Music Corner - Totally Terrible and Really Wrong

People ask me, since my music taste is as eclectic as it is and I tend to like about everything (except that foulness know as rap), what do I think is a BAD song?

Well, like the rest of the western world, "Feelings" is about as bad as it gets. Even "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" and "Run, Joey, Run" are opuses (opai?) unto themselves compared to "Feelings". Still, "Feelings" is a gimme.

Therefore, I present to you, the second suckiest song ever composed and recorded:

"A Cowboy's Work is Never Done", performed by Sonny and Cher. Penned and produced by Sonny for a 1972 album (which I believe my mom won at a Jaycees raffle or something).

(Note to RIAA: this example is at a low sample rate, and is taken from the original vinyl so it crackles more than a yoga session at the old folks home, so it sounds like crap. No one will burn this onto a CD, nor will any artist lose money over this - it may even spur someone to go buy it for all its terrible glory. Yet, if this is infringement of copyright and not "fair use" please don't sue me, just tell me to remove it.)

I was all set to tell you how obscure this song was, buried on side 2 of a minor album, and then I was going to defend Sonny who did write some great tunes and was a protege of Phil Spector (inventor of "the wall of sound"), but I discovered through a little research it was one of their hits! Dear Lord! To think they played this on the radio on purpose and that people actually thought, "Hey! Let's go buy that one! It rocks!" just astounds me. Evidently I don't need to defend Sonny.

But, heck, my mom would play the thing so we could all roll around laughing at lines like, "Ride! I usta jump my horse and ride!" (I was old enough to get the sad image of a poor horse being buggered by Sonny in a cheap variety show cowboy costume) and, "And I got shot, but I never died". Maybe everyone listened to it in that spirit. I dunno.

And there you have it.

Egregious political post #8 (or so), but it's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to.

So the Texas gerrymandering worked.

The California recall worked. They now have a popular actor as their new Governor puppet. (Grand total of neocon puppets in charge, if you're counting, is now 4: Texas, California, Florida, and the USA herself!) Said puppet has clearly done more womanizing than ole Billy, but did we hear a peep from the moral brigade? Of course not! This one's their puppet. (Though Bill was anything but someone's puppet, which I think was one of the things that pissed off the neocons. "What!? He doesn't have controllers out in the shadows? He's running it himself?! That's just wrong!)

Our president has achieved, in a scant couple years, a new depression, a (potential) Vietnam, and a scandal worse than Watergate (*cough* Plame *cough*).

Welcome to the third world my friends. Brought to you by Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, and Georgy "the puppet" W!

Calpundit spells out what their agenda is, just in case you were wondering. With an addition here.

Nietzsche was an asshole

Stephen King is writing a bi-monthly article for "Entertainment Weekly" and he recommended some authors recently, one being Peter Abrahams. Just finished Crying Wolf and enjoyed it immensely, though the ending was a little anticlimactic.

The best thing about the novel is the continual riffing and rippage on the evil bastard philosopher Nietzsche. Dying insane and riddled with syphilis was too good for that son of a bitch, if you ask me.

Abrahams creates an interesting dynamic by presenting a Nietzscheian superman (the evil character of the book, natch) who's contrasted by a college professor who's enamored of Nietzsche. This misguided, prissy prof. foists his crap on clean, young minds using the standard lies that Nietzsche was a "free thinker" who was unencumbered with our stale notions of morality while the bad buy lives the nightmare. (My theory about Nietzsche is that he was so putrid that he was driven by the sole need to improve his impoverished sex life; thus, he sought to expand his potential mating pool by convincing others that screwing anyone was fair game. In short, he was the Pauly "the weasel" Shore of his day.)

However, all the characters with a little savvy expose him for the gumball machine diamond ring he was:

"Nietzsche didn't mind a little rudeness, did he, Leo?" said Mr. Zorn.

"He was rather correct in his personal dealing, in fact," said Professor [Leo] Uzig. "Excluding the period of his madness, of course."

"Let's exclude Lizzie Borden's one bad day while we're at it," said Mr. Zorn.

It's nice seeing Nietzsche upended like the bucket of turds he was.

Halloween

Ah, the season of Halloween has arrived! Halloween is a holiday where no one expects presents, cards, a meal, an invitation, or a big freakin TV sports game of some sort. Nope, everyone just wants to put on a costume, get a piece of candy, and perhaps attend a great party. Now THAT'S a holiday. The only way it could be improved upon is by adding in some Mardi Gras-like gratuitous nudity.

Because Halloween is my family's favorite holiday, we start planning our costumes in August, and put up the decorations October 1st. (I sit amongst pumpkins and skulls and bats - oh my! - as I type this.) This year, my wife and I are going as an electrical socket and a plug, respectively. Our daughter is going as a princess.

One year, my (then future) wife and I went as the 7-up dots. Remember them? They would detach from the red dot on the can, with little wayfarers and white gloves, and run around squeaking whilst making mischief, and were probably abandoned as product mascots because they are so similar to the M&M guys.


Before the party (shown here), we stopped at a bar nearby for a beer, which happened to be a sports bar. Because I am missing the competitive sports gene entirely, we had no idea that there was a game on with our most bitter rival (assuming you give a flying star-spangle fuck about such things), Nebraska. Nebraska's team color is red. People acted as though we had walked in and insulted everyone's mother, peed on the floor, beat their dog, stole their Bible, and then shouted "vote Democrat!" The bartender ignored me until I finally yelled over for a beer. She looked at me with a scowl and hesitated as though she wasn't going to serve me. When she did, she gave me a stunning variety of dirty looks, didn't say a word, and didn't even touch the money I put on the bar until I walked away. When we got to the party and told them about our trip to the twilight zone, they clued us in about the game and such. Still, though, what a weird subculture sports nuts are, getting all pissy about the colors on someone's costume on Halloween, for crying out loud.


Back in college, I went as a werewolf once.


I did it just like they did for the old movies; I glued it on layer by layer. However, I did not follow the instructions to put cold cream on my face first (as I hadn't read that until it was too late), and when I came home later from the bar, blasted off my canine gourd, I had the joy of ripping the hair off my face and literally sanding the glue off. Thank God I was so wasted or it would've hurt like hell. It was wild, though; No one recognized me. It's thrilling and chilling to walk up to someone you know well, and be able to tell that they have no glimmer of recognition in their eyes. You'd think that simple recognition wouldn't be such a blatant facial expression. The best costume at the bar that night was this bunch of guys who had attached eight ski boots to one set of skis, and all four of them trooped around all night together as the "Norwegian Ski Team." Going to the bathroom must've been interesting for them.

The best costume I ever wore, though, was a cake donut.

Simulation Only

I hadn't expected to get off work in time from the movie theater to go to the party, so I didn't have a costume. There was a bakery on the way to the party, so I got a cake donut, hung it around my neck, and went as an asshole. It was a total success. Everyone had a built-in joke. Also, it was the anthro dept.'s party, so everyone else there was dressed as Jesus (there were four, one carrying a life-sized cross), Moses (three, one with a tablet with profane commandments), or a nun (five, if I recall). I got away with calling everyone a bunch of assholes, getting a big laugh rather than a belt in the face.

I love Halloween.

New Genre Alert. Category: Music

Flying so low under the radar that only the most obsessive music sluts (like myownself) have detected it, is a new music genre known as "chillout" music. It's essentially jazz, classical, and other low-key instrumental music purposely intended to be background music - sorta like muzak with some cachet - or the old chestnut PBS radio show "Hearts of Space" with a rhythm track. Classical and jazz purists might spray blood from their eyeballs in apoplexy upon their first encounter with chillout mixes because this is an offshoot of modern sampled, looped and spliced drums, with licks and phrases mixed and hashed all together - for sheer ambiance or effect more so than musical purity.

Yet, it does make an excellent background soundscape for working or a mellow party.

A search on CDuniverse.com or Amazon.com for the terms "chillout" or "after hours" will pull up a bunch.

I can personally recommend these two:

-- classical chillout

-- the very best of AfterHours

Check it out, mang.

Enron, the sequel

Here in Colorado, we are getting gamed by an energy utility the same way that California got gamed by Enron.

In a nutshell, Xcel Energy has completed the construction of a new pipeline that allows them to divert natural gas from Colorado to California. Since they can make more money from the gas in California, they are sending a lot there. This creates a shortage and a competitor for the gas here in Colorado, so they are increasing the price of our natural gas 73% (and that's just for residential, with commercial getting an 84% gouge), making our prices roughly equivalent to what they charge Californians. That means, in dollars, that someone in Colorado who paid $64 a month last year will pay around $110 a month this year. So, we get the onus of California's rates without the benefit of their economy. Rapture.

Don'cha love big energy business and deregulation, especially when the energy boys run the country?

Here are a couple articles about it (if you care). (I love the spin on the title of the second one, "cost of coziness". Shit, as if we need heat to be merely cozy as opposed to NOT DYING.)

- Xcel's 73% heat-bill hike approved
- Cost of coziness could be worse

Layoffs have hit Colorado pretty hard, too. For instance, on my block alone, 9 people have been laid off in the past year, most of them in the past 4 months. Of a total of 30 people available to work (and this includes the stay-at-home moms), 9 have lost their jobs, making it roughly 1 out of every 3 people on my block alone have lost their jobs just this year. That's obscene.

And, so, we are being gamed by an energy company in the midst of the depression. Fuckers.

For many years, when I've had enough scotch at a party, I howled into the wind about how the neocon's most basic goal is to convert the USA into Mexico. I didn't think they'd get this far this fast.

At least we finally have proof (and it was just a matter of time with this bunch) of a political scandal that may help to bring this administration down. I direct you, as a starting point, to Andrew's (the Poor Man) hilarious post (it's precious!), from which you can surf around for other blogs and news about what will probably get monikered "spygate" at some point. (And I couldn't be happier that it's our own private Machiavelli, Karl Rove, who is probably the perpetrator of the crime. And a felony no less! (Funny how perpetrator almost includes the word "traitor".))
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Update: Folks, check out the comments for corrections to some of my suppositions here. (Thanks everyone!)

A long time ago, on an amp far, far away...

Bopping around town the other day, one of my favorite guitar solos came on, and for a moment I'm sure I was more dangerous to my fellow drivers than an inebriated executive on a cell phone in the midst of changing a CD in a school zone. Good solos tend to distract me. That gave me the idea to mine my collection for ya.

I've collected a herd (get it? "heard" - *ahem*, anyway...) of some great ones. [Click the titles for the solos. Or if things don't work, in MS Windows right click and select "save as..."; on a Mac, hold button down and save it; on Linux, I won't insult you with instructions.]

"When I look at the World" - solo by The Edge (aka Dave Evans) of U2. Doesn't it sound like fireworks riding into the sky and detonating? The Edge is underrated as a guitarist because what he does is so simple. Guitar mavericks often say "anyone can do what he does," yet I've yet to hear someone who makes good on that boast.

"Sentimental Hygiene" - Neil Young straps one on for Warren Zevon's chunky hit. This is just one of the two great solos Neil hammers out for the excitable boy, may he rest in peace.

"Breakdown Dead Ahead" - This is where I get into trouble with the true believers of rock and roll. "Boz Scaggs!?!?" they'd say in mock horror, "What have you been smoking and why aren't you passing it around? Isn't Scaggs that guy who sounds like Kermit the Frog on 'We're All Alone'? How lame!" Well, yeah, Boz did channel Kermit for the first couple bars, but man, Steve Lukather (renowned studio musician) just snorts off a nasty one here, don't he?

"Sausalito Summernight" - from Danish one hit wonder Diesel. This was one of those impossible to find singles until a couple years ago. Don't you wish you could play guitar like that?

"Things Change" - Dwight Yoakam's silent partner, in only a figurative sense, is Pete Anderson. Pete has produced all of Dwight's albums, is often the co-writer of his songs, and is his main guitarist on top of it all. Take the pressure off, Pete.

"Peach" - Prince gets all Jimi here. The tune is essentially a frame for guitar solos (three!) and breast metaphors. In other words, bouncy perfection.

"Up in Arms" - Foo Fighters. That's Dave Grohl, former drummer of Nirvana, smokin' the frets (all too briefly) there (AND doing the vocals). To think one guy is this talented just makes my fillings ache. (In case you were wondering, he simply is the best freakin' drummer still working today, only threatened by the drummer he hired for the Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins.)

"Nada" - The Refreshments (specifically guitarist Brian David Blush) from their album "Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy", which to me is one of the great unsung rock albums of all time. The whole thing is a raft of great tunes, with phenomenal guitar work - as you can tell from this clip. The band broke up after their second album, which was a dark day in the Yahmdallah household. The wife let me sit out on the deck and gaze into the distance as the sun set, contemplating that "sun-cracked, coal-black soul of mine" (a refrain from "Nada") and the sadness of losing one of my favoritist bands.

Hey kids, rock and roll, rock on.

Reason number 57,387 why I love that woman:

Came back from running errands the other day, and my wife was introducing our daughter to that classic of felonious parenthood Raising Arizona as part of our ongoing effort to fan the flames of one of the most important components for having a happy life - a good sense of humor. There are so many things to love about that movie, but this is one of the better ones: It shows how very much we love our babies.

Reason number 666.2 why some Christian fundies shouldn't even be allowed to drive:

Crap like this. (Via Mark Shea.)

Their basic premise is this: These musicians aren't really Christians, even though the musicians themselves claim they are, because they aren't as perfect as Jesus and don't even try to be, therefore they are not good enough, neener neener.

You really can't get the message of Christ any more backwards than that.

(For those of you in the cheap seats: None of us are good enough because we all sin, therefore we are made good enough, that is forgiven of those sins, through belief in Christ and what he did for us. It's not a goal; it's a gift.)

Movie killers

Ever noticed how some actors and actresses always bring up the level of a movie by merely being in them? The short list includes Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, and M. Emmet Walsh. (Yes, M. Emmet Walsh. Check it out. If he's in a movie, it's good.) I could spend a lot of keyboard mileage debating with myself whether their skills as a performer create this magical aura or if they just tend to know which scripts are for them, have something they can work with, but I won't. Partially because I haven't really thought that hard about it yet, but mostly because I can't muster much of a damn over the fact. It's just a fact, let's move on.

I say this only to point out that I've discovered the antimatter, the dark side, version of this phenomenon. By name, he's Dennis Quaid. What's odd about this is that he's actually a decent actor. He was great in both The Right Stuff and The Big Easy. Yet, nearly every other movie he's been in has either been a turkey in its own right, or he has made it somewhat less than the sum of its parts. Boring. Arid. I dunno. Odd, ain't it?

You got any antimatter/black hole actors/actresses that just suck the life out of a film?

A rare event

For the first time in over half a year I heard a song on the radio that I liked, and would buy if I had the money. There was a time where I had this experience at least twice a week. I read an interview in this week's "EW" with Dave Matthews, Pink, and Outkast, (which was great btw) and they all carped about the same thing. We turn on the radio, surf for about a half hour for something, anything, that will make us want to stay, then we pop in our newest mix CD. If major label artists are bitching about the same thing I am, let's call it A CLUE. And the record labels wonder why no one's buying.

I went out to iTunes to get the song because I can afford 99 cents, actually, but they don't really have a good run-down of actually how things are charged before you download their application and sign up - or at least I couldn't find it. Web designers: if a customer cannot find exactly how much something will cost in under five pages, then you've lost half of your potential customers. Fix it, please.

Oh, and online CD sales guys, like Amazon and CDUniverse, please put up samples of the songs of new releases when they're actually released and for sale. That's kinda the whole point, just in case you were wondering.

Big nasty fuckin' spider

My computer is in the basement, and the other day on the way to a potty break from reading blogs, as I bopped past the sunken window well, I registered a bug clasping the screen on the window. My early alarm systems posted "Spider!" on my fight-or-flight nerve web, but the higher brain overruled with calm reason, offering that it was probably a grasshopper because the creature was simply too large to be a spider, so I didn't even break stride. However, the reptilian brain spoke up and said, "you'd better believe that's A BIG FUCKING SPIDER! MY GOD!! LOOK AT THAT MONSTER!!!" So I did.

I don't know about you guys, but when I encounter something truly spectacular in a negative sense, my brain attempts to recoil, thereby prolonging the agony as I have to re-grasp the terribleness over and over again a few times until it sinks in that it really is as horrid as it appears, such as when I encounter a truly ugly person (so ugly they fit Moms Mabley's description of, "so ugly, it hurt my feelings"), a large, complex puddle of vomit, or a REALLY BIG FUCKING SPIDER. So, I froze there, waves of goosebumps echoing around the surface of my skin as if it were a proof of concept demonstration that the epidermis is the largest organ of the body.

I thought briefly of taking a photo of it and posting it here, but that would've meant that I would've had to tape something to the window to give you an idea of the scale of this monster, which most likely would have resulted in my wife discovering my cooling corpse in the basement, a look of horror molded onto my face ala The Ring, scotch tape in one hand, a quarter clutched in the other (the coin I would have used for scale comparison), spider gone as the thump of my body hitting the floor would have startled it away, so she would have to wonder for the rest of her days what I had been doing, why it killed me, and why I needed tape and twenty-five cents.

To give you an idea of its size though, if you were to place a computer floppy on the thing, all of its legs would've extended a solid inch or two, depending on the leg, beyond the perimeter. The fangs would've been just visible on one side, and the two weird stubs that hang off the back of the abdomen's web excretor would've been visible on the other side. It was one of those sinister sporty spiders, all sleek with the legs held to the front and back for optimum leaping and dashing ability, as opposed to the economy spiders who hold their legs in a circular configuration, best for gripping a web. The quarter I would've taped to the window were I a braver man would've looked like an M&M next to a Hotwheel Camaro.

I stepped into the other room and had a total cluster attack of the fantods. I went and sat again at the computer, planning my course of action. I simply wanted to read some more, have another cup of coffee, and so I decided to relax and do just that. However, my lizard brain kept whispering things like, "what if it's not there later when you go to get it?", "what if it's outside the window well and it jumps on your leg?", "what if it crawls up the side of the house and falls on you while you're looking down in the window well?", and finally, "what if it gets inside?" Well, fuck.

I go into the garage for a really big, really long stick. Then I remember I have a can of spider killer spray up on the ledge out there; I won't have to even get close! I have another moment of anxiety as I imagine another spider perversely clinging to the other side of the can way up there where I can't see it. I spastically grab the can in order to dislodge any nasties, real or imagined, and head over to the window well, which is at the top of a steep incline covered in landscaping rock, surrounded by long wild grass we've neglected to pull. I imagine the look on my face as I climbed the sliding rock was quite comical.

It was still there on the screen, so I blasted it. I totally coated the thing, turning it from gray to completely Christmas tree frocking white. It slowly turned and began climbing up the screen, the thick layer of poison not even making it falter or slip. (That fact that anything which weighs as much as a mouse can casually stroll up a sheer vertical of glass is just wrong.)

I ran to get a big stick! Images of its yellow fangs gave me another fit of the fantods as I scooted down the rocks. The thing was a dull, moldy gray, but its freaking HUGE fangs were poisonously yellow! Dear God!

Back with my stick, I whacked it a good one. It dropped to the bottom of the window well, and I leaned over and went after it.

Here, boys and girls, is the reason I have told you this whole horrid story: I reached down with the point, placing it on its stomach segment to crush the dreadful bastard, and it started grasping wildly at the stick for purchase. The thing was so huge, the thrumming of its legs traveled up the stick; I could feel it!! I can't really be sure, because at that moment the tape head that records my memories was completely out of contact with the tape so my brain wouldn't have to go to the effort of repressing the memory later, but I bet at that moment I let loose a strangled, multi-octave, "GAAHHHH!" and impaled the beast. It stopped struggling, but I hammered the thing flat, pushed it between the rocks, covered it with one, and pushed hard on the entombing rock for good measure.

I hope it's dead.

Where the Boys Are - and the Girls, too!
or
Artfest!

My town had the annual artfest recently (an event which I heartily recommend for every single town in the nation), and it is one of the highlights of the year for my family. Artists and artisans set up their tents, local eateries put out booths and double their prices, and the town rents the a cappella group du jour for the weekend. There's a guy on stilts who takes care to dress as a cowboy and not a clown (our current age's scariest archetype), since freaked-out frightened little kids tend to automatically strike out at scary things within reach, a real hazard to stilt-wearers. Someone makes balloon animals. Once, they had a roving magician, but I think he made the jewelry artists nervous since he could clearly palm anything; I've not seen him since. The local Birds of Prey rescue mission shows up and displays the eagles and hawks they're nursing back to health after prying them off someone's fender or grill. The police show up and do their K-9 unit demonstration (which makes the artists who indulge in chemically enhanced inspiration a little edgy). They sell nice T-shirts. And, of course, there's beer for $5 a glass.

It occurred to me as I was perpetuating my endorphin rush by wandering from tent to tent, that artisans are the real artists anymore. Official, academically-sanctioned art is so pretentious, formless, and generally awful that no one outside of that particular circle of artists likes it, takes it seriously, or really pays any attention to the latest "found art" refuse sculpture or abstract smear of pigments intended to wake us up from our bourgeois trance. (Most twenty-year-olds who indulge in this illusion haven't even lost their mental baby fat, and yet they are supposed to shake the rest of us from our supposed daze. Like, puh-leeze, dude.)

Michael Blowhard once asked me via email about what I do out in the wasteland of Colorado to experience art since I moved from the art mecca of Minneapolis/St. Paul (though these are not his phrasings or implications, he's too polite for that, but is the basic gist). Well, for me, artisan fairs are the answer.

My two favorite artists whom I encountered this year are Bill Amundson and Padgett McFeely.

This is an example of Bill Amundson's drawings, and his site is here.


Amundson told me a great story when I chuckled at this particular drawing. And I paraphrase: "Yeah, that happens to be my most popular commission subject. Everyone wants me to put logos and stuff on tits. I say 'tits' by the way, even though it embarrasses me, because my girlfriend said that 'breasts' really belong to women - its such a serious grown-up word - but 'tits' belong to the world. So, she says I need to call them 'tits'. This one lady had me make one with tractors on the tits for her dad, because he likes tractors, and well, tits, of course. I think I've put every logo there is on tits..."

Naturally, he's a hoot.

Here is one of Padgett McFeely's hand-tinted photographs, and her site is here.


"Mountain Melody"

I wish I could retell her stories about where and how she found some subjects, and how she re-envisioned them, but those were mostly great in the telling, and I just can't do them justice.

However, both of these artists post their scheduled shows on their sites, so go find them yourself and hear their stories first hand.
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As an added bonus, check out this great essay by the Blowhards regarding art and stuff.

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Afterthought: Now I know that slamming mainstream/academic art and then posting a drawing of boobs (sorry Bill, I like "boobs" better) and a tinted photo is kinda cutting myself off at the knees, as they aren't "high art". I don't think the artists who produced those works would call them high art either - but they are art, regardless of their relative stature in the larger wash of things. It's just that art should contain the high and the low and everything in between. Here's the inbetween. And they pass my test: I would hang them on the wall with pride if I could afford them. So there.

Why Star Trek SUCKS when Capt. Kirk isn't at the helm.

Was pleased to run across the DVD set of the complete fifth season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" at the library. Snag-a-roo!

Spent the rest of the week remembering why I eventually abandoned the series with extreme ambivalence. Gad what a frustrating experience STTNG is. It's Star Trek, dammit. But it's boring and grindingly politically correct, dammit anyway.

The main culprit is mediocre writing (you can often reverse engineer the story conference for an episode* [see below]), but the blah writing is always exacerbated by clunky direction and pacing. As I had suspected when riding out another vast swath of commercials during the original broadcasts, each episode clocks in at 45 minutes, including the title and credit sequences. Taking 3 to 4 minutes off for that, we have only 40 minutes of show. Then, each and every cursed (pronounce that with a long "ed") episode has a good 5 to 10 minutes of bullshit character development - that serves nada towards said character development.

I don't know how many times a scene starts with someone cutting flowers in their quarters, playing the trombone/clarinet, reading a book, masturbating, etc., and we have to wade through their cute moment before something to do with the actual plot happens. Y'know, when Spock was playing his hippie dulcimer-harp in the rec room, it was interesting because we didn't think an emotionless person would like music. But when we see Riker tooting on a trombone, no one gives a flying warp speed fuck. It's not surprising or informative that he plays the trombone, it's dull.

Even the way trivial dialogue is delivered (meaning they're not on the bridge dealing with aliens with bad facial prosthesis) and edited fills me with entropy. It typically goes like this:
- One character speaks, then mugs for the camera
- Cut to the other character looking at them; pause; we see them absorb the other's dialogue, formulate their own
- They then speak their dialogue, mug
- Cut to other character looking at them; repeat
(This is what typically happens when you let actors direct, btw.)

Since the running time of most episodes is only 40 minutes, this crap pads each by about another 5 to 7 minutes, so we are officially down to about a basic half hour of action and plot spread over a life-wasting hour. It's kinda like that joke Woody Allen uses in Annie Hall to explain his view of life: two women are at a cheap resort in the Catskills having a meal when one says to the other, "the food here is terrible," to which the other adds, "I know, and such small portions."

*- "The Perfect Mate" - story conference idea: Q: what would be the perfect woman? A: someone who liked what I liked and thought I was totally cool. (Another possible sci: "You brought her, you fuck her.") ((Though, Famke Janssen in the role goes a long way towards achieving the perfect woman groove. Good Lord, that woman's a mondo-uber-hottie! (Alien estrus spots notwithstanding.) She joins my "Friends" inspired list of Celebrities My Spouse Would Let Me Do, alongside Kimberly Williams and Kate Hudson.))
- "I, Borg" - sci: what if a borg, used to a collective, was all alone?
- "Ensign Ro" - sci: if the Klingons represent(ed) the Russians, what kind of character would represent Arabs?
- "Darmok" - sci: y'know how we pitch stories, "it's kinda like "Altered States" meets "Lethal Weapon" (), what if a race really talked like that all the time?
- "The Game" - sci: you guys really need to quit playing "Doom" and work on those scripts.
And so on.

I have also complained in the past (if you're paying attention and bless you if you are) about the dearth of sex in most post-classic Star Treks. Well, in season five, Troi boffs the leader of the Eugenics society they save from a neutron. Riker boffs Troi, Ro, an androgynous character who supposedly doesn't even possess genitalia, and a few nameless wrinkly faced alien chicks. Picard most likely boffs the "Perfect Mate", the "Metamorph" empath babe who's literally born solely to please men. So, seems there is a lot of woogy woogy taking place, but everyone seems to regret it except Riker. I still prefer Capt. Kirk - and even Bones (and Spock if only he didn't go into heat just every seven years) - indulging in a little space nooky, then unashamedly showering off and moving on to blow more shit up.

Now, the Borg were a great creation, and Data was a wonderful character, but that's about where it begins and ends for STTNG. Oh, and what red-blooded guy didn't want to do Troi at one point or another?

One final thought ... the compression used on the DVDs had this odd artifact/effect where if any of the characters were sitting with their head very still, their features would float on their head, because the compression would keep the surrounding frame of the sides and back of their head still, but let all of their features move as a unit, particularly with Capt. Picard. It's totally freaky. I surprised they let this pricey collection out of the gate with such a blatant flaw.

In the Bedroom
partial review

<Channeling Sam Kinison> OOOOOOH! OH! OOOOOOOOOOOOOHH!
IT SUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED! I WOULD RATHER DIE SOBER IN A HAIL OF BEER CANS ON AN ABANDONED HIGHWAY ESCAPING MEMORIES OF MAKING A VIDEO WITH JESSICA HAHN THAN WATCH ANOTHER ARTHOUSE TURKEY LIKE THAT! OOOOOOOOOOOH! </Channeling Sam Kinison>

Yet another pretentious, glacially paced, overly long art film with inexplicable Oscar nominations up the butt. This is some folks idea of the perfect "serious film". Bullshit. It's the perfect bad film.

Let me give you an example. The plot (all 5 minutes of screen time that it gets out of the total 140) is this college boy home from school is boffing an older woman who has kids and eventually her estranged husband puts a bullet through his eye. The remainder of the film is his parents dealing with this. Here is one of those scenes:

- 10 seconds of black screen and silence.
- We fade up slowly on the mom (Sissy Spacek) sitting watching some talk show. We watch her watch the TV for approximately 90 seconds of screen time (I watched the time readout on the DVD player for these timings).
- The dad (Tom Wilkinson) walks in with a teapot and offers to pour her a cup, which she accepts, so he does, taking 60 seconds of screen time.
- The dad sits down to watch the TV, too. We watch the both of them watch TV for approximately 100 seconds of screen time.
- We fade out slowly, for about 15 seconds, to sit through another 10 seconds of black screen and silence.

Total wasted time: 4 Minutes, 55 seconds, and let's just round it up to 5 minutes to be that way.

That is just one vignette out of 7 in a row like that. The movie is wall to wall with scenes like that. The movie even ends with a series of scenes like that. Why in the hell does anyone make a movie like that?

Just in case anyone needs reminding:

George Bush did not win the popular vote, and perhaps wouldn't have even won enough votes in the Electoral College had the vote been allowed to continue to legitimate resolution, but the Supreme Court, stacked with cronies, halted the election and installed Georgy..

After we were attacked by Middle Eastern terrorists, George rightly attacked the country that gave refuge to the group, but we don't know if we got the leader. It's even come out that our intelligence agencies knew of the possibility of the attack, but it was ignored at higher levels.

Using this terrorist attack, George Bush then attempted to justify a war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein by saying they had weapons of mass destruction and had aided the terrorists. So far, neither seems to be true. It's good to be rid of Saddam, but the means perhaps weren't justifiable. It is more likely that Saudi Arabians were behind the financing and planning of the terrorist attacks, but the Bush family and most of the oil families are tight with the Saudis, so aggression against them, whether it's justified or not, is unlikely.

Americans have lost more civil rights though this administration through John Ashcroft's PATRIOT Act than we have in all of our nation's previous history. This is the single largest attack on our civil rights since Ronald and Nancy Reagan's drug war, with its introduction of civil asset forfeiture - taking the accused's money and belongings before guilt has been established. Essentially, the PATRIOT Act completes the nullification of our Constitution begun by the drug war. In case you missed the fine print, Feds can now come into your house when you're not home, go through everything there, not tell you they did this, and they get permission to do this from a closed court that has no public accountability. The same goes for phone taps, internet access taps, and complete access to all of your financial accounts.

Tom DeLay has been the mastermind behind the possibly illegal, and certainly unrepresentational, gerrymandering in Colorado and Texas to guarantee Republican seats in the Capitol. He was also behind the California recall fiasco which will most likely result in the installation of another actor/puppet and neocon rubber stamp into the Governor's office.

George Bush has led our country into the worst depression ever since the Great Depression of the '20s and '30s - a verifiable fact. Jimmy Carter's recession was nothing compared to the economic trouble our nation faces today. There's even cause for suspicion that the Bush administration and the puppeteers behind it actually want our nation to be in a depression as some sort of "wage adjustment" with the added benefits of union busting. ("Look! We're losing our jobs overseas to cheaper workers! Make it cheap here and the jobs will stay!")

On top of all this, some of our news operations now blatantly and unapologetically lie to us, and then try to sue citizens who point this out, as Fox news did recently to Al Franken - just search google on his name. News organizations are supposed to be upholding free speech, not suppressing it. Reuters is often caught lying, as in this mind-stabbing example (on yourish.com via Andrea Harris).

Total full-goose bozo wingnut Ann Coulter's latest effort has been to "save the legacy and reputation" of Joe McCarthy - of the infamous McCarthyism period (so infamous your spell-checker knows the term). When she froths about it on the Rushclone talk shows, they just smile and ask, "Really Ann? Joe McCarthy? Isn't that even far out for you?" And when she says, "No, he was a great man," they just smile, say "OK," and go to commercial.

Even my father-in-law, a lifelong Republican, has finally realized the above and how bad things are. He began a "did you know about this?" diatribe yesterday, and my wife and I felt vindicated that someone who should be firmly and warmly ensconced in the excrement of delusion offered by the administration and the far right's spin doctors is suddenly alarmed by the facts. He even went so far as to explain the original, real meaning of fascism and how fascism rises only from a nation that was democratic, but had been whipped into a nationalistic frenzy and then allowed the many small changes which add up to the creation of a fascist state. A lifelong Republican said this.

We are in some deep shit folks. No doubt about it. It can happen here.

The Game of Love
or
Cat's in the Cradle

Went out to celebrate the birth of one of our friends on the block, her 40th I'm told (but didn't ask), so it was bittersweet and fun. As we walked from the restaurant to the club for some dancing, a whole horse carriage of drunken twentysomething girls clopped past, and they, for some reason, were celebrating Mardi Gras, in September, in the middle of downtown Denver no less. Some people actually had beads, and these girls would flash their boobs to get a string, as the tradition goes. A comedian I saw called this phenomenon "breasts in the wild", in that these aren't your wife's boobs which, though still wonderful and enticing, aren't the same as getting a glimpse of a stranger's boobs. (Yes, yes, men are freaks.) The comedian said this was like God saying, "Have a Nice Day!" My wife, to this day, will point out a breast in the wild if she notices I haven't noticed, bless her heart.

Yet, even with unexpected gratuitous live nudity, the highlight of the evening for me was when our daughter got to ride in the limo they rented for the night, before all us adults blasted off to an urban evening. We had to go pick up some friends in another cul-de-sac, so all the kids piled in and we went. The look on her face, that wondrous shy and slightly-stunned-with-the-novelty demeanor, and being there for another first experience were like soul candy.

That's what being a parent does to you.

This morning, she got up and got herself ready for school all by herself, and she's going to be seven in just over a month. Recently, she's begun to keep a diary. A freakin' diary! At six! Can you imagine reading a diary you kept at six? She's made my wife and me solemnly promise we won't read it. We got her one with a little lock on it, and she's thrilled. I can't believe how fast this time is going. Joni Mitchell says eventually you "drag your heels to slow the circles down". Hell, I would toss out an anchor if I could.

I wish that I had kept a blog from the time before my daughter was born so I'd have it all recorded, and some written memories to go back to and reminisce. Yes, we have the videos and the pictures, but the words would be nice to have, too.

James Lileks does have that, and it's wild to read and see the changes a child brings. Even as a vicarious experience, it's compelling. I've read Lileks pretty much since he put up his site (I think I found it when it was three months old, back when he could reasonably respond to his email), and from the time he announced he was going to be a dad, it was one of the more enjoyable reading experiences I've had. Here is the post where his daughter is born: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/00/0800/080200.html
Read through some of the posts before and after. You'll probably not encounter a better depiction of the dawning of a new life anywhere else.

And, hey, it gets even better. Dooce, aka Heather Armstrong, is pregnant right now with her first child. If you want to have the experience "live" as I did reading Lilek's wonderful posts, add Dooce to your bookmarks. On top of it all, she's probably one of the most hilarious bloggers out there. It's always fun reading a new parent trying to describe one of the most moving and life changing events we can experience as humans (outside of seeing Star Wars for the first time, of course), and Heather's even treating us to weekly tummy pics. (Note to self: make sure you read her husband Jon's blog for the new daddy perspective.)

Here's to life on this momentous day!

The Book of Light by Michelle Blake
"Hated it."

Michelle Blake's The Book of Light is a grueling read, in my opinion. It belongs to that odd genre of fiction brought to us by "gender feminism" (Christina Hoff Sommer's term), that vaguely man-hating, quasi-poisonous narrative, where the main character is a snarky, bitter woman who can barely stand her boyfriend, and would probably rather be a lesbian, but "just likes a stiff one once in a while" as a real-life woman friend of mine once put it. Their general view of life is soured; everything is ugly and it smells badly; everyone's damaged, particularly men, but it's all made a little better by eccentric women that the rest of us typically cross the street to avoid conversing with. Other writers in the genre are Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin, Terry McMillan, and Anne Tyler.

As with all fiction, there is some reality woven into the fabric of this story, and since I've read more than one author who writes about the world in this way, there must really be women out there who wander around with this sour point of view all the time. (And a few men, come to think of it. Jonathan Franzen of The Corrections - official killer of the Oprah Book Club fame - also fits into this "malaise genre".) I feel pity for those who are cursed with such a curdled view of the world. Everyday must just be another variant of misery. Some days you wake up as a giant cockroach in Prague, some days you don't, but everything still sucks. Bleh.

In The Book of Light, Lily Connor is an Episcopalian priest who gets involved in mysterious circumstances. There is no actual mystery, even though the genre label on the cover says it's one. The whole "mystery" is centered around a document that's supposed to be an unedited, earlier version of the "Q" document. It's clear through the whole novel that it's authentic (in the story), so there's no freakin' mystery. And we never find out what happens to the few people who end up missing at the conclusion. (So, OK, that part's a mystery.)

TLD: The thumbnail story behind the "Q" document is that some "scholars" have proposed there was a document that a couple of the Gospel writers cribbed from, because the two Gospels have so many sayings of Christ that are similar. Thus, the typically unstated premise behind the "Q" document is that the Gospels are just myth, meaning pure bullshit, so the only way they could have so much in common is if they used a common source document - plagiarism essentially. That source document is labeled "Q", for reasons I've forgotten. Of course, this whistles through the graveyard of the idea that the Gospels have a lot in common because the authors were reporting ACTUAL EVENTS. Here's a fact: when eyewitnesses describe an event, their stories have a lot in common with each other. Thus, when someone buys into the concept of their being a "Q" document as it's offered by the scholars who invented the concept, they are also buying into the idea that the Gospels are fiction. It goes without saying there may have been little bullet list collections of the sayings of Christ, but the "Q" document folks insist that such a list invalidates the Gospels as independent accounts of the events.

Besides the fact that there's no mystery in the mystery, the narrative is tedious, partially because of the sour viewpoint as descried above, but mainly because every time we encounter a female character, we are given a detailed list of what she's wearing. Every time anyone eats, we are given the complete menu, sometimes even the order in which they ate it! It's like a really skewed result of Hemingway's bad writing advice, like "always describe the weather." Look, only Hemingway could write like Hemingway, so his writing advice is useless to everyone else. If an editor were to cut out all the descriptions of food, clothing, and the dialogues that have no relation to the plot from The Book of Light, it would be a short story. And a boring one at that.

Here're a couple excerpts as examples of what I mean:

"He wears a white dress shirt with the sleeves buttoned at both wrists. The detail makes Lily feel sorry for him, so she tries not only to listen but also to empathize, but she's having a hard time doing either."

"Recently, Lily has been growing tired of the monastery chants and voices -- so precise and precious and a little feeble. So male, she thinks, although not bass male, tenor male. Today the whole service feels especially closed down, and she wonders why she bothered to come."

So, the book sucks. I was even going to post a review on Amazon saying pretty much that, but of the three books she's written, there are only about a dozen customer reviews between them. I know most authors check out Amazon regularly, so I just didn't have the heart to go poop on her parade. And I doubt she'll ever find this blog. And if she does, I'll prolly hear from her.

(P.S. Why is it easier to write a bad review rather than a good one? And why is it more fun?)
__________________

That said, besides being the epitome of a bad read, there was this bombshell in amongst the tedium and thread counts of fabric:

[Lily says,] "Let's just say...Let's just say I'm beginning to see the gospels in a new light"
"What light would that be?" he asks.
"I don't know," she says. "Maybe I'm beginning to believe they're true."

So, our main character, Lily (eye-rolling symbolism, that), is an Episcopalian priest who doesn't believe that the Gospels are true. Y'know, it's one thing to have a detective who's not really a detective, or a gal that isn't really even a gal (The Crying Game), but a priest who doesn't believe? What the Spong is up with that shit?

Note to pastors, preachers, priests (nuns), and clerics everywhere: If you think the Gospels aren't true, find yourself another fucking job, you leach! Read any part of the oeuvre of Job Bob Briggs where he waxes rhapsodic on having to explain things that are obvious! If yer gonna be a carpenter, you gotta have a hammer! If yer gonna be a flight attendant, you gotta be able to say "buh-bye!" If you're going to be a leader in the faith of Christianity, YOU'VE GOT TO BELIEVE, BABY!

Aren't editors supposed to point this kind of shit out?

Save the Children

A neighbor lent us a teen magazine that had an article about how casual (some) teens of the current generation are about oral sex. It does seem as though this is some sort of fad, in addition to kids - mostly girls - being encouraged to try same gender sex even if they have no firm personal opinion on their being actually gay or not. (The girl whose mag we borrowed had gone through and added the female pronouns to a test meant to tell you if that hot guy you're checking out is right for you.) ((Nother example: "This year’s big MTV Video Music Awards tongue-wagger? Madonna open-mouth-kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera after the two younger singers paid tribute to her 1984 VMA rendition of 'Like a Virgin.'" - from Salon.com's "The Fix" from Aug. 29, 2003.))

Both my wife and I paged through the whole teen mag. It is amazing what the soulless cretins who put this magazine together are trying to stuff into kid's heads. I recommend anyone who's reading this should pick up any teen magazine they encounter and go through it. Some issues of "Playboy" aren't as risque and sex-focused as this one issue of "Seventeen" is.

After me and the missus had talked about all the crap in there, including ads where underage kids were getting real tattoos, we had a riff session on what the world's gonna look like in about 10 years with practically one entire generation covered with faded tattoos. It's gonna be a like a bad art gallery installation by Ed Gein. Ick-o-rama.

I hope (and suspect) as with all past generations, there's gonna be a small percentage who do all this shit these magazines put forth, but the rest of the kids will have a brain and some independence of thought and won't end up a tattooed loon with a string of icky love affairs with both genders, scarred by some sort of oral venereal disease, and a litany of regrets that take them regularly from the darkest hour of the night all the way into noon the next day.

More Elsewhere

I've got my own stuff in the hopper, but I seem to have constipation of the keyboard these days, the words just won't drop out, as it were.

So...

Go check on the history of Dooce's (Heather Armstrong's) hair in the past year year (at the bottom, click "Launch A Year in the Life of Heather’s Hair"). I wonder if that woman is that funny all the time just wandering around the house. If so, her husband is going to have to have plastic surgery by the time he's 40 to correct the damage done by laugh lines, or he's gonna have a passing resemblance to Keith Richards (and they can each form part of the scary smile/frown drama faces, with Keith being the frown, natch).

Yesterday, I pointed at Mark Shea as a good "current affairs in Christianity" guy, but the Mark of "Minute Particulars" kinda has cornered the market on thoughtful pieces on Christianity as it intersects daily with the world. I love his style, and I would envy it if it weren't unChristian to do so.

Elsewhere

The Poor Man has served up his greatest hits whilst he takes a break. Try not to die laughing.

Salon.com has a fun rumination on being a pariah of taste in the midst of a truly hip and informed circle of friends that tries not to cast too many pitying glances in your general direction when you broach the topic of your beloveds. I am familiar with this problem, and I love music, all music (refrain: 'cept gansta rap of course), unabashedly, and am likely to put, into my 5 CD player, Nirvana, Barry Manilow Live, Live's "Throwing Copper", The Best of Dionne Warwick, and Dwight Yoakam's "Gone" and hit random. Every roomate I've ever had has complained bitterly about my eclectic tastes. True music snobs don't even try to be polite; they unload their most bitter, vintage bile all over my love of great tunes, naturally tossing in a rhetorical question regarding my questionable lineage. I take it as the ultimate compliment.

If I haven't sent you in Andrea's direction lately, let me correct that mistake right now. I've noticed my blog reading habits have changed since I'm sitting out employment thanks to ... well, Georgy Porgy undt da boys ... but it's not time to rant, it's time to go read Andrea because I keep coming back to her charmingly snarky view of the planet in these days where I have cut way back on blogsurfing. It's consistently fun, on occasion eye-opening, and always worth a few swings of the eyeballs.

For a right-wing Catholic, Mark Shea is surprisingly breezy, and a good source for the topics on the Christian side of the aisle these days. The Rush-like bombast makes me shake my head sometimes, but unlike Rush, Mark has some legit points. Warning to those who care: he does not take the current party line on gay rights, so consider yourself warned. (I may or may not have an entry coming up on that - if I can find the right way to articulate some things in this day of unallowed dissenting opinions.)

Have fun!

This one time, at band camp...

VH1 has, for quite a while, been imploding with these shows based on popular culture where pundits riff on the various historical trends of past decades. Right now they're doing the 70s, their worst offering so far because most of the talking heads weren't out of their Kimbies when the events occurred, so it's yer basic cynical putdown fest on the psychedelic primary-colored polyester blast that was the 70s. Paulie "the weasel" Shore was tapped for his punditry and he weighed in on the Chippendales dancers, male strippers, that held forth in the 70s. This jarred loose a memory that I'm surprised didn't surface for the "My Expeditions to the Planet of Third-tier Strippers" post. Once, my little Midwestern hometown hosted male strippers at a local pub. This is that story.

________________

If it's been a while since you've been laid, you get this skank about you. Anyone who's looking hard enough can detect it. Well, back in 80something, it was waaaaay past time for me to get back into the rumba. Lo and behold, I spied a poster for some male strippers coming to town. At the time, I didn't even really register it, but later, during a long boring space of horny hours at work, my subconscious had set up an avalanche of logic which tripped when I saw a beefcake calendar posted by one of the girls at work, which were big at the time.

I thought:
1. At the male stripper event, many local women will attend, drink a lot, and watch hunks gyrate.
2. There will be maybe 8 guy strippers, tops, but there will something like a hundred women at this event, and prolly a good percentage of the strippers would rather go home with each other anyway.
3. After a few stiff drinks, and I don't even need to make the pun, there won't be a dry seat in the house - with practically no one to come to their aid (again, apologies).
4. The math for success was so obvious that even your basic hoof-stamping counting horse would whinny, "well duh" if you were to point this out.

So, I pointed this out to my guy buddies. They said, "You'd have to be a fag to go watch a bunch of guys take off their clothes." I walked through the avalanche of logic again, stressing that the last thing we'd be doing is watching the guy strippers. "Everyone would think I was a fag if they saw me there."

So I went alone, dammit.

To this day I have yet to insert myself again into such a froth of worked up women as I encountered that night. The place practically had a funk in the air. (I didn't even have to pay a cover charge because I was a guy! Such innocent times!) I had been sooo right.

Got a beer and started scoping out the terrain. Whilst connoitering, no less than three women literally rubbed themselves against me - it was crowded, but personal space could have been maintained had that been desired - and one actually looked me right in the eye and said, "Exsqueeze me" as she pushed by. (She looked exactly like Rizzo from Grease, not my type, so I kept a wary eye on her and used her as my point to be farthest from during the remainder of he evening.) Thus, onward.

I had a second beer and began choosing my conquest in earnest. About that time, the rental on the first beer came due, and I worked over to the men's room to discover that it had been converted into the performer's dressing room. The bar was originally built as a pool hall, and had closed and reopened as yet another newly-themed watering hole almost yearly, but no one had added rooms for a band or what have you. They didn't expect guys that evening (was I the only one with vision? - yes, only a couple other guys were there, and I don't think they were interested in the girls), so it became evident that I would have to go elsewhere to relieve myself.

It was an especially bitterly cold night that night. On the weather channel, you can often see the big cold, blue finger on the temp charts that rests on the upper Midwest states from November to March. That night most of the country was getting the finger. About the third time I had to venture out to the tundra of the parking lot (one trip per beer I surmised), I was seriously pissed and hatched a plan for vengeance. I was by the unused steel back exit doors behind the stage, and decided to leave a creative excretory ice sculpture upon them. I was nearly complete with a rather decent butterfly when the door flew open for the first time I had experienced since the place was built and, WHAM! cracked me smack-dab in the middle of the forehead by someone taking garbage to the dumpster. The cartoons are correct; you see stars when you get hit really hard in the head.

It didn't knock me out entirely, but I did black out and must've staggered around in the snow back there for a good minute or so, judging from the tracks afterwards. In my compromised state, I had abandoned all other tasks other than remaining upright, and so had let myself go, so to speak. Alas, I had finished the ice sculpture on my jeans.

"Dismay" does not even begin to cover the glacier of emotions I felt at having such an opportunity snatched from my grasp. I thought and brainstormed and schemed, but there was no way around the fact that I could not go back into the bar covered in frozen urine. And to make it worse, the event was going to end before I could get home, change, and get back! What a wedgie fate had delivered unto me. Bitterly, I drove home. I think I even grumbled out loud to myself the whole way, if memory serves.

However, the next day, it seemed so sit-com silly and ironic that I kinda chalked it up to God removing me from something I didn't even want to know about and accepted it as mysterious deliverance. I also must admit that I never have liked waking up with a stranger, the couple times that it's occurred (especially this one time when I had totally gapped her name because I had been so wasted when I learned it initially; I'm sure that brain cell had died that very evening, so I never had a chance).

And that's all I have to say about that.

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
a review

I often don't have mixed opinions about books, songs, or movies. I tend to be binary and to fall along the lines of the gay movie critics with their little tape-on, pissant cowboy hats on the great demised comedy show In Living Color, re: "Loved it!", "Hated it!" So maybe when I really want to praise something, I don't have a lot more room from which to really crow from the rooftops. Which is a drag, because Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! is a spectacular novel, and I can't seem to hunt down enough hyperbole with which to harangue the heavens about it.

Hey Nostradamus! is structured like The Sound and the Fury with four parts narrated from the point of view of a different character, though without the annoying stream of consciousness narrative(and thank God that fad is dead), or the cruel joke of a retarded boy who lives on the edge of a golf course and pines for his missing sister who was named "Caddy," resulting in these heartbreaking moments where the boy keeps wandering to the course to find his sister, since he hears her name being called. (Evidently Faulkner was kind of a sick fuck, eh? Maybe Vonnegut or John Irving could've pulled off the dark humor, but presented in confusing stream of consciousness it's not tragically funny; it's just icky.)

The events surround a high school massacre like the Columbine shootings. (I recall being at work that day, only a mile or so from the school, and the news of the events sweeping the company. It was a lot like the terrorist attacks of 9-11; everyone just stopped what they were doing and tuned into the news.) The first section, called "1988: Cheryl", is sorta The Lovely Bones-esque, in that Cheryl is narrating from the great beyond after her death. Like Seibold, Coupland manages to balance it beautifully, so that it's believable and poignant, rather than just kinda silly.

That said, I didn't expect Coupland to be such a gifted stylist and have such a unique voice. Finding a great new author (and Coupland is someone I'd been intending to read for years, always forgetting about him when I was in a bookstore or library), is like that exhilaration you feel after a fantastic first or second date, when you know you've found someone to bring home to mom.

Check out this excerpt:
"In the end, I think relationships that survive in this world are the ones where the two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week."

Just three sentences, but look at the ground they cover, beautifully, economically. The whole novel is that kind of stuff, front to back. If the bestseller's lists reflected quality, this would shoot to number one and stay near the top for a year.

Oh, and it's got this nifty little attached ribbon for a book mark. Publishers should think of adding that more often. What a convenience!

Coupland has a website, but it's kinda thin, and has too much Macromedia Flash stuff on it. (Note to web developers: A little Flash is OK, but basing the site on it annoys nearly everyone.)

If you're looking for a moving tale authored by a master, check out Hey Nostradamus!

Krakatoa by Simon Winchester

Boring. Veddy British. Dry as a saltine cracker encountered during a nasty bout of cottonmouth with nary a beer in sight.

And it's irritatingly unclear about some crucial facts. The whole reason I read the thing was to discover how far the sound of the explosion carried. I'd read on a website that the sound went around the world 8 times. That's not true. The sound did travel as far as 3,000 miles, so they heard it in Western Australia and Southern India. No, it was the inaudible pressure wave that went around the globe 7 times. But here's where it's unclear; it's reported that it took the pressure wave approximately 19 hours to go halfway around the world and meet itself at the antipode, but Winchester doesn't make it clear whether the wave fronts clapped together and went off in the opposite direction (which is what I think he meant), or if they crisscrossed, or passed, one another and went on their way. You'd think a crucial fact like that would be spelled out. (Maybe he's saving it for the sequel.)

The only other interesting factoid was the skeleton-encrusted pumice rafts that washed to shore and bumped against the prows of ships for a year or so afterward. As you can see in the illustration from the book, the bones of the dead were mixed into the pumice like M&Ms stirred into a batch of Rice Crispy treats. The descriptions from the time definitely carry the tone of nauseous repulsion mixed with fantod-laced horror so wonderfully portrayed by the Priest in Harold and Maude as he conveys his disgust at Harold commingling his young, firm flesh with that of a geriatric woman.


I don't recommend Krakatoa for a cover-to-cover read, or even a purchase. But if you're curious about the volcanic explosion of Krakatoa, this is about the only best current source for info. If you're interested in the political currents that led up to the distribution of the population of the area, the trade routes and spices traded, and the existence of communication technology available to the media at the time, you'll have a blast, ahem. But for folks like me who could have preferred all of that stuff, including detailed lessons on plate tectonics and Darwinism (!?!?), be dealt with in a short introductory chapter rather than the first 7 lengthy chapters (perhaps he was trying for some literary device that matched the pressure wave's 7 trips across the globe as that was what those chapters felt like), you'll wanna skip right to chapter 8, then read the epilogue where he visits the newly formed volcano today, and then get the hell on with your life already.

Jesus Christ

So some Catholics and some Jews are flipping out about Mel Gibson's new movie, which hardly anyone has actually seen, which depicts the last few hours of Christ's life, centering on his crucifixion.

The Catholics are supposedly concerned because some details apparently don't jive with their established theology. Yeah, well, whattayagonnado? Protestants and Greek Orthodox don't jive with it either. *Yawn*

The aforementioned Jewish flipper-outers are fearing "mass retaliation" and anti-Semitism over this. Which in America is highly unlikely because the very people who would go anti-Semitic over this are completely sympathetic to Jews due to the current fad in end-time prophecy and the "Left Behind" fantasies - in which the fundies feel the Jews are instrumental. And any Christian who's not a fundie doesn't indulge in revenge or anti-Semitism as a general rule, based on the Golden one, as it's all about love, donchaknow. So the fact that the movie is being attacked over this, and some of these attacks often go to the extent of attacking Christianity itself (as in this Salon article), is irony at its most bitter and repugnant extreme.

The fact is, if you take the Gospels as the depiction of actual events, which all Christians do, then some Jewish leaders and their sects wanted Jesus (also a Jew) dead because he was saying things that were blasphemous in accordance to their beliefs (and still are, for that matter). The society of the day didn't have big problems with killing those they considered to be criminals or dangerous people. So, some Jewish people were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But so were some Romans. And so were other people of the day. And, essentially, we all killed Jesus Christ because ultimately the torture and murder of an innocent becomes everyone's fault because it wasn't stopped; we are all culpable.

TLD: Hell, if the Messiah had returned today rather than 2,000 years ago, it'd be the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Anthony Scalia (alleged Supreme Court Justice) and John Ashcroft calling for his head. That was the whole point of the example of the Pharisees; the self-appointed religious "moral leaders" and power brokers of the day just couldn't handle the fact that Jesus loved everyone and not just the righteous.

And the "logic" behind it this brouhaha is kinda simplistic, doncha think? If the fact that Jews were involved in the crucifixion of Christ would lead to their persecution and the misconception that they were solely responsible, then that same logic would dictate that:
- All cops are bad because some cops beat Rodney King stupid.
- All black people are bad because some of them are ganstas.
- All straight people bad because some of them harass and kill gay people.
- All white people are bad because some of them owned black people as slaves in the past.
- All pop music is bad because Britney Spears, "Lovin' You" by Minnie Riperton with some notes that pierce the upper registry so fiercely that even Mariah Carey's dog would explode in sheer agony, and "Achey Breaky Heart" were all hits at one point.

See the bad math here? Does this really need to be pointed out?

Now, in the past, some very misguided people have persecuted Jews because of this very kind of flawed thinking. And I'm not saying the odd cretin isn't going to latch onto this silliness, because shit like this happens. (Refer to the last presidential election, for instance.) But, there is not going to be some huge wave of resentment and violence that's going to sweep the world because of this movie. Christians are not going to turn against the Jews over this movie, because it's old news, particularly the fact that it's not primarily their fault.

Methinks this is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over nothing.

And if it does bother you, do the most effective thing you can do in situations like this: don't give your money to the people who made the film. Voting with your money still reigns supreme in terms of useful expression.

De Plane! De Plane!

With one breath.
With one flow.
You will know.
Synchronicity.
- The Police

In my recent time of leisure, I've been reading books and watching movies in such volume, I'm sure that the voluminous amount of material I've been checking out of the library is going to put me on one or more of John Ashcroft's lists.

By sheer coincidence, I read and watched four things about aircraft accidents in a row. I'm not sure if this is a Synchronistic warning to not get on a plane anytime soon, or what.

Take this time to familiarize yourself with the safety devices on the aircraft. Your seat is a flotation device. Note the emergency exits and the fore, aft, and over the wing of the aircraft. Should you feel uncomfortable or feel you are unable to release the door in event of emergency, please alert your flight attendant and you will be moved to a more appropriate seat, and really, we won't think you're a wuss. Thank you for flying Third Level Digression airlines, and we hope you have a pleasant trip.

TLD: I don't recall on which airline or aircraft I discovered this, but printed boldly on the bottom of the emergency instructions card was this helpful tip: "If you cannot read these instructions, please notify your flight attendant."


Soul Survivor by Dean Koontz
The first in the series of the unintentional theme of my readings. A man's wife and children are killed in crash so violent, the impact crater goes all the way down to the bedrock, which cracked. Naturally, the debris of the airplane was comprised of chunks no larger than a hubcap. It's another of Koontz's well-drawn thrillers and a fun read. (I've noticed that either Stephen King or Dean Koontz kinda copies the plots of the other, perhaps in an attempt to do it better. Anyway, this is Koontz's "Firestarter".)

Airframe by Michael Crichton
The best of the bunch. I've always been a Crichton fan, but this is one of his best, if not the best. And it's more or less about the investigation into an incident of "severe turbulence" on a commercial aircraft! That's it! How Crichton made this such a gripping page-turner, I'll never know. He does deviate from his standard character set (brooding, alpha-daddy male scientist; bitch on wheels, borderline lesbian female scientist; jr. scientist of any gender who's insecure but who does most of the real work), and maybe that helped make it better than his usual work. The character of the young female TV news magazine segment producer was my favorite because she's such an evil, ambitious cretin whose pet peeve is boy toys who won't go home after they've serviced her. Ha!

Stiff by Mary Roach
One section deals with using cadavers for testing crash safety stuff, and what is learned by examining bodies, or parts thereof, after an actual crash. PETA MEMBERS LOOK AWAY NOW! There's also a grimly amusing passage on how they canon guinea pigs into the water to see at what force and how their little lungs explode, evidently one of the more common results of a severe crash into water. This brought back images of Berke Breathed's Mary Kay Commandos for me, for some inexplicable reason.

Airplane
It was good to revisit this old classic after all of the above. This movie has aged well, though some of the commercial parodies will go over the heads of the under thirtysomething crowd. If you've only seen this on commercial TV, you are missing about 1/4 of the really good jokes, not to mention the topless stranger who jiggles past the camera at one point, which renders even one of the directors speechless on the commentary track.

So, I'm not getting on a plane for a while if I can help it. Even with terrorism, SARS, and the aging fleet (the most common theme amongst the books, btw), not to mention the Republican deregulation of most of the safety organizations and the rout of the air traffic controllers back in Reagan's day, which we still haven't really recovered from, it still may be statistically safer than many daily activities, but any death where you get to draw a breath and scream some more is just not one that I would choose.

(Note to self: This entry kinda sucks. Try harder in the future. I know you spent two weeks hammering at this thing and this is all you could manage. Still, let's strive for more, huh?)

In the surreal news lately...

Fox News is suing Al Franken over the title of his latest satirical book.

Think about it. A news organization is suing an author of a satire over the title of his book. The words in question are "fair and balanced" as the network claims that is their signature slogan that they've paid a lot of money to promote it. Does John Ashcroft have the Reality Patrol locked up somewhere under his new unconstitutional powers?

Anyway, Franken has responded: "As far as the personal attacks go, when I read 'intoxicated or deranged' and 'shrill and unstable' in their complaint, I thought for a moment I was a Fox commentator. And by the way, a few months ago, I trademarked the word 'funny.' So when Fox calls me 'unfunny,' they're violating my trademark. I am seriously considering a countersuit."

Linkville:
Washington Post
New York Daily News

.

Won't this throw off everyone's gaydar?

The media, but no one I know, has got its lace all in a happy ruffle due to this new show called "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy". I haven't seen it as I don't have a need to pay for any cable programming outside of the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon for my daughter and myself, but the premise is that five gay guys take a straight guy who's either fashion or lifestyle challenged and reportedly put him on the correct path to style righteousness.

The big question I have is if you take these Paul Bunyan types and take away their flannel, their cut-off jeans, their kleenex-thin decades hold T-shirts, and their white socks, put them up in the latest trends, aren't the women still going to avoid them because they'll assume they're gay? And one of the joys for a new girlfriend is doing that very thing to her new boyfriend - fixing the guy up so he's presentable for mom - so these "Queer Eyes" are kinda treading on women's established territory here. Besides, aren't other gay men gonna think the same thing, leading to a lot of uncomfortable situations for both Paul and Percy?

I dunno. Seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Downright ugly eggs

I believe I have found a nearly perfect easy egg recipe for breakfast, developed in the kitchens of Yahmdallah. The only effort is in chopping the veggies, and if you're going to have these more than once a week, you can chop up your ingredients in one go, and store them for later deployment.

You need:

- Butter or canola or olive oil (though if you use the oil, throw in a speck of butter or margarine for taste)
- Eggs (1, or 2 if they're small)
- Green Pepper (1/4 of a full pepper)
- Onion (two to three slices)
- Tomato (optional - 1/2 a small Italian tomato, or 1/4 of a garden tomato)
- Shredded Cheese (optional - 1 to 2 tablespoons approx. - and any kind will do; if you like the cheese, you'll like it in these eggs)
- Ham (optional - 2 to 4 tablespoons)
- Course ground pepper (to taste)
- Salt (to taste)

Chop up your veggies and the ham (it tastes wonderful either with or without ham, btw) to pieces about the size of the thumbnail on your little finger.

Heat the butter/oil on medium, and as it melts throw in the veggies (but not the ham). Cook turning and stirring frequently until the onions are translucent and at least half the veggies are slightly browned/blackened.

Throw in the ham and stir/mix/cook until the ham is heated.

Crack the egg(s) directly on top of the veggies and ham, and then stir the eggs and stuff together.

Sprinkle on the cheese and the pepper.

Cook until the eggs are the consistency you like, stirring and flipping a couple three times.

Scrape'em onto a plate, salt to taste, and inform everybody who turned them down in the first place that no they can't have any now.

You'll see why they're called downright ugly eggs, and a photo of them would surely end up in Lilek's gallery of regrettable food. But, damn they're yummy, eh?

Having to Kill Your Darlings and (eventually) a review of Secretary

One of my favorite pastimes whilst floating in the great sea of the unemployed is reading cook books. "Cook books" is a term a good writer friend of mine uses for books on how to write.

TLD: The best ones are On Writing by Stephen King, The Art of Fiction by John Gardener, and William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell? , though the prior is the better one for those on a budget. I have read a couple cook books by women writers, but they've been the "literary" type of writer, so there's not much useful advice on writing, and a whole lot of greasing the pole on *hack* literary theory. We need Anne Rice or someone who charts regularly to give as an "how to" opus, methinks. I recommend both that Dean Koontz has written because he provides strait-ahead, no bullshit practical advice on plotting, characters, tone, and particularly succinct style - getting across the most info in the least amount of time. (I sometimes still struggle with that, clearly.)

The screenwriting cook books, and a lot of director's commentaries on DVDs, have a common theme: Eventually, you have to kill your darlings. This means that you might write something you like very much, but when you are constructing the final version of the work, it just doesn't fit somehow, and you have to take it out - kill your darlings. Shalyman waxes poetic on this quandary on the commentary to Signs, which you should see anyway, if you haven't.

So, I recently wrote a review on the movie Secretary, and I attempted a tone piece on another experience that gave me the same sensation as the movie, leading into the review itself. I liked it very much, but it was the kind of material you have to deliver in person, perfectly inflected, to a small audience, preferably over beers, to not come off as a complete pervo slime that can't be trusted alone with the sheep (with apologies to Gene Wilder).

TLD: It's fun to watch Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask with someone who's only and fondest memory of Gene Wilder is his portrayal of Willie Wonka. First, their eyes open wide, then the face falls, then the mouth drops open, then there's usually some disgust-laced babble around the subject of sheep in garters. 'Tis wicked fun.

Well, the outgassing stops here. Let's get to the mostly salvaged review of Secretary:

Secretary is a sweet love story. A sweet love story about two people who like self-abuse and BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sado Masochism) who discover one another in this big, bad world.

Watching two supremely fucked-up people fall into each other's orbit and then realize they've discovered a kindred spirit was sometimes repellent, yet always compelling. While I often wished they weren't so damaged, I also reveled and marveled at the fact that two people so inherently doomed could possibly be on the way to a happy ending.

TLD:Unlike many films snobs, I have nothing against happy endings. Or even endings that bring some sort of resolution to the events. On the director's commentary to the abysmal Laurel Canyon (the only highlight thereof being a sometimes-nekkid Francis McDormand) the clueless director says she didn't tack on an ending because she believes that real life doesn't have endings. Just goes to show you how young she is, for one. Also shows how little she's paying attention, for another. Life is full of endings and beginnings, and most things it your life have some sort of resolution, don't they? Of course! So, so much for that theory, eh?

Anyway...

James Spader is supremely creepy yet still alluring in the way that perhaps only he can be. I can't think of another actor who consistently pulls off that particular vibe, kinda like you can always feel the arrogance behind any character Val Kilmer plays. You always loathe a James Spader character on some level, but still mourn for him when he is crushed like a bug. (He, unfortunately, is one of those people whose looks changed considerably as the got older. If you put pictures of him in this movie next to those of his younger roles, you would pick him out as the same actor eventually. However, folks who don't follow movies avidly would not associate this guy with the guy in Pretty in Pink.) Spader has become for me one of those actors whose films I'll see solely on the basis that he's in it.

Maggie Gyllenhaal had perhaps one of the more interesting challenges for an actress I've seen in a while - an even bigger challenge than Angela Bettis in the recent horror flick May. You've got to like, admire, deeply pity, and want to fuck this girl (assuming that's your preference, natch) all at once. Fortunately, she's one of those most blessed actresses I'm aware of in terms of her looks - not to take away from her chops as an actress of course. She has the very unique distinction in that she can look as homely as it gets, but then she can transform into an utter beauty. Model-pretty actresses can rarely get hideous enough for you to buy the ugly duckling phase of their character arc, such as Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, or the actress in The Princess Diaries. When we first see Gyllenhaal, she's stunning in her business attire and handcuffs, and in the very next scene set six months earlier, it takes a moment to register that this potato-faced wreck is the same girl.

Suffice to say the acting is superb, which always astounds me on small films. For instance, Dazed and Confused has some of the best acting you'll see on a small production, most of it nearly flawless. It also launched the careers of at least five well-known actors.

The tender surprise overall though is the love story, because after you boil it down and take away all the spanking, blood, scars and control freak behavior, it is essentially just a story of two people finding each other in the static of their own maladjustments which typically run counter to themselves, intimacy, and romance. Which is a feat something like finding an edible Hershey's kiss at the bottom of a freshly unearthed kimchee jar.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures in films is great love stories in the center of larger, weirder events. Movies like Starman, Brainstorm, and Altered States are all really just love stories wrapped in funky, electrically-charged tinfoil wrappers that shock you a little before you get to the gooey center.

Secretary joins my list of twisted, but fun, love stories.

The director's commentary is as much of a squirm-fest as the movie itself, by the way. The two creators of the film are so into their film school affectations that it's more than a little embarrassing to listen to. You feel like more of a voyeur during the commentary than you do during the movie proper. And, to top that off, their comments on how tender and loving these two BDSM folks are in the midst of their abuse of one another are surreal. ("You can tell he's really connecting with her." Yeah! With every stroke! "Each scar is like a window to her soul" Um, ewwww!) You get the distinct impression this movie might be an accidental autobiography, and they both have on handcuffs and nipple clamps whilst commenting. Some day when I have the time I'm going to go back and see if I can detect the subtle sounds of a lit cigarette being pressed onto skin, or a lash slapping a bruised buttock between comments. You can tell they were at least in the dark when they recorded the commentary (in the same way you can actually hear Kurt Russell and John Carpenter popping open beers during the commentary to The Thing).

I suggest this movie for anyone who likes out-of-the-way, odd films that are still legitimately engrossing (as opposed to lumps of waste like Laurel Canyon), but I do not recommend it to anyone whose tastes runs along the lines of Bad Boys II or Legally Blonde, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Get Over Your Bad Self

The 2Blowhards, in their continued service to the blogsphere, linked to an interview with someone named Heather MacDonald. Though I have no idea who she is, it was a fun read because of her takedown of deconstructionism, as promised by the 2Blowhards.

In the same interview, she also makes this statement:

Q: "Have you noticed that the more intelligent people are, the less religious?"

Heather MacDonald: "No, it is therefore to me a mystery that very intelligent people can be religious. I think there is a part of them that is willing to put aside their rationality because there is a deep emotional or psychological yearning for a belief in a transcendent being who has responsibility for our world. It's a part of the brain that does not involve empirical reasoning."

The consistency of this kind of assertion amongst some types of atheists never ceases to astound me, and it strikes me as one of those classic "it's not about what it's about" situations. Typically, when a person is evangelized into atheism, the primary tactic used is an appeal to intelligence, re: "If you're smart, you'll realize that all religion is superstition, and only the unlearned and the ignorant of the world are superstitious." So it becomes a street cred kinda thing. And the fact that most of those who are swayed by this trick are supposed to be intelligent ... well, at least I find it grimly amusing. Wouldn't it seem logical to question any idea someone presented to you as a test of your intelligence? In the same way you should question someone trying to hand you a religious doctrine as a test of their power or as proof of your unworthiness (and potential damnation) should you refuse it?

It makes me wonder if something is missing in this kind of person's ability to process information, or if they've unknowingly or purposely put on blinders to prevent some kinds of thinking or looking at the world, a limitation of perspective say. (Which is ironic of course, since she thinks the religious are missing something.)

I know a lot of these people have moved their faith, as it were, completely into the realm of science, assuming all they will ever need to know about our physical world will be found there. Though that's not an entirely misguided notion, it often pairs with an overly optimistic view of what science claims to really know, or can know. As much as a Christian fundamentalist will ignore or discount the various clues and solid reasons to not take every account or story in the Bible as a literal rendition of actual events, the fundamentalist, science-faithful atheist will claim more conclusions than exist currently, and typically will follow that up by stating we will eventually know everything we don't know now, somehow.

I would concur that we will continue to make phenomenal scientific discoveries that may enable faster than light travel, a cure to most diseases and afflictions, and a basic control over many physical properties of our world that still exist currently only in the most fantastic science fiction.

But what we don't know right now, at this very moment, and what we are aware of that we don't know, is legion. We still haven't decoded the genome, we've merely mapped one complete set of genes' "GATTACA" sequence - the pairings of the four components that all DNA is constructed of or from. What we have discovered is that most given sequences in the genome can produce many proteins, which means there's a whole level, or many levels, of functionality of the genome that we simply don't comprehend. It's like the message in Contact, where the sound from deep space is revealed to carry a video signal, and beyond that is an alphabet, and beyond that is a schematic for building a spacecraft. When it comes to the genome, or even anything smaller than a molecule, we are only at the stage - to reinvoke the Contact analogy - where Jodie Foster has discovered that the mysterious sound she just recorded from space is running through the sequence of prime numbers. We haven't even begun to discover the other levels present.

There are some scientific fields that have become dead-ends until we have a breakthrough in our understanding and ability to manipulate at the molecular and atomic level, such as: 1) truly combating a virus head-on rather than invoking the still mysterious ability our immune system has to combat them, and 2) nanotechnology. We aren't even close to curing AIDS (or the common cold or flu) because we just don't know how to stop or disable the virus mechanism. And all the dire warnings about how nanotechnology will get out of hand and render the universe into gray goo are silly, because nanotechnology is still governed by laws we don't understand completely just yet, and I bet one of those laws won't let a nanorobot render your doggy into a toy train or a gray puddle.

So, given the limitations of our knowledge, to dismiss God, however some may view Him/her/it/them, because we've figured some of this science stuff out is directly comparable to the illusion most of us have when we are teenagers where we believe we have figured everything out. Only later, with maturity, do we realize out how little we really know, and with that comes true wisdom.

Wisdom, through the admission of what we don't know, also allows us to apply what we do know. That's why we can say extreme fundamentalist religions that causes mass murder are wrong, without having to collapse into a pile of post-modern doubt and debris. It means we can admit the Christian, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the atheist, the agnostic, and the Rastafarian just might know what they're talking about, and not have to take extreme, and false, positions that belittle and debase other's beliefs, because we understand we simply do not have the final proof or solution just yet.