I Vote Because I Hate You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

100th Post Happiness

I need to cut down.

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

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




Kind of makes you smile, doesn't it?

Wiener Dog Blog - Quesadilla Special

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

Cole: What's up with you?

Max: I ated something.

Cole: Where is it?

Max: In my tummy.

Cole: Is there any left?

Max: It's in my tummy you ass.

Cole: It's in your ass?

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

Cole: What was it?

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

Cole: It sound delicious. Can I have some?

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

Cole: When? Can I has some?

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

Cole: You mean this one? mgpht, mgphhhht!

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

Cole: Then can I has some?

Max: You'll be asleep.

Cole: I like ice cream.

Max: My tummy hurts. groooooan.

Picture Monday: In Mid Flight

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

I like the photo.

War Or Something Like It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer Movie List No. 1 - The Dark Knight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review: Iron Man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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