My unbaked thoughts and self righteous commentary on politics, pop culture or whatever else might slip out of my fingers onto the keyboard. For tech stuff, visit my technology-related blog and for bad poetry and stories, my poetry/story blog. Actually, both of these other blogs are updated much more frequently these days.
Ahh, the time has come for another season of Penn and Teller's Bullshit! on Showtime. Brilliant show. With Weeds and Mad Men just a few weeks away, things are starting to gear up for the TV favorites of yours truly. I pretty much missed most of the network season recently put into mothballs for that anachronism of yore known as "summer hiatus." None of that means much in our world of 1000 channels of tube action and virtually infinite choices online but the networks like to pretend the past 15 years never happened, I guess.
In other news, apparently there's a Joan Rivers documentary (you know her: that brilliant director of 1978's Rabbit Test). Meanwhile, sadly buried in this week's news, the world's oldest pair of shoes was discovered in a layer of Sheep's dung: 5500 years and just like new, thanks to the natural preservatives found in Ba Ba's Poo Poo. And just where Joan Rivers left them as a child. Ba-dum.
Posting here in the past has been a compulsion, a nervous tic; however, it was real easy to step away once I got sucked back into the workaday world at a job that required a bit more of my attention, as new jobs often do. But here I am, back again.
So what's going on? Not a lot - As I write this, I'm locked in mortal combat with a mouse who's invaded my home. I'm sure this fucker'll forever be two steps ahead of me as I waste far too much energy on hunting the beast down. I feel vaguely like Wile E. Coyote (or perhaps Al Bundy would be a better analogy). Why the anger toward this Disneysque creature? I'm sure the whiskered cutie breaks out in song after hours as I slumber, after all. And frankly it's nice to have company over - I should welcome him into the fold with a saucer of milk (saucer of cheese?) Ahh, fuck all that - I've got the traps all set up, so it's just a matter of time for him and his brethren. Short of that, I'm at the ready with my fireplace shovel to slap him into space, Scratchy-style. Then again, Scratchy is the one who is repeatedly pummeled by that little Itchy rodent. Where's Willard when you need him?
(Epilogue: The mouse is dead, long live the mouse. I found it this morning in the kitchen, caught in the web of one of my glue traps, poisoned by the bait and stuck. It had managed to slide the trap half way across the room, trying in vain to drag it with him under the stove but only half making it. Judging by the particular trap he was snarred in, I now know the tiny hole from which the guy made his entrance. Time to close it up. I feel awful about his demise but imagine he's only the first of an army, now seething with anger over my atrocity, much like Platoon's Sgt. Barnes in the village. I'm waiting for the Johnny Depp translator mouse to come up to me and start asking who the rice and the weapons are for ... er, I mean the glue traps and poison-laced bait. But I digress.)
The Earth is once again giving us just a minor taste of how insignificant we tiny bags of biologic chemicals and mostly water are in the grand scheme of this planet's evolution.
The earthquake in Chile this morning, though one of the largest ever recorded at magnitude 8.8, didn't cause catastrophic loss of life anywhere near the scale seen in Haiti. Which might seem odd to some, since the quake itself was 500 times more powerful than the one which ripped through Port Au Prince last month. Chile is obviously a much more prosperous country than Haiti and its infrastructure has evolved specifically to deal with earthquakes and other natural disasters in mind, which helps limit the damage. In many ways, Haiti and Chile are on opposite ends of the two extremes in this regard. Another difference is that the epicenter was 22 miles underground, 70 miles from Concepcion and 200 miles from Santiago (it wasn't a direct strike on a large city). Still, over a hundred are known dead so far and likely many more before it's said and done. The direct strike was on the coast, resulting in a massive tsunami whose destruction is spreading far beyond the local region, threatening a good chunk of the pacific (warnings are in place as far away as Hawaii and Australia). Good thoughts to our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere and pacific basin while they deal with this crisis.
This is a good time to remind folks that the people in Haiti are still hurting and will be for a long, long time. Without any sort of lasting infrastructure to help them. Please give if you can. The global news cycle and associated throng of media have largely moved on to more recent events as is natural, but that doesn't mean things are all that much better here ...
Perhaps it's too soon for jokes but I've given fair warning that my humor trends toward the dark side. When I first saw the news this morning on TV and they were showing damage in Santiago, I immediately thought of Something About Mary. Specifically, the scene in which Pat Healy, pretending to be an architect, slings bullshit at Harvard educated and renowned BritisharchitectTucker, who he thinks is the real deal (but who later turns out to be a pizza delivery man named Norm from New Jersey). Hint: neither of them have ever been to Chile.
Tucker: Really? Where would I have seen your work? Pat Healy: Well, have you been to, uh well, let me see... Santiago, Chile? Tucker: Twice last year. Which building's yours? Pat Healy: Oh. Emm ... are you familiar with the soccer stadium? Tucker: Did you build the Estadio Olimpico?!?
Pat Healy: No, just down the street the Celinto Catayente Towers. It's quite a fine example, in fact! I recommend that next time you're up that way that you drop in and take a gander at it yourself.
Here's hoping the Celinto Catayente Towers is okay.
And in all seriousness, best wishes to all affected by this tragedy. Give to the Red Cross, please. For Chile, Haiti, and all those hurt by Mother Nature's wrath. The Red Cross is pretty good at getting the cash to those who need it most.
"Talk" to you again maybe next weekend. My flu's in the rear view mirror and it's time to tackle all things technology again for awhile. If you're a masochist who finds something interesting on these pages, you can always visit my technology blog as it's more likely that I'll post there during the week. Of course, I can't guarantee you'll like the subject matter much; often times, I don't either :-).
I've been watching the women's curling gold medal for the past two hours. And I don't even have a fever anymore. As I write this, they're going to "extra ends." A real thriller, with Canadian pride hanging on the line!
I've really been getting into this sport with a vengeance over these Olympics and don't understand why others can't see its genius.
I guess that's why there hasn't been a decent curling movie produced (or any curling movie at all, for that matter). To that end, I'm going to write one, inspired by the '70's classic Slap Shot.
Burt Reynolds will be perfect in the Paul Newman role as player/coach Reggie Dunlop (the "skip" in curling parlance). Of course, we'll need to have the Hanson Brothers. This time the boys will forever be getting in trouble for "high broom sticking" and "rock greasing."
Finally, let's not forget Ogie Ogilthorpe, the notorious Federal League goon. In my curling-infused re-telling, he'll be infamous for his "prison shower" shenanigans (suffice to say it involves a sharpened curling broom handle levied in the vicinity of the opponent's thrower, just as he's bent over about to deliver the rock). You'll laugh, you'll cry - it'll be better than Cats. Of course, we'll need a new title. I like Stacking The Brooms.
I'm OD'ing on Raspberry Diet Snapple and watching the Olympics. My favorite sport, Skeleton, is now over (Luge is for chicken-shit wimps). Skeleton riders go head first and the sleds are not allowed to have steering or brakes. But there's still freestyle aerial skiing and more alpine action to be had. And, always, curling on the lesser NBC channels. Almost Famous is on the tube so I find myself switching back and forth between the Olympics and that. I always gravitate to Almost Famous: any movie that includes Lester Bangs as a character is okay in my book.
Speaking of Lester Bangs, and other dead people, I stumbled across a fine online service today that helps you get the low down on the disposition of a dearly departed's remains. It's called, appropriately enough, Find A Grave. I can't believe I haven't found a need for their services up to this point. Finally, a site with a useful purpose. I dig it.
When I said I wouldn't be posting here on a near daily basis anymore ... well, today is an anomaly. I think.
Like the songs, these aren't necessarily my favorite films, though certainly a good chunk of them qualify as such. Some of them are pretty bad, in retrospect. In the end, these are movies that remind me strongly of a particular year in my life (whether personal or in a historical context).
And the Hunter S. Hunter Memorial Intoxicated Revelry Lifetime Achievement Award for 2010 goes to ... drum roll ... Elmore "Rip" Torn!
Mr. Torn has not only built an enviable body of work in this arena over the course of his long career but is perhaps at the top of his game today, at nearly 79 years of age, when many of his contemporaries have slowed down, retired or passed on to their great reward.
Mr. Torn hasn't slowed down in his golden years, having turned the streets of Manhattan into his own personal pinball machine through much of the 00's, as demonstrated through numerous DUIs there. My favorite performance of his involved him apparently going to a bar and getting hammered after picking up a Christmas tree and then attempting to drive home from the watering hole after last call, weaving through the streets with the evergreen tied to the hood of the car.
Maybe it's telling that he has a degree in Animal Husbandry: he's been doing research into their psyche ever since. "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man" - Dr. Samuel Johnson. Hunter Thompson included it in the epigram to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and often used the quote when describing his work and lifestyle. Fittingly, Rip Torn follows its creed as well.
Oh, Rip has also managed to find to squeeze in some movie and TV show appearances to pay for what has always been his first love, revelry. In fact, he's as much a prolific actor as he is a batshit drunken loon. Ironically, Torn often chooses to play the stable, in-charge character on screen, in sharp contrast to his real-life John Blutarsky / Raoul Duke proclivities.
Still, Torn's career is not yet complete. I'm speaking of course about his obvious pairing with Rip Taylor, the crowned queen of confetti and fellow master thespian.
I'm still waiting patiently for the Vegas act of "Taylor and Torn: Rip Squared" to hit the strip. Or maybe a series of buddy movies with the two (a Lethal Weapon/48 Hours remake, perhaps; maybe Grumpy Psychotic Men?)
Or - yes, this is it! - a further re-imagining of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with Torn as Raoul Duke - out of his mind on booze and drugs behind the wheel through Barstow, motoring toward Sin City - and Taylor as his wacky attorney Dr. Gonzo, riding shot gun and heaving ginormous bags of confetti out into the wind and onto the desert highway behind them.
Ahh, a chilly Saturday with Fletch on the tube. Things could be worse.
Following this masterpiece up is hard work, but Discovery Health comes to the rescue with an update on the Mermaid Girl/Last Six Months. What a channel! Speaking of which, what was on tap in prime time this past week? Why Paralyzed and Pregnant, of course. Clearly must-see-TV. And our television overlord - Oprah - is going to shut this network down? For shame, Ms. Winfrey! Somehow I doubt the divine Ms. W's Oprah Network will feature such riveting fare.
But I have more on my mind than a continuing obsession with Discovery Health. What else could I possibly obsess on with Weeds and Mad Men on hiatus, you may ask? I was really looking forward to catching Mary-Louise Parker in Howl, but that flick's release date mysteriously slipped from January to December.
Which leaves me ... where?
On the personal front, I'm doing the eHarmony thing but still no "commercial-worthy" true love tales to be had. I thought for just a short while that I had happened upon a soul mate but after a number of weeks and a number of dates, things fizzled. Such is life. I'll keep you posted. ... well, maybe. Probably not. And if so, only vaguely, without dish, dirt, names or details.
On the professional front, I'm still exploring my options. I formed an L.L.C. - Technology Artisans. I spent a grand total of about 30 seconds pondering over the name, which probably wasn't wise but I gotta be true to my "spontaneous" nature. I hadn't even thought about it until I started filling out the online incorporation form and then - well, my session was about to expire so I needed something and this came to mind. For many years, I had planned to call my first company SML, Inc. after a Schlitz Malt Liquor promotional Christmas poster featuring a comely woman dressed in a Santa's Hottie Helper outfit. A bunch of us were renting a large, falling-apart-at-the-seams "animal house" many years ago and we had this poster hanging with pride in the living room (they were giving them away at a local beer distributor). We used to laugh and say that it would become our corporate logo and SML, Inc. would be the organization's name. A few of us talked about this for years after the poster lost its luster and found a home in the trash. But in the end, I relented.
Why Technology Artisans? To quote Bluto from Animal House, "Why not?" Anyway, I formed the company mainly so that I could negotiate corporation-to-corporation consulting agreements, if I even end up going that route. On that front, I have a multitude of consulting opportunities on the horizon right now and determining which of them I want to pursue is the challenge. But that's kind of dry shit for a blog and I've already rattled on far too long on the subject ...
Well, what's in the news???
J.D. Salinger died, but there have been more than enough gushing tributes piled on elsewhere concerning the reclusive writer. Like most young people of a certain age, I read The Catcher in the Rye and identified with its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. So did everyone from Bill Clinton to Mark David Chapman. I have nothing interesting to add. It's not like ol' J.D. was all that prolific, and Rye isn't particularly close to the top of my list of favorite books. That said, a lot of the works enshrined into my particular literary hall of fame are by writers who in turn were strongly influenced by Salinger. So he's a favorite by proxy. Again, a quick googling of Salinger will lead you the way to numerous platitudes and eulogies far more eloquent than I could manage.
Politics was as hot a topic as it's ever been this week. It started with the continuing coronation of Scottie "Centerfold" Brown while the donkeys continued to stumble over their own ineptitude, quaking with fear over the elephant party's new "super minority." The highlight of the week, though, was surely The State of the Union, featuring a big "fuck you" tossed to Sammy "Davis, 'cause I see only one side of evil" Alito and the Supremes. Of course there were plenty of "fuck you"s to go around in the speech, as John Stewart pointed out. Obama tossed them out like candy at a parade, and popped more than a few into his own mouth to boot. It might have been the best one I've heard in my 30 some years of paying attention to this annual applause-athon, if not exactly the most inspirational.
The politico week-that-was came to a close with an "Obama versus the mighty Elephantiasis of Congress" steel cage match debate. Sort of like the final fight scene in Kill Bill, Vol 1, with the Prez channeling Black Mamba and the Repubs standing in for the Crazy 88. From all accounts, it ended in similar fashion (perhaps not so convincingly and, alas, with a bit less finality). BTW, no racial inference should be made of the Black Mamba reference (replace it with Beatrix Kiddo or The Bride, if you'd like). The Prez is, after all, "post racial." Chris Matthews, that speed-freak, rat-a-tat-tat, speak-before-I-think, stream-of-consciousness MSNBC mouthpiece originally coined "post-racial" as it applies to Obama. Chris is great. We have similar political sensibilities but the guy is certifiable, a living/breathing cartoon. Analyzing the State of the Union, he exclaimed "I forgot the president was black for an hour." As John Stewart so aptly put it, "Chris Matthews is one scotch away from becoming Ron Burgundy."
We're not, by the way, in a "post racial" era. Many on the right - even some in the "mainstream" right - are clearly still bummed out that a black man was elected President. These folks throw out terms like "arrogant" and "narrow-minded" to describe Obama in a manner so blatantly consumed in a subtext of racism that they might as well have been calling him an "uppity boy" who surely still doesn't know his place. He's not arrogant, he's President. And I think - I hope - he's starting to get comfortable in knowing his place: the leader of the free world. In my opinion, the failures of Obama over his first year in office have largely occurred because he wasn't quite at ease with this (or at least didn't appear so, which is just as bad). The State of the Union speech sort of showed - at least to me - that this might be changing. Good. But that's the very thing sticking in their craw. The thing that the "arrogant" and "flippant" code words betray.
Okay, time to get off my high horse.
Not bad for an "off-season" week in politics; however, like everything else, better captured elsewhere. The Daily Show perhaps best of all, where Stewart has become just a bit less biased these days and is aiming his razor wit at both wings of the American political clown college that is our government political leadership.
So, is there anything left? Boy, I've written a lot of dreck here in order to say I've got nothing to say. Which is par for the course: I've got terminal diarrhea of the keyboard (to counter balance those parts of me that are somewhat less regular in their movement).
On that note, I'll sign off with my sincerest apologies to anyone who's made it this far ...
Deep Vein Thrombosis. It doesn't sound pleasant, though it would make a great name for a rock and roll band. In this case, I refer to it as one of a litany of side effects possible when taking Yaz, the Happy Fun Ball of prescription birth control medication and inspiration for the Saturday Night Live's Annuale (back when SNL was at least occasionally funny).
Why would I be concerned with this, you ask? I'm not, really. It's just that I've been inundated with Yaz class action come-ons by various ambulance chasers advertising on Discovery Health the past few months. Like a bad commercial jingle, I can't get it out of my head. Judging by the deluge of similar pitches on this network, Oprah's killing of Discovery Health in 2011 will mark a dark day in law offices across these United States (at least for those attorneys who keep their actions classy). I've never seen so many shysters hawking so many lawsuits against so many different entities in the healthcare industry than on this network. Of course, they're playing to a picture perfect target demographic: hypochondriacs of all stripes.
Requip is a prescription medication used to treat Restless Leg Syndrome and whose known side effects include Compulsive Gambling and Sex Addiction. Now to be fair, Requip is just one of a number of dopamine antagonists that research has shown can trigger these "adverse reactions" in a small percentage of users. Of course, these side effects are printed on the label and rattled off along with their more conventional cousins in the ads, so full disclosure gets them off the hook for current litigation (though I imagine they got nailed hard early on).
To be sure, Restless Leg Syndrome is a very real and potentially painful ailment, despite the goofy name. I have family and friends that suffer from its debilitating effects to varying degrees and it ain't pleasant. But still, it does have that goofy name, making it sound so innocuous. And sex addiction? Gambling?? These sound more like a couple of the more common side effects of the drug Ethanol (I can attest to the veracity of this connection having conducted several research excursions to Vegas and Atlantic City under its influence).
Perhaps Tiger Woods' extra marital relations - supposedly the sad ramification of a sex addiction - can in fact be attributed to Requip. After all, his legs seemed at peace of late on the golf course but perhaps that wasn't the case early on (back when he wasn't screwing anything that moved). Check out video of his play back in the late 1990s, it's like he's got ants in his pants. Did he really have knee surgery in 2008 or was it something else?
As for gambling? Well, a percentage of those that have lost their job, house and car to gambling debts can possibly take comfort in the fact that when Louie the Loan Shark's musclemen come to collect, they'll be breaking very well rested legs indeed.
Me? I'll make it a point to avoid Yaz, even if my doctor insists. I've always had a suspicion that he'd be a true believer in cinema classics like Junior and Rabbit Test, so I'll keep a watchful eye. Rabbit Test - man, I haven't thought about that masterpiece in years. Joan Rivers had only one turn in the director's chair and this was her "baby." Clearly, judging by this work, she could have been the female Scorsese had she kept at it ... or perhaps a latter-day Ed Wood (apologies to Mr. Wood for that last crack). Somehow, Billy Crystal survived. I can say that I saw this in the theater during its initial run in 1978 and recall enjoying it. Though I was only 15 and likely close to legally insane, I was not otherwise impaired so I can't blame it on drugs. I can say that I caught a bit of Rabbit Test recently (as much as I could take) and have had a change of heart.
And as for my Restless Leg Syndrome, I'll stick with the black tar heroin. That seems to do the trick just fine.
I had completely forgotten about one of my favorite movies until it popped up on cable this morning: Three Days of the Condor. My favorite scene - one of my favorite scenes in cinema - is the second-to-last. The subtext is palpable as Max von Sydow's dispassionate professional killer Jourbert schools Redford's idealistic CIA researcher bookworm Joe Turner on some hard lessons in betrayal and trust.
"You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?"
"I don't interest myself in 'why'. I think more often in terms of 'when', sometimes 'where'; always 'how much'."
"Not now - then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!"
"Well, the fact is, what I do is not a bad occupation. Someone is always willing to pay ... it's quite restful. It's almost peaceful. No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision."
"Listen. I work for the CIA. I am not a spy. I just read books!"
And of course:
"You have not much future there. It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe the first sunny day of the spring. And a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know, maybe even trust, will get out of the car. And he will smile, a becoming smile. But he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift. [offering him his gun] ... For that day."
Saturday. January 16th, 2010. High noon. I left the safety of full-time employment yesterday to dip my toes back into the world of consulting, this time as an independent. I've had a lot of folks asking if I'd been laid off but in fact it was quite the contrary: my now-former employer is looking for and hiring technology folks with my skill set pretty extensively these days and were thoroughly disappointed to see me leave. The follow-up questions are the same once folks hear I left of my own accord without a guaranteed job and with the national unemployment rate still hovering around 10%:
So why'd ya do it? Life's too short. Enough said.
In this economy? I'm lucky in that the market's pretty active for my particular niche and I have several interesting consulting engagement possibilities on the horizon as well as a couple short-term gigs in the bag.
Are you insane? Yes, on multiple levels.
What you did is like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane and then searching the sky for a parachute on the way down. That's not really a question and the analogy isn't completely apt. From my perspective, this particular aircraft has major structural defects and several of my fellow passengers look disturbingly dangerous (in fact, so does most of the crew). That said, I do have a standing offer to climb back into this particular plane if I so choose. Besides, the sky seems filled with functioning chutes I can reach out and touch.
So I'll be okay. And I feel a giddy sense of freedom. But I also feel a bit empty today. I tend to be a workaholic and am going through withdrawal as I take the rest of the month off. I need a fix or something that'll take my mind off this "no work and all play" thing staring me in the face. Books, movies, exercise, withdrawing all my savings and going to Atlantic City, coming up with a sure-fire get-rich business plan, writing a novel, fixing up the house to sell. All are possibilities I've contemplated. My A.D.D keeps getting in the way of going further.
Perhaps baby steps are in order. Finish reading the six books I've started over the past several months. Watch at least a few of the flicks that sit untouched on the DVR or in unwrapped DVD/Blu-Ray cases next to the tube. Writing? How 'bout I write a whole short story instead of the fragments/"moments" I've churned out to date before tackling my War and Peace tome? Just a thought. Fix up the house? I did call a roofer, who'll be here Monday for an estimate. That's a start. And I did go for a run just a bit ago to (try and) make up for the Girl Scout cookies I bought - and ate - this morning. The kid at the door was adorable and I was hungry. Now my feet hurt from the run and the downside of the earlier sugar rush is catching up with me. But one run does not my "regular exercise" New Year's Resolution make. So why not devise a daily regiment?
Things to ponder. Meanwhile, I've been catching up with some music.
Elvis Costello at Hollywood High came out on CD/MP3 this week and I'm loving it. Recorded in 1978, it catches Costello and the Attractions at the height of their craft. They were a great live band and this is grand evidence of that fact. I also picked up Graham Parker and the Rumour live in San Francisco 1979 which was likewise recently released (last month). Parker and company are equally wonderful. Perhaps I'm showing my age just a bit, but the best of first generation punk and new wave circa 1976 - 1979 is likely my favorite era in music, certainly the best of the eras I experienced first hand as a music consumer (the heart of the "60's era" roughly book-ended around 1964 - 1968 is my other fav period but I was just a toddler then and only later enjoyed the tuneage in reruns).
Well, this post has been meandering, unfunny, and thoroughly boring. Not altogether to be unexpected given my track record, but it's sub-par even when compared to that. Better luck next time, dear reader.
And so I'm off for the evening, fighting a cold - a parting gift from my employer - while flipping between play-off football and Closer, one of my fav flicks of the 00's (I discovered it today sitting there in my DVR fresh from a recording off IFC earlier in the week). Ahh, Leon's sweet young Mathilda all grown up. Natalie's just a notch down from my all-time pantheon of Hollywood crushes but climbs higher every year. She took a big leap up with the one-two punch of Closer and Garden State stuck in the middle of the "Noughties" decade.
And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial
I can't take my eyes off of you ... I can't take my mind off of you ...
I finally caught Neill Blomkamp's District 9 Saturday morning. Brilliant film on so many different levels. Messy and wildly uneven, utterly original. Not necessarily very singular in the story itself, which at its core is as old as the corruption, oppression and racism that fuels it. No, this originality springs from its style and form, its base simplicity. The melding of science fiction into a grim story of slums, poverty, indifference, greed, abandonment, exile, comeuppance, redemption. No storybook ending and with very few truly sympathetic characters. It's not pretty - it made me almost physically ill at one point - but it is in the end beautiful.
I followed it up with a recording my DVR slurped up off IFC: The Source. It's a 1999 documentary on the Beats, covering the scene and people from the 1944 introduction of Ginsberg to Kerouac through 1997 when Ginsberg and Burroughs drifted off this mortal coil. Real interesting mix of historical footage, interviews, and contemporary celeb fans Johnny Depp, Dennis Hopper and John Turturro providing dramatic interpretations of the words of Beat pioneers. I identify with the Beats more than any other "movement" and have always been fascinated with those who forged the philosophical, cultural and creative ideals behind the name. The movement encompassed a mishmash of individualists, none of whom played bongos or sported a goatee or uttered "daddy-o" except in ironic disdain. Great stuff.
Great stuff to come in this vein too! A movie focused on the 1957 obscenity trial resulting from the publication of Ginsberg's poem Howl the year before makes its theatrical debut on the 21st of this month - fittingly entitled Howl - and guess who has a prominent role in the flick? None other than my gal Mary-Louise Parker! I'll be on a break from work and will be lining up to see it for sure (my favorite actress and my favorite poem together in one place - could be a disaster but I'd never know).
Anyway, clearly I believe that digression - not discretion - is the better part of valor. What was my original point ... ?
... oh, yeah - lots of philosophical and political similarities between District 9 and the works of the Beats: fear and suspicion of conformity, oppression, corporate and government power, etc. So I worked up a sizable anti-establishment head of steam fueled by the combined energies of this double feature. When success is measured by power and money, the successful will often become so largely based upon their greed. Not always, certainly. But often. So it comes to pass that the greed-heads rule. Not all of them make it big, of course: there are plenty of poor, weak, loser greed-heads (often they end up being the loudest to compensate for their lack of success). No, it's only the most ambitious and driven of this breed who rise to the top. But rise they do. They can't be stopped, it's the human condition. Bummer.
After that one-two punch I changed gears to watch some playoff football. But with the TV sound down and stereo volume up, blasting my latest iTunes playlist "greedheads" (lots of Clash, Rage, Gang of Four, MC5, Sex Pistols, Black Flag, X ...)
I turned off the football last night after the Jets win, deciding to pass on the Eagles demise and instead catch another flick I missed in theatrical release: The Watchmen. It kept to my anti-establishment theme of the day and was dazzling, dark, and supremely entertaining. Good call on my part.
Sunday's turned into a very lazy day. So lazy in fact that I co-opted what was Saturday's post - this one - and made it Sunday's "gem" so that I'd feel the day wasn't an entire waste on all fronts. Well, why couldn't you have simply whipped up an honest-to-goodness new piece, you say? Did I say it was a lazy day? It was that lazy. And I really don't have anything to say.
I'll be enjoying the Simpson's 20th Anniversary special tonight ("In 3D, on Ice!"), but likely not the new episode of the show it celebrates scheduled just before it. It's my opinion that the first 9 or so years of the Simpsons was the best television ever produced before or since (and I include all categories of show and/or broadcast in that equation). It chronicled (and skewered) contemporary society better than any art I've come across (better than the news and other non-fiction stuff too).
The best comedy show from the beginning to the end of its run was also produced in the 1990s: Seinfeld. If Groening and company had pulled up stakes in 1998, the Simpsons would win that prize in my pantheon as well. It's not just a generational thing, either: I've been an ardent student of television my whole life and have seen them all at length. Every episode of I Love Lucy and Your Show of Shows, through the Honeymooners, Get Smart, Barney Miller, Cheers, and so on. They certainly deserve mention, as does Arrested Development in this millennium. Meanwhile, the last 11 or so years have been increasingly uneven for the Simpsons, but I guess that was bound to happen. It still has more moments as a shadow of its former self than most shows have in their prime. So - happy 20th, Springfield!
Now it's back to the grindstone for one last work week in corporate IT as a full time employee, at least for the foreseeable future. I'll be sure and soak in the political infighting and typically dysfunctional corporate goings on. Now to be sure, I'll see it all again soon in new settings but from the perspective of a consultant, an outsider, a dispassionate observer. And with the knowledge that this too shall pass (in a few days or weeks when that engagement ends and I can move on to the next happy corporate family with their own unique twists on the typical corporate pain points). But before all that, a break for a couple of weeks. Talk to you then.
Man, those cats could have combined to make a dynamite early 70's movie franchise. Sort of a rockin', druggin', slap stick Odd Couple (the Odd Triplets). Or perhaps a less sane variant on the Three Stooges. Elvis all loaded up with fried banana sandwiches and firearms, the contents of a small pharmacy coursing through his veins; Bowie all androgynified and strung out, his Ziggy mullet flapping in the breeze; and finally Larry picking up the rear in full-out Storch-itude, hanging with Sgt. O'Rourke and the Hekawis busting on Captain Parmenter.
As Cher sang, "If I could turn back time." Indeed. The accompanying music video for her 1989 hit had Sonny's already middle aged gal dolled up in a skin-tight flesh colored outfit dancing on the USS Missouri battleship surrounded by Navy "crew members", the irony of the words seemingly lost to all. Cher attempted to turn back time in Nip/Tuck fashion and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, maybe we can turn back time for our Elvis/Bowie/Storch bonanza with some FX magic of our own.
Larry and Bowie are still with us, so maybe we dispense with the full-on CGI and can option this film series idea with the real-deal codgers themselves, targeting it at the Octogenarian demographic (and the many of us who are Octogenarians at heart). With still just a bit of help from Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic crew. The Marx Brothers meets Cheech and Chong meets the cast of Cocoon. The Three Amigos in Depends (hell, Elvis was wearing Depends in his 30s, so in a way it's a tribute to his memory as much as it is to their advancing years). Grumpy Stoned Men.
We just need an Elvis replacement. Lisa Marie? Nah, too young. Elvis Costello? Perhaps Presley was about more than just a quirky first name. We need an aging, pill popping iconic rock star with a ballooning weight problem and delusions of grandeur. And an enabling posse of hangers on. That shouldn't be difficult. Oh, that's right: this rocker also needs to be alive. That might be more challenging. Christ, grab one of his contemporaries - both Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard are still breathing, kind of, and seem to meet most of the criterion. But still, they simply aren't The Pelvis. Somehow that combination of rebellious sneering rocker, Mama's boy backwoods hick, and pill-popping paranoid batshit loon is harder to find in a single persona than one might think.
Ahh! It seems R. Kelly was also born on January 8th, so let's go ahead and inject some young blood into this would-be celluloid gang. It's now becoming sort of like a cross generational Mod Squad! Though it needs that certain special Peggy Lipton-style lady to truly make it mod. Amber Benson belongs to this special fraternity of "celebs" born on Jan 8 so why not let her in on the fun? Who the hell is she, you ask? Exactly. And in the spirit of 60/70's crime dramas, I'm thinking we want to make this gang more Ironside-like. As luck would have it, guess who else was born on 01/08? No, not Raymond Burr (he's dead anyway), I'm talking about Professor Stephen Hawking.
We've got the makings of a real rock and roll Ocean's Eleven, bent on drunken acid and slap stick high drama with some commercial grade physics thrown in to satisfy the public's insatiable hunger for the hard sciences! Let's call it The Jan 8-Ball Posse featuring "Howlin' Black Hole" Hawking.
We better hurry, though. Storch is pushing 90, Hawking's been living on borrowed time for 40 some years, and timing is everything. I'll start work on a draft treatment for the inaugural romp down 8-Ball Alley and ring up Hollywood at once to start the funding round. Gotta work on my sales pitch, though: "Man, if the kids loved Twilight I can only imagine how they'll eat this up ..."
I missed this "ad" when it first made the rounds on Jimmy Kimmel several weeks ago. As soon as I saw ol' Billy Dee, though, I knew it would be good. Any man who can connect sex with Colt 45 malt liquor and make it work the way he did back in the day is a god in my book. The sly smile and a lovely lady in waiting dressed across his back, she half in the bag soused on that putrid concoction and gripping Billy to keep from collapsing. "It works every time," he'd purr. Billy made Colt the go-to GHB of its time. But, you know ... classier.
When Billy Dee made a galactic Judas sympathetic with Lando Calrissian in Empire Strikes Back - well, that was just icing on the cake. As if to say, "Hey, the sex/Colt 45 thing wasn't just a fluke - I got mad skills, people."
And now he's got Tiger's back, helping him compensate for lost endorsement income through this new revenue stream. Making lemonade out of lemons (or perhaps the better metaphor might be "condominiums out of condoms").
These Billy Lee collectible plates are just the tip of this product line iceberg, I'm sure: t-shirts, jewelry, wall art, press-on tattoos, and so on. Billy knows what he's doing, Tiger; just follow his lead. When he gives you a wink you know it's time to do your part: go hit the swanky nightclubs and seduce a new special "plate" for the collection. Billy Dee snaps the pics, the Franklin Mint fires up its ovens, and the purchasing public is satisfied for another month. Then the dance begins again. Who has time to play golf?
I'm snow blind and buried to my gonads in the putrid shit, shoveling my way into back spasms and strained muscles the likes of which I haven't felt in years. I doubt even Rush Limbaugh's medicine cabinet could spell relief for my aching bod tonight. Anyone who said snow is beautiful lives in an apartment or condo. Bah Humbug.
Come Christmas Eve I'll be winging my way to sunny climes (Phoenix to be specific) and away from Bing Crosby's dreaming. Fuck him anyway. He was nothing but a mediocre singer, a lousy actor and a serial child abuser. So, Christmas (and New Year) in Arizona away from where the huskies go with temptations to eat the yellow snow (I'm paraphrasing). Anyway, it's something I'm looking forward to. Meanwhile I've got more of the same to look forward to in my more immediate future that is Sunday. Glancing out the window, the shit just keeps on coming down.
Christ. I think it's time for Tylenol and bed.
Or not. I see on IFC we've got both Kill Bills playing and Pulp Fiction to boot. I just might be up all night. Ya see, I played my new Inglorious Basterds Blu Ray earlier and am still on a bit of a Tarantino high. And I didn't even like Basterds all that much; in fact, I enjoyed more the first flick of today's little double feature, the latest Star Trek.(BTW, Give this a go even if you never liked the Trek TV shows. It's pretty good on its own merits and as a bonus, Shatner isn't anywhere to be found.) But getting back to Tarantino, even if Basterds largely didn't work for me it was never boring. That's Quinton.
Why is it that I can get all exited about movies on TV that I own and can throw into the DVD player any time I want? Rhetorical question: it's because I'm Lazy with a capital L.
Perhaps I'll compromise and watch the rest of Kill Bill Vol 2 in bed. If I can get out of this chair. I should shovel one last time or tomorrow'll be that much worse. But I can't seem to get out of this chair.
[Postscript: Out of the chair, into bed, and up early - okay, 10:00am - to shovel my way into traction. Now at least it won't be so painful tomorrow morning digging my car the rest of the way out. At least I think that's my car under the especially large pile of snow in the driveway. Rush, I need your Oxy! Does your maid have relatives in Philly?]
[Kellogsscript: Dug out my car. Think I'm ready to surf to walmart.com and order up my casket now. This one looks comfortable and should be gentle to my aching back!]
I toil in the murky world of software development and architecture for my supper, a frustrated writer who fell into the technology game quite by chance.
My humor is usually parched and pitch black (if you don't squirm, it's not funny), aimed often at the brilliance and sublime idiocy in politics and pop culture.
Finally, at the end of the day I'm really just a devoted student of life with failing grades who keeps registering for new classes with the fervent hope that he doesn't get expelled this semester.
The opinions expressed here are my own (and they usually don't qualify as that for very long). They are not to be construed as opinions of my employer, my dead dog, the Pope, Richard Nixon's ghost, or Paris Hilton. (Well, maybe on occasion, Paris. I think that - like me - she's student of life at heart.)
When I said I wouldn't be posting here on a near daily basis anymore ... well, today is an anomaly. I think. 
Mr. Torn hasn't slowed down in his golden years, having turned the streets of Manhattan into his own personal pinball machine through much of the 00's, as demonstrated through numerous DUIs there. My favorite performance of his involved him apparently going to a bar and getting hammered after picking up a Christmas tree and then attempting to drive home from the watering hole after last call, weaving through the streets with the evergreen tied to the hood of the car. 
Or - yes, this is it! - a further re-imagining of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with Torn as Raoul Duke - out of his mind on booze and drugs behind the wheel through Barstow, motoring toward Sin City - and Taylor as his wacky attorney Dr. Gonzo, riding shot gun and heaving ginormous bags of confetti out into the wind and onto the desert highway behind them.
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I finally caught Neill Blomkamp's District 9 Saturday morning. Brilliant film on so many different levels. Messy and wildly uneven, utterly original. Not necessarily very singular in the story itself, which at its core is as old as the corruption, oppression and racism that fuels it. No, this originality springs from its style and form, its base simplicity. The melding of science fiction into a grim story of slums, poverty, indifference, greed, abandonment, exile, comeuppance, redemption. No storybook ending and with very few truly sympathetic characters. It's not pretty - it made me almost physically ill at one point - but it is in the end beautiful.
with a recording my DVR slurped up off IFC: The Source. It's a 1999 documentary on the Beats, covering the scene and people from the 1944 introduction of Ginsberg to Kerouac through 1997 when Ginsberg and Burroughs drifted off this mortal coil. Real interesting mix of historical footage, interviews, and contemporary celeb fans Johnny Depp, Dennis Hopper and John Turturro providing dramatic interpretations of the words of Beat pioneers. I identify with the Beats more than any other "movement" and have always been fascinated with those who forged the philosophical, cultural and creative ideals behind the name. The movement encompassed a mishmash of individualists, none of whom played bongos or sported a goatee or uttered "daddy-o" except in ironic disdain. Great stuff..jpg)
... oh, yeah - lots of philosophical and political similarities between District 9 and the works of the Beats: fear and suspicion of conformity, oppression, corporate and government power, etc. So I worked up a sizable anti-establishment head of steam fueled by the combined energies of this double feature. When success is measured by power and money, the successful will often become so largely based upon their greed. Not always, certainly. But often. So it comes to pass that the greed-heads rule. Not all of them make it big, of course: there are plenty of poor, weak, loser greed-heads (often they end up being the loudest to compensate for their lack of success). No, it's only the most ambitious and driven of this breed who rise to the top. But rise they do. They can't be stopped, it's the human condition. Bummer.
Man, those cats could have combined to make a dynamite early 70's movie franchise. Sort of a rockin', druggin', slap stick Odd Couple (the Odd Triplets). Or perhaps a less sane variant on the Three Stooges. Elvis all loaded up with fried banana sandwiches and firearms, the contents of a small pharmacy coursing through his veins; Bowie all androgynified and strung out, his Ziggy mullet flapping in the breeze; and finally Larry picking up the rear in full-out Storch-itude, hanging with Sgt. O'Rourke and the Hekawis busting on Captain Parmenter. 
Larry and Bowie are still with us, so maybe we dispense with the full-on CGI and can option this film series idea with the real-deal codgers themselves, targeting it at the Octogenarian demographic (and the many of us who are Octogenarians at heart). With still just a bit of help from Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic crew. The Marx Brothers meets Cheech and Chong meets the cast of Cocoon. The Three Amigos in Depends (hell, Elvis was wearing Depends in his 30s, so in a way it's a tribute to his memory as much as it is to their advancing years). Grumpy Stoned Men.
What could be better than Billy Dee Williams hawking Tiger Woods limited edition commemorative collectible Franklin Mint "mistress" plates?
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