The short road to 200.

So I suppose the mystery is not where, but what I have been doing.

Short answer, don’t know. Long answer, I am reaching a threshold, and have no idea which way the burst is going to take me.

Though I am not trying to use this space which I hold as a proving ground of my base talents of writing to document my emotional rationale or state, but since I tend to think in references and patterns instead of logic and algorithms, I might as well:

There is a line in the great, almost lost film, Wet Hot American Summer, where Molly Shannon’s character says:

“I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

I just got a break for 2 days after working 7 straight. I have worked both weekend nights 3 straight weeks. My body aches. I suppose… that’s why you all didn’t get a music video roundup.

On that note, I spent roughly 200 words trying to decipher or replicate what Justin Timberlake sounded like (actually I debated if it was even him) and when I read LA Weekly on Monday, I was kicking myself for not reaching the point of what the seminally Marixst pop rag’s music writer did. I quote: “I’d like to know the rationale of the music exec who decided that the lead single of their hottest property in 5 years features him sounding like a genderless alien.”

Genderless alien, I gotta steal that bit. I mean, Damn, I wish I wrote that. I still stand by that the “YEAH” refrain is from Super Troopers bear fucker scene, unless you’re Steve Allen, your ripping off my bit.

I don’t know where I stand on Pearl Jam on anything but a live band anymore. I don’t know where to place their albums outside of VS. Ten is filled with classics, but I can’t listen to it straight thru. Vitalogy needs a producer’s hand now more than ever, and everything else is spotty.

Maybe they are the Gen X version of Jimi Hendrix. Nothing happens in such high watermarks if not for their involvement, they had some of the biggest singles of the era, but of their major albums only one is truly great (Vs. and Axis: Bold as Love) yet the others have better songs (Ten and Are you Experienced/Electric Ladyland). While Jimi will always be written as higher because of his boomer Q level, I must note that he, like Pearl Jam was really sick of the music industry standards after his third album. While Pearl Jam took a self imposed exile from the public eye (MTV, Ticketmaster, mega tours), and their absence is notable after the Death of Cobain and grunge in the mid 90’s. While Jimi died at 27, many forget that his last years were spent with band of Gypsies, touring his worries away, and trying not to play “watchtower” and “hey joe” every show.

Sure, that’s a lot of short-takes, but I am not going to get into a thing here. Plus they were both from Seattle. That’s my closing argument.

But I do know that when it comes to live covers, I really love Pearl Jam, and have received few better gifts than the CD of their best live covers from this years West Coast tour from my friend Dani at work, who was their for all of them and even did live updates for Indie 103.1 from the road.

So what else has been going on at the Honeycomb hideout? I’ve been going thru the Wire OnDemand (maybe more on this later on) and the Simpsons season 8.

Watching season 8, I realize how many of my favorite episodes of the show are from this season. And for my money, it’s the only season that can hold a candle to Season 4. I know I wrote that Season 5 was #8 of the best seasons, but this is why I am a blogger and pencils have erasers.

The only two duds are “The Homer they Fall” Homer as a boxer, and My Sister, My Sitter, which is the one where Lisa baby-sits Bart. The only okay episodes are Mountain of Madness and Lisa’s Date with Density (when she dates Nelson, who I think the writers should get rid of in Uter like fashion, he jumped the shark in 22 short films when he was marched down the street with his pants around his ankles.)

Season 8 is one of the more self-contained (meaning few outside or dating references) and self-aware (episodes like Homer’s Enemy and the Poochy episode). It was the best combination of the shows two greatest assets, its tenderness and its irreverence.

Season 4 is the closest the Simpsons ever came to pure unbridled Monty Python style looniness. In the first moments of that season, the children are burning down the Springfield Elementary. Sure it’s only a fantasy in the episode, but when that’s the first scene after the show returns from Summer reruns, that’s a changing of the guards that wasn’t approached until David Chase decided to have Uncle Junior shoot Tony Soprano in the beginning of season 6.

I like the Sopranos tie in because season six was a long dismantling of everything that the audience had come to like about the Sopranos, and it tried as hard as it could to burn in effigy the appeal of the criminality of the mobsters.

Season 4 of the Simpsons is where the show went from great to classic. Watching suicidal workers listen to Tom Jones blast on the Power Plant PA was so dark and gleefully wrong in “Marge Gets a Job” is one of my top 20 moments in the show. In the clips core is a very sour center, somewhere between “no good deed goes unpunished” and “Trying your hardest isn’t good enough”. Some of this is parallel to Homer’s supplanting Bart as the main character, as the show shifted from the sometimes amusing joy of watching the defiant kid into watching failure of the system.

In Season 4, there is a crazy atmosphere to the show, as if the whole town is about to erupt in mass riot at any moment. The only thing that keeps the people in line is the promise of a crazy scheme, and when it inevitably fails, that’s when the show loses all care and just rockets up the insanity.

From giant mechanical ants, a possum named “Bitey,” the show openly mocking Leonard Nimoy, Homer having a heart attack, monkey’s typing “it was the best of times it was the BLURST OF TIMES!,” Future Bart as a male stripper, I can’t help but think that the whole writing staff decided to just go with their most base instincts and write as if they didn’t have anyone who could say no. It’s got a swagger unlike any other.

And I go back to the notion that for the season, the town itself was on the precipice of disaster. Until Arrested Development hit seasons two and three, I never felt this kind of energy again in a comedy. While some people will remark that the stellar moments in TV (real and fictional) were those that came as the most shocking:

The Moon Landing
Who Shot JR
Stringer Bell being shot by Omar on The Wire
The first Survivor finale and the snake and the rat speech
Al Gore making out, hardcore with his wife.
Al Gore on MTV’s Music Video Awards.
Al Gore on Futurama

Whatever.

TV has been the medium of both the worst and the best in American art this decade, and maybe for the last fifteen years.

From the Simpsons, Sopranos, Seinfeld, South Park, It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia (I’m putting it in the canon it’s that friggin good) Deadwood, Newsradio, The Wire, and Arrested Development, I can think of few matches. The towering achievement of cinema has been Lord of the Rings, which at base level, is a visual novel.

The only other medium close is videogames. That features Halo, the Zelda 64 games, The Metal Gear Solid series, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, and the baddest and best of the bunch, Grand Theft Auto 3, VC, and SA.

In the last three GTA games made the same leap that Simpsons took almost a decade earlier. It wasn’t that the bar was raised, it changed the stakes. Suddenly everything was different, because now, in their respective forms, freedom reigned supreme. Suddenly, anything was possible.


And well, why the hell not, lets get into it.

Dave’s top 25 Simpsons episodes.

1. Mother Simpson
2. Simpson Tide
3. Rosebud
4. Last Exit to Springfield
5. Cape Feare
6. Krusty Gets Kancelled
7. Marge vs. the Monorail
8. Homer vs. the 18th Amendment
9. Lisa’s First Word
10. Kamp Krusty
11. Bart Mangled Banner
12 .Homer’s Barbershop Quartet
13. Homer goes to College
14. The Way we Was
15. Homer’s Triple Bypass
16. Homie the Clown
17. Lisa on Ice
18. Homer: Bad Man
19. Guess whose coming to criticize dinner
20. Blame it on Lisa
21. $pringfield: or how I learned to Love Legalized Gambling
22. Mom and Pop Art
23. You Only Move Twice
24. Burns, Baby Burns
25. Lost our Lisa

(continued...)

Oh Shit! Thems Pieces IS REAL YO!

People were dropping knowledge about these the minute they hit the screen. dig it.
Also, check out fukijama's site below...

(continued...)

Link

Profiles in Hate, hated #5

The five most hated people in America:

By Archibald Montenegro

As I travel to meet my first interviewee, Darren Clarke, I must note that I am doing so in a rented off-road vehicle and traveling along a stretch of dirt the Romans wouldn’t have called a road. I’m in a remote part of Northern California, close to the Nevada and Oregon borders, at least that’s what the GPS system is telling me. Before I meet him, I’ll clarify how our organization came to determine what is was to be “hated.”

Rule #1. The hate given must be non-denominational, race, gender, or sexuality are not grounds for this assignment. There are far too many bigots to factor in to a survey like this, and we found that taking them out of the equation narrowed our search by 90%, and managed to remove most of the Middle East, the American south, and to our surprise, El Salvador.

Rule #2. The hate must be focused for singular and unique reasons for the individuals. We are not trying to propagate stereotypes about cultural foibles. When we sent our street team to gather random data, we came upon the following multiple times:

Asian Drivers (55 responses)
Women Drivers (31 responses)
That white guy at the club who tries to organize a dance off, only to throw out something lame like the robot when it’s his turn (a staggering 78 times)
The black couple in the white movie theater yelling at the screen (35 times)
The white couple in the black movie theater shushing people who yell at the screen (35 times)

There were multiple responses of this ilk, and we all decided that we needed to be more specific when we asked people about who they hate. This experiment was almost a waste, except for the production of Darren Clarke, who none of us were familiar with, but upon further extrapolation, we realized this was exactly the kind of guy that just attracts hate.

Darren works from his home, and does so for his own company DClarke Enterprises, a company he founded with money he made in the stock market circa 2001, when he made the bulk of his money off of Halliburton stock, a fact I am loathe to print. He lives alone and shuns most human contact outside of his 4 year old daughter and her mother. The two never married, or even dated, and are on malicious speaking terms. Her sole contribution to this piece was:

“That bastard knocked me up one night when I drunkenly mistook him for [musician] Ben Folds. He played this up, and while I blame myself for not having him play any music for me, even when I have a piano in my living room, I was in a bad place in my life that night, and now, I have a constant reminder of that jerk who seems to be allergic to everything in my house. Tell that sonofabitch I’ll sue him if he stops payment on another check.”

I arrive at his home at our arranged 3pm appointment; he stops me from entering the front door. He slides a small piece of paper out of his mail slot. The note is comprised of an address, a series of directions forbidding contact or stares, and to refrain from broaching the subjects during our interview: his daughter, his hair, his house, him picking up the lunch tab. He yells to me: “Finished yet? I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”

I take this in stride because during my first phone call with him he mentioned that he posses a weak immune system, something he laments that was passed onto his daughter, so he has to take extra precautions when it comes to human contact. A few minutes pass and I get a phone call on my cell. To my amazement, the reception is flawless. It’s Darren, who reminds me to spray my car interiors with a anti-allergen air freshener.

I duly move to my car, and for the third time that day, I spray the car down, and place everything but my tape recorder and notebook in a storage bin in the back of the car. I shut the door, and turn around, no less than 18 inches from my face is Darren, who seems pleased in his silent approach. I can tell he is looking for a rise in my expression. 15 minutes after waiting for an appointment whose time he set, I am already annoyed enough to take joy in not humoring his antics.

We walk to the Jeep Cherokee, and after I get into the driver’s seat, I notice he is still standing by the door. I can hear him harrumph through the glass. I walk out around to the other side of the car. He hands me a handkerchief, and I move to open the door so he can ride shotgun. After a silent 10 seconds, I open the back door and he gets in without even saying a thanks, in place I hear “burn the hankie.”

We take off Easterly and I ask how far our destination is, he responds “It’s about 25 minutes.”

“I thought you didn’t like to travel beyond 15 minutes from your house.”
“I don’t. You headed East, it’s west, off my driveway.”
“But you waited...”
“I would have told you when we got too far for my liking.”

We arrive at the locale, and he hands me another hankie through a slot in his window. I look at our destination. It’s the city’s police station, and he proceeds to lead me through the halls stopping only to allow me to open the doors for him, something he does with such a matter of regularity, I’m debating calling the office to bump him above the other candidates.

We finally reach his room, it’s the visiting room, and a cop opens the door for him to enter. The officer clears out a felon and informs his wife and child on the other side of the glass that the visit is over. He takes a garbage bag from his fanny pack and strews it over the chair, then places a white glove on his hand, pulls out a disinfectant wipe and cleans off his phone. He then gestures to take the phone on the other side of the glass.

We begin.

“I don’t want this to run too long, I want to get home for Wheel of Fortune at 7:30,” he begins.
“It’s August, they always show re-runs this month.”
“What do I care, it’s not like I got money on the show.”
“You have a fixation with Vanna White?”
“What kind of question is that. She’s 15 years past her prime and I already seen her nude.”
“Yeah, I remember she was in Playboy in the 80’s.”
“You read Playboy?”
“Moving on… now you are familiar with the reasoning of this interview?”
“Yeah, one of your interns explained it. Are we going to do this or talk more about washed up TV icons?”

I try to come on a bit more professional. “So do you take umbrage to the notion of being one of the most despised people in the country.”
“What do I care, it’s not like Ma Kettle is going to actually get off her couch and vote, especially if Oprah is on.”
“Do you know why or how you attained this ranking?”
“I reckon it’s for my work on the internet.”
“I understand you developed most of the SPAM software in the 90’s.”
“Among other things. I also used to pay a software tech to program code to disrupt the search algorithms on search engines to lead to my fisher sites.”
“Did you make much money off of those?”
“It’s not all about money. The biggest payoff was when I would overhear people complaining about contracting computer viruses from porno sites.”
“You also made some of the viruses?”
“I’m no criminal. But I do own stock in various anti-spyware and virus companies. I just enjoy people having to suffer for their online sexual deviancies.”
“Am I to take you are a moral man?”
“I was Baptist raised, but any idea of tithing turned me off of organized religion when I was 9.”
“Did your parents make you contribute from a paper route or something/”
“I hate bicycles.”
“What would turn you off from tithing at such a young age then?”
“My mother used to have me place the money in the collection plate. Always she would insist that I did so.”
“Wow. Back to the SPAM, I understand you were behind many of the evolutions of the technology. I have two questions concerning this. 1. Did you ever debate finding alternate modes of marketing, and secondly, did you ever receive email from one of your own companies?”
“What is it with journalists and two part questions? It’s just as easy to ask them separately.”
“Well then, did you ever debate not creating SPAM?”
“See, a lot of people think I would have qualms about this. I never did, because if not for me, it would have been done by someone else. So before some Hindu took the job in Punjab, I stepped in and kept the money in the US of A. Look, there is always going to be someone trying to make money off of a free system like the net. Hell, if Evian can make millions by selling a vastly abundant resource, then it’s going to happen everywhere. Shawn Fanning didn’t make any money off of people using Napster, he did so by selling the name and letting the corporate buyer fight the courts.”
“Is this a by any means necessary motive? But aside from reasoning, is there disdain for the victims or sympathy?”
“Hell, I would feel sorry for them if there was ever an issue. The only problems people have with spam is that it clogs the systems because of their KB size. Say an average person gets 40,000 unwanted emails a year. Take a company of 100,000, that’s 4 billion pieces of SPAM a year. The reason I went with this, and kept pushing it forward was to try to crackdown on the corporations.”
“That’s almost noble, in a symbiotic way.”
“I’m not doing it for the worker, I’m doing it for the employer. The more SPAM they get the less likely they are to maintain access to the internet at work. While I am not pro, I am certainly not anti-corporation. Do you know how many times I hear someone talking about how they spent 4 hours at work on Myspace or ESPN. It’s sickening. You want to know why our working class is struggling against other emerging countries, it’s because the net has made much of our workforce criminally inefficient. While I’m not going to standby and let Ravi Shankar take my money, I have no qualms about him taking some dope out of Arizona States operator job. The more I allow CEO’s to crack down on the laziness of their employers, the better hope I have in America staying on top.”
“With the payday of CEO’s routinely topping 100 million and the middle class diminishing and raising the poverty line in this country, you are for pressing the working man and woman. Even when weekends continue to diminish and work-hours grow to 60 hours a week?”
“Don’t give me this gay for the people speech. I have heard variations from a thousand people, all of them who went nowhere in their life. You seem to be doing well on your own, I found out you went to Yale, and worked your way through college to do so. What are you doing fighting for the inept?”
“I got into Yale by acing my interview, and the only reason I could afford it was because my father died and his life insurance paid for it. I would gladly be deep in debt to have him back. And what’s this about, you aren’t going to turn this on me. I got here because I was lucky and I worked my ass off. The two are not always tied to each other, and the former is far more important.”
“Ahh, Clarice, tell me about the Lambs.”
“That movie is 15 years old, and has been parodied countless times. Humor me with skill if you must at all.”
“There hasn’t been a decent American film since Taxi Driver.” He pauses for a while, and I gear up to return to the questions when he asks, “Do you still hear them scream?”
“So what do you do with your inordinate free time these days, Darren.”
“You know what, you didn’t lose your cool. I’m impressed. How about a round?”

The officer returns to the room, and places a cooler of Newcastle and a fifth of Bourbon in front of me, then moves to the other side of the glass and does the same for Mr. Clarke.

Darren opens, “You know what, I forgot about the reruns. Lets have a few.”

We leave the police station and head to a quiet street in the neighborhoods. My cooler and rocks glass are matched by his in the back. We sit and listen to the Giants – Dodgers game on AM and relax. I don’t know if he’s a serial drinker, or if he just became weary, but on my part, the idea of a drink and a baseball game in lieu of conversation was heavenly to me.

The game ends, and we’re both smashed. After a bit of small talk, he opens the interview again.

“These days, I spend most of my time on message boards. You know, like film and stuff.”
“You go on there and just make fun of the kids, right? Shit I do that too sometimes.”
“Hell, I was the one who started that chain that said Spielberg was an anti-Semite for… what was that movie.”
I giggle, “E.T. I mean what was it, Munich.”
“No… I remember, Schindler’s List. My whole point was that Schindler was a German. If Spielberg had any balls, he would have found a Jew that was a hero, and by not doing so, he merely showed that Jewish people are cowards, and that they need someone to help themselves.”
“That’s horrible. And horribly…”
We both say it: “Horribly… hilarious!”
Darren goes on, “I have made more money than I know what to do with. The only woman I loved died on the night before I was going to propose to her.”
“How sad.”
“What, you think I want to share my wealth? I miss her, but I get the feeling she was going to take everything. I didn’t as much dodge a bullet as I did have the guy pointing a gun at me get shot before they took aim.”
“The devils in the details.”
We both erupt in laughter.
“You ever see that movie Grind. It was about a bunch of skateboarding kids from SoCal who, hell, it’s not even important what they wanted. It’s a crap film.”
“I reviewed that film when I was at the Indianapolis Star. It was horrible.”
“I know. But every time I go on IMDB or one of the other movie message boards, I blast everyone’s opinions and claim that film’s the only great movie of the decade. I have said I hated the Lord of the Rings, In the Bedroom, The Incredibles, and so on, and that anyone with any intelligence would recognize that film as the triumph of American cinema, as much as what it is not, it is what is there that is important.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“Seriously. I have a 2000 word essay that I give to people, explaining that the film was a decrial of all that is youth in America, and that the only thing to connect humanity, and family, is to let go and embrace our shortcomings, and I use the Clown college as my closing argument. The best part…
“I gotta hear this…”
“Is that some people subscribed to the idea.”

(continued...)

NSFW Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

So, lets me clarify that I didn't go out of my way to find some NN or teenage digi-girl from Indiana.

It just kind of happened.

But in the mindset of us who live at the honeycomb hideout, there is a certain transformation that happens when you move to this coast, this state, this city.

Indiana:



Los Angeles:



And, oh, what the hell,

Las Vegas:

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Pretense and music for preteens.

I said it a while ago, and I’ll say it again here to preface. Of the Billboard stars, few artists make great videos (this is discounting jailbait girls) anymore, and if they do make a great video, they almost always follow it up with a thunker, then another crap vid, and then one of those videos that is so bad, you only could see it once on MTV or VH1, because that’s as much as the music label was willing to pay space on Viacom for a weirdo video for a single that they never believed in the first place. They’d rather beat the new single with Paula Denada into your head until you just give up, turn 23, and start watching CNN because of terror plots.

You know what? Let’s use that song, and video as a pallete cleanser.

Things I hate about music production and videos today, in no particular order:

Just a link for this one

1. She’s way too young. A. There has only ever been one artist in history who deserved to have the main vocal on major single in history. That band was the Spencer Davis Group, the song was “Gimme Some Lovin” and the lead vocalist was Steve Winwood. No one ever deserves to have a voice like this at 17. John, Paul, George, Thom, Bob, Van, Joe Cocker, and even Marvin didn’t sound this good at 17 as Winwood. Once in a lifetime do you get a kid who can actually sing, who has resonance to sell the lyrics, and goddamnit, the fucking voice. Listen to the song again, he’s actually 17. He sounds like he is 35 and been doing the tour scene for half his life. To boot, he is the one playing the organ. That’s male, and that’s deserved. He wasn’t just some guy off the street who could do the singing, he actually made the song better.

2. Rhetorical Questions as a chorus. While this goes back to the theme of immaturity, it’s part of a larger point. Some say weak art answers questions, great art makes the viewer ask questions about themselves. When a piece of art merely poses struggles as a throughline, all that is left is the semblance of stupidity – not in the baseness, but in the end quotient of nothing even attempted to be resolved. This is the same problem with BEP’s “Where’s the Love?” or Jadakiss’s “Why.” Brilliance in art is about the struggling and finding ones point in life due to it. I don’t need someone who isn’t a philosophy major asking me “why” for 4 minutes.

3. The featuring special. First, we are subjected to two artists that may wind up being big if this single takes off. For them it’s a win-win, they may get the exposure, they also get the paycheck. As far as I know, the only one to receive bad feedback from this was Ja Rule, and that was well after he became a millionaire. Second: While the song is nothing more than a love song where the girl wants to know what she is doing wrong, Baby Bash comes in and supplies answers, “I’m your man, I got the plan, I’m the shit, yo, we’ll hit.” This is part of the reason I think we should just get rid of the duet outside of adult standards. If all we get are 40 second verses of personality or harmony, we either deserve to get this on the whole album as if it were cohesion of the whole. The fact that the music industry is now a distribution business for the music art is not the worst thing in the world, but when one interferes with the other as a matter of marketing, when has that ever not felt cheap and manipulative.

4. The Princess Ideal: “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life/ never make a pretty girl your wife.” Outside of age or shit music, maybe one of the reasons I stand fast to dismiss an artist like this is because we are sold mostly on their beauty, the other facet being her screaming about her self esteem (hey, we like bulimic and/or dysfunctional girls who possibly do anal here at INLY) I really don’t care if she is attractive or not, and I may side with her more if she wasn’t a Britney or J-Lo replicant, but to sell this girl, in short skirts, flashes of cleavage, touches of mature but naughty sexuality, really, we don’t need this, nor do we want it. Sure it’s eye candy, but there’s got to be something more. The side would be that she has such an ego without doing too much, but I have no doubt that every Comm major in the room told her that sex sells, and that she naively went with it.

5. The vocal overlay: If American Idol has done anything tremendously malicious, it’s that vocal bravado equals great singing. Part of this belongs to the huge success of Mariah, but just because her 3 octave crescendo’s work, doesn’t mean that any flip off the street is a good singer because they have the ability to vibrate on a note. In the history of pop music, the voice has rarely been the selling point. Mel Torme, Tony Bennet and Bobby Darin all had better voices than Old Blue Eyes, but Frank could sell the song on charisma. Bono has the best voice in rock and roll, but Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen are his idols. The Temptations or Marvin Gaye? Otis Redding or R. Kelly? Usher or D’Angelo?

Did David Bowie have a good voice?

Did Robert Plant or Animal have one that wasn’t merely unique in its perfect setting?

Great songs don’t need great voices. They need singers who match the song. Can you imagine “Imagine” with 35 Beyonce vocal tracks. It’s the singular tone, no same singer backups that sells the song, the vacancy instead of the vast.

She’s a first single artist, sell us on the song, not the skill of your “vocals” if Garth Brooks can outsell the Beatles, Elvis, and Zep with a voice that fits the bill, maybe the industry is completely idiotic, or just trying to play to the niche for the quick buck and hoping for crossmarketing.

The video (if you have watched) and the song (if you bothered to listen) is a blip in the music scene for the summer of 06 and will be gone, and likely to the artist. But from the ashes will rise another artist, and another one-shot wonder will wonder where her parents spent the money.

I am not putting this in the bitter pile, but in the, “god what a shame” lot, the fallout of a song this mediocre yet highly hyped is the small scale of winning an election. Unless Paula Denada comes out with a 2000’s version of “Borderline” or “Opposites Attract” she’s going to be gone in 6 months, and she’s going to be convinced by others she is over. She’s likely done, but for the girl’s and not the music’s sake, lets hope she actually gets a real shot.

(continued...)

Let's all add Killer Whales to the list of things we shouldn't mess with.

Fire ants.
Grizzly and Polar Bears. Black bears ok.
Dinosaurs.
Mermaids.

Killer Whales. MY GOD!!!!

There is no recorded incident of killer whales (or ORCAS, whalus homicidus) ever killing or even hurting a human, the fact that they did this with cameras in sight, and then let the seal go is the nature equivalent of N. Korea launching an ICBM test on the 4th of July.

They may not even want to use it, but they are certainly prepared, and they want us to know. When faced with a 30 foot long killing machine or a tiny dictator who claimed to get 8 holes in one during his first round of golf, ever, I'll take Kim Jong Il. I can outrun that guy and his tiny, tiny legs.

(continued...)

Movie Monday. cougars and the undead.

Saw Talladega Nights yesterday. I was fairly impressed, but we walked into the movie 10 or 20 minutes late because my group (who ordered the tix online) decided to take the 405 north on a Sunday. When we came in, we didn’t sit in a group of 6 but in 2 of 3, which for bothered me out of the movie a bit, not being able to crack wise with friends during the film can hurt.

If dragged to the theater, I’d see it again, but since I am probably going to buy the DVD, I'll save the 10 bucks unless I am going to score.

First off, the parts in the movie that are shown in the trailers and TV bumps are among the least funny of the film. That’s always a big plus.

Even the knife in his leg which was already burned out by the previews gets a hell of a second life with where they go after the bit in the commercials.

My initial reaction was: “It was better the first time than Anchorman.”

While I have come to really like Anchorman, I am still not enthralled by the movie because it still seems like it could have been a lot better. There may never be a better role for Will Ferrell than Ron Burgundy, the pompous, idiotic, newsman is a perfect fit for the man-child that Ferrell owns. The problem with that movie is that the visual gags are terrible, relying on goofy mustaches and a needless jazz flute scenes. The movie’s saving grace is that it’s very well written, the obstacle is that the main characters delivery is intentionally flat, and lines like “I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.” Instead of delivering the line with a definitive roar or a angry rant, Ferrell delivers with little emotion, only adding direct bluntness to the “it’s science.” The problem with Anchorman is that the part looks and is written perfectly for Will Ferrell, he just doesn’t take it where he could have, playing Ron Burgundy like the straight man when he should have stolen every scene.

Which is why Ricky Bobby is a more enjoyable performance, it’s built with foibles and the structure of the film allows for ups and downs within the characters emotional range where as Ron stayed stoic, Ricky Bobby goes from arrogant, to delusional, to goofy, to terrified, and then a full man. Part of this comes from the fact that Ferrell is doing an extension of his George W, which already gives him the rhythms and facial ticks that Ron was missing most of the time.

Like Anchorman, Talladega Nights gets the most mileage out of it’s other stars, notably John C. Reilly and Sasha Baron Cohen.

While I am not going to give a full recap, I’m going to note:

Mos Def and Elvis Costello. Well done.

Andy Richter, underused. Maybe the problem is that he has to support his 4 brothers after the run in with the poisonous Muffin Man.

Gary Cole constantly drinking Laughing Clown beer in 24 ounce Mexi-cans.

Leslie Bibb – Absolutely Smoking hot.

Ricky Bobby praying to Baby Jesus and the dissertation of the best version of Jesus to pray to, one of those scenes where I would have paid up to a grand to see them work out the jokes on set.

While it’s not even in the same league, this is the closest I have seen a movie come to Caddyshack in a while. What made Caddyshack great was that it is a simple sports movie jammed with comedians playing their best roles and to their best skills. Michael Clarke Duncan playing a buffed up madman, Sahsa Cohen playing a weird foreigner, Will Ferrell doing Bush, and John C. Reilly playing a comedic version of the quiet, restrained sidekick, all tied together loosely with a basic sports plot.

Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr. talking on the phone, with Ricky getting continually sucked in to the conversation, which lead to my favorite joke in the movie:

Cal: I think this house is haunted.
Ricky: It’s a new house, the lumber’s settling, lots of creaks and noises. *hangs up phone and cuts to Cal*
Cal looks around the house and hears paranormal noises.

I really wish they ran with this a little bit more, having Cal run into a few ghosts would have been fantastic.

Which is probably why this afternoon I watched a movie I have seen close to 10 times all the way through again:

Beetle Juice – 1988.
(note this is written in a passive, I don’t want to do a 7 page overview a la my Fight Club style)

Watching this today, I was awestruck by the very nature of the film, it’s almost structure-less. With the exception of the death of the Maitland’s (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) the movie doesn’t have any act breaks; it simply moves on with the Maitlands as the guides. We follow them as they die, move into the afterlife, meet the new tenants of their house, go into the afterworld, try to scare the new family, befriend Wynona Ryder, capture the imagination of Wynona’s parents, contact Beetleguise, fail, kill Beetleguise, become a happy household.

It’s a story arc that I can’t find a parallel to except with documentaries; it’s completely unpredictable because it’s not playing to any genre or conclusion at all. It’s almost like a twisted version of “It’s A Wonderful Life” with what happens from the opening to the conclusion, with obvious differences, of course.

Remarkable too, is that the film is crammed with classic moments, characters, and loads of little bits that could be taken on their own into separate movies of their own. Explaining this film and what it’s about completely could take a person 45 minutes, which is half of the run time of the movie itself. Creating a synopsis or tag line is almost futile, because the essence of the film is that it’s all over the place, dealing with the afterlife, kooks in the art world, a depressed teenager, a couple trying to find their way, and the title character who is an Anti-exorcist.

While Beetlejuice is the title character and much of the movie revolves around him, he’s not in 75% of the film.

The main characters are Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, but only by the tiniest of measures. In lieu of a real plot, the film simply adds in characters and locations.

We get a nutty Catherine O’Hara, complete with her own gay, weirdo sidekick in Otho (Glenn Shadix).

Jeffery Jones as a man post-nervous breakdown doing a Green Acres escape to the country. Just one of those actors who gets an immediate reaction from an audience, whether it’s groans (Devil’s Advocate, one of the best bad films of the 90’s) or love to hate (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), there isn’t an actor who is more despicable and yet a gas to watch.

Dick Cavett! Robert Goulet! Sylvia Sidney as the afterlife’s accountant!

A football team too dumb to figure out their all dead, with the guy from Little Big League, The Program, and Necessary Roughness (boy did he get all the black jock bit player roles in the 80’s and 90’s or what).

This all works because of Tim Burton. The man has made some great films, but his biggest strength is that he’s a master orchestrator and stylist, but he can’t tell a story to save his life (see Sleepy Hollow, one of the most gothically beautiful films ever made, but it goes nowhere), he has said he wouldn’t know a good script if it bit him in the ass. And that’s precisely why he is the perfect director for this film; he takes everything given to him and makes it more interesting for that moment yet doesn’t have to worry about cohesion from scene to scene because the story just happens, no foreshadowing is needed to add to the potency of the arc, no throughline needed, and so he can play with the train set, decorating, accessorizing, and directing his talent with no worry about the destination.

Tim Burton has a huge following of people who like Goth and darkness, just like his favorite leading man, Johnny Depp. I couldn’t care less about what he’s about as long as the film is good.

Beetlejuice is a classic, because it’s a little bit of everything, and it’s tremendously fun to watch. The only film of his I find better is Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but being Cal Naughton Jr. to Pee Wee‘s Ricky Bobby-esque #1 is a hell of an accomplishment.

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INLY dictionary update.

Silent hand gesture, done in a short, repetitive motion to communicate to the talker that his/her story about hiking in the adirondaks isn't that special, and to simply, get. to. the. point. 

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Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better!

like post obscure youtube videos.
(So you don't get you BVDs in a twist, I'm Mia Hamm, you're MJ).

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Video roundup, 8-4

Muse – Knights of Cydonia

Muse is a decent English band who came out in 2000 with Showbiz, a decent album which was one of a slew of bands and albums that were either directly ripped off from or inspired by Radiohead. From that album, I still only listen to the opener, Sunburn, and have not paid much attention to the singles or albums since. Until I was listening to the radio and heard “Knights” on Indie, and had a hard time figuring out if this was a new or old track, which is one of the higher compliments I can give to a new single. It’s a long, dark, rocking track that feels like a 70’s prog song (in a good way), with a touch of Queen added in vocally to the end. One of the more fun singles thus far this year, and if you are so inclined, one might be able track it down on Hype Machine one of the better mp3 blog search sights out there, or on the band’s website.

As for the video.



Too blunt, over the top in goofiness and it’s tempering with dead seriousness. I find it absolutely miserable except when the blonde or robot is on-screen, then it’s friggin awesome.

There was an old Far Side that had cowboys vs. aliens. This is as close as we’ll ever get. How sad it didn’t get it right; all it would have taken was a little bit less silliness/throwback and some interesting sights outside of the blonde and the ray guns, if only there actually were aliens or the whole thing was serious, we might have a good video.

On the flip side of concept videos is the Raconteurs “Steady as she Goes” video, which is nothing more than a soap box derby with the band as racers, with the carts personalized with their instrument for each member of the band.



As far as the band, I can take it or leave it, I can’t think of any side project that has ever been that memorable, and that reluctantly includes UNKLE. It’s decent enough for me not to bitch at a party, but not nearly good enough for me to want to buy.

Any video that echoes Wacky Races will be shown here; any video where the Mustachioed duo (a la Muttely & Dastardly) wins gets a big thumbs up.

+++++

Not to go into pinkisthenewblog territory, but it seems that Europe is all the rage for artists.

Let’s start with the… (I’m guessing Monaco, even though it sounds like German is being spoken) based video for Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack video.

I’m sorry if the link takes a while to load, you have no idea how hard it is to find the real video on youtube. It’s been out maybe 3 weeks as a single and there are probably 950 versions of kids singing this in their living room. Sheesh, I know we say this about every generation, but kids these days are growing up way too fast, or I am getting old at the wrong time.



For a while, I thought about writing a post that put J-Tim at the top of a shortlist of people in music who could someday fill a Frank Sinatra type position. Not on a level of quality, but wide appeal in music and movies, and as he aged, was capable of winning over the guys in the long run if he started to make music for guys and girls instead of just music for 14-18, ahh who am I kidding, women ages 3 to 101. This was based on the fact that his role in Alpha Dog was coming up, and that he seemed to be picking his producers and biding his time in releasing another album. Factoring in as well was his notable absence from the spotlight; when every other member of a boy band tried to make it solo, revamp the band, went through rehab, came out of the closest, or starred in a reality TV series.

After seeing him pop up in the Nelly Furtado video for the briefest of moments, I was shocked to think to myself, “hey, this guy may not turn out to be that annoying” which is as hetero as I am willing to approach the guy’s music, I thought about the possible parallels. It still may happen, but after seeing this video and hearing the song dominate radio, I’ll consider writing that in 10 years, not now. I should also note that this was during the unraveling of Britney earlier this year; the lower she goes, the more golden Timberlake becomes.

Thoughts:

Ok, I’m finally convinced this is him singing. It took a while, but I guess it can’t be anyone else. I was at work at one of the girls was talking about how “hot” the song was. She couldn’t shut up about it in fact. My co-worker later asked me “one of those homo’s from N*sync is back?”

I got into a car later where the song was on, and called him over. I asked him if he recognized the voice. His response, “Cher?” That about sums it up.

The whole “take it to the chorus” “take it to the bridge” is way overused. Maybe for the first time it would work, but not as a part of the writing. With this, and Beyonce and Jigga’s Déjà vu opening “beat, high hat, 808” we are not far from “Drums, keyboard, Theremin, yo I said CUE THE THEREMIN!”

Why does this scare and bore me?

1. We don’t need any less of the magic taken away from musicianship, especially in pop when we know that most of the singers don’t have that good of voice and they can’t sing 45 vocal tracks all at once.

2. One of my favorite jokes:

A man crashes upon a distant island shore, lost in a terrible shipwreck. He walks into a small village. As he approaches the main hut, a thunderously loud drum starts to beat.

He walks over to a native: “What’s with the drums.”

The native responds: “Very bad when drums stop.”

He is then escorted to a hut for a meal and slumber. He wakes up the next morning; the drums are even louder and more intense. He begins to feel uneasy. He asks another native, “What’s with the, uh, drums.’

“Very bad when drums stop.”

The drums go on until the next sunset, becoming wilder and louder with each passing hour. He is slowly going mad. Finally, he can’t take it and grabs the nearest native, “WHAT’S WITH THE DRUMS. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY STOP!!!

The tribesman shakes his head and responds, “bass solo.”

Where was I…

Who buys J-Tim as a spy. Sure, he sneaked around his ex-girlfriends house and filmed a dirty video in “Cry me A river” but now he’s a world class spy? Not even the Simpsons of Season 1 to Season 4 is this big of a jump in skills.

I don’t know about Timberlake, but I am pretty sure that sexy never left.

That continual “YEAH!” in the background sounds really familiar, and it took me a while to figure out what it reminded me of. It may be Timberlake through the audio-scrub, but it really sounds like the Rabbit yelling “YEAH, OH YEAH” from the Bear scene in Super Troopers. I’m not convinced this is not a sample.

As for the song... I am going to go by the Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" rule here. It's different, and it's not bad. But it's also not good, and seeing as were are going to have this beat over our head via radio, ads, movies, TV shows, and ringtones oevr the next 6 months, I am going to come out and say, I hate this song. Absolutely hate it. But in 6 or 7 years, if J tim is gone or super famous, I am going to say, that song Sexy Back, wasn't that bad, you know, for it's time, and all, all things considered.

On that note, movie of the year?:



Europe is also getting props from Fergie with her new song, London Bridge, but since she looks like a troll, albeit with great abs, I am going to show this instead of the video.



And finally:

Jessica Simpson’s “A public affair.”

I can think of two things wrong with that title.

It’s not even remotely sexy. Even if the girls in the opening are pretending to be this shallow, not even Oliver could act over this level of self-aggrandizing.

Christian Milian: Still trying to get people to know her name.

Jessica Simspson: I am positive there are hours of lost footage of her flubbing the lines and falling on her ass trying to roller skate.

Eva Longoria: Just go away. If you were to get her drunk and alone and asked her: “Do you ever think you’ll be as famous an actress as Julia Roberts?” I’m sure her response would be “I’m already more famous and better than her… Jesus BE NICE. FUCK!” And since the post coital joke is there, I am going to counter with, "If I wanted to be with a 31 and aging, awfully fast...year-old doll who isn't taller than 5'2, I'll go with Hillary Duff."

But the biggest shame is Christina Appelgate, destroying all her good will from being a fantastic foil in Anchorman.

This is female comedy in a nutshell.

Amazon woman: “Humor here different. It not mean spirited. It come from character and situation.”
Fry: “In other words, not funny.”

Directed by Brett Ratner. It’d be so easy to place the blame on him for this sucking, but rather than get into a thing, I will.



Have a great weekend.

(continued...)

Care about the first part, wonder about the second.

First off:



This encapsulates everything wrong with Fox News in a mere 60 seconds.

Their steadfast belief that they are unassailable. “HOW DARE YOU MAKE FUN OF FOX NEWS! WE”RE FOX NEWS!

The whole Moral Majority/ Christian Right defense for anything that they deem inappropriate: “Think about the children.” This is of course the network of Bill O’Reilly who last year defended the Nazi’s. On three separate occasions.

The denial of culpability. Fox is airing this bit, and when something goes wrong, they are not to be lumped in with the failure. Iraq is not going well, we have nothing to do with this. That failed attack on camera due to Geraldo giving out troop position was due to the evil terrorists, not to their idiot compromising our troops.

And finally, the effort to instill fear in viewers in every situation possible. Here is how a vagrant steals your bike.

Just evil, evil stuff.

What’s the answer? I’ve got my own opinions, but why not listen to Gore Vidal.

++++Movies and TV bits.


Flipping through the dreck that is late night Sunday cable last night, Steaze and I came upon Ocean’s Twelve.

Before getting into this, I’d like to bring up a storytelling point, a little bit of Literary Theory from the Dave school of structure. When writing a plot arc, it is essential that the climax or major plot point has to be believable or to a level where it’s not so jarring it takes the reader or viewer out of the media.

The two most egregious examples:

Superman (1978): Superman can’t save Lois, so he flies around the world and puts the Earths orbit in reverse to turn back time. Even if he could do this (all physics notions implies this would kill everything on the planet), it still fails because: THAT’S NOT HOW TIME WORKS. The Earth isn’t a record, and spinning it in the opposite direction would only make the Sun rise in the West, not cause time to replay in the reverse direction. The first time I watched this, I shut off the movie. It wasn’t the story of an alien coming to Earth and having Super powers, nor the fact that nuclear bombs would blow California into the ocean, nor how dated the SFX are twenty years later. You can’t make a movie where the plot point defies everything the audience has come to know about a subject, and when you do so about an act that is theoretically impossible, and still get WTF’s from the audience, that’s a failure.

Bartleby the Scrivener: Herman Melville

From Wikipedia (I have been forced to read this short story twice, so I know this isn’t a complete factual inaccuracy)

The narrator of the story is an unnamed lawyer with offices on Wall Street in New York City. He describes himself as doing "a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title-deeds." He has three employees: "First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut," each of whom is described. Turkey and Nippers are copyists or scriveners while Ginger Nut does delivery work or other assorted jobs around the office, and the lawyer decides his business needs a third scrivener. Bartleby responds to his advertisement and arrives at the office, "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!"

At first Bartleby appears to be a competent worker, but later he refuses to work when requested, repeatedly uttering the phrase "I would prefer not to." He is also found to be living in the lawyer's office. Bartleby refuses to explain his behavior, and also refuses to leave when dismissed. The lawyer moves offices to avoid any further confrontation, and Bartleby is taken away to The Tombs. At the end of the story, Bartleby slowly starves in prison, finally expiring just prior to a visit by the lawyer. The lawyer suspects Bartleby's conjectured previous career in the Dead Letter Office in Washington, DC drove him to his bizarre behavior.

It’s that whole “I prefer not to” statement. Screw the whole notion about this being one of the first existential stories in literature; At least Kafka created believable scenarios. This doesn’t work. On any level. How does a guy get this far in life by never eating or doing work. By all reasoning, he should be dead many time over. Melville is making a point about defying cultural conventions, but his message is pointless, because the vessel he chooses DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!



Anyway, Ocean’s 12 has two of these plot points, first being the “steal the egg, even though you stole it before this whole charade starts” the second being the “Julia Roberts (the actress in the movie) dressing up as Julia Roberts (the movie star) to steal said egg.”

Both are so bad, I figure that they were so far along in the production and still hadn’t come up with an ending and were forced to go with the first thing that came to their mind that was somewhat feasible to avoid racking up huge production delay costs. Maybe the Julia Roberts thing would work in a more Meta film, but not in a caper film, and not with the whole “why not” air around it. Same with the egg twice over part, but after the brilliance of the first film’s setup and execution, it’s a huge letdown, and in almost any film, this doesn’t work because the audience should be let in on the secret, otherwise it is a double whammy in it’s reveal and guise of cleverness, this isn’t strong enough to be a plot twist (see every M. Night Shyamalan film after the Sixth Sense, Signs not included) because it’s too flimsy.

But I’m writing about the film because, up until the Julia Roberts moment, it’s a very fun film. And what really sticks out is the direction of Steven Soderbergh, it’s a hell of a job. There are no redundant moments in information, no over or re-explained plot points, and Soderbergh gives the audience credit to figure out what is happening.

The dialogue matches too; watching stars like Pitt, Clooney, Damon, and Cheadle saying as little as possible (opposed to them yammering on with long lines for screen time) is a hell of a good time.

There is the scene where Damon, Clooney, and Pitt meet with Robbie Coltrane, and everyone but Damon are speaking in riddles:

If all the animals on the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Hallowe'en would fall on the same date.

Rusty Ryan (Pitt): A doctor who specializes in skin diseases will dream that he has fallen asleep in front of the television. Later, he will wake up in front of the television, but not remember his dream.
Matsui (Coltrane): [to Linus Caldwell] Would you agree?

Damon attempts to keep up, and with his first entry, he offends Coltrane and he storms off. Pitt and Clooney later tell Damon:

Danny Ocean: You called his niece a whore.
Rusty Ryan: A very cheap one.
Danny Ocean: She's seven.

Of course, they later admit that the whole thing was just hazing, and none of the riddles meant anything, they were just gibberish.

Later on, Pitt and Clooney are sitting in front of a TV watching dubbed Happy Days re-runs and drinking wine. Pitt is wistfully wondering how he wronged his relationship with Zeta-Jones. During the whole conversation, neither of them take their eyes of the screen, causing Clooney to miss Pitt’s wine glass on a refill, and after Pitt finishes, all Clooney has to say is: “That guy doing Potsie is unbelievable.” I don’t know if it’s the less is more approach, or that they are talking to each other, but are more-or-less speaking in soliloquies, or it’s goofy joy of watching two of the more likeable movie stars of their time just acting like normal, drunken, lazy idiots entranced by a dubbed over version of a classic American show.

Much of the film’s potency and joy is how little is said, both in the unconventional manner of speaking and in the splendor of silence, as demonstrated by the Pitt – Zeta-Jones flashback. The flashback is narration/ off screen dialogue heavy, and the action on screen, such as Pitt’s introduction to Jones where he is running from the cops, is fleeting, upping the emotional quotient of a lost relationship. The makeup artists here should get serious dap for making two aging stars look convincingly younger, by about five years or so, because what helps sell the relevance of the story is the notion of the past, comprised of two people on opposite paths, one trying to capture the criminal, the other trying to evade the authority, and for all of the clairvoyant portents of the reality grounded mindset, one can’t help but wish for the amicable, even if it’s retread of the director’s masterpiece “Out of Sight.”

While the first film was all about the glam and wealth that is Las Vegas (even taking detours in a groggy Chicago, glitzy LA, and desolate Utah to highlight the difference) this film shot in a way to emulate the art house films of the Euro cinema post the new wave. Exteriors are slightly over-exposed, interiors lush and warm, and always in crowded town squares. It’s easy to capture the essential Euro feel on film, but it’s done here in throwaway fashion, exposition shots never seem to be last too long, and yet, as with the entirety of the film itself, the information given is deft, quick, and surprisingly complete in establishing the details of the moment needed.

Indeed the film falls apart at the end, and I am not here to cry salvo over a lost masterpiece or call the film criminally underrated (if this can happen for Heaven’s Gate, god knows it’s not a long shot) nor to opine for what could have been (I’ll save those when/if I ever get to writing about the Star Wars prequels. While I have read many posts and articles about loving a film in spite of the enormity of it’s flaws, and could surely copy them here, I just implore you, next time Ocean’s 12 comes on, watch the first %70 of the film and see if there isn’t an inkling to defy your previous convictions. It’s the closest experience I can think of, media wise, to drinking. It always ends in misery, but for the first part, it’s a hell of a good time. This time, the high of the film is so splendid, it’s only natural to succumb against better impulses.

(NOTE: there was a large section removed after this part. It got a little long - Dave)

In failure, Soderbergh cemented his place in the shortlist of great filmmakers. He did an amazing job in a film that couldn’t hold up to the predecessor, in a time when sequels are the most profitable film around, and despite the ending and final result, crafts a ¾ of a film majestically when it should have been unwatchable. Even knowing that his story was incomplete and ridiculous, Soderbergh does all he can to make the film worthwhile. In witnessing a great artist overcome boundaries is when true talent is proven. It’s not his best work as a director, but in his worst film, he has the ability to make the film his own, and watchable despite the failure of all others (himself included) involved seem like a wasted chance instead of a needless retread. That’s directing.

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