Defender of the Innocent

It's not often that yelling at your kid ends in any sort of positive, but darn if the strangest things don't happen around this household.

To defend my self, here was the deal - my 6-month old was sitting in her seat, bouncing like a bobblehead, trying to eat some carrot mush I was feeding her. We were listening to the radio we were informed a tornado warning (warning, meaning we've seen one and it's coming this way) came over the squawk box. I figured (being a midwesterner and having survived countless warnings of this sort), that it was time to hustle, not run.

So I kept feeding the carrots to the kid, who, God bless her, just wasn't cooperating. The strained vegetable matter had fashioned itself into a beard on her face, and she's picked up this thing where she spits. CSI could have had a field day the spatter of carrot blood on the white tray table.

My four-and-a-half year old handled things better, but not by much. She was nervous, and when she gets nervous, she gets distracted. You tell her something and if it gets through, which can take two or three times, you have to keep her on task or it will disappear in her chasm of distraction. I really needed her to get a bottle out of the fridge since we'd be downstairs waiting out the storm for God knows how long, but it just wasn't sinking in. Then the sirens went off.

The sirens have always sort of evoked a mild panic in me, and my reaction was in line with that Pavlovian response. To wit, I snapped at the older kid, telling her to get the bottle. She responded, as girls that age do, by throwing her arms up in the air and running out of the room in tears, the bottle still firmly in the fridge.

At this point, my priorities were 1) finish feeding the young 'un, 2) get the bottle, 3) get the two kids downstairs before the tornado got any closer. There was time. Quit looking at me like that.

But the smaller kid would not eat. The sirens were blaring, the carrots continued running down her cheek, and I snapped again. In a raised voice, I spat "EAT!" Please understand the stress.

Through the wail of the sirens, I heard a strong voice behind me.

"Don't yell at my sister."

There stood the older kid, arms crossed and dead serious. Immediately I softened (I'm not a monster) and got everything cleaned up and every one down stairs. The tornado passed us by, something I'm still thankful for.

But tonight, I smile thinking about my daughter. She and I are pretty close, and like a lot of almost 5-year-olds, she's a goofy kid. She and her mother fight, but she doesn't fight with me so much. It's not a "good cop bad cop" thing, but more of a personality mesh - she's more like me at this stage in her life. Sometimes I worry about that, how other kids will respond, whether gumption and fortitude is in her future. Than I see her mother come through so clearly in her personality like I did tonight, and I just smile. She's going to be fine.

She's a defender of the innocent and weak against the big strong jerk who was yelling at her to eat her carrots, even if it was in the face of mortal danger. I'm proud of her, a whole bunch.

The Intertubes are for Happy Wishes!

Matthew Campbell turns 30 today. It's a good day.



I met Matt in the late summer of 1996, when I was a mess and he was the reigning drum major in a major metropolitan high school. You should see the pictures - plumes and shoulder pads and everything. We were both in band camp at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, he a trombone, me a sousaphone. I saw him reading either Clive Barker or Stephen King (I can't remember which) during lunch and we started talking about The Green Mile, King's serial that he was still releasing, piece by piece, at the time.



We struck up a friendship that's continued longer than any I think I've ever had. He's seen me through bad hook ups, ignorance of female physiology, 40 + on my loft in my first dorm room, bisexual women, black hair, fundamentalists (he's got a great story about marking his calendar by the fights I had with my girlfriend), moving, living in a church, Grant in general, the happy dance, the wall of beautiful women, my lies, choosing a song from a Michael Bay movie for my wedding and more late nights, miles and confessions than one friend deserves from another.



Looking back, as blogging can often force you to do, Matt has proven himself over and over as nothing more than a decent guy - a gentleman, pop scholar, writer and kicker of much ass in Halo. He's the kind of friend every guy should have, one you can unload on or do nothing but watch "Mythbusters" for hours on end. He's the guy who knows enough to embarrass me in any situation (and who's brother nearly cost me a long-term relationship, though I think he's pretty cool) and a guy who I could embarrass at any point. And I have and only regretted it once or twice.



Cheers, brother. Here's to 30 more years of the Brain Bug Boogie you call an existence. And, here's that picture you made me take last year at B-Fest of the cute reporters ass.



OK, that was my idea, too.



Can't wait for Saturday.

Indiana Jones and the Purpose of Being

After the events of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," Mutt Williams is climbing down the mountain into the dense jungle, a changed young man.

Mutt: Hey dad, I've been thinking about what just happened.

Indiana Jones: And?

M: I've decided to go back to school, like you want..

IJ: Really?

M: Yeah.

IJ: Do you know what you want to study?

M: I'm thinking philosophy. Why are you laughing?

IJ: Well, it's not exactly science, is it?

M: Yeah, but after what happened up there, with the aliens fathering ancient civilization, how can you not spend the rest of your life thinking about that?
IJ: Ah, I've seen better.

M: What?
IJ: There's more to life than aliens, Junior. This one time your mother and I were fighting these Nazis who uncovered the Arc of the Covenant and...

M: Excuse me, what?

IJ: You know, the Arc of the Covenant between God and his chosen people. We found it in Egypt since after the crusades...

M: No no no...the Arc is real?

IJ: It melted a dude's face off.

M: But..so you're telling me, not only are there aliens skipping dimensions and founding civilizations in Africa, but there's physical proof of the God of the Old Testament?

IJ: Well, yeah.

M: Then are the aliens God or did God create the aliens? Wait...it doesn't matter, because if the Old Testament is true than God wants us to have it and whether those Gods are aliens or the aliens are created by God, then that book is the truth.

IJ: Archeology isn't about truth, it's about fact.

M: But you can't deny it's instructions straight from our creating force. I need to live by it's teachings, I need to ditch this leather jacket and sacrifice a goat. I need to learn how to deal with mold in my house in a sacred manner. I need to get circumcised.

IJ: Circumcised?

M: Well, it's a covenant between God and his people, isn't it? Can't have a covering on Henry Jones the Fourth, that's for damn sure. The only thing I need to figure out now is where the New Testament fits into this.

IJ: Well...

M: Well what?

IJ: Well, I drank from the Holy Grail this one time, and...

M: JESUS CHRIST, DAD!

IJ: No, it was this night who was tasked with gaurding the grail...

M: I don't care! You have physical proof that Jesus Christ exists in the form of the Holy Fucking Grail!

IJ: Watch your mouth, Junior.

M: You're right. I can't swear. I need to give away all my money, never hit anyone again, live following the teachings of Jesus and never eat grain on Sundays. I need to kill fig trees and overturn money changers. Oh Lord, my immortal soul is at stake.

IJ: Listen son, your mother and I...

M: To hell with the two of you. I need to go firebomb an abortion clinic.

Hey, that's me!

To set the scene: I was at work, running an errand in my car with "Filmspotting" playing on my iPod. The rain starts to really pour, and the errand I'm running involves paper, so I pull over into an empty parking lot and sit for a minute to see if the rain will let up.

Adam and Matty are going on about Speed Racer and then "Born Into Brothels," a movie I'm interested in seeing and a flick that ties in with their Top 5 photography movies. Then, they say my name and read an e-mail I sent them weeks ago.

Cool. I'll post the clip later (I'm a bit pressed for time right now and don't want to fight with Blogger about how to upload audio), but it was very cool. Filmspotting is a great podcast and I was really jazzed to be on it. It left me feeling good all day.

We'll Do It Live!

I know this is about a week late, but it's real catchy, none the less.

Consider Me Captured

The old axiom is that music is universal - things human beings feel on a deep level are often relived through the media of music. A chord can capture a story, a song can cut you on many layers or heal you on all of them. BS, I say.

As someone who engages in his fair share of self pity (let's be honest, more than my fair share), I think people who cling to music are making a personal mountain out of something that can never be anything other than a mole hill to everyone else on the planet. It's why all pop songs that appeal to mass audiences are so empty - they're trying to say something so simple everyone can understand it. It's why every single song about heartbreak is about YOUR heartbreak, while every happy song somehow sees into your soul. It's the Bob Dylan thing, it's everything and nothing depending on whether your glass is half full or half empty with a chip missing out of the rim where you drink.

At least, that's the way I usually feel. Music is a diversion, I say, not a pursuit. It's one beam of light on the way to truth, not anything approaching truth itself.

Sometimes, the combo of music and lyric really can hit you hard and turn the glass from half empty and grimy, needing another rinse cycle to half full and full of cold, crisp water after a long drought. It happens a lot to some people. It hardly ever happens to me.

But today, boy did music catch up with me, so allow me to pontificate on why my own private mountain might be more of than a mole hill to somebody else. God, I sound pretentious. Every onward.

In the middle of the workday, the episode of "Filmspotting" (a great podcast full of intelligent dialogue about movies, you should listen to it) went into what would be their commercial break if you were listening on terrestrial radio. On came some guy playing an acoustic guitar. I didn't bother to learn his name and don't much care to, but he hit me with this lyric.

"I've sailed this far with my boat on fire."

He went on to some truly lousy rhyme about "failing to expire," and tried to turn the whole thing into a life affirming piece. To hell with that, it was the nugget that interested me. The perfect line landed like a kick to the face you didn't see coming and all you can do is fall to the floor. What a great line. I wish I'd written it.

I wish I'd written it because it's not just the way I've been feeling lately (I'll get into that in a bit) but the way I know a lot of people feel. This phrase is part of the reason I'm not a conspiracy theorist, because it's a universal human condition to feel, at some point, like you're faking everything in your life and you don't know where the hell you're going, how the hell you got where you are and where the hell you're going to end up. But what are you going to do? Sink? Quit trying to put out your sail? Hell no. I've sailed this far with my boat on fire. Why not a little further. Sometimes the heat from the sails is kind of nice.

I'm in a boat with no idea where I'm headed. This weekend, I got to spend some time with my parents and my sister, and after a few drinks and 2/3rds of a chess match my dad and I started talking about this sort of thing - direction and decision and how damned futile it is to try to figure these things out. Turns out, when I was the age of my oldest daughter and my sister the age of my youngest daughter, my dad had a really rough go of things. He fought with my mom and backed himself into a corner and had to fight like hell to get out and there was no light at the end of the tunnel for a long time. He sailed further than most with his boat on fire, and apparently came out on the other side. His reward for sailing was certainty in the winter, a somewhat peaceful sea at the end. Have I beating this goddamned metaphor to death yet? Yes I have.

I guess that's what I'm hoping for, to be able to live with my mistakes when my life closes out. Right now, I'm in a position where the bed I've made is unacceptable to me and there doesn't seem to be an end to what I'm fighting. The mistakes I make are the mistakes my father made are the mistakes my daughter will likely make. How depressing is that.

Stupid song lyric.

Picture Monday - They Gotta Come From Somewhere

I manned a trade show booth a couple weeks back, and was stationed right next to the room where all the inflatable people, furry mascots and...I don't know what the hell, got dressed. At the end of the day, they all had to pile in this little room to leave, hence the scene above.

I was a mascot once, and that was enough. I dressed up as a bear for a kids thing in high school. The one word to describe it was uncomfortable - hot and itchy to be more specific and use more than one word. I feel for these folks, but that doesn't make all of them piling into a tiny room any less funny.

I Vote Because I Hate You

It was about 11 a.m. this morning before I had a chance to get out to vote. The polls opened at 8 a.m., and I was number 32 in my district. In three hours, 31 people had voted. How sad.

I don't know what the final tally ended up being (there might have been a surge), but it seems to me a lot of people can't be inconvenienced to vote. I have a couple theories as to why that is. Some feel disenfranchised, some simply don't care, and others can't be inconvenienced. But the worst are those who feel their vote doesn't count. I think it does.

Quickly, I really do hate all that "rah rah, civic duty" BS. There was an editorial cartoon in our paper today showing a revolutionary war soldier and a modern solider both saying "we've done our part, now you have to do yours." Sentimental malarky, I say, especially in Nebraska, where I live. Nothing rests on my vote. No person is going to be elected or not elected, no amendment passed or not passed, no ghost of Paul Revere sad or not sad because I used a number 2 pencil and filled in the little circles. Truthfully, unless you're a candidate seeking my vote, what I do in the ballot box doesn't matter.

So why do it? Personally, I do it to cancel out the vote of a conservative.

If there's one thing the right does well, it's mobilize. They self-destruct, sure, but when they mobilize they're deadly in elections. So, even in the darkest GOP days after September 11, I showed up at all the polls and voted for people who didn't have a chance and I did it because of my very real vote cancelled out the other very real vote of someone I disagree with. Yes, there are more of them especially here, and yes they're probably going to win and yes my vote doesn't make a difference. All this is true. I still get a charge over cancelling out the vote of some Evangelical voting, Rush Limbaugh listening, war mongering, Iraq supporting, trickle down fan with a flag magnet on their obscene SUV. And I get to do it every single time.

I do it because someone very real gets their vote nilled because I took the time to drive a couple miles and take a half hour out of my day. Fuck them, I'm voting.

And I did. And I will continue to, even in this reddest of the red states. I may never know victory, but I sure know what schadenfreude tastes like.

After something so bitter, here's something a touch sweeter.

100th Post Happiness

I need to cut down.

Basically, with the exception of taking my kid to see "Speed Racer" (time very well spent, I might ad. Decent movie for adults, great clapping in glee movie for kids) I haven't had 20 minutes to sit down and blog in the past week. The next time I'll have time is Wednesday afternoon, according to my schedule.

To top it off, today really kind of sucked. I was gossiped about and yelled at. So, in the spirit of pushing forward and trying to feel good even when my very tiny little world is a little cloudy, is a great big sunshiny look at the bigger picture.




Kind of makes you smile, doesn't it?

Wiener Dog Blog - Quesadilla Special

The following is a conversation between my two wiener dogs, Max and Cole, upon the occasion of Max stealing an entire uncooked microwave Quesadilla and eating it whole while my back was turned.

Cole: What's up with you?

Max: I ated something.

Cole: Where is it?

Max: In my tummy.

Cole: Is there any left?

Max: It's in my tummy you ass.

Cole: It's in your ass?

Max: Not yet. I don't know if it will ever get there.

Cole: What was it?

Max: It tasted like cheese ice cream wrapped in bread ice cream. And chicken. Ice cream.

Cole: It sound delicious. Can I have some?

Max: I ated it. It was big. I feel like I'm going to puke.

Cole: When? Can I has some?

Max: I think it will be in the middle of the night. I'll get up close to Mike's head when he's really asleep and make that whorking sound.

Cole: You mean this one? mgpht, mgphhhht!

Max: Yeah, that one. Then he'll have 15 seconds to get out of bed, pick me up, and get me on the kitchen lenolium before I let fly.

Cole: Then can I has some?

Max: You'll be asleep.

Cole: I like ice cream.

Max: My tummy hurts. groooooan.

Picture Monday: In Mid Flight

I talked a bit a while back about my goose friend. Last week, when it was rainy again I drove up and caught her mid-flight.

I like the photo.

War Or Something Like It

A couple of studies over the past few years have detailed what it takes to be happy. What's been found, apparently, is one must be able to either be ignorant of or block out certain aspects of life on this planet in order to achieve happiness. For example, you could spend all your time thinking about world starvation and live a thoroughly unhappy life or ignore it and be happy. What that basically means, to me, is happiness and stupidity are intertwined in ways we probably don't want to think about too hard. It might bum us out.

The thought came into my head tonight as I talked politics with this girl I'm madly in love with. I've got this cute little blond in my life, 4-years-old, smart and sassy, goofy to a fault. It's kind of hard for me to break that goofy down and throw in real life misery for her to contemplate, but tonight, it was appropriate.

Here's how it went down - she has been "studying" presidents, as it were, learning about the office and about some past ones. The Animaniacs song about the presidents is on rotation in her iTunes cue. So when George W. Bush hit TV tonight as we were flipping channels, I stopped and told her "this is our president right now." That segued into how long he will be president and that his daddy was also president.

I give myself credit on not interjecting too much of my personal bias against who Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister so artfully nicknamed President Mondo Fucko. When she asked "is he a good president" I calmly explained that I didn't think he was a very good president because he has to make all sorts of decisions and one of his decisions was to start a war when he didn't need to. We had just watched "The Chronicles of Narnia" the week before and I think, in her own kid way, my daughter started to understand the nature of war by watching pixels in the shape of centaurs and talking Jesus lions run at each other with swords drawn. She got that it was "bad" and that people died and that makes her sad. So she doesn't like George W. Bush either, even though I'm not diluting myself into thinking she understands the issue all that much but is, instead, parroting daddy.

Then she drops this little nugget. "If he made it so people die, he should die too."

Hmm. Again, not great political thinking (although on par with Bill Kristol and Ann Coulter as far as I'm concerned), but she had a point. He made it so people will die and didn't have to, so he should suffer some sort of comparable fate - it's enough to make you stop and think about presidential accountability as a whole. The reason I'm fairly content right now in mid-management is there's little pressure about the decisions you make. If I had to make a decision that would send people to their deaths and cause the death of many many others, sweet Jesus would I feel conflicted about it. Fear, trepidation, making sure I had my FACTS STRAIGHT and all this would flood into my mind - people will die, certainly, when I make this decision. People might die in other ways should I make a different decision, but this decision puts their death on my ability to interpret data and act in our country's best interest.

I would think, in other words, that if I sent someone to die, I should be held responsible. Out of the mouths of babes, huh?

For the record, I told her that you shouldn't wish people dead, and I seriously mean that. I don't wish any harm on GW Bush. I just want to see him thrown in jail and be held accountable for his shitty decision making, or breaking the law, whatever comes first. But dammit all if she didn't stumble upon a point about accountability that I'll take with me a little bit. And one I wish President Mondo Fucko had explored a little more.

Summer Movie List No. 1 - The Dark Knight

Am I the only one who absolutely loves the idea that the role of The Joker is so intense and seductive, that it killed a dude? I'm sorry, and no disrespect is intended to the loved ones of Mr. Ledger, but wouldn't the Joker laugh his ass off that the simple act of portraying his unique and captivating manner of psychosis on a film drove a man off the edge to his death?

The Joker has never been done right onscreen. Not once. Nicholson was fun in 1989 and I think he got the joke, so to speak, but never was the moment where you gaze at old Jack and go "he's completely off his nut." He was always playing to the crowd, being goofy. The Joker is iconic because, as Alan Moore so tastefully put it, he's the demon inside all of us that gets out should that 'one bad day' manifest. He's the void made flesh as we all stand on the precipice looking down.

I'm still not overjoyed that Heath Ledger is playing the Joker, nor that "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan felt the need to jam pack what seems like 7 story lines into this film. You've got Batman vs. Himself (always), Batman vs. The Joker, Bruce Wayne vs. Harvey Dent, Batman vs. Two Face, Batman vs. the Joker's gang, Batman vs. Two Face, Bruce Wayne vs. Rachel Dawes and probably more. Even if it runs 140 minutes, you're not getting that all resolved.

But, the reason this is number one with a bullet is three-fold. First, Christopher Nolan has yet to make a bad movie and he doesn't seem intent on starting now. "Momento" is classic, "Insomnia" should be and "The Prestige" was goofy fun at worst and an acting powerhouse to the enlightened. And, critics be damned, I loved "Batman Begins." It's very re-watchable and it's very spot on. It's got its problems, but some of the stuff in there is straight out great, and chief among that stuff is the final conversation between Batman and Ltn. Gordon about escalation.

"We buy semi-automatics, they (the criminals) buy automatics. We buy Kevlar, they buy armor piercing rounds. And you're wearing a mask, and jumping off rooftops. Take this guy, armed robbery, double homicide, got a flare for the theatrical like you. Leaves a calling card."

When Batman turned over the Joker card, it was at that moment I started anticipating this movie. That was nearly three years ago.

You got the sense early on that "The Dark Knight" was playing for keeps. The cast, first and foremost is a testament to that - no stunt casting Jim Carrey, no rotating heroes, no Robin. But you get the sense they really hammered down this time, and what we're going to see is an adult, psychologically brutal film that goes bang on the screen and acting that goes bang in your head. Not to make too much out of it, but I expect to leave the theater feeling like I've gone 10 rounds with the mighty Thor (or mauled by Jesus, thank you Philip J. Fry).

One last word on the marketing. Warner Brothers has understandably stepped away from Heath Ledger in the marketing, which is fine. But their viral stuff has been great. They revealed the face of the Joker through nation-wide scavenger hunt. Every poster or trailer has had a game attached. They've taken this thing to the streets, it would seem and it's very interesting.

Again, can...not...wait.

Movie Review: Iron Man

The word "niiice" comes to mind when describing "Iron Man." Not "nice" as in "oh, she's a nice girl" or "ice cream would be nice right now." The intonation is that of a buddy opening his new Mac Book Pro or unveiling a new 48-inch flat screen TV, or draining a really unlikely three pointer in a game of pick up basketball. Every piece of Iron Man - the casting, the acting, the direction, the story, the relationships, the effects, the battles - they are all very very niiiice.

In fact, save the score which is wholly unremarkable, there isn't a component of Iron Man that doesn't deliver. From the beginning, when Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is ambushed in Afghanistan after showing off his new CNN-ready cluster bomb (appropriately named The Jericho), to the very end, way after the credits when Sam Jackson shows up as Nick Fury (to talk about The Avenger initiative), every thing is solid.

The plot - Tony Stark, playboy functioning alcoholic genius weapons designer (in that order) is captured by a secret group of terrorists calling themselves the 10 Rings, and escapes by building a large mechanical suit that shoots flames and flies. The suit comes free with a conscious, and before you know it, Stark is upgrading and responding to BBC America reports of refugee crisis in Afghanistan. He flies in, blows up the warlords and flies out. Meanwhile his business partner, Jedediah "The Dude" Stane (Jeff Bridges) is actually in cahoots with the 10 rings and steals the prototype suit for himself leading to a suit versus shoot showdown in the middle of Los Angeles traffic.

But the plot really isn't the joy of Iron Man. It's more in the characters and they're very pithy and telling interactions. Nothing feels forced even though I'm sure some of it read terrible on the page. For example, when Stark loads up his first Iron Man suit to escape the 10 Rings, he blows up all the weapons they've stolen from his company. The subtext is a man with a conscious has been born out of the fire of the old. Hammy as hell, right? In Iron Man, they don't overplay it, they couple it with big booms and the sonufabitch works. It's good, solid, quality filmmaking.

Critics have raved about Downey Jr. and they should. He's fantastic and it's not only his baggage that aids in the creation of Tony Stark, it's the dude's resolve. He wants this part to work so bad, almost like a kid unwrapping a bike-shaped present on Christmas morning. He's a wonder, and when he's on screen you don't need digital effects. To my surprise, they gave Gwyneth Paltrow a lot to do, and she has a couple scenes with Downey Jr. that are spot on great. Same goes Terrance Howard and Jeff Bridges. They each have their moments in the Robert Downey Jr. Show.

The fluorescent beating heart of Iron Man, however, is character. Tony Stark gets so many little throwaways that work so damn well toward building a full picture of a man (albeit a man in a cartoony super hero kind of way), it's almost a shame when he puts on the suit. The suit, don't get me wrong, is a great thing - sleek and fast and constantly un pealing new layers of cool shit it can do. But the movie doesn't bog down in tech, but stays light and interesting the whole way.

It's an excellent time at the movies, and a niiiice entr in the Marvel Universe.