'They beat him up until the teardrops start, but he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart' - Feverish Sunday Ruminations

My thoughts are even more scattered than normal this afternoon. Trying to get caught up on work and my brain just refuses to go there. Went out for a run this morning and again this afternoon and now feel like the flu's got me by the gonads for my troubles. Somewhere, Jim Fix is laughing. Flu in August?!?

I gotta feel better by tomorrow, as it is a day of reckoning for yours truly. I'll either be newly committed or on my way out the door. It's all up to you, Stu Iridium.

Anyway, in no particular order ...

Bravo to the Russian punks giving voice to the seemingly nonexistent voice of democracy under the iron rule of Putin. Bush saw a kindred spirit after 'looking into his soul' with those Jesus-powered peepers of his. Given his judge of character (including any self judgments), that shoulda sealed it: Putin must be evil.

Scorsese, Coppola, Lumet, Wilder, Welles, Eastwood, Cohen Brothers - these are my personal filmmaking gods and I put Quentin Tarantino in that company. Perhaps more for his writing than his directing, but he's aces at both. Which is why I'm excited about the release of his latest, 'Inglorious Basterds', at the end of the week. Many of his films have been a mess and in some ways haven't lived up to Pulp Fiction heights of expectation but even when they don't work, they are broken in original and varied ways. An interesting bad film is always better than a ho-hum good one in my book. If I had such a book.

There is also a lotta good buzz around 'District 9' so I may venture out to catch that one as well. Sci-fi as parable on race relations and dignity as a basic human right (even if you happen not to be human). Aliens that are neither malevolent or benevolent (they don't want to conquer us but don't seem to have much advanced technology we can benefit from). All of which would normally be a recipe for a steaming pile of snorefest, tv-movie-grade crap, but I hear tell it's done in a very entertaining and watchable manner, no heavy hands at work here.



I can't believe that apart from his widow's strong rebuff, nothing much more has come from the Billy Mays coke use revelation. I figured his corpse would have checked into rehab to save face, Weekend at Bernie's style. "Hey, Billy, it's time for group - look everyone, Billy's napping again! That's our Billy! Hey, man, you can't sleep through recovery - let's give him a lift ..." There may have been no personal/character closure, but there was sort of a final medical word on the drug cocktail brewing in his system at time of death, most of it courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry. He was truly a man of his time. Orange Glo, indeed.

This weekend saw the most famous hit from a pipe by a mayor since Marion Barry ... Talk about knocking down some Milwaukee's best. In the perpetrator's defense, he lives in Wisconsin.


Looky, looky, Pulp Fiction be playing on IFC - I'm in a feverish state of mind and perhaps some good conversation around Foot Massages, Green Acres and the necessary Intelligence/Cleanliness balance, Tasty Burgers in France, Clitoris Piercing, Heroin and the Pepsi Challenge, The Economics of Five dollar shakes, The Gimp, and Anal Cavity Heirlooms mixed in with
time out of mind sequencing, stylin' violence, and of course The Wolf might be just the medicine I need.

For Sure.

We happy? Vincent? We happy.

A Confederacy of Presentation Tips

Okay, so I'm watching the talking heads this morning, getting an early start with ESPN's Sports Reporters. For some reason, sports analysts have more exaggerated mannerisms than their 'Hard News' cousins around the dial - it's like they're playing charades with us and they all picked 'someone in the throws of an epileptic seizure' as their subject. I guess they're trying to infuse their analysis with the action of the games and athletes they're covering.

Newsies get their mojo going with arm and hand gymnastics as well, though usually a slower, quieter form (think 'doing the 70s Jackson 5 Robot dance' while sitting behind a desk). Unless they are op-ed commentators, and then it's ants-in-the-pants-on-crank time to beat the Sportos at their own 'game'.

I occasionally do presentations at work and the topic is rarely as innately interesting as the wildcat offense or a health care town hall meeting gone awry. (Quick: whatta call an Eagle's Wild Cat? A Dog Killer. Ba dump.)

To add to my deficit, the audience is usually not there of their own accord and I don't generally enjoy it, probably because I'm not very good. So I'm working from a fairly deep hole and need all the help I can get. Then I think to myself, 'what do I do with my hands?' That's why I try and pick up pointers from 'the pros'. I'm not a hand model, after all - not even master of my own domain usually.

There are the obvious no-nos: fingers up the nose or in the ears, jack-off gestures or really any lingering around down in the general crotch area, flipping off the audience, scratching your ass. I get those. Hands in the pockets or straight down at the side unmoving are less egregious but still frowned upon.

What then?

I'm left with the sort of preacher moves - giving the crowd Pope-style blessings as I stalk the stage, punctuated with a double karate chop or hourglass outline (ya know, the hands go head to toe around an imaginary but shapely figure). Finger pointing and air juggling are soon to follow. I get through it but it doesn't feel right ...

... so I end up watching the various round tables and speeches and debates and talk shows just to get some pointers, the dos and definitely don'ts.

Ahh, but they're all crap on some level.

The only ones looking natural are cooking show hosts. Because they have something legitimate to do with their hands.

Maybe next time I have to present something, I'll bring along a cutting board, some spices, meat, and veggies and a knife. 'Today we're going to learn about best practices in exception handling while we whip up a fantastic little dish I like to call Potpourri. Bam!"

Probably not practical.


Maybe I should just take my cue from a literary hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, late of New Orleans. Now, Ignatius is not a professional speaker, nor is he even in the communications industry, per se.

But he has presence. And style. And command.

Whether leading the worker's rebellion at Levy Pants, hawking hot dogs as a pirate themed street vendor, making beautiful music on his medieval lute or releasing pressure on his valve into Big Chief Writing Tablets, he never waivers in his world view and that radiates out into his 'audiences'.

Our introduction to Ignatius perhaps puts it best:

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once.

Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black mustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D. H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress ...

Ignatius himself was dressed comfortably and sensibly. The hunting cap prevented head colds. The voluminous tweet trousers were durable and permitted unusually free locomotion ...

The outfit was acceptable by any theological and geometrical standards, however abstruse, and suggested a rich inner life.

Enough said.