This Week in B_n

--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)

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)

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

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"?

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!

Do you want more?



That's some serious summarizing!

What? STILL want more?

A Rusty Nail Part II

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: