Midwest Knock-Around

Not quite there.

2009-01-15T10:11:00.001-08:00

I haven't laughed this hard in weeks.
Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Yap Yap, Bang Bang

2008-12-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to decide whether James Joseph Cialella is a crusader with a poorly developed sense of scope or a complete criminal idiot. It may be a bit of both.

Cialella was attending a Christmas day showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" when the family in front of him started talking. He argued with them, threw popcorn (much further than I would ever go, in reality) and then, after a period of escalation, approached the father of the family and shot him in the arm.

I'm of two minds on this. Part of me figures it was just a matter of time before the casual, psychic violence of the movie theater turned into actually puncture wounds. I've been involved in a few altercations where that peculiar sort of unreasonable rage takes over, and the punishment you want dolled out really does not fit the crime of being obnoxious in a movie theater. I've wanted folks to burn alive for throwing candy at me, in other words.

But the other part accepts the fact that when you go to a movie, you are there for a communal experience and every community has its fair share of idiots, loudmouths and young people who couldn't sit still if you dangled free college tuition in front of them. I've come to sort of accept this because it no longer depends on the subject matter of the movie. I've had to tell people to calm down during Oscar bait, been scolded for cheering Sam Jackson during "Snakes on a Plain," had to tell adults to quit kicking my seat during animated children's fare and had candy thrown at me during "Singing in the Rain." People are rude everywhere you go and if you go to a movie theater, you must, MUST expect rude behavior. A movie theater is not a santuary, it's a place where people congregate. It's why I haven't been to a movie in two months and when go, gravitate toward the screenings when no one will be around.

Still, there's a sick sort of schadenfreudeistic thrill out of reading a story when a theater goer actually capped a motherfucker for talking during a movie. That's why the story (as of 1:44 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 27) sits on the top of CNN.com. It's the story they find the most imporant out of all the things happening in the world right now.

I don't find it odd that CNN gave it this much weight, as it seems most people have their awful movie theater experiences list. That's sort of sad, but if the violence keeps escalating, I'm either going to have to go to more movies or fewer of them, depending on what sort of thing I want to see.

Christmas Downer

2008-12-26T14:15:00.001-08:00

You know, I may not have a lot of money or powerful friends or great achievements or I might not be "good" at anything in particular, but I do have this.

Some days, that's enough.

Dumb Doesn't Take A Holiday

2008-12-24T07:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not a journalist anymore, but damn it if this reporter from WBIR in Tennessee didn't perfectly capture a perfect moment in time during a report. Here's the story.

(CNN) -- A wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Tragic and awful and all that, but...wait for it...the reporter finds a woman directly effected by the sludge dump and drops this amazing little gem:

Some of the goop spilled into the tributary, but preliminary water quality tests show that the drinking water at a nearby treatment plant meets standards.
"I don't want to drink it. It doesn't look healthy to me," Jody Miles, who fishes in the Clinch River, told CNN affiliate WBIR. "Do you reckon they can bring all this life back that's going to die from all this mess?"

Pardon my directness, but no shit you don't want to drink it, it's ashen sludge you idiot. The rest of the ashen sludge you regularly ingest looks a little healthier to you, does it? When you fish in sludge-filled lakes and lay down by crap-filled streams, that's perfectly normal?

But it's the second part that really makes me happy. Any sentence that starts with "Do you reckon" has only gold on the other side. To read the whole sentence, I can just picture Jody Miles, trying to come up with something profound and instead finding an inquiry into whether toxic, ashen sludge might kill fish tumbling out of her mouth. Do you suppose she felt the interview went well?

I think Mrs. Miles should be a standard at other events.

At the scene of a house fire:
"Do you reckon their furniture is burning up too?"

At the scene of a shooting
"Those are some nice shoes. It's a cryin' shame they got blood all over 'em."

Nice work, reporter!

Picture Monday - Hulk Love Chzbrgers

2008-12-22T04:48:00.000-08:00

All right, brother. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "the Hulkster is selling out, putting his name on any kind of crappy product that comes down the line." We'll that's not the truth, brother.

You see, brother, these bulked up sliders are JUST what the Hulkster needs after a long day of training, sayin' my prayers and takin' my vitamins, brother. They knock out hunger better than my BIG LEG DROP.

And I've got news for Mrs. Paul, Fit and Fancy, even the Jolly Green Giant...what are you gonna do when the salmonella from the Hulkster Cheeseburger drops on YOU?!

Christmas Toast

2008-12-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

I got melancholy yesterday watching Iron Man.

Given the bright sense of fun infused into the middle two reels of Jon Favreau's ode to cool stuff, that's not a common response, but it is a common response to become reflective around the holidays. And I saw "Iron Man" with my little brother, a kid named Jordan who had been part of my life for more than five years.

Every week or so, the wife and I met with Jordan and did all sort of activities I'm sure an 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-old boy found somewhat dull, but the kid endured and I think eventually got something out of us hanging around. Since the match was through Big Brothers/Big Sisters, they tell you "you've made a difference in this child's life." I don't know. A "difference" is such a nebulous term. Still, for better or worse (probably for better, to be fair) the kid was a part of my life for a good chunk.

When "Iron Man" came out, my favorite moment with Jordan came when Tony Stark drove his hot rod car to a private air hanger. The license plate said "STARK3" to which Jordan informs me "that means he's got at least two more" with this great sense of kidly awe in his voice. To not only have one hot rod, but three, that was a dream that kicked the ass of other dreams.

Then, shortly after we saw the flick, he moved. As is common with these matches, there wasn't a lot of warning and bugger all we could do. We didn't get to say good bye, it happened so abruptly. And poof, a five-year fixture in my life was now gone. Hence, the melancholy.

To put that in the parlance of the holiday, it highlighted for me how right now is the time we appreciate being around each other. We like getting stuff and buying stuff, we like eating and traveling, we like the pictures and the sweets, but being around each other when all this good stuff happens, that's something that should make one smile and tear up at the same time. It's special, even if you can set your calendar by it.

So onto the toast:

I am so happy you are in my life
Being around you makes me a better person
Though I am not great at articulating it
Being together keeps me alive
It keeps me moving forward
In the end, it's what I have that matters

Thank you so much
Because when you're gone I will miss you
And though the end can come at any time and in any form
What you've given me is already irreplaceable

To happiness
To joy
To prosperity and safety
But most importantly to us being together
And the love that means

Merry Christmas.

Why is it...

2008-12-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

...you only know what you want for Christmas when it's too late to ask for it?

Picture Monday: Where ya been?

2008-10-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

Oh, you know, here and there. Gondor mainly.

I'll spare you the "I'm returning to blogging" post and say it's been a real interesting month or two. There was the Alaskan trip, icebergs and all, that was flat out legendary. It was hard not to hum the LOTR theme while sailing around mountains like this, for some reason.

There's more keeping me busy these days, but the less I write the more I dread completely sucking at it. And, there's a lot going on, so expect more pretty pretty pictures on Monday.

Bad Horse...sort of

2008-09-08T16:54:00.001-07:00

I thought it was cute beyond all rationality.

Voyerism at its Best

2008-09-02T20:28:00.001-07:00

I'm not one to pass along sites a la Buzzfeed (hey, go to Buzzfeed.com!) but on that site I came across this little gem: http://hntgl.com/

The premise of the site, which is an acronym "How Not to Get Laid" is to serve as a message board for stories of sexual humiliation and botched courtship. It's an easy thing to click on but once you get into the guts of the thing, I found some of the stories both sad and sort of brilliant. It's also, once you get into it, a dark subject presented in a light way.

Anyways, I thought I'd pass it along.

Why I Haven't Been Posting A Lot

2008-09-02T20:12:00.001-07:00

I'm currently teaching two college classes, which is beyond bizarre given the fact I don't have much of a mind on me. I'm working on it, but I was always the guy who knew a little about a lot instead of a lot about a little, which is sort of what they look for in academia. I'm teaching a journalism class and an intro to film studies class at two different local colleges in this area.

It takes some time, so blogging suffers. At the same time, I think teaching an adult set is something I'm really kind of falling for. Why you ask?

1. It's an ego trip to be the guy who knows the most about a particular subject in the room.
2. It's an environment ripe for experimentation. I consider it a challenge and a mission to keep students from nodding off. So far, so good thanks to a mix of media, movie clips, the occasional curse word, personal stories and an animated teaching presence.
3. The pay and the hours spent make this a pretty kick-ass part time job.
4. Teaching is, in some respect, is the act of transferring enthusiasm and knowledge. In my short time I find the two to be different but equally important.

It's also cool to tell people you're a professor. There's something to that.

An Appeal To Stewart Shepherd

2008-08-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

To: Mr. Stewart Shepherd
Focus on the Family

From: Norman 5875
Lapsed and Failing Christian

Mr. Stewart,

A few weeks ago I happened to catch your video, via the "mainstream media," where you asked your viewers, in a playful way, to pray for rain over Denver the night Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for President. I understand, though do not respect, the idea that you intended this as a joke. Needless to say, I didn't find it funny.

But, in doing research for this blog I found your rebuttal video to the "mainstream media," where you read from the "knee-jerk Liberal dictionary" or some such, quoted Sean Hannity about Keith Olbermann's ratings (what's his obsession with that? It's not healthy) and basically made a tongue-in-cheek apology for making a joke that wasn't very funny. Or, as I detected, further made fun of those who don't think like you by implying they're too full of hatred, blinded by ideology or stupid to understand your extremely well put together and funny joke.

I'm pretty sure I hate you.

Let's back up, since that was a little strong and you are a man of God, which probably entitles you to a bit of leeway. See, I was shaped and molded by many "Men of God," and found a large majority of them to be true followers of Jesus Christ - forthright, honest, fair and compassionate. Very few of them were snarky, even fewer of them out and out hated and if they did so, they did it on the inside where it was dealt with spiritually. I presume you've undergone most of the same training, read some of the same books and studied the Bible in the same ways as most of these men and I wonder where the disconnect comes in. You see, the men who shaped me were influential and caring and drove me closer to God, or so I felt. When I watch you and your sarcastic, partisan, self-centered comments, it makes me want to burn down a church.

I don't think you realize you have that effect. I truly believe you have good intentions, or did at one point. I'm sure you talk big about love (truthfully, I don't know that much about you). But here's what I do know - love is always about sacrifice, and Christianity has the biggest, most gaudy example of this in the known universe in the form of Jesus Christ. When you love, you often overlook, care, reach out, embrace and sometimes hold your nose or tongue to make love possible. What you're doing, Mr. Shepherd, is calling me an asshole.

See, I'm voting for Barack Obama because I believe he's the better man for the job. I believe he's smarter, more capable of mobilizing the public and genuinely believes in people. He served in lower class communities for years - there's that pesky sacrifice thing coming up again. I like the guy, even though I've never met him. And you made a joke about God pouring "Old Testament" rain on the guy. Let's say you were really not joking and wanted this prayer chain to form and for God to hear and disrupt Obama's speech. That's pretty terrible in my book because you're using God, overtly and without wiggle room, to advance a political agenda and that makes me want to cry for the state of the faith in which I was raised. But, let's say you were joking and just have no ear for comedy. The implication then is you'd joke about God's overt action into politics. Joking about God usually isn't smiled upon too much by you folk. Ask Kevin Smith. That makes you a hypocrite, pretty much.

But then, the coup de grace - your response video where you overtly mock anyone who called you on your shit for either a) being a partisan right down to the cross around your neck or b) not being funny while making fun of God. By pulling out that "funny" Liberal handbook or through any of the other ham handed jokes you attempted, you called me an asshole. And I don't like to be called an asshole. In fact, if I were called an asshole in church, I would leave that church, which is sort of what's happening.

See, when you people at Focus on the Family mix your politics and your religion love is never a bi-product. Hate comes out, intolerance comes out, stubbornness (which, our Bible tells us is not a sign of love) comes out, but not love or compassion or caring or anything like it, and it makes me want to go away from you. And while I find myself running away from you and what you stand for, I also find myself running away from everything you and your ilk are connected to, right down to the wafer placed on my tongue Sunday mornings. You and your people are not the only reason but you are part of the reason I feel myself losing my grip on what I thought God was and who he was to me. By calling me an asshole for voting for Obama, and implying that I will get wet while you are dry makes me so angry it breaks bonds that true Men of God spent decades creating. And I feel it happening and it makes me want to cry.

Even if you were funny, I'd find you sad. As it stands, you're not only a bad evangelist and bad Christian in terms of outreach (again, I don't know your soul) but you're a lousy fucking comedian and a political hack piece of shit in my opinion. And I'm not going to waste one prayer, however many I have left, on someone like you.

Blessings, douchbag.

Norman

Two Quick Videos

2008-08-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

This first one is brilliant. That's the only real word for it.

This second one has many more words such as "ooooh," "ouch," "oh my gawd," "yowza" "that is so mean," "holy god" and "what the hell is wrong with you for promoting this sort of video."

Here ya go.

Maximus The Goat Boy

2008-08-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

At this point in my life I feel like Bill Hicks and his comedy was one of the low level building blocks responsible for the man I've become. Every time I get really pissed off because others are being hurt, every time I tear something apart and go two or three steps too far, (mostly in my mind, never outside of it unfortunately), any time I'm really really drunk or overindulgent for the sake of the soul - that's Bill Hicks.

So to hear Russell Crowe is considering taking on the lead role in a Bill Hicks bio pic...I'm kind of sad and nervous. And curious.

Hick's story is amazing and if you don't know it, pick up "American Scream" by Cynthia True or the superb DVD simply called "Bill Hicks" put out a couple years back. The dude was unique and powerful but his story of comedy from an early age, rage from an early career, excess upon excess, spirituality upon spirituality, cancer upon pancreas and a departure well before the aliens came to pick us up is rife for adaptation, actually. I'm just firmly of the mindset that I don't want to fucking see it.

Would Crowe be good? Probably. I don't care. I've honestly never thought about a bio pic, never cast it in my head, never considered plunking down $8 to see the movie. And I'm not stupid, if they made it I'd see it. But the fact it will get made as Oscar bait makes me sad. Russell Crowe has Oscars and chops but there's not an actor alive I'd consider for the part. It's just never been an option.

Hicks means a lot to me and I would sacrifice body parts to listen to him do a set on the last 8 years. But his life and work was never a movie...never entertainment. That, and he never hit the mainstream because he never sacrificed his pure material. Don't believe me? Spend 7 minutes with the guy below.

I hope this doesn't happen. I won't be outraged or angry, just sad. Very sad.

The Body(ies)

2008-08-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the "Bodies Uncovered" exhibit in Kansas City this weekend, and for those who don't know what "Bodies Uncovered" is, it has nothing to do with burlesque or stripping. To its possible detriment.

No, "Bodies Uncovered" is an exhibit that tours the world in which dozens of human bodies are dissected and preserved using a special polymer process that stops decay, preserves size and the illusion of moisture and allows for some seriously in depth looks at actual human bodies. Some people are skinned and kept in one piece, others are sectioned (in every way you can imagine) and others are used for organ specimens or other various exhibits.

I'm not squeamish, by and large, but I had heard some good questions raised about this exhibit...like where do you get your hands on more than 40 human bodies. Rumors swirled but it's mostly accepted that the bodies came from volunteers. I find that odd, because among other pieces on display there was a dead woman with a dead fetus inside her dead womb kept in one piece for my viewing and supposed enhancement of my appreciation for the human body. It makes one wonder.

Still, it's undeniable that by spending time with perfectly preserved human bodies I DID walk away with a better understanding of what's going on inside me. And a desire to never eat anything again. From a scientific viewpoint, I'd never seen the body as a whole and it truly is awesome how all these little bones and cartilage and veins work together to create something else, something bigger than the sum of its parts.

But, and this is a big but...EWWWW. And HOLY SHIT. And GLUPGT.

Example: There was a dude (and we knew it was a dude because he was anatomically correct..why wouldn't he be?) who was cut into around 10 sections vertically from face to back. Then a different dude diced vertically from side to side. Then, and this was the coup de grace, a dude cut into fillet Mignon-looking sections from toes to head which covered nearly 10 feet of display space, or as Ron Popiel would put it, "more than 9 feet of genuine diced human." It's amazing and it's educational but then you get to the section with the eyes and next thing you know this isn't "random diced guy" but "diced guy who had a mother and father and probably people who loved him." If he was there of his own free will, it doesn't make it any less disturbing for me. If he wasn't, I feel like I'm aiding a crime or at the very least an act of perversity.

But then there were pieces of incredible beauty. At one point, the veins and arteries in a human hand lay suspended in liquid - literally thousands of individual strands making something we all recognize at the end of our elbow. It was breathtaking.

So the question is "does something with scientific and possible artistic value yet undeniable controversy merit appreciation, further study or both?" I think it's both, with a healthy dose of EWWWW on my part. I believe we're even more than the some of our physiology, and whatever that might be weighed heavy on me as I saw the raw elements that make up humans. My head said "this is good and important" and whatever spirituality I have left was pulling back hard. Either way, it was worth stepping into the display. Very worth it.

Wiener Dog Blog: Ouchee

2008-08-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

Hey Cole.

Whats.

My paw hurts.

What?

My paw. The thing I walk on. It hurts.

Oh.

It's why I yelped just now.

You just yelped just now?

Yes.

Why?

My paw hurts, you skinny bitch. I just told you that.

Is it because you had something to eat?

No. I have an ingrown claw.

Is that something you can eat?

No. It's the thing that comes out of your paw. You scratch with it.

It sounds like it's yummy.

It's sticking into my foot. The fat guy says I need to have something surgery tomorrow.

Surgery?

Yes. I think it's a yummy food. Maybe a doughnut or a bear claw.

See! I told you you could eat it.

I can't wait for my surgery tomorrow.

Can I come with you?

No. It's special for me. I get a surgery because I have an ingrown claw.

You're so lucky.

Maybe you can smell my breath when I come back.

I'm leaving. You're a jerk.

OK. I'm going to lick my paw for the next 7 hours until they take me to get my surgery.

I'm shaking my ass at you.

(slurp slurp slurp)

Updates to come.

Everybody Takes A Hit

2008-08-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a debater (certainly not a master...debator...) but one of the biggest knock down drag out verbal altercations I was ever in involved the basic concepts of comedy. My friend was arguing that all comedy, no matter what it was, involved a certain level of schadenfreude. To put it another way, there wasn't a laugh to be had in this world that wasn't, at least in the abstract, at the expense of a person or object. I ran the list - knock knock jokes (the joke is on you for being surprised), George Carlin routines, especially his language stuff (the joke is often on those who use the language incorrectly) and many others. The only headway I made in the argument was puns because puns are "clever" comedy and don't really hurt anyone. I was then informed the pun is usually at the expense of a subject. Not always, but often.

I remembered that debate, which I lost, today when I read about the new movie "Tropic Thunder," and how groups who work with the developmentally disabled are complaining about a part of the film where Ben Stiller portrays a special needs person. They feel assaulted, which they have every right to feel. They want to organize protests, which they have every right to do. But as someone who has been laughed at and the butt of a great many jokes (deservedly so), I don't understand how this group doesn't realize that 1) they're picking a bad target at a bad time and 2) if they've ever laughed at anything, anytime, they're complicit in mocking. All we're talking about is a matter of degree.

First off, "Tropic Thunder" is a film with a lot of good buzz behind it and one white actor, Robert Downey Jr., portraying a black man. This movie, straight ahead, says "we're probably going to do some offensive stuff" which doesn't justify doing offensive stuff. When you make a statement as strong as putting a white man in blackface, you're either an idiot, a racist, or pretty damn sure you have something satirical to say. In this case writer-director-star Stiller is lampooning Hollywood conventions. In the case of Downey in blackface, it's an actor making a "transformation" into a different character, something ripe for lampooning. It's the same concept behind "Simple Jack," the character (played by Stiller) who is offending the developmentally disabled advocates.

Again, having something to lampoon doesn't quite equal intent - you can't say "President Bush is an idiot so I'm going to make an art exhibit simulating baby rape." In that case, the intent of your art would widely be misconstrued. But in the case of "Tropic Thunder" there's a long history of people playing developmentally disabled characters for the purpose of winning Oscars, and it's that convention being made fun of. As I understand it, he's not making fun of the developmentally disabled, he's making fun of people who profit by portraying them, which could be called a despicable practice.

Strangely, I also see exactly where the protest is coming from. Politically, if I supported a cause and saw a high level actor making fun of my cause, I might see it as a chance for some publicity. Or I might honestly be indignant and feel that "this is too much" without caring about the context. Again, this is fine. You have a right to ignore context and I have a right to see Tropic Thunder, as the artist intended, free of guilt because I disagree with your position.

Final idea - While Stiller is probably doing this parody in a good way, there's the fratboy mentality of calling someone a "retard" or making fun challenged folks in a mean way that I don't find acceptable. I don't think "Tropic Thunder" is part of this subculture which is truly treating the developmentally disabled in a despicable way. Then again, posters on the Internet are not easy to fight and a $100 million movie starring three recognizable actors is. Again, I understand it politically, I just don't agree with it.

On Fire!

2008-08-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

I may not know much about stoner humor, but I know what I find funny.

For example, I know that the meandering, PHC soaked breakfast-after-the-action scene at the end of "Pineapple Express" went completely over my head, not eliciting one grin out of me. I also know that watching some poor projectionist try to beat out a fire in the projection booth with a rag before "Express" began was one of the funniest damn things I've seen in a long time.

Today is my birthday and by way of a present, my wife said "go catch a movie." I'm a fan of Judd Apatow in general and kinda sorta a fan of Seth Rogen, so "Pineapple Express" it was. Not to get too into a review, but the movie was fun and goofy with an uneven sense of action and characters that thought they were much more interesting than they were. Subplots went nowhere quickly and at the end, it was kind of a middling success. I'm not sorry I saw it, in other words, but I probably don't need to see it again.

When I got to the theater for my Sunday afternoon matinee, the theater was about 1/5 full. The designated start time came, the lights dimmed, the pre-movie show began and then promptly stopped. The lights came up and the 40 or so folks in the theater looked back to see what the hell. We were treated to the site of the projection room filling with smoke and a dude trying to put out the film stock, which was visibly on fire. It wasn't a big fire. It wasn't an "oh God we need to get out of here" fire. It was just enough to see the orange and just enough panic the poor dude in the booth.

I don't know if it was the way he was beating the film spooled out on the platter or what, but pretty much everyone started laughing. The dude in the booth gave us the "thumbs up" sign after the danger had passed and shortly thereafter we smelled the burning film stock. It smells like if someone had poured Kool-Aid into some sort of acid.

It took about 10 minutes for the movie to start, and even then the film was a little "streaky" with white light reaching to the top of every frame. No matter. It wasn't a bad flick and now I know what burning film smells like.

One more word on "Pineapple Express:" It has my favorite fight scene of the year consisting of three white guys destroying a house, beating each other and then apologizing for it. -Punch- I'm sorry dude. -smack- Oh, that might have been too much. It struck me funny, but not as funny as the rapid beating of a rag against burning film.

Vote for Me!

2008-08-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago I posted a picture of a sign I found at a book sale and submitted it to Failblog.org, a fantastic little site.

Turns out they liked it enough to put it up for a vote. I'm on the top of the second page labeled "Science Fail."

You could go to www.failblog.org/vote and vote for me...if you wanted to...

Picture Monday: Butter Princess

2008-08-05T04:58:00.000-07:00

Is it the subject or the media that makes this butter sculpture so...off? Since I've never met the subject, it's hard to say, but Ms. VanderKool's butter rendering had my stomach doing flippies when I first saw it. It's as if a David Lynch town came alive, held a state fair and carved Laura Palmer out of a buttery spread. -shudder-

What I found was Minnesotan's take great pride in their butter sculpture. When I was in Minneapolis I asked people about it and they all smiled and spoke in a manner which said "we're not ashamed of our ridiculous sculpture." Then I spoke to some Minnesota ex-patriots and they did the same thing.

Weird. On several levels.

The Last Witness

2008-07-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

This is a story of a piece of furniture, a couch to be exact. It was multicolored, contained more than one stain and, at the end, had springs sticking straight out through the back and into the wall. That's how it found itself in my garage for a couple years, and at the dump this weekend.

Let's back up to the summer of my junior year of college. I meet this girl, much to the distress of the girl I was dating at the time. This girl was grown up at a time when I was not, and for some reason, interested in spending time with me. One night, I got a call from this girl telling me she wanted to talk to me at her house. I had never been to her house, and in a long walk to my car, during which I turned around three times, I eventually found my way to her duplex. And we sat on her couch.

We talked about our situation and how we wanted to be together. And after a while of pacing around her house, during which I turned around more times than I cared to count, I sat down on the couch and kissed her. One of my favorite topics when I write (especially the short ficlets I've talked about on this blog) is the moment when people get together. I find that exercise fascinating, and while I might come off like a cheap romance writer, I think the dynamics of people taking a step into something, especially if they've known it's coming for a long time, is ripe with possibility. I also really like the topic because I suck so bad at that moment. I don't have one witty, interesting or good story about that moment, except on that couch. Please forgive me, but I'm going to keep it private as the girl I kissed on that couch is now my wife of 8 years.

There's much more to that story that I also don't care to discuss, but I soon got to know that couch very well. I remember one Saturday a couple months after we'd gotten together, we woke up at noon, ordered pizza and sat around watching a Daria marathon on MTV until dinner time when we decided maybe we should get out of the house. Then we didn't.

That couch survived a few trips - from college to the trailer we moved in when first married, to the new house we now live in, but the spring sticking out of the back and scratching the wall did it in and it sat in the garage for a good two years. Mice got into it and by the time we cleaned the garage this weekend in a 10-hour whirlwind of trips to the dump, grisly discoveries involving vermin and heavy lifting which left vertebra in places vertebra should not be, it was out of the garage and in the dump.

The couch was the second heaviest thing we moved, and I managed to get it end over end into a pile of debris. I hadn't given what that couch had meant to me a second thought until, as we drove away, my wife said simply "bye old friend," to the couch.

Oh yeah. That couch is where my family started.

And now its in the dump, replaced by a formerly white couch where my dogs have shredded one part of one cushion and where stains from markers and squash baby food will never come out. It's not a matter of needing to move on, it's a matter of remembering a place where you used to be, acknowledging it and feeling the weight of time at bit. It feels like an eternity ago and yesterday. The emotions are still vivid as hell - the fear, the excitement, the fear, the arousal, the fear, the spinning of the head, the fear.

That couch was where my family started.

Bye, old friend.

My Own Fail Find

2008-07-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

I sent this to my new favorite site, failblog.org, and haven't heard back from the yet. I find it pretty funny.

The funny thing about this was I can totally see why this odd label was created. I spotted this at a book sale a couple weeks back, where surplus books from libraries are gathered in one place for folks to ravage. I found a 90 page pulp novel where Sherlock Holmes teams up with Tarzan.

But a few of the labels contained literary brick a brack (in fact, the entire thing seemed as if it were organized by someone with a cursory grasp on the language and the Dewey Decimal System) that was somewhat hard to label, hence the UFOs lumped in with the sciences. It's still funny,though.

Pretty Pretty

2008-07-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

At the Minnesota Institute of Science, they had an exhibit on light and color which featured a bunch of colored strings hanging in a shadowy space. It's not a hard thing to make a pretty picture out of.

It's pretty enough, I think, to earn a limerick in its honor:

Oh tightly wound pieces of string

With colors that jump, pop and sing

The kids come and look

Instead of reading a book

And I'm not sure they learn anything.

Thank you.

My Ficlet Evolution

2008-07-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

I know some of you don't go to Ficlets a lot, but it's a cool site full of pretty cool folks. The premise is people show up and write stories of an amazingly restrictive lenght, I think just over 1,000 key strokes. It's confining yet liberating at the same time.

Anyways, tonight inspiration hit and I wrote a three part story I was kind of proud of. Here it is without the pain of linking over to Ficlets.com. Which you should.

Monkey Versus Robot Part 1

They say monkeys have no memories. They are wrong.

Monkey remembered the sound his mother made as the robot drug her off into the jungle 8 years ago. Her eyes pleaded with him to run, while expressing the fear of the pain that was to come. She knew her fur would soon be ripped from her hide. The Monkey never forgot that sound, never forgot that look.

He used that look to become stronger and faster than any other monkey. He had that look in his mind when he destroyed BoBo, breaking his skull open with a rock to become the leader of their tribe. The look inspired him to swing further in search of the infernal machine that haunted his dreams.

And at last, he had found the machine alone and unmoving in the jungle. None of The Monkey’s tribe had been strong enough to follow. It was he alone that would fight. He alone that would destroy.

He was strong, broad chested and fast. He could kill the machine.

His battle cry was long and shrill. The robot stirred. The Monkey’s life had built to this moment.

Monkey Versus Robot Part 2

They say robots have no memories. They are wrong.

The robot remembered each and every monkey crushed by his mechanical hands. He remembered their cries as he strangled them, remembered their desperate attemps to claw and scratch. He remembered their faces, stored deep in his memory banks and kept for further replay.

Ever since a lightning strike had given him a semblance of awareness, the robot hated monkeys. They were filthy, they were unpredictable, they threw their own poo at the robot. They needed to be destroyed.

The robot worked methodically, clearing monkeys from the north, then the south. He would kill those who attacked quickly, drag the women off for a slower death and then return for children not smart enough to run. One kill had been particularly memorable, as a child had watched the robot pull the clawing mother into the underbrush.

All scans indicated that monkey had returned and wanted to fight. It mattered little to the robot. If you have killed one monkey, you’ve killed them all.

Monkey Versus Robot Part 3

After 10 minute of battle, both The Monkey and The Robot were facing defeat.

The Monkey’s left paw was smashed and unusable, making escape through vines impossible. His left leg gushed blood from a perfectly circular wound in his lower thigh. His left cheek featured a bruise with an alarming radius, but he felt strong and capable.

The Robot was equally damaged, his right arm gone as The Monkey had ripped it off and beaten him with it. The Robot had not anticipated that The Monkey would use weapons, and had been ill prepared. Still, he had landed some crushing blows to The Monkey, and his power level remained high.

As the two rushed at each other again, The Monkey bellowing, The Robot silent, a strange but unmistakable sound in the underbrush struck fear into the hearts of the two warriors. They looked skyward, as if willing the battle to go a different way.

But neither warrior, no matter how skilled or bent on revenge or thirsty for blood or oil, was any match for the giant right foot of Godzilla.

Why I'm Not Jesus

2008-07-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

In church today, the focus was on the story in the gospel where Jesus tells his disciples the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Jesus said (and I'm paraphrasing):

"Wheat is growing some place, yeah, and there are weeds growing too. A slave, which isn't cool but a reality at this day and time, tells his master, 'master, look at all these weeds. You wants me to pull them?' And the master says 'no, don't do that because it will hurt the wheat. We'll wait until harvest and then burn the weeds and put the wheat in the barn. Cool?' And the slave said 'whatever you say, my agricultural overlord.'"

Again, I'm paraphrasing. But then the Bible drops this fun little nugget, and this is actual scripture.

"The disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable. And Jesus said to them 'what, are you fucking stupid?'

Ok, that last part was not scripture, but it's what was going through my head in neon letters. The parable is about as clear cut as could possibly be - evil and good will grow together until God's divine judgement. Jesus couldn't have been any more clear unless he had said "evil and good will grow together until God's divine judgement" and then what would he say to the crowd for the next hour?

It's like if I were to tell a story today about a chicken who, after watching a fire destroy the farm's barn, started evesdropping on other chickens to make sure they wouldn't burn down anything else. Then that chicken was hated by about every other animal on the farm and left in disgrace for another ranch in Midland, Texas. What might I be talking about?

I guess we'll never know the context and whether or not the disciples had never been exposed to the idea of a parable or if they were oggling some of the hot women in the audience (or men. If you've got 12 guys following Jesus chances are good one is gay). But either way, it struck me as delightfully thick in a book about illumination.

My Thoughts on The Dark Knight

2008-07-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

Writing a review of "The Dark Knight" is somewhat pointless given the glowing hyperbole flowing from the keyboards of nearly every movie critic on the planet. Instead, a mere 25 minutes after walking out of the theater, I have a few thoughts on the film.

On the relationship to "Batman Begins" - The flick sort of dispenses with the first film early on. The Scarecrow is locked up in the first 10 minutes, the Batman As Ninja thing is all but gone and very little is referred to. With a few tweaks this could very well have been the first film in the Batman reboot, but this divorce from the first movie doesn't hurt the film as a whole.

On Heath Ledger's Joker - Well, everything you've heard is true. It's a great performance. It's one of those rare performances where writer, director and actor all "get" what's going on and move in the same direction. It's the same sort of thing we saw with Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark in Iron Man, all pistons fire and the character flies off the screen. I fell officially in love with the character the second time he told the story about how he got his facial scars, and the movie so underplayed this pivotal point in the character's psyche that it was hard not to love. He's flushed out, fully explored but not inaccessible and Ledger is pitch perfect in this film. The Joker was truly frightening and this version perpetrated my favorite magic trick, probably ever filmed.

On the film's flaws - Christopher Nolan still can't stage a coherent action sequence to save his life and Batman continues to swallow actors whole. It's not that the acting is bad (it's not), but what the character calls for is so empty, which is kind of the point, that you can lose an actor inside it. If it wasn't for his almost annoying snarl, Christian Bale would have been swallowed up. The movie also didn't "click" in a few places, meaning while the acting all movies in the same direction all the plot points do not. Some pieces of the movie feel random. It's not a perfect film by any means.

On social relevance - However, what "The Dark Knight" does better than any other movie of its post 9/11 brethren is create relevant social allegory and tie it into the story as a whole. The Joker is a terrorist, plain and simple, though a genius terrorist in white face. The idea of symbols and their relevance, what revenge does to "nobility" and what fear can do to bring out the good in people - it's all relevant without slapping you in the face, which is a tall order for a comic book movie. Most effective is what happens when you cross lines, and how you can't go back.

On guts - Oh how people die in this film. Major people. People whose names are above the title. I turned to my wife about 2/3 of the way through the movie and said "The Joker's going to win, isn't he?" and in a big way he does. That's not so much as a spoiler as it is a conversation after the film. This movie goes directions that would scare major studios out of their $3,000 suits. The film's biggest praise, aside from the acting, need to go to the Nolan brothers and David Goyer for pushing these ideas and characters in directions they normally could not go. As a result, this flick plays more like a crime thriller than a superhero movie, and it's unique in that way.

On Aaron Eckhardt - This movie would not work without Aaron Eckhard as Harvey Dent. It just would not. It's easily a roll that plays strongly on his natural acting strengths, and he is the rock in which "The Dark Knight" builds its church. Ledger is flashy and fun and scary, Eckhard is absolutely necessary.

In Conclusion - Great stuff. "I'm not crazy, I'm just ahead of the curve," is my new favorite saying. The scene with Tim "Tiny" Lister actually moved me. I was tense and enthralled through the entire thing. Great stuff.

Pictures!

2008-07-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

I figured out how to get the pictures off my phone, so I'll be posting a bunch of them in the next few days.

For starters, here's my dog snuggling up to a beer bottle. If that's not high comedy, I don't know what is.

Books, for Good Or Bad

2008-07-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

The family and I attended a mass book sale this weekend, and ended up walking away with a shopping bag full of kids books for basically the price of hauling them away. It's splendid, to have the freedom to buy books you otherwise wouldn't give a second glance to, but it's a pleasure that's not without its risks.

Going through the stack this evening, the oldest kid hands me a book. Being four and unable to read (though she's darn close. We can't spell things around her anymore without her getting wise), she plops in my lap and hands me a book. It's called "My World Turned Upside Down" and had a kid hanging from a jungle gym on the cover. OK. I open the page and read "After my father died, I felt like my world had been turned upside down."

Next.

Luckily, she wasn't too hot on the idea, so we went with a book called "Christmas in July." Pretty safe, right? I thought so too until page 5, where Santa lost his pants and ended up a beggar on the street, begging for pants. Santa versus homelessness, vagrancy and public indecency!

Next.

Then we went to a book called "Herman the Worm" based on the popular camp song. As many of you will recall, when Herman gets bigger you ask, in a loud voice (this is key), "Herman, Baby, what happened?" But you really yell it. She caught onto that pretty fast. Then he burps and gets smaller. The kid asked me if that meant he threw up, then proceeded to make gagging noises up until dinner time.

Next.

Finally we landed on The Emperor's New Clothes. Yes, public nudity was involved but I figured it was a pretty good story. I like the lesson. She wasn't' interested.

Next time I'm reading the books before throwing them in a bag.

An Unmovable Force?

2008-07-13T19:52:00.001-07:00

I've been saving this story for a few weeks, thinking that somehow it would come full circle. Today it did.

I was in Minneapolis a few weeks ago and had the chance to catch the "Star Wars" exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum. Basically there were a bunch of props from the movie (the original droids, Darth Vader's mask, etc.) some retrospectives and other attractions. It was an extra $8 past the admission, plus a 45-minute wait.

A bit of background: I've spent a good 20 years of my life in the firm spell of George Lucas' "Star Wars" movies. I saw Jedi 7 times when I was 7 (see how that worked), I watched the OT whenever I was sick during grade school and in college I ate Taco Bell until I puked collecting those damn disks that came with their value meals containing characters from "The Phantom Menace." Even after that turd was deposited (and yes, you could dig up my apologetic review in the pages of the Kearney Hub if you MUST, but I've since come to see the light), I made it to a midnight screening for each of the new trilogy. I might still defend "Revenge of the Sith" while damning the entire new trilogy if you get a beer or two in me. Then there's the LEGO Star Wars games, the Little People Millenium Falcon set...I own a shirt or two. If 1 is someone who's seen the movies and forgotten them and 10 is that guy in Michigan who changed his name to Obi-Wan Kenobi, I'm about a 3 or 4.

But somewhere along the line I made a decision: George Lucas had enough of my money. I think it was the glut of interviews I've read where he basically shows no regard for the people who love his property. His faux apathy borderlines on disgust as far as I can tell. It was cemented this year when he did an interview for the latest and lamest Indiana Jones movie, and said (and I'm paraphrasing), "people are going to hate it no matter what it is. It's only a movie!"

No long Internet rant needed. He just doesn't get my money anymore.

And, the Science Institute was my first real test: See the C3-PO used in one of my favorite movies of all time or save 8 bucks, $45 minutes and see the rest of the museum. The decision was surprisingly easy. Mr. Lucas didn't get any more of my money.

But the decision sort of bothered me because I hadn't drawn clear distinctions in my mind. Was Lucas simply banned from my wallet for being a hack who wasn't able to pull off a three movie ark while at the same time disrespecting those who made him famous, or was Star Wars dead to me on a whole? If Star Wars was dead, what about all that time we'd spent together? What about all the midnight screenings, the late night quotations, the times I was comforted when sick by the Imperial March? What about puberty being explained to me in terms of Luke Skywalker's maturation process or that time my girlfriend was over and we watched "The Empire Strikes Back" and...

No, it couldn't be "dead," could it? I decided to find out.

The best way to do this, I figured, was to filter out all the stuff that killed Star Wars for many movie goers, namely the shitty dialogue. The best way to do this, I've found, is to play this amazing little special feature that came with the soundtrack to "Revenge of the Sith." Basically its a series of 20 or so music videos covering the major themes of Star Wars (the Republic, the Empire, the Rebels, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, etc.) with visuals from the movies, dialogue nowhere to be found and John Williams beautiful theme heavy score playing over the top. I decided to give it a spin when I was jogging to see if I felt anything.

At the end of the 37 minutes and 24 seconds (4 miles on a speed of 6.4 miles per hour), I can say my worst fears on the subject were not realized. In fact, I think things are OK. I don't feel nothing when confronted with Star Wars imagery and a swelling score (on a different note, I'm kind of a bitch when it comes to a swelling score. It can make totally hollow or unearned emotion connect with me in some odd way. See the end of Dragonheart and tell me the score doesn't make that thing work. Anyway) but I don't feel great either. Any time the New Trilogy showed up, there was considerably less emotion. During a couple of scenes replayed to music, it seemed I had forgotten scenes from the New Trilogy. "Oh yeah," I said to myself. "There was a big Jedi battle at the end of "Attack of the Clones." The neural dent it made must have been very small.

But, Han Solo, Princess Leah and Luke Skywalker still do it for me, at least on a small emotional scale. I'm not saying Star Wars was ever like The Elephent Man in terms of emotional bombs, but what can I say? I have a history with those movies and I think that history is keeping me a fan for the time being. I'm not going to check out the new "Star Wars" movie coming out this summer (coincidentally, I felt nothing but dread at the LucasFilms logo that used to invoke such unabashed joy), and I have no plans to purchase anything Star Wars stuff for a while, but it's nice to know that initial connection is still there.

At least for now.

Picture Monday: MY WRATH IS TOTAL!!!

2008-07-07T18:14:00.001-07:00

Again, I go back to the idea of who designs, prepares and manufactures pieces like this? I don't know, but if anyone can explain to my why this is aesthetically appealing (or, for that matter, why those "tree nymph" faces you can put on a tree are aesthetically appealing) please let me know.

Other than that, does this give off a wrathful feeling to anyone else?

A Cinematic Misunderstanding

2008-07-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

A couple statistics from the "Get Smart" movie I finally got around to seeing this afternoon.

Number of times Steve Carell directly quotes Don Adams: 4

Number of times Anne Hathaway shows her underwear: 3

Number of lines Terrence Stamp has: 20 or so

Number of lines deserving an actor of Terrence Stamp's stature: 0

Number of kicks/slaps/paintball pellets to the nuts: 5

Number of staples to the head: 2

Number of fat jokes: Lost count

and finally...

Number of people Steve Carell kills: 5

Huh? Yeah. Steve Carrell guns down four people and sets another character on fire before a train hits him. Is it just me, or is this a major misunderstanding of the basic premise of the movie?

No one says action and comedy is easy, and all in all "Get Smart" was a decently entertaining if extremely light weight piece of summer fare. But the first time Maxwell Smart draws his gun and SHOOTS A GUY, I was a little shocked. I didn't know this movie was prepared to go that far, but that's the thing - it's not. It doesn't push any spy conventions, doesn't go anywhere unexpected or do anything to threaten the goofy aesthetic except have Steve Carrell casually gun down some bad guys. Given he spends the first fourth of the movie trying to get his superiors to understand "bad is what they do, not who they are" concerning their enemies, the movie betrays itself with a hero murdering in the line of duty.

It makes me think that audiences don't give that sort of thing a second thought.

Rotten Wish Fulfillment

2008-07-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm about 20 minutes out from seeing the movie "Wanted" and can't get a certain bitter taste out of my mouth.

A word about the movie: As a brain dead piece of summer entertainment, you could do a lot worse. The action "kicks ass" as it were, completely with flipping cars, bullets that travel in a round pattern and Morgan Freeman as an assassin. James McAvoy proves an extremely capable lead and Angelina Jolie is monosyllabic and shows her butt (I'd prefer she had more dialogue and her butt more screen time, frankly). Like I said, you could do worse.

But there was an element to the film that, the more I think about it, I find flat out despicable. The movie opens with a quick introduction to the life of Wesley Gibson (McAvoy), an office droan whose boss yells at him, whose girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend and who thinks about how he can't "feel anything" all the time. He calls himself a loser, a nothing, a nobody. Then he's recruited by a fraternity of assassins (except for Jolie who cannot be in a frat, can she?) and begins extensive assassin training and begins shooting a bunch of people.

Wesley is involved in an initial shoot out before he decides to leave his life as an office droan and undertake killing people in the name of a magic loom that spits the names of people who need to be killed "in the name of fate" in binary code (that's the plot, I swear to God). After the shoot out he goes back to his office and feels "different." His vulgar boss, whose girth is played for laughs, pushes him to the breaking point where he swears at her and informs her everyone would feel sorry for her if only she were nicer to them. Instead they hate her. His best friend, the one who's boning Wesley's girlfriend, goes in for a high five only to be smashed in the face with Wes's keyboard. Letters fly off the keyboard and spell "Fuck You" with one of the man's tooth substituting for the second "u." Attention to detail and all that.

In the context of the movie as a hypstylized fantasy about shooting people, it's completely in line with the rest of the movie. Things started to go south for me when folks in the crowd started to cheer the in-office violence. A couple people whooped. The dude in front of me (the one with his baseball cap on backward) stood up and pumped his fist like his inner monologue had FINALLY been expressed in celluloid, like the director had reached into his soul and expressed his deepest longing.

I have to admit, I grinned. Like I said, in context it fits in a movie where you flip your car in order to shoot a guy through his sunroof or where a curved bullet goes in a circle and kills half a dozen people on its flight. But no one cheered any of those scened. They cheered the use of violence to deal with something they could relate to (betrayal, office boredom, a feeling of powerlessness).

I was ready to let it go until the last scene in the movie where Wesley provides a voice over as a bullet flies an impossible distance through his best friend's energy drink can, through the hole in his boss's doughnut and into the head of the big bad guy. He says "this is me taking control of my destiny. What the fuck have you done lately?"

Well, I haven't saved the world from an evil syndicate of killers, but I've resisted the urge to punch people I disagree with on a fairly regular basis, so lets call it a wash.

Here's my problem - people responded to fixing a situation they relate to with violence instead of any of the other guilty pleasures in the movie. I remember when I saw "Knocked Up" people cheered when Seth Rogan finally stood up to Leslie Mann's nosy sister, who was trying to force him out of the delivery room. That was an instance where a man took control of a situation and firmly (but with great vulgarity) asserted himself. He didn't knock her teeth out. I love that scene in the flick and I clapped when I first saw it in the theater. I was the only one. Maybe if he's punched her in the boob...

The thing is we WANT to be violent. It's in our DNA to resolve things by hitting them, and it's why society has created laws saying if you do that, you go to jail. That's something we've always contended with. But I've noticed this sort of post Office Space hatred for the day to day work we all do that is rooted both in entitlement and ego. If someone gives us shit over the course of our day, as happens to absolutely everybody, we've gone from fantasizing about destroying the copier to kicking some ass. It's on the Internet in major proportions. It's spoken aloud in bars after work. And now guys are standing up and cheering when it happens in our pop entertainment.

Part of it stems from ego but another part stems from the awful corporate cultures cultivated in this country. When it's made clear to you that you're either expendable or not appreciated you feel powerless and when you feel powerless you want revenge on those who have the power. That's as human as dwelling in houses.

But it's a shift toward violence as a solution in the name of sophistication that bothers me - it's the worker saying I'm brilliant and misunderstood and deserve to be treated like royalty and if not I reserve the right to fucking kill you. That's the mentality that manifested in that reaction to the first 20 minutes of "Wanted." It's ego to a massive degree, and if research and trends are holding true it's going to get worse before it gets better. I just hope, for the sake of keyboards and dentists everywhere, we have less hitting and more, I don't know, talking.

A Gem Uncovered

2008-07-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

I ended up working just shy of 12 hours today, so as the fireworks pop basically right outside my window, I had no desire to go see them. My skin is crispy and my brain is fried and I wanted to veg on something decent but not too challenging. I picked "In Bruges," which I had wanted to see for a long time and never got around to.

What a fooking brilliant movie.

I use "fooking" because In Bruges is about an Englishman (Brendan Gleeson) and an Irishman (Colin Ferrell) who both kill people for a living and both affect accent so thick they darn near drown in them. After a hit goes horribly wrong they are sent to Bruge, a tourist enclave in Belgium and told to lay low. Gleeson loves it. Ferrell is too itchy to appreciate anything much less the quaint charms of an old city. Plots twist, women and dwarfs are involved and what was meant to be a casual movie watching experience turned into full throttle yelling at the screen.

In Bruges is absurdest to a high degree...maybe absurdest isn't the right word for the first two acts. How about gleefully strange. Example: Ferrell meets a drug dealer and they go out on a date. Just when things begin to get thematically heavy, the Irishman blurts out "oy, they're shooting midgets over there," or something like it. Turns out there's a movie set with a dwarf on it and it's his favorite thing in Bruges. Like everything else, it turns out to be essential to the plot.

Speaking of the plot, this sucker gets very twisty without ever once for a second betraying characters. I guess that's what's most enjoyable about the movie - the way it ties everything together but never strays from the characters it loves.

It's not often I come across a gem like this anymore, as my movie going has dropped off considerably in the past few years. Even though I'm fried and am not articulating it well, this movie is fantastic and worth the view. Maybe more than one.

He's a Good Guy. Congratulations.

2008-07-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

So my sister Katie is getting married next year.

The news broke last week as I was driving back from Minneapolis where I had been at a conference. I was in the middle of a conversation about the philosophic mission of museums when my dad called and broke the news. To call me "taken aback" doesn't cover it. I was floored.

A little bit of background is necessary, so please indulge me. My sister and I are five years apart and sometimes it feels like a generation. I think she's agree that we're not overly close for a number of reasons - mainly me being a jerk for large parts of my teens. I never really "took her under my wing" so to speak, because I'm just now realizing I didn't have wings back then and am just now grown them. We never really fought, but never really shared, you know? I always got the feeling that if I weren't her brother, she wouldn't have hung out with me.

I'll site one example and move on - in Junior High I got the crap beat out of me a bit (just like a lot of people) and got bitter and hateful toward certain groups at a young age. At one point when I was ranting about something (I forget what) she cut me off with "when did you start hating people." It said "I'm sad for you" and "shut the hell up" all at once and she was exactly right. But that's kind of where we were.

But I think things have changed as we've both gotten out on our own. I think we like each other. I like her. She's beautiful and ambitious and more "adult" than I was at her age. She's got a really tough road going - job and school (and now engagement), but something inside me knows she's going to handle it. Somewhere out there, she found some pretty amazing strength and it doesn't take long to see it. She's no nonsense yet warm and I love her.

Flash forward to her getting married. I don't want to go too much into the topic of the guy she's marrying, other than to say he's a guy with his poop in a group. I like him, though I get the feeling he wouldn't hang out with me if he didn't desire my approval on some level. So it is. But not being the kind of brother who calls all the time, I guess I wasn't aware of how deep their relationship was.

But it's strange the feelings that come rushing over a big brother when his little sister gets engaged. For the first time in a long time I want to be protective. I want to sit her down and say "do you really want this" even though she's even tempered and smart and I'm positive she knows what she's doing. I wish I'd been more up front with her about how I messed up with women so she won't make the same mistakes. I want to tell her how great it is to have someone but how miserable it can be if you play it wrong. I want to tell her this commitment is one where pride swallowing is daily, and sacrifices can be great but the rewards greater.

I suddenly want to be the big brother I never have been for her. Ouch. I read that sentence back and my chest constricted, but it's the truth.

Then, there's happiness. Her wedding is going to be great. She's going to be beautiful. They'll be great together but she won't be one to back away from a challenge or a fight.

I'm so happy for her.

Movie Review: Hancock

2008-07-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

There are a couple ways you can frame Will Smith's "Hancock." One way is to call it a mess of irredeemable proportions, a movie with so many half-baked ideas, so many different moods that fluctuate at a whim and so confused with its own identity that it dies a thousand deaths in its 135 minute run time.

If you're the type who comes to praise film instead of bury it, you could call it a bold move on all involved, a real risk that doesn't quite pay off, a well acted ensemble piece that suffers from a script that could of used another pass, a movie that tries so hard to please the audience you can see the veins bulging and hear the grunts.

"Hancock" is all these things, but not more. It's a whole lot of everything that equals a big nothing, unfortunately.

The premise: Will Smith is a superhero with amnesia named Hancock, who is an a-hole. The people he saves call him an a-hole. Children on the street call him an a-hole. Even his new friend Ray (Jason Bateman), a PR rep and "good guy" calls him an a-hole. Using broad comedic strokes, director Peter Berg spends the first 20 minutes of the flick making sure the audience feels the same way. Then, the first of many radical tonal shifts kicks in and it's established Hancock is an a-hole because he's lonely. He lives in a trailer a la Riggs from the Lethal Weapon movies. He drinks to kill the pain inside, you see.

Then it's back to the funny, as Ray persuades Hancock to go to prison for being an a-hole in order to rehabilitate his image while Ray's wife (Charlize Theron) looks at Hancock so long and hard that a neon sign flashing "THEY HAVE A HISTORY" every few seconds on the bottom of the screen would have been about as subtle. Hancock goes to jail house AA. He sticks one inmates head up another inmates a-hole. He stays in jail even though he could break out at any time. Ray's kid loves him and gives him a plastic dinosaur.

The third act I won't reveal other than to say THEY HAVE A HISTORY and that history has holes big enough make an average movie goer cringe. The tone shifts from a comedy superhero fight to actual heroics to sacrificial drama and ends with a good old fashioned axe murder played for laughs. Seriously.

I'm honestly not sure if "Hancock" wreaks of studio interference, star ego or what, but when the filmmakers can't commit to a tone, an audience can't commit to laughing or cheering for the hero or any emotion other than casual interest. It's amazing how this movie kills momentum. Whenever the laughs start to roll, the flick gets morose - whenever it builds dramatic intensity, there's a fart joke.

The shame of "Hancock" is if the flick had found a tone, most of the ingredients to deconstruct the superhero genre are right there on the screen, waiting for someone to come along and harness them. Smith gives it his all and Jason Bateman transplants his "Arrested Development" dry wit into the proceedings. He's good, but it doesn't help. Charlize Theron is hot and vapid. If they'd been on the same page, watch out.

But "Hancock" misses and misses big. The flick isn't without it's pleasures, but it's more of a mess than anything else.

Picture Monday: Bad Garbage

2008-06-23T19:36:00.001-07:00

Here's what I think about when I see something like this:

-Someone had to create the concept "a trash can shaped like a clown would be great."
-Someone else had to design it. They had to do the research into clown color schemes, materials, and functionality. It probably took a while. That person than created the design.
-At some point it had to be fabricated, picked up from the factory and delivered. Three more people at last.

All for a garbage can that scares me when it should produce joy. I wonder if anyone in that chain of people think about that.

I'm an Entropy Fan, Too

2008-06-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

At around 5 p.m. last night, as George Carlin was drawing his last breath in Santa Monica, I was having a debate with a co-worker about the future of the human race. Her contention was technology will save us. My argument was we're pretty well doomed.

I blame George Carlin for that.

Without getting long winded, I've heard every word Carlin said over the air on HBO. I read his books, studied his CDs, saw him live and recited him in front of my grandmother about this time last year. "Back in Town" is the single finest stand up performance I've ever heard (I've said that for years). He was the only artist I know who was rewarded for being uncompromising. I mourn him.

The thing most people who knew Carlin and his seven dirty words (tee hee, dirty) was that he was a fatalist. He believed institutions wrecked us and made fun of them as they gave others comfort. Religion was a target, government and home was a target. One of my favorite quotes to define the man had to do with Harley Davidson once represented "burning schools, raping women and killing policemen, all necessary functions by the way." Yet he didn't hate the teachers in the schools, the women being raped or the men inside the uniforms getting shot. It was the way the world is.

As he said so many times, he was a fan of entropy, of how things ended, which is decidedly unfunny unless you adopt the guise of a pissy old man. But it was the creative young man that seemed to stick in people's minds, the man who challenged authority in a cool "un PC way" that so many people admired. The rebel. Carlin was not a rebel. Carlin was not the "soul voice of reason crying into the wilderness." He enjoyed the heat from the riot and was able to crack a good joke about it.

The end of "Back in Town" sums the man up. He believed in "The Big Electron" but ceded no idea into how anything worked. The planet, he said, is not in danger because it will shake us off like a bad case of fleas. But we're here. For a little while. Entropy dictates systems break down and we will break down but not now. It's not a life affirming "carpe diem" thing. Like everything he did, it was just the way the world is. We're here. Someday we won't be. And he's right.

From a comedy standpoint Carlin changed two things - He pioneered the idea of a special program for comics (along with a few others) in the format we now know as the "HBO Special" and he was an absolute master of momentum, rhythm and, of course, language. If you don't believe, check out his bit on football versus baseball, or the language section from "Back in Town" or his oft copied bit on airlines or basically anything he did since 1989. It takes amazing craft to package his ideas to a mass audience.

But I loved his inane human qualities. I loved his two albums right after his wife died, where he hated everything and spewed bile to a level that left some fans scratching their heads. I loved how he started his shows with something to knock you on your ass. I loved that he gave up on us. He looked around, he saw what was happening, and with all the hope gone, all he could do was laugh at how we still clung to what we thought was important. "Come on Dave, let's go look at the bodies!" Indeed.

If there's one aspect to his death that stings me right now, it's how we'll not have his voice as we go through our times anymore. With Bill Hicks, another comedian who has long since kicked it, I find myself thinking what he would say on certain subject - how he would perceive and tear apart. I have a feeling over the next few months I'll read a lot of things and wonder how GC would have felt. I'm doing that now, as he would have hated his own death. All the bullshit obits like this one. All the analysis from people who didn't know about him...like this one.

One last thought. GC was misquoted more than most. I remember reading a quote attributed to him that said "life isn't about how many breaths we take but about the moments that take our breath away." Don't believe that shit. Don't ever remember GC as someone who loved life or who wished you well with some sort of dime store sentiment. He looked at us and decided to go another direction, not out of hate but out of rationality. That was GC.

And I mourn him.

Picture Monday - Equally Yoked

2008-06-16T20:07:00.001-07:00

Hey Cole, this harness sucks.

Yeah.

A question of motivation

2008-06-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

Unlike most of my blog posts, I did some research for this one by typing "sexual abstinence programs" into Google and wading through the 13 pages of studies and articles saying abstinence only education DOES NOT WORK until I finally hit on a pro-abstinence only page. It's something called the "Silver Ring Thing" and wouldn't you know it, they had an image gallery from their events. And in that image gallery? The picture of a dude in a Michael Meyer's mask hacking up wood with a chainsaw you see above. No shit. Check it out yourself at http://www.silverringthing.com/.

One would be hard pressed to imagine a scenario in a "concert" promoting sexual abstinence to teenagers where a dude would reenact a butchering from an iconic horror film. This is the best I could come up with:

Youth Leader: OK kids, kids, settle down. Let's imagine this box...OK...this box...is your purity. (kids cheer) Then imagine you let SEX (kids boo)...no, come on kids, let me finish. Imagine you let SEX into your life.

-Man in Michael Meyer mask comes out and chainsaws the shit out of the wooden box-

Youth Leader (over the chainsaw roar): Girls, your hymen will be wrecked for life! Boys, your diddle will rot off from an STD. And even if it doesn't, imagine what GOD will do to you if you have SEX!!!

-kids break into Pentecostal glee, being slain in the spirit, speaking in tongues and praying for God's salvation to come into the gym.

That's the best I could come up with. Sadly, while I can come up with that far fetched scenario, I cannot come up with one that would cause parents to actively lie to their kids, their teachers and themselves to promote something that hurts their kids. Yet, that's exactly what's happening when abstinence only education is pushed by parents, and in some spots in our grand old country, it's pushed really hard.

I received this alert from a board I'm on recently:

"The National Abstinence Education Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that it sent e-mails last week to about 30,000 supporters, practitioners and parents to try to recruit participants and plans to e-mail 100,000 this week as part of the first phase of the $1 million campaign. The e-mail is promoting the Parents for Truth campaign, which the group hopes will eventually involve 1 million parents nationwide to lobby local schools to adopt sex education programs focusing on abstinence and to work to elect local, state and national officials who support the approach.

"There are powerful special interest groups who can far outspend what parents can in terms of promoting their agenda. But we recognize that parents more than make up for that by their determination and motivation to protect their own children," said Valerie Huber, the group ' s executive director."

Yes, powerful and evil special interest groups like scientists, those in the medical field and parents with one quantum of common sense. The story goes on:

The campaign comes as Congress is debating whether to authorize about $190 million in federal funding for such programs, which have come under increasing criticism because of a series of reports that concluded they are ineffective. Such criticism has prompted at least 17 states to refuse federal funding for such programs.

The group hopes to counter that trend, in part with a provocative video that asserts that comprehensive sex education encourages sexual activity by teenagers and a Web site that offers advice to parents about sex education.

The three-minute video depicts a mother of a 13-year-old girl becoming alarmed after learning details about sex ed curriculum being used in her school, including suggestions that teenagers can take showers together and give each other condoms.Proponents of comprehensive sex ed condemned the campaign as misleading, noting that the "Be Proud! Be Responsible!" curriculum cited in the video was developed to reduce the spread of the AIDS virus among African American males ages 13 to 19. Showering was cited as an example of a behavior that entailed a low risk of transmitting the virus.

Wow. Just wow.

First, do you believe for a second that, in this culture that values victimization, if parents learned their children are being told to shower together, the video wouldn't be on YouTube and legions of right wing loonies wouldn't be jumping up and down on every street corner in America, pointing at the video as proof their cause is valid. As it turns out, they had to find a video from a sex ed video IN AFRICA that talks, for the briefest of moments, about showering as a way to be intimate without spreading HIV, which kills one in every three goddamned people in that country.

But, when confronted by cold, hard, irrefutable fact that these programs do not work, you'll grab at anything you can. Even if it's a chainsaw.

Old Friends and Bad Transitions

2008-06-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Out of the blue, an old friend e-mailed me this week saying she would be coming through town. Always nice. We got together, ordered green tea lattes and got to chatting, having not seen each other in a year or two.

And an interesting thing happened - before we knew it we were spilling our guts about just about everything. She told me things she hadn't told her mother, lover or best friend yet. I told her things that had been stuck in my head for a long time that had yet to be articulated. We were never compatriots, more like really excellent and in sync acquaintances, but there we were, guts out, suffering the wind and cloudy weather and watching Highway 281.

We talked for about two hours about a multitude of subjects and the conversation came pretty easy. For me, that's nice because I don't have the easiest way with people anymore. I still have mad phone skills, but one on one I'm finding myself more awkward as I go on, which is odd. I'm starting to overthink when I should underthink and vice versa. It goes back a long ways and has culminated in some pretty embarrassing situations over the years, I'm afraid.

But it was a blast having the words come out and be witty and fun without worrying about what was next. It's a rare thing, but it's nice.

Since I'm rambling, ramble some more - One of my chief sins when it came to conversation early on in my adult life involved ranting. I'd take a subject and either beat a subject to death or take a subject and shoe horn it into another subject that I found interesting. What was fun was watching girls who thought I was witty grow into women who didn't find me interesting at all. The change was a harsh one if I remember right, and only after a few trips to the woodshed did I realize my style of conversation pegged me as either a well-meaning, over eager egotist or an egotistical idiot. Alcohol, I later found out, did not help the matter any.

Rejection of ones principal style of talking forces one to move into a professional line of speaking, not my forte. It's still not. But part of me is a good listener and I've found I can stumble through a conversation with most anyone by picking up on what interests them.

Today's conversation wasn't so much like that as two friends who spent a half hour reacquainting, and then spilling for another hour when we realized we probably didn't have a lot of time. It was fun to be carefree about talking for a minute before heading back to the land of too-slow tongues, dangling participles and mixed metaphors.

Picture Monday: In My Way

2008-06-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

We're far enough away from the event that I can get away with this.

My child had a "preschool graduation" a couple months ago. It was awfully cute, but I felt like Clark Griswold by the end of it.

First off, you have this - the teacher (a wonderfully lady and dedicated educator) who decided the line of vision between me and my child was exactly where she needed to be for 90 percent of the event. Instead of the kid's face, I get the pink eclipse.

Secondly, the kid got a bleedin' nose (eh) during the middle of the ceremony and we had to run up there with tissues and it got all over her dress. It was a gusher. She left looking like the "last girl" in a horror movie but seemed really happy, bloody diploma and all.

Again, I love my child's teachers and am proud of my child's accomplishments, but it was one of those nights where afterwards you have a glass of wine and rub your head.

Skidoosh is funny, no matter who you are

2008-06-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

This has been bugging me.

I frequent Shakespeare's Sister, a progressive feminist blog partially because I've met a fair number of the contributors to the site (thank you B-Fest) and second because it's a pretty awesome sight full of commentary I agree with, by and large. It's one of those places where you can build a community, even though the site has gotten a lot more caddy as of late, and I find myself taking it from the "everyday" list and putting it on the "whenever I get there" list.

I read something on the site that pissed me off a bit, but I can't explain why they're argument is wrong. Maybe that's what's pissing me off - I don't like what's said but can't reconcile it to fit my own beliefs. Here's the quandary:

Editor Melissa McEwan heaped some hate on "Kung-Fu" Panda:

"My second reaction is that this movie also appears to be one long fun-filled adventure in fat hating. Ha ha—the fat panda can't climb the stairs without getting winded. Ha ha—the fat panda is so inflexible and graceless. Ha ha—the fat panda is fat!"

I saw the flick on Friday and absolutely loved it, over the top loved it. From a film geek perspective, it kills because it's to marijuana to the Shaw Brothers Kung Fu flicks is to crack cocaine, in other words a beautiful child appropriate and wonderment filled flick that happens to kick unholy kung-fu ass in a number of ways. The kung-fu is great, if animated and the beats are all classic kung-fu. Hell, Jackie Chan voices the monkey. How much cooler can you get.

I'm also not a big fan of the argument that overweight people (myself included) are widely discriminated against. I agree that the media pushes unrealistic body types and I agree that everyone is pressured to look a certain way to an unhealthy degree and I agree that girls are victimized to a criminal degree by this society's version of beauty and we should all do what we can to fight body image issues wide and small.

But. The central argument among many folks (whom I like and respect) like Melissa and Kate Harding (who's a hell of a writer) is that this media image of beauty and the way it manifests itself constitutes discrimination along the lines of race or sex. We need to not only fight the media on body image issues, but make people aware of the discrimination that the overweight endure. I'm not shut off to this argument, but at this point in my own personal evolution, it seems a bit extreme to contrast weight with gender or ethnicity, even though the symptoms are almost the same. Like I said, my mind's not shut off to the idea, but I'm simply not there.

The diatribe against Kung-Fu Panda gets under my skin, though, because it's a very good natured kids movie and a hell of a lot of fun on just about every other level. It's easily Dreamworks best flick to date and I had an absolute blast at the flick. I'll write a review later, if I get around to it.

Yet, I don't necessarily disagree that the flick makes fun of fat people. Even though the morale is really enlightened (you can't change what you are, but you can shape how you are nurtured), and rooted in eastern mysticism, you cannot get around the fact that the fat jokes are a touch mean spirited. Yet, when watching it, it didn't register with me or the full theater guffawing at the humor and beauty of the film.

Like I said, I have a weak argument because I can't reconcile this issue other to say that the film worked from the first minute to the last and I wouldn't have given this issue another thought had it not been for the post on Shakespeares Sister. And, I would have brought it up there, but the forum community doesn't take kindly to those who disagree with them (or who support Obama, by and large).

If someone can reconcile this without going "what a dumb argument, enjoy the flick," I'd love to hear it.

I loved a movie full of fat jokes and don't feel bad about it. Does that make me a bad person?

I feel the same way about you...friend.

2008-06-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this second one for a couple weeks, but between battlings a flooded basement, dodging tornados, playing "Kung-Fu Panda" with the kid and on and on, I'm just now getting around to it.

This first video just hit but is so brilliant I wish I had thought of it:

This second one I found a while ago, and is almost as brilliant.

To The Rescue!

2008-06-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

I was in the shower this afternoon after running, when I leaned my head back to put shampoo in my hair, and found motion pretty limited. Why? Near as I can figure, with the threat of death the past few nights due to the severe weather and having an emergency or two at work (now a work emergency, a "get me some help" emergency), I had created a big stress knot in the back of my neck which has yet to subside.

Seems worth it, since I've been kinda sorta heroic lately. Yesterday, before all the severe weather hit, a kid took a tumble on our grounds of the museum where I work as I was walking by. There was a lot of blood, so while someone comforted the kid when I ran back to the office full speed and grabbed the first aid kit, got disinfectants on the scrapes and band-aids on the boo boos. No bigee, but if I hadn't been around it could have been.

That night we went out for dinner and got trapped in the restaurant as the news people read off the current address of the approaching tornado. It missed us, but I had to run, grab the car in a rain that soaked in seconds (losing my glasses in the process), and do some stunt driving to avoid the impromptu lakes that had formed between me and my house. Again, not heroic but definitely exciting. I stayed up half the night watching reports and making sure we weren't going to blow away - guarding the gate, as it were.

Today, another storm hit just in time for Summer School where I work, and a couple of kids got trapped. No one had noticed, so it was over the newly formed lake in my car, up onto the grass and out into the rain to pile kids into my car and onto dryer locations. Again, soaked but useful. And, tonight, our basement flooded, and the wife and I moved fast enough to staunch the soaking our belongings were receiving. Moving furniture at high speed to get to the water shut off valve is better than caffeine.

Yup, that knot aint going anywhere, but it feels kind of good to be legitimately useful, especially when the difference you make is right in front of you.

I'm sick to freaking death of storms.

How Could You Forget?

2008-06-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

I've had an "Indiana Jones" post mortem rolling around in my head for the past few days (now that we're a week or so out of the film's release) but I've decided, after a few more days of reflection, that something bigger is happening here.

You don't need to be a detractor to know that "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was a "meh" at best. Most people are not disappointed they went, but didn't come out of the theater with a big grin on their face. The movie wasn't amazing but wasn't bad. It was meh.

What struck me was how incredible that is - an "Indiana Jones" movie was "meh." That's a pretty amazing thing, the single most iconic theater creation since death played chess with Max Von Sydow made a movie that most people had a passable likeness for. I read a good number of reviews who were heaping praise on the fact the movie didn't "ruin the franchise." Talk about setting the bar low.

The bigger issue here goes back a little ways, but has branched out something fierce. Over the past few years, there has been more anticipation for movies than arguably ever before - it's part of the remake culture to create anticipation. It's like anticipation (and the accompanying first week box office) is the currency in which movies trade, and when you do that, you start to lose respect for the audience. More importantly, you start to lose what made audiences love movies in the first place.

Quickly, there's an easy anti-argument to what I'm about to lay out, and that's "if a beloved movie came out today it wouldn't be so beloved." It's hard to argue that. You know fan boys would be screaming about how the "it's not a torture implement, it's a coat hanger" scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is totally awful and why did he point the bazooka at the ark anyway? And that ending? FAKE! It's hard to argue that point.

But (and excuse me for getting a bit wistful), it feels like older movies were less focused on the BANG that we seem to need in the summertime, and more focused on story and character, things that not only endeared you to a movie but the type of thing that makes a franchise. Nobody went to see Indiana Jones because he survived a nuclear blast in a refrigerator, they went to see a very human guy push the limits of what a human guy can do.

And it's where Spielberg and Lucas lost me. From the moment he puts on the Fedora, IJ is bigger than life and impenetrable. He doesn't die hard, he simply cannot be shaken. We don't love the character because he's Superman, we love him because he's who we want to be. But, they gave us Indiana Jones as Superman. And John McClane as Superman. And countless others. They forgot, or maybe never understood, why most of us connected.

Look no further than Star Wars for proof of that. Everything that sparkled in the original trilogy by and large tanked in the new ones. The effects are weak, the acting is wooden, the fun, dead in favor of...what? If you have an answer, let me know.

The blockbuster is king of sick, it seems, or more accurately, the filmmakers who know how to make blockbusters aren't sure how to make them anymore.

God bless Jon Favreau.

Picture Monday - The Face

2008-06-02T20:06:00.001-07:00

In honor of the yahoo who made up an alien peeping Tom and got the entire US media to fall for it, here's a picture of my hamper. Apparently Ben Grimm is crouching down near the light somewhere.

Actually, I thought this was kind of cool when I saw it.

Defender of the Innocent

2008-05-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-27T20:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-26T20:23:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-05-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

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

Consider Me Captured

2008-05-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-13T20:52:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-12T19:57:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-05T20:07:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-05T20:04:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Summer Movie List No. 2 - Iron Man

2008-04-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

Got my tickets. Psyched...as...hell.

First off, I have a comic background that contains very little Iron Man. I know the basics, whispered in tents at camps when I was 9 years old - Tony Stark was a functioning alcoholic who built a suit and fights Mandarin. Over the years, the knowledge base grew, and Iron Man still seemed sort of second tier behind the Batmans and Supermans and Spider-Mans of the world. He was no Thor or Ant Man, but still, second tier.

So when the news came down that John Favreau was directing Iron Man it was time to reexamine how excited to get at the prospect of an Iron Man film. When they cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, it was time for the excitement to start. When the first trailer hit and it was balls out fantastic, it was time to officially start anticipating.

What's there to get excited about? Let's count 'em down.

-The cast. Downey Jr., Terrance Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow (in short skirts, that helps), and The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges as the villain. Knock me over with a feather, what a great freaking cast.
-John Favreau has a knack for a) getting a lot out of his FX budget and b) has a love/hate thing with CGI. When at all possible, he likes the practical over the digital and that shows through in his flicks. Early reports are that it's hard to tell what's CG and what's practical. Good. I'm sick to death of overzealous CGI.
-Iron Man is the first movie from Marvel Studios, and they're looking to set up cross overs. Very cool, IMO.
-A lot of super hero movies brood maybe a touch more than they should. As the clip above demonstrates, Iron Man's got a nice goofy streak in it, but it doesn't look like it sacrifices the serious side of things.
-Stay with me for a sec - I watch "My Name is Earl" and believe that Jaime Pressly, who plays Joy, is a bad to fine actress who has excelled because she's found her role. It looks like Robert Downey Jr. has found his role, and he can act circles around most of his generation. He looks like he rocks a whole lot.

Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait.

Summer Movie List No. 3 - WALL * E

2008-04-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

To say Pixar is brilliant is almost a cliche at this point. They've yet to have a true bomb, with the great "Cars" the closest thing - and it wasn't bad, just not up to snuff in terms of the rest of Pixar's classic library. An arguably unblemished track record of the best animation and storytelling of the generation is reason enough to look forward to whatever it is the wizards over there throw at us next.

But after last summer's "Ratatouille," which was the most deeply resonant for me emotionally, I'd look forward to Pixar's remake of Jesus Christ Superstar starring a group of dancing turds after what that group did with a story about a rat who can cook. Frankly, they understand beats and layers and art-gallery quality animation so well, I'm pretty sure they can do anything with anything.

So imagine my delight when they announced their next movie would be, by all accounts, a silent film. There's hardly a word in the trailer (and the words, let's face it, are reeeeealy cute), and the concept Pixar stripped of dialogue...very cool.

Quickly, yes, I know it's a cute robot movie, and yes I know the trailer is kind of full of cliches and yes, I know it's a "kids movie." My contention, as someone who's sat through several Pixar films literally dozens of times with my girls, is that they understand storytelling in a preternatural way and that talent transcends genre. I also would argue that all of Pixar's ruminations on the human condition (Toy Story is about innocence and impending death - really! -, Monsters Inc. is about sacrificing for family, Finding Nemo is about over protectiveness, Ratatouille and The Incredibles is about using your gifts unabashedly) have a kiddie hook, hell, they need a kiddie hook. Again, the folks who did "Ratatouille" could do Hamlet with cute robots and make it work.

Specifically, here's what gives me hope about this movie:

-If there's an environmental message, it does not look heavy handed, thank God. If nothing else, it will be fun to see robots use our garbage for shenanigans.
-The production design of the main character is great, but the color palate is particularly inventive. It's the second sci-fi movie this summer behind Speed Racer to employ really bright colors and I think the film will movie from sepia to bright choices.
-I have no idea what the movie is about. What movie this summer can you say that about?
-It's somewhat refreshing to not have to deal with big named voice talent. The further away I can get from Jerry Seinfeld voicing a bee, the better I'll be.
-Cute isn't necessarily bad all the time.

So I'm really looking forward to WALL * E (I don't know how to make that cute little dot in Blogger), and chances are I'll see it, and then see it again and again and again against my will. But it won't be. It's artistry, plain and simple, and I'll fight the crowds for a peak.

Summer Movie List No. 4 - The Incredible Hulk

2008-04-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

First thing we need to get out of the way, and please, take this in the constructive spirit it is intended: If you're one of those people who bitch about the Incredible Hulk looking "fake," I submit that you're expectations are unrealistic. The day science actually invents a way to make a regular person 11 feet tall and bulging with more muscles than the Maine coastline, you will look at the monstrosity of science in front of you and go "phhht. FAKE!"

My point - there is no way to make a creature like The Hulk photo realistic. It simply goes against what our brain tells us. There were shots in Ang Lee's "Hulk" that looked amazing, and while the plot left something to be desired, the special effects were not as bad as many made them out to be.

Which brings us to Louis Latierr's "The Incredible Hulk" or should we call a spade a spade and say Edward Norton's "The Incredible Hulk." Norton apparently came on board and was given some latitude in the writing process, which he fully exercised. Now he's at odds, somewhat, with the studio if you believe the New York Times, over the final cut of the film.

I don't much care, honestly, because Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and Tim Freaking Roth as the Abomination is enough to get me in the door. Throw in a 20 minute mid-city smackdown of the pumped up super beasts, a plot line that doesn't involve an ending I can't explain and cameo by Iron Man and Nick Fury and dammit, I'm not just there, I'm excited.

Drop the hype for a second, and look at the preview. What do we have? It looks like the origin story has been scrapped (that's fine) in favor of a fade in on a desperate and brooding Bruce Banner. He doesn't want The Hulk, he's together with Betty (thank God we're off that subplot) and the government is trying to exploit him. The Abomination starts breaking stuff, and the Hulk, in a great scene from the Ultimates line in the comics, hulks out via dropping off a helicopter. Cue superhero destruction. w00t!

Norton is a great performer and a genuine talent, that much is relatively undisputed. My anticipation of this film comes from the fact that a) Norton isn't just involved but ingratiated, b) the director seems to know his action, c) the rest of the cast looks solid to great and d) they look to be going a little more mainstream with a creature that's themes are very mainstream. Not to dump on Ang Lee, but the Hulk isn't necessarily about daddy issues (although I see why you went the way you went), it's more about duality. This trailer is all about duality.

Call me sentimental, but it will also be nice to see The Hulk as a hero instead of fighting for his own inner peace. I like it when buildings and women holding babies are on the line.

Norton + action +big green guy = anticipation. Pretty simple.

Picture Monday - I Wasn't Planning On It

2008-04-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

Three things I'll mention about this photo

1) I fully realize it means don't bump this crate when at the shipping yard, but it's still funny.

2) It's not easy to be driving, passing a truck and pull out your camera to take a picture, even though it's funny. I wouldn't recommend it.

3) I am aware I have the sensibilities of a 12-year-old boy. And it's still funny.

Summer Movie List No 5 - Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

2008-04-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a firm believer that we, as a culture, should just throw Ron Perlman a couple hundred thousand dollars every couple of months just for being so damn cool. The Hellboy franchise only makes me want to increase that amount that I'd be happy to pay in the form of a mill levy or a couple bucks more on the renewal fee for licensing my car. The dude is just cool. The voice, the way he carries himself and the way he gives soul to every character be they covered in hair, gallons of Plasticine or the red skin of a misplaced demon - the dude rocks.

And a lot of other components of the "Hellboy" franchise rocks. Guillermo Del Toro Rocks. Doug Jones, the guy inside the Ape Sapien make-up rocks. David Hyde Pierce, the voice of AS, rocks. Whoever Del Toro's production designer is...damn he rocks. Everything about this production screams "competent, borderline fantastic," and the previews, interviews and production stills give every indication that "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" will be a great time with ideas that reach a little higher than the subject matter. Just like the original "Hellboy."

A couple element of "Hellboy 2" that I'm very interested in:

-The romance between Hellboy and Liz was one of my favorite romances of that year. The six pack at the mental asylum, the following of Liz on the roof by Red, "You should be running," the ending (is it dusty in here?), it's all very well done and where it goes now that they're together should be a fascinating study. Also, it brings about dorky "but how do they..." questions that I really don't want an answer to.

-The first movie was a nice little creature feature, but after the success of "Pan's Labyrinth" and the upcoming journey into Middle Earth on the horizon, I wonder if GDT is going to go ape shit with the beasts. I wonder if Hellboy 2 will be the first honest-to-God creature feature since...I don't know, the original Men in Black. They seem to have the imagination, and the geek cred to make it happen.

-If there's a weak point to the original Hellboy, it's the villain. Here, the same guy who was the very decent villain in Del Toro's "Blade 2" (who's name I'm too lazy to look up) is the villain here and he looks to be full throttle evil. A hero is only as good as his villain.

-A superhero story is always better once you remove the origin, with very few exceptions. When you can get right to it, you can cram more in and the first movie crammed a lot in. This flick should be pretty crazy when all is said and done.

-Ron Perlman, Ron Perlman, Ron Perlman. Here's my $8.50.

Summer Movie List No. 6 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-04-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has a great theory that the "Indiana Jones" movies subscribe to the law of diminishing returns. No one in their right mind argues that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is the pinnacle, one of the greatest adventure movies of all time, and the movie that solidified Harrison Ford as an icon, no matter how much he may loathe the title (and it really freaking seems like he does anymore). Then "Temple of Doom" which you can file under extremely interesting failure if you're a hater and brilliant departure if you don't, and "Last Crusade" which didn't really hurt anyone, but didn't dazzle them either, with a few exceptions.

So what do you expect from this one - brilliance or disaster? I have a feeling we're looking at both. They've done little to hide the fact that the movie's McGuffin (engine that drives the plot, like the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail) is an alien artifact, nor have they hid the fact that there are countless "oh God I'm Old" jokes to be expected. To both, I say "Ug." If that's all there is, leave me out.

But that isn't all there is, obviously. Forget the fact that Steven Spielberg knows what he's doing, even if George Lucas somehow forgot how to infuse joy into a movie. Harrison Ford, in the brief previews, seems to be having a good time.

Hallelujah and it's about damned time.

If all that comes out of this movie is a charge from John Williams score and Harrison Ford turning in a performance where he seems to care about providing the audience with a sly, salty yet goodhearted hero, than the movie will be a success with me. You can throw all the aliens, Communists and Shia LeBoofs (yes, I know it's misspelled, but doesn't that seem like how it should be spelled to you?) at me you want, if Harrison's got a gleam in his eye, I'm a happy guy.

Now put Spielberg back into the picture. I happen to think the third act of his career probably isn't his strongest, but it's got to be his most interesting. What does a man who can make any movie he wants to do? He makes edgy sci-fi that takes chances so often they sometimes fall flat on their face, he makes personal stories about terrorism, he makes incredibly frothy comedy/adventure bio pics and he indulges, maybe too much, in high concept. And then he goes back to the well. What an interesting guy. I can't wait to see what he's so excited about.

Other reasons to get excited about this movie:

-Kate Blanchet may be dressed like Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons, but she has yet to turn in a truly bad performance.

-Ray Winstone. The guy is just great all around, see "Sexy Beast" and "The Proposition" among others.

-Karen Allen is back and looked like she hasn't aged a day.

-The afore mentioned John Williams.

It's enough to make you excited, provided you temper expectations and don't mind an ET reference or two. Hell, I might even forgive them as long as I get Harrison Ford back from the self imposed career hell he seems to be in.

To close, here's a little piece of brilliant:

Summer Movie List No. 7 - X-Files: I Want To Believe

2008-04-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

If this summer has a theme, it's "movies we never thought we'd see." After an absence of almost a decade from the Silver Screen, the reality of a sequel to X-Files: Fight The Future seemed about as likely as the Smoking Man actually being dead. If you told me 15 months ago we'd be seeing an Indiana Jones sequel, another Hulk movie and an X-Files movie in one summer, I'd advise less prescription drugs and more attention to industry trends.

Yet, here's Mulder and here's Scully and on July 25th, here's the sequel. Wonders may never cease, and that's reason enough to look forward to the flick.

A couple other reasons - At it's prime, "The X-Files" was a fantastic show and since the last few seasons sucked kind of hard despite Robert Patrick's noble efforts, that fact can get lost in the shuffle. Truth is, the show was original, the show was full of charisma and the show had a mean streak that sometimes pushed the envelope of what you could show on TV. Look no further than The Fluke episode as proof...or Little Green Men...or the one with the red glowing eye beasts...or the episode aboard the Queen Mary...or, or, or.

The first movie, while not spectacular, was a solid piece of entertainment in my estimation, and I'm expecting nothing but solid from this flick. Call me crazy, but going in with middling expectations sometimes makes a good movie great. Also, call it a hunch, but I think David Duchovny is due. He abandoned Mulder out of boredom and I think he now realizes what a gem he had on his hands as an actor, and is ready to plow ahead full steam.

A nice, spooky, empty thrill type of movie that aspires for better things is just what the late summer sometimes orders. I think "X-Files" will fit that bill. And, Gillian Anderson continues to be hot.

Big Dog, Little Dog

2008-04-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

My dogs don't know they're little. That dog sure as hell knows he's big.

Goose, Goose, Duck

2008-04-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

"Radio Lab" which is one of those shows you should be listening to if you're not, had a great piece on a guy who had "auditory hallucinations" 24-7. Music would play in his head, loudly, drowning out his ability to concentrate, carry on a conversation and other vital functions. What he lost in his ability to communicate with the outside world, he gained a unique insight into his inner monologue. Whatever his mood, a song would blast in his head and he had to figure out what it meant. "Mary Had a Little Lamb" took on a political meaning. "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" played on the widowers wedding anniversary.

It's strange what sticks in your head. For the man, "Bring Back My Bonnie To Me," was his subconscious way of saying "I miss her." A couple days ago, I saw an image that wormed its way inside my head and hasn't left and I think I'm dealing with the same kind of thing. As much as my conscious mind works day to day, week to week, it's my subconscious that's really got my number to the fifth decimal place.

Here's the image: A goose on the grounds of the museum I work at has been sitting along the stone edge of a moat for a few weeks. It sits and honks if you get close. It doesn't take a genius to know it's sitting on eggs. The past couple days, the wind has been really whipping around and this lone goose, through wind and rain and dark clouds has been sitting on this rather stupid place to put all your eggs. She hasn't budged, even though badgers and moles and other egg hungry creatures are perfectly capable of taking the same route onto the little island she is, leaving her her eggs no retreat.

I see this goose every day and it's been rattling around in my head like a bad song that won't seem to leave. First off, the moat water looks beautiful as it rolls and pitches. Every now and then a lone duck will kind of surf across the moat and it's beautiful. Second, the goose is constant over the past few weeks - never wavering.

Relating to the goose...I don't know. I guess it comes from the idea that there are predators all around and maybe the goose has backed itself into a corner. Maybe that's why it sticks - that it's in that corner every single day. It's one thing to feel trapped, though I don't really. But I don't think there's anything heroic about the goose. I find it kind of sad whenever I see it.

Not to offer dime store psychoanalysis, but I get the feeling my subconscious is telling me I've backed myself into a corner. I've got a few predators gnawing around that I know of. I'm hyperfocused sometimes and can't concentrate to save my life other times. I have as much responsibility and pressure as I guess I've ever had and the water churning underneath is not terribly beautiful.

But the goose is. I'll take a video.

Summer Movie List No. 8 - Speed Racer

2008-04-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Rational people look at this movie and roll their eyes. Here's three reasons why I've decided to be irrational and look forward to this movie.

1)It looks like they're playing it absolutely straight and that's damned interesting. Anime, in general, is something that excites its base audience and produces either furrowed brows or snarky comments from everyone else. I'm interested to see what happens when you take the dead serious tone of anime and translate it to a living cartoon, which is obviously what's happening here. It might work and if it doesn't work, you can at least file it under "I" for "interesting failure." More than anything, Speed Racer strikes me as an experiment in what audiences are interested in, and the box office is going to tell a lot about what that is, and what the future of this sort of thing will be.

2) It's a family film. From the guys who's last film involved fetish kung-fu and more philosophy discussion than that coffee house across from campus, the idea of turning around and making a family film is really odd. I didn't think the Wachoski siblings (one of them has undergone or is undergoing a sex change operation, rumor has it) had it in them. But what an interesting way to bring in the entire family. You've got bright colors and monkeys for the really young kids, crush worthy guys and girls and kung-fu for the tweeners, nostalgia for folks like me (Speed Racer was a nickname of mine in High School. Don't ask) and action for everyone. It strikes me as visionary to see that come down the pipe - especially when we're facing a summer of "The Dark Knight" and other films that will nail our collective jones for brooding.

3) I never really gave up on the Wachoskis. Sorry. I still think they can churn out entertaining and possibly revolutionary fare. My hope is "Speed Racer" is just entertaining and doesn't get too lofty, but it's very possible we're in for a style and method never before attempted. I think they can pull it off, even though after $200 million and four years in production, the last two Matrix movies left me with a resounding "eh." I'm not expecting an "eh" from Speed Racer.

Honorable Mention) Christina Ricci as an innocent grrrrrl with a bob. I'm not sure she's ever been hotter, to be honest, and I own "Black Snake Moan."

Picture Monday - ZZZzzzZZZzzzzt!

2008-04-21T04:58:00.000-07:00

An early memory of mine involves visiting Yellowstone National Park and finding an image on their literature of a guy getting gored by a buffalo. The pencil-sketched man was in full rag doll mode and his midsection had taken on the distinct curve of a buffalo's head. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me years later, but I could have sworn one of the Buffalo's horns was through the guy.

Anyway, this sign reminds me of that, but more funny. I don't know, but that guy cracks me the hell up. It's apparently from the Benny Hill school of electric safety. You can almost hear Yakkity Smack being played.

It Takes More Than A Villiage

2008-04-19T05:12:00.001-07:00

Man, Firefly was a great show. And a salient one to the Democratic Presidential campaign, as it turns out.

Huffingtonpost.com's front story right now is about how the perceived split between "progressives" and "democrats" is deepening, or how Hilary Clinton is POd at the Daily Kos crowd, who quit endorsing her probably two months ago. The "progressives" flood her events, she says, and intimidate her supporters into either leaving, or inaction.

While I'm an Obama guy myself, Mrs. Clinton has a pretty good point, and that is that passion can lead to impractical behavior. When you get a group of people who are passionate about anything, that's when the real trouble begins. People often feel complete solidarity. They feel empowered. They feel mighty and that mightiness stems from the perception many many people feel the same way they do. And most of the time, that's not the case.

Take the long ago cancelled TV show Firefly. Very few people watched the show, but those who did took it almost religiously. They lobbied and spent money to buy ads and told their friends and bought the DVDs and were so loud, an executive thought this small, vocal group might constitute a wider audience. "Serenity" the feature film came out a few years later, and it tanked. No matter how passionate the enclave of supporters, a majority of people weren't paying attention. No matter how hard fans wanted it, they were not in the main stream (and believe me, they wanted it).

What neo-conservatives do so brilliantly when it comes to running campaigns is hiding their message. Instead of saying "we're for the complete dismantling of the government" or "we still believe in Trickle Down economics," they say, with a wink and a nod that we're pitching a guy who aint too bright, aint too experienced but is a lot more like you than that educated fancy pants over there. A majority of Americans feel threatened about how smart they are - it's a mainstream idea. W. gets 4 years. Then, they hid "we want unending war" with "you're going to die if you elect that elite fancy pants over there." Boom. 4 more years.

While I agree by and large with most of the Kos crowd, their message is not mainstream. They are part of an enclave who believe, deep in their hearts with religious fervor, that if the public could just hear their message, if they could just talk to people for an hour or so, the progressive voice would spread like a virus. There would be no stopping it if people would just listen and comprehend.

But to beat a political party who has cornered the market on mainstream ideas as of late, you cannot take a piece of the Democrat pie and expect the entire country to take a bite. You need big ideas appealing to big audiences in your big tent. This isn't to say progressives should not fight for what they believe, they should and often do. But they need to understand where they stand. They're not watching "American Idol." They're watching "Firefly." Which is why Obama is worrying me right now.

Even though the numbers are bear him out, the "cult of Obama" could be a problem. If his supporters feel they're in the mainstream because they're surrounded by a passionate enclave, they could blind themselves and accidentally hurt the chances of a truly inspiring man to make it into office. The message needs to be, over and over again, that Barack Obama represents mainstream ideas because every attack on him thus far is that he's not a mainstream guy. He needs to be straight and honest and inspiring and as simple as humanly possible to bring in the audiences that cannot or will not respect his deeper qualities.

Last thought - I think most Firefly fans can tell you it hurt when Serenity bombed. It hurt on a personal level. It was like we, too, had been rejected. If Obama loses and his supporters feel the same way, I sincerely hope they don't take the hurt personally and give up politics all together. It's one thing to shrug your shoulders and accept there won't be a TV show anymore. It's another to completely give up on the machine that makes your country work.

Summer Movie List No. 9 - Kung Fu Panda

2008-04-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

A word of explanation is in order.

See, I'm taken to a lot of kids movies. A lot. That's not to dump on the genre or say there are no good kids movies out there, but if I saw as many horror movies as I see kids movies, most people would think there was something wrong with me. Having young kids will do that to you.

As a side effect to sitting through more than my fair share of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" (hope you enjoy your lake house, David Cross), I think I've developed a nice little sense for what kids movies are going to suck and which ones might actually shoot for something beyond cultural references and fart jokes - one that might go for a family second viewing where the father in the audience doesn't want to take his own life with the nearest sharp instrument. Again, as someone who sat through "Disney Princesses: Follow Your Dreams" almost more times than my soul will allow, I appreciate a "family" movie that actually tries to make everyone smile.

And damn if I didn't smile during the trailer to this one. Check it out.

Notice how attuned this movie is to the martial arts genre? Notice how the fairly simple character designs foster an amazing set of movements? Notice how you didn't want to kill yourself while watching this? That's why I'm looking forward to "Kung-Fu Panda" because I now I'm headed there anyway. To put it in fortune cookie-ese, "approach Kung-Fu Panda with a smile, and you won't want to leap off a cliff to your grisly death".

I'm also anticipating this one because, in an odd way, it might be just what Jack Black needs. The dude has sort of been on the ass end of some choices that might have looked intelligent on paper, but didn't pan out in the theater. It's been rough, but one of my favorite things about celebrity-voiced animation is that you immediately lose all the baggage you have with having to watch an actor. By way of example -Woody Allen's best performance in 20 years was in the movie "Antz," where instead of looking at him and thinking "slept with his step-daughter, slept with his step-daughter," you're allowed to enjoy his neurosis-laden delivery for what it is. It was a masterful turn and maybe Jack Black can benefit from not actually being on screen.

"Kung-Fu Panda" also has been getting some good early notices, which doesn't hurt. Critics are saying they're cracking up and I believe them. I crack up a bit myself during the slo-mo at the end.

Picture Monday - New Fiction

2008-04-14T07:39:00.001-07:00

What's wrong with this display? First person to spot it wins a puppy.

Sex! Now That I Have Your Attention Part 2

2008-04-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

Through a stroke of luck, I was part of an informational fair today for the museum I work for, and was seated next to two very smart and dedicated ladies from the Central Health Center, where I'm on the board. One traveled and tested folks for HIV, the other worked the front lines at the CHC. She called herself a condom pusher.

During lulls in the fair, we talked about issues pertinent to CHC business, but then I got curious. Like many, I read the recent study from Florida that talked about the number of young people who believed ridiculous things about sex, such as a shot of bleach could cure a STD or that Mountain Dew served as a prophylactic. No kidding. http://www.local6.com/news/15773787/detail.html

I started to ask them about the urban myths in Florida (our most f---ed up state, thank you Tim Henson) and it turns out things are just as bad here. Among the myths these front-line employees reported hearing from girls right here in central Nebraska:

-AIDS is transmitted through toilet seats, but only in Africa.
-Douching with Coke (and only Coke) after unprotected sex will stop pregnancy. It has to do with the acid in the world's most popular cola, so she heard.
-Oral contraception for women can be shared with no change in the pills effectiveness
-You cannot get pregnant the first time you have sex (this is a pervasive one, they said)
-Women can't get pregnant if they have sex on top of the man.
And finally, and most terrifying
-You shouldn't wear condoms because they don't work.

That last one is really scary. Really really scary.

It's scary because it's what's taught in abstinence only education classes. There are many curriculum and many documented instances of this line of thinking going from our educators mouths into the heads of children. And, God love them, they're listening. And instead of using condoms, the one product that's worked more in my life personally than just about any other product, they just aren't using them at all. They're having sex, they're just not using condoms.

We can go on and on about how it's unconscionable that we're teaching our children information that is wrong and recommending action that is unrealistic. Your average young person loses their virginity before the age of 16, and that's factoring in those who make it to college as virgins.

And they're being taught not to use condoms. And they're listening.

If this administration has been scared of anything, it's been information. They desperately try to control the flow of information to fit their world view, and so far they've been remarkably successful at it. This is a fairly minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but any time, ANY TIME you have a large portion of the young population believing that Mountain Dew prevents pregnancy, it's time to move that priority up on the list. We are beating our children with silence and rank, partisan stupidity. And the front liners are dealing with it.

The woman who tests for HIV said, thankfully, there's not many cases in this area and those who have it tend to know. But, by and large, bad information led to their infection.

Imagine that.

Likes on Wednesday - Bad Religion

2008-04-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, I've been collecting Pepsi caps because you can redeem them on-line for free music. It's worked pretty well, with the exception of there being no criteria for what songs you can buy with Pepsi Points and which you have to pay for via Amazon. Get your shit together, Pepsi Stuff.

Browsing the list this evening, I came across a name that instantly drew me back to the summer of 1994: Bad Religion.

I scroll the list. "Infected." That's worth 99 cents.

Gawd almighty I love this song. I remember it was my sophomore year of high school when I was just learning that love and sex was a contact sport. This song turns contact into combat.

It's guttural and great, the best song of this genre. Bad Religion went on to other fantastic songs, but pound for pound, nothing touches "Infected."

It's strange how you put together top 10 lists at one point in your life and then forget about them. I always thought "Stranger Than Fiction" was on my top 10 album list of all time, but I swear it's been 5 years since I've listened to Bad Religion.

In honor of their rediscovery and remembered greatness, let's deconstruct "Infected."

Now here I go
Hope I dont break down
I wont take anything
I dont need anything
Inauspicious. Nice groove. Moving on.

Dont want to exist
I cant persist
Please stop before I do it again
The existential malaise kind of takes hold here, but the song is so damn catchy at this point, it's hard to take it seriously as a piece of "poor me" songwriting. The last line hints at where the song is going to go from here.

Just talk about nothing, lets talk about nothing
Lets talk about no one, please talk about no one, someone, anyone
I love this line. The contradiction is fun from a lyrical standpoint, but the first phrase says a lot about relationships, from my experience. How many times have you told a friend "we talk about nothing," as a compliment. They talk about nothing, so please talk about something, for the love of God. To me, it hints at incompatibility, but attraction has taken hold...hence:

You and me have a disease
You affect me, you infect me
Im afflicted, youre addicted
You and me, you and me
It's easy to see why these lines are so damn catchy. Affect and Infect are nice halves of a whole phrase, but the "I'm afflicted, you're addicted" hints at something more. The whole song at this point, a phrase or two aside, is from the guy's POV. She's got him doing things against his will, which is why I love "I'm afflicted, you're addicted." Addicted to making him say "how high" when she says "jump"? Addicted to the feeling of power a woman has over any man at certain points in a relationship? Addicted to causing him pain? Ooooh, that's a good one. Next verse.

Im on the edge
Get against the wall
Im so distracted
I love to strike you
The violence rears it's head. This song has a lot of violent images, but this particular one works really well from the guy's perspective. He's backed into a corner, and what do desperate creatures do in a corner? Is the strike actual or metaphorical? Works either way (although I never condone violence against women).

Heres my confession
You learned your lesson
Stop me before I do it again
This line kind of reinforces the idea of physical violence on one level, but on another level you've got this idea - he did something to reveal his true nature. This could very much be about love. Exposing love is an incredibly vulnerable moment, so he confesses his love and she learns from that. Stop me before I do it again. It seems like a stretch, but the rhyme is really good. Onto the bridge.

Youre clear - as a heavy lead curtain
want to drill you - like an ocean
We can work it out
Ive been running out, now
Im running out
Dont be mad about it baby
Ah, the truth comes out. The situation makes him run, but it's complicated. How complicated? Onto the best part where the lead singer echos the chorus with these little gems:

I want to tie you, crucify you
Kneel before you, revile your body
You and me, were made in heaven
I want to take you, I want to break you
Supplicate you, are incurable
I want to bathe you in holy water
I want to kill you,
Upon the alter
You and me, you and me
Tell me that's not an honest declaration of love. Pain and pleasure just inches apart. Soul-sucking sacrifice and immeasurable joy. Chemicals going ape shit in your body, throwing thoughts no sane person would think into the front of your head. In inability for dispassion. A propensity for stupidity that seems completely rational. These lyrics are lovely.

Great song.

Summer Movie List No. 10

2008-04-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me the other day that I haven't really written about movies recently. I used to quite a bit and am completely out of practice, so drop your expectations and maybe this will be fun.

I've decided, since the always interesting Summer Movie Season begins the first day of May practically, we'll spend April counting down 10 movies I'm fairly interested in seeing. Please excuse the mainstream nature of the list, but we're not going to get much by way of independent cinema. Movies that get a wide release, they come here. Movies that begin in New York and LA never come here unless we're talking 6 months down the road and it's a major "sleeper." Either way, it's major studio stuff. Enjoy.

No 10: Tropic Thunder

If the recent screening of "Animal House," as part of the film festival I'm involved in taught me anything, it's that I'm kind of hungry for the semi-smart ensemble R-rated comedies. You can watch gross-out R-rated comedies every day of the week and retire before you see them all, but the great ones like "Animal House" are hard to come by.

A little easier to find is the hard R action/comedy, a hybrid that's been done extremely well but never really settled as a genre. Beverly Hills Cop is a great example, but I tend to find movies like "Predator" funnier than most movies that try to be comedies, especially after a few beers.

Which is why "Tropic Thunder" barely made the list.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this movie is a sure thing. The potential for a high degree of suck is there, but so are the seeds for greatness. Robert Downey Jr. as a method actor who dyes his skin black for a role could go down in flames, yet the "what do you mean you people...what do YOU mean you people," line is probably one of the more clever jokes I've heard recently. Jack Black is hit or miss, all the time. And Stiller? The dude was brilliant once. I own The Ben Stiller Show on DVD and some of his work is spot on great, and should be used as an incantation against movies like "The Hearbreak Kid" or "Night at the Museum."

But the potential is there. And, if "Tropic Thunder" is headed for greatness, here's what it will need.

1) A slight touch on the high concept jokes and a fearlessness with the offensive ones.

2) Characters we don't want to see shot (I'm looking at you, Black!)

3)It can't get too inside baseball.

Should "Tropic Thunder" pull off this balancing act, this could be fantastic. There's greatness in the trailer. Take a good look.

"Tropic Thunder" comes out the second week in August.

Picture Monday - Nebraska Weather

2008-04-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, if you saw a guy in a 98 Pontiac Grand Prix going east on I-80 yelling what appears to be the F-word in loud, long bursts, that was me. This is why.

I've never been a car guy, but this was pretty sad. The negligence of basic car maintenance led to me not cleaning off the windshield wiper fluid spigot, and when dirt was kicked up, in my line of site it stayed. Fun stuff.

I didn't panic, exactly, but if I had gotten into an accident my annoyance level would have verged on panic. I hate little things like that.

What do you go for?

2008-04-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

Nichole Kidman has never really done it for me, but there was this great scene in "Moulin Rouge," where she's discussing with her pimp (in the form of Jim Broadbent, the most amazing pimp eva!), what kind of woman the rich man upstairs is looking for. In Baz Luhrman's frenetic style, she bats her eyes and lifts her cheeks to denote "sunshine and bubbly," and furrows her brow for the "smoldering temptress." The rich man upstairs wanted the temptress. I would have gone for a bit of the bubbly, myself.

But the lust for the bubbly got me into hot water, at least in my own head, a couple days ago.

As a precursor, I'd like to explain that I'm basically a vanilla guy when it comes to sexuality. I'm not terribly shy about discussing it, but I'm not into BDSM, have never DPd and try my best to be GGG. If that's TMI, sorry. I've get predilections like anyone, but I'm not the type of guy who will draw pictures of the girls from Sailor Moon au natural or pressure my wife to wear a gold bikini a la Carrie Fischer. I'm nerdy, but I'm not nerdy.

The reason that needs noting is the movie "Enchanted," which was widely well received by critics and lavished with hundreds of millions of dollars by worldwide audiences. In the flick, princess Gisela (sp?), played by Amy Adams comes from the cartoon world into the real world thanks to some manner of plot device sorcery. The princess arrives in modern day new york with all her charms, fashions and naivete in tact.

There's a fatal flaw in the flick, as far as I'm concerned. When Gisela is a cartoon, she's a finely drawn piece of innocence in the Disney tradition. Once she comes to the real world, she's hot. Really hot. Bubbly hot. Can't take your freaking eyes off her hot.

Don't think for a split second I don't feel like a gigantic cad. But, like I said, I'm not shy about discussing these things, and this is truth that I think a lot of dads are denying. Amy Adams is hotter than the hottest hot thing in hot town. She's hella hot, which is amazing because I cannot stand the word hella, and yet I use it because it's what she is.

With that information in mind, let's move forward through the movie where Gisela starts learning about the world outside of instantaneous, romantic love she dubs "Happily Ever After" and starts asking about kissing and dates and what men and women do and...and suddenly I'm in a frame of mind I don't want to be when watching a kids movie in general, or with my daughter in specific. Call me old fashioned, but I like my live-action Disney heroins in the mold of Angela Landsbury or a prim and proper Julie Andrews (though she was smokin' in her day).

What I came to realize, as the movie went on, is that the Gisel character was the alpha-bubbly, the be all end all of a particular type that I happen to find very attractive. Was this on purpose? I don't want to blame Disney of anything other than wide-eyed innocence themselves, but this is a group that made over $145 million last year off hotel porn in their Disney resorts. I'm just saying they're not above selling sex, even in disguise, if there's a buck in it.

Since I've spent the entire post being a pig, I'd like to atone by suggesting this fantastic piece by Peter Segal of Chicago Public Radio:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89318829

The End Of A Road

2008-04-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

Sentimentality is a big part of who I am, as much as I might try to fight it. I'm not a "manly man" anyway (aside from running 3-4 miles a day), but certain emotions in the right launch code sequence and all of a sudden I'm fighting for air. Sometimes it's one or two emotions at once and I'm done.

Like tonight. Today during dinner, I found a piece of paper saying registration for Kindergarten was this Thursday, and my wife and I need to decide whether or not to sign up my oldest daughter. Tough decision, we seriously have not made it yet.

That's emotion number one. Emotion number two came not that long afterward, when we went downstairs to watch "Enchanted," which I haven't seen. On a side note, the chief problem with bringing Disney princesses to life, is I want to have sex with them. Amy Adams is hotter than hot in that movie, even though sex is the last thing on her mind. Maybe it's because sex is the last thing on her mind and she's corruptible. I'm digressing in a major way.

So during the show, the kiddo grabs my size 9 1/2 booths and starts walking around in them. I joke that I'm going to push her over and she waddles/runs as fast as she can away from me, tripping over a blanket and giggling like a loon. We proceed to do this six or seven more times, giggling more and more each time. I laughed, then fought back tears as hard as I could.

This part of her life is almost over, isn't it? I don't feel like I missed it, by any means, and I'm not one of those "it went so fast" guys. It's a cliche because when I think back to the times she's been in my life, it seems like a long time. So long I don't remember life without her, and kind of don't want to. She changed not just the way I acted ("a baby changes your life"...well no shit, it's a baby), but she changed the entire prism of how I look at things. How many more Friday nights are we going to hang out and giggle? How soon before she's got friends and dates and all that? How long before things get really hard and she breaks my heart like all kids break their parents hearts in some form or another? Not long, I imagine, but it all seemed limitless before tonight.

It's not limitless. And the end of this road feels really close tonight, I guess. Again, I'm an emotional light weight and the universe hit the right combo of buttons, but it's almost like I miss her already.

Then again, it's not like I don't have things to do...

Serious Political Discourse

2008-03-31T20:36:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-31T20:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-03-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-03-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

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

Egos

2008-03-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-20T18:56:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-03-13T10:33:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-12T12:47:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-03-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-10T19:06:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

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

2008-03-05T20:34:00.001-08:00

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

2008-03-04T20:37:00.001-08:00

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

2008-03-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

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.