and reasoned argument. It wasn't "I can write down his license number and report him later" it was "That fucker hit my car! After him!" Also, to be fair, I had no idea what would have happened if he would have pulled over, got out of his car and demanded a confrontation. That might have changed the game a little bit. But at the time, I was after him. I wanted him to know I was following him, and given the way he tried to lose my by flying around back roads, I had his attention.

OK, I'm being overly dramatic. We never hit more than 30 MPH, but I was after him. It was only after about four blocks that reason kicked back in and I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down his license number. Then he lost me at a stop light.

The number, which I'm resisting the urge to publish here, is probably destined for the trash. My car is a dozen years old and the scratch on my car doesn't bother me. Had he gotten out at the Subway, we would have exchanged a few words (sorry, I didn't see you. No problem, man. There's almost no damage) and that would have been that. But he ran and I chased him.

And to be honest, I'm kind of proud of myself, even though the story ends in a sputter. I can tell you, though, lunch tasted really good.

Picture Monday - Mess

We lock the dogs in the basement when we leave, and it never fails to make them mad. The other day, when my mother-in-law was over, they broke free of the baby gate AND the wooden fence we constructed and wreaked havoc in the basement, stopping to focus on her luggage.

Yes they're cute...especially their necks which I wanted to ring after this. I did have the forthought to take a picture. I give myself credit for that.

Book Review: A Tragic Legacy

By now, every reasonable man, woman and child beyond the age of reason has concluded that George W. Bush's presidency is an unmitigated disaster - lawlessness, political favors, party over country, stupidity, stubbornness, undercurrents of destroying faith and function of our government, all of that. The evidence plays out every day, and chances are you don't need anyone, even someone as articulate and forthright as Glenn Greenwald to tell you about it.

Then why pick up "Tragic Legacy," his recent book about the Bush administration? There are three big reasons:

1) Greenwald's writing style is straight forward and punchy - when Perry White said Clark Kent had a "quick, punchy prose style," in Superman, that's what he meant. I don't mean to gush, but the reason Greenwald is one of the premier bloggers on the right isn't because of what he covers, but the way he lays out the complexities and the bullshit that accompanies most political stories in a way that seem like a no brainer. He makes issues like FISA a matter of national conscious, the media's complacency and pack mentality borderline treasonous, and he does it not with emotion but with fairly unassailable logic.

The result is a book that covers a ponderous topic that manages to not be ponderous for a second - it reads straight, true and smart, a real writing trick for a book whose subject matter could easily have made you want to jump off the nearest tall building. I'm not saying it's fun, but it's very good.

2) Again, no one needs a book to tell them how to think about the Bush administration, so "A Tragic Legacy" takes a slightly wider view. Instead of focusing on Bush & Co., the scope expands to the media, the punitocracy, the legislators and ultimately, the voters, who all, when faced with the cold facts of their actions, look like villains. The comprehension both helps the reader understand why the last 7 years have been a disaster, and how it happened from the top down.

3) It might turn you on to Glenn Greenwald. The more you read of his Salon.com column, the more the dude seems to make an amazing amount of sense.

Good book. Not for the weak, but good book.

Likes on Wednesday - George Carlin

Since this is my blog I have a confession - something I seriously have never confessed to my parents, my wife, or anyone other than three people I can think of. -Deep breath- Here we go: The first time I was ever published was at 12-years-old in issue No. 3 of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Comic Book."

Please keep in mind I was 12 and reading any comic I could get my hands on - The Punisher, a ton of X titles, Image comics (I'm still not proud of that), Deadpool and some other truly awful stuff. But Bill and Ted, that was something I think I considered a guilty pleasure before the idea of guilt really sunk in. My issue, yellowing as we speak somewhere in my garage, asked a simple question of the Bill and Ted writers: Why haven't you given me more George Carlin.

In the two Bill and Ted movies, Carlin played Rufus, the guide to Reeves and Winters as they traveled back and forward in time. It was a small role, and one that didn't lead to bigger roles as it should have, but he was great at it and even at a young age, I was interested in the guy. A year later I turned 13, bootlegged a copy of "Back in Town," picked my brain up off the floor after having it blown out the back of my head and have unconditionally loved George Carlin ever since.

I've loved him through his ill-conceived sitcom. I loved him when he released "Back In Town," in my opinion the greatest single stand-up performance ever recorded. I've loved him through Jersey Girl. I've loved him through three lackluster HBO specials after his wife's death in 1998. And now, it's with great pleasure I can confidently proclaim I loved him before "It's Bad For Ya," his latest HBO special recorded a couple weeks ago when Mr. Carlin had just celebrated his 70th birthday. And I love him after hearing the HBO special, which is his best since "Back in Town."

I read some reviews that contend stand-up comics are a miserable lot by nature and a case could definitely be made that this is Carlin's reflection on coming to grips with his impending death and the death of those around him. One review said many of the jokes, like Carlin's riff on how long after someone dies to delete them from your digital address book, are tinged with sadness. I don't see it that way at all. Carlin spends a good part of the first third of "It's Bad For Ya" establishing the fact that he feels and is comfortable with the idea of not really being a human being. He phrases it as "removing yourself" from the human race, but he doesn't do it in a manner that elicits sadness, and it's not quite matter of fact - it might be celebratory.

All his macabre material - the piece about the advantages of being an old man, how to get funeral mourners to paint your garage, why he doubts people in heaven have time to smile down on earth - are all played exactly the same as if he were riffing on the English language. He doesn't flinch because I don't think the material makes him flinch. This is the work of a man severely at ease as an outsider in winter, a disaffected intellectual on the precipice of nothing.

It's that ease that made me smile more than anything. It doesn't hurt that Carlin is in his element on stage, and the stage actually looks a lot like I imagine his office does - cluttered, full of book sand with several well worn pieces of equipment strewn throughout. The guy dressed for the show in sweat pants for God's sake. Comfortable is an adjective that appropriately describes Carlin at 70.

But don't mistake "Comfortable" for "slacking." He's as sharp as he ever was, especially on religion which he attacks with new aplomb. I could go on for much longer about the show itself, but it's better you watch it for yourself. If you go to Youtube, you can find the whole special, and I can think of only five or six better ways on the planet to spend an hour than watching Carlin go at it.

He certainly continues to make me smile, even if he's the subject of my secret Bill and Ted shame. I love the guy and have for a long time. I don't see that going away any time soon.

I Don't Wanna Pick A Side

A lot of times when you're clustered together in cliques, splinter groups will form and loyalty will become almost a necessity. I was lucky enough in my adolescence to never have to pick between friends, but I'm starting to get a sense of what it feels like.

Today I listened to a podcast where the obviously talented and Bohemian Joel Hodsen, creator of the immortal Mystery Science Theater 3000, talked about his career, his work on MST3K and his new project Cinematic Titanic (props for a killer name), which is a straight-to-video making fun of old bad movies type of thing. TV's Frank was along for the ride, but it was really Joel's interview (no Trace or Mary Joe). At the end of the interview, Joel was asked about Rifftrax, Mike Nelson's straight-to-video making fun of old movies type thing that he does with Bill Corbett (the second Crow) and Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo).

His response was to first avert the question, then throw a few very well natured bombs. Phrases like "tell them I say hi," and "I don't want to make a statement by not saying anything," floated around, and the impression was solid that Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax are, indeed, in competition and don't particularly care for each other. Hodson also went on about why he left MST3K in the first place, placing the blame splintering factions that would have eventually destroyed the show, or so he remembered.

Mommy! Daddy! Quit fighting! I love you both!

It's a real shame there has to be animosity, even if it is the most white bread, well meaning beef in the history of public beefs. Part of what got under my skin, I think, was Hodsen's spot on analysis of MST3K being a touchstone for people who didn't feel like they had a voice. His creation (the show and the robots) are genius and, push me to the wall, I liked him and the bots better than Mike and the bots. Just barely.

But then I think back to the Amazing Colossal Man, where Mike donned a bald cap and rocked the Satellite of Love and the scene seemed completely genial and fun, like friends goofing around and that was the image that always stuck with me. MST3K seemed like a fun set to be on. Guess I was wrong.

How sad.

Picture Monday - Dog Leg

Long dogs and a short stool I use to eat dinner equals this picture.

Basically, the dogs beg, unrelentingly when there's food. They beg when there is not food. If they're not asleep, they're begging for something and in this case it was my Greek chicken. I avoid their gaze, they move. I shoo them away, they come back. I cross my legs and...well, you get this photo.

Goofy animals.

Annoying Church Lyric of the Week

This one's so good, in a B-movie sort of way, we need to break it down line by line. The song is called Awesome God and rooms full of adults actually sing this with a straight face.

When He rolls up his sleeves he isn't puttin' on the Ritz
Our God is an awesome God.

Right off the bat, a sentence full of things that piss me off.

Let's start with the idea of God rolling up his sleeves. God has sleeves, apparently, and they need rolling up. Far be it from our deity to call on a seraphim or cherubim to do the job, he rolls up his own damn sleeves. He's just that kind of God. But why, one asks, is he rolling up his sleeves? If you put this line into context with the rest of the song, it's to administer some sort of holy beat down. He's rolling up his sleeves to kick some ass, as the next line demonstrates.

But we can't let this line get away with those last six words. First and foremost, it doesn't make a lick of sense. None. Not in context, not in a metaphorical sense, nothing. Logistically, God stripping down to do some Old Testament justice wouldn't put on a suit and tie, he'd roll up his sleeves like we've previously established. It stands to reason if he's taking off clothes, he's not dressing up. Even the larger idea of "Putting on the Ritz" means you're going all out, pulling out all the stops which, AGAIN, is not what the song is trying to say. It's like the author was stuck and decided to seek inspiration by hitting herself in the head with a rake or a shovel and the resulting jibberish not just made it onto paper, but past editors and those who choose music for churches. Moving on.

There is lightning in his footsteps and thunder in his fists
Our God is an awesome God.

Aside from committing multiple acts of violence against the English language, does this line make anyone else think of Zeus? I hope it's not just me.

When I was a kid I asked my parents what lightning and thunder were, and they told me it was God bowling. As it turns out, their answer to a cute kid might have made for better song lyrics than this piece of garbage. Forgiving the Old Testament interpretation of God (childish, boorish, prone to killing everyone) walking around like a pissed off monolith, in the first four lines we have God rolling up his sleeves and making fists. I'm thinking this is the same version of the Almighty that Pat Robertson said blew up the World Trade Center because of the feminists, pagans and homosexuals. It's not a flattering image and not inspiring in the least unless you're the type who pines to see the blood of your enemies spilt on the ground...which is an undeniably un-Christian thing.

Our Lord He wasn't joking when he kicked them out of Eden

Oh sweet Krishna on a pogo stick, who the Buddha thought this was a good lyric? It's God as shot through the prism of a high school pep rally, a pissed off Deity ready to administer punishment to the unfaithful, which in my experience never seems to happen. I'm also starting a search to find the person of faith who believes original sin was some sort of joke, like tomorrow God's going to come knocking and have a really good gut laugh and invite us back in for a nude fruit-a-thon. 3rd grade poetry nonsense, this lyric.

It wasn't for no reason that he shed his blood

I call a flag on the biblical reference, here. Yes, God is 3 in one, but the same God in a blue stained work shirt about to beat the shit out of some sinner who didn't make his dinner properly is largely uncredited as the savior - it's the son that subscribed to the whole suffering gig. And again, let's find the believer who thinks Jesus died for the sheer joy of crucifixion.

I think that we have too soon forgotten
That our God is an awesome God

Time for a beat down, brothers and sisters. Let's get ready for a good godly smack in the mouth.

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom power and love
Our God is an awesome God

You've spent the first verse painting a picture with blood, now he's full of wisdom power and love? Cheap, that's all I've got to say. Cheap and inconsistent. Cheap and stupid. Cheap and juvenile, but mainly cheap. But I guess you've to to leave them with a smile on their face before communion or offering, huh?

One last thing I want to address - the subtle message that "our God is an awesome God" leaves room for the idea that other Gods are out there and they might be righteous or bodacious or might fly from a surfboard yelling Cowabunga! but are not, indeed awesome. I don't like polytheism in my Christian songs, call me old fashioned.

What an awful song.