'No future for you' - J. Lydon, 1977

Mad Men marathon! Ah, but it's just the 3rd season stuff.  Dr. G marathon! It's Sunday - what's new?  I'm torn between watching these and the Eagles game (the latter only in anticipation of someone taking a cheap shot at Michael Vick and rooting on Kansas City - thus far it's not working in my favor).  
The thought of these choices is depressing on a level I didn't think possible.

Miserable rain, a goddamn cold - I already had the flu over the summer for crying out loud - and here comes another fucking Charles Schwab commercial to further rattle my brain. Why didn't 'Chuck' go under with the financial industry collapse? A clear sign there is no God; if there is, he's surely a sadist. 

I think it's time to get it over with: pass me the Plum Smart flavored Activia, cover me with a Snuggie and hand me the number of a good nursing home (time to check myself in).  That or hit me upside the head with a wet sock full of dogshit. Whichever is easier.  Is there some irony in the fact that I have the TV sound off and the Sex Pistols on the stereo?  Probably not irony, just a bit of pathetic sadness. Meanwhile, somewhere in the world, John Lydon's prostate is acting up and the self proclaimed anti-christ is cleaning his dentures in a glass while watching a Madlock marathon.  Or maybe he's enjoying Dr. G like me.

Back in the real world, apparently our long national nightmare may finally be over as I see the crafty Swiss have snared international super villain Roman Polanski in a 'career retrospective film festival' sting.  He fell for that old chestnut?  I recall it failing miserably when the CIA tried it with Bin Laden a couple years back:
"The Tora Bora Terrorism Follies featuring the works of Osama and the Not-Ready-for-72-Virgins Players" was quite an embarrassment to the boys in Langley when only Momar, Oliver Stone and then-Senator Obama bothered to show up, though Bin Laden did send Glenn Beck to accept the lifetime achievement award on his behalf. (Who would have thunk that last one? I would have.)

BTW, the CIA really shouldn't have advertised a 'Saturday mini-retrospective on Kenyan Terrorist Romantic Comedies' for this 'festival' if they wanted to keep the audience clear of American officials for a clean bust (they had to have known of Barack's Muslim Socialist Fascist Kenyan inclinations).  However, that Obama not only attended but kept breaking out into Arsenio Hall "Woof Woof" gestures during the Kenyan flicks should have at least raised a red flag with regard to the nefarious intentions of our future dear leader. That'll teach the CIA: now they have to translate the daily presidential briefings into Swahili and soon all agents not otherwise in the field will have to attend the four week government-grade medical school and do double duty as federal healthcare physicians.

Tonight is a busy evening for tube watching, what with 60 Minutes, Dexter and Californication kicking off new seasons + Curb and Mad Men.  Thank god for DVRs.

Now I need to stop typing garbage into this infernal blog and start studying (the alarm went off a month or so ago on what seems to be a recurring every-two-years new job itch and I'm in serious talks with a couple doctors who can treat this outbreak for me but only if I prepare).

[Postscript: The Sex Pistols gave way to Groovelily on the stereo and Dr. G/Mad Men/Football gave way to the Wizard of Oz (all the other shows will just have to cool their heels in my DVR until I finish this journey down the yellow brick road).  I haven't taken this trip for a long, long time.  It was my very favorite movie as a young boy and perhaps the most anticipated television day of the year for me when they replayed it annually on ... well, whichever one of the three networks that had the rights - I could google it if I wasn't so lazy.  Oz was, to me as a kid, a world apart from the shitty one I was living in.  

Little did I know Judy Garland's life was hell and she had already long since undertaken a daily regiment of booze, pills and tobacco that would have put Janis Joplin and Billy Holiday to shame by the time she filmed Oz at age 17.  Still, that knowledge doesn't hurt the movie one lick; in fact, it adds some poignancy to the mix.]

Mad about Hugo

I'm still mad for Mad Men four episodes into the third season.

I think it's getting better, actually.


There's no attempt to make any of the characters either sympathetic or into bad guys, though some tend to lean in one direction or the other.  But no one's one dimensional. There are certainly no saints, everyone has flaws.  And the ambiance is, as ever, pretty much perfection.  This show on ad men is light on interruptions by actual advertisements, which is also nice.  Sometimes, like last week, they actually work those real-life interruptions into the spirit of the Mad Men universe by prefacing them with historical trivia regarding the particular brand's first appearance on the boob tube.


But I rarely spent a lot of time here fussing over TV I actually like.

Besides, I have a bone to pick with Oliver Stone, back here in the 21st Century (much as I hate to make the trip back to the present from the cozy world of 1963).

Oliver, I love your movies (well, some of them: Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street, pieces of The Doors, JFK for some laughs, I heard World Trade Center was good, not much of Any Given Sunday, the script for Scarface).

But whatcha doing mythologizing Hugo 'Boss' Chavez?

I actually think your new documentary South of the Border might actually do a lot of good in helping to heal our relationship with the people and leadership of perhaps a few countries in Central and South America by giving them a voice and a bit of dignity that we as a nation always seem to be in offical short supply of for their ilk.

But the ends (almost never) justify the means.

I know clown boy W. and his evil Lord Cheney loved to heap shit on him and that crowd.  I also realize that the US has a shameful recent (and not-so-recent) history of propping up tin-horn dictators with ease down south of the border while demonizing anyone who even ever so faintly smells of socialism.  But Chavez seems like so much of a punk in every interview I've caught with him. 

I can't really say I'm surprised or that I expected better from Oliver.  He is, after all, just being Oliver.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing.  After all, we need folks like Oliver to counterbalance the yahoos on the right.  Anyway, to those yahoos, I'm pretty indistinguishable from Ollie (or Chavez for that matter).

I'll reserve judgment on the flick until I see it.  After all, it's not only about Chavez, though he figures the most prominently, I hear.  And maybe he's an okay sort. He really does seem to despise Bush after all, so he has that going for him.  Of course, his personality reminds me a lot of Bush, too.  A 'true believer' with the permanent smirk plastered on the kisser.

Ollie did apparently cover a lot of other ground in the movie throughout Central and South America, talking to a half dozen or so leaders in addition to Hugo.

My concern isn't with the film so much (how could it if I haven't seen it?), it's with Stone's performance at the Venice film festival and particularly his glad handing/backslapping with Hugo on the red carpet.  Sort of tosses out any pretense of impartiality.

But then, the word 'unbiased' is not really in Oliver's vocabulary anyway, is it?

Enough with Oliver and Hugo, on to Doctor G, Manson and Hoarders.
No, that's not a new music act (though that would be an excellent band name), that's my channel surfing A.D.D this evening.

Doctor G is in her usual first-run slot (alas, a rerun tonight), Manson scores a History Channel prime time slot , though it's nearly a month past the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders (maybe it's 40 years since he was first indicted or some other such mile marker). And finally, a Labor Day A&E Hoarders marathon is underway (though I missed most of the day's festivities).

No new Y incisions to make with Doc G and I'm thoroughly sick of that punk Manson at this point, so I'm mainly rocking with Hoarders this evening.   I was going to get some work done.  But then I came to my senses.