Hatchety-Murdery

Fun with Photoshop--pics of Cait's bike

2008-10-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

The Shame

2008-09-14T04:38:00.001-07:00

After watching the Scary Maze videos on Youtube, I've been thinking a lot about shame. There are basically two types--the sudden, unwanted shame of realizing you've just been scared out of your britches (those blubbering kids on Youtube), and the shame that you CAN do something about, but against your better judgment you keep doing the thing that causes you to feel shame, like carrying a Dungeons & Dragons Player's Kit down Main Street in front of everyone.

Which I did just yesterday.

It all began when I promised two of my "clients" that I would sponsor their D & D club. I'm not kidding: up to and above THREE of them have been carrying around books about it and spend all of their free time designing characters. "I mean, we could be out there playing Halo or getting drunk, right, Dr.____?" "Uhh...yeah...I guess you are right." The Freaks and Geeks episode went through my mind, as well the faces of all those kids in the 80s who were both D & D champions and complete and utter outcasts. But I am a champion of outcasts, eight? See all those posts about trolls, etc.

Mind you, I haven't really played the game very much. I know a little about it, but in the 80s my thing was fantasy sc-fi novels. A Spell for Chameleon! Bio of a Space Tyrant! Caves of Steel! Why play a game when you can READ about it and imagine the action on the page? Of course, my clients saw it the opposite way: why read about it when you can write your own characters and action yourself?

So I avoided the shame all those years. Until now.

The first thing I did--stupidly--was walk into TL Bookstore on Main and request the "D & D section." Our good friend Cl__ LAUGHED IN MY FACE, as did B___y from behind the counter, and a customers. Cl___ said, and I directly quote, "Take your ass down to the comic book store. We don't carry that shit!"

They were still laughing as we proceeded to QC comics, the rain outside cold and disapproving : was this some sort of mission/test that my "character" had to endure? We pushed the door open, convinced that at least here we would not be met so ridiculed.

It was filled with the usual nerds, some hunched over giant white boxes, others cradling glossy stacks of the latest issues as if holding newborn babes. P tried to warn me: "Uhhhh....no, I don't think..." But I had already asked, loud and proud, if there was D & D here. The comic book guy barely looked up and merely thumbed in the direction of that gaming store down by Aldi Foods.

Fuck. It was at least three or four blocks down. But oh well. P's shoes were soaked because he only owns one pair and they have holes in them. I was feeling really sorry for putting him through this ordeal. We were also going to be late in getting Cl__, who was supposed to meet us at Amy's in a few minutes. But we had to complete the mission!

We trudged down the street, and by now I was really glad that I wasn't alone. As we crossed the threshold, I thought, "Either this is certain doom or it's going to be the most welcoming place in the whole city."

The first thing that hit me was the smell. The tiny little gaming store does not have enough fresh air inside of it to sustain twelve 15-year old boys' air supply, let alone thin out their massive B.O. These kids were loud and entirely oblivious. Some were playing video games, some were arguing over game details. One was ferociously insisting that "If that's the rule, that's NOT what they said in Chicago!" Obviously, some inveterate game expert at GameCon Chicago had implanted orthodoxy in his head and Mr. Clueless didn't see the light.

The owner was just as you'd expect: pale and unhealthy looking, yet strangely exuberant for being in his element. Unlike Comic Book Guy, this man loved his customers, and even allowed them to eat subs and drink soda. He had provided chairs to some of them, and, as it was closing time, let them store their bikes in the basement ("Do you think he calls it The Dungeon?" asked P). One of the kids was joking around with a friend about how he was going to fuck someone "with no condom and no KY." "No, he's not," quipped Cl___ later on, after we told her about them. "He's really...not."

The owner pointed out the D & D section and we cut through the B.O. with out invisible swords. There was just so much from which to choose! I at least knew that I wanted version 3.5, not the most recent one. But did I want the Monster Manual? Were there individual campaigns that I could buy for the "clients"? Some unrelated Lovecraft games caught my eye, as well as Moorcock's Elric series made into RPGs. What a world.

From a high shelf I brought down a dusty box that contianed a) the Player's Manual, b) all the dice (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20-sided), and c) a dozen Abberations (mini figurines of varying origins) which could serve as visual references. Everybody knew that an actual green fire-breathing dragon wasn't necessary, and there was no board, moreover, so it was all about collection the total of 60, I think, and placing them--where? Where the fuck in my house am I going to put these things? Oh, I know: next to my Gummy Mummy, coyote skull, handcuffs, survival knives, gas mask, and Alien facehugger! You know, in the room that I keep closed when entertaining mixed company? Out of shame?

I didn't have cash. "Uh..." P scrambled for it, as the owner looked really impatient. As P counted out singles I asked the guy if I could come back tomorrow. "We're not open tomorrow." "Well, on Tuesday." "We're not open Tuesday." Oh--apparently Wed-Sun is when their beacon shines through the dark Buffalo night, as this is when teens have time off from school or are the most likely to skip. Patrick had only $29 and it was $35. "Just take it," the guy said. He didn't. Even. Ring. It. Up. He waved us out as if he didn't want the kids to see, or, more plausibly, didn't want to keep any record that this sort of thing ever existed in his store. As we walked back in the now pouring rain, it occurred to me that to be truly cool I wouldn't have bought the game there, I would have ordered a classic one from eBay or already owned it--I was of the age, after all. There was just no being cool today. Just shame. In the rain. The man hadn't offered a bag, either, and I think we know why.

"I guess I better hold the box on this side," I said, shifting it out of eyesight from the cars, each set of headlights coming out of the drizzle like... dragon eyes. The little pieces inside made a crunching noise as they hit the side of the cardboard. This sound echoed louder than I could ever have imagined. "Crunch. Shame. Crunch. Shame..." I asked P if we should put the box in his car before meeting Cl__ at the diner. He was nice enough to say no. And to continue walking next to a grown-ass man carrying a D & D set.

Bye Bye Blog?

2008-08-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, that's one reason. The other is that I'm trying to write autobiographically, which takes a lot of time--Geoffrey Crayon disappeared right around the time he was finishing his novel, then he had a kid, etc. Blogs aren't always high on the list.

But now that work is beginning again, I find myself in front of the computer lots more. So here's something small--for now.

I've always thought that liking heavy metal--more specifically progressive and symphonic metal (you know, the 'nice' stuff--not that Lamb of God, jingoistic fratboy bullshit--is a lot like collecting comic books or anything else geeky. You tend to know a whole lot about it that others don't, to like it a lot more (too much more) than others do, and to get offended when people don't understand it ("Evanescence is NOT part of this genre, man!" [Sound of geek spittle frothing]). And geeks always yearn to find the homeland of their true people, be it Darkon, Klingon, Comic-Con, or...small pockets of Europe!

Which is where these metal fests take place. Christ, in the U.S. we have, what, Ozzfest? Warped Tour? Fuck that. I want to go see this Medusa shit! I'll swim over there, dammit.

I bet these concerts are the only place in the world where you can't distinguish whose a girl-metal-singer fan and whose a Xena fan. Ah, Xena. If you were a singer in a band, the band would most definitely be a symphonic metal band with whispering banshees and full choir dressed in leather. The orchestra would be...well, like symphonic metal, it would probably be played by one guy on a synth, and he would be made fun of--until the Xena fangirls stared him down with their eye daggers. Because this shit is serious, man.

This Week in B_n

2008-04-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

--I was invited to be the speaker at the "exiting ceremony" where I work--which trite metaphor shall I use as I send them on their way?

--I'm sick of Obama's inconsistency with his old pastor, with Fox news, etc.

--I learned that Teddy Roosevelt's mom and wife died on the same day, and that he subsequently travelled to the American badlands to mull it over. He then led an expedition through Brazil to find a river, during which much of his party committed suicide or were murdered by natives, lived to tell everyone about the place, but was nevertheless disbelieved by respected geographers.

--I stood in line for an hour so that I could pick up my reserve copy of GTA IV. I thought I was a big dork until I realized there were no pimply-faced teenagers around at all. The fans were all my age, of varying ethnicity, gender, and class, some carrying babies on their arms, some an entire nuclear family, though most were lone males like me. None of us seemed like "nerds" at all, but rather celebrants of the most satirical video game about American culture ever invented (by the Scottish). We were all chatting about it line like it was not just some sort of Harry Potter phenomenon, but some sort of very serious event, like a new Wilco or Radiohead record. Not knowing GTA is like not knowing Seinfeld, The Wizard of Oz, or "Happy Birthday"--you must actively reject it not to know of it or at least its general contribution/detriment. When I brought it home I accidentally ripped off the plastic that stays on the case. My trembling fingers guided the disk into the Xbox tray like a nervous teenage virgin. The world of Liberty City opened up like Valhalla. I did not steal a car, punch anyone, or blow someone's brains out. I walked around, interacted with pedestrians, went to my apartment, and watched TV. That's right: you can just sit there in your virtual pad and flip channels around GTA-land TV while you mellow out. One show paired a butch closeted gay man with an out femmy gay man--that's a show I want to see: homophobia and queer criticism encircling each other like good and evil do in Fantasia. I then programmed my virtual cellphone with custom ringtones and tuned my radio to all-Russian pop, which is an amazing new genre I know nothing about except the usual (Gorky Park, Tatu, etc.). Apparently one can also make the character go "online" and connect to some social networking site--I've heard that XBox livers can actually connect to other Xboxers this way, like myspace and facebook. I can't confirm this most odd of mediations I've ever heard of.

--I rewatched the brilliant documentary Hollywoodism, which my "clients" love. They can't believe that Hollywood offers an inclusive picture of the American Dream that, ironically, was constructed by the very people shut out of it in the first place. An image consumes reality yet again.

--Opeth is my new favorite band. What other prog death metal band performs an entirely acoustic folk set of pure evil before launching into the "heavy" stuff? Here's just a mere taste: "Hope Leaves"--great fuckin' title, eh? More Opeth to come. I'll tattoo this O--I don't give a fuck.

Amber Benson (nerd alert)

2008-04-25T04:33:00.001-07:00

AB plays an ethical vampire in an episode of Supernatural called "Bloodlust." Check it out at surfthechannel.com

One of the interesting twists on vampire mythology is that dead man's blood can be put on any stabby weapon, not just wood, and it has the effect of making the vampire sick or incapacitated.

Yes! [Hand Pumping at Hip-Level)

2008-04-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

The guy who came to speak last year, the one I told you all about, who would just make up his own jargon and tried to pass it off as research, whom everyone "loved" and thought was "so charismatic," but who I said reminded me of L. Ron Hubbard and scared the living bejesus out of me because his doubletalk made no fucking sense at all, but which is a kind of discourse that members of my own family have lapped up, never to be seen again--is a fucking fraud!!!!!!!!!!!

Guilty before proven innocent, dude. I smelled your bullshit last year--beeeeeeeeeattttttchhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thine Eyes Bleed

2008-04-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

Warning!

What you are about to see will make your eyes bleed.

You will go blind.

I'm not kidding.

You've seen him sneer in State and Main.

You've seen him groan "I just wanna pump, pump" in Happiness.

Curled up next to a model airplane in Love Liza.

And sitting in his tighty-whities in Red Dragon.

Now.

Watch.

Him.

From several angles.

Have sex with Marisa Tomei!

Speaking of Nerd Trolls--Howzabout "Trolling"?

2008-04-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Those n'er-do-well Scandinavian creatures to which we have been referring to: (nerd) "trolls" have sent me off on a quest for the true meaning of internet "trolling" now.

As I understand it, internet "trolls" attempt to bait others, either by going off topic or, alternately, staying somewhat on-topic but using sarcastic, insulting, demeaning, or patronizing language that will incense others to "flame." It's not unlike hate speech in the legal lexicon--it is so powerful that others cannot help but fly off the handle!

It all started when I encountered someone on gamespot who told me to "say goodbye to my thread" because I had used "A**hole" for "asshole" when I should have used only "A____." Instead of reporting me to the "mod" she pointed out my folly glibly, smugly. I looked her up and found that she does this on all the other forums, too--never engaging with others on the topic of discussion and only narc-ing on them and otherwise policing their language--even signing off with a link to a cyber crime site with .gov at the end.

So when I objected to her methods (calmly, rationally--I wasn't flaming), I was stunned at how many people called me "noob," "newbie" and the like--"learn the rules, dude." Hardly anyone said, Hey, You're right. You broke the rules, but she is trolling--so both of you quit it. No one pointed out her stupid ass American Flag avatar icon, either, probably because it cyberwind was blowing through their Gold-Bonded cyberballs.

It's like a weird version of Stockholm Syndrome in which narcs are more beloved the more they hypocritically cloak themselves in the mantle of "saving" the board from...what...swear words? On a board that was, admittedly, about a game in which you shoot people in the F**king head. I'm sorry, I mean F---- head.

No. I mean THE FUCKING HEAD, goddamit.

Everything is Completely Possible!

2008-03-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Do you want more?

That's some serious summarizing!

What? STILL want more?

A Rusty Nail Part II

2008-03-26T05:42:00.001-07:00

In between Last Man and I Am Legend was the 1970s attempt at the apocalypse, Omega Man, starring "C-Dog" Heston, of course, but this one didn't give me nightmares. Oh wait, yes it did: the part in which he watches Woodstock over and over and over again, mouthing the hippies' lines word for word. Shudder.

In I Am Legend, the film Will Smith watches over and over is Shrek, and the one foodstuff he saves in his freezer, bacon. He attaches these memories to his absent family, as with the character in the original novel and film. But as you would expect, the setting is NYC (not LA) and Smith won't leave "ground zero" to explore the possibility of other survivors. Moreover, the film is ruined by bad CGI by once again inserting smooth, shiny surfaces where there should be dark, porous ones. A says that we will look back on the CGI era the way we do cheap color of the 40s and 50s with its garish pinks and greens.

I will say that there are a few poignant moments that give new meaning to the word "loneliness" and an excellent nod to Romero's positing of a "talented 10th" of zombies (well, vampires--they're called "hemocytes" actually) who start to think for themselves. Overall, however, none of the three films dared touch the theme running through the novel about the "lewd and lascivious" female vamp-zombs who attempt to lure him outside by strip-tease and masturbation. In I Am Legend, Smith experiments on a female hemocyte, and one might as, why her? In the novel, the question is given an explicit answer, and it's not pretty (though not necrophilic either).

I also saved myself another restless night without sleep by turning to another fundamentally amazing text, Blade Runner: The Final Cut. The audio is in 5.1, the transfer is sharper, and more gore was added (put back in--it was originally taken out); the bad stunt doubles and continuity problems were nixed completely. However, the accompanying documentary, Dangerous Days, was a nerd's delight! Sound the neeeeeeerd hornnnnnn. Three hours looooooooog! Bring your Hot Pockets and Gatoraaaaaade. You get to see screen tests of other actors trying out for Pris and Rachel--with the exact same lighting, smoke, and blocking!!! <---that's real enthusiasm, not sarcasm). Watching it has the odd effect of suggesting other replicants are "out there."

The most fascinating part of the doc was actually a socio-historical one: why did it fail at the box office during the summer of 1982? Because Reaganomics promised hope and happiness, not dark dystopia. Guess which film made the most that summer? E fucking T!!!! I remember that summer so well because everyone was crying over ET--I mean everyone. Oh and here are some other films Blade Runner had to compete with that summer: Beastmaster, Conan the Barbarian, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Poltergeist, Star Trek II, Rocky III, The Thing, and Tron.

To conclude by reiterating CGI sucks (except in Buffy, in which it has a campy effect that actually heightens suspension of disbelief). As one of the producers of (the new) Battlestar Galactica series relates, "We often just say to the CGI people--give it that 'Blade Runner' look, and they know exactly what we mean." Ironically, there is no CGI in Blade Runner--it's all in-camera effects. We truly are ruled by computers and robots these days. The replicants have won:

A Rusty Nail....Part I

2008-03-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw one of the scariest films of my life: Vincent Price in Last Man on Earth. How could I not have seen this film until now????? I cannot hold my head up high as a gothic/horror theorist. In fact, this film unites vampire and zombie mythology in one sutured text!

I was so scared that I could not sleep at all last night, not one wink. Oh, wait; yes, I slept for 10 minutes DURING WHICH I HAD NIGHTMARES, one of which was about my trying to get out of a basement full of vampire-zombies by opening one of those windows that swings up and out--only a bucket of long-ass railroad nails, rusty and iron-stinking, fell right on my head somehow. One nail managed to pierce me through the neck. I pulled it out, bleeding profusely and worried more about blood poisoning than the ghouls. Then I woke up.

You can watch the whole film on youtube, but here's a brief clip--watch only the first two minutes of this. Notice that Price isn't picking up dummies; they are real people. He's living in a private holocaust, complete with BURNING BODY PIT to which he makes daily deposits. Gahhhhhhhhhhhh! There is not one single cheesy thiing about this 1964 film and I'm not so sure Romero's first film is scarier. They're both pretty bleak. Stayed tuned for Part II, in which I read the original Matheson novel again, watch Omega Man and the Will Smith version. By the way, the phrase "I am legend" comes from a conversation Price has with a vampire who tells him that they all hate and fear him: he's "legendary" in the city. The book is written in the 3rd person; Price's film narrated in the 1st--though he never utters that phrase. It's one of the best titles ever, though I already know the WIll Smith film will suck--a lot.

Must....not...be...penetrated!

2008-03-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

Hulu.com Launch

2008-03-11T12:54:00.001-07:00

So tomorrow is the beginning of hulo.com's auspicious rise to fame. Hulu offers almost all of the TV we'd watch with cable, but--here's the downside--it's ad-supported. However, apparently you can pick the kinds of ads you want to see. If I can pick movie trailers only, then I'm down. I am so fucking down. Gimmeh gimmeh gimmeh mooooore.....

If--and this is a BIG if--hulu.com gets as big as projected, Netflix will see a big drop in TV on DVD requests and iTunes will have to slash their video prices if not eliminate them completely. Youtube will also go back to being a amateur vid site primarily, as the pirated shows won't need to be ripped.

So here's what I'm worried about: some other site will come along and offer HBO, Cinemax, VHI classics, etc. for a small fee, and thus reinstate the same cable/pay division we had before. Anyone else anticipate how this or other sites like it will alter viewing habits, the Habermasian public sphere, etc.?

So Objectively Speaking....

2008-03-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

...this is good, right? None of us has to actually like opera, talent contests, or the stereotypes about people's teeth in the United Kingdom to agree that this is one fucking amazing voice!

Scooby Gang News!

2008-03-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

With the BIG BIG Buffy News aripplin' thru town, it gives me great honor to forward the FCC's latest ruling on Alyson Hannigan--yay! What next--the Dushku/Whedon project to premier in my back yard?????

FCC Okays Nudity On TV If Itâ��s Alyson Hannigan

Finished My Ardbeg Last Night, and This is What I Dreamed

2008-03-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

Juno Part II

2008-03-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about BEM's question--whether I truly thought the "homeskillet" comment was the funniest thing about Juno. Not only was it a genuinely a funny line, the fact that most people don't find it funny says to me that they actually liked Ellen Page's lines better, which I don't because they aren't as funny when a cynical teenager says them. Dwight Schrute (essentially) saying it makes it awkward/cringe comedy because he's a grown-ass man working in a 7-11 who assumes he knows better than a precocious teenage girl--a girl, who, by her own admission, doesn't know "what kind of girl she is." But she does know that she's alienated and cynical--thus all the tiresome "fashizzle" speak. I did like how the film honors every subjectivity, but I kinda agree with this script as an apt parody of Diablo Cody's writing style.

Dinner and an Ear Exam

2008-03-03T03:58:00.000-08:00

Last night my brother and his wife and their son visited me. They had just watched Sicko, and guess what they said! "If things don't change, we're moving to Canada!"

Meanwhile, we visited their friend J___, a new myspace friend of mine through them, and who is getting a Ph D in Audiology. Gotta love nerds, no matter what field their in. "Just for fun," she gave us hearing tests. Had one before? It's not just the beeps and boops you have to listen to, it's the anechoic chamber one has sit in while being tested. Without any sounds or echoes, you are forced to listen to your own breathing, the blood rushing through your ears, and every swallow and lip smack you make. Torture! Try doing this for a couple of hours. Waterboarding is for sissies.

Anyway, I don't have any hearing damage, at least not above 8-12 KHz. Humans supposedly can hear between 20 and 20,000 Hz, when we're "young" at least. But since most sounds fall within 1000-8000 HZ, they don't even test for the outer ranges.

So after having bashed drums and cymbals into my skull for over two decades, and after having not visited a dentist in 7 years, I'm tinitus and cavity-free. Knock on wood.

But the most interesting part of the evening was my sister-in-law essentially pushing the audiologist and me together. "You should hang out; you're both right in Buffalo." Awkward silence. Yeah, except she's supposedly getting married to a dude who never visits her in Buffalo and whom she doesn't talk about much or apparently have anything in common with--except that he'll "be a great father."

"A great father"? Oh, I GET IT. So dudes like me are the one who (can) fulfill all the basics needs of a relationship EXCEPT the practical and domestic ones. And of course, the "most important" one--reproducing. God, it was so frickin' awkward realizing that the elephant in the room was, "See, B, if you just wanted to settle down and become one-half of a couple with someone, you'd get a girl like THIS. See what you're giving up?" I saw my life flashing before my very eyes! All the "hot" ones I could have had if only I was the marrying kind. I looked at pictures of this dude and saw how much she is WAY out of his league. That's how fat balding dudes can do it; that's the secret. Just be really, really nice, devoted, and a potential "good father." You'll never have to worry about what kind of books she reads or anything like that. That's something people do "on the side," anyway.

Just to add to cosmic joke, we indeed discussed books for a while and yes, we have very similar tastes in nonfiction. For instance, she's reading about Mormon fundamentalism and the Elizabeth Smart case. THEN she proceeded to outline all of her favorite VIDEO GAMES she plays. Wh-wh-what? Oh yeah. She's "addicted" to her PS2 and is a life-long Lara Croft fan. She "looks at her surroundings and imagines how she could jump or climb on things in order to get to the top of the highest building around." Sounds familiar?

Well, to end on a good note, here's a funny video about it. Watch all the way until the end, esp the angry people:

Casualties

2008-03-02T08:06:00.000-08:00

So after last night's party, I'm ecstatic that so many friends of mine have actually found jobs--and locally, too! I had originally wanted to post this picture last week, and now that I have time to write, I wonder if I should: buzzkill!

The pic is sad reminder that not all of us "make it." One story I heard last night was about a certain grad student who simply disappeared off the face of the earth, never telling any of us when or why. I woke up several times last night feeling guilty. "I could have done more to help." Long ago, I had called/emailed several times, as did so many others, to no avail. Academia and shame are so intertwined. The fellow reminded me of my youngest brother who joined the cult: suddenly and severely disillusioned, but so completely stoic about it. Then, one day, snap! Gone.

Although L told me to "Step AWAY from the gaming console," I never cease to find useful ways to make games meaningful to my "real" life. In Rainbow Six Vegas, one has to find fallen teammates and heal them. If they die, you don't go on--game over. I was thinking about our grad student friend as a fallen....soldier?....well, the metaphor breaks down, I suppose. But the emotional impact of the comparison seems right to me.

So, here's to Ch__ Gr___. Best of luck, wherever you are.

(Oh, and sorry the pic is so small. Squint, please.)

"We Are the Wo--" Fuck It--Here's Something Better

2008-02-25T18:05:00.000-08:00

Since this is now totally mainstream, scroll down below for a much better story.

Okay, so at "work" one of the very, very young "clients" is Juno-esque. Got me? Here's how it was revealed to my co-worker/friend, who has their trust and can't break it.

Four clients show up during a break, close the door, and say, "One of us is Juno-esque." YEP! It's like the 80s TV mini-series Lace! They wouldn't say which one it was, just that "someone" in the group was 12 weeks. And that they want to know where "to go." Oh snap!

On the bright side, the movie Juno really is their point of reference. I'm totally not kidding. They have no other cultural text at hand to guide them with its carefully respectful take on "both sides" of "the issue" and thus were hoping that they could do like Juno did and go visit "the place" to "just see how it goes."

So folks, we'll have either a result that the clients home superiors know ZERO about, and probably will never know about until years later, OR another van shows up and whisks the client away to Utah. Wow. Just---fuck. Wow.

There Will be Old Men with Milkshakes--UPDATED post-Oscars

2008-02-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

But seriously, the one that pleased me the most was a long-time fav:

Halo-Scientology?

2008-02-19T07:28:00.000-08:00

You're looking at one of the many temples built by the Covenant, a conglomerate group of aliens who collectively decided to become warlike in their method of spreading their message of the Great Journey, a journey one can take by travelling along various terraformed rings known as halos. I know, I know: sounds like Lord of the Rings or even Christianity. May I suggest Halo as an allegory for Scientology? Keep in mind, analogies do not work when there is an easy 1:1 correspondence. In fact, the two things being compared need a degree of mismatch for it to work--two unalike things work best because they highlight where the comparison works while granting where it doesn't.

Having recently purchased Halo 3 and thus essentially portalled into another dimension, I'm probably no where near the head space as anyone reading this blog, but here goes.

The Spartan warrior who destroyed one of the rings in a previous storyline is now friends with The Arbiter, leader of the heresy against the Prophet of Truth, i.e. L Ron Hubbard, who deliberately deceives his people by not telling them of the greater dangers of The Flood, a parasite that turns all forms of life into its zombie-puppets (lets call Gravemind, their leader, "Xenu," noting, however, that Gravemind does not have the same Yahweh-like powers as Xenu). The Spartan warrior you play as can travel through many levels of gradual revealing of the truth--or the truth of the Prophet's lies. It's like going deep undercover as a Scientologist.

When I play the game and fight The Flood, I'm always scared that one of the little infection modules will facehug onto some dead body and animate it, which will then divert my attention away from more incoming infection modules. Kinda like fighting Scientology and The Twelve Tribes at the same time--I turn my back on one and miss a body-snatching. (OK, so I've involved the TT--remember, the Covenant is not a single race, but a conglomerate. Feel free to insert any zealous group.)

The humans have recently allied with the Elites, lead by The Arbiter. I see the Elites as Crusaders turned good Christians--doubters of a "single path" to enlightenment, unlike their orthodox former friends in the Covenant. To mix comparisons even more, it's almost like Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo. I fight alongside them, but wonder if they won't eventually give into their previous single-minded zealousy and forego their "common enemy" stance.

Last February 10 somehow became anti-Scientology day, with world-wide protests led against the church. What I don't know is if Scientology has drummed the whole thing up in order to appear the victim or if it's real. Apparently some hackers crashed the church's sites and have also made sure the Tom Cruise-is-batshit-crazy-videos don't disappear. What I do know is that some years ago The Free Zone dedicated itself to believing in the Hubbard-Xenuverse, but offered info entirely for free. What keeps me sane is knowing that I actually like it when humans believe in little fantasy worlds--I encourage it! I do it! It's when fantasy and reality merge at the corporate level--scary. I think I might actually like some of those Free Zone people--maybe. I like knowing that I am not like The Flood, an indiscriminate eradicator of all that stands in my way. Unfortunately, my TT and Sci family members think of me this way, as a Suppressive Person/the Devil, rather than as a defender of critical thinking, a destabilizer of orthodox, concrete, unwavering thinking. One of my ex's used to demand that I immediately make known my religious beliefs. I declared that I could, but that I also had an unconscious. She happened to be a pretty hardcore Christian, though she hid that from me for a long time. She accused me of being "patchwork" in my worldview. "You take a little of this and a little of that--but who are you?--what side are you on?"

And for that, I do not have an answer. I may not always know what I'm for, but I know that I'm against Scientology and the Twelve Tribes, and take great pleasure in imagining them as little AI beings that I can kill. I love not taking things literally.

No Country for Vigilantes

2008-02-17T06:59:00.000-08:00

Just watched The Brave One and recently finished a review of The Searchers--two revenge films (athough, properly, one melodrama and one western). I've always loved The Searchers because it divides audiences right about the moment when "Look" (the "squaw") is kicked down the hill. It's also one of those films that uses visual irony pretty consistently: John Ford's signature long shot flattens the hunting party against the buttes and the desert, each element a complement of the other, as if these white guys actually belong there, as if they are "integrated"--while in other shots they stick out like sore thumbs. In real life, Ford was politically the opposite to John Wayne, too, which is interesting. The film is critique of the white man's genocidal impulse, but John Wayne's mere presence in the film is an obstacle for many viewers. I'm reminded of how Faulkner's critique of Southern orthodoxy is also overshadowed by his uncomfortably harsh depictions of racism.

The Brave One takes all the obstacles away and makes sure you don't miss a single message. In fact, there's no subtext to the film at all. If you even try to imagine the film as a "comment" on the death penalty, there's an elevator scene to assure you that it is indeed: two people argue over endorsing the vigilante--"So you are FOR lethal injection, too?" snaps one. Foster's, a talk radio DJ, answers calls from listeners who pretty much sound like they are reading an after-school play about smoking--only it's vigilantism, of course. And if you try to think of the film as a conflict between the head and the heart, too bad: a scene between the detective and Foster spells that out too. Cut to Foster "dancing" with the memory of her murdered boyfriend, who also somehow plays guitar, both diegetically and extradiegetically. The film screams the message at you: you can't "feel" one way and "think" another, not in the end. You've got to make a choice. You've got to be John Wayne or better yet, the John Wayne of our times: Jack Bauer from Fox's 24. Even if you are rooting for Foster and just want to see her kick butt, Lilith fair den mother Sarah Mclachlin de-adrenalizes all her screaming and shooting with soft ballads throughout, as if to say "this is the real woman here-the one with the gun was just 'acting'. She didn't want to be the monster."

So give me John Ford. Give me something interesting, like, how did he deal with not being able to show the massacre of the whites in the beginning of The Searchers? The film begins from within the cool and dark safety of the cabin and then moves outward into the bright sublime desert--Ford bars us from re-entry.

Or give me the Coen Brothers, give me Faulkner. Give me subtext. Otherwise, art is simply a political cartoon. Since there was no real complexity to the art (I mean c'mon, Neil Jordan--taking lessons from Ron Howard?), I'd image one could encapsulate its content with something similar to this:

Or give me no art and politically laughable messages. Give me Charles Bronson in Deathwish III. Make it exploitively hilarious. Give me so much lack of subtext that I, the viewer, must invent it. One good thing The Brave One had going for it--Bronson and Foster have the same haircut!

Ten Reasons I Love to Hate HBO's Tell Me You Love Me

2008-02-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, the most godawful of holidays (except maybe Thanksgiving--and Christmas is really a "season"), I've been watching HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. I knew that there wouldn't be any personal identification going on, that it'd be the exact opposite: pleasurable disidentification: l love feeling smug and self-satisfied that I'm not one of "those people." (I doubt this show is very high on anyone's Netflix queue, so don't worry about spoilers. The show is lame. Read on.)

So who are "those people," anyway. Well, first of all they are 30-somethings, most of them. Late 30s or early 40s trying to appear in their 30s. Yes, I'm aware of my own age, but 30-somethings belong to a culture, one to which I don't belong at all. These people have pretty much given up on all their "childish" hobbies and taken up child-rearing only or simply become ultra-serious. There's no joy left, no playfulness in their personalities. They are Uber-adults.

Okay, so there's one youngish couple so far, but they're the "immature" couple who uses sex as a way to cover up their real issues. What issues are they?

That leads me to Smugness # 1: I Am So Glad I Will Never Have The Conversation About...what the mother-in-law's power trips are doing to the relationship. Bride-to-be wants no cake; groom wants his mom to be happy and have her way--to be thrown a bone and allowed SOME decision-making; they argue; they fight; they don't resolve it; they fuck instead. Ah yes, I can sit back and relax knowing that I would never marry anyone who allowed their parents to control shit about us. Period. Have fun with THAT tug of war.

Smugness # 2: I'll Never Have to Worry About Jealousy Over The Other One's Masturbation. Indeed, what has increasingly a primal scene in Hollywood is the straight female's wanting sex, the male's rolling over and feigning sleep, her leaving, the guy secretly masturbating under the covers, and the girl accidentally walking in on that--usually without being seen by him. Classic! And hilarious, too, because it suggest that for the years and years that they've been married, they've actually held to some kind of contract that each person's entire sexuality is funneled into the other --or perhaps, they've believed masturbation is resorted to when the other is absent for a long time (supporting fantasies, of course, feature the other as the main attraction, right?).

Smugness # 3: I ALready Had the Whole, "Do You Think I'll Be The Last Person You're Ever Attracted To?" conversation at like, 19 years old. How can any adult 30-something human being pretend that they don't have an unconscious? And yet on Feb 14 of this year alone, thousands and thousands of couples around the world will break up precisely over this sticking point. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Jealousy is so fucked anyway, but that kind of jealousy is just petty.

Smugness # 4: I get to make fun of Coupledom in general. The show loves close ups of faces and all the "little things" that couples do that also say "I Love You"--without the actual words. Words are so...trite. Like this is a lesson people STILL need to learn!!!!! Cue "More Than Words" by Exxxxtreme. Got it folks? Body language says so much more! Except that yet ANOTHER 10,000 couples will, on Feb 14, break up precisely because one of them didn't use those exact words. Or include a Pooh bear with a Valentine sewed on to its nappy fur. That's right folks, I've actually been there AND received such a gift, which was then bitterly snatched from me when I dared to debate the semantics of that trite and meaningless phrase. Looks like I'm actually allowing the show to make a good point...

Smugness # 5 (by now simply an extension of # 4): I will never stare nonchalantly at my wife's peeing upon a pregnancy testing stick. HBO is heralded for showing the "frank" and "mundane" aspects of couples' lives. But before you accuse me of being squeamish about bodily functions--I'm not--at least consider that if you've gotten to the point at which the sight of your partner taking down her underwear, peeing (while possibly yawning and talking about the weather) and then pulling it back up is somehow boring, you've definitely left the initial passionate phase far behind. And this can be a good thing, I suppose. But I'm willing to bank that this couple's sex life is as vanilla as the Febreeze that they spray when they're done. There so damn domestic. BTW, she had a airline runway pube-doo. What's with these people who are boring in every way but that way, who try to "spice it up" with a hip pussy-shave? Another episode will probably feature the V or the Hitler, which one of them looks at but totally doesn't say anything about because he's chewing on a ham sandwich. Oh Brenda of Six Feet Under, where are you? I need you "Tell me Your Not Serious With Your Shaved Balls" running commentary during these moments. That show was so fucking awesome, HBO. You totally blew it going in this new direction.

The show has one good thing going for it: the queerest couple in it is... old. Not to old. Post retirement age. They aren't too lusty or too domestic, just perfectly attuned to each other in a way that you don't see much on TV, either because it really IS rare or because the U.S. can't handle senior citizens' sexuality. Yes, as love objects they are hetero, but as characters, and in the context of all these other cringe-worth straight couples, they practice a queer lifestyle indeed! And NO Viagra necessary.

#6: I'm Not a strict Monogamist. The drama of the show is built around Compulsory Monogamy and the problems that monogamists face because they have to spend so much extra time structuring themselves around the always already structuring demands of monogamy. They can't get too involved in something because they have to do one of the thrice daily "check in" phone calls; they can't share too many perverse desires because someone will be left out and have to experience a temporary shattering of self-esteem; even intimacy itself becomes equated with monogamy, endlessly mirroring, mirroring, mirroring..... I wonder how many other Eager To Be Normal viewers watch intently at how one couple manages to have sex without ever ceasing to passionately kiss each other. No other physicality takes place but the kissing and the penetrative copulation.

# 7: (extension of 6) So far, the show has depicted not a single queer act of love: no untraditional erogenous zones touched (say, an elbow), no fingering as its own means and end, no oral sex for a woman that is its own means to and end, no means without an end, no blurred lines between talk and sex or music and sex, no discussion of the politics of what their doing--no 'meta' talk, that is. Oh wait, one couple sneaks away during dinner and has sex without the dinner guests even knowing!!!! Okay, that's slightly perverse. It was unplanned, didn't occur in their own bed, and involved more laughter than serious eye-gazing. But ultimately there's nothing yet queer about the show except that one senior couple. And of course no gay sex occurs at all, vanilla or queer. HBO wouldn't want to step on Showtime's toes!

# 8 The dad whose TEN year old daughter got her period finds himself STILL reading bedtime stories to her. Glancing from the book to the Kotex on her dresser, he swallows nervously. Ha! Even I, the non-breeder, wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over the whole "daddy's little girl ain't a little girl no more" bullshit. I wouldn't be able to wait until my kid was older because then we'd finally be able to talk like adults--precisely the point of me not liking kids so much, I guess.

# 9 I'll never experience the fear surrounding that oldest of dictums: No Matter What, You Always Sleep in The Same Bed. Even if you're flu-like, or simply need some space, or just "want to." These monogamists steel themselves at bedtime! The awkwardness, the monotony, the dressing ritual in silence--all because they can't break habit or simply sleep away from each other for a while so that, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. It's unthinkable!

# 10 I laugh and cringe as the 30-somethings take a lesson from the Baby Boomers and decide that they can perhaps patch up their relationship by either sailing or gardening together, even though only one of them is good at either at any given time. Throw that trowel down in a huff! Aw, go inside and find out what's wrong, dude! She's never had an orgasm and her therapist found out before you did! And all this right before your twilight years start to come around the bend!

#11 Ah hell, I'll save the rest of the bashing for Valentine's Day. More to come kiddie-winkies!

Um...In Your Face?

2008-02-11T05:46:00.000-08:00

I'm immensely happy that a jazz artist FINALLY won a Grammy for Album of the Year. It's especially gratifying that Winehouse didn't get this one because a) she's good, but overrated, b) soul is just a more pop-friendly Black art form, no matter how good you are, c) she beat out FOUR women of color (okay two had already won in previous years, so maybe this isn't racism). But let's not call her the "Queen of Soul" okay? Most people that own her album don't even own any other soul records, let alone New Soul Records, like Me'Shell or Jil Scott, etc.--they just like the whole "badass girls who can sing" thing. True, a small percentage of her fans will indeed subsequently purchase Stevie Wonder's Inner Visions or perhaps the Best of Aretha.

Unfortunately, Herbie Hancock is a "crossover" jazz artist, and The Joni Letters songs are very palatable: smooth and short (radio-friendly), with lots of guest artists (sort of like how Santana made a comeback). The only other time a jazz album won this award was in 1965 for the Getz/Gilberto collaboration ("The Girl from Ipanema"--you know this one), and even THAT was another palatable, bourgeois record. When, oh when, will BE-BOP jazz actually win? I guess never, since, pure musicality, especially the "I can't understand it--meh!00it make my brain hurt--meeeh!--I can't dance/fuck to it--meh!" kind of musicality never wins (see: every classical music record every made).

So, I wanted to say, "In Your Face!" to everyone who voted for the hipness and the cool-factor over, you know, musical ability or something, but Winehouse's record is just better--because Hancock's is ust not that great of a record, folks. If you wants you some Herbie Hancock, buy Maiden Voyage--anything with his post-Miles Davis group. Just not this. And certainly not the "Rockit" album or that horrible "Cantaloupe Island" song!

Urgh. It's fucking cold out. Urghhh.

"You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!" -- Hatchety-Mudery Honors Roy Scheider

2008-02-11T03:53:00.000-08:00

Portal

2008-02-06T19:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to MrTreeTop, I've been playing this insane new game called Portal in which you are a test subject/lab rat who must find you way out by solving tests of geographic and task oriented logic, all the while being nagged by the disembodied voice of Big Sister. Sound like fun?

Ah Am Vereh Busy. State Your Business!

2008-02-06T11:15:00.001-08:00

It's in the Hallway

2008-01-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

Oh Baby, I... I...I'm Gonna...I'm Gonna CLIFFHANGERRRR!!! {guys only}

2008-01-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

Since I Know Who Killed Me has become my favorite movie since No Country for Old Men, I think we all know I have a high/low art problem (see my dissertation, in which I actually gave close reading to Boxing Helena--yes, Boxing Helena).

It's just so much fun knowing that if you had Hollywood connections, you'd be more successful than the hacks you skewer on a nightly basis.

The latest skewering goes to The Tudors (pronounced Choo-dors; say it with me: Tudors, tulip [choo-lip], tuna [choo-na], TUDORS!). Showtime is obviously trying to compete with Rome on HBO, but whereas Rome invented lower-class characters to contrast the heavies of history, The Tudors cares very little for the facts. They CGI crane shots over London, the sets are awkwardly small--even a joust takes place in what looks like my back yard--and each episode jumps the shark by either a) someone buggers a scullery maid/lady in waiting, or b) someone gets "the sweat," which, yes, is historically what they called the Sweating Sickness, a plague-like illness which slowly killed you with fever and had no no origin. In real life, you could fight it and win sometimes. On The Tudors, you DIE WITHIN ONE DAY. You'll be delivering food on a silver platter to His Highness when you suddenly trip, then fall to the ground, all the while ripping open your shirt so the that the sweat may escape like a demon clawing its way out. Everyone who shows symptoms dies--the gay character first, of course--but one person, Anne Boleyn.

As a good soul on imdb says of the show: "It doesn't look like a bit like England, the actors don't look English, the script manages to be both hideously turgid and blindingly prosaic at the same time and some of the performances hit a nadir we haven't seen on mainstream British TV since Crossroads came back. Ann Boleyn looks as if she's just come in from playing shinty, Sam Neill clearly thinks he's in an episode of Star Trek or Red Dwarf and Catherine of Aragon looks as if she could go fifteen rounds with a good light heavyweight and drink Boris Yeltsin under the table while Thomas More, instead of being one of the engines of the enlightenment, seems to have the IQ of a fruitbat. The sets are hilarious. You could fit their Tower of London set in a B&Q greenhouse and the jousting scenes, of which there are a lot, seem to take place in Charlton Athletic's car park. The episode with the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the most extravagant meeting in history meeting between two rulers of Christian monarchies, looks as if it were shot in an unloved corner of Legoland and will have you in stitches. And historical accuracy? Whoever was in charge of that has never read anything longer than a jamjar label. So I'm hooked. Can it get worse? You betcha . . . .

By the last episode, we know what history tell us: Henry cannot be seen with Anne until his illegal divorce goes through (damn those popes!), so they must meet in "the wood" (Many Europeans omit the 's': "I'm scared of what might be in the wood!"). They thrust together, bodices and codpieces ripping and unsticking, respectively; but then, right as Hank is about to spew his divine-right essence, Anne pushes him off her, crying, "We musn't!" or something to the effect of, "If I have a child by you, I'll be in big do-do; everyone knows who I am now." With giant blueballs, Johnathan Rhys Meyes does this:

Then...FADE TO CREDITS! I shit you not. They literally made the cliffhanger narrative blueballs. So if you want to tune in/come next season, rise out of denouement and re-harden, folks, and see:

You see, Showtime is great and all--thanks for The L Word, especially--but they're TOO sexy. And I'm sick of sexy. Watching The West Wing reminds me that some American TV uses real people with real faces, and people in their 40s and 50s go on dates and have actual sex appeal. But Showtime just doesn't get that they will be old news, and soon. Dexter may survive, but I dunno. The Writers' Strike is still in full force. The Tudors returns in March, somehow. What? I'm eating IN tonight, honey. Just be back before bedtime, okay?

Goodbye 2007

2008-01-02T07:09:00.000-08:00

Inspired by BEM's list of 2007 "Bests," here's my own.

FILMS:
Best Ghost Therapy/Melodrama Gothic Horror: The Messengers (runner up: The Abandoned); Worst: The Invisible; 1408
Best Uncanny Horror: Dead Silence
Best Zombie/Gross-out Horror: Planet Terror
Best Slasher/Torture: Halloween (Runner-up: Hostel II)
Best Creature-Feature: The Host
Best Psychological Horror: Bug (Runner-up: Zodiac)

Best Comedy: Ratatouille (Runner-up: Hot Fuzz; Simpsons Movie); Worst: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

Best Action: Rescue Dawn (Runners up: Death Proof (2nd half); Bourne Ultimatum); Worst: Live Free or Die Hard

Best Action Drama (i.e could have western/noir elements): No Country For Old Men (close runner up: Eastern Promises)

Best Tragicomedy: The Savages (runners up: Sherry Baby; The Interview)

Most Disappointing: Hannibal Rising (corny); Balls of Fury (slow) ; 28 Weeks Later (ghost therapy)

Had Its Moments: Reno 911, Superbad, Knocked Up; The Lookout; Sicko

Missed: I Know Who Killed Me; The Darjeeling Limited; 30 Days of Night; American Gangster, There Will Be Blood; I'm Not There; Atonement; Juno; Walk Hard; Black Snake Moan; Waitress; Tell No One; 30 Days of Night; La Vie En Rose; You Kill Me; The Invasion; Hatchet; I am Legend; The Brave One; Resident Evil: Extinction; We Own The Night; Sweeney Todd; Fay Wray

TELEVISION:

Best Action/Urban Commentary: The Wire; The Shield

Best Drama: Tie between The Sopranos and Deadwood

Best Melodrama: The L Word

Best Crime/Mystery/Noir: Damages

Best Slapstick Comedy: Rock of Love

Best Satirical Comedy: The Office; runners up: 30 Rock and The Colbert Report

Best Body Horror Melodrama: Nip/Tuck; runner-up: Dexter

Best Political Commentary: Daily Show; runner-up: Real-Time with Bill Maher

Most Disturbing Unintentional Commentary on Our Society: Kid Nation; Flip That House

Best Shot: Planet Earth

Had Its Moments: Battlestar Galactica; Friday Night Lights; Heroes

Most Disappointing: The Riches; Bionic Woman; Gilmore Girls; John from Cincinnati; Veronica Mars; Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia

MUSIC:

Best Albums: Rob Lockart's "Parallel Lives," Type O Negative's "Dead Again" and Neko Case's "Live from Austin, TX"

Best Reunion: The Police

Most Disappointing: Tenacious D; Britney Spears

Everybody Loves, But I Can't Stand: Amy Winehouse

Has Its Moments: Tori Amos' American Doll Posse; The Lost Tracks of Danzig; Smashing Pumpkins' "Zeitgeist"

I WIll Miss: MIchael Brecker; Max Roach: Oscar Peterson

Pop Songs I Can't Get Out of My Head: "Umbrella" (Rihanna); "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Fergie)

New Genre I'm Exploring: Operatic Death Metal (Epica; Kamelot)

I've Missed: St. Vincent, the new Radiohead, the new Rasputina, etc.

More Buffalo Than Buffalo: The Savages

2007-12-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, guys. Prepare yourself for this movie. Remember how Buffalo '66 captured the Buffalo suburbs a little too well, especially that lump of a mother-zombie chanting "go! go!" to the Bills? That was nothing.

The Savages stars our fav, P.S. Hoffman, of course, and guess what? He's a lot like us. He teaches lit at UB (he's got the Ph D, but he's more like a TA; you'll see what I mean), lives near Tupper in a horrible apartment full of puke David Lynch green wallpaper--but nice wood trim, and gets distracted by the gloomy Buffalo skyline, the bare trees of winter, etc. His sister (Laura Linney) just assumes he's depressed BECAUSE HE LIVES IN BUFFALO. And when her illicit, married, lover visits her (chiming, "I've never been to Buffalo!"), but then barely checking it out and skipping straight to Niagara Falls, he drags her to the Days Inn where an attempt at sex fails. Why? Because it's Buffalo! She even says, "Look at us! We're at a motel--in Buffalo--it's such a cliche!"

Of course the whole movie is about how we're all going to die eventually. That and the fact that the two middle-aged siblings lie to each other and themselves about their "achievements." She writes plays; he's studies them. A student asks him in that Buffalo-Valley-Girl accent, "What's the difference between plot and narrative? You, um, wrote it on the board." Hoffman lumbers back and forth across the classroom floor and can't quite answer. You just know what he's thinking.

This isn't really a movie review--non-sequitor, now, sort of. I've been toying around with the idea of writing my autobiography and I asked my dad who should play grad student me; you know, the lumpy, torpid, sit in a chair all day me. Answer? Philip Seymore Hoffman. Thanks, dad. Thanks alot. Wait. Shouldn't I take it as a complement? My dad genuinely likes him and has seen him only in Capote and some other relatively "good" role--not Dear Liza or Happiness. So he knows not what he's said. Oh well. We are ALL Philip Seymore Hoffman.

Just briefly--the reason I may have to write my autobiography is because of this book. It features my mom and stepdad as anecdotal warm-ups to each chapter. You know. Sociologists always use "human interest" stories to put a humna face on their data and theories. The chapters start with my mom and then move outward to show her as an example of the larger picture, and then finally end by showing how hippie men were heteronormative, etc. It's everything I've always wanted to say about where I grew up as a kid, but I'm not objective enough. Finally, someone else has done it.

It's VERY WEIRD how it features me as the "preschool kid" who arrives at the Garden of Eden with a naive mother and a shy stepfather, both of whom so badly need an identity that for the rest of my life I will be fighting an uphill battle against their politics. I'm sure publishers will see the irony of all this and give my own story a chance. It's all so meta. That now means all of YOU will be in it, too. Okay, so what do you want me to call you guys in it? How about I just put dialogue in your mouths like, "Man, B, you should write this down! It's destiny."

Bhutto's Death

2007-12-27T07:28:00.001-08:00

I'm inclined to believe that the only reason she could not fulfill all of her campaign promises to help Pakistani women is that the opposition to her power was so great that she had to expend most of her energy fighting that. I also believe that she had to (mis)manage money in order to fight the true corruption at hand. I'm just starting to read all the history, but clarifications are welcome.

Blood Orgy--Yayyyy!!!!

2007-12-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

We at Hatchety-Murder strive to bring you the very best in funny violence, but around Christmas it becomes quite a problem to find the appropriately themed links and embeds. Unfortunately, we aren't a fan of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," for obvious reasons, but we still yearn for some relief from holiday stress by enjoying an Xmas song or skit that would not be appropriate for work. Nothing beats South Park's Woodland Critters' Christmas. This is just a little something to take the sting off.

Riddle Me This!

2007-12-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

One day someone asked me if I'd eat raw hamburger off of Zooey Deschanel and I seriously considered it. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. The other day, I found out that M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, The Happening, will star her. Oh no. Now the riddle has come true! What do I do? I could stare endlessly at this hip girl-next-door beauty, but ever since Lady in the Water, I'm worried that the narrative will be simply painful and unwatchable, not good-bad, but bad-bad.

In related "Night News," I would like you all to read a hilarious group of flamers debate Night's tendency to rip off older texts. (If link doesn't work, go to his imdb page, click threads, and scroll down to the "which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits will he rip off next?" discussion.

UPDATE 1/17--OKAY: COPIED AND PASTED BELOW:

Board: M. Night Shyamalan

1234

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which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by frankduxvandamme (Fri Nov 23 2007 15:18:05)
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hmm...
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by In_Excess (Fri Nov 23 2007 19:39:46)
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Which ones has he ripped off before? Hmmmm, NONE.
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by frankduxvandamme (Sat Nov 24 2007 17:20:28)
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Which ones has he ripped off before? Hmmmm, NONE.

the sixth sense.

there were at least 5 episodes of TZ where the main character was dead and didnt know it. then the big twist at the end of the episode was the character realizing he or she was dead the entire time.

The Village.

there were several episodes of both the TZ and the new Outer Limits involving the isolation of a community not aware of their own isolation, until the end.
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by RequiemForADyingPlanet (Sat Nov 24 2007 20:40:19)
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Shyamalan fans refuse to acknowledge that their messiah is a plagiarist.

By giving factual examples you force them to resort to denial (which they will, mark my words).
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by In_Excess (Mon Nov 26 2007 06:29:42)
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UPDATED Mon Nov 26 2007 06:31:05

the sixth sense.

there were at least 5 episodes of TZ where the main character was dead and didnt know it. then the big twist at the end of the episode was the character realizing he or she was dead the entire time.

The Village.

there were several episodes of both the TZ and the new Outer Limits involving the isolation of a community not aware of their own isolation, until the end.

You have never seen an episode of TZ before have you? Direct me to the EXACT EPISODES in which you claim Night ripped off. Otherwise, I do not believe it. I want you to prove these ridiculous allegations, especially the "at least 5" and "several episodes." Also, if Night rips those off, pretty much EVERY twist movie ever made ripped off TZ as well. The Others, Fight Club, Usual Suspects, Jacob's Ladder, etc. I'd like you to point out a twist film where the twist hadn't been done in SOME way in the past. There is nothing completely original left, at least as far as the twists are concerned.
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by RequiemForADyingPlanet (Mon Nov 26 2007 06:58:04)
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UPDATED Mon Nov 26 2007 06:58:47
Here are some examples of TZ episodes Shyamalan ripped off:

The Passerby - 10/6/61

A Confederate soldier rests with a weary woman waiting for her husband to return from battle. They realize they're dead along with the many soldiers walking down the road towards the afterlife.

The Hitch-Hiker - 1/22/60

A woman traveling across the country, keeps encountering the same mysterious hitch-hiker everwhere she goes. She later finds out that she had died on the trip and he's the Angel of Death.

He even stole his idea for LITW

The Bewitchin' Pool - 6/19/64

Two children escape through a magical portal in their pool, into a peaceful world for children.

Looks like In_Excess has to eat his words....AGAIN!

Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by In_Excess (Mon Nov 26 2007 12:56:15)
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UPDATED Mon Nov 26 2007 12:57:52
Looks like In_Excess has to eat his words....AGAIN!

You are an idiot. That is not "proof" of anything. In fact, anyone will be hard pressed to prove that Night ripped off any episode of TZ. What you have is two episodes where people realize they have been dead all along, so what? How does that BROAD realization prove that Night ripped off TZ? For all you know Rod Serling ripped off other sources for those episodes. I'm certain that Serling wasn't the first person on Earth to come up with the concept of someone realizing they were dead all along. Also, again, if that is enough "proof" for you to label Night as a plagiarist, you shouldn't have a problem labeling 90% of the filmmakers out there plagiarists as well.

Your last Bewitchin' Pool example is supposed to prove what exactly? Oh no, Lady in the Water has a pool that a Narf uses to live in, must be a rip of TZ!!! Yours and the OP's assertions are completely ludicrous. Again, you cannot take broad areas of a plot and say that it was ripped off. They are general enough to be mere coincidences. It's like saying Star Wars ripped off 2001 because they both took place in outer space. The only "rip off" criticism I am willing to entertain is the Running Out of Time v. The Village, which at least has some SPECIFIC detail that overlaps. Try again Jeremey.
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by RequiemForADyingPlanet (Mon Nov 26 2007 13:53:18)
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I guess writing bogus posts defending your director keeps your mind off the fact that you still have to eat your words. I gave proof. You couldn't handle that, your angry rant proves it.

Hopefully your next attempt isn't as pitiful.

How do those words taste, "moron"?
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by In_Excess (Mon Nov 26 2007 16:08:34)
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I guess writing bogus posts defending your director keeps your mind off the fact that you still have to eat your words. I gave proof. You couldn't handle that, your angry rant proves it.

Hopefully your next attempt isn't as pitiful.

How do those words taste, "moron"?

Just when I thought Jeremey couldn't get any more stupid, he gives us this classic post. Go look up the definition of "proof" before shooting your mouth of again idiot. I can't believe I have to explain these things to you. Again, when I asked for PROOF I asked for CONCRETE evidence to defend your moronic assertions. What you have provided as your "proof" is not even close to that. Your idiocy continues to astound me Jeremey.
Re: which Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode will he rip off next?
by RequiemForADyingPlanet (Mon Nov 26 2007 19:47:10)
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What more concrete evidence do you want? I gave CLEAR EXAMPLES of TZ stories that MIRRORED Shyamalan films.

Of course, you're probably holding out for an audio recording of Shyamalan admitting his guilt. If that's the proof your holding out for, keep holding your breath.

Your redundant circular logic is amusing. I'm sure it gets you through the day.

1234

I Think I Might Be Turning into a Young Fogey

2007-12-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.motherearthnews.com/DIY/1972-03-01/How-to-Use-a-Straight-Razor.aspx

Or, I just want to be John Cleese in The Meaning of Life (remember the war/shaving scene?)

I've been fascinated by these lately....sorry....

2007-12-11T12:43:00.001-08:00

Most fights on the site are either too dumb or too violent for me to watch (especially between the guys, with blood, etc.), but the "girl fights" are interesting in that someone inevitably pulls another's hair (or they both do), others are prevented from "jumping in" and that most of the hitting is really slapping, with minimal physical harm done (even when harm COULD be done) at the privilege of harm to one's reputation. (Men attempt to destroy both, seeking to drive home the point in the most literal fashion.) In one video a group of Malibu types are filmed by someone's little brother (watch it to the end), in another chickens break up a rabbit fight, thus proving that chicken's are not as dumb as some may thing--please don't eat them anymore, dear meat-eaters. The last video is just...well...not what you think.

And in case the links don't show up in your browser, copy and past:
http://www.psfights.com/fight-video-1678.htm

http://www.psfights.com/fight-video-1534.htm

http://www.psfights.com/fight-video-1514.htm

http://www.psfights.com/fight-video-1468.htm

http://www.psfights.com/fight-video-1478.htm

Ahhhg, help me out BEM!

2007-12-11T12:34:00.000-08:00

So this is what I bought last week, thinking it was the good stuff:

But it wasn't good; rather, it wasn't smooth, not like the Old Charter BEM introduced last summer. Was this it?

Yes, No, Fuck, I Dunno

2007-12-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

The torment.

I've been saving up for this massage chair for months, selling everything I can part with on ebay/half.com and hoping that my birthday check would bring me up to where I want to be.

Then the guilt set in. Guilt for luxury. I don't "deserve" it--right? Who deserves such a contraption?

But the right side of my body is completely fucked. I get headaches, vertigo, and queasiness. All because of my tendency to hunch, clench, and stiffen.

The massage chair makes it allllll goooooo awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

But it can't massage away the guilt. SO. All my savings--the safety net in case this my house gets sick (some $5,000 and change, all of my birthday money ($1000) and all of my saved up ebay money $1700 are ALL GOING TO MY CREDIT CARD COMPANY INSTEAD. No. Chair.

The relief of getting out of debt (somewhat) is as good as a massage.

But there's more. I just I saw a place online that is DISCOUNTING the chair nearly 40% for Christmas time.

Oh fuck. I spent the money.

Or did I?

I used enough of the check to pay outstanding bills for a month, I just got my rent checks, I get paid on Friday, and the store has NO PAYMENTS FOR ONE YEAR at NO INTEREST RATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could pay about half and be "okay with it."

Fuck. I dunno guys. WhatshouldIdowhatshouldIdowhatshouldIdooooooooooo???????????????????

I'm fucking 35 years old as of tomorrow! This thing will de-stress me at a moments notice. I've been crying into my Scotch about this thing for almost two years now....

Comments?

2007-12-01T12:32:00.001-08:00

Introducing Two New Faves: Scotch n' Chigurh

2007-11-28T03:58:00.000-08:00

Several scenes from No Country for Old Men feature characters drinking from a glass of milk. "Look, it's still sweatin',' says one. Yup. Out here in the Texas heat, a sweatin' glass of milk means you are about to drink it or (oh shit) the person just drinkin' it was just here.

"He's no one," says a character of Anton Chigurh, the philosophical serial killer who makes Hannibal Fava Beans' "intellect" look like pre-school. Chigurh is poor Mexican hit man, apparently, who has a grander vision of the world than he does of himself. The Coens' film truncates much of the extended conversations he has with his victims, but they syphon those words into "pictures worth a thousand words." Every shot counts.

Which, by the way, leads me to ABELOUR a'bunadh, my new favorite single malt Scotch, introduced to me at a seminar last night. The facilitator reviewed Glenlevit, Scapa, and Laphroaig first, and then hit us with this. Whoa. No peat, shoe leather, or iodine. Just cherry, chocolate, ginger, and dried fruit, almost like a sherry. Can a Scotch be a sherry?

"Would you have me second guess the world?" That's what Chiguh says to someone who pleads for dear life. Before he pulls the trigger, he might say, "If the road you travelled got you here, of what use was the road?" These aren't pithy Arab proverbs ("If a dog bit off your ear, would you search first for your ear or chase the dog?"), these are examples of a tight belief system. The trouble is, there's one contradiction. Chigurh occasionally tosses coins and let's his victims go. Does he put more faith in chance or fate? Is there any distinction for him? When you are the one blubberin' "You don't have to do this!" he answers, "They always say that." Note his failure to communicate with the victims in any meaningful way: "they" not "you" as in "Why did you say that?" Chigurh kills like a monk in love with life--but the opposite of a Buddhist who preserves life at all costs. Same tenet; different execution, no pun intended.

Let's not forget the film is set in 1980 and at least three characters (possible Chigurh, too) were in 'Nam. You've got to listen closely to Sheriff Bell's stories. The function of his narration is to make up for a huge mistake he made in the war. You will miss this, but it's there. The book, obviously, makes sure you don't miss it, but the Coens, understated poets that they are, make obscure reference to it. And this is why I like the film so much. It makes me remember why I study film as seriously as I do literature. I could pause any frame and write a page on that alone. The mess of dead bodies in an open plain, a windmill in the distance. The wealth of knowledge Texans have about guns, but not necessarily people (Anton seems to be adept at both). The lighting, oh god, the lighting. Let's call it Hotel Room Gothic Noir. Afternoon sun creeping through the shades, shining through a central air grill in which a suitcase full of money sits, and waits, like Chigurh himself. The irony of shootin' guns at people as "impolite"! "When they stop saying ma'am and sir, then the rest of the world'll go to shit." Only a Texas cop with a gun would say that--and then read the newspaper article about the "weird" man in nothing but a dog collar.

Since Chigurh is after the money that some hapless shmoe found, it would seem that Chigurh is after "himself" too. Again, he's like a religious man, trying to find himself by exploring the world. Take away the killing part and he could be my best friend. Or my new favorite Scotch. Take a shot--cask strength--and yelp. But then mellow out and deal with it passively for a moment. I suppose Scotch drinking--any hard liquor-drinking--is a bit like masochism. Assaulting one's tongue for the benefit of belated effects.

I watched the film with an open mouth. I couldn't move. The Scotch seminar taught me to smell Scotch with an open mouth: it cuts the alcohol and allows the flora to permeate. Now go do this at No Country. Allow the flora of money, blood, and gunsmoke to permeate your pallet.

Do I Really Need to Set This Up?

2007-11-20T13:06:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving is a turd of day and anyone who says otherwise gets a fork in their eye. Howzabout I eat YOU?

"Cutie Patootie!" You've Just Been GINGERED!

2007-11-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Girls...

2007-11-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

So obviously I don't blog much these days. And I don't do "journal" blogs, either, or at least not much, as these are really just private thoughts. "I ate some cereal today everybody!" And work stuff is usually taboo, too, but boy oh boy do I have a gem this time.

So I have this "worker bee" at work, who, during her very first year of "work" broke the rules and "stole" from her neighbor's work. She went before a "judge" and was given a wrist-slap. Twice and you're kicked out.

Meanwhile, that same year, someone else committed the same crime, and this someone just so happened to be the 1st-year group's President. The president was "fired" and had to leave the "institution." Fast-forward three years. I am now the "boss" of (count 'em!) three worker-bees who stole and have been found guilty. Though they don't have to leave, they are are on probation.

This is where it gets good. One of these three just happens to be the one who REPLACED the previous president in year 1, which means now, in 2007, she has to step down as current president.

The rest of the worker bees in her group were told to vote for a new president and vice-president. I know, I know. Why can't the vice-president take over?

Get this. It's because this innocent, model worker bee happens to have served on the committee that voted Guilty (unanimously) for all three--the conflict of interest prevents her from stepping up. So she will remain VP.

The worker bees voted. In solidarity, they WROTE IN the Guilty person's name as VICE president, affectively kicking out the current VP and reinstating their thieving friend to some level of status. (The new president is of no interest.)

Vindication! You could hear it in the hallways. The bosses were evil and the workers of the world had united and stuck it to us!

And the irony of it all is this. Because there are no by-laws saying the workers COULDN'T employ this subterfuge, we bosses got together behind closed doors and FIXED the election so that the Guilty worker couldn't win! What is more, we forced her to give a speech saying she is so guilty that she must step down from all leadership roles completely--to make it clear that she's inelligible for any position.

The workers DEMAND A RECOUNT! I'm not kidding. There's mutiny a-bewing.

Where do I stand on all this? Well it was for my "project" that the worker stole--in fact, fabricated completely--all of her work. She told everyone she would do it before hand and her friends look up to her as a rebel, an icon. If I weren't to disapprove of this, I'd be allowing a flood of much more thievery. On the other hand, I disapprove of the bosses' dishonesty. It's not a democrasy anyway, so why not just say, "Nope, you can't do that. Vote again." Why lie and say she lost the vote?

Sigh. Am I way too involved in my work? Good god, I have no life do I? Wait, this is journalling, not blogging. D'oh!

My New Favorite Website

2007-10-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.hotchicks
withdouchebags.com/

Nightmares Come in So Many DIfferent Packages

2007-10-07T21:20:00.000-07:00

Looking Forward...

2007-09-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long, folks. A new school year has hammered me into the ground. Here's what I've been up to just today alone:

--gasping as Cait and Marla brutally murder my zombified and mildewed flowers (okay, okay, they should have been euthenized long ago--any thing else awaiting the axe?

--fixing my hallway: lots of spackling, taping, mudding and still painting and staining to go

--holding a funeral for my last already put-out-to-pasture DVD player and replacing it with an XBox.

--completing We Love Katamari and awaiting Beautiful Katamari (Oct 16) (I'm also awaiting GTA IV [March]). It's seems I never run out of things to kill, but at least it keeps me happy, awake, and motivated to do other things. Oh, what, that's the OPPOSITE of what video games are supposed to do? Feh. My new line for people who think TV and video games make you dumber is, You are only a strong as your weakest link, and if video games or TV is your weak link, than you have more serious problems than not getting out more.

--finding out more about my best friends than I ever knew by doing the "WTF?" function on OKcupid.com. This fun website allows you to answer literally hundred of questions about your beliefs, most about relationships, but a good chunk not, and then, after you've submitted a "WTF? request" you get a report sent to you that shows you how your friends answered. To my friends K and A, how was it that I never knew exactly where the line on inappropriate comments about religion was! (awk grammar, sorry)

--emailing my ex-fiancee about her childbearing anxiety. She has actually listened to my spiel about not-feeling-like-a-real-woman-if-you-don't/can't and has decided that all this time she's been living to please her mom--wow! I also sent her this cool webstie that can help narrow down the REAL reason one might have kid anxiety. Scroll down:
http://www.vhemt.org/biobreed.htm

--enjoying excerpts from Julianne Moore's new book on redheads here:
http://www.amazon.com/Freckleface-Strawberry-Julianne-Moore/dp/1599901072

Asenath has pointed out that it's really just the Ugly Duckling narrative. If so, than I will probably hate it. Why? Because the whole point is to LOVE YOURSELF THE WAY YOU ARE (clears throat), or else you might, oh, join a fucking CULT.

--checking out "top" websites. Here are two: Top Noir Films and Top Conservative Horror Films. Discuss.
http://www.ericenders.com/noir25.htm
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=2689

--keeping up on that latest discourse on intersexuality. Check THIS out:

--and finally, enjoying the wonderful satire that is The (U.S.) Office. At first I didn't like it, but I've come to understand its appeal. The Pam/Jim tension is much better than the Tim/Dawn tension. And no, I don't think one has to somehow like Michael to like the show. I so hate this guy and feel better for not being as weird has he is.

Get Outta My Way!

2007-09-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

To the twenty-year old dude in Wegman's who thought it'd be "fun" to drive a shopping scooter around just because it's midnight: soon you will be obese as fuck and it'll be me, not your silly-ass scooter in the bulk isle that makes backing-up beep noises as you fall into your fucking fat-lubricated grave (XXXLarge!).

To the lady driving the red sedan (licence plate NY DEW 5748), you're not fooling anyone by driving sloooooooooowly and howeeeeeeeeever you liiiiiiike. I see the Handicapped badge on your rear-view mirror and you probably ARE officially handicapped--what lardass isn't? But you obviously went to Home Depot, bought STICKERS and pasted "S-T-U-D-E-N-T-D-R-I-V-E-R" on your rear bumber--poorly, and with no attempt to appear like a legit driving school vehicle.

South Hero, VT

2007-08-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

OK, remember when I was talking about this mythical island of lesbians somewhere in New England, but I forgot what or where it was? My coworker was talking about how she goes to South Hero, VT "to get away from Americans on the 4th of July. Basically, it's an all-lesbian BBQ." Indeed, this sounds like the Isle of Lesbos reincarnate! I checked out the data before posting. Barring smallish places like Provincetown or Northampton, where the lesbian population is anywhere from 3.3% to 5 % of "all households," South Hero boasts a mighty 1.3% for a population of only 1,700! (gay men: 0.0%. Buffalo is at 0.3% for both gays and lesbians, by the way). But here's the thing: I can't find a single web page saying that it's Super Awesome and Amazing Dykeland Garden of Vaginas. There's nothing. Zilch. So what's the deal? Is this a really well-kept secret that my coworker wasn't supposed to know about? Or are these just really aged women who hate computers? Maybe they're all hippies--it is Vermont after all, and you basically can't live in Vermont without injecting patchouli directly into your veins and churning butter into the wee hours so that your lighbulbs will operate for the one hour a day you read (books on how to make composting toilets, of course).

Anyone up for an adventure next summer? Or have the cows already won? (actual photo from Google images of "South Hero, VT")

Further Adventures in Rocking Out

2007-08-26T21:14:00.001-07:00

Per a recent dinner discussion about rocking, and the exchange over at BEM, the Rock of Love show, as well as because of my own need to find Rock That Doesn't Suck, I present to you...Metal Skool. I know you may have already heard about them, but let me set this video up. I want to call Metal Skool a parody band, a tribute band, etc., but they aren't dilletants who could never "make it." Each member has been in "real" rock bands and has studio-perfect skills: no dilletant wannabes here. They frequently bring "actual" rockers up on stage (like Jerry Cantrell, the Distrubed lead singer, Bon Jovi's keyboard player, etc.) and currently play to the Sunet Strip demographic that glam rock used to court anyway. So where are we people? The parody has become so good as to actually rock better than the original stuff and most of what's around today. All those nu metal assholes are missing the point. You have to have a sense of humor going into and what follows is "sincere" headbanging and "that feeling" that you had in the 80s when you couldn't fucking believe music could be So Awesome--until it was all ruined by growing up.

One last thing: this performance is delicious because it's flawed. The mistakes they make are what rock is all about.

Soooo Many Levels.....

2007-08-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Forwarded to me by my sister

2007-08-20T08:08:00.001-07:00

Just Because I Want to Gross You All Out

2007-08-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Abusement Park

2007-07-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

Help me. I am in Phoenixville, PA, and I'm afraid either the outer world does not exist any more or this is all some elaborate Truman Show: there's a state fair down the street and the NASCAR crowd is everywhere and there's fried dough, ahem "funnel cake," wafting through the air, wiggers with pubescent caterpillar moustaches and their shirts off smoking Marb lights and clutching their Avril Lavigne-eyed underage girlfriends who scream and then puke from the rides and a weird house of mirrors from Lady from Shanghai and a carousel from Strangers on a Train and the bottle toss with prizes like a Def Leppard mirror (they STILL exist) or Betty Booop in leather on a motorcycle and a over there I see a clown over the water tank taunting the macho men who can't pitch the ball to pitch him in the drink and the lifer carneys who are sick and tired of you and everyone else and want to pull the lever a little too soon and the petting zoo with the sign "Dairy Cows" as if they're special and somehow bringing you closer to nature here on this abandoned lot made suddenly into a freak show that is not like the freak shows of old but some mutation of a parking lot-mall-deepfry vat-culture and I'm thinking where are the bearded ladies and hermaphrodites but who cares because this will be hilarious later on but right now I'm in hell and can only retreat 'home' back to this bizarre gated community of condos that seem idyllic and identical and crime-free but reports of a man with a whip terrorizing children at night have put the neighborhood watch staff on alert and caused the formation of a pre-teen gang called the Night Elves who carry authentic mail-order Lord of the Rings swords and arrows while they rove around at night shooting at and stabbing the first thing that moves and oh god this is all true so help me god i think i hear something at the window is that the sound of a bow string drawing back or a wip about to crack

Small World

2007-07-22T21:05:00.001-07:00

Just finished watching Campion's biopic of the reclusive, shy, and nervous New Zealand ginger author, Janet Frame: An Angel at My Table. I had seen bits of this film in 1989 and had been fascinated by Frame's horrifying stay at a mental ward where JUST as they were about to give her a lobotomy won a literary award and was freed. I couldn't deal with this movie and avoided it for years because I knew it would be painful to watch. At UMass I wrote my honor's thesis on a closed down mental institution--but fictionalized it, and had Frame in mind (also Robert Pirsig). Then, a few years later I wrote my M.A. with a chapter on John Money, the doctor who coined "gender identity." Just wikipediaed Frame and found out Money and Frame were friends.

Chuck & Buck & Larry

2007-07-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

So does everyone know the movie Chuck & Buck? Good. And you know about the new Adam Sandler movie, Chuck & Larry? Good.

The former is a great meditation on homophobia, and uses humor in a thoughtful way, never once allowing true "comfort" to viewers, never skirmishing one bit. The latter's sole purpose is to provide comfort both to a) homphobic straight dudes and b) gay audiences. It succeeds in doing "a," and I highly doubt "b" exists for any other reason than to say, "We're not a homphobic movie, man! It's all about gay RIGHTS!" Well fuck that, and here's why.

One reviewer on rottentomatoes.com says, "Chuck & Larry wants it both ways, indulging in ass obsession and the lamest queer stereotypes since Franklin Pangborn was in short pants, then hoisting the rainbow flag at half-mast in a panicky cry for tolerance." Another adds, "Ends up patronizing both the frat-boy Sandler audience -- presuming they need lectures on tolerance -- and the potential gay audience." The point is, it's more offensive to slip in a rainbow flag after all the "butt pirate" jokes than it is to have a character on South Park yelling "fag"--or for Buck to say to Chuck, "Remember 'Chuck n' Buck n' Fuck n' Suck?" and for Chuck to wince in pain at the memories.

And I said this to my friend's boyfriend last night after he said, "There's nothing wrong with a few innocent laughs at Chuck & Larry." And I said, "Yes there is." And I proceeded to tell him why this is a really really really dangerous movie if you go into it without a critical consciousness. "Oh, that's just your opinion." "Ummm...no, it's actually something I studied for two years and is basically a course in Homophobia 101." "What, just because you say it's homophobic, that makes it so?" 'Well, the movie plus audience members watching it without irony equals bad. So yes, I pronounce it homophobic, meaning you are homophobic if you watch it for 'innocent laughs'" "Oh, so that's a law or something?" "Well, if I were a meteorologist and studied various pressures, dew points, and wind patterns, I could predict via natural LAWS what the weather would be like in a short while. Similarly, language has its own laws, especially rhetoric. I've studied these linguistic laws and can predict that if a certain formulaic narrative employs a set of familiar jokes and is marketed towards a fairly homogenous and powerful demographic that yes, it is 'law," so to speak, that the film is homophobic." "So what, you go get a degree and say this and that makes it true." "Oh, I see. Hard scientists get to pronounce truth but philosophers and literary critics don't? Our truth is just an 'opinion'? Your doctor can study your blood and tell you what's wrong with you, but if I study this film--whose problem is as obvious as the common cold--you don't trust me?" "Sorry, I don't." "Well that's too bad." "So you're saying everything you say to your friends, the trust you is 'the law.'?" "No, because these are people who have a critical consciousness about these things or who have studied them for as long as I have, and they get to say they disagree. You, however, have to trust me they way a kid who borke his arm trusts a doctor to put a cast on it. The movie is really, really bad." "But you watch bad shit all the time! You watch that Bret Michaels show." "The show has a lot going on. Sure it's got sleaze and misogyny, but look, it's inadvertently making a farce of cock rock! Michaels is old, kinda fat, and in no way does the phallus dominate these women. The girls' fake boobs reflected in his motorcycle's gas tank is so hilarious now because people used to actually take Poison seriously! The real spectacle is our own love affair with the past, the late 80s and early 90s." "So I'm supposed to trust you?" " Once you know this shit, you can watch anything. You can watch a snuff film--like Saddam Hussein being hanged--with the right critical consciousness and you'll be okay." "You don't think you're furthering this stuff by watching it." "No, I don't. I'm not the demographic for any of this shit. You are. Unless you listen to waht I'm saying and stop insisting that I'm not an expert but just someone with an 'opinion'." And so on, ad nauseum.

You get the point. See why pop culture is SO important? Because it fucking DEFINES the relationships you have with people. I mean, I love my Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but nothing has made my life so crystal fucking clear as the giant turd that is Chuck & Larry. Thank you O homophobic screenwriters! You gave me renewed energy for my belief that not speaking with three very close family members is actually the right thing to do. In fact, this dude said something that they all said at one time. Something like, "I know deep down in my heart that I mean well, that I know I'm not racist/homophobic, even if I laugh at this stuff or said that stupid thing or believe in Leviticus." I said, "It's really not about me or you at all, okay. It's not about your 'heart' okay? How fucking selfish of you to insist it's about how 'you' are trying so hard to be good. Forget you. Forget me. Forget 'feelings', okay? We're just two dumbass straight dudes aguing on the sidewalk at 11:00 o'clock!"

My friend looked on in horror as she witnessed all of this.

And you know, I have a lot of sleazy tastes in texts, but all it takes is someone like this to remind me just who the fuck I am. Too bad I have to share the political designation "straight dude" with him, but hey, we can both be Fudge Packin' Butt Pirates if we put our differences aside! Whackety Smackety Dooooooooooo!

The Master Plan

2007-07-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

I have suddenly realized that my true calling in life is to POPULATE THE WORLD WITH GINGER KIDS!!!
You see, there are too many people in the world, but not enough of us Redheads. The prejudice is weighty.

So what choice do I have but to convince a ginger girl to ENGAGE EMERGENCY REPRODUCTION SEQUENCE. This is possible in times of stress. At least one member of the species must be as short-haired on her head as she is Lilith-long-haired on her legs and the other must possess a firecrotch whose hue is no less bright than twenty-three cetifibes. A ginger root is dug up and then becomes a sort of "third party" in the mating process.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP US.

The world will soon be a better place for us--and you, if you behave accordingly.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Laaaaaaaa La.
La La La.

You've Been Typed

2007-06-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

Oh, Hipster Couple, you never saw me coming. Standing behind you at the Wegman's checkout, I never really gave you a chance, did I? I could have said nothing. But Boyfriend had the Brady Bunch striped shirt, red bowling shoes, 70s sideburns and intentionally messed-up hair; and Girlfriend had the short-cropped Mia Farrow hair, combed neatly so as not to look dykey, and the requisite thick-rimmed nerd glasses. I asked, "You in the P====cs Program?" and as you stared at me in horror ("How did he know?"), I paid for my groceries calmly, trying not lose it. Look, I know you are both smart, and probably really nice people that I'd hang out with givn the right circumstances. But try not to be so... cult-like. You stick out like the couple in the KFC commercial in which the girl on the phone signals to her boyfriend in sign language that she wants the whole damn bowl of potatoes, corn, and gravy. Only its not KFC prouct that's being cranked out, but you.

YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
YOU YOU YOU and YOU YOU
YOU YOU YOU and YOU YOU
YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU

Sopranos Season Finale

2007-06-11T20:37:00.001-07:00

Since the only time outsiders ever hit my site is when it's news this big, let me chime in. The finale was awesomely perfect and if you don't think so, or were let down, or thought they should all be killed, you are wrong. Here's why.

Each Soprano family member regresses into unchecked sociopathic "American Dreamism." They don't care about anything but selfish material success and what's worse is they TRIED to develop a political consciousness about the world, only to toss it all aside when the going got tough. Carmela never got over her homophobia (remember the whole Melville discussions?), and was confronted with it on the finale, albeit in an oblique way; she is also shown gazing at her house plans like a zombie; Tony shows no concern for the absestos issue, but that's only one of many things--he, of course, in "incurable" according to Melfi, which is a just a metaphor for incurable American Dream materialism; Meadow now longer wants to "be a lawyer for black people" and accepts a sell-out job; AJ is the worst of all because he fights so hard against his family's apolitical consciousness, researches terrorism/oil, etc. and then completely flips a 180 and gets the gaz-guzzling car. When the Journey song, "Don't Stop Believing" ends on "Stop--" with silence and blackness, we aren't screwed out of a "real" ending; rather we're given a NEVERending. Materialism, that is, and the "belief" in it over all other politics. So stop whining, fans. This wasn't a ganster show and it wasn't really a melodrama either. It was a dark satire of the American Dream and killing them off wouldn't have made the right point. In fact, THAT kind of ending would have truly "crapped the floor."

"Gay Bomb" or The Oldest Trick in the Book

2007-06-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

glumbert.com - Army considers Gay Bomb

2007-06-09T08:47:00.001-07:00

This bridge is the one Webelos walk over as they become Boy Scouts. I chose it because the wood is cheap: no frills, just utility. It serves the ritual perfectly because ritual is by definition an action with symbolic value: there's really no need for frills and fluff, right?

So why was the high school graduation I just attended a study in emphasizing frills? Imagine: The underclasses wore immaculate white, each carrying a red rose. The seniors wore white dresses with white gloves and an entire bouquet of roses. Music written specifically for them—composed over 30 years ago on the very organ in the stiflingly hot church we were in (Satan, I will believe in you if you get me out of here)--combined special “trumpet” pipes with the regualr organ pipes. Fanfare! It was as if a king were arriving.

Oh, and television cameras. Weeping parents. Me in a borrowed gown that cost $350 (thanks GC), which itself was deemed the mot remarkable gown of all 60-70 some odd gowns in attendence (notice my clever synecdoche—the gowns stand in for the people themselves. Which is precisely my point--both frills AND symbols--become greater in meaning than mere mortals in their reg'lar ol' skin.

Which brings me to my point. The ritual of graduation made it seem as if we were not people but saints or even gods. What I liked about it was that because regular people—many who are sloppy, disorganized people in their private lives—were made to compose and compartmentalize themselves. They were interpellated to behave. It is kinda funny seeing grown men who would rather be wearing sweat pants try to act "proper."

What I didn’t like about it was the religiosity, the ritualism. I’m using the word not in sense of the various Christian church disputes. Maybe the word is ceremonialism. Ceremony for its own sake. Or ceremony as its own object, the spectacle of it.
I'm not suggesting that there was no "real" object here, but the object was supposed to be graduation—the demarcation between being in high school and no longer being in high school. And certainly the categories of pre- and post-graduate are meaningful to me.

I just don’t know why we need the ritual/ceremony. If you complete the work and the teachers say you are done, then you’ve graduated. If employers and schools didn’t required documented proof of this, there would be no need for the diploma. In other words, in practical terms, there is no need for a graduation ceremony.

So what about the symbolic “needs”? We need rituals, right? Community bonds, public recognition, etc. Well, here are some possible reasons to participate. And these, I must add, are public reasons for the most part. There might also be private reasons, but one can thus perform one's own ritual in private: a ceremony has a public quality, and perhaps it is to conferm something official on a impetus that is private in origin.

1. Compliance. Someone told you you have to do it. You can’t be part of the “gang” unless you do it. This applies to religions and gangs the most, but I'm sure there are those who wear the gown against their will or are simply too brainwashed to know any better. Since I don’t believe in God or in the absolute necessity of organized religion in order to believe in God/spirits/etc., I will always have a hard time understanding why humans need outward signs of their inner beliefs, but oh well. I probably signify my own inner beliefs with my movie posters, Scotch bottles, and electronic devices. But at least no one made me do it. (But wouldn't it be great if, in order to be a horror movie buff, a horror "gang" beat you senseless, chopped off a finger, and locked you in a haunted house for the night? What set you playin', son?)

2.Tradition. Sorry, not a believer in tradition either, though I strongly value memory and history. The "cyclical return" via a ritual that involves the self in some grand participation, on extra-temporal level, in the "thing to be remembered/honored"—pheh! Gimme new words, new symbols, and new dates on which to party. Let the memories come naturally. I guess I'm showing my pagan colors here: aren't nature and its seasons enough for humans? What "believers" don't realize is that their traditions are so painfully obviously manmade that it's hard not to snicker when pople "feel the spirit." Even if God were in the room RIGHT NOW, the ritual is still as hokey as The Twist. The more they insist that that "God inspired" it, the more secular it appears to me, and the more I laugh.

3. Approval. I’m on the fence with this one. My (cult-side) family does not recognize my educational expertise as having any value whatsoever. So would seeing me in full regalia give them pause for thought? Some of my friends say that your getting recognition in a culture that doesn’t recognize you very often—feels awesome. For me, though, why should I seek approval from them? This sanctioned “moment” of "You've Accompllished So Much!" adds insult to injury by underscoring the ironic contrast between "this" moment and every other moment of my live when I don’t get approval or recognition. The school cranks us out, we all look the same, and they really care more about their tutition than the fact that they produced me, the scholar. No institiution has ever sent an officer to ask how I have been representing them these years. As for parents, only one will ever read my dissertation. If there's an approval I seek, it's from an intellectual or avid reader of my work, and this doesn't need a graduation day.

As for family approval—pppffft. I WISH my other family members really saw the "real me," but then I ask myself, why do I want them to? Are they really intelligent to understand anyway? What are they going to do with this approval? Tell others? Whom would they tell? Would those people help get me a better job, a book deal, etc.? See, we're back to the practical. IN the end, my (non-cult) dad approves of me already and believes I’m intelligent. His experience of my higher degree will come with the reading of my dissertation. My enjoyment of his experience will be in hearing what he as to say about what I’ve written. This is all an intellectual can hope for, and robes and colors and platitudes about the future given by some commencment speaker tha you don’t know gives me noe of waht I really want: it only suggests that I could, possibly, have a greater chance of getting it later.

3. Proof of Expertise. I very much want something to signify that I’m an expert. It can be my publications, my interests that peope know and then seek out for advice, even the title “Doctor.” But I don’t need rituals or ceremonies for any of that. If the graduation ceremony allowed each graduate to speak for 10 minutes about the subject on which they are an expert, that would be something!

4. Identity politics. “I belong with you guys.” Pfffft! Sorry, I’m an individual. And while I’m perhaps not unique or special in the elitist sense, I’d rather celebrate how unalike I am then alike. I belong with my friends because...we're friends! No ceremony required. (Although wouldn't it be neat if Best Friends got "married"--i.e promised to devote much of their lives to each other? Nope, sorry, spouses are more important than friends, at least legally. That's why they get a ceremony!

5. Community with others. The feeling of comradery is nice. But again, you can get this sitting around with your friends and colleagues—you don’t need a ritual. In fact, I can't feel intellectually intimate with more than a couple at a time. Also, feeling a “togetherness” is best when it’s rhizomatic—you are part of other communities, too, and while in “this” one you may be the expert, in “that” one, you are not.

6. Empty egotism. Whatever. Overcompensation for lack, perhaps. Aren’t all of these reason starting to smack of LACK? The ceremony gives you something that you ALREADY HAVE, people.

7. Communion with a Higher Power, i.e, The Institution, The State, an Author, God. I understand the need for participants to look around at each other and see mirrors of the self, but easy does it. People talking about God together are the worst because they start comfirming each other’s fantasies the way little kidss talk about unicorns or Transofrmers. I'm certainly guilty of this because nerd gathering start to emit a hummmmmmm...........

8. Unexamined Interpellation. “I dunno. Everyone else is doing it. I thought I’d get confirmed, married, etc. too.” I guess this is the opposite of Egoism. I rather envy these people because they are Indifferent, while I am Concerned and Involved with Why I Should Be Here.

9. Power. Boy did I feel the power surging through me as hundreds of people stared and marveled at the colorful gown I was wearing. Some people actually said, “I want to go back to school so that I can look like you.” Sigh. See what I’m getting at here? It’s ALL EXTERNALIZATION that matters to these people. The inner truth—their wish fulfillment, my accomplishment—is entirely separate from the ceremony.

And when I said, “Yeah, this is a nice gown. I'm glad I came and I do want to honor the hard work these kids have done. But I’m just not much for rituals,” you know what they--inevitably--said?

“Just wait until you have kids.”

Today Wuz A Good Day

2007-05-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

DUHN nee nur, duhr nee nur NURRRR!!!

So my dad and step mom were just here and it was fucking awesome. Everything I talked about they were interested in and understood, no subject was taboo, and the truth about the world actually counts toward having a good time.

After meeing QC and Asenath for mere minutes, they already adore them and understand completely how kewl they are.

Then we walked around Elmwood and every house and garden had "a soul," unlike the robot caves in suburban Boston. The streets were clean, my work place was interesting enough for questions and pictures, and eating at the Saigon was for my dad one of the "best eating experiences" he can remember. (He had the Mango Curry duck.)

Then we drove over the skyway as my dad gasped at the beauty of the grain elevators, GM plant, and my stepmom at the hundred of sailboats/yachts. On the way back the sun was setting. We had Scotch and watched Arrested Development (Job in the banana suit). My dad perused my book collection and borrowed several. He's "looking forward" to reading my dissertation.

WTF? Someone wake me up! Oh wait, I don't have to because I actually got a good night's sleep for the first time in a week, hit the sack at, oh, 9:30, and waking at 7.

DUHN nee nur, duhr nee nur NURRRR!!!

Okay, Okay, an "Occasional Lounge-Like Quality"

2007-05-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

And I'm NOT saying Leonard Cohen '"is" a lounge lizard. My argument is that he sometimes has a notable lounge-like quality to him, which is often his own parody of one, but not always; AND, moreover, that while his lyrical skills are clearly that of a great poet and not those of an ersatz sentiment, his vocals are often delivered with the sang-froid of a lounge lizard--sometimes quite poorly. To quote Randy Jackson, he's "pitchy."

I include here quotes from reviews/blogs etc., just to show that my views are not isolated--even if we are all wrong.

1. "'Always,'" the Irving Berlin chestnut, is another matter: Cohen delivers it in a lugubrious lounge-lizard moan, complete with a spoken intro that sounds like Barry White revved down to 16 RPMs. It's difficult to tell whether Cohen's tongue is in his cheek on this one, but either way it's one of his most surreal tracks ever." -- David G. Whitis, "The Future"

2. Question--All of the following adjectives have been used to describe you; are any correct?

bard of the bedsits apocalyptic lounge lizard
durable hipster Jeremiah of Tin Pan Alley
legendary ladies man amiable gangster
existential comedian poetic playboy
spin doctor for the Apocalypse emotional imperialist
grizzled prophet restless pilgrim
damaged priest the Godfather of Gloom
hippie icon patron saint of angst
the prince of bummers

Answer — "All of them." From an interview by Ira B. Nadel

3. "The acoustic guitar of lounge-lizard easy-listening inspired 'Bar Noir' bings to mind the more laid back barfly tunes of Tom Waits or the flat vocal delivery of Leonard Cohen in its slick sardonic restraint, all dimly lit jazz stages and curling smoke from discarded cigarettes, while a femme-fatale in 50's garb snares some poor unsuspecting private eye into her film-noir existence of half-truths and deceptive glamour." Review of Alex Fergusson's The Castle, by heathenharvest.com

4. And this from a random blog, responding to YEARS of Cohen criticism--as with Bob Dylan--that Cohen is not much of a singer, though he might have become a better one around Death of a Ladies' Man.:

"I think what makes Death of a Ladies' Man my favourite Leonard Cohen album I've heard so far is the way it firmly disproves the notion that Cohen is a bad singer, or not a singer at all, in a way I'm Your Man, The Future and the career-spanning (but Ladies' Man-omitting) The Essential Leonard Cohen all fail to do. I love, adore, lionize Cohen's 'mature' voice, that dry croak that gives his later albums a disproportionate amount of their weight...This is part of Cohen's appeal, part of what sets him apart, and it's not as if he's unable to be visceral, it's just a different kind of viscerality. But on Death of a Ladies' Man, possibly due to writing all of the songs with Phil Spector, he's actually singing there with the songs (I have no idea how to actually describe this) - his performance on 'Memories' alone should absolve him of the need for any defence of his ability to sing (to say nothing of the glassily exuberent 'Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On' or the shattering, final title track). I mean, he may have lost it since, but he did have it at one point, and he was great at it. It's just an aspect to his talent that has been overlooked."

Here, the blogger protests too much--his exceptional singing proves the rule that he couldn't sing very well to begin with. I do like his singing, as we all do, but he fudges. Now Lounge Lizards are sometimes good singers (Paul Anka, Mel Torme, both jazz-trained), sometimes bad ones (various "Heya!" Rat Packers, etc.), but the meaning of the word, which dates back to at least 1923, signifies chiefly a ladies man or barfly who waits around for women; or a man who merely frequent lounges. Both are strictly speaking non-singing, but Cohen has adopted the ladies man persona the way so many crooners have and has somehow taken the cheesiness OUT of it. So the reluctance to align Cohen with loungeness perhaps derives from the fear of representing him as cheesy and ersatz, as trying to hard, which he's not. Even his parodical quality authenticates him. But he's got the jackets (check out the lapels fromt he 70s--eat your heart out Bryan Ferry [who, by the way, has also been labelled lounge]), the cozy, comfy intimacy of just this side of the piano, and the tendency to avoid those tough notes by covering it over with emphasized timbre, and--what ultimately allows him to transcend--meaningful lyrics. So think of him as a good Scotch, complex and rich, but with defininite "notes" of lounge.

Insomnia, Part II or "Blech"

2007-05-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry--not in a good mood yet or able to write about anything funny. Feel free to skip this post, as it's more for my own diary purposes.

So I've been granted some relief from all the stress by re-waching Buffy (is there anything that show can't do?), but I got up this morning with dizziness. WTF? It didn't go away the whole day and I soon realized that it was yet another stress-related ailment, probably related to lack of sleep, but most likely not, since I have had insomnia without it. I had many stress-ailments during my dissertation writing/defense, all of which magically disappeared directly after, but my new job has brought some of that back, not to mention all the cult/family shit I've put up with lately.

So as I was going about my day, I remembered how in fourth grade we had to put on blindfolds and pretend we were born blind. This was to teach about how others have to deal with not being able to see. Today, experiencing this dizziness has given me some more "insight" into Queercat's situation. For me, it's not quite the same as being drunk, i.e. "roomspin." It's a more subtle uneasiness that suddenly hits you like a pang and before you know it you want to grab something and just be still. You close your eyes and the world keeps moving. I thought I'd include a picture. For some of you, this picture will be nothing more than a stoner poster; for others, it will make you look away. Blech.

Insomnia, Part I

2007-05-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Warning: Depressing Blog Ahead. No Need to Leave Comments After the Awkward Pause

So I can't sleep. I've got so much work to do for school, so many deadlines, so many voices begging for help and clarification that they all start to blend together.

Meanwhile, my step-dad, as some of you may know, is very sick. He signed his health over to $cientology and doesn't have the medicine to treat arthritis, rhuematism, or epilepsy. He recently has a seizure that left him unconscious until a neighbor found him. Where was my mom and why did she leave a near 70 year-old invalid alone? Because she was in NYC being a $cientology missionary.

Meanwhile, Falwell died, to my delight, and all the rage I've had for him, Billy Graham, the Promise Keepers' McCartney, etc. has come out in deliciously Sadean ways (See GC's blog), but I don't feel any better. It's because it always falls on deaf ears. I'm eternally the Boy who says that the Emperor is Wearing No Clothes, but even my family members who have NOT become pod people don't really understand why I have rage rather than compassion.

Now, my step-dad may die soon. It's bound to happen some day. I should be full of sorrow and available to support the very family that sold me out to the kind of hate that Fallwell represents, but I only feel rage. Sorrow and remorse becomes rage and then rage even more at having all emotions defer to rage. I probably won't go to the funeral (my step dad's) because I would only end up pulling a Bobby from Twin Peaks, pointing my finger at them all and crying, "You! You are all responsible!" It would be a debacle. Best to stay away.

So here's a toast to the death of Fallwell for whom my rage can at least be unambivalent, unmixed with the complex feelings one has for family, especially the pod people part of the family. Clickety click goes the Scotchy Scotch, a swallow, and another restless night seeing ghosts in the corner of my bedroom.

Crackpot

2007-05-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

My Own Private Beatles Concert

2007-05-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

The picture you're looking at is basically what every girl I "work with" imagines herself doing with the goalie of a certain sports team. Every single time the team gets a day or two break, he comes home and opens up his garage and washes his SUV, which is BMW--sans shirt, glistening muscles. The girls rush to the windows and scream and cry, just like the girls did for the Beatles or that androgynous singer on American Idol.

Once again (sigh), the goalie has had to complain about all the bothersome noise. Once again (double sigh), out boss has had to bring this up during the faculty meeting. It's actually preventing our diurnal activities from moving forward, such a big problem it has become.

Thanks alot, goalie. I finally get away from the jock-ridden halls of every educational institution I've ever been in, and there you are weilding more power with brawn than a thousand nerds could hope to muster by uniting their bee-hive minds and writing one big killer essay.

Crapped the Floor

2007-05-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

The recent Sopranos episode was the worst I've ever seen. They let some co-executive producer write it and what did he do? He invented Tony's "gambling problem" and then decided to destroy his relationship with a long-time business associate with whom he most enjoyed a glass of Scotch. So I'm thinking, "This is all just a ruse, right? The writers are fucking with us, and they're going to do something amazing that will turn it all around and make it make sense." But no. What actually happened was **SPOILER* Vito's goth son is in standing in the shower at high school, getting picked on by the jocks, and he just CRAPS on the floor, jsut like that. Standing there. Then he steps on it. The jocks yell "Ewww" and run away. The end.

I propose we use "Crapped the Floor" the way we use "Jumped the Shark."

In other news, a student cleaned the board in my classroom today. This completely cliched act almost made me burst out laughing. I didn't ask her to do it, either. All I need is an apple on the desk.

Additionally, the show Work Out completely rocked my world recently. Besides the tragic story of Doug's passing, which I rank right up there with Pedro's very famous reality TV death, a brief side storyline brought together Jesse and a gay Iraq war veteran who happend to serve on the panel who decides if your misconduct gets you kicked out of the army. He told the story of a gay man whose troop accepted him and who the panel decided was OK, but then a higher-up canned him anyway.

I have not seen a SINGLE text that has brought together the two most 2005-election-contentious issues. You have your war documentaries here and your gay stories of the street or the home threr, but they are never conjoned. Anti-war Democratic candidates do not ever make the link. They're "separate" issues, apparently, even to Barney Frank, it seems. All it took was one random gay military side character in a B-channel reality show to say, "Yeah, the morale's gone down over there" in the same conversation as, "They kicked him out anyway" and this speaks volumes and volumes more than Brokeback Mountain and the latest NPR expose about funding or hidden death-toll statistics. As long as the war is talked about in purely DC-political or economic or nationalistic terms alone, and the gender politics are bracketed out, then that Elephant in the Room is going to stamp us all out. I refuse to express more outrage at the war or at global warming than I do at lack of gay rights. This is why Marxism and feminism never really "married," pun intended. This is why I'm not going to see the fucking 60s boomer Bread and Puppet Theatre do its "zany" Bush send-ups. I'm sick of those Vermont hippies because they, too, bracket gender out. Oh, maybe they'll have some abortion skit, but that'll be it.

Finally, I want to put forth a film that I like, and I am somewhat nervous to do it. It's, er, um, United 93, the story of the plane that crasked in Penn. on 9/11. Okay, wait, wait, stop, just listen. I saw that other film, the one with Nicholas Cage. Rather, Asenath and I "saw" it in 10 minutes by scanning through it and predicting everything. United 93 is completely different. There's no orchestral melos, first of all, and there's no exaggeration of heroism in the individualistic sense. Yes, they make all those who died into heroes--that's inevitable--but it's the pacing leading up to the end, the final crash, that's so amazing and makes the falws forgivable. Time is out of joint: we see the hijackers as they board and silently prepare, glancing at eachother nervously, but then we quickly cut to workers in the control tower who are beginning to freak out about all the off-course planes. There is no overstated or overacted line in the whole movie. It's mostly quiet bafflement, Altman-like murmer and overlapping dialogue, and general de-centralized character focus. Call me crazy, but I think it's a great fuckin' film, and perfectly sensitive to the victims without sentimentalizing anyone or anything, bereft of exalting anyone to heavenly status. In fact, there's a marked absence of meaning anywhere in this film.

A Real Hero

2007-04-25T13:23:00.001-07:00

I know so few people that I truly identify with, but yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to meet a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, because of where I work and who she is, I can't say her name or reveal much else. You can find her on google if you type in the recent journalism prize being given by the P______er organization, which awards only one prize to an artist who is not a writer. One you find her name, you can type that all as one word, add a .com, and see why she's up for it. She's a genius. And I don't throw that word around. And not a socially indept genius, either, as is romanticed so often, but a real genius, a practical and practicing one. Perhaps a made, not born, genius.

She said that there are so few people like her that she has a small pool of about 25 people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that even fully understand what she does, and out of them NONE of them really have the time to delve into her work and offer advice/comment because their so busy with their own work. She works all day, obsesses over her processes, has giant "maps" of her work plans, cannot distinguish life from art, etc. etc. She has chosen not to have kids because she would not have been able to achieve all of this if she had. Men in her field do the sexist thing where the wife at home takes care of them, and she doesn't have that privilege. Either way, she's glad, as having kids would have distracted her so much from artisitic creation that her entire world view probably would not have led her to her present status. She values isolation and loneliness, even from her own husband. Despite all that she has achieved, her greatest works "no one wants to listen to," even the ones commissioned for huge amounts of money. AND she's a teacher, too! She STILL works for a living and will continue to work even if she gets the prize money. "Even to be nominated is to basically win it," she says. At age 50 or so, she looks and seems 30: the loneliness that goes along with doing what she's most passionate about and what almost no one on the planet can or wants to do, I believe has added years to her life. So there's hope!

Neko Case Youtube Video Roundup!

2007-04-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

This video for Porchlight is from the Brit show Bad Girls (trivia: Porchlight was also used in what Showtime show featuring a rag-tag gang of women "friends" from LA? Hint: three words and the second begins with "L"!

Ten Reasons Neko Case Rules

2007-04-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

1. She sounds like she has a cold and for some reason that works.

2. The deep red bells haunt me.

3. All creatures on the earth stop what they're doing...and listen.

4. Her pants rule.

5. She's a ginger.

...Love, Neko

2007-04-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

New Tori!

2007-04-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

It All Evens Out

2007-04-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

1. The Sopranos season premier was better than most films I've seen recently. As GC calls it, 'little one-hour masterpieces." Somehow, I see why they justify their $100 box sets, as it really is the cost of that many minutes in film, "not TV," as HBO says. Not that I will buy it. I want single episodes in my collection: last night's; last season's meditation on mob masculinity's relationship to homophobia; the Pine Barrens episode directed by Buscemi; and the one directed by Mike Figgis.

2. I'm in abusive relationship with two cheap DVD players. One, the multi-regional (even PAL) Sampo, won't play discs very often, but when it does, they're in awesome surround sound. The other, the Sungale, has shitty sound, but always plays discs--until it decides to carve a circular scratch into them. So I thought I might buy this:

because I want it anyway (someday) and it would absorb the cost of a new DVD player, too. Notice the cylon fighter control. I bet your hand mushes right into that thing while another line inserts into your spinal column. Fuck yeah! But it costs mimimum $600. When I took my car in today to fix a flat, get it inspected, and get an oil change, guess what? It will cost me $600! Irony is a bitter old man with a grey beard, fishy breath, and cheap coffee he brews on the stove of his one-room shack.

3. In talking with my new friend S about literature, I realized that as much as I have contempt for "feel good" texts, she knows infinitely more about her chosen genre--romance novels--than I do about my genre. I know I won't be able to read many romance novels, but I'm fascinated by their ability to manipulate readers using the keep-the-lovers-together-then-pull-them-apart method. Like I don't LOVE keep-the-monster-away-then-make-it-jump-out.

4. I've been re-reading my dissertation and am horrified by the number of typos. I am cursed never to see them until after the whole world can download them.

5. The Halloween trailer is finally out. I say with trepidation, it could be good. I liked The Devil's Rejects, but not so much House of a Thousand Corpses. I'm not expecting the usual shot-by-shot aping of Carpenter's masterpiece, but a making it bloodier and grittier: grindhousier. Let the flaming begin on this one: I won't defend him. But I think we just can't tell.
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/halloween.html

Oh, Kermie....

2007-04-06T21:39:00.001-07:00

It Has Finally Arrived--Whose Ready to Get Pumped!?

2007-03-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

True Haiku from These Hallowed Halls and Adjoining Lunchroom

2007-03-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

Colleague Laid Bacon
Across Her Garden Burger
I Watched in Horror

Hot for Once?

2007-03-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

Underneath Every Hippie is a Psycho

2007-03-08T02:38:00.000-08:00

John Popper of Blues Traveler was arrested for speeding (111) and according to Yahoo News, "Inside the black Mercedes SUV, officers found a cache of weapons and a small amount of marijuana...A police dog searched the vehicle, finding numerous hidden compartments containing four rifles, nine handguns and a switchblade knife. Authorities also found a Taser and night vision goggles."

I had to endure years of my so-called friends telling me that Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors, etc. were somehow a continuation of hippie music and thought. Both bands were so obviously bland bar-bands. The only new hippie band was Phish, who, no matter if you liked them or not, had a clear sense of roots and influences: look at how many older musicians deigned to join them on stage. I never made fun of Popper's weight, and his harmonica playing is phenomenal (even though I don't like it--one still must admit skill), but I always knew that this band had nothing in common with hippies.

I sound as if I'm trying to argue for authenticity, of "true" hippies. Well, in a way, I am. Popper and Hitler Fudd are both examples of hypocritical redneck assholes who would get along better with Ted Nugent than with Martin Luther King, Jr. The rest of the hippies liked to party and talk about how the "ocean water makes love to the sand" and how "you're over there and I'm over here, but we're not separate, you know?" But there were some who moved beyond the "Like Father Like Son Like Hell" mindset and criticisized the social institution of marriage (beyond the misnomer "free love"), the practice of war, etc. I don't know who they are, and I don't know what they did, but I know they existed. In 1967 I would have been one of them. When The Doors were banned from Woodstock for being too "dark" for flower power, I would have ripped up my ticket. Eventually I would have become a punk, I guess.

I love that the real world and the world of TV and video games are so completely separate for me. Fuck Baudrillard. In Grand Theft Auto I blow suckas faces off. In the real world, I do not even own a gun or care to shoot one or hide one in my secret "weed compartment." Dumbass.

2007-03-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

2007-03-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

2007-03-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

All Coulter All De Time

2007-03-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

James Cameron--Master Satirist!

2007-03-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

Is it possible that James Cameron's new documentary, The Jesus Tomb, has outdone his other biting criticisms of people of faith?

The Jesus Tomb is supposed to offer evidence about the legendary Do-Gooder's final resting place. I also understand that many archaeologists refute Cameron's "science." He's played them right into his hands!

He has planned this all along, and, perhaps, all of his other movies were leading up to this. Lets not get involved in the details of whether there is or is not truth in the documentary. Let's look at all how the Christian Right is going ape-shit!!!! All over Fox News, Scarborough County, and other shows, they are having to do all over again what Dan Brown made them do: hold special "rap" sessions with kids so that they're minds aren't infiltrated, bang their fists on the Bible as if it didn't itself have a hsitory of compilation, and generally act sore about how offensive it is to even question their metanarrative.

Granted, Cameron wants to make a lot of dough. A lot. Good! That's exactly what televangelists have been doing all along. And if even more deluded Christians want to believe that the tomb is actually some place else, let them fight over X marks the spot. Either way it makes Aliens, The Abyss, and Titanic look like satirical masterpeices!

Aliens--when Ripley frees the cocooned little kid, Newt (Jesus), and defeats the Queen (Whore of Babylon) with a forklift and an airlock, we see how easy it will be for Good to win over Evil--in Christians' dreams!

The Abyss--when Bud's touching message to his wife is interpreted by the aliens as a reason not to destroy humanity, we realize that the members of Deep Core are in fact inside Extremely Shallow, as in a certain belief system that reckons it is responsible for saving the whole world with mere words. What an excellent send-up!

Titanic--drifting along in the icy water, Rose wakes up to find that Jack is...dead! Ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!!!!!!! Made even more ascerbic by the over-the-toop Celine Dion song, its lyrics of false hope soaring high, only to crash land into the waters of silence, the film warmed the cockles of my heart. As will Jesus Tomb, the next installment of Cameron's epic series: Fools Love Redemption.

Attacked by Cylons

2007-02-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

Just now, three (well, four) things happened simultaneously. 1) An extremely low-level jet airplane flew by overhead, shaking the house; 2) a large garbage or dump truck drove past my house, rocking my foundation; 3) C and M switched on their high-pitched vacuum cleaner and began rolling it over the nice wood floors, which 4) made me think--for one split second--that the world had come to an end and cyclons were descending upon us all, my house being the first one to be decimated. Either these three things really were perfectly timed, or they happen all the time and I'm so paranoid I notice them.

Either way, I need a Scotch.

Arcade Fire

2007-02-25T10:10:00.000-08:00

In search of true rocking, I may have found a little something. Last night on SNL the band Arcade Fire played two numbers and I was impressed with both. From Quebec, they mix their folksy French Canadian influences in with Bowie/Byrne attitude and truly make an homage or influence seem just that and not a rip-off. They "get" their roots. It's a big band and what I like about them is that they are down to earth without having to resort to the American version of that means, i.e. Rusted Root, some hippie jam band, etc. They are prety damn serious about their instruments. Yes, their INSTRUMENTS matter more than their image, their attitude, their brands. Band members even switch instruments from songs to song, something you see in folk/jazz but rarely in rock/pop. Plus, there's very little distorted guitar and they can still rock (see Ani, Modest Mouse, even Tenacious D). When the lead singer smashed his guitar on stage, he did it not to be like The Who, or to express teen angst (Nirvana), but for a very politically specific reason. The words, "sak vide pa kanpe" were written on the guitar, and Wiki tells us this "is a Creole proverb which means 'an empty sack cannot stand up' and refers to the injustice in the lives of the Haitian working poor and the hope that they maintain despite their struggles. At the conclusion of the song, Butler ripped the strings off his guitar and smashed it on the stage floor." Cool. And it didn't seem cheesy or gimmicky at all, which is refreshing.

Good. Finally a bunch of people that stop posturing and play their frickin' instruments as if music matters more than persona. Not that I don't have my idols that I worship--but that's more of an "I identify with you" response to music, which I don't have for Aracade Fire. I'm merely interested in the unique wall of sound all those instruments can make--instruments I can't even name, instruments that have both strings and some sort of wind-up drone thingy. I know the folks at Vice make fun of French Canadians a lot and often for good reason (juggle sticks are boring, dude), but hipsters can rarely identify an instrument outside the keys/bass/drum/guitar arena, and Arcade Fire is for nerds, not hipsters.

WHY? WHY?! WHY?!!

2007-02-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

--must assholes who nearly let their dog bite your face off apologize that it’s a “guard dog” and expect that this statement neutralizes the ethical misstep. Hey fuckface, leave your “guard dog” at home--guarding the house. In his fence. In the yard. Where he shits in place other than where my feet might go. You have no business training a dog to bark loudly and then taking him out in shared public space where others have to tiptoe on ice or nearly die by smacking their heads on this ice because their fuckface owners can’t properly train the object of their power. If you like having power over the beasts of the earth so much, train your fucking dog.

--must moms and their two rugrats walk three abreast on the sidewalk. Listen up, Betch: I deserve EXACTLY ONE HALF of this sidewalk so walk behind each other in a cute daisy chain or something so that I don’t decide to attach razor blades to my stiffly (but briskly) swinging arms as I pass you. Slice. Ooops. There goes a snot-encrusted arm! Maybe next time you won’t expect the seas to part for your chilldwen.

--must racist homicide cops cover up a fucking MURDER in Elmwood’s Burger King. Oh, what? You didn’t hear about that? Because it wasn’t even in the fucking news. “Channel 2: On Your Side,” like hell. More like “Channel 2: On the Side That’s Winning: White People, Who Only Care When A White Person Dies.” And by the way, Burger King: you don’t belong on Elmwood either, fuckknuckles. Starbucks may be just as evil as you are, but they are clean and quiet: I can’t smell them or hear assholes yelling for drinks from inside their muffler-less cars. No one thinks: “I’ll go murder someone at Starbucks—no one will notice.” They think, “I’ll cap this fool at Burger King because it’s nice and fucking sordid. He sleeps with the fish sticks.”

--must I be expected to go to meetings to which I have no idea if I’m even invited? Oh, no one from the E Dept was there? If someone had told me to go, I’d go. I know, I know...I should do what it takes to become the new head of the dept. I should “get involved,” right? No one has said shit to me about said promotion, only smatterings of “you’ll probably be the one doing all that next year.” Oh yeah? Where’s the MONEY? Where’s the formal fucking OFFER and the power to hire and fire whom I please? I better not be asked this fucking summer just before the new year begins, after it’s too late to hire anyone. Oh, the head of school does the hiring? Yeah, that’s right, I won’t even really have that power—just all the work of interviewing people I don’t like when I already know some perfect candidates. I’ll have a title and no power. Does that mean that when I attend meetings and I can act like what I say matters when it matters as much a dirt does to an earthworm’s navel?

--must I do my taxes myself if I’m happy with whomever the U.S. Government picks? I’ve made at least one mistake every year and the error has been caught by a human who reviewed the whole thing and gave me more money. So how about I buy that human a cup of fucking coffee to do it all himself and call it a day? Or how about I pretend I’m in Idaho and never pay taxes again, but turn my house into a fortress stocked with water and canned goods, its windows meshed over with chicken-wire, and attach a bullhorn over the door so that I may rant at startled passersby? It’s much better than a blog!

Nostalgia Warning: Skating Back in Time with the Queen City Roller Girls

2007-02-11T06:33:00.000-08:00

Last night and I went to Tonawanda with a coworker to see the Queen City Roller girls battle it out. I won't review the history of this sport, which is readily available online, but I will say that although it's been around since the 50s, it was the late 80s aeshetic of the roller rink that drew me in. The huge cement edifice was exactly like the one I went to when I first started holding hands with girls--no kissing! no sitting on laps! no ripped jeans! learn the rules!--and listening to Guns N Roses. There were neon lights in rainbow patterns, painted pastel arrows zooming across the walls, occasionally becoming "graffiti." Black lights added a "stoner bedroom/fortress of solitude" quality.

The girls divided into two teams--red and black, Sluggers and Kissers (nice parallel with Guns N Roses, I thought). The battle itself is a set up to stop and go like baseball or football, which can get frustrating, but they must play by the rules or else it devolves into mud-wrestling-style anarchy and then, whoops, we're in ancient Rome. Not that it wasn't already heavily sexualized: my favorite roller girls' names were Banana Ram-Ya, Pissy Longstocking (with Piss Off written on her ass), Rita Slayworth, La Mala Rubia, Her-Ass-Her, Lease A Hearse, Nadia DamBusiness, and Sweat Pea (watch out--she's more like Bluto). The music was lame, except at half-time, when they played...Guns N' Fucking Roses! Nothing like Axl to urge on a little gross unsportladylike conduct. Every time someone fell there was a collective "oooooohhhh!" from the Zion-like crowd. By Zion (the Matrix one), I mean that everyone was invited--old and young, trashy and classy. A veritible utopia of "family values" and gay couples holding hands--wha-what? That's right--if only queerdom had been more visible in my small town 80s world, it would have been an even better piece of nostalgia to piss Asenath off about. Rocking out on a daily basis PLUS queer rebellion=utopia.

Oh, except everyone in Tonowanda is white. That was a major drawback. But still--much better than the Matrix's Zion or Shortbus's Shortbus Club. All Utopias have at least one glaring flaw and Shortbus's was the exlcusion of non-"Sexy" people and Zion was the exclusion of non hippy people. Tonowanda is honky town indeed, but man oh man was this a much better crowd than the fuckin Old Pink, the local coffee shop, or Hallwalls, etc. etc. Not that I bonded instantly with anyone--I wasn't looking for that--but I had this feeling that trash and class could co-exist. I was IN a John Waters movie one moment and at a Unitarian Universalist Church the next. The music was period-specific--good: pick an era and stay with (you hear me, iPod?). Even little girls, like six or seven, were wearing skull and crossbones t-shirts. Little boys would now know what it feels like to be a girl and dragged to a Monster Truck Arena. Ha ha! You don't own masculinity, son! And Fuck yeah, sister--you'll be getting tattoos WAY early! And here comes grandma, barreling down the aisle alongside her granddaughter--and she's not offended by all the young people with beer sloshing around. She's happy to be there right alongside the requisite sports-venue heckler dudes who have something raunchy and witty to scream every 15 seconds. My favorite from them was when all the girls were announced--name and then number, as in Metal Mistress #96--one girl in particular had the number Square Root of Pi Minus 1. These two dudes were all "Shit. What the fuck do we scream about that?" And then one belows, "Punk n' Pi! Number Empty Set!" It was so Metallica Mathlete.

I've talked with La Mala Rubia previosuly--she's friends with Amber--and she kicked butt out there--but I don't know any of the others. I bet you guys know some but never dreamed. Some of them took more risks than others, as in rather than sticking to the phalanx method of preventing the jammer from busting through, one might stop suddenly and force a carrening-into, which is legal (but tripping isn't). Am I getting this right? I'm still sketchy on the rules, but since Jess K is a big part of it (see the second link below for her interview), she can chime in. She probably doesn't read my blog, but any of you can link back or whatever. Next show is in March, people. We're going and that's final.

http://www.myspace.com/queencityrollergirls
http://www.tonawanda-news.com/features/gnnlifestyle_story_026153815.html
http://www.queencityrollergirls.net/

Apple's Latest

2007-02-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, first watch this:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ads/partyanimated/

I DESPISE this form of music. It does not rock AT ALL. Why can't anyone rock out without all the spastic Beatlesesque Emo cries of "rebellion" (read: let's party). It's too slick, too sexy. Style over substance. THIS is here to counter all the MTV sludge?

Doesn't anyone care about musicality anymore? Yay, power chords. Yay, 4/4 time. Yes, Asenath, I long for pop music of the bygone era. Actually, Mastodon rocks pretty hard, but no likes ugly dudes who scream. Billy Corgan was the opposite: more whiny than screamy. Anyone left--in the middle? Fuck, I'm old. Guess I'll just put on Coltrane.

The other Apple thingy out is this:
http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Anyone interested? Or am I the only loser who wants this thing? (The fact that I'm already a loser is besides the point.)

Ha Ha

2007-01-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

I win.

At work, we competed for a Universal Gym that needs a new home and I won it. Ha ha. Everyone who entered but me is rich and I make teacher's salary. They lose. I get it. It's mine. I beat out even the rich business manager who complained, "What, just because B cecked his email first, he's gets it? Let's flip a coin." Fuck you, mothafuckaaaaa! PE teacher was all "You make more than anyone except the head of school, betchhhh, so chill." And I was all, "I've got a friend with a truck. It's as good as done." (Nun-chucks at the ready.)

It's going upstairs, and now everyone can laugh at how much like a frat boy I'm becoming for "Lifting." ("Sorry guys, I can't hang tonight, gotta go lift.") Or how much like a frat boy I'm becoming because I play video games all day instead of lifting. Shit, I guess either way I lose.

My New Nephew, a Childwen

2007-01-22T15:47:00.000-08:00

Now play the line from American Movie/Coven over and over in your head: "It's allright/It's okay/There's Something to Live For..."

Is there? Dude, you are already as fat and only slightly more self-centered as I am, and have achieved ZIP! So why not just call it a day, eh?

Machine Elves Stole My Dissertation

2007-01-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

Apparently DMT makes you see--I mean "communicate with"--little machine elves who represent alien life forms in disguise. Frustrated at the asburdity of this widely held belief, I googled "machine elves" and somehow stumbled upon "I see dead people" and then "ghost therapy," which led me to a link to my dissertation. What web page was I on now? Only amazon dot fucking com, who STOLE my diss from a database and are now selling it for $55 dollars (a lousy pdf file). Go to their homepage and type my full name. You'll see. Fuckin' machine elves at amazon. I was up all night drinking scotch and playing Burnout.

Hippie-Goddess

2007-01-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

This is a blatant attempt to outdo Cait's discovery of beautifulagony.com, which challenges many conventions and even raises the question as to whether an orgasmic face is "porn." I offer hippiegoddess.com, which was linked from a site that was linked to beautifulagony. No one can deny that women are the true inheritors of the earth, that each woman embodies Gaia--in her groin area especially. Last summer's dealings with Hitler Fudd have taught me that I must be more tolerant of alternatives to the "norm" of shaved/bleached/siliconed porn, and this is it! Who among us wouldn't cherish their "old lady" if she were a hippie goddess? She would provide me, as a man, a timeless and spiritual link to all other women throughout time. She is the vessel through which I, the male principle, or "lingham," redeems, renews, and refreshes himself. We compliment each other like yin and yang, from time immemorial. See her dance! Heat the drums! She is calling me. What? What's that? I hear you! Yes, we shall dance with the wolves in the moon-shadow of your unshaved vagina! I hear...I hear...dumh...dumhn...DUHM....dum..ta-ta dumh...duhm....duhn....

2007-01-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

As I approach middle-age (no protests, please: 35 x 2 = 70 years, at which point I will be retired), I'm more and more disheartened by how many of my friends rank (having a) family over art, politics, and venturing beyond their homes. (You folks who don't find these things mutually exclusive, good on ya!). I don't doubt that I've "settled" in here with my own version of the American Dream, and I still might someday visit the Land of Monogamous Coupledom. But it's not the relationship or the kids per se that bothers me the most: it's the all-consuming attention to these things as if they make one a "grown up." I flirted with the idea of wrapping my dissertation in a bonnet, putting it in a bassinet and sending it around at Christmas. "Ben and New Breed, Old Blood Wish You Happy Holidays!" I still might do that. But the literary-creation-as-birthing metaphor is troublesome for other reasons.

If it's my "choice" not to do these things, why should I think about it all the time? By think, I do not mean "wonder if I should propagate after all." I mean, how am I to continue "developing" as a person when there's little to nothing that I do that actually counts as development, other than my career (which, let's face it, becomes boring to talk about after fifteen minutes). Deep down, I must really believe that some day it will no longer be cool to mention marriage+kids at a party. I've decided to start saying to my breeding friends, "Good thing you had a baby now while it's still cool." This works a little bit better than Marla's "heternormativity is doomed," although I like her quote much better, personally.

I'm left with the tired old debate in queer theory over "choice." I'd like to say that not having a family is not a choice, it's who I am. I could try it, but it would seem violently wrong. There are two problems with this. First, I face no political danger and this makes my anxieties unlike those of GLBT's. Second, saying this means conceding that breeders didn't choose to breed either. So how can I criticize them?

Besides overpopulation and First World privilege, most of them are simply going to have to stop it--or else. They will have to fight against their "nature" or we're all doomed, not just heteronormativity. My hope is that breeding will simply cease to be cool. Breeding will be like littering.

Aha! As I typed this, I realized I had unconsciously equated having "a litter" with "littering."

Okay, now I'm not depressed. I'm fucking happy as all hell and am going to use "litter" much, much more. As in, "Pitch in! Put Your Gametes in the Trash," "Litter is Unsightly. It Attracts Vermin and Causes Disease," or

Danny Masterson was NEVER on Buffy

2007-01-02T07:21:00.000-08:00

But somehow my brain thinks this dude from That 70s Show WAS on Buffy. You see, last night I had a dream that I had moved to LA and occcasionally found myself at celebrities' parties. One night we were at Danny Masterson's and I noticed he had done some similar work on his house that we had. I asked for the tour, but instead of showing me drywall he showed me his entire TV on DVD collection. Lame! It was all King of the Hill and Brady Bunch, nothing obscure like Red Dwarf or something. I then asked why he didn't have That 70s Show or Buffy, since he was on both of them. He replied, "I don't collect the shows that I'm on." (Which is a lie. I looked him up on imdb and he was on King of the Hill, and of course NEVER had even a bit part on Buffy). But gullible me ate it up and I started asking questions about what everyone was up to. I really wanted to know about Amber Benson, since she's a writer and continues to inhabit the role of Tara. He dismissed her and the rest of them but EPECIALLY Nicholas Brendan, whom I soon realized was his arch-enemy for being just as much of a lazy and shiftless dude, but never actually smoked pot and finally did something with his life. Masterson didn't know what anyone was up to and acted as if he'd been stuck with the job of speaking for the show after the rest had moved on with their lives. When I realized he was lying, I nevertheless continued to stop over to his house to say hello. He'd ask me Buffy questions, but I'd change the subject to renovation and talk about how his 70s-era shag carpet was cool for the show but not for real life, so get rid of it. Eventually I stopped visiting.

What does this dream mean? I wonder if it means that those of my friends who are occasionally stoners do not like Buffy as I do. That there's something fundamentally non-stoneresque about Buffy and Angel. Despite it's monsters and such, it's not a "trippy" show at all, but rather appeals to computery-booky nerds on the whole. I will generalize that rarely do the two crowds overlap. My love of Buffy is somehow connected to being at odds with my hippie roots.

Holiday Travels, Part II

2006-12-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

I spend a few days in Phoenixville, PA (near Valley Forge and Philly), with UMass pal Kaecyy. He and his brother, his girlfriend, her best friend, and her boyfriend all live in this quasi-gated community in the middle of the woods.

Within lurks all manner of oddities. Here's a picture of the living room. It began as all Chinese decor, but evolved into a painted mantle, killbot puppet on the TV, Woodsy the Owl pillow, tiki-totem pastiche. Awesome.
The rest of the pictures are just a sampling of what you'll find in his house. They are the scary clown hung on the wall over the toilet, which Kaeccy explains is "often found turned around because people don't like him to watch"; two old dollies that his girlfriend found on eBay recently; and an alien blow-up doll--an Xmas present. I think you get the idea that his house is one big bohemian playground where time has no meaning.

Holiday Travels, Part I

2006-12-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

My first stop was Kingston, NY (near Saugerties, Woodstock), for a brief visit with long-time friends, the Brothers Schikowitz. Highlights:

--setting up two drumsets facing each other and battling it out with Ben S.
--The freak accident at their aunt's Xmas party. Apparently, one relative's Passat has a computer chip malfunction and the car went Maximum Overdive alive and insane, hitting everyone's car, including my brother's. He's now got enough insurance money for 1/4 of a new car, as the Passat bulldozed his into a telephone pole (he wasn't in it). When we tried to move the Passat, just turning the engine on almost caused another accident. Now I look at my Jetta sideways.
--Sam S showing me the archery target, which he shoots from his bedroom window. One morning the arrows sizzles through the air and lands in the target, when at once we hear, "You fuckin' assholes, I just let my dog out!"
--Aforementioned dog has a ball on the inside of his leg (see picture).

Flow Chart of Blame

2006-12-23T18:01:00.000-08:00

This holiday season, as I sit next to my fake log fireplace, tipsy on Scotch, I reflect back on all those whom I despise. Whom to blame for my troubles? The carollers outside? Yes! Now that I own my own plot of land, I can send them to my side door and then spring out of my shed with an axe! I will stack their chopped limbs by my fake logs fireplace and slowly burn them to a Kris Kringle Krisp! Did you know an appendage keeps you house warm for a full two hours? Me neither! But Christmas is the season for giving. And for taking. Carollers' lives. Mmmmm....scotch and roast cheer....

Lady in the Water

2006-12-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Shyamalan's latest film essentially reduces the "true meaning" of storytelling to spiritual fundamentalism. A fundamentalist requires belief in a self-enclosed, ahistorical, rootless, system of signs, all of which point to each other.

The film's plot line "invents" its own mythology, but by using parataxis as a methodology: like when 6-year olds tell you about their entire day, each event equal in meaning ("I ate some ice cream, and then there was a dragon, when I fell down, but Janie has a blue hat!" Nothing in this film has any symbol that we might match up to one that we already know from the vast vat of cultural capital. No, Shyamalan, says, "It's MY story. It bears NO resemblance to anything, ever." Well, fine, then I won't try to match your ferocious creatures with any of the one's I already know; I won't try to compare your "Interpreter" character with any other kind of interpreter (there are so many!).

It's like when you tell a kid who thinks he invented the wheel that others have already done it, and the kid says, "No, it's MY wheel. It's a Shyamalan-Wheel. No, it's not even called a wheel, it's a Porchumztzkrpl!" And since he kills of the critic-character, who dies after having reviewed several cliches about people who die in movies, we know that Shyamalan's real beast, his worst enemy, is All Critics and Naysayers Who Don't Believe.

It's as if he's been waiting his whole life to make this film, but first he had to trick people by making blockbusters that followed narrative rules and had interesting twists like a decent pulp mystery novel does. "Fooled ya! I was just giving people what they wanted: moderate entertainment with heartwarming messages of facile transcedence. What I really want is to vocalize my personal fears that if I don't get to make the REAL movie I want, that if no one likes it, that they really want to Kill me. Critics don't believe. They're out to get me! Please believe in me. Or I'll die. All good storytellling will die. You just don't understand. It doesn't have to make sense to YOU. This is MY GOD, the God no one understands until they take some time out to get to know Him...I mean Her, and Her name is Story. And she's stares at you from the floor of the shower, huddles in the corner. How can you not want to help her, I mean beleive in me, I mean her."

Fundamentalist New Age Baby Boomer Crap, this one.