Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Published on March 29, 2008 in ..The Dude, Films, Literature and Television. 0 Comments

There’s some stuff I’ve liked a lot lately and think others should like a lot too.

On TV
The HBO series John Adams.

It’s a 7 parter. 3 have aired. I’ve seen 2 so far with the 3rd waiting for me on the greatest invention since electricity was harnessed. The show looks great. It does a great job of feeling like a real 18th Century colonial/revolutionary America. You can really just slip into the time period surrounded by vivid architectural imagery, clothing, and an overall sense of newness, growth, and quaintness that must have been such an intoxicating mix to those who were part of the grand venture that was this burgeoning English colony as it erupted into an independent country and power.

That venture brings to mind what many still think of as the American experiment. And the idea of that, or rather maybe even the Idea of America in the Platonic sense is something I feel vibrating through the shows words, images, and music. Already it has had its moments to stir the emotions and make one proud, or at least feel lucky to be connected to such a project. You can feel the import of the decisions made at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The ethical principle Adams defends during the trial of the soldiers accused in the so called Boston Massacre is brought to life and in some moments vividly captures the best of what we would like to believe we are.

There are moments during the first 2 parts when i wish I was a politician so i could fight more closely for some of these principles that were amongst the strongest and noblest of our foundations. This gets stirring enough that a higher principle is evoked, a brighter passion stoked, and a desire to see the great experiment to a worthy future awakened. Surely I’d want to also kick out those weakest hypocrisies also so much a part of the experiment. Because of course there those dark elements in the American soul and character. Some are touched on here and some are not. Even in some of the nobler and most complete portraits of the period I don’t get that sense of yet another war or revolution that is more about the middle to upper classes clamoring for even more rather than the lowest classes. And yet it’s often those lower classes paying the price as far as blood shed and lives lost.

While men like Adams seem to have a real concern for the less fortunate lives they are inevitably sending to their deaths for this fight I’m not sure there was ever that practical awareness of the aristocratic divide that continues to widen in this country. But there was a balance in that there was a George Washington on the front lines even if he wasn’t put in positions of most danger and there were generally agreements regarding the shooting of officers. But there was still a much higher ethic and nobility to a man like him and a sense of being much more deserving to preside over a nation. Those ideals he possessed and that people around him in positions of power recognized and rewarded are that much more accentuated and blown up in the face of the chickenhawk pieces of shit sending others to die for them in this country now.

There were noble elements to the revolution and noble men with grand ideas and evolved sensibilities even if they weren’t aware of some of their own hypocrisy. Not that all of them weren’t though. For instance the slave hypocrisy was something they were aware of. There’s a scene in part 2 when Jefferson shows Ben Franklin and Adams his first draft of the Declaration and though it is apparent all 3 men want this eloquent document to stand as a voice for humanity rather than just the free colonies they know it is not an argument that can be won in that time and place. Basically it came down to one battle at a time. Whether they could have fought harder and still presided over independence from Britain and a successful growth of the American economy and helped avoid the Civil War a century later is debatable.

We also get a good look at Ben Franklin. At least in part 2. Hopefully more to come. He figures in something else I’m going to recommend in this post. To me he’s a quintessential American figure. I love his sense of humor, his pragmatism, his skepticism, and many other qualities that made him who he was and helped shape America more than the religion he scoffed at and which so many today try to fool people into thinking this country was founded upon.

There’s a scene in part 2 where Adams is trying to get his vote on declaring independence and he asks Franklin if he ever says what’s on his mind. BF says something to the effect that he’s very much against doing that and that people thinking out loud is a habit much responsible for most of mankind’s misery.

I really get and relate to that. BF was a guy who could read things including his own powerlessness to effect some of those things. But he knew how to maneuver within the framework of the way things were or were going. This doesn’t mean he went with the prevailing winds. He was a rationalist who clearly believed in the scientific approach and derided the ignorance and superstition around him but he knew change came in stages and he made practical and considered decisions. He was the kind of man who looked at the evidence and made a decision based on those circumstances rather than wedding himself to any school of thought, political faction, religion, or group.

I kind of see him and Mark Twain as the best of pre 20th Century America and though I see them as quintessentially American I take liberties in doing so since unfortunately their way of seeing the world and examining it is not exactly the norm in this country. But their inspiration and influence is still there. Despite everything we still may be the funniest, most satirically advanced, and maybe even the most practical country in history. The Ben Franklin’s are the foundation of that even as they battled against some of those other scarier traits instilled in us by racists and the Puritans.

And watching this series combined with other historical pieces I’ve seen and things I’ve read I’m starting to believe the key to these generations, the qualities that separate them from ourselves and our own leaders, was the wigs.

I always wondered why everyone wore them and I think I know. They conferred super mental powers. What if they equalized everyone physically so that the mental could operate unencumbered worrying about how they looked. Let’s face it, most of us are almost always aware of how we look and at least a little conscious of how we are being perceived physically by others around us at any given moment. It takes a lot of mental energy and focus away from us. But those generation from our Founding Fathers going back to England and France of the Baroque fixed it so everyone in a non physical job category had the same hair. No one had to sit there in a meeting thinking “how does my hair look.” It looked like the guy next to him with the bad wig. And since everyone looks kind of bad with a bad wig who cared? They could concentrate on founding democratic systems and cool stuff like that.

Brilliant deduction on my part?

Or brilliant observation on my part?

You make the call.

Anyway, John Adams. Watch it. First 3 are on On Demand so those with cable have no excuse.

Jericho.
It’s over now. The final show ever though there are rumors of a possible sci fi channel pick up. Pretty satisfying ending though certainly with room for more if they have an opportunity. Basically the next segment would detail the next American Civil War as a new history is carved out with guys like Hawkins and Jake being our Adams and Washington’s.

I stand by the shows realism even there are many who feel it was silly and preposterous at times. THis show was so much a reality I can see this country facing someday. They had to rush somethings at the end that could have stood a more reasonable and lengthy set up like the way they got that nuke to the Texas faction. And though the involvement of Ravenwood, a Blackwater type private fighting force wreaks of reality to me, I think the person they ultimately gave responsibility to for the original country wide attacks doing it as an anti Ravenwood/corporate government move was a stretch. But that was part of what felt rushed. I’m not sure they would have gone there in such a tidy way if they had a certain future.

The frightening thing is that he was right in that a Ravenwood and their Government lackies don’t have to effect such drastic changes to remake America in their image. They’re already doing it slowly but surely. And while blowing it all up from within didn’t stop them it might be all that’s left if things keep going the way they are and if there’s anyone left in such a position who wants to change things.

But I thought it was kind of stupid of this nuclear scientist guy to think Ravenwood and their political faction would be weakened by such chaos. They would and did thrive. IF you really think about it and the Blackwater’s and Halliburton’s continue to become a private DOD, FEMA, police force, etc what happens when opportunity overseas dries up?

American Idol:
I’m not so much talking about the show itself as far as something I’m high on right now or recommending. Rather there’s one guy on it who actually kicks some solid ass. David Cook. He’s done 2 or 4 covers I’d actually put on a disc and listen to again. His “Hello,” “Eleonor Rigby,” and “Billie Jean,” were really frakking good. Very unique and original. And he plays some guitar which is always nice to see with someone trying to pass themselves off as a musician as most of these Idol mariah Carey/Whitney Houston want to be losers try and do.

Books
The Last Withfinder by James Morrow.

I love James Morrow.

Few know who he is even within the sci fi community even though what he does has been mostly categorized as satirical sci fi. Copies of his books are hard to find in book stores. But he kicks ass. He has a new book called The Philosopher’s Apprentice out which i did see at Barnes & Noble the other day. But I’m here to talk about his previous book which I just read after it his paperback.

Morrow has always been great at satire and thoughtful philosophic/theological humor but shows in TLW that he can do historical fiction just as well. Even with my expectations for a Morrow book being dashed as I read on and realized I wasn’t meant to laugh as much as in previous works, by about 100 pages in I started to revel in the book’s prose and purpose just as thoroughly as I’ve reveled in Morrow’s previous works of satire.

The story takes place in late 17th and early 18th century England and America with a stopover on a Carribean island and includes a heavy presence of the aforementioned Ben Franklin. Morrow does a nice job mixing Franklin in a major way that could actually coincide with known real events in the mans younger years though obviously don’t really represent real events. The main character is Jennet and we follow her throughout her life as she goes on a licaraesque journey through a time that represents a sort of nexus from superstition to rationality and enlightenment. Her fight to end witchtrials and the killing of mostly women accused of witches is the crux of the book. Morrow makes an interesting choice to have the story narrated by another book. It is Newton’s Principia Mathematica that takes us on Jennet’s journey and the device leads to some nice interludes dealing with the importance of books and the evolution of thought.

A great thing about Morrow is that he has a clear purpose in writing his books. While you might suggest that every author has one as well, I can’t say that they link a greater purpose with an interesting narrative in a syncretic fashion very often or very well. And with TLW I felt a clear a sense of meaning. This is a book with a purpose. And for a book with the conceit of being written by another book and making much of the evolutionary growth and connection of books, much like blocks of DNA in a sort of natural selection of thought, saying this one is worthy progeny of the best qualities and purposes of earlier works is probably the best compliment I can give it.

But i must also add that besides its themes Morrow deserves a lot of credit for utilizing a writing style that was a departure for him. Not only does he get away with it but he created a flowing narrative that was not only readable and more epic and rollicking than past works, he did so in what I found to be an addictive manner. The language and style he uses was compulsively readable in its ability to be direct, to invoke the era, and to find a poetic groove that was neither too arch, nor too trite for the subject matter.

One of the best books I’ve read in years.

For anyone interested in his more satirical works check out Only Begotten Daughter about Jesus sister, the daughter of god living in Atlantic City in the modern era.

The Godhead Trilogy starting with Towing Jehovah.

And, This Is The Way The World Ends.

I need to reread all of them and check out the couple of his books I haven’t read plus the new one though I want to spread out new Morrow since it’s rare. So i may wait on The Philosopher’s Apprentice for a bit.

Movies
Into The Wild

First off, though most know the basic story this is based on and there might be some who don’t. For those this is a spoiler. i will tell you how it ends.

I was skeptical heading into this. I wanted to see it when it was out in theaters but didn’t go out of my way because I thought Sean Penn, who directed it, and Eddie Vedder, as much as I love him, who did the music, to take part in a version of the Chris McCandless story I figured to be too one sided and sanctimonius. Sure If I knew anyone who was willing to do see it I would still have gone but though going to movies alone has become a regular staple in my dotage I generally avoid it unless it’s something i really want to see.
So I Netflixed it. And I’m here to say I was wrong. Not only was I wrong but some of the media and internet opinions I’d come across indicating it was indeed too biased were wrong. I had read much of the book written about Chris and found him naive, arrogant, a bit stupid, and frankly full of shit. I sympathized with aspects of his character but I thought he went too far and took himself too seriously.
But to my surprise Penn made an even handed movie that mixed youthful passion and idealism with it’s attendent arrogance and naivete. I don’t think it accounted for its leads lack of preparedness quite enough and an opportunity for a wonderfully symbolic paen to it was neglected at the end in a final shot that could have given us a piece of information Penn left out. That info being that Chris died pretty close to a waystation that he’d have known was there if he bothered to bring a map.
But not only is this the best looking movie I’ve seen in a while, but I think overall Penn did a good job creating a sympathetic character many of us can relate to at one time in our lives but one that has a mental journey as well as a physical one and in so traveling discovers some truths about life and society. And they’re not always the truths I expected. They may not even have been the truths Chris himself found before his end. There were writings of his found but Penn does take some liberties in interpreting some things and imagining exactly where Chris was at at the end. But as a movie character traveling within a narrative with begenning, middle and end, he takes a satisfying journey even though it winds up where anyone with a little information going in knew it was going to end up.

The Assasination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.
I think i’m the only person who thinks Casey Affleck should have won best supporting actor over Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men. But I really do. Bardem’s performance was good but overated. I’ve seen similar portraits of stoic evil before. But Ben’s little brother creates a portrait of cloying opportunism, jealousy, cowardice, and false humility that was really unique and masterly portrayed.

And the move, though maybe a little overlong was generally riveting and interesting. Like Into The Wild it was also a great looking movie. There Will Be Blood and No Country For old Men got a lot of hype for how epic in scope they were with portraits of large and grand vistas. Indeed they were cinematically good looking movies though neither stood out in that regard to me. Into The Wild and TAOJJBTCRF did stand out. These are both beautiful lookoing movies that had much more more breadth of viual scope to them.

While NCFOM may have been the most interesting movie overall last year the 2 mentioned above may have been better. I thought they were certainly better than the other movies nominated for best film.

Mr Brooks.
Not getting into too much. But a good little film noir flick with Kevin Costner playing a stalwart community icon who likes to watch couples have sex and then kill them. not a great movie but a much better one than i expected.

Baseball:
It’s back. Mets open Monday.
Yes they will ost probably be dissapointing. I think Willie is fired by mid season. Probably before the end of June.
But it’s comforting to know there will be meaningful Baseball games going on almost every day until the end of OCtober.

Obama:
I’ve been over the reasons in prior posts so i’m not going into all that makes him one of the Best Things Ever. But he just keeps on rising above and having a great response to whatever Hillary throws his way. Meanwhile Team Entitlement, which is what I call Hillary’s campaign now, continues to look pathetic and desparate. Last week Hillary got exposed in her embellishing of that Bosnia visit even though the contradictory evidence was right there on tape. Then she tried to play it off as sleep deprivation. Which brought to mind her 3 a.m. phone call campaign that took voted from Obama in Texas. If she starts getting facts wrong and losing her mind when she’s sleepy is she the person we want getting up for that late night call with the fate of the world hanging in the balance?

And then there was her constant contradictions as she continues to tear her opponent down, even to the point of praising McCain over him and then when she’s asked about polls indicating these tactics would hurt whoever wins an is sending some democrats to McCain she begs people not to make that mistake. Then the next day her and Bill are right back out there putting her and McCain on a different playing field than Obama.

She sucks and Obama keeps rocking. Relative to her suckage Barack Obama just becomes so much more The Best Thing Ever.

Manhattan:
Spent a day there Tuesday at and around MSG. even though i was working and seriously stressed out I am in awe of that City. Being thee at night is like being in the middle of an epic production. It’s almost unreal.
And girls in hockey jerseys and baseball caps are The Best Thing Ever.

It is unfortunate that I can’t live there or date any of these girls.
But I can still appreciate their BTE-ness.

Published on March 19, 2008 in ..The Dude and Politics. 0 Comments

Barack Obama came to give a speech about race and his wacky Pastor, he kicked that speech’s ass, and in doing so irrevocably solidified his place in my heart.

If you haven’t heard it you can read and or watch it here

Now in and of itself the speech was not genius. It was not uber-profound or a display of remarkable intelligence, execution, or depth. It rocked, it kicked ass, and it was one of the greatest political speeches of my lifetime. It’s his words presence in such a desolate political landscape that year after year, election after election is a barren waste of empty words, condescending rhetoric, and demogoguery, that Obama seems like Abraham Lincoln talking about the better angels of our nature.

Obama was indeed eloquent and profound, but those qualities are so much more magnified due to never hearing politicians get up there and speak to us like we’re adults that can handle being talked to like complex individuals that can hold a myriad of ideas and thoughts about our world in our minds at one time.

The grandmother piece was brilliant. We all have some friends and or relatives who say or do embarrassing things at times. We don’t disown them. This put the Pastor thing into perspective. I don’t even necessarily disagree with all the pastor’s words. I don’t think much of him just because he’s a pastor. Therefore he’s a hypocrite. he’s railing about America and it’s repression of black people and he’s part of a religion that has always been used as a tool to aid in that repression. But putting that into a context everyone can relate to was a great.

And as I said, the whole thing was really great, it’s just not anything I or many people I know couldn’t have written. It sounded like something produced by a smart person who doesn’t care about political biases. Which gets at a quality I was attracted to in Obama from early on in this thing. Sure there was some hedging in there but I think it was coming from a legitimate and honest place. I don’t see throwing his silly Pastor under a bus as honest. That would have been political opportunism. This was far more brave and honest. Just as choosing black over white or vice versa as he talked about some of the latent anger in our country would have been myopic.

And it took some serious guts to get into that whole segment about black people in their barber shops or around the kitchen table letting off some of the steam and saying some of the things they don’t say around us whites at work. This plays on a lot of white America’s latent fears about the black community as some kind of large gang secretly hating all of us waiting for a chance to strike. But he took a chance that people will see this for what it was. An honest accounting of the private lives we all have and the private selves we hold back from public consumption because some part of us knows it’s either stupid or irrational.

And his refusal to take any particular side in the racial divide, or to at least paint a fuller picture even as he speaks more from the black vantage point, gets at something else he said. He talked about how we can continue to mire the process in the same old nastiness and divisions and speculate that white men will only vote for McCain, women with Hillary, and black’s with him. But these are, or at least should be, notions that are beneath intelligent and evolved beings.

Yesterday for one of the first times I can remember a politician running for a major office took for granted that there may be enough of those intelligent, evolved beings out there.

May his and his silly pastor’s Zombie Jesus have mercy on his soul because I’m afraid there just aren’t.

Published on March 18, 2008 in ..The Dude and Television. 0 Comments

Lost cheated last week.

I caught on to the Jin flashback within the Sun forward pretty early on. At least I was pretty sure of it. But I also thought to myself, “self, if this is a flashback and nothing really relevant happens to Jin within it, nothing that pertains to the island or Jin’s character in a major way and it turns out they’re doing this merely to play with our head and divert us to make the episode better and more surprising than it really was, than damn it self that’ll be a case of shenannigans and I’m going to have to call them on it.”

So here we are.

There was just no reason to show a Jin flashback there. He’s getting a Panda for Mr Paik’s client? Who cares. It’s not relevant. It’s a cheat to hide Jin’s death or stranding from us until the end of the episode. I think you have to maintain an internal logic and consistency within this whole flashback/ flash-forward thing in order for it to work. And they violated that internal consistency. They broke the rules. They sort of did it with a dead Naomi flashback earlier this season but that was minor and some part of her might have been alive and aware (and by the way where was her body when the copter landed), but they went too far this time. For one we don’t gracefully fwooop into his flashbacks. He’s not even on screen before and after some of them. THis violates the established rule of Lost’s version of the dissolve or wipe that leads into a back or forward flash.

There were even times they went directly from a Sun flash forward into a Jin flashback.

THis is perhaps one of the 10 most heinous wrongs committed in the history of civilization. It’s real wrong. I’d rank it somewhere between the Holocaust and Pam Ewing’s dream.

George Herbert and Barbara Bush having sex and procreating is number 1.

Now I get that Lost is playing with time and our perception of it. Within that context lies the only way to rationalize the atrocity they committed last Thursday. THere are many pasts. futures, and now even presents existing in a very real and vivid way to us the audience and probably to the characters as well.

And it was a sad reveal at the end. I had that “No not Chewy,” moment and issued salty discharge as they probably wanted me to. It’s that damn sad piano thing they play at those moments. Of course upon reflection a few minutes after the show I realized this didn’t mean Jin was dead. Just dead to her and the rest of the world. He could be back on the island. The grave said 9-22-04 for a date of death. So his death is part of the official story encompassing everyone else on that plane’s “death.”

I do have to say that if he is alive Sun’s kind of a bitch going along with things and not actively raising a ruckus to get him back. And actually having a commemorative grave to visit and talk to him seems more likely a scenario if he’s dead. But there just wasn’t enough info to be sure one way or the other.

Unfortunately we are all too aware that someone dies next week. This could be Jin. But I think killing him 2 weeks in a row is just engaging in too many shenanigans and I trust them not to do that. I’d say Claire and Desmond are the 2 most likely to go. I think I wrote about my reasons on des after the The Constant episode. And he appears to be featured in this weeks episode which will be centered around the freighter and Michael/Kevin.

If this happens it may be too much to bear. I’m far more ready to let Claire go. Have Kurtz take her out because she doesn’t want to drink anymore of the Kool-Aid served up in Camp Lockedown, Hurley scream “You suck dude,” grab Aaron and take him to KAte’s to be psychotically raised by Princess Headgames herself. I’ll be ok with that. I’ll mourn Claire in my own way. And I will move on.

If it’s Desmond I will have to reevaluate a lot of things about myself. And Lost.

I suppose I can’t rule out a Bernard, Rose, or Sawyer death. Sawyer being the least likely though he may be primed since he’s in his Han Solo in Return Of The Jedi neutered stage that’s just so wonderful to watch.

And I’m guessing Michael will be a flashback. Guess it could go either way. But we really need to know where he’s been lately, not where he’s going just yet.

Back to last week.

I’m guessing Jin lives.

The show still wasn’t bad. It just felt like they cheated and went for the emotion a bit dishonestly. And they didn’t even pull it off that well because it was pretty apparent something was up in his flashbacks between the old cell phone and the over the top contrivance of him suposedly trying to get to Sun in time even as we see of no contact between the two.

Now if they pulled this off while staying consistent to the back/forward conceit and finding a way to do jin’s fb’s separate from Sun’s FF’s and while haveing them both in the same place at all times so we could look back and see that the dissolve/wipe fwoop device could have been from either perspective, we would have been on our way to greatness. If they then could have had a major reveal that’s true to itself in Jin’s fb then we would be at greatness. But the only reveal was that he’s in the past just 2 months married. It’s only import is to the viewer as a sort of “gotcha,” rather than having an import to the story as well. Not sure what they could have done. Not saying we have to see Jin meeting with Dharma agents in 2000 and finding out he’s in on things. But maybe having Charles Widmore involved with Paik and having Jin stumble onto something he doesn’t get the import of but we do knowing who Widmore is.

Something like that would have sealed the deal.

As it was it was a cheat.

Still a decent episode that wrought some nice emotion and caused me to feel some of the pathos and emotion I was supposed to feel. So kudos there.

They just cheated to get it.

Don’t do it again. It reeks of desperation getting too caught up in the largesse and novely of the new bac/forward flash dynamic.

Published on March 11, 2008 in ..The Dude, Life and Politics. 2 Comments

So about 8 months ago I’m snorting Coke off this hooker’s ass in a room in the Waldorf when her cell phone rings. She makes no move to pick up even though it’s right there within reach on the end table at the bed’s corner. I finish the blow and am feeling mildly annoyed and not just because snorting blow makes me irritable and short tempered. It’s also because the phone rang for like a minute, stopped for a couple of seconds, and then started again. As if this isn’t harshing my buzz enough, (not to mention eradicating my erection), her ringtone is set for the annoying 80′s Michael Jackson knockoff, “Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell.

Cocaine being a natural mental stimulant to me I then begin to have to deal with wondering why Jackson himself would lend his voice to the chorus of a song ripping him off, wonder what the societal import of a high class hooker in 2007 listening to him by way of Rockwell could mean, realize I’m having a Michael Jackson pop cultural dialogue with myself, and scream, “Pick up the phone you dirty hoe!”

She kind of just blurrily looks back at me, still on her stomach, and says, “what’s the problem?”

“Rockwell fuckin’ sucked is what’s the problem!”

“I like this song.”

“You’re too young to like this song. What are you, barely 20? How does someone born sometime after goddamned Live Aid even ever hear this song? It don’t make sense ya silly hoe!”

This is really pissing me off because I’m confounded that such an obscure track, from an even more obscure guy, makes its way to this girl and garners a ringtone. This song doesn’t even make 80′s compilations, one hit wonders collections, or worst of the decade VH 1 festivals. Unless you were there you shouldn’t know it and shouldn’t care.

Like seeing Dennis Kucinich speak in person.

You had to be there. Otherwise, you know, who cares?

“I like Michael Jackson, he’s on it,” she mumbles to me, too high to really speak up and annunciate like a good high class call girl should. I mean I was paying $2200 for the night. For that kind of money I’d like my hooker to be able to handle a little high grade sugar without falling apart and letting her phone keep blasting, “I always feel like, somebody’s watchin’ me…And I get no privacy,” over and over. At those rates an ass that makes Newton look like an imbecile just isn’t enough.

“Michael Jackson is on it,?” I say. “Michael Jackson is fucking on it?! Is that what you’re telling me?!! You’re honestly fucking telling me that you downloaded that shit song because Michael Jackson is goddamn on it?!!”

“Um huh.”

I felt like I’d been deceived.

And the phone is still ringing.

I jump over the sleekness of her buttocks and grab the phone. She tries to stop me but doesn’t have the energy. I look at the phone’s readout and it says, “Client 9.”

I’m thinking it could be her owner, or pimp, if the pimp title could be properly used for what can amount to a $5000 a girl high end operation like the Emperor’s Club.

Maybe it was a codename for her police contact.

Knowing I was on to something really wrong, mainly because of this Rockwell nightmare, and just generally believing that a good consumer must do his research, I wanted answers and set out to get them.

The phone stops ringing before I can flip it open.

“So you like Michael Jackson? Are you trying to tell me that?” I’m thinking that maybe she could be redeemed if it turned out using that ringtone was a sort of ironic commentary.

At least Jackson is notable. Unlike Rockwell. So taking a shot at him by using a song about celebrity in which Jackson himself sings background before Jackson himself became one of the most notable and watched celebrities ever for engaging in possibly the strangest celebrity behavior ever, could be construed on the hooker’s part as a sly and subtle bit of genius.

So i’m hoping she says no, she didn’t download it strictly because she liked Jackson. Per se.

I swear if she added “per se,” I would have forgiven her for every horrid moment of those past 3 minutes and even helped her clean up after the, well…let’s call it, more organic and carnal reenactment of Flashdance, I was paying her for later that evening.

But she didn’t answer me.

She had fallen asleep and was too far out of it to wake up and give me a decent answer. So I open her phone up and check out her missed calls. Client 9 had what looked like a cell number and I called it.

“Kristen?,” a voice with a distinctive New York Jewish accent says.

“Client 9?,” I says.

“Who’s this?” He asks.

“Apparently Client 8. Who the fuck are you?”

“Where’s Kristen? Is she ok?”

“She’s sleeping.”

“She ok?”

“She’s unbelievable. Sweetest ass in the business.”

“I know,” he says with a chuckle.

“So what do you make of the Rockwell thing?” I ask.

He doesn’t know what I’m talking about so i tell him. He tells me he’s heard other tones when it’s rung around him so we figure she has different tones for different people and I start wondering what my tone is and thinking that if its Morrisey I’m gonna kill this bitch before she wakes up.

But then this guy starts getting nervous about his song and asks me more about it. I sing him some lines and tell him about the video with this Rockwell fella in the shower and walking around his house being all paranoid about being watched. And this is all really freaking this guy out so I ask him what his deal is and why it’s such a big deal that she’s chosen this tune for his ringtone. “Besides the colossal bad taste it shows,” I add. “Unless she’s super ironic and arch. In which case I want to marry her and dedicate our lives to destroying Morrisey.”

He asks me my name before he goes any further.

And I tell him.

“Alex Rodriguez.”

“Hey Alex, see, you can appreciate where I’m coming from then. You know how hard it is on public figures.”

“Sure do,” I say, really meaning it since even though I’m not the Yankees pretty boy $25 million a year All Star 3rd Baseman I’m middle management for NY State Government and understand where he’s coming from. “So what do you do?”

He doesn’t want to tell me and I go easy on him, telling him i understand and then spend time reassuring him that the song is no reason to think she’s spying on or making fun of him.

Because he’s really worried that’s what it means.

Me I’m still worried it means she spent time looking for Michael Jackson ringtones to download, got a hit on the Rockwell song because he’s sort of on it, and chose that one over Beat It and Billy Jean because she actually liked it more even though she’d never heard it and didn’t even know it wasn’t him singing most of the song. In fact just thinking these thoughts again had me pacing around the kitchen area looking for large plastic bags and carving knives in case things got sketchy when she came around or, “The Boy With The Thorn In his Side,” came out of that phone when I rang her from my own cell.

Then to divert this poor bastard and maybe trick him into giving something away I start telling him about my Rockwell concerns. I start talking about how I would call her when he and I hung up to see what my tone is too. He jumps back to my issues with Rockwell.

So he says, “Well if she had chosen “Beat It,” would you feel better?”

“Yeah. Not much because a 21 year old Manhattan hooker has no call being into Michael Jackson as if the past 20 years of embarrasment and obsolescence hasn’t happened. But yeah, I mean at least she’d resemble a human being at that point.”

“So it’s bad because there’s no nostalgia factor for her?”

“It’s horrible.”

“Would you rather she have you set for a modern song you hate?”

I’m pondering the hell out of this question as I stalk around the hotel room. “Again, at least it would constitute a semblance of normality. The Smiths would be fucked up on so many levels. Aligning me with My Chemical Romance would just be fucked up.”

“That’s a lot to think about Alex.”

“Yeah it is….” I wait for a name. He’s hesitant. i don’t want to push the Jew bastard.”I’m glad you see that Nine. I like you.”

“But it’s an all together different concept you’re grappling with than this Rockwell thing. I have a political career to consider.” This should have gotten an excited rise out of me. I had gotten a clue. But at this point I’m walking around the living room with a bottle of Schnapps in my other hand, occasionally stepping onto the balcony and looking down at the City from my 18th floor vantage point, and wondering if I could make things look like an accident if the bitch had me set for Carrie Underwood.

Because as bad as The Smith’s would be, I’m thinking she’d more likely screw me with a more modern song like “Jesus Take The Wheel,” to really fuck with me with some kind of calculating action at a distance diabolicism.

But if her cell phone ring tone thing had an 80′s era theme all together it would make all this more tolerable and arch. It would still call into question her choices within that decision. But at least there would a connective theme.

“You like Van Halen?” He asks me.

“Sure.”

“Would you download “Beat It” because Eddie plays the guitar?”

This takes me the fuck back for a moment.

“Holy shit dude, that’s a god damned good question.”

“I know.”

“I did like that song more that most of Thriller because of Eddie’s riffing on that tune. Kind of made it acceptable for people of my persuasion. Can’t say I’d listen to it now because of it, but you know it is kind of eddie’s song even though it’s not. You think it’s the same with the Watching Me song?”

“Could be.”

“But Eddie Van Halen is not synonomous with ignominity,” I say, impressed with myself for pronouncing ignominity correctly while doped up on cocaine and fruit brandy. “Listening to Eddie, or more to the point…” here I struggle for a name as if I’d forgotten, playing like I need it to make this conversation flow more smoothly and because we have a connection now.

“You’re not a cop?” He asks me.

“No man, it’s really me. Alex. You want me to tell you what I hit last year?”

“You’re fucking funny. I like you Alex. My name’s Elliot.”

“Ok elliot, Listening to Eddie, or more to the point, setting Van halen as your ringtone, is not socially dubious E Dog. Even “Beat It.” If you’re at all self-aware and culturally discerning you’d have to know how it’s going to be taken no matter how you mean it. I mean it’s like sleeping with a hooker while you’re say…the Governor of NY. THere’s nothing wrong with it but you have to be aware of how it’s going to be viewed and that it doesn’t work as irony unless in a really unique context.”

He was silent for a bit then said, “Like what context?”

“Well a politician like Hillary Clinton could sleep with a hooker ironically. That gay politician from Jersey could do it ironically. He and cool people across America could have a real nice laugh and I’d totally get out the vote for him if he did that.”

“THey aren’t the Governor.”

“Well if Monica Lewinsky was the Governor, it would be ironic. Damn if Bill Clinton was Governor it would be ironic no matter who it was with. Like self-homage. IF Ken Starr became Governor and did it it would be god damned performance art.”

“And the current Governor of NY?”

“If it was the governor, well in our case that’s Elli…” and it suddenly dawned on me. “Spitz? Is that you?”

“Oh god, you didn’t know?”

“Spitz, it’s me. Mark!”

“D Dog?”

“Yo.”

Man was I surprised. Talk about a small world. I started to remember stuff. The voice, 1977, Studio 54, the smell of semen all over my light saber, huddling together down in the bowels of the 86 St Station. My vomit all over a series of the laps of various leisure suits. Man those were times. Me and Spitzer tied together in white slavery. Working the streets for our “Daddy.” Don’t ask me Daddy’s real name because I can’t tell you that hear and now. It would shock you far too much.

I was 10.

“You were what Spitz? 17?”

“18.”

“You still like to jerk off in 10 year old boys mouths?”

“No. That was practice for The Show. I stick to women.”

“You ever hear from Daddy?”

“I put him away a long time ago.”

“Oh you’re a lawyer?”

“Uhhh, I was.”

“So what do you do now?”

“Uhh, I’m the Governor of NY State asshole.”

“Oh yeah, yeah.” Man that Schnapps was good. “So you want to get lunch tomorrow?”

“You’re not Rodriguez. You lied.”

“Hey man you didn’t run the streets and stay alive simply on the merits of your ass with Alex Rodriguez. That was me Spitz.”

“Where do you work?”

I tell him. As a NY employee ironically I sort of work for him.

“You say anything about this I’ll have your job you cocksucking motherfucking cumfilled whoremonster.”

“Shit Spitz. you’ve changed.”

“I’m serious. I can have you killed.”

“Dude I can cost you your job. relax. We’re good here.”

“No one would believe I solicit hookers.”

“Is this about Kristen?”

THen the bastard starts crying like a baby.

“Suck it up asshole! You’re the goddamned governor of NY State. you’re an ethics maven. I’m behind you as long as you keep the hookers on the streets and the coke flowing freely. Now get back to your wife, get your shit together, and don’t put yourself on the line like this.”

“Check her purse?”

“Huh?”

He wanted me to check and see if she had anything on her that would i.d. her as a cop. Or some recording device she could use against him.

“Rockwell song really has you messed up?”

“You too?”

“Damn fucking right Spitz! It makes no sense! I gotta wake this hoe up and find out what the fuck is us with that song. GET UP BIAAAATCH!”

I finally get her up, tell her I got Spitzer on the line, and ask her to come clean.

“It’s a fun song is all. I swear. It’s just a fun song I came across.” She was genuine. She detailed how it happened and we brought it. Spitz was relieved. “I’m sorry Kristen,” he says on speaker. “I should never have doubted you baby.”

“FUCK THAT! Damn stupid hoe how you gonna like that song?! What’s my ringtone? Huh? What is it!!!”

She says she doesn’t remember. I tell her I’m gonna hang up on Spitz and call her to find out. I can tell she doesn’t want me to and I start getting really scared.

“Fitz, it was good talking to you but I gotta go.”

“Don’t do anything stupid D”

“Fuck it I gotta find out. None of this makes any sense. ‘Somebody’s Watching Me?’ It makes no goddamn sense. How can she like that song? Neither of you should know it even exists and yet now you both do. THis wasn’t supposed to happen can’t you see that? Something is wrong here. We’ve slipped through some kind of alternate dimension where up is down and left is right. Smart is stupid, Spitzer sleeps with hoes, and Wookies live on Endor. Her cell should have rang with Linkin Park or Justin Timberlake. Somewhere it is ringing with one of them or John Mayer. Maybe Alicia Keys. But i know it makes no sense to be ringing this way here and now Spitz. You gonna endorse Hillary, Spitz?”

“Yeah. She’s New York’s Senator. I think she’s…”

I hung up and started dialing my own cell with my other hand as I held hers up waiting to hear what happened. Kristen is imploring me to stop. She is off the bed, still naked and voluptuous, trying to coax me back to bed with her body. But I’m determined to get to the bottom of things.
Sure enough it rings with a different tone.

I scream, run towards the balcony, and hurl the phone into the brightly lit NY night. As it spins away on its course to it’s inevitable destruction I hear those faint dying echoes of the sweetly high male voice of Pete Cetera crooning, “If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me…ewwwww-uh-ewwwww Noooo-oooh, baby please don’t go.”

And I knew I was in the right place and all would be ok.

Published on March 8, 2008 in ..The Dude. 2 Comments

Can Hillary Clinton stop acting like a victim and as if being a woman works against her? Well ok, I know she can’t. She’s a liar and a panderer desperate to be President. She will stop at nothing to have the Clinton dynasty compete against that of House Bush. But can the media stop going along with it?
Come on, really she’s been treated with kid gloves and treated much kinder because she’s a woman. Just as perhaps Obama has because he’s black. She plays like no one else is subject to criticism on such superficial stuff but was not Kerry crucified for his appearance? Is not Dennis Kucinich continuously minimized because of his? Shite people, Nixon lost to Kennedy because of the way he looked. Seriously, political campaigns are a vast wasteland of arbitrary embarrasments and trite defamations. You want to get in the ring suck it up like the big boys and stop hiding behind your skirt. But I guess there aren’t a lot of alternatives for a candidate who is basically trying to elevate herself over her opponent by harping on how he’s too eloquent and well spoken.
—————————-
The Mets are going to suck.
It amazes me how many otherwise intelligent Met fans don’t get how this works. They can’t see how they always get it wrong and operate from a position of weakness rather than strength because no one has the patience to get truly strong. But I’ll bet that the Twins and Yankees are going to come off looking like the smart ones. Minnesota for making the deal with us and getting players I think will be far better than many think, and the Yanks for being smart enough to not make a deal and hold on to their good young arms.
b The Mets are too old and showing it already just a week into exhibition games.
It could get ugly and my September prediction that Willie gets fired in June or July holds.
—————————-
Weak Lost last night. At least relatively.
I have no clue what that whole Tempest station thing was all about. It seemed like a cliched formula concept to fill 43 odd minutes. It was still watchable. Lost always is. But it was disappointing in a season when shows are at such a premium.
And it raised a couple of issues as far as bad writing/plot holes.
One is how if as Ben said, the Others would storm the compound if they wanted him back, does the compound protect them from the Freighter folk? Assuming the Others would get over the barrier the same way Kate, Sayyid, and Locke did, wouldn’t the boat people be able to do that too? If not how would the Others storm the compound?
Does Ben only have 1 damn videocassette?
He had to tape over the Red Sox game he showed to Jack. Really?
And if one of his people was getting covert footage of Widmore wouldn’t it behoove him to have a smaller camera than the kind that use VHS tapes? Seems kind of cumbersome to be strapping against your shoulder when your hiding in crevices in a dark alley or wherever that was.
Are people really asking who the other 6 are? Duh people. There’s 2 more. We find out before the break. There’s a couple on the island who’s centric episodes are done in 2′s.
They are doing one next week.
Here’s another hint: It’s Sun and Jin.
And if it’s Mike on the boat they have to stop with this “someone you never thought you’d see again.”
His name’s been in the credits all season!
I think everyone expects to see him again.
Granted I thought, and part of me still thinks, it will be in flash forwards. But who else could it be? Mikhail? That would be stupid. Charlie? Even stupider. It’s got to be someone Locke knows and Mike is the only one that makes sense. Plus his centric episode is supposedly the following week.
Seeing Charlote knock Kate out was the best moment. Her little, “what,” comment almost made me seed myself. Charlotte is officially second only to Penelope for me in hotness. Though in a different kind of way.
Maybe it’s the accent that binds them together.
Mmmm Charlotte and Penelope binded together.
________________________

Can Hollywood put out one frakking movie I want to see?
There’s nothing out there and hasn’t been in a couple of months. Why don’t they just stop for a while? Instead of making crap, re-release some good stuff on the big screen and make writers come up with something good. Or producers and studios start choosing something good when good writers submit good scripts.
It all seems like the same shit to me.
Oooh honey let’s go to a movie tonight! I hope there’s something out with a lot of young pretty people running from something?
You bet there is. And I think they’re stylistically rendered as well.
I hope there’s an arch villain.
Or a shadowy killer.
No sweety let’s see something smart for once. Isn’t there a pretentiously boring period piece about a Queen of somewhere or a King of something?
Always is. I think they’ve raised the ante and made one about their daughters too.
Oooh let’s see it!

Movie standards have just dropped so much over the years. Even the good stuff is praised at incommensurate levels with their actual quality. I liked No Country and Juno too. But my god people these were not masterworks. Could Juno be anymore self aware of it’s own indie cuteness? Could No Country be any more obtuse for obtuseness sake? Good movies. No Country certainly gives plenty to think about. But if you think about it enough you should come to the conclusion that one of the only reasons you’re thinking about it so much is because there aren’t any movies to think about at all.

Music too.
So much crap. I wonder if there will ever be an album I want to buy ever again?

Well at least there are books. Can’t even begin to read all that I want to read. Problem is they take a lot longer to finish.

By the way James Morrow has a new book being released next week. More people should read this man’s work. I suggest starting early on with Only Begotten Daughter about God’s only daughter living on Coney Island. Right now I happen to be reading his last, The Last Witchfinder. I can’t find one person who reads his stuff and it makes me sad.
____________________

Keith Olberman calls Bill O’Reilly the Major Burns of tv news.
This is not only pretty funny but stunningly accurate.
______________

Seriously does this stupid credulous news media really believe Hillary’s strategies and fortitude pulled out Texas and Ohio and caused her to rally? Such a bunch of fucking lemmings they are. Now they fall in line with the comeback storyline. We got a horse race again!
Idiots, it was never not a race. She was always the favorite in Texas and Ohio and yet she barely won Texas. Why not ask if her stupid 3 a.m. tv add cost her a bigger lead in Texas?
Granted this is the home state of the stupidest president ever but maybe a few people were turned off. I certainly doubt it helped her. There’s no evidence. But they need a storyline and they all constantly find the same obvious ones. Not an original thought amongst them.
Why aren’t any of them asking how if she’s so ready and qualified she’s run such a slipshod campaign that caused her to lose a 20 point advantage not too long ago? Obama has had her out organized from the get go. Should this count as far as leadership skills? And does a bipolar candidate as she’s showed to be throughout this thing really inspire confidence in the face of crisis?
God, sometimes it all makes me want to take a cigar and stick in Monica Lewinski’s vagina.
________________
You know if Obama were as much of a creep as Hillary and the rest he’d have a perfect commercial just dropped on his doorstep by Hillary. Her whole 3 a.m. phone call nonsense just so easily lends itself to a montage of Hillary’s wackiest and most possessed moments, one that has already been compiled for him by the right wing in years past, one that includes her shrieking, cackling, crazy ever altering hair styles and assorted other oddities, and then ending with “Is this the person you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.?”

But Obama probably has too much class for that.
Which is another reason Hillary needs to shut up and stop acting picked on. She knows it’s not true and that’s why she goes on the offensive. She bets on very few, especially her opponent, being as unscrupulous as her. And in large part this is because she is a woman. I hear groups like NOW descrying her lamentable sexist treatment and I want to send these idiots back to the 50′s so they have something real to fight over. They were going to find something no matter what just as Hillary was going to. Because it’s a weapon. And what we have here in this campaign is women once again using the kindness and decency of the good guys they come across against them as they sleep with assholes like Bill Clinton.

Published on March 5, 2008 in ..The Dude and Television. 0 Comments

Hiccup:

I need to sing some praises for Jericho before I move onto Lost.

Jericho rocks.

It’s only back for 7 episodes and then we’ll have to wait and see. I don’t know how the ratings have been. But the show really resonates to me. I can so see this happening. I love Lost. It’s my favorite show. But it’s all bullshit of course. It’s fantasy mixed with enough science and philosophy to satisfy the intellectual side of myself and make it ok to enter into a world where nothing plausible really happens. And they do it with style, good acting, cinematic scope, and solid writing most of the time.

But Jericho feels like a possible slice of the future. To be brief Jericho is a town in Kansas holding it together after myriad nuclear explosions across America have overturned our government and social systems. Even before we got some answers as to the origins of these attacks last season if felt like this is how small pockets of America would have to survive. Border wars over precious resources with towns that used to exist as a bitter high school football rivalry become life and death struggles. Little bits of intrigue from outside slip in and out of town. People are forced to reinvent themselves or be reduced to some pre civilized state.

And though we had hints last year it’s now pretty apparent that not only did forces within our government set up North Korea and Iran to appear to be the culprits they are backed by mercenary Blackwood type operations, in this case Ravenwood, who are using the ensuing chaos to implement their political objectives. Basically they are overturning the constitution and rewriting U.S. history. A new President has been chosen and the seat of power is in Wyoming which is trying to defeat the Texas based rival to power who may or may not know the truth about the attacks. All while the privatized military we see developing for real in our world is instituted and given power to do whatever they want. And of course turn a huge profit.

Just all feels very real and plausible to me. I would bet a fortune there are forces in our own government that have at least contemplated something like this. I think Dick Cheney has wet dreams about it.
So props to Jericho and CBS for putting it on, bringing it back, and letting them imply the things they’ve implied.

Lost: Desmond is going to die.
I fear this after last week.
I’m concerned about him being on that freighter with Sayyid but most probably not back in the world with Sayyid and the others that get back. I wonder if they gave us that nice Des/Penny moment so that we would have some culmination to our desire to see them reunited cause it feels so good. An actual physical reunion may now seem anticlimactic if we get it. So maybe this is what we’re going to get and they want to raise the stakes with Desmondo’s death. It may be the thing that sets Sayyid off on his course of revenge.
I think I’d rather kill Jack than desmond at this point. I still have Jack love but Desmond is the man. He’s that wild card that’s shaken things up since he was introduced. And Penny would be sad and i don’t want to make Penny sad.
As for his time travel, if they had to go there I like the way they did it. Even if it’s still probably ridiculous. Now I’ve never been a big fan of the time travel. Never brought it as being plausible. There’s always paradoxes and it never makes sense. The whole idea of a body being able to do that just doesn’t work on any level I can imagine. But they added a twist with the idea of consciousness traveling. This avoids some paradoxes and with the memory issues it seems to develop it can explain those gaps and sudden insights like Des had as he walked away from Penny’s apt and Farraday had when he searched his journal.
Of course I still don’t necessarily believe consciousness is anything more than the sum total of the physical brains operations. But I can divorce myself from that supposition and enter into enough disbelief to allow for at least that much in a world of mind reading smoke monster security systems that can take any shape, free floating cabins with invisible occupants, and the antithesis of nerd-dom having a myriad of pop cultural references at this disposal all the time as Sawyer does.
This last episode seemed to disprove my theory that the island is 3 years behind the rest of the world. There are time dilations of some sort. One was 31 minutes. Another was the better part of a day with the helicopter. But Penny was apparently on xmas eve and the calender on the freighter was 2004. Plus Kate’s mother’s comments the week before regarding her cancer.
This all seems to be hinting at time as a entirely separate mathematical/time theory. The Minkowski reference for one thing. The real Minkowsky, a math guy or something, posed the possibility that Einstein’s theories worked with time as a 4th dimension apart from the other 3. Farraday’s journal has references to imaginary space and real space and was filled with equations. Numbers have been a part of the show and it would be neat if the numbers factored into this some how.
I don’t think it’s the answer but I’m often put into the mindset of of black holes. It seems there is an event horizon somewhere off island. The sub had to pass through it which is why they knocked Juliet out, the copter went through it, Desmond, and maybe 815. It’s not only on the island because the hydra St island is inside of it and easy to pass to and from. Also the copter had to be a few miles out before they hit that storm. And I have heard of associations between electromagnetism as a barrier for lab created molecule sized black holes. Makes me wonder if turning the failsafe let this barrier drop and the powers of the hole are expanding as well as its event horizon. Thus the reason why Des was saving the world. And Black Holes have time dilation issues starting at their event horizon.
But of course inside a black hole there wouldn’t be a pretty island with relatively ideal weather. If the event horizon had expanded that far beyond the island everything inside should be annihilated and dark.
And it doesn’t appear that the island is stationary. That would explain North compass settings and high tide being off as well as Dharma Polar Bears in Tunisia. Maybe the whole thing is like Jacob’s cabin.
But one question I have is how this is being explained to the media and people after the rescue. The faked wreckage was found off the coast of Bali in the Indian Ocean. At Kate’s trial her lawyer confirmed that they were on a South Pacific island. How is that being reconciled by everyone? And wouldn’t the media be all over finding this island and going there to do on sight reports about where the famous castaways were?
Hopefully this will get a good explanation and isn’t another writing screw up.
Like the defense going before the prosecution during Kate’s trial.
And they’re going to have to explain why they didn’t want to remand her into custody because she’s such a flight risk until then despite the fact that she’s apparently been running around raising Aaron and living in a nice big house for a year or two.
And once again, Sayyid rocks, Has always rocked, And always will rock. His flash forward confirmed this last part.
I think Miles is in the coffin.
Apparently we’re finding out whoever it is this season.
Michael and Walt have got to be in flash forwards. Nothing else will work.
Hurley let himself be Scooby Doo’d by driving around in that van so much. He was in the mindset.
I think Jack will know Claire is his sister and it will be a reason he doesn’t want to see the little monster.
Charlotte is getting hotter to me.
When Farraday arrived he said, “I’m Daniel Farraday and i’m hear to rescue you.” An e mail gal pal pointed out to me that this may have been a Luke Skywalker reference. I should have caught that. Sawyer would have.
Could Desmond’s jewelry shop woman be in the same time travel situation as Des, Farraday, and Minkowski?
Did Desmond alter anything? When did Penny get a copy of their photo? Was she still at the stadium? Why would she if all there was was the scene at the door of her apt when he tells her he will call in 8 years and then the call. Seems as if there was always still contact in between. She tracked him to the stadium. He wrote those letters in military jail. She put that letter in his copy of Our Mutual Friend. What happens to all those moments now? They don’t work as well in the context of The Constant though I suppose his memory issues could have played with things and contributed to Penelope’s confusion regarding his feelings and her motivation in tracking him down at the stadium.

New South Park next week!
This is always a good thing.

Galactica soon. But apparently not the full 20 episodes. Do i care? Should I care? I don’t know yet.

If they keep telling us this is the strongest American idol field ever do you think we’ll start believing it?

Because they do.

It’s like they’re overcompensating.

Still i like that Cook guy with the guitar. His Lionel Richie take last night was cool. I’d listen to that again. But mostly these people have no taste in 80′s music. Fuck, they were born in the 80′s. That’s obscene. Fuck them and their birth certificates. I want to touch that one girl that does impressions though.
Musically I mean.
I want to touch her with song.
Before I fuck her.

No, no, no I would never have sex with her. Ok, the reverse is actually what I mean. But there’s no call for language like that. She is not an object I want to fuck. She is a girl I want to touch and penetrate in ways that under most circumstances would be considered rude.

Anyway she’ll probably be gone tomorrow and so will our love. Such as it is.

The Oscars mostly sucked again by the way. What I saw of them. Believe it or not I thought Casey Affleck should have won for The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Good movie too. Bardem was good In No Country For Old Men but I think his performance has been overrated. I think Affleck’s cloying and cunning Ford took a lot more subtlety to play well than yet another stoic and scary impenetrable villain. Seriously, it’s been done and done well. I don’t get the adoration over this version. He was good. The movie was good if not great. But seriously i think I’ve seen evil twins played as darkly on All My Children. And that’s not bad. Soaps have some very good actors. But quit acting like this Chigur character is some novel concept in evil.

The writer of Juno is kind of hot.
Anyone with me on this?
I still think she thinks she’s really clever though.
I like clever and sexy but taking your Oscar to bed and parading it around isn’t sexy and if you do so it should be taken away from you, melted down, and the proceeds given to some poor person.
Actually all the clothes and jewels these people parade around in should be taken and given to charity. It’s obscene. Some of these people are walking down the red carpet with more money on their bodies than most people make in a year. Maybe years. And I’m sure most are liberal types who talk about the poor, the homeless etc, or at least support their causes. And yet they flaunt their destitution in their faces in the form of designer dresses and priceless glamor bling. You would think we might be beyond the trappings of royalty and having them parade around in those trappings like the signs of divinity they often thought their wealth to be. But that’s how much most of these Hollywood liberals really care. Not enough to not elevate themselves to a higher level or find anything insulting in wearing chains, bracelets, and earings that could feed a family for a long time while millions of children don’t have basic health care.
Yeah it’s not their job to necessarily do anything about it. Some of them really do get involved. They can wear whatever they want. It’s America. It’s a free market and capitalist country. I still wouldn’t be able to do it though and i don’t want to hear them crying about the less benign aspects of that American system that allows them to parade around in such gaudy and disposable wealth. Don’t get on stage and say bring our boys home. Because they’re fighting for you. Not for democracy. Not for freedom or justice. They are fighting to keep the rich richer and the poor poorer and the starlets wearing all those millions on their bosoms are benefiting. If Diderot were alive today he might say he wouldn’t be happy until the last actress has been strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Published on March 5, 2008 in ..The Dude and Politics. 0 Comments

Hiccup:
Hillary wins more big states last night.
The longer this thing goes on the less I buy into the notion of an historic race. So far there is nothing surprising in any of this. In every state the sociologically determined Hillary voters have voted for HIllary and the Obama ones have voted for Obama. And considering it’s only a democratic primary meaning dem voters have to vote for one of them, it’s really not all that impressive that neither of them breaks out of those demographics or has been able to pull away.
In my opinion this does not bode well.
As usual the Republicans are getting united behind their guy despite some of the base’s reservations about him. Mccain is building support while the Dem’s are dividing it. I’m not so sure all those white female voters or Hispanics that vote for Hillary are going to turn out for Obama if he gets the nomination. Nor am I certain that black and youth voters being hoarded by Obama will get over their disappointment and turn to hillary.
The fact that this is getting uglier and that more Republican tricks are being brought into play as both get more desperate may only alienate the losers supporters. The candidates and these absolutely moronic pundits that haven’t got half the clue they think they do as they over analyze every stupid utterance that comes from their mouths, can go on about how a continued debate is good for the country. But it’s bullshit.
They are not debating anything real.
Campaigns never debate anything real.
It’s all approved topics and never the underlying systems and beliefs that are put under the microscope. Has anyone asked any of these candidates where they stand on the Chicago School economics philosophy that has so influenced where we are today? No. Instead we get the safer and more innocuous Nafta debate. A debate that will never go anywhere. Obama and Hillary will not change a thing about Nafta. They have no intention to. This is why campaigning is a waste of time and money. Candidates tell the current group they are in front of at that moment what they want to hear. Not what they really believe.
History proves this categorically.
Just as the history of the candidates should be all we need to make a decision.
But we want to be wooed like lovers. Fed sweet words of nothingness that makes us feel like the most important idiot in the world at that moment and repress the reality we know will come when our suitor gets what they want and the blood rushes out of the romance. During a romance we don’t want to talk about anything too real. And these campaigns are no different.
Instead of who can get us out of Iraq in fewer months or years being debated like a contest of Name That Withdrawal why does no one ask how we reconcile the real reasons we went in there with the diminished expectations of the past 5 years? In other words let’s be honest and say we’re in as part of the imperial design of a small group of Republicans (related to those of the Chicago School and Friedmanism that has butcherd South America for decades), and ask how we accept turning those oil profits over and granting autonomy when we are so heavily invested financially after the bazillions we’ve spent there.
Don’t bother asking about the lives lost and what makes that worth it because we know none of them care about the lives lost. An unspoken truth of all political circles is that they believe in acceptable casualties. Pretty much all of them.
Unless it’s their kids.
But it never is, is it?
Not all but many of these circles believe social safety nets are bad because the weak should perish and we need a desperate work force.
But this will never be mentioned on a campaign trail or by a hack on CNN.
THey will never talk about how they believe corruption is the Darwinian proving ground by which the strong and more intent separate themselves from those that hide behind morality to mask a meekness born of no resolve. Many of them believe this. It is one of the ways they rationalize their selfishness. All tyrants and petty scumbags have these rationalizations. You and I have them as well.
Don’t think about it too much.
It is not to be spoken of. Nor questioned. The media is either too stupid in some cases or complicit in others. In the latter they believe the same things. By believing this they think they raise themselves to the levels of the men in power. They believe they have a nuanced understanding of things that most of us uneducated slobs don’t have.
They may be right. But a decision must be made on how to handle knowledge. What to do with it and how to apply it. And whether or not forces of knowledge should be martialled to serve the status quo or push the envelope a bit and make change.
You can guess the answers to these questions most of them have come up with.

And who fits that status quo better than an old white man like John McCain?
John McCain knows how to get things done. John McCain knows how Washington works. John McCain understands how they think. John McCain has been around. John McCain believes in force and war. And America’s economy is built on force and war. John McCain has learned how to play the game and pander to his audience. John McCain has never been more willing to sell a part of himself to be President. John McCain gets it. Even Hillary has basically said McCain is better suited for President than Obama.

The Dude says John McCain for President.

Who fucking really cares anymore?

Published on March 5, 2008 in ..The Dude and Life. 0 Comments

I break the pregnant pause of all this dead air for some hiccups of agitation from the repressed prison of my ribcage. All that trapped oxygen I’ve sucked on the past few days of swollen throat glands now rises up into these guttoral expectorations of air from inside my gnarled chest.
Hiccup:
For you see I have been dancing the dance of the little death the past few days. Been a bit sick. Couldn’t swallow for much of yesterday. Not without some drama. But altogether I still felt better and feel better today. But being sick reminds me of how the end will be. Even a relatively minor go round like this was. It’s always like a sneak preview of death and I hate it. And considering I am probably closer to death than birth at this point it’s especially troubling.
It’s like a movie trailer previewing the bodies inevitable failures, the weariness, the helplessness, and the ultimate aloneness that awaits at the end of the road whenever and wherever it may come. Unless of course I go quickly in some type of accident. But most go quietly, not with a bang but a whimper. Not everyone is as alone as I most probably will be at that final sickness. Not physically anyway. But mentally with the decayed memories many have, even loved ones nearby doesn’t always alleviate the darkness and desolation inside as your clock ticks down its final seconds.
Being sick has long reminded me of of what it will be like even though I’ve never experienced it first hand. It used to make me make vows to do things better. Oaths of greater effort, vigilance, and ambition would be weakly uttered through the layers of sick dust in my throat. Now I don’t even bother. Death is no longer a great enough threat or scare to make me change and I am less capable of change than ever. It sort of goes together it would seem. The slippery slope of dropping standards has been reached. And I can’t begin to describe how wonderful that is while working harder than ever to pay rent and utilities while still having no home and nothing that feels like mine.
One of my guys at work may be dying. He has alzheimer’s and has been a shell of his old self anyway. We don’t want to say it but I know everyone kind of thinks it would be best if he just went on his way rather than being in the nursing home he’s in at the moment, coming back, or even being switched to another home which is being talked about now. I guess everyone at work is technically sick. Except the cats and some of the staff. Which makes being sick myself even more palpably apocalyptic. As well as coming home to my father’s brand of sickness everyday after working hard. Wherever I turn there is sickness and hardness with no relief. Only the promise of more. And the need to explode continues to get sucked down deep into my chest, exhorted only in short hiccup bursts like these. Or when I run into the odd woman who I can fall into the illusion of softness and intimacy with with some moments of engagement even if only of a verbal nature.
And I miss the cats at work when i’m not there. To be honest they are the only kind, gentle, or soft things in my world on a regular basis. To reference Lost, they are The Constant. I want to abduct them and take them home but they are not mine though they feel like they are. I see why animals are considered important for old people as companions. Humans need some. Studies indicate they keep people alive longer. They lower blood pressure. On some quantum level I think they make a person more real by being the only living things left that is observing them anymore.
Animals are probably my destiny. I will perhaps leave all this and go somewhere where I can live among them exclusively. Now I’m not one of these people saying I like animals better because they’re pure, more honest, less judgmental, or more loyal. This is stupid. All those traits are abstract qualities of civilized and advanced brains. Animals are probably more selfish. They act more on base instinct. Their loyalty generally goes as far as whoever has the greater willingness to feed them regularly.
But I’ve loved them and gotten on well with them because I think we understand each other and what we need. We enter into that agreement and unlike humans they don’t have as much freedom to back out of it or as much knowledge that there are better options out there for them than me.
They are more easily content and amused I think is what it comes down to. And when i drop my standards enough, which i’m more willing to do for pets, so am I. The unconditionality of their love that many point to seems a bit suspect to me. Nothing is unconditional except in the way a desperate, abused woman may unconditionally keep giving more chances because she sees no other options or alternatives, and comes to rely on the familiarity of her abuser and the few good times which seem larger in their infrequency.
I’ve never wanted unconditional love. You have to earn it. And keep earning it. Anything really, not just love. Love, like freedom and justice is a concept. An abstract idea. These things have been earned where they exist and can be lost if not diligently guarded. I’ve never believed in guarding them with the possessiveness of many relationships but rather with the kindness, consistency, honesty, loyalty, and more born of considered decisions. Getting that back from people just doesn’t happen much. Animals may not make that choice as intellectually but it is inherent in their simple understanding of the world. And I think this is why we get along and understand each other.
I will continue to scratch their heads and necks in just the right places and they will continue to stretch out on my lap. I will feed them regularly and they can be counted on to purr or lick my face. I will proved them shelter from the cold and they will provide living contact and rub at me heels to show their continued appreciation. I will not hurt them and they will not crap on my bed.
Some of these arrangements take some time and training. Not much different than with people. But people change their minds and want different things as time goes by. They don’t want to be with the same person all the time for the rest of their lives no matter what they may say. Animals are easier to please. Simpler in their needs. The give and take need not be so nuanced and therefore lasts longer and remains in that bubble that will not be burst by outsiders or any of the other forces of both external and internal types which act to take the air out of most of our human relationships eventually.
And I probably can’t even have an animal at home due to my situation here. So that’ll have to wait. Ever get the feeling you’re waiting on living your life until you notice you’re running out of life?
All my congratulations to you if you don’t.
As Eddie Vedder once growled, “This is not for you!”

I feel another hiccup coming. Wait for it….

Published on March 1, 2008 in ..The Dude and Life. 3 Comments

Hello from the ghetto of my soul, a ghetto of my own making and one so aptly reflected on these empty pages that are mere signposts pointing people to greater destinations on the internet highway. Or more appropriately lost travelers who have wandered into a bad neighborhood and are looking for a sign pointing to somewhere more interesting. A better neighborhood. Someplace where kids come to play and grown ups feel a sense of shared kinship in occupying.
That’s right, this isn’t that place weary traveler but don’t get too judgmental. Don’t throw your hands up in soul heavy weariness looking for the way out of being lost. For I’m more tired and lost than you and at least you get to leave. I’ll stay here in this ghetto hoping at least one person actually stays a while and wants to change the scenery, sees something worthy of their time, or maybe even settles down. I’ll stay through the day anyway. Maybe the week, possibly the month and year. But a guy has to move on sometime and I don’t like it here anymore than you do. But I was born with the human need to be heard, to vent, even that desire to make a difference. Now I know that last thing isn’t going to happen around here. Outside of work it’s not happening anywhere and work’s consolations are always shortlived and underappreciated. Anyway I hate people who need applause or appreciation so I shouldn’t care right?
Fuck you.
Right.
But ends draw nigh and knots may form so I’m taking it shortwave. Doing the lone voice in the night lashing out at what maybe some of you want to lash out at and pretending for the moment that it can cure many ills and upset the right people while uniting the wrong.
Pirate style.
Talking hard like Hard Harry trying to shake this mother up while cursing fate that that moment of time in which a movie like Pump Up The volume could happen is long past. It was a different time and place where one voice over local radio could stand out. We’re not in that place anymore. We are all still one. Ultimately. I mean in the end. The end above our shoulders anyway. But we want connection to the mass collective. Other “ones.” And the fact that Hard HArry wouldn’t happen here and now brings some of us unhappiness even if we don’t know who Hard Harry was.
Happiness studies show a clear connection between the stress and disatisfaction in our lives partly due to having so many choices. This is part of the problem but not the only part. But choices can put us in prisons just as much as not having choices can. Well let me change that to a different kind of prison. But a prison nevertheless. One with curtains and rugs and a lot of other accessories from Ikea and Bed, Bath, And Beyond. But a place of suffocation and repression with little room for movement or thoguht no less than prison.
What some in the psychiatric field term the hedonistic treadmill has us all to some extent. All this choice makes it harder to keep up with the Jonesess and this pervasive media culture makes it clear how much we aren’t keeping up. Choice is not always good and conversely too much freedom may lead to too much stress. When I was a kid 13 channels were a frackin’ cornocopia of wonder and delight. Getting a game on the radio was almost as sweet as watching it. If you had an Atari you were set for life. Being able to watch a sitcom rerun late at night during the Summer semed an extravagance and special gift. But now all that seems petty. There’s so much more and the idea of those limited options of the past seem quaint.
But we can’t have it all. Most of us anyway. And there are reminders everywhere of what we don’t have and those that have it. And most of us always think the grass is greener, that the other choice would have been better and that the other guy has the better life. This creates stress and unhappiness.
But the other side of all the choice is not feeling a connection to anything. There are less shared experiences because the culture is so fragmented. When there’s less there’s more. In some ways. It’s like Aristotle saying he who has many friends has no friends. It’s more than that though. It’s about not connecting sure. But it’s because of that loss of even the illusion of shared experience. The culture is so fragmented that unless you find your cult group to share things with you’re experiencing life alone. You could never have a Beatles happen now. THere are just too many choices gearing themselves to narrow audiences. I grew up during the fading of that last era when people shared an experience. Everyone listened to the Beatles. Everyone watched Johny Carson. Everyone watched the 3 networks. Everyone who read, read Stephen King. A movie was big because the culture experienced it together not because the population is out of control and people need a fairly cheap date site where they don’t have to talk to each other.
I still can get a rush from hearing a song on the radio but not like it used to be. Even if the CD is sitting there I’ll listen on the radio because I’m sharing it with other listeners out there somewhere. Forming some vague but real bond for those few minutes meant something and still does. But of course now radio is also fragmented and specialized so I, like many people today, tend to just pop my CD’s in. And everyone has a CD player. Even in their car. When I was a kid an 8 track tape deck was big. Cassettes were huge and having a tape player in the car not something that was guaranteed. Up until the past decade or so you had to actually ask if a car had a radio/cassette player in it when you were buying one. AND IT WAS A SOURCE OF REAL JOY WHEN I HOOKED ONE UP! NOw a CD player is taken for granted in anything new, and probable in most used cars.
SO WHY THE FUCK AM I NOT HAPPY!
Well there’s a lot of reasons. I work my ass off, some of it for free and yet have no privacy, no courtesy, no respite or place to let loose. Most of my adult life has been and figures to be withered away these last few years of it before old age kicks in watching my father die. Loudly and without subtety. Then I guess it’s my turn to die presumably. Whether that takes a month or 30 years. I chose to do this out of duty and respect. Unfortunately he doesn’t feel that respect back and yet I continue doing this with nothing that feels my own to show as a byproduct of all that working. Including the palce I work to pay rent to not really live in. It’s super not fun! THere are other reasons of a more personal nature but back to choices. Well not choices per se but also the information glut that makes it clear what I don’t have. That and the lack of connection to anything but myself and my particular slice of woe and desolation. Actually it seems like the only thing that brings us together in that old sense of shared experiences are horrific events like 9-11, Iraq, and the past year of Heroes.
Let’s not forget the Mets September.
I suppose there are some glimpses of the collective bond that sports makes me remember. The Giants recent Super Bowl miracle was up there. But usually it takes something bad, though I guess it was prety bad for Patriot supporters.
Suck it.
And so many including myself take to the internet to find that artificial community that shares are specialized and focused interest. I go to Mets sites, Lost sites, liberal news sites, and commiserate. I suppose this is one good thing about the information glut and the choices at our disposal. But it’s satisfactions are few and hollow. Maybe after thousands of years of evolution in which blogging has been naturally selected for and those traits passed far down the road there will be true satisfaction. Now it’s a consolation to a real life and real connections.
I’d rather rail against my high school and it’s cliques, phoniness, and adminstrative misdeeds like Hard Harry. Even if he was, in retrospect, a somewhat misguided teen blowing normal teen issues out of proportion, his voice found an audience that needed him and could have been real. Maybe somewhere in that era it was a refelction of some real events. Certainly I remember a time when pirate radio has some sway and interest. When a voice reaching out from the darkness seemed a lifeline to save me from drowning in an ocean of conformity and corruption. Maybe there’s a contradiction there in wanting shared minds to rage against the majority with and wishing for a time when we all shared common experiences and references. Very well. I contradict myself. I am fucking vast. I contain multitudes. And I’m also just as pitifully empty and full of nothing but a multitude of bile formed of my own long dead choices humming in the night air like the dead air of those long lost small radio stations.
Even within the cult there is nothing shared really. not anymore. At one time there was. Take Lost. DVR is the greatest invention since Jennifer Connely but it also separates us. I’m not experiencing the show as others do. I’m watching later. Many people are watching at different times. Even different days. Lost is actually the most time shifted show. No sharing even of that already limited kind that united peopple settling down to sleep watching Johny Carson back in a time when for better or worse he was it and it gave people some comfort.
But I can beat my head against my flat screen laptop monitor all I want. It’s not going to change anything. ultimately all I accomplished here was killing a bit more of the time I have left. You don’t care just as I wouldn’t care about you whining on your blog if you had one. Actually I don’t even have one. I’m stealing bandwidth. This is Mondo’s. At one time it was mine too. But I was too cheap to pay in and too dead inside to care to write about political corruption, Mets misery, tv puzzles, film analysis, or anything else. I’m no less dead now but stealing is fun. Makes the pirate in me feel good. Mondo should shut me down before I steal anymore of his cyber space. He’s the Man. And you’re the Man. I might even be the Man in some places. Deep down we all want to be the Man because we all want to be respected and liked and it makes us larger than these petty little things so many of us are. Eating and shitting, and sleeping, and catering to every biological need and genetic imperative and pretending it’s personal expression and that we are unique even though almost everything we do can be predicted sociologically because we are machines. We may even want everyone else to be the Man because at least we’d have something in common besides our headlong race into oblivion. Some guy in 1682 was full of his life and sure it and it’s setting in Baroque europe or colonial America was the summit of existence. His sudden death to Plague or beheading by a King, or just being run over by a horse drawn carriage would have seemed epic to him and those closest to him. Now it’s meaningless. He’d be dead anyway. Just as you and I will be someday. Ourselves and our era just as destined to death and distant memory. Being the Man is our short term way of escaping that reality and trying to elevate ourselves beyond that short term reality of our obsolescence. The way kings once did. Even the middling among us live as some royalty did at one time but in comparison it offers no consolation because we can;t lord it over everyone. Maybe it still helps up feel immortal. But we’ll be just as dead as the Sun King someday. And it’s actually pretty well proved that we wallow in many of our material goods, buying more and more because it really does give us a feeling of staving of death. Fear of death manifests in buying things. Getting new stuff. Even new people. I forget the psychological term for it. Something like mortality salience.
And you know I want to escape that truth as much as anyone. Maybe that’s what makes me saddest. And angriest. That in relative terms, that is compared to choices I see others having and making, I can’t escape into any of those consolations. Work is my only escape and, well, it’s work. But I want a bigger place, another car, new clothes, more books and electronic stuff, and a nice new girl. But other than the last the others would bring no real long term pleasure and ironically they are the more doable. The bigger place might be somewhat satisfying for providing me some rest and comfort at home after working all day. Also ironically its the hardest to obtain. So I want to get what I can and delay salience as long as possible in what means I have. Another machine looking for programming to make it run smoother until the next inevitable glitch.
And you know what?
I hate whiners. I prefer keeping my shit to myself. Suck it up and do what you have to do. That’s the deal. I’ve done that forever for the most part. But this is pirate radio now and I want to talk hard until any of you dropping by looking for whatever it is you’re really looking for bleed from the penetration. Bend over and feel my words and feel them like the disease they are. Because diseases are real too. Virus and bacteria are alive and playing many of the same games we play. So chalk it up to the bacteria in me taking over. It’s sucking my face like e coli and it wants to suck yours too. It’s not my mind. It’s my pathogens baby. It can’t be helped. Life is a disease and I want to be inflicted but monkey man don’t want to dance in the circle of primal fire worship because monkey’s ain’t really that cute and I want to infect a nice girl who won’t throw her dung at me because I got enough shit to deal with and it’s laden with the bacteria that consumes me but also makes me want to smell better.
talking shit is all.
Hard Harry saying eat your cereal with a fork and do your homework in the dark.
Goodnight and listen for me on this frequency holding a finger to the midnight breeze anywhere the wind blows doesn’t really matter
to me.

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