Narnia vs. Cowpokes

Y'know, I had wondered when I wrote this original post if I should mention the concurrence of the release of the "alternate lifestyle" movies and "The Chronicles of Narnia" and if someone out there had a plan. An "Us" and "Them" kinda plan. But, then I thought that just might be a little too far into tinfoil hat land (which have been proven not to work, by the way), and let it go. But since Salon.com and James Lileks also made similar connections, maybe I wasn't noticing something that wasn't there.

Heck, Salon made sure they weren't perceived as being subtle:



Since Lileks more or less mirrors what I think, I'll liberally quote him from his Bleat on the topic. But then I have a couple more thoughts after his:

Well, in retrospect my big essay turned out to be 94% typing and 6% thinking, so nevermind. It had to do with the fact that EW put “Brokeback Mountain” on the cover this week instead of that Nornio or Neeneria movie or whatever it’s called. For all I know next week's issue will eschew all things Kong for a big happy Narnia-o-rama, and my whole point will be moot, so there's no need to make a fool of myself. Again. The second feature in EW was a movie about a transsexual who discovers the existence of a son; for all I know it’s a fine movie too - but I do not think these are two subjects that necessarily grip the public mind. BUT THEY SHOULD! And that’s the sense that I got from the EW issue – not that you MUST see “Brokeback” to prove you’re not homophobic, but that you should, because it’s helpful. In some vague sense. Seeing Narnia is not necessarily unhelpful, but it gives off those Bible-y Christy vibes somehow, and while that’s fine, we must encourage movies about cowboys in love, because somewhere in some small town a gay youth looks at the box office grosses, and decides to stay in the closet out of fear he will be eaten by a computer generated lion who manifests the stigmata. Or something like that. As if the two movies are somehow in a meta-competition for the Soul of America; as if disinterest in a gay cowboy love story means that 99.98 percent of America HATE GAYS.

But disinterest does not mean intolerance.

I have no problem with EW putting it on the cover; I have no problem with the movie whatsoever. I do wonder why the editors chose that movie instead of Narnia, though, and I suspect that it was a matter of which provided the proper dose of societal spinach. Narnia appeals to them; Narnia isn’t helpful.

There. You’ve been spared two thousand words.

This all kinda strikes me the same way the bullshite debate about science vs. religion does. The only folks who have a horse in that race are the creationist fundies. The rest of us accept the theory of evolution (mostly), and go grab a cold one. Some scientists drink the koolaid and think there's a point to debating with Creationists/Intelligent Design guys, when in fact all they have to do is point out that Creationist/Intelligent Design theories aren't even science.

Well, again, religion is not the antithesis to homosexuality. Sure, some fundies think it's wrong, and that's their prerogative. Even I will allow that the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments say the same gender shouldn't have sex. But, then, it can be legitimately interpreted that it means heterosexuals shouldn't engage in same gender sex for the sheer perverted fun of it. And, a broader point is that we are all sinners who need forgiveness and love, so that kind of trumps the sin that may or may not be the act of gay sex (to really, really oversimplify it).

Therefore, religion - traditional Christianity in particular - is not the enemy of gays and lesbians by any stretch, or vice versa.

So seeing these two movies and their subtext juxtaposed in nearly all the media recently just makes me wonder who thinks it proves some sort of point or makes any statement other than some folks must think them there windmills are really giants who need a good poke or two.

___________
Update:
Ok, it's not just me (and Lileks) who thinks this alignment of entertainment planets seems to be running a little retrograde into the pink. From Salon's "The Fix" article of Dec. 14, 2005 (emphasis added):

Award season continues: The Golden Globes list was announced yesterday and, not surprisingly, "Brokeback Mountain" picked up a bevy of nominations, including ones for best drama, best director (Ang Lee), best actor and best supporting actress in a drama (Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams) and best screenplay. Two themes everyone seems to note: All five of the best-drama nominations went to indies -- "Brokeback," "The Constant Gardener," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "A History of Violence" and Woody Allen's forthcoming "Match Point." And several of the films nominated feature gay or transgendered characters. Felicity Huffman gets a nod for "Transamerica," as does Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Capote" and Cillian Murphy for "Breakfast on Pluto." Even Pierce Brosnan picked up a nomination for his portrayal of a bisexual hit man in "Matador." Let the culture wars, er, continue. (Associated Press, Variety)

Underwhelmed

Saw Gus Van Sant's Elephant, which I conclude was a brilliant mistake. Not to say I wasn't warned by the reviews, but this is really half a movie.

The subject is essentially the Columbine high school shooting here in Colorado, though no place is specifically mentioned in the movie.

This movie is all about the vibe. It's 80 minutes long, and for most of it, we follow the students around, experiencing the tedium and banality of their day. By the time the shooting starts, it does have the (probably) intended effect of conveying the complexity of dismay and terror felt.

But then it spliffs it by essentially ending in mid-note. Had this had some semblance of an ending - and it could have been as non-conclusive as the actual current "ending" is - this would have been a minor event of a film.

If you want to see a movie that achieves the atmosphere it's going for, and you're an aficionado of experimental (but ultimately a failed experiment), I recommend it halfheartedly. If you wanna see a good movie, see something else.

---

Read Ubik by the acclaimed sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, who wrote the stories that gave us the movies Bladerunner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, and the upcoming A Scanner Darkly.

He's never been known as a great stylist, and this book supports that assertion. Man, his stuff is hard to plow through. I only acquiesced because it was on Time's list of 100 best novels, like, ever. I admit, he's a hell of an idea man, but he writes like crep.

I didn't enjoy the novel primarily because the jacket copy completely gives away what's going on (and secondarily due to the bad writing). When the big plot twist occurred, I thought, oh, they all must have [blah de blah], because it says so on the cover.

It would have been an interesting twist had it not been spoiled.

Still, wait for the movie if they ever make one.

---

The best thing I've seen lately was Madagascar. Very amusing. The plot telegraphs coming complications from a mile away, but the execution saves it.

And it gets the award for the best ever use of the line, "Well this sucks."

Check it out.

Oh That Woman

We were listening to a radio station that was playing Christmas music this weekend whilst decorating the tree and discovered that both my daughter and myself really really dislike "The Little Drummer Boy." I like the tune, but hate the lyrics (playing drums for an infant? C'mon), my daughter just dislikes it, period.

I told you that to tell you this:
Then they played something from one of the animated Christmas specials they play every year, and my wife noted how they don't play animated "The Little Drummer Boy" anymore. I surmised that it was probably too overtly religious for today's tastes.

To which my wife retorted, "So it's probably going to be replaced with 'A Transgender Christmas'."


Here's why that's funny, he explained to the room full of crickets...

We had on the TV during dinner prior to the exchange above, and before we got around to turning off "Entertainment Tonight", it dogpiled onto the media push this weekend for the two big movie releases besides "Narnia" (they were literally in every magazine and on every entertainment/news show we watch):
1) Brokeback Mountain, about two cowboys hired to tend sheep who haul off and fuck one night, but nay, 'tis forbidden love, so apparently the rest of the movie is two cowboys with thick redneck accents talking incessantly about the porkfest and wouldn't it be nice if cowboys could sometimes be pirates. Unrequited lust, etc.
2) Transamerica in which one of the actresses from the TV show "Desperate Housewives" plays a man who's transgendered and wants a "gender reassignment," but hilarity ensues when his/her long lost son shows up. Life's complicated when you don't know if you're a boy or a girl, etc.

Around my household, we're experiencing a little fatigue regarding movies, shows, etc. on "alternative lifestyles." We've grundingly had to explain what "gay" and "lesbian" were to our nine-year-old (back when she was eight), since there's really not a TV station that doesn't have it on commercials, teasers, in reports, previews, and what have you. We feel that sexual orientation belongs strictly in the adult realm, and little kids shouldn't have to be aware of it unless their parents decide they do. Well, unless we were to completely go into media blackout, which we don't feel is a good thing - all the kids we knew growing up who had that happen were a mess - the media has removed that decision from us. Forcibly. So, we cope.

I have no quarrel with movies, etc., about being gay/lesbian. In fact, my ambivalence about it, as long as it stays in the adult world, is nearly complete. I just hope those who produce entertainments don't misjudge the potential audience for the same. As I recently opined on a 2Blowhards thread, I usta love theatrical plays, but just before and during the onset of AIDs, Broadway and the New York scene kinda went "all gay, all the time" (as another person put it on that thread), and I lost interest. So, I hope movies and TV don't go that direction.

A small part of it is that I've yet to see/read an entertainment where the main engine of the plot was that someone/everyone was gay that I found at all intriguing. The same goes for opera, the rap/hip-hop world, costume dramas, or the new action genre where a bunch of tough assholes get together and be tough assholes during an adventure (see the last two "Alien" travesties). Yawn, baby, yawn.

TLD: One element of gay/lesbian dramas I think the people who make them assume is: The rest of us view them as subversive or controversial, so putting them all up in our face is only for our own good, so that our minds will be expanded, etc. Well, sorry dudes, but those days have past for the most part. We've all seen the dance card, and most of us are happy with you being happy. Rock on with your bad selves, already. Frankly, Brokeback Mountain would have been more subversive in these days of PETA if they'd hauled off and fucked a sheep. Really.

Here's one of the true things about fiction: For a reader/consumer/viewer/audience member to be invested in the fiction, they have to be able to see themselves as one of the characters or be empathetic with one of them (this can include merely hating a bad character). Since I dig the ladies, stories of great loves between those who love their own gender (Gods and Monsters comes to mind, where Gandalf wants Brandon Fraiser to wear tight things and bend over a lot) just bore me.

In other words, I don't really want to see "A Transgendered Christmas" any time soon, thanks, even if it is a good punchline. Nor do I want to see "Christmas with the Rock" (the former pro wrestler turned action nubbin), or "A Christmas Carol Opera", or "Snoop Dog's Pimpin' at the North Pole", or "A Downhome Christmas Buggering Sheep". Hey, you can make'em. Just don't expect me to tune in, K? More for you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For us, the holidays started in earnest when we visited Santa this past weekend. Our city has a wonderful holiday kick-off celebration, with music, food, puppet shows, speeches from local celebrities, reindeer for petting, a nativity with live animals (the camel looked cold), and of course Saint Nick hisownself.


MPCs 1 and 2 visit with Santa. I believe he's talking to me in this shot. If I recall, I believe I asked for honest elections.

This is a bittersweet year regarding the big red guy because it's likely the last year MPC1 (in the middle there) will think he's real. One of those little snots who revels in slaying belief in Santa happens to be in my daughter's class this year, and she's gone so far as to say her parents admitted they hid the presents and stuff. My daughter and one other boy in the class are the only holdouts who still believe, God bless'em. (Our cover story is that if you don't believe in Santa, he no longer exists for you and doesn't visit your house, and sometimes parents feel bad for kids like that and take over for Santa. It's worked so far.)

My favorite Santa was the one at my daughter's Montessori preschool. The groundskeeper and husband of the woman who owned and operated the school looked just like Santa - even more so than the one in the picture above. Even though the kids saw him all the time, when he showed up at the yearly Christmas party (the school was wise enough to admit that's what it was, even though it had children of many religions attending), he was transformed, and even as an adult I was impressed with the illusion. It made me think of how those fictional people never connected Clark Kent with Superman, even though the only difference were clothes and a pair of glasses.

Even better, he had a great story about why you would sometimes see him around town throughout the year. He said he had to go around and make sure the kids were being good, so if you saw him cruising around in his white Chrysler sedan with the red interior (his real car, btw, a sight to behold), he was just doing the Santa thing, so you'd better watch out, etc. He was a consummate storyteller; so much so that you could see the tweens in attendance have to mentally remind themselves this was just pretend.


At work this week we had our little obligatory Thanksgiving party, which was interrupted by a small drama. No, it didn't involve the vegan who yearly champions the rescue of a turkey or two (though we did have that). One of our lucky crew was just informed that she'd won a neat little gadget via a drawing at a conference she'd attended. She bounced around shouting yippie I've never won anything, this is so cool, etc. Well, envy and the general Office Space vibe conjoined and our version of Roz from Monster's Inc. rasped:


"Company policy states that we own the [device] since we sent you to the conference."

And then everyone dogpiled on her, asking if she'd used a company printed business card to enter (she hadn't), a company pen, perhaps? (nope), and so on. It was a shitty thing to witness. And allow me to connect the dots for you: These are the clods who couldn't wait to go to school one day and tell everyone there's no such thing as Santa.

TLD: It just dawned on me that there's a striking resemblance between Roz and Dick Cheney.

"Company policy states that if you joined the National Guard, we can send your ass to Iraq to be blown off, even if you're middle-aged with kids. Suck to be you."
Seperated at birth? Hmmm.


Ok, I guess I should be counting joys rather than sorrows in light of the season. Lessee... Ok, here's one: At the guy's poker game last Friday, I saw someone pull a natural straight flush. Never seen that one live before. We had so many guys that we were playing with two decks, and in that same hand, someone got five of a kind. Well, there is no such hand in poker, so the straight flush won. But what a hand.

But then that reminds me of the kurfuffle before the game. We make fliers for our parties, campouts, poker games, what have you. For the ones that are guys only, we have the admittedly juvenile tradition of putting a tasteful nude (typically a 50s pinup girl) somewhere on the poster. (And to demonstrate how tasteful, one of the guy's pastor saw the poster for the guy's campout on his fridge and remarked on how clever it was and how wonderful it was that we have such a close group of buddies.) It's supposed to be a little playful tweak to the wives, but the main in-joke is that nothing of the sort (girls, particularly naked ones) will be in evidence at the bash. In other words, it's supposed to be a backhanded reassurance that while boys will be boys, we'll be good boys where it counts.

Anyway, the one wife on the block who won't let her husband attend any "guy only" thangs got her ruffles in a bunch over this poster because someone from outside the circle of friends saw it. (This poster in question had a topless girl playing cards in keeping with the poker night theme.) Oh, the wailing. Oh, the gnashing of teeth. All the old, hoary cliches were trotted out: Demeaning to women, Pornographic, Tasteless, this should stop immediately, blah de blah. They say that when you talk on the phone, people can somehow tell if you are smiling. When my wife got the call, I'm pretty sure Ms. Underbunch could hear my wife's eyes rolling throughout the call. We've now planned to always produce a second poster now, just for her. It will be entitled something like "Shiny Happy Puppy Time" or some other sticky-sweet engrish concoction. And I'm sure we'll hear about that, too. (Maybe I'll Chuck Jones' old, sneaky trick and get a cartoon characters whose eyes look just like breasts.)

Ok, I'll stop. It's time for shiny happy turkey time. Though its reaffirmation by way of negative expression, I've always loved the line from U2's "Acrobat": Don't let the bastards grind you down.

So, this year, I go into the holidays doggedly reminding myself of all the blessings in my life. I have a wonderful family. I could not ask for a better wife and daughters. Everyone's healthy (knock on wood). Our house has new carpet and tile, so it's looking pretty spiffy. I have gainful employment, of which I'm grateful. And of course, I have God on my side, too.

I hope each and every one of you who reads this can find as many blessings in your life as well. Have a joyous holiday season, why don't you!


HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

(Btw, I used Dooce's "Lovely Glow Effect" for these photos. It's a nifty little trick.)

Uh-uh. No you didn't!

Salon has a post referencing an article in the Guardian about UC-Berkeley performing a study on what goes through men's minds and what distractions they may face whilst they are self-pleasuring. (You've gotta click through the ad to read, but please do, o.m.g!)

When I encounter such reports, I invariably flash to the particulars of such a thing, such as:

- Who determined how the test would be administered; how they set up the steps and so-forth? Wouldn't that have been a meeting to experience? ("No, Tommy, we have to consider that one hand is busy, so how do they record responses? I don't want to have to be in the room to assist.")
- How did they solicit participants? What did the ad or flier look like?
- So you're the person who has to instruct the young buck on what to do (at least the part he's not had plenty of practice at). How do you not die of embarrassment, or not burst out into laughter?
- Did they plan for the contingency of having accidental, uh, spillage on the recording mechanism and/or forms? (Anti-stick paper, perhaps?)
- Why no women? (Or is that rhetorical since most women would respond with "You want me to what?" and that'd be the end of it.)
- Apparently, they record what the dominant hand is.
- You are the guy who decided to stroke for science. What the hell?
- Who in the hell thought of doing this in the first place and why?

Ya'll have any additions/thoughts on the topic?

The Joys

The joys of parenting are sometimes briefly overshadowed by the troubles. I speak specifically of the stomach flu.

I have a major vomit phobia, so I have lived with the small dread of the inevitable visit of that particular disease to our household. Yea and verily on Saturday morning at 12:31 A.M. it splashed into our existence. Melted chocolate, anyone will tell you, makes a carpet stain that even the darkest red wine envies. Just off of Halloween, and having to make chocolate chip cookies for school, the tummy in question (MPC1) was choc full ... well, you get the drift.

Thus far (as I imagine we are not through the storm yet - the baby (MPC2) hasn't evidenced symptoms YET), I have had discovered that I have more of a tolerance for cleaning up accidental personal protein spills than I once thought. I still gape in horror during the actual event itself - especially that as caused by the stomach flu. Someone yarking from drinking too much has a relative elegance to it. They display a confused look, ralph it up, have some dry heaves, then we're done. The flu causes one to experience a long and miserable lead up to the event, and then the actual retching is much more tearing. The whole body convulses. Other things occur that just shouldn't be described, so I won't.

The resulting puddles, should the victim not make it to the designated receptacle as was the case this weekend, just didn't throw me as much as I thought they might.

And here's why, I think: Our damn dog.

Our dog has a wonderful personality. He's a sweet, little West Highland Terrier. His only personality fault is that he barks ALL THE TIME when he's outside; we've run through two entire shock collars and over 10 $20 batteries to power the same.* Other than that, he's a sweetheart. But, he pukes nearly every night, and if something further upsets his sensitive little digestive tract, he follows that up with voluminous turds which transition to sprayed diarrhea. (Some of his more extreme trails bring to mind an example of evolutionary changes as demonstrated in poop.) Being one of those who think that nearly everything happens for a reason, I feel God gave me this dog so I would become inured to cleaning up vast canvases of gloppy, malodorous bodily products.

I was on the couch at the end of the weekend, musing over the fact that the hurl cleanup hadn't really thrown me, when my daughter, the recently pukey one, says, "The dogs smells like diarrhea." My sinuses were clogged from cleaning product fumes, so I had no idea, but the dog chose that moment to wander away (perhaps sensing the upcoming event) and sure enough, his butt was caked with stool. I chased him down, pulled, scraped, and cut it off, all the while thinking of how much worse this was than mopping up hurl, and that's when I put it together.

My next hour was going through all the places he'd sat down, leaving little shit kisses on the carpet. MPC1 trailed me anxiously, pointing out the sites of destruction, and asking if we were going to get rid of the dog. What was intriguing about that last line of query is that usually her tone is "dad, you had better not get rid of the dog," but this time it was, "Even I now understand that this is a bit much, and I still hope you don't get rid of him."

Not to fear, the dog is safe for now. His upside still outweighs his downside.

But, dog, if you read my blog (and I wouldn't put it past the sneaky little shit, since we have to have a toddler gate on the basement stairs so he doesn't sneak down there in get into territory marking wars with the cat (where the catbox is), consider this fair warning. Keep that "pro" list on the heavy side, my furry little friend.

*TLD: When my wife and I finally decided we had no choice but to get a shock collar or give up the dog, we shopped around and tried to find the one that seemed the most humane. It starts out with a small warning shock, jumps up three levels if the barking continues, but then shuts off after the forth level, under the assumption that if the dog is still barking, it's serious and someone should come check out the problem. I don't think our dog has made it past the second level more that a couple times, and never to the fourth. Nonetheless, we felt we couldn't be comfortable having him wear it if first we didn't know what it felt like.

The instructions warned against applying the collar to exposed skin, because it was intended to be shielded by the fur of the animal, so we decided not to try it on our necks.

MPC1 was only about three at the time, and we didn't want to do this in front of her for several reasons, the two main ones were we didn't want to model the behavior and later catch her shocking herself, and we didn't want her to see us in pain and hear the inevitable profanity that would most likely result. So, we put her on the couch, cranked up a cartoon, told her to stay put, and retired to a bathroom to hold it to our bare thighs and set it off. I went first because I'm the man of the house and so wish to protect my family from harm (if it hurt too much, the wife was to be let off the hook), and because I'm the bigger weenie regarding pain, being the man of the house.

At first, it was high comedy, because there we were, holding this collar to my bare leg, both barking at it loudly. This drew MPC1 from the couch, "Mom? Dad? Why are you barking in the potty?" My wife replaced her on the couch saying we'll explain later, hoping that her attention span would wander far enough that we wouldn't have to. We finally discovered that rapping your fingers across it quickly fooled it into thinking it detected a bark, and it shocked the holy heck out of my leg. I tensed up, dropped the collar, and hissed an expletive through my grit teeth. Of course, nothing is funnier to a wife than that category of husbandly behavior. (That's why all dads on sitcoms are slapstick idiots.)

Verdict: It hurt less than putting your finger in the wall socket (something I had managed to do at three years old while trying to plug in my record player), but it hurt just a little more than the dry, Colorado static shock you get after taking off a fleece jacket and touching a light switch, which usually results in a bright, painful three-inch arc. The dog could handle it in my opinion.

Of course, after recovering from her guffaws, the wife disagreed, given my reaction. So I reminded her that that was why she's going next. After quasi-intense renegotiations which drew the MPC1 again (this time I took her back), I won on the fact that we could never leave the dog outside unless we had something to stop the barking, and this was probably it. So, she went through with it. Being a woman, she didn't do much more than say, "Ouch! ... Dammit!" and after another pause: "Yeah, he'll be fine."

For those of you who would try to connect the dots between the shock collar and the constant barfing, let me save you the trouble right now. He barfs because he refuses to eat his dogfood dinner at night because when we first adopted him, we would give him table scraps after our dinner. After a year or so of this, he developed the screaming monster-turds-transitioning-to-power-squirts I wrote of above, so we had to stop this indulgence. (One liquid turdfest took two days to clean up, and a week for the smell to dissipate, it was so huge.) But, thank you Dr. Pavlov, the conditioning was complete. He now will not eat his own food after our dinner because he waits for the scraps, thus his tummy fills with bile in anticipation, and rather than just eating, he arises around midnight, hurks it up all over the floor, then goes back to bed. It helps if we remember to give him a milkbone at night, but sometimes we get in the habit of forgetting.

However, we're getting new carpet since our old is so trashed. Perhaps we'll remember from now on. I know I will.

The Hours

Man, if this kind of thing is what passes for deep (what with critical hosannas and the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award nominations out the woz), puddles around the world can now harbor aspirations to greatness.

*** SPOILERS HO *** BUT THE MOVIE SUCKS SO I RECOMMEND YOU DIVE IN ANYWAY ****

Here's the plot:
Suicidal Virginia Woolf pens a novel, Mrs. Dalloway, where apparently the heroine commits suicide because the agonies of living in quiet suburbia are too much for her, which of course is what really happens to Woolf. (I've not read the book, nor will I, so I may be wrong about the plot.) Years later, a woman experiencing the same thing (oppression of the suburbs, the demands of making a birthday cake, and suppressed lesbianism) while reading said novel nearly commits suicide, but instead just abandons her family. The boy who's abandoned grows up, meets a girl, they have a child, but then he realizes he's gay, leaves her for his lover, but gets aids, writes a terrible novel, then dies by diving out of a window in front of the very same girl he left. All these years she's pined for him, and so nurses him as he dies of AIDS (and inexplicably has become a lesbian herself*). He calls her "Mrs. Dalloway" after the novel (hence the inclusion of this storyline), because she, too, is suicidal over the events in her life: Primarily planning a party for him as a last hurrah before he succumbs to the disease (not knowing he's planning to go skydiving), all the while becoming distressed over the tedium of it all. His death somehow releases her, as his mother's abandonment released her, and as Virginia Wolf's suicide released her. Lovely. The end.


*** SPOILERS, WAX OFF ***

All of this is relayed through achingly slow scenes where everyone either 1) stares at the other person in the scene who's talking, 2) cries, or 3) both for the really intense scenes. In short, excruciating. And, yes, I watched it all the way through, only fast-forwarding through the middle part of a fruitless argument at a train station (as I've said before, sometimes I'll hang with something I hate because of the very fact that I hate it so much, as it arouses my interest in it).

Thus I beseech you to save two hours of YOUR life and avoid The Hours.


*** SPOILERS, WAX ON ***

*I have a theory about this, since it's not really explained in the movie. I didn't know previous to viewing the flick that the author of The Hours is gay , but this plot point made me suspect he was, and he is. A plot device I've identified that is common to gay fiction is someone straight inexplicably "turning gay" for either the convenience of a plot line, and/or because it's a gay fantasy to be able to turn someone gay out of sheer desire or love. I think the thinking behind it is a gay trope that "everyone is partially gay, they either just don't know it or won't admit it if they do," so the idea is we are all fungible. Well, we're not. It's silly that this woman is now gay, especially since she admits the love of her life is this gay man who left her. Action does not equal reaction in such things. (Of course, someone straight is not allowed to come out and say these things, so I apologize in advance for any flames in the comments.)

*** SPOILERS, WAX OFF ***

Let's pound it to China:
If you ever are faced with the choice between The Hours and Scooby Doo II, like, go with the Scoob. I kid you not.

The Candy Man

Saw the remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was more charming than I thought it would be, and MPC1 dug it enough for repeat viewings. I still like the original better because I think the songs are superior and Gene Wilder manages to radiate charm, even when he's being gruff. Johnny Depp continues to be a revelation as an actor, because he's charming, too, but he invests Wonka with the kind of charm you find in a savant; they're just so who they are that you enjoy that mere, but overwhelming fact. In other words, Wilder's Wonka was an adult in control, and Depp's was an everlasting child whose genius provides a means of functioning in the world, even though he's clueless about that world.

For the record, MPC1 opined that she likes both versions equally.

The primary problem critics had with Depp's performance was that he appeared to be using some Michael Jackson in the mix. I believe it was in there, but it's not the primary engine to the performance, imho. There are many creepy parts of the performance (though it's only just creepy enough and does not overwhelm), and the Gloved One's element is just one of them. I believe Depp did it intentionally to invoke that specific brand of man-child creepiness. Though there is not one hint, not one iota, of pedophilia, so parents shouldn't be concerned.

Some of the set pieces are excellent. The squirrels in particular were one of the more awesome sequences ever filmed (given that they had to be computer generated). The oopma-loompas were better in the first flick, but Deep Roy - the Eastern Indian dwarf used to play all of the oopma-loompas - invests his tribe with a hinky sort of charm.

Really, though, the star is Depp. I would recommend this even to folks who don't have children, as Tim Burton's films are all interesting in some regard. And, again, Depp is something to see, a must for fans of his. Check it out.

When someone puts a universal truth out there, I am compelled to pass it along:

Garrison Keillor on why men need a shed of their own.

(Click through and watch the commercial; it's worth it.)

The Truth
by Al Franken

Pounded through The Truth in the last couple days. Al Franken is a national treasure. I honestly hope he never runs for office because he's much more useful as a pundit. Anyone who can communicate like he can needs to keep doing it. Someday he will have a statue or two raised in his honor, and it's my fervent hope that they make him look tall.

As the title implies, this is the sequel to his historical take-down of the wingnut movement ( ... "movement" ... yeah, that has a nice fecal ring to it), Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Even though this is as good, it has the feel of anticlimax because of course we're living in the second term of Turd Blossom's puppet. Yes, we have the comfort of the indictments finally rolling in, but we all know that even though maybe one or two of these crooks will go to Martha Stewart prison, it will not change the administration. We even have the ignored-by-the-mainstream-media fact that the last election was stolen, too. We are stuck until the next election.

Still, it's good having down on paper all the mind-boggling and mind-numbing corruption and abuse that is the current Republican regime. I finally feel sorry for moderate Republicans. Being a Christian and having to live with the animosity stirred up by fundies, it must be galling to be an honest, decent Republican (yes, dear reader, they do exist) in this age.

Franken is a superior humorist, so regardless of his topic, he's a fun read. I recommend this to everyone. I would especially love a few wingnuts to read this, though I know I'm essentially wishing the moon were cheese. A few times I would laugh out loud while reading, so heads would swivel to see what I was reading, and thus the instant litmus test would ensue. Moderates and liberals would smile and nod when they saw the cover, wingnuts would frown and look at me as though they were memorizing my face so I could be one of the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes. I take comfort in the fact that I'll be standing next to the likes of Al Franken the Dixie Chicks (I think Emily Robison, the tall one, is freakin' hot!). We'll have songs and laughter before the bullets fly.

I especially like the light touch he has with religion. He's essentially a Deist (def: there's something bigger than us out there, I just don't know what it is) by way of Judaism, with a dash of Minnesota polite thrown in. His stories about his experiences with religion, and this recent post by Sharon on church music, brought to mind an experience of mine. We haven't had a Third Level Digression in a while, so here goes:

TLD: When my wife and I first moved to our new town, we went church shopping because our old church was now over an hour and a half away. There is a Presbyterian church just a few blocks away, so that seemed the natural choice. We attended the all-important Easter service as our introduction.

When we entered the vestibule, we saw a big box of rocks with a sign that said "Take One." I shot an "uh-oh" look at my wife; she shrugged and picked up a rock. So we sat down and started trying to busy our first daughter, who was three at the time (I think), part of which included explaining why she couldn't have a rock. The pastor got up to deliver his sermon and its message was, and I paraphrase: "Sometimes in life we get bogged down by troubles, so I want you to imagine all of your troubles going into this rock, take it home with you, and then toss it away somewhere as a symbolic gesture of laying your troubles down."

I imagine the look on my face was something close to this:


This was Easter freakin' Sunday. If we were to hear anything about rocks, it should be about Jesus rolling one back to emerge triumphant into everlasting life. But no, we were supposed to project our troubles into a piece of landscaping material (not even bringing into consideration that viewing inanimate objects as receptacles of anything living was spelled out pretty clearly as a big no-no several places in the Bible). If I want squishy, feel-good pop psychology, I tune into PBS during a pledge drive. My Easter service had better come with a big helping of steaming Jesus, maybe with some shocked apostles on the side. I'm not even sure if Christ was mentioned even in passing...

Anyway, about the only thing I admire about that sermon was the fact that he had the stones (heh heh) to give everyone a rock and then deliver a sermon like that on Easter Sunday. Perhaps I can take solace in the fact that it turned into an unintended lesson on resisting temptation. (And 20/20 hindsight, maybe I should've given my daughter a rock after all. You can at least plead innocence when a baby chucks a rock at someone.) The only thing that would have made the experience complete would have been if one of the songs we sang were Dylan's "Everybody must get STONED!" (aka "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"). Mwaharhar.

Anyway, Franken rocks. Check out The Truth.

In Through the Out Door

Three of the best movies about working in an office are:
- Office Space
- Brazil
- Galaxy Quest

Office Space nails the inanities that everyone faces in the workplace with an accuracy such that you'll find yourself matching movie characters with people at your job.
Galaxy Quest is an allegory about what happens if you pretend you know what you're doing: Someone will appear and actually expect you to do the real thing.
Brazil is about the hopelessness brought about by incompetence rising to the top - an pre-Dilbert take on "The Dilbert Effect" - and the inevitable outcome for those who try to do the right thing in spite of it all.

I bring this up like our cat brings up a hairball because I have faced a waterloo at work and spent one night distractedly bumping into walls from being overwhelmed with the tsunami of stupidity I'd endured. Coming into work the next day, a compatriot reminded me that I'm still getting paid to do the inanity I've been asked to do, so at least there's that. A reasonable perspective, I decided, and so I put the box of shells back into my trunk. (I kid. I kid.)

This brought to mind the worst job I'd ever had to date, that being a clerk at a chain bookstore. Helping customers, basic shelving, and the incessant tidying up after customers have pawed through a rack (as they should) were actually not all that unpleasant, in a raking-the-Zen-rock-garden sorta way. No, what made things bleeding gums and clumps of hair falling out was bizarre company policy and a manager who simply thought that if someone asked you to pound a railroad spike to China, well they probably had a good reason, so don't ask why.

The main culprit of woe was a stack of paper literally a foot high that was a list of all the books in the store, generated from computerized inventory list the main office kept of all books in every store, that was maintained by our cash registers and shipping centers. Our job was to go through the entire store, write the number of copies we had in the little square next to the title, and if the price on the list differed from that on the book, we had to change the price mark on the book. This in itself was not a bad idea, or a bad thing at all, because over time shite happens and the computerized inventory becomes incorrect. What was silly is we had to do this twice a year, and it took about a month to do, resulting in the discovery of maybe 5 to 10 "lost" books, and maybe 15 price changes (of about $1 each). The sheer cost of printing this had to have outstripped the gains of exercise. This was a thing that should be done every third year on the outside, and once a year at most. The biggest sin was because it was so labor intensive, customer service suffered directly for those two months a year. If you're in the middle of counting 27 copies of something and a little old lady wander up to ask if you've got the new Harlequins in, you couldn't give her the "wait a minute" gesture, finish and help. No, you had to drop everything and help, which made us begin to hide out, or literally run from customers just to finish some notes or a count.

And that was just one of the many insults we had to endure for minimum wage (and even less during the month of December, where we were expected to put in an extra 10 hours a week for free).

I think the sole reason I had that job (and I'm one of those who thinks most everything happens for a reason) was to give me perspective on the relative suckitude of jobs later in life. As much of a pain as things are right now, at least I'm not in the midst of marking up one of Bill O'Reilly's blowhard tomes only to have a mother appear around the corner of the shelves announcing that her child with Dizzy Gillespie cheeks is about to barf and where's the bathroom?

(Which reminds me another challenge of the bookstore job; we didn't have a public bathroom. Moms were always running in with a desperate child asking to use the bathroom. We were told we could under no circumstances (even Dizzy Gillespie cheeks) allow a customer to use the bathroom; one item on the multi-page list as to reasons why not was that our stockroom was a hazard what with all the stacks of books lying around. (It was safe for us because we were professionals, and had apparently signed something upon hire that bereaved families were forbidden to sue the company should one of us die due to a case of terminal papercuts should a stack attack.) Once, out of the sheer goodness of my heart, and the empathetic fact of actually having a bladder, I let someone take their child back under full escort from me to guard from malicious book assault. I was alone in the store and thought I'd be safe. Well, an employee of another store across the way in the mall spied my deviation from policy, and made sure my manager found out. I was taken into the back room and given a severe tongue-lashing and a warning in my file. Sometime later an elderly and terminally annoyed regular customer asked if she could use our bathroom. She got very angry (I'm surprised she didn't pee on the carpet) and said the policy was stupid. I agreed and even told her what had happened the one time I'd transgressed. Well, mentioning my manger gave her an idea, and of course she called her. The next day I was taken in the back room for another tongue lashing for angering a repeat customer for not letting her use the bathroom.)


One of the things that stick in my craw is the futility of being able to do much when the train jumps the track at work. As an employee, you pretty much have to find another job if you don't like the way things are going because:
1) If you try to present the situation to upper management as an issue that needs fixing, you are the messenger and you will be shot.
2) If you take it to Human Resources, you will simply be viewed as a problem employee and it will go in your record (unless sexual harassment's involved). Chances are if they talk to upper management, they will only mention that you are a problem, and won't mention the problem you're trying to bring to light.
3) If you try to "transform it from below," this will merely provide an opportunity for those who are responsible for the bad policy in the first place to pinpoint you as someone not following the rules, and you will be reprimanded or fired.

No matter how many assurances from the company that this is not the case, this is the case 99% of the time. This is because organizations that are broken enough to allow the situation in the first place are typically broken to the extent that fixes will not occur without great trauma to staff (loss of jobs, for those of you in the cheap seats, even for those who are trying to correct things - the great correction machine is blind to who's helping and who's hurting, because it's often considered too objective a thing to really ascertain in time), and this is only after trauma to the bottom line has occurred.


I've always wondered if it's better to search for a job at the end of the year or the beginning in regards to layoff odds. Companies tend to balance the books on the backs of their staff these days, meaning that if in the 4th quarter things aren't going as planned, a lot of companies will simply schedule layoffs, which is why there are so many layoffs in American at Christmas. My theory is that if they hire you in the 4th quarter, it indicates that they're doing well enough to do so, and so you probably have a safe year, at the very least - more if they are competent enough to manage their finances accordingly. If a company hires you early in the year, while the budgets are flush, it means you are a step below contract work because you have no indication if the company is one of those that does egregious Christmas layoffs (and they certainly won't tell you that in the interviews even if you ask). You are one step below contract work because at least they know their job has an end date, and they even know what it is (in theory, because I imagine companies can just tell a contract worker to just leave, too - I've not done contract work, so I don't know firsthand).


That's it for now. This guy in a jumpsuit just showed up in my cube to invite me to work on a software project located somewhere in the belt of Orion. I hope they have good benefits...

Misc. Elsewhere 11-07-2005

These are about the coolest Flash menus I've ever seen. I like the artwork they lead to, too.


Speaking of artwork, I enjoyed this large collection of "picture postcards" on artnet (that I'm guessing are like a "pic of the day/week/etc." since they're not explained).
- 2005
- 2004
- 2003
- 2002


Goshdarnit, I really like this new CD called Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team, but it's so damn silly, I will probably be alone in the crowd on this one. It's like a bunch of band geeks got together and formed a rock band. It's got those rolling drums that high school bands specialize in during the football games, it's got cheerleaders chanting, it's got surf guitar, it's got samples, it's a freakin hoot.

So, here's their site, which has some samples of their stuff under "music" (and I kinda like the flash menus). Here's their label's site, with more stuff. And finally, if you want a small sample of every tune on the disc, you'll find them here.

I think this is either a love it or hate it kinda thing.


But, everyone loves Magical Trevor!


Finally, I won't make you surf there and will include it whole. This item in Salon's gossip column "The Fix" amused me greatly:

'In an exchange we have a hard time imagining, when Ozzy Osbourne ran into Prime Minister Tony Blair at a Downing Street party recently, all Blair -- who apparently plays guitar -- wanted to talk about was old Black Sabbath riffs. "All this Iraq thing's going on and I was amazed that he turned round to me and said, 'I could never quite understand how to get the riff to Iron Man,'" Osbourne said. "I'm going, 'Kids are dying, people are getting blown up and you're talking to me about f**king Iron Man'"'

Indeed. Obviously Ozzy just doesn't grasp the importance of being able to nail the riff in "Iron Man." Being the vocalist, he just can't see the point of worry about the guitar stuff, I'd imagine. ;)

Evil Bastards

Not a big surprise, but still totally disheartening; according to the GAO, Bush and his cronies did steal the 2004 election, too. Here's the GAO doc itself. (Links from Moby.com)

This last weekend, we got the sad news that one of the dads on our daughter's soccer team has to go to Iraq for 18-month tour. He's in his 40s, and he's got a wife and little kids. He's in the National Guard, and I don't know if you know this or not, but they're essentially doing what's been called (somewhat inaccurately) a backwards draft where they're sending these older, married guys to the war because they can't get enough recruits. I know these guys signed up to serve, and I'm not disparaging their contribution by any means, but in past wars our nation didn't stoop to this kind of thing.

And all of this from a two-term, illegitimate president, and his under-indictment team.

I used to wonder in history class how citizens of various nations in the past felt when their government was blatantly corrupt and abusing its power. I no longer have to wonder.

Talk about a bad hair day


Do you suppose anyone had the guts to tell Condi that her hair looked just like Darth Vader's helmet? Maybe someone just did, which would explain the look on her face. I bet if this came with audio, we'd hear that very minion gasping for breath as their bronchia was being crushed by the dark side of the force.

A comment on comments.

I love it when anyone comments on a post of mine - even the snarky ones that take me to task for a political view, or correct an erroneous statement (one incident lead to the corrector forming her own blog, which rocks), so I don't want to make it any harder than it has to be.

Here comes the big but...

I have been getting so much comment spam for milfs and truck rallies and other crap, and it pisses me off. (Do these folks really think a single person is going to give money to them when they use such tactics?)

Therefore, Blogger has this neat feature where you have to enter a verification code when posting a comment, which means they'll show you a series of letters that look like something the caterpillar blows out of his hookah at Alice, and you just have to type them in. It's one extra step. Yes, it's an additional pain in the ass. Yes, I deeply apologize.

Keep the comments coming, though. Most humble thanks in advance.

Miscellany, Mid-October 2005

Sometimes life presents brief interludes that bear resemblance to that particular rollercoaster ride somewhere in your late 30s to early 40s where you realize that you don't enjoy rollercoasters anymore. That is to say, there are stretches where you think, "I'm too old for this crap," but like the rollercoaster ride, all you can do for now is hold on and try not to puke.

I think one of the most brilliant verses in all of pop music that describe this state come from Paul Simon's "The Obvious Child":

I'm accustomed to a smoother ride,
Or maybe I'm a dog who's lost his bite,
I don't expect to be treated like a fool no more,
I don't expect to sleep through the night.

Yeah, man.

It's been a while since I've posted because of insanity at work, being out of town, finding myself trapped in software training classes, having all my girls sick, and a big yearly party that involves a Martha Stewart level of preparation (not including the prison time).

Work has been so ridiculous that for a while now that I experience regular contemplations on the meaning of life. For fear of being Dooced and to spare you the boredom, I'm not going into details. Let's just say it's a lot like the parrot sketch of "Monty Python's Flying Circus," because it's far beyond the absurdities of Office Space. Yes, what we have is a deceased parrot. Now if the shopowner would acknowledge that, we'd have something.

On the home front, gas prices have added at the very least an additional $200 to our monthly costs. So we've cancelled the cable, the newspaper, Netflix, and other little services that have accumulated into quite the cumulative bill over the years. Cable was over $40! This, over an infrastructure (network) that has been established for years (so they had to have recouped those costs by now), that has the temerity to put shopping and evangelical shows on over a third of the channels. Buh bye. The Denver paper does this insidious upsell crap, where we originally just got the Sunday paper, but then they offered the weekend for free, only to start charging us for it a few months later when they promised not to, then did the same thing with the weekdays to where the bill was eventually HUGE. Gone, baby. (Reporters haven't been doing their jobs anyway.) Netflix was great and I recommend it, but my local library has over 2/3 of the same stuff for outright free. Can't beat that. Aloha Netflix, I'll miss you. So, we evened out the car gas bills. However, the local power monopoly is doubling natural gas prices yet again this winter (just because they can, there's no shortage), so that'll probably be another $1,000 we'll have to find somewhere. Here's to anti-gouging legislation.

Our co-pays went up to $30 just to see our primary care physician, so of course everyone promptly got sick. And they had to visit twice because the doc said the first time, "Doesn't look that bad. Bring her back if it gets worse." Lovely.


So, with this free-floating angst, I boarded a plane to a conference in Portland, Oregon. (Motto: "Gayer than San Francisco!" Think I'm kidding? Check out the visitor's website. How many cities have a special gay section on their site? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

Nice city. Their public transportation system is what a public transportation system should be. The variety of restaurants was phenomenal. The one blatant blemish they have in common with San Fran is the sheer about of beggars per square foot. And since the downtown trains are free, every other ride you have some scuzzy individual working the train for handouts.

My favorite crazy person was this woman in her 50s who had a huge, white beehive wig perched atop her head, with her own grayish hair draping out the sides. The wig must've been 2 feet high, and she was probably only 5 feet herself, so it brought to mind the woman costume the aliens wore in Mars Attacks!, but much aged. Poor dear. (Unless, of course, she's being outrageous on purpose.)


Sharing the hotel with our software convention was a convention of hairdressers. Did you know they even had conventions? Neither did I. What a trip.

First of all, they have completely different social mores and rules than do your standard convention goers - that is, sales people and computer geeks. Y'see, business folks and geeks may exchange a brief pleasantry when passing someone they don't know - though most likely they won't - and that's about it. Apparently hairdressers view the world as their personal zoo. When someone they don't know walks by, they halt all conversation, and STARE at this person, heads tracking their progress. When I first encountered this, I stopped by a mirror to make sure I didn't have a boog hanging, toilet paper trailing my shoe, or some other valid reason to be gawked at like a bug in a jar. Nothing out of the ordinary with my appearance. Then another non-hairdresser strolled past, same naked stares. So in short order I got used to the folks with a single streak of some color not found in nature in their coif to drop everything and examine me like I'm boarding an aircraft wearing a turban with fuses hanging off the backs of my shoes. I also found out that if you returned the gape grope, they got a little offended.

When they weren't giving we geeks the stink-eye, they were competing in these iron-chef-like competitions, slicing and binding out wacky hairdos in timed heats. How this applies to actual hairdressing I don't know. I mean, if I wanted my hair messed up in record time, I'd give my 9-year-old some strong cough medicine and hand her the scissors. (I kid. I don't dose the child for my amusement. Anymore.)

Funniest of all was after they checked out. I was riding the elevator down to the next session, and one of the hotel managers was holding a wighead in a bag and had a bemused look on her face. I asked her what was up, and she said many of the hairdressers had left behind their mannequin heads, and guests were happening upon them in closets and such, so the hotel staff was having to sweep the rooms to ensure new guests didn't drop dead of a heart attack. You can't make this stuff up.


On the flight back home, I took solace in the fact that I was on a model of plane that so far had only one crash to it's reputation, and it wasn't due to mechanical failure, and it didn't explode into a fireball when it did finally have its terrain conflict. I walk into my house only to see that exact model of plane circling LA because the front landing gear didn't deploy correctly, and was seized with retroactive scrotum tightening.

But that weekend I segued into the yearly chili cookoff held by some good friends, and I won second place! (First place going to the chef on our block, as always.) My secrets: Grill up pork chops liberally sprinkled with chili powder and cumin, cut to preferred size, put it slowcooker with chicken stock and let it cook for an hour or so. Chop (all fresh) one onion, one green pepper, on chili pepper and one jalapeno and saute all for 10 minutes, add to pot. Once those have cooked for a while, add 1 can green chilis, 1 can chili beans (drained), 2 cans black beans (whole can including sauce), 1 can diced tomatoes, and 1/2 bag of frozen white corn. Add 1 tablespoon each chili powder and cumin. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook as long as needed. Enjoy.


So I came off the weekend with that success only to watch a movie I'd been avoiding, with good reason it turns out: Wit. I generally avoid cancer movies, because the inevitable slide into death is invariably romanticized, and dearhearts there's nothing romantic about it at all. It hurts and then you die; I've seen that up close and personal. But Wit stars the wonderful Emma Thompson, who collaborated with usually great Mike Nichols, and the reviews are universally positive. Well, just goes to show ya, everyone's a sucker sometimes. It's yer standard romantic reflections punctuated with vomiting and visits by the doctors, then she dies. (If you consider that a spoiler, most humble apologies. But if you see a movie with "Batman" in the title, except to see a guy in a batsuit, k?) I'm not sure what others might get by watching someone die a horrible death whilst dispensing bon mots, but it does nothing for me other than harsh my buzz.


But, things have leveled out for the most part. The coaster rides seems to have returned to the starting line for now, so I'll leave you with interesting things I've happened upon while surfing lately.

- The 2Blowhards linked to, get this, a Vegan BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, and Sado-Masochism) site. Let's think this through ... it's immoral to exploit any animal for our use, even to the point where taking milk is exploitation because the cow (or goat) can't give its consent, but you can whip the snot out of a fellow human being within an inch of his or her life for erotic jollies. (Guess it hinges on that consent thing.) I walked around giggling about this for two days.

- Via Firefox's cool "StumbleUpon" extension, found this wild thang. If you've got a good set of speakers on your unit, turn it up.

- Also via "StumbleUpon", found a compendium of factoids.

- Since James is a rightie and I'm a leftie, his screeds usually just fill me with weltschmerz. This one I can get behind.

My People

I hail from the Dakotas/Minnesota area of the nation, and the other day I came upon a joke about my people. What's so funny is that if this were true, it would've happened just like this:

Swedes to the Rescue

One dark night outside a small town in Minnesota, a fire started inside the local chemical plant and in a blink of an eye it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around.

When the volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All our secret formulas are in a vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I will give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact.

But the roaring flames held the firefighters off. Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now $100,000 to the fire department who could bring out the company's secret files.

From a distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Swedish Rural Township Volunteer Fire Company, composed mainly of Swedes over the age of 65. To everyone's amazement, that little run-down fire engine roared right past all the newer sleek engines that were parked outside the plant. Without even slowing down, it drove straight into the middle of the inferno.

Outside, the other firemen watched as the Swedish old timers jumped right off in the middle of the fire and fought it back on all sides. It was a performance and effort never seen before.

Within a short time, the Swedish old timers had extinguished the fire and had saved the secret formulas. The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000, and walked over to personally thank each of the brave fire fighters.

The local TV news reporter rushed in to capture the event on film, asking their chief, "What are you going to do with all that money?"

"Vell," said Ole Larson, the 70-year-old fire chief, "Da first thing ve gonna do is fix da brakes on dat damn truck!"

Tom Delay Indicted

YAY!: Freakin A!

The Wit and Wisdom of Roger Ebert

I've always loved Roger Ebert the movie critic since the day I found him and Siskel on PBS on a backwater show buried in the schedule directly after my favorite show at the time about Canadian Animation. (Winner: Most tortured grammar in one sentence for the week.)

Lately, though, he really seems to be coming into a new era of excellence. I think the interaction with everyday folks provided by the web and the political atmosphere in which we find ourselves (all of the paranoia but none of the intellect of the Nixon years!), plus maybe his bout with cancer, have made him one of those priceless elders chock full of wisdom and fun.

For instance, check out this recent exchange on his "Answer Man" column:

Andrew Zimmer, Los Angeles: Q. Recently you have come under fire from readers who don't get the humor in your columns, as in your "Dukes of Hazzard" and "The Aristocrats" reviews. The print media is the absolute hardest place to be witty. A little piece of me dies every time one of your witticisms is mistaken for a sincere attack.

Ebert: A. I hope it is a very small piece. A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.


HA!

I'm dealing with an especially egregious example of one of these obtuse literal-minded people these days, and this describes them to a "T". Now, each time I deal with them, I'm going to be hearing in my head the sound of someone thwacking into a tree.

THUNK!
ow.

BONK!
ow.

Introducing: The Opinionated Homeschooler

Constant readers may recall the guest postings on the new Pope by Sharon, which I enjoyed very much. As I have also had the pleasure of reading many a cogent and entertaining missive from Sharon on many discussion groups, I knew she would be an awesome blogger, and so suggested she consider it. She did, and as usual had a great idea in addition to just blogging for the sake of it (comme moi): She would use it as a dual-purpose lesson discussion forum for her circle of home schoolers, focusing on Roman Catholic information.

Since that's the theme, I wanted to be able to properly introduce it, and so asked what kind of Catholic she was. See, all religions have many types (denominations/sects) within them who consider themselves part of the larger group (and who almost always think of the other types in their groups as misguided members, or not even members at all).

Frinstance, I consider myself a mainstream* Protestant, mostly of a Lutheran/Presbyterian bent. By "mainstream" I mean primarily "not fundamentalist", but someone who believes that the Gospels contain the true and literal story of Jesus Christ (with some leeway allowed for the typical amount of disparities found between the stories of eyewitnesses). By "but," (in the last sentence) rather than "and", I mean that many fundamentalists try to paint the Christian world as "us and them" - them often being other Christians - and they try to float the lie that if you don't believe their version of the faith, you don't believe at all, and therefore aren't Christian. Now, there are groups who call themselves Christian, but then qualify it by saying Jesus was just a great teacher, and not really God in the flesh and so on. And there are other groups who call themselves Christian, but really follow a charismatic leader that said only THEY have the true understanding of Christ and everyone before has gotten it wrong (including, presumably, the Apostles). These last two groups aren't really considered Christians by the rest of us Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox. See, you've gotta believe that Jesus was what he claimed he was to really consider yourself part of the body.

Anyway, Sharon considered the question, and said in a nutshell that she was just Catholic.

That works for me, so, here it is: The "just Catholic, thanks" Opinionated Homeschooler.

Do enjoy!

The Intractable Problem

When I have a meal in a restaurant, I will usually order a diet cola, because I don't care which kind they have, but mostly because there's nothing I can do about it since most places only have one kind of diet pop (or "soda" if you hail from the south), and that's cola.

Invariably I get either the question, "Is diet Pepsi OK?" or "Is diet Coke OK?" depending on what they have.

And they only have one because the two big soft drink companies force anyone who signs up with them to not sign up with the other guys. I'm sure they think this is clever, and it does have the result that if you have no choice, you will choose them.

The point of my saying "diet cola" is to head off that particular additional inquiry, because if I said instead, "I'd like a diet Pepsi" half the time I'll get the response "We only have diet Coke, it that OK?"

I realize I will have this problem for the rest of my life, small though it is. Because a couple times I've even said, "I'll have a diet Coke or diet Pepsi, whichever you have" and still get "Is diet Coke OK?" Crikey.

In the name of full disclosure, I must say that I did once encounter the reason all seasoned waiters and waitresses ask this redundant (to me) question: My mother. Once we were ordering, and she ordered a Coke. The waitress said they only had Pepsi and (say it with me) was that OK? My mom wrinkled up her nose as though the waitress had suggested floating a turd in her refreshment, as a garnish say, and said, "No thanks. I'll just have tea," quite put out. It was a moment of epiphany for me, and when the waitress left, I pounced on my mom, "YOU'RE the one who has caused the endless recitation of redundant questions! YOU!"

At which point my mother played the "I brought you into this world so shut the hell up" card.

But still, I'd love to discover the correct, precise phrasing that would indicate the intention of my order, so we don't always have to do the "which corporate giant are you the slave of" dance.

Anyone got a suggestion?

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The Anthology

Michael Blowhard has collected his many great posts on the world of publishing and writing in a one-stop-shopping, handy-dandy blog entry: Me on Books, Redux.

If he'd put this stuff between some covers, you'd have to shell out at least $17 for the trade paperback (which would never appear on the best-sellers lists even if it were a runaway success according to M. Blowhard), yet here it is at your disposal, for free.

Brew up a pot, get the comfy chair, and dig in for a while.

Neato

Way way waaaay back in the day when the web was new and still covered in dew, there was a cute little site called "The Randomizer" (if I recall correctly), where you could click the one link it had and would be taken to a randomly chosen page on the web. It was a great way to discover stuff you wouldn't normally necessarily look for. But, that was when the web was relatively tiny, and geeks could actually make visual maps of the "shape" and extent of the web because of that fact. When the web mutated from a cute little puppy into an eternally swelling behemoth like that in Akira, sites like The Randomizer quietly went away.

Apparently, someone else missed The Randomizer as much as I and created a cool extension (translation of geek speak "extension": an addition to existing functionality, or "extending" functionality) that does what The Randomizer used to, but with some rather nifty upgrades. It's called StumbleUpon, and it requires an email address to activate it (the one obvious downside), but boy is it fun. Not only can you select categories of stuff you're interested in, but you can even vote on the sites, which affects their ranking in the randomizer, so - in theory - that which sucks will eventually flush out.

Two cool things I found right away are:

This pictorial of one family as they aged over the years. They took a photo of everyone on the same day from 1976 until now.

A timeline format used to display the current time. Those awash in ennui or passing through some minor crisis related to aging should give this one a pass for now. It really makes you feel the time passing away. Kind of a Kafkian "You Are Here".

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I found this one via Kottke.org and not StumbleUpon, but it's still gnarly enough to point out: Flickr has a section that displays the most interesting photos of the last 24 hours (just in case you need some chrono-therapy after visiting the timeline above).

Besides making beautiful and striking pictures created by talented photographers available to us all, Flickr has also obviously turned out to be pressure valve for people who would normally be more dangerous if they had no means of distributing copious pictures of their cats.

In Darker News

The pandemic edges closer. I keep wondering what Stephen King thinks of this.

WHO Speeding Up Flu Pandemic Preparations

WHO warns flu pandemic to occur

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At least it's not four dead in Ohio this time, but still...
SWAT team police uses excessive force at Utah rave party

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Is Your Boss a Psychopath?

Interesting article about how many higher ups in companies like Enron may have gotten there because they're freakin' sociopaths, as some of us have always suspected.

My only quibble is it ends with praising dubious "antibullying" movements and unidentified Asian cultures that put community bonds above individual's rights (hmmmm, China?) as possible solutions, and accuses America's individuality streak as a primary cause of sociopathy. So oppressive institutions will help us with this issue, eh? Sometimes it's hard to tell if this is misguided neocon thinking or misguided socialist thinking.

I've got a rash idea: When we discover someone in a high (or any) position acting rashly and causing a lot of agony, why don't we just fire their asses rather than bringing in the Reds or the "red state" ideologues?

People's kids. Crikey.

Hatin' on sports, slight return

Joyfully survived the yearly guy's campout. (I was getting over some chest crud, so was pretty wiped out.) No women, no kids are the only rules. No one's dumb enough to believe that what happens at the guy's campout stays at the guy's campout, so even though those are the only two rules, it's a lot of good clean fun.

The primary conversation topic this year revolved around half of the guys being on a softball team together. Not giving a flying frick about sports, I mostly tuned out the blather on how to hit and catch and who sucks and who rocks and instead listened to the music, watched the fire, cooked my meal, etc.

But one tawdry little episode brought back all the nasty memories of gym class hell and the various sports my mom enrolled me in before I decided they weren't for me.

Granted, it brought a happy little memory tagging along, like the four-year-old little brother of someone who gets grudging permission to hang out with the big kids for a little bit. I recalled the exact moment I finally realized sports just weren't for me.

It was during basketball practice, and I had been placed on the loser's lay-up practice hoop with a couple other spazzes like myself while the other guys were in teams and playing a game already. I wasn't allowed to play because I didn't lift the correct leg when going in for a lay-up. I hit the basket as well and as often as the others, but there was this issue with the wrong leg rising. I now realize that the coach had figured out I'd never be anything but a middling player at best, and so had shunted me off to the side until I decided to quit for myself. The moment came as I was trying to get the right leg up during yet another lay-up attempt, and as I dribbled towards the basket, I thought, in big neon letters, "I just can't manage to give a damn about this." (I didn't have a lot of exposure to the f-bomb at the time, or would have thought that in place of "damn".) I aborted the lay-up, stepped off the court, and watched the guys over on the other court playing shirts against skins, and again I thought, "I just don't care and I never will." I just dribbled around for the remainder of the practice, and when it was over, never again voluntarily returned to a sports floor. It was a happy, watershed moment of my life that allowed me to avoid wasting any more time on something I found useless that I could now devote to things I actually enjoyed.

So it has been a while since I've seen that weird random cruelty that crops up in sports, apparently in the name of keeping everyone tough and to promote camaraderie. (If you need to be hard as nails to do something that's supposed to be fun, I'll pass, thanks.)

Some of the guys at the campout took out a softball and started tossing it around for practice. After a few throws, one of the guys sitting down said to one of the guys playing, "Hey, Stan [not his actual name], you throw like a girl!" Stan responded with an appropriate profane retort, but these guys kept pointing and giggling every time he gave the ball a toss, and then started to opine on what specifically they considered girlish about his throw. He just kept quiet, as there was nothing to be done but endure. I watched the other guys who were throwing and noted they did the exact same things that Stan was getting hell for.

From what I could tell, this wasn't good-natured ribbing. No, this was the old playground "let's see if he cries if we pick on him long enough" kinda shit. Later, I kicked myself for not speaking and suggesting they climb the hell off. Still later, I remembered that sticking up for someone during sports play often made the hell they were getting way worse, and then some came your way, too. Glad I just sat there like a church mouse after all.

Swear to God, I will go to my grave not understanding the mechanics or value behind this kind of shit.

Random Thoughts, IV

Don't Free Willie
Read in my local paper last weekend about how nudity, particularly male nudity, is becoming common in stage productions (or has been common for a while). This apparently tends to cluster in plays with gay characters in them. As can be expected, there is a portion of the audience - the larger portion according to the article - that doesn't really like having to endure penises thrust in their face just because the playwright thinks they're "shaking people up" or because they wanna fill seats with gratuitous nudity. And, of course, one playwright came back and said these people were just homophobic.

Before I go on, I'd like to point out that the article also mentioned how even female nudity will prevent many groups - children and senior citizens - from seeing a play, as well.

What's worst than a charlatan who thinks that naked people on stage is a bold artistic statement unto itself? The asshole who accuses folks of being homophobic merely because they don't wanna see 27 guys with their dicks hanging out, live, on stage.


Here's Your Fogey Sign
Tried Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and grudgingly abandoned it after about 50 pages. This is a book I would have absolutely loved in my 20s, but in my 40s, it's just too centered on juvenile hipness. The hero (named Hiro, har har) is a pizza delivery guy because in the future the only things America does better than any other country are music, movies, computer programming, and pizza delivery. Getting a pizza to a customer on time is more important than wrecked cars, houses, and lives. Only someone in the blessed netherlands between childhood their first soul-crushing job would be able to suspend enough disbelief to enjoy that story.

I'm completely into old fogeyness here, for sure.

However, I loved Cryptonomicon, a later work by Stephenson. A much more fulfilling and - dare I say it? - adult read.


Unconscionable
Saw The Hunting of the President which details the vast right wing conspiracy that tried to oust Clinton out of office. Clinton himself has a point that it wasn't a conspiracy because they pretty much did it out in the open.

It is a nice historical document about how rich guys who think they should run everything can affect and influence the government to the very top levels. It's pretty freakin' scary, but a good lesson in how fragile democracy really is.

The most outrageous story that I didn't know about was what happened to Susan McDougal in prison when she refused to lie about Clinton's involvement in Whitewater. The powerboys actually had the prison dress her in the garb that denoted she was a child molester (red or orange - the movie and web site contradict each other), which in prison society marks you as the lowest of the low and the target for the worst they can dish out. For instance, when they were being transported on the bus, she and the other red-suited inmates were placed in a cage in the center, and during the trip, male inmates would masturbate and throw their jism on them. (And that was just one of the many injustices visited upon her.) When a judge (who was not part of the get-Clinton network) got wind of this, he demanded they move her to another prison and to stop dressing her like a child molester. She went back and got ready for the transfer, but the guard came around and told her to unpack because she wasn't going anywhere, informing her that Starr's "Independent Counsel" called the shots around here, not some judge.

Now, I know a lot of evil stuff goes on in our world, but the fact that this shit happens in America just makes me sick. Cruel and unusual punishment anyone? And for bullshit good-ole-boy politics no less. I spit on the graves of everyone who was party to this travesty.


The New Propaganda

And speaking of travesties, did you see the national TV news the other night? Seems we as a nation are awash with METH! Even moms in Illinois are doing it! It helps them stay up for those late night diaper changes and it puts all those extra binkies to use. The report I watched at least telegraphed the fact that this warning came from "The White House" after it did the main report, which was pretty cool, I thought. I mean they can't come right out and say "Look, the Pres. and his boys want a new thing for ya'll to be scared about so ya just leave Turd Blossom alone."

Fade up on the scene:
"Meth! My God! It's everywhere!" screams the nut staggering through the dashing cars on the highway. Meanwhile, up in the nearest highrise, Rove looks on, almost hoping his lackey on the highway gets hit by a car so he'll have some more mental fodder for his next round of self-abuse in the Oval Office bathroom.

Oh, that may seem like the sick imaginings of a liberal mind, but I betcha it's closer to the truth than any of us would like it to be.


Hope

The best thing about the DVD of The Hunting of the President is in the "extras," there's a lengthy speech by Clinton that he did after the premiere of the film. It is wonderful, because he puts the events into a perspective that is largely missing elsewhere. He points out that he brought most of this on himself, because he formed the "Independent Counsel" not because he had to, or the law provided for it, but because the press (and guess which part of the press) was calling for it. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong and naively thought would be proven innocent, not knowing they would use the opening to do anything they could to discredit him. Then, of course, there's the blowjob, which cinched things.

Beyond that though, he then says that we should be optimistic about the future. He's quite the historian and walks us through all the times in history like we find ourselves in now where the bad guys appear to be winning, and he even says we shouldn't categorize them as bad guys at all on the premise that they have a viewpoint they consider is the best for the nation. We need to talk on the level of the issues and policy, and to not vilify those we disagree with (as I did directly above), because then we're owned by them. When these times have occurred in the past, as long as the issues of liberty, civil rights, and a social safety net have been kept in the forefront, the American public has eventually landed on the side of the same.

Of course, being Clinton, he says it much better. Check it out, by all means.

Nobody Does Smackdown Like Garrison Keillor

I'm beginning to realize that perhaps Denver radio is way more debased than it might be elsewhere. In a small jaunt to the mountains this weekend, I found a station that had a beautiful eclectic mix that would become a constant companion could I get it down here in the foothills. So, I'll just take it on faith that radio elsewhere might actually be flourishing.

According to Garrison Keillor in the charming "Confessions of a Listener," there is hope. (Again, via Kottke.org)

Bummer. He's into the Koolaid.

Like many, I thoroughly enjoyed Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel which tries to answer the question: Why did (white) Europeans end up being the ones who spread out and dominated other societies? Why didn't China or Arabia, who were way ahead of the Europeans at one point? And just what's up with Africa, anyway? His conclusion, btw, is that the Fertile Crescent (remember that from history class?) contained the majority of the domesticatable animals and plants, and Europe's geography allowed the easy spread of the same, thus giving it a leg up. Good read.

But now there's this article from Mr. Diamond: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. (Via Kottke.org.)

Mr. Diamond thinks that agriculture was a bad, bad thing. See, it created inequality and disease. Well, sorry Jared, but inequality is simply part of the dance. Nothing humans did "caused" inequality. When I was a spindly teenager, the big jock my age would've still pushed me around whether we were in a high school hallway or out on the savanna hunting for dinner. Our finer instincts and societal agreements actually posit the idea that we treat everyone as equal in spite of the obvious, simply because it leads to a better quality of life for most of us.

Further, had we not stopped following the herds around, we wouldn't have built hospitals to deal with the diseases. And so on.

Part of the problem with shooting fish in a barrel is it ruins the barrel and wastes ammunition, so let's just stop there.

I hope that someday Mr. Diamond picks up Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where he posits that the original bad move was coming down from the trees in the first place. Maybe the much needed laugh will clear his head.

Mother, Jugs, and Speed

Netflix has got to be a moviemaker's dream because there's no downside to seeing risky, small, or old movies. I decided to revisit the first movie I assembled and projected when I became a projectionist: Mother, Jugs, and Speed. Because it marked my promotion to the lauded projectionists position (the highest achievable position in my little hometown theatre outside of manager), and because I liked the soundtrack at the time, it was a sentimental memory until now, and I wondered how it would hold up.

Well, my friends, it doth stinketh and the sands of time have been unkind, and not only to the print they used as the master for the DVD. I think this may be a quintessential 70s "B" comedy though.

The themesong is all about dancing up a sweat and about the gayest disco song I've ever heard. (There are those of the opinion that all disco is essentially a product of gay "culture." I do not share that blinkered, revisionist, yet oddly hopeful opinion.) There is absolutely no dancing in the movie whatsoever, so the inclusion of this song is inexplicable as the use of Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy" is for the spaghetti western My Name is Nobody which contains nary a star-spangled rodeo or any proximity to Broadway. It also contains the ubiquitous-at-the-time "Show Me the Way" by Peter Frampton, and a creaky ballad by Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas called "No Love Today." The rest of the soundtrack, though, was probably compiled or deeply influenced by Bill Cosby because it contains a lot of the Quincy Jones funk he's always been a booster for. So, outside of the disco abomination, the soundtrack (which you can no longer get, btw) was eclectic and fun in a goopy sort of way.

The plot centers around the rivalry between two private ambulance companies in the middle 70s. Bill Cosby ("Mother") is the best driver in the fleet and tends to mother people (hence...), Raquel Welch ("Jugs") is the secretary who secretly pines to be one of the drivers (the boss don't want no wimmin drivers), and Harvey Keitel ("Speed") is a temporarily suspended cop due to a trumped-up accusation of selling cocaine to kids. It's in the loose mold of M*A*S*H, where camaraderie and funny hijinx are the order of the day, intermixed with melodramatic tragedy. Unlike M*A*S*H, this botches the transition from one tone to the other so completely it's almost a study in how to do it wrong.

For starters, Raquel Welch is a spectacularly bad actress. I mean wow. Pretty as hell, but her line deliveries are so wooden that Dick Butkus in the obligatory sports star cameo that was the rage in 70s movies came off as the superior Thespian.

This was Keitel's only go at "romantic leading man" outside of the Jane Campion's sick little trods through lovesongs for the truly sick and demented, and that's a good thing. He's great as an gangster or even the moral cop, but he just hasn't got the warmth or charm for the central love interest guy.

Bill Cosby was charming as usual, and the movie was clearly a star vehicle for him, but apparently they weren't brave enough in the day to make him a romantic lead, thus consigning that to Welch and Keitel.

This movie makes it obvious why audiences responded so strongly to Star Wars, released the very next year, and greats like Jaws. If I remember correctly, Mother, Jugs, and Speed was pretty representational of what Hollywood churned out at the time. Your average modern TV drama, say "CSI," or comedy, say "Scrubs," or even a mix, say "Desperate Housewives" is much, much better than anything this movie had to offer.

See, some things are better than they were in the olden days.