Madmen Drummers Bummers and Indians in the Summer

One week away from another season with the boys and girls at Sterling Cooper.

Rolling into 1963, just a little less than a year from the Kennedy assassination. Not far then to the Beatles arrival, Dylan gone electric and the beginnings of the birth of "The 60s." One last season to bathe in the glow of fading innocence and bid adieu to its numbing viciousness as a black and white world turns to color (on a number of different levels).

For me, an excuse to lust after Betty Draper on Sunday evenings. All pastels and skirts and smokes, suits and booze at the office and beatniks on the fringes. Not yet for the avocado kitchen appliances and living room shag carpets.

I was going on three months of age at the dawn of 1963, so first-hand memories are a hazy shade of nothing. But then again I can say the same for most of the 60s and 70s. I seem to have clear memories from that period only of the Brady Bunch, Land of the Lost, the Watergate Trial and the day my Dad died (just couple days before Elvis kicked, 32 years ago this Tuesday).

Speaking of Dad, he wasn't exactly a 'Mad Man' (though going by the show, he drank like one). He sold plumbing supplies when he worked. Not quite Don Draper. More Don Birnam. And Mom wasn't Betty Draper. She was closer to Norma Desmond. They attempted every once in a while to Be The Drapers. But the Drapers out, not the Drapers in. We were at the core a Salvation Army family living in a JC Penney neighborhood and didn't do a lot of entertaining (at least not of the Draper variety).

Still, with Mad Men there is something oddly familiar. About the setting, the clothes, the mannerisms. Not exactly comforting, but ... contemporary. The present day by comparison seems dated.

So, Betty on Sunday and Nancy Botwin on Monday. In my own private Idaho ('get outta that state you're in!' - thanks, Fred, but I think I'll stick around).

'Drama continues this fans, get ready to who stretch the meaning' - need I say more?

Father Quint
'Ya got city hands, Mr. Hooper, ya been counting money all your life.'

Nothing starts a Sunday morning like the umpteenth screening of Jaws.

I don't need church: Quint is my minister.

He has more than enough proverbs and parables at the ready to satisfy the Ned Flanders in me, with a sanctimonious holier-than-thou air about him that would make any man of the cloth proud.

Even as he reenacts Jonah and the Whale for us at the end of the movie, there's a kind of twinkle in Quint's eyes, as if to say, "I'll be watchin' you - keep that chum line goin' now".

Indeed. Keep that chum line going. Sage advice for all of us.

Spam for breakfast
I'm often baffled by the intent of certain spam I receive (the email rather than the meat variety, though I'm baffled by the latter as well).

I'll spare you the subject line of the one that compelled a second look on my part this morning (suffice to say it mentions the promise of intercourse in a barn but with an especially odd turn of phrase). And really, it was the body of the message that was most intriguing, mainly in its unintentional obfuscation:

Abolition align
Liquor raps about extra mile and building are damn
help in keeping a told to right as to es dort wohl zu
die Gratispostille "Punkt The Top other content, Show" fan but this isn’t necessarily
and drama continues this fans, get ready to who stretch the meaning

There are touches of German here, but no signs of the sex barn I was expecting. You know, comely Amish Rachel Lapp getting it on with John Book by car-light among the hay and the cows. Talk about raising her barn! That sort of thing.

Amish? German? Ahh, we're getting closer. But closer to where?

These words must have a larger meaning, a bigger purpose that I just can't grok.

Somehow, I think Quint would know. But there's no asking him. Damn Shark.

Wild Things, I think you moved me, but I want to know for sure

Where the Wild Things Are.

This was my favorite children's book as a very young boy and I see the Spike Jonze movie adaption comes out in the fall.

It looks promising. It's got a lot to live up to for me personally.

It was my first 'favorite' book.

Chester The Horse was my actual first book that had words I could read, but that story was a snoozer (sorry, Syd - but you'll be happy to know I own a copy of your equine opus this very day, for posterity).

Wild Things, though, was the shit.

My mom taught us to read at a pretty young age and books allowed me to escape from the Cirrhosis, Strokes, Smokes and Manic Depression that otherwise enveloped our (un)Pleasantville style home (sort of like the executioner giving you a blindfold and showing you how to tie it before signaling the firing squad to start shooting for the next 15 years).

'Cirrhosis, Strokes, Smokes and Manic Depression' - it's got a ring to it, eh? If I ever start a rock band, Mom & Dad, I've got the name and you'll be the inspiration ...

I was 3 or 4 when Chester arrived and a year or so older for Wild Things. Until I graduated to Dr. Doolittle, Encyclopedia Brown and The Phantom Tollbooth (which became my new best-est favorite), Max and his Monsters kicked ass.

So, Spike - this better be good. Ya made some wonderful flicks (Adapation and Being John Malkovich) but Charlie Kaufman didn't write this one and you've been uneven without Chuck at the pen. Do Maurice proud.

Looks to be a great cast of characters (Claire Fisher, Tony Soprano, Lola Heatherton, Charles Jefferson, Maxine Lund) but you've been fiddling with it for over a year, Spike, which worries me some. And there's talk the studio is influencing you to make it "more family oriented."

Stand your ground.

Fuck the family. This is for grown up kids. My childhood memories are depending on it.

Speaking of books that are the shit, I'm re-reading yet again Kirsten Bakis's wonderfully fantastic flight of canine 19th century Canadian rebellion and 21st century Manhattan society, 'Lives of the Monster Dogs.' If you ain't read it, I can't recommend it enough. Utterly original. Mops Hacker is dead - Long live Mops Hacker! Twelve years on and it's her only book but I hear tell she's working on a new one. I will be at the head of the line to read that one too.

For the techno-geeks, I'm taking David Astel's Jolt Award winning TDD guide for another spin. Really well written and engaging (two things I don't tend to find in tech books not written by Martin Fowler). As fresh and relevant today as it was when he wrote it in 2003 as it will be in 2013. It teaches you how to develop all over again, step at a time. How not to get ahead of yourself and how to truly design through code. Great stuff.

'Why so Serious, Son? Let me put a Smile on that Face of Yours!'

I figured that I should slip in a somewhat more coherent post in the midst of my goofy drivel.

I'm sure those inane attempts at satire or slapstick are likely positively confusing and confounding to those that aren't familiar with my particular sense of 'humor' (which I fully understand might not qualify as such to many).

I figured if anyone happened upon this blog and were either confused, bored silly, or offended by any of my scribblings, they've long since gone away never to return.

Then I said to myself, 'Well, there are likely a lot of masochists out there in the wide, wide web of sports. Maybe they stuck around. And I don't know their safety words.'

So, for you all ...

Know that my literary gods are Hunter Thompson and Lester Bangs and I regularly rip off both of them in equal measure as they spin uncontrollably in their graves.
[I have quit attempting to emulate their extra curricular activities once I figured out that a.) those things did not, contrary to popular belief, fuel their writing and b.) I might like to stick around on the planet a few more years and maybe even write a little if only for my own amusement.]

That should frame pretty much anything I write. Be forewarned.

I also admire (and therefore attempt to steal from every chance I get) a number of other writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Kennedy Toole, Chuck Klosterman, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Maureen Dowd, Joseph Heller, Kirsten Bakis, Truman Capote, Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Martin Fowler, Bob Woodward, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, James Frey and Ralph Ellison come to mind. Some of these guys are very prolific but several only popped to the surface with one or two amazing pieces of work.

From the world of screenwriting, I'd add to the list David Mamet, Diablo Cody (Juno is the start of something special I think), Charlie Kaufman, Quentin Tarantino, Billy Wilder, the Cohen Brothers and Woody Allen. And the Marx Brothers. And Orson Welles.

From the world of TV writing: Larry David, all the writers associated with the Simpsons through the 1990s, Michael O'Donoghue, Tiny Fey, Christopher Titus, John Stewart, David Chase. And Chris Carter, David Lynch (Twin Peaks! Yeah, he's done movies too, but ...), Ernie Kovacs, and Danny Arnold. And perhaps most especially Rod Serling.

From the world of music specifically as it relates to their words, see Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Liz Phair, Velvet Underground (Lou Reed), Clash and Gang of Four.

Why list all these folks?

In the spirit of full disclosure.

Disclosure of what for godsake!?!?

Disclosure that I'm a thief and a sponge (an absorbent crook). The Depends of Bloggers. Somebody else's Depends. Get the picture? No, not that one. Don't be so literal - the analogy. Geez.

Oh, and speaking of crooks, I forgot one of my biggest 'influences': Richard M. Nixon. The biggest Dick the world has ever known. I'm sure he's looking up at us now and smiling. Throw another log on the fire, Beelzebub, looks like Dick is gettin' chilly!

Anyway, primarily a thief. In case you vaguely recognize something but it just doesn't seem right - like maybe it might be an overripe version of something from someone of note but that it's now past its expiration date and there's a faint odor emanating from the general direction of your browser.

So, primarily a thief and not to be taken seriously. Or taken at all.

I relate perhaps most of all to that Groucho Marx line, "I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member."

Finally, Congrats to the newest Supreme Court Associate Justice, Sonia Sotomayor! Here's hoping that Scalia and Thomas for some reason opt for early retirement in the next couple of years. And Roberts, isn't it time you left? Come on, it's been over three and half years now!

Nobody beats the Wiz! Beat it, beat it! Method, Madness, and easing toward the great and powerful Oz

This is what became of Willard's friend, Ben?

Nesting in some $20.00 bills in an ATM?

You remember Ben, the Rat that Michael Jackson loved as a child.

No not really Ben (rats don't live that long). Rather, his great, great grandchild.

The little rat is only claiming what is rightfully his. I think until now, only Ben and his relatives knew the story that I will share with you here. The cash in the ATM is hush money, meant to keep the little rat silent. Trace those torn up bills the rodent was nesting in and you'll follow the money trail to the heights of Hollywood power and corruption.

This is all, I think, linked to a revelation I had while lying in bed this morning. The TV was still on from the night before when I fell asleep watching some second rate 50s flick I had never heard of before and can't remember now on the Retro Channel. As I wiped the gunk from my eyes around 9:30am and things came into focus, I saw that 'The Wiz' was playing on the tube.

No, not the commercial pitchman for the Northeastern US Regional Stereo and Electronics chain that Elaine dated on Seinfeld ('Nobody beats the Wiz!').

That's, right: the 1970s blaxploitation, disco-fueled Wizard of Oz remake.

Diana Ross (sans Supremes and not long past her Oscar nominated turn as Billie Holiday) as Dorothy, Nipsey Russell as the tin man, Richard Pryor as The Wiz, Lena Horne(!) as Glinda. Quincy Jones in an uncredited role as the Emerald City Gold Pianist.

And Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow.

Instead of trying to 'follow the yellow brick road!', they instead were going to 'ease on down, ease on down the rooaad!' Getting into see the Wiz was akin to slipping past the velvet ropes of Studio 54 without appearing on the guest list: a tough sell. A fine, fine flick!

A small revelation was that it was directed by Sidney Lumet. Sidney is much more well known for gritty, realer-than-real, method-acting classics like Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, and Network and completely out of his element in Wiz land.

But the big revelation is that I now know who killed Michael Jackson.

I'm positive.

At first I thought it must be the people who did Michael Jackson's makeup for The Wiz.

Look closely at him here. See that black crap smeared all over his nose?

When did his nose start shrinking?

No need to think, I'll tell you: long about just after the Wiz finished up filming, that's when.

The horrible truthiness of it is frightening.

And the rest of the makeup! It's much harder to see it, since it blends into the color of his flesh. Well, to be specific, the color of his flesh circa 1978.

My supposition is that this insidious, toxic pigment-destroying makeup gestated in MJ's DNA, slowly releasing Diprivan into his system, hooking him on the shit, while simultaneously robbing him of color and eventually of his life.

Then it hit me: no, it couldn't be the makeup folks ..

Perhaps the makeup people were merely unwitting accomplices in this grand conspiracy.

But follow the evidence trail: Who supplied the makeup? Who manufactured it? Or maybe the truth(iness) is closer to home: Who had access to it on set? Diana? Nipsey? Pryor?

Or maybe Sidney Lumet?

Yes, yes. Sidney!

Perhaps - oh, I'm sure now, no 'perhaps'! - he had Michael in mind to play the teenage poet/heroin addict Jim Carroll in a screen adaption of his book, 'The Basketball Diaries'.

A real method-actor's writer/director would salivate at such a challenge!

He needed first to turn Michael into a drug addicted and very pale Irish/Catholic kid.

But Michael mustn't know! It had to be 'real'!

Michael needed to 'feel' Jim Carroll, it needed to be a 'natural' transformation.

Sidney, you mad, mad, method genius!

But something went wrong.

Sidney had, in all his meticulous planning, forgotten a basic truth: Michael couldn't act.

It all fell apart at that point.

Michael became the Moonwalker, his nose slowly dissolved away, he vanished into a translucent fog of pigmentation and Neverland fantasies.

And Leo DiCaprio eventually played Jim Carroll many, many years later in the mid-90s to deafening indifference.

I must bring this Strasberg-ion, madness-in-the-method travesty to light!

A book! A movie!

And Sidney will direct!

John Bender is Dead - he's spilled his last can of paint in the garage

John Hughes wrote, directed and otherwise made a bunch of movies in the 80s that pretty much defined adolescence in that decade.

They rang true for me as well, though I ostensibly played my adolescence out a decade before that. Of course, I claim a certain prepubescent Dorian Gray sensibility to this day and may even be suffering from DG Syndrome (if I'd known, I'd have had it treated).

Like many, 16 Candles and Breakfast Club are my two favorites Hughes flicks. Though it isn't as well known, I also really loved 'Some Kind of Wonderful': Mary Stuart Masterson, wailing on her drum set, pining for the post-Mask/pre-Pulp Fiction Eric Stoltz who only has eyes for Lea Thompson. And 'Pretty in Pink' - classic. Hughes also wrote Lampoon's 'Vacation' and 'Uncle Buck' (great stuff) but also afflicted us with 'Home Alone' and the 'Flubber' remake (let's not talk about those in the eulogies, okay?). Still, it was the middle-class suburban teen comic joy and crises of a particular time and place that he put an indelible stamp on.

All-in-all, there aren't many writer/directors who defined a genre more than John Hughes. Just as Hitchcock owned mystery and suspense, Hughes was 80s teen angst.

School's out. The 80s are now truly over. And to underscore that, Grandpa Steve Tyler broke his shoulder falling off the stage, presumably trying to get up out of his rocker to sing. Sorry, Steve: if I'm old, you're old.

But let's get down to what the media really want to know: How would Michael Jackson have felt hearing about John Hughes death? Perhaps Larry King will have Germaine on to give us a take on MJ's favorite John Hughes movie.

Boy, it was a bag-o-laughs watchin' the boys and gals in Congress do the final preen, howl, mumble and let-go-my-ego tango prior to the Sotomayor vote. Both sides of the aisle outdid themselves in hot air, purple prose and piles of steaming horseshit. Watching CSPAN this evening (and then some of the highlights on the Daily Show) was truly entertaining. That's where my head is at.

Bringing my thought process (process?) full circle, I wonder if Sotomayor could fairly and impartially judge a John Hughes movie contest? Or would her viciously racist and radical latino-only agenda come to the fore and compel her to keep writing in La Bamba even though didn't have a hand in that? I'm sure some variant of that is on the minds of the right wing bozos bouncing around Congress. Actually, that's probably too reasonable for most of that ilk.

We all know what a melting pot of humanity a Hughes film festival would attract, given the rainbow of diversity threading through that jumbo DVD box set (if by rainbow, I mean white, Anglo-Saxon upper middle class suburban Chicago teenagers). Some were tall, though. And some short. At least shorter than the taller ones.

Hughes was about as white bread (and white bred) as they come. Which makes him compadres with most of the Supremes (Thomas included, let's be frank now - I'm sure he's rockin' Barry Manalow and Perry Como on the iPod, occasionally getting 'ethnic' by slipping in some Bee Gees).

Will Sonia be able to deal with movie night at the courthouse? I think she needs to come clean here.

Random Thoughts, Trivial Drivel

Kim and Bill go to Cabbage Castle
I see Lil' Kim and Billy the 'C' are breaking kimshi in Pyongyang. A few glad handing photo ops, a 'my wife is ...' dirty joke with wink-wink delivery, a free happy meal gift certificate or two under the table and, bam! Those journalists are on a plane home!

Meanwhile, Hillary looks on with a bemused, pained smirk. Is there no way to duck that shadow?

Lil' Kim's a publicity whore and a propaganda panda and this should fill his coffers for a good long while. Point to Dear Leader.

Joe Jackson Gives Grandkids the Gift of His Absence
That's today's obligatory Jackson headline across the news aggregators and to my mind a pretty colossal understatement. This is a guy that was pushing some website venture of his to a reporter the very day they found his son dead. Class.

I caught the headline from the corner of my eye at work and my first thought was 'Is She Really Going Out with Him'/'Steppin' Out' Joe Jackson? Grandkids? Damn, Joe's not that old is he? Then I came back to Earth and caught my mistake. But 'Sunday Papers'/'Beat Crazy' Joe Jackson is indeed plenty old enough for Grandkids. So, for that matter, am I. Shit.


Russian subs patrolling off East Coast
Ha! We fell for the whole 'cold war is over' masquerade, the central-committee-is-no-more charade. These guys are crafty devils. Hopefully, our boys can knock the rust off the ol' creaky SOSUS arrays, kick start the trusty Manual Morse listening posts and point 'em at the Olenegorsk-San Antonio De Los Banos Bear-D flight corridor. The red menace is back, baby, and we missed ya something fierce! Give me a 'U', give me an 'S', give me an 'S', give me an 'R' ...

Spam
I'm fascinated by the subject lines in spam. All the come-ons and teasers in various states of lucidity and purpose and grammar. It gets more interesting the more of it there is, as each needle attempts to polish its gleam amidst the growing haystack that is internet-scale email traffic.

Out of the hundreds that are caught by my filters (and the dozens that aren't), there are usually at least one or two a week that catch my eye.

Mainly, I'm interested in the thought process behind the face of the proposition, the subject line. Perhaps more than anything, spam is a microcosm of humanity (the light and the dark, the banal and the twisted).

To wit, 'Mandy Brewer' lets me know that "You can be ugly and stupid as long as your shaft is big." Classy, to the point with an economy of words. 'Mandy' clearly know how to laser in on 'her' target demographic. If only software vendors could be so direct. In the end, they pretty much say the same thing, it just takes them sssoooo llloooonnnggg to get to the punch line.

It's a matter of economies of scale, I guess - 'Mandy' is just working the long end of the long tail - ya hit enough people in enough different ways, somebody's head's gonna eventually spin in your direction.

And right next to Mandy in the spam bin is 'six ways to manage your relationship with the CIO' from the Tech Republic.

Of the two, which one most qualifies as spam? Which one was more useful? Me, I'm still undecided. Ugly and Stupid, you say?